decoded_text stringlengths 4.18k 47.6k |
|---|
mar prosecutor Pascal Schulz said. "According to one of the riders, [the shots] would have been the work of two youths aged between 16 and 17 who were hiding behind a tree." Both riders started Saturday's 199km stage to Besancon. "It's past now, it's forgotten," Freire said on Saturday. I just heard shots and my leg hurt as if I'd been stung by a bee
Julian Dean "I still have a little bit of pain but the team doctor told me it would not be any worse than the pain of riding for 200 kms. "I suppose this is the sort of thing that can happen on a race which takes place in the middle of the public," he added. Freire was hit in the thigh while Dean was struck on the left index finger. "I just heard shots and my leg hurt as if I'd been stung by a bee," Dean said. "I'm always thinking about my safety up here on the roads but I don't have to think too much about it, I'll just try to stay focused on the race." The two teams filed a complaint over the incident. An investigation has been opened into a possible crime of voluntary violence with a firearm - an offence that carries a three-year prison sentence and a fine of 45,000 euros. The 200km stage from Vittel to Colmarstage was won by Cervelo rider Heinrich Haussler, the first stage win of his career. Italian Rinaldo Nocentini continues to wear the leader's yellow jersey.
Bookmark with: Delicious
Digg
reddit
Facebook
StumbleUpon What are these? E-mail this to a friend Printable versionTermite and Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Facts:
Scientists have calculated that termites alone produce ten times as much carbon dioxide as all the fossil fuels burned in the whole world in a year.
Pound for pound, the weight of all the termites in the world is greater than the total weight of humans.
Scientists estimate that, worldwide, termites may release over 150 million tons of methane gas into the atmosphere annually. In our lower atmosphere this methane then reacts to form carbon dioxide and ozone.
It is estimated that for every human on Earth there may be 1000 pounds of termites.
On the average Termites expel gas composed of about 59% nitrogen, 21% hydrogen, 9% carbon dioxide, 7% methane, and 4% oxygen.
It is thought “There are 2,600 different species of termites, and it is estimated that there are at least a million billion individual termites on Earth, that they emit two and four percent of the global carbon dioxide and methane budget, respectively-both mediated directly or indirectly by their microbes.
Thanks to E Stephens for this linkNaughty Dog has kept Uncharted 4 details to a bare minimum up to this point. Luckily, a couple of industry insiders have recently leaked some very interesting bits of info regarding the upcoming title. The first few leaks come from the notorious Tidux, who went on Twitter and revealed that Nathan Drake will be returning as the protagonist in Uncharted 4. He then went on to say that the latest build for the game ranks 14 on a scale from 0 to 10. Tidux’s most interesting tweet however can be seen below. We’re not sure what he saw, but it would appear that it made a strong impression on him.
Just seen a new build of Uncharted, I have no words #GreatnessAwaits #PS4 — Tidux (@Tidux) May 30, 2014
Another well-known industry insider that goes by the name of Ahsan Rasheed aka thuway also talked a bit about Uncharted 4 today. Interestingly enough, both insiders posted the tweets around the same time so we assume that they both saw the same footage. “Uncharted PS4 visuals will make you say, “Quantum/Order/Division who?” thuway said. He also mentions that it features “Stupidly impressive tricks and tech.” The new Uncharted’s graphics must really be amazing if games like Quantum Break, The Order: 1886 and The Division apparently pale in comparison. These three titles are some of the most anticipated of the year so Uncharted 4 must really be on a whole new level according to the leaker.
Rasheed also talked a bit about what else is going on at Sony at the moment. “Uncharted preview is being described as breathtaking. I don’t know about any more Sony megatons- but the word the last word I got is: The 1st Party stuff is seriously impressive. Whenever it’s shown, it will make people take notice.” “Oh and before you ask, no I haven’t heard about any SECRET PS4 titles or GG’s game showing up. The only one I knew was Castlevania Souls.” Unfortunately, he came up empty handed when it comes to Microsoft leaks. “I tried pressing for more info, nothing there. Also no new info on MS’s megatons. Looks like leaks are sealed. See you guys next Monday.” It’s not surprising since it’s common knowledge that Microsoft runs a tighter ship than Sony. As a side note, Castelvania Souls is thuway’s nickname for the recently leaked Project Beast.
This is everything insiders have said about Uncharted 4 for the moment, but more leaks will surely follow. If not, we just have to wait until E3 2014 where the game will surely be present. While not confirmed by name, the next Uncharted title will be a PS4 exclusive and will not feature the voice of Todd Stashwick anymore. Stay tuned for more updates and news.Image copyright Geoff Woade Image caption Four people died at the scene of the eight-vehicle crash on the A34 in Berkshire
Four people have been killed in an eight-vehicle crash on the A34.
Four lorries and four cars were involved, also injuring 12 people, one with life-threatening injuries.
One man was flown to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford by air ambulance, and two were taken by land ambulance.
The crash took place on the A34 northbound between Chieveley and West Ilsley in Berkshire. One man has been arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving.
BBC Berkshire travel latest
'Motorists should avoid area'
The detained man is currently in police custody and police are appealing for witnesses to come forward.
Image caption The southbound carriageway was closed earlier to allow the air ambulance to land, where a man was taken to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford with life-threatening injuries
Inspector Andy Storey said: "All motorists should avoid the area, use alternative routes and await further updates before attempting to travel on this route.
"We appreciate motorists' patience while we deal with this incident."
The fatal crash took place at 17.10 BST, and there are currently six-mile tailbacks on the northbound carriage.
The southbound carriageway was closed to allow the air ambulance to land, but has since reopened.Lewis Hamilton: Says teams will make mistakes
The paddock reconvenes for the Malaysia GP at Sepang this weekend with Daniel Ricciardo's disqualification from second place at the Australian GP still proving the major talking point in the sport. Red Bull have appealed the decision with their case to be heard on April 14.
Although Red Bull, trusting their own measurements, opted not to adhere to the FIA's in-race requests to turn back their engines in Melbourne, it is understood that other teams did heed similar warnings, with reports suggesting Hamilton's Mercedes team, which won the race Nico Rosberg, were among them.
Hamilton, who retired within five laps at Albert Park owing to engine trouble, said he was pleased with how Mercedes handled things in Australia but suggested it was still a learning curve for all teams.
"I'm really happy with the job the FIA have done over the past few years," Hamilton told Sky Sports News' Craig Slater in Kuala Lumpur. "I've not really read too much into it [the Red Bull case], but I know how technical it is this year and how difficult it is.
"We're constantly given updates on things that we've got to stay strict to and fortunately my team did a great job and we obviously haven't had any problems. But I think it's just a learning process so over the course of the year everyone's going to be learning and making mistakes and working on those things."
The introduction of fuel-flow meters along with a 100kg race limit are part of attempts to increase efficiency in F1.
Although managing fuel is not a new phenomenon in F1 - Hamilton and Rosberg were involved in a team orders controversy on F1's last visit to Sepang when the latter was hold to hold station while his team-mate saved fuel, for instance - Hamilton says the new stricter limits have increased the challenge.
"It is a huge player this year," the 2008 World Champion added.
"We've got to do the same race distance that we've done in the past few years with a third less fuel. So it a real massive challenge."At this point, it would be ridiculous if Fallout 4 didn’t happen. The third game was a massive success on current-generation consoles and PC, and judging by the sales of The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, people are still very interested in interacting with the massive worlds that Bethesda creates. However, there’s more than one developer that can work on the post-apocalyptic franchise. Obsidian Entertainment, the studio currently hard at work on Project Eternity, found great success a few years back with Fallout: New Vegas. The follow-up to Fallout 3 managed to maintain both the quality and content density the series is known for, and while all the big decisions are being made by the owner of the IP, Obsidian would still love to craft more stories in that particular universe.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with Gameranx, Chris Avellone of Obsidian Entertainment addressed the millions of fans awaiting any news on Fallout 4. Similar to the Knights of the Old Republic 3 situation, Avellone’s team would love to once again work with the Fallout brand, but it’s really not up to him to get the ball rolling.
“All of the Fallout stuff is totally up to Bethesda. While we would love to do another Fallout game again, that is totally up to them,” Avellone said.
If Obsidian was to jump pack into the fray, it’d likely not be for Fallout 4. The core games seem to be saved for Bethesda, but down the road, we might just see an expansion or offshoot carrying the Obsidian name.Chico >> Two Chico police officers fatally shot a 25-year-old man Friday evening after police said the man was acting “erratically” and began slashing at the officers with a knife.
The man, whose name was not released, died after being shot multiple times by the officers at an apartment in the 700 block of West Fourth Avenue in Chico, Police Chief Mike O’Brien said at a press conference early Saturday morning.
O’Brien said the father of the man had called 9-1-1 about 7:30 p.m. Friday. The police chief said the man was acting “erratically,” and his father initially requested that firefighters and medics respond.
O’Brien said the police had “some history” with the man. And investigators were looking into the possibility that he may have been suffering from a mental illness.
Upon arrival, firefighters contacted the man verbally, but he became “hostile” toward responding personnel, O’Brien said. The firefighters then removed themselves from the scene and contacted dispatchers.
Officers subsequently responded to the apartment, O’Brien said. Inside the apartment were the man, his father, and two children.
Upon arrival, officers could see the man pacing in a small living room and was said to be holding two knives, the police chief said. The officers tried to talk to the man in an effort to “calm him down,” but were not successful.
As the encounter unfolded, the officers moved away from the man in an effort to “defuse” the situation but remained in the general area “due to an overall concern to the children and father still trapped inside the apartment,” O’Brien said. While that was happening, the man shut the apartment’s front door, obstructing the officers’ view of what was going on inside the home.
At some point, officers “received information” that the man was attempting to stab his father and break down a locked bedroom where the father was hiding, O’Brien said.
“Due to the now imminent threat to the father, and to the children — the two children inside the apartment — that was posed by the armed subject, officers gained entry to the front door apartment in order to protect them,” the police chief said.
At that point, the officers and the man were near one another, and one of the officers used a stun gun on the man to “minimal effect,” O’Brien said. Before a second Taser deployment could occur, he said, the man got on his feet and “started to slash at the officers who, again, were in very close proximity to the subject.”
Two officers then opened fire, striking the man, O’Brien said. The man fell to the ground.
Firefighters and medical personnel were called in and performed “life-saving efforts” on scene before the man was taken to Enloe Medical Center, where he died, the police chief said.
The Chico Police Department has not yet deployed its body cameras, and no video evidence of the events exist “at this time,” he said.
The names of the officers were not released. They were placed on paid administrative leave, which O’Brien said was standard for such an incident.
The officers, the father and the children inside the home were not hurt, he said.
“This is a tragic event,” O’Brien said. “It’s tragic for the family, the officers that were involved, for everyone. And that is regardless of the outcome of this investigation.”
Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey said an investigation was underway by the Butte County Officer Involved Shooting/Critical Incident Protocol Team. The state Department of Justice also was assisting.
Ramsey said the man’s father made “several” 9-1-1 calls during the incident. He added that the officers learned of the man’s alleged threat to stab his father from a 9-1-1 call the father made.
The officers entered the apartment by breaking the door down “because the father was calling from inside basically asking for help that he was going to be stabbed by his son,” Ramsey said.
It was unclear how many times the man was shot. The district attorney said an autopsy will be performed.
“This is the very beginning of this investigation,” Ramsey said.
Contact reporter Andre Byik at 896-7760.File this under “Seriously Fucked Up”: While most of America has been hiding under the covers afraid they might have to confront the ghost of Joe Stack, shooing him away by pretending he was something else–“He was a Tea Bagger!”/”He was a liberal!”/”No he was a psychopath!”–anything to avoid seriously talking about how profound and how widely popular his suicide-dive-bombing was…here’s a story that’s a little easier to chew on. It comes to you live from Kiddie Land, where there’s a war on pitting thousands of police and the full force of the law Surging against pre-pubescent doodlers, food-throwers, and tardy students.
Earlier this month, at a New York junior high school, a 12-year-old girl named Alexa Gonzalez pulled out a green magic marker during class, and doodled, “I love my friends Abby and Faith.” The teacher sent her to the principal, who promptly called the “Zero Tolerance” police. The next thing Alexa knew, New York City’s finest burst into the principal’s office, pulled the girl’s arms behind her back, cuffed her, and frog-marched across the quad, so that all her fellow students and teachers could see her bawling her eyes out on her way to the police station. That’ll teach her.
Alexa is a much better person for it, as reported on CNN:
“They put the handcuffs on me, and I couldn’t believe it,” Alexa recalled. “I didn’t want them to see me being handcuffed, thinking I’m a bad person.”Alexa Gonzalez missed three days of school because of her arrest. She spent those days throwing up, and it was a challenge to catch up on her homework when she returned to school, she said. Her mother says she had never been in trouble before the doodling incident.
Throwing up and traumatized–sounds kind of like what you’d expect from a Guantanamo Bay inmate who’s not cooperating. But America isn’t in its most imaginative–or smart–mood these days, so I guess the thinking is, “Works well in Abu Ghraib, why fix somethin’ that ain’t broke.”
For New York City’s school system, that translates into Surging with an additional 5,000 truancy cops whose job is to root out doodlerists and truants and the like. Unfortunately, with all the budget problems, paying all those cops–poorly trained cops, I might add–means no money left for school counselors, who number just 3,000, or almost half the number of these new counter-doodling cops.
Alexa isn’t the first doodler-terrorist they’ve neutralized. In 2007, NYC cops arrested a 13-year-old girl, Chelsea Fraser, for doodling “Okay” on her desk. Within minutes, Operation Zero Tolerance swung into action:
Fraser was arrested at the Dyker Heights Intermediate School on March 30 along with three other male students. She says she was made to empty her pockets and take off her belt. Then she was handcuffed and led out of the school in front of her classmates and placed in the back of a police car.
“It was really embarrassing because some of the kids, they talk, and they’re going to label me as a bad kid. But I’m really not,” Fraser said. “I didn’t know writing ‘Okay’ would get me arrested.”
“All the kids were … watching these three boys and my daughter being marched out with four — they had four police officers — walking them out, handcuffed,” [her mother] Silva said. “She goes to me, ‘Mommy, these hurt!'”
[She was] taken to the 68th Precinct station house where Silva says they were separated for three hours. “My child is 13-years-old — doesn’t it stand that I’m supposed to be present for any questioning?” Silva said. “I’m watching my daughter, she’s handcuffed to the pole. I ask the officer has she been there the entire time? She says, ‘Yes.'”
The ACLU told CNN about several other doodling-arrests which they are now fighting with a class-action lawsuit. Almost as shocking is the story of a school teacher who was arrested while trying to help one of his students whom the teacher thought was being far too roughly handled. Police arrested the teacher and charged him with assault, although they later dropped those charges.
That’s fine for teachers. But kids can’t be shown any mercy, whether we’re talking about doodling, or food fights. A couple weeks ago in Chicago, police mass-arrested 25 students aged 11-15 following a school cafeteria food fight:
More than two dozen students were slapped with criminal charges in connection with a food fight in the cafeteria at a Chicago charter school.
“The next thing you know I saw a tray fly up in the air, and then I saw an orange fly,” student Jordan Grevious said. ‘Then, I heard the words ‘food fight.'”
But instead of Animal House, these kids are facing the Hot House. And they know it:
They fear some of the kids will have a tough time getting a job or applying for college until their misdemeanor reckless-conduct charge disappears from their records. They’ll appear in court Nov. 30.
“These kids are going to have records for things that they potentially did not even do,” parent Monique Greene complained. “Twenty-seven children up here for a food fight.” Even the innocent students will face lasting consequences. If the charges are dropped, juvenile records can’t be expunged until the accused becomes 17. Parents are worried this could affect future jobs and college applications.
It’s all part of a meatheaded Zero Tolerance campaign used to terrorize school kids all over the country, part of what’s making this country a meaner place to grow up in. Zero Tolerance doesn’t work, of course. The school shootings in middle-class schools still go on with clockwork regularity, fueled in part by the Zero Tolerance mentality.
Zero Tolerance is worse than a failure; it’s taking a bad situation and making worse, locking both students into what two studies are calling a “Schoolhouse-To-Jailhouse pipeline“:
zero-tolerance policies “are derailing students from an academic track in schools to a future in the juvenile justice system” this schoolhouse-to-jailhouse track has damaged a generation of children, particularly children of color, by criminalizing trivial offenses and pushing children out of the school system into the juvenile justice system and introducing prison-like secure environments, with drug-sniffing dogs, metal detectors and uniformed law enforcement personnel, thus turning schools into prisons.
And of course, if you feed more and more doodlers and tater-tot tossers into the prison pipeline, that means you produce more and more criminals; and if you create more criminals, well, you gotta do something about all those criminals hitting the streets. Which means: hiring more cops, and training them to attack and pacify any school that’s threatened–like this exercise recently held in Avoca, New York:
Authorities say with school violence on the rise, being prepared for any situation is key. On Friday, Steuben County law enforcement officers took part of a mock school shooting drill at Avoca High School. The purpose: in case of an emergency, local law enforcement officials in Steuben County want to make sure they are prepared. “When we get there and have an active shooter we can’t wait for a SWAT team to come. We can’t. We have to go in then and have to know who is going in right or left and how we are going to contain the situation,” says Steuben County Sheriff Joel Ordway.
It’s so insanely counter-intuitive that it borders on black comedy. Or just bad comedy. But that’s how we like doin’ things ’round here these days. The more something fails, the more it will be favored–whether it’s a bank, a pundit, or a policy on doodling and food fights.
Mark Ames is the author of Going Postal: Rage, Murder and Rebellion from Reagan’s Workplaces to Clinton’s Columbine.
Click the cover & buy the book!Breastfeeding
Is breastfeeding a form of birth control?
Breastfeeding isn’t just a healthy way to feed your baby. It can also be a form of birth control — but only done in a certain way.
How does breastfeeding prevent pregnancy?
When you exclusively breastfeed — meaning you nurse at least every 4 hours during the day and every 6 hours at night, and feed your baby only breast milk — your body naturally stops ovulating. You can’t get pregnant if you don’t ovulate.
No ovulation means you won’t have your period, either. That’s why breastfeeding-as-birth control is also called the lactational amenorrhea method (LAM). “Lactational” refers to breastfeeding, and “amenorrhea” means not having your period.
How effective is breastfeeding as birth control?
When you do it perfectly, the LAM birth control method can be about as effective as hormonal contraceptives (like the pill). About 2 out of 100 people who use breastfeeding as birth control get pregnant in the 6 months it can be used after a baby is born.
Breastfeeding won’t prevent pregnancy if you feed your baby anything other than breastmilk. So if you breastfeed but also use formula, LAM isn’t a great birth control method for you. It also doesn’t work if you use a breast pump — you need to nurse your baby if you want your breastfeeding to prevent pregnancy.
It’s important to remember that breastfeeding can only be used as birth control for the first 6 months of a baby’s life, or until your period returns. After that, breastfeeding is way less effective — especially as the baby begins to eat solid foods and sleeps longer at night. Be ready to use another birth control method at 6 months, when your period returns, or if you start feeding your baby food or formula.
How do I start using breastfeeding as birth control?
You can start using LAM as soon as your baby is born. It may take a little while for you to get used to breastfeeding. Lots of people need help in the beginning, especially if it’s your first baby. Most hospitals have people who can help. And you can check out La Leche League for information, resources and support.Dantis Porter was charged with beating a one-year-old boy last week, who died three days later.
A man has been charged with beating a one-year-old boy last week, leading to his death three days later, authorities said.
Dantis Porter, 28, was charged with one felony count of aggravated battery to a child, according to Chicago Police.
Porter allegedly beat one-year-old Johnny Kimble in the 1100 block of West Marquette last Tuesday, according to police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office. Police could not immediately comment on the relationship between the man and the infant.
The boy suffered from fractures to both sides of his skull, numerous burn marks, fractured ribs, a lacerated liver and internal bleeding, according to police.
The infant, who lived in the 700 block of East 79th Street, was taken to Comer Children’s Hospital where he died at 4:20 p.m. Frirday, according to the medical examiner’s office.
An autopsy Saturday was inconclusive pending further investigation, according to the medical examiner’s office.
Police said that the charges against Porter had not been updated since the boy’s death.
A judge ordered Porter held without bail on Friday, according to court records. He is next due in court Jan. 16.
Copyright SunTimesDespite criticism of presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump’s support with minorities, a Breitbart News analysis suggests Trump actually has more support from Hispanics and African Americans than both the two previous Republican nominees had in 2008 and 2012.
Last month’s Pew Research survey found that seven percent of African American voters support Trump, which is two percent more than in the 2012 election. In the 2008 general election, only one percent of African Americans voted for GOP nominee Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and in 2012, only five percent of African Americans voted for GOP nominee Mitt Romney.
Trump carries 24 percent of Hispanic voters compared to Romney’s 21 percent with Hispanics in 2012 and McCain’s 23 percent with Hispanic voters in 2008.
“Both African Americans and Hispanic voters tend to be more conservative socially — so going into those communities and pointing out his stance on protecting life and religious liberty would be a good place to start,” Hogan Gidley, former communications director for Gov. Mike Huckabee, suggested.
“Under president Obama, African Americans have seen their incomes decrease by about 10 percent. In fact, only the top 10 percent of wage earners saw massive raises under President Obama – the rest of us saw pay cuts,” Gidley added. “It’s important that Republicans show all voters that Hillary Clinton – by her own admission – wants to continue the very same Obama policies that have cut your pay, taken food off your table, clothes off your back and hurt your families.”Image caption Lily Allen suffered a miscarriage earlier this week
Pop star Lily Allen is in hospital with blood poisoning just days after suffering a second miscarriage, her spokesman has confirmed.
Allen, 25, is being treated for septicaemia, and thanked fans for their messages of support.
She was around six months pregnant when she lost her baby earlier this week.
"She is responding well to treatment and her condition continues to improve," her publicist said in a statement.
"Lily thanks everyone for their messages of support and again asks that she and partner Sam Cooper be left alone whilst she recovers."
On Sunday the singer's publicist said he had nothing to add to that earlier statement.
Twitter message
Allen had indicated she was unwell to fans on her Twitter site on Friday, tweeting: "I'm still very sick but the messages are helping me to be stronger. Thank you xx."
Friends of the star, who previously had a miscarriage when she was dating Chemical Brothers star Ed Simons in 2008, sent messages of support to the singer.
Myleene Klass tweeted: "Lily Allen and her partner Sam. I am so truly sorry and sad for you both and your family."
Emma Bunton wrote: "Thinking of Lily Allen and her partner at this very sad time. Sending them lots of love."
Fashion week
Allen started dating 32-year-old Cooper, a builder, last year.
She had started to wind down her music career in recent months and set up a vintage clothing business Lucy In Disguise with her sister Sarah Owen.
She performed at the Wireless festival in London in July and was photographed at Paris fashion week last month.
The star announced she was pregnant in August after being given the all-clear at her three-month scan.
She has released two best-selling albums - Alright, Still and It's Not Me, It's You - and has had a number of hit singles including The Fear and Smile.MOSCOW — Natalia Estemirova was an increasingly rare breed in Russia. Committed to exposing human rights abuses committed by the ruthless leadership in Chechnya, she lived and worked tirelessly in the republic’s capital.
Today she was found dead.
Four men abducted Estemirova, the leading Russian human rights worker in the troubled Caucasus region, as she left her home in Grozny at about 8.30 a.m. Wednesday, July 15. Members of her organization, Memorial, started a public outcry. In the midst of it, her body was found with two gun shots to the head, execution style. Her lifeless body was dumped in Ingushetia, a neighboring republic.
Could this be the tipping point?
In previous such murders — and there have been many — the finger-pointing has been somewhat wobbly. The regime of Ramzan Kadyrov, the 32-year-old leader who runs Chechnya as his own personal fiefdom, has managed to shrug off accusations that it is somehow involved in the spate of killings that have seen Kadyrov’s opponents fall dead one by one, in Chechnya, in Moscow, and abroad.
Some have remained silent, likely fearing revenge. For Memorial, there is nothing more to fear.
Oleg Orlov, the chairman of Memorial, Russia’s preeminent human rights group, said Kadyrov has blood on his hands, and he plans on telling the world.
“Ramzan Kadyrov is personally responsible, not only because he leads Chechnya,” Orlov said, reacting more with raging anger than sadness over the death of his colleague. “He personally threatened Natalia, told her that her hands would be covered in blood and that he destroys bad people.” That threat came, he said, when Kadyrov dismissed Estemirova as head of the Grozny Human Rights Public Council early last year.
“We didn’t say this before because we were scared for her safety. Now we can say it. We have no doubt that her killing was ordered by Ramzan Kadyrov.”
Kadyrov has not responded to accusations that he was involved. Maybe he’ll come up with a defense like the one he gave when denying involvement in the October 2006 murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya, with whom Estemirova often worked: “I do not kill women and have never killed women.”
Kadyrov has been accused of involvement in many high-profile killings. Politkovskaya’s murder was followed by the 2008 attack on Ruslan Yamadayev, a member of a powerful Chechen clan opposed to Kadyrov. He was shot dead in front of the British Embassy in central Moscow during rush hour. His brother was killed in March this year, slain by a gunman as he walked to his car in a posh Dubai apartment complex. In perhaps the most brazen killing, Umar Israilov, a former Kadyrov bodyguard who won political asylum in Austria after publicly accusing Kadyrov of human rights abuses, was killed by a carload of assassins in central Vienna in January after a midday run to a grocery shop.
But these are not the killings Estemirova worked to expose. She devoted her life to the everyday revenge killings and reprisal attacks that her research showed were carried out by the Kadyrov regime against average residents of Chechnya.
Tatiana Lokshina, of the Moscow office of Human Rights Watch, returned Tuesday evening from a research trip to Chechnya, where she worked closely with Estemirova.
“We were working on absolutely outrageous cases — punitive houseburnings, abductions. We documented a striking case of a public execution carried out by the authorities,” she said. “These are immensely sensitive cases. Hardly anybody touches them.”
The public execution case could be what did it, according to Alexander Cherkasov, a colleague of Estemirova’s at Memorial. He too lay the blame with Kadyrov. “It’s Chechen officials, the Chechen leadership. Who else?”
The attacks on average Chechens tend to target families of suspected separatist insurgents, as violent anti-Kadyrov and anti-Moscow sentiment once again rises, according to Lokshina.
Moscow fought two bloody wars with Chechnya, from 1994 to 1996 and again starting in 1999. The mainly Muslim republic sought to secede from Russia in the wake of the Soviet Union’s fall, and the Kremlin fought hard to prevent what it saw as a potential domino effect of secession across its empire. Its tactics were brutal: The capital was bombed, tens of thousands of civilians and soldiers perished, disappearances and mass killings flourished. Chechen rebels responded with suicide bombings and mass hostage takings that reached all the way to Moscow.
Alongside its violent military campaign, the Kremlin sought to impose a political solution as well, installing a former rebel and chief mufti, Akhmad Kadyrov, as president. When he was assassinated in a bomb attack in May 2004, Vladimir Putin, then president, personally installed Kadyrov’s thuggish son as the republic’s next ruler.
Since then, Ramzan Kadyrov has ruled with a blank check, amassing untold wealth — in the form, partly, of fancy cars and an exotic zoo — and power in exchange for keeping the republic calm.
Now it looks like he is not keeping up his part of the deal.
“During the past month, the level of human rights abuses has been staggering,” Lokshina said. “It seems that the law enforcement and security agencies under the control of President Kadyrov are attempting to suppress an insurgency which is suddenly on the rise.” That is happening in part, she says, because of the human rights abuses continually perpetrated by the regime.
With the murder of Estemirova, there is one less voice to expose those abuses.
In October 2007, Estemirova was awarded the inaugural prize to honor the life of Politkovskaya, awarded by RAW in WAR (Reach All Women In War).
Accepting the award, she said: “Our task … is to uncover their deeds and to fight them. Anna was at the forefront of this work for many years. She is no more. Now it is up to us to continue her work.”
With each killing, that becomes less and less likely. And that, according to Memorial’s Orlov, is part of the plan.
“[Kadyrov’s regime] is doing this so Chechnya will be closed,” he said. “We were the only people who continue to say something. Everyone else is scared. We were the only ones, but apparently it was idiotic, because it ended in death.”
The question, as always, remains what is to be done? Orlov called on Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev to remove Kadyrov as leader. Judging by his brutal tactics, and his view of revenge as bloodsport, that may not be enough. It is high time the Kremlin deal with a monster of its own making. The question is: How?
More on human rights in Russia:
Political expression in Russia
Eurovision, Russia-style
A too-familiar Moscow scene(Photo: AP/Andrew Harnik) GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson speaks at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on Friday, October 9.
Chances are that you are not a hero. That is to say that you do your job and live your life, but seldom if ever are you called upon to do something extraordinary in a life-or-death moment, some spectacular act of bravery that calls upon otherworldy cunning and physical skill. Compared to a Hollywood action film, your life is rather mundane and ordinary. You don't begin your week on Monday knowing that by Friday you will have leaped from explosions, taken down ninja death squads, or battled supervillains.
It's fun to indulge those fantasies from time to time—with enough money, time, and training, maybe I could be Batman!—but most of us are level-headed enough to realize that they are just fantasies. They certainly shouldn't be the source of judgments we make about our fellow human beings, let alone the basis for policymaking.
But not everyone agrees. Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson, for instance, has recently attracted a great deal of attention for saying that unlike those cowering sheep who were killed by a gunman in Roseburg, Oregon, he would have quickly organized his fellow victims-to-be and rushed the shooter. In the ensuing discussion, Carson's similar views about the Holocaust came to light—that if the Jews had more guns and more gumption, they could have stood up to Hitler and, if not stopped the genocide entirely, at least... well, at least done something or other.
As a piece of historical analysis, this is positively deranged, as any historian will tell you. But it's also widely shared on the right, not just when it comes to World War II in particular but as a way to understand the broader relationship between the individual and government. Take, for instance, this execrable op-ed on FoxNews.com from frequent on-air contributor Keith Ablow, which basically argues that the Holocaust happened because German Jews were too wimpy to rise up, find some guns, and do the job.
As Jacob Bacharach reminds us, plenty of Jews did fight back, not only in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising but among resistance forces spread throughout Europe in the places Germany occupied. And what happened to them? They mostly got slaughtered, because they were fighting against a vastly stronger force, the Wehrmacht. |
Union of Washington, described the action as a clarification of the 2006 Washington Law Against Discrimination, not a wholesale change.
“What they’ve done is basically clarify existing Washington state law, which already prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity,” Ms. Chiang said in an email. “So, it wouldn’t really make sense for the Legislature to be involved, the HRC action is designed to give additional guidance to people looking to understand the state law.”
She called the move a “fabulous thing. The ACLU has long supported the rights of transgender people.”
In its proposed rule issued in May, the commission said that “[r]ules are needed in order to interpret that law to provide understanding to businesses, employers, and the public.”
“Stakeholders have requested clarification and explanation of the law in the form of rules. A chapter is added for sexual orientation and gender identity issues, and additional sections are amended to add sexual orientation as a protected class,” said the May 20 notice.
Although 17 states prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity, such laws have not specifically required access to public accommodations such as restrooms by biological men who identify as women.
Until now, California’s Assembly Bill 1266, which requires public schools to allow access to restrooms, showers and sports teams to boys who identify as girls, and vice versa, has been regarded as the most sweeping transgender law in the nation.
In Washington, the commission’s revision is meeting resistance.
“This first-of-its-kind, statewide law is part of the recent push to frame gender-segregated bathrooms as an affront to ‘equality,’” said Joseph Backholm, executive director of the Family Policy Institute in Washington. “So far, the public hasn’t been buying it.”
He cited the November vote in Houston in which voters overwhelmingly defeated an equal rights ordinance that would have imposed penalties for businesses that tried to stop biological males who identify as females from using women’s restrooms.
Mr. Hunt said several bills have been proposed in anticipation of the state legislative session, which begins Jan. 17. He said his draft would require “pre-operative or non-operative” transgender people to use facilities that correspond with their biological sex.
He said the commission’s rule poses a threat to public safety by making it virtually impossible to stop sexual predators from taking advantage of the law to gain access to women’s restrooms and other facilities.
“My concern is the safety side,” Mr. Hunt said. “There are folks who have come forward and reached out to me that have been taken advantage of, put into abusive situations because of somebody who’s been allowed access to private, intimate settings like locker rooms and bathrooms.”
He said he has also heard from transgender people who are comfortable using private changing facilities and gender-neutral restrooms but worried about the spotlight.
“Some members of the transgender community have reached out and said, ‘This is what we prefer to use,’” Mr. Hunt said. “They don’t want to be put into an uncomfortable situation either. And in fact some of them have mentioned that they’re actually pretty darned upset that this has become such a highlighted issue, because it’s drawing attention to them whereas they otherwise didn’t want the attention.”
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, a Democrat, came out in support last week of the YMCA’s decision to allow transgender access, telling the Kitsap Sun, “We cannot keep perpetuating the stereotype that transgender people pose a threat to our communities.”
Mr. Hunt said he hoped the issue would not devolve into a partisan fight. Republicans control the state Senate while Democrats hold the state House.
“I don’t really see privacy as a partisan issue,” Mr. Hunt said.
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.By Mick Krever, CNN
The Former U.S. Ambassador to Syria, who left his post just a month ago, told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Tuesday that he could no longer stand behind his government.
“I was no longer in a position where I felt I could defend the American policy,” he said. “We have been unable to address either the root causes of the conflict in terms of the fighting on the ground and the balance on the ground, and we have a growing extremism threat.”
Ford left Syria in February 2012 amid the escalating civil war. He remained ambassador until earlier this year; the embassy has been extremely active on social media.
Syria is holding presidential elections on Tuesday, but ballots are only being cast in areas controlled by President Bashar al-Assad, and his only two opponents were government-approved.
“There really is nothing we can point to that’s been very successful in our policy except the removal of about ninety-three percent of some of Assad’s chemical materials. But now he’s using chlorine gas against his opponents.”
At the beginning of Syria’s conflict, the U.S. State Department – including then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – pushed hard for America to provide robust support for the moderate opposition; that recommendation was not followed.
Ford said it is “now widely known that the State Department thought we needed to give much more help to the armed opposition in Syria.”
American policy, he said, has “evolved” a bit more in that direction, but it needs to go further.
“The United States and our friends, we have tools that could put greater pressure on Bashar al-Assad,” Ford said. “Especially as the extremist threat to the United States and to our friends emanating out of Syria grows, I think we really must consider carefully whether or not we are doing all we can to help our friends in Syria.”
Assad would not be in the powerful position he now is, Ford told Amanpour, were it not for the support from outside powers like Hezbollah, Iran, and Russia.
“We're always a little bit behind the curve. And we need to get ahead of the curve. That is important.”
The common refrain among people skeptical of deeper involvement in Syria is that with the influx of terrorist groups, America and its allies no longer know who the opposition really is.
Ford refuted that notion head on.
“We've identified them quite well now. Some people say, well, we don't know them well enough; we can't depend on them. We know them quite well. We've worked with them for years.”
“They need to get the tools they must have to change the balance on the ground, at least in some localities.”
“And by the way, they're actually winning in the north of Syria. Assad has done well in the capital, down south. But in the north, the moderate opposition is actually gaining ground.”
“We will need friends on the ground – not American soldiers, but friends, Syrians – who are fighting those groups and we need to help those people in their fight against al Qaeda. And we need to do it urgently.”
Ford said that the current state of affairs, in which the moderate opposition has now been forced to fight both the Assad regime and Islamist terrorist groups, is no surprise.
Assad “physically does not control two-thirds of Syria,” Ford said. “And we warned even as long as two years ago that terrorist groups would go into that vacuum, as we had seen in places like Afghanistan and Somalia and Yemen and Mali.”
“This is not rocket science. In a place where there is no government control, terrorist groups can infiltrate in and set up places where they can operate freely.”
“And we warned this would happen in Syria, and it has.”
As someone with deep ties to the country, Ford said the situation in Syria is profoundly depressing and distressing.
“I think all of us, people who hold to basic values of human decency and dignity, need to help Syrians.”
“It is not a conflict that we should ignore, either on moral grounds or on national security grounds, given the extremist threat to us and our friends.”House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R- Calif.) has come under fire after posting 166 pages of "sensitive but unclassified" State Department cables online Friday afternoon.
The documents relate to the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, which killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and four others. Administration officials, speaking with Foreign Policy magazine, accused Issa of endangering the safety of Libyans working with the U.S. government, whose names were not redacted from the report:
Much like WikiLeaks, when you dump a bunch of documents into the ether, there are a lot of unintended consequences," an administration official told The Cable Friday afternoon. "This does damage to the individuals because they are named, danger to security cooperation because these are militias and groups that we work with and that is now well known, and danger to the investigation, because these people could help us down the road.
The Benghazi attack has become the subject of intense Republican scrutiny over the past month. The administration's initial statements suggested it was triggered by a protest against the anti-Islam film "The Innocence of Muslims" at the consulate's gates -- when later reports said no such protest occurred. (Contemporaneous CIA documents do, however, point in that direction, according to the Washington Post's David Ignatius.) The State Department has also received significant blowback after reports surfaced suggesting that it had turned down requests from the American mission in Benghazi for additional security.
While the Romney campaign has seized on the attack, and the administration's response, as evidence of President Barack Obama's foreign policy weaknesses, Issa has launched his own investigation, and convened a hearing on the matter last week.
The documents in question, which Issa posted to the Oversight Committee's website Friday, show that security was a persistent concern at the Benghazi mission. One correspondence, written by a representative from the mission in February, emphasized dwindling personnel:
Apologies for being a broken record, but beginning tomorrow Benghazi will be down to two agents. … We have no drivers and new local guard contract employees have no experience driving armored vehicles …
Shortly thereafter, another memo sent to State echoed the concern:
While the status of Benghazi remains undefined [Diplomatic Security] is hesitant to [devote] resources and as I indicated previously, this has severely hampered operations in Benghazi.
The document also contained a memo from March suggesting that al-Qaeda activity in eastern Libya was accelerating.
Along with the document dump, Issa co-signed a letter to the president with Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), which reads:
The American people deserve nothing less than a full explanation from this administration about these events, including why the repeated warnings about a worsening security situation appear to have been ignored by this administration.
Nevertheless, some prominent conservatives took to Twitter to express dismay that Issa would release the documents without redacting sensitive information.
John Podheretz, editor of Commentary:
John Tabin of the American Spectator:
Former RNC strategist Liz Mair:
The Benghazi attack will likely be a major topic of conversation in Monday's final presidential debate, which focuses on foreign policy.What Steve Doman has done with what was previously a one-room, 26-feet-by-26-feet cabin is truly out of this world.
Doman, 69, has lived in the Guffey, Colorado cabin for 26 years. He has spent the last 14 of them adding on seven rooms -- most of which follow a Star Trek theme. He's spared the kitchen, though. For now.
Doman's domain closely resembles the set of various "Star Trek" series, mostly "Voyager" and "The Next Generation."
It was mostly put together using junk -- everything from old pipes and curling irons to old car parts he found beside the road.
"Journalists have said it's a replica of the Enterprise bridge," Doman told HuffPost. "It's not. I call it 'the Federation Room,' but it's my idea of a 26th century housing project."
His current project is building sleeping quarters that are fit for a Klingon ambassador.
Doman's "Federation Room" has gone boldly where few hobbies have gone before. Stories about his unique building have been published all over the world and he is currently hosting a gathering of 40 Klingons from Utah and New Mexico this weekend.
But the real sign of pop culture immortality may be the home's inclusion in the newest Ripley's Believe It Or Not! book, "Reality Shock!" debuting Sept. 9.
It's a humbling honor for Doman, who has earned millions building fences and barns.
"This is a hobby for me, but I've gotten more notoriety from it than anything else I've done," he said.
What may be most amazing about Doman's house isn't the way it looks, but the way it was built. He didn't use blueprints -- it was all in his head.
"I do everything in my head," he explained. "Ever since I had a rabies shot when I was 14 months old, I've had worse than a short-term memory. I can't read very fast and every time I do Jello, I have to look at the box for directions."
Doman started building "The Next Generation" of cabins as a way to occupy himself during the winter months when it was too cold and snowy to build fences.
Although he had to watch a lot of "Star Trek" episodes in order to get inspiration, and posed for the new Ripley's book dressed as a Klingon, he insists he's not a "Trekkie."
"I'm not," he swore. "I haven't been to any conventions."
Doman has been married four times, but says he hasn't dated since his last marriage ended in 1984.
"You think a woman would put up with my house?" he asked with the sort of unerring logic usually associated only with Vulcans.
He's made plans to leave his pad to someone special, but doesn't know what she will do.
"The cleaning lady gets my house," he said. "She's deserves it after all she's done for this town. Whatever she wants to do with it after I'm gone is all right with me."WASHINGTON — As part of her expanding criminal justice platform, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is proposing to retroactively reduce mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenses, a Clinton aide said Friday.
The latest proposals, part of Clinton's piece-by-piece disclosure of her plan on criminal justice, come as Clinton is set to take part Friday evening in a forum featuring the other two Democratic candidates for president, Martin O'Malley and Bernie Sanders.
On Saturday, she'll take part in a town hall with the South Carolina Legislative Black Caucus moderated by Roland Martin.
Clinton is proposing to cut in half mandatory minimum sentences of 5-20 years for nonviolent drug offenses. Those changes would apply retroactively to currently incarcerated inmates, "but only after a court balances public safety factors," according to the Clinton aide.
Clinton's proposals would also eliminate the five-year mandatory minimum sentence for possession of crack cocaine, as well as make the Fair Sentencing Act, which reduced the sentencing disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine offenses, apply retroactively.
Clinton also wants to lessen the number of offenses that count as a "strike" against individuals with a prior felony drug charge and increase the ability of judges to use their own discretion with it comes to applying mandatory minimums.
The proposals are very similar to a bipartisan criminal justice bill introduced in the Senate last month, which has the support of criminal justice advocacy groups across the political spectrum and the White House.
"This is an important first draft, focusing on non-violent drug offenses," said activist DeRay Mckesson of Campaign Zero, which met with Clinton last month in hopes to influence her platform based on its own recommendations. "It will be important that Clinton's platform expands to address a host of other issues such as solitary confinement, alternatives to incarceration and decriminalization."
Earlier this year, Clinton began embracing calls for overhauling the criminal justice system and distancing herself from the tough-on-crime policies of her husband, former president Bill Clinton.
"Decisions were made in the '80s and '90s to deal with what was at that time a very high crime rate that was particularly affecting poor people, people of color in the cities," Clinton said in August. "I think that a lot was done that went further than it needed to go and so now we are facing problems with mass incarceration."It has been announced that the Chicago Red Stars have acquired Stephanie McCaffrey from the Boston Breakers in a big trade. In exchange for the forward, the Breakers received the two-highest second round draft picks, a third-round pick and a fourth round pick in the upcoming 2017 NWSL College Draft. This gives Boston four extra picks added onto what they are planned to be given at the end of this season. They received an international roster spot for 2017 as well.
McCaffrey's history
The 23-year-old forward spent her college years at Boston College, where she became only the fourth player in program history to score 90 or more points in her career. She was then drafted fifth overall in the 2015 NWSL College Draft by the Red Stars, only to be traded to the Breakers in the second round of the same draft. Since then, McCaffrey was made 27 starts in 31 appearance for Boston. She’s scored three goals and collected three assists in her time with the Breakers, all coming in her rookie year.
On the national level, the forward was part of the U.S. Women’s U-23 National Team throughout 2014 and 2015. In January of 2015, she received her first call up to the full team. In her very first appearance for the full team in October of 2015, she scored her first international goal against Brazil in the U.S. Victory Tour.
McCaffrey celebrates first international goal with U.S. teammates. | Getty Images - Sam Greenwood
Experienced McCaffrey ready for Chicago
In her second season with the Breakers, McCaffrey played in 12 matches, starting 10 of them. She logged a total of 921 minutes as a Boston Breaker in 2016.
"We are thankful to Stephanie for her contributions as a Boston Breaker," Boston general manager Lee Billiard said in the team’s official press release. "Both parties feel the time is right to part ways and we wish Steph the very best in Chicago and her continued career."
The Chicago Red Stars host the Houston Dash at 7pm Central Time tomorrow night at Toyota Park. The Boston Breakers return to action next weekend as they host the Portland Thorns.His bag snagged on a fence and pulled him under the truck's rear wheels, police said. View Full Caption DNAinfo/Amy Langfield
MIDTOWN — A man was crushed to death when he chased down and hopped onto a passing dump truck before getting pulled under its rear wheel Monday night, police said.
The man, 29, whose name wasn't immediately released, was standing at the intersection of West 51st Street and Broadway when he gave the middle finger to a passing Department of Transportation truck in a convoy of three vehicles and then chased after it, an NYPD spokesman said.
He caught up to it and jumped onto a diesel tank foot rail on the driver's side as it approached Eighth Avenue, police said.
The driver didn't realize the man was there and turned into a construction site, police said.
The man's backpack then got caught on a nearby metal fence and pulled him to the ground, where he was fatally run over by the truck's rear tires, police said.
"The victim was on the driver's side under the back wheel. He had on a plaid shirt and a black hat," said witness Terry Locke, 56.
"The responders came immediately. It looked like there were 50 of them, but they couldn't get him out. He was stuck underneath. They raised the back on the truck and lowered the front to try to get him," Locke added.
The man was pronounced dead at the scene, police said.
"It's very upsetting, very disturbing," Locke said.
The truck's driver stayed at the scene and wasn't immediately arrested or ticketed, police said.We need your help:
Free our Bills!
The Nice Polite Campaign to Gently Encourage Parliament to Publish Bills in a 21st Century Way, Please. Now.
What the…?
Writing, discussing and voting on bills is what we employ our MPs to do. If enough MPs vote on bills they become the law, meaning you or I can get locked up if they pass a bad one.
What a Bill contains is hugely more important than what an MP says, how they look, or what expenses they claim.
The problem, to put it simply, is that the way in which Bills are currently published out is completely incompatible with the Internet era. As a consequence few people ever get to find out what a Bill says before it becomes law and binds us all. Bills are currently buried within the Parliamentary website, published in a hopelessly old fashioned way that makes them difficult to find, difficult to read and impossible to do anything clever with.
Update! Our supporters have been asking MPs to sign an Early Day Motion to support the campaign, and over 100 MPs have signed up so far. Sign up to our campaign and we'll tell you whether your MP has signed.
We need you!
This campaign can only succeed if normal internet users like you lend a hand. Please sign up and we'll send you easy tasks (like emailing your MP, or coming up with some ideas). Together we can improve Parliament! Your email:
Your postcode:
Share this
Why?
Being the people who run TheyWorkForYou we spend lots of our time taking rubbish, broken information from Parliament and fixing it up so that it makes a nice, usable site so you can find out whether your MP is actually working for you or not. Lots of people seem to like it, nearly 2 million came to visit last year.
It’s time for Parliament to improve its act and start publishing these vital documents properly in the first place. Quite apart from the fact that we’re a tiny charity without many resources to fix this information, you’re paying for them to produce it in a uselessly old fashioned way. Unless Parliament produces better bills:
You can’t get an email alert to tell you when a bill mentions something you might be interested in.
to tell you when a bill mentions something you might be interested in. You can’t find out what amendments your own MP is asking for, or voting on.
is asking for, or voting on. You can’t learn, or help other people learn, about the process by annotating them to explain what they’re really going on about for everyone else.
to explain what they’re really going on about for everyone else. MPs and their staff can’t receive services that would help them notice when they were being asked to vote on dumb or dubious things.
. You can’t get a rounded view of how useful your MP is if you can’t see their involvement with the bill making process.
of how useful your MP is if you can’t see their involvement with the bill making process. And about 12 zillion other things that we’re not even bright enough to think of yet.
Read our details of the technical changes we want Parliament to make to the way it publishes bills for more.
Won’t this disrupt the delicate process of writing bills?
Nope, the improved publication we’re talking about has nothing to do with the actual legal contents of bills. It’s about how it gets translated into an electronic format once they’ve finished.
What are your real motives? Who does this benefit politically?
Dammit, we hoped you wouldn't ask that, and now our secret is blown. Obviously this campaign benefits Gordon Brown at the expense of Tony Blair. No, wait a minute, that was last year. It definitely gives Hillary the edge over Obama though. No, hang on, that's over too. Actually, it isn't partisan at all - that's what I was trying to say. mySociety is based on a charity, you see, so even if we wanted to be partisan, it'd be against the law. And if you're still suspicious you'll see that MPs from almost all parties have signed our EDM.
Isn’t this an embarrassingly obscure thing to be campaigning about? Can’t you campaign about saving puppies or something?
Hey – you’re the one who just read all the way down to this point. Suck it up and sign up, soldier.
We need you!
This campaign can only succeed if normal internet users like you lend a hand. Please sign up and we'll send you easy tasks (like emailing your MP, or coming up with some ideas). Together we can improve Parliament! Your email:
Your postcode:
Share thisI still haven’t gotten over Iowa straight-up housing Ohio State, 55-24.
As always with upset blowouts, it’s not simply that the winning team dunked all over the losing team, it’s how they did it.
The Hawkeyes played nearly the entire third quarter with a 31-17 advantage. A 14-point lead over Ohio State isn’t exactly a safe one (ask Penn State about that). You could see a reality in which Ohio State would hold on just enough to break through in the fourth quarter.
An Iowa drive that petered out just before the red zone forced the Hawkeyes into a field-goal situation.
Except they did this instead of opting for the field goal:
This is called the lonesome polecat formation.
Here’s what the formation looks like on the chalkboard, although not the exact play Iowa ran:
After the game, Kirk Ferentz mentioned that the Hawkeyes copied from someone, but he didn’t know who. For a run-first, conservative, Ferentz-coached team, the original source of the play is as unlikely as you could find.
The formation was originated by the father of the run ‘n’ shoot offense, Tiger Ellison.
Back in the 1950s, Ellison’s high school team was struggling and, as the story goes, he drove by a park and saw kids running plays in unusual formations. Ellison was frustrated with his team’s inability to run the ball in a conventional fashion. So he had an idea:
He then went to his staff and tried to sell them on a crazy idea that he had come up with, the Lonesome Polecat (known today as the swinging gate or muddle huddle). The coaching staff thought he had lost his mind. In fact, Tiger Ellison admits in his book that he did in fact lose his mind by stating, “We do not wish to sell the Lonesome Polecat as a basic offense. That would be a departure into insanity. We used it basically for half a season because we needed to escape from reality.” From that, the Lonesome Polecat was born.
Here’s how the play worked.
The long snapper is eligible to run a route because he’s not “covered,” meaning the two receivers to his right are off of the line of scrimmage.
To the left, Iowa’s got a full offensive line, just like the diagram shows; it just isn’t in the middle of the field like we’re used to seeing. This means the long snapper is sort of like a tight end... who happens to be snapping the ball while very far away from the offensive line.
Iowa also shifted into this from what I’d imagine was something like a conventional field goal set. We don’t know exactly what they shifted from, because ESPN’s cameras didn’t catch it, but they did get the motion.
As if the defenders’ eyes weren’t confused enough, the Hawkeyes added motion to get Ohio State all out of sorts.
Ohio State linebacker Jerome Baker (red box) was probably the most likely player to carry long snapper Tyler Kluver on a vertical release. But put yourself in the head of Baker or safety Jordan Fuller (red arrow above). On a play neither player has likely ever seen, what was the more likely place for the ball to go:
The long snapper, who is typically barred from catching the ball by rule?
The motioning player from all the way across the formation?
You or I would probably take option B every time.
That’s exactly what Iowa wants you to do. The decoy worked to perfection.
Look back at the GIF as Kluver pauses a beat before he releases, disguising himself. Don’t mind me — just a normal long snapper, nothing to see here. Except a first down, that is. Kluver likely scores if he doesn’t trip.
This is the new dawn of Iowa special teams.
In March, Iowa changed special teams coordinators, adding the title to tight ends coach LeVar Woods’ business card. Ferentz lauded Woods’ ingenuity with perhaps the most self-aware statement he’s ever made in the press (Ferentz might be the most traditional coach in college football).
“If it's an original thought play, then it didn't come out of my brain, that's for sure,” Ferentz said after the Ohio State game. “LeVar has done a great job with special teams. Kevin Spencer has been great, I think, addition, but LeVar has really embraced it. We copied it from somebody. I'm not sure who, but we copied it and thought it might have a chance to go. Figured that was a pretty good situation for it.”
Ferentz also said he was quite worried about the throw. Colten Rastetter wasn’t a high school quarterback, as some fake punters often are. That release isn’t exactly how you’d draw it up (neither is this one from earlier in the season), but it got the job done.
Iowa scored on the next play to go up 38-17, and the rout was on.
Urban Meyer isn’t supposed to get beaten in a special teams chess match, by the way.
It’s supposed to be the other way around. Meyer is the special teams maven who has the block or fake at the right time. At Florida, Meyer was renowned for rewarding special teamers. Meyer was also special teams coach at Notre Dame.
But it could be said that he has lost his touch a bit. In the wake of the Penn State game, Meyer was forced to evaluate the kick coverage phase, particularly after Saquon Barkley returned the opening kickoff for a TD last week.
"A lot of it has been the placement of the kick, so we've adjusted that, and it's changed," Meyer said. "What's the definition of insanity? Keep doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results.”
Then again, there is no real way for Ohio State to scheme this one up. It doesn’t look like Iowa’s run this type of play in a game before.
ESPN’s play-by-play guys mentioned a visit to Iowa’s children’s hospital during the game.
They visited a kid named Sam Burke, who said he wanted Iowa to win the game on a fake field goal, per the broadcast. Steve Levy said that Burke’s dad joked “remember who our coach is,” as a nod to Ferentz’s conservative nature.
I’d say Sam got his wish.Advertisement
Organic solar cells have remained a bit of a commercial disappointment. There are a number of reasons for this. Some point to the use of the expensive indium-tin-oxide (ITO) in the electrodes. Still others believe the use of fullerenes as electron acceptors has kept organic solar cells from achieving wider commercial adoption.
Researchers at Princeton University, led by electrical engineer Stephen Chou, have developed a nanostructure that promises an economical way to nearly triple the efficiency of organic solar cells and garner them a stronger foothold in the commercial market.
The Princeton research (“Ultrathin, high-efficiency, broad-band, omni-acceptance, organic solar cells enhanced by plasmonic cavity with subwavelength hole array”), which was published in the journal Optics Express, claims to have developed a nansostructured sandwich of metal and plastic that increases the efficiency of the solar cells by 175 percent. The nanostructure manages this feat by reducing the amount of light reflecting off the cell and increasing the amount of light captured by it.
The “sandwich” as it has been dubbed is in fact a subwavelength plasmonic cavity. Plasmonics exploits the phenomenon of "photons striking small, metallic structures to create plasmons, which are oscillations of electron density in the metal." The subwavelength plasmonic cavity--or sandwich—at once dampens the reflection of light and traps light.
The result was a solar cell that reflects a mere 4 percent and absorbs 96 percent of the light that hits it. The researchers claim to have demonstrated a solar cell with this design that produces 52 percent higher efficiency in converting light to electrical energy than conventional solar cells.
These figures are for direct sunlight. On cloudy days, when sunlight hits the solar cells at an angle, the numbers are even more astounding. Efficiency is increased by an additional 81 percent over conventional solar cells, with a total increase of 175 percent.
The breakthrough of the design is the top layer of the sandwich, which is a metal mesh only 30 nanometers thick. The holes in the mesh are only 175 nanometers in diameter and are placed 25 nanometers apart. This first “window” layer means that the ITO typically used in this layer can be omitted, leading to a far cheaper design.
The bottom layer is made of the same metal films found in conventional solar cells. The top and the bottom layers are very close to each other separated only by a thin semiconducting material (silicon, plastic or gallium arsenide can be used). In the Princeton prototype an 85-nanometer-thick layer of plastic was used.
Because the design can use a variety of silicon materials, the researchers believe that it could be used in traditional silicon solar panels and reduce the thickness of the panels by a thousand fold.
Here we have a design that both significantly reduces manufacturing costs and dramatically increases energy efficiency. That’s what we call a win-win in solar cell technology.FILE - In this May 10, 2012 file photo, Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney speaks in Omaha, Neb. Romney is aggressively defending his work at the private equity firm he co-founded and insists it makes him qualified to be president. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)
If you happen to see Mitt Romney talking about his time at Bain Capital, keep this in mind: The government helped him build that.
The question of who built this or that particular business is one of the tentpoles of the entire Republican National Convention, at which Romney will be speaking Thursday night, accepting his party's nomination to run for president.
It's a riff on a mangling of some words President Obama once spoke, which, if edited in a certain way, seem to suggest that Obama thinks people who built businesses didn't really build them -- that Big Government did instead.
And one person who has gotten quite a lot of government help with his business over the years has been Mitt Romney.
Bain & Co. got into deep financial trouble in the late 1980s, partly because the founding partners of Bain Capital had stripped it of cash and saddled it with debt. But since the personal reputation of Romney was so tied to the fate of the Bain & Co, he jumped back into the company in 1990, after six years as CEO of Bain Capital.
In that time, he refused to let the company simply slip into bankruptcy, RS claims, reportedly inspiring a frustrated Goldman Sachs banker to tell Romney to "go fuck" himself.
Ultimately, Romney managed to convince Bain's creditors to take a steep discount on Bain debt, using a threat to pay Bain executives big bonuses that would have stripped it of the cash it had left, leaving creditors with next to nothing, according to Rolling Stone.
One of those creditors was the FDIC, which had taken over a bank that loaned money to Bain. The FDIC ended up collecting about $14 million of the $30 million Bain owed it, according to the magazine. Taxpayers didn't foot the bill for this, FDIC banks did, but RS points out that those costs were in turn probably absorbed by bank customers in the form of higher fees.
The public-private agreements, which began in the first decade of Romney’s tenure as CEO, show that government played a supporting role in establishing Bain as among the nation’s most successful private equity firms and enabling him to accumulate a fortune his campaign says could reach $250 million.
Despite this largesse, Bloomberg pointed out, Romney in a March 19 speech decried the government's “endless subsidies and credits intended to shape behavior in our economic society." Including economic behavior that makes him money, apparently.After a decent 2018, which finished strong with Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and Pokemon Let’s Go, fans have been looking to 2019 for the Nintendo Switch to gain back a bit of its momentum from its legendary 2017 debut. And the most recent Nintendo Direct gave them some reason to hope again. While we didn’t see anything more from previously announced titles like Animal Crossing and Luigi’s Mansion 3, we did get more details on Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3, Yoshi’s Crafted World, Daemon X Machina, and the Switch version of Dragon Quest XI. Even better, we got exciting new announcements for games like Super Mario Maker 2, a remake of The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, new title Astral Chain from Platinum Games, and even a dang Tetris battle royale. See for yourself and keep reading to learn everything else you need to know about Nintendo Switch, from new hardware rumors to our game reviews.
As you all surely know by now, when it comes to “Everything You Need To Know About Nintendo Switch,” the first thing you need to know is that it’s basically two video game machines in one. Take the tablet with you as a powerful portable handheld. Slot it in the dock to enjoy the same games on the TV like a home console. Two uses. One device.
But in 2019 there may be more than one Nintendo Switch model to consider. Japanese news outlet Nikkei is reporting that Nintendo may release a smaller, cheaper, portable-only version of the Switch this year. This backs up earlier Wall Street Journal reporting suggesting a new model of Switch may arrive in 2019.
While some fans were hoping the new Switch would be a more powerful Pro model, and that may still be the case, a Switch with fewer features but more portability makes more sense. A cheaper price means more sales, especially since Nintendo just announced it won’t quite make its ambitious Switch sales targets this year even as the best-selling console in 2018. A portable, less fragile Switch could finally replace the 3DS as Nintendo’s entry-level device, something that’s a long time coming. And big Switch games this year like Animal Crossing and Pokemon shine on the go.
But that’s all on the horizon. Keep reading to learn everything you need to know about the Nintendo Switch available right now!
Almost two years into its life, there’s a lot to talk about the Nintendo Switch, and not just the fact the handheld/console hybrid is basically two video game machines in one. We’ve spent a lot of time covering the Switch, writing news, reviews, and features about its biggest or most overlooked games and hardware features. And this very page contains a lengthy rundown of the hardware itself as well as particularly big pieces of news in the months since. But if you’re looking to get a Nintendo Switch this Black Friday and holiday season (which you should because it’s really cool), you and need advice that’s a little faster, here are some of our favorite 2018 articles that truly tell you everything you |
Deal signed the bill here because state House Speaker David Ralston, who championed the measure in the state House, represents the area, according to Deal's office.
The new law provoked intense debate. Both supporters and opponents flocked to the state. The National Rifle Association called it "the most comprehensive pro-gun reform legislation introduced in recent history." The gun rights group GeorgiaCarry.org believes the bill will "restore our right to carry and be allowed to protect ourselves anywhere we go," according to executive director Jerry Henry.
Opponents include Americans for Responsible Solutions, the group co-founded by former Arizona congresswoman Gabby Giffords, which called it the nation's most extreme gun bill and said it "moves Georgia out of the mainstream." Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America also lobbied against the bill. It's "a very, very dangerous kill bill," said their national spokeswoman, Lucia McBath, whose 17-year-old son, Jordan Davis, was killed in November 2012 in Jacksonville, Fla., in a dispute over loud music.
STORY: Ga.'s 'guns everywhere' law awaits governor's signature
STORY: Proposal would allow Georgia firefighters to carry guns
The bill also drew some in-state opposition. People will be able to carry firearms in government buildings that don't have metal detectors, such as city halls, libraries, recreational centers, city office buildings and fire stations. The Georgia Municipal Association, which represents the state's 538 cities, asked Deal to veto it. "Local elected officials are responsible for securing and maintaining public safety, and insurance coverage, in buildings owned and operated by the city. Therefore, they should have the authority to make a decision about whether to allow weapons in such buildings," GMA said in a letter to Deal.
The new law removes a restriction that prevented those convicted of certain misdemeanors from getting a gun permit. And in a provision that has some law enforcement officials concerned, police will not be able to detain a person "for the sole purpose of investigating whether such a person has a weapons carry license."
As Deal signed the bill in Ellijay, a community of 1,600 about 65 miles north of Atlanta, the Georgia Gun Sense Coalition had an event in downtown Atlanta that included a moment of silence for all gun victims. In 2011, the most recent available, gunfire killed 1,175 people in Georgia, including 443 who were murdered, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The gun bill had failed in three previous legislative sessions but passed late on the night of March 20, the session's final day this year.
A year ago this month, a man in Suwanee, Ga., faked a heart attack and took five Gwinnett County firefighters hostage at gunpoint in his house, knowing that the emergency responders would not be armed. Though the incident ended well for the firefighters — a SWAT team rescued them four hours later but killed the gunman — some Georgia legislators believe that this incident provided the impetus for the legislation to pass.
Doug Richards also reports for WXIA-TV, Atlanta, and reported from Ellijay. Contributing: Jon Shirek, WXIA-TV, Atlanta.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1ifLnOoAn NFL Players Association statement that no "formal investigation" has been launched against Miami Dolphins guard Richie Incognito as it relates to harassment of teammate Jonathan Martin is directly related to the failure of Martin to file a formal complaint, sources told ESPN.
Martin has not filed a formal complaint because he fears retribution, primarily from Incognito, sources told ESPN.
Martin left the team earlier in the week after an incident.
However, sources tell ESPN that the matter is absolutely under review and preliminarily identifies Incognito as an alleged offender in multiple incidents of possible harassment and bullying over the past two seasons, with Martin not the only victim.
Incognito took to Twitter on Sunday, stating that he wants his "name cleared." He called the reports "false speculation" and "slander" and said ESPN was hiding behind sources "who are not man enough to put their name behind the BS you report."
@AdamSchefter Enough is enough If you or any of the agents you sound off for have a problem with me, you know where to find me #BRINGIT — Richie incognito (@68INCOGNITO) November 3, 2013
Sources told ESPN that one of the significant allegations being reviewed is that Incognito got Martin to contribute $15,000 to help finance a trip to Las Vegas by a group of Dolphins last summer, even though Martin preferred not to travel with the group.Still leaking? That's unpossible.
Still leaking? That's unpossible.
It's now time to check back in with House Republicans and Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-Benghazi)'s Select Committee for Something Something Hillary Clinton Bad. It seems it is business as usual, by which we mean yet another instance in which the committee has been caught "leaking" something to the press that is in fact completely made up. You do not need to be overly cynical to note that House Republican Benghazi investigations to date have sustained years of momentum for themselves and their budgets solely on supposedly-unauthorized "leaks" that just happen to be manufactured from bungling or lying outright about the evidence that investigation has "collected," every last one of them terribly damaging-sounding to a certain Democratic presidential candidate right up until the point where some ninny, almost always ranking Democratic committee representative Elijah Cummings, points out that the supposed "leak" was actually, well, a gigantic lie.
In this case the designated "leaker" manufactured their case by copy-pasting unrelated emails together as if Hillary Clinton had responded to one email by saying she would be "pushing to [the White House]"—when that wasn't actually her response to that email. It was a response she gave to an entirely different email chain. Golly, what are the odds of such a mixed-up, James O'Keefe-ish faked-evidence "leak" happening? Again, I mean?
But as [Rep. Elijah E. Cummings] notes in his letter [to Gowdy], it didn’t go down like that. The “I’m pushing to WH” response actually attaches to a different e-mail correspondence between Clinton and Blumenthal, from a week before Blumenthal’s boast about those Benghazi links. As documents released by the State Department last week show, Clinton was actually intent on sending to the White House a Salon article claiming that the campaign of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney was planning a brand-new line of attack based on Benghazi. [...] Another point: The Politico story cites a source as saying that the e-mail wasn’t among those turned over by the State Department. Cummings writes that State had passed it along in February.
Well, double-oops?
You may note that neither of these things have fudge-all to do with how Benghazi happened, or who in the administration or CIA initially thought it may have been related to demonstrations in the region, or any of the other things Gowdy's committee at one point or another was theorized to have been tasked with determining. Instead, under Gowdy's guidance the committee has leapt headlong into the meta-meta-battle of Republicans believing crackpot conspiracy theories about Benghazi and Gowdy investigating who in the administration and in the dastardly media might have been saying rude things about the Republicans who were pushing those theories.
America, House Republicans must get to the bottom of whether Clinton family ally Sid Blumenthal thought conspiracy-minded House Republicans were stupid or hyper-politicizing—and whether he brazenly emailed Hillary Clinton links to public media articles he liked in which the authors pointed those things out! He forwarded on press articles he liked? From the internet? Truly, he is among history's greatest monsters.
So perhaps this has gotten very far afield from the supposed Republican-pushed scandal of why State Department official so-and-so was Wrong on TV that one time, but Gowdy has clearly satisfied himself with all the other investigations that turned up no wrongdoing about that and has moved on. He is currently very concerned that perhaps the delicate flowers of the Republican House are the real Benghazi victims here. It appears somebody sent Hillary Clinton emails suggesting House Republicans were bad people, and we will clearly need many more months and millions of dollars to investigate these slights further.So without even a rudimentary understanding of what consciousness is, the idea of instilling it into a machine -- or understanding how a machine might evolve consciousness -- becomes almost unfathomable.
The field of artificial intelligence started out with dreams of making thinking -- and possibly conscious -- machines, but to date, its achievements have been modest. No one has yet produced a computer program that can pass the Turing test.
In 1950, Alan Turing, a pioneer in computer science, imagined that a computer could be considered intelligent when its responses were indistinguishable from those of a person. The field has evolved to focus more on solving practical problems like complex scheduling tasks than on emulating human behavior.
But with the continuing gains in computing power, many believe that the original goals of artificial intelligence will be attainable within a few decades.
Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content, updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters.
Some people, like Dr. Hans Moravec, a professor of robotics at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, believe a human being is nothing more than a fancy machine, and that as technology advances, it will be possible to build a machine with the same features, that there is nothing magical about the brain and biological flesh.
''I'm confident we can build robots with behavior that is just as rich as human being behavior,'' he said. ''You could quiz it as much as you like about its internal mental life, and it would answer as any human being.''
To Dr. Moravec, if it acts conscious, it is. To ask more is pointless.
Dr. Chalmers regards consciousness as an ineffable trait, and it may be useless to try to pin it down. ''We've got to admit something here is irreducible,'' he said. ''Some primitive precursor consciousness could go all the way down'' to the smallest, most primitive organisms, even bacteria, he said.
Dr. Chalmers too sees nothing fundamentally different between a creature of flesh and blood and one of metal, plastics and electronic circuits. ''I'm quite open to the idea that machines might eventually become conscious,'' he said, adding that it would be ''equally weird.''
Advertisement Continue reading the main story
And if a person gets into involved conversations with a robot about everything from Kant to baseball, ''we'll be as practically certain they are conscious as other people,'' Dr. Chalmers said.
''Of course, that doesn't resolve the theoretical question,'' he said.
But others say machines, regardless of how complex, will never match people.
The arguments can become arcane. In his book ''Shadows of the Mind,'' Dr. Roger Penrose, a mathematician at Oxford University in England, enlisted the incompleteness theorem in mathematics. He uses the theorem, which states that any system of theorems will invariably include statements that cannot be proven, to argue that any machine that uses computation -- and hence all robots -- will invariably fall short of the accomplishments of human mathematicians.
Instead, he argues that consciousness is an effect of quantum mechanics in tiny structures in the brain that exceeds the abilities of any computer.The National Women’s Cycling Summit: This Is Not a Bike
Leah Missbach Day, co-founder of World Bicycle Relief and the keynote speaker to inaugurate the Women’s Bicycling Summit, was very succinct with her main point about a bike:
“This is not a bike.”
The bike is a tool, she intoned; a tool that helps generate economic stability, community cohesiveness, and gender equality, particularly in poor and marginalized parts of the world.
“The bicycle movement is just getting started,” stated Carolyn Szczepanski, communications director of the League of American Bicyclists, in her introductory remarks. She said many in marginalized communities, particularly ethnic minorities, are feeling left out of the bicycle movement. “Instead of feeling left out, [Anthony Taylor co-founder of the National Brotherhood of Cycling] tells them something really empowering: ‘You’re not too late — you’re just in time.’ I would submit to you we are just in time. In 2009, women accounted for just 24 percent of bike trips in the United States and, obviously, it is time for that to change. Without engaging, empowering, and elevating 50 percent of the population — women — we simply cannot succeed as a movement.”The drug has been offered to those with close contact to swine flu Experts have reported the first case of swine flu that is resistant to tamiflu - the main drug being used to fight the pandemic. Roche Holding AG confirmed a patient with H1N1 influenza in Denmark showed resistance to the antiviral drug. David Reddy, company executive, said it was not unexpected given that common seasonal flu could do the same. The news comes as a nine-year-old girl has become the third to die in the UK with swine flu. It is understood from her doctors at Birmingham Children's Hospital that she had underlying health conditions. It is not yet known whether swine flu contributed to her death. Meanwhile, the Department of Health has announced a big jump in the number of patients in England confirmed with swine flu - up 1,604 since Friday, taking the UK total so far to 5,937. Routine sampling in the UK has shown that there is currently no resistance to oseltamivir or zanamivir
A Health Protection Agency spokeswoman Experts have been using tamiflu, also known as oseltamivir, in a bid to stop the H1N1 spreading in communities. If taken early, it ensures that symptoms are mild and reduces the chance of a victim giving the illness to someone else. This first reported case of resistance developed in a swine flu patient taking Tamiflu. Watch and wait Mr Reddy stressed that there were no signs of a tamiflu-resistant strain of H1N1 circulating in the community. This is in contrast to seasonal H1N1 flu where a Tamiflu resistant strain emerged last year and is now widely circulating. Experts fear if this were to happen, it could render tamiflu ineffective. Another antiviral drug, called zanamivir or Relenza, made by GlaxoSmithKline, is also effective against swine flu. The UK government has been stockpiling these antiviral drugs and currently has enough to treat half of the population, with a contract to bring that up to 80% as soon as possible. Supplies of flu vaccine have also been ordered and the first doses could be administered in the autumn. A spokeswoman for the Health Protection Agency said: "The Health Protection Agency continues to watch for antiviral resistance and will be carrying out regular sample testing throughout this outbreak. "We have been monitoring antiviral drug resistance since the beginning of this outbreak. Routine sampling in the UK has shown that there is currently no resistance to oseltamivir or zanamivir." Virologist Professor John Oxford said: "I'm not surprised about this finding. The question is whether it is going to spread. We will soon know the answer."
Bookmark with: Delicious
Digg
reddit
Facebook
StumbleUpon What are these? E-mail this to a friend Printable versionIf you've never tried a VR headset, don't put one on expecting crisp HD resolution. The resolution and pixel density leave something to be desired. I imagine these will be the first things addressed in the next generation of headsets. But until then, you will notice a slight screen door effect and some pixelation, usually when reading small text or looking at something in the distance. But don't let that discourage you; during gameplay, when you start focusing on the game rather than the tech, those things tend to melt away.
You'll also notice circular glare on the lenses during high-contrast scenes (i.e., bright object on dark background), but again I usually forget about it when I'm actually playing. The above image, taken from roadtovr.com, is an extreme case, and makes it look worse than it actually is.
The tracking system is nearly flawless. I've never lost tracking on the headset or either controller during gameplay. I have experienced hitches in the framerate on 2 or 3 occasions, but I think that was based on the performance of the game; not the tracking system. In any case, it was only for a brief moment, and not enough to cause any discomfort.Cathy Reisenwitz announced last week that she was quitting full-time libertarian commentary to pursue a career in sales. She wrote in her blog post announcing this move that, “I want to learn to connect better. And getting successful at sales will require humility and constant feedback, and self-improvement is so incredibly important to building a happy life.” I don’t think I am making a presumptive statement when I say that we here at C4SS wish Reisenwitz the best in her new career path, and that she continues to have a place here, should she choose to take it.
While she was briefly a colleague of mine, what I know about Reisenwitz I mostly know from her writing. By and large, I found her work enjoyable and relevant, thought-provoking, and often, much more eloquently said than anything I’ve ever published. That is not to say that I have agreed with everything she has written or said in the public space, but she was one commentator I was glad to have on our side.
If only we were here simply to wish her good luck.
This week, Robert Wenzel of the dubiously-titled Economic Policy Journal wrote a blog on all of the reasons Cathy Reisenwitz is, in fact, a big dumb meanie who almost destroyed his ickle wibewtawian movement.
He writes, “The woman, who single-handedly attempted to destroy libertarianism as a principled philosophy based on the non-aggression principle at its foundation, is leaving the movement to sell software directories. Yes, software directories.”
Really? Single-handedly? C4SS gets no mention here? We’ve been trying to destroy libertarianism FOR YEARS; the most push-back we’ve ever gotten is a few vague dismissals from nobodies.
Of course, maybe we just haven’t been pushing the right buttons. Wenzel continues:
The lady called just about everyone in the movement who was a serious thinker a racist etc. She attempted to introduce politically correct thought, from feminism to gay advocacy, as a requirement of libertarianism.
Remember when I was talking about how I didn’t always agree with Reisenwitz on things she said and wrote? The time she called a bunch of folks racist was one of those times. She did apologize following the gaffe, though. And it isn’t like Libertarianism is free from racists, either; remember when C4SS got shut down for a few days because we exposed some in a chapter of our student organization? Yeah, that was fun.
But mostly I find it hilarious that it’s Reisenwitz’s libertarian feminism and her support of teh gayz that seems to add the most fuel to the fire of Wenzel’s outsized hatred for her. Because she’s the only libertarian feminist in existence, clearly.
Well, actually, maybe the Economic Policy Journal really believes that. They’ve seemingly obsessively covered her career and various perceived faux pas moves over the last couple of years; we’ve even been graced by a shocking revelation or three from Wenzel himself, such as this gem, picked randomly from an article from March:
I’m not sure how much time Reisenwitz has spent studying Austrian methodology before deciding to turn it on its head, but, note well, in this clip she does make clear she is taking time to study how to fashion op-ed pieces and reach out to producers. Could this explain her “humanitarian” libertarian views?
(Wenzel must live in a world where you are only able to do one thing at a time; in this case, he believes, one is able to choose only between studying journalism and commentary or Austrian economics. That this is a false dichotomy apparently escapes him.)
There was one term Wenzel uses in his “scathing” sayonara to Reisenwitz that I had genuinely never seen before: libwap. It’s a fun word to say, but what does it mean? According to the EPJ’s “research room,” a libwap is a libertarian with appendages. Raise your hand if you also have appendages.
This term was apparently recently created (by Wenzel? Doesn’t say) as a kneejerk response to something Jeffery Tucker wrote, I guess, who actually knows what these people are shrieking about anymore? Its full definition is, “a group of libertarians who believe that libertarianism should go beyond the non-aggression principle.”
So, all of them?
I have never met a libertarian who didn’t have ideas about a libertarian society that went past the NAP. C4SS has written extensively on thick vs. thin libertarianism – all of which I’m assuming Wenzel would probably just handwave into oblivion, because this quote from Great Leader:
Liberty is about liberty, nothing else.
My god, the circles. They’re all around me, trying to make sense.
Anyway, back to this decidedly uneconomic “screw you” to Reisenwitz. Wenzel concludes that her departure from “the movement,” such as it is, is a clear sign that the ideas she apparently created and held up completely by herself with no outside help (that whole “single-handedly destroyed the movement” thing) is dying.
That’s right, any form of libertarianism that includes syntheses from other ideologies is going the way of the dinosaur because our Queen has left the building.
Never again will a libertarian use ideas from libertarian feminism, or bring ideas from GLBTQIA anarchists into their own synthesis. (Of course, this also means that we can’t play in covenant communities anymore either. How sad for the race realists.) Never again will we fight for the right of sex workers, black men, or people with disabilities to not be harassed by police, by government agencies supposedly set up to help them, employers or anyone else. It’s all white bro, all the time from now on. Don’t you forget it, lest another whinging tear be shed; there will be hell to pay if anyone attempts to disrupt our perfect, homogenized little bubble again.
My, my. How collectivist Les libertaires infantiles have become.
If Reisenwitz “almost single-handedly destroyed libertarianism probably,” then maybe it needs to be completely canned. Maybe a movement based on ideals so paper-thin that they were almost dismantled by a single woman who dared have an opinion on something she clearly cared about needs to pack its things and start over, without all of the boring trash it’s picked up over the decades. Because this kind of attitude doesn’t inspire me to be a libertarian.
Cathy Reisenwitz was a good writer. She was a professional. The one or two conversations I’ve had with her have been warm and entertaining. Her work, while occasionally controversial, never warranted the ubiquitous negativity and vitriolic hatred it got. In the space of only a couple of years, she has become the libertarian commentary analog of Anita Sarkeesian, receiving a level of negative reaction worthy only of a truly nasty figure, like General Zod (h/t Jim Sterling). I don’t throw out that comparison lightly; Sarkeesian was driven from her home by angry fedorabeards this week because she dared to continue to publish another video in her long-running Tropes vs. Women in Video Games series.
And this behavior – this wailing and gnashing of teeth from men, and it is primarily men who are doing this, any time a woman has the audacity to have an opinion on something men like – has gone beyond the realm of debate and critique. These are witch hunts. Against Reisenwitz, against Sarkeesian, against Zoe Quinn. Against women who write opinion columns and women who write straight news. In no world is a death threat or a rape threat or a posting of an address of a woman commentator or content creator simply a critique of their work. In no world does someone receive such a sustained level of hatred and negativity and it can still be called “reasonable disagreement.” People are being driven into hiding and out of areas where, under the crust of hate, there were those who did truly enjoy their work.
It must have been painful for Reisenwitz to open up her email box, see thousands of hateful comments and articles like Wenzel’s responding to everything she wrote – not to mention probably the occasional death threat or 10 – and continue to act like she was interested in the world of libertarian commentary for as long as she did.
Hopefully, Cathy, you find the new environment in which you work to be more inviting, and less destructive, than the one you just left.
Hopefully, for the rest of us, we can get our act together before something happens that leaves us shocked and horrified at ourselves that we can’t take back.Photo via
So you probably woke up this morning to discover that something called Kony 2012 had taken over the internet. In case you haven't worked it out yet, Kony 2012 is a film produced by the charity Invisible Children, raising awareness about the child soldiers of Uganda. Since it was released on YouTube on the 5th of March, it's been viewed several million times. Here it is:
And that's good, right? Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army abduct children and convert them into murderers. They've been doing it for years and it's good that someone's trying to raise Kony's profile so that American politicians might be forced into doing something about this endless tragedy, right?
Well, it's more complex than that. You might have noticed that when ANYTHING happens on the internet, there's always someone waiting to crap all over it. Sure, quite often they're crapping all over teenage girls by calling them sluts, but every now and then they'll take a big shit on something that deserves it, like SOPA. Basically, if there's something humans like, there'll be a bunch of other humans who hate it.
Well, predictably, some are shitting on Kony 2012. I'm sure those behind the film and the charity would just brush criticism off as thoughtless cynicism. After all, once something is so big that Rihanna's tweeting about it, some people are going to be suspicious, jealous and try to ruin it, no matter what. Some chumps are just contrarians, right?
That said, here are some of the major criticisms of Invisible Children and Kony 2012.
Criticism #1: Invisible Children is a financially questionable organisation.
These figures have been circling.
It's impossible to understand everything about Invisible Children's motives by analysing these figures alone. Eighty-nine grand does seem like a sweet wage, but does that matter so much? That its expenses are high compared to its revenue isn't too surprising, either. The Kony 2012 manifesto is to raise awareness. People are donating to raise the profile of the Ugandan plight, and, overnight, thanks to a film on YouTube, millions more people were made aware of it. Success, then.
Criticism #2: Invisible Children is not financially accountable.
According to some of the internet, Invisible Children refuses to co-operate with the Better Business Bureau – an organisation that investigates the ethical nature of companies.
Also, according to the Charity Navigator (a website I was unaware of until today), Invisible Children is unimpressively transparent.
Criticism #3: Invisible Children lies.
According to an article published by the Council on Foreign Relations:
In their campaigns, such organizations [as Invisible Children] have manipulated facts for strategic purposes, exaggerating the scale of LRA abductions and murders and emphasizing the LRA's use of innocent children as soldiers, and portraying Kony -- a brutal man, to be sure -- as uniquely awful, a Kurtz-like embodiment of evil.
Criticism #4: Invisible Children wants to flood Uganda with weapons.
OK... This is a picture of Jason Russell, Bobby Bailey and Laren Poole, the filmmakers who founded Invisible Children and made Kony 2012.
Oh dear. Bad idea, guys. I mean, don't get me wrong, if VICE ever see fit to send me to somewhere like Congo, the first thing I'll do is get a Facebook picture of me with a gun. But then I'm not lobbying for the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (who, I'm informed, have been accused of rape and looting) to be armed by America.
I'm not an expert, but isn't the history of arming one group of guys to go and kill another group of guys in some far away country nearly always a really shitty idea? Doesn't it lead to ethnic cleansing, extremism, revenge, tribal conflict and general misery? Maybe not, as I say, I'm no expert.
Criticism #5: Invisible Children is staffed by douchebags.
Now when I first watched the Kony 2012 video, there was a horrible pang of self-knowledge as I finally grasped quite how shallow I am. I found it impossible to completely overlook the smug indie-ness of it all. It reminded me of a manipulative technology advert, or the Kings of Leon video where they party with black families, or the 30 Seconds to Mars video where all the kids talk about how Jared Leto's music saved their lives. I mean, watch the first few seconds of this again. It's pompous twaddle with no relevance to fucking anything.
However, the central message – stop this cunt Kony killing and raping innocent children in their thousands – is a very powerful one. So I looked beyond my snobbery.
But, maybe I was wrong to. Chris Blattman, who's an Assistant Professor of Political Science and Economics at Yale, wrote this blog about Invisible Children, effectively just calling them twats. He starts by dissing their "hipster tie" and cowboy hats, before moving on to accuse them of being post-colonialists.
................................................................
So, now I'm in a bit of a quandary. I'm worried that the real reason I went to seek out the downsides of the Kony 2012 phenomenon was simply because I'm a snob who enjoys bursting people's bubbles, and because I find the promotional film they made for it embarrassingly produced. What a horrible reason that would be to ignore a charity.
The film Kony 2012 began because the filmmakers went to Uganda and met a young boy so traumatised by his experiences that he was contemplating suicide. Confronted with the grotesque reality of the atrocities, the Western filmmakers did what I hope I'd do, and resolved to help. No matter what. With that in mind, does it matter if they get paid well? Does it matter if they massage the facts? Does it matter that their charity isn't completely accountable? Does is matter that they're naive prats who think it's the white man's job to save Africa? Or is that all just pompous hypothesising by Westerners with enough freedom, information and education to look down on a simple, kind act?
Isn't it better to just stop criticising and start helping children in need? Or is that the kind of blind interventionist attitude that throws countries like Afghanistan into very, very long wars?
I don't bloody know. Soz.
(Thanks to all the blogs and people on reddit that I ripped off, BTW.)
Follow Alex on Twitter: @terriblesoup
To get involved with Kony 2012, click here.
For more information about why you SHOULDN'T donate to Kony 2012, click here.
If you're in the mood for more horrible tales about people getting hurt in Central and Eastern Africa this lunchtime, why not check out these:
The VICE Guide to Congo
VICE News: Inside SudanIf you live or work in a major UK city, the news that homelessness is rising will come as no surprise. I have a friend who spends most of his time abroad and returns to London once every few months or so. He told me that each time he visits, he’s struck by the noticeable increase in the number of people sleeping rough.
In one of the wealthiest countries in the world, many of us have grown accustomed to averting our eyes as we pass figures hunched in doorways – perhaps chucking a small handful of loose change into a styrofoam cup before hurrying on our way. Though these little acts of charity do not offer any long-term solution, they’re enough to allay our guilt for a while. We’re good people. We care. We might not be able to fix things, but we’re doing what we can.
Number of homeless in Britain expected to double by 2041, Crisis warns Read more
It’s natural to feel helpless in the face of suffering on any significant scale – especially if you’re also contending with problems of your own. The truth is, though, homelessness in the UK is a national scandal. Rough sleeping is the most visible aspect of the problem, but a report released today by the charity Crisis reveals it’s only the tip of the iceberg.
There are many more people forced to flit between friends’ sofas, and sometimes sleeping outside on an occasional basis. Others are stuck in hostels and other unsuitable temporary accommodation. I’ve spoken to people who actually prefer to sleep on a park bench than in a hostel bed, at least when the weather is good, because they consider the risk of theft and violence greater in the latter environment.
Analysis conducted on behalf of Crisis by Heriot-Watt University predicts that, unless significant changes are made, the number of people forced into homelessness in Britain will double by 2041 – rising to 575,000. The majority affected will be “sofa surfers” but the number of people sleeping rough will more than quadruple, from 9,100 in 2016 up to 40,100. Since the Conservatives came to power in 2010, homelessness has already doubled. What makes this figure so disgusting is that it’s the entirely predictable consequence of deliberate policy choices.
When the Tories decided to cut local council budgets, it was inevitable that housing support services would suffer. When they entirely removed housing benefit from 18- to 21-year-olds, it was certain that young people would be forced on to the streets. When they opted to impose an arbitrary cap on the maximum amount a household can receive in welfare, it was housing benefit that was cut. Never mind that the money goes straight into landlords’ pockets and tenants are not responsible for sky-high rents. Never mind that families with young children were sure to be forced out of their homes as a result.
Another, more humane, method of reducing the housing benefit bill would have been replenishing social housing stock – but the Conservatives are unwilling to countenance such a move as they believe it would just “create Labour voters”.
Crisis suggests a series of measures to avert an escalation of the current homelessness catastrophe, all of which are sensible and achievable. A 60% increase in new housing. Adequately funding local councils, to allow them to offer necessary emergency support. Mental health services – which have faced significant cuts in recent years – are also essential to support many rough sleepers. In particular, there’s frequently a gap in provision for people with dual diagnosis of addiction and another mental health problem.
The issue isn’t that we don’t know how to fix things – it’s that the current government is choosing not to. We have a collective duty to pressure the Conservatives to take responsibility and address the crisis they are currently actively exacerbating. And at the next election, maybe we can choose a party that has a track record of viewing the wellbeing of its most disadvantaged citizens as a priority.
• Abi Wilkinson is a freelance journalistCeleste Briglia, 60, closes up for the day at the yarn store she runs in Port St. Lucie, Fla. After losing money on the shop for a couple of years, she made a small profit last year — “just about enough to buy a hamburger at McDonald’s,” she joked. She and her husband. Lonnie Briglia, have been on the fence about whether they would take part in SNAP but said they might do it if desperate. Many low-income seniors qualify to participate in the program but do not receive the benefit, often because they are too proud or unaware of it.
April 14, 2013 Celeste Briglia, 60, closes up for the day at the yarn store she runs in Port St. Lucie, Fla. After losing money on the shop for a couple of years, she made a small profit last year — “just about enough to buy a hamburger at McDonald’s,” she joked. She and her husband. Lonnie Briglia, have been on the fence about whether they would take part in SNAP but said they might do it if desperate. Many low-income seniors qualify to participate in the program but do not receive the benefit, often because they are too proud or unaware of it. Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post
More people than ever rely on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps. This is in part due to a bad economy, but it’s also because hundreds of recruiters now work to enroll people in the government program. State governments have realized that, with more people on the SNAP program, more federal money comes into the local economy. We take a look at the jurisdiction of Dillie Nerios, a recruiter in Florida, as she works toward her monthly quota of signing up 150 people.
More people than ever rely on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps. This is in part due to a bad economy, but it’s also because hundreds of recruiters now work to enroll people in the government program.
More people than ever rely on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps. This is in part due to a bad economy, but it’s also because hundreds of recruiters now work to enroll people in the government program.
A good recruiter needs to be liked, so Dillie Nerios filled gift bags with dog toys for the dog people and cat food for the cat people. She packed crates of cookies, croissants, vegetables and fresh fruit. She curled her hair and painted her nails fluorescent pink. “A happy, it’s-all-good look,” she said, checking her reflection in the rearview mirror. Then she drove along the Florida coast to sign people up for food stamps.
Her destination on a recent morning was a 55-and-over community in central Florida, where single-wide trailers surround a parched golf course. On the drive, Nerios, 56, reviewed techniques she had learned for connecting with some of |
-1230V5B
Package: RETAIL
Manufacturer: Intel
Manufacturer Part#: BX80662E31230V5
Shipping Weight: 0.75 lbs.(0.34 kg)
Part#:Package:Manufacturer:Manufacturer Part#:Shipping Weight: Price: $263.00
Free Shipping (Restrictions Apply)
Close Free shipping valid for the lower 48 contiguous United States. Out of Stock ( Wait, what? )
Quantity: Share: Product Info Reviews Warranty
Product Info: Specifications Mfr Part Number: BX80662E31230V5
BX80662E31230V5
Model: Intel Xeon Processor E3-1230 v5
Intel Xeon Processor E3-1230 v5
Core Name: Skylake
Skylake
Core Count: 4
4
Thread Count: 8
8
Clock Speed: 3.4 GHz
3.4 GHz
Max Turbo Frequency: 3.8 GHz
3.8 GHz
Intel Smart Cache: 8 MB
8 MB
DMI3: 8.0 GT/s
8.0 GT/s
Lithography: 14 nm
14 nm
Socket: LGA 1151
LGA 1151
Max Thermal Design Power: 80 W
80 W
Memory Type: DDR4-1866/ 2133, DDR3L-1333/ 1600
DDR4-1866/ 2133, DDR3L-1333/ 1600
Max Memory Bandwidth: 34.1 GB/s
34.1 GB/s
Max CPU Configuration: 1
1
Advanced Technologies: Intel Turbo Boost 2.0 Technology Intel vPro Technology Intel Hyper-Threading Technology Intel Virtualization Technology (VT-x) Intel Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O (VT-d) Intel VT-x with Extended Page Tables (EPT) Intel TSX-NI Intel 64 Architecture Idle States Enhanced Intel SpeedStep Technology Thermal Monitoring Technologies AES New Instructions Intel Secure Key OS Guard Intel Trusted Execution Technology Execute Disable Bit
* Product descriptions and part numbers are subject to change, and may not reflect manufacturer product changes. Please check the manufacturer's website and use the item's manufacturer part number to find the most up to date product description.
* Product descriptions and part numbers are subject to change, and may not reflect manufacturer product changes. Please check the manufacturer's website and use the item's manufacturer part number to find the most up to date product description.At Georgia State University, algorithms alert advisers when a student falls behind in class. Course-planning tools tell students the classes and majors they're likely to complete, based on the performance of other students like them. When students swipe their ID cards to attend a tutoring or financial-literacy session, the university can send attendance data to advisers and staff.
Colleges are analyzing all kinds of student data to figure out who needs extra support and when advisers and faculty should intervene. But as technology advances, and students' offline and online lives become more intertwined, data analytics—particularly, predictive analytics—may raise more ethical questions.
Georgia State started using predictive analytics in 2012. It worked with the Education Advisory Board, a consulting company, to analyze millions of past course grades and create algorithms that identify signs of academic struggle—from the obvious, such as failing a class, to the not-so-obvious, such as barely passing a core class required for a major. The system can predict students' likelihood of success in any major.
The university has since added financial-aid data (and will add card swipe data) to the predictive model to create a more comprehensive assessment of every student's progress. All the data work has helped the university target outreach to more than 32,000 students, many of whom are low-income, African-American, or Hispanic.
Such data analysis is legal and performed with students' interests in mind. But it still raises privacy and ethics concerns, say Joel Reidenberg, founding academic director of the Center on Law and Information Policy at Fordham University.
Even when colleges are collecting aggregate data and scrubbing it of personally identifiable information, if they use it to guide individuals, that's surveillance, he says.
"You have to do the data-mining to be able to profile the individual. And you're taking action based on the data-mined profile," he says.
Should students be told that universities are mining their data?
"We have thought about that," says Timothy Renick, vice president for enrollment management and student success at Georgia State. He says that if a student were to complain, the university would stop tracking them. So far, the university's received nothing but positive feedback from students.
It's now routine for websites of all kinds to customize experiences based on data analytics. Young people have different expectations of privacy; after all, they grew up sharing personal information on social media.
"What's happening now with the university's interaction with them is not that different from what's been happening on Facebook, and other places—Amazon, and so forth," Renick says.
The average college has nothing close to the analytic capacity of Facebook or Amazon. But, in theory, colleges could data-mine almost every aspect of a student's life. Institutions can track what students say in online course discussion forums, who downloads the lecture notes, and how long he or she spent reviewing online material. Institutions can track ID card swipes to record students' physical movements, from the dining hall to the health center.
Institutions can build or purchase software, like the Knewton platform, that analyzes students' every keystroke to figure out their learning style.
"The NSA has nothing on the ed tech start-up known as Knewton," Politico wrote earlier this year. Some of the data learning applications collect doesn't fall under the federal government's definition of 'educational record,' and thus doesn't fall under laws that restrict the kind of data colleges can and cannot share with third parties.
Some experts are starting to question how universal data collection could affect the educational experience. Matt Pittinsky is a data guy: He cofounded Blackboard, a learning management system, serves as the chief executive officer of Parchment, an education technology company, and teaches sociology at Arizona State University.
Right now, most colleges analyze too little data, Pittinsky says, and fail to address completion and quality issues as a result. But he's sometimes troubled by what he hears at education-technology conferences. Last year, he challenged a fellow panelist: "I just sort of stopped and said, I think you're describing a state of education where every interaction a learner is having with a faculty member and with each other [online] is tracked and used to form judgments about them, to form judgments about people like them, to form judgments about the next group of people like them."
"There's something worth talking about in that," he says. Pittinsky worries that the back and forth of classroom inquiry might be stifled if faculty and students knew every keystroke they made, even every word they spoke, was being recorded and used to make predictions about them.
Predictive tools could convince educators and students that the academic future is predetermined, in the same way that placing students into "honors" or "regular" grade school classes can end up defining them.
"What begins as the notion of pacing education to each learner's abilities at the time can very quickly become a solidified view of what someone is able to do and what someone is not able to do, with very heavy-handed direction given to them about what they then have access to," Pittinsky says.
Universities should be able to navigate privacy and ethical issues: They are, after all, packed with people who conduct research and ponder big questions for a living. With well-trained advisers and well-designed tools, predictive analytics needn't pigeon-hole students into one major over another.
At the heart of the debate over predictive technology are two competing visions for a college education. Should college be a period when students can find their passion, make mistakes and learn from them? Or does that approach doom some students—particularly, underrepresented students—to failure?
"What we were doing in the past wasn't working," Renick says. Under Georgia State's former, less proactive advising system, students whose parents had gone to college were fine, but first-generation students floundered. "They left with high amounts of debt and no degree. That was not an acceptable program," Renick says.
(Image via Maksim Kabakou/ Shutterstock.com)Quote Beloved off-road racing series given new life as key team members reform ahead of 2014 release
2014 promises to be a very happy New Year for fans of extreme racing, as Nordic Games has unveiled its plans to revive the best-selling MX vs. ATV series.
Nordic Games secured the rights to the MX vs. ATV series as part of its agreement to acquire a range of THQ’s intellectual property earlier this year. Now the firm can reveal it has assembled a team of former MX vs. ATV staff along with other, high-profile developers to properly resurrect the franchise. This dedicated team will be taking it to even greater heights while retaining the ingredients that made MX vs. ATV so successful. It's no coincidence the team is based in Phoenix Arizona where it all began in the mid-90s. Perhaps one can be forgiven for borrowing from the well-worn cliché: the Phoenix has truly risen from the (digital) ashes.
Led by Ken George and comprising of numerous MX vs. ATV staff along with game development veterans including Dave Dwire, Chris Gilbert, Mike Mamula, Brad Bowling, Scott Hofmann, Justin Walsh, and David Knudsen, the new team’s first title will be MX vs. ATV Supercross due for release in the first half of 2014 for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC, Mac and Linux. As the title suggests, MX vs. ATV Supercross is centered around the popular Supercross sport and has the scope of a downloadable game.
The team is also maintaining the existing MX vs. ATV Alive and MX vs. ATV Reflex code and bringing back as many features as possible including multiplayer on consoles, Motoclub Depot, and more to be announced soon.
"We're absolutely thrilled to be working with Nordic Games because they appreciate the team's passion and dedication to bring the feel of real motocross racing to MX vs. ATV fans. Not just the adrenaline rush, but the whole experience from top to bottom.", says Ken George, Executive Producer of MX vs. ATV Supercross. "A lot of the original team members have been aching to continue their passion: building the most authentic off-road racing games possible. The hiatus is over, and the team is back to work on MX vs. ATV with great new things to come."
“We’re all devoted fans of the MX vs. ATV games,” adds Reinhard Pollice, Business & Product Development Director at Nordic Games, “so being able to play a part in continuing this brilliant series is a dream come true. We’re absolutely committed to ensuring Ken and his team receive the best support and the freedom to create the games they love making – and we’re confident that the series will continue to grow from strength to strength. Supercross is just the start of our MX vs. ATV plans. 2014 and beyond will prove to be a hell of a ride.”
Further details on MX vs. ATV Supercross will be announced in due time.
Some fun news for you all, Nordic Games are reviving the MX vs. ATV series of games and they have planned Linux support.After getting the rights from the sale of THQ they assembled a team to bring back the off-road bike racer!MX vs. ATV is a'supercross' racer where you are off-roading doing jumps, flips and getting very muddy.The title of the new game in the series will be called 'MX vs. ATV Supercross' and will hit our digital shelves in early 2014.Looks like this is one of the games that Nordic recently hinted at when they gave hints at wider Linux support, good news!Full release:Without most Americans noticing, our country has become deeply complicit in a humanitarian catastrophe. In Yemen, a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia is ruthlessly bombing civilian infrastructure, such as schools, hospitals and the bridges that bring food from seaports to the desert interior. Not only have thousands of Yemeni civilians died in these airstrikes, but millions have been pushed to the edge of famine.
On the one hand, American diplomats are working admirably to bring the warring parties to the negotiating table, and the United States is the largest donor of humanitarian aid to assist suffering Yemenis. But in parallel to this, the Saudis are bombing Yemeni targets with billions of dollars’ worth of American bombs, refueling their fighter jets from American tankers, and receiving American intelligence for their air raids.
Americans are demonstrating heightened levels of political engagement as we debate our future under a Trump presidency. It is high time for us to expend some of this energy to understand the ethical consequences of our country’s policy in Yemen, and to require that our elected officials — such as U.S. Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King — explain their support for the Saudi war knowing its consequences for civilians.
Around 10,000 Yemenis have perished in the fighting that began when Houthi rebels seized control of the country from its elected president in 2014. The Houthis, who have received some arms covertly from Iran, have been responsible for a significant proportion of civilians deaths. They have conducted artillery sieges of government-held cities, kidnapped and likely executed their political enemies, and disrupted delivery of humanitarian aid. International observers call the rebels brutal, incompetent and intolerant.
But a January report by the United Nations attributes at least 60 percent of civilian casualties to airstrikes from the Saudi-led coalition that is fighting the Houthi rebels to return to power the ousted president and counter Iranian influence. The report concluded that the airstrikes are either planned with total incompetence or deliberately target noncombatants. Many appear to be war crimes. Human Rights Watch and the Yemen-based Mwatama Organization for Human Rights have documented dozens of airstrikes on civilian objects with no discernable military target nearby, including multiple hits on weddings and other public gatherings. One strike “ double tapped” a crowded funeral hall, first bombing the mourners and then those who ran to help them, killing more than 100 civilians.
Human Rights Watch documented destruction of factories, food warehouses and power plants, which “raise[s] serious concerns that the Saudi led coalition has deliberately sought to inflict widespread damage to Yemen’s production capacity.” Amnesty International makes an even more serious accusation — that the coalition is deliberately targeting schools. Doctors Without Borders reports that four hospitals it supports were hit by coalition airstrikes, indicating a seemingly systematic move to deny emergency health care.
Yet, the deaths directly attributable to airstrikes show only a fraction of the suffering. Yemen is on the edge of a catastrophic famine, one of the largest in modern history. The general chaos of war has contributed much to this disaster, and the Houthi rebels have blocked movement of some aid convoys to cities they are sieging. But the blame is overwhelmingly with the Saudi-led coalition.
For more than a year, its forces have imposed a naval blockade on a country that imports 90 percent of its food and fuel. Its jets have pounded public infrastructure needed to move food in the country’s interior, including two strikes on a bridge to the capital Sanaa that the Obama administration allegedly warned the Saudis not to bomb for humanitarian reasons, and the crucially important al-Hudaydah port. After pressure from Western allies, the coalition lifted the strict blockade, but it still obstructs many humanitarian aid shipments. It is blocking a U.N. ship with new cranes for al-Hudaydah — to replace those the Saudis destroyed — that would dramatically increase the port’s capacity. Two cranes would work 24 hours a day unloading emergency food aid from the World Food Program.
Save the Children, a U.K.-based charity, has accused the Saudis of blocking three ships full of medicine needed to serve 300,000 urgently ill civilians. “These delays are killing children. Our teams are dealing with outbreaks of cholera, and children suffering from diarrhea, measles, malaria and malnutrition. With the right medicines these are all completely treatable — but the Saudi-led coalition is stopping them getting in. They are turning aid and commercial supplies into weapons of war.”
The top U.N. official for for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief sums up the consequences for Yemen: “Seven million people in Yemen do not know where they will find their next meal. They urgently need food assistance to survive. Almost 500,000 children under 5 years of age suffer severe acute malnutrition. A child dies every 10 minutes of preventable causes.” Experts estimate that just three to four months remain to prevent a famine that could claim millions of lives.
When the man-made famine is taken into account, these crimes could easily match and exceed those of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad against his own people, which American authorities vigorously denounce. But at best our leaders have scolded the Saudis behind the scenes, without using the enormous leverage we have over them as the guarantors of their regional security. President Barack Obama belatedly reduced armed sales to Saudi Arabia when the carnage they were causing became too conspicuous, but President Donald Trump proposes to resume and expand them, based on the questionable characterization of the Houthi rebels as Iranian puppets.
Rex Tillerson told U.S. senators during his confirmation hearing to be U.S. secretary of state that that by providing the Saudis with more precision guided bombs and targeting intelligence, the U.S. could help them “ to avoid mistakenly identifying targets where civilians are hit.” This statement ignores the mounting evidence that the Saudi-led alliance is deliberately and systematically striking civilian targets.
And U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis has floated the idea of direct U.S. assistance in a Saudi offensive to take the al-Hudaydah port, which the U.N. warns could disrupt food shipments enough to jump-start the famine. Reportedly, Trump believes that he can begin such an operation without consulting Congress by citing the Authorization for the Use of Force that Congress passed in 2001 to fight al-Qaida. It is worth remembering that for all their faults, the Houthis are bitter enemies of the terrorist group that document authorizes our armed forces to fight.
Mainers deeply value Collins’ and King’s thoughtfulness and willingness to take independent stands. Their extensive background in national security and foreign affairs position them to make a rational assessment of our country’s policy in Yemen. Is there truly a compelling national interest at stake that could justify abetting such horrible suffering? Will helping the Saudis reduce Yemen to chaotic ruins help us address what King has identified as our priority in the region — the defeat of al-Qaida and the Islamic State?
Where are their voices in the Senate? In 2016, their colleagues Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Rand Paul of Kentucky proposed curtailing arms sales to the Saudis, but they voted against the measure. Another debate in the Senate is likely in the near future as the U.S. prepares a major new sale of precision guided munitions — smart bombs — to Saudi Arabia. Considering the serious allegations against the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, will they support providing the Saudis with such powerful weapons, the likes of which have already killed so many Yemeni civilians?
Even more importantly, will Collins and King and U.S. Reps. Chellie Pingree and Bruce Poliquin let the president embroil us directly in this destructive war without congressional debate? A bipartisan letter to the president and U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has been drafted by lawmakers to counter this move. Will the Maine delegation sign it?
Four months remain until famine begins
Brian Milakovsky is from Somerville. He works for a humanitarian organization in eastern Ukraine.Gagandeep Singh Khalsa might seem like an unlikely name for a Catalan nationalist. And indeed, before he moved to Barcelona from India nine years ago, Khalsa didn’t even know the region’s inhabitants had their own language, culture and history — or that many of them wanted to break away from Spain.
Today, Khalsa is an independentista, part of a large migrant population whose views Catalonia’s separatists are hoping will prove critical if the region holds a planned referendum on independence on October 1.
The region is “always shortchanged,” says Khalsa, a spokesman for the Catalonian Sikh community. Catalonia, he’s convinced, doesn’t need Madrid. “We’ve got everything,” he says.
At a time of rising xenophobia across Europe, Catalonian nationalists have been remarkably welcoming toward migrants. That stance has the potential of paying off.
Between 2000 and 2010, the region’s population swelled by 20 percent to 7.5 million — an increase driven in large part by immigration. While many of those new arrivals can’t vote, a growing number can.
Between 2009 and 2015, some 220,000 people became naturalized Spanish citizens in Catalonia — equivalent to about 3 percent of the region’s population. Saoka Kingolo, an independence campaigner focusing on migrants, said that up to 500,000 foreign-born Catalans will be eligible to vote in the referendum.
That’s not a big number. But it could nonetheless be decisive. If Catalan’s independentistes are to eke out a victory, it’s likely to be a close one. A recent poll put the vote for leaving Spain at 44.3 percent, just over 4 points behind remaining at 48.5 percent (if the region is able to overcome Madrid’s resistance to holding a referendum at all).
Polls on Catalonian independence are notoriously volatile, but they show a few clear broad trends. Voters with Catalan parents are overwhelmingly for independence, while those with parents from other parts of Spain are cool to the concept.
Recent migrants lie somewhere in the middle, almost evenly split between those who would vote for independence, those who would choose to remain part of Spain and those who would abstain, according to a 2013 poll by the Institute of Political and Social Sciences of the Autonomous University of Barcelona.
That makes them fertile ground for those seeking to break with Madrid, and independence campaigners have set out to win over the region’s new arrivals with welcoming rhetoric and promises of policies that would make it easier to obtain work permits and citizenship.
If every legal resident could be granted a vote and convinced to go to the ballot box, the unionists would suffer “a thrashing,” says Diego Arcos, a spokesman for Barcelona’s Argentinian community.
“We’re talking 10 percent of the electorate,” says independence campaigner Kingolo, who is leading a team of 12 people reaching out to migrants at the Catalan National Assembly, a pro-independence grassroots organization. “If they are motivated [to vote], the impact of their vote would be great,” Kingolo says.
Growing participation
Catalans separatists will tell you the independence movement began in the 18th century, when Catalan forces were defeated by the Spanish crown in the War of Spanish Succession in 1714. But as a cause it only really took off in the 20th century.
The region enjoyed a brief moment of autonomy in the 1930s before being brutally suppressed following the Spanish Civil War. The Catalan language was banned from schools and public offices until 1975.
Separatism has taken on new life over the last decade, as Catalans chafe at what they say is heavy-handed treatment by the central government.
"It’s a country that doesn’t ask anyone to get rid of its own identity.” Instead, it encourages them “to be part of a diverse and shared society” — Oriol Amorós, Catalan secretary for equality, migration and citizenship
In 2015, a coalition of pro-independence parties campaigned in regional elections promising to break away from Spain if they won — which they did. Once in power, they promised to hold a binding referendum on independence no later than September this year — a move Madrid says would violate the Spanish constitution.
The approaching vote makes the subject difficult to avoid, even for those who may not be well-acquainted with it.
“Nowadays, you have to say if you are for independence or not,” says Míriam Hatibi, a spokeswoman for Ibn Battuta, an NGO that helps migrants, primarily Muslims, integrate into Catalan society.
More and more recent arrivals are getting involved in politics, she’s noticed. “The first one [to get involved] was 10 years ago. Now you can’t count them, there are so many.”
And as migrants have gotten interested in politics, Catalan parties have sought to harness their participation, painting it as an opportunity to help create an ideal state in which they will be fully represented.
For Ana María Surra, the argument was compelling. Born in Uruguay, Surra moved to Catalonia to be closer to her son, who lives in Barcelona. She arrived in the city to celebrate her grandson’s first birthday in 2005, and never left.
Now an MP for the Catalan Republican Left (ERC) party, a member of the ruling coalition, Surra also founded a group called Sí, amb Nosaltres (Yes, with Us) a pro-independence group of Catalan residents originally from elsewhere.
The (migrant) case for independence
The classic case for Catalan independence, Surra says, is based on two factors: identity and economics. Catalonia is a nation with a distinct language, history and culture. And since the region pays more in taxes to the national government than it takes out, it merits full control over its finances.
For migrants, the case for independence looks a little different. Its appeal lies the promises of employment, papers and dignity.
Free from Spain’s “plunder” of its resources, says Surra, the Catalan government would be able to provide migrants with better employment opportunities.
Under Spanish labor laws, many recent migrants are unable to secure proper contracts with paid holidays. That would be fixed in an independent Catalonia, she claims.
“When we can have papers, we are going to be citizens of the first category, like everyone else,” Surra says. “We will able to vote, we will be able to participate in public life, we will be giving a bonus to the future Catalan republic as migrants.”
Oriol Amorós, the Catalan government’s secretary for equality, migration and citizenship, says the ERC intends to grant immediate citizenship to all legal residents living in Catalonia when it becomes independent.
Even if legal residents can’t vote in the referendum, “they will be immediately added to the new Catalan electoral body to express their opinion in the, for example, the referendum for a new Catalan constitution.”
He also intends to provide visas for people searching for job opportunities, as well as group visas to help citizens and residents bring their families over — all within EU parameters — he added, since the region hopes to maintain its membership in the bloc after independence.
Catalonia is a ‘nation of immigrants’ much like the United States, Amorós says. “Catalonia has been built thanks to many waves of migrations.”
People come to Catalonia — and end up staying — “because it’s a country that doesn’t ask anyone to get rid of its own identity.” Instead, it encourages them “to be part of a diverse and shared society — that is, to become Catalan.”
When the ERC had to appoint a senator in Madrid earlier this year, it chose Robert Masih Nahar, an Indian who moved to Barcelona 12 years ago. In office, Nahar has worked to convince fellow parliamentarians to allow the referendum to take place later this year.
“When you are living here, the emotion that you feel, the strong feeling of … self-determination is very strong,” says Nahar.
Hands to hands, we join we raise our voices, for our rights, to want we give in our work, we have the right to make our own choices. pic.twitter.com/qhrvHQTnyY — Robert Masih Nahar (@rmnahar) May 1, 2017
Avui ens hem trobat amb la comunitat punjabi a vic amb @ERCVic @Esquerra_ERC @ERCbcn @immigracio_erc gràcies a tothom per ser hi pic.twitter.com/AAiG8Qgz95 — Robert Masih Nahar (@rmnahar) May 6, 2017
Catalonia Dreaming
Marta Pascal, the secretary-general of the ruling Partit Democrata, the ERC’s coalition partner, outlined Catalonia’s pro-migrant philosophy, what she calls “the Catalan Dream.”
“This is a prosperous and interesting territory in the south of Europe where the Catalan Dream … works,” Pascal says. If you come to Catalonia and speak Catalan, Pascal says, you will belong.
“In my city, Vic, you can see students in the school, boys and girls in the streets … coming from different nationalities, and speaking lovely Catalan.” She smiles. “You say, something is working.”
For Khalsa, the Sikh spokesperson, the path to separatism also passed through the language. Now 31, Khalsa quickly picked up Spanish after first arriving from India in his early twenties. His teacher recommended he learn Catalan and help his community — Punjabis from India and Pakistan — acclimate to life in Catalonia.
For Khalsa, switching from Spanish to Catalan was not only expedient, but also transformative.
When he started out, “they [Catalan people] appreciated me for speaking only two to four words of Catalan.” He was amazed.
“I thought my beard or turban would create distance, but they are very happy to hear Catalan,” he says. “I have never seen a country love its language so much.”
He soon stopped speaking Spanish altogether.
Does he feel Catalan? “The feelings inside me are mixed. I am Sikh, I am Punjabi, but I think I am now Catalan as well.”
Any Spanish feeling? “Nothing at all.”
Khalsa won’t be able to vote if there’s a referendum; he’s not yet naturalized. But that doesn’t stop him from campaigning for separation. On May 9, he was joined on stage by Catalan President Carles Puigdemont, who had written a foreword to Khalsa’s new book — a Catalan language guide for the region’s Punjabi community.
Picking a fight with Madrid
For many migrants, however, promises of self-determination have a double edge.
Campaigning for independence is an act of privilege, says Huma Jamshed, a naturalized Catalan resident from Pakistan and the head of ACESOP, a Barcelona-based NGO that helps integrate Pakistani women into their new communities.
“You need financial independence, you need an aptitude for language, you need to have been culturally integrated, you need to be young [the process for Spanish citizenship takes up to 10 years], maybe you’ve married a Spanish woman, so have no further family members to bring.”
Despite the success of many integration schemes, racism still haunts the lives of many new Catalans.
Only then, she says, can you “pick a fight with the government.”
The Pakistani community in Catalonia have “got their own problems,” says Jamshed. The activist spends most of her time fighting against the eviction of families who find themselves on the wrong side of Barcelona’s gentrification or “urban renewal” schemes.
Many migrants fear reprisals, imaginary or not, from the national government for supporting independence. Madrid could withhold passports from legal residents, or not issue visas to loved ones abroad, Jamshed argues. And the Catalan government doesn’t have embassies in India or Pakistan.
Despite the success of many integration schemes, racism still haunts the lives of many new Catalans. Jamshed says she was discriminated against at her former position in the Barcelona city council.
Fatima Taleb, a city councilor in a Barcelona suburb, was subjected to a wave of racist and Islamophobic abuse related to her Moroccan heritage and Muslim faith since she took office in 2015. Khalsa says he has to issue statements in defense of the Sikh community whenever there is an Islamic terror attack. He complains that many compare his appearance to Osama bin Laden’s.
Nahar, the senator, attributes the abuse Taleb faced to the suburb’s former conservative mayor, Xavier García Albiol, a unionist belonging to Spain’s ruling Popular Party, who was charged — and later acquitted — of racism after his government spread pamphlets that equated Roma people with delinquency.
Referring to racist abuse he suffered after being appointed senator, Nahar attributed it to people from outside the region.
“It’s not Catalan to be exclusive like that,” he said.
Gašper Završnik contributed to this report.Peak & Prairie
Rocky Mountain Chapter's
Online Newsletter
June / July 1998
Toxic Tours? Rocky Mountain Arsenal: Update
by Sandy Horrocks, Angela Medbury, Dorothy Colagiovanni, and Sue Maret
Rocky Mountain Arsenal (RMA) is a 27 square mile superfund site northeast of Denver. RMA was initially used by the US Army to produce chemical weapons, such as Sarin and Lewisite. It was later leased to Shell Chemical Company for the production of pesticides. There were over 600 documented chemicals produced on the arsenal. Because of inadequate handling of chemicals used in production processes, irresponsible waste treatment procedures, and explosives testing, contaminants have leached into groundwater and have been dispersed by wind onto soil on arsenal property.
Amid this contamination and the current remediation efforts, public tours are offered on RMA. This is the only superfund site in our nation that allows public tours unrelated to clean-up activities. In addition, volunteers are regularly on site as guides and conducting research while school children and families are encouraged to frequent RMA for wildlife viewing. These tours are a source of disagreement between regulatory agencies and citizen/environmental advocacy groups. Whether or not you feel this is the correct thing to do prior to completion of clean-up, we are shortly going to be facing a new situation.Although calculations of risk to human health on RMA indicate that it is currently safe to visit this facility, major clean-up efforts are about to begin and are anticipated to continue until at least the year 2011. Vast amounts of contaminated soil from various on-site arsenal sites will be moved and contained in landfills or capped in several locations. With soil movement the potential for dispersion of soil particles with attached contaminants (i.e. dieldrin or DDT) or volatile chemicals (i.e. benzene) being released greatly increases. During the soil relocation efforts no plans have been made to discontinue public tours. The RMA Subcommittee is concerned about visitor access to RMA during major soil movements. Although emergency procedures are planned in the event of a problem, there is potential for visitor exposure to hazardous chemicals. Visitors could be on the arsenal if a release occurred and evacuation would then occur after the fact. We are especially concerned for school children who may be particularly sensitive to chemical contamination.
We find the visitor policy disturbing. Documentation of current wildlife health problems on RMA have shown pesticide poisoning within a half mile of the visitor's center. Some examples of wildlife contamination which have occurred on RMA include:
Rabbit and badger deaths following convulsions. A badger tested positive for dieldrin poisoning with 75 PPM measured in its body fat.
Large numbers of bird deaths, including raptors, with high concentrations of organochlorine pesticides (such as those on RMA) in brain tissue.
All prairie dogs tested show some dieldrin contamination.
Documented health problems in deer (testicular atrophy, antler velvet problems).
Earthworms, even in areas considered relatively clean on RMA, tested positive for arsenic and dieldrin.
Additionally, a citizens subcommittee tasked to establish community health criteria has determined that air quality on RMA may be a problem during remediation. For example, the chemical of concern, dieldrin, presently shows high concentrations at interior sampling stations. At the arsenal fenceline, however, further sampling shows it reduced to background levels. The potential for additional chemical exposures to visitors close to remediation sites is worrisome.
We think common sense needs to be used during the clean-up of RMA. It does not seem logical to our committee that citizens should be allowed on a site where accidental releases of DDT, arsenic, chlordane, dioxins, mercury, dieldrin, and chemical agents could take place during soil movements. Why take the chance of exposure to these toxins? After all, there will be plenty of time following remediation for the public to visit the area. We would advocate limiting visitor access during the soil movement efforts.
The RMA principle responsible parties are drafting recommendations for the clean-up. Numerous proposals and plans are currently being evaluated for choosing the optimal techniques and specifications of landfill design, air monitoring criteria, biota health, and dust suppression. Many of these documents are available for public comment. If you are interested in more information on these issues, please contact Sandy Horrocks at (303) 470-1352.
[chapter/PANDP/footer.htm]Quakers Speak So Thoughtfully
I recently sat down with Jon Watts over at Quaker Speak. He creates wonderful videos about Quaker life and practice. They are all so thoughtful and insightful. A recent one featured George Lakey focused on non-violent responses to terrorism. I have watched it three times already.
You can also learn about Discernment or about the famous Quaker, John Woolman, or testimonies of people talking about their first time in Quaker meetings.
An Odd Duck of a Quaker
I love the series and watch all of the videos, so you would think I’d be thrilled when Jon contacted me and asked if he could film me. I wasn’t. I feel like such an oddball Quaker, like in Sesame Street when they sang, “One of these Things is Not Like the Others.”
My form of queer performance art goes down well with Quakers, but I did not think that it was a good fit for this sober, reflective wonderful web series.
In fact, the first time we attempted to film an interview, I had a dreadful cold and could only talk in a deep wet voice that sounded like a cross between Harvey Fierstein and Bea Arthur put through an audio filter on the frog setting.
The Reluctant Performance Artist
We tried again. Jon really wanted me to perform some of my monologues from my shows, but I resisted. Maybe because I like to be in control of my theater and to perform it in front of a live audience. While the content of shows may not change from performance to performance, each one is tailor-made for an audience. There is something extra special about the live presentation that can’t be captured on video.
So in our interview I only answered his questions and kept my characters and monologues to myself. He then asked permission to view my autobiographical play about my ex-gay experiences. It is something I have long ago retired and only now perform one short scene from it. It made sense to me that he go back and view it and see if it can be part of the interview.
Jon expertly edited in scenes from my play Doin’ Time in the Homo No Mo Halfway House, which was filmed in Memphis, TN back in 2008 and edited by the wonderful filmmaker, Morgan Jon Fox. Morgan also created the documentary, This is What Love in Action Looks Like. Jon Watts then wove in the play with the interview.
Trauma, Recovery, Survival
For the Quaker Speak video Jon asked me lots of questions about my years trying to de-gay myself through all sorts of conversion therapy programs and ex-gay Christian ministries.
He was especially interested in how |
lawsuit seeking an injunction ordering the reinstatement of the players and asking for damages for violation of their civil rights.
Judge Kerr in Cheyenne denied the injunction, and five months later threw the case out of court after a hearing, but without a trial. The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision on May 14, 1971, but, after a trial this time, Kerr again ruled for the state on Oct. 18, 1971. The appeals court eventually affirmed him.
Kerr had been admitted to the Wyoming bar in 1927, and served as a federal prosecutor and state attorney general before being appointed to the federal bench in 1955. During the hearing before his first dismissal, Kerr rejected the assertion by Weston Reeves, a Cheyenne attorney representing the Black 14, that the issue of race ran through the case.
"From my observation of almost half a century in Wyoming,” Kerr said at the hearing, “I have never known of any prejudice against any race in the state of Wyoming and I think the fact that the coach went out and solicited and gave scholarships to a large number of colored people is strong evidence that he was not prejudiced against any race." This prompted the NAACP in Cheyenne to point out that Cheyenne newspapers very recently had printed an article saying that the Wyoming Labor Commission had ruled that a black teacher had been discriminated against by the Rock River, Wyo. School Board.
The athletes’ accounts
When the case came before Kerr a second time, there was a trial in federal court in Cheyenne on Sept. 27, 1971.
Mel Hamilton, one of the 14, testified that he never told trustees he would not play against BYU without an armband. "Eaton agreed to speak with them [the players] at their request,” Hamilton said, “but then told them: 'Gentlemen, you can save time and breath. As of now you're off the football team.'"
Tony Gibson, another of the 14, told Ryan Thorburn, author of Black 14: The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of Wyoming Football, in a 2009 interview, "Students on the campus were planning a demonstration against the Mormon policies and we voted that we would take part in that demonstration. And our part was wearing black armbands, if coach Eaton would let us. If Eaton didn't let us, we would just play the game. That's the part that was never brought out enough after the fact."
In interviews the week after the BYU game, Eaton claimed he had given the players ten minutes to speak. But in interviews in national magazines the following November, Joe Williams denied it. "Like hell he gave us ten minutes” Williams told Sports Illustrated. “He came in, sneered at us and yelled that we were off the squad." In Jet, Williams was similarly quoted saying Eaton booted the players "before we had a chance to talk."
In an interview reported in the Laramie Boomerang on Sunday October 19th, Joe Williams stated: “We just wanted to discuss this in an intelligent manner. We wanted to play this game no matter what. We hadn't even decided to ask permission to wear the armbands during the game. … If only he had listened.”
Player Jay Berry said he joined the group not because of Mormon beliefs and policies, but because he had heard that Wyoming's black players had been mistreated at Provo the previous season. "We wanted to play BYU in the worst kind of way," he said, and he saw the visit to Eaton as "a starting point for negotiations." But Eaton, Berry said, "opened his statements to us by saying ‘were it not for him we would all be on Negro relief.’"
Eaton acknowledged at the Cheyenne hearing in 1971 that there was no discussion. He said, "They had already violated our coaching rule. There was no purpose in talking."
Reversal of fortunes
The events had a devastating effect on Wyoming football. After six games, UW was still unbeaten and still rated among the top 15 in the national polls. Many fans were convinced the Cowboys could continue their winning ways without any African-American players.
But protests against Eaton’s actions followed the Cowboys on the road, and they lost the last four games of the 1969 season by lopsided scores.
The 1970 team lost all of its home games and all but the CSU game on the road, finishing with one win and nine losses--the worst record since the no-wins one-tie season in 1939, and the first time UW lost all its home games since 1931. It was the Cowboys' first losing season since 1948. And future prospects looked dim because the 1970 freshman team had a winless season. Support for Eaton evaporated.
During the first week after the 1970 season ended, Wyoming sports pages included columns quoting Eaton on his plans to step up recruiting across the country, particularly from the junior college ranks. But on Dec. 6, 1970, Lloyd Eaton's coaching career came to an abrupt end.
In a press conference after their meeting, the UW Board of Trustees announced that Eaton was "retiring" from active coaching and would become an assistant athletic director whose duties were still undetermined. Eaton said the decision to retire had been made two years earlier, after the Sugar Bowl game. Defensive line coach Leonard F. (Fritz) Shurmur, 38, was appointed to replace Eaton. In 1971 Eaton left UW and held administrative and scouting positions in pro football, including a stint as Director of Player Personnel for the Green Bay Packers.
But the negative publicity affected Wyoming’s football program for years. Following the dismissal of the 14, the Cowboys lost 26 of their next 38 games through 1972. They had only one winning season during the 1970s. Paul Roach, one of Eaton's assistant coaches in 1969, returned to Wyoming as athletic director in the mid-1980s, and in 1987 also took on the head football coaching duties. His 1987 and 1988 teams went 21-5 and played in the Holiday Bowl both years.
Eaton died in Idaho in 2007.
The players in later life
Tony McGee became a dominant player in the NFL, starting in a Super Bowl for the Redskins. For many years McGee has hosted a sports television talk show in Washington D.C. Joe Williams also earned a Super Bowl ring with the Dallas Cowboys and then developed his own investment consulting business.
Several of the Black 14 managed to obtain college degrees. Mel Hamilton graduated from UW and has had a long career as a public school teacher and administrator in Casper. Guillermo Hysaw, originally from Bakersfield, Calif., and Lionel Grimes from Alliance, Ohio, became employment diversity executives with Ford and Toyota. Jay Berry—“Jerry Berry”--became a sports anchor for television stations in Tulsa, Chicago and Detroit and was named by Associated Press as the top sports broadcaster in Texas in 1977
Tony Gibson retired in 2011 after working nearly 38 years as a lineman for a Massachusetts power company during which time he responded to mass outages in Puerto Rico, Canada, Florida and several other states. Ted Williams has worked that long as a foreman at a specialized paint manufacturing company in Illinois. Ron Hill became a physical education teacher in Colorado. John Griffin has worked for the YMCA in Denver, for a hazardous waste abatement firm and as a manager for Sports Authority in Denver. Ivie Moore has worked as a floor subcontractor in his native Arkansas.
James Isaac died in San Bernardino, Calif. in 1976 after a dispute with his wife; Don Meadows died in 2009 and Earl Lee in 2013. Lee had a distinguished career as a teacher, coach and principal in the Baltimore area. Isaac, an all-sports star for Hanna-Elk Mountain High School in Wyoming, played football and ran track for, and graduated from, Dakota Wesleyan University in South Dakota. Don Meadows had a restaurant business in Denver.
In the records section of the 2013 University of Wyoming Cowboys' Football Media Guide, the name Jerry Berry appears with two other players who are tied for most interceptions returned for touchdowns in a season, and with three others for most returns for touchdowns in a career.
Berry's entire career at UW consisted of the first four games of the 1969 season. After his 88-yard return against Arizona he carried another interception 24 yards for a touchdown in the CSU game two weeks later.
Epilogue
A Salt Lake Tribune article published Nov. 6, 2009, relates that the Black 14 incident quickly provoked changes at BYU, according to Tom Hudspeth, BYU head coach in 1969. Hudspeth was quoted as saying that he “cannot remember the exact date or how he was'made aware' that LDS Church leadership wanted him to add African-Americans to his team, and fast. The following year, BYU's team included Ronnie Knight, a black defensive back from Sand Springs, Okla."
On June 9, 1978, the First Presidency of the Mormon Church, composed of President and Prophet Spencer Kimball and Counselors N. Eldon Tanner and Marion G. Romney, announced that a divine revelation had been received to open the Mormon priesthood to African-Americans, ending the longstanding tenet.
An AP article datelined Salt Lake City said the change came after many hours of "supplicating the Lord for divine guidance." According to the article, this was the most significant change in church doctrine since polygamy was discontinued in 1890. Church spokesman Jerry Cahill was quoted in the article as saying, "It's a momentous day, a great day we've lived through today."
Earlier that year, the LDS church had announced plans to build a new temple in Sao Paolo, Brazil—a very mixed-race place.
On May 9, 1982, the Denver Post published an extensive retrospective about the Black 14 incident, including the only interview Eaton gave after he left UW. "Divorced, Lloyd Eaton now lives a bachelor's life in a small home in Kuna, Idaho, where he refuses to have a phone," the article said. Eaton declared that he had never regretted what happened and that he would do the same thing again if given a second chance.
In an interview in 2009, Tony McGee said, "When it was over, I had more hurt feelings from how the Wyoming people reacted and the way I was treated than the whole thing with BYU."
Since the turn of the 21st century the University of Wyoming football team has had upwards of 25 African-Americans on its roster nearly every season. The 2016 roster includes about 40 African-Americans.
Resources
Primary Sources
Ashworth, William. "Inside Story of Fired Black Athletes", Jet (magazine), 37 no. 6, (Nov. 11, 1969), 62-69.
Associated Press. "BYU's Racial Policy Is Under Fire Again," Riverton Ranger. Oct. 6, 1969.
Associated Press. "Demonstration Rule is Relaxed," Riverton Ranger, Oct. 23, 1969, 1.
Associated Press. "Mormons Will Welcome Blacks," Paris (Texas) News, June 11, 1978, 26.
Berry, Jay. Personal interview with author, Sept. 27, 2010.
"Brigham Young versus Wyoming," Oct. 18, 1969 game program, University of Wyoming Athletic Department Files.
Black Fourteen Collection, 1969-70, University of Wyoming American Heritage Center.
Branding Iron, (UW student newspaper) Oct. 17 1969; Oct. 23, 1969; Oct. 31, 1969.
, Oct. 21, 1969, 7.
Denver Post Empire Magazine, Nov. 2, 1969, 31.
1969, 31. Drew, Jay. "BYU Football: Remembering the Black 14 Protest," Salt Lake Tribune, Nov. 6, 2009.
Fetsco, Pete. "Negro Athletes Out for Failure to Abide by Athletic Department Rules," Laramie Daily Boomerang, Oct. 19, 1969, 1.
Madison (Wis.) Capital Times, Oct. 11, 1969.
Putnam, Pat. "No Defeats, Loads of Trouble." Sports Illustrated, Nov. 3, 1969, 26.
Racine (Wis.) Journal Times, Oct. 12, 1969.
Reilly, Rick, “Eaton Has No Regrets, Says He'd Do It Again”, Denver Post, May 9, 1982, 6E.
Riverton Ranger, Oct. 24, 1969.
United Press International. "'Revelation' Lets Blacks into Mormon Priesthood," Salina (Kan.) Journal, June 9, 1978, 22.
University of Wyoming Press Release, Oct. 18, 1969, University of Wyoming, American Heritage Center, Irene L. Kuttunen Schubert Black 14 Collection, Accession Number 10405, Box 2, Folder 8.
"Eaton Here to Testify At 'Black 14' Hearing," Wyoming State Tribune, Sept. 28, 1971, 1,11.
“Which Comes First in Wyoming,” editorial, Denver Post, October 21, 1969, p. 4.
Williams v. Eaton, 310 F.Supp. 1342 (D. Wyo. 1970), rev'd, 443 F.2d 422 (10th Cir. 1971), on remand, 333 F.Supp. 107 (D. Wyo. 1971), aff'd 468 F.2d 1079 (10th Cir. 1972).
, 310 F.Supp. 1342 (D. Wyo. 1970), rev'd, 443 F.2d 422 (10th Cir. 1971), on remand, 333 F.Supp. 107 (D. Wyo. 1971), aff'd 468 F.2d 1079 (10th Cir. 1972). 2013 Wyoming Football Media Guide, accessed Sept. 11, 2013 at http://www.gowyo.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/2013-14-media-guide.html.
Secondary Sources
Bullock, Clifford A., "Fired by Conscience." In Readings in Wyoming History. Laramie, Wyo.: Skyline West Press, 2000.
Demas, Lane. Integrating the Gridiron: Black Civil Rights and American College Football. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2010, 102-174.
McElreath, Michael. The Black 14. Laramie, Wyo.: University of Wyoming Television, 1997. DVD.
Olsen, Jack. The Black Athlete: A Shameful Story. New York: Time-Life Books, 1968, 109.
Thorburn, Ryan. Black 14: The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of Wyoming Football. Boulder, Colo.: Burning Daylight, Pearn and Associates, 2009.
For Further Reading, Viewing and Research
“Black 14.” Topic.com, accessed Jan. 16, 2019 at https://www.topic.com/black-14. A recent, 15-minute documentary on the topic, with extensive television news footage from October 1969. Directed by Darius Clark Monroe with Spike Lee as executive producer.
“The Black 14.” SC Featured: The Power of Sports. ESPN network. Accessed http://www.espn.com/video/clip?id=22566174. A seven-minute video about the events of October 1969 and their aftermath, including television news footage from the time and recent comments from surviving members of the Black 14, together with shots of Colin Kaepernick. Scott Hares, producer; Katelin Stevens, editor.
Browne, Rembert. “Asking for More: The Lessons of the Black 14.” Topic.com, accessed Jan. 16, 2019 at https://www.topic.com/asking-for-more-the-lessons-of-the-black-14. Browne’s opinion piece connects the Black 14 with the Colin Kaepernick controversy and other events in the history of American civil rights. “Black people with an opinion were frowned on in 1969,” he writes. “They still are today.”
Keeler, Susan. “’We were villains:’ how Wyoming’s Black 14 blazed the way for Missouri protests.” The Guardian, Nov. 11, 2015. Accessed July 13, 2016 at https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/nov/11/we-were-villains-how-wyomings-black-14-blazed-the-trail-for-missouri-protests.
IllustrationsA Right, a Need, or an Economic Good? Debating our Relationship to Water
by Eve Warburton | June 6, 2011
Access to clean drinking water may seem the most intrinsic of human rights.
Yet it was only in 2010 that the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution making water an independent human right. Until last year, most countries, UN bodies and international development organizations treated water as an implicit rather than explicit part of the human rights framework, one that was embedded in other internationally recognized rights such as the right to life, or right to health. Some governments and international organizations viewed (and continue to view) water as a basic human need, rather than a right, which does not require a legally accountable duty-bearer. And the highly influential Dublin Principles established at the 1992 United Nations International Conference on Water and Sustainable Development described water as an “economic good”.
But a shift has taken place in the last ten to fifteen years, spurred by a movement to have access to clean water integrated into the international human rights regime. Who lobbied for this resolution? And what effect did they hope it would have? Actors include international health institutions such as the World Health Organization, human rights organizations like Amnesty International, and a transnational anti-privatization movement made up of local and international NGOs. Their campaign seeks to highlight inequality of access to water across the world, and argues water is the most fundamental human development issue facing poor communities. With water enshrined as a human right, there would be an international standard against which to judge the performance of governments whose duty is to supply potable water to their citizens.
This campaign, in tandem with the growing urgency expressed by scientists about a looming global water shortage, influenced United Nations deliberations. In 2002 the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights released General Comment 15, which recommended water be recognized in international law as an independent human right, and that states be legally accountable for supplying “sufficient, safe, acceptable, physically accessible, and affordable water.” The UN Economic and Social Council argued that the social and cultural, not just economic, value of water be taken into account, expressing concern that pricing alone cannot ensure equitable access to clean water for all people, nor can it safeguard the needs of local ecosystems. Then, in December of 2003, the General Assembly proclaimed the “Water for Life Decade 2005-2015”, as a means of promoting the fulfillment of international water commitments by 2015.
These initiatives were followed up in 2007 with a report by the Human Rights Council in which the High Commissioner stated, “it is now time to consider access to safe drinking water and sanitation as a human right”. This study held a consultative session with representatives from countries such as Belgium, that recognizes water as a human right in its domestic law; intergovernmental organizations including UNDP and WHO; private sector actors such as Aquafed and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development; NGOs like Amnesty International, Corporate Accountability International, Council of South America Indigenous Peoples and Nations Coalition, and the International Environmental Law Research Center. Subsequently, the UN appointed Ms Catarina de Albuquerque as the independent expert on the right to water, with the task of assessing states’ obligations and responsibilities pertaining to this emergent international norm.
Governments of particular countries have also been key. Bolivia played a leadership role in compiling the text of the human right to water for a vote in the General Assembly. Co-sponsoring countries of the text included Latin American nations, such as Dominica, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Paraguay, and some African nations including Burundi, Congo, and the Central African Republic. In 2010 the UNHRC passed the resolution on the human right to water with 122 countries voting in favor, none against, and 41 abstentions.
Why did some countries abstain? Why is this seemingly innate human right a debated issue? Those who abstained, including the USA, Australia, UK and Canada, generally argued that there is no legal basis for a right to water in international law, and that the vote should not have been held until Ms Albuquerque finalized and presented her special report on duties associated with a right to water. The US representative also stated, “The United States regrets that this resolution diverts us from the serious international efforts underway to promote greater coordination and cooperation on water and sanitation issues.” In other words, the contentious politics that the GA resolution invites may distract from the “serious” scientific, apolitical work of water experts and development organizations.
Another prominent critique of the human right to water is that it implies water should be supplied for free. This is a response to activists who promote this right as a means of opposing privatization of water utilities and control of water sources by private, for-profit corporations. (It’s no coincidence that Bolivia was the main sponsor of the resolution, a country that experienced fatal violent protests back in 2002 after privatizing its water utilities.) For anti-privatization activists, enshrining access to water as an independent human right should affirm the role of the state as the principal duty-bearer in water provision, and guard against privatization which they believe commodifies a public good and makes access less affordable. But on the other hand, the ongoing failure of governments around the world to fund the infrastructure necessary for improving water quality and access means private sector involvement continues to be an attractive option.
Debates about the human right to water, and the role of the state or private companies in ensuring access, illustrate that water provision is anything but apolitical. And citizens around the world – not just engineers or policy experts – increasingly see a role for themselves in determining how water is governed and supplied. These debates are the subject of my blog series on an emerging human right to water.
–
Columbia Water Center demonstrates research-based solutions to global freshwater scarcity and climate-related water risks. Follow Columbia Water Center on Facebook and TwitterDutch ecologist Roxina Soler and her colleagues have discovered that subterranean and aboveground herbivorous insects can communicate with each other by using plants as telephones. Subterranean insects issue chemical warning signals via the leaves of the plant. This way, aboveground insects are alerted that the plant is already ‘occupied’.
Aboveground, leaf-eating insects prefer plants that have not yet been occupied by subterranean root-eating insects. Subterranean insects emit chemical signals via the leaves of the plant, which warn the aboveground insects about their presence. This messaging enables spatially-separated insects to avoid each other, so that they do not unintentionally compete for the same plant.
In recent years it has been discovered that different types of aboveground insects develop slowly if they feed on plants that also have subterranean residents and vice versa. It seems that a mechanism has developed via natural selection, which enables the subterranean and aboveground insects to detect each other. This avoids unnecessary competition.
Green telephone lines
Via the 'green telephone lines', subterranean insects can also communicate with a third party, namely the natural enemy of caterpillars. Parasitic wasps lay their eggs inside aboveground insects. The wasps also benefit from the volatile signals emitted by the leaves, as these reveal where they can find a good host for their eggs. The communication between subterranean and aboveground insects has only been studied in a few systems. It is still not clear how widespread this phenomenon is.
This research was carried out at the Netherlands Institute for Ecology (NIOO-KNAW) by Roxina Soler, Jeffrey Harvey, Martijn Bezemer, Wim van der Putten and Louise Vet. The PhD project, in which this study was carried out, was funded by the Free Competition of NWO Earth and Life Sciences.The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) has announced plans to return two of the British Royal Navy's Sea King Mk5 aircraft to service.
The two helicopters will be re-deployed to conduct search and rescue operations for the Royal Navy. The Sea King Mk5 helicopters were previously used by 771 Naval Air Squadron in several rescue missions in Cornwall, UK.
Both aircraft are to be leased to HeliOperations UK to enable German Navy aircrew to undergo search and rescue training programmes.
The aircraft were originally retired from service with the British Royal Navy in April last year.
"The retired Sea King Mk5 helicopters will be retained as British military aircraft, but will be operated from HeliOperation’s training base in Portland, Dorset, until September 2018."
The retired Sea King Mk5 helicopters will be retained as British military aircraft, but will be operated from HeliOperation’s training base in Portland, Dorset, until September 2018.
Both helicopters are currently undergoing mandatory maintenance and servicing works at Royal Naval Air Station (RNAS) Culdrose, and will be reintroduced into service following ground runs.
The first aircraft is slated to begin flight testing soon.
The operations scheduled to be conducted by the two Sea King helicopters over the next 14 months will not form any part of the UK Search and Rescue organisation, which remains the responsibility of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency.
Image: The British Royal Navy’s Sea King Mk5 aircraft. Photo: courtesy of the Royal Navy.For those who had lost faith in the ability of the empire to sow the seeds of its own destruction, consider what the effect of their latest weapon of choice will be.
Drones--whether aerial, terrestrial or aquatic--are cheap, intelligent mobile platforms. And because the intelligence is on the same technology curve as computing equipment, they will be ubiquitous in a matter of years. Where today they are being used as surveillance platforms to track enemies of the state, within a year or two they will be covering protests and traffic stops (like this or this), streaming live video to the Internet to record the activity of state agents for the protection of their victims. And where today, they are being used as platforms to deliver deadly force by state agents, in the future they will take the place of suicide bombers by replacing the targeting and evasion capabilities of a human with hardware costs similar to a laptop computer.
Though the initial use of drones by the state brings martial uses to mind, the market will no doubt find thousands of peaceful applications. Since seeing this demonstration a few years ago, I have imagined using a drone to locate sheep on my hilly 40 acre farm or to check the state of fences regularly. Where Skycams or helicopters cover professional sports events today, drones will cover high school cross-country meets in a few years. Lineman in cherry pickers will be replaced with pole climbing maintenance robots.
It has been about fifteen years since the Internet was commercialized, and agents of central planning are still trying to understand and respond to the resulting power shift from the collective to the individual. They will no doubt play catch-up to the genie they are unleashing by pouring resources into cheap, expendable platforms. They should stick to their nuclear bombs and battleships if they want to maintain a monopoly of weaponry.T-Mobile's Next Big Trick: Unlimited Streaming for Netflix, HBO
Rumors indicate that T-Mobile's upcoming "Uncarrier 10" event is going to be focused on one big, major trick: letting T-Mobile users stream Netflix and HBO content as much as they'd like, without eroding their usage caps. That's at least the claim being made by reporter Evan Blass (aka @EVLeaks), who insists T-Mobile will soon make large video services cap exempt. The idea falls on the heels of T-Mobile's Music Freedom service, which similarly lets users use major streaming services without it counting against their caps.
As such, you can expect T-Mobile's November 10 press announcement to call this service "Video Freedom" or something similar.
The idea hasn't been without controversy. Net neutrality critics call this practice "zero rating," and argue that by letting the biggest, most popular services be exempt from usage caps, you've immediately put less popular services, independents, and non-profits at a notable disadvantage.
So while on the surface the idea looks great because you're getting some services without eroding your allotment, it actually supports a tilted playing field where smaller companies and services find it harder than ever to compete. That's in pretty stark contrast to the very nature of the Internet, where bits are bits and any service has an equal shot at being successful.
Despite playing a character that's decidedly hip on TV, T-Mobile CEO John Legere has been decidedly less cool when it comes to net neutrality. Legere found himself "genuinely surprised" regarding the criticism surrounding the zero rating of some, select apps. His company also opposed the FCC's reclassification of ISPs under Title II in order to impose tougher net neutrality rules, claiming protecting consumers would "kill innovation" and competition.
Similarly, most consumers can't see past the "free stuff" part of the conversation to realize the negative precedent set by giving some services cap-exempt status, so it seems pretty obvious we're going to wander down the zero rating rabbit hole, oblivious and applauding all the way.Significant Digits, Chapter Twenty-Five: Purchasing Power
SIBERIAN SMASH: GODDESS STRIKES DOWN “RUSSIAN AZKABAN”
-
Daily Prophet
headline for April 21st, 1999.
WAR? THUNDERER THREATENS THRASHING
-
Daily Prophet
headline for April 22nd, 1999.
MUGGLE MAGIC AS TOWER LAUNCHES SPACE
-
Daily Prophet
headline for April 23rd, 1999.
GODDESS GOES WINDOW SHOPPING AT B&B
-
Daily Prophet
headline for April 24th, 1999.
“MONSTROUS”: NEW PICTURES FROM ZEMLYA
-
Daily Prophet
headline for April 25th, 1999.
CONFLICT BREWING: THUNDERER CALLS CONCLAVE OF DOMOVOI
-
Daily Prophet
headline for April 26th, 1999.
INDEPENDENTS UNITE BEHIND RUSSIA
-
Daily Prophet
headline for April 27th, 1999.
≡≡≡Ω≡≡≡
Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Ministry of Magic
April 28th, 1999
“No,” said Hortense Hood, frowning. “You really can’t be in there. Sorry.” She didn’t sound sorry. She sounded like a long-serving auror whose career had been in a nasty slump for years, and who blamed the Goddess for that, and who was enjoying the opportunity to get some revenge -- even if it was in the most petty way imaginable.
Hermione didn’t allow herself to sigh, and kept a pleasant smile on her face. She’d been planning on sitting at the table across from some of the people they’d taken in last week’s raid. She’d even dressed for the occasion -- a soft-looking old robe, homely and brown, that helped turn her aura of innocence into the maternal and welcoming look of a confidante. But Hood was in charge of the investigation, and Hood was saying no.
Harry forced vote after vote on the Wizengamot, and argued and pleaded and bribed to try to get a majority on his side. We were within three votes of closing that hellhole, and everyone knew which way it was going. You volunteered there, anyway -- you were commander! -- in exchange for quadruple the typical salary for an executive auror. You and all the rest of them should have been sacked.
Hermione shook her head, putting a slight rueful twist on her smile.
There will be no satisfaction for you on this from me, not even the slightest bit. You volunteered to torture people for money.
Mild disappointment, nothing more, as she crossed her arms and looked at the powerfully-built woman before her. The middle-aged auror’s hair was a storm of black frizz, forced back into a tight bun, and she had a pleased light in her dark-lashed eyes.
“You’re in charge, of course, Auror Hood. I suppose it is slightly unusual, but I’ve done it many times before -- and I was there when the raid took place, with some of the beat aurors and some of those stationed at the Tower. And of course, I went to school for a year with Margaret, and know her sister. It might help, is all,” Hermione said. Light, nice, and nonconfrontational.
We’re not fighting, we’re friends, I just want to help, la dee da.
“Yes… and what exactly was your role, there? In what capacity are you going around capturing full-blooded wizards and witches, like they were stray Kneazles?” asked Hood, coolly. “Maybe that’s something we should talk about… what do you think?”
The stupidity on display was frustrating, and Hermione frankly couldn’t understand it. How did you rise to auror executive level -- even if you never found another command position, anywhere, after the demise of Azkaban -- with this level of situational blindness? Auror admission standards were notoriously high. They’d been relaxed during the increase of the force in the past few years, of course, but they were still supposed to keep out anyone who acted like a child… and anyway, Hood had been an auror for decades.
Hermione knew other immature-seeming aurors (like that one with great expectations and little sense that she’d met at the Tower). No screening or training program was perfect, after all. But didn’t Hood know -- couldn’t she have figured out -- that it wasn’t a smart idea to taunt the prison-smashing, Dementor-destroying world leader who had a private militia, whom the Chief Auror had been pestering for a date, and who was best friends with the most powerful wizard on the planet?
On the other hand,
thought Hermione,
if she had been the smart sort, she wouldn’t have been in command of Azkaban to begin with, once the winds started to blow the other way. I hope you like being a beat auror, Hortense, because I don’t think a promotion will be coming your way for a while. And why? Just pettiness. You’d think the example of Umbridge would have taught people that you don’t
have
to stay stuck to your mistakes. You can change your mind.
Should Hermione just swallow her pride and give Hood a victory? It might end the grudge, or at least blunt it… and if there was a next time, that might help. No one was around, and it cost Hermione nothing.
No. She’s not going to ever forget that I ended her career -- or decide that the blame is her own. And she’d enjoy it too much if I “begged” her not to raise a fuss. It’d probably encourage more of this. Frustrating. Why don’t you know that I care about you and want to help you, too, Madame Hood?
A beat had passed, and the question hung in the air. Hermione just kept smiling pleasantly, and shrugged in answer. Just like rolling your shoulder away from a punch; there was no gift of impact.
Hood said nothing, waiting expectantly for an answer, trying to use the awkward silence against Hermione. Eventually, she broke the tension, saying in a brittle tone, “Well. I suppose we’ll have to see if anything comes of that. But you’ll not be going in on the interrogations.”
“All right,” Hermione said, brightly. The auror tried to stare her down for a moment longer, then, satisfied she’d made her point, Hood opened the door to the antechamber of TT-1 (Thief-Taker Room #1, what a Muggle might call an interrogation or interview room) and disappeared inside, closing the door sharply behind herself.
Well, we’re in the DMLE already -- it’ll be easy to report that someone’s career was just murdered,
she thought, glancing down the corridor to where a trio of office workers were pretending to be obliviously sipping tea.
Way too many people will hear about this and try to curry favor by going after my “enemy.”
Hermione shook her head, ruefully. She’d need to try harder to reach people like that. She knew that some people prided themselves on their enemies: Godric Gryffindor himself had claimed that “The Tally of mine Virtue shall be the List of my Foes.” Harry had repeated it on occasion, approvingly. But that was wrong, truly, and Hermione thought that some of the bullies of Hogwarts had been influenced by that false sentiment. It was important to fight evil, yes, and defeat it. But it was far, far better to take evil by the hand, listen to its point of view, patiently and kindly discuss things, and finally walk away, hand-in-hand. Hood wasn’t her enemy -- she was just a friend, waiting to be made.
I wonder if there’s anything I can do for her that wouldn’t be seen as an insult or bribe. I’d better put Susie on it. She’s good at that. Or Esther
.
Not her,
Hermione remembered.
Esther and Char are in Godric’s Hollow, getting their new place set up.
She’d almost forgotten. How strange it was, to imagine a world without Esther by her side. Hermione had almost given up hope that her Returned could ever really heal; maybe some of them never would. Hyori seemed to become more grim every year, not less. But there was hope again.
“Happy thoughts, Ms. Granger? You look far away in some wonderful place,” came a familiar American voice.
“Councilor Hig!” said Hermione, turning around and smiling. Reg Hig was walking down the corridor towards her, stepping around the office workers. Two of them weren’t very circumspect in eyeing his plum nose or deep-set eyes as the squat wizard passed; the third muttered something to them -- probably along the lines of “Oy, stop your staring, that bloke is just about in charge of America.” They averted their gazes, and spied somewhat more discreetly.
“How are you, my dear? We have missed you in Tidewater -- you and your Returned, kicking in doors and righting wrongs -- but the papers tell me you’ve taken that performance on tour, here and in Russia.” She offered him her hand, still grinning, and he bent slightly to plant |
ky? Yeah, let's go with quirky. O'Toole ranked 13th in the country in punting this past season for the Mountaineers (45.4 yard average), and was one of the few punters to receive an invite to the NFL Scouting Combine.
He also has a serious love of facial hair, though he's clean-shaven at this weekend's mini-camp. (He's already said the beard is coming back if he makes the team.)
On the other side, there's Texas Tech punter Taylor Symmank. Symmank ranked ninth in college football in punting last season (46.0 yard average), but missed several games with a hip injury. He was on the preseason watch list for the Ray Guy Award.
O'Toole stated in an interview with Mark Craig of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune that he and Symmank were competing for a contract this weekend.
"Talking with [coach Mike Zimmer], he said Jeff has one more year on his contract and we'll see what happens," O'Toole said. "He said for me and Taylor to come in and compete and whoever is the better punter this weekend will be signed and that guy is going to compete with Jeff. And that guy could win the job or he could just have his name out there for other teams to see."
If the Vikings aren't particularly impressed with either Symmank or O'Toole, they could turn their attention back to former North Dakota State punter Ben LeCompte. LeCompte had a private workout with the Vikings this past week and is attending the Chicago Bears' mini-camp this weekend.
So fear not, Vikings' fans...the punter situation in Minnesota is, in fact, being addressed.Harry blogs about games for GeeklyInc. He loves Magic: The Gathering, but he's always looking for new things to try, too. Find him on Twitter (@cutefuzzy_).
Welcome back to Magic Gatherings! This week we’ll continue our survey of Commander themes, and take another look at new cards for Dragons of Tarkir which have been spoiled in the last week.
If you missed them, here are the other two theme articles: #1 (Intro, Blink, Equipment, Tokens), and #2 (Sacrifice, Artifacts, and Tribal).
Ramp/Big Mana
“Ramp” is Magic slang for playing spells and artifacts which give you access to more mana than you’d normally have, more quickly than you should have it. The quintessential card is Rampant Growth, which puts an extra land straight into play for you, but artifacts like Darksteel Ingot give you a similar effect: more mana for you to use next turn. (Note that this is different from cards like Dark Ritual and Desperate Ritual, which don’t permanently increase your mana—they just give you a temporary boost.) All Commander decks want some ramp to some degree, since all Commander decks have powerful, expensive spells they want to cast.
Dedicated ramp strategies go further, casting multiple ramp spells on successive turns to quickly reach large amounts of mana: Rampant Growth on turn two, maybe, and then Explosive Vegetation on turn three, and then they have seven mana on turn four. At that point, they start playing cards which are much more powerful than what their opponents can cast.
Most ramp spells are early-game plays, but there are a few which provide steady advantage (Karametra, God of Harvests) or provide a tremendous burst of power later in the game (Boundless Realms). Some effects let you hold on to all that nice mana (Kruphix, God of Horizons, Omnath, Locus of Mana, Upwelling), and Doubling Cube can “ramp” you by giving you a bunch more mana all at once.
Of course, you have to do something with all that mana. Huge, expensive creatures are a natural place to go—Worldspine Wurm is one of my favorites. Scaling effects are especially good—look for the variable “X” in the spell’s mana cost—as they let you use as much mana as you can make. Hydra creatures often fit the bill: Genesis Hydra and Lifeblood Hydra give you bonus effects in addition to just being BIG. If your deck includes blue, scaling draw spells like Blue Sun’s Zenith can help keep cards flowing.
A natural drawback of ramp spells is that they are poor draws later in the game. Having some ways to get extra effects out of your mana can be handy. The dragon monument cycle, coming up soon in Dragons of Tarkir, are great examples: tap for mana when you need it, and sink mana into it if you have plenty already.
Useful Cards: Seer’s Sundial, Helix Pinnacle, Burnished Hart
Crossover Themes: Fatties, but generally useful everywhere
Fatties
“Fatties” is Magic slang for very large creatures. Like ramp, these are useful for all Commander decks: when your opponents start at 40 life, dealing damage in huge chunks is a great way to get them dead. Commander games tend to progress until each player has lots of mana in play, so it’s helpful to have beefy creatures to draw to when that happens.
Like ramp, you can make fatties a more dedicated theme of your deck, and the themes naturally pair well together. There have also been a few mechanics over the years that reward especially large creatures: Shards of Alara had a theme of “creatures with power five or greater,” which was reprised with the Ferocious mechanic in Khans of Tarkir. Dragons of Tarkir has an upcoming mechanic, Formidable, which gives you extra effects if you control creatures with total power eight or more.
One nice part about fatties is that each set has a lot, and many are “bulk rares”–usually available for a quarter or fifty cents from your local game store. These cards don’t see much tournament play (hence the low price), but that doesn’t mean they’re not good in Commander. Nessian Wilds Ravager, for example, is fun to play (you get either a 12/12 or a 6/6 that kills something, plus the fun of seeing your friends debate which is worse), and you can have it for a song. Truly unique and powerful creatures (like Avacyn, Angel of Hope) can sometimes be very expensive buys, but if you’re setting the tone for Commander games for your group, these cards aren’t necessary.
Useful Cards: Fierce Empath, Warstorm Surge, Greater Good, Shamanic Revelation, Mayael, the Anima
Crossover Themes: Ramp, but generally useful everywhere
Pillowfort
“Pillowfort” strategies aim to keep you safe by making you a less attractive or less convenient target for your opponents. Most commonly, these include cards that stop your opponents from attacking you, like Ghostly Prison, Sphere of Safety, Propaganda, and Norn’s Annex. Faced with the choice of using all their mana to attack you, or attacking someone else and still being able to play spells, most players will choose the latter.
Pillowfort strategies can also include “rattlesnake” cards, a concept coined by longtime Magic author Anthony Alongi. These are cards that tell your opponents to go somewhere else, usually by threatening them or their stuff in some way—Vampire Nighthawk would be a basic example, as its deathtouch ability means it can kill most things it blocks. Michiko Konda, Truth Seeker would be fancier one. Rattlesnakes are generally useful in all Commander decks, but pillowforts especially appreciate some teeth.
You can also protect yourself by slowing the game down generally by limiting attackers—try Silent Arbiter or Crawlspace, for example, or you can use Fog effects and damage prevention to keep attacks that do get through, from actually hurting you.
Sometimes pillowfort decks are just trying to outlast everyone else, building to powerful late-game spells or combos. You can also force other players to attack with cards like Goblin Diplomats or Courtly Provocateur: your opponents have to go after someone, but your fort should keep them from going after you.
Useful Cards: Stuffy Doll, Luminarch Ascension, Blazing Archon, Angelic Arbiter
Crossover Themes: Lifegain, Group Hug
Lifegain
Lifegain themes do just what you’d think: you play cards that gain you life. In Commander, where everything is bigger, you can gain some fearsome amounts of life indeed; triple digits are easy, and infinite life is not impossible.
Of course, gaining life doesn’t actually win the game for you—it just keeps you from losing it. And it doesn’t even protect from all the ways you can lose it; commander damage will still get you, for example. So you have to make sure that you include some ways to win the game, especially those that take advantage of you having tons of life.
Fortunately, there are lots of ways to do this. A number of cards get bonuses when you gain life, like Archangel of Thune, Ajani’s Pridemate, For these cards, you want to maximize the frequency with which you gain life: Nyx-Fleece Ram and Recumbent Bliss are good options, as are Soul Warden, Spirit Warden, Soul’s Attendant, and Suture Priest (all excellent with a token theme, too).
Other cards care about how much life you gain, like Voracious Wurm. These cards want to you gain as much as possible when you do gain it. Beacon of Immortality gives the most bang for your buck, but large lifelink creatures (or anything carrying a Loxodon Warhammer) can do the trick too.
There are a few cards which care about your life total as a discrete number, and some of these break in Commader: Serra Ascendant and Felidar Sovereign are the most infamous. Some groups consider these cards in poor taste, or otherwise errata them to activate at 10 or 20 life above your starting total. Use your discretion, or ask your opponents before the game starts if you’re playing with people you don’t know well. If you’re the one providing the decks, you can make your own policies to maximize the fun factor.
Useful cards: Storm Herd, Angelic Accord, Path of Bravery, Patron of the Kitsune, Trostani, Selesnya’s Voice, Chalice of Life
Crossover Themes: Pillowfort, Group Hug, Tokens
Special Bonus Section: Khans of Tarkir Previews, Part II!
One week later and there’s a bunch of new preview cards to talk about. First, DRAGONS:
Atarka recalls Bogardan Hellkite, a snazzy rare in Time Spiral block which still has a place in my Mayael, the Anima Commander deck. I appreciate the simplicity of the design here: play your dragon, eat something, attack your opponents. What more do you need to know?
Lifelink is a great ability on a 5/7 flyer (since you want to attack with it every turn anyway), and “can’t be countered” is a nice bonus. Shutting down opponents’ spells has good utility, especially if you plan to commit to equipping or enchanting creatures on your turn. The drawback is that, presumably, your opponents will kill her as soon as your turn is over, so there’s some incentive to do everything at once. For that reason, Dromoka would be a great fit for a big mana theme— I’m excited to try her in my Karametra, God of Harvests deck.
We haven’t talked about +1/+1 counters as a theme yet, but there are lots of things you can do in these colors—Juniper Order Ranger comes to mind. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect to trigger this several times per turn. It dies to removal, of course, but it will get very large if left unchecked.
This effect is reminiscent of Dictate of Erebos and Grave Pact, which we discussed as part of a sacrifice theme last week. It’s not quite as powerful, but that actually makes me like it a bit better—those enchantments can get oppressive, whereas Deathfang is more of a pinpoint tool.
A 4/4 flyer for 6 mana isn’t the best deal, even in red-green. But this attack trigger seems very good to me: 6 free mana will make for some extremely large spells in your postcombat main phase, and if you can give Ventmaw haste, it’s effectively free, as it refunds the mana you spend on it when it attacks.
Dragons for everyone! This is a great fit for a token theme, since you want to turn a bunch of expendable creatures into mighty 4/4 dragons. You can also make some allies by upgrading their twerpy dudes into 4/4 flyers. This card seems like it will make for a lot of wild moments.
Find your dragons! This is a great tool for a dragon tribal deck, since dragons have a variety of powerful abilities which can be used to answer lots of problems—just use this to tutor up the one you need. This is an instant, too, which surprises me, but I won’t complain.
Cast your dragons! Again, dragon tribal: never underestimate the power of being able to cast your spells! Getting a dragon back from the graveyard is a useful effect; if you happen to have a Scion of the Ur-Dragon, you can use its ability to find the exact dragon you want, too.
This card has a lot of text, but the first clause is what will garner the most notice, and with good reason—it’s an ability we’ve seen before on one card, Doran, the Siege Tower. Any deck built around Doran will appreciate some redundancy for his effect, so that’s a plus.
This could also open up a deck based around creatures with defender, since Assault Formation lets them attack—Overgrown Battlement, Axebane Guardian, and Vent Sentinel would be creatures to start with. Just make sure you have ways to protect Assault Formation, or ways to win if you don’t draw it; a common failing of decks like this is that their creatures are poor if the key card isn’t in play.
I could hardly end the column without talking about the week’s big reveal. I have to confess: I am not bullish on planeswalkers in multiplayer. They can be incredibly powerful (free stuff every turn is good: as Carrie Oliver has pointed out, it’s basically like getting extra actions in a board game), but they’re also very hard to protect from multiple opponents.
That said, if you’re playing Temur (or five-color) anyway, Sarkhan looks worth the risk. He can help protect himself by making a dragon, and his +1 seems like one of the strongest we’ve seen: you are guaranteed a card, and the mana will help you cast it. If you can activate his ultimate ability (“cast ALL THE DRAGONS”), that should be wild, but it’s not something to bank on.
That said, there are worse things than including a generally useful card in your deck. Every deck needs a few fun cards that just make you smile whenever you play them, and Sarkhan seems like a great inclusion on those criteria.
That’s it for this week! Next week we’ll wrap up our theme survey and take a look at Dragons of Tarkir as a whole.Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s closest associates insisted Friday that their leader would continue running the country even as he continues to undergo medical treatment in Cuba after surgery for the removal of a cancerous tumor.
“Chavez is in charge of the Venezuelan government and never was not in charge,” the vice president, Elias Jaua, said on state television. “The president is undergoing treatment and is fully functioning.”
The populist government, built around the persona of a charismatic and omnipresent orator who has ruled for 12 tumultuous years, went to great lengths to convince Venezuelans that Chavez was capable of governing even after undergoing what the president himself called a “major” operation.
But the image many Venezuelans have is not of a leader on the mend but of a thin, pale president who looked vulnerable and emotional as he delivered a 13-minute address Thursday night in which he revealed his condition. The oil-rich country of 29 million is now rife with speculation over whether Chavez will run for a third six-year term in 2012, as he had promised.
“I saw him as depressed. He had to read his speech. These were signs of weakness,” said Margarita Lopez Maya, a political analyst in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital. “They were signs of a Chavez who has been dealt a big blow because he and his followers believed he was a titan.”
Chavez, who turns 57 this month, did not say what kind of tumor was removed, nor did he provide a timetable for his return.
His political foes say that the constitution calls for a transfer of power to the vice president during temporary absences.
“There should be respect for the law,” Maria Corina Machado, an opposition lawmaker, said by phone from Caracas. “The president cannot govern from another country.”
In his address, Chavez said he was aware that his condition had generated anxiety in Venezuela. But he cast himself as connected to the everyday affairs of government.
“I have remained informed and in charge of the actions of the Bolivarian government, in permanent communications with the vice president, Elias Jaua, and my team in government,” he said in his speech.
Talking to reporters in Caracas, Jaua said Chavez would return after he had recovered and that there was no need to transfer power.
“We are absolutely sure that, in spite of the opposition, President Chavez will be here before 180 days,” Jaua told Colombia’s La W radio, responding to a question about whether Chavez could legally govern if he remains in Cuba for more than half a year.
Under Chavez’s orders, the government for nearly three weeks treated his condition as a state secret, with his closest allies issuing contradictory pronouncements. Then came the dramatic speech from Havana, as Chavez told his countrymen that the doctors had carried out a “total extraction” of a tumor.
“I think we have managed it,” he said.
The man who has promised to rule well into the next decade, though, sounded contemplative about his future.
He spoke about God, his mother, the dreams of his followers and darkest chapters in his life, such as the 1992 coup attempt he led as a young army officer and his brief ouster from power in 2002. In both those episodes, Chavez said, he felt that he had been drowning.
Chavez said he went under the scalpel in the early morning hours of June 11 after abdominal pains during a visit with Fidel Castro led him to seek medical assistance. After that operation, Chavez said, “the presence of other formations” was discovered. Examinations confirmed the existence of an “abscessed tumor,” he said, which doctors removed in a second operation.
He spoke warmly about those in Venezuela and beyond who have shown their support for him.
“I don’t in any way want for you to have to accompany me on paths that sink into some abyss,” he said. “I invite you so we can continue to climb new heights.”
Special correspondent Adam Liebendorfer contributed to this report.Just minutes before an explosive vote on whether climate change is real, Republicans received a surprising message from Sen. James Inhofe James (Jim) Mountain InhofeTrump backs off total Syria withdrawal Allies wary of Shanahan's assurances with looming presence of Trump On The Money: Trump to sign border deal, declare emergency to build wall | Senate passes funding bill, House to follow | Dems promise challenge to emergency declaration MORE.
“Vote yes.”
ADVERTISEMENT
The Oklahoma Republican, derided by the left as Congress’s leading “denier” of climate science, had decided the night before, while huddled in his office with staffers, that he would support an amendment from Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse Sheldon WhitehouseThis week: Congress, Trump set for showdown on emergency declaration Senate reignites blue slip war over Trump court picks Democrats brush off GOP 'trolling' over Green New Deal MORE (D-R.I.) stating, “climate change is real and not a hoax.”
“Well, that’s true,” Inhofe said. “I can vote for that.”
“I think we should get our whole caucus to vote for this,” he added, according to a top aide.
Inhofe and his aides drew up 54 notecards — one for every Republican in the Senate — urging them to vote for the amendment, which Democrats were putting forward as an addition to the Keystone XL pipeline bill.
The card said:
Inhofe recommends a Yes vote because
1. The climate has always been changing and
2. There is no consensus that human actions and emissions levels have significant, negative impacts on global climate change
Inhofe informed only Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell Addison (Mitch) Mitchell McConnellHouse to push back at Trump on border Democrats block abortion bill in Senate Overnight Energy: Climate protesters storm McConnell’s office | Center-right group says Green New Deal could cost trillion | Dire warnings from new climate studies MORE (R-Ky.) of his plan, fearing Democrats would revise the amendment if they got wind of it.
“If they started thinking about it, he could have reworded it in such a way that it could have been a totally different thing,” Inhofe said.
When the time came for the vote, Inhofe approached Whitehouse on the Senate floor and told him he wanted to become a co-sponsor.
“You should have seen the look on his face,” said the Inhofe aide.
Inhofe reasoned that the climate has always changed, and said on the Senate floor that there is “biblical evidence” supporting that view.
Whitehouse, who is co-chairman of a bicameral climate change caucus, acknowledged the move took him by surprise but told The Hill he wouldn’t go back and change the amendment, even if he could.
Inhofe’s “little trick of twisting the rhetoric a bit” gave Republicans the political cover they needed to vote for the amendment, Whitehouse said.
The result of the unlikely Inhofe-Whitehouse pairing was an overwhelming 98-1 Senate vote endorsing the view that climate change is “not a hoax,” foiling the first attempt by Democrats to portray the Republican Party as anti-science ahead of the 2016 presidential elections.
Later that day, Republicans blocked two amendments stating that human beings contribute to climate change, giving ammunition to Democrats who say the GOP is standing in the way of efforts to reduce carbon emissions and halt the warming of the planet.
But it was the first vote of the day that became the talk of Washington.
Did Republicans beat Democrats at their own game or make a tactical error they — and their 2016 hopefuls — will live to regret?
Whitehouse said the vote was the “first public discussion of climate change” in the Senate in years and “a very good first step.”
“The fact [is] that we got 98-1 and have rid ourselves forever [of] the argument that there is not climate change,” he said.
Sen. Barbara Boxer Barbara Levy BoxerHispanic civil rights icon endorses Harris for president California AG Becerra included in Bloomberg 50 list Climate debate comes full circle MORE (D-Calif.) has a more pointed assessment.
“I wasn’t surprised [by the vote], because I knew [Republicans] are losing the public relations battle by being so Neanderthal on the issue,” she said.
The climate change debate has stirred anxiety in corners of the GOP, with some fearing the “denier” rhetoric from Democrats could be politically damaging in the 2016 elections.
“From a Republican Party point of view, if you don’t embrace what seems to be an overwhelming body of scientific evidence, you risk the idea that you are anti-science,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham Lindsey Olin GrahamHouse to push back at Trump on border Trump pressures GOP senators ahead of emergency declaration vote: 'Be strong and smart' This week: Congress, Trump set for showdown on emergency declaration MORE (R-S.C.), who is considering a run for the White House in 2016.
“So the risk you run is that people don’t just look at you as outside the norm when it comes to evaluating science; it runs deeper.”
Fifteen Senate Republicans, several of them up for reelection in blue states, voted for a second amendment that said humans contribute to climate change. Among the supporters: Graham and Sen. Rand Paul Randal (Rand) Howard PaulThe Hill's Morning Report — Emergency declaration to test GOP loyalty to Trump The Hill's 12:30 Report: Trump escalates fight with NY Times The 10 GOP senators who may break with Trump on emergency MORE (R-Ky.), another possible candidate for the White House in 2016.
Five Republicans went one step further, voting for a third amendment from Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) that said humans “significantly” contribute to climate change. Two of the “yes” votes came from Sens. Mark Kirk Mark Steven KirkThe global reality behind 'local' problems Dems vow swift action on gun reform next year This week: Trump heads to Capitol Hill MORE (R-Ill.) and Kelly Ayotte Kelly Ann AyotteBottom Line US, allies must stand in united opposition to Iran’s bad behavior American military superiority will fade without bold national action MORE (R-N.H.), who are up for reelection in 2016.
“Democrats are going to continue to play games with them until they are unified in approach. Sen. Schatz and others were trying to see how many different ways to chip away at the GOP position,” said Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist.
“Democrats are trolling Republicans extremely hard on this issue.”
By voting for Whitehouse’s amendment, O’Connell added, “Republicans were making sure they don’t handcuff a 2016 GOP nominee.”
Republicans, for their part, said they are confident that voters will see through the political gamesmanship.
Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn John CornynHillicon Valley: Senators urge Trump to bar Huawei products from electric grid | Ex-security officials condemn Trump emergency declaration | New malicious cyber tool found | Facebook faces questions on treatment of moderators Key senators say administration should ban Huawei tech in US electric grid Senate plots to avoid fall shutdown brawl MORE (R-Texas) dubbed the “hoax” amendment a “ ‘gotcha’ vote,” and an Inhofe aide said the senator had turned the tables on the Democrats.
“He decided that this was a moment to make people aware of the game they were playing,” the aide said.
Sen. Jeff Sessions Jefferson (Jeff) Beauregard SessionsTrump says he hasn't spoken to Barr about Mueller report Ex-Trump aide: Can’t imagine Mueller not giving House a ‘roadmap’ to impeachment Rosenstein: My time at DOJ is 'coming to an end' MORE (R-Ala.) mocked Democrats for “trying to create something so they could run around and say, ‘These are deniers.’ ”
Still, there was one member of the Republican conference who refused to go along with Inhofe’s gambit: Sen. Roger Wicker Roger Frederick WickerHillicon Valley: Telecom industry to fundraise for Senate chair ahead of privacy hearing | Report finds apps sharing personal data with Facebook | DNC offers campaigns cybersecurity tips Telecom industry to throw fundraiser for Senate chair the night before data privacy hearing Trump signs executive order to boost AI technology MORE (R-Miss.), the chairman of the campaign committee for Senate Republicans.
“It was, to me, an attempt to play a political word game to slow the bill down, and I decided not to play along,” Wicker told The Hill.
Whitehouse suggested Inhofe’s strategy was too clever by half and said voters understand perfectly well that saying “climate change is real” means humans contribute.
“I think that for the people who thought this was a cute dodge, I think most Americans take a look at that vote and make exactly the same conclusion,” he said.
Whitehouse joked he wants to have 100 votes on climate change before the 2016 election cycle, perhaps by pitting the GOP’s views against popular institutions like the military or the Catholic Church.
“Do they really want to reject the views of Pope Francis on this subject?” Whitehouse said.(Newser) – Rick Santorum's quest to emerge as the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney received a boost today from a group of evangelicals and others who voted to back his candidacy in a last-ditch effort to stop the front-runner's march to the nomination. About 150 social conservatives meeting in Texas sided with Santorum over a home-state favorite, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
The gathering reflected their dissatisfaction with Romney over abortion rights and other issues and their belief that they needed to unite behind one contender if they had any hope of derailing the former Massachusetts governor after his victories in Iowa and New Hampshire. Their decision comes a week before the next contest, Jan. 21 in South Carolina, where social conservatives are an influential voting bloc. But it was not immediately clear what effect the backing will have. (Read more Rick Santorum 2012 stories.)DES MOINES, IA—With complaints about everything from “raggedy prayer mats” to “the grimiest ablution fountain ever,” local Muslims have slammed the al-Wali Mosque on 14th Street as “the worst of the worst,” giving it an average review of 1.5 stars on the website Yelp. “Frankly, this place is a dump—between the poor lighting, the overall dirtiness, and the crowds, it’s almost impossible to concentrate on anything pure or holy,” user Faruq43 wrote in a scathing review posted this week, claiming that he once even had his shoes stolen from the mosque when he removed them for Friday prayers. “On top of that, it doesn’t even face Mecca. Seriously! According to my iPhone, it’s at least 10 degrees off. I now drive an extra half hour to the masjid in Ames just to avoid this place.” According to congregants, the place of worship’s only five-star review, an unqualified rave, was almost certainly posted by the mosque’s imam.
AdvertisementThere’s quite a few stories reflecting Bitcoin during 2013 though at BTC World News our goal has always been looking forward and not back. Moving forward in 2014 it’s important to remember the age-old phrase, “nothing good comes easy” and indeed 2013 presented many hurdles for Bitcoin.
Have you asked yourself what’s in store for Bitcoin in 2014? With hundreds of thousands if not millions of people buying, selling and trading Bitcoin on a daily basis and global entities rolling out the ability to accept Bitcoin it’s one incredible view of the horizon if you ask us.
We’d even boast that Bitcoin is the largest call to action of modern-day.
Recently we watched the movie with Aston Kutcher, “Jobs” and it was inspiring to remember how Steve knew computers would change the world. In summary his goal was to put a computer in every household on Earth. In hindsight, his vision of the computer world single-handedly shaped all of our futures as we see it today.
At BTC World News, we’re certainly no Steve Jobs but we share that same deep-rooted passion of Bitcoin. We can see how Bitcoin can become part of every single household around the world and absolutely change the financial and economic landscape for the better.
Replace currency from around the world with Bitcoin, are you mad? Our answer is, no sir we’re not mad we’re certain, no different than Steve Jobs was on the computer.
Somewhere you must be asking, “How do we get there?”
Adversity is defined as a “difficulty, hardship or a situation that works against you.” Our thought is if a team of people sent a rover to Mars, which not to mention is probably right now scooting around sending comprehensive data and a wealth of understanding of what else is out there, then consider the adversity it took to make that happen.
The same goes for Bitcoin as it has shown a resilience in the face of adversity. With 2014 upon us, we’ve entered our first 2014 predictions of where Bitcoin will go and we will also give ourselves a toot that we’ve hit the mark each and every time. Bitcoin is here to stay and really when you think about it, it’s limitless as to how Bitcoin can shape the future.
Keep the Bitcoin Rally Going and Happy New Year 2014 from BTC World News!
We hope you’ve enjoyed this article, Bitcoin Moving Forward in 2014 and hope you would consider donating to BTC World News. Send your Bitcoin Donation to,
1FfBncJGQxi2nyib3mgSbZHdpKBJmW6Rsz
Any amount of Bitcoin is greatly appreciated and helps bring you the latest Bitcoin News, Information and Trends. Be sure to follow us on Twitter @BTCWorldNews and like us on Facebook.com/BTCWorldNews for all the latest Bitcoin News, Information and Trends.
Looking for an avenue to freely market your Bitcoin Business, visit Places.btcworldnews.com and create Your Place in the Bitcoin Community. It’s Free!
Share this: Facebook
Reddit
Twitter
Google
TumblrDonald Trump: Five Australian incidents in White House list of under-reported 'terrorist attacks'
Updated
The White House has sent journalists a list of terror attacks it believes did not receive adequate attention from Western media — including five incidents in Australia, one of which was determined to be a murder case.
Key points: Donald Trump says terrorist attacks are "not even being reported"
He declines to provide an example to support his statement
White House lists 78 terrorist attacks, including stabbing of Mia Ayliffe-Chung that was murder case
It follows President Donald Trump's unsubstantiated claim on Monday that news outlets were intentionally not covering terrorist attacks in the West.
"All over Europe it's happening. It's gotten to a point where it's not even being reported," Mr Trump said at Central Command headquarters in Florida.
"And in many cases the very, very dishonest press doesn't want to report it.
"They have their reasons, and you understand that."
Mr Trump declined to provide an example to support his radical theory of a global media conspiracy to whitewash coverage of terrorism.
White House spokesman Sean Spicer tried to tone down the President's remarks, saying it was a question of balance: "Like a protest gets blown out of the water, and yet an attack or a foiled attack doesn't necessarily get the same coverage".
The White House later sent out a list of 78 terrorist attacks from September 2014 to December 2016 to journalists, claiming it supported Mr Trump's claim that "most have not received the media attention they deserved".
Among this list are five incidents in Australia, including the tragic stabbing of Mia Ayliffe-Chung at a Townsville hostel in August 2016, which Queensland Police specifically determined to be a murder case rather than a terrorist attack.
Other Australian incidents listed in the White House document are:
The list also includes major attacks in San Bernardino, Orlando, Paris, London and Brussels, which separately dominated global headlines for weeks in their aftermath.
AP could not verify that each of the incidents had connections to the Islamic State group. The list appeared to be hastily assembled, and included several misspellings of the word "attacker".
Egypt praises Trump for remarks
Egypt has praised the US President's criticism of Western media, a statement from the country's Foreign Ministry said.
"The Foreign Ministry hailed the US administration stance in this regard, referring to Egypt's repeated calls upon the international community to adopt a comprehensive, coordinated and non-selective strategy to combat terrorism at all levels; security, political, cultural, media and others," the statement said.
Since entering the political fray, Mr Trump's relationship with the news media has been turbulent and often bellicose.
Last month, he claimed that news organisations had fabricated his grudge against the US intelligence community, shortly after he had tweeted that US intelligence officers were akin to Nazis.
ABC/AP/Reuters
Topics: world-politics, government-and-politics, terrorism, unrest-conflict-and-war, information-and-communication, united-states, australia
First postedPresident Obama called on the Senate Tuesday to work through their early summer vacation in order to keep the Patriot Act from expiring in a week.
“I strongly urge the Senate to work through this recess and make sure that they identify a way to get this done,” Obama said, following a meeting with the NATO Secretary General in the Oval Office.
The Senate left town ahead of Memorial Day without passing a bill to either reauthorize or reform the Patriot Act, including portions that have given the National Security Agency leeway to collect massive amounts of data on American’s telephone calls. The House of Representatives came to an agreement and reformed the controversial program, which was revealed in leaks by former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden. The Senate, however, failed to pass the USA Freedom Act before leaving Washington.
The President said Tuesday that the USA Freedom Act “strikes an appropriate balance” between the intelligence community and American’s privacy, but said failing to affirm remaining Patriot Act authorities puts the nation’s security at risk.
The Brief Newsletter Sign up to receive the top stories you need to know right now. View Sample Sign Up Now
“You have a whole range of authorities that are also embodied in the Patriot Act that are non-controversial, that everybody agrees are necessary to keep us safe and secure,” Obama said. “Those also are at risk of lapsing. So this needs to get done.”
Leaders of both the House and the Senate have been in conversations about a compromise bill that would allow the retention of phone records to continue, with the information remaining stored at the phone companies for a set number of years, where it could be searched by government officials with a court order. Currently, the information is retained by the government, a fact that led Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, a Republican presidential candidate, to seize the floor of the Senate late last week for 11 hours, helping to prevent a resolution of the issue before the recess.
The Patriot Act expires on June 1.
Contact us at editors@time.com.This week sees the final round of Champions League group games and whilst in many previous years, the final group game is often a dead rubber, this year many of the groups will be decided only after the final game has been played. Group B is no different with Galatasaray and Juventus, essentially playing each other for the right to join group winners, Real Madrid, in the draw for the last 16 round of matches. Galatasaray need to win the game to qualify whereas a draw is sufficient for Juventus. Either way this game should be a cracker!
To get a better understanding at what we may expect in this game, we looked at the previous meeting of the two teams. In October the Juventus hosted Galatasaray in the second round of group matches and the game ended in a 2-2 draw. Whilst the goals and points were shared that day, we noticed that possession was far from shared with Juventus having 59% of possession as opposed to Galatasaray’s 41%. Using this stat as our springboard, we used our data to examine the nature of their respective possession.
Looking at Galatasaray first, we saw that the players that hold the ball for the longest time when |
his first in the NFL. The Vikings are 4-1 in those starts. His 24-yard catch vs. Arizona (12/1) was the first of his NFL career and the longest by a Vikings tight end since Adrian Cooper caught a 41-yarder at Pittsburgh on Sept. 24, 1995. Ironically the Vikings scored over 40 points in each game. Andrew Jordan leads this unit in catches (19) and receiving yards (128). Greg DeLong works with Goodwin in two-tight end formations. DeLong has started 9-of-the-17 NFL games he’s played. David Frisch is the most experienced of this group. His game-winning touchdown catch in Atlanta (9/8) was his first NFL score and his first reception with Minnesota. Wide Receivers
A team-high 50.0% (11-of-22) of Qadry Ismail’s catches have gone for a first-down on third down this year. He is averaging 37.8 yards per touchdown catch for his career, with eight scores of 20-or-more yards. Both of David Palmer’s catches in Detroit (12/8) went for a first down on third down. They were his first receptions since the Seattle game (11/10). Chris Walsh caught a 17-yard pass on 3rd-and-5 at the Bucs’ 39-yard line in the third quarter last week. Hoard scored the game-winning 22-yard touchdown on the next play. Walsh had his first NFL touchdown pass against Denver (11/24). He scored his first NFL points on a catch for a two-point conversion at Seattle (11/10). Walsh has played some with the regular offense the past five weeks. Offensive line
David Dixon has started at right guard the past five weeks, replacing John Gerak, who had started the previous 16 games in that spot. Dixon started six games at right guard in ‘95, before he was replaced by Gerak, who added 20 pounds in the offseason to play full-time at guard after splitting time between tight end and guard last year. The other four positions have started 29-of-the-last-30 games together. Seven-time All-Pro Randall McDaniel is the only one of the starters who has played more than four years in the NFL. He has started a team-high 125 consecutive games, including playoffs. Last week he was named to start in his eighth consecutive Pro Bowl. Vs. Arizona (12/1) he carried the ball from the fullback spot in goalline offense for the first time in his career. Todd Steussie has started 105 straight games, dating back to his junior year in high school. Jeff Christy has started 48 consecutive games at center. Korey Stringer has started 29-of-his-31 NFL games. Scott Dill started at right tackle against Denver (11/24) in place of injured Stringer. It was Dill’s first start with Minnesota. Defensive line
John Randle was named to start in his fourth straight Pro Bowl, matching Hall-of-Famer Alan Page for the longest such streak by a Vikings defensive tackle. Randle has started 71 straight games, the most on the defense. He leads the team in forced fumbles (4). Esera Tuaolo started the first nine games of ‘96 despite rupturing his Achilles in the final regular-season game of ‘95. He had a sack in the fourth quarter vs. Arizona (12/1). Despite missing four games, Derrick Alexander leads this unit in tackles for a loss (7). Fernando Smith is tied for the team lead in fumble recoveries (2) and leads this unit in tackles (76) and passes batted down (6). He was named NFC Defensive Player of the Week for the Detroit game (12/8) when he recorded two sacks. Martin Harrison has started seven games, including the past six, at right end. His first NFL start came at Atlanta (9/8). In the past 21 games, he has 11 sacks. Jason Fisk had six tackles and his first career sack in his first NFL start at Oakland (11/17). He has started five straight games. Duane Clemons was in on two tackles for a loss at Detroit (12/8). He recovered a fumble to set up a touchdown in Seattle (11/17). Alexander and Tuaolo played some in place of starters Harrison and Fisk the past two weeks. Linebackers
Jeff Brady has been named NFC Defensive Player of the Week twice in his 22 NFL starts. He is the only linebacker to start every game this year. He is tied for the NFC lead among linebackers in interceptions (3). Brady leads the team in tackles (143), is tied for the team lead in fumbles recovered (2) and leads this unit in passes defensed (9). He had a single-game career-high 16 tackles against Kansas City (11/3). Dixon Edwards returned after missing two games due to injury with 4 tackles, a tackle for a loss and a shared sack last week. He has been to postseason each of the past 10 years, dating back to his freshman campaign at Michigan State. He leads the team in tackles for a loss (8.5) and tops this unit in sacks with a career-high 3.5, which are more sacks than his previous five NFL seasons combined (2.5). He already has surpassed his career-high of 109 tackles in ‘95. Darryl Talley started his first game with Minnesota at Chicago (9/15). Dave Garnett started @ Atlanta (9/8) and @ Detroit (12/8) in place of Talley and vs. Arizona (12/1) in place of Edwards. The Falcons’ start was the first of Garnett’s career. Pete Bercich made his first NFL start in place of Edwards at Detroit (12/8). Ben Hanks played in passing situations before suffering the ankle injury in Detroit. Defensive backs
The secondary is almost the same unit that started most of ‘95. The starting group features two second-year players (Orlando Thomas, Corey Fuller) and two third-year players (Dewayne Washington, Robert Griffith). Washington shares the team record for career touchdowns on interception returns (3). He had a career-high two interceptions vs. Carolina (10/6). He leads the team in passes defensed with 19, which exceeds his previous career high of 12 in ‘94. A knee injury kept Fuller out of the starting lineup at Atlanta (9/8) and Seattle (11/20). He still is second on the team in passes defensed (16). Despite missing two starts, Griffith leads this unit in tackles (95), tackles for a loss (6.5) and sacks (2). Barnett had 8 tackles and a sack, his first with Minnesota, at Detroit (12/8). He plays in passing situations. This week will be his 100th NFL game. He had 14 tackles and 2 passes defensed while starting in place of injured Griffith. Alfred Jackson plays in some passing situations. He started at Atlanta (9/8) and at Seattle (11/10). He has two interceptions and a forced fumble in his four starts with the Vikings. Chris Johnson was signed from the practice squad on November 15. Anthony Prior, who played three seasons for the Jets, was signed December 4. Special teams
Minnesota has two blocked field goals (Alexander and Washington), both in the fourth quarter, this year. Palmer and Ismail returned kickoffs the past two weeks. Scott Sisson made a career-long 44-yard field goal against Green Bay (9/22). He is 15-of-17 in the NFL in the 4th quarter, including 4-of-4 in the last 2 minutes or overtime. Mitch Berger is tied for 3rd in the NFL in touchbacks on kickoffs (17) and punts inside the 20 (25). He had a career-long 63-yard punt last week. Mike Morris has played in 109 straight games. Walsh and Pete Bercich lead the Vikings in special teams tackles with 16. Harold Morrow has 14 special teams tackles in seven games. NFL.COM | News | Stats | Fans | Index © 1996, NFL Enterprises, L.P. NFL and the NFL shield design are registered trademarks of the National Football League.
The team names, logos and uniform designs are registered trademarks of the teams indicated.Skunks and zorilles mimic the sulfurous, anoxic stink of a swamp. The male duck-billed platypus infuses its heel spurs with a cobralike poison. The hedgehog declares: Don’t quite get the point of my spines? Allow me to sharpen their sting with a daub of venom I just chewed off the back of a Bufo toad.
Other mammals chemically gird themselves against smaller foes: Capuchin monkeys ward off mosquitoes and ticks with extracts gathered from millipedes and ants, while black-tailed deer rub themselves liberally with potent antimicrobial secretions produced by glands in their hooves. According to William Wood, a chemistry professor at Humboldt State University in California, these secretions have been shown to be effective against a broad array of micro-organisms, including acne bacteria and athlete’s-foot fungus, which could explain why teenage deer are especially diligent with the hoof-rubbing routine right before the annual deer prom.
Photo
For each newly identified instance of a chemical fix, researchers seek to identify its benefits, drawbacks and evolutionary back story, and to compare it with other known cases of chemical arms. Distinctive themes have emerged.
For example, whereas poisonous insects tend to advertise their unpalatability in bright colors like red, orange and yellow — the better to warn off their major predators, the diurnal, keen-eyed birds — most mammals and their mammalian predators are nocturnal or crepuscular, dawn and duskular. Color is wasted on them, but strong contrast between dark and light is not.
This is why skunks, zorilles (also known as polecats) and the African crested rat have independently converged on a similar pelage theme of black against white. The pattern is unmistakable in very low light, and its message is too: You’ve seen me. I’m noxious. Now buzz off.
In their fetchingly titled paper, “A Poisonous Surprise Under the Coat of the African Crested Rat,” Jonathan Kingdon and Fritz Vollrath of Oxford University and their colleagues described the complex of traits that give rise to the rodent’s rottenness.
The researchers determined that the rat spends many hours gnawing on the bark and roots of the Acokanthera tree, from which it extracts the same curare-type heart toxin that African hunters have traditionally used to kill elephants. The rat then slavers the toxic masticant onto tracts of specialized hairs running along its flank.
Advertisement Continue reading the main story
Those hairs, when observed under a scanning electron microscope, look very different from ordinary fur, Dr. Vollrath said. Each outer shaft is stiff and full of holes — like a dead cactus, he said — and inside are a series of long, fluffy microfibers. The researchers showed that the applied toxin seeps through the outer holes of the hairs and is wicked up and stored by the fibers, lending the rat twinned flank strips of doom.
One little nip is all it would take to sicken or even kill a predator, and the crested rat is well equipped to endure exploratory bites, Dr. Vollrath said: Its hide is unusually thick, and its head is helmeted like a turtle’s. Whether through trial and error or by following an enlightened elder’s example, Africa ’s many carnivores give the rat a wide berth.
So, too, do Lophiomys researchers. “Jonathan is a highly enterprising researcher, and he normally eats every animal he studies,” Dr. Vollrath said of his colleague. “But he admitted he would rather not eat this one.”
Photo
The researchers don’t yet know why the rat is itself immune to the toxin, or how its fate came to be bound up with the Acokanthera tree. Dr. Vollrath looks to basic rat nature for ideas.
“The rat eats a lot of things that other animals won’t,” he said. “If it eats something disgusting, it tries to spit it out, clean it off, using its skin as a napkin.”
If an early crested rat, while sampling and gagging on a toxic tree, incidentally end up protected against predation, well, evolution has a way of turning a contingency into a necessity. The crested rat is now anatomically and behaviorally dependent on tree toxin for protection, and should Acokanthera go extinct, its little chiseler would soon follow.
Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content, updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters.
In contrast to the crested rat, skunks synthesize their toxins from scratch, yet they, too, have taken chemical defense to a highly derived, almost mannered extreme. Skunks stand alone in mammaldom, and though they once were considered a kind of weasel, the world’s 10 or so species have recently been assigned a family plaque of their own, the Mephitidae, from the Latin for “bad odor.”
Through anal scent glands just inside the rectum at the base of the tail, skunks generate an extreme version of the familiar spray with which carnivores mark their territory, wildly accentuating the chemical components that we and most other mammals judge to be very bad news.
At the heart of skunk spray is a thiol, the signature of nasty environments high in lethal hydrogen sulfide and low in oxygen — places like mines, swamps, and oil and gas wells. “Our nose is able to detect thiols at extremely low levels, parts per billion,” Dr. Wood said. “We needed to stay away from areas with low oxygen, where we could die.”
Advertisement Continue reading the main story
Skunks, he added, “have come along and capitalized on this.”
Capitalized and canonized — or maybe cannonized. The skunk’s scent glands have evolved into structures that look like swollen nipples, each able to swivel independently of the other to take perfect aim, and to perfectly calibrated effect (as can be seen in spectacular video on the PBS program “Nature”).
To deter a predator chasing behind at an unknown distance, the skunk goes for the atomized mist effect; if the harasser is within view, the skunk may choose a straight stream to the face.
Photo
Skunks are confident in their repellent prowess, but nowadays their swagger can prove fatal. Researchers suggest that one reason skunks constitute a large proportion of roadkill is that they see cars as another predator in need of a lesson: Come ahead, pal, I’ll just stand here and spray.
A good defense means never taking offense. Researchers have been impressed by the ardor with which monkeys in the field prospect for novel forms of insect repellent, and their willingness to withstand extremely irritating chemicals for the sake of rebuffing the bloodsuckers that plague them.
“Capuchin monkeys are notoriously generalist and destructive in their sampling,” said Jessica Lynch Alfaro, the associate director of the Institute for Society and Genetics at the University of California, Los Angeles. “They break everything open, and you have to watch out or they’ll drop branches on your head.”
Every so often, they come upon a product that looks or smells promising, at which point they crack it open and start anointing themselves. They tear up chili peppers to release the capsaicin, rip apart millipedes to procure a few droplets of searing benzoquinones.
If they find a nest of carpenter ants, pay dirt! The monkeys plop down on top and roll every which way, to soak up the ants’ formidable formic acid supply.
Such treatments are clearly painful. “Capuchin monkeys get very agitated when they’re anointing themselves,” said Dr. Lynch Alfaro, who with colleagues recently reviewed capuchin anointing behavior for The American Journal of Primatology. “But they’re keeping off parasites, and they seem to have a high threshold for pain.”
Besides, it’s not all pain and suffering. Anointing is a supremely social affair, and one rubbing monkey soon attracts others.
Advertisement Continue reading the main story
“They get into such a frenzy that the social order breaks down; everyone is anointing with everyone else,” Dr. Lynch Alfaro said. “It’s like a big, wild party.” They may be black and blue, but the magic potion is spread all over.Miscues By Narcotics Detection Canines Mar Recent Federal Stop-And-Sniff Operations Share
Tweet
Last Thursday evening, Rodney McDade sought to reenter the U.S. from Mexico via a pedestrian lane at the Calexico port of entry in southern California.
The 52-year-old McDade, who declared that he was not carrying anything into his home country, was directed to a "secondary inspection area" after a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent determined that he had an extensive criminal record (including busts for drug possession).
At the secondary office, a CBP officer conducted a pat-down search of McDade, which "resulted in negative results," according to a court filing. But agents were not done with him.
McDade was then brought to a third office, where he declined to undergo "a more thorough inspection by CBP officers." Such thoroughness would have included McDade disrobing so that federal agents could take a, um, closer look for contraband.
Denied the opportunity for a strip search, a CBP officer then screened McDade with a "Human/Narcotic Detector Dog." Since the animal began working in the field in 2010, it had "never had any false ‘hits,'" investigators reported.
When the unnamed dog took a whiff, it "alerted to buttocks area of McDade."
That's when federal agents drafted a search warrant noting that there was "probable cause to believe that McDade’s anal crevice may contain evidence, fruits, and instrumentalities" of violations of several laws.
Four hours after McDade sought to cross into California, a federal magistrate signed an 11:15 PM warrant allowing agents to first X-ray McDade to search for "any contraband within his anal cavity." If the X-ray proved positive or inconclusive, the agents were authorized to have a medical professional conduct a "cavity examination."
Warrant in hand, agents transported McDade to Pioneers Memorial Hospital, where his rectal area was X-rayed. A positive result would have surely resulted in a narcotics trafficking charge carrying a stiff prison sentence.
However, as detailed in a search warrant inventory, the examination of McDade resulted in "negative X-ray results." While the detector dog "alerted" to McDade’s buttocks, no foreign substances were stashed in his anal crevice. Which spared him a follow-up cavity search.
McDade was released from custody at 2 AM. Without an apology from the law enforcement asset that earlier had been sniffing his buttocks.
Another narcotics detection canine used by federal agents also recently had some miscues during a drug interdiction operation run by Drug Enforcement Administration agents and postal inspectors, according to a U.S. District Court filing.
The dog, "Lilly," last month screened 30 packages at a U.S. Mail facility in Washington state. The canine alerted to 16 packages, eight of which were subsequently opened by agents expecting to find drugs and other contraband.
Instead, one package contained "dental work," while others held photographs and perfume. Two packages had marijuana, one had cash, and the other two contained "illegal passports." Prior to these incorrect alerts, "Lilly" had a 94 percent accuracy rate, reported investigators, who added that the dog is rewarded with "her tennis ball" upon completion of searches.Barrett Brown, a Texas-based journalist who was imprisoned by federal authorities following a raid of both his apartment and his mother’s house amid his own investigations into government defense contractors, was released from prison Tuesday, five months before his scheduled release date.
Brown, who pleaded guilty two years ago to three Internet threats, accessory after the fact, and interfering with the execution of a search warrant, had originally been charged with more than a dozen crimes and faced more than 100 years in prison. A majority of the charges were dropped after his lawyers challenged the wisdom of the allegations in court.
The accusations that concerned press freedom and Internet advocacy groups most were those regarding his sharing of a publicly available link containing hacked material and thousands of credit-card account numbers related to the hack of Stratfor, a global intelligence firm.
Investigators say that the data breach was carried out by the hacking collective Anonymous. Brown had an often-contentious relationship with the group yet he was nonetheless regarded falsely as their spokesperson. Although Brown had no involvement in the hack, the court ordered that he also pay nearly $900,000 in restitution to Stratfor when he was sentenced last year to 63 months in prison.
The Press reached out to an advocate of Brown’s for a statement but one was not available as of press time.
Back on the outside for the first time in 4 years, Barrett enjoys an Egg McMuffin. #FreeBB pic.twitter.com/bLbX21ZcTJ — Free Barrett Brown (@FreeBarrett_) November 29, 2016
Jailed since 2012 for his investigations, #BarrettBrown has finally been released from prison. Best of luck in this very different world. pic.twitter.com/i94lhEUtR5 — Edward Snowden (@Snowden) November 29, 2016
Fantastic news. Welcome back! Can’t way to see more of your journalism. https://t.co/wIwX7YbH8a — Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) November 29, 2016
Brown’s arrest and subsequent imprisonment appalled free speech groups around the world who expressed concern about a potential chilling effect his prosecution had on investigative journalism. That the federal government would prosecute a journalist over a hyperlink outraged sympathetic journalists and advocates. Global nonprofit group, Reporters without Borders, cited the hyperlink-related charge in its 2014 report on press freedoms, which, along with the Obama administration’s unprecedented prosecution of whistleblowers, contributed to the United State dropping 14 spots in the organization’s annual Press Freedom Index.
The headline on the late New York Times media critic David Carr’s Sept. 8, 2013 column about Brown’s plight underscored the nervousness among some journalists: “A Journalist-Agitator Facing Prison Over a Link.”
Prior to his legal troubles, Brown had been a prolific writer and author. His work ranged from investigative journalism and satire, earning him a tremendous following. Brown’s writing appeared in outlets including The Guardian, Vanity Fair and The Huffington Post. Most recently, he’s penned award-winning commentary for D Magazine and the investigative outlet, The Intercept.
Brown’s writing career began with blurbs about bars and restaurants for a local alternative-weekly, along with satire columns. But his curiosity beckoned him, and he began scrutinizing the relationship between the U.S. government and private contractors.
In 2010, he created Project PM, a site he’d use to crowd-source leaked documents like those from Stratfor.
Some of the documents reportedly shed light on Stratfor’s inner workings, including revelations that it provided confidential intelligence to corporations and government agencies.
Among those disclosures that Brown and others had uncovered was a plot by a consortium of intelligence contractors, collectively dubbed Team Themis, to discredit whistleblower site WikiLeaks and journalists such as Pulitzer Prize-winner Glenn Greenwald.
Brown’s research also brought to light mass surveillance conducted by government contractors on behalf of the U.S. government.
“Unprecedented surveillance capabilities are being produced by an industry that works in secret on applications that are nonetheless funded by the American public–and which in some cases are used against that very same public,” Brown wrote on his site in June 2011.
Federal investigators raided both Brown’s apartment and his mother’s home in 2012 armed with a search warrant looking for “evidence, contraband, fruits, and instrumentalities of criminal violations,” according to the search warrant obtained by the late BuzzFeed/Rolling Stone muckraker Michael Hastings. FBI agents were seeking recordings from government contractors, including HB Gary, Infragard, and Endgame Systems, as well as information related to Anonymous, the hacking group Lulzec, and pastebin.com, among other Internet entities. They were also looking for any computers or hard drives containing the aforementioned material.
Federal authorities in Dallas did not arrest Brown until six months after they executed their search warrant.
Over that time, Brown lashed out in a series of profanity-laced YouTube videos in which he threatened an FBI agent. The portion of his outburst related to the threat charge as part of his guilty plea included claims from Brown that he was armed and would regard government agents as Mexican cartel assassins.
“Any armed officials of the U.S. government, particularly the FBI, will be regarded as potential [Los] Zeta assassin squads and as the FBI and DPD know…I’m armed and I come from a military family, that I was taught to shoot by a Vietnam vet and by my father, a master hunter of all things…I will shoot all of them and kill them if they come and do anything because they are engaged in a criminal conspiracy and I have reason to fear for my life, not just from the Zetas but from the U.S. government,” Brown said.
He added: “And frankly, it was pretty obvious that I was going to be dead before I was 40 or so, so I wouldn’t mind going out with two FBI sidearms like a fucking Egyptian pharaoh. Adios.”
In court, Brown also admitted to concealing two laptops during the raids that contained his journalistic research.
Brown and his attorneys had been prohibited during the period leading up to his trial to speak with the media because of a court-induced gag order instigated by prosecutors.
In an interview in the Press following his guilty plea, Brown’s attorney at the time said his client was “remorseful” and intended to continue his journalism.
Brown’s most recent essay on behalf of The Intercept was published last month, in which he says, “I am fully capable of entertaining myself in prison for decades if needed.”
Brown will reportedly live in a halfway house following his release. As mandated by the court last year, Brown will participate in a drug and alcohol program and will periodically have his computer activity monitored.
Also on Tuesday, WikiLeaks unveiled a searchable database for 60,000 emails related to HB Gary, one of the contractors that Brown had been investigating prior to his arrest.This is Part 5 of the ReSharper SDK Adventures — a series dedicated to in-depth coverage of ReSharper plugin development. This series was previously hosted on DevTalk, but will now be appearing on the JetBrains.NET Tools blog.
In case you missed the first four parts of the series, here’s a brief recap:
Part 1 showed how to create an element problem analyzer, highlightings and a quick-fix to turn Math.Pow() calls with integral powers into inlined multiplications.
Part 2 demonstrated improvements to the example in Part 1, including user-configurable settings as well as a code cleanup module.
Part 3 has shown how to create a simple action to paste numeric data in CSV format into C# as an array.
Part 4 gave an overview of the Agent Mulder plugin and an explanation of how it uses SSR (Structural Search & Replace) to programmatically search code for specific patterns. It also showed how to use gutter marks and suppress unwanted inspections.
In this part of the series, I’d like to show how you can use ReSharper to effectively get D-style mixins in ordinary C# code.
Mixins!
The notion of a mixin in the D programming language implies, simply, some code that is inserted as text by the compiler. While the C# compiler doesn’t provide functionality to simply inject elements at compile-time, it’s entirely possible to get the same effect at ‘design time’, i.e. right in code.
We’re going to implement the simplest possible mixin construct — a context action that looks for a MixinAttribute declaration on a class, executes the code in the mixin parameter, takes the results of the execution and splices them right into the class. For example:
would, after execution, result in the following
The above assumes the presence of a MixinAttribute which is only used as a convenient means of storing the program to execute. Note the use of two double quotes. The attribute can be defined simply as follows:
Now that we know what we want, let’s discuss how we’re going to implement this.
Attribute Detection and Analysis
We’re building a very simple context action, so the first order of the day is to determine where it’s applicable. And, strictly speaking, it’s applicable wherever there’s a Mixin attribute – we don’t care about the namespace it lives in.
Attempting to identify the attribute’s contents (together with a layer of null checks) is far more tedious, which is why I typically employ the Maybe monad to come up with the following search for the attribute argument:
This notation may seem weird, but it cuts down on excessive nesting and makes the null checks implicit. Now that we are here, we can use a simple StringBuilder to build the actual program we’re going to execute. All we need to do here is put together some using statements, a wrapper class and the contents of that argument the user entered:
Now that this is in place, we perform in-memory compilation of the program. I won’t show the in-process compiler because it’s boilerplate code – you can find it here.
The above compiles the code, executes it, concatenates the result, surrounds it with line breaks and inserts into the current document just before the class’ closing curly brace.
And that pretty much concludes the implementation of our mixin action. You can find the full implementation here.
Use Cases?
So what’s the use case for something like this? Well, how about creating a storage struct for an arbitrary N-by-M matrix? All we have to do is define the structure as follows:
… and after applying the mixin, you’ll get 9 generated fields, all correctly named:
Of course, this kind of ’metaprogramming’ behavior is not commonly required, but when you do need to generate structures in this way, the action presents a more transparent and convenient alternative than using T4 or AOP-style postprocessing. ■He works as a dishwasher making minimum wage in Charlotte, NC and has NEVER left the United States. We would like to make his dream of seeing England a reality and are helping him, through group funding.
100% of all money collected will go towards Freight Train and Jake Manning's plane tickets and hotel and travel fees to England. We will film everything and create a documentary on this special individual, Charles Stevenson. We'll interview his family and friends and learn why he's just a little more special than the rest of us.
Any money that exceeds the cost of traveling to England will be given directly to Freight Train as a gift.
Freight Train has been part of the Highspots family since the beginning of $5 Wrestling. He's the most charismatic and loveable characters in $5 Wrestling history.Academics and health campaigners are being subjected to threats of violence, harassment and personal abuse by pro-smoking activists as UK ministers consult over whether tobacco should be sold only in plain packets.
Leading advocates of tobacco control have been targeted in an apparent escalation of hate campaigns and intimidation by bloggers and groups who view moves to curb smoking as assaults on personal freedom.
One article, called "sniper the flappers," hosted by the campaign group Freedom2choose's website in March, suggested shooting staff of Action and Smoking and Health and Cancer Research UK, entrepreneur and anti-smoker Duncan Bannatyne and Shona Robison, a former health minister in the Scottish government. The blogpost gave the addresses of Ash offices in London, Edinburgh and Cardiff. Ash called the police.
"Snipers could soon snuff out prohibitionists... It is time the humble smoker fought back against this intolerable persecution, for persecution is exactly what it is... After 'popping' a few termites ASHites, CRUK'ers and a few 'flappers' they might start to take some notice and report the truth," it said.
Freedom2choose, which campaigns "to prevent the victimisation of smokers," removed the article, which it said was satirical. It is still hosted by the website of Smokers Justice, which calls Ash "this new cancer in our society [that] needs to be eradicated."
Researchers say abuse and threats intensified first with the public debate on removing branding from cigarette packs and now a formal government consultation on the idea.
Bath University has increased security for its tobacco control research group, including installing CCTV. Staff were subjected to abusive and threatening phone calls and emails after publishing an article in January about the illegal trade in a smokeless tobacco called snus.
One caller left a message to be passed to Anna Gilmore, the group's director, saying: "Tell her that I know people that would like to meet with her in a dark alley."
The group received about seven calls a day for two months. "The ones I answered were intimidatory; the tone was aggressive. Many of my team felt threatened and worried by this," said Gilmore.
"We've had abuse before, over the debate about banning smoking in public places, and I get some of this every time I publish a paper, but it's increasing...This is part of a deliberate attempt to misinform the public and politicians, denigrate our research and to harass, denigrate and undermine us as researchers."
Bath University has launched a new website, TobaccoTactics.org, to monitor and counter moves by the industry and its supporters to fight control measures. Linda Bauld of Stirling University called the police last September when a pro-smoking blogger calling himself Frank Davis wrote that: "You should start worrying when bricks start getting thrown through your window or messages daubed on your door."
Bauld should emigrate, Davis added, so she would be elsewhere "when your old university department gets torched and your old colleagues are strung up from lamp-posts."
Bauld said she had received threatening phone calls while she and a colleague had also had "not particularly pleasant emails" after publishing a review of plain tobacco packaging which led to the government consultation."A lot of the stuff targeted at me was quite misogynist early on".
Liberal Democrat MP Stephen Williams, chair of Westminster's all party parliamentary group on smoking and health, has received abuse, including homophobic abuse, on his blog, especially after supporting plain packs. "When people make comments online, I sometimes wonder whether it is a real person or manufactured false identity. There are various front groups for the tobacco industry, and, I think, front individuals who post negative comments."
Another prominent plain packs advocate experienced attempts to reset passwords on Hotmail, Facebook and iTunes accounts. Friends and relatives on his Facebook page have been contacted by people asking questions about him.
Davis has said of Ash's director Deborah Arnott that "I'd have had a hard time preventing myself from strangling Arnott on the spot and on camera, or bludgeoning her to death with a microphone stand." He calls anti-smoking campaigners "Nazis" and has compared Arnott, to Hitler.
Arnott said: "I'm happy to argue on the basis of facts and evidence. But when it comes to personal abuse and intimidation, that's completely unacceptable. It does seem to have got worse since plain packs began being debated last year." She believes tobacco industry fears over plain packaging of cigarettes are linked to the apparent upsurge in vitriol and threats, although there is no evidence firms are in any way funding or connected to it.
Another libertarian pro-tobacco blogger, calling himself Dick Puddlecote, wrote that the NHS-funded Smokefree Southwest campaign was made up of "grasping bastards" and called Gabriel Scally, until recently NHS regional director of public health, "part of a bullshit spreading campaign".
Simon Clark, the director of the Freedom Organisation for the Right to Enjoy Smoking (Forest), who called Frank Davis's article "stunning", said he should rather have described it as "powerful".
"We would never condone threats of any kind, nor do we encourage inflammatory language. The blog in question does not represent our views but it is representative of a small and increasingly vocal minority who are angry at the excessive nature of the smoking ban and the never-ending measures designed to denormalise both smokers and their habit."
Clark said that since UK-wide bans on smoking in public places many smokers felt disenfranchised. "It is hardly surprising if their frustration occasionally bubbles over and is expressed in colourful or sometimes inappropriate language."
As for comparisons to Nazis, "As I have said many times, repeated references to a totalitarian regime that slaughtered six million Jews is inappropriate and embarrassing in relation to tobacco control. In terms of building support for our cause, it is entirely counter-productive."
• The caption on the photograph at the top of this article was amended on 11 June 2012 to clarify that brand names would still appear on cigarette packs under new proposals.“We were not providing assistance to these areas, so we need to find out what was going on,” Stefano Porretti, the World Food Program’s director of emergencies, said in a brief telephone comment.
The United Nations agency said it last reached Dayr Hafir in August, sending a convoy carrying 1,700 boxes of rations with basic supplies like rice and wheat flour to meet the needs of 8,500 people for a month.
The program distributes food for more than four million people in Syria each month, much of it through the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, a crucial partner for most international aid agencies working in Syria. However, S.A.R.C.’s warehouse in Dayr Hafir was seized by the Islamic State in September, and there has been no contact with workers there since then, the World Food Program said.
“We put the pieces together and realized that this probably was whatever was left in the warehouses,” said Abeer Etefa, a spokeswoman for the food agency in Cairo. “In this particular area, no one has access; we have not operated there since September.”There’s chutzpah, and then there’s rank hypocrisy.
The RNC released a slick but cynical Web ad this week commemorating the first 100 days of President Obama’s second term. Politics ain’t beanbag, and no one expected their assessment would be sunshine and light. But there’s a particularly low place for folks who block and then blame—in this case, intimating with mock sadness that the president is legislatively impotent for failing to pass universal background checks in the wake of the Sandy Hook slaughter.
Reality check: 41 Republican senators (and five Democrats) voted against the bipartisan compromise bill crafted by Republican Pat Toomey and Democrat Joe Manchin. |
said he now is invited regularly to events at the Chinese Consulate, which asks him for reports on what is happening to Chinese students on campus. (An official at the consulate declined to comment.)
Such attention from the authorities can also pressure Chinese students to self-censor for fear that they are being watched, even while abroad.
According to Human Rights Watch, which is completing a two-year investigation into China’s impact on the world’s universities, Chinese government pressures are undermining academic freedom not only in Australia but also the United States and Europe.
“I first went to China to study myself in the fall of 1989,” said Sophie Richardson, the China director of Human Rights Watch. “Twenty-five years later, it’s much easier for mainland students to go to Australia or the U.S. and study, and yet they are in some ways and in some cases as restricted or as surveilled as they would be if they had stayed at home. That, to me, is not the right direction for us to be going.”Second baseman Marcus Semien is trying to make the most out of the opportunity with the Chicago White Sox put forth in front of him, and he is struggling. He knows it. The White Sox brass knows it. The fans know it.
Through his first five games this season, Semien is hitting.130 with an OBP of.200 while hitting one homer and two RBIs. Manager Robin Ventura placed Semien in the two-hole of the order because he had confidence that the 23-year-old could get on base and move leadoff hitter Adam Eaton over with regularity. Unfortunately, Semien got off to a slow start and has not been able to find his groove.
Six games into the season is not the time when one should press the panic button and take a starter out of the lineup, especially during a rebuilding season, when a player should be given ample time to prove whether or not he deserves to start. In this situation however, time is not on Semien’s side.
Gordon Beckham is continuing his rehab assignment in double-A Birmingham this week and is poised to be back with the big league club in the foreseeable future. Obviously, the Sox will pencil Beckham into the lineup right away once he returns to the 25-man roster, but the team is faced with a difficult decision: who do they send down to the minors?
The options are Semien and Leury Garcia. The decision might appear obvious. GM Rick Hahn should send down Garcia because he provides less offensively than Semien, who is seen as core part to the future while Garcia’s ceiling is that of an above average utility infielder. While this might be the case, it should be Semien, not Garcia, that has to pack his bags for Charlotte once Beckham returns.
It is clear that Semien needs more work in order to further his development. Sitting on the bench and receiving spot starts at second and third would not help him. He should return to the minors where he can work on his bat speed and his ability to drive the ball the opposite way every single game. HE should focus on working to improve defensively at one position, second, instead of having to work the hot corner when he gives Conor Gillaspie a spell.
Unlike Garcia, Semien would not be best suited in a role coming off the bench.
Garcia should stay in the majors because he provides the only form of speed for the Sox off the bench. The piece the team received in the Alex Rios deal last season, Garcia is the stereotypical bench player. His speed makes him a pest on the basepaths for opposing pitchers, and he is an adequate enough defender to come in as a defensive replacement late in games.
The former was shown in the Sox’ wild pitch walk-off victory against the Minnesota Twins as Garcia flew around the bases and scored the winning run. He does not have to return to the minors to fine-tune his mechanics, because he already has mastered what the team will call on him to do.
Garcia will never be a plus guy at the plate or an everyday player for that matter. The Sox are not concerned about that. They just need him to be their source of speed and defense off the bench — two things the Sox will drastically miss if they send down Garcia instead of Semien once Beckham returns.
Nick Kapetan is a Chicago White Sox writer for RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter or add him to your network on Google.Bernie Ecclestone, CEO of FOM, certainly had his fair share of original ideas to improve the sport over the years, and most of them obviously have been keeping this global form of racing alive for decades. However, there are some very unconventional suggestions from the Formula 1 captain that certainly deserve to be remembered. Here is our Top 3 of his most unconventional ideas that never made it to the rule book.
Sprinklers: With rain and changing conditions turning the 2011 Canadian Grand Prix into one of the most enthralling races in recent times (as it received most fan votes in 2015), Bernie Ecclestone suggested simulating wet conditions through… sprinklers. The Paul Ricard Circuit, owned by the 85-year-old, already has such a facility installed, albeit for testing purposes.
Lottery grid: In order to mix the grid and, hence, spice up the show, Formula 1 chief came up with the idea of a lottery grid, with the top 10 positions drawn at random. The idea included giving points for qualifying to prevent the session from being rendered worthless.
Shortcuts: As if DRS wasn’t enough, Ecclestone discussed a proposal with the teams to allow drivers to take a specific number of shortcuts during the race. While the idea itself was extremely questionable to say the least, it would have also compromised the safety of drivers.IMPHAL: Manpuri bodybuilder Khundrakpam Pradipkumar, who is HIV positive, has won a bronze in the Mr World competition currently underway in Bangkok.The 4th WBPF World Bodybuilding and Physique Sports Championship for men and women is currently being held in Bangkok under the patronage of Thailand's ministry of sports and tourism. The tourney began on December 4 and will continue till December 10.According to the latest report prepared by Manipur Aids Control Society (Macs), the state has 42,116 HIV positive people, including 11,778 women and 2773 children. Incidentally, Manipur is one of the six high HIV prevalence states in the country.The All Manipur Gymnasium Association said Pradipkumar won the bronze in the 65-kg category duel held on Friday. As Pradipkumar (43) faced acute financial constraints to procure his nutritional died ahead of the competition, various social organizations, philanthropists, social welfare minister AK Mirabai Devi and Olympic bronze medalist MC Mary Kom extended monetary assistance to him."We are so happy with Pradipkumar's glory. He has come out with flying colours. Now, he has sent a message to the whole world that HIV positive people can also lead a healthy and dignified life," said L Deepak, the president of Manipur Network of Positive People."Since he (Pradipkumar) has become a global icon, the government should at least give him a proper platform or an opportunity to ensure he faces no financial hurdles in this future endeavours," said Deepak, whose organization has over 2000 HIV positive members. Deepak said they would organize a simple function to felicitate Pradipkumar after his arrival.A resident of Sagolband Khamnam Leirak in Imphal West and a brand ambassador of Macs, Pradipkumar, revealed his status after winning senior Mr Manipur title in December 2007. The diminutive muscleman, who is on Anti Retroviral Therapy (Art), suffered financial breakdown after Macs stopped extending his nutritional aid of Rs 8000 a month since June this year.Another big setback was the state government's failure to appoint him as a regular employee in the youth affairs and sports department despite tall promises made by a minister in 2009.By Mario Andrade
DeadlineLive.info
Immigrants rights groups in Honduras are accusing the government of Mexico and the BATFE of shipping weapons inside coffins instead of the remains of dozens of immigrants discovered in the San Fernando mass graves. The Honduras press is accusing the Obama administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives or BATFE, since they have recently learned about ‘Operation Castaway,’ which is similar to ‘Fast and Furious,’ where the BATFE sold weapons to Mexican drug cartels.
In Operation Castaway, the BATFE and the DEA sent thousands of weapons from Florida to Puerto Rico and Honduras. Some of the weapons have even been found in Medellin, Colombia.
Earlier this year, several mass graves were discovered in San Fernando, Mexico. The majority of the human remains were allegedly Central-American illegal immigrants that failed to pay their smuggling fees to Los Zetas. Others were local residents and at least three of them were Americans.
As Mexico began the process of identifying the bodies and shipping their coffins to their respective countries, the drug cartels and possibly corrupt elements in the Mexican government are using the coffins to ship weapons to countries like Honduras and maybe Guatemala and El Salvador.
The Mexican press is now reporting that BATFE agents operating in Mexico were fully aware that their agency sold and smuggled weapons into Mexico. Some of them might’ve even participated in the weapons smuggling.
There have been reports describing a ‘heavy military presence’ at burials of these dead immigrants in Honduras. The military troops are guarding the coffins during the burials, stopping anyone that tries to open them.
Some of the family members, perhaps still hoping that their loved ones are still alive and thinking that Mexico might’ve send the wrong body, have managed to open the coffins, and therefore finding weapons instead of the remains of their relatives.
The government of Honduras is asking the Mexican government for an explanation and for assistance in order to investigate these reports. Many investigators and journalists believe that these were some of weapons sold to the drug cartels by the BATFE.The Environmental Protection Agency asked a federal appeals court Friday to reconsider its rejection of a rule intended to sharply reduce emissions that cross state borders from aging coal-fired power plants.
A three-member panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit overturned the rule in August. In the new filing, the EPA asked the full appeals court to review the case.
In the earlier 2-1 decision, the court ruled that the EPA overstepped its authority with the new regulation, which was one of the hallmarks of the federal government’s recent efforts to improve air quality.
Led by Texas, 14 states and several power companies challenged the legality of the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, which imposes caps on nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide from coal-fired power plants in eastern states. Texas, for one, feared that some utilities would shutter plants to comply with the rule, threatening the state’s ability to keep the lights on.
The EPA has said the rule is necessary to reduce lung-damaging pollution that causes thousands of premature deaths and respiratory illnesses each year around the power plants and in downwind states.
Besides Texas, the states challenging the rule are Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Virginia and Wisconsin.In San Jose, California, three jail guards stood trial this week, charged with beating an inmate to death, ripping his spleen nearly in half. In northeast Arkansas, two supervisors at a juvenile lockup pleaded guilty to conspiring to pepper-spray kids without cause. And in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, an inquest revealed that jail guards cut off water to an inmate’s cell seven days before he died of dehydration.
At The Marshall Project, we regularly check in with newspapers around the country, collecting stories and links for Opening Statement, our daily email, and for The Record, our “searchable encyclopedia for criminal justice journalism.” This week we couldn’t help but be taken aback by the litany of horrors in county jails and juvenile detention centers, most of them inflicted on the mentally ill and minors.
The dehumanizing conditions in many lockups has received considerable coverage. Last year, HuffPost cataloged a year’s worth of deaths in the nation’s jails, including suicides. But the accounts published this week — a collection of stories condensed into just five days — reveal stunning misconduct by keepers and contempt for the kept.
The following roundup focuses only on local lockups. (If we included state prisons, this week’s coverage would include a story in St. Louis, in which a mentally ill inmate hanged himself while one guard surfed Twitter, Amazon, Facebook and LinkedIn, and another guard streamed the movie “Blue Streak” on Netflix, and a story in Sacramento, Calif., in which officers pepper-sprayed a mentally ill inmate and strapped him, naked, to a gurney for 72 hours.)
San Jose, Calif.: On Monday, a medical examiner testified in the murder trial of three guards at the Santa Clara County Main Jail. The guards stand accused of beating Michael Tyree, a mentally ill inmate, to death. The examiner, Dr. Joseph O’Hara, a Stanford University professor of pathology, found Tyree in his cell covered in what appeared to be a “mixture of feces and vomitus.” Tyree suffered wounds to his head and body, his spleen torn nearly in half. “He died a painful death,” O’Hara said. The Mercury News reported that the prosecutor, Matt Braker, showed jurors grisly autopsy photos. The newspaper then wrote: “The blank-faced guards looked on Monday as Braker played video clips showing the desperate attempt to revive Tyree. Each time the left side of the nude inmate’s chest was pressed down, his stomach rippled, as the blood and fluid from his massive internal injuries moved like a wave through his abdomen, O’Hara said. Tyree lost 40 to 50 percent of his blood from his lacerated liver and spleen, the doctor said.” The county previously settled a lawsuit filed by Tyree’s family for $3.6 million.
Batesville, Ark.: Two ex-supervisors at a juvenile lockup in Batesville pleaded guilty on Wednesday in federal court to criminal charges of conspiring to assault inmates. With other guards, the two supervisors pepper-sprayed youths who posed no threat, a release from the U.S. attorney’s office said, adding: “In some instances, they then shut the compliant juveniles in their cells after pepper spraying them to ‘let them cook,’ rather than immediately decontaminating them.” After assaulting inmates, officers falsified reports, federal prosecutors said. An FBI agent said the agency is “appalled at what occurred to these minors,” calling the staff’s actions “incomprehensible.” The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette previously wrote about abuses at this juvenile lockup and at the Yell County Juvenile Detention Center, where, the newspaper reported, “teens often were placed in a full-body restraint system called ‘The Wrap’ and then pepper-sprayed.”
ViewFinder Visual commentaries on criminal justice issues
Kansas City, Mo.: A lawsuit filed Wednesday likened a cell at the Jackson County Detention Center to a sewer. Excrement and urine back up, and an inmate might have to lug in water from a flight below just to flush his toilet. The lawsuit was the second filed in two months alleging staff indifference to “dangerous or repugnant conditions,” according to The Kansas City Star. The newspaper noted that concerns about the jail go beyond sanitation: “In the past 10 days, The Star has run an article about an inmate who died at the detention center in January after her fatal medical condition went undiagnosed by two nurses. On Friday, a federal indictment was unsealed charging four former guards with allegedly beating a shackled prisoner so badly he had to be hospitalized.”
Farmington, Utah: On Sunday the Standard-Examiner, a newspaper in Ogden, published a fiery editorial about the death of 46-year-old Kara Noakes in the Davis County Jail, located in Farmington. When Noakes was booked for failure to appear, jailers confiscated her blood-pressure pills and other medication. Two days later she was found cold and blue. The cause of her death was listed as “atherosclerotic and hypertensive cardiovascular disease (high blood pressure and heart disease), and other significant conditions.” The Standard-Examiner itemized the jail’s failures in Noakes’ case (not monitoring her health, not expediting her prescriptions, dropping her on her head when she was found in her cell) and wrote: “Since 2005, 15 people have died in the Davis County Jail. It’s time for a public accounting.”
Reno, Nev.: In a four-part series, “Death Behind Bars,” published earlier this month, the Reno Gazette-Journal profiled 13 inmates who died at the Washoe County jail, including a man pinned down by six deputies. On Monday, the newspaper uncovered a possible explanation for the lack of oversight that plagues so many lockups. County commissioners told the newspaper there was little they could do about the jail and its inmates, saying that responsibility was the sheriff’s. “State law, it turns out, has a different take: it’s the county commission’s job to look after not only the security of the facility, but the condition of the inmates there,” the newspaper reported. “In fact, the law requires the commission to inspect the facility and ‘inquire into the... treatment and condition of the prisoners’ every three months. But it appears commissioners were unaware of the law and the county has no formalized process for making such inquiries.”
Philadelphia: Philly.com, the digital edition of The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News, published an exposé on Monday of Wordsworth, a nonprofit residential treatment center for troubled kids, many suffering from mental illness. David Hess, 17, died there last fall in a confrontation with staffers, leading the state to shut the place down. “In the last decade, at least 49 sex crimes have been reported at Wordsworth, including 12 rapes and 23 accounts of sexual abuse,” according to the newspapers’ investigation. “Interviews, court records, state inspection reports, and police records reveal a trail of injuries to children, from broken bones to assaults to the suffocation death of Hess. Along the way, lawyers, licensing inspectors, and others found conditions there appalling and sounded the alarm with little success.”
Perryton, Texas: The Texas Civil Rights Project issued a press release on Monday announcing the settlement of a lawsuit stemming from the suicide of Amber May, an inmate at the Ochiltree County Jail in Perryton. “When Ms. May was arrested in 2014, she had disclosed her depression and other mental illnesses at the time of booking but was left unmonitored with access to phone cords — which she ultimately used to end her life, leaving behind two eight-year-old daughters.” The press release linked to a study, “Preventable Tragedies,” which profiled 10 inmates with mental health needs who died at other county jails throughout Texas.
Milwaukee: At an inquest on Monday, prosecutors said surveillance video shows three officers at the Milwaukee County Jail shutting off the water to the cell of Terrill Thomas, a mentally ill inmate who was being held in solitary. A week later, Thomas, who received no water or milk with his meals, was found dead, “the result of profound dehydration,” the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. The county jail is run by Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr., a conservative-media fixture profiled last year by The Marshall Project’s Maurice Chammah. On Thursday, a homicide detective with the Milwaukee Police Department testified at the inquest that sheriff’s officials deceived police investigating Thomas’ death, withholding key information. “It’s unconscionable,” the detective testified. “It’s like you’re hiding something.”Articol actualizat
Cine este Liviu Voinea
"Ne-am gandit la dl Liviu Voinea, care indeplineste criteriile de integritate si de expertiza" si care "se bucura de credibilitatea unor institutii financiare importante", a spus Dragnea, la finalul consultarilor dintre Iohannis si delegatia PSD."Am discutat cu guvernatorul BNR care ne-a asigurat ca ca daca Liviu Voinea va fi nominalizat va avea tot sprijinul institutional al BNR", a adaugat Voinea.Seful PSD a precizat ca este vorba despre un guvern cu "un mandat limitat, foarte clar si precis", care va trebui sa asigure cele doua runde de alegeri programate anul viitor, cele locale si cele parlamentare.Dragnea a precizat ca a prezentat aceasta propunere si "coalitiei de guvernare", respectiv UNPR si ALDE, care "nu au respins-o"."Reactia a fost ca e o propunere rezonabila", a comentat Liviu Dragnea, mentionand ca presedintele Iohannis "a spus ca dupa ce va avea a doua runda de intalniri cu toate partidele va face propunerea pe care o considera dumnealui potrivita"."Presedintele a spus ca nu crede ca anticipatele e o varianta care ar putea fi pusa in practica rapid", deoarece ar genera "cateva luni de interimat cu consecinte destul de rele pentru economie si stabilitatea tarii".In opinia presedintelui, "probabil cea mai buna varianta ar fi un guvern de tehnocrati, si ca premier si ca ministri", a mai spus Dragnea, care a adaugat ca seful statului va anunta nominalizarea pentru postul de premier probabil marti, dupa finalizarea intalnirilor cu toate partidele.Cu cateva minute inainte de anuntul oficial al lui Liviu Dragnea, Realitatea TV si Digi 24 anuntasera pe surse ca Liviu Dragnea va fi propus premier de Dragnea.Nominalizarea lui Liviu Voinea vine pe fondul ofertei facute de guvernatorul BNR catre clasa politica. Isarescu a declarat ca "resurse umana" a BNR e la dispozitia clasei politice.secretar de stat in Ministerul Finantelor. El a fost unul dintre autorii programului de guvernare al USL. Adept al impozitului progresiv, Voinea a introdus in mandatul sau mecanismul de plata a TVA la incasarea facturii.Potrivit datelor postate pe blogul personal, Liviu Voinea este conferentiar universitar la Scoala Nationala de Studii Politice si Administrative (SNSPA), Departamentul de Relatii Internationale si Integrare Europeana, si profesor universitar la Academia de Studii Economice (ASE), Facultatea de Relatii Economice Internationale.A obtinut diploma de MBA de la Universitatea Stockholm (in 1998) si doctoratul la ASE (in 2000), a fost angajat drept cercetator post-doctoral la Comisia Europeana, Joint Research Center din Sevilla (in 2004) si a lucrat in diferite proiecte internationale pentru OCDE, Banca Mondiala, Fondul European de Investitii, Comisia Europeana, etc.In 2011 Liviu Voinea a fost Presedintele EIBA (European International Business Academy), o asociatie profesionala a economistilor europeni cu sediul la Bruxelles.Earlier today I was listening to Sunn O)) on Youtube because I was trying to drown out some people around me who were being loud, and I came across this embarrassing video where some dork talks about how he saw them the other day. Not sure who he is or why he made this video, but he’s probably one of those guys with an azn fetish who lives in Brooklyn or Portland and has an MLS degree (but works as a waiter at some vegan bakery/cafe). In this video, he gushes about Sunn O)) for over ten minutes without taking a break — he got so worked up that I expected him to cum at any second. Cliffs:
Does that thing where you wear the band shirt you bought at the show the night before (without even washing it, so it’s still creased from where it was folded).
Notes that this review has “no jump cuts and no freaky-deaky crap.”
So overwhelmed by the show that he “was having difficulty just standing up straight and keeping my mouth closed. I had to close it and swallow my spit.”
Apparently has never been high: “I can imagine this to be like drugs, because you are just losing control over your body because of the sound. Parts of your body are numb and feel like they’re not there.”
Derisively remarks that “[t]hey made Jucifer look like a bad, bad joke — if you’ve ever seen Jucifer live, all their cabinets are garbage!” Notes that Sunn’s cabinets are of far higher quality and therefore “skullcrushing.”
I have never gone to one of these shows, but if they are full of people like this, I don’t think I ever will. This is also what I imagine the typical MetalSucks reader is like.
Do u like 2 drone??? Does Sunn O)) give u a semi? Does this guy read MetalSucks???? Does this video justify every snide joke I make about metal fans being basement-dwelling, socially-awkward outcasts??????????
-Sergeant D.Part 4: 2400 Years of Homosexuality in China
The standing of homosexuality in Imperial China, from the early days of writing through to the Communist Revolution of 1949, was fundamentally different than it was in the West. In fable, the Yellow Emperor, one of the inventors of civilisation (c. 2600 BCE), set the precedent for sexual behaviour with his many wives, concubines, and male lovers. Same-sex love was treated with an openness unheard of in Europe. It was also considered a fact of life, and for the most part was not singled out as a vice that had to be punished or demonised.
Throughout its Imperial history, Chinese culture was not informed by monotheistic religions. Taoism and Confucianism are ethical systems rather than religions. Taoism hinges on the idea of balance, on the yin and yang, and Confucianism promotes social duties and opposed superstition. There was a place for homosexuality within both.
There are three tales that provide the social framework for how Chinese culture viewed homosexuality. The tales are used as proverbs in literary and historical works, and indicate the status of homosexuality within the social structure.
The Shared Peach. The first tale concerns the love of Duke Ling, ruler of the state of Wei (534-493 BCE), for a court official, Mizi Xia, who offers the ruler half a peach that he is eating.
Mizi Xia was strolling with the ruler in an orchard and, biting into a peach and finding it sweet, he stopped eating and gave the remaining half to the ruler to enjoy. “How sincere is your love for me!” exclaimed the ruler. “You forgot your own appetite and think only of giving me good things to eat!” Han Fei Zi • Tale of the Shared Peach, c. 240 BCE
Long Yang and the Fish. The second tale is also about a ruler of Wei, who had a favourite called Lord Long Yang. The two men were fishing and Lord Yang started to cry after he caught a fish.
“Why does that make you cry?” the king asked.
Lord Long Yang replied, “When I caught the fish, at first I was extremely pleased. But afterwards I caught a larger fish, so I wanted to throw back the first fish I had caught. Because of this evil act I will be expelled from your bed! There are innumerable beauties in the world. Upon hearing of my receiving your favor, surely they will lift up the hems of their robes so that they can hasten to you. I am also a previously caught fish! I will also be thrown back! How can I keep from crying?”
Because of this incident the king of Wei announced to the world, “Anyone who dares to speak of their beauties will be executed along with his entire family”. Quoted in Passions of the Cut Sleeve • Bret Hinsch, 1990 CE
The Cut Sleeve. The third tale is the most famous of the three, and concerns Emperor Ai of the Han dynasty who ruled from 6 BCE – 1 CE, and his lover, Dong Xian.
Emperor Ai was sleeping in the daytime with Dong Xian stretched out across his sleeve. When the emperor wanted to get up, Dong Xian was still asleep. Because he did not want to disturb him, the emperor cut off his own sleeve and got up. His love and thoughtfulness went this far! Records of the Han • Ban Gu, c. 66 CE
The emperor then appeared in public wearing the cut sleeve, and his courtiers celebrated the love affair by cutting their own sleeves.
These three tales of love and consideration informed the tradition of homosexuality in Imperial China.
There is, nevertheless, a dark side to the stories. When Mizi Xia gew older, the duke of Wei cast him aside; and on the death of the Emperor Ai, Dong Xian was forced to commit suicide. That said, this was not because of homosexuality but the fleeting nature of romance and the consequences of political power. The histories that recount the stories are political treatises, and when it comes to love they advise that a ruler should not put it above the state. It was expected that a man should marry, but it did not forbid homosexual attachments. That said, Emperor Ai was faithful to Dong Xian until death.
In the political treatise that tells the story of the cut sleeve, the writer Han Fei is concerned not with the dangers of homosexuality, but the danger that a ruler could lose his way because of love, whether it be heterosexual or homosexual.
In dealing with those who share his bed, the enlightened ruler may enjoy their beauty.
Yet he should beware.
The ruler is easily beguiled by lovely women and charming boys, by all those who can play and fawn at love. Han Fei • Han Feizi, c. 240 BCE
In Zhan Guo Ce (Intrigue of the Warring States) there is the tale of Duke Xian of Jin, who sent a boy to influence the ruler of the state Yu so that he could conquer it. He is instructed by his adviser:
Xun Xi said, “The Book of Zhou says, ‘A beautiful lad can ruin an older head’.” Unknown author • Zhan Guo Ce, 2003 CE
A beautiful lad is then sent to distract the king of Yu’s main advisor, and Xian sweeps in to conquer.
In his Records on the first 5 Emperors of the Han dynasty, the historian Sima Qian, who has been compared to Tacitus, included biographies of the Emperors’ male favourites. He writes of their influence on imperial affairs, and is not recording (or passing judgement on) gossip, like Suetonius did in his Lives of the Twelve Caesars.
Those who served the ruler and succeeded in delighting his eyes and ears, those who caught their lord’s fancy and won his favour and intimacy, did so not only through the power of lust and love; each had abilities in which he excelled. Sima Qian • Records, c.90 BCE
The Han emperors continued to have male lovers (and this includes Emperor Ai). Bisexuality was assumed and as men were expected to marry there was no word for a homosexual person.
From its beginnings, Imperial Chinese culture honoured the scholar rather than the warrior. Under Confucianism, the state was guided by the scholars and not the warriors.
Instead of legends of heroic self-sacrifice in a warrior society, we have piquant tales of delicate consideration and tenderness. Louis Crompton • Homosexuality and Civilisation, 2003 CE
Over the course of the centuries, and through its many imperial incarnations, the attitude towards homosexuality did not change. In 545 CE, the court poet Xu Ling collected an anthology of poetry that included many works on male love. One of written by the the second Emperor of the Liang dynasty, Jianwen.
Charming boy—You look so handsome!
You surpass Dong Xian and Mizi Xia.
Our feather curtains are filled with morning fragrance,
Our curtained bed is inlaid with ivory …
Your face is more beautiful than rosy red dawn clouds …
You’re enough to make the girls of Yan envious,
And cause even Zheng women to sigh. Emperor Jianwen • ‘Charming boy’, from New Songs from a Jade Terrace, 551 CE
In the following years, and in particular under the Song dynasty (960-1279 CE), the official record of male favourites was the domain of the unofficial biography. There was little cultural change in the status of homosexuality. A contemporary of Shakespeare, Xie Zhaozhe, recorded that young men were shared at official gatherings in Peking. The historian Mao Qiling details the many male loves of the Ming Emperor Zhengde (who ruled 1505-1521). The sixteenth Ming emperor, Xi Zong (who ruled 1620-1627), kept two palaces, one for his female lovers, and one for his male lovers.
There were also cases when homosexuality was incorporated into the traditional Confucian order. The commentator Shen Defu recorded an instance of this in the province of Fujian.
The Fujianese men are extremely fond of male beauty. No matter how rich or poor, handsome or ugly, they all find a companion of their own status. Between the two the older is called the “bond [adoptive] elder brother” (qixiong), the younger “bond younger brother” (qidi). When this elder bother goes to the house of the younger brother, the parents of the latter take care of him and love him like a son-in-law. And the younger brother’s expenses, including those of his marriage are all covered by the elder brother. They love each other and at the age of thirty are still sleeping in the same bed together like husband and wife. Shen Defu • Miscellaneous Musings from the Humble Broom Book Room, c. 1620 CE
In 1557, Portuguese traders arrived in China, and with them came missionaries and the superstitions of the West. By 1569, the Dominican Gaspar da Cruz had started to rewrite Chinese history. He ascribed the series of earthquakes that occurred in the 12th century to the fact that the Chinese were indifferent to sodomy. The laws of Leviticus and Exodus were used by Christians as an excuse to terrorize the Chinese.
Nevertheless, the passions of the Westerners did not immediately unsettle the serene Chinese culture. Anatomy of Love, an anthology compiled between 1629 and 1632, featured 850 tales and anecdotes. One chapter was devoted to homosexuality. The stories are judged on the character of the protagonists, and not their sexuality. The tales of the shared peach, Lord Yang and the fish, and the cut sleeve all feature.
The influence of the West did however start to seep into the culture. The writer Li Yu (1611-1680) was the forefront of the new Chinese literature, and in his stories about homosexuality he celebrates exemplary same-sex romances, but then in his commentary he condemns them. This may have been there to placate the censors, but the fact that it is there at all signalled a change. Nevertheless, in his play Pitying the Perfumed Companion Li Yu tells the story of two women in love.
Mme Fan, who is seventeen, meets a girl two years younger in a Buddhist convent. They fall desperately in love and take oaths of devotion before the Buddha in the presence of their approving servants. The girl laments that they must be separated and wishes they could be reincarnated as man and wife. In a charming scene they playfully try on a man’s robes to see who might better fit the part. Then Mme Fan hits upon a more practical solution: she asks her husband to take the younger woman into the household as a concubine. He agrees, and the play ends happily. Louis Crompton • Homosexuality and Civilisation, 2003 CE
In the years following the end of the Ming dynasty the country’s troubles were blamed on slipping values, and a strict Confucianism was enforced. Male love was discouraged through legislation. The Second Qing emperor (ruled 1626–1643) punished affairs between men with the martial code of 100 lashes. Nevertheless, by introducing punishment this only put homosexual affairs on the same footing as heterosexual ones. Europeans, of course, thought it lenient. It was soon relaxed and the culture returned to traditional Chinese ways.
The fact of same-sex attraction continued to be treated as another part of the complex human experience. In the eighteenth century, it became popular for scholars and officials to have affairs with tan actors (male actors who played female parts). Three of the emperors between 1851 and 1935 had male lovers.
This tradition came to an end with the Communist revolution of 1949. It is an irony that it was not the religion of the West that brought its end, but what the Americans liked to call “Godless Communism”.
The next part of ‘A Queer History’ looks at the West after the fall of Rome.
Further Reading:
Part I – A Queer History: First Words On Homosexuality
Part II – A Queer History: Turning Against Homosexuality
Part III – A Queer History: Outlawing HomosexualityThis is unofficial Fan Content permitted under the Fan Content Policy. Not approved/endorsed by Wizards. Portions of the materials used are property of Wizards of the Coast. © Wizards of the Coast LLC.
Four of the spells were made for 3rd Edition D&D, they've now been updated to work with 5th Edition. Additional spells have been created for this collection.
Gideon's childhood spellbook is the only known record of some of the spells he created. Splattered with paint and filled with childish writing, the spells that survive in the book to this day are difficult to make out, but are castable by the wizard patient enough to rewrite them.
Young Gideon seemed to have an innate understanding of magic. While it would take most wizards weeks, or even months, to develop a new spell, he was said to be able to create new spells in a matter of hours.
Gideon Silvereyes was half-elven child, born to a minor noble family in the old city of Ravenport, before its fall to the |
haha is just one of many recent controversies over the use and control of oral histories. Some 9/11 New York City firemen withdrew their permission making public their recordings, fearful of retribution by disaster deniers.
And just a few weeks ago the heirs of some World War II Nazi prosecutors raised questions about oral histories collected long ago that archivist now want to digitize and disseminate worldwide.
“What to do about those oral histories that were recorded 30, 40, 50 years ago? Do we have permission to put them on the Web?” asked Jayne Guberman, director of the oral history project on Boston's Marathon bombing, a collaborative project with Northeastern University and WBUR. “And now that we can put oral histories online many more people can have access to them, and it's changed oral history in profound ways. I mean I think it adds an ethical dimension that perhaps wasn't there earlier.”
The future of oral history is being tested. The digital world opens the recorded past to a new generation and with it the responsibility to keep promises made long ago.Image copyright PA Image caption Ed Miliband singled out Sports Direct in his criticism of zero-hours contracts
Retailer Sports Direct has dismissed criticism by Ed Miliband of its use of zero-hours contracts.
The Labour leader called it a "terrible place to work" and pledged to ban "the exploitation" of such contracts.
Labour claims 17,000 of Sports Direct's 20,000 UK staff are not guaranteed regular hours.
In response the company said it was reviewing "core" employment procedures, but a spokesman added: "With enemies like these, who needs friends?"
BBC political correspondent Alan Soady said this comment was meant as mockery of Mr Miliband, following recent reports that some Labour figures want him to step down amid poor poll ratings.
Sports Direct also reiterated a statement it had already made, saying: "The company will continue the process of reviewing, updating and improving our core employment documents and procedures across our entire business beyond its existing compliant framework."
'Victorian practices'
Zero-hours contracts do not guarantee regular work, and sick pay is often not included.
Speaking to the West Midlands Labour Party conference in Coventry, Mr Miliband attacked what he called "a zero-zero economy - of zero-hours contracts and zero tax for those at the top".
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Ed Miliband says Sports Direct is a "terrible place to work"
Mr Miliband pledged that, under a Labour government, "if you work regular hours you will have a legal right to a regular contract".
He said Sports Direct "has predictable turnover, it has big profits but, for too many of its employees, it is a terrible place to work".
"We cannot go on with an economy that allows businesses to use zero-hours contracts as the standard way of employing people month after month, year after year," he said.
"These Victorian practices have no place in the 21st Century."
Business and Enterprise Minister Matthew Hancock said: "We're already tackling the abuse of zero-hours contracts - after 13 years of Labour doing absolutely nothing about it."FREMONT (KCBS) – A new BART station that is expected to ease traffic congestion on Interstate 880 could be open for service sometime in October.
This nearly five-and-a-half mile extension is key because it paves the way for a future line to San Jose.
BART spokesperson Alicia Trost said the Warm Springs/South Fremont Station could be open before Halloween. However some issues have to be resolved first.
“There’s reports in newspapers this morning of a possible date of October 22nd, and it’s just not clear yet if that is going to be the date,” Trost told KCBS. “Because there is a lot of work that needs to take place, before we know, absolutely 100 percent we’re certain that we’ll have what’s called revenue service on that day.”
This project was first proposed back in 1991 so postponing the opening by a few days may not matter too much.
“We’re confident it can happen in fall. Hopeful towards the end of October, but a couple of things need to be checked off the list before we can absolutely set an opening date,” the BART spokesperson said.
Testing and critical cable work must be done before that familiar train whistle blows.
The Warm Springs station would be the latest system extension since the Millbrae/SFO extension was opened in 2003. It would also be the newest station since the Oakland International Airport station was opened on BART’s separate, automated line in 2014.Three Peruvian judges are scheduled to meet on 1 April following a lawsuit filed to stop a gas consortium from operating in a reserve in the Amazon created for indigenous peoples living in “initial contact” and “voluntary isolation.”
There are already wells in the west of the reserve where gas has been produced for years, and last month the Energy Ministry approved the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) of the expansion of operations involving more wells, a pipeline extension and seismic tests further to the north, east and south.
The lawsuit was filed against the Energy Ministry and the company leading the consortium, Pluspetrol, in August 2013 by the Lima-based Institute for the Legal Defence of the Environment and Sustainable Development (IDLADS). It asks the judge to order, among other things, the Energy Ministry to rescind its approval of the expansion and to ban all oil and gas operations in the reserve:
We request that [the judge] orders the Ministry of Energy and Mines to exclude the Kugapakori-Nahua-Nanti and Others’ Reserve from any kind of promotion, exploration and exploitation of hydrocarbons.
The lawsuit also asks the judge to order Pluspetrol to “refrain from exploring for or exploiting hydrocarbons” in the reserve, and to respond to observations in a technical report on the EIA by the Culture Ministry in July last year which stated that the new wells, pipeline and seismic tests could “devastate” or make “extinct” the reserve’s inhabitants and was subsequently rescinded.
IDLADS claims that operations in the reserve violate the Peruvian constitution, Peruvian law and international law, and the reserve’s inhabitants’ rights to a “healthy and balanced environment”, self-determination, life, health, “ethnic and cultural identity”, “biological and cultural integrity”, dignity, territory, property, ancestral possession and prior consultation.
Almost 75% of the gas concession, created in 2000 and called Lot 88, overlaps the reserve, which was established 10 years earlier. In 2003, the reserve was granted greater legal protection by a Supreme Decree “guaranteeing [its] territorial integrity”, banning “human settlements” different to those of the reserve’s inhabitants, banning the “granting of new rights involving the exploitation of natural resources”, and ensuring that “existing rights to exploit natural resources must be carried out with the maximum considerations to guarantee that the rights of the reserve’s inhabitants are not affected”, but operations have continued and two major phases of expansion approved.
“We’re not against the exploitation of gas in Lot 88,” says IDLADS’s president, Henry Carhuatocto Sandoval. “What we’re against is the exploitation of gas in Lot 88 which violates the intangibility of the Kugapakori-Nahua-Nanti Reserve and the fundamental rights of the indigenous peoples living there.”
On 15 August the lawsuit was declared “inadmissible” in a “resolution” by judge David Suarez Burgos mainly on the grounds that it was “beyond the territorial competence of a Lima Constitutional Judge.”
IDLADS appealed and the case is now due to be considered on 1 April by three judges from the “1st Sala Civil” within the Superior Court of Lima. IDLADS wasn’t notified of Suarez Burgos’s verdict until October 2013, and a “Sala Civil” “resolution” announcing the April hearing is stamped 28 January – the day after the Energy Ministry approved the EIA of the new wells, pipeline and seismic tests.
The gas in Lot 88 comes from two gas fields to the north and south of the River Camisea, and the Camisea gas project – as operations there and neighbouring concession Lot 56 are known – is Peru’s largest energy development and plays a key role in Peru’s economy. Three of the four producing well locations in Lot 88 are in the reserve and, according to the state oil and gas agency Perupetro, Lot 88 accounted for 43% of Peru’s natural gas output in 2012 and 43% between January to November 2013.
“We think our request [prohibiting operations in the reserve] is realistic,” says IDLADS’s Lilyan Delgadillo. “If the contract for Lot 56 [which has produced even more gas than Lot 88 in recent years] was renegotiated, the internal national demand for gas could be easily met and the pressure on indigenous peoples’ territories and protected natural areas would be reduced.”
IDLADS also filed a lawsuit in August 2012 against the Energy Ministry and the Culture Ministry after the former approved the EIA of plans to build new wells at a location called San Martin Este, approximately 10 kms further east into the reserve than the then existing installations.
This lawsuit requests that the judge, among other things, declares various laws “inapplicable” and orders the Energy Ministry to rescind its approval of the San Martin Este EIA and to ban the Kugapakori-Nahua-Nanti and Others’ Reserve from all hydrocarbon activity. It also requests the judge orders the Culture Ministry to “adopt suitable measures to protect these vulnerable groups which implies respecting the intangibility of their territory and to ensure that extractive activities by third parties are prohibited in the reserve.”
The August 2012 lawsuit was declared “inadmissible” in a “resolution” in September that year by judge Henry Antonino Huerta Saenz, who only took into account the request to declare various laws “inapplicable” and ignored the rest. After IDLADS were notified in December, they appealed.
“The judge didn’t consider all of what we were asking for,” says IDLADS’s Katherine Serrato. “He limited himself to just one thing.”
The response to IDLADS’s appeal was to suspend the September “resolution” and pass the case to a “Sala Civil” within the Superior Court of Lima, although IDLADS wasn’t notified until October 2013 and the “Sala Civil” is now “approximately four months late” in responding, according to Serrato.
During this process, Pluspetrol has been building its wells at San Martin Este, according to members of local communities, company workers and a financial report of one of its subsidiaries.
Asked by The Guardian about the pending lawsuit, the Culture Ministry provided a statement saying that “it has been declared inadmissible and has been appealed” and the Ministry is protecting the reserve’s inhabitants:
In terms of the indigenous peoples in isolation and initial contact living in the Kugapakori-Nahua-Nanti Reserve, the [Culture Ministry’s] technical report on the Environmental Impact Assessment of the Expansion of Activities in Lot 88 has ensured that precautionary measures will be taken to guarantee their rights to life and integrity... It is important to highlight that the standards and obligations imposed on the company have been the subject of dialogue with national and regional organizations.
The Culture Ministry makes this claim despite serious criticism of its approval of the EIA and the potential impacts on the reserve’s inhabitants. Earlier this month more than 25 Peruvian and international organizations, together with various individuals including two congresswomen, wrote to Peru’s president Ollanta Humala stating that the Ministry was using out-of-date information about the health of the reserve’s inhabitants and was ignoring recommendations made in December by the UN’s Special Rapporteur for Indigenous Peoples to effectively suspend the expansion.
National indigenous organization AIDESEP, which claims to represent more than 1,400 indigenous communities in the Peruvian Amazon, was even more critical. It issued a statement referring to “ineffective and ornamental “protection” measures” and promising to hold the Peruvian state, the gas companies and the Inter-American Development Bank, which has played a key role in the Camisea project to date, responsible “if one more isolated brother dies” “in the name of supposed progress.”
Both IDLADS lawsuits also asked the judges to order that the Environment Ministry or an “international entity” is involved in the approval of plans for these projects, and to order the Energy Ministry to comply with an international law ratified by Peru which gives indigenous peoples’ the right to be consulted about projects which may directly affect them.
Despite providing gas, generating huge revenues and using an “off-shore inland” infrastructure model – helicopters only, no roads, in order to minimize the impacts on the rainforest – the Camisea gas project has been severely criticized on both environmental and social grounds.
The recently-approved expansion has generated particular controversy over the last couple of years, with the UN’s Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in March 2013 calling for it to be suspended, the Culture Minister and other ministry personnel resigning, and indigenous organizations AIDESEP and FENAMAD criticising it at a hearing at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Washington last November.
The indigenous peoples most at risk from operations in the reserve are those in “voluntary isolation” who have very little or no contact with outsiders, including the Kirineri, some Nanti and possibly another group.
Pluspetrol’s partners in the consortium are Hunt Oil, Repsol, Tecpetrol, SK Innovation and Sonatrach, according to Perupetro.
Pluspetrol and the Energy Ministry did not respond to emails for comment.How is it that naïve intuitions can survive the acquisition of contradictory scientific knowledge? In this article, Andrew Shtulman discusses the psychological concepts of knowledge enrichment and conceptual change, inquiring into why it is so difficult for scientific knowledge to take root, and whether scientific knowledge can overwrite deep-seated forms of intuition. This article was published in Skeptic magazine 19.3 (2014) in a Special Section on Changing Minds.
Scientific discoveries come in two forms: those that can be understood in terms of a preexisting paradigm and those that require the adoption of a new paradigm altogether. Consider the difference between the discovery of Neptune and the discovery of heliocentrism. Neptune was predicted to exist many decades before it was discovered, on account of the fact that its mass caused known, but unexplained, perturbations in the orbit of Uranus. Nineteenth century astronomers thus sought observational confirmation of an eighth planet with the same basic properties as those of the seven planets already known to exist. When Neptune was observed in 1846, its existence was readily assimilated into astronomers’ preexisting model of the solar system. That model itself, however, was hard won.
Prior to the acceptance of heliocentrism, astronomers typically subscribed to geocentric models of planetary motion that differed from heliocentric models not only in what they identified as the center of the universe but also in what they considered planets to be (balls of other-worldly ether), what they considered stars to be (fixed points of light on a rotating sphere), and how they explained planetary motion (as caused by the planets themselves). Accepting the sun as the center of planetary motion thus required revision of the most basic astronomical assumptions of the time.
Like scientific discovery, the process of learning science also comes in two forms: learning that can be accomplished in terms of preexisting concepts, termed by psychologists as knowledge enrichment, and learning that requires the adoption of new concepts altogether, termed conceptual change. Both forms of learning occur in every domain, but knowledge enrichment is far more common and far easier than conceptual change. In astronomy, learning the names and locations of the planets would constitute knowledge enrichment, whereas learning why planets revolve around stars or how planetary motion causes such phenomena as tides or seasons would constitute conceptual change. In physics, learning the value of physical constants like the speed of light or the rate of acceleration due to gravity would constitute knowledge enrichment, whereas learning why all objects fall with the same acceleration or how acceleration is related to force and velocity would constitute conceptual change. In biology, learning the traits of unfamiliar organisms would constitute knowledge enrichment, whereas learning how organisms are related by common ancestry or how traits arise by natural selection would constitute conceptual change.
Can Scientific Knowledge Overwrite Intuition?
For over three decades, researchers in the fields of cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, and science education have been studying the dynamics of conceptual change. They have been characterizing what we intuitively know about different domains, how that knowledge differs from scientific knowledge, and how that knowledge changes with instruction, either formal instruction in the classroom or informal instruction at home or elsewhere (e.g., museums, libraries, parks). While different researchers have analyzed conceptual change in different ways, most would agree that conceptual change requires a basic restructuring of one’s intuitive knowledge. That restructuring could involve collapsing distinctions that are no longer meaningful on a scientific conception of the domain (e.g., collapsing the distinction between objects in motion and objects at rest), introducing new distinctions that are scientifically meaningful (e.g., making a distinction between weight and mass), or moving an entity from one mental category to another (e.g., shifting the entity air from the category empty space to the category matter). Accumulating new facts and new experiences is not sufficient to bring about conceptual change; one must instead reorganize the very nature of one’s understanding.
Because conceptual change requires knowledge restructuring, it has long been assumed that, once the restructuring was complete, one’s initial conceptions of the domain would no longer be accessible. Restructuring one’s knowledge was assumed to erase previously held intuitions in the same way that remodeling one’s house erases previously navigated floor plans. A growing body of research, however, suggests that conceptual change does not produce this result. Rather, conceptual change appears to produce dual modes of understanding: a new scientific understanding of the domain and an older, more intuitive understanding of the domain that coexists with, but is not replaced by, the scientific understanding. Put differently, adults with extensive science education appear to harbor intuitions that they had explicitly rejected many years prior—intuitions like “whales are fish,” “coats produce heat,” “the wind is alive,” “air has no weight,” “heavier objects fall faster than lighter objects,” and “the sun revolves around the earth.” In some cases, these intuitions had previously been documented only among preschool-aged children, but, with the application of new methodologies, they are now being documented among scientifically literate adults as well.
Animist Intuitions Across the Lifespan
One of the best studied cases of the coexistence of science and intuition is that involving conceptions of what is and is not alive. Beginning with Jean Piaget, developmental psychologists have long observed that young children conflate life with animacy. Not only do young children attribute life to non-living but animate entities like the sun and the wind, but they also deny life to living, yet relatively inanimate, entities like flowers and trees. By age eight, this pattern of attributions is typically replaced by a more biologically informed pattern—life is now identified with metabolic processes (e.g., eating, drinking, breathing, growing) rather than mobility. It is this conception of life—life as the end-product of a set of interrelated metabolic functions—that forms the basis of the adult’s understanding of biological phenomena in all known cultures today.
Nevertheless, the adult conception of life gives way to the child-like conception when adults are tested under time pressure. In one study, the psychologists Robert Goldstein and Sharon Thompson- Schill asked adults to judge the life status of a variety of entities, including animals (e.g., pigs, sharks), plants (e.g., orchids, elms), non-living animate objects (e.g., comets, rivers), and non-living inanimate objects (e.g., brooms, towels). They found that adults, like young children, were more likely to err on plants (judging them not alive) and animate objects (judging them alive) than on animals and inanimate objects, and, if they judged the life status of plants and animate objects correctly, it took them significantly longer to do so than to judge the life status of animals and inanimate objects.
Animistic intuitions reemerge not only when adults are placed under time pressure but also when they sustain permanent cognitive impairments, such as those produced by Alzheimer’s Disease. The psychologists Deborah Zaitchik and Gregg Solomon have recently documented a variety of forms of animistic thinking among Alzheimer’s patients. When Alzheimer’s patients are asked what it means for something to be alive, they are more likely to cite motion as a prerequisite for life than to cite genuinely biological properties, like eating or breathing. Healthy elderly adults, on the other hand, are more likely to cite biological properties than to cite motion. When Alzheimer’s patients are asked to provide examples of things that are alive, they almost always mention animals but rarely mention plants. Healthy elderly adults, on the other hand, almost always mention both animals and plants. And when Alzheimer’s patients are asked to judge the life status of entities presented to them, they tend to err in exactly the same ways as young children, judging the sun and the wind as alive but judging flowers and trees as not alive (even without time restrictions). Healthy elderly adults, on the other hand, continue to provide a biologically informed pattern of judgments. The cognitive impairments wrought by Alzheimer’s Disease appear to allow animist intuitions to reemerge that have coexisted with a more scientific conception of life for decades but have hitherto been suppressed.
Teleological Intuitions Across the Lifespan
Similar findings have been documented in the domain of teleological reasoning. Teleology is the study of design in nature, and teleological explanations are explanations that appeal to something’s design, or purpose, as its reason for existence. For instance, a teleological explanation for why there are kidneys is that kidneys filter blood; the alternative to a teleological explanation is a mechanistic one—e.g., that kidneys exist because ancient organisms with kidneys (or proto-kidneys) left more offspring than those without kidneys. The psychologist Deborah Kelemen has shown in numerous studies that children are more “promiscuous” with their teleological explanations than are adults. Whereas both children and adults will provide teleological explanations for human artifacts (e.g., pencils exist for writing, stoves exist for cooking) and for biological parts (e.g., ears exist for hearing, lungs exist for breathing), only children will provide teleological explanations for whole organisms (e.g., birds exist for flying, bees exist for making honey) and for naturally occurring objects (e.g., clouds exist for raining, lakes exist for swimming). Children become more selective in their teleological explanations by early adolescence, but that selectivity is tenuous. When college-educated adults are asked to judge the acceptability of teleological explanations under speeded up conditions, they tend to accept unwarranted explanations, like “birds exist for flying” and “clouds exist for raining,” which they do not accept under normal (non-speeded) conditions and presumably have not accepted under such conditions for many years.
Moreover, just as Alzheimer’s patients endorse animistic conceptions of life explicitly endorsed only by children, they also endorse teleological conceptions of nature explicitly endorsed only by children. In one study the psychologist Tania Lombrozo and her colleagues provided Alzheimer’s patients with both mechanistic and teleological explanations for a variety of natural phenomena, some of which warranted a teleological explanation (e.g., eyes exist “so that people and animals can see”) and some of which did not (e.g., rain exists “so that plants and animals have water for drinking and growing”). Compared to healthy elderly adults, Alzheimer’s patients were not only more likely to judge unwarranted teleological explanations as acceptable but were also more likely to judge those explanations as preferable to mechanistic ones. These findings suggest that teleology, like animism, is a deep-seated form of intuition that can be suppressed by a more scientific worldview but cannot be eradicated altogether. If such intuitions could be eradicated, Alzheimer’s patients should show no signs of animism or teleology, as they have typically had over 60 years of experience operating on the basis of a more scientific worldview prior to the onset of their disease.
Neurological Evidence of Resilient Intuitions
The coexistence of science and intuition has been documented not only at the level of behavior but also at the level of the brain. The psychologist Kevin Dunbar and his colleagues have used functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to determine whether college-educated adults exhibit different patterns of brain activity when watching motion displays that were consistent or inconsistent with the laws of physics. The physics-consistent displays depicted two balls of unequal size falling to the ground at the same rate; the physicsinconsistent displays depicted the larger ball falling to the ground at a faster rate than the smaller ball. Previous research in science education has shown that physics novices expect larger objects to fall faster than smaller objects, so the physics-inconsistent displays accorded with naïve intuitions but the physics-consistent displays did not. Dunbar and his colleagues found that, among participants who judged the physics-consistent displays as natural and the physics-inconsistent displays as unnatural (the correct pattern of judgment), watching those displays increased activation in an area of the brain associated with error detection and conflict monitoring: the anterior cingulate cortex. That is, participants who exhibited no behavioral evidence of holding the misconception “heavier objects fall faster than lighter objects” still exhibited neural evidence of holding that misconception insofar that their brains appeared to be detecting and inhibiting intuitions to the contrary.
Education researcher Patrice Potvin and his colleagues have documented similar results in the domain of electricity. In one study, they showed physics experts and physics novices electric circuits that were either complete or incomplete and asked participants to determine whether a light bulb that was part of the circuit should or should not be lit. Participants performed this task while their brains were being scanned by an fMRI machine. At the behavioral level, the physics experts were perfectly able to discriminate correct configurations (complete circuits with lit bulbs, incomplete circuits with unlit bulbs) from incorrect configurations (complete circuits with unlit bulbs, incomplete circuits with lit bulbs), indicating no evidence of the misconception that every physics novice in the study revealed, namely, that connecting an electric device (a light bulb) to an electric source (a battery) will cause that device to activate regardless of whether the circuit is complete. The fMRI data, however, told a different story. Physics experts showed significantly more activation in their anterior cingulate cortex and other areas associated with conflict monitoring than did physics novices when evaluating the scientifically incorrect circuits. Apparently, the misconceptions explicitly endorsed by physics novices were still represented in the brains of the physics experts, causing conflict in situations relevant to those misconceptions.
Resilient Intuitions are the Rule, not the Exception
Research from my own lab has shown that tensions between science and intuition are not limited to the handful of misconceptions noted above—i.e., that life is synonymous with animacy, that everything in nature exists for a purpose, that heavier objects fall faster than lighter objects, and that a single wire is sufficient to light a bulb. Rather, these tensions can be found in every domain of knowledge for which learning entails conceptual change (i.e., knowledge restructuring). The task we used to document such tensions was a statement verification task. Participants were asked to verify, as quickly as possible, two types of scientific statements: statements that are consistent with intuition (e.g., “the moon revolves around the earth,” “heat increases an object’s temperature,” “genes that code for eye color can be found in the eye”) and statements involving the same concepts but that are inconsistent with intuition (e.g., “the earth revolves around the sun,” “heat increases an object’s size,” “genes that code for eye color can be found in the liver”). The logic behind this design is that if naïve intuitions survive the acquisition of contradictory scientific knowledge, then the latter should cause greater cognitive conflict than the former, resulting in (a) slower verifications and (b) less accurate verifications.
Using this method, my colleagues and I have documented evidence of long-term conflict between science and intuition in ten different domains of knowledge: astronomy, evolution, fractions, genetics, germs, matter, mechanics, physiology, thermodynamics, and waves. What is particularly remarkable about these findings is their robustness. Our task probed for conflict between science and intuition with respect to 50 different concepts—5 concepts per domain across 10 domains—and we observed such conflict for 43 of the 50 concepts. We also observed conflict both for statements that are scientifically true but intuitively false (e.g., “air is composed of matter,” “humans are descended from sea-dwelling creatures”) and for statements that are scientifically false but intuitively true (e.g., “fire is composed of matter,” “humans are descended from chimpanzees”), indicating that the conflict is true of both positive misconceptions and negative misconceptions.
Participants who were most accurate at distinguishing scientifically correct statements from scientifically incorrect statements showed the greatest degree of conflict between science and intuition.
Furthermore, the participants in our studies have typically taken more science courses than the average American—three or more college-level math and science courses, not to mention four to six years of middle-school and high-school science courses—and virtually all participants showed the effect. Indeed, those who were most accurate at distinguishing scientifically correct statements from scientifically incorrect statements showed the greatest degree of conflict between science and intuition. The robustness of this phenomenon across domains, concepts, statements, and participants suggests that it reflects more than just a handful of stubborn misconceptions. Rather, it appears to reflect a fundamental property of conceptual change, namely, that intuition can be overridden but not overwritten.
Why are Naïve Intuitions so Resilient?
One explanation for why intuition survives the acquisition of contradictory scientific information is that the scientific information itself has not been well learned. The state of science education in the U.S. is notoriously poor, as it is in many other countries as well. Might widespread educational inadequacies be responsible for the aforementioned effects? At least one source of data suggests not: professional scientists are no more immune to the conflict between science and intuition than are non-scientists. Under speeded conditions, professional biologists reveal animistic intuitions of the same sort revealed by non-biologists (e.g., that comets are alive and orchids are not), and professional physicists endorse unwarranted teleological explanations of the same sort endorsed by nonphysicists (e.g., that rain exists so that animals have water for drinking). In my own lab, we have found that science professors with three or more decades of career experience were no faster on our statement- verification task than were the college undergraduates in their courses. That is, science professors continued to verify intuition-inconsistent statements significantly more slowly than intuition- consistent statements across several domains of science, including their own.
The question thus remains: why are naïve intuitions so resilient? One possibility that we are currently investigating in our lab is that such intuitions are sustained and reinforced by how we talk about natural phenomena in everyday discourse and how we perceive natural phenomena in everyday situations. Much of our colloquial language seems to be predicated on intuitive conceptions. For instance, the terms “sunrise” and “sunset” imply that the day/night cycle is caused by movements of the sun rather than movements of the earth. More accurate terms would be “sun accretion” and “sun occlusion.” Likewise, the terms “warm coat” and “cold wind” imply that heat is a property of specific objects or substances rather than a property of an entire system. More accurate terms would be “insulating coat” and “disequilibrating wind.” Our perceptual experience is no less misleading. Coats feel as if they produce heat, and the sun looks as if it moves across the sky. If language and perception are indeed responsible for the persistence of naïve intuitions, then it may be possible to design learning environments that minimize their effects, at least during instruction. Moreover, making students aware of the limitations of everyday language and everyday perception may help them distinguish judgments based on scientific knowledge from those based on intuition. While science may always coexist with intuition—either for reasons of language and perception or for other reasons altogether—awareness of that coexistence may provide at least some immunity to the sway that intuition holds over attitudes and decisions that would be better informed by science.
About the Author
Dr. Andrew Shtulman is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Psychology and Cognitive Science at Occidental College in Los Angeles, CA. He recieved a B.A. in Psychology from Princeton University and a Ph.D. in Psychology from Harvard University. At Occidental, he runs the Thinking and Reasoning Lab, studying conceptual development and inferential reasoning in both children and adults. Recently he was awarded a prestigious Faculty Early Career Development award from the National Science Foundation for research on the causes and consequences of conceptual change.
Recommended by AmazonLet’s occupy again!
Biblioteca Kaos (Kaos Library) has a new space!
On Sunday, March 12, we entered the house at 641 Coronel João Manoel street, near the start of the hill. The house was abandoned three years ago and it is in the middle of the historical center of Porto Alegre, it forms part of the inheritances of two of the most bourgeois families and owners of the city for centuries: Chaves Barcellos and Wallig.
Originally published by Biblioteca Kaos. Translated by Insurrection News
We are absolutely certain that we are irritating the powerful who have already appeared to threaten us and very ludicrously invite us to be part of their alternative capitalism projects. Our answer is unanimous: we are anarchists and squatters, and we will not have any conversation with the bourgeoisie at all.
To our surprise and joy, the neighborhood fully supports the occupation because they can see that a few people have set up a space that has been unused for years. The interactions with them have had a clear attitude of solidarity and initiative not only in words but above all in action, they participated bit by bit in the cleaning of the space and supported us with their presence during some of the visits by the owners.
After the threats by the owners to throw us out with their henchmen and pit bulls, the other squatters of the city arrived to show us their solidarity and support.
At the moment we are still fighting for the space but our decision from the start is still to remain without either legal or verbal negotiation with the owners. Occupation is a subversive practice that can’t be swallowed up by real estate rules, it is an effective response to the absurd accumulation of land into the hands of a privileged few. Our determination in the face of this is clear: abandoned house, occupied house.
We send our greetings to Solidaria who face an eviction in the next few days, compas – an eviction, another occupation!! To the compas of Nadir and CCF in Greece, compas we follow! Bibliotechas (Libraries) Flecha Negra in Brazil, Sacco and Vanzetti and Sebastian Oversluij in Chile, and to all self-managed spaces in search of anarchy.
From a new space we will continue from where we have always been: in search of freedom and against all authority!
Biblioteca Anárquica Kaos.
In the next few days we will provide updates about the opening times and activities of the library.
Share this: Twitter
Facebook
Reddit
Tumblr
Pinterest
LinkedIn
Print
Email
Pocket
Telegram
WhatsApp
Skype
Like this: Like Loading...White House's Weak Response To Petition Against ACTA
from the bad-petition,-bad-result dept
As you may know, the proliferation of counterfeit and pirated goods poses considerable challenges for legitimate trade and economic development. Protecting intellectual property rights helps to further public policies that are designed to protect the public. ACTA will help authorities, for example, protect against the threat posed by potentially unsafe counterfeit goods that can pose a significant risk to public health, such as toothpaste with dangerous amounts of diethylene glycol (a chemical used in brake fluid), auto parts of unknown quality or suspect semiconductors used in life-saving defibrillators.
ACTA specifically recognizes the importance of free expression, due process, and privacy. It is the first -- and only -- international intellectual property rights agreement to provide explicitly that enforcement of intellectual property rights in the context of the Internet "shall be implemented in a manner that … preserves fundamental principles such as freedom of expression, fair process, and privacy." No provision in ACTA requires parties to disclose information "contrary to … laws protecting privacy rights." This includes the protections already in place in U.S. law.
In addition to the United States, approximately thirty countries have signed the Agreement, including Australia, Canada, Korea, Japan, New Zealand, Morocco, Singapore, and a majority of European Union member states, as well as the EU itself.
We believe that ACTA will help protect the intellectual property that is essential to American jobs in innovative and creative industries. At the same time, ACTA recognizes the importance of online privacy, freedom of expression and due process, and calls on signatories to protect these values in the course of complying with the Agreement.
Earlier this year, we wrote about two different petitions on the White House's official petition platform concerning ACTA. We noted that one of the petitions was very oddly worded, talking about getting the US to "end ACTA." It's description was a bit confused, and didn't seem to understand the process or history behind ACTA. There was a second one that was focused more accurately on asking the White House to submit ACTA to the Senate for ratification, as required by the Constitution. Unfortunately, only the first, oddly worded, petition reached the official vote threshold to require a response from the White House. The other petition has since been disappeared from the site.However, while it took a while, the White House has finally responded, in the form of Miriam Sapiro, who is the deputy US Trade Rep -- i.e., second in command to USTR Ron Kirk. So, it's no surprise that her response is the usual mix of misleading to downright questionable statements Yup. Start out with the usual misleading crap of focusing solely on "health" risks from physical counterfeiting... totally ignoring that physical counterfeiting is an entirely different issue than copyright infringement of digital goods. But never bother to separate out or differentiate, even though the bulk of ACTA is targeted at dealing with digital infringement. As ACTA supporters have done since day one, they figure that if they just keep talking about counterfeit physical goods causing harm enough, perhaps they can avoid addressing the real issues -- which is exactly what Sapiro does here. Weak.This, unfortunately, is because of the oddly worded original petition, that focused on "privacy," rather than the many other more serious problems with ACTA. It gave Sapiro an out by pretending that ACTA deals with the "problems" people are raising, while avoiding addressing any of the real problems, which aren't really about privacy.This is a nice bit of trickery. While many countries did "sign" the agreement, signing and ratifying are completely different issues, and as we've seen, the EU Parliament is |
petertodd.org gpg: Signature made Mon 29 Apr 2013 03:14:13 AM GMT using RSA key ID A5F091FB gpg: Good signature from "Peter Todd <pete@petertodd.org>" gpg: aka "[jpeg image of size 5220]" gpg: encrypted with 2048-bit RSA key, ID 0FBEF185, created 2012-04-25 "Peter Todd <pete@petertodd.org>" gpg: encrypted with 2048-bit RSA key, ID 38254DA8, created 2012-05-31 "John Dillon <john.dillon892@googlemail.com>" I hope that helped you guys, but sadly I think you are up against people who simply have an axe to grind. Still let me know if I can help in the future. Looks like I am going to have some substantial commitments around the time of the conference. Not sure exactly when but I'll likely be out of email contact for two or three weeks. You might want to do the same sometimes too you know, at least when it comes to forums and github. Focus is good sometimes. Just a suggestion... > Can you write something reasonable here? gpg: Signature made Wed 01 May 2013 02:56:43 AM GMT using RSA key ID 2636188F gpg: Good signature from "John Dillon <john.dillon892@googlemail.com>" gpg: encrypted with 2048-bit RSA key, ID 0FBEF185, created 2012-04-25 "Peter Todd <pete@petertodd.org>" gpg: encrypted with 2048-bit RSA key, ID 38254DA8, created 2012-05-31 "John Dillon <john.dillon892@googlemail.com>" FWIW I have Jabber chat on pete@petertodd.org Use off-the-record encryption, passphrase verification word 195618d5 -- 'peter'[:-1]@petertodd.org 0000000000000195618d5c4434d24ac955acbc265c4f3b15ecc2c47c572a1b7e gpg: Signature made Thu 02 May 2013 03:35:58 AM GMT using RSA key ID A5F091FB gpg: Good signature from "Peter Todd <pete@petertodd.org>" gpg: aka "[jpeg image of size 5220]" gpg: encrypted with 2048-bit RSA key, ID 0FBEF185, created 2012-04-25 "Peter Todd <pete@petertodd.org>" gpg: encrypted with 2048-bit RSA key, ID 38254DA8, created 2012-05-31 "John Dillon <john.dillon892@googlemail.com>" Here's my new section. What do you think? Section 2.2 Transact on Their Own Terms: The Corporation recognizes the decentralized, consensus-based nature of the Bitcoin technology. The Corporation will seek to protect and promote decentralization through legal and technical means, including, but not limited to, the fungibility of individual Bitcoins, the ability of individuals to participate fully in Bitcoin by running full validating nodes, the ability of individuals to operate a full validating node anonymously, and the ability to chose what level of privacy their transactions will have, including anonymously. gpg: Signature made Fri 03 May 2013 02:59:57 AM GMT using RSA key ID 2636188F gpg: Good signature from "John Dillon <john.dillon892@googlemail.com>" gpg: encrypted with 2048-bit RSA key, ID 0FBEF185, created 2012-04-25 "Peter Todd <pete@petertodd.org>" gpg: encrypted with 2048-bit RSA key, ID 38254DA8, created 2012-05-31 "John Dillon <john.dillon892@googlemail.com>" This is going to be the text of my pull-req. What do you think? Satoshi didn't create Bitcoin because he wanted another way to pay people over the internet. If that was all he wanted to do, he could have done it via conventional, legal means. Setup some company, hire some lawyers, navigate regulation. What is special about Bitcoin is that it is a technology, not an organization. As Satoshi said: > Then strong encryption became available to the masses, and trust was no longer required. Data could be secured in a way that was physically impossible for others to access, no matter for what reason, no matter how good the excuse, no matter what. Bitcoin is an idea, expressed in code, and a group of people who chose to accept and value that idea. The Bitcoin idea places as little trust in others as possible, and for what remains, the valid transactions placed into the blockchain, the decision is made by a democratic vote among everyone who possesses hashing power. It is decentralization that makes the Bitcoin idea valuable, and what makes it so fundamentally revolutionary compared to what came before it. Without decentralization Bitcoin is just another way to pay people over the internet. A Bitcoin where only a select few can participate in that democratic vote is simply not the Bitcoin Satoshi created, and is no different from the centralized systems that came before it. Anonymity is a key part of true decentralized decision making. Without anonymity you can-not make decisions freely, decisions like what transactions you accept as valid Bitcoins, and what transactions you place into the blocks you mine. It is notable that Satoshi himself wisely decided to use a pseudonym rather than his real identity, allowing him to make choices about Bitcoin free of interference from authorities. While the blockchain technology will always be public to some degree, we must not promote further encroachment on the ability of individuals to transact and mine with the privacy that they desire, be it fully anonymous, or no privacy at all. User-defined privacy must continue to remain a part of Bitcoin and the Foundation should promote and develop technologies that expand upon the options available, and make the whole spectrum of privacy options easier to access by all users. Finally, pragmatically speaking, the Foundation has been repeatedly attacked by those who see it as contrary to that decentralized nature of Bitcoin. To some extent those people are right: like it or not the Foundation has a significant amount of control over the direction of Bitcoin by employing Gavin and funding development. There are very real social reasons why that control exists. By making a clear statement of purpose that includes decentralization, the foundation can help meet those concerns. Of course the Foundation is not Bitcoin. If the Foundation does not support these goals and values, the only honest thing to do is make it clear what goals and values the Foundation does have, so people can make an informed decision about whether they want to support it, or some other group. gpg: Signature made Fri 03 May 2013 04:00:32 AM GMT using RSA key ID 2636188F gpg: Good signature from "John Dillon <john.dillon892@googlemail.com>" gpg: encrypted with 2048-bit RSA key, ID 0FBEF185, created 2012-04-25 "Peter Todd <pete@petertodd.org>" gpg: encrypted with 2048-bit RSA key, ID 38254DA8, created 2012-05-31 "John Dillon <john.dillon892@googlemail.com>" Posted to the forums. I don't have a reddit account, but I'll make one and do the post early tomorrow morning. gpg: Signature made Fri 03 May 2013 04:18:19 AM GMT using RSA key ID 2636188F gpg: Good signature from "John Dillon <john.dillon892@googlemail.com>" gpg: encrypted with 2048-bit RSA key, ID 0FBEF185, created 2012-04-25 "Peter Todd <pete@petertodd.org>" gpg: encrypted with 2048-bit RSA key, ID 38254DA8, created 2012-05-31 "John Dillon <john.dillon892@googlemail.com>" Posted: http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1dlw10/the_bitcoin_foundation_doesnt_have_keeping/ gpg: Signature made Fri 03 May 2013 07:27:52 AM GMT using RSA key ID 2636188F gpg: Good signature from "John Dillon <john.dillon892@googlemail.com>" gpg: encrypted with 2048-bit RSA key, ID 0FBEF185, created 2012-04-25 "Peter Todd <pete@petertodd.org>" gpg: encrypted with 2048-bit RSA key, ID 38254DA8, created 2012-05-31 "John Dillon <john.dillon892@googlemail.com>" On Thu, May 09, 2013 at 12:44:47AM +0000, John Dillon wrote: > > Posted: http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1dlw10/the_bitcoin_foundation_doesnt_have_keeping/ > I think you sent me the wrong attachment I appear to have deleted it. Anyway I was replying to your replacement message and said that yes I think you have a good idea with releasing, so go ahead and do that. Setup say 5 servers on EC2 for testnet for the testing. We will say you have the money at this point to discourage others who may be less ethical about their release schedule. Let me know when the servers are ready and I will make a bigger post. > -- > 'peter'[:-1]@petertodd.org > 0000000000000000c2154168bfc477ce1efee8eb40ed63534ab5933ac419b072 What is this? gpg: Signature made Thu 09 May 2013 01:06:06 AM GMT using RSA key ID 2636188F gpg: Good signature from "John Dillon <john.dillon892@googlemail.com>" gpg: encrypted with 2048-bit RSA key, ID 0FBEF185, created 2012-04-25 "Peter Todd <pete@petertodd.org>" gpg: encrypted with 2048-bit RSA key, ID 38254DA8, created 2012-05-31 "John Dillon <john.dillon892@googlemail.com>" On Wed, May 08, 2013 at 09:26:15PM -0400, Peter Todd wrote: We're good to go. The branch is: https://github.com/petertodd/bitcoin/tree/replace-by-fee People can -addnode=testnet-replace-by-fee.bitcoin.petertodd.org to use it. Point out the usual stuff about why doesn't do recursion, or have any additional features. I setup about 25 micro servers, that's like $60-$100 a month or something? I'll see how it goes - fun to play around re: relaying. -- 'peter'[:-1]@petertodd.org 000000000000012cce84b6cc078aedd7ee93a8ceb65e29e6ed3225505dae87fb gpg: Signature made Thu 09 May 2013 09:34:38 AM GMT using RSA key ID A5F091FB gpg: Good signature from "Peter Todd <pete@petertodd.org>" gpg: aka "[jpeg image of size 5220]" gpg: encrypted with 2048-bit RSA key, ID 0FBEF185, created 2012-04-25 "Peter Todd <pete@petertodd.org>" gpg: encrypted with 2048-bit RSA key, ID 38254DA8, created 2012-05-31 "John Dillon <john.dillon892@googlemail.com>" Gavin really pissed me off here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=196138.msg2113288#msg2113288 I'm thinking of posting to the -development email list asking the developers point blank about why they don't challenge him on that stuff. I'll mention the distributed hash tables thing he was saying earlier for solving mining scalability too. He knows you aren't that stupid. Anyway, I'll try to be at the conference. If I can get in a situation where we can chat securely I'll use the code-word "powpos dht proof" in conjunction with "john dillon" to let you know you are actually talking to me. No guarantees I'll make it out though. gpg: Signature made Sat 11 May 2013 07:27:30 PM GMT using RSA key ID 2636188F gpg: Good signature from "John Dillon <john.dillon892@googlemail.com>" gpg: encrypted with 2048-bit RSA key, ID 0FBEF185, created 2012-04-25 "Peter Todd <pete@petertodd.org>" gpg: encrypted with 2048-bit RSA key, ID 38254DA8, created 2012-05-31 "John Dillon <john.dillon892@googlemail.com>" Ok, I replied on the forums instead. The SPV attack is a good idea! Lets do it, and lets do it anonymously. Tell me what your priorities are for after-conf work. I'll think further about the identity thing. I will say I have been very careful to date. Possibly satoshi-level careful? The bitcoincard people posted BTW. You would like my comment: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=202558.msg2118675#msg2118675 gpg: Signature made Sun 12 May 2013 06:28:26 AM GMT using RSA key ID 2636188F gpg: Good signature from "John Dillon <john.dillon892@googlemail.com>" gpg: encrypted with 2048-bit RSA key, ID 0FBEF185, created 2012-04-25 "Peter Todd <pete@petertodd.org>" gpg: encrypted with 2048-bit RSA key, ID 38254DA8, created 2012-05-31 "John Dillon <john.dillon892@googlemail.com>" On Sun, May 12, 2013 at 06:29:20AM +0000, John Dillon wrote: > 2013/5/12 Peter Todd <pete@petertodd.org>: > > > Ok, I replied on the forums instead. > > The SPV attack is a good idea! Lets do it, and lets do it anonymously. Tell me > what your priorities are for after-conf work. 1) replace-by-fee: we need to make this usable. So incorporate wallet fixes so using it doesn't mess your wallet up, then add the "try to undo" and "change fees" features. 2) P2P network messaging with hashcash anti-DDoS. Make this a general thing, with specific message types. The hashcash will be used for priority ordering. 3) Trust-free mix system on top of the P2P thing. Figuring out how to handle change will be hard... I should do a write-up and post it to bitcoin-development email list and get the ball rolling there. SPV attack - lets be more clever about it... why actually do it when we can start a fake company offering the service? > I'll think further about the identity thing. I will say I have been very > careful to date. Possibly satoshi-level careful? Good. Remember that your choices are limited when you have to think about the legality of your actions. > The bitcoincard people posted BTW. You would like my comment: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=202558.msg2118675#msg2118675 Nice! Tracking them down at the conf is on my todo list. -- 'peter'[:-1]@petertodd.org 000000000000005d1d1546621ac84fe648875e58eac79e17e8be3e30bbe37a0c gpg: Signature made Mon 13 May 2013 03:06:30 AM GMT using RSA key ID A5F091FB gpg: Good signature from "Peter Todd <pete@petertodd.org>" gpg: aka "[jpeg image of size 5220]" gpg: encrypted with 2048-bit RSA key, ID 0FBEF185, created 2012-04-25 "Peter Todd <pete@petertodd.org>" gpg: encrypted with 2048-bit RSA key, ID 38254DA8, created 2012-05-31 "John Dillon <john.dillon892@googlemail.com>" Interesting message I got from Gavin. Regarding my schedule I'll be back in contact for sure two weeks after the conference. As I say below you do what you feel is right with replace-by-fee. I'm looking forward to seeing the video! You will see some more support from me in the future with it too. My bitcoins aren't accessible right now due to some travel, but you can say in the forums you have gotten another 1BTC from me today. I will make good on that promise. [quote author=Gavin Andresen link=action=profile;u=224 date=1368456071] Hey John: Are you running a bitcoin-based business? What's your background? [/quote] Nope. I and my partners are all involved with Bitcoin as investors. Nothing fancy, just an small group who care deeply about financial freedom and privacy and are investing what we can afford to lose. I think I'm still the only one who has become active with the community. I haven't been a programmer for awhile, the usual management career track got me, but math and computer science theory hasn't exactly changed. [quote author=Gavin Andresen link=action=profile;u=224 date=1368456071] And will I get a chance to meet/talk with you at the conference this weekend? [/quote] Unfortunately not. I have a few weeks of other commitments starting very soon. I probably won't even be looking at my email. Peter will be handling replace-by-fee. I fully trust his judgement about how to proceed. gpg: Signature made Tue 14 May 2013 02:35:14 AM GMT using RSA key ID 2636188F gpg: Good signature from "John Dillon <john.dillon892@googlemail.com>" gpg: encrypted with 2048-bit RSA key, ID 0FBEF185, created 2012-04-25 "Peter Todd <pete@petertodd.org>" gpg: encrypted with 2048-bit RSA key, ID 38254DA8, created 2012-05-31 "John Dillon <john.dillon892@googlemail.com>" On Tue, May 14, 2013 at 02:36:10AM +0000, John Dillon wrote: > Interesting message I got from Gavin. Huh, yeah he sent me a similar one, but aimed at "what should I tell people asking to hire developers?" Obviously he's taking you seriously - a good thing I think. That post by Mike Hern about putting you on his ignore list is similar really... > Regarding my schedule I'll be back in contact for sure two weeks after the > conference. As I say below you do what you feel is right with replace-by-fee. > I'm looking forward to seeing the video! You will see some more support from me > in the future with it too. My bitcoins aren't accessible right now due to some > travel, but you can say in the forums you have gotten another 1BTC from me > today. I will make good on that promise. Thanks! Yeah, no rush about actual funds, I've got cheap rates on my line-of-credit. re: replace-by-fee I think I'll do a version that "solves" the DoS problem by simply not replacing transactions that have been re-spent, a good half measure in any case that again further reduces harm. I'll implement that right after the conference. The code for it is also easier too, so it's more likely to get accepted by miners. -- 'peter'[:-1]@petertodd.org 00000000000000ed82fe4ffbf5677d6fc1ee304186288eb13358cf32418d0c31 gpg: Signature made Tue 14 May 2013 03:08:29 AM GMT using RSA key ID A5F091FB gpg: Good signature from "Peter Todd <pete@petertodd.org>" gpg: aka "[jpeg image of size 5220]" gpg: encrypted with 2048-bit RSA key, ID 0FBEF185, created 2012-04-25 "Peter Todd <pete@petertodd.org>" gpg: encrypted with 2048-bit RSA key, ID 38254DA8, created 2012-05-31 "John Dillon <john.dillon892@googlemail.com>" >./bitcoin-qt -salvagewallet > > Doesn't work when there isn't a wallet at all. > > Good to get your name in the Bitcoin sourecode credits I think - adds > some credibility. Thanks. I'll look into that. gpg: Signature made Tue 28 May 2013 04:57:44 AM GMT using RSA key ID 2636188F gpg: Good signature from "John Dillon <john.dillon892@googlemail.com>" gpg: encrypted with 2048-bit RSA key, ID 0FBEF185, created 2012-04-25 "Peter Todd <pete@petertodd.org>" gpg: encrypted with 2048-bit RSA key, ID 38254DA8, created 2012-05-31 "John Dillon <john.dillon892@googlemail.com>" Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Tue, May 28, 2013 at 04:58:16AM +0000, John Dillon wrote: > >./bitcoin-qt -salvagewallet > >=20 > > Doesn't work when there isn't a wallet at all. > >=20 > > Good to get your name in the Bitcoin sourecode credits I think - adds > > some credibility. >=20 > Thanks. I'll look into that. Also, on decentralizing mining, I had the idea of adding a UDP method for very fast distribution of block headers and tiny full blocks. The idea here is the moment a new block is created, every miner should immediately start working on a block that would orphan that block with only the coinbase TX in it. This punishes blocks that take a long time to propegate, particularly for miners behind low-bandwidth links. It'll be a nice natural incentive towards smaller blocks, although I do worry a bit about how the idea could be latched onto as "well obviously we *can* increase the blocksize now!" --=20 'peter'[:-1]@petertodd.org 00000000000001027c8b5ae04fce5ccf3948a15e137dab152e62450fd998c3ae gpg: Signature made Tue 28 May 2013 05:22:58 AM GMT using RSA key ID A5F091FB gpg: Good signature from "Peter Todd <pete@petertodd.org>" gpg: aka "[jpeg image of size 5220]" gpg: encrypted with 2048-bit RSA key, ID 0FBEF185, created 2012-04-25 "Peter Todd <pete@petertodd.org>" gpg: encrypted with 2048-bit ELG-E key, ID F0F0B355, created 1999-11-27 "Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell@gmail.com>" gpg: encrypted with 2048-bit RSA key, ID 38254DA8, created 2012-05-31 "John Dillon <john.dillon892@googlemail.com>" > I was talking with Gregory Maxwell about decentralizing mining at the > conference. He came up with the idea of tightly integrating mining > functionality into the client using Luke Dashjr's getblocktemplate > protocol; the existing getwork is not compatible with ASICs. The idea > would be to make solo-mining as easy as possible, and further more to > move pools to a structure where the pool's function is to co-ordinate > share payments, not block construction. Essentially hashers would become > true miners, doing transaction selection on their own, and then pools > would credit them for their shares and do the accounting. In this model > all a pool can do is defraud miners rather than harm to the whole > network. Smart idea. > It's also nice because by doing so we make the dangers of a large block > size very clear by making large numbers of miners see immediately how it > makes it difficult for them to operate. We also make changing the size > more difficult in general because the decision then becomes one that > hundreds or even thousands of miners need to make individually, greatly > slowing down any possible change. Of course, I didn't say any of that... Why not go ahead and say it? You know that Mike and similar will counter-argue that mining needs to be done by "responsible" central authority figures running pools, so let them make that bogus argument. I've seen Gavin criticising you for not working on making mining decentralized too, so go ahead and force him into a position of arguing against that. People criticise you for your motivations all the time. Don't give them more ammo. Being totally upfront about why you are pushing decentralized mining is a good thing. In my opinion what you are doing is obvious anyway. Regarding your idea for fast block header propagation, and delibrate orphaning by miners, I like it and I too worry that it could be seen as an excuse to increase the blocksize. Maybe keep that one secret for now, but look into the infrastructure to make it possible? It would make sense to have a UDP-based block header distribution channel for a lot of things, like you keep saying with blockheaders over twitter and other fun. The system doesn't need to be able to propagate whole blocks in UDP packets however technically possible it is. Regarding rational, also point out that mining ontop of a block that you have not verified fully is always unacceptable due to attacks. Reducing your block size to zero transactions just makes sense in terms of rational miner behavior. Why work on something that you know has a high chance of not propegating fast enough to win the race? > I think the devs should direct the 10BTC donation you made a few months > ago to this effort - would you and your partners be willing to commit > some more funds? I can throw in some BTC myself. Greg, Luke and I have > talked about possibly doing this an a public assurance contract. Keep in > mind that you lot have created a fair bit of controversy - donating > towards something less controversial than replace-by-fee and my video > could help out. I do not donate funds with strings attached, but if the dev team needs any guidance of what to do with that 10BTC, I think this is an excellent project to use it with. We can donate further funds, but show me the concrete proposal first with scope etc. Your keepbitcoinfree-announce post seemed to say you were going to post to troll-talk, do so. Speaking of donations, I saw someone with ~180BTC made a 10BTC donation to your address. Good work! I also finally got a chance to see the video after dealing with Monday obligations. It is excellent work and very professional. I heard too through the grapevine about the response you got a the developer round table at the conference. I would say Peter Vanesse seems way out of touch with regard to privacy, and good that you got a small crowd after the discussion talking about decentralization. I'd be interested in slides of your talk if you have them. Do you know when video is going to be made available by the foundation? > In addition a video advocating to miners to run the software would be > good too. The idea is non-political enough - at first glance - that the > Bitcoin Foundation may be willing to help fund it through one of their > grants. (the next cycle's deadline is june, probably too early, but the > one after that isn't far away) If you take my suggestion of being up-front about the decentralization reasons for doing this, it will be interesting to see the response of the Foundation, or for that matter, integrating those changes in the reference client anyway. gpg: Signature made Tue 28 May 2013 05:43:38 AM GMT using RSA key ID 2636188F gpg: Good signature from "John Dillon <john.dillon892@googlemail.com>" gpg: encrypted with 2048-bit RSA key, ID 0FBEF185, created 2012-04-25 "Peter Todd <pete@petertodd.org>" gpg: encrypted with 2048-bit RSA key, ID 38254DA8, created 2012-05-31 "John Dillon <john.dillon892@googlemail.com>" > What are your thoughts on scamcoins? Everything but namecoin and maybe litecoin is a scamcoin and they deserve to die. > I might have a project for you...??? gpg: Signature made Sun 07 Jul 2013 11:24:50 PM GMT using RSA key ID 2636188F gpg: Good signature from "John Dillon <john.dillon892@googlemail.com>" gpg: encrypted with 4096-bit RSA key, ID 0753963A, created 2013-07-03 "w@grabhive.com <w@grabhive.com>" gpg: encrypted with 2048-bit RSA key, ID 38254DA8, created 2012-05-31 "John Dillon <john.dillon892@googlemail.com>" Content-Type: multipart/signed; boundary="Apple-Mail=_76C11B8F-5F49-418B-93E5-8B41E8442FE7"; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; micalg=pgp-sha1 --Apple-Mail=_76C11B8F-5F49-418B-93E5-8B41E8442FE7 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii [resending in case you didn't get this; have been having Mail trouble -- = my GPG key is on the keyserver] Hi John, I saw Peter Todd's post recently that he received funding from you for = work on replace-by-fee, and of course I've also seen your various = rewards and bounties placed elsewhere. As I am also interested in = helping to fund some of this work, I thought perhaps we could get to = know each other and join forces as appropriate? On my side we are working on Hive, which is a user-friendly Bitcoin = wallet for OS X (and eventually Android). Most of my interests lie in = speed and reliability rather than cutting-edge features. I saw your = campaign Keep Bitcoin Free!... If you don't mind my asking, what else = are you working on? Cheers John, -wendell grabhive.com | twitter.com/grabhive | gpg: 6C0C9411 --Apple-Mail=_76C11B8F-5F49-418B-93E5-8B41E8442FE7 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=signature.asc Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name=signature.asc Content-Description: Message signed with OpenPGP using GPGMail -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG/MacGPG2 v2.0.18 (Darwin) iQIcBAEBAgAGBQJR9Y+JAAoJECAN2ykHU5Y6BnkQAKF3fDXXC9ST10W0jPRBASXT GYUpeCZfEq54hinkGhVbOqrl0bChZ1kxtbgmXAbYjZ8Qp+UirR9eQQHL7Gea5frl 7I066/29cz8jDeguVXTEPaQIgFaWgQPMlmVctFdYHgX+HA3yH/e5Vufj3z+g3t8c haP8Kk5wLs/UQ3SKigJe9hIl22ho/+kQuzM9E+RSGYTgOMf0ar+RtAwMIlz3un8H jmSHBAqZq/1EaOeG/dP4SQ3UIx3V1sLOfSSOJftPSkJa5dmwkWdFIDQ3+NT6sYHv yWbdfLC1oiomTJQbhMNvKP/rrDgVblk44WJR+6yaO3XuzTuOojVIiwoRzOMVnIwl rP9SKIMojOj+iZiZImgH6mlD2ldO97B78Jn3R7sMwlVayI+dh4+SimJmzNawyZds xV6xcvK6jAUmYfM0ooZJoP6T+yovBjv6EA4dubb4Di5PRvlYQYAyS54VgrAoCopE xIrre8nX7JGHHroLYvO2iSq4ZSAq3imR8yK/biS1iw9/aJBWYanZcXCEa/suU4q1 K77hrcSvTfYEIdXNZzrBGSP+Vm7DIhO1dtZxyZqkUx+UZeMhjWgW1YE5Mm5zwD6h rUdBEFgOSNikWL+XHrDjnQ/+Hni45HeujZ2TyX9ZAcsCS4UXEA50N9aJk/bQPqwM Zkongxmjc/Ty4Cwp8OcP =b8B6 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --Apple-Mail=_76C11B8F-5F49-418B-93E5-8B41E8442FE7-- gpg: encrypted with 4096-bit RSA key, ID 0753963A, created 2013-07-03 "w@grabhive.com <w@grabhive.com>" gpg: encrypted with 2048-bit RSA key, ID 38254DA8, created 2012-05-31 "John Dillon <john.dillon892@googlemail.com>" If you could, please use the "inline" mode for PGP. I know it is a bit old-fashioned, but it is easier for me to use given that I use the gmail web interface directly. Do keep using encryption though! > Hi John, > > I saw Peter Todd's post recently that he received funding from you for = > work on replace-by-fee, and of course I've also seen your various = > rewards and bounties placed elsewhere. As I am also interested in = > helping to fund some of this work, I thought perhaps we could get to = > know each other and join forces as appropriate? Good idea. > On my side we are working on Hive, which is a user-friendly Bitcoin = > wallet for OS X (and eventually Android). Most of my interests lie in = > speed and reliability rather than cutting-edge features. I saw your = > campaign Keep Bitcoin Free!... If you don't mind my asking, what else = > are you working on? To clarify Keep Bitcoin Free! is Peter's project, not mine. I only contributed funds and offered to let him use my name publicly as a supporter. To be frank I have a lot of commitments in life between work and family, I apologise for how I can only really reply on weekends at best, but I have been following Bitcoin for years and consider it one of the most important cryptography projects out there. I also am very concerned with the long-term viability of Bitcoin with regard to preserving its decentralization and privacy. (you may have seen my pull-request to add decentraliztion to the foundation bylaws: https://github.com/pmlaw/The-Bitcoin-Foundation-Legal-Repo/pull/4) Keeping Bitcoin fast, reliable and accesible for your average user is definitely an important part of my goals. What are your thoughts on SPV/partial mode? Myself I would much prefer to see the latter implemented than the former, you may have seen myself and Peter talking about the DoS attack risks for SPV nodes. Where are you at with regards to hiring a developer? I'll point out that Pieter Wuille is doing some of the initial work required, and should be involved in some way. (doesn't have to be financial) I noticed that Pieter was involving Peter in the discussion on IRC about his initial steps. Beyond partial mode I am also interested in seeing node-to-node encryption and authentication, IE SSL for peer communications, an important feature for preserving privacy against attackers who can wiretap. For instance right now even if you have a node that you trust, maybe your server at your house, there isn't a good way to have your wallet on your phone or laptop connect to that server because the connection is completely unauthenticated and unencrypted. FWIW adding SSL to the protocol is a fairly relatively non-invasive change. It might be worthwhile to implement that first as a means to test the developers you wish to hire to later implement partial mode. Thoughts? gpg: Signature made Mon 05 Aug 2013 04:32:45 AM GMT using RSA key ID 2636188F gpg: Good signature from "John Dillon <john.dillon892@googlemail.com>" gpg: encrypted with 2048-bit RSA key, ID 0FBEF185, created 2012-04-25 "Peter Todd <pete@petertodd.org>" gpg: encrypted with 2048-bit RSA key, ID 38254DA8, created 2012-05-31 "John Dillon <john.dillon892@googlemail.com>" Private IRC chat: 11:11 <petertodd> Everyone knows John and I "know" each other, if anything |
by imagining that the character always had the genetic potential for such a condition, and it was then triggered by a traumatic event. Unlike CoC’s random insanity tables, Eclipse Phase leaves the choice of conditions and how to play them up to the player, so the topic can be approached gently if anyone is sensitive to it.
While the system makes a few missteps, like referring to some conditions as “derangements,” these rules are a definite bright spot. They subtly enforce the notion that no person can walk through life completely unaffected by the world around them. The rules also provide a check on the excess of transhuman immortality. A PC might be tempted to copy themselves a dozen times and send their new troops on a suicide mission, but doing so will incur a lot of stress.
Finally, the rules make it clear that a character will heal from trauma much faster if they receive therapeutic help. Trying to “tough it out” on one’s own doesn’t make mechanical sense. That’s a nice reminder of how valuable therapy is in real life.
Obtuse Terminology Adds Unneeded Confusion
And that’s it for the praise. Eclipse Phase is extremely complicated, both in rules and setting. Players need to absorb a lot of information, even when the GM is being careful. Straightforward terminology would have done a lot to ease the process. Instead, the game uses thesaurus-fu to replace every game term with a new one that’s technically accurate but difficult to understand.
For example, what does Savvy mean, as a character attribute? What about Cognition? Turns out they equate to charisma and intelligence, respectively. The list goes on. Hitpoints are called Durability, and wisdom is called Intuition. The grand prize for confusing terminology goes to “Somatics.” Can you guess what that means? I’ll wait.*
Several of the skills have confusing names too. Instead of Sense Motive, Eclipse Phase has Kinesics. Again, a technically accurate name, but not something most players will know. Even worse, the dodge skill is called Fray. That isn’t even technically accurate, as it’s used any time a character has to get out of the way, not just in disorderly or protracted fights.*
Next, look at how the stats are arranged on the character sheet.
I have no idea what this means, please send help! Okay, joking aside, what they’ve done here is abbreviate the various stat names, probably in an effort to save space. This is the worst design choice I’ve seen on a character sheet since Dungeon World didn’t include any blank sheets for GMs to make their own classes. Even if a player manages to memorize all their stats, this sheet is meaningless.
Players new to a system need all the help they can get learning the rules. Instead, Eclipse Phase bombards them with new terminology and a character sheet that looks like it was copied from an accountant’s Excel files. That adds untold aggravation to the learning processes, and it didn’t need to happen. All of Eclipse Phase’s fancy terms have more descriptive, easier to use equivalents, and the character sheet could have been rearranged.
Sometimes it’s necessary to invent new terminology. There’s no word in English for downloading a new instance of a person’s ego into a different body, so Eclipse Phase borrowed “forking” from computer programming lingo.* That term is worth learning because it conveys a new idea. But the obscure names for stats and skills come off as a cheap attempt to sound more futuristic, and the game would have been better without them.
Character Creation Is Deep but Frustrating
Character creation in Eclipse Phase is deep. Really deep. Deep enough you want to be careful how fast you go back to the surface.* Players can make an astonishing variety of characters. Would they like to play a super-smart AI geneticist inhabiting the body of a giant crab? Easily done. What about a master sword-fighter with three bodies, all inhabited by forks of the same character? Child’s play.
The game has rules for a staggering variety of bodies, both organic and synthetic. PCs can have all kinds of cybernetic implants, plus a cornucopia of traits and gear. That’s great for experienced players who want to dive into the setting, pushing the boundaries of transhumanity further than they’ve ever gone.
For new players, character creation isn’t so smooth. The game presents players with 1000 points, but it gives very little idea of how to spend them. Looking at the hundreds of options available, newer players are likely to suffer analysis paralysis, unable to choose anything at all. Worse, many players simply won’t have time to read through all the options available, so the GM must do a lot of extra work to guide them.
Regardless of player experience level, this kind of unguided character creation has another problem: it encourages hyper-specialization. In most roleplaying games, it’s better to be really good at a few things than passable at many things, and Eclipse Phase is no exception. The rules try to discourage hyper-specialization by making skills cost more after a certain level, but the lure is too great! This problem actually gets worse with more experienced players, as they already know how to leverage a maxed out Persuasion skill to great effect. This leaves the well-rounded PCs wondering why they bothered.
Eclipse Phase also lets PCs get even more points from taking disadvantages, and in the time-honored tradition of roleplaying games, some of these disadvantages are actually plot hooks. For example, consider the Frail disadvantage and the Edited Memory disadvantage, both worth 10 points. Frail reduces a PC’s total hitpoints, a serious flaw. Edited Memory gives no mechanical penalty and means that at some point the PC will be the star of a session to find out what happened to their memory. Any player who didn’t know that and took Frail will feel pretty silly.
But by far the most frustrating part of Eclipse Phase is being forced to spend 300 points on “knowledge skills.” These run the gambit from actual knowledge skills like biology to performance arts like dance. They all have one thing in common though: it’s hard to imagine most PCs having a use for them. Even the language skills are worthless, because everyone has translators embedded in their brains. Nevertheless, players must spend nearly a third of their points on knowledge skills, which has the odd result of every Eclipse Phase character looking like they went to college long enough to get half a dozen bachelor’s degrees.
The Core Die Mechanic Still Isn’t Great
Like its mental health system, Eclipse Phase inherits its core die mechanic from Call of Cthulhu.* This is usually known as the percentile system, where most rolls are made on a d100, trying to get equal to or under the character’s skill rating. Unlike the mental health rules however, Eclipse Phase did not improve the percentile system enough to be worthy of praise.
The percentile system’s biggest problem has always been that by default; the difficulty of a roll is determined by the PC’s skill rather than the task they’re attempting. PC Tyrone’s Pilot skill is 60, no matter if they’re trying to land a plane in calm weather or flying down the Grand Canyon at combat speeds. Eclipse Phase tries to solve this problem by allowing the GM to impose bonuses or penalties to a character’s skill based on how difficult the task is, but most GMs forget this option more often than not.
The percentile system is also notoriously bad at opposed rolls. For a long time, Call of Cthulhu didn’t have opposed skill rolls at all, and players had to consult a table when pitting their base attributes against another’s. Eclipse Phase does have opposed rolls, but they’re unintuitive. In an opposed roll, both sides are trying to get as close to their skill total as they can without going over. If one participant has a skill rating of 72, then a 72 is the best roll they can get.* If their opponent has a skill of 85 but only rolls a 45, then the first participant would win.
This mechanic works, but it’s irritating to players who’ve just finished learning that they’re trying to roll low. Another irritant is the way attribute rolls are handled. In most cases, the players have to roll against their attribute times three, and it’s amazing how much that extra bit of multiplication can slow down a game.
Finally, Eclipse Phase’s retry mechanic is a mess. The rules seem to say that any player can retry any task up to six times. Each time has a lower chance of success, but so what? As far as I can tell there’s no downside to retrying as often as possible. The rules don’t seem to indicate if these retries represent the character literally trying again or if it’s all an abstraction. In any case, it’s a terrible rule that does nothing but slow the game down and make it almost impossible for anyone to fail a roll. If that’s the goal, they should have just removed failure from the game and been more honest about it.
Skills Are Needlessly Divided
Many systems struggle with skill granularity, and Eclipse Phase is no exception. Some skills cover a broad range of tasks, while others are very narrow, and there seems little rhyme or reason to it. Consider the Programming skill. This skill is very broad and is used for everything from hacking into a secure server to writing a search algorithm. That isn’t very realistic, but it makes the game better. In a thrilling story of transhuman drama, no one cares if a character can program in SQL or Java, they care if the character can stop the TITAN nano-virus from spreading to the space station’s main CPU.
And yet, some skills are unaccountably divided into what the game calls “fields.” While they’re under the umbrella of a single skill, PCs must spend points on each of them separately. Medicine is the most obvious culprit, with 13 different fields, some of which are just bizarre. Does the game really care if a character has Trauma Surgery or Remote Surgery? What if it’s a surgery performed by a remotely controlled drone on a trauma victim?
Piloting is another divided skill, which just seems cruel. The book makes it quite clear that PCs won’t be spending much of their time in spacecraft or aircraft, and yet it expects players to spend huge numbers of points to be competent at operating vehicles. The game also requires two different skills to use laser weaponry and kinetic weaponry, even though both types of weapons are operated by the same easy-to-use point-and-click interface. For comparison, the Blades skill lets characters wield everything from a battle-axe to a rapier.
This skill division is inconsistent, and it can damage a story. Imagine a scenario where the GM has their players breaking into an evil hypercorp’s weapons-lab. One of the PCs, an expert sniper, gets hold of an experimental laser-rifle. They level the rifle at the enemy and then proceed to miss every shot. Even though the character was a crack shot, they forgot to pick up the Beam Weapons skill in addition to the Kinetic Weapons skill. The player assumed one point-and-click interface was the same as another.
Combat Is Slow and Uninteresting
Yeah, it takes about this long. Yeah, it takes about this long.
Even though Eclipse Phase is a system that tries to do everything, most of the rules are related to combat. Reaper drones rain death down from on high, seeker missiles navigate around every obstacle to find their targets, and nano-swarms literally take the enemy apart piece by piece.
With all that going on, it’s disappointing in the extreme that Eclipse Phase combat has little to recommend. First of all, it’s time consuming. Two lightly armored* characters with assault rifles can easily take four rounds of shooting to resolve their differences, and that number gets a lot higher if they pile on the armor. With a party of four to six PCs plus their opponents, exciting gunfights quickly become plodding chores.
What’s more, players have an endless list of bonuses and penalties to keep track of. Did they remember to buy a scope? That’s +10 to hit. Did they remember to aim? Also +10 to hit. What about their weapon’s armor penetration rating or the various types of ammunition available? That becomes a headache fast. Don’t even get me started on the rules for throwing a grenade.*
Most damning, for all of its complexity, Eclipse Phase combat offers very little depth. The game has a thousand different ways to optimize a PC for combat, but once the dice start rolling, there are hardly any decisions to be made. Like Call of Cthulhu, D&D, and many older systems, Eclipse Phase combat consists almost entirely of two sides blazing away from static positions until one side can’t shoot any more. There’s little room for tactics or clever thinking unless the GM puts in a lot of extra leg work.
Eclipse Phase combat has only one redeeming quality: it has low stakes. If a PC dies from an (un)lucky critical hit, they can be easily restored from a backup. GMs don’t have to worry about destroying their campaign with a fight that got out of hand. Of course, this benefit cuts both ways. Players used to more traditional settings may find combat boring if death isn’t on the line.
The Whole System Is Rife With Imbalance
Like that, except David just dies. Like that, except David just dies.
Eclipse Phase is not a well balanced system, and even a cursory reading of the rules shows it. The most blatant offenders are implants that give characters an extra action. By default, characters have only one action. These implants double a character’s effectiveness in combat or any other situation where time is a factor. The only limitation to receiving these implants is their cost, and PCs can easily scrape the credits together with a few skill rolls.
Dual wielding further breaks the action economy. Each extra hand/limb holding a weapon essentially gains its own turn, which stacks with the extra action implants. This means a robot with pistols in each of its 10 hands can make 40 attacks in a single round.* In fairness, each attack after the first receives an increasing penalty, but there’s no reason not to make them. PCs can also purchase traits that will reduce or eliminate these penalties, turning every combat into an unending bulletstorm.
Not all the balance issues are so spectacular. Weapon stats clearly favor bigger guns over smaller ones with no mechanical incentive not to pick the most powerful option available.* Why use an assault rifle when a machine gun is the clearly superior option? The machine gun is more expensive, but as with implants, money isn’t a real obstacle for PCs. Lasers, by contrast, are disappointingly underpowered, a rude shock to anyone who invested points in Beam Weapons.
But don’t worry, combat isn’t the only place where imbalance reigns. Emotional dampeners give a +30 to Deception rolls. Even in a system where skills are rated from 01 to 99, that’s a huge bonus. The supposed downside is that the dampeners give -10 to Persuasion rolls, but they can be turned off at will so it isn’t clear if that will matter. What’s more, the dampeners can be combined with endocrine control implants for a total of +50 on Deception rolls. That kind of epic level lying in starting characters will cause huge problems, as PCs realize they can make people believe the most outrageous falsehoods.
I found these balance issues after reading through the book once. I shudder to think what a true master of the system could come up with. Any GM looking to keep their game from disintegrating will have to spend a lot of time house-ruling or disallowing various options, lest newer players be completely outstripped by those who know how Eclipse Phase does its math.
At its heart, Eclipse Phase is a game suffering from too much complexity. The setting is incredibly deep and asks players to accept major paradigm shifts. Just trying to figure out what death means will leave heads spinning. In this kind of game, the rules should support both players and GMs who find themselves struggling. Instead, the system is confusing and labyrinthine. New players take one look at the character sheet and head for the hills.
Eclipse Phase’s overcomplexity stems from its simulationist mindset. Every possible aspect of the setting must be represented in the rules, right down to how many meters a character can crawl in three seconds. With a setting this sprawling, that means an equally sprawling set of rules. If the designers had used something more abstract, it could have been a stable platform from which to explore transhumanity. Instead the rules mostly get in the way. While the setting is still awesome, it isn’t enough.The Success of Marvel Movies and Why DC Falls Short
Just before the advent of the 21st century, comic book movies have graced the silver screen: directors and artists possessing commendable qualities have adapted our favourite superheroes to film, resulting in popular works ranging from Batman (1989) to Blade (1998). The year 2000 saw Bryan Singer’s X-Men hit the theatres, spawning a franchise of its own, and 2002 ushered in Raimi’s Spider-Man, but a clear-cut competition between the two comic giants in the realm of film perhaps hadn’t materialized fully until after 2005, when both started churning out quality films of note. In 2005, DC released the first of a series known as “The Dark Knight Trilogy”, Batman films by Christopher Nolan that would eventually become their greatest asset. It could be said that DC had a head start in injecting itself into public consciousness: the only other Marvel film released in that year was 20th Century Fox’s Fantastic Four, which was critically panned despite being a commercial success. Within the next two years the two aforementioned Marvel-owned franchises would find their end after a disastrous third film, leaving Marvel in a seemingly hopeless position of defeat. The relatable characters Marvel had on the table became silly and tacky, and the public had since gone on to appreciate Nolan’s grittier universe that retained the heart of action blockbusters.
However, 2008 came in: and this is where everything began.
Now that the background of comic book movies in the early 21st century is covered, the successes of both comic giants and their respective hits and misses can be analyzed. Throughout this article, success will be defined in three particular ways, two of which may overlap slightly but the third is otherwise clear-cut. The first mode of success that is instantly recognizable and coveted by the two eponymous entertainment companies is profit. A film invested in by a studio should be a box-office success. The second is that of critical success- and is otherwise reflective of cinematic quality: are the characters fleshed out? Are the action set pieces engaging? Does the central conflict cause the audience to be emotionally invested? Finally, of course, there’s audience satisfaction, which is inherently tied to those two definitions of success but are not limited to them.
Let’s fast-forward to 2016
DC’s just released their “ace-in-the-hole”, the critically panned Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice. DC’s Marvel-inversed attempt at taking off in Hollywood, however, spells serious trouble for the studio should they continue to produce movies that are lacking in quality. After the franchise which has earned them the most cash concluded (The Dark Knight) and a couple of moderate hits and box-office bombs, DC has banked everything they’ve got on a title for a film that is sure to make them the money they so desperately need. Two of the studios’ most well known franchises and most acclaimed heroes are at one another’s throats, culminating in a fight between two titanic figures of comic book history. How could that NOT make money?
It did, but this approach: the creation of a film that is flawed and full of plot-holes, hoping that such holes would be filled by future films, is inherently problematic, and more importantly, spells trouble for the studio. Unlike Marvel, who has slowly built its fan base, filmography and earnings step-by-step, with individual movies dedicated to individual characters whilst hoping that they are earning financially, DC’s approach is banked on the continued consumption of their films, which cannot be ensured. They have already utilized the two most financially viable characters they possess, and must now individually recreate the success Marvel has had with their lesser-known characters that allows for the continued creation of films that add to the DC universe. Suicide Squad, though objectively a box-office success, was similarly critically panned by both critics and audiences alike, and is an excellent example of DC’s mistaken approach: by simply grouping characters together into a movie without fleshing out their backstories, the products are cardboard cut-outs that utterly lack depth or nuance.
What, then, is the issue that DC is facing?
Should DC studios continue creating movies that fail to appeal to the general public, it would follow that its fan base would be substantially smaller than that of Marvel, and thus earn less money. Other factors such as word-of-mouth, inadequate marketing and simply the professional standard of films play a large part in the production of financial profit.
It’s fairly easy to see the disparity by comparing films from both studios in 2011.
Marvel, who has only just picked up steam from their unexpected success with Iron Man in 2008, dished out two movies of characters still fairly lacking in recognition in Hollywood. Before Iron Man, the most well-known Marvel characters didn’t belong to the studio, they were Spider-Man (successful till the third) and X-Men (<), yet, by comparing Thor with Green Lantern, it is apparent that Marvel’s approach to the development of their universe is far more feasible.
Thor, a relatively unknown Marvel character to those who don’t regularly read comics, somehow managed to attain a 299.3 million profit, whereas Captain America, an equally obscure character to the mainstream public, scored a 230.6 million profit.
Green Lantern, which is arguably the next most recognisable DC superhero after Superman and Batman, reaped only a meagre 2 million profit. Conversely, Man of Steel received a stunning profit of 443 million, a commendable feat for a standalone film, but once more, DC is utilising its big names to garner cash, which increasingly becomes a problem when their main moneymaking characters have to make way for lesser-known figures.
In 2016: Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice earned an estimated 623.3m profit, with an aggregate score of 27% on Rotten Tomatoes, whereas Suicide Squad earned a 570.6m profit with a score of 26. They still are box-office successes, but are severely panned in areas of critical acclaim and audience satisfaction, whereas Civil War earned an estimated 900m profit with a 75% approval and Doctor Strange earned a roughly 479.5m profit with a 91% score on Rotten Tomatoes. Both conglomerates are earning profits, no doubt, but Marvel is enjoying the critical success, audience satisfaction and intricate world-building that feels real and relatable to the viewer.
In DC’s ideal situation, they are able to continue a moneymaking streak through Suicide Squad, all the way till Justice League Part 2 in 2019, which is almost impossible if their films continue to be of a quality seen in BvS. Simply put, there would be no proper incentive to discover these characters individually since we know that they end up altogether in Justice League: part of the allure in watching Thor and Captain America was in finding out, at the very least, the part they play and how they eventually fit into the Avengers. There would be no such incentive with the DC universe. By charting BvS far into the future, what they are hoping for is that we will be intrigued enough by the plot holes and mysteries created within the films to watch these characters’ individual films, and their stories before the Justice League.
Wonder Woman (2017) is attempting to do precisely this: connect us to a character that we’ve already seen, and whilst I have no doubt this will be a box-office success (Wonder Woman is a fairly big name), it’s safe to say that DC’s backtracking approach will not prove successful for them. Justice League (2017) will introduce us to a whole set of characters the audience has not met before: they have only been fed short, 2-minute introductions of their origin stories in BvS.
These plot holes and unclear characters are precisely the aspects that are making their current films so flawed, among other things. In some foolish, cyclical manner, the continued dwindling quality of DC films will no doubt cause a significant part of their current fan base to leave but also will not attract new audiences with lesser known characters such as Cyborg or Shazam.
What can DC do?
As mentioned above, DC can wait it out. It’s current titles seem grabbing enough and perhaps there will be no doubt that Wonder Woman and JL Part 1 will earn massive amounts of profit, but that cannot be ensured nor promised, unless DC does something unthinkable.
Make good films. If there’s anything the public must have learned, it’s that DC needs good directors. Desperately. More than their money, they need creators who know their characters well, can direct and flesh a character out properly, and create a good villain. Before constructing an immersive fictional universe, one must first construct a good film. And with DC’s recent output, they’ve made decent, acceptable films, but nothing good nor amazing. They’ve banked enough on their big names and characters which will become exhaustive in time. They need to start increasing their fan base, show the general populace and audience that they can be trusted to make good films, or at the very least satisfactory ones. Marvel was known to make bad films before, but since Iron Man, their output has ranged between acceptably mediocre yet still enjoyable, to formidable and great, wonderful fun. DC doesn’t have that. It’s most successful franchise owes itself to a good director, Christopher Nolan, and a gritty, dark tone and a second film with an outstanding villain. There’s no telling if such a success can be recreated again, and no answer as to whether or not DC will be able to tide the coming storm: an increasing unreliability to their audience and the diminishing popularity of their main men (or women).
What Next for Comic Book Movies?
It’s perhaps too early to say whether or not Marvel will continue to have the upper hand, as we have seen with Civil War that there is a similar fatigue experienced by moviegoers watching a Marvel movie. David Ehrlich, in his review of Civil War, comments that the Marvel Cinematic Universe is “so immense and self-perpetuating that a plot’s greatest possible conflict is no longer the end of the world, but rather the end of the brand.” This is the problem Marvel is facing now: a feel of repetition, a lack of risk or high stakes (Entertainment platform Cracked posted a video detailing why “Death needs to matter in the Marvel Universe”, whilst on a more technical level, youtube channel Every Frame a Painting expounds on the simplicity of Marvel’s music choices). The industry is experiencing genre fatigue here: the villains become repetitive or boring, lack stakes in the film, or simply act as jumping boards for the heroes themselves, which detracts from their vulnerability. These are the issues that confront Marvel. If DC can achieve success where Marvel has failed, then they might have a chance. However, as mentioned before, if DC continues with their streak with Snyder, their tonal inconsistencies, and bad directors, it’s likely they’ll be cemented in history as constantly second to Marvel’s output.
Works Cited
Ehrlich, David. “Review: ‘Captain America: Civil War’ Shows the Best and Worst of Marvel Movies.” IndieWire. N.p., 27 Apr. 2016. Web. 4 Dec. 2016.
Cracked. “Why Death Needs To Matter in The Marvel Universe.” YouTube. YouTube, 25 Mar. 2015. Web. 6 Dec. 2016.
What do you think?.Report: Military may have to quell domestic violence from economic collapse RAW STORY
Published: Monday December 29, 2008
Print This Email This Deepening economic strife in the US could lead to civil unrest and violence that would require military intervention, warns a new report from the US Army War College.
"Widespread civil violence inside the United States would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to defend basic domestic order and human security," writes Nathan Freier, a 20-year Army veteran and visiting professor at the college.
A copy of the 44-page report, "Known Unknowns: Unconventional 'Strategic Shocks' in Defense Strategy Development," can be downloaded here. Freier notes that his report expresses only his own views and does not represent US policy, but it's certain that his recommendations have come before at least some Defense Department officials.
The author warns potential causes for such civil unrest could include another terrorist attack, "unforeseen economic collapse, loss of functioning political and legal order, purposeful domestic resistance or insurgency, pervasive public health emergencies, and catastrophic natural and human disasters." The situation could deteriorate to the point where military intervention was required, he argues.
"Under these conditions and at their most violent extreme," he concludes, "civilian authorities, on advice of the defense establishment, would need to rapidly determine the parameters defining the legitimate use of military force inside the United States."
While the scenario presented is "likely not an immediate prospect," Freier concedes, it deserves consideration. Prior to 9/11, no one in the defense establishment would have envisioned a plot to topple skyscrapers with airliners, and the military should not be caught so off-guard again, he says.
To the extent events like this involve organized violence against local, state, and national authorities and exceed the capacity of the former two to restore public order and protect vulnerable populations, DoD would be required to fill the gap," he writes. "This is largely uncharted strategic territory."
Freier's report has merited some concern as it comes alongside revelations that the Defense Department has assigned a full-time Army unit to be on-call for domestic deployment.
An article in Monday's El Paso Times notes that military and police officials in Texas are unaware of team-up efforts such as those suggested in the report.
Arizona authorities told the Phoenix Business Journal they are similarly unaware of any new plans, although the Phoenix Police Department made clear its officers "always train to prepare for any civil unrest issue."
The Posse Comitatus Act restricts the military's role in domestic law enforcement, but it does not completely preclude involvement in cases of emergency or when emergency law is declared. As of now, though, such scenarios seem unlikely.
The bulk of Freier's report recommends refocusing Defense Department strategy toward thinking outside the box, in general, and the unlikely possibility of domestic deployments is just one longshot example he uses to illustrate a worst case scenario.WASHINGTON (Yonhap) — U.S. President Barack Obama said he believes North Korea will ultimately collapse, but a military solution is not the answer to handling the communist nation armed with nuclear technologies and missiles.
Obama made the remark in an interview on Youtube last week, stressing that the Internet will ultimately find its way into the isolated totalitarian nation and spread information that will undercut the authoritarian regime.
Obama called the North “the most isolated, the most sanctioned, the most cut-off nation on Earth.”
“The kind of authoritarianism that exists there, you almost can’t duplicate anywhere else. It’s brutal and it’s oppressive and as a consequence, the country can’t really even feed its own people,” Obama said. “Over time, you will see a regime like this collapse.”
Obama emphasized that the U.S. capacity to effect change in North Korea is limited because the communist nation has a 1-million-strong military as well as nuclear technologies and missiles. Moreover, South Korea would be “severely affected” if war breaks out on the Korean Peninsula, he said.
“So the answer is not going to be a military solution. We will keep on ratcheting the pressure, but part of what’s happening is that the environment that we’re speaking in today, the Internet, over time is going to be penetrating this country,” Obama said.
“And it is very hard to sustain that kind of brutal authoritarian regime in this modern world. Information ends up seeping in over time and bringing about change, and that’s something that we are constantly looking for ways to accelerate,” he added.
Obama made no mention of North Korea in his State of the Union address, though he vowed to make sure that “no foreign nation” will disrupt American computer networks in apparent reference to the North’s alleged hack on Sony Pictures.
After the FBI determined the North was responsible for the hack on Sony, Obama strongly condemned the attack and vowed to respond proportionally. Early this month, Obama authorized fresh sanctions on North Korean entities and officials, including the General Reconnaissance Bureau, Pyongyang’s top spy agency.
Many analysts agree that North Korea stands low in the U.S. priority list and that the Obama administration has little interest in resuming nuclear negotiations with Pyongyang. The U.S. has demanded Pyongyang take concrete steps demonstrating its denuclearization commitments before nuclear talks reopen.WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Congress narrowly averted a partial shutdown of the U.S. domestic security agency late on Friday night, but the forces behind the chaotic episode remain - fractious Republicans and House Speaker John Boehner’s lack of control over them.
Federal Protective Service vehicles, which is a branch of Homeland Security, park outside the U.S. District Courthouse in the Brooklyn borough of New York February 25, 2015. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
That may portend more serious trouble ahead as Washington confronts fiscal challenges on a grander scale. In five to seven months, the federal debt ceiling will again be reached, and by October Congress must pass spending bills to keep the government running in the new fiscal year.
Failing to deal effectively with these issues could have much more damaging repercussions - such as a broad government shutdown or a debt default - than a partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
What happens between now and then, including the handling of a one-week extension of Homeland Security funding, will be crucial. Some conservatives speak of ousting Boehner, but it is unlikely they can muster enough votes, while others made clear on Friday that they were willing to take big risks to score ideological points.
Brinkmanship like this, reminiscent of 2013’s 16-day federal government shutdown, was supposed to be over. Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell said there would be no more shutdowns after his party won control of the upper chamber and strengthened its grip on the House last November.
Proclamations about Republicans showing they could govern soothed financial markets, which were rattled by the 2013 shutdown and badly shaken by 2011 budget fights that nearly resulted in an historic government default on its debt.
But Friday’s confused late-night scramble renewed old concerns about dysfunctional government. The House rejected a three-week funding extension for the agency when conservatives rebelled because the bill did not block Obama’s executive orders on immigration. On a second try late in the evening, House Democrats provided the votes to pass a one-week extension.
The angry conservatives’ embarrassing rebuke to Boehner showed they are more fiercely determined than ever to rein in federal spending, shrink the government and challenge Democratic President Barack Obama on multiple fronts.
“It’s very possible that come September, you could face this again,” said conservative Republican Representative Joe Pitts of Pennsylvania, when asked about debt and budget fights ahead.
For small-government Tea Party activists looking to flex their muscles after November’s election victory, any attempt to borrow beyond the $18 trillion national debt will be a red flag. Congress also faces a Sept. 30 deadline for passing spending bills that are certain to add to the $18 trillion debt.
Unlike the upcoming debt limit and budget issues, the DHS battle was not about government spending, but about Obama’s recent executive actions to suspend the threat of deportation for 4.7 million illegal immigrants.
Still, Trent Lott, a former Senate Republican leader, said some congressional Republicans will not be able to resist further confrontations, especially over spending bills.
“I must say, there are going to be battles for the next two years trying to rein in Obama’s excesses with executive power and regulations,” Lott said.
More executive actions are expected from Obama in environmental and other controversial areas. That could mean that clashes will intensify, with many conservatives still seeing spending power as their strongest leverage.
Some of them say pressing the immigration fight is part of a non-negotiable duty for Congress to defend the Constitution. They say Obama took steps to change immigration policy that only Congress has the authority to carry out.
“This is not about immigration. This is about whether or not the president has the ability to unilaterally run this country, Representative Austin Scott of Georgia said in House floor debate on Friday.
The Obama administration counters that its unilateral action on immigration, after years of watching House Republicans block legislation, and has many presidential precedents.
Many Republicans are concerned that such fights are an election liability and undermine the party’s ability to demonstrate it can govern responsibly. However, similar concerns have been aired with each successive battle.
Republican Senator Mark Kirk, who could face a tough re-election in 2016, told Reuters that his party needs to change.
Referring to the DHS fight, the Illinois senator said: “I would say that this battle should be the end of the strategy of attaching whatever you’re upset at the president about to a vital piece of government.”ENOUGH
Lesser of two evils? Hogwash. There’s only one evil in this race, and it’s the guy who makes white supremacists delirious. We must crush them.
It’s not enough for Donald Trump to just lose this election. He must get crushed. Why? Simple, we need to send a message to Trump—as well as to the rest of our nation—that his sexism, bigotry, and racism have no place in America. And perhaps more importantly this would send a powerful message to Trump’s white supremacist and anti-Semitic fans that we will not sit by as Trump mainstreams their hate.
Trump and the hate mongers of his base want you to lose enthusiasm. They hope good people sit home and let hate triumph. We can’t allow that.
Let’s be blunt: Trump has served up the most vile, despicable garbage we have seen from a major party presidential nominee ever. And that’s not just my view but also people who have been active in politics for decades, such as Ralph Nader and Barney Frank, who shared that exact sentiment while guests on my SiriusXM radio show.
There’s no moral equivalence between what Clinton has done—or even allegedly done—regarding emails and Trump’s hate-filled fear mongering. Just on Sunday Trump claimed that Clinton would allow “650 million” immigrants “to pour” into our country. That is an absolute lie as noted by the nonpartisan Politifact. But the idea of keeping America a white majority country is red meat for Trump’s xenophobic base.
In that same speech Trump went on to fear-monger about Muslims—something he has been doing since his lie last fall that “thousands” of Muslims cheered in New Jersey on 9/11. This time he claimed that allowing even one Syrian refugee in the country would mean “generations of terrorism” that soon will be “spreading to your schools and communities.”
Access Hollywood tape), and made sexist remarks about Megyn Kelly and Carly Fiorina. This type of rhetoric is nothing new for Trump. In fact |
.Efforts over the past several years to bridge the digital divide using low-cost computers have put millions of these devices in the hands of students in developing countries throughout Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. Backed by the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) project, chipmaker Intel and others, these computers initially appeared in 2007 as stripped-down laptop PCs with Internet access and educational software. These devices are changing with the times, however, heavily influenced by the emergence of tablet computers, smart phones and portable digital video game players.
The newest entry is a durable tablet called the studybook designed by Intel to be built by computer makers in local markets for students in nearby schools, an approach meant to reduce costs while stimulating regional economies. The studybook features a 17.8-centimeter multitouch LCD screen that's roughly the size of an Amazon Kindle Fire. The tablet also includes very basic front and rear cameras (0.3 and 2 megapixels, respectively), a microphone, one gigabyte of memory, up to 32 gigabytes of storage, an accelerometer and light sensor.
A key feature of the studybook design is sturdiness. The tablet is constructed from a single piece of plastic, and its screen sits on a rubber gasket designed to act as a shock absorber, so the device is water resistant and able to absorb a 70-centimeter drop without breaking, says Wayne Grant, director of research and planning for Intel's Education Market Platforms Group. The price of the studybook—which can connect to networks via WiFi, 3G or Bluetooth—is set by local manufacturers, but Intel anticipates it will cost between $200 and $300, depending on how it is configured. A version using the Windows 7 operating system is available now and will be followed in a few months by one running Google's Android Honeycomb operating system.
Even more important than the hardware is the software, some of which turns the studybook's cameras into microscopes, magnifying glasses, video recorders and cameras. Other software simulates lab experiments or acts as an e-reader for digital textbooks.
Studybook is Intel's third PC designed specifically for students, following the Classmate PC, which debuted in 2007 and opened like a clamshell. A version of the Classmate PC introduced in 2010 has a convertible design that allows students to use its keyboard as they would for a conventional laptop or use its touchscreen as they would with a standard tablet (this device is less durable than the studybook). Intel claims that more than 7 million Classmate PCs, which range in price between $250 and $400, are in use.
Not to be outdone, OLPC plans to deliver its own ruggedized tablet—XO-3—by the end of the year. The XO-3 will use a Marvell Technology Group microprocessor, perpetuating a rivalry that began in January 2008, when Intel dissolved its relationship with OLPC, a spin-off of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab. At the time, OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte had insisted that Intel stop selling its Classmate PCs because they competed with OLPC's XO laptops. The XO-3 is expected to cost $100, although the actual price won't be known until the tablet is available.
There is no shortage of demand for these devices; Intel and OLPC are selling their computers to school systems in dozens of countries worldwide. A recent study by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) found, however, that while programs like OLPC increase access to computers, they do not necessarily improve students' math or language test scores. IDB, established in 1959 to finance education projects throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, analyzed test scores from 319 public schools in Peru, including more than 200 where OLPC computers were in use.
The bank is not claiming that the programs are useless, though. It acknowledged the study's limited scope and said the results indicate that low-cost computers must be more carefully woven into overall lesson plans to truly improve student learning. More details about IDB's research can be found on the organization's Web site.
Images courtesy of Intel and One Laptop per ChildIsrael exercises exclusive control over the distribution of fuel to the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Ashraf Amra APA images
“There’s no money in this job — everything I earn goes to pay for gasoline,” a Ramallah cab driver laments, while hurtling down a street on the outskirts of the occupied West Bank city.
Cab drivers are not the only ones who have felt the pinch of rising gasoline prices in the West Bank. The price of basic foodstuffs — maize, vegetable oil and bread — is higher than ever, after rising steadily since 2011.
The West Bank is feeling the effects of a global hike in the price of oil — and consequently, most everything else. Meanwhile, the Gaza Strip has spiraled into an acute phase since smuggled Egyptian gasoline has slowed to a trickle and the Hamas-led government in Gaza has been forced to resume obtaining expensive fuel from Israel.
Israel exercises exclusive rights over the supply of fuel to the Palestinian population, despite the fact that the West Bank and Gaza Strip should be able to import cheaper petrol from oil-rich neighbors and alleged allies, or tap into gas reserves off the coast of Gaza.
The expensive — and in the case of Gaza, sparse — gasoline is a consequence of Israel’s control that has yet to be challenged by the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority. According to the Oslo agreements, the PA is obliged not to sell its gasoline for less than 15 percent of Israel’s market price.
According to Charles Shamas, a founder of the Mattin Group, a Ramallah-based research and advocacy organization, Israel’s monopoly on supplying fuel to the West Bank is used as part of a conscious strategy aimed at maintaining Palestinians’ structural dependence on Israel and its political decision-makers.
“Such supply monopolies are a form of power. They provide easy ways to exert political pressure on the Palestinian Authority and ordinary Palestinians and to enforce their compliance with Israel’s interests,” said Shamas.
Gaza subjected to chronic power shortages
Gaza has felt the powerful flexing of Israel’s strategic muscle, being subjected to arbitrary electricity cuts and a constant power shortage as a result of Israel’s insufficient rationing of fuel permitted to enter the coastal strip at levels far insufficient to meet the needs of its 1.6 million inhabitants.
It is through this lens that Shamas sees the failure to develop Gaza’s offshore gas fields, discovered 13 years ago.
“The gas field issue was initially welcomed in the hope that it would give [the West Bank and Gaza Strip] a greater measure of independence,” Shamas explained.
Discovered in the 1990s by the British Gas Group, Gaza’s gas fields are estimated to be 1-1.4 trillion cubic feet in volume. While this amount appears small compared to the energy reserves of Gulf neighbors, it is substantial enough to meet Palestinian domestic needs for the next 15 years.
Since British Gas conducted initial studies and concluded the fields were financially viable, there has been an agreement between British Gas, the Palestine Investment Fund and a firm called Consolidated Contractors Company to develop and commercialize the fields.
No extraction
Yet 13 years after plans to develop the fields were drawn up, not a single gallon has been extracted.
“Developing Gaza’s gas fields would break one important Israeli supply monopoly. They don’t want the Palestinians to develop energy self-reliance,” Shamas said.
Victor Kattan, author and program director of the research group al-Shabaka, recently revealed that despite rumors circulating as recently as 2011 that Israel was still in negotiation with the PA over the terms of their drilling off Gaza’s shore, all talks stopped in earnest in 2007 (“The Gas Fields off Gaza: A Gift or a Curse?”).
During Kattan’s own investigation, he discovered through a source at Consolidated Contractors Company that plans hit an insurmountable obstacle after Israel would not allow Palestinians access to their own gas fields before they promised to sell it to Israel at a significant markdown from global prices.
Israel is expected to have a source of fuel from the Tamar gas field — about 80 kilometers off of the coast of Haifa — in 2012, so this intransigent stance appears to be rooted in a political desire to maintain control, rather than a need to secure cheap gas.
“For some time Israel has effectively said to [the Palestinian] business community, ‘We want you to do business, but not without us.’ Monopolizing access to business opportunities is another means of control that costs Israel nothing,” Shamas said.
Secrecy
Omar Shaban, an economist based in Gaza, calls the subject of Gaza’s gas fields a “black book” due to the lack of transparency of the Palestine Investment Fund — and how little information is known about it. The PIF is a venture capital firm established in 2003, purportedly to help stimulate economic development in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
As long as Israel has a monopoly on the supply of fuel, it can restrict the amount delivered. The Israeli petroleum company Dor Alon currently owns exclusive rights for delivering fuel to Gaza. Acting under direct orders from Israeli authorities, Dor Alon delivers only what the Israeli government permits to Gaza, which is far below what the population needs.
This enforced and often crippling dependence imposes daily power cuts on the Gaza Strip and foists Palestinians in Gaza into situations of genuine peril. While the dangers are less immediately apparent in the West Bank, the functioning capacity of the economy is significantly undermined by the high price of Israeli fuel.
Need to diversify
Shamas believes it is important to diversify fuel supply sources in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in order to begin a process that would enable Palestinians to reduce, and eventually escape, Israel’s control over such a basic necessity in everyday life.
Until February 2011, the Hamas government had successfully demonstrated the benefits of breaking the Israeli monopoly. Shaban explains that Hamas was able to operate Gaza’s only power plant entirely on smuggled fuel from the Sinai and satisfy nearly all needs for fuel at a considerable price reduction.
With smuggled fuel in Gaza, drivers were paying 1.5 shekels (40 cents) per liter as opposed to 7 shekels ($1.84) in Israel and the West Bank.
During that time, nearly 600,000 liters of fuel were smuggled every day, meeting 80-90 percent of the population’s needs, Shaban has estimated.
“This was much more bearable than when we depended on the Israelis,” he said.
But all that ended when Egypt clamped down on smuggling activities in the Sinai more than a year ago.
Now Gaza has been forced back to obediently receiving its daily quota of fuel from Israel. Recent reconciliation talks between Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal and Mahmoud Abbas, the PA president, have led to an agreement that the PA would resume paying Israel to deliver fuel to Gaza.
While it is clear that the Palestinian population would benefit from procuring its fuel from a third party, the PA until now seems unwilling to pursue such possible options. Moreover, why the PA so quickly and quietly folded while holding the rights to an independent source of fuel is equally — if not more — perplexing.
However, Shamas is hopeful for a sea change in the near future. “There’s increasing readiness and capacity to admit and confront the political reality,” he said.
Editor’s note: due to an editing error, statements in this article were inadvertently attributed to Charles Shamas rather than Omar Shaban. The article has been corrected.
Charlotte Silver is a journalist based in the West Bank. She can be reached at charlottesilver A T gmail D O T com.These Peanut Butter Cup Brownies In A Jar are easy individual servings of dessert for a party! They can be given as gifts or sold at a bake sale!
I made these little beauties for my party on Monday and they were delicious! Over the top?? Sure, but delicious anyway! And besides being adorable, they were easy to make! They consist of brownies, chocolate frosting, peanut butter cups, and peanut butter frosting.
**Update: I recently learned that Ball canning jars are NOT oven safe so I’ve changed the directions for this blog post.**
Bake the brownies according to the directions on the package. Use a small cookie cutter or the top of the mason jar to cut circles of cooked brownies out of the 9×13 pan. Place the brownie circles in the mason jars.
Pipe on store-bought chocolate frosting on top of the brownies. Or make your own if you have the time.
I cut a bunch of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups into small chunks… sorry I didn’t count how many, but I think you need a little more than 1 peanut butter cup per jar.Victoria’s Secret’s annual “What Is Sexy” social media campaign has the women’s premium lingerie company fending off accusations of racism.
This year’s list of winners include Instagram models who specialize in fashion, fitness, and beauty. Other winners include celebrities like Taylor Swift, actress Vanessa Hudgens, and This is Us star Mandy Moore.
The California-based brand revealed its honorees, many of whom were white and skinny. And it didn’t take long for social media users to accuse Victoria’s Secret’s of failing to include women of other ethnicities in its campaign.
“Young, white and thin is what’s sexy according to VS. Where’s the racial diversity? Where’s the size diversity….” one Twitter user wrote.
Young, white and thin is what's sexy according to VS. Where's the racial diversity? Where's the size diversity…. https://t.co/31Q7u0BtO8 — Jenn Atilemile (@jennatilemile) April 16, 2017
The California-based brand was bombarded with similar scorn online.
Victoria's Secret decides to tell you #WhatIsSexy. Note: your odds of getting on this list go up if you're young, thin, and white. pic.twitter.com/QXF29vz5in — Mike Sington (@MikeSington) April 15, 2017
#whatissexy? Very white, thin, mostly blonde, and between 20 and 30ish according to this v. specific @VictoriasSecret list. pic.twitter.com/OZB5XiMCzL — Cori Myles-Matovsky (@corimyles) April 14, 2017
It’s not the first time Victoria Secret has been dragged online over issues of race and diversity.
Last year, the Huffington Post called the womenswear brand’s What is Sexy” list “an arbitrary roundup of the ‘sexiest’ lips, legs, hair and eyeballs among women in the fashion and entertainment industries.”
“But telling us what a ‘sexy’ pair of lips looks like? Or worse, “sexy hair,” can only serve to make women without that lipstick or without a full head of long hair feel less adequate and less worthy of being called sexy in their own right,” HuffPo’s Suzy Strutner wrote.
In December, the intimate apparel retailer was accused of cultural appropriation and of designing “racist lingerie by Cosmopolitan editor Helin Jung.
“[D]on’t let yourself be hoodwinked by Victoria’s Secret’s brazen attempt to relabel what is clearly cultural appropriation by turning it into a celebration of ‘culture,’” Jung wrote in a since-deleted article about the brand’s use of different cultural aesthetics during its runway shows. “The brand and its creative leads shamelessly cherry-picked imagery, breaking apart aesthetic references from wherever they wanted and stitching them back together again. They’re telling us it’s worldliness. It’s not; it’s a hack job.”
Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudsonGETTY Jose Mourinho was cold to players who picked up injuries at Chelsea, John Terry has revealed
John Terry has spent much of this season on the sidelines for Chelsea with a persistent ankle problem. The 36-year-old has been restricted to just four Premier League starts for Antonio Conte's side this term. However, Terry has admitted he is not worried about his time on the treatment table now that Jose Mourinho is no longer at the club.
GETTY Jose Mourinho would blank Chelsea players on the treatment table
As the Blues captain has revealed the now-Manchester United boss could be extremely cold with players who were laid off with injuries. "If you picked up a knock and missed a day’s training he [Mourinho] would come in and he wouldn’t speak to you," Terry told BT Sport. "He would walk straight past you on the treatment table.
Jose Mourinho and Jurgen Klopp in heated exchange during Old Trafford stalemate Sun, January 15, 2017 Jose Mourinho and Jurgen Klopp appeared to have a war with words during Manchester United's stalemate with Liverpool Play slideshow EPA 1 of 7 Klopp and Mourinho appeared to have a heated exchange on the touchlineSue Bailey, THE CANADIAN PRESS
ST. JOHN'S, N.L. -- Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Kathy Dunderdale says there was a behind-the-scenes battle over federal support for the Muskrat Falls hydro project when the prime minister tried to tie it to fishery concessions.
Dunderdale told the St. John's Board of Trade on Monday that talks for the $1-billion loan guarantee almost fell apart the night before Prime Minister Stephen Harper flew to Labrador to sign off on it.
The flap was over his effort to link that promised backing to European trade talks, she said during a luncheon speech.
"You want to know what the racket was about Nov. 29? It was about the fishery. And the prime minister wanted a quid pro quo," she said.
"You know what I told him to do with the loan guarantee."
Dunderdale said she was furious at Harper's attempt to force her to forfeit minimum processing requirements that protect local fishery jobs in order to ease trade talks with Europe. She said the province has a negotiator at the table in Brussels and is willing to discuss such changes. But she said the contentious matter depends on what access the province could get to European markets, along with other benefits.
Dunderdale stressed that she was not willing to link the loan guarantee, which Harper promised during the 2011 election, to trade talks.
The issue came up again over the May long weekend as the last of the loan guarantee negotiations wrapped up, she said.
"Poor old Nigel Wright," she said of Harper's former chief of staff. "His ear's still ringing (from) when I smacked the phone up."
Wright resigned May 19 over a personal $90,000 payment to Conservative Senator Mike Duffy related to Duffy's disallowed housing expenses.
Opponents of CETA, a Canada-European trade agreement, have said it could come at the expense of minimum processing requirements and other laws that protect local fisheries.
Dunderdale said Ottawa backed off at the 11th hour in November, and that federal Trade Minister Ed Fast travelled to St. John's on the May long weekend in the midst of final loan guarantee talks.
First, she said, he wanted to talk about the European trade negotiations and the fishery issue. She said she again refused to link CETA with Muskrat Falls, and at one point threatened to leave the room.
Dunderdale said Monday that the loan guarantee process is now wrapped up. With Ottawa's backing, Crown corporation Nalcor Energy is launching requests for financing to move the $7.7-billion development in Labrador along, she announced.
Fast's spokesman, Rudy Husny, confirmed in a statement Monday that Ottawa's support for Muskrat Falls is in place.
"In fact, we have just issued the request for financing for this very project," he said in an emailed statement.
"It is not tied to the CETA negotiations," he said, adding: "We're seeking the best fish and seafood package for Canada."
Fast told The Canadian Press in an interview last week that trade talks with the European Union are winding down. Dunderdale told reporters the negotiations are expected to conclude in about two weeks.
A request for comment from the Prime Minister's Office was not immediately answered.
News that Nalcor is seeking financing comes a day before the Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board starts hearings into the Maritime Link that would bring Muskrat Falls power to the province.
Opposition critics are not convinced that the federal guarantee is sealed beyond a doubt, however. A key condition of that support is Nova Scotia's participation through private utility Emera (TSX:EMA).
Emera is funding 20 per cent of costs in exchange for 20 per cent of Muskrat Falls power through construction of the Maritime Link transmission line to Nova Scotia.
In Newfoundland, Liberal Leader Dwight Ball said he's worried that Nova Scotia's consumer advocate is among prominent critics saying the project exposes ratepayers to too much risk.
"Without the Maritime Link, the question has to be raised: will the federal loan guarantee exist? And the way I read it, it will not."
When asked Monday, Dunderdale said she is still confident in Premier Darrell Dexter's support for the project as he prepares for a provincial election, expected sometime this year.
"If we had waited for everyone in Newfoundland and Labrador to be convinced we still wouldn't have sanction," she said. "Look, they have a process.
"We've considered every eventuality that might come out of that, and have remedies in place for that. Muskrat Falls is a well planned, well thought-out project and it's going to serve the people of the province well."Shelden Rogers, CTV Winnipeg
The City of Winnipeg has revealed a team of people dedicated to eliminate standing water in an effort to stop mosquitoes. They are calling themselves the S.W.A.T. team.
S.W.A.T. stands for the “Standing Water Action Team”, and there are already a number of recruits.
“As an agent of S.W.A.T. your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to fight the mosquitoes before they hatch, by actively draining, dumping, or covering water-filled containers,” said Ken Nawolsky, superintendent of insect control.
Bernard Beaudry, a Winnipeg resident, is keeping his yard bone dry to eliminate mosquitoes, one of the things he hates most.
“It’s hard to think of anything that’s worse than mosquitoes. I mean I think that even sharks are better than mosquitoes,” said Beaudry.
With the temperatures rising, mosquitoes are starting to come out, looking for a place to lay their eggs.
When they do, they look for standing water in things like birdbaths, eaves troughs, barrels and buckets. And Beaudry is making sure he doesn’t give mosquitoes any chance to reproduce.
“If it’s got water in it, I have my trusty wet-dry vac, and I will suck it out.”
People like Beaudry will do anything to make sure mosquito numbers drop.
“I’ve even gone as far as putting Javex in little pools, anything that has water, just to make sure there are no mosquitoes.”Kurdish women are bad-ass. You’ll never guess why they’re the ones on the frontline’s against ISIS. Check this out…
The Kurds have adopted a rather unique strategy for not only eliminating their targets, but also humiliating them along the way.
According to WZ, Kurds are deploying whole units comprised of female fighters to the front line, which has boosted their recruitment numbers, and given them a psychological edge over ISIS. One female fighter explained why the Kurds have decided to put women in the thick of the battle, and it’s sure to make radical Islamists go crazy.
“The jihadists don’t like fighting women, because if they’re killed by a female, they think they won’t go to heaven.”
Awesome. The Kurds have an understanding of what it will take to stop ISIS, and it isn’t peace talks or goodwill offerings. It’s bombs, bullets, and brute force.
Read more: Conservative TribunePhoto by Alan Levenson, The LIFE Images Collection, Getty Images
i-D Hair Week is an exploration of how our hairstyles start conversations about identity, culture, and the times we live in.
An iconic video of Kathleen Hanna taken at the heyday of the riot grrrl movement shows the Bikini Kill frontwoman barking into a microphone while wearing a mustard yellow crop top and a pair of underwear. In contrast to her outfit, her dark hair is pulled into pigtails and accented by two light pink ribbon bows. The photo depicts a common paradox in riot grrrl style between the revealing sexualized outfits and the wholesome infantilized hairstyles that both served as a visual expression of their feminist politics.
The underground riot grrrl movement emerged in the early 1990s led by a new generation of female punks. Their radical feminist politics were reflected in their zines, music, and even their hair. Many riot grrrls would sport their locks in pigtails or ponytails adorned with colorful plastic baby barrettes—styles that were associated with little girls, but the hyper-feminine 'dos were used as a way for them to reclaim girlishness.
"There were a lot of times that the idea that being or girl or young woman is something that was put down," shares musicologist Elizabeth Keenan. "Girl things whether it was the color pink or wearing barrettes in your hair or being emotional about something, those ideas were generally discounted in society at large and even slightly in the feminist movement."
While not all riot grrrls adopted "girly" hairstyles that incorporated clips and bows with their pigtails and baby doll bangs, many did. Niki Elliott accented her bright red bob with a pink plastic barrette during Huggy Bear's performance of "Her Jazz" in 1993 and early photos of Bikini Kill show bassist Kathi Wilcox sporting short pigtails tied back by silky ribbons. The hairstyles visually connected them to young women, who were at the center of the underground movement.
"It was wearing girl style, but doing it slightly off-kilter. Not like when Britney Spears came out in her schoolgirl uniform (and braided pigtails) that sexualized girlhood in a pretty familiar way, like trading on the erotic fantasies of the willing girl or coed," Gayle Wald, a professor at George Washington University and co-author of Smells Like Teen Spirit: Riot Grrrls, Revolution and Women in Independent Rock, explains.
This importance of girlhood is reflected in the riot grrrl name, which was chosen to put the focus on girls rather than women, since this was a time they often felt most insecure. As the movement's original manifesto written by Hanna states, "we are angry at a society that tells us Girl = Dumb, Girl = Bad, Girl = Weak." By reclaiming these hairstyles as adults, riot grrrls gave new power to what it meant to be a girl.
"It was transgressive because they were refusing a corporate view of womanhood, because for white women in the 90s the idea that a ponytail is an infantilizing hairdo made it not what a serious woman in the corporate marketplace would wear," said Wald.
Still via YouTube of Sonic Youth's "Bull in the Heather"
Riot grrrl marked the beginning of a new wave of feminism, and leaders like Kathleen Hanna aimed to change the way feminists viewed womanhood after the second wave. The previous generation thought of "girl" as a belittling term and worked to be called "women." Many second-wave feminists also criticized things like fashion and beauty as being tools of oppression. But, riot grrrls reclaimed girl culture and unapologetically embraced sexuality and femininity.
As Marisa Meltzer explained in her book Girl Power: The Nineties Revolution in Music, "With riot grrrl you could enjoy the playful aspects of being a girl and want to fight the power at the same time." These infantilized hairstyles were sometimes countered by riot grrls writing words like "slut" or "whore" across their stomachs. As Meltzer said, "They were heavy-loaded, often ironic symbols, but symbols that nonetheless created a gulf between their feminism and their mothers'."
Out of the riot grrrl movement, and those often associated with it like Courtney Love, came the "kinderwhore" look, which popularized colorful barrettes and pigtails. This aesthetic parodied girly style, but added subversive elements like short dresses, ripped tights, and combat boots.
The youthful hairstyles were symbolic of the fun and lightheartedness of girlhood that the movement tried to preserve. Bands like Bratmobile, Heavens to Betsy, and L7, addressed the serious issues faced by young girls like sexual harassment, access to abortion, and domestic abuse, like in Bratmobile's track "Do You Like Me Like That" where Allison Wolfe sings, "You don't know what it's like to be harassed all day, then to be told that you're only in the way./ We're living in fear, trying not to disappear."
"My sense was that riot grrrl had such a potent critique of girlhood as a space of innocence and nostalgia," says Wald. "Riot grrrl was really invested in making forms of abuse of girls visible, specially sexual abuse. But, also thinking about the ways that media created the culture of eating disorders and the idea that girls' public spaces weren't necessarily protected spaces."
The childish aesthetic also allowed those like Hanna to reflect on her own girlhood. "I had a very dysfunctional family, and I felt very numbed-out for much of my childhood, and I felt like I missed a lot," Hanna told T Magazine, adding that the style allowed her to express herself in a way that her childhood hadn't allowed.
Riot grrrls aimed to attract other young women and create a community and a safe zone, which was especially important in the male-dominated realm of punk rock. These safe spaces offered women a place for self-expression, where there was no competition or jealousy.
"Riot girrrl was calling on a younger audience and kind of recognizing that audience as kindred spirits," explains Keenan. "It wasn't about going out and being a tough rocker chick, it was about speaking to an audience that maybe was like them and really giving space to girls within punk rock."
As the movement gained an international following, it wasn't long before the music and fashion industries caught on and commodified the girly aesthetic. This reclaiming of girlish hairstyles like pigtails was co-opted by groups like the Spice Girls and mall retailers like Limited Too marketed "girl power," but without the radical politics.
Still, riot grrrls wearing infantilized hairstyle like pigtails or "Hello Kitty" barrettes made a powerful statement about girlhood, and how young women are viewed in society. As Wald says, "I think reclaiming stuff that looked girly is troubling to the culture at large when you have women dressed as girls but exhibiting grow-up sexuality it brought attention to the culture's sexualization of young girls in a way that you couldn't deny," which was inherent to the riot grrrl mission.
Credits
Text Erica EusePhotovoltaic solar power is the technical term for solar panels that convert sunlight directly into electricity. This is in contrast to techniques that capture solar energy in other ways, or for different uses. Other techniques include hot water heating, interior temperature control, and concentrated heat for electricity production. If you are interested in electricity production based on solar heat, see our article on Solar Thermal Power
A photovoltaic (PV) solar panel produces an amount of electricity proportional to the type and intensity of light hitting the surface. Generally only one side of the panel is capable of producing power, so if you turn it to face away from the light source, it will not produce little to no power. Not all solar panels are created equal. Different designs have advantages and disadvantages. We won’t go into too much detail with regards to different types of panels. An in-depth article on the subject can be found at Wikipedia: Solar cell.
Solar PV panels are a form of renewable energy. They have tremendous potential for energy production because they draw directly on the light from the sun. Most renewable forms of energy are based on solar light and heat. In the case of wind or hydro power for instance, it is the sun that drives both the wind and water cycle. Solar PV has the advantage of being a direct conversion of light into electrical energy. In theory, there is more than enough available energy in the sun’s light striking the earth to provide all of the power that humanity currently uses. This is the case even if only a tiny fraction of the land area of the earth were covered in solar panels.
Solar PV has been advancing steadily for decades. In the 1970’s it cost tens of thousands of dollars to buy one watt of solar cells. The cost has dropped to only a few dollars per watt today. Solar PV is edging closer to being cost-competitive with classical forms of electricity production such as coal, nuclear and hydro. In terms of cost, wind power and solar thermal power are two renewable energy resources that are slightly ahead of solar PV.
Things to consider
Direct sunlight
Power production from solar PV depends on direct sunlight. For maximal power, the panel should be tilted so that it faces directly at the sun at all times during the daytime hours. There are automated computer systems that can do this rather easily in conjunction with electronic motors. A cheaper alternative is to simply install the panel facing the direction that it will absorb the maximal sunlight. In the northern hemisphere of the earth (north of the equator), this means that the panel will usually be angled to face south and upwards at an angle approximately equal to the latitude of its geographical location. In the southern hemisphere, the panel would be facing north.
The number of sunny hours can vary greatly depending on location and season. Using something like this solar atlas for the United States can give you a general idea of where the sunniest areas are. To get a better idea of seasonal variation, one would use a more specific solar calculator tool such as this one, again for the United States. These information tools amalgamate several different pieces of information, including average cloud cover.
Space usage
Solar PV installations can take up a fairly large area. One square meter of solar panel, in ideal conditions, will be hit with about 1000 watts per meter squared of light from the sun. The efficiencies of panels can vary between 6% and 42% depending on type and quality. So this means that the panel will produce between 60 and 420 watts of power. If built, one million such panels would take up minimally 1km2 and likely around 2-3 km2. This area would produce between 60 and 420 megawatts of electricity, in times of perfectly clear sunshine. This rough estimate should give you an idea of the space usage for large installations.
Distributed generation
People have considered the idea that by distributing solar PV production around the planet in the sunniest regions, we could power the entire planet. In short: this is possible, but not feasible. Yet. It may be feasible someday, but there are some critical problems with this approach today.
Building that many solar PV panels would currently be prohibitively expensive. There are less costly alternatives available, even among renewable energy sources. These less costly forms of power are thus regarded as a more feasible solution.
Also, it would be extremely expensive to build the infrastructure necessary to transmit the electricity to where it is needed. Heavy-duty transmission lines crossing hundreds of kilometers can easily cost billions of dollars. This cost rapidly becomes unmanageable when we consider a global network being powered by the sunniest places in the world.
Solar PV power is not dispatchable. That is, it cannot be turned on at will. If the sun isn’t shining, you won’t get power from a solar PV installation. For a deeper look at why dispatchable power sources are necessary, see our article on reliable power. You may also be curious about what forms of renewable energy are dispatchable.
This is not to say that solar PV is useless. Just because something cannot power the entire world power grid does not mean it is useless. Despite what power industry lobbyists might say, there is no single power source that is cost-effective in every area of the world. Different areas have different resources. This includes natural resources such as coal, uranium, rivers, wind, and sunshine. However it can also include human and knowledge-based resources that are necessary for implementing a power system. It makes sense to tailor power systems to their locale in terms of the resources that are naturally available, and what the local populace desires and is capable of.
It is also worth noting at this point that simply because solar PV is not dispatchable does not mean that it cannot contribute meaningfully to the power grid. Similarly intermittent sources such as wind power are being integrated successfully with power grids all over the world. More imagination than simply ‘turn it on and leave it on’ is necessary, but we can make intermittent sources work well in a power grid. One such technique for doing so is illustrated in our article about leveraging hydro to use wind.
Advantages
Peak production at peak demand
In those places in the world where it gets very sunny, it also tends to get very hot. If these places happen to be wealthy, they also tend to employ air conditioning. Air conditioning uses a very large amount of energy, and generally it comes from the electricity grid. Solar PV energy is naturally at its best on a hot, clear, sunny day. This coincides well with the times of great electricity demand due to air conditioning. This natural load-matching characteristic can make solar PV quite valuable. The grid operators will find it necessary to fire up fewer peak-matching units. Peak-matching units are often fired by natural gas, and are quite expensive to operate. What most people don’t know is that baseload electricity is generally much less costly to produce than peak-matching electricity. Both baseload and peak-matching power sources are necessary to operate a functioning power grid.
Build at any scale
Photovoltaic technology can provide power at almost any scale. We can use it for a big chunk of our power grid, but we can also use it to run a calculator. Economies of scale dictate that we can provide more bang for the buck at large scales. However, with PV this is mainly due to bulk ordering of panels, management, maintenance, and grid connection costs. The actual panels themselves don’t really get much cheaper per watt at the large scales. The same panel might be used in a huge multi megawatt array or on top of a house. The amount of power this panel would produce is not affected by the size of the total installation. The power output is defined entirely by the amount of direct incident sunlight.
Solar thermal electricity production does not have this ability. In order to function reasonably well it needs to be at a fairly large scale. These are facts that apply to all forms of thermal power plants. The primary reason is design constraints on the feasible and economic construction of steam turbines to convert the heat into power. These systems work better with large temperature differences between their hot units and cooling units. Large temperature differences generally mean relatively large power generation units. Heat engines also tend to work more efficiently when built at a relatively large scale. Wind power is one of the few other energy forms that can be built at almost any scale.
Solar PV panels are modular. That is, they can be built at a certain effective size and then placed side-by-side. Two identical solar panels that are placed near each other should will together produce almost exactly twice |
peritif obsession. It’s a sweet homage, complete with linen napkins at breakfast, coconutty granola, and a rather startling wake-up question: “Would you like still or sparkling water?” The one thing missing here is Portland-level geekery. So far, Locale is a jack-of-all-trades: a considerate hangout, an appealing date spot, and home to one of PDX’s biggest lists of vermouth and digestifs. (Newbies: try a light, fresh, bitter-tight Cocchi Americano, a delicately spicy Cardamaro, or an in-your-face sip from PDX’s Hammer & Tongs). What Locale needs next is to really master something with true rigor—even just a seriously good cup of coffee. 4330 N Mississippi Ave, localepdx.com
THE FIND
Bar Mingo’s happy hour (one of the city’s best) just got a new lease on life, jumping to twice a day, 9 p.m. to closing in addition to the usual 4 to 6 p.m. slot. Chef Jerry Huisinga’s cooking is now a late-night steal at $7 a plate, from Marcella Hazan–worthy lamb meatballs to baked polenta sided by house-made mozzarella. 811 NW 21st Ave, barmingo.comAbout
Remember when cell phones first started including cameras, and some people wondered why anyone would need a camera on their phone? It's now hard to imagine modern life without the phone camera, and it's amazing how essential cell phones have become to modern life in such a short time. The computing technology that we carry around in our pocket is mind-blowing, and yet there's still so much more to unlock. Siam 7X is introducing the North American market to dual-screen cellular technology, which opens new doors to connectivity and productivity.
Siam Preivew
The once vacant back side of the phone has been developed into a fully functioning touchscreen, maximizing the precious “real estate” of our pocket-sized mobile device. Plan your grocery list on the front of the phone while using a calculator on the rear side; keep the GPS map up on one screen while accessing your music menu on the reverse; customize the rear cover with your favorite pictures.
amateur pics
The Siam 7X is transporting users to a new realm of technological possibilities and efficiency, and soon it will be hard to remember how people functioned using only one side of their cell phone.
Siam
The Siam 7X The front screen of the 5.0” Siam 7X is a full HD screen, and the back is an 4.7” E-ink display – similar to a Kindle, but with expansive multitasking functionality, including Notifications, News/Social Feeds, Media Controls, Calender, Weather, Widgets and customizable wallpaper.
The back screen is lockable for when not in use, and the E-ink display is adjustable to users' needs, ensuring clarity no matter the lighting indoors or bright sunshine outside.
SMS
All Kickstarter level supporters receive a pair of BioSport smart earbuds by SMS Audio. The BioSport buds feature professionally tuned 12 mm drivers to deliver studio-mastered sound, are compatible with every major fitness app, and are water resistant.
Dual Screen
Like the dual-screen cell phone, the BioSport earphones expand the functioning of a standard accessory by incorporating heart monitoring – eliminating the need to haul around multiple devices when working out.
Unlocked GSM
The Siam 7X is available just in time for the holidays, and makes the perfect gift for everyone from casual cellphone users to gadget geeks, who will be excited to know that Siam 7X is an unlocked handset. The phone is compatible with all Android apps, and is available on T-Mobile and AT&T cellular networks.
Specs
All Kickstarter supporter to purchase the Siam 7X earn membership in the Owners' Club, which includes a lifetime warranty, accidental coverage, free upgrade to the next model, and invites to special events and promotions.A technique which involves injecting a virus into the eye to deliver billions of healthy genes to replace a key missing gene for choroideremia sufferers has provided sustained improvement in vision for up four years for some patients.
There have recently been questions about the long term efficacy of gene therapy, but now we have unequivocal proof that the effects following a single injection of viral vector are sustained. Professor Robert MacLaren, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences
This provides the strongest evidence so far in humans that the effects of gene therapy are potentially permanent and could therefore provide a single treatment cure for many types of inherited blindness. These include retinitis pigmentosa, which affects young people, and age-related macular degeneration, which affects the older age group.
Reporting the results this week in the New England Journal of Medicine, doctors from the University of Oxford examined the vision of six patients up to four years after receiving gene therapy at Oxford's John Radcliffe Hospital. These six were the first in the world to have the procedure for choroideremia in a trial funded by the Department of Health and the Wellcome Trust.
The gene therapy treatment was designed to slow or stop sight loss, however, two of the patients experienced a significant improvement in vision that was sustained for at least four years, despite a decline in their untreated eyes over this period. A further three maintained their vision in their treated eyes throughout this period. The sixth patient who had a lower dose had a slow decline in vision in both eyes.
It is hoped that gene therapy would ideally be applied to patients early in the disease process to prevent sight loss because the treatment is expected to be long lasting. Patients with choroideremia are missing a key gene in their retina and the technique involves injecting a virus to deliver billions of healthy genes to replace the missing gene.
Professor Robert MacLaren, the lead investigator of the study, said: 'There have recently been questions about the long term efficacy of gene therapy, but now we have unequivocal proof that the effects following a single injection of viral vector are sustained. Even sharpening up the little bit of central vision that these patients have can give them considerable independence.
'Gene therapy is a new technique in medicine that has great potential. As we learn more about genetics we realise that correcting faulty genes even before a disease starts may be the most effective treatment. Gene therapy uses the infectious properties of a virus to insert DNA into a cell, but the virial DNA is removed and replaced with DNA that is reprogrammed in the lab to correct whichever gene is faulty in the patient.
'In this case, success in getting a treatment effect that lasts at least several years was achieved because the viral DNA had an optimal design and the viral vector was delivered into the correct place, using advanced surgical techniques. In brief, this is the breakthrough we have all been waiting for.'
Dr Stephen Caddick, Director of Innovation at the Wellcome Trust, added: 'To permanently restore sight to people with inherited blindness would be a remarkable medical achievement.
'This is the first time we’ve seen what appears to be a permanent change in vision after just one round of treatment. It’s a real step forwards towards an era where gene therapy is part of routine care for these patients.'
Jonathan Wyatt, the first patient in the world to be treated with this gene therapy is still sight impaired, but he was able to double the level of vision in his treated left eye, which has been maintained for four years so far. The retired barrister, 68, of Bristol, suffered vision problems since the age of 20. The right eye has continued to degenerate and the left eye is now dominant.
Mr Wyatt, married to Diana, for nearly 30 years, could read 23 letters in eye chart tests prior to the operation but by three-and-a-half years could read 44.
Mr Wyatt said: 'I feel very lucky, privileged and honoured to be part of the fantastic John Radcliffe research group. I feel that even though I am the meat in a sandwich, my life will be making a contribution to help others.
'The left eye is much improved to such an extent that I use it mostly to get about these days. It has substantially improved, it is fantastic.
'It has made me more independent, I think I would be more dependent. I think I would feel more cautious about train journeys on my own. Without it I think I would be tapping with a white stick, I think I would have remained cheerful but I would be at home more.'
Joe Pepper, a 24-year-old teacher from Croydon, who was the last patient to receive the gene therapy treatment, said: 'I sat down and began the reading chart test on my treated right eye and I read the first two lines and for the first time in my memory I read on and on.
'I will remember that day for the rest of my life. I could see more than before the operation. I could read four lines beyond where I was earlier. I laughed and shed a tear. It was special.
'Six months on from the surgery the results have been more than I ever imagined. My vision now has a new found clarity and I am no longer putting stress on my vision when reading or looking into the distance. Instead of looking into the distance and seeing outlines of people or trees I am seeing their defined features. At night I now have a new found confidence in dimly lit areas that means I can feel independent and safe after dark.
'Without Professor MacLaren and his team, and their pioneering work I could have lost my sight and for the last 14 years I have feared I could. The work they do is special and I have nothing but thanks to them.'
The project is a collaboration between the University of Oxford and Oxford Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust with funding from the NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre and the Department of Health and Wellcome Trust’s Health Innovation Challenge Fund. A follow on trial of 30 further patients has been funded by the Efficacy and Mechanism Evaluation (EME) Programme, a Medical Research Council (MRC) and NIHR partnership.You might be busy trying to figure out the best way to get your hands on a Jet Black iPhone 7 right now, but Apple is already working on the next-gen iPhone, the one that’s supposed to bring a major redesign next September. The phone is already labeled as the iPhone 8, it has already reportedly been confirmed by an Apple employee.
DON’T MISS: One of the iPhone 8’s hottest new features was just unveiled by another company
The unnamed employee spoke to a Business Insider reporter, sharing some details about what Apple is developing in the region. The employee said that staff in Israel are working on what’s coming next in Apple’s product line, including the iPhone 8.
“The worker used the term ‘iPhone 8’ unprompted in our conversation,” Business Insider writes, which was a surprise because the next expected iPhone name would be iPhone 7s.
The employee said the iPhone 8 will be “different” than the iPhone 6s and iPhone 7, which would explain why Apple would be willing to skip the iPhone 7s next year. One other explanation for ditching the iPhone 7s moniker next year is that Apple will celebrate the iPhone’s 10th anniversary, and a product name that would contain the “S” letter in it might deliver the wrong message — that the new iPhone is essentially a minor iPhone 7 upgrade.
The person also revealed that the iPhone 8 will have a better camera than the iPhone 6s and iPhone 7, which is something expected from new Apple smartphones.
Business Insider notes that there are 800 employees at Apple’s Herzliya office, which was set up after Apple bought flash memory designer Anobit in 2012 and 3D sensor developer PrimeSense in 2013. Apple has also acquired Israeli camera firm LinX since then, and its technology might be used in the just-released iPhone 7 Plus.
The facility works on chips, storage, cameras and wireless technology, sources close to Apple said. The Herzliya office is Apple’s second largest R&D facility in the world, according to what Tim Cook said during a trip to the country in 2015.There's an old expression about "knocking the cover off the ball." Maybe it happened back in the dead ball era, but, well, we've never really seen it happen.
That is, we'd never seen it happen before Friday, when Brewers catcher Martin Maldonado -- yes, he of the.222 career batting average and 12 career homers -- did it.
You'd think it would happen on a towering homer, but, nope, it happened on a grounder to third:
There are 108 stitches on a ball. Alert Rawlings: for Brewers catcher Martin Maldonado, they need to start using, like, 125 stitches.
Anyway, Maldonado gets a hit out of this, since that's not an error on the third baseman for the ball coming apart. And he gets the claim to fame of being THE STRONGEST PERSON EVER TO PLAY BASEBALL.Two of the best pure goalscorers in the league will battle it out for the AT&T Goal of the Week in Week 29, but the rest of the competition? Not too shabby either.
Seattle Sounders forward Obafemi Martins and his LA Galaxy counterpart Robbie Keane are both in the mix this week, and there's also some find handywork from league veterans Fabián Espíndola and Dominic Oduro. And don't forget New England Revolution youngster Kelyn Rowe, who won the award just three weeks ago.
Which goal takes the cake? You get to choose. Cast your ballot for your favorite Goal of the Week before voting ends! The winner is determined by the total number of votes cast online and via text.
Check back on Friday for the winner.
Vote online or text goal code to 22442.
Voting runs until 11:59 pm PT on Thursdays. For complete coverage of the AT&T MLS Goal of the Week — including an archive of all of this season's winners — click here.The United States is reportedly still trying to explain how at least 21 diplomats working in Cuba suffered sudden brain injuries that include hearing loss and speech problems.
Officials from the FBI, the State Department and other U.S. intelligence agencies are at a loss as to what the possible weapon could be and are working to make sense of the physics, The Associated Press reported Thursday.
One American diplomat in Havana described what some are calling “health attacks,” in which he heard a "blaring, grinding noise" from his bed — but when he moved only a few feet away, he stepped into silence, almost like an "invisible wall cutting straight through his room," the AP described.
ADVERTISEMENT
Some of the injuries took place in confined rooms or even certain areas of rooms, the news wire reported, pointing to an astounding level of precision in which the attacks occurred.
The injuries vary in severity, with some who sustained more serious brain damage than previously realized, the news wire reported. Stories of how the injuries came about also largely differ with some hearing different noises in real time, while some did not hear or notice anything before their symptoms appeared. The victims also are experiencing different symptoms, which is making the search to identify a culprit so difficult.
The device used in the attacks has still not been identified, the AP reported, citing interviews with over a dozen current and former U.S. officials, Cuban officials and others briefed on the investigation who spoke to the news wire anonymously.
The U.S. government first acknowledged the attacks in August, after the State Department expelled two Cuban diplomats from the U.S. over safety concerns of American officials experiencing said symptoms — nine months after the injuries were first reported.Yes, conservative Senator Johnny Isakson (R-GA) called Palin, "Nuts".
I have no idea. I understand -- and you have to check this out -- I just had a phone call where someone said Sarah Palin's web site had talked about the House bill having death panels on it where people would be euthanized. How someone could take an end of life directive or a living will as that is nuts. You're putting the authority in the individual rather than the government. I don't know how that got so mixed up.
Isakson fully CLARIFIES that the end of life directive is about aSomething both of my parents have, decisions they made for end of life. Many Americans have these wills and the Republican Party and all these insurance operatives have distorted and hi-jacked this phrasing for "killing seniors".Democrats, get the message out and CLEAN THIS MISINFORMATION, UP.Beatport Issues Urgent Statements Following SFX Bankruptcy
Beatport, a longtime fixture in the EDM and DJ community, was acquired for a reported $50 million by SFX Entertainment in 2013. Sounds great, except that SFX has now declared bankruptcy, with more than $300 million in outstanding debt (at least) wiped clean.
That puts subsidiaries like Beatport at serious risk of begin sold, liquidated, or terminated to satisfy court-structured bankruptcy orders. One possibility is a below-market ‘fire sale’ to capture immediate cash value.
This morning, the company issued the following statement to Digital Music News:
“On behalf of BEATPORT, we are sharing this statement with you:
For all of us here at Beatport, it’s just business as usual. That means entire Beatport platform is fully operational without restriction. The store remains open. The streaming service continues uninterrupted. New releases are being added every day. New videos are being scheduled and filmed. Payments to labels and suppliers are ongoing in their usual manner.
We look forward to SFX successfully navigating this reorganization, and in the meantime will continue focusing on building the best music experience for the fans, artists, and DJs that make up the electronic music community.”
The statement is designed to minimize disruption, both for fans and DJs alike. That said, the fate of this site is now completely uncertain given SFX’s massive debt restructuring ahead. More realistically, Beatport’s fate will rest with a bankruptcy court, and could be sold at below-market rates to satisfy creditors. Indeed, creditors and Wall Street investors are certain to demand a restructuring plan that maximizes their recoveries on this bad bet.
On Beatport’s site, the company offered continued assurances, only some of which can be realistically guaranteed. Whether these claims ultimately lead to lawsuits from stakeholders and investors remains a thorny question.
“Earlier today, news broke that our parent company SFX Entertainment introduced a financial reorganization plan that includes both new financing and filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
All Beatport users, customers, and partners should rest assured knowing that this action will have no impact on our ability to continue offering the most complete electronic music experience available. Around here, it’s business as usual.
That means the entire Beatport platform is fully operational without restriction. The store remains open. The streaming service continues uninterrupted. New releases are being added every day. New videos are being scheduled and filmed. Payments to labels and suppliers are ongoing in their usual manner.
In fact, Beatport is expanding. Just last week we launched a version of Beatport customized for the Dutch market, our first foray into operating a fully localized service, and we will be introducing several new features to our News and Video sections over the course of the coming weeks.
For 12 years, Beatport has served all facets of the electronic music community–DJs, artists, labels, and fans alike–and that’s not going to change anytime soon. From the beginning, we’ve committed ourselves to the long haul, ignoring the mainstream trends, fads, or bubbles that only serve to distract and divide. We remain focused on the music and will continue to reinvest in the creative community every step of the way. We have a lot of exciting plans for the year ahead, and can’t wait to show everyone what’s next.
Until then… the beat goes on.”
More details on both SFX and its subsidiaries, including Beatport, as the situation develops.Tuesday night brings about the final two episodes of USA's Eliza Coupe driven half hour comedy, Benched. Like all shows on the eve of their first season swan song, they have to be wondering if they'll be graced with a second season — that's the goal for any TV show, right? The show follows the quirky and zany story of Coupe's public defender, Nina Whitley, after her fall from grace as a very powerful lawyer. And she almost has it all together. But, is she together enough to get Benched renewed for Season 2? That really all depends if USA is willing to take a chance on a half hour sitcom again. And so far, the odds don't look to be in Benched's favor.
First off, it's never a good sign when suddenly a network decides to air two episodes back to back during the holiday season — originally Episode 9 and 10 were slated to air weeks apart, but both ended up airing on December 23. The same thing happened with the last two episodes of the season, Episodes 11 and 12. The show was set up to run right into the beginning of January, but suddenly we were getting two Benched episodes every Tuesday. While, yes, that benefits fans like me because it means we don't have to wait another week for another installment, it's also usually a telltale sign that a network is trying to get rid of a show quickly. Benched's creator, Michaela Watkins, doesn't sound too optimistic about it either:
Questioning Benched's Season 2 fate brings back fond memories of that time we waited approximately 45 years for USA to renew Playing House (OK, it wasn't really 45 years, but it felt like 45 years). Playing House FINALLY got a second season, so if USA wants to continue its trend of renewing much-beloved comedies with unfairly small audiences, Benched could be coming back for more. But just like the Playing House renewal, it could take anywhere from 15-35 years (once again, an exaggeration, but hey, that's what agony feels like).
USA would certainly benefit from another half-hour comedy under its belt. They've clearly locked down hour long dramedies, but aside from Playing House and Sirens, they've got nothing in the comedy world.
Unfortunately, as of right now, there's no word on a Season 2 pick-up. A fan recently asked Watkins over Twitter about the status of a Season 2, and her response was a bit of a sad trombone, so maybe don't start clearing out space in your DVR:
Cheer up, Watkins. Things can turn around. After all, USA can only run so many Modern Family reruns before we've seen them all a thousand times.
Image: Isabella Vosmikova/USA NetworkBy being willing to be wrong a little more often, the CFL got it right. Randy Ambrosie, the league’s brand spanking new commissioner, thus became the first North America pro sports leader to say, “Enough!” No more letting video review incrementally encroach on professional sports to the point it becomes more of an annoyance than a dispute-resolution mechanism.
CFL coaches will have to be much more selective when they want to throw a challenge flag for video review. ( Andrew Lahodynskyj / Toronto Star )
“The last thing we want to have in place is an artificial impediment to our fans’ enjoyment,” said Ambrosie. Bravo, and well said. Now if only other sports and leagues will take notice. Video review had gone from “getting it right” for the CFL to “making me throw up” for fans at home. They were spending more time cursing the league’s command centre than cheering for their team, appreciating the league’s stars and feeling passionate about the competition they were watching. The eye in the sky was creating more controversy and discontent rather than less, and becoming a total distraction.
Article Continued Below
In other words, there were more headlines about Glen Johnson, the CFL vice-president of officiating, than Bo Levi Mitchell, the Stampeders’ superstar quarterback. There was little debate that the system as it was wasn’t working. So Ambrosie, despite having been on the job for less than a month, acted swiftly and decisively. He didn’t shelve the matter until the end of the season, or refer it to a fact-finding committee, or fill the air with a lot of wishy-washy double talk designed to avoid saying anything because, you know, you don’t want to be interpreted as slagging “the product.” Instead, he said this isn’t working, and we’re going to change it. Now. Mid-season. The reaction has been very positive, although that will likely last as long as it takes to have a poor officiating call not overturned by video review. Like most sports that have embraced video review, the CFL is still letting too many different types of calls be subject to that process. But at least Ambrosie has reduced the number of coaches’ challenges to one per game so that, hopefully, there will no longer be a seemingly endless series of coaches throwing flags to halt play and examine in minute detail plays that shouldn’t be examined that way. The Argos-Stampeders game Thursday had a great example of that. Toronto defender Cassius Vaughn was flagged for holding, grabbing and generally impeding the ability of Calgary receiver Marquay McDaniel to catch the football downfield. It was the right pass interference call, but Argos head coach Marc Trestman challenged it, the game was stopped and we all waited for a result, which was that the original call was upheld.
In other words, a complete waste of time that brought the game to an unnecessary halt on a play that was a judgment call in the first place. That’s the problem other sports, particularly hockey, have run into as well. Once you start down the path of using replay for discretionary calls it becomes a rabbit hole with no bottom. Video review has worked best in tennis, one of the first sports to turn to using replay, but that’s primarily because tennis never expanded its use. It was instituted 11 years ago on the pro tours to aid in line-calling as the speed of the ball had started to increase to levels beyond the ability of the human eye to discern.
Article Continued Below
But tennis never expanded replay review. It kept it black and white, in or out, and that’s the only way video review really works well. The NHL has certainly found that out after expanding video review to include offside calls and goalie interference. Half the time the review does anything but provide a clear and indisputable conclusion. The offside calls are the absolute worst, with goals waved off by debatable decisions on whether a player who had nothing to do with the play had his foot a quarter-inch off the ice. Ridiculous. Worse than that, every time a goal is score these days, the first TV shot afterwards is of the coach whose team has been scored on going to his tablet to decide if he wants to challenge it on some pretence or another. Anything will do. In the NBA, permitting officials to go to monitors at courtside to determine things like flagrant fouls and who touched the ball last has created more delays for a sport that is already insufferable at times for the way in which the final 45 seconds stretches to 20 minutes of actual time. Baseball is struggling with the issue, too, including creating an issue of whether players sliding into second are able to keep their foot or hand on the bag. It wasn’t designed for that. The CFL, it seems, is ahead of the wave in backing off its reliance on replay review, or at the very least trying to limit, rather than expand, its use. Ambrosie is the first former player to inhabit the commissioner’s office since Larry Smith 20 years ago, something that doesn’t guarantee success but ideally gives that person insight that others might not have. Ambrosie already has demonstrated a greater feel for his sport and his league than his predecessor, former television executive Jeffrey Orridge. Limiting the use of replay, of course, means wrong calls will stand from time to time, and the CFL has for years been struggling with the quality and consistency of officiating. But expanded use of replay review hasn’t made it better. It’s something Ambrosie needs to tackle, but probably through more training and greater salaries and benefits to attract better people. Still, the CFL thrived long before replay review, and the suspicion is replay review isn’t crucial to whether people watch or don’t watch, buy tickets or don’t buy tickets. The same is likely the case for the NHL, NBA, MLB and NFL. This isn’t being regressive, or being anti-technology. It’s understanding that trying to impose perfection on sporting events may come at too high a cost. Damien Cox is the co-host of Prime Time Sports on Sportsnet 590 The FAN. He spent nearly 30 years covering a variety of sports for The Star. Follow him @DamoSpin. His column appears Tuesday and Saturday.Republicans are pivoting to national defense on the campaign trail, using rising public fears about terrorism as they look to move the needle in a number of races.
In contests across the country, GOP candidates are criticizing President Obama for his handling of the growing threat of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), with some warning of additional vulnerabilities from an unsecured border.
ADVERTISEMENT
“National security has risen up in this election, and it's because of how close it's come to the campaign and also the fecklessness of how the president has dealt with it,” said Republican strategist Brad Blakeman, a veteran of President George W. Bush’s administration.
“There's a lack of confidence from the president, a lack of resolve, and Democrats who'd normally be more dovish are taking a more hawkish stand because the electorate is demanding it,” Blakeman continued.
In key Senate races in Alaska, Arkansas, North Carolina and New Hampshire, Republicans are seeking to tie Democrats to a president polls show is no longer trusted on defense, giving them further ammunition to win six seats needed to flip the Senate.
And on Friday, the National Republican Congressional Committee launched ads in four districts all hitting Democrats on national security.
This week’s vote to approve training and arming some anti-ISIS Syrian rebels put members of both parties on the spot, though it ultimately passed with bipartisan support.
Most Democrats in tough races supported Obama’s plan, along with a majority of Republicans. But the few who voted against it are already taking heat, including Sen. Mark Begich Mark Peter BegichFormer GOP chairman Royce joins lobbying shop Lobbying world Dem governors on 2020: Opposing Trump not enough MORE (D-Alaska) and Reps. Dan Maffei (D-N.Y.) and Rick Nolan (D-Minn.).
Public sentiment has changed even from a year ago, when there was little support even for airstrikes in Syria. But the beheadings of two American journalists captured the nation’s attention in a way few other stories have. An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released last week found that 94 percent of Americans had heard about them, higher than any other news event in the past five years.
That same poll found that 47 percent of Americans thought the country was less safe now than at any point since the Sept. 11 attacks — up from 28 percent a year ago — and just 32 percent of the public approved of Obama’s handling of foreign policy.
A CBS/New York Times poll from last week found 57 percent of Americans thought the president wasn’t being tough enough in his handling of ISIS.
Democrats privately admit the issue isn’t what they want to be focused on this close to the election, and the longer they’re forced to talk about ISIS and Obama, the worse it will be for them on Election Day.
The political fight over ISIS has become the most pronounced in a trio of states where armed forces veterans are challenging Senate Democrats.
In Alaska, Begich has been vocal about his opposition to arming the rebels, voting against Thursday’s resolution after taking to the Senate floor to denounce it. A spokesman warned in a statement it could move “our nation closer to putting American boots on the ground.
His GOP opponent Dan Sullivan, a Marine veteran who served under former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in the State Department, immediately fired back.
"The Obama Administration has yet to clearly lay out such a strategy and has consistently shown weakness overseas. Mark Begich has been enabling this weak approach by only focusing on what we shouldn't do and taking options off the table – this encourages our enemies,” Sullivan said in a statement saying he would have backed the funding for Syrian rebels.
Some Democrats are nervous that Begich’s vote might haunt him. Alaska has a strong contingent of non-interventionist libertarian-leaning voters, but also has a large number of veterans and several military bases.
“I really don't know what Sen. Begich is thinking,” said one Democratic strategist who knows Alaska well. “The attack ad on him is going to be so easy to do.”
In New Hampshire, former Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.), who served in the Army National Guard, has been pushing a proposal to revoke the citizenship of Americans fighting abroad for terrorist groups. He’s leaned hard on the issue, recently campaigning with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in the state to attack Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) on foreign policy.
Rep. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), another Marine veteran, has made his service central to his campaign and has been critical of Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) for his earlier opposition to arming the rebels.
In a web ad this week, the Republican’s campaign warned of a “world in chaos,” saying Arkansas needs a senator who “will stand up to President Obama” and his foreign policy “weakness.”
Former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton’s (R) super-PAC is launching a $5 million digital ad blitz hitting Sens. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) Pryor and Shaheen, saying Obama is “a better strategist for aiding ISIS than eliminating it” and saying supporting the senators is “a big risk for America.”
National Democrats maintain they’re not worried about the attacks, pointing to past elections that were a rebuke to the Bush administration’s foreign policy.
“There is broad agreement that ISIL must be destroyed and will be destroyed. The difference is that Republicans want to take the advice of Dick Cheney and launch another ground war in another Middle East country without a plan. This debate only highlights what voters already believe – the Republican Party is not capable of governing right now,” said Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spokesman Justin Barasky.
The issue is popping in a number of House races as well.
The NRCC launched ads on Friday saying Maffei is being “dangerously wrong for our security,” accusing Nolan of voting “to cut funds for the fight against Al Qaeda,” knocking Rep. Ron Barber (R-Ariz.) on border security, and hitting Iowa state Sen. Staci Appel (D) for saying in a debate last week that she “would not be urging taking away [suspected terrorists’] passports.”
House Democrats fired back, charging the GOP was “playing politics with national security.”
“It is repugnant that Republicans would try to exploit this threat to divide Americans at a time when our nation should be united,” Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) said in a statement. “
Republicans admit that even they’re surprised the issue has become so salient — but that the pre-October surprise is playing into their hands.
“We're seeing a big uptick on national security issues," NRCC Chairman Greg Walden (R-Ore.) said Friday.
"There's just this growing sense that things are a little out of control," he continued. “That points to a real, real problem for all concerned, especially Democrats.”California Senate President pro Tempore Kevin De León is facing another scandalous issue.
A letter from Sen. Andy Vidak (R-Hanford) spelled out an appalling episode, in which several fruit growers whom Hall allegedly threatened, on the eve of his confirmation hearing to the Agricultural Labor Relations Board.
Vidak said he personally heard from several witnesses that on the eve of his confirmation hearing before the Senate Rules committee, that ALRB Commissioner Isadore Hall, “in an obscenity-laced tirade, threatened to use his position to ‘get’ several farmers who oppose his confirmation. The incident occurred at the Hyatt on February 28,” Vidak wrote.
Feb. 28 was the date of the California Fresh Fruit Association Annual Government Relations Trip in Sacramento. In the evening, many of the members met in the bar at the Hyatt, where they were confronted by former Senator Hall.
I also heard about Hall’s “obscenity-laced tirade.” I was told Hall said, “Are you the mother******s here to testify against me tomorrow?” Hall then allegedly said, “I have a memory and I am going to get you,” delivering a threat. My sources said Hall dropped the mother*****r F-bomb numerous times in a hair-raising, threatening tone to the farmers.
Vidak said he “knows the names of those who were present, but due to a fear of retaliation, those individuals are reluctant to come forward.”
In his letter to de León, Sen. Vidak formally requested:
The Senate Rules Committee investigate this incident and inform the entire Senate of its findings; and
As part of the investigation, the Senate Rules Committee request the testimony of the individuals who were present at the incident and assure them there will be no retaliation; and
The pending Floor confirmation vote on Commissioner Hall be postponed until the conclusion of the investigation.
The Rest of the Story
The back-story is about Gerawan Farming, and its 5,000 employees, targeted since 2012 for unionization by the United farm Workers Labor Union, with help from the ALRB. The Gerawan workers fought back against unionization, even holding an ALRB election to try to decertify the labor union – largely because most farm workers have no interest in “organizing,” and losing 3 percent of their pay as mandatory dues. While most of Gerawan’s employees are well-compensated full-time workers, many farm workers are seasonal and work in various locations around the state. I have been told by many workers they don’t see any advantage to the union “stealing” their hard-earned income for dues.
When the UFW couldn’t convince Gerawan’s employees to join them, the union leaders turned to the ALRB to force them into the union.
Former Senator Isadore Hall marched with the President of the United Farm Worker’s labor union, and publicly declared his solidarity with the UFW campaign against the Gerawan Farming employees, was appointed by Gov. Jerry Brown to the Agricultural Labor Relations Board. Hall’s confirmation hearing was March 1.
After losing a race for Congress in November 2016, Hall has announced he will make another run in 2018… while he is on the ALRB?
This isn’t Hall’s first foray into thuggery…
In June, then-Sen. Isadore Hall insulted and provoked opponents of numerous gun-control bills during committee hearings. “These crazy, vicious, heartless individuals, who come here and defend the senseless act of terror… They are protecting the vicious murderers,” Sen. Hall said, directing his comments to Daniel Reid with the National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action, and Sam Paredes with |
catch-22,” says Kaz Yoneda of Takram. “OK, so you want us to design a water bottle, but there's not going to be much water to begin with, so how do you deal with that?” Apparently by creating a hyper-futuristic set of artificial organs that are meant to increase the efficiency of our bodies’ hydration system. Functionality-wise, the organs are similar to "stillsuits," the water-recycling bodysuits worn in the sci-fi series Dune that helped inhabitants maximize body moisture retention in the harsh desert environment. “It became less about how to store water, since there would be very little left,” he says. “And more about how to preserve the hydration that’s already in our bodies.”
Called the Shenu: Hydrolemic System, Takram designed a set of products that minimize hydration loss, allowing humans to consume less water altogether. Though it’s just a concept, the system is so intensely detailed and thoroughly researched it looks as though you could purchase the it at a post-apocalyptic Apple store. The kit, which comes organized in a steel briefcase, consists of five new organs that are meant to be implanted into key locations of our bodies where fluid is most frequently lost.
There are nasal-cavity inserts that prevent water loss through exhalation by condensing the air from our lungs and returning it upon inhalation, and arterial-jugular heat exchangers that work with a pointy neck collar to inhibit perspiration and produce electricity from body temperature. “It’s basically a fancy exhaust system for keeping your body at 98.5 degrees,” Yoneda says. And lest we forget about the biggest moisture-suck of all (urine and rectal excretion), Takram has created a urine concentrator which acts as a mini water filtration and concentration plant and a renal fecal dehydrator that in Takram’s graceful words “works to elongate fecal duration in the large intestine and squeeze out any remaining water.” So yeah, nothing goes to waste in this system.
>It’s basically a fancy exhaust system for keeping your body at 98.5 degrees.
Yoneda estimates the organs help retain much of the approximately 2 liters of water humans lose everyday, but around 165 mL still slips past the system. Which is why they created the Rubido, a hard candy-like nutrient that replaces the lost hydration. The prototypes, though menacing by appearance, are made from human-safe materials like titanium, aluminum and ceramic. “We consciously chose materials that were already used in the medical field,” Yoneda explains.
The designer says creating the kit began as an artistic endeavor but soon turned into a conceptual research-driven project. Yoneda says they worked with a doctor to validate their medical ideas, who said that in theory these organs would work, but it’s a whole other thing to actually use them on a person. “It’s quite reasonable for doctors to say: OK, there’s no precedent," Yoneda explains. “I think a lot of times we really had to fight against this idea of precedent because none of the things we’re doing have been done before. If we relied on precedent we would've just gotten stuck at the very early stages of our research.”
So will these organs be inside a human body anytime soon? Probably not, though Takram has fielded quite a few emails from people with medical conditions who are anxious to try them out. "It’s interesting that there is a medical need for some of the things we imagined," he says. Though Yoneda responds by politely explaining that the organs are just prototypes, there's always a chance that someday they actually could be a reality. “If some medical institution or doctor is brave enough to collaborate and try to create some of these things we’ll be more than happy to take up that challenge,” he says. “It would be an honor to help people if there’s a real need for it.”
The exhibition is showing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago from Sept. 20 to Dec. 21, 2013.
[h/t: Vice]It’s early. Too early to panic, right? While we all sit and ponder what Saturday’s 2016-like performance in a 3-1 road loss to the Houston Dynamo really means, here are a few midweek thoughts.
Word of the Day...
... Aimless
First there was Zack Steffen’s mistake in the back. (It’s not the first time pressure has caused problems for Crew SC building out of the back)
Then there was the finishing. (Not the first time finishing chances — Columbus had 14 shots, five on target; both more than Houston — has been a concern)
Then there was a sudden dearth of attacking opportunities in the second half, with just five shots and just two of those on target. (Not the first time we’ve seen the attack seem lifeless, or the team have a subpar second half)
Then there were the two things the team never seems to lack — possession (60 percent) and crosses (27). (Not the first time we’ve seen the attack seem to lack answers or ingenuity)
Then there was a mishap on set-piece defense. (Not the first time we’ve seen that)
All of it aimless, and all of it eerily reminiscent of 2016.
Most Black & Gold fans are too familiar with this look after last season, and the goals are mostly self explanatory, but it is worth taking one more look at the final Houston goal — Erick Torres’ strike on the break.
Rookie right back Connor Maloney ends up looking like the one scrambling, and he should have been more aware of Cubo’s run, instead apparently distracted by Mauro Manotas’ movement. But it was also a generally lackadaisical shift into defense by the entire team, which seems to assume that the Dynamo will take their time pushing forward. Jonathan Mensah initially puts a little pressure on Alex in the midfield, but when he peels off to get back, Alex gets the ball back and just floats with his head up, with all the time in the world to spot Cubo Torres down field and put him into space.
It was the nail in a coffin that was already shut.
Player Ratings
How did the Black & Gold perform vs. Houston?
(Ratings on a 1-10 scale, with 6 being average)
THE GOOD
Artur (6.5) — This was the Brazilian’s first extended runout, and he brought energy to the midfield, had the ball at his feet a lot and covered a lot of ground, though the Dynamo often gave him loads of room to run. It was a positive first performance before being subbed out in the 57th minute. He may have been, though, at least partially culpable on the Dynamo’s corner-kick goal.
Ola Kamara (6.5) — While it wasn’t an overly dangerous effort, Kamara was involved in the attack when it generated some pressure in the first half, including an opportunity that was called offside. He also found the back of goal in extra time.
THE MEH
Justin Meram (5.5) — Meram was, as usual, lively on the ball, though imperfect in the final third. He was involved in a miscommunication on Houston’s corner-kick goal and was the closest man to Alex when he had all day to find Erick Torres down field for goal No. 3, but also contributed an assist on Crew SC’s lone goal.
Harrison Afful (6) — What appeared to be a solid or better first half led to an odd decision to sub off the right back at halftime.
Jonathan Mensah (5.5) — I thought the center back had a decent day and certainly wasn’t culpable on Houston’s first two goals, but picking up a red card, even if you believe it was borderline, didn’t help the cause.
Nicolai Naess (6) — A fine, if mostly quiet, performance. After 2016, any time we’re not talking about the center backs is good.
Jukka Raitala (5) — The left back didn’t get involved in the attack much, though that may have been a tactical decision. He had some up and down moments defensively (he did let Alberth Elis get behind him for a good chance in the 55th minute) and saw his touch occasionally let him down.
Wil Trapp (5.5) — Was mostly anonymous, even by his own quiet standards. Houston’s counter mostly bypassed him defensively, and to the attack he injected little.
Federico Higuain (5.5) — He deserves some responsibility for a lifeless second-half attack, but he also played some quality balls, including one that was called back when Kamara was offside, and had a good chance on goal that was saved by Tyler Deric.
Ethan Finlay (5.5) — Had a moment or two, but mostly seemed disconnected and with little influence on a game in which Columbus could have used a spark going forward.
Connor Maloney (5.5) — Subbed on at halftime, he could have done better on Torres’ goal, both in closing out and in the recognition of the striker’s run in, but also had to recover from pushing up in the attack; it’s a tough situation to put a player in in his first professional appearance. In the attack, he showed a little shake before connecting with Kamara to create a scoring opportunity in the second half.
Mohammed Abu (6) — Coming in after 57 minutes, Abu was steady but little else in a substitute appearance. He broke up one Houston counter, but otherwise didn’t have much opportunity to show his value.
THE UGLY
Adam Jahn (4.5) — In a 25-minute cameo, the striker was a non-factor, which is the opposite of what Columbus needed. He did not attempt a shot and had eight touches.
Zack Steffen (4) — Perhaps a bit harsh, Steffen did have one bright moment when he charged out to stop a Houston chance on the break. It’s hard, however, to look past the early mistake that cost CCSC a goal and put it behind the eight-ball from the beginning, altering the entire state of the game.
Look Ahead
Columbus at D.C. United — Saturday, 7 p.m. EST
So, the good news is Crew SC now gets to take on a team in its own club — searching for its first win of 2017.
Also good for the Black & Gold is that United looked like a defensive mess for much of its game against New York City FC on Saturday. It was, in fact, as stretched as I’ve seen the D.C. defense in some time. NYCFC had a lot of success getting the ball wide in attack, which is good news for a Columbus side that likes to do the same.
That said, CCSC doesn’t have David Villa, and it’s hard to know what to take away from a performance on that matchstick field without a wider (no pun intended, but I’ll take it) context in which to place it (we are just two games in, you know).
New York City also had success turning United over in the midfield and springing the attack from that. Of course, Columbus isn’t known for turning teams over with its defensive pressure, and D.C. won’t be as stretched if it has time to sit back and pack it in.
Look for a more in-depth Massive Scouting Report later this week.
Presented without commentWith their new recruitment drive, pixivision has conducted an interview with Atlus character designer Shigenori Soejima—behind the Persona series and the upcoming Project Re Fantasy—for their “#DESKWATCH” series, highlighting the creative environments and processes of artists in different entertainment mediums.
Some segments of the interview:
Starting at Atlus
How did you start working at Atlus? It was 1995. I just graduated, and Atlus had just started to produce Revelations: Persona. I started working there as a designer, but at the time the separation between tasks wasn’t so harsh so I ended up doing a little bit of everything. Even pixel art. Why did you choose Atlus? It was because it wasn’t such a big company at the time. (laughs) I thought if I were to enter a big company, I wouldn’t have had much freedom to do whatever I pleased. On the other hand, at a company like Atlus I had many opportunities to give my contribution.
Creative Process
What software are you using mainly? Paint Tool SAI and Photoshop.
For the part where I use my pen tablet, I use SAI. So lines, coloring… I use Photoshop mainly to adjust the colors and to add special effects. Sometimes I also use CLIP STUDIO. Do you use a LCD tablet or a regular one? I’ve been using a regular tablet for the longest time, ’cause I didn’t like the idea of hiding my illustrations with my hand. However, I heard so many times about how great LCD tablets are that I’m thinking to get one. (laughs) I’m a creature of habit. If there’s a device I like to use, I’ll keep using even after it gets obsolete. Other members of the staff, though, use much newer things. What are your must-have items? My headphones. I use BOSE and AKG. The latter are the result of a collaboration between AKG and Persona 5. Since headphones are your must-have item, I imagine you listen to a lot of music while you work! Yes, mainly video game music. Or better, the music from the game I’m currently working for. The atmosphere of my illustrations changes quite a lot according to what kind of music I’m listening, so I always try to get the BGM music data in advance to use it while I’m drawing.
Work Environment
Can you tell us something more about Atlus work rules? Core time is from 11 until 16. During that time span, you should be at the company. But since work hours are flexible, they tend not to be too strict. You can get to work early in the morning and go home 8 hours later, or you can get to the office just in time for core time, at 11 o’clock. What do you do in order to rest your eyes and hands? I think it’s really important to choose the perfect chair. My company really values a nice work environment, so everyone is usually sitting on a very nice chair. Us designers, unlike illustrators, don’t really keep drawing for hours and hours. We often look at materials and resources or have meetings. That’s why I don’t think the burden on our bodies is too big.
Character Design
Can you tell what goes inside the head of a character designer? How can you become good at it? “Character design” means to create the setting for a certain character, but I think that the ability to draw is a prerequisite in order to be able to convey all their characteristics. A thing I realized when I entered this company is that even if you’re good at drawing, that doesn’t mean you will make a good character designer. Competitions inside the company can get pretty harsh, but sometimes it can happen that designs from people who can’t draw end up being adopted. For the initial concept, stick figures are usually better than super detailed characters. It might be hard to get good at design if you’re not that good at drawing, but I’m pretty sure that “drawing skills” and “design skills” are two completely different things. I realized all these things after joining Atlus, and since then I’ve always been drawing to increase my skills as a designer. What is the best way to increase your skills as a designer? Of course, it’s important to observe what’s around you… But there’s something less vague that you could do. Personally, I started from asking myself: “What’s the thing that I enjoy the most?” I think when you start drawing something you’re always influenced by what’s popular at that time. Then, you start looking for ways to be different from the popular creators. However, you don’t always get results right away. I was even scolded by my boss because I couldn’t find a satisfying output, a way to be different. (laughs) He told me to just be myself and to draw what I felt like drawing. Since that moment I started actively thinking about how to create something that was different from whatever came in the past. I started to find the things I was missing. It’s important to continuously try to perfect yourself, both by studying and by finding new interests. I think that the designs for “personas” appearing in the Persona series are very cool and stylish. How are these creatures born? The first thing that I consider is what kind of impression that persona will leave when it meets the eye of the player. Do you want it to be cool? Scary? I mix different ingredients according to the kind of persona I want to create. However, designs that are too easy to understand can end up resulting quite boring. I like to add elements that create a little mystery… I want the players to think “why does this persona look like this?”. My intent is not only to create good looking creatures but also to make the player curious about the original setting for each of them.
Atlus Hiring
I would like to ask you something about recruiting. What made you decide to recruit new staff? After Persona 5 was released, the same team is considering to work on another project, Project Re Fantasy by Studio Zero, which I’m working on as an art director. Apart from that, Atlus is planning to launch a new project for Shin Megami Tensei 25th anniversary, but we don’t have enough staff to cover all that… We are especially looking for artists, and we heard that the best place to find them is a certain treasure cave called pixiv.
You can read the full interview via pixivision.
Atlus Office Pictures
Soejima Sketch Video
A new video released for this #DESKWATCH interview, by Shigenori Soejima, of Persona 5‘s Makoto Niijima.
The first Persona 5 illustration video was released on September 18, 2015.
— pixivisionLast year wood and paper products made up nearly a third of British Columbia's total exports and brought in about $9 billion. Leaving nothing to chance, the government is now embarking on the largest assisted-migration project in history by moving some 250,000 larch seedlings up to 200 miles outside the species’ native range. The hope is that even if its old territory eventually becomes inhospitable, as experts predict it will, the larch and other trees will thrive in their new homes, and so will British Columbia’s economy.
The move comes as climatic changes are exacerbating threats to forests in the region. Over the past decade, mountain pine beetles, boosted by mild winters, have devastated tens of millions of acres of forest across the American and Canadian West, and summer droughts have destroyed many more. A report by the Canadian government predicts that in the future, such droughts will become longer and more frequent. A recent study reported that across the Pacific Northwest, tree mortality has quadrupled since the 1970s; 1.3 percent of trees in old-growth forests die each year.
The decision to relocate the larch species follows five years of research by the Future Forest Ecosystems Initiative, founded by British Columbia’s chief forester, Jim Snetsinger, to determine how forestry managers should respond to global warming. Ecologists concluded that predicted changes, such as drier summers, would gradually push the tree’s range northwest and up hillsides, where soils should remain slightly cooler and more moist. Snetsinger and colleagues selected the western larch, a well-studied timber species, to test whether speeding up that transition could reduce tree mortality. Assisted migration is not without risk: The trees could displace existing species or take poorly to their new environment. Snetsinger will monitor the larch’s progress over the coming decades. Meanwhile the forest ministry has already begun planting smaller batches of 15 other timber species beyond their native turf to find out which ones will perform best in a changing climate.This article is over 7 years old
Advertising watchdog rules Motorola must withdraw claim that its Atrix handset is the world's most powerful smartphone
Motorola Mobility, the US mobile company Google is set to acquire for $12.5bn (£7.6bn), has been banned from claiming it makes the world's most powerful smartphones following a ruling by the advertising watchdog.
Motorola ran an a TV ad campaign that claimed the Atrix mobile phone was "the world's most powerful smartphone".
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) received two complaints from fans of Samsung's Galaxy smartphone range claiming that Motorola's Atrix was inferior.
The complainants argued that the Samsung Galaxy S II i9100 had a more powerful processor and said that Motorola's claim to be the fastest was therefore misleading.
Motorola said that in addition to its processing capability, the Atrix had other slick features which, although not promoted in the ad, included a battery 20% more powerful "than all known worldwide competitors" and an ability to "read fingertips" to provide better security and protection.
Motorola said that while the Samsung Galaxy did have a "slightly faster" processor, the combination of Atrix features makes it "the world's most powerful smartphone".
The ASA said that consumers would understand the TV ad to mean that the phone by itself was the world's most powerful smartphone.
The advertising watchdog said that because the Samsung Galaxy posseses a faster processor, Motorola's claim had not been substantiated by evidence in the TV ad.
The ASA banned the ad for breaking advertising code rules relating to misleading advertising, substantiation, exaggeration and comparisons, and ruled that Motorola must not stake claim to being the world's most powerful smartphone again.
Separately, Apple has accused Samsung of "slavishly" copying the design and functionality of its popular iPhone and iPad lines with the Galaxy range of smartphones and tablet computers.
Apple won a preliminary injunction against the Korean electronics giant earlier this month in an acrimonious patent dispute.
• 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 and Facebook(CNN) -- A powerful earthquake hit off the coast of Indonesia's Sumatra island Monday afternoon, the U.S. Geological Survey's Web site reported.
The quake was centered about 100 miles (160 km) south-southwest of Padang and had a magnitude of 7.3, making it a major earthquake.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued a local tsunami watch.
It's the fifth quake registering 5.0 or above to hit the area in the last 24 hours, and it comes four days after another major quake registering 7.5 in magnitude shook the region, killing three people.
That quake's epicenter was also located off the Sumatran coast, about 300 to 400 miles south of where Sunday's and Monday's quakes registered. E-mail to a friend
All About U.S. Geological Survey • Indonesia • Pacific Tsunami Warning CenterIncoming changes to device compatibility for the game streaming service
We’d like to share an important update on compatible devices for PlayStation Now. From 15th August 2017, you will no longer be able to use PS Now on the following devices:
PlayStation 3
PlayStation Vita and PlayStation TV
All Sony Bravia TV models*
All Sony Blu-ray player models
All Samsung TV models
You will still be able to enjoy PS Now on PlayStation 4 and PC.
From 15th March 2017, you will no longer be able to sign up to PS Now through the affected devices. If your subscription lapses, you will be able to sign up again for the service on PS4 or PC.
After thoughtful consideration, we decided to shift our focus and resources to PS4 and Windows PC to further develop and improve the user experience on these two devices. This move puts us in the best position to grow the service even further.
If you use any of the affected devices, we want to give our heartfelt thanks for your support, and we hope you’ll continue with us. Remember that all of your PS Now cloud game saves can easily be accessed on both PS4 and Windows PC.
If you do not wish to continue your subscription on PS4 and PC, please remember to disable auto-renewal in your account settings before 15th July so that your subscription ends before 15th August 2017 (or before 15th April if you want your subscription to end before 15th May, the date the service ceases on the initial set of select 2016 Sony Bravia TVs). For details about how to end your subscription go here.
* PS Now will be discontinued on the following select 2016 Models starting on 15th May 2017: KD-100ZD9, KD-55XD8005, KD-49XD8005, KD-43XD8005, KD-55XD700x, KD-75ZD9, KD-49XD8099, KD-43XD8099, KD-49XD8305, KD-49XD700x, KD-65ZD9, KD-49XD8088, KD-43XD8088, KD-43XD8305, KD-50SD8005, KD-49XD8077, KD-43XD8077, KD-65XD750xOne of the most common criticisms of economics is that it relies on unrealistic assumptions and abstract models of the economy. If only economists studied the real world they would know that people are not always rational, exchange is not always mutually beneficial, and that markets do not always clear. Instead the real world is full of mistakes, unequal power, and inefficiency.
Writing in the Financial Times, Wendy Carlin—who is heading up a curriculum reform initiative for undergraduate education—tells the following story about student disappointment with the unrealistic models she has had to learn in her economic education.
Nataly Grisales, writing in a student newspaper in Bogotá about her decision to study economics said: ‘A professor mentioned that economics would give me a way to describe and predict human behaviour through mathematical tools, which seemed fantastic to me. Now, after many semesters, I have the mathematical tools; but all the people I wanted to study have disappeared from the scene.’
Carlin is quick to add:
There’s no need for Nataly to have been disappointed. Economists now have the data and mathematical and conceptual tools to put real people centre stage. That is why the curriculum project at the Institute for New Economic Thinking, which I head, is creating open access materials for a new curriculum. Digital technology and interactive teaching methods will introduce students to an empirical discipline. They will learn to use evidence from history, experiments and other data sources to test competing explanations and policies. This is a great time to be an economist. It is time we made it a golden age for students of economics.
Indeed, it is a great time to be an economist.
And it is also true that economics as a discipline should be an exciting intellectual journey. And, well, it is also true that too many teachers of economics do not present the material in an intellectually exciting way. An exclusive focus on blackboard economics and multiple choice tests is a bad way to pass along such an exciting analytical framework.
Of Blackboards and Boredom
Ironically, though, some blackboard economics might be the best way to predict such dreary outcomes. Economics, as an academic discipline, rewards scientific cleverness over clarity, and research significance over teaching ability. The cost-minimizing strategy is to teach technique over substance. The material is straightforward and the tests are more or less unambiguous. So our young economics teacher—trying to balance the requirements of tenure, the wonders of economics (not to mention living a healthy, happy personal life)—must make trade-offs. And, on the relevant margin for our discussion, teaching economics thoroughly and passionately is what gets traded off.
This observation is nothing new. It can actually be found in Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations. Smith discusses the differences in approach to the teaching found in Glasgow and Oxford, respectively. Professors in Glasgow were paid through direct student fees, and thus they devoted more time to teaching their students, whereas the professors in Oxford were paid from an endowment, and so did not pay attention to the students in the least.
Note that in the Smith explanation, the dysfunction isn’t a result of irrationality, power, or inefficiency. Instead it’s about the incentives individuals face in the different environments. Real, living, breathing individuals in the economics profession are trying to do the best they can given the situation they find themselves in. And in doing so they respond to incentives—using the information they can acquire to negotiate trade-offs.
In other words, when you see dysfunction it is because of institutional problems. And institutional problems demand institutional solutions.
Abstractions, Mathematics, and Statistics
Another way to set poor Nataly and her classmates back on the path is to reflect on the fact that all models are abstractions.
To understand this, just think for a second—do you have a map in your car (or on your smartphone) that is a 1-to-1 correspondence with the terrain you are traveling? Of course not. But neither do you have a map that just has arrows that point N-S-E-W on it. That would be too abstract. The point with models is that you have to choose the adequate level of abstraction for the purposes you need to tackle the problems you’re attempting to address.
So ranting about the use of models in economics isn’t going to work. Students of economics not only have to learn the logic of economic argumentation, but how to make the technical representations of those arguments at the relevant levels of abstraction. In short, economics students have to study a lot of math and statistics to become professional economists. This is important for at least three reasons:
First, the basic principles of economics are often most easily communicated through the use of simple mathematical functions and corresponding graphical rendering. Think here of supply and demand analysis as the foundation of price theory. Second, mathematical modeling and statistical testing is the scientific language in which professional economists speak. Trying to become a professional economist without learning that language would be the equivalent of trying to become a French historian without learning French. Third, in order to understand the limitations of something—say, a model—you have to first appreciate its strengths. If you don’t do that, then you will be a particularly weak critic. As one mathematical economist once remarked, your criticisms will have the impact of just so many soap bubbles.
Don’t get me wrong. I can sympathize with Nataly and her classmates who are taught economics in the same old ways. There is no doubt that textbook and blackboard economics from 1950 to today have suffered from the twin intellectual errors of excessive formalism and aggregation. There is, indeed, too much abstraction from the choosing individuals and the situations that they find themselves confronting. People are not plot-points. They have to cope with both the vagaries and opportunities life outside of the Garden of Eden presents.
Window Solution
But the solution to our current crisis in the curriculum does not, as Wendy Carlin suggests, lie in modern efforts to incorporate “big data” and new “mathematical techniques.” While it’s certainly true that we are witnessing a revolution in data gathering and that the development of simulation methods has amazing potential, economic thinking is about framing that data. Simulations are about capturing the dynamics of economic relationships that our theories—from Adam Smith to Vernon Smith—have sought to illuminate (Adam with the natural experiments of history; Vernon with lab experiments).
Economists need to tell to their students to “ look out the window ”—that is, to take what they learned from the blackboard and textbook and apply the economic way of thinking to the world around them—and to study history, philosophy, literature, languages, anthropology.
Nataly and her classmates might respond, "That is impossible, how do you expect me to do that?" To that I can do no better than the great Ludwig von Mises when he gave a similar reply: “Nobody asked you to be an economist.” To become an economist, you have to be willing to put in the hard work. Complaining about learning tools is similar to a carpenter complaining about learning about screwdrivers and hammers. The tools themselves are necessary but not sufficient to becoming a good carpenter. You have to put the tools to good use. The same goes for the aspiring economist.Brittany Carter (Photo: Hancock County Jail)
FINDLAY - A Fremont resident has been indicted on first-degree felony rape and aggravated robbery charges in Hancock County after police allege she raped a taxi driver during a robbery.
According to Findlay police, Brittany S. Carter, 23, entered a taxi around 4:24 a.m. on Jan. 28 with Cory L. Jackson, 20, of Lima, who held a knife at the male cab driver while Carter performed a sex act on him.
The incident occurred in the 200 block of Larkins Street in the city, according to Findlay police.
"We don't know why she did it," Findlay Detective Lt. Robert Ring said Friday of the sexual act. "Maybe it was a distraction because they took money from him."
Ring said Carter and Jackson took $32 from the driver's pocket and left the scene. The man, who was driving a cab belonging to Trinity Express Cab Service, reported the incident to police and warrants for Carter's and Jackson's arrests were made. Ring said the man was not injured from the incident.
Carter was arrested on the warrant, but Jackson is still at large, Ring said.
"He has a warrant for his arrest for robbery with us and a murder warrant out of Lima," Ring said.
Carter shows no prior arrest record in Fremont Municipal Court or Sandusky County Common Pleas Court, though Ring said Findlay police have dealt with her in the past on drug-related charges.
Hancock County Court records show Carter was previously charged with felony possession of drugs and permitting drug abuse.
cshoup@gannett.com
419-334-1035
Twitter: @CraigShoupNH
Read or Share this story: http://ohne.ws/2pak7MYAl Hadji Yahya Jammeh, President of the Republic of the Gambia, addresses the 69th United Nations General Assembly at the U.N. headquarters in New York in a file photo. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson
BANJUL (Reuters) - Gambia's President Yahya Jammeh on Friday declared the formerly secular country an Islamic republic in a move he said was designed to distance the West African state further from its colonial past.
The tiny sliver of a country, named after the river from which British ships once allegedly fired cannonballs to fix its borders, joins the ranks of other Islamic Republics such as Iran and Afghanistan.
"In line with the country's religious identity and values, I proclaim Gambia as an Islamic state," said Jammeh on state television. "As Muslims are the majority in the country, the Gambia cannot afford to continue the colonial legacy," he added.
Gambia's population of 1.8 million people is 95 percent Muslim. He said that other citizens of other faiths would still be able to practise.
Jammeh, an animated orator who has earned the reputation for making surprise declarations over the course of his 21-year presidency, pulled Gambia out of the Commonwealth in 2013, calling it neo-colonial. In 2007, he claimed to have found a herbal cure for AIDS.
Despite strong commercial ties with Britain and other European countries whose citizens are regular visitors to Gambia's white-sand beaches, relations with the West have deteriorated in recent years.
The European Union temporarily withheld aid money to the country last year over Gambia's poor human rights record. Gambia, whose main industries are agriculture and tourism, ranks 165 out of 187 countries on the U.N. development index.
"Starved of development funds because of his deplorable human rights record and economic mismanagement, Jammeh is looking towards the Arab world as substitute for and source of development aid," said blogger Sidi Sanneh, a former foreign minister who has become a U.S.-based dissident.
(Writing by Emma Farge; Editing by James Dalgleish)The video will start in 8 Cancel
Get the biggest politics stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
The US election is upon us at last.
So stick the kettle on, switch on the telly and settle in for a long night on the telly to see who will be the next leader of the free world.
And follow our handy guide to the night below for how things are likely to pan out.
Be sure to keep our live blog open as you watch, plus you can follow us @mirrorpolitics on Twitter and like our Facebook page.
All UK times
10pm – Live coverage begins on Sky News.
10.40pm – Live US Election coverage begins on ITV1, anchored by News at Ten presenter Tom Bradby.
11pm – Polls close in the first of America's 50 states – the safe Republican seat of Indiana.
11.15pm – Live coverage begins on BBC1, anchored by Daily Politics host Andrew Neil.
Midnight – Polls start to close in states across the east coast of America.
The biggest ones at this stage are crucial battlegrounds Florida, New Hampshire and possibly Virginia – although they may be so close that results are some hours away.
But expect US TV networks to start to call the safest states like Kentucky (a shoo-in for the Republicans) and Vermont (a dead cert for the Democrats).
12.30pm – Polls close in two more crucial Eastern battlegrounds – Ohio and North Carolina. Again, results may be an hour or two away yet.
But Trump needs both of these states to win, so if US networks call either for Hillary at this early stage she is in for a great night.
Video Loading Video Unavailable Click to play Tap to play The video will start in 8 Cancel Play now
Video Loading Video Unavailable Click to play Tap to play The video will start in 8 Cancel Play now
1am – The night heats up as polls close in the big rust-belt states of Pennsylvania and Michigan.
Donald Trump really needs a breakthrough in one of these two Democrat areas if he is to win the White House.
If the US networks call either one for Trump he has a fighting chance - but if they are too close to call we could be in for a long night.
In 2008 networks handed Pennsylvania to Barack Obama the minute the polls closed, and his rival John McCain knew the game was up.
1.02am - In the biggest landslide election of recent times – Ronald Reagan's victory in 1984 – networks announced he was President at this point in the night.
It is unlikely to be so early this time round.
2am – Don't go to bed yet! Poll |
- February 11, 2019Take me back to Tennessee
Reviewer: doug_the_dude - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - September 8, 2017
Subject: -- Another great '73....you have to double-take to remember there is **no** Playin', Dark Star, nor Other One in this show, and yet everything here is immensely satisfying. Bertha goes through a bit of sound adjustment; just stay with it. The rest of the highlights abound -
*Listen to Bobby on Jed!
*Eyes > China Doll is easily the highlight of the show for me - listen to how ice-cold that 'flat' jam rolls along - :::wow:::
*NFA's jam wows again - don't take this closer for granted!
This one remains a good lament for Pigpen, if you're looking for one to hear in the days following his death. I prefer now the matrix Kevin Tobin uploaded and remastered - it takes care of some of the much-needed patches in Truckin', LLR, etc. - September 8, 2017--
Reviewer: Buddy Q. Iodine - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - March 1, 2016
Subject: dick picked it
http://www.agitators.com/gd/dick_1973.html
Dick loved this one I guess, and though I beg to differ on 11/8/69, this time, like 80% of the time, he was quite right.
I had a high-gen cassette back in the 90s based on his plug, and found that I could not get behind it. The show left me cold. After careful consideration of this version, I see what he meant. Every tune seems to have the little bit extra, and it's possible to hear Weir pretty well, which matters.
Toast to the man If you came to this show, it has to be because you checked out Dick's blog. It wasn't the setlist. I link:Dick loved this one I guess, and though I beg to differ on 11/8/69, this time, like 80% of the time, he was quite right.I had a high-gen cassette back in the 90s based on his plug, and found that I could not get behind it. The show left me cold. After careful consideration of this version, I see what he meant. Every tune seems to have the little bit extra, and it's possible to hear Weir pretty well, which matters.Toast to the man - March 1, 2016dick picked it
Reviewer: JamsOnly - favorite favorite favorite favorite - March 6, 2015
Subject: He's Gone is the Highlight, solid well played show. - March 6, 2015He's Gone
Reviewer: njpg - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - November 23, 2014
Subject: - Omigosh. One of the prettiest He's Gones in all of history. This show is solid brilliant! Even better than May 13th, and that's much! - November 23, 2014
Reviewer: Trek1200 - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - September 25, 2013
Subject: Jerry is especially awake and alert during "Eyes" At certain points during "Eyes", Jerry steps on Weir with his own between-verse guitar solos. The effect, on headphones, is superb, especially since this mix has plenty of Jerry and Bobby in their respective channels.
This has to be one of the most underrated pre-1975 shows - September 25, 2013Jerry is especially awake and alert during "Eyes"
Reviewer: JoeGNJ - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - September 7, 2013
Subject: Grateful Dead Live at Nassau Coliseum on 1973-09-08 My first live show of welll over 125. Wish I could get a recording of it fo rthat reason alone. They rocked! - September 7, 2013Grateful Dead Live at Nassau Coliseum on 1973-09-08
Reviewer: chris phillips - favorite favorite favorite favorite - May 13, 2013
Subject: unique to itself This show grows on me. Sugaree is solid. The encores steal the show. It is bumpy in the first set, but don't be deterred initially like I was. - May 13, 2013unique to itself
Reviewer: chazu - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - December 28, 2010
Subject: 9-8-73 One of many shows that I attended. Stands out as one of my favorites. Exceptional playing by one and all. A must have to stream and download, if you haven't done so already. - December 28, 20109-8-73
Reviewer: blang16 - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - December 7, 2010
Subject: What a Superb Show Just piping in my two cents here.
I loved this one. The energy is great, and the playing is really just spot on.
The recording, very nice. Very good instrument separation and clean.
Yet just slightly "aged". I really like this sound, and this show.
What a terrific first set. - December 7, 2010What a Superb Show
Reviewer: clementinescaboose - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - September 15, 2010
Subject: what's not to like... about this hot and underrated show? not much i can find. yes, there's no Dark Star, Other One or Playin' but it should not be faulted for that; the jamming on almost every song is great. highlights are short but potent Let It Grow, a funky GSET, a hypnotic He's Gone, a Bluesy Truckin' and a slinky NFA>GDTRFB.
also, i distinctly hear horns very far in the background (Martin Fierro?) on LIG but this dosen't seem to be listed as a horns show..surprised no one else has mentioned it. - September 15, 2010what's not to like...
Reviewer: BIG_R - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - January 10, 2010
Subject: 9-8-73 Exellent both in performance and sound quality. - January 10, 20109-8-73
Reviewer: Whitelynx - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - March 4, 2009
Subject: Different yet magnificent! I can understand why some people don't like this show: it's unique!
Having listened to pretty much every circulating show from '65 to '73 I can say this one stands out as being truly magnificent.
Jerry is playing better than ever, coming up with new stuff all the time.
Bobby _really_ amazed me for the first time - I'm not a Weir fan yet in this show he does some exceptional stuff. At one point Jerry lets him play solo for what seems an eternity --> I couldn't believe my ears (I guess Jerry couldn't either).
Keith also does some very cool stuff...
And the sound quality is top-grade!
What else do you need? - March 4, 2009Different yet magnificent!
Reviewer: boogaloofan - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - October 25, 2007
Subject: hey this one is great. i don't think it is lacking any energy at all. for those of you who say it is you are oh so wrong. sugaree, eyes of the world and the line up starting with china cat and ending with truckin' is so good. this show has a lot of energy. it was pigpens birthday, i don't think they were sad and not playing as good because of it, they were playing remarkable probubly in memory of pig penn.
excellent show - October 25, 2007hey
Reviewer: On The Bus - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - October 7, 2007
Subject: Top of the Line After downloading dozens of shows this concert rates as an ultimate listening experience. The tempo is upbeat; The playing is tight; And the tracks are elongated into gem-quality, melodic (psychedelic) jam sessions which I particularly enjoy as a jazz enthusiast. Paring out a few songs, concentrating primarily on Jerry, this show pulls me in like few others.
Compared against Kennedy Stadium (73-06-10) and Roscoe Maples Pavilion (73-02-09), both excellent show, there is a definite sense to convey a mellow, silvery sound, sending listeners into a transcending state rather than just providing them the usual line-up. I like this concert as a favorite because, to me, it represents a demarcation point where the band transforms from a good band into a great one. They're no longer diamonds in the rough.
Of my favorite ''Dead'' concerts is the Jerry Garcia Band at the Keystone (77-07-23) - a truly reggae affair. This concert sits right next to it in the line-up. - October 7, 2007Top of the Line
Reviewer: JamminJerome - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - April 24, 2007
Subject: capn doubledose is correct This show is a must.
'nuff said. - April 24, 2007capn doubledose is correct
Reviewer: psiliguse - favorite favorite favorite - April 4, 2007
Subject: Consider this... This show was Pigpen's birthday - the first after he died the previous spring. The band must have been aware of that, so listen as if you were there thinking about pigpen being gone just half a year. - April 4, 2007Consider this...
Reviewer: DontHateOnBrent - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - October 27, 2006
Subject: keith its good to hear keith sing - October 27, 2006keith
Reviewer: capn doubledose - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - December 14, 2005
Subject: Phil and Bob really shine - Dick was right to pick this as a favorite Splitting hairs here - You need to listen to this show. The Let it Grow and Eyes are incredible. Solid start to finish... I saw Dark Star Orchestra play this at Irving Plaza in NYC and the first set was from 9-11:25 and we were crushed already.
Folks this is a must. - December 14, 2005Phil and Bob really shine - Dick was right to pick this as a favorite
Reviewer: L. Rosley - favorite favorite favorite favorite - August 14, 2005
Subject: Check out He's Gone I don't have a problem with the set list. Not every show needs to have Dark Star or The Other One. Having the complete Weather Report Suite is a treat. The WRS of Sept. 11 is better, however.
There is an occasion mistake, including the entire Sing Your Blues Away (Jerry and Bob can't seem to figure out what to play). Eyes lacks the energy of other performance from this year.
But a good show overall with a relaxed groove, with good sound. This show has my favorite He's Gone (so far), which slips nicely into a decent Truckin'->(a mellow)Not Fade Away->GDTRFB(fine until the final vocals)->NFA(mercifully short). I would have been happy at this show. - August 14, 2005Check out He's Gone
Reviewer: skwimite - favorite favorite favorite favorite - July 11, 2005
Subject: warm and fuzzy This is a really fine mellow show. Nice Eyes>China Doll, allowing for a few flubs. GSET is not totally ruined by Donna(also beware of GDTRFB, OMSN), but I'd be remiss not to mention Let Me Sing Your Blues Away, which is truly a group effort. It's not often one gets to hear such a lousy song, sung terribly, and played worse by a great band in an otherwise great show. Striking! They immediately redeem themselves with a smooth and tasty China Cat > Rider. I don't see this one as a 5, but a strong 4. - July 11, 2005warm and fuzzy
Reviewer: Grateful Listener - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - June 29, 2005
Subject: A Wonderful Show It is so great to be able to go back and listen again to shows one was at. Thanks to everyone who makes this possible.
Gov. Rockefeller was trying to prove to the public he was just as tough on drugs as anyone. The night before there had been a number of possession busts (many of them off-duty NYPD as I recall) and the scene was tense, but the energy level of the band replaced that with a very solid groove.
The huge Skull and Roses banner towered above the band and the playing was just fantastic. Hard to think of a better 'Uncle' from that period. Phil and Bobby have a complete mind-synch going on so many tunes. Everyone sounded great and a good time was had by all! - June 29, 2005A Wonderful Show
Reviewer: bigboypeete - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - June 19, 2005
Subject: under the radar in the grand scope of the massive force that is 73,dont be mistaken though its great stuff and it sounds very nice, not letdown here if u love this year and i know u do this is ur kind of stuff - June 19, 2005under the radar
Reviewer: bigboypeete - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - June 19, 2005
Subject: under the radar in the grand scope of the massive force that is 73,dont be mistaken though its great stuff and it sounds very nice, no letdown here if u love this year and i know u do this will saitsfy the soul - June 19, 2005under the radar
Reviewer: desolationrow - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - May 20, 2005
Subject: Brilliant show This was my first live dead show,security was particularly nasty the night before,so everyone was a bit jumpy.Great start,Garcia was spot on,the energy level rose, Greatest story was a treat, and weather report suite was new,and excellent. A terrific show with a somewhat unusual set list.Great windup!!! - May 20, 2005Brilliant show
Reviewer: 4x4 - favorite favorite favorite favorite - March 20, 2005
Subject: Row Jimmy Past reviews are right on. This one may not look like much from the setlist, but the playing is excellent. This Row Jimmy is beautiful. Jerry's playing is incredibly articulate, as it is throughout the rest of the show. 5 for playing, 4 for setlist. This and the previous night would make a great release. - March 20, 2005Row Jimmy
Reviewer: flashbackmagic - favorite favorite favorite favorite - September 27, 2004
Subject: greatest story OK, for the past week, every greatest story i hear, teh ending is just so St. Stephen to me..anyone else ever get that vibe?
Nice show here with a FIRST SET eyes, pretty sweet. - September 27, 2004greatest story
Reviewer: thechaps57 - favorite favorite favorite favorite - August 19, 2004
Subject: Sugarsnack Damn, this is sweet. The band was firing on all cylinders on this night. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Billy and Bobby do not get nearly the accolades they deserve. They lock down a tight groove in this show, a night in which the tempo may have been a bit slow but the simmering tension was a perfect acrobatic balance. A sweet tease. Despite the seemingly unspectacular setlist, this one is among my top 10 for 1973. - August 19, 2004SugarsnackWe’ve been celebrating some of 2014’s great achievements so far in our polls, but today we’re going to look at our personal selections for the riders and teams who failed to live up to expectations. Who do you think should be our Flop of the Year?
(We’re going to take a breather tomorrow, so we’ll be back with our next poll on Tuesday.)
Previous winners: 2012 – Frank & Andy Schleck. 2013 – Pat McQuaid.
Panache: Hate to say it, but Chris Froome. Not a grand tour victory – either overall or stage – to his name this year after dominating everywhere he raced in 2013.
Sheree: Fernando Alonso’s imaginary team. Will he? Won’t he? The long tease started at the end of last season with the much mooted potential purchase of Euskaltel-Euskadi. But the Carrots were left on the scrap-heap as Alonso sought to establish his own team on his terms and with his chosen staff and riders. Key, oft publicised dates came and went. Rumours abounded. Alliances were made. Finally the truth emerged, the Emperor has no new clothes and no team for 2015. Yes, Alonso recently confirmed his hopes of forming a professional cycling team will not materialise in 2015 but insisted that he still has plans to establish a team at some point in the future. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.
Tim: The oldest ever grand tour winner after seizing the overall at the 2013 Vuelta at the age of 42, Chris Horner signed a heavily performance-based contract with Lampre. But a combination of injury, poor form and, one suspects, his age finally catching up with him resulted in a paltry 2014 return: an utterly anonymous 17th at the Tour de France and second overall at the Tour of Utah. He’s rumoured to be heading to a US continental team for 2015. Many fans suspicious of his 2013 performances will be glad to see the back of him.
Ant: For once, Thomas Voeckler’s season was a bigger flop than his tongue. Having finished second in Paris-Tours, he even managed to miss the podium presentation! Now that’s flopping. In Tommy’s defence, lady luck was not on his side, and crashes in January and August are enough to put anybody off their stride, but he’ll no doubt be very glad to see the back of this winless season.
Jack: Richie Porte. I often find myself thinking of Porte as a talented youngster, waiting to be given the chance to show his true potential. Then I remember he’s now 29 years old, probably as good as he’s ever going to be and still nowhere near competitive in the grand tours. Perhaps that’s a little harsh, but considering the potential he showed when he finished seventh in the Giro d’Italia four years ago, his abject failure to finish inside the top ten of a three-week race since suggests he’s actually not quite as good as we once thought.
Kathi: Team Sky. Money can’t buy you everything, it seems. Certainly not the big wins the team achieved in 2012 and 2013, and it’s hard to see how they’re going to turn things around in 2015.
Midge: Peter Sagan. I know it’s controversial to put the winner of the points jersey at the Tour in here, when by anyone’s standards he has had a fine season. But that’s the point, he is not just any rider and, unfair as it might be, his talent raises expectations. In particular his spring campaign was disappointing both in terms of results and tactical choices. I am certain we will see better next year.
Let us know your choice and the reasons for it – or if we have missed out your personal favourite – in the comments below.
Polls will close at 1200 GMT (UK time) on Friday 12th December.
Next: Lifetime Achievement Award.
VeloVoices Awards 2014
Race of the Year
Rider of the Year
Team of the Year
Breakthrough Rider of the YearMuse didn't set out to make the most gloriously ambitious album of their career. How could they have? The band who dreamt up Supermassive Black Hole, Knights Of Cydonia and the three-part Exogenesis symphony were already well-versed in going One Louder. Any wilder, any further out there, and Muse would risk incineration by a dwarf star of their own making.But you don't become one of the biggest bands on this planet - in excess of 15 million albums sales worldwide, 5 MTV Europe Awards, 2 Brit Awards, 8 NME Awards, 5 Q Awards, 4 Kerrang Awards and winner of the Best Rock Album Grammy 2011; No 1 in 19 countries with 2009's The Resistance; filler of arena and stadia across the world - by sitting on your hands.So when Muse approached the making of their sixth studio album, they wouldn't stint on the choirs, strings and horn sections. And be reassured: guitar-shredding, piano-thumping, orchestra-arranging, book-chewing, big-thinking Matt Bellamy, as the band's chief songwriter, didn't lower his sights from The Big Picture nor ignore The Precious Details. And nor were the trio afraid of giving space to a brilliant new element to their sound - songs written and sung by bass player Chris Wolstenholme.But what the Devon-born band of school friends did do different was this: they made things easy for themselves. For the first time since the dawn of their career in small town England 18 years ago, all three members were living in the same place during the making of an album. Domiciled in and around London, they block-booked a recording studio - Air - and came and went as they pleased.This time, the only clock Muse had to beat was their own internal band rhythm. They had the days and weeks and space to experiment, explore ideas, rig up massive in-studio PA systems, hire in remixers, play with pedals, and (technical term alert!) fanny around to their hearts' content.And this time, Muse had the experience born of self-producing The Resistance to apply their studio knowledge to creating the album they really wanted to make.It was about saving aggro, and conserving energy. And, appropriately, it was about The 2nd Law: an album titled after and thematically influenced by the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which concerns the inevitable wasting of energy within a closed system.It was about letting themselves go and enjoying themselves. Muse, after all, had earned it."We all had a lot of great fun doing it," says Wolstenholme,"and hopefully you can hear that on the album. There are some real moments of positivity in the songs. And I just think everyone personally is in a pretty good place at the moment.""It feels like the best thing we've ever done," says drummer Dom Howard. "There was a sense of adventure making it.""This was a breeze!" declares Bellamy, still high from the experience of seeing rock-operatic new track Survival emerge victorious as the official anthem for the London 2012 Olympics. "We were making ourselves laugh at times with how different things were sounding."As Howard accurately describes it, The 2nd Law brims with "wild" sounds. It's exactly what Muse had in mind when they sat down last October after the completion of the two-year Resistance world tour. Within four quick weeks the trio had 13 tracks in embryonic but viable form.From solid beginnings came big tunes. Madness, the album's naggingly infectious first single, pulses with a grimy throb. It sounds nothing like Muse, and it sounds everything like Muse.In any case, any album that includes both Survival, their po(m)p and circumstance Olympic anthem, and a song with the Queen-go-disco abandon of Panic Station can't, ultimately, take itself too seriously. "We weren't afraid of doing something that's just a dancing track," smiles Bellamy of the latter song, a groovy belter recorded wit.ma’am, you dropped your grocery list.
a friend texted this picture to me. he saw it laying on the ground while he was at kroger’s picking up a few things. i dont know about yall, but when i make my lists, i tend to list items i need in order of importance. first on this list: vagina spray.
just vagina spray. Kroger brand is fine. what happens if she can’t find the vagina spray and has to get a store associate to help her? she probably should have been a little more specific. is this a deodorant spray you’re looking for, ma’am? anti-fungal spray? adhesive spray? bug spray? hair spray? things *can* get kind of unruly down there sometimes.
the pink cream… i dont even want to speculate on that. but, i can only assume that its also for her ‘vajayja” & in such case, wtf does she have goin on in there??
shout out to mane & tail.. that gives me *some* idea of who may be the owner of this list (hint: it may or may not be ur moms. dont act like u dont know about mane & tail.).
oh, don’t forget the hummus. she’ll need a refreshing nutritious snack after all that vagina spraying. way to class up the list, btw.Welcome to Random Roles, wherein we talk to actors about the characters who defined their careers. The catch: They don’t know beforehand what roles we’ll ask them to talk about.
The actor: Dean Winters made his first major impact on TV critics through his dramatic work on HBO’s Oz, then proved his comedic chops on 30 Rock, while most mainstream viewers know him best as Detective Brian Cassidy on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (or, more recently, as Mayhem in an ongoing series of Allstate commercials). Currently, Winters can be seen playing a different breed of detective—and in a decidedly different locale—on the new CBS action-comedy, Battle Creek.
Advertisement
Battle Creek (2015-present)—“Detective Russ Agnew”
Dean Winters: They came looking for me last January, and when I got the script and it had Vince Gilligan and David Shore and Bryan Singer’s name on it… I mean, how do you freaking say “no” to it? It was just one of those trifectas.
Advertisement
The A.V. Club: So how would you sum up Russ Agnew in a nutshell?
DW: The guy’s basically this kind of altruistic Midwest guy, a Battle Creek local homeboy who wants to make his town better, and he’s doing everything he can, but the department’s woefully underfunded, and he runs into a lot of obstacles trying to get things done, so he’s frustrated. So they hook the city up with an FBI satellite office and he gets teamed with an agent, played by Josh [Duhamel], and his world gets thrown upside down and becomes a nightmare, because Josh represents everything he hates.
AVC: You guys have a great awkward on-screen chemistry.
DW: Oh, yeah, it’s incredible. We definitely have great chemistry.
AVC: You said that they came looking for you for the role, but how much of Russ was on the page when you got the script, and how much was tweaked once you signed on?
Advertisement
DW: I think there was a certain irreverence that they weren’t ready for. You know, I tend to bring that to my jobs. [Laughs.] But I think that ends up adding to the chemistry with the characters.
AVC: If you had to define Battle Creek’s percentage as far as being comedy versus drama, where would you say it lies?
DW: I’d say 60/40 drama. It’s not a straight-up half-and-half, but it’s definitely a blend. But that’s fun. Because it goes week by week, so there’s the through-line of my relationship with Josh, but as far as the cases go, it goes week to week. So as an actor, every week you get a different take. That’s nice. I never knew what was going to be happening till the table read.
Advertisement
AVC: I’m presuming that you didn’t actually shoot this in Michigan, but did you get to the real Battle Creek at any point?
DW: Nah, we shot in Los Angeles for Michigan. Which is difficult. [Laughs.] Josh and Kal [Penn] have been, though. I haven’t yet.
AVC: As far as the series itself, it seems like a unique creative team, with Vince Gilligan coming up with the concept and David Shore fleshing it out. Did you find that their sensibilities blended pretty well together?
Advertisement
DW: Yeah, they did. They’re very different people, but they both had the same goal in creating Battle Creek. David picked up the reins from where Vince left off, and it was just perfect.
Homicide: Life On The Street (1995-1996)—“Tom Marans”
AVC: So was Homicide actually your first on-camera appearance?
DW: Yeah, that was my first time on national television.
AVC: That’s not a bad first gig.
DW: No. And then Tom Fontana ended up writing the part for me on Oz after the Homicide episode.
Advertisement
AVC: How did you end up getting that first part? An audition, presumably, since it was your first time on national television.
DW: Well, the way it happened was, I was bartending on the Upper East Side with my brother, and I met Tom Fontana. He came into our bar at, like, 2 o’clock in the morning. We had never met before, but he was doing the first season of Homicide, and he and I became really good friends. He offered me a part for my 30th birthday, and I passed on it. I told him I wasn’t ready to be on TV yet, because I was still living downtown and doing theater. I’m, like, the first person that ever passed on him in that position. [Laughs.]
But, anyway, he and I continued to become really close friends, and then a year later I did it. I did three episodes. I did a three-episode arc. And then a year or two later he wrote the part of Ryan O’Reily for me on Oz. He actually wrote that based on watching me bartend. When I was a bartender, I was a total hustler. Like, if you walked out of my bar with cab fare, then I failed, because I would do everything I could to make sure you were broke. [Laughs.] And he kind of based Ryan O’Reily on that, and the rest is history.
Advertisement
AVC: So how did you find your way into acting in the first place?
DW: I was 28, and I was a little bit lost. I’d been living in Europe and—well, I was living all over the world for a couple of years. And my brother Scott, who played my brother on Oz, he was an established actor, and he saw that I was going down the wrong path, and he got me down to meet his acting coach, William Esper. So I met William Esper and took a class, and when I took my first class, I finally felt like I had found a home. And then I kind of buckled down, started bartending more in the city, and then became part of a theater company in Tribeca. And that was it!
AVC: Did you always envision yourself jumping in front of the camera at some point?
Advertisement
DW: Yeah. Ever since I was a little kid. I just wanted to wait. It was never the right time for me. And I’m actually glad I became an actor at a later age. I feel like I bring a lot more gravitas to the table than these kids who grew up on film sets when they were 10.
Oz (1997-2003)—“Ryan O’Reily”
AVC: Oz was a pretty intense series, particularly for its time. What did you think when you first heard about the premise? Did you wonder if they’d be able to pull it off?
Advertisement
DW: I thought it was genius. But there was no television like that at the time. It was the first one, so there was nothing to compare it to. And when we made it, HBO left us alone—it was really the inmates running the asylum—and we never thought anybody was going to watch it. And then people watched it, and it became what it became. And then they green-lit Six Feet Under and The Sopranos and Sex And The City, and that basically changed the landscape of television. So I’m proud to say that I feel like Tom Fontana and the cast of Oz—I feel like we were pioneers, because none of these shows on none of these cable stations like Starz or Showtime, none of them would exist if it wasn’t for Oz. And I think Tom Fontana deserves a lot more credit than he’s gotten.
AVC: Certainly TV connoisseurs and actors, writers, and directors tend stand up for Oz. But you’re right, it doesn’t seem to get a lot of play in the mainstream.
DW: Right. I mean, J.K. Simmons is a shining example of how good Oz was. You know, the guy that just won the Oscar? [Laughs.]
Advertisement
AVC: Do you have a particular favorite among Ryan O’Reily’s storylines?
DW: For me, the best storyline was working with my brother Scott when he was on death row. And my other brother Brad wrote that storyline for us. He was one of Tom’s writers, and Brad knew our shorthand, the way we spoke, and so that stuff was really, really close to the heart and close to the vest. When Scott gets executed on Oz… I mean, that’s the most powerful moment I’ve ever had as an actor. I was, like, throwing up on the set, I was so disturbed by the whole thing. And it shows! There’s a scene the night before Scott gets executed when we’re in his room, and we’re talking about life, and it’s so brutal and so emotional that I can’t even watch it. I can’t. I get sick when I watch it. To me, that’s good writing, and that’s good acting.
AVC: When I talked to Christopher Meloni, I asked him if he was happy with the way Chris Keller’s storyline wrapped up, and he laughed and said, “No, but that’s between me and Fontana.”
Advertisement
DW: Yeah.
AVC: Were you happy with the way Ryan’s storyline ended?
DW: Of course I was. And anyone who’s not happy with Tom should, like, really check themselves before they say that, because… people like J.K. and Chris and Lee [Tergesen] and Harold [Perrineau] and Eamonn Walker—nobody would have a career if it wasn’t for Tom. Not the career that they have, that’s for damned sure. Look, we got the bad news about Oz right at the very end, so Tom didn’t really have the chance to wrap it up the way he wanted to wrap it up. But I’ll put Oz up against any show ever. Breaking Bad, Sopranos… Those shows can bring it, and we’ll crush them. Oz was otherworldly. It was Shakespearean. And Breaking Bad is amazing, and Sopranos is amazing, but even Vince Gilligan tells me, “We could never have written Breaking Bad without Oz.” Oz needs deferential treatment. It needs to be revered, and it needs to be a little bit more of the conversation of television.
Advertisement
It’s funny, though, because now with HBO Go, there’s a whole new group of Oz fans out there. There was a long time where people didn’t talk about it, but now I walk down the street in New York, and it’s amazing how many people talk about Oz. And the cast—we had Rita Moreno and Betty Buckley and B.D. Wong, and we had Elaine Stritch and Joel Grey. We had the best Broadway actors in the world on the show. And we had all of us, who were complete unknowns, and we were all, like, punk upstarts. [Laughs.] But it all played. And then you had guys like Ernie Hudson, and we had great guest stars. It was an incredible show.
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (2008-2009)—“Charley Dixon”
Life On Mars (2008-2009)—“Vic Tyler”
DW: I loved The Sarah Connor Chronicles and I loved that character, and the fact that that show and the show Life On Mars didn’t get more love make me nervous about Battle Creek, because those shows were so different and the casts were great, but no one was ready for them, and they didn’t last more than a season. Well, actually, I guess Terminator ran two. But, anyway, you just never know. I had such a crush on Lena Headey, and she and I got along so great together. Just working with her and Thomas [Dekker] and Summer [Glau] and everyone—that was a really great job. That was also the first job where I played a really nice guy. Usually I play guys who are kind of twisted. [Laughs.] But I played, like, a nice guy. And it was easy to fall in love with Lena Headey. Yeah, I loved that show.
Advertisement
AVC: You also mentioned Life On Mars. Were you doing those more or less simultaneously?
DW: Yeah, I did Life On Mars right after Terminator, I think. And Life On Mars—Scott Rosenberg and André Nemec and Josh Appelbaum, the writers and producers—they were, like, my mijos. [Laughs.] We were such good friends. It was so much fun. And to be able to work with Harvey Keitel and Michael Imperioli—it was too good. And then when ABC canceled it, I was just, like, “What?”
AVC: Did you enjoy the period costuming on the show?
DW: I did, yeah. I mean, it’s always good to go back in time and be a cop. [Laughs.] I’d rather go back in time than into the future. I’ve never seen a good-looking future cop outfit.
Advertisement
Conspiracy Theory (1997)—“Cleet”
DW: That was my first movie job. That job took me out of bartending. My last night of bartending was Thanksgiving ’96, and I started filming that movie either the next day or a couple of days later. Julia Roberts, Mel Gibson… I was a fish out of water on that film. We were in California, and my part—I had a much bigger part, but it got completely whittled away. I spent a lot of time on the set twiddling my thumbs, trying |
learn why this isn’t the case for others. It isn’t a desire to see them succeed that leads us to crime fiction but rather the chance to stand close and watch how they fail. A need to understand that motivates researcher, writer and reader alike.
Malcolm Mackay is the author, most recently, of the novel “The Sudden Arrival of Violence.”Christianity in the 14th century consisted of an end to the Crusades and a precursor to Protestantism.
Inquisition [ edit ]
King Philip IV of France created an inquisition for his suppression of the Knights Templar during the 14th century.[1] King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella formed another in 1480, originally to deal with distrusted ex-Jewish and ex-Muslim converts.[2] Over a 350-year period, this Spanish Inquisition executed between 3,000 and 4,000 people,[3] representing around two percent of those accused.[4] The inquisition played a major role in the final expulsion of Islam from the kingdoms of Sicily and Spain.[5] In 1482, Pope Sixtus IV condemned its excesses but Ferdinand ignored his protests.[6] Historians note that for centuries Protestant propaganda and popular literature exaggerated the horrors of these inquisitions.[1][7][8][9] According to Edward Norman, this view "identified the entire Catholic Church... with [the] occasional excesses" wrought by secular rulers.[1]
The Western Schism, or Papal Schism, was a prolonged period of crisis in Latin Christendom from 1378 to 1416, when there were two or more claimants to the See of Rome and there was conflict concerning the rightful holder of the papacy. The conflict was political, rather than doctrinal, in nature.
To escape instability in Rome, Clement V in 1309 became the first of seven popes to reside in the fortified city of Avignon in southern France[10] during a period known as the Avignon Papacy. For 69 years popes resided in Avignon rather than Rome. This was not only an obvious source of not only confusion but of political animosity as the prestige and influence of the city of Rome waned without a resident pontiff. The papacy returned to Rome in 1378 at the urging of Catherine of Siena and others who felt the See of Peter should be in the Roman church.[11][12] Though Pope Gregory XI, a Frenchman, returned to Rome in 1378, the strife between Italian and French factions intensified, especially following his subsequent death.
In 1378 the conclave elected an Italian from Naples, Pope Urban VI; his intransigence in office soon alienated the French cardinals, who withdrew to a conclave of their own, asserting the previous election was invalid since its decision had been made under the duress of a riotous mob. They elected one of their own, Robert of Geneva, who took the name Pope Clement VII. By 1379, he was back in the palace of popes in Avignon, while Urban VI remained in Rome.
For nearly forty years, there were two papal curias and two sets of cardinals, each electing a new pope for Rome or Avignon when death created a vacancy. Efforts at resolution further complicated the issue when a third compromise pope was elected in 1409.[13] The matter was finally resolved in 1417 at the Council of Constance where the cardinals called upon all three claimants to the papal throne to resign and held a new election naming Martin V pope.[13]
Western theology [ edit ]
Scholastic theology continued to develop as the 13th century gave way to the fourteenth, becoming ever more complex and subtle in its distinctions and arguments. There was a rise to dominance of the nominalist or voluntarist theologies of men like William of Ockham. The 14th century was also a time in which movements of widely varying character worked for the reform of the institutional church, such as conciliarism, Lollardy and the Hussites. Spiritual movements such as the Devotio Moderna also flourished.
Notable authors include:
Summa Logicae, 1341 William of Ockham – Sketch labelled "frater Occham iste", from a manuscript of Ockham's, 1341
Hesychast Controversy [ edit ]
Under church tradition the practice of Hesychasm has it beginnings in the bible, Matthew 6:6 and the Philokalia. The tradition of contemplation with inner silence or tranquility is shared by all Eastern ascetics having its roots in the Egyptian traditions of monasticism exemplified by such Orthodox monastics as St Anthony of Egypt.
About the year 1337 Hesychasm attracted the attention of a learned member of the Orthodox Church, Barlaam, a Calabrian monk who at that time held the office of abbot in the Monastery of St Saviour's in Constantinople and who visited Mount Athos. Mount Athos was at the height of its fame and influence under the reign of Andronicus III Palaeologus and under the 'first-ship' of the Protos Symeon. On Mount Athos, Barlaam encountered Hesychasts and heard descriptions of their practices, also reading the writings of the teacher in Hesychasm of St Gregory Palamas, an Athonite monk.
Trained in Western scholastic theology, Barlaam was scandalised by Hesychasm and began to combat it both orally and in his writings. As a private teacher of theology in the Western Scholastic mode, Barlaam propounded a more intellectual and propositional approach to the knowledge of God than the Hesychasts taught. Barlaam took exception to, as heretical and blasphemous, the doctrine entertained by the Hesychasts as to the nature of the uncreated light, the experience of which was said to be the goal of Hesychast practice. It was maintained by the Hesychasts to be of divine origin and to be identical to that light which had been manifested to Jesus' disciples on Mount Tabor at the Transfiguration. This Barlaam held to be polytheistic, inasmuch as it postulated two eternal substances, a visible (immanent) and an invisible God (transcendent).
On the Hesychast side, the controversy was taken up by St Gregory Palamas, afterwards Archbishop of Thessalonica, who was asked by his fellow monks on Mt Athos to defend Hesychasm from the Barlaam's attacks. St Gregory was well-educated in Greek philosophy (dialectical method) and thus able to defend Hesychasm using Western precepts. In the 1340s, he defended Hesychasm at three different synods in Constantinople and also wrote a number of works in its defense.
In 1341 the dispute came before a synod held at Constantinople and was presided over by the Emperor Andronicus. The synod, taking into account the regard in which the writings of the pseudo-Dionysius were held, condemned Barlaam, who recanted and returned to Calabria, afterwards becoming a bishop in the Roman Catholic Church. One of Barlaam's friends, Gregory Akindynos, who originally was also a friend of St Gregory Palamas, took up the controversy, and three other synods on the subject were held, at the second of which the followers of Barlaam gained a brief victory. But in 1351 at a synod under the presidency of the Emperor John VI Cantacuzenus, Hesychast doctrine and Palamas' Essence-Energies distinction was established as the doctrine of the Orthodox Church.
Following the decision of 1351, there was strong repression against anti-Palamist thinkers. Kalekas reports on this repression as late as 1397, and for theologians in disagreement with Palamas, there was ultimately no choice but to emigrate and convert to Catholicism, a path taken by Kalekas as well as Demetrios Kydones and Ioannes Kypariossiotes. This exodus of highly educated Greek scholars, later reinforced by refugees following the Fall of Constantinople of 1453, had a significant influence on the first generation (that of Petrarch and Boccaccio) of the incipient Italian Renaissance.
The Roman Catholic Church has never fully accepted Hesychasm, especially the distinction between the energies or operations of God and the essence of God, and the notion that those energies or operations of God are uncreated.[14] In Roman Catholic theology as it has developed since the scholastic period, the essence of God can be known but only in the next life; the grace of God is always created; and the essence of God is pure act, so that there can be no distinction between the energies or operations and the essence of God (see, e.g., the Summa Theologiae of St Thomas Aquinas).[14] Some of these positions depend on Aristotelian metaphysics.
Contemporary historians Emperor John VI Kantakouzenos and Nicephorus Gregoras deal very copiously with this subject, taking the Hesychast and Barlaamite sides respectively. The Orthodox perspective is one that states that there is scientific knowledge based on demonstration and spiritual knowledge based on demonstration. That the two understandings must remain separate in order to have a proper understanding of both in order to reject dualism. The Eastern approach to understanding God and spiritual matters as one that should not be approached with a Scholastic and or dialectical method (philosophy).[15] Respected fathers of the church have held that these councils that agree that experiential prayer is Orthodox, refer to these as councils as Ecunemical Councils Eight and Nine.
Monasticism [ edit ]
Roman Catholic orders [ edit ]
Many distinct monastic orders developed within Roman Catholicism and Anglicanism.
Bridgettines, founded c.1350
Hieronymites, founded in Spain in 1364, an eremitic community formally known as the "Order of Saint Jerome"
Protestant monasticism [ edit ]
Monasticism in the Protestant tradition proceeds from John Wycliffe who organized the Lollard Preacher Order (the "Poor Priests") to promote his reformation views.[16]
Protestant Reformation precursors [ edit ]
Unrest because of the Western Schism excited wars between princes, uprisings among the peasants, and widespread concern over corruption in the Church. A new nationalism also challenged the relatively internationalist medieval world. The first of a series of disruptive and new perspectives came from John Wycliffe at Oxford University, then from Jan Hus at the University of Prague. The Catholic Church officially concluded this debate at the Council of Constance (1414–1417). The conclave condemned Jan Hus, who was executed by burning in spite of a promise of safe-conduct. At the command of Pope Martin V, Wycliffe was posthumously exhumed and burned as a heretic twelve years after his burial.
Crusade aftermath [ edit ]
Ruins of the fortress of Ruad, where the Crusaders attempted to set up a bridgehead to re-take the Holy Land
The island of Ruad, three kilometers from the Syrian shore, was occupied by the Knights Templar but was ultimately lost to the Mamluks in the Fall of Ruad on September 26, 1302. The Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, which was not a crusader state and was not Latin Christian but was closely associated with the crusader states and was ruled by the Latin Christian Lusignan dynasty for its last 34 years, survived until 1375. Other echoes of the crusader states survived for longer, but well away from the Holy Land.
Crusade against the Tatars [ edit ]
In the 14th century, Khan Tokhtamysh combined the Blue and White Hordes forming the Golden Horde. It seemed that the power of the Golden Horde had begun to rise, but in 1389, Tokhtamysh made the disastrous decision of waging war on his former master Tamerlane. Tamerlane's hordes rampaged through southern Russia, crippling the Golden Horde's economy and practically wiping out its defenses in those lands.
After losing the war, Tokhtamysh was dethroned by the party of Khan Temur Kutlugh and Emir Edigu, supported by Tamerlane. When Tokhtamysh asked Vytautas the Great for assistance in retaking the Horde, the latter readily gathered a huge army which included Lithuanians, Ruthenians, Russians, Mongols, Moldavians, Poles, Romanians and Teutonic Knights.
In 1398, the huge army moved from Moldavia and conquered the southern steppe all the way to the Dnieper River and northern Crimea. Inspired by their great successes, Vytautas declared a Crusade against the Tatars with Pope Boniface IX backing him. Thus, in 1399, the army of Vytautas once again moved on the Horde. His army met the Horde's at the Vorskla River, slightly inside Lithuanian territory.
Although the Lithuanian army was well equipped with cannon, it could not resist a rear attack from Edigu's reserve units. Vytautas hardly escaped alive. Many princes of his kin—possibly as many as 20—were killed, and the victorious Tatars besieged Kiev. Meanwhile, Temur Kutlugh died from the wounds received in the battle, and Tokhtamysh was killed by one of his own men.
Alexandrian Crusade [ edit ]
The Alexandrian Crusade of October 1365 was a minor seaborne crusade against Muslim Alexandria led by Peter I of Cyprus. His motivation was at least as commercial as religious.
Politics and culture [ edit ]
The Crusades had an enormous influence on the European Middle Ages. At times, much of the continent was united under a powerful Papacy, but by the 14th century, the development of centralized bureaucracies (the foundation of the modern nation-state) was well on its way in France, England, Spain, Burgundy, and Portugal, and partly because of the dominance of the church at the beginning of the crusading era.
The military experiences of the crusades also had their effects in Europe; for example, European castles became massive stone structures as they were in the east, rather than smaller wooden buildings as they had typically been in the past.
In addition, the Crusades are seen as having opened up European culture to the world, especially Asia:
“ The Crusades brought about results of which the popes had never dreamed, and which were perhaps the most, important of all. They re-established traffic between the East and West, which, after having been suspended for several centuries, was then resumed with even greater energy; they were the means of bringing from the depths of their respective provinces and introducing into the most civilized Asiatic countries Western knights, to whom a new world was thus revealed, and who returned to their native land filled with novel ideas... If, indeed, the Christian civilization of Europe has become universal culture, in the highest sense, the glory redounds, in no small measure, to the Crusades."[17] ”
Along with trade, new scientific discoveries and inventions made their way east or west. Persian advances (including the development of algebra, optics, and refinement of engineering) made their way west and sped the course of advancement in European universities that led to the Renaissance in later centuries
The invasions of German crusaders prevented formation of the large Lithuanian state incorporating all Baltic nations and tribes. Lithuania was destined to become a small country and forced to expand to the East looking for resources to combat the crusaders.[18]
Trade [ edit ]
The need to raise, transport and supply large armies led to a flourishing of trade throughout Europe. Roads largely unused since the days of Rome had significant increases in traffic as local merchants began to expand their horizons. This was not only because the Crusades prepared Europe for travel, but also because many wanted to travel after being reacquainted with the products of the Middle East. This also aided in the beginning of the Renaissance in Italy, as various Italian city-states from the very beginning had important and profitable trading colonies in the crusader states, both in the Holy Land and later in captured Byzantine territory.
Increased trade brought many things to Europeans that were once unknown or extremely rare and costly. These goods included a variety of spices, ivory, jade, diamonds, improved glass-manufacturing techniques, early forms of gunpowder, oranges, apples, and other Asian crops, and many other products.
Spread of Christianity [ edit ]
Lithuania [ edit ]
Lithuania and Samogitia were ultimately Christianized from 1386 until 1417 by the initiative of the Grand Duke of Lithuania Jogaila and his cousin Vytautas.
Timeline [ edit ]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Further reading [ edit ]by BRIAN NADIG
The former New Life Church building at 5518 W. Gettysburg St., was sold earlier this year and is being used as a meeting hall for the Church of the Chicagoans.
The property, which is located just east of the Milwaukee-Foster intersection, had been for sale for about 5 years, and several developers reportedly had expressed interest in buying the land. The site measures 31,250 square feet.
Participants in the Church of the Chicagoans began meeting in 2007 in Evanston, with additional meeting places established in Bridgeport and Arlington Heights. In some instances the meetings were being held in leased office space.
“We just wanted a centralized meeting place. On Sunday, the Lord’s Day, we all come together, but during the week we’re still out in those other neighborhoods,” church organizer David Canfield said. The church encourages participants to hold meetings in their homes during the week because Christ should be “part of daily life,” he said.
The church is not affiliated with a denomination or larger religious organization, Canfield said. In addition, the church does not have a membership process in which someone can join the church, and those helping to run the church are not given titles, he said.
“We are all Christians. To us, the importance is not being divided from other denominations,” Canfield said. “We don’t call the building the church. To us, the building is a place to meet, and to us the church is the people.”
The church hosts a worship on Sundays at 10 a.m. and a Bible study on Fridays at 7:30 p.m. About 130 people typically attend on Sundays, Canfield said.
The church had a booth at the recent “Jeff Fest” arts and music festival. “It was a very, very good outreach opportunity for us,” Canfield said.
The church acquired the former New Life property in February, said church organizer Kurt Sheu. The land is owned by a trust, whose board of trustees includes church representatives.
The 15,000-square-foot church was constructed in 1941, with an addition being built in the 1960s. In the 1940s the site was home to the Jefferson Park Bible Church and later the Jefferson Park Evangelical Free Church, according to the Northwest Chicago Historical Society.
The church is located across the alley from the recently closed K House of Flowers, 5249 N. Milwaukee Ave., whose longtime owner dies earlier this year. New Life, the previous occupant of the church, relocated several years ago to the campus of Luther High North, 5700 W. Berteau Ave.The 54-year-old woman was caught in March this year after a shopkeeper at an H&M store in Halmstad spotted her taking five pairs of underwear into a changing room but handing back only four when she left.
She immediately confessed after being confronted by police outside the store, but said that she had got a sudden onset of diarrhoea while shopping and had been forced to change underwear.
According to Swedish law, a person committing a crime in an emergency situation may escape punishment. But Halmstad District Court said in its ruling that it could not be considered to apply to this case.
It said that the woman had more options open to her than trying to do a runner.
"There were other possible courses of action," read the court's ruling. "She could for example have paid for the panties before she put them on."
She has now been found guilty of shoplifting and fined 3,200 kronor ($378). The underwear originally cost 99 kronor.Transforming A-Frame
Designed by Derek “Deek” Diedricksen of RelaxShacks.com and built by Joe Everson of Tennessee Tiny Homes, this transforming micro A-frame cost only $1,200 to construct. One roof/wall is made of Tuftex polycarbonate roofing: Not only is it translucent to allow in natural light, the lightweight material is attached to the structure with hinges so it easily can be raised and propped on legs to expand the space from 80 square feet to 110. On the other side of the A, the purlins supporting the roof sheathing are placed horizontally to serve double duty as shelves. Two daybeds house massive amounts of storage, a kitchen wall features a sink and space for a mini fridge, and a micro loft has a hinged “sunroof” for ventilation. Architect duo David and Jeanie Stiles drafted the plans for this A-frame, which are on sale for $30.BMW is hoping to be in the vanguard of dealing with the changing way Britain’s city dwellers use vehicles by launching a joint venture with car rental company Sixt.
The companies have brought the DriveNow car-sharing model to London from Germany which allows users to locate, unlock and start cars using a mobile phone app, then drive them on a charge per minute basis.
The system – currently in a small scale test with a fleet of about 250 BMW 1 series and Minis – does away with the need for a central collect and return point so users can make one-way journeys.
DriveNow has agreed a deal with Islington, Hackney and Haringey councils allowing the cars to be parked in any on-street parking spaces, meaning they can be used in a similar way to London’s “Boris Bike” scheme, as long as they are dropped off within the three boroughs.
Peter Schwarzenbauer, BMW board manager said the company looked at the future of the car market several years ago and decided it needed to be in the sector.
“We are bringing the technology and Sixt is bringing the car rental experience,” he said, adding that in cities that have embraced car sharing, a single such vehicle has the potential to replace dozens of cars.
BMW’s decision to move into the business is also about the future of car ownership. DriveNow estimates that an average car is used only about 4pc of the time and with half the global population predicted to live in cities by 2050 and parking becoming ever more difficult, urban residents are increasingly looking for alternatives to ownership.
It also allows BMW to access customers it normally has trouble reaching.
“The average age of our buyer is in their mid 40s but the average age of a car sharing user is 32,” said Mr Schwarzenbauer, adding that while the London scheme is small “proof of concept” BMW is planning to add its electric i3 model to the fleet next year.
DriveNow allows members drop off cars on the streets of three London boroughs
Sixt managing director Alexander Sixt said the scheme has the potential to revolutionise motoring and hopes to “make mobility so cheap that only the rich will buy cars”, adding that DriveNow is negotiating with other boroughs about similar deals on parking.
However, the challenge for the business is making it profitable. Car2go, a similar scheme, was tried by Daimler two years ago in London and later in Birmingham. However the company this summer decided to withdraw its “free-floating” model having taken into account the “UK’s strong culture and tradition of private vehicle ownership”.
DriveNow will also be up against the increasingly popular taxi ordering app Uber, although Mr Schwarzenbauer says they could work in unison.
“I see them as partners – you might use one of our cars to drive to a restaurant and then use Uber to come home,” he said. “The consumer is much more flexible in how they travel.”
Managing how the cars are located so they do not end up in locations where they are too far to be easily collected by users is the key to whether the system is a success according to John Leech, head of automotive at KPMG.
“The one-way model is very attractive to the consumer but managing its distribution is key,” he said. “DriveNow will probably need people to move the cars around and that will cost, which will be passed back to the consumer. It could mean they end up being only a little bit cheaper than a taxi service.”
BMW’s decision to get involved makes sense for the company he said. “There could be some cannibalisation of its market but car companies have to decide whether they are going to get on this bandwagon or not. Right now it is only touching a small part its market.”
However, the introduction of the i3 could be the turning point for the scheme, he said. “Electric cars are much cheaper to run once you get over the purchase cost. If you are using them for short journeys of three, four or five miles then it could be much cheaper than conventionally powered cars.”The 2017 China Open is now underway in Beijing, with the top 16 players who will automatically qualify for the venue stages of this year’s Betfred World Championship and their seeding positions to be determined by the conclusion of the tournament next Sunday.
For a summary of all of the permutations prior to the tournament up and down the ranking list, check out my comprehensive preview here, or alternatively scroll down to see how who can still break into the top 16 with a run this week and also how the main draw for the Crucible would be as the table currently stands…
Latest qualification standings as of 02/04/2017:
16th – Ryan Day – £209,087 (r128)
——————————————————————————
17th – Mark Williams – £199,975 (F)
18th – Martin Gould – £194,975 (r32)
19th – Joe Perry – £193,700 (r64)
20th – David Gilbert – £188,650 (r64)
21s – Mark King – £188,475 (r64)
22nd – Ricky Walden – £187,400 (r32)
23rd – Michael Holt – £175,500 (r32)
24th – Stephen Maguire – £140,775 (QF)
25th – Anthony Hamilton – £134,925 (r128)
26th – Alan McManus – £132,850 (r64)
Crucible draw
The position of the seeds in the draw at the 2017 World Championship will also be determined following the conclusion of the China, in accordance with the positions of the top 16 ranked players following the China Open.
The draw currently would look like this (updated 02/04/2017):
Mark Selby (1) / Qualifier
Ryan Day (16) / Qualifier
Neil Robertson (9) / Qualifier
Marco Fu (8) / Qualifier
————————————
Shaun Murphy (5) / Qualifier
Ronnie O’Sullivan (12) / Qualifier
Liang Wenbo (13) / Qualifier
Ding Junhui (4) / Qualifier
————————————
Stuart Bingham (3) / Qualifier
Kyren Wilson (14) / Qualifier
Mark Allen (11) / Qualifier
John Higgins (6) / Qualifier
————————————
Barry Hawkins (7) / Qualifier
Ali Carter (10) / Qualifier
Anthony McGill (15) / Qualifier
Judd Trump (2) / Qualifier
Sunday Blog
16:36 – Mark Williams falls narrowly short of securing an automatic seeding for the World Championship as he loses a thrilling final 10-8 to world number one Mark Selby in Beijing.
The result means that Williams will be seeded 17th for Sheffield and so must come through three qualifying matches at Ponds Forge if he is to return to the Crucible Theatre once again, while Ryan Day holds on to the 16th and final seeding position.
Saturday Blog
10:24 – With his 6-1 victory against Hossein Vafaei, double world champion Mark Williams surges from 22nd to 17th in the Race to the Crucible, knowing that victory in tomorrow’s final will see him deny Ryan Day of the final qualifying spot for Sheffield.
Victory would in fact see him climb as high as 15th, with both Day and Shoot Out winner Anthony McGill within range.
Friday Blog
15:10 – And then there was just one remaining chaser as Stephen Maguire falls 5-1 to world number one Mark Selby, meaning that the Scot will now have to come through at Pond Forge if he is to extend his run of appearances at the Crucible Theatre in 2017.
10:18 – An emphatic 5-1 victory for Mark Williams against former world champion Shaun Murphy means that the Welshman is now just wins away from dramatically claiming a place at the Crucible, not to mention lifting a 19th career-ranking event title.
Perhaps surprisingly, next up he will face Hossein Vafaei in the semi-finals, after the Iranian stunned world number two and arguably the tour’s in-form play Judd Trump this afternoon with a 5-3 win in Beijing.
Later on, Stephen Maguire faces Mark Selby as the other player remaining in the tournament who can still break into the top 16 this week.
In respect of the tour survival battle, victory for Vafaei meanwhile is a crucial one as it sees him climb up into the top 64 on the provisional seeding list at the expense of Robin Hull. The good news for Hull at least is that if he were to finish the season outside of the top 64, he would at least be strongly placed to earn a fresh two-year tour card via the one-year list:
Updated 02/04/2017
Robin Hull – £32,375 Akani Songsermsawad – £25,500 Rhys Clark – £24,425 Ross Muir – £23,000 Nigel Bond – £21,500 Noppon Saengkham – £20,550 Allan Taylor – £20,237 Rod Lawler – £19,712
Thursday Blog
10:01 – Mark Williams just about remains in the top 16 chase after he came back from 4-1 down to defeat old foe John Higgins 5-4 at the last 16 stage of the China Open this morning. The Welshman remains one of just two players who can still overtake Ryan Day by the end of the week and will face Shaun Murphy in tomorrow’s quarter-finals.
Wednesday Blog
12:39 – Ryan Day’s hopes of hanging on to the final automatic spot at the Crucible were handed a significant boost today after closest chaser Martin Gould suffered a 5-3 defeat to Tian Pengfei at the last 32 stage in China.
Coupled with defeat for Michael Holt to Mark Williams in the same session, the result means that there are now just three players remaining in the draw who can still break into the top 16 this week, the closest being Ricky Walden who must reach the final, while Williams and Stephen Maguire would need to win the title.
Further down the list, defeat for Mark Davis was another boost to Tom Ford’s prospects of retaining a top 32 spot (important for Sheffield as he would be guaranteed to avoid the remaining players in the 17-32 bracket in the final qualifying round).
16:21 – Another big result this session in the Race to the Crucible as despite having lead 3-0 and 4-1, Ricky Walden has lost 5-4 on the black to Andrew Higginson, meaning that he now cannot break into the world’s top 16 prior to the cut-off for the World Championship.
Victory for Stephen Maguire against Fergal O’Brien on the other hand means that both he and Mark Williams are the final two players who can spoil things for Ryan Day, each needing the title in order to do so.
All aboard tickets please next stop ponds forge???? — Martin Gould (@GouldyBalls147) March 29, 2017
Tuesday Blog
14:29 – Day two in Beijing and with a 5-0 whitewash of Gareth Allen, five-time world champion Ronnie O’Sullivan has moved back above Liang Wenbo into 12th position in the Crucible seedings race. In fact, Liang suffered a surprising defeat at the hands of Rory McLeod, meaning that he cannot now improve upon his current position of 13th, with Kyren Wilson still able to overtake him with a deep run this week.
Elsewhere, Martin Gould kept his hopes alive of a seeding for Sheffield with a 5-1 win against wildcard Fan Zhengyi, the Pinner Potter needing to reach the semi-finals this week if he is to avoid the need to come through the qualifying rounds at Ponds Forge.
Michael Holt was another to maintain his outside chance of qualification with a win against Jimmy White today, while Alan McManus exited the race with defeat in Beijing.
Meanwhile, a number of people have been asking for the latest position on the one-year list, in respect of the battle for tour survival which will ultimately be decided next month in Sheffield. The latest standings, including players not forecast to finish inside of the top 64 on the two-year ranking list and not on the first year of a tour card is:
Updated 29/03/2017
Hossein Vafaei – £27,000 Akani Songsermsawad – £25,500 Rhys Clark – £24,425 Ross Muir – £23,000 Nigel Bond – £21,500 Noppon Saengkham – £20,550 Allan Taylor – £20,237 Rod Lawler – £19,712
The closest chasers include:
Eden Sharav – £19,525
Jimmy White – £19,525
Duane Jones – £16,837
Andy Hicks (A) – £16,050
Peter Lines (A) – £14,712
Paul Davison – £14,500
Jamie Cope – £14,025
Joe Swail – £13,362
Fraser Patrick – £12,550
Sanderson Lam – £12,250
Igor Figueiredo – £11,725
Zhang Yong – £11,550
Darren Morgan (A) – £11,250
Ken Doherty – £10,750
James Cahill – £10,425
17:51 – Ricky Walden kept himself in the running for that final spot at the Crucible with a 5-1 win against Niu Zhuang this evening, but David Gilbert will now definitely have to qualify after he fell to a 5-3 defeat at the hands of Andrew Higginson.
Scotland’s Stephen Maguire kept his hopes of a return to the Crucible alive with victory against Fergal O’Brien, but knows that only the title will do if he is to do so.
Monday Blog
12:19 – Only two sessions played so far in Beijing and already a significant result as victory for Hossein Vafaei against Joe Perry means that for the first time since 2013, Perry will now have to qualify if he is to appear at the Crucible for a 15th time.
For Vafaei incidentally, the win is also a significant one as it boosts his position on the one-year ranking list, on which he is currently in line to earn a fresh two-year tour card from. There was also an important victory for Eden Sharav in the battle for tour survival this morning and a full update will follow later in the week setting out who needs to do what during the World Championship qualifiers at Ponds Forge in order to retain their professional status.
17:18 – Victory for Liang Wenbo this evening sees him climb one place in the latest provisional seedings list to 12th, meaning that he swaps places with Ronnie O’Sullivan in the provisional World Championship draw as things stand.A pro-refugee float was pushed back in the Mardi Gras parade to separate them from the Rainbow Labor float, after a protest earlier in the evening sparked security concerns.
Catherine Bouris
The two floats, with matching red shirts but very different political objectives, were initially planned to be right next to each other in the parade. But when the parade set off, they were separated by four floats. Here's how it played out. In the early evening, the No Pride In Detention (NPID) marchers protested a press conference with Labor leader Bill Shorten and deputy Tanya Plibersek.
No Pride in Detention crew are tailing Shorten and Plibersek as they leave their press conference #MardiGras
The marchers chanted "We're here, we're queer, refugees are welcome here" and held up signs as they boisterously surrounded the press conference.
About an hour later, the No Pride In Detention group was approached by Mardi Gras parade producer Anthony Russell.
In video filmed by one of the NPID marchers, Russell is seen telling float marshall Ed McMahon that the float had "one more chance" before they were turfed. “If I bring Bill Shorten out here now, and one of you people say something to him, you are not in the fucking parade. Do you understand that?” Russell says in the video. “If you can’t act like a normal human being all in a parade together, you’re out!” Around that time, riot police joined the normal NSW police presence. One marcher said they accompanied the the No Pride In Detention float for several hours.
Brigitte Garozzo
After the Rainbow Labor float moved off onto Oxford Street for the parade, the NPID float was asked to stand off to the side and wait for about four floats to go in front of them. Then they joined the parade and marched as usual.
Catherine Bouris
So why did all this happen? In a statement, the No Pride In Detention group accused Shorten and the Rainbow Labor float of pushing for the group to be expelled from the parade.
"Labor officials allegedly asked Mardi Gras to remove 'No Pride In Detention' from their location," the statement reads. "As a compromise, we were moved back while accompanied by an extra contingent of heavily armed riot police."
However, Shorten's office denied Labor had anything to do with the NPID float being moved or threatened with not marching. "Given the significance of the occasion, we were keen to ensure everyone was able to march," a spokesperson for Shorten's office told BuzzFeed News.
The spokesperson said the decision was made by either Mardi Gras organisers or the police. "You’ll have to speak to the organisers/police about any concerns they had as they’re responsible for logistics." A statement from Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras confirmed the decision to |
soldiers, who responded by firing rubber bullets and tear gas, AFP journalists at the scene said.
They were also protesting in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, fasting since April 17 over demands for improved conditions.
The health of several had already declined but several on Thursday intensified their protest, saying they would no longer drink.
An Israeli Prisons Service spokesman told AFP that "several dozen" hunger strikers were moved from prisons in southern Israel to facilities nearer the centre of the country with faster access to hospitals "in case there is a need to move them very, very quickly."
He did not elaborate.
In the Gaza strip, armed militant groups pledged "not to remain with arms folded" if fasting prisoners were to meet grave physical harm.
"The enemy only understands the language of force and we are ready to speak in the way they understand best," they said at a news conference.
A wave of unrest that broke out in October 2015 has claimed the lives of 264 Palestinians, 41 Israelis, two Americans, two Jordanians, an Eritrean, a Sudanese and a Briton, according to an AFP count.
Most of the Palestinians killed were carrying out knife, gun or car-ramming attacks, the Israeli authorities say.
Others were shot dead during protests or clashes, while some were killed in Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip.
The violence has subsided in recent months.The government is considering modifying the construction plan for the new National Stadium, exploring ways to curb the unexpectedly high construction costs of ¥252 billion, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said Thursday.
Asked if the government may change the basic design for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics’ main venue, featuring two gigantic keel arches for a roof, Suga remained noncommittal.
“Nothing has been decided over such matters as of now,” Suga told a regularly scheduled news conference.
“At any rate, we need to carry out various efforts to minimize the financial burdens on the nation,” he said.
Having a private-sector business manage the stadium’s operations after the Olympics may be among possible cost-cutting measures, Suga said. But he didn’t elaborate further.
The estimated cost to build the stadium has surged from the original ¥130 billion to ¥252 billion without public explanation of cost breakdowns, drawing outrage from many voters.
Top government officials believe that festering public anger has helped lower the Cabinet’s approval ratings in various media polls and could seriously damage Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s administration.
“It’s really a headache. It’s affecting the approval rates,” said a high-ranking official close to Abe, speaking on condition that he would not be named.
Speculation is rife that the government will withdraw the current design by Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid, which was adopted through an international competition in 2012, and instead construct a low-cost stadium based on a different design.
But this would force the government to again carry out an international design competition, which would involve a long public notification period in advance.
The official warned that this might mean that the new stadium wouldn’t be finished before the 2020 Olympics, let alone the 2019 Rugby World Cup to be hosted by Japan, for which the venue is also to be used.
“We haven’t checked if (the plan) is workable after Tokyo was chosen (in 2013 to host the Olympics in 2020). That’s our mistake,” the official said.
To change the basic design, the government would need to persuade former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, now serving as president of the Tokyo Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Mori, who served as president of the Japan Rugby Football Union until June, reportedly promised the World Rugby Organization that Japan would build an entirely new stadium to host the 2019 Rugby World Cup.
Mori is thus believed to be reluctant about any major design changes that would make using the National Stadium for the Rugby World Cup impossible.
Kyodo News has reported that the government is considering either changing the basic design of the stadium or extending the construction period to lower the cost. In either case, the stadium would not be finished before the Rugby World Cup, Kyodo reported.
In a separate move Thursday, architect Tadao Ando, chairman of the design competition committee that chose the current stadium design, held a news conference in Tokyo to speak about the controversy.
Ando said he has no idea why the estimated costs soared from the original budget of ¥130 billion.
“I, too, want to ask” why the cost rose so dramatically, said Ando, 73, a winner of the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Award.
Many officials involved in the stadium project have criticized Ando for not explaining the reasons for the unexpected rise.
He made no public appearances after July 7, when the Japan Sport Council, a special organization affiliated with the education and sports ministry, confirmed the price tag for the new National Stadium had climbed to ¥252 billion.
But according to Ando, his competition committee was tasked only to choose a blueprint for the stadium, and committee members did not discuss details of cost breakdowns.
Ando also maintained that he did not show up at the July 7 meeting and an ensuing news conference because of his tight schedule and poor health condition following surgery last year for pancreatic cancer. “I don’t get why I became the only one to be blamed for everything just for being absent from the meeting,” Ando said.
According to the JSC, a group of experts tasked by the council estimated that construction costs of Hadid’s design would not exceed ¥130 billion, and the JSC reported it to Ando’s committee during the competition processes.
Ando said he was overwhelmed with Hadid’s ambitious design, but just “thought Japan could go through this complicated construction” with the budget framework of ¥130 billion.
But he also confessed he had never been involved in such a big project, which involves building a structure large enough to hold 80,000 people.Skylanders Battlecast will be released sometime here in 2016, but I was able to get my hands on a couple of different packs for the upcoming game.
First off, I know some of the terms will be confusing as you probably don’t know what all the terminology mean (heck, I have the game, and I still don’t fully know). But I will be recording some gameplay tonight that I should hopefully have up for you in the coming days.
For my early preview, be sure to head to my initial first look at the cards and games.
But anyways… let’s get back to the news!
I was able to get the two different “Battle Packs” which guarantee you 6 cards, and then 16 random cards. The “Booster Packs” on the other hand just offer you 8 random cards. There are no correlation between the image on the front of the pack, and the contents of the pack. It’s purely random.
Remember, each card has a unique code around it that can be scanned in via the app. So posting photos of the cards before you are able to scan them in, could leave you high and dry as someone may scan that card before you can scan it in.
Because of that, my unboxing video required me to place each card in the “trading shield” (included in the Battle Packs) so that no-one could scan my cards as I am waiting to scan them all in until the full release.
Plus since this is brand new to pretty much all of you reading this, I wanted to take time to read all the card descriptions as well.
Be sure to check out below this post for a preview of all 24 Skylanders (or known as Characters) that you can play as in Skylanders Battlecast
I’m in the process of uploading all 270 Skylanders Battlecast cards online for you to check out, but I did want to get the Character cards uploaded so you can see who you have to use at your disposal.
I added all photos of the cards at my new dedicated Skylanders Battlecast card area, so check them out there!
Here are the list of 24 cards you can use (check out their entire description, strength, rarity, etc. at my new Skylanders Battlecast Cards Area!)
Countdown
Crusher
Eruptor
Flashwing
Food Fight
Hex
Hot Head
Jawbreaker
Jet Vac
Crypt King
Ninjini
Pop Fizz
Rip Tide
Roller Brawl
Smash Hit
Snap Shot
Spitfire
Spyro
Stealth Elf
Stormblade
Tree Rex
Trigger Happy
Wash Buckler
Whirlwind
Be sure to check out my weekly podcast, The Toys For Games ‘Cast. Talk all things in ‘Toys To Life’ genre!The Paladin Quest is one of the worst performing cards in the game.
Before you settle down for another dose of trademark Sottle negativity, allow me to get one thing clear: I love Journey to Un’Goro. I feel like it’s one of the most successful expansions in terms of breathing much-needed life into Hearthstone. And while I’ve enjoyed casting even the most obnoxious metagames, Un’Goro has dramatically rejuvenated my desire to grind for hours on ladder. The arrival of Midrange Paladins, Freeze Mages, Elemental decks, Aggro Druids, and countless other archetypes has shaken up a meta that was maligned as the most stale we’d ever seen.
Despite all that good news, there remains a sizeable dinosaur in the room, which is that of the nine available Quest cards—which are a cornerstone of the expansion in terms of new mechanics—six see almost no high level play at all. Of the other three, the Mage Quest has been quickly supplanted by the seemingly superior Freeze Mage, despite Blizzard’s best efforts to sweep that deck under the rug, and the remaining two “successful” Quests, Warrior and Rogue, are just not particularly interesting to play now that they’ve been figured out.
[The Quest mechanic] bears closer comparison to solitaire than Hearthstone.
When Awaken the Makers was revealed as the first Quest card, I raised concerns that the design was worryingly non-interactive, and unfortunately the other Quests just followed suit. It seems odd that a design team that has consistently used the lack of interactivity as a reason to nerf or rotate cards should then push a mechanic that bears closer comparison to solitaire than Hearthstone. Having recently cast multiple Quest Warrior mirror matches during the Hearthstone Global Games (and been audibly displeased about it), I can confirm that the games play out almost identically, with both Warriors rushing to complete the Quest and paying very little attention to anything their opponent is doing in the meantime.
The Warrior Quest works because the condition is something the class does normally.
Playing against a Quest deck lacks a sense of agency. Hearthstone is at its best when both players feel like they’re in control of their destiny, and the feeling of the player staring up at a ticking Quest counter that they can do little to alter creates the exact opposite effect. Imagine, for example, if the Warrior Quest involved reaching a certain amount of armor. This would create an engaging tug-of-war scenario in which each player would have to weigh up their actions, balancing the highest value or tempo play in conventional Hearthstone against the impact that the play has on the alternate win condition created by the Quest. To me, that sort of thing feels like a more interesting experience for everyone involved than just waiting to see who can curve out Taunt minions best.
Bouncing back
And so, to Quest Rogue. Man this deck is silly. The current lists seeing play still have a whiff of unrefinement to them, and are yet are still proving strong enough to allow several players to climb to the highest reaches of Legend—as well as becoming an immediate success in tournament play. The deck is hard to play optimally, no doubt about it. However, if you weigh the advantage you get from playing the deck optimally against the advantage you get from having Shadowsteps in your opening hand, or hitting a bounce effect from Mimic Pod, there’s a clear winner. There’s a serious issue of diminishing returns with the deck, as once you reach a very attainable level of proficiency, your winrate improvement tails off significantly in comparison to your “ability” to line up the right draws on a regular basis.
Powerful and difficult combo decks can be a great thing for the game if delivered properly, but Quest Rogue misses the mark by a large margin because the power level of the deck on even a slightly above average draw is too much to cope with for almost any deck in the current meta. Even the go-to counter of picking the most aggressive deck in your collection and slamming face really, really hard is now being met with answers as the Rogues start to bring cards like Bilefin Tidehunter, Doomsayer, and Shieldbearer into play.
The payoff for the Warlock quest isn't powerful enough for the hoops it makes you jump through.
The bigger question is whether we want Team 5 to babysit all the Quests into a position in which they see regular play.
Then there are the also-rans. The Quests that have already proven too weak to make any significant impact. These decks fall loosely into two categories: Quests where the target number required to complete them is too high and requires the deck to run too many bad cards in order to complete it reliably, or Quests where the reward is not powerful enough to consistently end the game when played.
The good news is that because of the consistent “do X, Y times” format of the Quests, the first issue would be very easy for Team 5 to tweak, either by adjusting the numbers or introducing more cards to help fulfill the conditions of the Quests that are struggling. But it’s perhaps this very linear design that makes the Quests so inherently hit or miss. It’s a simple equation in that if the target number is too low, the Quest is incredibly strong and can be played with little to no drawback, whereas if it’s too high, the Quest immediately falls into the realm of unplayability.
The bigger question, though, is whether we even want Team 5 to babysit all the Quests into a position in which they see regular play. Personally, I’m very happy with the meta as we have it now. Yes, Quest Rogue frustrates me and Quest Warrior bores me to tears, but there are always going to be some matchups I don’t enjoy. I would be more than happy if they left us to savor all the sweet decks that have come out of Un’Goro, allowing Quests to be relegated to an amusing distraction. Unlike the big whiffs in the past such as Joust and Inspire, this expansion seems to be strong enough overall to support the dead weight of a failed mechanic—and, for now at least, the meta is flourishing just fine with Quests in the background.A year ago, almost immediately after free agency kicked off, reports emerged that that the Eagles were making a major trade to acquire Sam Bradford. Shortly thereafter, the Eagles announced that they had dealt Nick Foles, a second round pick, and other draft pick compensation to the Rams for Bradford.
At 4:00 p.m. this afternoon, expect a frenzy of activity around the league, as the NFL's free agency period will begin. Here are the rumors surrounding the Eagles on the morning of free agency, which we'll update as the day wears on. So bookmark!
Eagles sign a third Buffalo Bill, CB Ron Brooks (8:11 p.m.)
It's Billadelphia, I suppose. The Eagles announced they signed CB Ron Brooks to a three year deal. Brooks was mostly a special teams player in Buffalo, with 18 special teams tackles over the last two seasons, and is known as a big hitter. A mild concern was that the Eagles might begin to neglect special teams with Chip Kelly gone, but the Eagles have signed two special teams standouts - Leodis McKelvin and Brooks - by the end of the first day of free agency.
This makes special teams coach Dave Fipp happy.
Eagles reportedly agree to terms with LB Nigel Bradham (7:58 p.m.)
According to Peter Schrager of FOX Sports, the Eagles have brought in Buffalo Bill number two, after signing CB Leodis McKelvin a day ago. That would be LB Nigel Bradham.
Like McKelvin, Bradham had his best season under Schwartz in 2014 when he had 104 tackles, 2.5 sacks, 2 forced fumbles, an INT, and 7 pass breakups. He'll replace Kiko Alonso, and will likely play the SAM position in the new Eagles 4-3 defense.
Full story here.
Fletcher Cox checks in (5:36)
It would appear Fletcher is enjoying watching players not as good as him getting paid record deals.
Sam Bradford is will not just be handed the starting quarterback job (5:14 p.m.)
Well this is interesting. According to Albert Breer of NFL Network, Chase Daniel will have an opportunity to win the starting quarterback job.
Chase Daniel will have a built-in advantage in training camp too, seeing as he already knows Doug Pederson's offense. Do you enjoy every day over-analysis of quarterbacks in training camp? If not, apologies in advance.
Eagles reportedly sign Texans OG Brandon Brooks (3:53 p.m.)
The Eagles keep loading up on positions of need, as they have agreed to terms with former Texans OG Brandon Brooks on a five-year deal worth $40 million, per Ian Rapoport on NFL Network.
Offensive guard was as glaring a need as you'll find on the Eagles' roster, and they find an immediate starter in Brooks, who who likely play at RG for the Birds.
Full story here.
The Eagles can still trade Sam Bradford (2:45 p.m.)
According to Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk, the Eagles could still trade Sam Bradford and essentially transfer his contract to another team with no penalty:
Per a source with knowledge of the deal, the first $5.5 million installment of Bradford’s $11 million signing bonus isn’t due until March 18, 2016. The second is due on or before September 1, 2016. So the Eagles have yet to pay Bradford a penny; they could transfer his entire contract to a new team. It’s not unusual for contracts to contain a lag between the signing of a contract and the payment of the signing bonus. But with the Eagles reportedly reaching a deal with quarterback Chase Daniel and with the terms of Daniel’s deal on complete and total lockdown until 4:00 p.m. ET at the earliest, it’s entirely possible that the Eagles will do what Bradford feared they’d do if he had signed an extension after arriving via trade a year ago — abruptly flip him to another team, like the Browns or the Texans or the 49ers.
I'll also add that the Eagles just moved up to the number eight spot in the draft, which would obviously increase their chances of landing one of the top two quarterbacks in this draft, Cal's Jared Goff or North Dakota State's Carson Wentz.
This scenario wouldn't be all that different from the concept of a tag-and-trade, which we hypothesized on earlier this offseason.
Obviously, the chances of anything like this actually happening are extremely low, but let's just go ahead and squeeze every last bit of life out of the Bradford story-line as we can.
Eagles agree to terms with Rams S Rodney McLeod (1:14 p.m.)
According to Ian Rapoport of NFL Network, McLeod will get paid.
McLeod, like Chase Daniel below, is one of 15 free agent targets we identified earlier this week. In my opinion he is an upgrade over Walter Thurmond at safety.
Full story here.
Eagles reportedly agree to terms with Chiefs QB Chase Daniel (12:32 p.m.)
This, according to Adam Schefter of ESPN:
Our full story is here.
First report of the trade compensation for DeMarco Murray (12:28 p.m.)
According to Geoff Mosher, the Eagles will be swapping fourth round picks with the Tennessee Titans in return for trading DeMarco Murray.
The Titans select second in the fourth round. The Eagles' original pick is 15th in the fourth round. That is a move, if my math is on point, of 13 spots. If indeed Mosh has the compensation correct, the Eagles will have the advantage of a full night to consider their options, as they'll have the second overall pick on Day 3 of the draft.
The Eagles getting anything in return for DeMarco Murray and his hideous contract is a major win.
Byron Maxwell's agent announces he is cleared by doctors (10:59 a.m.)
Alvin Keels of Paramount Sports and Entertainment, the firm that represents Byron Maxwell, has tweeted that the Miami Dolphins' staff has cleared Maxwell.
That will clear the way for the Eagles-Dolphins trade to commence. We have the full story here.
Conflicting reports on Eagles-Dolphins trade (10:04 a.m.)
Albert Breer of NFL Network (who is stationed at the NovaCare Complex) says the deal is still likely to go through in some form:
However, Omar Kelly of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel says the deal is falling apart.
Fun!
Chiefs quarterback Chase Daniel is still in play
The Eagles may have re-signed Sam Bradford to a two-year deal, but they may still have interest in Chiefs quarterback Chase Daniel, according to Mike Garafolo of FOX Sports.
Because of his history with Doug Pederson in Kansas City, Daniel was previously thought to be a logical target if Bradford did not return to the Eagles. However, he may still make sense as a backup option if he does not find much in the way of solid opportunities around the league to be a starter.
In that scenario, from Daniel's perspective, he could look at the injury-prone Bradford and reason that the Eagles are the most likely path to playing time. As an added bonus, in Philly, Daniel would not have to learn a new playbook under former Chiefs offensive coordinator and current Eagles head coach Doug Pederson.
Speaking at the Combine, Pederson was asked about Mark Sanchez's standing with the team.
"He’s another veteran guy that you’d like to have at the backup quarterback position," said Pederson. "We had a guy in Kansas City that was a backup in Chase Daniel. I was a backup years ago. In today’s football, it helps to have two guys because of the attack style of defenses and the fact that quarterbacks sometimes can’t stay healthy for 16 games. So having a guy like that on your roster gives you that cushion."
Pederson not only said nothing positive about Sanchez, he mentioned Daniel. Sanchez is scheduled to count for $5.5 million against the Eagles' salary cap in 2016. They would save $3.5 million of that if they cut him, $4.5 million if they were able to trade him. Even with Howie Roseman successfully dumping DeMarco Murray and (possibly) Byron Maxwell's contracts, I wouldn't hold your breath on Roseman finding a sucker to trade for Sanchez.
Eagles will take 'next to nothing' for RB Ryan Mathews?
According to CBS' Jason LaCanfora, Howie Roseman is willing to deal RB Ryan Mathews for peanuts.
Roseman is motivated to pawn off running back Ryan Mathews as well, I continue to hear, and will probably take next to nothing to move him. They may be positioned to draft a back in the first round, and I would not be surprised at all if the takes the future cash and cap savings from shipping off Murray and Maxwell and invests it in an extension for Fletcher Cox and perhaps a free-agent corner as well (he’s dabbled in that market with some regularity).
Previously, Mathews was said to be on the trading block, but that was before the team was able to deal DeMarco Murray. LaCanfora's report comes after that deal was completed.
Mathews was good last season when he was healthy. He gained 539 yards and scored six touchdowns on 106 carries (5.1 yards per carry), and was far more effective than Murray. However, as he has over the entire course of his career, Mathews was unable to consistently stay healthy.
Mathews is scheduled to head into the season with a salary cap number of $4 million. The Eagles will save $2 million of that if they trade him. He would count for $2 million against the cap in dead money.
For a savings of just $2 million, you would think that the Eagles would have to get something more than "next to nothing" in return for Mathews for a trade to make sense unless there's something about Mathews we don't know.
Trade compensation for Byron Maxwell and Kiko Alonso is now known
The Eagles-Dolphins deal for Byron Maxwell and Kiko Alonso is in serious jeopardy after the Dolphins became concerned with Maxwell's shoulder. We'll be on that all day as necessary, but for now, let's discuss the return compensation.
Rumors started flying yesterday that the Eagles were swapping first round picks with the Miami Dolphins -- the Eagles would move to pick number 8 from pick number 13 -- and the Dolphins would also be sending a fourth round pick as well. Jeff Darlington on NFL Network reported that those rumors were partially correct.
That means that the trade would essentially look like this:
Eagles get Dolphins get 8th overall pick 13th overall pick Byron Maxwell Kiko Alonso
A move to pick number 8 would open up all kinds of possibilities for the Eagles if Roseman can work through this mess. A move from 13 to 8 is worth approximately a high 3rd round draft pick, according to the draft value chart.
Brandon Boykin interested in returning to the Eagles?
Appearing on a Sports Illustrated podcast, Brandon Boykin said he wouldn't rule out a return to Philly. Josh Paulnil of Birds 24/7 on the transcription:
"I wouldn't be opposed to going back to Philadelphia," Boykin said yesterday. "That's where I was drafted. We'll see what happens as far as the communication with them. Seeing as they got rid of their corner, Byron Maxwell, who I got to know a good amount before I got traded. I don't know what their M.O. is or what they're trying to do, but it wouldn't be something I would rule out for sure."
That would make sense. The Eagles can't really know what JaCorey Shepard will be in 2016 after tearing an ACL during 2015 training camp, and it's unknown how much the current regime will value him. From 2012-2014, Boykin proved to be a very good slot corner for the Eagles, and he is obviously someone who Howie Roseman once drafted.
Eagles may have interest in Bills LB Nigel Bradham
We've already seen the Eagles sign one former Buffalo Bill in Leodis McKelvin. They may also have interest in linebacker Nigel Bradham, according to Jeff McLane of the Inquirer.
Bradham, like McKelvin, had the best season of his career in 2014 playing under Jim Schwartz. He had 104 tackles, 2.5 sacks, 2 forced fumbles, an INT, and 7 pass breakups that season. He would likely fill the SAM role vacated by Kiko Alonso, who is almost certainly not going to be a starter with the Eagles this season, even if his trade to the Dolphins falls through.
Another name to watch at linebacker is the Lions' Tahir Whitehead, who also played for Schwartz in Detroit.UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones is hopeful an octagon encounter with Brock Lesnar will eventually come to fruition. However, he’s also preparing for the possibility it won’t.
Jones (23-1 MMA, 17-1 UFC), who regained the 205-pound belt with a third-round knockout of Daniel Cormier at UFC 214 last month, called out Lesnar (5-3 MMA, 4-3 UFC) following his victory, further fueling the hype for a potential matchup.
The subject of a Jones vs. Lesnar fight was first broached early in UFC 214 fight week when a fan asked “Bones” about it during a Facebook Live Q&A. Once it came up, though, he began to give it serious consideration, and from there the topic took on a life of its own.
“I had no intentions of fighting Brock Lesnar – he wasn’t on my radar,” Jones told MMAjunkie. “It’s honestly not even my style to call out people. People were asking me on Facebook Live. I didn’t expect it to go anywhere. There was only like 30 viewers logged in at the time. Little did I know Facebook Live actually records. I was just speaking freely and loosely. I got asked about Brock, and it went back to his camp, and they released a statement right away, and it kind of took off from there.”
The timing of it all is curious. Lesnar, who is typically borderline inaccessible to the media, has responded to Jones, the No. 1-ranked fighter in the latest USA TODAY Sports/MMAjunkie MMA pound-for-pound rankings, at every turn. He’s warned Jones to “be careful” what he wishes for, but whether he’s serious about another UFC comeback remains to be seen.
Lesnar has fought just once since December 2011, defeating Mark Hunt in July 2016 at UFC 200 in a result that was later overturned to a no-contest when Lesnar flunked multiple drug tests around the time of the bout. Lesnar still owes the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) more than six months of suspension time after retiring in February, which means a comeback is still far off.
Moreover, talk of Lesnar fighting for the UFC comes up on almost a yearly basis. He signs short-term contracts with WWE, and rumors of switching professions comes up each time a new negotiation period surfaces. His current deal is reportedly done after WrestleMania in April.
With that knowledge in mind, Jones knows he could simply be part of Lesnar’s ploy to maximize his next contract with WWE. However, he thinks a UFC return to fight him would be a massive financial opportunity, as well.
“I could see it being a leverage point to get paid the bigger bucks to stick around (with WWE) or come over to the UFC,” Jones said. “Either way, I think it would be great if he comes over to the UFC to get a gigantic payday, probably his biggest UFC payday. Now he has this as a leverage point from whichever direction he decides to go in. Good for Brock to have options.”
Jones said given the entire scope of the situation, he’s unlikely to fight Lesnar next. He’s still waiting on word of his next opponent but told MMAjunkie he’s open to a long-awaited rematch with Alexander Gustafsson, just not at UFC 217 in New York City.
Whatever comes in Jones’ future is going to be a significant moment as he looks to make his second UFC title reign better than the first. When it comes to big-fight opportunities, though, especially ones where he likes his chances of winning, Lesnar sits atop the mountain.
“I asked my coaches how they felt about it and everyone said, ‘You know what, Jon? That’s a very winnable fight, and it’s such a huge payday – why not?'” Jones said. “I just kept it going and have been entertaining it, and now it’s taken off. It’s something that could be in the works.”
Jones is so interested in the fight, in fact, that he may consider crashing Lesnar’s upcoming Universal Title defense at WWE SummerSlam in Brooklyn, N.Y., on Aug. 27 (via Twitter):
It's crossed my mind https://t.co/xlnbywH1y2 — Jon Bones Jones (@JonnyBones) August 9, 2017
For more on the upcoming UFC schedule, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.A federal judge reportedly denied a request for a preliminary injunction that would have banned transgender students in the Boyertown School District from using restrooms and locker rooms that correspond to their gender identity.
Judge Edward G. Smith gave the ruling Friday, three days before students head back to school on Monday, according to multiple reports.
Although a lawsuit against the school over its transgender policy is still active in court, Boyertown transgender students can still use restrooms that correspond to the gender they identify with while the suit plays out.
The school district allows transgender students to use restrooms and locker rooms that correspond to their gender identity, a policy that drew widespread attention earlier this year.
"I appreciate Judge Smith's thoughtful ruling on this matter,” Boyertown School Board President John C. Landino told the Reading Eagle. "At Boyertown Area School District, we will continue to do everything we can to protect the privacy of all students.”
The judge reportedly denied the injunction after a hearing in July and oral arguments on Aug. 11.
A student identified as Joel Doe and his parents filed the suit in March, alleging the student experienced "immediate confusion, embarrassment, humiliation and loss of dignity" when he saw a second student who identifies as male but was born female changing in the boys' locker room. That student had recently begun the transition from female to male, according to the Associated Press.
In April, three more students reportedly joined Doe in the lawsuit.
This summer, Michael Levin, the district's lawyer, argued that the district offers alternatives to communal restrooms, such as single-user restrooms, the Eagle reported. Therefore, the students' rights to privacy were not violated, he said.
The district also argued that granting the injunction would have forced the transgender students to choose between being a boy forced to change in the girls' locker room or be "stigmatized as one of the only students using single-user restrooms."
In February, President Donald Trump's administration rolled back federal guidelines specifying that transgender students have the right to use public school restrooms that match their gender identity.Image copyright PA Image caption The UK average rate of unemployment is 4.9%
Northern Ireland's unemployment rate has fallen to an eight-year low, according to new figures released through the Department for the Economy.
It now stands at 5.5%, compared to the UK average of 4.9%.
Last month also saw 400 fewer people claiming jobless benefits. September's unemployment total was 34,900 - showing a fall for the sixth month in a row.
Economy Minister Simon Hamilton said the latest figures were "good news" for Northern Ireland.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Simon Hamilton said the figures were proof that the Northern Ireland economy was heading in the right direction
"I think the economy is in really good shape," he told BBC Newsline.
"Last week we had figures that showed that the economy grew by 1.6% in the last year; 1.2% in the last quarter which is really, really encouraging levels of growth.
"Today, we're seeing that our unemployment level has fallen again.
"The number of people claiming unemployment benefits has gone down, but most importantly, our unemployment rate is at its highest level, and economic inactivity is at its lowest level on record.
"They all gather together to make good news, good signs for our economy."
'Complacency warning'
The number of people claiming unemployment-related benefits has fallen by 29,800 since it last peaked in 2013.
Image caption The UUP's economy spokesperson, Steve Aiken, warned the minister against "cherry picking" economic data
The Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) welcomed a reduction in the unemployment rate, but warned Northern Ireland Executive ministers against "complacency".
The party's economy spokesperson, Steve Aiken, said Mr Hamilton "should try to avoid cherry picking the data".
'Challenges'
The UUP MLA said Northern Ireland "suffered the largest percentage loss of jobs of any region during the last recession" and added that its recovery "lags behind" the rest of the UK.
"Our youth unemployment and economic inactivity rates are still well above the UK average," Mr Aiken said.
"There are big economic challenges which must be faced. Low productivity, low regional gross domestic product, loss of manufacturing jobs, high energy costs and the uncertainty over looming Brexit."
Speaking later on BBC Radio Ulster's Evening Extra programme, the economy minister said he "wouldn't dismiss for a second that there are challenges still in our economy and challenges in the future but we are definitely heading in the right direction".“Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious were both punched in the face by girl fans as the Sex Pistols performed today deep in the heart of Texas.” That was the lede for the English newspaper The Evening News covering the Pistol’s concert at The Longhorn Ballroom in Dallas, TX on January 10, 1978. It proved to be one of the strangest, most contentions shows in one of the strangest, most contentious tours in rock history. You can watch it above. All 37 minutes.
By the time of the concert, the Sex Pistols were already notorious in the U.K. They had released a single – “God Save the Queen” – that called Britain’s head of state a fascist on the date of her Silver Jubilee. The single became a huge hit in spite of – or perhaps because of – it getting banned by the BBC. They famously hurled obscenities at a chat show host on live TV. But to be fair, host Bill Grundy literally asked for it. “You've got another five seconds,” he told Johnny Rotten and company. “Say something outrageous.” They did.
Though the band started out as an elaborate Situationist-inspired performance art piece dreamed up by megalomaniac manager Malcolm McLaren, they evolved beyond just being a stunt. Their music was loud, aggressive and gleefully nihilist with lines like “And I wanna be anarchist, I get pissed, destroy!” That music and that attitude touched some deep simmering well of cultural discontent -- be it lower class frustrations, dissatisfaction with consumer culture or some darker primal urge to burn everything down. Their music resonated.
For their 1978 tour of the United States, McLaren wasn’t interested in building a fan base. He was interested in pissing people off. So the tour completely bypassed seemingly obvious tour stops, like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, in favor of places like Memphis, Tulsa and San Antonio – none of which were exactly hot beds for punk. A famous picture of the marquee of the Longhorn Balloon shows the Pistols listed alongside Merle Haggard, giving you a feel for just how weird this tour was. Prior to the concert, Sid Vicious confessed his fears to a reporter about playing in Dallas. “They killed Kennedy here and everybody has warned us that the people are crazy. I think there’s a real danger that this is the town where I am going to be blown away.” (Weird historical side note: The Longhorn Ballroom was owned for a spell by Jack Ruby, the guy who shot Lee Harvey Oswald.)
The police were also reportedly worried. The Dallas police department had a SWAT team ready just in case the show turned into a riot. It didn’t, but just barely. The audience was equally split between hardcore fans – for example, Lamar St. John, the woman who decked Sid Vicious in the nose, drove from Los Angeles to see the show – and skeptical locals who wanted to see what the fuss was all about |
all departed from the company mutually or due to budget cuts followed by the spring to summer of the year of 2005 where Molly Holly, Dawn Marie, Jackie Gayda, and Ivory also left the company. The departures officially left Trish Stratus, Lita, Victoria, Torrie Wilson, Stacy Keibler, and Lilian Garcia as the remaining original female talent who would continue on in the company. Eventually, Sharmell, Jazz, and Gail Kim would return to the company in either short-lived or long-term second tenures. The most notable departures came in the year of 2006 from the middle of the year until the end of the year starting first when Stacy Keibler departed the company due to transitioning into an acting career followed by at the end of the year as Trish Stratus retired at Unforgiven and Lita retired at Survivor Series. The departures finally left Victoria, Torrie Wilson, Jazz, Sharmell, Gail Kim, and Lilian Garcia as the remaining final group of original female talents continuing on with the company until most the final group departed one by one leaving Lilian Garcia as the only remaining original female talent left in the company until her departure in spring of 2016.[53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][62]
Although most if not all original female talent left WWE, Trish Stratus, Lita, Sunny, Molly Holly, Victoria, Torrie Wilson, Jackie Gayda, Stacy Keibler, Lilian Garcia, Terri Runnels, Jacqueline, Ivory, and Alundra Blayze would make special appearances or appear in special guest roles with the company in later years.
New Era (2005-2008) Edit
Lita and Stratus carried on and continued their feud entering the year of 2005. They faced each other again at the New Year's Revolution pay-per-view event, that led to Lita suffering another injury by tearing her ACL. However, she kept herself visible in Christy Hemme's feud with Stratus before transitioning into Edge's valet. Sensational Sherri made a cameo appearance on the March 25, 2005 episode of SmackDown! in Shawn Michaels and Kurt Angle's feud, where Sherri and Angle sang a parody of Michaels' entrance theme.[7] WWE introduced a new host of female talents in what would be a new generation of Divas with the company.
Melina made her debut part of the tag team trio as MNM in WWE on the April 14, 2005, episode of SmackDown!.[63] While managing the WWE Tag Team Champions, Melina's character was developed to be more egotistical as she declared herself "the most-dominant Diva in WWE".[36] She made her official WWE in-ring debut on June 30 against Michelle McCool and had her first pay-per-view match against Torrie Wilson at The Great American Bash, winning both matches.[64][65] Trish Stratus returned from a legitimate injury to help Ashley Massaro against Candice Michelle, Torrie Wilson, and Victoria who Massaro was feuding at that time.[66]
Mickie James debuted in WWE on the October 10, 2005 episode of Raw, under her real name, as an obsessed fan of Trish Stratus.[67][68][69] The storyline had James and Stratus competing together in tag team matches, with James' character becoming increasingly infatuated with Stratus.[70][71][72] This led to various angles including a Halloween Costume Contest in which James was dressed like Stratus and helped Stratus retain the Women's Championship in a Fulfill Your Fantasy Battle Royal at Taboo Tuesday by eliminating herself and Victoria at the same time to even utilizing Stratus' signature finishing moves as her own during matches.[67][73][74][75][76] Subsequently, the storyline between Mickie and Trish also developed into a lesbian angle after Mickie had a kiss with Trish under a sprig of mistletoe. In the championship match at the pay-per-view, James lost to Stratus, but continued to be enamored of her the next night on Raw, and she confessed her love for Stratus at the Royal Rumble.[75][77] On March 6, 2006, the storyline had Stratus confronting James, telling her that they needed time apart from each other.[67][75][78]
The climax of the storyline led to James and Stratus wrestling each other at WrestleMania 22 for the Women's Championship, where James won the match and became the new champion.[79] Her angle with Stratus continued into Backlash during a rematch after Stratus legitimately dislocated her shoulder when James threw her out of the ring.[80][81] Beth Phoenix then debuted on the May 8, 2006 episode of Raw attacking Mickie James while James was assaulting Trish Stratus. After this incident, James berated Phoenix for "ruining everything" and questioned why she even showed up in the first place.[82][83] A week later, Phoenix was formally introduced by Stratus and then attacked a distracted James on Stratus's behalf. When James finally escaped, Phoenix claimed that James had ruined her life and would not let her get away with it, before calling her a "psycho".[84]
Layla made her first "official" WWE appearance at the 2006 SummerSlam pay-per-view in a backstage segment with several other divas as a form of initiation.[85] The week after SummerSlam, she made her debut as a member of the SmackDown brand in a in-ring segment with Mike "The Miz" Mizanin although he did not allow her the chance to say much, spending most of the time talking about himself.[86] Subsequently, she did not appear on WWE television for almost a month, reappearing on the September 22 episode of SmackDown! and getting into a confrontation with both Kristal and Jillian Hall.[87]
Trish Stratus celebrating her victory as a record 7-time WWE Women's Champion in her final match
On the March 5, 2007 episode of Raw, Mickie James and Melina competed in the first Falls Count Anywhere match to be contested between Divas. It was also the first time that the Women's Championship was contested in this type of match. At Vengeance: Night of Champions in 2007, Candice Michelle became the first woman from the WWE Diva Search contest to become the WWE Women's Champion.[88] In December 2007, Trish Stratus, Lita, Molly Holly, and Sunny returned to WWE for a one night special appearance on an episode of Raw due to the show's 15-year anniversary.[89] At One Night Stand 2008, Beth Phoenix and Melina competed in the first "I Quit" match to be contested between Divas.
Divas Championship and title unification (2008–2012) Edit
The WWE Divas Championship was introduced in middle-2008 on the June 6, 2008 episode of SmackDown, when then SmackDown General Manager Vickie Guerrero announced the creation of the championship, a SmackDown Diva exclusive title. Natalya and Michelle McCool became the first two contenders for the new championship, and, at The Great American Bash, McCool defeated Natalya to become the inaugural champion. At WrestleMania XXV, former WWE Divas Sunny, Victoria, Molly Holly, Torrie Wilson, Miss Jackie, and Joy Giovanni returned to WWE for a one night special appearance in the 25 Divas Battle Royal match to crown Miss Wrestlemania.[90] During the 2009 WWE draft, then Women's Champion Melina was drafted to the SmackDown brand, making the Women's title exclusive to SmackDown. Later that same night, then Divas Champion Maryse was drafted to the Raw brand, making the championship exclusive to Raw, effectively switching both female champions and championships between brands for the first time in history. At The Bash in 2009, Michelle McCool defeated Melina to capture the Women's Championship and became the first Diva to have ever held both the Women's Championship and the Divas Championship. Mickie James defeated Maryse on July 26, 2009 at Night Of Champions, ending Maryse's reign at 216 days (also the longest reign of the title at the time) and becoming the second Diva to hold the Divas Championship and Women's Championship.[91] James lost the title 78 days later to Jillian Hall on Raw,[92] where Hall lost the title four minutes later to Melina who became the third woman to hold both titles.[93][94]
On February 22, 2010 episode of Raw, Maryse won again the Divas Championship after defeating Gail Kim in a tournament, becoming the first Diva to hold the title twice.[95] On the April 12, episode of Raw, Eve Torres won the Divas Championship by defeating Maryse thus becoming the first Diva Search winner to win the Divas Championship. Mickie James was released from WWE on April 22, causing a lot of controversy. Beth Phoenix became the new Women's Champion for the third time on April 25, 2010 in an Extreme Makeover at Extreme Rules pay-per-view.[96] On the May 14, 2010 episode of SmackDown, Layla won the Women's Championship for the first time by defeating Beth Phoenix in a two-on one tornado handicap match with Michelle McCool thus become the only British Women's Champion (McCool was unofficially the co-champion During this reign, she defended the championship in Layla's place on some occasions, but was not officially recognized as the title holder).
At Night of Champions 2010, the Divas Championship was unified with the Women's Championship as then Divas Champion Melina faced then-self professed co-Women's Champion Michelle McCool in a lumberjill match. McCool won the match to unify the two titles due to interference from Layla, then McCool locked in her finisher, thus creating the Unified Divas Championship following the lineage and history of the Divas Championship. This also made the Women's Championship defunct after 54 years, which made Layla the final title holder. McCool lost the title to Natalya on 21 November 2010 at Survivor Series in a handicap match involving Layla,[97] and then they competed against Natalya and Beth Phoenix in the first tables match of the Divas division at TLC: Tables, Ladders and Chairs.
Despite not being what WWE typically viewed as a WWE Diva, on August 31, WWE signed 6'9" female wrestler Isis the Amazon who was set to compete under the ring name Aloisia. She appeared on the show vignette for the third season of NXT, but was released two weeks later, due to the company allegedly finding adult photos, and was replaced by Kaitlyn on the show. On the November 30 season finale of NXT, Kaitlyn was announced as the winner of season three, defeating Naomi in the final to become WWE's first "breakout Diva".[98]
In late December 2010, WWE signed world-renowned wrestler, Kharma, formerly known as Amazing/Awesome Kong. The company proceeded to air disturbing video packages of her flicking off heads of female dolls and laughing maniacally building towards her tentative arrival. Stacy Keibler would make an appearance on the third episode of the re-launched season of Tough Enough on April 18. Kharma made her debut at Extreme Rules attacking Michelle McCool and making a huge impact through the course of a couple weeks on Raw and SmackDown. She was later granted a maternity leave due to her real life pregnancy.[99] Michelle McCool retired from WWE on May 1, after losing to Layla in a Loser Leaves WWE match. On the June 20, 2011 special episode of Raw "Power to the People", Kelly Kelly won a fan vote to determine the challenger for the Divas Championship that night; Kelly went on to win her first Divas Championship by defeating Brie Bella. Her win later garnered her a Slammy Award for "Divalicious Moment of the Year" and she also went on to become the youngest Divas Champion in WWE history, until her record was broken by Paige in 2014. Melina was also released in early August. Gail Kim resigned from WWE on August 5, 2011, due to frustration with WWE's lack of focus on the women's division. She was officially released, for the second time, on September 30, 2011. However, she returned to TNA once again in October.
In late Summer 2011, the controversial issue of what makes a "true" WWE Diva was largely disputed, stemming from an article posted on WWE.com and the high-profile feud between Kelly Kelly and Eve against The Divas of Doom; Beth Phoenix and Natalya.[100][101][102] Phoenix defeated Kelly Kelly for the title at Hell in a Cell. Maryse was released from her WWE contract on October 28. On the April 23 episode of Raw, Nikki Bella defeated Beth Phoenix in a lumberjill match for the Divas Championship, ending Phoenix's reign as champion at 204 days.[103][104] Layla returned from her injury on April 29, 2012 at Extreme Rules and defeated Nikki Bella to become the fifth woman to have held both titles.[105] The Bella Twins' contracts expired the following night, where they were fired by Eve Torres in the storyline.[106][107]
In July, Kharma was moved to the alumni section on WWE.com, and she later confirmed her release from the company. On July 9, 2012, Eve Torres and AJ Lee became the first Divas to main event Raw since Trish Stratus and Lita in 2004, in a tag team match alongside CM Punk and Daniel Bryan. During mid-2012, AJ became involved in various relationship storylines with several male wrestlers such as CM Punk, Daniel Bryan, Kane, John Cena and Dolph Ziggler, including a stint as the General Manager of Raw. On September 16, 2012, at the Night of Champions pay-per-view, Eve Torres defeated Layla to win the Divas Championship, becoming the first Diva in history to hold the title on three occasions.[108] On September 28, Kelly Kelly was released from her WWE contract due to her absence from the company.[109]
On October 29, 2012, Beth Phoenix left WWE after her contract expired. Her final match was on Raw defeating AJ Lee after Vickie Guerrero restarted the match. A month after Phoenix's departure, WWE published an article on their website claiming that there was a new era for the Divas division.[110] At TLC, AJ interfered in John Cena's ladder match against Dolph Ziggler, pushing Cena off the ladder.[111]
Beginning of Total Divas (2013–2015) Edit
AJ Lee tied Eve Torres at three in September 2014. She is the second longest reigning WWE Divas Champion at 295 Days. She was also the first and only woman to defend the WWE Divas Championship at Wrestlemania.
The 20th anniversary of Raw on January 14, 2013 saw Kaitlyn defeat Eve Torres for the Divas Championship. Eve departed the company later that night after her contract expired.[112] The Bella Twins returned to WWE on the March 11, 2013 episode of Raw.[113] Kaitlyn lost her Divas Championship to her former tag team partner AJ Lee on Payback, ending her reign at 153 days. The first in-ring Divas contract signing took place on the July 12, 2013 episode of SmackDown between AJ Lee and Kaitlyn, as part of buildup for a rematch of the Divas Championship at Money In the Bank. AJ defeated Kaitlyn to retain the title at the event.
In October 2012, WWE hired Renee Young, and in September 2013, Young made her commentary debut on NXT, making her the first female on-air commentator in the company in over a decade.
Paige was the youngest Divas Champion. She won the title on her debut at the age of 21.
In July 2013, the first season of the Total Divas reality television show starring WWE Divas premiered.[114] On the August 26 episode of Raw, AJ Lee cut a worked shoot promo on the cast of Total Divas, stemming again, but partially from the controversial issue of what makes a "true" WWE Diva and the theme of the show leading towards a feud between Lee and the cast. At the 2013 Slammy Awards show, the Diva of the Year award was won by Brie and Nikki Bella. On January 8, 2014, Kaitlyn decided to depart from WWE to pursue other endeavors, losing her last match against her former friend and rival Divas Champion AJ Lee.[115] Later on towards the end of the month, AJ Lee became the longest reigning Divas Champion in history, surpassing Maryse's reign of 216 days.[116] On the March 12 episode of Main Event, Lee successfully defended the Divas Championship against Natalya, in a match that lasted fourteen minutes—the longest women's championship match since 1987.[117] On the March 24 episode of Raw, it was announced by Vickie Guerrero that Lee would defend her Divas Championship against the entire Divas roster at WrestleMania XXX, making it the first time the title would be defended at WrestleMania.[118] At the event, AJ Lee retained her championship by forcing Naomi to submit.[118]
On the post-WrestleMania episode of Raw on April 7, 2014, Paige made her debut on the main roster and defeated AJ Lee for the Divas Championship ending her record reign at 295 days. With this win, Paige became the first NXT female talent to hold both the NXT Women's and Divas Championships simultaneously as well as becoming the youngest Divas Champion in WWE history at the age of 21.[119]
Brie Bella entered a storyline with Stephanie McMahon after at Payback — as part of her husband Daniel Bryan's storyline with McMahon — McMahon threatened to fire Bella if, an injured, Bryan did not relinquish the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, which forced Brie to "quit" before slapping McMahon in the face.[120] In mid-June, Vickie Guerrero departed mutually from WWE, after losing to Stephanie McMahon in a pudding match.[121] AJ Lee returned after a two-month hiatus, defeating Paige in an impromptu match to regain the Divas Championship as both then traded the championship until at SummerSlam then Night of Champions.[122] At SummerSlam, Stephanie McMahon defeated Brie Bella in her first match in ten years, after Nikki Bella attacked her sister.[123] This led to a match between the twins at Hell in a Cell, where the loser was forced to become the winner's personal assistant for 30 days, where Nikki defeated Brie.[124] AJ Lee won the Divas Championship for a record-tying third time at Night of Champions against Paige and Nikki Bella.[125] With this win, AJ Lee tied with Eve Torres for the most reigns ever at three.
Nikki Bella received her title match against AJ Lee on November 23 at Survivor Series, which she won, with Brie's help, to become a two–time Divas Champion.[126] The duo had reconciled at this point.[127][128][129]
Divas Revolution (2015–2016) Edit
Total Divas to hold the title while on the cast. Nikki Bella is the longest reigning Divas Champion at 301 days, and is the only member ofto hold the title while on the cast.
On the February 23, 2015 episode of Raw, The Bella Twins faced Paige and Emma in a widely criticized match that lasted around 30 seconds. After the match, a hashtag on Twitter trended worldwide for around 1.5 days, called #GiveDivasAChance. This hashtag brought attention to various multi-media outlets over the long-tenured controversy over the company's treatment of their women's division, including AJ Lee who publicly criticized Stephanie McMahon over the issue.[130][131][132] On April 3, 2015, five days after Lee and Paige defeated the Bella Twins at WrestleMania 31,[133] WWE announced that AJ Lee decided to retire from in-ring competition and would depart from the company.[134] In June, Paige started serving as a judge on the sixth season of Tough Enough, while Renee Young appeared as co-host of the show and Lita served as a coach.[135][136]
On the July 13, 2015 episode of Raw, Nikki Bella claimed that there were no challengers for her championship. As a result, Stephanie McMahon proclaimed a revolution in the women's division and introduced Charlotte, Becky Lynch, and the NXT Women's Champion Sasha Banks as the newest additions to the main roster.[137][138] In the following weeks, a three-way feud began between Team B.A.D. (Naomi, Tamina and Sasha Banks), Team Bella (Alicia Fox and The Bella Twins) and Team PCB (Paige, Charlotte, and Becky Lynch), with the latter team being renamed from Submission Sorority due to links to adult content.[139][140] The three teams faced off at SummerSlam in a three team elimination match, where Becky pinned Brie to win the match for Team PCB.[141]
On July 29, WWE announced that Layla would depart from the company and retire.[142] On the August 31 episode of Raw, Nikki introduced the Bellatron timer which counted down the remaining time until she surpassed the record for the longest–reigning Divas champion of all time. Charlotte won the first Beat the Clock challenge for a title shot.[143][144] Her title match with Nikki was initially advertised for Night of Champions,[145] but instead took place the Raw preceding the pay-per-view, after Charlotte issued a petition, granted later by The Authority, to face Nikki before she surpassed the record to become the longest–reigning Divas Champion.[146] Charlotte won the match by disqualification when Brie and Nikki switched places and Charlotte pinned Brie. However, since the title could not change hands by disqualification, Nikki retained the championship, and in the process, became the longest reigning Divas Champion in history, surpassing AJ Lee's previous record of 295 days.[147] Several days later, on September 20 at Night of Champions, Nikki lost the championship to Charlotte, ending her reign at 301 days.[148] Shortly after, Nikki went on a hiatus from television due to a neck injury which would require surgery,[149][150] but returned for one night on December 21, to accept the Slammy Award for Diva of the Year.[151][151]
Women's Evolution (2016–present) Edit
The WWE Women's Championship would return in the year of 2016 when Lita unveiled a brand-new Women's Championship belt during the WrestleMania 32 pre-show to signify a change in the status of the division.[2] The title shares its name with the original Women's Championship, however, the new title does not share the same title history as the original as it was merged into the Divas Championship in 2010 when it followed its lineage and history. WWE acknowledges the original championship as its predecessor,[152] and notes that the lineage of female champions dates back to The Fabulous Moolah's reign in 1956. The then-current Divas Champion Charlotte would win the new championship by defeating Becky Lynch and Sasha Banks in a triple threat match. This also made the Divas Championship defunct after 8 years, which made Charlotte the final title holder. It was also announced that female performers in the WWE would be referred to as "WWE Superstars" in the future, the same as their male counterparts as the term 'Diva' would be dropped after seventeen years since April 1999 when the company began using the term for the women's division. The following day on Raw, Maryse returned to WWE interfering in her real life husband, The Miz's Intercontinental Championship match against Zack Ryder by helping him win the title for the fifth time.[153] Three months later, WWE would re-introduce the brand extension on July 19 and WWE Women's Champion Charlotte would be drafted to the Raw brand, making the Women's title exclusive to Raw leaving SmackDown without a women's championship yet again for the second time in history.
Alexa Bliss is the first woman to have held both the Raw and SmackDown Women's Championships, holding the former three times and the latter twice, making her an overall five-time champion in WWE.
Lilian Garcia would depart from the WWE yet again on August 1, 2016 due to personal reasons as her departure would officially leave a brand new generation of WWE female talents. Nikki Bella returned from a legitimate injury at SummerSlam in a six-woman tag team match. The WWE SmackDown Women's Championship was introduced on the August 23, 2016 episode of SmackDown, when SmackDown General Manager Daniel Bryan and Commissioner Shane McMahon announced the creation of the championship, a SmackDown women's exclusive title and announced that the inaugural champion would be determined at Backlash in a six-pack challenge between Alexa Bliss, Becky Lynch, Carmella, Naomi, Natalya, and Nikki Bella, where Becky Lynch became the inaugural champion.[154] Most of the year of 2016 saw Charlotte and Sasha Banks feuding and trading the WWE Raw Women's Championship including main eventing Raw twice (one in a Falls Count Anywhere match to be contested between women since 2007) since Trish Stratus & Lita in December 2004, for the Women's Championship, competing in the first ever female Hell in a Cell match in WWE history at Hell in a Cell, also the championship was revealed to be the main event of the pay-per-view, marking the first time a women's match would headline a WWE pay-per-view event. Mickie James would return to WWE in a one night only match when it was announced by the company in late October 2016 that she would compete against title holder, Asuka for the NXT Women's Championship in the developmental territory's semi-monthly NXT TakeOver event.[155] On the November 29 edition of SmackDown Live, it was announced that Becky Lynch would defend the SmackDown Women's title against Alexa Bliss at TLC in the second female tables match since 2010, where Bliss defeated Lynch to become new champion.
Mickie James would return to WWE on the January 17, 2017 episode of SmackDown Live by helping Alexa Bliss retain her SmackDown Women's Championship against Becky Lynch in a main event steel cage match. WWE announced on January 28, 2017 that Nikki Bella would serve as an executive producer for Total Divas starting in the second half of the sixth season in April. Nikki would become the first female talent within the company to become a producer of a company related show.[156] Naomi and Charlotte Flair competed for the SmackDown Women's Championship in the main event on the April 25th edition of SmackDown Live which would the second time female talents competed in a match in the main event of the show. At Payback, Alexa Bliss became the first female talent to win both company branded female championships since the re-introduction of the championship and brand extension. The first female Money in the Bank ladder match was announced by SmackDown Commissioner Shane McMahon on the May 30, 2017 edition of SmackDown Live as Charlotte Flair, Natalya, Becky Lynch, Tamina, and Carmella competed in a ladder match at Money in the Bank to become the number one contender for the SmackDown Women's Championship for a championship match at a later date. Carmella won the match that caused much controversy because none of the women climbed the ladder and took the briefcase. Carmella was stripped of the briefcase and a new ladder match was set up for the June 27th edition of SmackDown Live which Carmella officially won the match fairly.
On the September 11 episode of Raw, it was announced that Asuka had been signed to the Raw brand. During the No Mercy Kickoff show, it was announced that Asuka would make her main roster debut on October 22 at the TLC: Tables, Ladders & Chairs event. She went on to defeat Emma at the event and again the following day in her Raw debut. This was Emma's last match in WWE as her contract has expired. On the November 14 edition of SmackDown Live, Charlotte Flair defeated Natalya to win the championship in her hometown, in the process became the first female talent to win the company's present new WWE female championship titles including the developmental championship. Six days later on November 20th, Paige returned after over a year away. Stephanie McMahon announced on December 18 that at Royal Rumble (2018) there would be the first ever female Royal Rumble match.
Beth Phoenix returned to the company as a on-air commentator for a new half hour web series show called WWE Mixed Match Challenge, a tournament made up exclusively of mixed tag-teams.[157] Terri Runnels, Jacqueline, Lilian Garcia, Torrie Wilson, Trish Stratus, Michelle McCool, and Kelly Kelly would also return to the company by making special appearances for the company's 25th anniversary of Raw; this marked the first on-screen appearance for Runnels and Jacqueline on WWE programming since both departing the company in 2004. All of these legends were a part of the women's Royal Rumble excluding Lilian Garcia and Terri Runnels. Lita, Beth Phoenix, Molly Holly, and Vickie Guerrero also made their in ring returns during the Royal Rumble. The female Royal Rumble was the main event of the pay-per-view, thus marking the first time women were in the main event of a big four PPV event. After a 58:57 match, the longest women's match in WWE history, Asuka emerged victorious. After the conclusion of the match, former UFC Women's Bantamweight Champion Ronda Rousey made an appearance in the ring and subsequently revealed that she had been signed as a WWE wrestler. The following month, the first ever women's Elimination Chamber took place, in which Alexa Bliss defended and retained her Raw Women's Championship. The match also involved Sasha Banks, Bayley, Sonya Deville, Mandy Rose, and Mickie James.
On Monday April 9th, the night after WrestleMania 34, Paige would be retiring from in-ring competition due to her injury. Then the following night on Raw, after Paige's retirement, Shane Mcmahon would be announcing Paige as general manager replacing Daniel Bryan. After 287 days (the longest period for a wrestler to hold the contract) and a few attempts to cash in her briefcase on Charlotte Flair,[158][159][160] Carmella officially cashed in her contract on the April 10 episode of SmackDown Live and defeated Flair, after she had been attacked by the debuting The IIconics (Billie Kay and Peyton Royce), to win the SmackDown Women's Championship for the first time in her career.[161][162] By cashing in her briefcase, Carmella became the first woman in WWE to successfully cash-in her Money in the Bank opportunity.[163]
On the July 23, 2018 edition of Raw, Stephanie McMahon announced WWE Evolution, the first WWE all-women's pay-per-view event that will take place on Sunday, October 28, 2018 at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, in Uniondale, New York.[164] All of WWE's women's championships will be defended and the finals of the 2018 Mae Young Classic tournament will take place at Evolution. Also, at SummerSlam, Ronda Rousey defeated Alexa Bliss to win the Raw Women's Championship, becoming the first woman to win a women's championship in UFC and WWE. At WWE Evolution, Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair made history by competing in the first-ever Last Woman Standing match, which Lynch won. At the TLC: Tables, Ladders & Chairs pay-per-view, the first-ever women's triple threat Tables, Ladders, and Chairs match took place, where Asuka defeated Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair to capture the Smackdown Women's Championship, which was the first time that title was featured in the main event match of pay-per-view. It was also the first women's championship match to main event a dual branded event.[165][166][167][168][169][170]
The WWE Women's Tag Team Championship would be re-introduced at Elimination Chamber. The title shares its name with the original Women's Tag Team Championship, however, the new title does not share the same title history as the original. The announcement of the championship being re-introduced came at the end of the year of 2018 on the December 24th edition of Raw in a segment then unveiled in another segment entering the year of 2019 on the January 14th edition of Raw, including the title match in a tag team Elimination Chamber match, that featured three teams from Raw and three teams from SmackDown, making the titles unaffiliated with either brand as Bayley and Sasha Banks would win the new championship and be the inaugural champions. [171][172][173]Spam is the bane of blogs, ugly links trying to nest its way into your blog comments section to trick your readers to buy their products, download spyware, or just build links. We don’t want it, none of us do, and luckily there are ways to stop it.
Solutions in the Blog Platform
You can do it manually, which will work perfectly fine to start with. Just moderate every comment, no problem right? Wrong. That will take time, and the more readers and Google juice your blog gets, the more spam will hit you. It is just not humanly possible to manage spam on a larger blog, it will get out of hand really quick.
Enter the anti-spam measures taken by the blogging platforms. In WordPress you can set up a blacklist and stop all comments with more than two links, for instance, which will help out a bit. Similar solutions are available for Movable Type. Problem is, spammers are sometimes very bright, which means that they alter their spam comments to trick you, so you’ll end up with a bunch of spam comments getting by your line of defence.
Enter the Spam Fighting Plugins
The real way to tackle blog spam is using plugins.
Akismet is something of an industry leader, developed by Automattic and shipped with WordPress. The plugin is free for personal use, but there are problogger licenses. Akismet started as a WordPress plugin, but nowadays it is available for other platforms as well, including Movable Type, various forum software, and more.
Defensio is a fairly new anti-spam solution similar to Akismet. It is available for both WordPress and Movable Type, as well as other platforms, which is a good thing. The plugin is free for personal use, but commercial adopters will have to pay.
TypePad AntiSpam is Six Apart’s brand new anti-spam plugin built on the TypePad platform’s spam protection. It’s in beta and totally free at the moment, and available for both Movable Type and WordPress, with more platforms coming soon. The plugin got a very good testimonial from TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington, who puts it in the same level of effectiveness as Akismet, which is a great start. TypePad AntiSpam is a plugin that learns from what you mark as spam, which means that you need to work a bit to get the plugin to be really effective. It will be very interesting to follow this one.
Other options are of course available, mostly for WordPress. Spam Karma 2 used to be a lifesaver for me, until Akismet got really effective, and I’ve had clients being happy with Bad Behaviour. I’d also like to flag for Mollom, an anti-spam plugin for Drupal that is available for WordPress and apparently is looking go the same way as Akismet and TypePad AntiSpam, with wider platform support.
My Weapons of Choice in the Spam War
I used to have a combination of Akismet and Spam Karma 2 on my WordPress blogs, which means most of my sites, and it’s been working really well. However, the last 6 months or so I’ve settled for Akismet, and actually haven’t had the need to utilize any other anti-spam plugin. Defensio is yet to impress me, although I wouldn’t rule it out. I am waiting for more users to report on how it is working for them, should it get a lot of positive press I’ll probably give it a serious go on one of the larger public sites.
Six Apart’s TypePad AntiSpam plugin is the most interesting one, however, and I’ll be using it on an upcoming project to see how it turns out.
How do you battle comment spam on your blog, and how is the war coming along? Share your experiences in the comments.Posted on November 7, 2013
Carney vs. Karl: White House Unable To Point To Quote Obama Claims He Made On Obamacare
JON KARL: On Monday the president said that f you had one of these plans before the Affordable Care Act came into law, you really like that plan, what we have said is that you can keep it if it hasn't changed since the law was passed. I'm wondering, could you give me a citation of when the president ever said such a thing.
JAY CARNEY: Sure, we went through this the other day, the president was referring to the law, and I can obviously point you to the law, and people who covered it and wrote it.
KARL: But he says, "what we have said." When did he actually say that?
CARNEY: I understand, John, and I answered this the other day. I understand the point you're trying to make, John. What I said is that he was referring to the law, and to the publishing of the rule, which was covered, again, by news organizations. About the grandfathering clause, where Kathleen Sebelius and others were quoted.
The fact of the matter is, as you know, the vast majority of the American people already receive health insurance through their employer, or Medicare or Medicaid or through the Veterans Administration. 15% of the country is uninsured. And because of the expansion of Medicaid or the marketplaces, they have available to them quality affordable health insurance for the first time.
Five percent of the country gets its insurance on the individual market. The law is written so that those who had plans when the law was passed could have those plans grandfathered in, and the point -- I understand that there's a lot of discussion about this, and, but if you had that plan before the law passed, you're grandfathered in.
What is absolutely the case is in the market itself, in that section of the insurance market, the individual insurance market, there is a tremendous amount of turnover, and there always has been. People come in and out of that market, their policies are routinely changed |
Sailor Moon, Princess Tutu, Aria the Animation ) is serving as chief director. Kenichi Kasai ( Honey and Clover, Nodame Cantabile, Bakuman. ) is directing the series at J.C. Staff, with scripts by Deko Akao ( Yes! Precure 5, Arakawa Under the Bridge, Snow White With the Red Hair ). Yoko Ito ( Love Stage!! ) is designing the characters. Additional staff members include:
Art Director: Chikako Shibata (Studio Kanon)
Color Key: Miyuki Ishida
Director of Photography: Hidenori Manaka, Shingo Fukuyo
Editing: Hitomi Sudō(REAL-T)
Music: GONTITI
Music Production: Flying DogThere is a girl at my church who is so beautiful and smart. she also loves god the way I see her praise god is fantastic and she does it like she means it. i'm in 7th grade but she is in 8th I have liked her for so long but the truth is I have never met her and I don't know what to do I have liked her for...
There is a girl at my church who is so beautiful and smart. she also loves god the way I see her praise god is fantastic and she does it like she means it. i'm in 7th grade but she is in 8th I have liked her for so long but the truth is I have never met her and I don't know what to do I have liked her for about 8 years now and never made a single move to get to know her what should I do?An example of the variation found in treehoppers, more of which can be found courtesy of Prud'homme and Gompel lab's site here.
MARSEILLE, France, May 4 (UPI) -- A cicada-like creature called the treehopper has a third pair of wings in a reversal of usual insect evolution, French scientists say.
The findings by Benjamin Prud'homme and colleagues at the Institute of the Biology of Development in Marseille are reported in the journal Nature this week.
Insects' wings vary widely, but it was believed they grew only from the second and third segments of the thorax. The treehopper's "helmet," which grows from the first thoracic segment, runs the length of the body, and has a range of colors, shapes and sizes.
Previous research suggested the helmet came from exoskeletal plates on the first thoracic segment. Prud'homme and his team say it is actually a fused pair of wings, although it is not used for flying.
The researchers say the treehoppers' helmet is the first known example of new body appendages appearing in more than 250 million years of insect evolution.Ready to fight back? Sign up for Take Action Now and get three actions in your inbox every week. You will receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here. Sign up for Take Action Now and get three actions in your inbox every week.
Thank you for signing up. For more from The Nation, check out our latest issue
Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month!
Support Progressive Journalism The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter. The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter.
Fight Back! Sign up for Take Action Now and we’ll send you three meaningful actions you can take each week. You will receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here. Sign up for Take Action Now and we’ll send you three meaningful actions you can take each week.
Thank you for signing up. For more from The Nation, check out our latest issue
Travel With The Nation Be the first to hear about Nation Travels destinations, and explore the world with kindred spirits. Be the first to hear about Nation Travels destinations, and explore the world with kindred spirits.
Sign up for our Wine Club today. Did you know you can support The Nation by drinking wine?
Two years ago, a young activist named Cecily McMillan attended a protest at Zuccotti Park marking the six-month anniversary of Occupy Wall Street. When police moved in to clear the demonstrators, a cop roughly grabbed her breast—photos show an ugly bruise—and she ended up being injured so badly that she had a seizure and ended up in the hospital. In a just world, she would be getting restitution from the City. Instead, in a grotesque act of prosecutorial overreach, she’s currently on trial for assault and facing up to seven years in prison. Ad Policy
According to prosecutors, McMillan, now 25, intentionally attacked her arresting officer, Grantley Bovel, by elbowing him in the face, and was then hurt when he tried to subdue her. She says that she instinctively struck out when she felt his hand on her breast, not knowing that he was a cop, and was then further assaulted.
Her story is more convincing for a number of reasons. McMillan, a veteran of the anti–Scott Walker protests in Wisconsin, was a dedicated pacifist; in Dissent, her masters thesis adviser Maurice Isserman writes about the “many and long discussions Cecily and I have had about nonviolence.” Her injuries, which you can see in this Democracy Now! piece, are indisputable, particularly the hand-shaped bruise on her right breast.
Meanwhile, The Guardian, which has covered McMillan’s case closely, reports that Bovel has twice been investigated by Internal Affairs, including for one incident in which he and his partner were alleged to have run down a 17-year-old on a dirt bike. He received a “command discipline” for failing to radio that they were in pursuit. In another case, he was filmed kicking a suspect on the floor of a Bronx bodega. (Unfortunately, the judge in McMillan’s case has ruled against turning Bovel’s internal disciplinary file over to the defense.) Austin Guest, a protester who was arrested the same day as McMillan, is currently suing him, claiming that Bovel purposefully bashed his head into the seats of a police bus as he was dragged down the aisle.
In her opening argument last week, assistant district attorney Erin Choi tried to use McMillan’s outcry during the arrest against her. Choi quoted McMillan asking onlookers, “Are you filming this? Are you filming this?” Choi’s implication was that McMillan didn’t want her premeditated attack on tape. But anyone who has ever covered a protest knows that this is what demonstrators say when they feel they’re being mistreated—it’s a call for documentation, not for turning the cameras off.
Now, with the trial entering its second week, McMillan and her supporters are once again asking for people to witness an unfolding injustice. “It is important that the jury see that Cecily is not some isolated kook, but has a community behind her,” writes Isserman, noting that the trial runs daily at the New York Criminal Court at 100 Centre Street. “I urge anyone concerned with Cecily’s case, and the broader issues it raises about civil liberties and police violence, to attend for a day, or even just for an hour or two.”Thessaloniki: PAOK sport fans trash the local Golden Dawn office; police arrest 46 in reta by Katerina Gioulioni
Monday Sep 16th, 2013 4:35 AM
At approximately 6pm on September 11, fans of PAOK, a local sports club in Thessaloniki, attacked the office of Golden Dawn in the city. The attack comes after Golden Dawn issued a statement against a PAOK footballer who revealed an UCK (Kosovo Liberation Army) t-shirt during a match of the football club.
At yesterday afternoon (Wednesday September 11), approximately 100 fans of PAOK, a local sports club in Thessaloniki, attacked the office of Golden Dawn in the city. The attack comes after Golden Dawn issued a statement against a PAOK football player with Albanian roots who revealed an UCK (Kosovo Liberation Army) t-shirt on his personal account on facebook. From the attack many nazis who tried to defend the office have injured and sent to the hospital. Short after the attack, police detained 46 people, all fans of the sports club. The 46 people will appear today at the prosecutor. The fan clubs of PAOK have called for a solidarity demonstration outside the courthouse at the same time.
This incident is part of an ongoing war between PAOK fans and the nazi group. Last week PAOK fan clubs issued announcements against golden dawn and their racist speech against the football player.
more in greek: paokplanet.grGet the latest from TODAY Sign up for our newsletter
Nov. 14, 2014, 2:13 PM GMT
He did it! Al Roker has set a new Guinness World Record for the longest uninterrupted live weather report broadcast — a remarkable 34 hours. Click here to relive the full event, including a special congratulatory call from Vice President Joe Biden.
#Rokerthon began at 10:05 p.m. ET Wednesday, and wrapped up just after 8 a.m. Friday.
MORE: Missing #Rokerthon already? Check out Al's best one-liners from the event
It was all for a good cause. Al asked people to pledge support via his Crowdrise campaign, which benefits our armed forces and United Service Organizations (USO).
Al's effort was part of Guinness World Records Day, an international celebration of record breaking taking place across the globe November 13.
MORE: 10 times Al hammed it up on TODAY
He had to follow specific rules in order for the record to be verified by Guinness:
Al had to only talk about weather for the entirety of the time, outside of breaks.
He could talk about current weather, and weather seven days in the past or seven days ahead.
For every 60 minutes completed, Al was given a five-minute break. The breaks were able to be carried over and be combined, so if he went four hours without stopping, he could take a 20-minute break.
Two independent witnesses had to there at all times.
Tweet your congratulations with #Rokerthon — Al may answer you once he wakes up from a long, long nap.Recently, The Antioch Review published an article titled "The Sacred Androgen." Besides being pedantic, pompous, and devoid of actual references, it is essentially a list of every anti-transgender stereotype and right-wing talking point out there. These tropes, lies, and concern-troll-"I'm just asking the question"-style suggestions include:
- Transgender women are caricatures of "real" women
- Reparative therapy is the best option for transgender people
- Trans women attracted to men are just self-hating gay men who want to sleep with heterosexual men.
- Bisexual and lesbian transgender women are sex obsessed fetishists
- All trans women are all completely driven by their uncontrollable sexual urges
- Trans women aren't women
- Affirming therapists are forcing children into becoming transgender
- Almost all transgender children will turn out gay
- Uses the 41% suicide attempt rate figure used as "proof" that transgender people should be discouraged from transitioning
- Claims transgender people generally regret transitioning
- Most trans women are "unconvincing" fakes
- Transgender identities are a delusion requiring psychotherapy to cure
- Transgender people are pathetic, ugly, disgusting, and loathsome
- "Normal" people shouldn't have to play along with the "delusion"
Most of the author's "insights" come from his experiences as a drag queen sleeping with straight men and interactions with people who may or may not have actually been transgender in a chat room almost 20 years ago.
The Antioch Review has rightly been called out for publishing such a offensive, poorly written, researched, and edited (it's Piers Morgan, not Pierce Morgan) piece by literally thousands of scholars and writers, including many faculty members at Antioch College. The Review's response could basically be summarized as, "academic freedom, bitches."
If the editorial staff, led by Robert Fogarty, had done their homework, they would have realized that just about every talking point in the article comes straight from the Family Research Council's manifesto on transgender people, which includes a five point plan to "morally" legislate transgender people out of existence. Essentially, the recipient of a 2010 National Endowment for the Arts grant re-stated and endorsed the positions of a Southern Poverty Law Center-designated hate group.*
Apparently, "academic freedom" includes advocating for cultural genocide. What they published was no better than an article re-stating Stormfront's opinions on why the Holocaust was a hoax, or reiterating the Klan's positions on segregation.
No one looks back at atrocities and says, "at least we upheld academic freedom in the process." This isn't about academic freedom, unless "Academic freedom" then apparently includes debating the human dignity, worth, and right to exist of minorities, without them actually being present while their fate is decided.
Or, if that's not what academic freedom means, then this is about two deeply transphobic people deciding they wanted to do their part to ensure transgender people are morally and legally forced to self-deport back to the closet.
Which brings me to the personal consequences of transphobia, cloaked in academic freedom and mid-Western nice. I lived only five miles from Antioch College for the past decade. The town it is in (Yellow Springs, OH) is supposedly the most liberal in the state.
And yet, my time in Ohio as an out transgender person was a lonely, soul-crushing hell.
When I came out at work, they consulted their lawyers, determined they couldn't unilaterally yank my contract, and instead put me at window seat in a corner to rot for three years with nearly zero workload. I was either ignored, or looked at like something the cat vomited onto the rug. I spent those three years sending out literally hundreds of résumés, to no avail. People like those at the FRC, Mr. Harris and Fogarty have convinced employers in places like Ohio that transgender people are disgusting, disruptive, ugly, sex-addicted fakes.
There was no real queer community in the area to cushion the blow; the next closest transgender person to me was a 50-minute drive away. I was mostly ignored in the cisgender community, in that Midwestern-nice style. I came to believe that this is the best a transgender person could hope for, because the views of people like Fogarty and Harris prevailed.
I tried local and state LGBT activism, but was mostly tokenized, while organizations dominated by white gay men like Mr. Harris tried to use me to prove their organizations were transgender inclusive. Meanwhile, actual effort on trans issues was non-existent. When I resigned, it was a relief.
In 2013, my spouse declared she wasn't a lesbian, and our marriage became a platonic one. Messages promulgated by people like Mr. Harris that transgender women are vile caricatures too disgusting to be respected as human beings, much less loved by anyone or anything, were omnipresent.
That's why twice in that year I came close to suicide.
Very close.
In 2014, I decided that getting out of Ohio was my only hope of surviving, both mentally and physically. I started applying for jobs in more queer friendly places. It didn't matter if the job paid a third of what I made and would financially destroy me and my family, it was still better than the isolated, hopeless, stagnant pseudo-existence found in Xenia, Ohio.
When I did find a job, it was someplace that's actually progressive and values people for what they can produce, rather than surrounded by people like Harris and Fogarty who can barely hide their disgust and disdain at my mere existence. It was a revelation to be somewhere with community, and co-workers who weren't just being "Midwestern nice."
If I ever considered returning to Ohio, it would mean I have lost both my self-respect, and my will to live. People like Messrs. Fogarty and Harris are cowards: instead of doing us in yourselves, you do everything you can make us self-deport to the closet or die by our own hands. I chose neither. I chose to leave, to get the hell away from people like you no matter the cost, and it saved me and my family.
So, Messrs. Fogarty and Harris, you want to know why transgender people have such startling suicide statistics?
It's because we live surrounded by people like you.
*NOTE: This post has been updated to clarify that the NEA has not given grant money to the Antioch Review since 2010. An NEA spokesperson confirmed that they have requested the removal of their logo from parts of the Antioch Review website not directly funded by the NEA.Once a week, Daily Intel takes a peek behind doors left slightly ajar. This week, the Woman in an Open Relationship With a Boyfriend Who’s Trying to Get His Other Girlfriend Pregnant: female, dancer/office temp, Flatbush, 33, straight, in an open relationship (for 2.5 years).
DAY ONE
8 a.m.: Send romantic morning text to my boyfriend. Good morning, love.
8:30 a.m.: Receive romantic text back.
1 p.m.: Still no word from the Journalist, the cute 29-year-old I’ve been chatting with online for the past couple weeks. It seems the only thing we have in common is that we both think I’m pretty, but that seems to be enough for a fun G-chat.
3 p.m.: Assuming date with Journalist tomorrow night is off. Proceed to text the Fecker, the cute Irish guy with the Elvis Costello glasses. “Want to meet after work tomorrow night?”
4 p.m.: Receive message on OkCupid from a profile with no photo. Normally I wouldn’t respond, but he’s Midwestern and charming. I respond in a similar manner.
5:15 p.m.: Receive response from Midwesterner with a comment about tattoos. I respond asking if it’s thumbs up or thumbs down. I have five.
5:30 p.m.: Receive response while still on the bus. Thumbs up to tattoos. Having fun with this exchange.
6:45 p.m.: Text from the Fecker promising me a good spanking tomorrow night. Feel only slightly ridiculous that it took until I’m 33 to get a man to punish me for being a naughty girl.
8 p.m.: Meet Lizard King in Carroll Gardens for our first date. We met on OkCupid and he’s noticed my status is available, so I’m pretty sure he’s assuming I’m easy.
8:03 p.m.: I might be easy, but not for a guy who shows up to a first date wearing yoga pants.
8:07 p.m.: Already utterly bored. There’s pinball in the back. Why am I not playing it?
9:12 p.m.: Considering blurting the following line: “Anyway, I have an interesting job too. Thanks for asking.” But don’t actually even care to engage with him that much.
10 p.m.: For some reason, decide to sit through three beers with this guy. Don’t offer to pay. He walks me to the train and kisses me. I go along, because, I’ll give anyone a shot when it comes to kissing. If there’s anything I’ve learned from my boyfriend, it’s that there’s a lot you can find out from kissing someone. Still nothing. In fact, ew, gross. “Damn, you’re cute,” he says. I know I am! If you had talked about that instead of The Doors for two hours, my dress would probably be on your floor right now!
12 a.m.: Send good night text to Boyfriend. Receive one back from him.
12:10 a.m.: Text from Boyfriend: “Can we have a minute to talk tomorrow?” Shittiest phrase in the English language.
12:32 a.m.: I call him. He’s beyond drunk. Yells at me because of a Twitter post I made over a month ago, which was perceived as a slight from his other girlfriend. Can’t believe I’m actually defending a Twitter post. Of course it had nothing to do with her. I’m not stupid enough to air my shit online. And why are we talking about this a month later?
12:35 a.m.: He tells me he’s trying to get her pregnant. I call him a lying sack of shit and hang up. Has he just found the final straw?
12:37 a.m.: Run out to Roomie with a pack of cigarettes to cry on her shoulder.
1:30 a.m.: Amazing Roomie smooths everything over. Feel like I might actually be able to sleep.
2 a.m.: Can’t sleep. What the fuck was he expecting me to do if she actually got knocked up?
DAY TWO
8:00 a.m.: Do not text romantic message to Boyfriend.
Noon: Hooray! Journalist is back on G-chat. He’s in San Francisco last minute for work. Conversation somehow comes down to him sending photos of the panties he’s picturing me wearing. He couldn’t be more wrong. I don’t let on that I’m actually wearing Superman underwear. He can find out more details after we actually meet in person. Make a date for the following Wednesday.
2 p.m.: Continue OkCupid messaging adorable Midwesterner. I use “a” instead of “an.” He calls me a philistine. He’s just become even more interesting.
2:15 p.m.: Boyfriend attempts to Facebook chat with me. I ignore it.
5 p.m.: Run errands after work and exchange texts with Boyfriend. He misses me. We have a lot to talk about, but I don’t know when I’m going to be ready to see him. Was really excited to have a drink with him before my date tonight. He says he won’t contact me, the ball is entirely in my court. Chicken shit.
11:30 p.m.: The Fecker is late for our date, which makes sense, since he’s just getting off work. Awkward conversation. I feel boring. Mind has drawn an utter blank. Figured we’d be making out at his place by now. He runs into a friend at the bar. “How do you two know each other?” “Emmmm. Just from around.” Which is the most obvious way to indicate we met online, right?
11:45 p.m.: He asks if I still have that boyfriend. I actually don’t know if I do or not.
12 a.m.: Finally headed back to his place. More strained conversation on the way there. Until he asks if I’m an exhibitionist. Oh yes, I respond.
12:15 a.m.: He pours two glasses of red wine with which he ends up being incredibly disappointed. He wants to know more about what turns me on. Since he asked, I tell him how I enjoy public sex: in an alleyway, in a bar and the ultimate in exhibitionism, my fantasy-fulfilling experience of five guys on various parts of my body at a sex party in Midtown. His version of exhibitionism is a little different: cam sex with people he’s met online. I don’t find it a particular turn-on, but he’s so sexy, and talking about it clearly puts him in the mood. Next thing I know, I’m on his lap wearing just panties. He’s amazing at sucking on my tits, but his constant, rhythmic moaning is a bit of a distraction. It takes him a huge effort to get his skinny jeans off. Oy, hipsters. We move to the bed where he fingers me until I beg him for sex. He gives me a good spanking for asking for it. I give him oral while he gets out the condom and proceeds to slam into me hard, but just for a minute. Then he takes it out. He enters me again for a little longer and then takes it out. We continue like this for a while. I know he’s doing this so he won’t come, but I hate flow being interrupted. Finally I beg for him to let me have it, and he has one of the longest, loudest orgasms I’ve ever seen from a man.
1:30 a.m.: Discover while we’re talking that the first time we had sex three weeks ago he didn’t come. He can only do it once a night, I find out the hard way. This is what I get for dating older men. Our first date was an hours-long power-sex romp. I’m disappointed to see him unable to keep his eyes open this time. Home by 2:30 much earlier than 6 a.m. like last time.
DAY THREE
7 a.m.: Actually wake up on time.
8 a.m.: Do not text Boyfriend.
1 p.m.: Text Fecker thanking him for last night. “U R Welcome, miss ;).” He’s really got to knock it off with the emoticons.
7 p.m.: Meet old friends for a birthday party in Hell’s Kitchen. There’s a huge group of young, scruffy guys encroaching on our area. It looks like a snowboarders convention. One friend suggests it’s like a buffet. “Oh please. Honey, I got out of my twenties so I wouldn’t have to fuck a dude in his twenties ever again,” I tell her. Horrified as those words fall out of my mouth; I’ve become that sad, sassy divorcee. I immediately call myself out on it, but I’m not sure that it helps.
11:15 p.m.: Fall asleep while watching Netflix. Miss pathetic, apologetic texts from Boyfriend.
DAY FOUR
7 a.m.: Slightly hungover and desperately don’t want to get out of bed. Masturbate to get a jump start on the day. Imagine being double-teamed by my boyfriend and the Irish guy. Have I actually gotten to a place in my life where I’m fantasizing about people I’m actually sleeping with?!
8 a.m.: Boyfriend texts. We’re supposed to have plans tonight. I was really excited about having a date night with him. He assumes we don’t have plans, but is waiting for me to make the call. I ask if I can just get through what will almost certainly be a stressful day at work.
1:00 p.m.: Yes, it is a stressful day at work.
1:15 p.m.: Attempt to have phone therapy session from the temp job. I have got to talk to my therapist about all this Boyfriend stuff. Have never been so betrayed. Almost get fired.
3 p.m.: Send Facebook friend request to the Fecker. Spend way too much time thinking about whether or not it’s a good idea. Friend reminds me: “You’re fecking, it’s okay.”
4 p.m.: G-chat with Midwesterner. Is it possible to actually have chemistry via IM? Because we do.
6 p.m.: Decide I’m not ready to see Boyfriend. Give him a call. He gets mad at me for making him wait. Asshole. Tell him I miss him and just need a little more time.
6:30 p.m.: Give a call to the Poet. He was the great unrequited love of my high-school career. We saw each other for the first time in seventeen years and it was like no time had passed. Except that he’s now an extremely overweight middle-aged man. I am no longer attracted to him (just lose 40 pounds and I would be!), but he’s family. I have no problem spilling all my guts to him. We make a plan to see each other tomorrow night. Eating Chinese food at his place. Naked. Not sure what this will accomplish, but I’m up for it anyway.
10:15 p.m.: As the B train crosses the bridge, I get chatted up by a cute, drunk 25-year-old. Flirtatious, but he’s clearly not hitting on me. He’s on the way to an OkCupid date. He tells me about the one time he licked a girl’s asshole. I don’t know how I’ve ended up having this conversation, but I encourage him to explore the glory and wonder of salad tossing.
2 p.m.: Heading back in a cab over the bridge with Roomie. It seems the Poet’s date has ended early and he wants me to come all the way up to the Upper West. His plans have changed tomorrow night and he can’t have me over. I should just come up and crash tonight, he begs. He calls just to hear me and Roomie screaming with laughter. If the 16-year-old me knew that the Poet was begging me to come over, she’d absolutely die.
DAY FIVE
7 p.m.: I go to the East Village to watch football with my brother. When did Avenue A start looking like the Upper East Side? Brother totally blocks my attempt to flirt with the cute, late-thirties fellow football fan at the bar.
DAY SIX
10 p.m.: More heart-to-heart at a bar with Roomie. She’s having boyfriend issues, too.
12 a.m.: Last ditch effort for a dirty text exchange with the Fecker. He’s heading to bed soon. Fine with me, actually. Just realized it’s too dark in here to take a photo and I really don’t feel like getting up to turn the lights on.
DAY SEVEN
8:00 a.m.: Romantic text from Boyfriend. He wants to know when he can see me. I tell him I have a date tonight that I don’t expect to be going very late. He can come over after that and we can finally talk. I miss him. I miss his face close to mine. I miss being in his arms. And he is the best kisser I have ever known.
10 a.m.: E-mail from Lizard King asking for a date this week. I ignore.
Noon Currently have G-chats going with the Journalist and the Midwesterner. Both charming and cute but something about that Midwesterner. Why am I not seeing him tonight?! So excited to meet him tomorrow.
7 p.m.: Meet Seattleite, a single dad from OkCupid, for a first date in Carroll Gardens at a fancy cocktail place. Discover he’s a software engineer. He’s definitely paying tonight. Try to leave before 8, but he convinces me to stay for dinner. This is my first online-dating dinner-date. Have a perfectly nice evening discussing the joys of divorce in New York state with a perfectly nice guy, but there’s no spark. Nonetheless, he kisses me at the bar. He walks me to the bus so I can get to Red Hook, where I’m cat-sitting this week. We make out while we wait for the B61 that is way late. He kisses without tongue. Weird. I’ve never experienced anything like this. Still waiting, waiting, waiting for this bus. Realize I could never live in Red Hook.
11 p.m.: Call boyfriend. He’s beyond drunk. I tell him he’s not welcome to come over. We’re not having this conversation while he’s blitzed. Sad I’m not seeing him, but relieved I can get to sleep before midnight. Will be refreshed for date with the Midwesterner tomorrow night.
TOTALS: One act of intercourse; one act of oral sex (giving); two really bad first kisses.It looks like Vince has to wait it out because Bandai is releasing the Brothers of Destruction next in the S.H. Figuarts WWE line!
I only mention Vince because he was shown with Undertaker at the last Tamashii Nations show, but I guess Kane was just to good to pass up. I mean, the two wrestlers go together, why not produce them together?
First up, Undertaker.
It looks like The Phenom comes with a couple of sets of hands and three heads. Normal, eyes rolled back, and the hat.
Kane
The Big Red Machine also comes with three heads, one masked and two unmasked. Extra hands and a towel round out the accessories.
The bad news, these are Bandai shop exclusives. Hopefully they get distributed by Bluefin.
Both have a MSRP of about $56 and will release in July.
Like this: Like Loading...The pictures were exactly what you'd expect from a European summer vacation: Cafes in Italy and Spain, the Guinness brewery in Ireland. So 24-year-old Ashley Payne, a public high school English teacher in Georgia, was not prepared for what happened when her principal asked to see her in August 2009.
"He just asked me, 'Do you have a Facebook page?'" Payne said. "And you know, I'm confused as to why I am being asked this, but I said, 'Yes.' And he said, 'Do you have any pictures of yourself up there with alcohol?'"
In fact, the picture that concerned the principal - showing Payne holding a glass of wine and a mug of beer - was on her Facebook page. There was also a reference to a local trivia contest with a profanity in its title.
Payne was told a parent of one of her students called to complain. And then, Payne says, she was given a choice: resign or be suspended.
"He told me that I needed to make a decision before I left, or he was going to go ahead and suspend me," she said.
She resigned. Attorney Richard Storrs is fighting to get Payne's job back.
"It would be like I went to a restaurant and I saw my daughter's teacher sitting there with her husband having a glass of some kind of liquid," Storr said. "You know, is that frowned upon by the school board? Is that illegal? Is that improper? Of course not. It's the same situation in this case."
But here's the really troubling part: Payne had used the privacy settings on Facebook. She thought that only her closest friends could see her vacation photos or her use of the "B" word.
"I wouldn't use it in a classroom, no," she said. "But Facebook is not the classroom. And it's not open to the students of my classroom. They are not supposed to see it. I have privacy in place so they don't see it."
Privacy?
What Ashley Payne or anyone of us who uses the Internet has to realize is this: Today our private lives are no longer so private.
"When we talk about a right to privacy, what we are really talking about is the right to control information we consider to be private," said Frederick Lane, an attorney and author of "American Privacy."
But considering what happened to Ashley Payne, does that mean that even when you are being careful and that you have some amount of privacy on a page, you may not?
"You absolutely may not!" said Lane. "All it takes is one person making a copy of what you've posted and it's out in the wild, and you no longer have that control."
And we're not losing that control … we're giving it away - every time we buy with credit cards, use cell phones which signal our location, or post pictures on social networks like Facebook. Just sending an e-mail may make public private information.
"I think that's what is a constant tension in our society, is that we trade information that our parents and our grandparents would have considered private, for fun, for convenience, for that kind of thing," said Lane.
"We are our own worst enemy?" asked Moriarty.
(CBS)
"I don't think that there is any question about that at all,' replied Lane. "I think that the vast majority of the kind of data disclosure that you and I have been talking about is individual-driven. It's not predatory on the part of corporations. It's not predatory on the part of the government. We're giving it up. We're putting it out in the world."
(Left: Andrea Payne's Europrean vacation pictures posted on Facebook led to her losing her job.)
The tension between technology and privacy is nothing new.
In the late 19th century, there was an outcry over a seemingly harmless invention: The first Kodak camera, and the birth of snapshot photography.
"For the first time, people were sneaking around taking photos of other people without their permission," said Lane.
It sparked a 1890 Harvard Law Review article in which future Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis and attorney Samuel Warren warned against an ongoing loss of privacy!
Today, one of the fastest-growing businesses on the Internet is something called data mining: companies collecting our private information, packaging it, using it, selling it.
Michael Fertik, a Harvard Law School grad who runs a company called Reputation.com, came up with information I thought was private. I was wrong.
"I think this is your Social Security number," Fertik said. It was!
He also revealed what he called my "online reputation," based mainly on where I happen to live.
"Our query is pretty confident that you're a Democrat and pretty confident that you're a Catholic," Fertik said.
"But that may not be correct," said Moriarty.
"It may just not be correct," he explained.
And then there's something that could cause a real headache down the road …
"There's an Erin F. Moriarty who grew up just a few miles where you did, who has been convicted of serving alcohol to minors," Fertik said. "And it'd be very easy for a machine to confuse you and that person, and to think that you are a convicted criminal."
Even though the OTHER Erin is 20 years younger!
Fertik's company helps people track down and correct misinformation. But most of us will never even know it's there.
"The dossier on each of us that is easily aggregated digitally is now probably, let's call it ten pages," Fertik said. "Four years ago it was two pages. In four or five years, it's going to be 100 pages. Why? Because the amount of data that is being collected about each of us, proliferates. Your phone records, your rental records, those different databases that no one originally intended to be combined with one another are being combined now with blazing speed."
But David J. Moore, who runs 24/7 RealMedia, an Internet advertising firm, seems unfazed.
He points out that marketing information about potential customers is really nothing new.
"Magazine publishers for years have been selling the list of subscribers they have to the advertisers that want to send a mailing to them," he said.
And keep in mind: the more specific and detailed the information, the better companies can target their advertisements to customers who really want it.
"Let's ask the 500 million people that are on Facebook how concerned are they about their privacy," Moore said. "Or the 100 million that are on MySpace? Most of them really don't care."
Don't tell that to high school teacher Ashley Payne.
"Yes, I put it on the Internet, so you can make that argument," she said. "But it sort of feels like the same thing as if I had put the pictures in a shoebox |
loss of their civil liberties, but my son knows that the North-Korean are some of the safest people in the world. They had virtually no fear of terrorists.
Quite honestly after falling out of my chair laughing at a whole slew of reviews in that vein, I began to think that never mind that I was reading this on Amazon, perhaps these were spoofs. However queries to both Playmobil and Amazon confirmed that both products, sadly, are for real.
As difficult as it sometimes seemed to raise sons during the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Power Ranger years, clearly teaching children the difference between right and wrong has become far more challenging as the toys and games pitched at them become blatant police state propaganda.In one of the best political scenes I’ve seen in a while, Virginia Delegate, David Albo, a Republican, regaled the chamber with his sad tale of marital sex denied. Albo voted in support of Virginia’s transvaginal ultrasound bill, which would require every pregnant woman to have a probe inserted into her vagina before having an abortion. His wife wasn’t happy. In fact, she was so unhappy that she quickly lost the mood when she found out about her husband’s vote.
Video here:
In the video, he told the house about his seduction, when then, on the TV, popped his picture with the story about the bill.
He said he had a ‘giant’ 48-inch television that he turned on to the Redskins game because ‘my wife loves the Redskins more than she loves me.’ He put on ‘mood music’ on the House floor and pantomimed putting his arm around his wife. But he said the romantic mood was killed while they were flipping through channels. Mr Albo told the House floor: ‘It was trans-v this, and trans-v that.’ ‘The show’s over, and she looks at me and goes, “I gotta go to bed.”’ He told the House floor: ‘If the gentleman’s plan was to make sure there was one less Republican in this world, he did it.’
Albo’s wife isn’t the only Virginian (or American) that’s squeamish about the bill. Everyone from Rachel Maddow to late night comedians showed their own brand of appall at what mounts to state sanctioned rape. The bill has been revised to make the vaginal probe optional, while an ultrasound would still be mandatory.
Follow me on my new Facebook page!WASHINGTON — WND has asked 125 members of Congress to weigh in on the unsolved murder of DNC staffer Seth Rich, and not a single representative has agreed to address the case.
Only five members replied to WND’s request for an interview. All five declined.
The only member of Congress who has gone on the record about the slain DNC staffer is Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Texas, who has been attacked for speaking out.
Rich, 27, was murdered in Washington, D.C., on July 10, 2016, near his apartment in an affluent neighborhood. He was shot twice in the back, and his wallet, credit cards, watch and phone were left in his possession. The Metropolitan Police Department has described it as a “botched robbery.”
Private investigators, however, have claimed there is evidence Rich was the source WikiLeaks used to obtain thousands of Democratic National Committee emails released on the eve of the party’s presidential nominating convention last July. The emails, indicating the party was manipulating the primary race in favor of Hillary Clinton, led to the resignation of DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
In an appearance on CNN, Farenthold called for a federal investigation of the murder and said the DNC email leak may have been an “inside job.”
“My fear is our constant focusing on the Russians is deflecting away from some other things that we need to be investigating,” he said. “There’s still some question as to whether the intrusion of the DNC server was an insider job or whether or not it was the Russians.”
In an interview with the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, Farenthold doubled down on his call for a special investigation, demanding Rich’s murder be approached with the same aggression as the review of purported Russian interference during the 2016 election.
“[The Rich murder] should be part of the ongoing investigation into alleged Russian interference in the election, because that’s an alternative theory that deserves being looked at,” the congressman said.
The theory that Rich was killed for leaking DNC information, Farenthold insisted, is “as credible as the anonymous sources being cited in the (former FBI Director James) Comey and Russian stories against President Trump.”
‘Conspiracy theorists’
Rich’s story has been largely ignored by establishment media. Those who have called attention to the suspicious circumstances surrounding the murder have been branded “conspiracy theorists,” including Fox News host Sean Hannity.
Hannity has claimed there is evidence Rich was murdered over his alleged ties to WikiLeaks. He’s argued on Twitter that the story could derail the allegations pushed by Democrats of collusion between Russian officials and the Trump campaign.
Congress, investigate Seth Rich Murder! @JulianAssange made comments u need to listen to! If Seth was wiki source, no Trump/Russia collusion https://t.co/QPHZwypU34 — Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) May 22, 2017
Congress, investigate Seth Rich Murder! @JulianAssange made comments u need to listen to! If Seth was wiki source, no Trump/Russia collusion https://t.co/QPHZwypU34 — Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) May 22, 2017
At least five advertising firms have pulled their commercials from Hannity’s Fox News show in response to its coverage of Rich.
Private investigation
The head of a private investigative team in Washington, D.C., trying to solve Rich’s murder insists that Metropolitan Police Department officials have been instructed by Mayor Muriel Bowser to withhold evidence pertaining to Rich’s case from the public and obstruct the investigation for political purposes.
“The police have shut down all full operations,” Burkman told WND. “The police are not cooperating with us or anyone, which is sad. This has become a very systematic and deliberate effort by the D.C. police and the mayor to end the Seth Rich investigation.”
In a statement to WND, the MPD disputed Burkman’s allegations, declaring the department will not “entertain conspiracy theories and does not engage with conspiracy theorists.”
“If you are in possession of information that you believe to be relevant to this or any case, please let us know the details of such information such that it can help, rather than hinder, our investigation,” said MPD’s Karimah Bilal.
Burkman, who is offering a $105,000 reward for anyone with information about Rich’s murderer or murderers, revealed Tuesday that a burglar broke into an FBI vehicle and stole weapons – including a.40 caliber Glock-22 handgun and a Rock River Arms Rifle – hours before Rich was shot multiple times just two miles north of the weapons theft.
Burkman filed a lawsuit Tuesday suing the MPD for ballistics reports that would indicate whether the two crimes are in any way connected.WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange speaks at a news conference in London, February 27, 2012. REUTERS/Finbarr O'Reilly
(Reuters) - Wikileaks founder Julian Assange will launch his new TV talk show on Russia Today on April 17, but is keeping the guest list secret, the Kremlin-funded English language station said on Friday.
Assange, who is under house arrest in England fighting extradition to Sweden for questioning on an alleged sexual assault, filmed “The World Tomorrow” show from Britain.
Russia Today (RT) said in a news release that it would not release the guest list in advance, but said the first interview would prove controversial.
“We do not want to kill the buzz and the intrigue by revealing the name of the first guest,” said RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan.
“But I have no doubt that this particular guest and this interview will lead to calls to shut us down from some especially hawkish personalities who have little respect for freedom of speech,” she added.
Australian-born Assange said in a statement he would be talking to people “who normally simply would not be given a voice on TV at all. What is fair to say is that the majority of what they have said to me they could not say on a mainstream TV network.”
Russia Today is considered a key Kremlin exercise in image enhancement by critics. It is beamed to some 430 million subscribers worldwide and it also streams online.
Assange’s new show will be broadcast simultaneously from Moscow and Washington DC, in English, Arabic and Spanish.
Assange said April 17 marks the 500th day since financial transaction firms like Visa, Mastercard and Paypal began to refuse working with Wikileaks after it published a raft of secret U.S. diplomatic cables in late 2010. The blockade has crippled the organization’s ability to fund itself and continue its work.Connor McDavid turned 20 Friday. How does his production to date compare to that of the league's all-time great teens?
Farewell to your innocence, Connor McDavid. You’re a teen sensation no more after celebrating your 20th birthday Friday. Before we start heaping heavier expectations on your shoulders, let’s take a breath and admire your work. It’s a small but brilliant sample size.
Where does McDavid’s offensive production as a teen rank compared to that of the all-time great young adults NHL history? We’ve kicked the tires on this topic before. Time to flesh it out and look closer.
CONNOR MCDAVID, AGE-18 SEASON
McDavid was a dominant force in his injury-shortened debut season of 2015-16, amassing 48 points in 45 games. That amounted to 1.07 points per game. It was the league’s third best mark, trailing only Patrick Kane’s 1.29 and Jamie Benn’s 1.09. It was also one of the best 18-year-old rates ever. Per the remarkable quanthockey.com, here are the 10 best points-per-game rates for age-18 seasons in league history:
1. Wayne Gretzky, 1979-80: 1.73
2. Dale Hawerchuk, 1981-82: 1.29
3. Sidney Crosby, 2005-06: 1.26
4. Ron Francis, 1981-82: 1.15
5. Steve Yzerman, 1983-84: 1.09
6. Connor McDavid, 2015-16: 1.07
7. Ted Kennedy, 1943-44: 1.00
8. Jimmy Carson, 1986-87: 0.99
9. Dan Quinn, 1983-84: 0.96
10. Sylvain Turgeon, 1983-84: 0.95
McDavid’s age-18 production is among the best ever, but sixth isn’t even an accurate rank. We have to factor in era adjustments. Seven of the 10 best rates came in the 1980s, the league’s high-scoring heyday. Heck, Ted Kennedy had a point per game in 1943-44, which was actually a higher-scoring season than any from the 1980s. So let’s apply era adjustments using hockey-reference.com. The adjustments are described as follows: “In order to account for different schedule lengths, roster sizes, and scoring environments, some statistics have been adjusted. All statistics have been adjusted to an 82-game schedule with a maximum roster size of 18 skaters and league averages of 6 goals per game and 1.67 assists per goal.”
If we take the above top-10 list and apply scoring adjustments, we get this resorted top 10:
1. Wayne Gretzky, 1979-80: 1.48
2. Sidney Crosby, 2005-06: 1.22
3. Connor McDavid, 2015-16: 1.20
4. Dale Hawerchuk, 1981-82: 0.94
5. Jimmy Carson, 1986-87: 0.84
6. Steve Yzerman, 1983-84: 0.84
7. Ron Francis, 1981-82: 0.83
8. Dan Quinn, 1983-84: 0.76
9. Sylvain Turgeon, 1983-84: 0.74
10. Ted Kennedy, 1943-44: 0.57
McDavid takes his rightful place in the top three with fellow generational talents Gretzky and Crosby. Also, the adjustment gives some perspective on how amazing Gretzky was. He still lords over every other player in history, in a class of his own, as the greatest of all-time.
CONNOR MCDAVID, AGE-19 SEASON
The actual point-per-game leaders for seasons in which players started as 19-year-olds:
1. Wayne Gretzky, 1980-81: 2.05
2. Sidney Crosby, 2006-07: 1.52
3. Mario Lemieux, 1984-85: 1.37
4. Jimmy Carson, 1987-88: 1.34
5. Eric Lindros, 1992-93: 1.23
6. Bryan Trottier, 1975-76: 1.19
7. Steven Stamkos, 2009-10: 1.16
8. Dale Hawerchuk, 1982-83: 1.15
9. Ron Francis, 1982-83: 1.14
10. Connor McDavid, 2016-17: 1.14
With the era adjustment applied again:
1. Wayne Gretzky, 1980-81: 1.59
2. Sidney Crosby, 2006-07: 1.54
3. Connor McDavid, 2016-17: 1.26
4. Steven Stamkos, 2009-10: 1.24
5. Jimmy Carson, 1987-88: 1.11
6. Mario Lemieux, 1984-85: 1.08
7. Bryan Trottier, 1975-76: 1.03
8. Eric Lindros, 1992-93: 0.98
9. Ron Francis, 1982-83: 0.92
10. Dale Hawerchuk, 1982-83: 0.92
The same trio rises above the pack, with Stamkos’ 50-plus-goal effort of 2009-10 earning him some love, too. The message is clear: if we adjust for era, McDavid was one of the greatest teenage scorers the game has ever seen. Now we get to see what he does in his 20s as he enters his prime in the next few years. Can’t wait.
Matt Larkin is a writer and editor at The Hockey News and a regular contributor to thn.com. For more great profiles, news and views from the world of hockey, subscribe to The Hockey News magazine. Follow Matt Larkin on Twitter at @THNMattLarkinLast week at our annual meeting a speaker emphasized that 92% of GDP depends on something being sold. The message was clear: Our company will prosper only if we add value to customers. We must become indispensible to their success.
There was also a moving tribute to the founder of the company I work for, who is set to retire. He rose up from poverty by virtue of improving the lives of those with whom he dealt. His creation was a boon to hundreds of workers and thousands of customers. Each profited, living better than we otherwise would have had his vision never materialized. We worked there because we saw the opportunities presented as superior to whatever was our next best option.
Likewise, customers patronized the business because they too thought it was in their interests. And many must have picked wisely because they returned for more, making him a legend in the industry.
He was one of the "vital few," those exhibiting the ingenuity, vision, perseverance and drive to create. America, with her protections of property rights, the rule of law and respect for the profit motive has historically been blessed with many such entrepreneurs. They grow rich by developing products or performing services that satisfy their customers' needs.
Morally, riches are irrelevant other than how they are acquired and for what they are used. Life isn't defined by possessions and those who worship wealth will never have enough, but there is a moral imperative to produce.
Economically, successful businessmen make the world a better place. They are essentially voted rich at the cash register poll. We pay them to add value and they reciprocate with jobs, goods and art. The top ten percent of earners pay most of America's taxes, account for the majority of charity and half of retail sales.
It is thus baffling that wealth has become such an object of derision. Even decades after communism collapsed we are inundated with Marxist agitprop. Intellectuals and politicians -- teeming with a hypocritical combination of envy and self-righteousness -- pontificate incessantly about the rich "not paying their fair share" or bemoaning that the "rich get richer while the poor get poorer." But as class antagonisms manifest in progressive income taxes and other policies built on covetousness, we risk stunting the essential entrepreneurial spirit.
Hopefully, the last election reflects a shift, but America has experienced a troubling trend where politicians derive power (and wealth) by demonizing success. President Obama stokes such animosity with, "We're not trying to... begrudge success that's fairly earned. I mean, I do think at a certain point you've made enough money."
An ironic statement considering he makes millions writing books attacking the wealthy and has parlayed this blatant demagoguery into political power. If as senator he had determined enough was enough we'd be better off.
Class warfare rhetoric implies that riches are gained by depriving others and that we live in a static social order. However, in America, the classes are not fixed and those generating wealth expand the pie. By rights, then, they ought to retain larger shares.
Over 80% of millionaires are self-made. Most never become millionaires, but we benefit immensely by those who do. We might work hard but lack the vision, the confidence to take risks or the willingness to devote ourselves to career at the expense of all else. Others lack the discipline to delay gratification, thus squandering earnings before they become wealthy. Yet, because of those seeking riches, we lead comfortable lives basically riding on their coattails.
Here, poverty is not permanent. Many start poor but realize the American Dream, ascending to new heights. Every year recent immigrants and fresh graduates gather on the lowest income levels eager to ride the American escalator to higher prosperity. There will always be a bottom rung for liberals to complain about even as its prior inhabitants advance into higher strata that don't repopulate automatically.
Entrepreneurs power this escalator using capital for fuel.
The poorest Americans enjoy world class medical care, an amazing array of dietary choices and technologies such as cell phones, televisions and appliances. Even if you don't own a car, you have access to wonderful transportation options. You likely live in the comfort of an air-conditioned space with access to ample energy supplies. In a material sense, even manual laborers are phenomenally wealthy by historical standards.
Don't take America's economic prowess for granted. It's an unprecedented achievement. Only an ingrate complains that those who brought us these incredible advances prospered. We all gain from the products by which they earned their riches and the wealth they accumulate. Abusing them will backfire.
Innovation and jobs require investment. In wealth lies the necessary capital without which there is no production and no opportunity. It is vital that the rich find America a welcoming place to invest. They must sense the ability to gain. Limiting choices through over-bearing regulations or punitively raising taxes stunts the motivation for those still astride the escalator endeavoring to become rich.
Investors achieve returns by planting the seed capital that sprouts into new companies, better goods and rising living standards. Raising the cost of investing means less capital available to create jobs, fund innovation or produce things which beautify and sustain life.
The top one percent of earners already pay about 40% of income taxes. This reduces capital availability and proves dual taxation on capital gains or dividends are counter-productive. Worse, we steer investment into the public sector via tax free government bonds.
The government wastes more than it creates. Politicians merely siphon production to redistribute their largesse to favorites. They confiscate wealth by making promises that go unfulfilled. If government programs were subject to market discipline most would starve for lack of investors or customers. If a business performed like our public schools it would expire quickly.
Businesses, aka job providers, enrich society by adding value to their customers. We buy something because we consider it worth more than the money we spend. Businesses can only extend the choices available. If customers don't buy, they part ways peacefully. Not so with government. We pay for public services even if we see no value or would choose differently. We comply with bureaucratic mandates or suffer fines or imprisonment.
America needs more entrepreneurs and less government.Share. Joining the party on November 18. Joining the party on November 18.
When Sonic the Hedgehog speeds his way into LEGO Dimensions next month, he'll be bringing a few of his pals, including Knuckles, Tails, Shadow and Big the Cat.
In a post on Twitter, the official LEGO Dimensions account shared the following image, showcasing LEGO versions of the Blue Blur and friends, along with the message: "Okay, let's get this party started. Save the date: November 18th, 2016."
There's no word as yet on whether this will be the full complement of Sonic pals. Keep those fingers crossed, Amy Rose/Silver/Charmy fans.
Sonic the Hedgehog is but one of many popular franchises to join LEGO Dimensions this year, thanks to a slew of new expansion packs that span everything from J.K. Rowling's Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them to Adventure Time.
On top of that, several new packs for LEGO Dimensions will release early next year, including The LEGO Batman Movie Story Pack and Excalibur Batman Fun Pack, both of which launch on February 10 to coincide with release of The LEGO Batman Movie. A Knight Rider Fun Pack will release on that date as well.
Exit Theatre Mode
Alex Osborn is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter and subscribe to his video content on YouTube.A new BW2 commercial has appeared on Japanese television today (yes, they’re still advertising the games), and at the end of it, there is a title card announcement which states “We at Pokemon want to share the latest news with you. Scheduled announcement: January 8th.” Obviously Pokemon plans to make a big announcement.
Gamefreak director Junichi Masuda revealed on his Twitter in December that he had just filmed an episode of Pokemon Smash, and since the episodes are recorded a month or so in advance, it’s likely the episode he taped will air in January. Masuda usually appears on Pokemon Smash to make game announcements.
While I originally predicted we would get a 6th generation announcement this month, Pokemon pulled a fast one and revealed shiny Genesect – their movie “wow factor” for December. However, as I stated in my post (and even with the shiny Genesect revelation), there are still 7 months until the movie premieres and nothing else for Pokemon to advertise since there are no new Pokemon left to be revealed. They may delay a 6th generation announcement again, but it’s inevitable that there is going to be one soon. We’ll see on January 8th!Republican Congressman Tom Cotton and Democratic Senator Mark Pryor will debate in Fayetteville on October 14th from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. in a one-on-one forum.
The debate, sponsored by the Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce, will be broadcast live on KATV, KATV.com, KAIT in Northeast Arkansas and KHBS/KHOG in Northwest Arkansas. The debate will originate from the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville’s Global Campus.
Roby Brock from Talk Business and Politics will be the moderator, and KATV’s Scott Inman, KAIT’s Diana Davis, KHBS/KHOG’s Angela Taylor will be on a panel asking questions of the candidates.
The Fayetteville Chamber Senate debate is the only agreed-upon debate between Cotton and Pryor to be broadcast live.
Pryor and Cotton are squaring off in a hotly-contested race for the U.S. Senate. The race has drawn national interest. The debate will center on domestic issues.
“In one of the most heated Senate debates that Arkansas has ever seen, KATV is proud to be able to bring each candidates message to the people of Arkansas to help them make an informed decision when they enter the voting booth this fall,” said KATV General Manager Mark Rose.
“Arkansans deserve this debate, and it’s time Congressman Cotton finally stand and answer for his irresponsible votes to raise the age to 70 for Medicare and Social Security, end affordable student loans and slash funding for Arkansas Children’s Hospital, even as he voted to give tax breaks to billionaires like those bankrolling his political ambitions,” said Sen. Mark Pryor.
“We are pleased that after months of ducking debates and running from reporters, Senator Pryor will finally have to defend his record of rubber-stamping President Obama’s agenda over 90% of the time. It’s unfortunate that Senator Pryor specifically objected to including any discussion of foreign policy in this debate. Arkansas’s 6,000 active duty military personnel, 4,000 military civilians, and approximately 250,000 veterans deserve an explanation from Senator Pryor as to why his support for President Obama’s national security policies aren’t worthy of debate in a race for the U.S. Senate.” said Cotton spokesman David Ray.
“The Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce is honored that Senator Pryor and Congressman Cotton have agreed to accept our invitation to debate in Fayetteville. Our Chamber makes every effort to provide Fayetteville and Northwest Arkansas voters with the opportunity to become better informed about the issues and candidates. We thank these candidates for agreeing to debate and know this will be an important evening for all Arkansans,” said Steve Clark, Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce President and CEO.
Media interested in covering the event should contact Nick Genty at ngenty@katv.com or (501) 324-7777.
Comments
commentsWords that have never come out of my mouth (or keyboard) in the past: a Warhammer game is coming to iOS. Yes, I know, one a week now. Yet, Warhammer 40,000: Freeblade from Pixel Toys does, at least, appear to offer a new type of gameplay on the Warhammer theme and universe, which does count for something. In terms of lore, Freeblade has you play as a young Imperial Knight on a journey of “honour, redemption, and vengeance" as you patrol the world of Tarnis to slay “endless waves of invaders."
The game will offer a 40-mission campaign where you’ll engage in melee and “tap to shoot" action, using your cannons, missiles, and, of course, Chainsword to defeat the many enemies. Your Freeblade will be customizable as you’ll be able to forge, upgrade, and customize your weaponry, though details on how that system will work are still vague. Finally, the game will offer daily events where you’ll battle other players (their scores, not them) to earn weapons, armor, and so on. You’ll even earn special livery to make your Freeblade the evny of all.
Now, while I know we’ve been getting a billion (accurate number) Warhammer games recently, I don’t mind new entries in the mix as long as they offer something new in terms of gameplay, and Freeblade, at least so far, appears to do so. While it’s impossible to judge how the game will play based on the trailer, it does look like a different beast from most of the other Warhammer games. Will it deliver? I’m not sure, but the Warhammer universe, though used very often, still has plenty to give. If I had to guess, I would say this game will be F2P simply from the gameplay elements, but I have no actual information on the matter so I might be completely off. The game will be universal and should be dropping on the App Store at some point this fall.More from Susan Delacourt available More fromavailable here
Who could have predicted that the Conservatives would get themselves in trouble for dragging Terry Fox into the election campaign?
Well … anyone, really. A government that has been hounding charities for dabbling in politics got slapped for playing politics with a charity. Some may call that symmetry, or karma, but it’s also an amateur-hour error by a Conservative campaign machine that hasn’t exactly dazzled anyone with its brilliance in this election.
It’s not hard to understand why the Fox family or its charitable foundation recoiled when the Conservatives tried to elbow their way into the annual fundraising run last weekend. A chill has descended on all kinds of charities in Canada because of Canada Revenue Agency audits targeting political activities in recent years.
What’s harder to understand is how the once-fearsome Conservative campaign machine managed to make a mistake of this magnitude — dropping the prime minister’s wife, Laureen Harper, and Industry Minister James Moore into an announcement that hadn’t been vetted first with the Terry Fox people.
Who, for instance, advised Moore to tell reporters that the campaign announcement had the “enthusiastic” support of Terry Fox’s family? Nothing in the letter that Stephen Harper released (after the fact) backed up that assertion.
We seem to have come a long way since 2007, when Conservative cabinet minister John Baird invited reporters out to a huge warehouse in east-end Ottawa to show off the party’s fancy campaign war room. The cavernous facility boasted its own TV studio and desks for more than 100 volunteers. The media was being offered a peek at the facilities, Baird declared, to show the world that Conservatives were ready to fight an election at any time.
Baird is gone now. So too, apparently, is the Conservative war room’s power to intimidate rivals. As many others have observed, Harper’s team has frequently seemed ill-prepared for an election they always knew was coming on Oct. 19, and for an extra-long campaign they themselves chose. (I’m tempted to use the phrase “just not ready,” but it might be under copyright by now.)
Not only do they seem to be lacking a strategy of offence, they don’t seem to be playing defence all that well either. “Stephen Harper: He’s Not Perfect” — it doesn’t seem like something you’d plaster on a billboard to attract new supporters.
If you ask Conservatives — the thoughtful ones — why this campaign has been such a rocky experience for the party, you’ll often hear a two-word answer: Accountability Act.
The way some Conservatives tell it, the party simply isn’t attracting new talent. The people surrounding Harper are, by and large, people with nowhere else to go, doing what they’ve always done. The way some Conservatives tell it, the party simply isn’t attracting new talent. The people surrounding Harper are, by and large, people with nowhere else to go, doing what they’ve always done.
This is another example of either symmetry or karma. The very first piece of legislation passed by the Conservatives after taking power nearly a decade ago may also be the reason for their faltering fates in 2015.
The way some Conservatives tell it, the party simply isn’t attracting new talent. The people surrounding Harper are, by and large, people with nowhere else to go, doing what they’ve always done. Professionals in the private sector aren’t going to run the risk of signing up for political duty, only to face a five-year ban on dealing with the government after they leave office.
This hurdle comes on top of the stories we’re seeing every day about the dubious delights of plunging into politics with the Conservatives: the dredging-up of one’s past, the gag orders, the very real risk of ending up under a bus like countless others who landed on Harper’s bad side.
Political jobs in this government, moreover, are not proving to be good training for life in the private sector; the skills required to do politics the way Harper does it are non-transferrable. Imagine, for instance, someone leaving a Conservative minister’s office and applying for a communications job in a corporation.
Interviewer: So how are you at media relations?
Interviewee: Great! When I can’t avoid their calls altogether, I send them one-line emails after their deadlines have passed. I’m also very good at keeping them out of press conferences and events.
Interviewer: Thanks. We’ll call you if we need to antagonize the media.
For evidence of just how non-transferable Conservative communications skills really are, take a look at a recent article in the local Burnaby Now newspaper, in which a reporter is trying to find out why Conservative candidates are not showing up at events or replying to media questions. Burnaby Now ran a transcript of the question-and-answer session between the reporter and the Conservative campaign official, which, as some commenters noted, read like something out of Kafka — or an Abbott and Costello skit.
Public-relations professionals are not advised to try this at home or, worse yet, in the office.
One Conservative told me recently that winning sports teams stay on top by constantly changing their game. As soon as your rivals have figured out your strategy, you change the strategy.
Yet in this election, the Conservatives are not only playing the same political game, their entire platform rests on voters opting for “more of the same”. In an interview on CBC Radio’s The House last weekend, it was notable that Harper didn’t seem to have an answer when host Chris Hall asked what would be new or different about a re-elected Conservative government.
A couple of weeks ago, the Conservatives did a mid-campaign correction and brought in an Australian campaign guru, Lynton Crosby, to get things back on track. Crosby has been called the “Wizard of Oz” for his ability to turn around faltering campaigns.
Another wizard once told Dorothy to pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. The Conservatives’ campaign, at least to now, has only summoned up the power to surprise us with flat-footed mistakes.
Susan Delacourt is one of Canada’s best-known political journalists. Over her long career she has worked at some of the top newsrooms in the country, from the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail to the Ottawa Citizen and the National Post. She is a frequent political panelist on CBC Radio and CTV. Author of four books, her latest — Shopping For Votes — was a finalist for the prestigious Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Canadian non-fiction in 2014. She teaches classes in journalism and political communication at Carleton University.
The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.There’s been a huge outpouring of blogospheric discussion about “epistemic closure” on the right: a complete refusal to look at evidence or arguments that don’t come from the like-minded. I don’t have much to say about all that aside from the fact that it’s obvious, and has been going on for years.
But I think it’s worth pointing out that something similar has long been true in macroeconomics. And like the political version of epistemic closure, it’s not a “both sides do it” issue. It’s a fresh-water phenomenon; salt-water macro isn’t subject to the same problem.
Here’s what I mean: ask a grad student at Princeton or MIT, “How would a new classical macro guy answer this?”, and the student can do it; classes at freshwater saltwater departments teach real business cycle theory, and good students can tell you what it says even if their professors have a different view.
But students at freshwater schools — or, alas, many of their professors — can’t return the favor. It’s been painfully obvious since the crisis broke that people at Minnesota, or even many people at Chicago, have no idea what New Keynesian economics is all about. I don’t mean they disagree, or think it’s garbage, they literally have no idea what the concepts are. And that’s why they reinvent 80-year-old fallacies when they try to discuss the subject.
It’s interesting to ask why this sort of cocooning is a feature of the right but not the left. But it’s very real, and has a dire impact on economic as well as political discourse.
Update: Typo corrected. Also, a macroeconomist emails:But many African-Americans here, year-rounders and summer visitors alike, insist it is not segregated. “This is one of the most integrated communities, racially and economically, that there is,” said Vernon Jordan, the lawyer and former civil rights leader, who has rented a summer place for years.
His wife, Ann, came here as a child from segregated Tuskegee, Ala., with her father, a surgeon. Her cousin is Valerie Jarrett, Mr. Obama’s longtime friend and adviser, who has vacationed here since she was a child.
“We’d hitchhike all over the island,” Ms. Jarrett said. “I never experienced a hint of discrimination on the island in more than 40 years.”
Influenced by Ms. Jarrett and other friends, Mr. Obama visited several times before he became president. In August 2004, amid his campaign for the Senate, Mr. Obama was here for a forum on the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court ruling against segregated schools. Also participating were two summer residents and Harvard professors, Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Charles J. Ogletree Jr.
In 2007, Mr. Obama came for a fund-raiser when he was running for president. He called the island “one of those magical places where people of all different walks of life come together, where they take each other at face value.”
Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content, updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters.
According to the book “African-Americans on Martha’s Vineyard,” a 1947 article in Ebony magazine said the “most exclusive Negro summer colony in the country is at quaint historical Oak Bluffs on |
FOX) 0.8/3 4.17 Strong (NBC) 0.7/3 2.60 Legends of Tomorrow (The CW) 0.6/2 1.88 8:30 p.m. The Odd Couple (CBS) 1.6/6 8.56 9 p.m. Mom (CBS) 1.8/6 8.44 Scandal (ABC) – F 1.8/6 6.65 The Blacklist (NBC) 1.3/4 6.44 American Grit (FOX) 0.6/2 1.89 The 100 (The CW) 0.4/1 1.18 9:30 p.m. 2 Broke Girls (CBS) – F 1.7/6 7.04 10 p.m. Rush Hour (CBS) 0.9/3 4.56 The Catch (ABC) 0.9/3 4.22 Game of Silence (NBC) 0.7/3 3.39
The season finales of “The Big Bang Theory” and “2 Broke Girls” on CBS and “Scandal” on ABC all posted improved ratings compared to last week. “Big Bang” (3.3 in adults 18-49) and “Scandal” (1.8) were each up three tenths of a point week to week, and “2 Broke Girls” (1.7) improved by a tenth.
“Mom” also rose by 0.3 for CBS, scoring a 1.8, while “The Odd Couple” (1.6) and “Rush Hour” (0.9) were even with last week. At ABC, “Grey’s Anatomy” rose a tenth to 2.1, and “The Catch” was even at 0.9.
“Bones” fell a tenth of a point to 0.8 for FOX. NBC’s “The Blacklist” (1.3) ticked up a tenth with its next-to-last episode of the season. The CW’s “Legends of Tomorrow” and “The 100” both matched their numbers from a week ago.
Network averages:
CBS ABC NBC FOX CW Adults 18-49 rating/share 1.7/6 1.6/6 0.9/3 0.7/3 0.5/2 Total Viewers (millions) 7.93 6.18 4.14 3.03 1.53
Late-night metered market ratings (adults 18-49, households):
11:35 p.m.
“The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon”: 0.8/4, 2.4/6
“Jimmy Kimmel Live”: 0.5/3, 2.0/5
“The Late Show with Stephen Colbert”: 0.5/3, 1.9/5
12:35 a.m.
“Late Night with Seth Meyers”: 0.4/3, 1.1/4
“The Late Late Show with James Corden”: 0.3/2, 0.9/3
“Nightline”: 0.3/2, 1.4/4
Definitions:
Rating: Estimated percentage of the universe of TV households (or other specified group) tuned to a program in the average minute. Ratings are expressed as a percent.
Fast Affiliate Ratings: These first national ratings are available at approximately 11 a.m. ET the day after telecast. The figures may include stations that did not air the entire network feed, as well as local news breaks or cutaways for local coverage or other programming. Fast Affiliate ratings are not as useful for live programs and are likely to differ significantly from the final results, because the data reflect normal broadcast feed patterns.
Share (of Audience): The percent of households (or persons) using television who are tuned to a specific program, station or network in a specific area at a specific time.
Time Shifted Viewing: Program ratings for national sources are produced in three streams of data – Live, Live +Same-Day and Live +7 Day. Time-shifted figures account for incremental viewing that takes place with DVRs. Live+SD includes viewing during the same broadcast day as the original telecast, with a cut-off of 3 a.m. local time when meters transmit daily viewing to Nielsen for processing. Live +7 ratings include viewing that takes place during the 7 days following a telecast.
Source: The Nielsen Company.By Jane Wakefield
Technology reporter, BBC News website
Premium music videos will not be accessible to UK YouTube users Online music service Last.fm has waded into the row between YouTube and the Performing Right Society. Founder Martin Stiksel said he hoped a resolution could be found to avoid illegal services from taking over. He urged both parties to find a "workable solution, which he hoped would include cheaper and "less complicated" licences. YouTube is removing all premium music videos to UK users after failing to reach agreement with the PRS. Thousands of videos were made unavailable to YouTube users from late on 9 March. Mr Stiksel told the BBC: "It has been a bold decision for Google but we are all working in a very competitive environment and the fees need to reflect that. This action has been taken without any consultation with PRS for Music and in the middle of negotiations between the two parties
PRS statement "It is a fundamental problem that we have been facing in that online music licensing is getting more complicated and more expensive," he said. He wants to see online payment for music rights reflecting the model used by terrestial radio. "We pay each time one users listens to a song or watches a clip and, while that is more accurate because it makes sure the more popular songs get paid more, it is also very expensive," he said. "Terrestial radio pays a fixed minimum and that works out a lot cheaper," he added. "We have to find commercially workable rates otherwise illegal services will win and take over," he said. Pricing content Consumers must be scratching their heads in amazement at such obstacles to delivering legal content in a timely and straightforward fashion.
Darren Waters, Technology editor, BBC News website
Read more on the Dot.Life blog The row between PRS and YouTube has attracted high profile attention. Lord Carter, the UK's Minister for Communications, Technology and Broadcasting, has also commented on the row. Giving evidence before the Business Select Committee the minister said he suspected a degree of "commercial posturing on the part of both parties" but said the row was indicative of a wider issue. "It is an example of the question of how do you price and fund content in the digital world," he said. "We have had decades of content being funded in one way - via the licence fee and advertising - and that model is changing at a rapid speed," he told MPs. YouTube's director of video partnerships Patrick Walker told BBC News the PRS was seeking a rise in fees "many, many factors" higher than the previous agreement. He said: "We feel we are so far apart that we have to remove content while we continue to negotiate with the PRS." "We are making the message public because it will be noticeable to users on the site." YouTube pays a licence fee to the PRS which covers the streaming of music videos from three of the four major music labels and many independent labels. Stream online While deals with individual record labels cover the use of the visual element and sound recording in a music video, firms that want to stream online also have to have a separate deal with music publishers which covers the music and lyrics. In the UK, the PRS acts as a collecting society on behalf of member publishers for licensing fees relating to use of music. It said of the decision:"This action has been taken without any consultation with PRS for music and in the middle of negotiations." "Google has told us they are taking this step because they wish to pay significantly less than at present to the writers of the music on which their services relies, despite the massive increase in YouTube viewing." YouTube is the world's most popular online video site but has been under increased pressure to generate more revenue since its purchase by Google for $1.65bn in 2006. Services such as Pandora.com, MySpace UK and Imeem have also had issues securing licence deals in the UK in the past 12 months. Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play. Advertisement
Bookmark with: Delicious
Digg
reddit
Facebook
StumbleUpon What are these? E-mail this to a friend Printable versionAlthough the show ended in 2013, "Fringe" has achieved a revived popularity from online streaming over the last couple of years.
Regardless of whether you've been a fan since Olivia's first visit to Dr. Walter Bishop aired on Fox back in 2008, or if you're just picking up with the show now, here are five facts that are no longer unexplained phenomena and will help you appreciate "Fringe" even more.
The Huffington Post spoke with John Noble -- who played Walter -- over the phone about what he appreciated most from his time exploring the edges of science.
1. "Twin Peaks" and "Fringe" might be in the same universe.
"Fringe"
Walter makes a comment in Season 3 about having an old friend named Dr. Jacoby who used to wear 3D glasses. Although there's probably quite a bit of crossover between "Twin Peaks" and "Fringe" fans, for those unaware, Dr. Jacoby was a 3D glasses wearing character on the '90s mystery show, and approached science in a similar way to Walter.
HuffPost asked Noble whether he felt that the two series were in the same universe, which caused him to crack up laughing and claim, "No, no no, it was like an in joke."
However he then continued by saying he wasn't fully sure if the connection was "total lore," especially because the inclusion of oddball things like the Jacoby reference fit the tone of the show regardless. In any case, Noble loved when the writers would throw in something like that.
He'd also be excited if the new revival of "Twin Peaks" threw a shoutout to Dr. Bishop.
2. Noble was originally told he was too young for the role of Dr. Bishop, but after the creators saw his tape, they didn't even make him audition.
"Fringe"
Noble's daughter first noticed that the role of Walter was available while she was perusing open auditions herself. Convinced that her father would be perfect for the part, she went about trying to convince him to audition. After hearing word from his daughter, Noble had his manager inquire, which initially just resulted in the show saying that he was actually too young for the role.
Being already passionate about fringe science, Noble badly wanted the part and therefore was excited when, about a month later, his manager said the creators would actually consider looking at an audition tape if he made one.
Noble was at home in Australia at the time when he ended up filming the scene where Walter first meets Olivia in the mental hospital's cafeteria, with his daughter playing Olivia. According to him, Noble immediately felt as if it was going to work out.
"I was so pleased with it," Noble recalled fondly, mentioning that he rushed home to show it to his wife.
After the tape was submitted, he learned that they were going to offer him the gig just from that, without even making him audition back in the States.
3. Initially, Noble worried that the Twin Towers existing in the alternate universe would offend people, but felt the show's presentation was "brilliant" in the end.
"Fringe"
The alternate universe in "Fringe" was made to closely, but not exactly, mimic the main universe -- with the Twin Towers still standing after 9/11 and President Kennedy not being assassinated. There's also one theory that Humphrey Bogart doesn't exist because Ronald Reagan and Cary Grant are named as the actors in his roles.
Noble was particularly fond of these quirks, but remembered being initially worried when he heard that they were going to make the Twin Towers reference.
"I thought it may upset people a lot," Noble said, who felt as if the inclusion was "dangerous."
When he saw how the show actually approached it though, he was proud with how it was handled. "Everything was done with the utmost of respect," Noble told HuffPost. "At no stage did we go out to sensationalize anything. I felt it was particularly courageous to do that. Because there was a certain elegance and beauty."
4. Since he felt it didn't affect his character, Noble didn't concern himself with the various "Easter eggs" that were hidden for fans.
"Fringe"
"Fringe" was known to hide quite a few "Easter eggs" throughout the series and also notably tried to create mysteries for fans to solve, such as using various white-and-blue symbols to open and close scenes.
Although some of "Fringe" fandom was based off these sorts of side things, since they didn't concern the main plot, Noble didn't focus on them all too much. "There were always Easter eggs all over the place, but I never saw them," explained Noble, who then said why they were nothing more than a peripheral interest to him, "Look, it's funny, they had nothing to do with my character."
The actor certainly liked their inclusion, but they didn't help him play Walter, so it wasn't his concentration while filming.
5. Leonard Nimoy continued to act on the show even after he officially retired. One of his last acting scenes before he died was with Noble.
"Fringe"
Although it's unclear if this was Nimoy's very last acting role due to his 2013 cameo in "Star Trek Into Darkness," his role as Dr. William Bell on "Fringe" certainly featured some of the last scenes the legendary actor tackled.
Despite officially retiring in 2010, Nimoy continued coming back to the show when he had availability. As Noble explained, "He was a sick man at that stage." But the actor apparently respected the show so much that he wanted to keep up with the role.
"The man was a living legend, totally, a true living legend," said Noble, who later continued, "Apart from feeling incredibly honored, really honored -- privileged -- to be sharing a soundstage with him, it was more than that, I also found him to be a superb actor to work with."
The two remained close and as Noble said, "I was deeply saddened by his death, I have to tell you."
Bonus: Noble fondly remembered his times on set with Nimoy, where they'd just sit and talk for hours "about a wide range of topics, nothing to do with science fiction necessarily at all."
"Fringe"
As Noble told HuffPost, "We would be inclined to sit outside the soundstage on a couple chairs that were set up for us, and we'd talk about a wide range of topics, nothing to do with science fiction necessarily at all -- or nothing to do with 'Fringe.'" Noble continued, "We'd talk as two men do with common ground and have so much to talk about, and we'd spend as much time as possible just sitting there doing that."
He recalled the conversations and moments with Nimoy as "special for me," particularly when the ailing actor "very gently" gave him "a lecture about smoking."
"It did take a great toll on him so he would beg me, 'Please, please,'" to stop smoking. Noble remembers with affection that this new friend of his was so concerned.
"You know how you sit down with someone and the conversation flows so easily, you're not struggling at all," Noble recalled. "And it doesn't happen with all people, but sometimes it does, and that's what it was between him. I think there was mutual respect, which helps things along a bit," said Noble.
"I still have to pinch myself sometimes that I worked with Leonard Nimoy."
Also on HuffPost:
PHOTO GALLERY The 7 Shows You Should Binge-Watch Right NowIt's easy to see why soccer fans in Sacramento are confident their city will soon field a Major League Soccer team.
The Sacramento Republic has created a sustained buzz in a city known more for state politics than for sports, leading the United Soccer League in sellouts and cultivating a supporters culture many MLS teams would envy.
And while no task has troubled expansion candidates more than securing a stadium, that's a strength of Sacramento's. Not only is it the only expansion prospect with a shovel-ready stadium plan, but the bid has moved beyond mere plans with $12 million in pre-construction and development around the site already underway.
"We've checked all the boxes and now we've gone to the next steps," the Sacramento bid's lead investor Kevin Nagle told ESPN FC adding that, after their pre-construction work to prepare the site, his investment group will have spent $30 million on the bid: "I doubt there are any candidates besides us who can be in a soccer-ready stadium by 2020, unless they've started doing what we have now."
For all that, though, MLS hasn't rushed to open its doors to Sacramento. The California capital's bid seemingly checked off each expansion box years ago, yet Sacramento has sat on the back burner while the league courts other markets.
Since Sacramento first emerged as an expansion frontrunner, 11 other cities have filed bids for the two slots that will be awarded by the end of the year. Even after expansion fees skyrocketed to $150 million, interest in acquiring an expansion team is at an all-time high. Markets hoping to buy their way into MLS include Cincinnati, Detroit, Nashville, Phoenix, Raleigh, San Antonio, San Diego and Tampa Bay.
Now, with a new expansion process the league set up last year, every candidate is on even footing.
Sacramento Republic has already begun construction on a soccer-specific stadium despite not being awarded an MLS franchise.
"We have more qualified markets and ownership groups than we're going to have space for in expanding the league," MLS deputy commissioner Mark Abbott told ESPN FC. "We have not yet made a list of front runners and we have not created a shortlist. Everyone remains viable at this point."
That may be hard for fans in Sacramento to hear. After all, the city has looked like an obvious expansion candidate for years with strong government support and a viable stadium plan. But the league passed it over in favor of Minnesota United, who were chosen in 2015 but won't be able to play in their own soccer-specific stadium until 2019. Abbott called Sacramento "a very strong bid" and said it's only gotten stronger since it was overlooked two years ago.
Sacramento's bid isn't perfect, however. MLS already has two teams in California -- and a third in LAFC joining in 2018 -- and although the Republic already have a rivalry with the San Jose Earthquakes (and rivalries help boost TV ratings), expanding to Sacramento doesn't grow the league's national footprint.
MLS has shown a preference to expand into new parts of the country, with Atlanta and Minnesota joining the league this year, and has worked with David Beckham to find a suitable stadium site for a franchise in Miami. Until recently, though, when Beckham and his ownership group finally secured land for a stadium, it looked like those attempts could drag on indefinitely.
If the city of Sacramento quickly embraced the possibility of an MLS team, Miami went along a different path. Beckham's group first set sights on PortMiami in 2013, but nearby businesses opposed it and Miami-Dade County commissioners blocked it. A spot next to American Airlines Arena was the next proposed stadium site, but the City of Miami rejected that idea. Then there was a site next to Marlins Park that could not be negotiated down to an acceptable price.
In December 2015, the Overtown neighborhood became the new favored location. Beckham's group finally secured the land they need to build a stadium in June 2017, almost four years after they started their search.
After years of searching, David Beckham's MLS franchise is set to build a stadium in the Overtown neighborhood of Miami.
"Am I frustrated?" Nagle said when asked about the hesitance of MLS to greenlight Sacramento's bid while pursuing other cities. "Not really because I know that they created a formalized process, we've moved on that process and, based on all we can see, I believe we're ahead of the pack. You have to compete and I'm not afraid to compete."
If anything, MLS' courtship of Miami may highlight just how difficult it can be gain the support and funding necessary for a stadium in 2017. For Miami, like Detroit and Cincinnati, identifying a suitable stadium site has been a challenge. St Louis, Charlotte and Indianapolis have already seen their bids derailed by lack of public support for their stadium plans, which included public subsidies.
That's partly why MLS has stretched its timeline on expansion to a total of 28 teams, Abbott said; to give markets more time to navigate the complicated issues around building soccer-specific stadiums. Two candidates should earn spots this year and then two more will earn spots as part of a longer timeline that is yet to be announced.
But Sacramento's stadium looks to be close to being reality -- as long MLS says yes -- with the land and private financing in place to build a new 20,000-seat stadium near the downtown core. It would be the first piece of a major development project the city is planning that would create thousands of housing units, offices and retail spaces in a transit-accessible location minutes from the city center.
If MLS doesn't award Sacramento a franchise in this next round of expansion, it's likely some other project will anchor that new city development project. But for now, Nagle refuses to imagine failure.
"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," he said. "Sometimes the ball doesn't bounce your way, but we don't anticipate anything other than expansion in 2020."
Caitlin Murray is a Portland, Oregon-based reporter who covers MLS, NWSL and the U.S. national teams. Follow her on Twitter @caitlinmurr.Latest on Julian Assange Pedophile Ring Investigation:
Dagestan Massacre-Style Killings of Black Men Planned in 4 US States by Reddit White Supremacist Network, Anonymous Group Response to Cover Up Evidence of Jeffrey Epstein-Assange Pedophile Ring
A Pedophile Ring That Goes All the Way to the Top
For anyone not familiar with the background, it was Todd and Clare who exposed the Julian Assange pedophile ring back in our United Nations Report of 2016, that was fabricated by Anti-American press organization, Russian Today, degrading us as a “suspicious US company”, though we have never had any legal issues with either the IRS, State or Federal authorities, in our company’s entire legal history.
Legal parties can still read the RT smear campaign of Todd and Clare in their article here, which primarily served as an attempt to deflect attention away from the Epstein pedophile ring that Julian Assange embroiled our female dating network through his illegal use of our website as described in detail in the UN report.
After seeing our names libeled in the press, in addition to the extreme death threats of aggravated mayhem we’ve been faced on white supremacist troll sites where racial vigilantism has been fueled, we’re relieved that our parties have successfully shielded most of our colleagues’ identities from public disclosure in the continental US.
“The best defense is a good attack, find and kill these white niggers.” Those were the instructions issued by Jeffrey Epstein on the Todd and Clare network, our female ex-employees and ex-dating site members now terrorized by a white supremacist mob on Reddit and 4Chan. The anonymous group has been mandated to find scapegoats from the most harassed, targeted group in our society—African American blacks—across the United States and Canada, accusing these unconnected people of being the authors of our website, and advocating mass genocide on those racial parties.
Pictures published in the secret 4Chan group appeared with comments from Reddit trolls dated January 2018, to quote them, “Burn every last nigga [sic] in America…”
“…here’s some wicked masturbation material for the enlightened white man“.
On the secret forum, another fascist commented, “Todd and Clare are white niggers and need to die slow. Gas them in their beds. Zyklon B comes to mind.”
The Russian content with lynching pictures on the white supremacist forum is not surprising. Assange has likely spied for Russia and was involved in soviet interference in the recent US election campaign during 2016.
We’ve been legally advised to publish these materials to demonstrate that the core of reddit trolling of Todd and Clare has a specific racial agenda, designed to obfuscate the UN report that high ranking UN-affiliated pedophiles in the Assange ring with Jeffrey Epstein covered up.
Although the demographic of both our management team and our former dating site were overwhelmingly white Caucasian, in white supremacist troll forums our former dating website has been made into a racialized scapegoat.
Julian Assange is a true hero – anyone who is saying otherwise, has been compromised by the (((deep state))). #FreeAssange pic.twitter.com/4WnyR4Arvc — David Duke (@DrDavidDuke) 21 April 2017
As KKK Leader David Duke voices public support for his fascist white supremacist friend, the accused rapist/pedophile, Julian Assange, our investigators have unearthed a national conspiracy that embroils Epstein and a number of other public figures.
To sweep the pedophile ring under the carpet, the white supremacist network has launched Operation Nigger and Operation Dindu, identified by our leading US investigators, which aims to hound random black males across the US and Canada with the intention of deflecting legal attention away from the contents of a deleted UN Report, the subject of Wikileaks’ phoney public denial issued back in October 2016:
UN system, British Court & PRWeb used to launch elaborate #PedoPlot against Assange during height of election pubs https://t.co/oaEeJ1eftZ pic.twitter.com/RUInc9uzqv — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) 12 October 2016
There is a media black out on reporting of Todd and Clare’s investigation and child protection activities, Assange having successfully got away with raping women in Sweden, the online grooming and molesting of a child through our dating network, among other attacks on US national security.
The Jewish media connections protecting Assange are strong however. A former Mossad operator, who moonlights as reddit troll, Israeli national Joseph Bernstein, is known to be behind a high-tech cover up on behalf the Epstein-Assange pedophile ring, and is said to be being paid handsomely by billionaire pedophile, Jeffrey Epstein.
Representing payments to Bernstein, Wall Street laundered dollars from an Epstein-related hedge fund have been tracked being funneled into Israeli-allocated bank accounts that our investigators say is the beginning of a deep offshore well which extends into shadow crypto-currency movements.
US Investigation Profile on Joe Bernstein
A fan of torture murder: BuzzFeed Troll and Jewish white supremacist, Joseph Bernstein, who is known on the secret 4Chan forum as “GenocideJew”, is the son of a Nazi Hunter on one side of his family blown up in the Lockerbie Bombing. GenocideJew is tied on his maternal side, as a descendant of the late John Clayton Sr. (pictured with red circle above), a deep south white supremacist implicated in numerous lynchings of black males.
Bernstein, who colluded with a fabricated Breitbart article to appear anti-Trump, is in fact advocating the racialized genocide of black men in New York City who he wishes to see publicly slaughtered as depicted in the Dagestan Massacre.
Bernstein, who like many New York and Washington journalists has a cocaine addiction, has an even darker family history.
His uncle, a current Schizophrenia patient at The Mount Sinai Hospital – Psychiatric Department, appeared in this Nick Broomfield documentary on Nazi Sadomasochism that aired back in 1996.
3 weeks ago our daughter was contacted by Mr Bernstein in a wordsalad request for comment on his “story”. Bernstein’s email, part of Operation Nigger, read similarly to how the eponymous GenocideJew allegedly wrote to young Trump supporters in the Breitbart article.
He maliciously relayed the death threats against Todd and Clare that were previously published on our site, and that we independently confirmed to be a bone fide issue by the KKK on behalf of Julian Assange.
We have re-published them again below.
Bernstein is heavily involved in the Assange pedophile ring, and we believe is already under investigation by authorities in relation to Assange’s recent, failed attempts to defraud European legal systems where he unlawfully skipped bail to avoid rape charges and a European Arrest Warrant hiding like a coward in a third-world embassy.
To protect our investigator’s identities who are in contact with the white supremacists attacking our former employees, beyond that of naming David Duke, we’re being very careful not to identify these white supremacists on 4Chan and Reddit.
However, it’s relevant to note, to evidence the extreme seriousness of the racial hatred we face, that this emailed death threat which Todd and Clare originally publicly disclosed on October 15, 2017, was sent from the Apple computer of a white woman, and sadly, has a female legal hand who is closely connected to Julian Assange.By Mark Salter - June 7, 2011
In this age of "mistakes were made" and "I can't say with certitude," a reminder of a time when accountability was an essential virtue of leadership arrived with the 67th anniversary of D-Day.
The day before the greatest armada ever assembled set sail for the coast of Normandy, Gen. Dwight David Eisenhower walked among the men of the 101st Airborne Division, who were boarding the aircraft that would drop them behind German lines in advance of the landings, where many of them would die. Cheerful, seemingly at ease, he asked their names and hometowns and what they had done for a living before the war. One young paratrooper stopped just as he was boarding his plane, turned around and snapped a salute to the supreme allied commander, who returned it smartly and flashed a smile. Then Eisenhower turned away and wept.
Allied casualties in the initial landings were expected to run as high as 75 percent. The odds of success were believed to be no better than the odds of failure. Winston Churchill had confessed his doubts to Eisenhower that the invasion would result in anything more than the destruction of the "flower" of English and American youth.
The invasion had been scheduled for June 5 but had to be postponed because of gale-force winds and dense cloud cover. At 4:15 in the morning of the 5th, after receiving a report from his meteorologist that there might be a brief window of bearable weather the following morning, and consulting his senior commanders -- who were divided -- Eisenhower paced the floor in silence, chain smoking, for five minutes before lifting his head and ordering, "OK, let's go." Until he had commanded the U.S. invasion of North Africa and, later, the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe, "Ike" had never held a combat command.
The heavy burdens of his command were plainly evident in his behavior. Eisenhower drank 15 to 20 cups of coffee and smoked four packs of cigarettes a day. He had high blood pressure and migraines. He suffered from insomnia, so he often worked through the night.
Ike had a bad temper, but he never complained or gave the slightest impression he thought he deserved anyone's sympathy. He disliked flattery and had no use for the perquisites of high command. He had been given a mansion as his quarters, and rejected it for a modest two-bedroom house in a London suburb. Only to his wife did he write of his loneliness and doubts. "No man can always be right," he told her. "So the struggle is to do one's best."
His statement to his troops was broadcast at every embarkation point, ending confidently with an assurance of success:
"I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full victory! And let us beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking."
In his shirt pocket, he carried another statement. He had written it alone, and informed no one of its contents:
"Our landings... have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based on the best information available. The troops, the air, and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone."
Some hours later, off Omaha Beach, the commander of the invasion force, Gen. Omar Bradley, looked through binoculars at what he believed was an ensuing disaster. Allied bombers had missed the enemy pillboxes and artillery, which were chewing up the first wave of American soldiers, who sought the only cover they could find -- sand mounds created by enemy shells. Then they got up and pushed ahead and scaled the cliffs and destroyed their country's enemies.
Eisenhower wouldn't need his statement claiming sole responsibility for a disaster that would have cost him his command and likely meant a return home in disgrace. An aide rescued it from the wastepaper basket Eisenhower had tossed it in.
On June 7, Ike crossed the English Channel to observe the follow-up landings. He asked the British skipper to bring the ship closer to the beach. The ship ran aground; knocking Eisenhower and several other senior officers to the deck. When he returned to his base, Eisenhower wrote the British sea lord, taking responsibility for the incident and asking that the skipper not be punished for following his orders.
As America begins its quadrennial election of a commander in chief amid war and economic hardship, can we expect to find among the aspirants someone who will hold himself or herself to such a strict standard of accountability? Probably not. Times have changed. We will ask for promises, and promises will be made. But we should ask every candidate one question before any other. Whose fault will it be if you don't keep your word -- or if your program does not succeed? If we don't insist on an unqualified answer, then the blame will be ours.1 of 10 View Caption
Serena Williams of the U.S holds up her trophy after winning the women's singles final against Angelique Kerber of Germany on day British Prime Minister David Cameron sits in the Royal Box on the fourteenth day of the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London, Britain's Prince William and Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge sit in the Royal Box on the fourteenth day of the Wimbledon Tennis Cha Andy Murray of Britain hold up the trophy after beating Milos Raonic of Canada in the men's singles final on day fourteen of the W Andy Murray of Britain holds up his trophy after beating Milos Raonic of Canada, right, in the men's singles final on day fourteen Milos Raonic of Canada plays a return to Andy Murray of Britain during the men's singles final on the fourteenth day of the Wimble Andy Murray of Britain returns to Milos Raonic of Canada during the men's singles final on the fourteenth day of the Wimbledon Ten Andy Murray of Britain celebrates a point against Milos Raonic of Canada during the men's singles final on the fourteenth day of t Andy Murray of Britain kisses his trophy after beating Milos Raonic of Canada in the men's singles final on day fourteen of the Wi Andy Murray of Britain celebrates after beating Milos Raonic of Canada in the men's singles final on day fourteen of the WimbledonJust weeks before the Christmas holidays, “Lost” actor Matthew Fox travelled to India on a medical mission with Operation Smile, meeting hundreds of children suffering from cleft lips and cleft palates who were born into unimaginable poverty.
Matthew Fox volunteers in India
Credit/Copyright: Operation Smile Photo – Marc Ascher
Actor Matthew Fox volunteered in Guwahati, India, on Operation Smile’s 500 patient medical mission. (Operation Smile Photo – Marc Ascher)
Fox spent his time playing with the children who were awaiting operations. A father of two, Fox’s heart was quickly captured by 5-year-old Saban.
Matthew Fox volunteers in India
Credit/Copyright: Operation Smile Photo – Marc Ascher
Sarban showed no fear before his surgery. He said he “just wants his lip to be better.” (Operation Smile Photo – Marc Ascher)
The operation required to repair a cleft lip can take as little as 45 minutes.
Matthew Fox volunteers in India
Credit/Copyright: Operation Smile Photo – Marc Ascher
After the surgery, the stress and desperation that previously lined the face of Sarban’s father was replaced with pure joy. “When they told me that he was ready for surgery, that moment was the happiest moment in my life,” Sarban’s father said. “Now that I see him, I am the happiest father in the world.” (Operation Smile Photo – Marc Ascher)
Matthew Fox volunteers in India
Credit/Copyright: Operation Smile Photo – Marc Ascher
Sarban’s smile is healed and his life will never be the same. (Operation Smile Photo – Marc Ascher)
Operation Smile is an international charity with a mobile team of volunteer medical professionals who provide safe, effective reconstructive surgery for children born with facial deformities at no cost. Thanks to their work, more than 150,000 formerly affected children can smile today.
The organization will host its 2nd Annual “Little Black Dress” Fundraiser Event & Cocktail Party at the Viceroy in Miami on Saturday, February 5, 2011 at 8PM.
Celebrities set to attend include former NBA player of the Miami Heat, Tim Hardaway; star of the hit Broadway play “Dream Girls”, Syesha Mercado; Super Bowl champ and 2 time Pro Bowl winner, former NFL Player of the Atlanta Falcons, Gerald Riggs, along with his son, successful International Sports News Castor, Gerald Riggs Jr.; supporting actor from “Stomp The Yard,” Alfred Thomas; and Miss Latina International, Esther Dollar.
To find out more about how you can join these celebrities and support the work of Operation Smile, visit OperationSmile.org.
To view more images of Fox’s trip to India, visit their page on Facebook.Earlier this week, we reported that Microsoft was letting UK residents vote online in the 2013 Xbox Entertainment Awards. Unfortunately, a few days later, some personal information from many of the people who voted was briefly exposed on a publicly accessible link on the awards webpage.
Microsoft later took the website down and removed the public page. Today, one of Neowin's moderators, Stephen Roberts, received an email from Microsoft. He posted the content of the email on Neowin's forums. The email stated in part:
We have removed the "Xbox LIVE Awards Programme Competition" element of the Xbox Entertainment Awards and have closed this Facebook prize promotion. To apologise for any inconvenience this technical issue and the withdrawal of the Xbox LIVE Awards Programme Competition may have caused we are, as a gesture of goodwill, providing you with 1600 Microsoft Points which can be redeemed for TV shows, movies and games to enjoy on your Xbox 360 console, |
is to say, is she an “influential”–a term thrust into the spotlight by Malcolm Gladwell’s 2000 best seller, The Tipping Point. Then Berger pushes it one step further: Do influentials even exist? “I wanted to write what I’ll call–I won’t call it a better version of The Tipping Point, but a more research-focused version,” says Berger. “This is a really compelling argument, right?” he posits. “There’s this notion that there are special people out there, and if we can just find them, our product will become popular.” Berger admits to the class that he used Kardashian as a decoy to get their attention; she is more celeb than influencer. Ultimately, today’s lesson is winding toward the heretical conclusion Berger has spent his entire academic career developing: “There is no data to show that influentials actually lead things to catch on, that they are more important than a randomly selected group of people,” he says. Berger might, ironically, be lecturing about himself. An influential scholar little known outside academia, he is working to tip himself into the mainstream with a new, contrarian book that sparked a high-profile bidding war. His book publicist and speaking bureau are also pitching him for the conference circuit, and he’s hoping to consult with companies and sit on boards. But nothing defines Berger more than the specter of Gladwell–muse, alter ego, shadow, nemesis, figure of admiration and envy. In many ways, Berger is setting himself up as the anti-Gladwell: It’s data that matters, not storytelling. “I like to say in class, ‘Fifty percent of The Tipping Point is wrong. My job is to show you which half,'” Berger tells me. Berger’s course, called “Contagious,” is one of Wharton’s most popular. Its list of guest speakers is a Who’s Who of new-age marketing–from BzzAgent to Klout–and the experiments that Berger assigns, delving into Twitter and Facebook, are like method pop science. Its appeal has been fueled by Berger’s marketing. “I spent a lot of time thinking about the name,” he says. (It may as well be called “Pot and Hallucinogens,” amid a sleepy roster of classes such as “Pricing Policy” and “Models for Marketing Strategy.”) “I thought it would be something that would get students’ attention.” Berger’s dismantling of Gladwell is at the core of the class and his new book, Contagious: Why Things Catch On, out this March. Berger says marketers have been obsessed with the wrong part of the viral equation. “By focusing so much on the messenger, we’ve neglected a much more obvious driver of sharing: the message,” he writes. The Tipping Point‘s notion that social epidemics are driven “by the efforts of a handful of exceptional people,” dubbed by Gladwell as mavens, connectors, and salesmen, is just plain wrong, Berger argues. “Gladwell is great at telling stories,” he allows, “but sometimes the stories get ahead of the facts. I really love applying hard-science tools to social science questions.” Gladwell’s response to all the campfire criticism: “I think anyone who is honest about what they’re doing is letting stories get ahead of facts. Stories are the way of making sense of things where we don’t have facts.” He also admits that he has refined some of the ideas that made him famous. “The more I’ve thought about this since writing The Tipping Point, the more it strikes me that the argument I was making was really specific to a certain kind of idea–to complex, relatively new, and sophisticated ideas,” he said. “If you are talking about a popular song, I think it’s foolish to talk about connectors and salesmen and mavens.” And as for the man who would dethrone him, when I first approached Gladwell for this story, he told me that he didn’t really know who Berger was. Then he deftly disarmed any rivalry. “I was just a journalist describing stuff. These guys are actually doing the work,” Gladwell said. “I’m far more interested in what he has to say about it than what I think about it.” “I was just a journalist describing stuff. I’m far more interested in what he has to say about it than what I think about it,” says Gladwell. Berger will be saying it in a crowded field. Ever since Gladwell spawned a literary subgenre, social science repackaged as pop culture has become big business, with publishers pumping out tomes on the next big idea to flog at airport bookstores. But few have set out expressly to topple Gladwell. The Tipping Point not only elevated the New Yorker writer to sage–hired by companies and trade groups at up to $100,000 per speech–but has also inspired a generation of business leaders to embrace strategies that Berger now argues are at least half off the mark. And what would prove Berger’s point definitively? To have his own book reach Gladwellian heights.
advertisement
Up until now in his young career, Berger has gracefully walked the line between academic and popular acclaim, finding a home for his ideas in both journals and the mainstream press. He’s been hired to share his thinking with companies including Estee Lauder, Google, and Samsung. Yet as he sets out to take his ideas on the road, some precocious big-think authors–such as Jonah Lehrer, who was caught manufacturing quotes in his book Imagine: How Creativity Works–have become overnight cautionary tales. “It’s very important for me to do things that people can use in their lives. But I think you have to be careful not to oversimplify things,” says Berger. It doesn’t hurt that Berger has already packaged his ideas in a way that is conveniently reductive. “I can explain the entire semester in 10 minutes to anyone,” says Lainie Huston, a peppy blond 20-year-old undergrad who took Berger’s class this fall. She has applied his framework to her a capella group’s fundraiser and plans to use it when she lands her brand-manager dream job at a company like Starbucks. “I’m thinking of going back to my high school and teaching them how they could use it in their lives,” she says. “It’s so easy to learn. Everyone should learn it.” Wharton’s Berger lays out his schema for creating contagious ideas. Malcolm Gladwell and Jonah Berger are both short. If someone were to draw a caricature of them, the curly hair that sits atop each of their heads would be the star of the show. Whereas Gladwell’s curls are black and bushy and bloom from his wispy frame, Berger’s strawberry blond corkscrews are packed as tightly as his muscled forearms, which rolled-up shirtsleeves often leave on display. When Gladwell speaks, he has the cadence of a seductive storyteller peeling away the veils. Berger talks with the rushed, if not neurotic-sounding, impatience of someone who can’t squeeze out the data coursing through his brain fast enough. “For him, using data to understand the world was just like riding a bike,” says Berger’s father, Jeffrey, a Washington, D.C., labor lawyer. Jeffrey recalls how one of Jonah’s preschool teachers at the National Child Research Center noticed his son’s unusual capacity. “She said, ‘I’d be reading a story and Jonah would be staring up at the ceiling. But every time I asked a question, he’d raise his hand and answer, then go back to look at the ceiling. One day, he said, “5,622,” and I realized he was counting the dots in the ceiling.'” By age 7, Jonah’s IQ was scored at genius level, but he wasn’t considered exceptional in the D.C.-area private and magnet schools he attended. He excelled in math and science–“It was a fun way to socialize with people who liked being smart,” he says of a Johns Hopkins summer camp–and credits his chosen sports, which included wrestling, with giving him grit. “It was one of these experiences where I was not very good at it, and I just got the shit kicked out of me,” says Berger. “If you can go through these practices sweating and bleeding, you realize you can do anything.” Even though he got near-perfect scores on his SATs, says Berger, “I got rejected from Harvard, I got rejected from Columbia, I got rejected from Princeton. I applied early to Wharton, and I didn’t get in.” He did get into Stanford, where he planned to focus on math and engineering until he discovered social psychology, the study of how other people’s behavior and decisions affect an individual’s behavior and decisions. “I was really interested in people as they relate to other people,” says Berger. As a freshman he began cold-calling Stanford researchers in the field and landed assistantships helping PhDs with experiments such as “Alone in a Crowd of Sheep.” (“If you ask people, everyone thinks others conform, just not them,” Berger explains.) An interest in game theory led him to take business courses, which aren’t typically available to Stanford undergrads. “I was able to weasel my way in,” he notes wryly.
advertisement
Berger’s grandmother introduced him to the book that would alter the trajectory of his life. In her seventies at the time, she had spent a 40-year career organizing focus groups for marketers. “My grandmother was like, ‘You should check out this book called The Tipping Point,‘” says Berger. “I read it over the summer [before junior year] and just thought it was so, so cool.” He had never before seen anyone bring together the disciplines of social psychology, sociology, and marketing. “I owe Gladwell a great academic debt,” he adds. “I would not be where I am today without him.” Related Articles Why Ideas And Products Become Contagious: The Jonah Berger Formula
Jonah Berger On Foursquare, Frequent Flyers, And Games That Stick
Jonah Berger Explains How A $50k Salary Is More Desirable Than $100k
Jonah Berger On Black Toilet Paper And Discovering Your Inner Remarkability
Exclusive Excerpt From Jonah Berger’s Disruptive New Book “Contagious” (Please Don’t Tell) Berger found a mentor in another future New York Times best-selling author, Stanford professor Chip Heath. “I remember getting a message from a guy named Jonah Berger on my answering machine, talking about Malcolm Gladwell,” recalls Heath, who with his brother Dan has produced three big-think books, Made to Stick, Switch, and Decisive. “I was expecting a grad student to show up and instead this ruddy-faced kid with big, cool sneakers who looks about 13 walks into my office.” Berger began lapping up Heath’s methodology, which would prove formative; instead of asking subjects about their behavior, he was tracking actual behavior online. Heath says that Berger, only a junior, was completing studies in three days that would take grad students three months to execute. Heath would go on to become Berger’s PhD co-adviser. “My reference letter for him when he was looking for his first professor job was, ‘If you didn’t know this was a guy applying for a first job, you might think he’s coming up for tenure seven years into his career,'” says Heath. A slew of universities, including Harvard and the University of Chicago, wanted to hire Berger after he got his doctorate in 2007, but he had his eye on Wharton, which didn’t have an opening. Again, Berger talked his way into the room. “Jonah called me on Thanksgiving Day and said, ‘I have offers from all these other places. I love Wharton. Is there any opportunity?'” says vice dean and director of Wharton Doctoral Programs Eric Bradlow. Wharton was looking after its brand, too. Twitter and Facebook had just started to boom. “I called my department chair. I said, ‘This guy has an immense amount of talent. Maybe this is someone who can provide insights on those things,'” Bradlow says. Then he adds: “Give us a little credit. We can spell success when we can see it. I mean, what does Jonah have that you wouldn’t want?” Once at Wharton, instead of collaborating with behavioral academics like psychologists, Berger began working with quantitative types: statisticians and economists. In five years, he published 25 papers, nearly three times the average. But despite the voluminous output, he was still trapped in the echo chamber of academia. By 2011, he decided he was ready to write the book that would thrust him into the mainstream. Ever since he’d read Gladwell’s opus, he says, “I wanted to write what I’ll call”–he catches himself–“I won’t call it a better version of The Tipping Point, but a more research-focused version of The Tipping Point.” Plus, he had recently turned 30. “This is going to make me sound like an asshole,” he says, “but you read the business section of the paper, you read about these people doing startups, people who are famous playing sports and they’re, like, 28 and they’re gazillionaires and you’re sitting there going, ‘I’m working just as hard as these people. Like, what am I doing wrong?'” Still, writing a paper is one thing; a book is another. Berger approached the job the way he goes about his research: with lots of analysis. “I tried to reverse-engineer The Tipping Point, Made to Stick, Predictably Irrational, [/i]and Freakonomics,” Berger tells me on the way to dinner at Barclay Prime, a posh Philadelphia restaurant. “I looked at how their books worked, how the chapter structure worked, and what made each successful.” In contrast to The Tipping Point, in which Gladwell tells long stories that take up an entire chapter, Made to Stick uses lots of short anecdotes woven around research. In both Freakonomics and Predictably Irrational, each chapter is based on a paper. “I realized that I’m not a good enough writer to do the Gladwell approach, and I’m not well read enough to do the Heath approach. I think my relative advantage is I do a lot of research, so I tried to focus on the research but build stories around it,” he says. The organizing framework of Contagious is an acronym representing the six principles that Berger maintains can lead to contagious content: STEPPS, for social currency, triggers, emotion, public, practical value, and stories. Unlike others’ “theories,” writes Berger, his findings are based on his own “cutting-edge science” of how the social transmission of products and ideas works.
advertisement
Berger’s book soars when he takes the reader inside his plethora of studies. He sheds new light on phenomena that may seem familiar, showing with precision why things catch on. One of his most fascinating studies drills into why certain articles end up on The New York Times‘ most-emailed list–something, he says, even the Times doesn’t understand. Berger teamed up with a computer scientist to build a web crawler that for six months tracked every article the newspaper published. They discovered that science articles were the ones most frequently shared, so they ran a statistical analysis coding each story by the emotion it elicited. Berger concluded that the critical emotion was awe–the same feeling people experienced when watching underdog Susan Boyle sing on Britain’s Got Talent. “It’s hard to watch this video and not be awed by her strength and heart. That emotion drove people to pass it on,” writes Berger of why Boyle’s clip became one of the most popular videos ever. In his chapter on triggers, he explains that Rebecca Black’s “Friday” song, which also went viral, “was equally bad every day of the week,” but “each Friday it received a strong trigger that contributed to its success.” Many of the anecdotes are fascinating–it turns out that people are more likely to vote for education-friendly funding if their polling place is in a school, or to buy French wine if a liquor store is playing French music. So as a playbook for marketers, Contagious is a success. As a piece of writing, though, it is more Time magazine than New Yorker. Berger can’t compete with Gladwell’s literary sheen of “thin-slicing” and “Warren Harding errors.” Contagious is peppered with mottoes that are intended to be memorable but that at times are cringe-worthy–“Top of mind, tip of tongue,” “When we care, we share,” “News you can use.” While the STEPPS conceit helps simplify his complex research, the acronym is clunky and derivative, ripped right from his mentor Heath’s Made to Stick SUCCESS framework, which he more or less admits. (“When I wrote Contagious, sometimes I was doing my best Heath brothers impression,” Berger says to me.) For anyone who’s been to a marketing conference in the past three years, some of his anecdotes feel like they’ve been sitting in the fridge a little too long, like the ones about viral Blendtec videos (“They can blend iPhones!”) or Subway’s weight-loss everyman, Jared. By the end of the book, Berger makes a dangerous, intoxicating promise. “If you follow these six key STEPPS,” he writes, “you can make any product or idea contagious.” And he is applying the recipe to his own product. He says he chose Contagious‘s bright clementine-hued cover to make it more public (P); the memorable stories (S) he told, such as his account of Barclay Prime’s $100 cheesesteak, have social currency (S) so they become traveling “Trojan horses.” But if Berger wants to claim that he’s cracked the code for making things catch on, he had better end up on the New York Times best-seller list–and stay there. It’s five months before Contagious hits bookstores, and the cogs of the Jonah Berger marketing machine are gathered around their guru. All nine of them are at Simon & Schuster’s midtown Manhattan offices, including Berger’s editor, assistant publisher, and publicist, a level of attention more typical of a Robert Ludlum type than a university professor. Berger has just rolled into town from Philadelphia, wearing another pair of exotic sneakers and with a black Barneys suit bag slung over his shoulder. “Jonah, have you seen this?” Simon & Schuster director of publicity Tracey Guest says, fanning a copy of Philadelphia magazine. “Jonah is one of the innovators. They call you ‘the Twitter Whisperer!'” The room is almost giddy. “I don’t know where they get the word darling,” Berger says with a slight blush, “but I’ll take it. Awesome.” Someone in the room quietly mutters, “There’s a little irony here.” Turns out Simon & Schuster has been pushing Berger to build up his Twitter following, but in his typical number-crunching manner, Berger isn’t convinced Twitter actually works and is resisting hard. “These things [Twitter and social media] are great because you can see them,” he argues later in the meeting, getting all academic on the team, “but it doesn’t necessarily mean they are effective, or are more effective than other things that are harder to see.” Twitter or not, the Simon & Schuster team is working hard to make Contagious as contagious as possible, or to sound that way. Guest’s update list reads like the itinerary for an Idea Man world tour: Will Berger be doing a TED talk? (“They told me, ‘We haven’t forgotten about Jonah!'”) Be speaking at South by Southwest? (“There are still 200 proposals they are considering!”) Be appearing on Good Morning America? (“Let’s think of an experiment where something could go viral!”) Associate publisher Richard Rohrer says, as if channeling Donald Trump: “I want to be able to say that this is the most shareable e-book this company has published. I want to do this more for bragging rights so it becomes part of the narrative of the publishing of this book.” Simon & Schuster bought Berger’s book within two weeks of receiving the pitch. “I was at Random House when Gladwell’s proposal for The Tipping Point was submitted and it elicited the same reaction–instant frenzy,” says publisher Jonathan Karp (Little, Brown ended up purchasing The Tipping Point), adding that the company has already sold foreign rights for Contagious in 14 countries, from Estonia to Korea. “All signs are that he will be one of the leading business thinkers of his generation.” The imprint paid a rumored seven figures, a sum that still mystifies Berger. “The amount we got in the end is just ridiculous,” he says. After the meeting ends, Berger pulls aside his editor, Bob Bender, to talk about something that’s been gnawing at him. “Right now the book is 180 pages, and I’m slightly worried,” he tells Bender. Berger starts riffing about psychological research on decision making as it relates to books–and it has to do with length. “Most business books of this size are over 200 pages for text,” he says. “I think people will look at [Contagious] and go, ‘It’s a short book; it must not be worth it to buy.'” Berger takes out his iPhone to show Bender his evidence–a spreadsheet he had constructed that morning, breaking down not only the number of pages of his competitors’ books, but also the number of words on each page. “We’re coming in at 340 [words per page], whereas The Tipping Point is coming in at 290, Predictably Irrational the same, and Made to Stick slightly fewer. So that’s like 50 fewer words per page, 10% to 20% on average. If we would spread the words out, we’d get to more pages like they have. People like feeling it’s easy to turn the pages, they like that feeling of progress: It’s 30 pages but I’m blowing through this, it’s so easy to read, I want to read some more! So could we do something where there are fewer words per page?” Berger wins; Simon & Schuster agrees to reformat the book. “The designer will have a heart attack,” concedes Bender, “but I’ll deal with that.”
advertisement
Buried underneath all of the technical analysis is one final, clever meta-trigger. In Contagious, Berger recounts how, back in 1997, Mars bars experienced an uptick in sales when NASA’s Pathfinder mission traveled to Mars. Ten years later, when Hershey’s was trying to revive its Kit Kat brand, it engineered a similar effect by running an ad campaign that paired Kit Kats with something ubiquitous: a cup of coffee. “Coffee is a particularly good thing to link the brand to because it is a frequent stimulus in the environment. A huge number of people drink coffee. Many drink it a number of times throughout the day,” writes Berger, who notes that since 2007, U.S. sales of the candy have grown from roughly $300 million to $500 million. “By linking Kit Kat to coffee, [they] created a frequent trigger to remind people of the brand.” Now take another look at Berger’s own origin story. Recall how he tangles it up with Gladwell, a ubiquitous trigger himself. Perhaps the next time you hear about The Tipping Point, the first thing you’ll think is, Hey, what’s the name of that new book? You know, by the guy inspired by Gladwell who then went on to debunk him? Oh, yeah. It’s Contagious. [Photographs by Andrew Hetherington] The Guruverse Here’s the pantheon of idea men Jonah Berger aims to join. (Yes, we know: The folks with the clout on this circuit are all short an X chromosome.)
[Copies In Print Data From Publishers. *Includes E-Books. Dan Keinan (Ariely); Joe Kohen/Getty Images (Dubner And Levitt); Anthony Behar/Sipa Usa/Ap Images (Gladwell); Richard Gardner/Rex Features/Ap Images (Taleb); Larry Busacca/Getty Images (Ries); Istockphoto (Darts)]It's been a long time since the last bug-fix release of the 4.0 branch, so we are quite happy announcing a new release today!
This release closes 54 tasks/issues reaching from important to trivial fixes. As always this release is a drop-in replacement for previous 4.0.x releases, so grab it while it's hot.
Here is the list of the most important fixes and enhancements:
#3058 #3057 - SslHandler - DirectByteBuffer - OutOfMemory
- DirectByteBuffer - OutOfMemory #3031 - Disable SSLv3.0 to avoid POODLE vulnerability
#2971 #2972 - WebSocketClientProtocolHandshakeHandler leaks
leaks #2965 - Avoid vectored writes for small websocket messages
#2964 - zero-sized DefaultFileRegion leads to system stuck & high sys usage
leads to system stuck & high sys usage #2955 - Improve WebSocket performance
#2940 - Add verification for websocket subprotocol on the client side
#2924 - head is not updated when trim MemoryRegionCache
#2880 - HTTP Content Decoder Cleanup Bug
#2871 #2867 - Workaround performance issue with IPv4-mapped-on-IPv6 addresses
#2860 - Add support for gathering writes with native transport when using EpollDatagramChannel
#2855 - Disable caching of PooledByteBuf for different threads
for different threads #2831 - Modify HttpObjectDecoder to allow parsing the HTTP headers in multiple steps
to allow parsing the HTTP headers in multiple steps #2823 - Writing DefaultFileRegion with EpollSocketChannel may cause hang
with may cause hang #2789 - Allow efficient writing of CompositeByteBuf when using native epoll transport
when using native epoll transport #2586 - AbstractBootstrap.bind(...) should use correct EventLoop to notify on late registration
For the detail, please browse our issue tracker.
As always, please let us know if you find any issues. We love feedback!
Thank You
Every idea and bug-report counts and so we thought it is worth mentioning those who helped in this area. Please report an unintended omission.Tonight, Arcade Fire's Win Butler and Common participated in the Sprint NBA All-Star Celebrity Game at New York City's Madison Square Garden. Other participants in the game included Kevin Hart (who was named MVP), Chadwick Boseman (Get on Up), Ansel Elgort (The Fault in Our Stars), Nick Cannon, Little League star Mo'ne Davis, and more.
Win's team (the West) won the game, with Butler racking up 8 points and 12 boards for a 59-51 point win over Common's team (the East). He did so while wearing his Red Octobers-- shoes designed by Kanye West-- which Arcade Fire Tube reminds us are the shoes he performs with on stage:
Watch Butler destroying it in the paint:
According to Will Butler, his brother was robbed of the MVP award, which went to Kevin Hart:Hannibal is the best buzzkill "Takiawase" [s2e4]
After the relative quiet of last week's episode, "Takiawase" threw one punch after another, with a few eyeball kicks to round the hour out. There was cause for screams, squirms, giggles, and tears in a perfect, poignant counter to any lingering accusations that Hannibal is empty gore for gore's sake.
Hannibal's fourth episode was a true standout with a gorgeous, disgusting tableau at the center of a story about the end of life versus the death of dignity. It's a difficult topic to tackle and not one that would naturally lend itself to a human beehive -- because really what would?-- but that's what Hannibal does so richly. So, we get an insane acupuncturist named Katherine Pimms played with beatific malevolence by Amanda Plummer. Yeah, Honey Bunny from Pulp Fiction was making human beehives as an act of warped mercy. Nicely done. Even Pimms' name was meta; it was an alias used by Chuck, an avid beekeeper, on Fuller's Pushing Daisies. He sure loves those in-jokes.
The only thing creepier than a human beehive is watching the creation of one. Pimms happily hammering away at a lobotomy procedure gave me panicked flashbacks to Takashi Miike's Audition. The only thing creepier than that was watching the poor bee-stung, hollowed out shell of a victim shambling around in broad daylight. It was truly disconcerting to see him sitting up for his examination with the BAU team. That just ain't right.
In contrast to the Old Testament judgment bees, we got a painfully real scene between the Crawfords when Gina Torres returned as Jack's wife Bella. As her cancer worsens, her resolve to be in control of what remains of her life grows stronger. What started as a gently funny moment with the Crawfords enjoying some 420 time soon became a tearjerker when Bella informed Jack of her advance directive. Would she agree with what Pimms was doing with her ill patients if she was given a choice? Maybe not literally, but on a fundamental level, she very likely would and Jack can't work on that case without thinking of his wife's final wishes.
And then there's Bella's therapist Hannibal, who seemed to talk her toward ending her life on her own terms in one session, then decides Bella's fate with the flip of a coin. It's a vicious irony that Hannibal's biggest cruelty here was letting someone live. Hannibal had that slap coming for a long time. He's the opposite of Pimms. Right down to her inability to eat the honey made from her patients. "That'd be too morbid." Nothing is out of bounds for Hannibal. Did Hannibal revive Bella out of mere caprice, because it gave him a feeling of power over death, or because it buys him more time with Jack and an "object" that can be used to distract Jack from Will's case?
Will's largely side-lined in prison, but his plot moves forward every week, so it's compelling in its own right. This week, things took a devastating turn.
I take back what I said about Hannibal being the rare horror show where smart characters behave smartly. Beverly was plain stupid. Is it unfair to say that? Of course she doesn't know what we and Will know about Hannibal, but she was starting to suspect and wouldn't that mean she'd know the kind of extremely dangerous mind she'd be maneuvering against? And then prepare accordingly? It feels more like someone else close to Will has to die in order for Jack and the BAU to start suspecting Hannibal. I just wish it wasn't Beverly dying in the service of the plot because she's so fantastic. But that's kind of the point, right? She hunted when she should have gone fishing.
That final scene of Beverly creeping through Hannibal's basement and discovering Hannibal's... what? Meatlocker? I think it's got to be more than corpses. We would've seen corpses. There were a lot of chains. A dramatic prisoner? Was the last thing Beverley saw before she saw Hannibal... Abigail Hobbes? I'm still bothered that no one else seems to be looking for Abigail's body. But seeing Beverly see the truth was more important than what she actually saw. I couldn't think too much between crying "No! No! Don't go in the basement, dummy!" and being impressed at the nod to Clarice Starling in Buffalo Bill's basement of terror.
Meanwhile... "He's eating them." As satisfying as Will's Soylent Green moment was, his face when he learns of Beverly's disappearance will be heartbreaking. He can't say he didn't warn her, but that won't do much to alleviate the guilt.
Final Bites:
• One of the things that makes Hannibal so great is the standout female cast. To lose Bedilia and Beverly and almost Bella in the span of four episodes would've been too Game of Thrones for me. The bad ones always live; I'm looking at you and your giant hat, Freddie Lounds.Kudos also for having some great female serial killers. First Molly Shannon and now Amanda Plummer? Yes, please.
• Will's getting a lot to do behind bars. Aside from using Beverly as his mouthpiece on the outside, he's trying and largely failing to use Chilton and his vanity against Hannibal. While he was successful in getting Chilton to help him recover more lost memories, does he know how in league Hannibal and Chilton are? Giving Hannibal any more clues into what Will wants is a fail in my book.
• The score during Will's therapy session with Chilton was a funhouse nightmare of noise. Totally terrifying. Also deeply disturbing was Hannibal's Picasso face, features all rearranged like one of Will's melting clocks. I'd rather see the bees.
• Palate Cleanser of the Week: Eddie Izzard spotting. Dr. Gideon will be back next week.There’s a startup called Pembient that is 3D printing rhinoceros horns in a lab on the far edge of San Francisco. These are not horns that look like rhino horns. These are genetically identical rhino horns, according to the startup. Pembient just didn’t need a rhino in order to make them.
That’s good news for the very few rhinoceroses around the world. There are only five northern white rhinos left, and the Western black rhinoceros, which was thought to be extinct in 2006, is now officially extinct.
Poachers have been killing off these big, beautiful free-roaming mammals – nearly wiping them off the face of the planet forever – just to rip out their horns. The horns are used as daggers in Yemen, and in traditional Chinese medicine it is believed that the rhino horn has healing powers.
No one looking at this could tell this wasn’t from a rhino. Matthew Markus
Pembient co-founder Matthew Markus, a software engineer by trade, has worked on various startups since the late 90s, but he really didn’t like what was happening to rhinos and other wildlife all over the world.
“I started reading about the rhinos in 2006, but I had to wait for the technology to catch up to make this viable for me to do something about it,” he said.
Thanks to the lower cost of shared lab space, cloud computing, 3D printing technology and a bunch of other advancements lowering the cost and speeding up results in biotech, that time is now. Markus brought in his co-founder and genetic engineer George Bonaci to do something that sounds a bit, well, wild – make genetically identical, cheap rhino horns in a lab.
Rhino horns are composed of a specific kind of keratin protein. Pembient figured out the genetic code and was then able to reproduce the horns using the keratin in a 3D-printing technique.
This isn’t a completely new idea. There are a few startups using biological material to grow meat in a test tube. Autodesk, the engineering software company, even has its own wet lab on the San Francisco pier that is working on 3D printing organs.
Markus hopes this technique could disrupt the horn trade by dramatically lowering the cost and dissuading poachers from killing wild rhinos.
The illegal wildlife trade, a $20 billion black market, is the fourth-largest in the world after drugs, arms and human trafficking. Add to that the fact that 95 percent of the world’s rhino population has been lost to poaching in the last 40 years and things look pretty grim for this species.
Markus showed me his first horn prototype, a small, hard and brownish item set inside a hand-carved wooden box on his desk. I asked him if this was just an example or a real rhino horn. He laughed and explained it was as real as any rhino horn; it was just 3D-printed instead of grown on a rhino.
“You can’t physically tell the difference. No one looking at this could tell this wasn’t from a rhino. It’s the same thing. For all intents and purposes, this is a real rhino horn,” he told me.
Of course, Pembient has greater ambitions than rhino horns. The programmer-turned-eco-evangelist is testing ways to do the same thing for elephants, pangolins and tigers – all endangered animals traded on the black market for their parts.
“Imagine ivory piano keys from an elephant tusk grown in a lab,” Markus said.
But Pembient is a young company with a ways to go. It is in the current batch of the first biotech accelerator out of SOS Ventures, IndieBio.
Markus and Bonaci are still working on the beta for the horn before starting to mass produce or get into other items.
“We need to get that [rhino horn] right first,” Markus said.
We’ll be sure to let you know when Pembient is ready for that next step.MEDFORD, Ore. - For the last two winters, Trinidad Flores has spent his free time knitting hats.
"It really started off as just a therapy for me. I suffered from major depression and knitting actually helps me keep my mind off my own problems and gives me an outlet," Flores said.
Flores decided to turn this hobby into a community effort by knitting for the frail and cold.
He spends about 35 minutes on baby hats for the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Rogue Regional and about two hours on hats for the homeless.
However, he says he'll spend all the time in the world for his friends.
"I ended up getting hugs for hats yesterday that I gave out, just an awesome feeling," Flores said.
In the last two years, Trinidad has knit close to 1,000 hats, which he has given to homeless friends like Barbara Bain.
"I love pink, purple and blue. Trinidad had some hats that I really loved. He does an awesome job," Bain said.
Bain says a simple gesture like this has touched many lives in the Medford community.
"It's so quick, so easy, but yet it's all the love that he puts into it that makes the difference," Bain said.
Trinidad has called this project 'Compassion Hats.'
"Really that's what it is, compassion. Having compassion for all the others," Flores said.
He hopes to keep each of the homeless warm this winter - one hat at a time.(Haaretz) — “For me, personally, Arabs are something I can’t look at and can’t stand,” a 10th-grade girl from a high school in the central part of the country says in abominable Hebrew. “I am tremendously racist. I come from a racist home. If I get the chance in the army to shoot one of them, I won’t think twice. I’m ready to kill someone with my hands, and it’s an Arab. In my education I learned that |
the case of putting pressure on her aunt's lawyer in an attempt to have him dismissed.
"The goal I think is then to be able to replace the lawyer with a lawyer that is going to be much more compliant with the court, so that she doesn't really have any independent legal counsel," Ghahremani said.
Hoodfar is still being held in solitary confinement and has not had the opportunity to post bail, Ghahremani said. "Clearly, they're isolating her," she said.
"It just all leads to the fact that they're still trying to probably put pressure on her to isolate her and maybe even force a false confession from her. These are our speculations, but that's really what it indicates to us."
Canada without diplomatic ties
The Canadian government says it is "actively engaged" on the case and remains "very concerned" about Hoodfar's health, wellbeing and continued detention in Iran.
But Canada does not have diplomatic ties to Iran. Ottawa severed its formal relationship with Tehran in 2012 under the previous Conservative government, shuttering its embassy and expelling Iranian diplomats from the country.
"In the absence of diplomatic representation of our own, we are working with countries of influence and pursuing the best course of action to press the case and secure her safe return to her family, friends and colleagues," Michael O'Shaughnessy, a spokesperson for Global Affairs Canada, told The New Arab in an email.
But since Hoodfar is also an Irish citizen, her niece Ghahremani urged the Irish government, which has diplomatic relations with Iran, to become more involved.
"The challenges posed by the absence of a diplomatic presence cannot be underestimated."
Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister Stephane Dion and Parliamentary Secretary, MP Omar Alghabra, have met Ghahremani and remain in regular contact with her, O'Shaughnessy said.
But since Hoodfar is also an Irish citizen, her niece Ghahremani urged the Irish government, which has diplomatic relations with Iran, to become more involved.
"I'm quite satisfied with the attention that the Canadian government has been giving this case and I know that they're doing what they can. But there needs to be more collaboration and the Irish really need to step up and be involved, as well," she said.
Alana Maxwell, a spokesperson for Ireland's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, told The New Arab in a brief e-mail Wednesday that the department "is actively working on the case". Maxwell did not elaborate any further.
International support
A petition calling for Hoodfar's release has been signed by over 5,200 academics from around the world, including professors Noam Chomsky and Richard Falk.
Leading Islamic scholars have also written a letter to Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei, asking the religious leader to intervene in Hoodfar’s case and expedite "the dismissal of all these baseless accusations against her".
Meanwhile, Ghahremani said her aunt's continued detention has been emotionally exhausting for her family.
"It's been an extremely emotional and difficult few months," she said.
"We're very scared for her. We're very scared about what could happen. We know she's innocent and we know she's alone and that's really difficult to deal with as a family member."Let’s be honest, this is not the first list of free museum days in Los Angeles, but I like to think that we organized it better than most.
Below you’ll find, firstly, a list of museums that are ALWAYS free (suggested donation or parking notwithstanding).
Advertisements
Secondly I’ve laid out, organizing by week, what’s open over the course of any given month. So for example you can scroll down to the “First Week of the Month” section you’ll see that the Huntington Library is free on the first Thursday. Hopefully this makes it easy for you to discover what options might be open whatever day/week you happen to check out this list.
I would highly suggest doing at least 5 minutes of quick research before visiting any of these spots just to ensure there’s no admission fees for special exhibits or things of that nature you may not be anticipating.
Otherwise, enjoy!
**UPDATE**
Thanks to everyone who has commented with recommendations to make this list even better than it was when it started out!
[RELATED: The Best Way to Find Discount Events in Los Angeles]
Advertisements
Museums in Los Angeles That Are Always Free
Annenberg Space for Photography
Armory Center for the Arts
The Broad
California African American Museum
California Science Center
Chinese American Museum
Dominguez Rancho Adobe Museum
ESMoA
FIDM Museum & Galleries
Fowler Museum at UCLA
Getty Villa
Griffith Observatory
Hammer Museum at UCLA
Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
J. Paul Getty Museum
LAFD Museum in Hollywood (open only Saturdays 10am-4pm)
LA Plaza de Culture y Artes
LAX Flight Path Learning Center
Los Angeles County Museum of Art (free after 3pm on Mon, Tues, Thurs, Fri if you’re an L.A. County resident)
Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust
Madrona Marsh Preserve
Main Museum
Marciano Art Foundation (timed tickets recommended and available online on the first of every month)
Nethercutt Museum
Torrance Art Museum
Travel Town Museum
UCLA Meteorite Gallery
USC Fisher Museum of Art
Valley Relics Museum (only open Saturdays)
Vincent Price Art Museum
Free Admission: First Week of the Month
Tuesday:
Kidspace Children’s Museum (4 p.m. to close)
Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (except July and August)
Page Museum La Brea Tar Pits (except July and August)
Thursday:
Japanese American National Museum (after 5 p.m.)
Huntington Library
Museum of Contemporary Art (5 to 8 p.m.)
Skirball Cultural Center (noon to 5 p.m.)
Long Beach Museum of Art (3 to 8 p.m.)
Friday:
Norton Simon Museum (5 to 8 p.m.)
Sunday:
Craft and Folk Art Museum
Museum of Latin American Art
Free Admission: Second Week of the Month
Tuesday:
Autry National Center of the American West
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Thursday:
Japanese American National Museum (after 5 p.m.)
Museum of Contemporary Art (5 to 8 p.m.)
Skirball Cultural Center (noon to 5 p.m.)
Long Beach Museum of Art (3 to 8 p.m.)
Sunday:
Craft and Folk Art Museum
Museum of Latin American Art
Pacific Asia Museum
Free Admission: Third Week of the Month
Tuesday:
Descanso Gardens
Los Angeles County Arboretum
South Coast Botanic Garden
Thursday:
Japanese American National Museum
Museum of Contemporary Art (5 to 8 p.m.)
Skirball Cultural Center (noon to 5 p.m.)
Long Beach Museum of Art (3 to 8 p.m.)
Sunday:
Craft and Folk Art Museum
Museum of Latin American Art
Free Admission: Fourth Week of the Month
Thursday:
Japanese American National Museum (after 5p.m.)
Museum of Contemporary Art (5 to 8 p.m.)
Skirball Cultural Center (noon to 5 p.m.)
Long Beach Museum of Art (3 to 8 p.m.)
Friday:
Museum of Latin American Art (5 to 9 p.m.)
Sunday:
Craft and Folk Art Museum
Museum of Latin American Art
If you feel there were any omissions, corrections or would like to suggest another free museum to add to the list, let us know in the comments below!Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore has dismissed reports that Ireland is negotiating to avoid the need for a referendum on any closer European fiscal integration.
He told the European Affairs Committee that such activity would be ''wrongfooted'' and was distracting from the real issues at play.
Mr Gilmore said the only deal the Government would sign up to would be one that is in the best interests of our country.
He said a referendum would be held if required.
The Tánaiste said the latest draft of the treaty arrived here last night and would be made available to members of the committee.
Fianna Fáil's Timmy Dooley welcomed the circulation of the latest draft of the treaty text and said it demonstrated that the Government was engaging with the Oireachtas on the issue.
However, he said it was regrettable that the treaty had been floating around in various different forms since early this month.
Deputy Dooley called on the Tánaiste to engage more with the Irish people on the treaty and stressed the importance of not allowing the debate to fall into the hands of euro-sceptics.
Fine Gael's Bernard Durkan said the issue around a referendum should be cleared up as early as possible.
Sinn Féin's Kathryn Reilly called for clarity on where the 0.5% deficit target came from, which she referred to as a "draconian ceiling".
The latest draft of the fiscal compact showed that the European Union's highest court will be able to fine an EU country that does not adopt a balanced budget rule in its constitution with a penalty of up to 0.1% of gross domestic product.
Under the fiscal compact, all those who sign the treaty must within one year introduce into their constitution, or their equivalent law, a rule that the budget deficit cannot be higher than 0.5% of gross domestic product in structural terms.
If it does, automatic corrective steps would kick in.
The draft treaty also says that if a country ignores a ruling of the court to adopt the "golden rule" a fine would follow.
The draft is likely to be discussed by EU finance ministers next week and by EU leaders on 30 January.Texas took its legal battle over immigration to a new level Sunday, suing one of its own counties in an effort to “uphold the constitutionality” of a controversial law set to force law enforcement agencies across the state to detain suspected undocumented immigrants.
On Sunday, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law Senate Bill 4 (SB 4), which makes it a crime for law enforcement officers to ignore Immigration and Customs Enforcement requests to hold people in jail until the feds can come pick them up. The law, which is the first of its kind in the county, targets so-called “sanctuary jurisdictions” like Travis County (where Austin is located) which refuse to honor such “detainer requests.”
By filing the lawsuit, called a “complaint for declaratory action,” Texas is seeking to have a federal court declare that law constitutional, before Austin, Travis County or groups like the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund — all of which are named in the lawsuit — can sue the state over it.
“This is a frivolous legal action, filed precipitously and without basis in the law,” Thomas A. Saenz, MALDEF’s president and general counsel, said in a statement. He also said the group intends to sue over the law. “The state bespeaks its own apparent high anxiety about the legality of Abbott’s Folly, SB 4, by seeking a preemptive strike through this lawsuit.”
The lawsuit also names officials such as Travis County Sheriff Sally Hernandez — who declared in February that her officers would not honor ICE detainer requests and who the lawsuit dubs “publicly hostile to cooperation with federal immigration enforcement” — as defendants in their official capacity. Several of these officials have denounced the law as unconstitutional, according to Texas’ lawsuit.John Kasich, at this counting, needs roughly 2000% of the remaining delegates in order to win the GOP nomination. John Kasich is not a winning candidate. Kasich’s campaign is basically running on empty. As pilots say about the moments before a crash, they are out of airspeed, out of altitude, and out of ideas. If Kasich is not actually broke at this moment, his campaign’s treasurer is wearing brown trousers and contemplating seppuku. For heaven’s sake, Kasich finished behind Marco Rubio in Arizona and Rubio wasn’t even in the race. Kasich’s campaign exists for two reasons. First, to stroke John Kasich’s massive ego and second, to allow his campaign manager, former Democrat operative John Weaver, to stick his finger in the eye of the GOP which he hates. But now Kasich and Weaver are claiming the Cruz campaign is acting in “bad faith” by not helping Kasich stay in the race.
A top strategist for Ohio Gov. John Kasich accused Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s campaign on Friday of being “disingenuous” about discussions between the two GOP rivals over how best to deny Donald Trump the required 1,237 delegates need to win the Republican presidential nomination. Cruz has questioned Kasich’s motivations for staying in the race, accusing him of playing the role of “spoiler” because it is mathematically impossible for the Ohio governor to win the nomination outright. “A vote for John Kasich is a vote for Donald Trump,” Cruz told reporters on Saturday.
In a string of whiny-little-girl Tweets, Weaver complains that the Cruz campaign is acting in bad faith and is playing the victim because they are calling Kasich what he is, an egomaniac who doesn’t care if Trump gets the nomination so long as he is in the news.
Even thought the leftwing blog, fivethirtyeight.com makes a case for cooperation between Cruz and Kasich. What is being touted as insightful analysis is really the opposite. It works on the assumption that voters are fungible, that is, if Cruz does not compete in New York that his voters will dutifully pull the lever for Kasich. Sorry to break it to these guys but there is absolutely ZERO evidence that shows that to be the case.
The best thing Kasich can do is get out of the race and give GOP primary voters, no matter their preference, the choice between Cruz and Trump. Absent that choice, partisans of Cruz will continue to vote for him no matter if he campaigns in a state or not. Cruz voters are voting for Cruz, not for some Rube Goldberg open convention scheme that may see Kasich nominated.
This mewling is precisely what we’ve come to expect of Kasich and of any campaign associated with John Weaver: failure, pettiness, and blame shifting.The March 1 sequester budget cuts are yet another product of crises manufactured by the ultra-conservative wing of the Republican Party. These Tea Party extremists have one objective: crush the federal government. Motivated by a strange brew of Old Testament Christianity and Ayn Rand's "objectivism," they're a lethal force within the GOP -- anarchists.
In August of 2011, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives forced a phony debt-ceiling crisis. In order to raise the ceiling, and to push the matter off the political calendar until after the elections, President Obama signed the Budget Control Act of 2011, which said that if Congress failed to approve a ten-year budget reduction of $1.2 trillion, automatic cuts would kick in. The initial cuts, $85 billion, apply to "discretionary" spending and are divided between reductions to defense ($43 billion), domestic ($30 billion), and mandatory spending ($12 billion) such as cuts to Medicare providers -- Social Security and Medicaid are protected.
Who's to blame? The White House originated the notion of sequestration. Nonetheless, the president had the proverbial "gun held to his head." There was a dire threat of budget default because House Republicans refused to raise the debt ceiling unless there were humongous budget cuts. (At the time, the GOP-run House voted on Obama's request for a "clean" debt-limit increase and all 236 Republicans voted no.) The president signed the Budget Control Act to avoid having the U.S. to go into default and because he was facing reelection and wanted the economy to be as healthy as possible.
Who will the public blame? This appears to be a big political win for the president. On a recent PBS NewsHour, conservative commentator David Brooks observed,
I personally think the likely loser in this is the Republicans... And they have basically got a problem. I think they need to show the American people that we like some government programs. We don't like others... Unfortunately, when they embrace [the Sequester], they are embracing a piece of legislation that makes no distinction between good government and bad government. It just cuts randomly across the board.
Where will Americans notice the sequester cuts? The New York Times detailed the impacts including furloughs of border agents, air-traffic controllers, food-safety employees, and civilian military employees, among others. In California, the other cuts will impact teachers, teacher aides, and the disadvantaged.
How will it impact the economy? On February 26, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warned Congress that the sequester cuts will create a "significant headwind" for the tepid recovery. Some experts feel sequester will cost one million jobs over two years.
Does the public understand what's happening? No. A recent Bloomberg poll indicated public perception of the deficit "crisis" is out of touch with reality. During the Obama presidency, the budget deficit has grown smaller, but only 6 percent of Americans recognize this. Republican aAnarchists have done a good job "brainwashing" Americans about the deficit, preparing them for austerity economics.
What does the public want to cut? A recent Pew poll indicated 72 percent of respondents want Washington to reduce the budget deficit. Nonetheless, there was no consensus on what federal programs to cut: only 24 percent wanted to cut military spending and 11 percent wanted to cut education. Republican anarchist brainwashing has produced a national neurosis: Americans like government programs but don't want to pay for them.
What will be the long-term impact? Sequester will leave everyone unhappy and set the stage for the next crisis, at the end of March, when federal funding for the fiscal year expires.
What should President Obama do? The Republican Party has been taken over by anarchists, Tea Party extremists who do not believe in government. As University of California linguistics professor George Lakoff observed, "They believe that Democracy gives them the liberty to seek their own self-interests by exercising personal responsibility, without having responsibility for anyone else or anyone else having responsibility for them." Republican anarchists reject the founders' morality, the sentiments that produced the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution. These ultra conservatives don't believe in the common good or the notion that Americans have a moral responsibility to care for each other. The Republican anarchist motto is, "I'm for me, first." (Ayn Rand's objectivism and glorified self-interest.)
President Obama must recognized that the anarchists have pushed the United States into a political civil war. The president cannot negotiate with House Republicans so long as they are beholden to the ultra-conservative wing of the party. Obama cannot negotiate with a fiscal gun held to his head.Barcelona were defeated by Fiorentina 2-1 in their third match of the International Champions Cup at the weekend. Luis Suarez scored the Blaugrana's only goal, despite La Liga's champions attempting 13 shots with eight on target.
Luis Enrique cannot be too impressed after leading his team to only one victory in four matches. Although results don't matter in preseason, conceding an average of two goals per match is never a good sign.
Barcelona based their success last term on their effectiveness up front and their ability to contain their opponents whenever they found a way to break on the counter. The mediocre results during the summer break are the direct result of lacking in two crucial aspects.
Suarez is isolated and unsupported up front
Suarez has been Barca's stand-out player up front in the absence of Lionel Messi and Neymar. The Uruguayan international is the team's top goalscorer after finding the net against LA Galaxy, Chelsea and Fiorentina. Although he could have been even sharper so far, the No.9 has thrived in his role as the main reference in attack.
Barcelona created many chances against Fiorentina but matches are only won if those in attack have enough composure, confidence and quality to convert them. With that in mind, to say that Suarez missed his two South American attacking partners is an understatement.
Amid ongoing speculation about his future away from the Camp Nou, Pedro started once again. As has been the norm during the eight years since his professional debut, the Tenerife-born forward gave his all, combined well with those around him and fought ferociously to regain control of the ball as soon as he was dispossessed.
Unfortunately, the No.7's performance was far from spectacular from an attacking perspective, especially in front of goal. The Spanish international was so eager to prove his worth that his overall performance dropped, with unusually inaccurate shots and pointless dribbling slaloms becoming the norm rather than the exception.
Although Pedro's off-day could be excused and interpreted as a consequence of knowing that his time alongside Andres Iniesta and co. is coming to an end, attacking partner Suarez would certainly not be as understanding with the substandard service provided.
Luis Enrique's experiment to deploy Rafinha as a right winger did not work as well as expected either, with the 22-year-old largely unable to run past his marker. Don't get me wrong, the youngster has grown significantly in the last two seasons but he is not ready to be considered in Barca's first XI.
Fortunately, both Messi and Neymar are now back in training and are expected to return to action in the upcoming clash against Roma at the Camp Nou on Wednesday. A certain Uruguayan will hardly be able to hide his excitement until then.
Lack of defensive intensity
Barcelona only conceded 19 goals in 38 domestic league matches last season, clearly highlighting the crucial importance that defensive focus has in modern football.
Luis Enrique's guidance and high expectations helped Gerard Pique and Jordi Alba reach and even surpass their former best, with both Spanish internationals excelling in an improved back-line alongside the ultra-professional Javier Mascherano and a more defensive-minded Dani Alves.
Although it is still early days, the Asturian manager should not overlook the fact that his team has conceded eight goals, including four headers, in just four matches. Perhaps even more worryingly, it is hard to pinpoint a single defender in the whole of the squad who has performed at the required level in preseason.
Both Marc Bartra and Jeremy Mathieu have looked shaky and should be disappointed with their inability to contain world class forwards such as Eden Hazard or Diego Costa. Thomas Vermaelen has returned to action after spending over a year in the sidelines but despite progressive improvement, it is clear he has some way to go until he reaches his best again.
Although he was perhaps Barca's best defender in the International Champions Cup, Pique is also far from his best.
Unless Luis Enrique can ensure his players regain their intensity, the chances of completing the sextuple after the final whistle of the Club World Cup final in Japan on Dec. 20 could be seriously hurt.
It is time for the Catalans to forget their treble-winning celebrations and refocus on reaching their very best once again in order to be prepared to battle for further success.
With the European Super Cup clash against Sevilla less than a week away, the race against the clock has already started for Luis Enrique.
Francesc Tomas is a freelance Catalan columnist who writes for Barcablog.com, WeLoveBarca and ESPN FC. Follow him on Twitter @TomasESPN.VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Mother Teresa of Calcutta, a nun who dedicated her life to helping the poor, will be made a saint of the Roman Catholic Church at a ceremony on Sept. 4, Pope Francis announced on Tuesday.
Last December, he cleared the way for sainthood for the Nobel peace laureate, who died in 1997 at the age of 87 and was known as “saint of the gutters”.
Teresa, who was born Agnese Gonxha Bojaxhiu of Albanian parents in 1910 in what was then part of the Ottoman Empire and is now Macedonia, became an international figure but was also accused of trying to convert people to Christianity.
Francis, who has made concern for the poor a major plank of his papacy, was keen to make Mother Teresa a saint during the Church’s current Holy Year.
The Vatican said the ceremony would take place at the Vatican, dashing hopes of Indians that the pope would go to Kolkata, as Calcutta is now called, to perform the ritual.
“I am waiting to get there because it has been absolutely jubilant news and I can’t thank God enough that it is happening in my lifetime,” said Sunita Kumar, spokesperson for the Missionaries of Charity, the order of nuns Mother Teresa founded.
She began the order in the 1950s to help the poor on the streets of Kolkata. The religious order spread throughout the world. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979.
The late Pope John Paul II bent Vatican rules to allow the procedure to establish her case for sainthood to be launched two years after her death instead of the usual five. She was beatified in 2003, a mere six years after her death.
Slideshow (6 Images)
In the time since her death, some have accused Mother Teresa and the order of having ulterior motives in helping the destitute, saying their aim was to convert them to Christianity.
The order rejects that, saying, for example, that most of those helped in the Kalighat Home for Dying Destitutes in Kolkata were non-Christians with just a few days left to live and noting that conversion is a lengthy process.
The Church defines saints as those believed to have been holy enough during their lives to now be in Heaven and can intercede with God to perform miracles. She has been credited in the church with two miracles, both involving the healing of sick people.08/08/2017 70 Order Granting Motion To Sell Property Free And Clear Of Liens Under Section 363(f) (Related Doc # 25 ) signed on 8/8/2017. (DuBois, Linda) (Entered: 08/08/2017)
08/08/2017 69 Final Order Granting Motion to Approve Use of Cash Collateral, Providing Adequate Protection and Granting Additional Relief. (Related Doc # 5 ) signed on 8/8/2017. (DuBois, Linda) (Entered: 08/08/2017)
08/04/2017 68 Notice of Adjournment of Hearing with hearing to be held on 9/19/2017 at 12:00 PM at Poughkeepsie Courthouse - 355 Main Street. (Heer, Patricia) (Entered: 08/04/2017)
08/01/2017 67 Notice of Adjournment of Hearing Re: esponse // Joinder to Limited Objection of the Debtor to CardConnect's Motion for an Order (I) Compelling Debtor to Assume or Reject Executory Contract, (II) Allowing Administrative Claim, and (III) Granting Related Relief from the Automatic Stay (related document(s)42) filed by Stacy A. Lutkus on behalf of CMS Mezzanine Debt Subpartnership; Hearing Not Held and Adjourned to 8/8/2017 at 12:00 PM at Poughkeepsie Courthouse - 355 Main Street (DeCicco, Vincent). (Entered: 08/04/2017)
08/01/2017 66 Notice of Adjournment of Hearing Re: Objection to Motion for an Order to File Documents under Seal and Redact Commercially Sensitive, Nonpublic Information (related document(s)41) filed by Alicia M. Leonhard on behalf of United States Trustee; Hearing Not Held and Adjourned to 8/8/2017 at 12:00 PM at Poughkeepsie Courthouse - 355 Main Street (DeCicco, Vincent). (Entered: 08/04/2017)
08/01/2017 65 Notice of Adjournment of Hearing Re: Motion to Seal document and redact commercially sensitive, nonpublic information filed by Patricia H. Heer on behalf of CardConnect, LLC (related document(s) 41 ); Hearing Not Held and Adjourned to 8/8/2017 at 12:00 PM at Poughkeepsie Courthouse - 355 Main Street (DeCicco, Vincent). (Entered: 08/04/2017)
08/01/2017 64 Notice of Adjournment of Hearing Re: Objection to Motion Limited Objection of the Debtor to CardConnects Motion for an Order (I) Compelling Debtor to Assume or Reject Executory Contract, (II) Allowing Administrative Claim, and (III) Granting Relief From the Automatic Stay (related document(s)42) filed by Gerard R. Luckman on behalf of Skip Barber Racing School LLC; Hearing Not Held and Adjourned to 8/8/2017 at 12:00 PM at Poughkeepsie Courthouse - 355 Main Street (DeCicco, Vincent). (Entered: 08/04/2017)
08/01/2017 63 Notice of Adjournment of Hearing Re: Motion to Compel Debtor to Assume or Reject Executory Contract, Allowing Administrative Claim, and Granting Relief from the Automatic Stay filed by Patricia H. Heer on behalf of CardConnect, LLC (related document(s) 42 ); Hearing Not Held and Adjourned to 8/8/2017 at 12:00 PM at Poughkeepsie Courthouse - 355 Main Street (DeCicco, Vincent). (Entered: 08/04/2017)
07/28/2017 62 Notice of Adjournment of Hearing Re: Case Conference; Hearing Held and Adjourned to 8/8/2017 at 12:00 PM at Poughkeepsie Courthouse - 355 Main Street (DeCicco, Vincent). (Entered: 08/04/2017)The industry announced that it was forming a research committee to look into the matter. It hired independent scientists such as cancer researcher Clarence Cook Little to do interviews, insisting that there was no proof that cigarettes cause cancer.
In reality, scientific evidence that cigarettes cause cancer was becoming overwhelming. In 1964, the Surgeon General seemed to put an end to any controversy when he released the report of an independent advisory committee that had considered more than 7,000 published articles.
The Surgeon General’s warning had a profound effect on the public, prompting many smokers to quit. But the tobacco companies and their scientists would continue to deny that cigarettes cause cancer for another 35 years.
To discourage smokers from quitting, companies redesigned their cigarettes to seem safer. First, they added filters. Then they introduced “low-tar” cigarettes. Within a few years, these cigarettes dominated the market. Marlboro Lights, which debuted in 1971, became the nation’s best-selling cigarette.
Tobacco companies knew from extensive internal research that smokers were addicted to nicotine and needed a certain amount of it every day to satisfy their habit. Given a “low-tar” cigarette, they would change the way they smoked to get their fix.
With the passage of a new law, the Federal Trade Commission in 1967 began testing all cigarette brands on special smoking machines that measured the amount of tar inhaled. Cigarettes were reformulated, not so much to reduce tar but to fool the machines, according to an NCI report. Tiny holes were cut in the cigarette paper to vent tar when a cigarette was smoked by a machine. Those holes, however, didn’t reduce the tar inhaled by smokers.
“If you reduce the amount of nicotine coming through, the person changes a pattern of it. They take bigger puffs, they take deeper puffs, they take longer puffs, they smoke more cigarettes per day to get the amount of nicotine they are seeking to satisfy their addiction,” said David Burns, a retired medical professor at the University of California, San Diego, who edited some of the Surgeon General’s reports on smoking.
Burns testified for the plaintiffs in the recent St. Louis class-action trial.
Also testifying was William Farone, the research director at Philip Morris from 1977 to 1984. He said studies done at the company even before he was hired showed that smokers who switched to light cigarettes would take deeper puffs to get the same amount of nicotine they’d received from regular ones. Farone said other than those tiny holes in the paper, the differences between a Marlboro Red and a Marlboro Light were small.
Public-health scientists would not figure this out for several more years. A study by the American Cancer Society published in 1996 found that the rate of lung cancer deaths among 200,000 smokers actually went up after light cigarettes began dominating sales. Experts believe that the low-burning temperature of a low-tar cigarette and deeper puffs by smokers allow more carcinogens to go deeper into the lungs.Get free fun details
On the first full weekend in June, the following outdoors activities are free for Wisconsin residents and visitors alike!
Free entry to state parks and forests
to state parks and forests Free fishing
Free DNR trails
Free ATV/UTV riding on public trails open to such uses
Where to go
Striking out on your own and finding new places to go is half the fun. Explore outdoors!
Family-Friendly Trail Map
Try these flatter, shorter trails with lots to look at and experience, including tunnels and waterfalls at some.
Family-friendly fishing
It's a lot easier to enjoy fishing if the kids are having fun.
Accessible options
Adaptive equipment, accessible cabins and lists of accessible boat launches and fishing piers are just a few of the ways we're trying to open the outdoors to everyone.Yukos executive Vasily Aleksanyan was jailed in 2006 and was refused leave to treat Aids and cancer
A former Yukos oil executive whose struggle to win medical treatment for Aids and cancer came to symbolise the harshness of the Russian prison system, has died.
Vasily Aleksanyan, a Harvard-educated lawyer who headed Yukos's legal department and was briefly vice-president of the firm, was imprisoned in April 2006 as part of the sweep against the oil company.
He was diagnosed with HIV shortly after his arrest, and later with tuberculosis and cancer of the liver, as well as severely limited vision.
Prosecutors accused Aleksanyan of acting as an accomplice to embezzlement and money laundering, two of the charges levelled against his former boss Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
Khodorkovsky was convicted of those charges last year, in a second trial his supporters say was designed to keep the former oligarch behind bars until at least 2017. Aleksanyan served as his lawyer after the tycoon's arrest in 2003, on fraud and tax evasion charges.
Aleksanyan waged a long struggle to win himself early release so he could seek treatment for the diseases that were killing him. As Russian courts considered his case, he was moved to a hospital bed, to which he was chained. His supporters said the conditions in which he was held were degrading and inhumane.
In 2008, the European court of human rights in Strasbourg ordered Aleksanyan to be released on humanitarian grounds. A Russian court then demanded he post 50m roubles (£990,000) in bail. The charges against him were quietly dropped last year.
Aleksanyan, 39, died at home of complications from Aids, his family told Dozhd, a Russian TV channel.
Human rights activists have compared Aleksanyan's treatment to that of Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer for the London-based investor William Browder, who was arrested while investigating alleged fraud by government officials. Magnitsky died in November 2009 after being denied treatment for a worsening stomach condition that he developed during his imprisonment in Butyrka prison, Moscow.
On Tuesday, Russian journalists and bloggers began circulating a list of those involved in Aleksanyan's arrest. The US and UK have issued informal visa bans for around 60 officials accused of involvement in the death of Magnitsky.AUSTIN — Director Guillermo del Toro is currently working on a script for a sequel to his 2013 international hit Pacific Rim.
While promoting his new FX series The Strain at the ATX Television Festival, del Toro told BuzzFeed that he and screenwriter Zak Penn (X-Men: The Last Stand, The Incredible Hulk) have started work on a screenplay for Pacific Rim 2.
"I'm working very, very hard with Zak Penn," he told BuzzFeed. "We've been working for a few months now in secret. We found a way to twist it around. Travis Beacham [co-writer of the first film, now working on Fox's Hieroglyph] was involved in the storyline and now I'm writing with Zak because Travis has become a TV mogul."
While the filmmaker stressed that Legendary Pictures has not formally agreed to put the script into production, he said that he and Penn are working on it as if it will be made one day.
"I don't have the money, but I'm proceeding like it is happening," he said with a laugh, adding that he hopes to tackle the sequel after producing his next project.
Del Toro also revealed that the script, as it stands now, includes the characters Raleigh Becket (Charlie Hunnam) and Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi) — and the story will follow the events of the first movie.
"Some people were wondering if we were going to do the prequel. I was never interested in doing that first wave of invasion," del Toro said. "I'm going for very new, very crazy ideas on the second one, which are very different from the first one — but you will get really great spectacle."
While Pacific Rim was a very modest hit in the U.S., grossing $101.8 million domestically, it was a sensation overseas, pulling in $309.2 million internationally (including $111.9 million in China alone). Legendary Pictures Chief Thomas Tull recently told the website I Am Rogue that his production company would only make Pacific Rim 2 "if we can crack the story [and] we all think it's great," and if del Toro is on board to direct it.
A rep for Legendary did not immediately have comment for this story.
Along with executive producing The Strain (as well as directing several episodes), del Toro is also directing Legendary's horror film Crimson Peak with Mia Wasikowska, Tom Hiddleston, Jessica Chastain, and Hunnam, which is currently in post-production. He is also producing the animated feature The Book of Life for 20th Century Fox.Fawzia al-Kurd has been living in the tent since she was evicted on Sunday
By Heather Sharp
BBC News, Jerusalem
Fawzia al-Kurd, 57, raises her black cloak to show the bottoms of the pyjamas she is still wearing several days after she and her wheelchair-bound husband were forced from the home he had lived in for five decades. She had no time to change or gather her possessions when the Israeli police arrived in the early hours of Sunday morning. In borrowed shoes, she shows us around the tent that she now calls home near the single-storey, two room house in East Jerusalem. Jewish Israelis who had already moved |
personality, and respect, it doesn't matter who's on your team, people are going to follow. You want to lead a group of men to a situation where he got a ring, and that's where I want to lead a group of men.
I think that's just someone I kind of tried to mold my game after to a certain extent. And I always said, he always challenged me to be better than he was.... You see what I did; now follow my footsteps and make me proud. – Kyle Lowry, on Chauncey Billups' influence on his game
Me: When you got in the lab this summer, what did you want to work on?
KL: I always want to work on my jump shot. I always work on my jump shot. I worked a lot on my mid-range. Even to start the game, even though people don't like the mid-range. And I did a lot of post work this offseason. But every year, it's always something different. You can always re-develop your jump shot. You can always fix your jump shot to make it even better. And part of me, I wanted to make my free throws better. I'm kind of sucking on that one. But I take bits and pieces from everybody. Last summer, I watched Steph Curry, the way he shoots the ball. I want to be able to go out there and get -- I won't be as great a shooter as he is -- but why not get up there? Why not be that type of level type shooter, where you can't leave me at all?
Me: Who's your rebound guy, your shot guru?
KL: I can't tell you, because of the conflict of interest of his job. So I'm gonna keep that one a little hush. People know who he is. But he's great. And he's been great for me my whole life. He's been in my life since I was a junior or senior in high school. I can't get him in trouble right now.
Me: So what do you work on -- hand placement, footwork?
KL: Footwork, shooting in all types of angles, changing speeds and shooting, coming off of pin-downs, shooting from range. Just being confident. No matter if you're getting pushed left, pushed right, you can still get your footwork and shot to where you want it to be.
Inside Stuff: Straight to the Hole Kyle Lowry of the Toronto Raptors shows off his love of golf and talks about his team's rise in the East.
Me: Did you want to get more comfortable going to the right and pulling up?
KL: I felt I could always go left on the pullup. Going right on the pullup has always been a challenge for me. And that's one of the things I worked on this past summer. If you ask (Raptors assistant Bill) Bayno, he always says 'push him right' in practice. You can push me right now, and I'll make the shot. I work on it. Every year, it's always something. And the person I take that from was Chris (Paul). Chris goes right, and he has that game. I'm a student of the game. And I'm not ashamed to say I'll steal from anybody. I take tidbits from everybody. That's one thing about it, I just love the game and love watching the game. Like, tomorrow -- well, tomorrow's the Super Bowl -- but I've got two TVs in my house, a couple of TVs, just to watch basketball. And I'll sit there and watch two games. I love watching the game.
Me: What was that courting process like this summer? 'Cause everybody wants to be courted once, right?
KL: Yeah, it's true. But after your one time, you're like 'I don't know if I want to do that again.' I had Houston at the house at 12:15, and they were there, Coach McHale, and then Masai (Ujiri) and them come in. It's cool. But at the same time, it's very stressful, because you've got to put yourself in the position of, okay, how are you going to be successful? It's not peaches and cream like everybody thinks, because it's a life-altering situation. You can go think the grass is greener on the other side, but it's not.
I'm a student of the game. And I'm not ashamed to say I'll steal from anybody. I take tidbits from everybody. That's one thing about it, I just love the game and love watching the game. – Toronto Raptors guard Kyle Lowry
Me: Most guys turn their phone off during that time. Who could still reach you?
KL: My wife. My guy that I work with in the summertime. And DeMar. I talked to DeMar almost every single day. Him and Rudy Gay are my guys. I was able to bounce things off of them. Honestly, that's one of the things that helped me come back to Toronto. 'Cause when I called DeMar, he would just listen. And I told him about every situation that was possible. And he didn't say 'nah, bro, you should just do this.' He would just listen. And it makes life a lot easier when you know you've got somebody who just literally, truly is out there just for you, just wants you to be happy.
Me: So, no sales pitch?
KL: No sales pitch. I talked to that man on the cellphone, he was going somewhere, and he was on the plane with the phone. He kept on the phone and just listened to me. I probably owe him about $60 for that call?
Me: Were you surprised Miami didn't do everything possible to get you? I really thought you'd be a priority for them.
KL: I don't know. I think, they sent the little pitch through the e-mail --
Me: But if they're trying to get you --
KL: I think they were trying to figure out their own selves, with LeBron. And I don't know if they knew they were going to lose him, but at the same time, I don't know what was their thinking. I'm not them guys. At the end of the day, I was open to any and everybody, and I wanted to listen and be courted. It was cool. They sent their e-mail, they sent their pitch, and that was it. It was one of those things were, okay, it went that way.
Me: It worked out.
KL: It worked out perfect.
TWEET OF THE WEEK
Forgive Charles... Kenny Smith is a 2x champion & his opinion is most sound... it's like me talkin bout Meryl Streep but I ain't won nuthin
-- Actress Gabrielle Union (@itsgabrielleu), Thursday, 6:25 p.m., responding to Sir Charles's belief that her husband, Dwyane Wade, shouldn't have been named an Eastern Conference reserve.
THEY SAID IT
"We don't like each other. He didn't like me when I was there and I didn't like him when I was there so it is what it is. If you're going to say something like that to me, expect me to respond but don't go run and tell when I do go say something. You can ask him what he said. He said enough to make me respond. We don't like each other."
-- Clippers forward Matt Barnes, after the NBA fined him $25,000 for inappropriate language toward a fan last week in a game against the Suns. Barnes subsequently claimed that he was fined for cursing at Suns owner Robert Sarver (the "he/him" in Barnes' quote), though the league went to pains to claim that Barnes was fined for language toward an unnamed fan/fans, not Sarver.
"We've tried both ways and we're just going to try to do a better job as a team, as teammates, to corral each other when they start to argue. The guys came up with that."
-- Suns coach Jeff Hornacek, discussing the team's rule that if a player gets a technical foul at any point of a game for arguing with an official, he is immediately benched for the rest of the game. Hornacek said he has discussed tweaking the rule with his players as the team approaches the postseason, and might allow a player to return to the game in the future.
Longtime NBA reporter and columnist David Aldridge is an analyst for TNT. You can e-mail him here and follow him on Twitter.
The views on this page do not necessarily reflect the views of the NBA, its clubs or Turner Broadcasting.China’s Alibaba, one of the world’s largest e-commerce company valued at $256 bln and its $60 bln financial arm Alipay are recruiting Blockchain experts to actively look into the potential of Blockchain technology.
Over the past few months, Cointelegraph offered active coverage on the Chinese fintech and Blockchain markets. Earlier in January, Cointelegraph reported Alipay’s first announcement on their involvement within the global Blockchain industry.
On Jan. 22, the Alipay parent company and Alibaba subsidiary Ant Financial CEO Eric Jing stated:
"We have the ambition to be a global company. So my vision is that we want to serve two bln people in the next 10 years by using technology, by working together with partners … to serve those underserved."
Jing further emphasized the likelihood of Alipay, its main fintech platform and payment network, embracing Blockchain technology in the future. He noted that for Alipay to serve two bln users within the next 10 years, a technology like the Blockchain which can automate transactions in a secure, transparent and efficient network is needed.
The vision of Alipay targeting a two bln user base is ambitious but very much possible. Already, Alipay has over 450 mln active users within China, which puts their market share of the entire mobile payment market at a staggering 69.9 percent.
To better understand the presence of Alipay within the Chinese mobile payments and financial industries, it is important to consider the statements of local Chinese companies and financial firms describing the impact of Alipay on the traditional financial market.
Starbucks ahead
Previously, Cointelegraph reported that Johan Nylander, a journalist at Asia Times and Shenzhen Starbucks Cafe Manager Lily Li, revealed the vast majority of transactions at local stores such as Starbucks are being settled with Alipay. People present their mobile phones to initiate a near-field communication (NFC) payment with Alipay, instead of credit cards and cash.
Mo Fei Chen, founder and CEO of Money Bazaar, said:
“I can hardly remember the last time I used my wallet. Few foreigners realize how fast and advanced the development actually is in new payment features and mobile financial services in China.”
Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz recently told Bloomberg that the Chinese market is seeing the opening of one Starbucks branch per day, adding thousands of chains over the last few years. A large part of the successful growth of Starbucks has been the ease of payment, enabled by Alipay and Ant Financial.
Ant Financial CEO Eric Jing understands and recognizes the impact Alipay is having outside the realm of traditional finance. It is affecting many multi-trillion dollar industries including the foods and beverages markets, assisting the growth of key players like Starbucks within the Chinese market.
Therefore, Jing believes it is the right time to look into the development of open, public, transparent and secure Blockchain system which could build a more efficient base protocol for Alipay to operate on. Instead of having a centralized and manually processed database of transactions, the Alipay team believes that a financial network underpinned by Blockchain technology could be more practical for a global user base.
Java Blockchain engineers needed
Already, Ant Financial and Alipay are recruiting Java Blockchain engineers and Blockchain experts. Engineers to code Blockchain platforms for commercial user and experts to oversee the efficiency of Blockchain platforms built by Ant Financial.
Considering that Jing and the rest of the Ant Financial have emphasized the importance of Blockchain technology for the long-term growth of the company, it is likely that the Chinese firm will allocate a significant part of its resources and talents to the development and testing of Blockchain technology in the near future.Eric Trump in an interview on Fox News. Fox News President Donald Trump's son, Eric, vehemently dismissed claims that his father had business ties to Russian government officials in an interview Sunday.
In an interview with Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo, the president's son dubbed stories outlining ties between Russia and the Trump Organization "ridiculous," saying the claims were "a little bit maddening."
"It actually infuriates me," said Eric Trump, who stepped into the role of executive vice president of the Trump Organization earlier this year.
"We have no projects in Russia," he added. "If we had projects in Russia, you'd have our name on those projects. We're not exactly bashful about hiding our name. We like having our name on our buildings, including Trump Tower."
Eric Trump also blasted Democrats who have suggested potential business ties between Trump companies and Russia. Apparently referring to Russian hacks of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton campaign chair John Podesta's email, Eric said party leaders should take greater precautions with cybersecurity to avoid hacks.
"Their party lost an election and they needed to try and put someone else down. And there's zero truth behind it," he said. "I'd like to see that party take an inward look at themselves. Maybe the leaders of that party shouldn't be making the password to their computers 'password,' maybe start there. It's maddening."
Eric Trump's comments came as congressional and intelligence-community inquiries continue into Russia's meddling in the 2016 election.
Trump's business ties to Russia have faced heightened scrutiny amid revelations of top Trump campaign figures' cozy relationships with Russian officials, which some have been reluctant to disclose.
Despite numerous attempts to build hotels in Russia, the Trumps indeed do not own any real-estate properties in the country. The majority of Trump's known ties include work with Russian financiers and developers on various projects in the US, as well as some of his top campaign aides' consultations with Kremlin allies.Charles Lister is a resident fellow at the Middle East Institute and a senior consultant to the Shaikh Group’s Syria Track II Initiative. He is the author of "The Syrian Jihad: Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State and the Evolution of an Insurgency," and is on Twitter.
In the past week, the Syrian crisis has spiraled out of control, largely due to fundamental U.S. misjudgments over the strategic calculations and ambitions of Russia, Turkey, the Syrian opposition and the main Kurdish force in Syria, the Y.P.G.
Otherwise, Russia will build on its relationship with Kurdish forces, undermining the United States and creating another intractable conflict.
It was entirely predictable that the Pentagon’s favored anti-ISIS partners — the Y.P.G.-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces — would one day turn their guns on the C.I.A.-backed Free Syrian Army in pursuit of their own territorial aims. That they have done so under Russian air cover rubbed salt in an already raw wound. Similarly inevitable then, was Turkey’s intervention against what it perceived as the imminent establishment of a state ruled by the Kurdish-separatist party, the P.K.K., along its already unstable southern border.
Despite its mistakes, the U.S. and its partner states must strongly encourage de-escalation. Since downing a Russian jet in November, Turkey has frequently demonstrated insufficient restraint in dealing with tensions on its borders. But the United States must also acknowledge Ankara’s legitimate security concerns. After all, 49 Turkish security forces and civil servants were killed by the P.K.K. and a splinter faction of the P.K.K. between Feb. 16 and 21 alone.
As it faces and contributes to intensifying fighting with the P.K.K., Turkey has been made to watch the U.S. government embolden the Y.P.G. — the P.K.K.’s Syrian wing — to an extent that it could probably never have imagined. As a NATO ally, Turkey has a right to question U.S. actions.
The Y.P.G. explicitly stated its allegiance to the P.K.K. — which the U.S. State Department has considered a designated terrorist organization since 1997 — within its internal code until last year, when that text was removed. Interestingly, the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center also labelled the Y.P.G. as the P.K.K.’s “Syrian affiliate” until last year, by which time it had become a partner in the fight against ISIS.
The U.S. must also aggressively demand that the Y.P.G. cease its attacks on the Syrian opposition. Should they continue, we will have allowed the eruption of a conflict in Syria potentially as intractable as the one now raging between the opposition and Assad regime. Thus far, weak calls for the Y.P.G. to “show restraint” from its “counterproductive” behavior only encourage Russia to build on its own growing relationship with the Y.P.G. to further undermine the United States.
More broadly, Syria’s "Kurdish issue" deserves a heightened position on the international agenda. While Kurds were consistently denied their rights by the Assad regime, Syria’s opposition strongly rejects ethnic discrimination and includes within it many Kurds who are not members of the Y.P.G.
Today’s hostilities are the result of intense suspicion between the Y.P.G. and the Syrian opposition over each others ambitions for Syria’s future. Bridging these psychological walls may be the only way of ensuring that a successful fight against ISIS ends in anything but continued intramilitia warfare.
Join Opinion on Facebook and follow updates on twitter.com/roomfordebate.It was the bad old days of 1974, the South Bronx, and NYPD Detective Ralph Friedman and his partner, Robert De Matas, were working undercover, posing as cab drivers.
They watched a group of teens ask a man, Joaquin Castro, 37, for money. Castro turned them down.
“The kid called him a cheap bastard, so [Castro] pulls out a gun and shoots him right in front of us — his chest explodes,” Friedman recalled.
The cops sprinted after Castro along John Street, the killer firing at Friedman as he fled. De Matas tried to outflank him. Castro jumped behind cars and reloaded.
“I stop by a stoop, so I’m covered,” Friedman said. “I shoot at him. He shoots at me, I duck. He turns and shoots at my partner. Then he turns and shoots at me. Then he reloads again. I go to a second gun. I’m lining him up in my sights like I’m shooting at paper, and I’m like, ‘Why isn’t this guy going down?’
“My partner fires one round, and the guy grabs his shoulder. He goes down. I run up and am standing right over him, and he starts to lift his hand up, and I shoot him right in the head. That did it. He dropped the gun. His brains fell out onto the street. And when they get him downtown, would you believe I’d hit him like nine times — in a good grouping right around the belly?”
Friedman was given the Combat Cross, the department’s second-highest honor, for his actions.
For that battle, and the three other men he killed when they tried to murder him in the line of duty, Friedman gave himself something else, a tattoo on his right trigger finger that reads:
“Justified 4X.”
Friedman, now 66, is the most decorated detective in the history of the NYPD.
He has been in 15 gun battles and shot eight perps, including the four he killed. He collected 219 NYPD awards and 36 civilian honors, while piling up more than 2,000 arrests, 105 off duty. He has been stabbed, broke his hand twice, fractured his skull, and was smashed over the head with a tire iron.
He has other ink on his chest for his years at The Bronx’s notorious 41st Precinct during the city’s most violent era. “Fort Apache ’70-’75,” it reads, using the precinct station’s old nickname, popularized by the 1981 film “Fort Apache, The Bronx.” Another tattoo on his back reads, “The rush was worth the risk.”
Friedman once cut short a double date with his brother Stu, a decorated transit cop, because he suspected youths outside a deli were up to no good. The brothers hid and watched in the snow for 30 minutes. When one kid pulled a shotgun, the two arrested all three suspects before they could rob the place or fire a shot.
“The ’70s were a different animal,” said Friedman, a Bronx-born DeWitt Clinton High School grad and massive bodybuilder who could once bench press 400 pounds. “You had to be combat ready.”
He had no friends or family on the force — his dad was a hotel manager — but when two pals asked if he wanted to take the police test with them, he agreed. After he passed, he ditched his furniture-moving job to join the NYPD in 1968 as a trainee handling calls for the city’s new 911 system. When Friedman hit the streets in 1970 — the same year as future Commissioner Ray Kelly — he couldn’t wait to get started. “I wanted the action,” he said.
He came to the right place. Fort Apache was a festival of murder, arson, drug dealing, robbery, burglaries and car theft. “It was probably the most dangerous neighborhood in the world,” he said.
Cops in the 41st — like Richie Biller, who once dragged two suspects into the station house with a knife still in his shoulder — would “come in with a collar every day. These were the guys I looked up to. They made me want to be like them,” Friedman said.
His first arrest was of two suspects he saw passing money and slips with numbers. When he hauled them in, a supervisor said, “Hey, kid. Do you even know what you got here?” He had no clue. “You got a KG, a known gambler.”
His first shooting came in June 1971. His girlfriend called, saying she and her mom were shopping on Jerome Avenue and got into a dispute with two guys in a truck over a parking space. The men came after him with tire irons. “I’m amazed. I got a gun in my hand, and they’re swinging at me,” Friedman said. “I didn’t want to shoot.”
He blocked one swing with his gun, which broke his hand, then got clubbed on the head from behind, fracturing his skull. Friedman shot the suspect in front of him. The bullet ripped through the perp’s neck, into his arm and out.
The second suspect was about to hit him again with the iron when another cop intervened.
“We all went to the same hospital,” Friedman said. “Everybody recovered, even the guy I shot.”
Eight weeks later, Friedman was back at work. “My first day, we get a burglary run.” Someone had broken into a store. While cops rushed in, the thief came out on the roof and jumped down to the street. “He landed right in front of me. I punched him right in the face. He goes down. Right away, I knew I broke my hand again. First day back and I’m in a cast and out of work,” he said.
But he soon returned to Fort Apache’s plainclothes unit. In 1972, he and partner Kalman Unger arrived at an apartment where a resident, Charles Williams, was “beating up his girlfriend.”
Just as they entered, Williams “jumps out of the back and starts firing at us. We were three feet away. We all open fire. Six shots apiece, 18 bullets. Smoke everywhere. My partner’s hit seven times, once in the heart,” he said.
“The guy runs into me. I grabbed him with my left, and he ran into the gun, right on his nipple. I fired. The bullet killed him. We rush my partner to the hospital. He needed 72 pints of blood in three hours. But he lived.” Somehow, Friedman was not hit.
After that, he made sure to arm himself with a second gun — his “detective’s special,” a snub-nosed Colt.38 revolver strapped to his ankle. Paired with his NYPD-issued Smith & Wesson revolver, he had 12 rounds at the ready.
There were two other fatal gunfights, including a rooftop scrum in the 52nd Precinct in 1977 when he and his boss, Detective Sgt. Steve Cantor, traded shots with weapons dealer Hector Nuñez, who was armed with a Winchester.30-.30 rifle. After they hit and wounded Nuñez, a second man came after Friedman with a knife. The cop put him down with a shot to the head.
Friedman was more than an extraordinary gunfighter. He made headlines for dozens of drug collars and 15 bribery arrests. He foiled crooks wherever he went. While looking at holsters in a police-supply store, he nailed a shoplifter who had pocketed badges. At a baseball game, he arrested a guy for mugging a spectator.
It came to an end in 1984, when another cop car rammed his as both raced to aid an officer. The impact shattered his hip and broke 22 other bones. “It knocked the s- -t out of me,” he said.
The accident nearly gave Friedman what he didn’t want: the Medal of Honor, the NYPD’s highest award — given posthumously in most cases. Instead, he spent two months in traction.
At the time, Friedman says, he was dating eight women — and when he woke up in the hospital, he was horrified to see them all at his bedside.
“I saw them and made like I passed out again,” he recalled.
One of them, Grace, “stuck with me” — and became his wife.
Friedman says he misses the job, misses the action. “I’d go back tomorrow,” he said. “I miss it, but I can’t run.”
He retired and recently moved with his wife into a new house in Danbury, Conn., where he rises at 5 a.m. to work on his 185-pound frame in his home gym.
Thirty years later, he still has unpleasant dreams in which he’s shooting at a bad guy but having no effect, or he fires and watches in slow motion as his bullet slowly exits the barrel and drops.
But his “4X” fatalities don’t bother him a lick.
“I was never traumatized,” he said. “I never felt bad. I felt I saved my life or someone else’s life.”For more awesome keto recipes check my favorite LCHF Cookbook
Text & Links to the Original Keto Pancakes Recipes Are Below
For those individuals looking to lose weight, maintain health, and support physical performance, the Ketogenic diet is no stranger. Like a low-carb diet, Ketogenic diets are designed to trigger a body function called Ketosis. This process serves to burn fat instead of carbohydrates when the body is low on energy. Hence, why Ketogenic diets are common among the weight loss community. Sadly, there is a misconception that you can’t enjoy life’s little pleasures while on the Ketogenic diet. This idea simply isn’t true. Even Ketogenic dieters can enjoy hot, fluffy & low carb pancakes on a Saturday morning. So, without further delay, here are our top 3 keto diet pancake recipes.
Keto Cream Cheese Pancakes
Low-carb and keto-friendly, these cream cheese pancakes are an excellent way to start off your day.
Considering they have no flour or grains, these pancakes are also ideal for those who may be gluten free. When looking at the ingredient list for these delicious pancakes, you’ll notice it is a little short. These pancakes only consist of four ingredients, making them super simple to make; however, if you do not like the taste of cream cheese, we suggest you look at the next two options.
Ingredients
2 oz. cream cheese
2 eggs
1 tsp sweetener
1/2 Tsp cinnamon
Source & other infos: Cream cheese pancakes
Fluffy Keto Pancakes
If you find the egg or cream cheese taste to be too strong in the cream cheese pancakes, the fluffy keto pancakes could be a viable option for you.
Incredibly light and fluffy (Hence, the name fluffy keto pancakes), this option is quite delicious. Consisting of quite a few ingredients, we found this option to have an all-around pleasant taste. We recommend you serve these pancakes with a couple of slices of turkey bacon to get a well-rounded, keto breakfast.
Ingredients
4 oz. cream cheese
4 eggs
2 tsp sweetener
1 Tbsp. vanilla extract
4 Tbsp. coconut flour
2 tsp baking powder
Pinch of cinnamon
½ Tsp maple extract
Almond milk, if needed
Source & other infos: Keto Pancake
Keto Coconut Pancakes
The keto coconut pancakes are the sweetest option on our list.
These pancakes can be made with or without dairy, making them a great option for those who may be lactose intolerant. If made with dairy, they take full advantage of coconut milk and flour, making them the perfect choice for someone with a sweet tooth. We recommend you eat these pancakes with a little fat-free syrup in order the maximize the sweetness.
Ingredients
¼ cup grass-fed butter
¼ cup full-fat coconut milk
¼ Tsp salt
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
¼ cup coconut flour
½ Tsp baking powder
Extra butter or Avocado oil
Source & other infos: Keto coconut pancakes primal dairy free option
No one ever said you couldn’t enjoy some of life’s little pleasures while on a ketogenic diet. My top 3 keto pancake recipes prove that. Keep in mind, however, if you are serious about your keto diet, these pancakes are not meant to be eaten every day. They are best if only eaten one to two times a week.
Although a ketogenic diet can have its challenges, it doesn’t mean you must miss eating good food. Whether you are attempting to lose weight, manage your health, or support your physical and mental well-being, these keto pancakes can help you get there.A Sun Microsystems sign is pictured at the company's headquarters in Santa Clara, California March 18, 2009. REUTERS/Robert Galbraith
BOSTON (Reuters) - Sun Microsystems Inc killed development of an advanced server chip it hoped would leapfrog its technology past rivals IBM and Intel Corp, the New York Times reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
Officials with Sun, the world’s No. 4 maker of computer services, declined comment on the report about the abandoned chip project, which Sun has dubbed Rock.
Sun, which has agreed to sell itself to software giant Oracle Corp for about $7 billion, had invested more than five years and billions of dollars in the project, according to the newspaper. It had hoped to use the home-brewed chips in new machines, rather than ones from Japan’s Fujitsu Ltd, which now run the bulk of its high-end servers.
News of the chip’s demise came after Oracle Chief Executive Larry Ellison recently said he planned to boost investment in developing Sun’s server chips after he closes the acquisition.
Rock had been scheduled to start shipping last year, but was delayed several times as Sun engineers discovered glitches, according to the New York Times report, which said its sources requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press.
Sun designed the chip for high-end servers, which primarily compete with machines from International Business Machines Corp and Hewlett Packard Co.
Sun shares fell 0.2 percent to close at $9.28 on the Nasdaq.Ron Silliman reports on a new publication, modestly entitled Issue 1. (I was first alerted to this by The Mumpsimus). This e-text is 3785 pages long (!); each page contains a “poem” attributed to one of 3785 3164 writers. The names of the writers range from Silliman himself and other language poets, through a number of (now dead) poets and writers, onto various bloggers (especially ones who appear in Silliman’s blogroll, it would seem). In point of fact, none of the writers have actually written the pieces attributed to them. My name appears among the list of authors, together with the names of several people I know, including some who read (and sometimes comment on) this blog. My own “poem” appears on page 1893; for what it’s worth, it doesn’t strike me as being very good, nor is it like anything that I could ever imagine myself writing, either in style or in sentiment.
I kind of wonder how other “victims” of this hoax (if that’s what it is) respond to it. Silliman seems kind of pissed off, as do many (but not all) of the commenters on his blog entry. Matthew Cheney (of The Mumpsimus blog) seems more or less amused:
The whole thing strikes me as a stunt pulled by someone who desperately wants attention. (And now I’m giving it to ’em. So it goes.) I’m still amazed that anyone would put the time into creating something like this, but the amazement now is the sort of amazement one has when watching the totally insane rather than watching the harmlessly obsessive.
Me, I think that the stunt raises all sorts of interesting questions (or perhaps I should say, in Palin-speak, that lots of interesting questions “rear their heads”). Early-20th-century Dadaist stunts raised meta-questions about art, about what could be considered art, etc. But such meta-questions have long since been so well assimilated into our culture (both artistic culture and commercial culture) that they scarcely raise an eyebrow any longer. Today, we can only be blase about self-referentiality, conceptual art, and so on.
In such a context, Issue 1 attempts to up the ante, by asking meta-meta-questions, as it were. Most notably, there’s the difficulty of deciding whether the publication actually is some sort of interesting conceptual art, or whether it is rather just a dumb prank, or a malicious hoax. Then there is the issue of obsessiveness that Matthew Cheney raises. Certainly a lot of modernist and post-modernist art is quite obsessive (I am thinking of everything from Yayoi Kusama’s polka dots to Henry Darger’s weather chronicles). But Issue 1 might well only be pseudo-obsessive; it seems to be something that would have required an insane amount of time and energy (if only to collect all those author names and write all those poems), but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that it was all generated by a computer program in just a few hours. Even insanity isn’t what it used to be, in our age of digital simulation.
Finally, given all the questions about the status of the author that have been raised in the last half-century or so, it only makes sense that I should be credited with the authorship of something that I had nothing to do with writing. Remember, Roland Barthes proclaimed “the death of the author” more than forty years ago, in 1967. And even well before that, in 1940, Borges proposed a literary criticism that would “take two dissimilar works — the Tao Te Ching and the 1001 Nights, for instance — attribute them to a single author, and then in all good conscience determine the psychology of that most interesting homme de lettres…” (from “Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius”). Issue 1 is a logical outgrowth of the situation in which such ideas no longer seem new, or radical, or outrageously counterintuitive, but have instead been entirely assimilated into our “common sense.”
In short, Issue 1 makes sense to me as a conceptual art project precisely to the extent that it marks the utter banalization, routinization, and digitization of any sort of conceptualism and experimentalism in art, and of all supposedly “avant-garde” gestures. There is something melancholy in coming to this conclusion; but perhaps something liberating as well, since it suggests that the whole strain of avant-gardism that starts in the 19th century, goes through dadaism and other forms of radical modernism, and moves through conceptualism in the 1960s and 1970s to the supposedly oppositional political art of the last few decades, has finally outlived its relevance and its usefulness. We have finally reached the point where we can shake off the dead weight of the anti-traditionalist tradition, and perhaps move on to something else. This doesn’t mean rejecting all the art of the avant-garde tradition, much of which I still very much love. But it does mean seeing that art historically, just as we see the art of the Baroque historically, or as we see the science fiction of the “Golden Age” of the early-to-mid 20th century historically. It’s still there to be tapped (or looted) for clever ideas, formal approaches, and so on. But modernist experimentation and avant-gardism is no longer a living resource; in an age of arcane financial instruments capable at one moment of generating huge quantities of fictitious wealth, and at another moment of sending shockwaves through the entire society, wiping out retirement accounts, causing businesses to go bankrupt and jobs to disappear, etc, etc — in such a climate, modernist avant-gardism fails to be “as radical as reality itself.” (I am fully aware that financial panics with real effects upon people’s lives are as old as capitalism itself; what’s new in the present situation comes from the way that new technologies have a multiplier effect, as well as adding additional layers of meta-referentiality and meta-feedback into the system).
I am sorely tempted to add the “poem” of mine which appears in Issue 1, and which I had absolutely nothing to do with producing, to my CV.Jan 7, 2016 | By Kira
Just last month, the EinScan-S Portable 3D Scanner, manufactured by Chinese company Shining 3D, made our list of Best 3D Scanners of 2015 due to its consumer-friendly price, structured light technology, and two scanning modes, all of which allow for convenient 360-degree scans of objects with an accuracy of 0.1mm. Now at CES 2016, the company has released its newest product, the EinScan-Pro Multi-Functional Handheld 3D scanner, which offers double the number of scanning modes and accuracy down to 0.05mm in a single scan, making it a promising contender for this year's list.
Alongside its shiny new 3D scanner, Shining 3D also unveiled the brand new EinStart-L, a multi-color 3D printer and the first 3D printer to pass UL safety certification in China.
As the name implies, the EinScan-Pro Multi-functional 3D scanner covers several functions, combining the convenience of a handheld 3D scanner with the precision of an industrial one, all within an affordable, consumer-grade package. Not only can it |
iller will likely assume much the same role as Darren Sproles when he was in New Orleans. While Spiller only had 125 receiving yards in 2014 through 9 games played, his role (and QB) in the Big Easy will be different. I have Spiller gaining 650 yards through the air.
We haven’t seen him at all this preseason due to some sort of covert arthroscopic knee surgery deal, but we hear rumors that he will be back and ready by week 1. He looked real sharp in minicamp, as expected, and figures to be a huge part of Brees’ outlet in the backfield. Spiller will likely assume much the same role as Darren Sproles when he was in New Orleans. While Spiller only had 125 receiving yards in 2014 through 9 games played, his role (and QB) in the Big Easy will be different. I have Spiller gaining through the air. Mark Ingram: More of a pounder than a receiving RB, or at least as he’s been used, Mark Ingram came on strong in a contract year and showed his value to this Saints squad (for which he received a shiny new contract). He also demonstrated some pass catching abilities with a few nice receptions from Brees this preseason. Ingram had career high 964 yards rushing and 145 yards receiving last season through 13 games on the year, but I think he’ll do even better this year with an improved o line and the threat of Spiller in 2-back sets. Ingram will have no less than 200 receiving yards.
More of a pounder than a receiving RB, or at least as he’s been used, Mark Ingram came on strong in a contract year and showed his value to this Saints squad (for which he received a shiny new contract). He also demonstrated some pass catching abilities with a few nice receptions from Brees this preseason. Ingram had career high 964 yards rushing and 145 yards receiving last season through 13 games on the year, but I think he’ll do even better this year with an improved o line and the threat of Spiller in 2-back sets. Ingram will have no less than. Khiry Robinson/Marcus Murphy: I’m just going to slot these guys together since I’ve resolved I love them both the same and would feel bad putting one over the other. Murphy will likely be used primarily on special teams, but it’s not unreasonable to put him down for 100 yards this year in some capacity. KRob, well, what can’t be said about the man. He’s a back of all trades. He only had 63 yards through 10 games last season, but he’s good for 150. Write that down.
Our total to this point is Brees with a convenient 5,300 passing yards on the season. Against the Jaguars in week 15, Brees will hit Snead on a skinny post for, you guessed it, 29 yards, and the team will rejoice in the glorious moment as he reaches the magic number! Confetti will rain and Brees will point skyward as if to say ‘it was literally through you, the sky, that this moment was possible’. Incidentally, Brees will proceed to throw for an additional 400 yards and 7 TDs the last game of the season in Atlanta, shattering Peyton Manning's single season passing yard mark of 5,477.It's hard to believe that it's only been two years since VR rejoined our cultural consciousness, since it seems to be everywhere these days. Previously the only way to enjoy VR with your phone was by downloading Cardboard or Daydream apps from the Play Store. However it looks like those days are quickly coming to an end. If you missed the news this week, Google has announced that you will be able to browse Chrome with a Daydream headset. It's up to individual sites to implement Chrome VR, but there are already a ton of great experiences that you can check out in VR from Chrome. So I can browse Chrome in VR now?
Sort of. Not every website is able to use VR modes, and they need to do some work in their backend to enable the WebVR API. However there already some great sites out there that you can navigate to, and jump into VR without downloading any extras. As we move forward it's not going to be surprising to see the number of websites taking advantage of this ability to expand rapidly. If you haven't had a chance to pick up a Daydream headset yet, you can actually still access a portion of the VR content. that's because when you choose to jump into VR it's an option at the bottom of your screen. This includes on Chromebooks, and laptops, as well as mobile devices. If you don't have a compatible headset, when you tap the VR icon you'll be able to look around using your mouse or touch screen. While this definitely doesn't hold a candle to being able to properly jump into VR, it is a cool way to see what is available to you before running out to pick up a headset. What are the websites I can check out in VROn the surface, the results of the 2017 Northern Ireland assembly elections look very familiar. The largest unionist party, the DUP, has again come first in Thursday’s voting, as it has done in all five assembly elections of the 21st century. The largest nationalist party, Sinn Féin, has come second, also for the fifth time in a row. The other parties trail in the DUP’s and Sinn Féin’s wakes, again in the usual order. Heady talk that 2017 might prove to be the election in which cross-community transfers of votes might finally dent the historic sectarianism of elections has proved misplaced. The old familiarities have reasserted themselves.
The immediate consequences also have a predictable air. Under Northern Ireland’s power-sharing political settlement, the main parties must now negotiate a programme for joint government. The Northern Ireland secretary, James Brokenshire, has invited them all for talks at Stormont on Monday. But progress is unlikely to be rapid. The last power-sharing executive led by the DUP and Sinn Féin collapsed in January because the DUP leader, Arlene Foster, refused to step aside to allow an investigation of the flawed “cash for ash” renewable energy scheme, which she oversaw. That issue remains unresolved. It is therefore a serious stumbling block to a new agreement within the appointed three weeks. In Northern Ireland’s zero-sum politics, that means Mr Brokenshire may fail to broker a new deal. This could lead to direct rule from Westminster, with the assembly suspended, or to yet another election.
All this has a grim familiarity. Yet beneath the surface, the results reveal very significant shifts. The DUP may have once more emerged on the top of the pile, but its share of the first preference vote has slipped for the third election in a row, now down to 28.1%. Sinn Féin’s, in contrast, has risen to its highest ever share, 27.9%. The gap between them across the whole of Northern Ireland is now fewer than 1,200 votes, and there is only a one seat difference between them in the slimlined 90-seat assembly. For the first time in Northern Ireland’s devolved politics, the two main nationalist parties (Sinn Féin and the more moderate SDLP) now have more seats than the two main unionist parties (the DUP and the UUP, whose leader, Mike Nesbitt, has resigned). The voters have not produced the new non-sectarian result that Mr Nesbitt and some others hoped for. But they have not produced the same old result either.
The bulk of this shift has been caused by the DUP circling the wagons. Ms Foster could have avoided all this simply by standing aside for a few weeks, and in a less polarised polity she would have resigned before the old assembly collapsed. She remains a block in the road, just as before the election. Sinn Féin advanced because its campaign centred on the demand to be treated equally and with respect by unionists such as Ms Foster. That is a resonant demand in Northern Ireland. In some ways it is what the whole period of the Troubles and the peace process has been about from a nationalist standpoint. The upshot was that nationalist Northern Ireland rallied behind Sinn Féin and the SDLP last week more thoroughly than unionist Northern Ireland rallied behind the DUP and UUP. She may lead the largest party, but the logical thing is for Ms Foster to consider her position – as others are surely doing for her.
The UK’s disastrous vote for Brexit makes matters even more fraught, and the formation of a power-sharing executive even more imperative. The DUP’s decision to support leaving the EU in the 2016 referendum was massively irresponsible. It sent yet another message of disrespect to nationalists north and south. It was also out of line with Northern Irish opinion, which voted to remain. But post-unionist pro-remain voters have not emerged as a significant force from within the unionist community, so it would be both imprudent and irresponsible for Sinn Féin to push too hard its demand for a border poll. The impact on communal relations would be far more toxic than that of any assembly election.
Theresa May’s hard Brexit is irresponsible too. It makes the consequences in Ireland even worse, as a break with the single market and, in particular, the customs union, inescapably makes a hard border into a reality. That would be a disaster for both parts of Ireland, with major implications for the rest of the UK and its component parts. This is why Northern Ireland’s latest political impasse matters so much, to all of us in Britain as well as in both parts of Ireland. We cannot sit idly by as this country is broken up and sacrificed on the altar of Brexit.STAR recruits Kieran Foran, Michael Jennings, Beau Scott and Michael Gordon will run out for Parramatta for the first time in their NRL trial against Penrith this weekend.
Eels fans will get their first glimpse of what to expect from Foran’s new scrumbase partnership with Auckland Nines player of the tournament Corey Norman against the Panthers at Pepper Stadium on Saturday night.
Elsewhere Sam Burgess headlines a host of big guns returning to action this weekend as preparations ramp up for the fast-approaching NRL season.
Burgess has been named at lock for the Rabbtiohs’ clash with the Titans on the Gold Coast.
Three NRL teams will also be in action in England, with the Cowboys, Broncos and Roosters all involved in the World Club Series.
All the teams for this weekend’s matches have been announced.
Check out the teams and NRL trials and World Club Series fixtures below.
In the big news around the grounds:
* Raiders fullback Jack Wighton was ruled out following a concussion in the All Stars match last weekend, but is expected to be fit for the season opener against the Panthers;
* Kurt Mann has again been named at fullback, with Josh Dugan starting in the centres for the Dragons
* New recruit Trent Merrin will start at prop for a strong Panthers side that features Bryce Cartwright on the bench;
* The Eels will roll out their star recruits for the first time, with Michael Jennings, Kieran Foran, Michael Gordon and Beau Scott make to debut in the blue and gold;
* Warriors coach Andrew McFadden has revealed his starting line-up, with Shaun Johnson, Roger Tuivasa-Sheck and Issac Luke confirmed to play their first game together. New skipper Ryan Hoffman, veteran winger Manu Vatuvei and Test prop Ben Mautlino also set to start, but wrecking ball centre Konrad Hurrell has been left on the bench in favour of Blake Ayshford;
* Rookie Roosters forwards Mitchell Frei and Vincent Leuluai and exciting outside back Latrell Mitchell have been included in a 19-man squad for the clash with St Helens;
* Captain Paul Gallen will have his first hit-out of the pre-season after being named to start at lock for the Sharks. Jack Bird has again been named at fullback, with Valentine Holmes on the wing and Ben Barba on the bench;
* The Titans have named two rookie centres — Brian Kelly and Nathan Davis — to face the Rabbitohs with Nene McDonald out injured;
* Sam Burgess will play his first game for the Rabbitohs since the 2014 grand final;
* Storm star Billy Slater, who hasn’t played since Origin II last year after undergoing shoulder surgery, will miss his side’s final pre-season trial — against the Bulldogs. Cameron Munster (knee) also remains sidelined, while teen sensation Curtis Scott has been named on the wing;
* NSW Origin halfback Trent Hodkinson will have his first hit-out for the Knights in a trial against the Raiders;
* The Bulldogs have named a near-strength team with Josh Reynolds played his first match this year alongside Moses Mbye.
* Dylan Walker, Nate Myles and Martin Taupau all make their club debuts for the Sea Eagles. Blake Leary will play hooker with Matt Parcell, Apisai Koroisau and Jayden Hodges all injured.
* Tyson Frizell (back) has been named for the Dragons, despite originally being slated for a round three return.
* Raiders stars Blake Austin and Shaun Fensom will sit out the match, meaning they will miss Canberra’s only pre-season trial;
Warriors recruits Roger Tuivasa-Sheck and Issac Luke, along with veteran Jeff Robson, have been named alongside returning halfback Shaun Johnson for a clash against the Dragons;
* The Broncos will unleash Greg Eden against Wigan, with the man once hailed as the British version of Billy Slater confirmed to start on the wing.
* Jack Littlejohn will start in the halves for Wests Tigers with Luke Brooks to come off the bench.
DUGAN TAKES CENTRE STAGE FOR DRAGONS
Paul McGregor has stuck with Kurt Mann at fullback for the trial against the Warriors with Josh Dugan to make his first appearance of the season in the centres.
The potential switch of Dugan has been a hot topic of discussion through the off-season and while the Blues representative is keen to make the move a reality, McGregor is understood to be hesitant to embrace the switch unless a stellar candidate steps up as a replacement.
Former Melbourne Storm prospect Mann produced a mixed bag in last week’s Charity Shield but the exclusion of Adam Quinlan indicates that the Queenslander would be the preferred replacement at the back.
STAR EELS RECRUITS TO TACKLE PANTHERS
The Eels have gone all out for their trial against Penrith, naming a near full-strength side.
Danny Wicks and Anthony Watmough are the sole exclusions from the side, which will see Michael Jennings, Kieran Foran, Michael Gordon and Beau Scott make their debuts in the blue and gold.
Tepai Moeroa shifts to lock in Watmough’s absence and may be a candidate to start the season in the No. 13 jersey.
Brad Takairangi, who formed a strong partnership with Semi Radradra on the left side last season, has been shifted to the right, where he will be partnered by Clint Gutherson.
Nathan Peats will make his return to top flight football at the same venue where he broke his neck last season.
NEW FACES NAMED IN ROOSTERS SIDE
The Sydney Roosters have unveiled a new-look line-up for their World Club Series-opening clash with St Helens, with Trent Robinson naming four recruits in a 19-man squad.
England winger Joe Burgess and former Brisbane trio Dale Copley, Mitchell Frei and Jayden Nikorima have all made the cut for match at Langtree Park.
The match looms as a crucial opportunity for young halves Nikorima and Jackson Hastings to get some valuable match time together, less than a month after they were thrown together as the team’s playmaking duo following captain Mitchell Pearce’s Australia Day indiscretions.
Robinson should also get an insight into who will earn the starting second-row spot temporarily vacated by injured vice-captain Boyd Cordner.
The two leading contenders, Mitchell Aubusson and Frei, have both been named.
Blake Ferguson will get his first chance to impress in the No. 1 jersey he hopes to make his own following the off-season departure of Roger Tuivasa-Sheck, while young sensation Latrell Mitchell is also in line to play.
BURGESS BACK FOR BUNNIES
Sam Burgess will make his much-anticipated return for South Sydney in the Rabbitohs’ NRL trial on Saturday against Gold Coast.
It will be the first game Burgess has played for the Rabbitohs since their 2014 grand final win, following his season away playing rugby in England.
Along with the return of Burgess, the Rabbitohs have been boosted by good news on the injury front with Adam Reynolds named at halfback after scans cleared him of a fractured foot following his performance in the All Stars fixture.
He will be partnered in the halves by Cody Walker. Luke Keary, who will miss the Rabbitohs’ season opener against the Sydney Roosters due to suspension, has been named on an extended bench.
Cameron McInnes appears to be the frontrunner for Issac Luke’s vacated hooking role at Redfern after being named at No.9. Recruit and ex-Canterbury rake Damien Cook is on the bench.
HODKINSON DEBUTS FOR KNIGHTS
Star recruit Trent Hodkinson will don Newcastle colours for the first time in the Knights’ sole NRL trial match for 2016 against Canberra in Orange on Saturday.
Hodkinson shapes as the key to a Knights’ resurgence under new coach Nathan Brown in 2016 and the NSW halfback will play his first match since a wrist injury suffered in August ruled him out of Canterbury’s finals tilt last season.
The match won’t give much of a clue of what to expect from Hodkinson and Jarrod Mullen in the Knights’ halves this season though. Mullen has been stood down from the game as punishment for drinking while injured.
Youngster Brock Lamb, who featured at the NRL Auckland Nines, will partner Hodkinson in the halves.
BULLDOGS GO WITH STRENGTH
Des Hasler has gone with his best available team for their final hit-out before the season proper. Will Hopoate and, Brett Morris are both out with injury with gives young recruit Brad Abbey his first shot at a full game at fullback.
Moses Mbye and Josh Reynolds have played together before, but this is their first match together for 2016. After going through last season with constant questions over who was the best partnership there, with Trent Hodkinson also at the club, they have stability now and this is their first chance to show what they can do this season.
STORM WITHOUT SIDELINED STARS
MELBOURNE Storm superstar Billy Slater won’t play in this weekend’s final pre-season trial match, but remains “hopeful” of being there in Round 1.
Slater will miss the clash against the Bulldogs as the Storm exercise extreme caution on the Queensland star, who hasn’t played since Origin II last year, in his recovery from shoulder surgery.
Cameron Munster (knee) will also be missing for Melbourne, with the young gun aiming for a return in Round 1 or Round 2.
Skipper Cameron Smith will lead a strong Storm side featuring Cooper Cronk, Jesse Bromwich, Will Chambers, Marika Koroibete, Dale Finucane, Kevin Proctor and Blake Green.
Teen sensation Curtis Scott has been named on the wing for the Storm.
DCE, WALKER TO FINE-TUNE COMBINATION
Daly Cherry-Evans and Dylan Walker will be given their first opportunity to fine-tune their new halves’ combination when Manly host Ipswich Jets in their final NRL pre-season trial.
One of several big off-season recruits for the Sea Eagles, Walker’s combination with Cherry-Evans will be crucial for the club in 2016 in the wake of Kieran Foran’s defection to Parramatta.
The match will also be the first in Sea Eagles colours for key acquisitions Martin Taupau and Nate Myles.
Blake Leary will play hooker for Manly with Matt Parcell, Apisai Koroisau and Jayden Hodges all injured.
TIGERS TRYING OUT NEW HALF
Some of Wests Tigers’ new recruits get a start this weekend with Jack Littlejohn, Tim Grant, Jordan Rankin, Justin Hunt and Josh Aloiai all named. Littlejohn has a great chance to impress Taylor as he will start in the halves with Luke Brooks to come off the bench.
Wests Tigers captain Aaron Woods will play his first match of the year in Wests Tigers’ final trial match, against Cronulla at Campbelltown. Coach Jason Taylor has named a 20-man squad for the Sharks with the clash, which includes livewire fullback James Tedesco and edge back-rower Curtis Sironen. It will be the first time both have taken the field in 2016.
NRL TRIALS FIXTURES, TEAMS
WARRIORS v DRAGONS
3pm AEDT Saturday at Trafalgar Park, Nelson
Warriors: 1 Roger Tuivasa-Sheck 2 Solomone Kata 3 Blake Ayshford 4 Tuimoala Lolohea 13 Manu Vatuvei 6 Jeff Robson 7 Shaun Johnson 8 Albert Vete 9 Issac Luke 10 Ben Matulino 11 Simon Mannering (c) 12 Ryan Hoffman 14 Ligi Sao. Interchange: Matt Allwood, Charlie Gubb, James Gavet, Nathaniel Roache, Ben Henry, Konrad Hurrell, Jonathan Wright, Sam Lisone, Ata Hingano
Dragons: 19. Kurt Mann 2. Peter Mata’utia 4. Tim Lafai 1. Josh Dugan 3. Euan Aitken 6. Gareth Widdop (c) 7. Benji Marshall 8. Leeson Ah Mau 9. Mitch Rein 10. Russell Packer 11. Will Matthews 12. Joel Thompson 15. Mike Cooper. Interchange: 13. Jack de Belin 14. Ben Creagh 16. Jake Marketo 17. Siliva Havili 20. Taane Milne 22. Tyrone McCarthy 23. Josh McCrone 24. Dunamis Lui..
BULLDOGS v STORM
5.30pm AEDT Saturday at Belmore Sports Ground, Belmore
Bulldogs: 1. Brad Abbey, 2. Curtis Rona, 3. Josh Morris, 4. Chase Stanley, 5. Sam Perrett, 6. Josh Reynolds, 7. Moses Mbye, 8. Aiden Tolman, 9. Michael Lichaa, 10. James Graham (C), 11. Josh Jackson, 12. Tony Williams, 13. Greg Eastwood. Interchange: 14. Sam Kasiano, 15. David Klemmer, 16. Danny Fualalo, 19. Kerrod Holland, 17. Pat O’Hanlon, 20. Craig Garvey, 21. Shaun Lane, 22. Matt Frawley, 23. Adam Elliott, 26. Tyrone Phillips.
Storm: 1. Young Tonumaipea 2. Curtis Scott 3. Richie Kennar 4. Will Chambers 5. Marika Koroibete 6. Blake Green 7. Cooper Cronk 8. Jesse Bromwich 9. Cameron Smith (c) 10. Jordan McLean 11. Kevin Proctor 12. Tohu Harris 13. Dale Finucane. Interchange: 14. Ben Hampton 15. Tim Glasby 16. Nelson Asofa-Solomona 17. Francis Tualau 18. Matt White 19. Kenny Bromwich 20. Felise Kaufusi 21. Jeremy Hawkins 22. Tony Tumusa 28. Matt Grieve (Sunshine Coast Falcons).
TITANS v RABBITOHS
6pm AEDT (5pm local) Saturday at Pizzey Park, Gold Coast
Titans: 1 William Zillman 2 David Mead 3 Nathan Davis 4 Brian Kelly 5 Anthony Don 6 Tyrone Roberts 7 Ash Taylor 8 Ryan James 9 Nathan Friend 10 David Shillington 11 Zeb Taia 12 Chris McQueen 13 Agnatius Paasi. Interchange: 14 Daniel Mortimer 15 Lachlan Burr 16 Luke Douglas 17 Eddy Pettybourne 18 Leivaha Pulu 19 Leva Li 20 Shannon Walker 21 Matt Srama 22 Cameron Cullen
Rabbitohs: 1 Greg Inglis (c), 2 Alex Johnston, 3 Hymel Hunt, 4 Bryson Goodwin, 5 John Olive, 6 Cody Walker, 7 Adam Reynolds, 8 Thomas Burgess, 9 Cameron McInnes, 10 Jason Clark, 11 Kyle Turner, 12 John Sutton, 13 Sam Burgess. Interchange: 14 Aaron Gray, 15 Kirisome Auva’a, 16 David Tyrrell, 17 Zane Musgrove, 18 Damien Cook, 19 Luke Keary, 20 Paul Carter, 21 Nathan Brown.
SEA EAGLES v IPSWICH JETS
Pittwater Park, Narrabeen at 6pm AEDT on Saturday
Sea Eagles: 1 Brett Stewart, 2 Jorge Taufua, 3 Jamie Lyon, 4 Steve Matai, 5 Tom Trbojevic, 6 Dylan Walker, 7 Daly Cherry-Evans, 8 Jake Trbojevic. 9 Blake Leary, 10 Nate Myles, 11 Nathan Green, 12 Tom Symonds, 13 Martin Taupau. Interchange: 14 Hugh Pratt, 15 Josh Starling, 16 Darcy Lussick, 17 Brenton Lawrence.
Jets: 1 Michael Purcell, 2 Marmin Barba, 3 Rory Humphries, 4 Nemani Valekapa, 5 Richie Pandia, 6 Haydan Lipp, 7 Dane Phillips, 8 Kyle McConnell, 9 Landon Hayes, 10 Josh Seage, 11 Nathaniel Neale, 12 Abraham Attallah, 13 Sam Martin. Interchange: 14 Chris Ash, 15 Nathan Gaulton, 16 Sebastian Pandia, 17 Chol Chol, 18 Benjamin White, 20 Theeran Pearson, 21 Raymond Baira, 22 Hugh Seger.
RAIDERS v KNIGHTS
6.30pm AEDT Saturday at Wade Park, Orange
Raiders squad: Kurt Baptiste, Mitchell Barnett, Luke Bateman, Shannon Boyd, Adam Clydsdale, Jarrod Croker (c), Lachlan Croker, Josh Hodgson, Jarrad Kennedy, Rhys Kennedy, Brenko Lee, Edrick Lee, Joey Leilua, Jeff Lima, Frank-Paul Nuuausala, Kato Ottio, Josh Papalii, Jordan Rapana, Zac Santo, Aidan Sezer, Sia Soliola, Paul Vaughan, Sisa Waqa, Elliott Whitehead, Jack Williams, Sam Williams.
Knights: 1. Jaelen Feeney 2. Jake Mamo 3. Pat Mata’Utia 4. Dane Gagai 5. Akuila Uate 6. Brock Lamb 7. Trent Hodkinson 8. Kade Snowden 9. Danny Levi 10. Jack Stockwell 11. Korbin Sims 12. Robbie Rochow 13. Jeremy Smith. Interchange: 14. Tyler Randell 15. Mickey Paea 16. Pauli Pauli 17. Sam Mataora 18. Jacob Saifiti 19. Daniel Saifiti 20. Lachlan Fitzgibbon 21. Will Pearsell 22. Nathan Ross 23. Sione Mata’utia 24. David Bhana 25. Chanel Mata’utia.
TIGERS v SHARKS
7pm Saturday at Campbelltown Sports Stadium
Wests Tigers: 1. James Tedesco, 2. David Nofoaluma, 3. Tim Simona, 4. Kevin Naiqama, 5. Justin Hunt, 18. Mitchell Moses, 7. Jack Littlejohn, 8. Aaron Woods (C), 9. Robbie Farah, 10. Tim Grant, 11. Curtis Sironen, 12. Chris Lawrence, 13. Sauaso Sue. Interchange: 6. Jordan Rankin, 14. Ava Seumanufagai, 15. Josh Aloiai, 16. Manaia Cherrington, 17. Kyle Lovett, 19. Luke Brooks, 20. Josh Drinkwater.
Sharks: 1. Jack Bird 2. Valentine Holmes 3. Gerard Beale 4. Ricky Leutele 5. Sosaia Feki 6. James Maloney 7. Chad Townsend 8. Sam Tagataese 9. Michael Ennis 10. Andrew Fifita 11. Luke Lewis 12. Wade Graham 13. Paul Gallen. Interchange: 16 Jayson Bukuya 18 Joseph Paulo 19 Ben Barba 21 Matt Prior 22 David Fifita 23 Chris Heighington.
PANTHERS v EELS
7.10pm AEDT Saturday at Pepper Stadium, Penrith. TV: Live on Fox Sports 1
Panthers: 1. Matt Moylan (c) 2. Josh Mansour 3. Waqa Blake 4. Peta Hiku 5. Dallin Watene-Zelezniak 6. Jamie Soward 7. Peter Wallace 8. Trent Merrin 9. James Segeyaro 10. Suaia Matagi 11. Tyrone Peachey 12. Elijah Taylor 13. Isaah Yeo. Interchange: Will Smith, Leilani Latu, Te Maire Martin, Bryce Cartwright, Jeremy Latimore, James Fisher-Harris, Sitaleki Akauola
Eels: 1. Michael Gordon 2. Semi Radradra 3. Michael Jennings 4. Brad Takairangi 5. Clint Gutherson 6. Corey Norman 7. Kieran Foran 8. Tim Mannah 9. Nathan Peats 10. Junior Paulo 11. Manu Ma’u 12. Beau Scott 13. Tepai Moeroa. Interchange: 14. Isaac De Gois 15. Peni Terepo 16. Daniel Alvaro 17. Kenny Edwards 18. David Gower.
WORLD CLUB SERIES
ROOSTERS v ST HELENS
7am Saturday at Langtree Park, St Helens. TV: Live on GEM
Roosters squad: Mitchell Aubusson, Joe Burgess, Dale Copley, Kane Evans, Blake Ferguson, Mitchell Frei, Jake Friend, Aidan Guerra, Jackson Hastings, Ian Henderson, Shaun Kenny-Dowall, Vincent Leuluai, Isaac Liu, Latrell Mitchell, Sam Moa, Dylan Napa, Jayden Nikorima, Sio Siua Taukeiaho, Daniel Tupou.
BRONCOS V WIGAN
7am AEDT Sunday at DB Stadium, Wigan. TV: Live on GEM
Broncos: 1. Darius Boyd, 2. Greg Eden, 3. Jordan Kahu, 4. James Roberts, 5. Corey Oates, 6. Anthony Milford, 7. Kodi Nikorima, 8. Sam Thaiday, 9. Andrew McCullough, 10. Adam Blair, 11. Alex Glenn, 12. Matt Gillett, 13. Corey Parker. Interchange: 14. Jarrod Wallace, 15. Josh McGuire, 16. Joe Ofahengaue, 17. Travis Waddell, 18. Herman Ese’ese, 19. Tom Opacic
COWBOYS v LEEDS RHINOS
6am Monday at Headingley Stadium, Leeds. TV: Live on GEM
Cowboys: TBAGCN LAB IMPRESSIONS
'Elite' hacker done in by everyday iPhone function
It’s always amazing to see how the biggest criminals eventually get caught. I mean, Al Capone probably murdered hundreds of people, yet he eventually went to jail for tax evasion. Probably more ironic was the story this week that an allegedly elite hacker from the Anonymous collective was captured because he didn’t understand how his iPhone worked.
Higinio O. Ochoa III of Galveston, Texas, allegedly a member of the Anonymous offshoot CabinCr3w, is accused of posting hundreds of home addresses for police officers to a website, and also linked to the Twitter handle @Anonw0rmer. For a while, the hacker was covering his tracks pretty well, because feds were having a hard time tracking him down.
You know that if a suspect is endangering police officers they’ll put a high priority on finding him. So the hacker was doing a good job -- up to a point.
Related stories:
GPS devices could put American soldiers at risk
Geotagged – you’re it!
Now, let’s leave that scene for a moment and head over to my house, where my wife was recently playing with her brand-new iPhone, the first one she’s ever owned. With a shock, she realized that all the photos she had taken over the past few weeks with the iPhone were tagged and time-stamped, and could even be overlaid onto a map, so that someone could see where her parents’ house upstate was located, since she had snapped several pictures there.
I warned her that the data was embedded in the photos themselves, so that if she shared them on Facebook or whatever, someone could extract that data and get personal information. That revelation was a little eye-opening for her, but it's nothing that a lot of iPhone users probably already didn’t know. The geotagging of photos isn't exactly a secret. That function can even be turned off, although there is some debate whether doing do actually stops the Global Positioning System data from being embedded.
Back to the hacker. He allegedly began taking sexy, though clothed, photos of his girlfriend and posting them along with taunting notes for the investigators. The photos were cropped to show the woman’s body, but not her face.
Investigators took those photos off the website and found that all of them were GPS- and time-stamped, just like the ones my wife took of her family or the ones you are probably taking with your iPhones, or other smart phones, every day.
Apparently, the hacker pics were all snapped in Australia. And guess what? The alleged hacker had vacation photos on Facebook showing a recent trip to Australia and a blonde woman who he claimed was his girlfriend. Investigators matched up the times and even some of the bathing suits the woman in the hacker photos was wearing.
Armed with this, they stormed the alleged hacker’s home in Texas and arrested him.
I’m sure none of you fine folks are hackers yourselves. But knowing that GPS data is being captured in every photo you take should be in the back of your mind. If it can be used for nefarious purposes, you can bet someone will try.Last week I wrote about the new features that Microsoft have planned for the next version of C#, version 7.1. Let’s also take a look at the things they have planned for a bit further out. Strap yourselves in, because this will be a rather long read.
C# 7.2 and 7.3
The next-up versions of the C# language, 7.2 and 7.3, are less clearly defined than 7.1. C# 7.2 will be focused on enabling you to write low-level code without having to resort to the unsafe keyword. There are some features already defined, like read-only references, blittables, and ref-like types. For C# 7.3, the picture is even less clear. The roadmap slide in the BUILD 2017 presentation only mentions ‘Next steps for pattern matching?’.
The presentation also touches on some of the features they’re thinking about for C# 8.0, so let’s have a look at those. I think they’re pretty exciting, but because this is much further out in terms of planning and releasing, many things are still uncertain. Features might change or might not make it at all.
Asynchronous sequences (C# 8.0)
C# 5.0 was all about async and await, as we know. However, one of the scenarios that was left unsupported is enumeration (you know, foreach ). In order to use foreach (or the entirety of LINQ) with the result of an asynchronous method, you have to either retrieve all of the results at once, asynchronously, or be content with the fact that enumeration is not asynchronous.
There is a proposal to support this in the language. It would look something like this:
IAsyncEnumerable<SearchResult> results = searchEngine.GetAllResults(query); foreach await (var result in results) { //... }
Now this looks simple enough, but for proper support they would also have to support all of this in LINQ query operators, which is pretty large body of code. They could probably use a lot of the work from System.Interactive, from the Rx project. There’s not a lot of official documentation there, but Bart de Smet’s blog has some interesting information.
For a lot of scenarios, like querying a database, your data provider would also have to support this scenario. It will probably be quite some time before third party data providers will start supporting this, if at all. I’m looking at you, Oracle. The official Oracle driver does not, to this day, support asynchronous operations at all. Never mind all the Async methods returning Task ; they don’t even support the old Begin / End pattern of asynchronous operations.
Regardless of the third party buy-in this feature needs in order to be really useful in day-to-day code, it is very nice to see a way you can asynchronously stream in a large set of items of an unknown size, like, for example, a Twitter feed. Right now you have to retrieve the feed page by page. This should be an implementation detail of the Twitter client you’re using and it should not be represented in your code. With asynchronous sequences, you can abstract away this detail, which is very nice.
Asynchronous Dispose (C# 8.0)
Let’s say you have a desktop application that is directly connecting to a database. Yes, I know it’s 2017, but just go along for the example. You begin a transaction and start doing a lot of work there, all asynchronously so you don’t block the UI. Of course your transaction is initialized in |
shows, bitcoin has seen a number of sharp periods of decline followed by reversions to the mean. But the data illustrates that the market may be trending against ‘bitcoin maximalism’, or the idea bitcoin will be the only dominant blockchain in the future.
2. ‘Seeking Alpha’
Yet, it may not be fair to suggest that bitcoin’s declining market share represents competition against its value proposition.
The digital currency space is inherently risky, but bitcoin it is still the most liquid and well-known player in the space. As the chart above shows, however, alternative cryptocurrency markets are now providing better returns for investors (at least in the short term)
For an investor, bitcoin’s ROI is being overshadowed by upstart cryptos who valuations are increasing at rocket pace. The question for traders might now be, ‘Why risk capital in the bitcoin market, when other assets are much more rewarding to hold?’
3. Value propositions
Yet, a major difference between previous declines and now is the relative strength of other alternative protocols.
None may be more notable than ethereum, and its blockchain asset, ether, which has been setting new all-time highs in recent trading sessions. This surge followed the news in late February of a 30-firm partnership called the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance, and nearly two years of open-source development.
Unlike many other protocols, ethereum has a clearer value proposition in that it is designed not to be a digital currency, but a platform for decentralized applications based on blockchain.
With a market cap nearing $4bn, the ethereum is gaining a more liquid market that is better better suited for trading, and institutional firms are starting to notice.
Also notable is the rise of dash. Though analysts have cautioned that they are skeptical about the asset’s increase in value, it has nonetheless gained 200% in less than a month, cementing itself as a solid number three in the list of digital currencies by market value.
It is unclear whether this recent bull run is a speculative price bubble or a revaluation based on strong fundamentals, but it could signal the market’s favorable view of a strong governance protocol and a payment protocol which features anonymous transactions.
4. Up to the right
Though the possibility exists of a future not dominated by bitcoin, this shouldn’t be taken as a negative connotation.
Due to the fact that new bitcoins are produced daily, the total value of all bitcoin’s has never been higher. While certainly some coins have been lost, burned or otherwise removed from the market, this means that more money has never been invested in bitcoin.
But if one thing is for certain, the uncertainty in the market is having an effect, and creating opportunities for change.
Chart image via Shutterstock“Sodomy (homosexuality): Death for the person committing the act, as well as for the one receiving it.”
— An excerpt from the penal code being used by ISIS, also known as Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, the barbaric terrorist group which has overrun large parts of Syria and Iraq and murdered thousands of innocent civilians, as well as foreign aid workers, soldiers and journalists. The full penal code, The Independent reports, includes brutal punishments including lashings, cutting off hands and legs for theft, exile for unmarried adulterers and death sentences which include crucifixion and stoning.
“It outlines a number of punishments, some of which are already incorporated into the penal code of some Arab states,” Charlie Winter, researcher for counter-extremism think tank Quilliam, told the British newspaper. The full list of punishments is below:Architecture student Ben Kirk has designed conceptual towers to replace the fast-declining bee population by shooting artificial pollinators into the air.
Above: main pollinator release point in Kew Gardens
Located in Kew Gardens, a tower would fire spores covered in pollen-filled latex balloons into the air so the wind could transport them to parks across London.
Above: detail of artificial pollinators
City-wide recycling buildings would suck up unused pollen spores and redistribute them via a trumpet-like funnel.
Above: satellite pollinator release facility in Victoria Park
Additional off-the-shelf Garden Pollination Devices with acetate tentacles would also available for private gardens.
Above: satellite pollinator release facility in Victoria Park
Kirk developed the project while studying at the University of Westminster.
Above: garden pollination devices
More student projects on Dezeen »
Here are some more details from Kirk:
London Without Bees: architecture to pollinate a wilting city
What would happen if, as the worst predictions suggest, there were no bees in London? How would flowers be pollinated?
Above: detail of garden pollination devices
Here a headquarters in Kew Gardens releases millions of delicate floating inseminators, like artificial spores, across the city. Locally, in places like Victoria Park in Hackney, small repair and collection points work constantly to recycle the proxy bees: architecture to pollinate a wilting city.
Above: detail of garden pollination devices
Without the common honeybee, London's gardens would be unrecognisable. We would miss their familiar buzz on a summers day, we would miss their delicious honey. Less obviously, we would miss their pollination, which allows plants to reproduce and flower in such vivid colours.
Above: prototypes of artificial pollinators
The honeybee's form is no accident. She is a conspiracy of the pollen bearing plant world, her architecture so specific to the task.
Above: prototype of artificial pollinators
In response to the honeybee's extinction, man must conceive a way to pollinate London's parks and gardens, learning from her specficity through biomimicry.
Click above for larger image
Firstly the 'Garden Pollination Device' fertilises London's back gardens, shimmering like a garden chandelier as the light passes through the statically-charged perspex and acetate covered in pollen. It is designed as a flat pack product available off-the-shelf which the garden enthusiast can assemble themselves. It is suspended from the four corners of the typical London terrace back garden with tension wires, with the device hung in the middle, and predominantly relies on passive wind movement, and the vertical movement of the counter-weighted acetate tentacles, to accidentally brush past the anthers of one garden flower onto anothers stigma.
Click above for larger image
Following this, a London-Wide Pollination Strategy is conceived, with delicate latex pollination devices projected into the London skies from a headquarters in Kew Gardens, and carried by the prevailing wind to the required destination.
Click above for larger image
Once the pollination is complete, the proxy bees are recycled at local 'Satellite Pollinator Release Facilities' which strategically proliferate London.
Click above for larger image
These 'Release Facilities' act both as workshops to recycle and reproduce the latex pollinators, and as a wind harvester, increasing the flow of air through the main funnel. This is achieved via side injection wind inlets and garden wind cowls, in order to project the proxy bees into the skies.
Click above for larger image
Intentionally prosaic in external appearance, the facility in Victoria Park seamlessly merges into the urban fabric, its simple copper mesh cladding enveloping the workshop. Internally, the facility reveals a magical full height workshop with the spectacle of the'release' seducing the visitor.
Click above for larger imageI call that outright THEFT!
Don’t miss:
– BREAKING NEWS: Cyprus Haircut ‘Bailout’ Is Directly STEALING Money From Depositors, Turns Into Saver ‘Panic’, Frozen Assets, Bank Runs, Broken ATMs
– Depositors Pay Price in Cyprus Bailout Deal (Wall Street Journal, March 16, 2013):
BRUSSELS—Depositors in Cypriot banks will be hit with a one-off tax on their savings, as part of a €10 billion ($12.96 billion) bailout for the Mediterranean island from the euro zone and the International Monetary Fund.
The deal, announced early Saturday, marks the first time in the euro zone’s five-year-old financial crisis that depositors in bloc’s banks will lose money. Accounts with more than €100,000 will be taxed at 9.9%, those with less at 6.75%, raising an expected €5.8 billion for the near-bankrupt nation.
“This decision should not be compared to the ideal, but to the very real possibility that much more money could have been lost in bankruptcy of the banking system or indeed of the country,” Cypriot Finance Minister Michalis Sarris told reporters, looking strained after 10 hours of often-fraught negotiations.
Mr. Sarris said the Cypriot Parliament would adopt the taxes over the weekend and the money would be extracted from accounts before banks take up business Tuesday. Monday is a public holiday.
“We have taken immediate measures so that electronic transfers cannot take effect before banks reopen on Tuesday,” said the minister, who took office just two weeks ago.
Jörg Asmussen, a member of the executive board of the European Central Bank, stressed that amounts in excess of the levy will remain fully available. Accounts held in Greek offshoots of Cypriot banks will also be spared.
Cyprus, which first applied for help last summer, has proved a major headache for the euro zone, mostly because of an outsized banking sector, which has swelled to eight times the size of the island’s economy and was hit hard by a restructuring of Greek government debt last year. Allegations of money laundering and a general election in February also hampered bailout talks.
An initial assessment of Cyprus’s finances in January concluded it needed more than €17 billion, including €10 billion just to stabilize its banks. That would have been an unmanageable burden for the island, whose annual economic output is less than €18 billion and shrinking.
IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde and Mr. Sarris before Friday’s meeting, which ended with a deal to tax depositors in Cypriot banks
As they struggled to bring down the rescue costs, euro-zone finance ministers and the troika of the European Commission, the ECB and the IMF chose to go ahead with the deposit tax despite warnings it could unsettle savers and investors in other weak European countries.
“This is a special situation, with a very specific banking sector, with a very specific structure and size, which calls for this specific package,” said Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch finance minister who chaired the discussions. He said similar measures weren’t being considered for other countries that have received bailouts.
Officials hoped that the contribution of depositors will make it easier to pass the rescue package through parliaments in rich countries like Germany, the Netherlands and Finland. Lawmakers there have balked at bailing out foreign depositors, many of them Russians, whom they suspected of taking advantage of Cyprus’s lax banking laws.
Nicosia will also raise its corporate-tax rate to 12.5% from 10%, among the euro zone’s lowest, impose a levy on interest income and undergo a review of its anti-money-laundering legislation.
The IMF, which had been the strongest advocate for having the bailout burden fall partly on depositors, will contribute to the rescue, said the fund’s Managing Director Christine Lagarde. Two officials said the IMF is expected to chip in €1 billion of the overall €10 billion needed.
Olli Rehn, the European Union’s economic affairs commissioner, said Russia had indicated it was willing to give Cyprus more time to repay a €2.5 billion rescue loan from 2011, and may also lower the interest it charges. Mr. Sarris is expected to travel to Moscow on Wednesday to nail down the final terms.
The struggle to agree on a bailout for tiny Cyprus, which accounts for just 0.2% of the euro zone’s economy, once again underlines how vulnerable the currency union remains to economic shocks in any member nation.
“Cyprus is of systemic relevance to the euro area,” said Mr. Rehn. “Not to provide assistance to Cyprus would have posed a risk of undoing the progress that has been painstakingly made over the past year.”
Ministers also agreed to give Portugal and Ireland more time to repay their bailout loans, but didn’t provide any details.Nets guard Deron Williams saw a UFO above Manhattan during Sandy, or so he claims
We can neither confirm nor deny if Deron Williams saw a UFO during Hurricane Sandy. (Photo11: Debby Wong, US Presswire)
Sometimes at night, when I'm driving on the 105 Freeway, I look up into the sky and think Los Angeles is being invaded by UFOs. But then I remind myself that the long line of flashing lights extending out in the distance, those are just planes on their descent into LAX. No need to worry about Battle: Los Angeles becoming a reality.
Anyway, that's my UFO-related story.
By comparison, Brooklyn Nets guard Deron Williams' story is much cooler. The man claims to have seen a UFO during superstorm Sandy, for crying out loud (can't make this up). Here's the excerpt from an excellent interview with GQ Magazine in which Williams explains his Sandy experience:
GQ: Where were you during the hurricane? What was your Sandy experience like?
We live in downtown Manhattan, so like everybody else downtown, we lost power around 8 p.m. on Monday, and didn't get it back until the following Saturday. We also had a whole bunch of family in town for the Nets-Knicks game, so we had about thirteen people living with us under our roof. There was nowhere we could all really go because there was no availability in any of the hotels. We had no cell reception, no power, really nothing. It was starting to get really cold. I didn't even know about all the damage that'd been done until I got the power back and started catching up on everything. We had no Twitter or anything, so I didn't know the extent of what was going on in Staten Island or the Jersey Shore, or any of the other spots where they got it really bad.
GQ: Was there a particular "New York moment" during the Hurricane? Did you see something that'd made you think, "That'd only happen in this city"?
Well, I don't know if you'd call this a "New York moment", but I definitely saw something I'd never seen before. The night all the power went out, I was standing out on my balcony, looking outside the window. Out of nowhere, I saw this big green flash across the sky. It wasn't lightning. It looked... It looked like a UFO.
GQ: Nice. What was it really?
A UFO. I'm telling you, man.
GQ: You really think it was a UFO?
I don't know, man. I'd never seen anything like that before.
Interesting. A UFO? Well, maybe it was. I'm no astronomer, but my best guess would be Williams saw an aurora? Although I haven't the slightest clue if that phenomenon is even possible in the sky's of New York City.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/SBfch5A picture appearing to show the body of a 16-month-old boy lying face down on a river bank is highlighting the plight of Rohingya Muslims who are fleeing alleged persecution in Myanmar. The boy is believed to be Mohammed Shohayet, a Rohingya refugee who died as his family was fleeing their home to reach Bangladesh.
The boy's father, Zafor Alam, said that Mohammed drowned during the journey along with his mother, uncle and three-year-old brother.
The family died as they were trying to cross the Naf River, which runs between Myanmar and Bangladesh.
Alma had already reached Bangladesh ahead of his family.
"When I see the picture, I feel like I would rather die," he told the CNN. "There is no point in me living in this world."
"In our village, helicopters fired guns at us, and the Myanmar soldiers also opened fire on us," he continued. "We couldn't stay in our house. We fled and went into hiding in the jungle. My grandfather and grandmother were burnt to death. Our whole village was burnt by the military. Nothing left."
IBTimes UK has so far been unable to independently verify Alam's account. In a written response to the CNN, Aye Aye Soe, Myanmar government spokesperson, deemed the man's testimony as "propaganda" and "false."
Some people have compared the picture with the one of Syrian refugee boy Alan Kurdi, whose body was recovered on a Turkish beach in September 2015. Alan drowned as his family was trying to flee civil war at home.
Persecution of Rohingya Muslims
The 1.3 million Rohingya in Myanmar (also known as Burma) are regarded as stateless people and unwelcome migrants from Bangladesh. They live in segregated conditions in Rakhine state. They have been dubbed by the United Nations as one of the world's most persecuted ethnic minorities.
In October, government troops were deployed to Rohingya villages in Rakhine following a series of coordinated and deadly attacks on police border posts, which the government blamed on sympathisers of the minority Rohingya.
Shortly afterwards, Human Rights Watch (HRW) released images purportedly showing 1,250 destroyed buildings in three villages in the Rakhine.
The rights group accused government forces of raiding Rohingya villages and carrying out extrajudicial killings, and called for a UN-assisted investigation. Bangladesh has reinforced its border posts in a bid to stem the high refugee influx. However, thousands have managed to cross into the country in recent weeks.
Myanmar's new administration, led by Nobel Peace Prize-winner Aung San Suu Kyi, has dismissed the allegations of violence against the Rohingya and accused international media of misreporting the situation in Rakhine.
The president's spokesman, Zaw Hitay, accused HRW of exaggerating the figures of destroyed buildings, with the government claiming fewer than 300 houses had been destroyed. A government-appointed commission said in its interim report released on 4 January that the anti-terrorism crackdown in Rakhine has not resulted in a "genocide" of Rohingya Muslims.
The panel also refuted allegations of abuses by security forces, but authorities are still investigating alleged police abuses following the emergence of a video appearing top show Rohingya Muslims being tortured at the hands of security forces.
Human right groups have accused the panel of "whitewashing".Virat Kohli’s Fitness Mantra
Team India captain reveals his daily meal menu that keeps in good shape. We can say he is one of the fittest cricketers in the world as on date.
Recently In an interview on the web series Breakfast with Champions, Kohli tells that his mantra to stay fit just doesn’t end in putting in efforts in training sessions or gym. He spoke at length about the important meal of the day is his breakfast. It consists of omelet that consists of one whole egg and three egg whites with add on’s like cheese, spinach, black pepper. Soon these are followed by some smoked salmon and grilled bacon. Kohli, generally opt for fruits like dragon fruit, watermelon, and some papaya and ends his breakfast with a pot of lemon green tea. Now we understand why doctors say to eat breakfast like a king, surely Kohli eats a king size.
The lunch he says is not as heavy as the breakfast but he prefers eating grilled chicken, spinach, mashed potatoes and some veggies.
Kohli’s preference for dinner is eating a lot of seafood. It is always lighter. Kohli definitely looks strict with no carbs and he also shares about his equation with MS Dhoni, with each passing day, their relationship grew stronger and nothing could affect his friendship with his predecessor.
Posted November 7, 2017, 11:58 am at 11:58To hear him tell it, James Shamsi is doing God’s work—or more precisely, the work most news editors have been loath to do since the dawn of the clicks-above-all age of digital journalism.
The 21-year-old British viral marketer is the man behind #KardBlock, a browser extension designed to scour your feed of all things Kim, Kanye, Kris, Khloe, Kendall, and even the occasional Rob and Bruce. In other words, Shamsi seeks to do something that has been all but unimaginable since about the middle of 2007: Make the Internet a Kardashian-free zone.
“Basically, what was happening was that there were Kardashians everywhere, and I wanted to do something about that,” says Shamsi, who has lived in Los Angeles since graduating from college. “But for me, when I follow pages, I am not doing it to get a constant stream of updates on the Kardashians.”
He adds incredulously, “Did you hear that Kim just released a book of her selfies, like yesterday or the day before? Her selfies! I didn’t sign up to these sites to hear about things like that. I am interested in deeper issues. But every platform seems interested in Kardashian news to the point that everything else gets crushed.”
And so, #KardBlock was born. Since it was announced this week, Shamsi claims, upwards of 20,000 people have signed up for the beta version of the web browser extension.
In its finished form, the add-on will not simply wipe the Internet clean of perhaps its most virulent family of distractors, but it also promises to transform what would be empty-calorie infotainment into something a bit more substantive—and potentially much less commercial.
“The concept here is to replace Kardashian links with ones to charitable causes of all kind,” says Shamsi, barely disguising his revolutionary zeal. “But our ultimate goal is even bigger than just that. We are looking to disrupt the entire digital advertising space. We want to replace all advertising with donation links and important news widgets.”
“On top of that, we want to build a customization feature as well, one that will let you get rid of Kardashian news, Bieber news, as well as advertisements.”
That’s right, #KardBlock—this week’s fun, sharable story-of-the-moment—is in its creator’s mind the first proton torpedo fired down the thermal exhaust port of the Internet economy. And yes, Shamsi recognizes the seriousness of that.
“This is not going sit well with a lot of people,” says Shamsi, who admits that his own father is one of those people who never misses an episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians. “We are living in a time when important news is being squashed down by either adverts telling you that you need Viagra or Kendall Jenner getting into some sort of a scrap. Ultimately, we are hoping to change that by making something that can really help people.”
Shamsi insists that #KardBlock is not and will never be a means to funnel profits away from one immensely lucrative media brand and into his own pockets.
“We are not charging for this,” he says. “We’ve set up a donation page, but we’re sending those donations straight to charity. This is all about making a change that will potentially impact the lives of a lot of people. The reason that we have launched it like this is because obviously this is the way to get the most attention. We are hoping to make a splash with this and kind of change the way the Internet actually works.”
Still, it’s a curious time to be weaponizing Kardashian exhaustion.
In the past several weeks, the clan has brought as much attention to the century-old Armenian genocide as that atrocity has ever received in pop culture. Plus, Bruce Jenner’s deeply-felt and perfectly-pitched revelations about gender identity have done more to further the national conversion about the trans community than just about any other story in recent memory.
The truth is, the Kardashians have never been more substantive. But for Shamsi, these are mere tributaries in what is otherwise an ocean of vacuousness.
“They will raise awareness for 30 seconds, and then one of them will take their top off and that will be news for days and days and days,” he says. “They could be doing great things, but they often choose not to, which to me is an irritant. So we are leveraging the power they could be using to try to do something better, not for profit.”
Not only does he sound a little like a revolutionary, #KardBlock’s creator is starting to feel targeted like one. Shamsi had to cut our interview short after he received a mysterious phone call that felt more than a little bit threatening.
“It was someone saying, ‘I’ve got your IP address— beware,’” he says.
The man who wishes for nothing more than to “get less people to click on stories about Kim’s boobs and more people to click on donation pages” sounds clearly and deeply shaken.
“I am really not sure what I should do right now,” says Shamsi, “but I should probably go.”Britain is a Eurosceptic country now, the new Defence Secretary has claimed, marking a significant hardening of the Conservatives' stance on Europe.
Michael Fallon pledged the Government would seek to strike a new deal with the European Union and that it was then right for the people to have their say on membership for the first time in 40 years.
Mr Fallon was promoted to Defence Secretary in Tuesday's reshuffle when Philip Hammond was moved to the Foreign Office.
Both are notable Eurosceptics and their appointments signalled a shifting of position ahead of the General Election, in an attempt to curtail the surge of UKIP seen at the European elections.
Speaking on Sky News, Mr Fallon said: "I think the whole country is pretty Eurosceptic now.
"You saw the European elections, we don't want to see Europe going on as it has been.
"We all now want reform of Europe, a different kind of Europe and that is the agenda that's going to be pursued now.
"To get those reforms and then to give people a choice, which they haven't had since 1975, as to whether to continue to be members or not."
His comments echo those made by Mr Hammond following his appointment on Tuesday.
It comes as David Cameron prepares to travel to Brussels to attempt to secure a top economic portfolio for Britain on the European Commission.
Mr Cameron announced Britain's commissioner would be Lord Hill of Oareford, former leader of the House of Lords but a relative unknown.
The new head of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, was said to have had to search for his name on Google to find out who he was.
Mr Cameron fiercely opposed the appointment of Mr Juncker, who is viewed as a Brussels insider and arch-federalist, because of fears it would make it harder for Britain to win back powers from Europe.
He must now battle to secure a good post for Lord Hill, a former businessman and education minister, on Mr Juncker's council in a meeting with other foreign leaders.
The Prime Minister denied Lord Hill was a "nobody" in Europe, saying: "In terms of the UK portfolio, our view about the importance of economic priorities to us hasn't changed and Lord Hill's nomination is fully consistent with that."
The President of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, told German radio Lord Hill's nomination could be rejected by MEPs because he held "radical anti-European views" so could be seen a prejudiced.
Lord Hill has expressed his support for a referendum on Britain's membership of the EU in the event of a further transfer of powers to Brussels, but it not widely viewed as a radical Eurosceptic.I don’t know why I never realized that my feelings of “when my friends try to get me to go out after I eat a big meal” could be so perfectly summarized by a repeated moving image of Ash, Misty, and Brock trying to roll Snorlax out of the road. I laugh, watch a few more loops, and scroll to the next post. I do not stop to wonder why this Pokemon scene, with its few choice words, elicited more emotion from me than when I watched the actual show.
The June 15, 1987, specification by CompuServe Inc. says that the GIF “allows high-quality, high-resolution graphics to be displayed on a variety of graphics hardware” and refers to the GIF as “87a.” But given how quickly the Internet develops, it is a wonder that GIFs have not yet fallen into obsolescence. Unlike a video, it cannot support sound, and its color palette pales in comparison to JPG’s. The format’s spec was last updated in 1990. Things that were also last updated in 1990 include the original proposal for the World Wide Web and the Clean Air Act. And yet, the plethora of GIF-filled “What Should We Call Me” Tumblrs and otherwise banal BuzzFeed articles attests to the GIF’s incredible longevity.
An Internet Lingua Franca
It seems that the GIF, as a medium, owes its success partly to its accessibility. Websites like gifmaker.me and makeagif.com allow users to compose animated GIFs for free; an app called GifGrabber allows you to capture online video to convert into a GIF; for those with Photoshop, there are multitudes of how-to articles that generally consist of six or fewer steps. Unsurprisingly, animated GIF-makers range from serious artists to kids experimenting on a new computer. Their products are then usually uploaded and if they are lucky, shared.
Online, the most common use of the GIF is as a vehicle for emotion, taking a scene where David Tennant of Doctor Who stares pitifully up at something in the pouring rain underneath a caption like, “When your friends hang out without you.” The GIF’s loop serves as its own emphasis, reiterating the emotion to the point of absurdity. We watch, absorb, empathize, and inexplicably laugh.
In essence, the GIF survives not only because everyone can make one, but also because everyone can partake: it has the ability to draw us into some strangely eternal moment. Jamie Beck and Kevin Burg are the creators of Cinemagraphs, GIFs that are almost completely stationary save for a small detail—a fluttering hair, fabric waving in the wind, gleaming sequins. “Whatever that one thing is that is alive is what your eye is going to go to,” Beck explains. “You look, and you feel like you should look away, but then you can watch it, and you can watch it some more.” Unlike photos, she suggests, the realistically animated GIF suggests life in a picture that isn’t just pixelated flatness. The added repetition then further indulges our instinct to stare, almost like infants at a dangling mobile.
The Art of Paraphrasing
The ability of GIFs to provoke both laughter and voyeurism indicates another powerful feature: exaggeration. The short, unceasing loop can repeat “Oh my God Karen, you can’t just ask people why they’re white” until it calls to our minds not only the words in the scene, but also the bizarre effect of using this movie scene out of context, and more importantly, the unexpected appropriateness of this out-of-context appearance. An appropriated GIF is not only repetitive in its animation, but also serves as an amusing or thought-provoking echo of a previous work.
So we find that many popular GIFs are indeed appropriations. Is it possible for GIFs to ascend to the level of “art” if GIFmakers simply borrow and tinker—if the “art” of GIF-making turns out to simply be the art of paraphrasing?
Of course, GIFs are not simply stolen movie scenes. They take a certain amount of technical skill to create, and even after that, many take advantage of the additional flexibility to superimpose meme-like captions. From subtitling Doctor Who and Mean Girls GIF-sets to imposing the ever-edgy “In that moment, I swear we were infinite” over a flashing nebula, text on GIFs has added new levels of expression to the medium. (Even more amusing is the imposition of Nietzsche quotes over GIFs of Honey Boo-Boo.) GIF artists have gone as far as to jazz up classic works of art. Particularly notable are GIF modifications of Van Gogh’s Starry Night and M.C. Escher’s Relativity. The latter is more of a satire, showing a man tripping down an escalator imposed on one of the lithograph’s three staircases. There are multiple GIF edits of Starry Night, though, including ones that make the sky’s swirls come to life or cause the water to gently ripple. The final piece is no Van Gogh—but then, it really is.
There remains an uneasy conclusion that as long as the editor contributes or re-contextualizes something, they may have created “real art.” Perhaps the Internet users who put scenes of badly-made infomercials together with text descriptions of awkward social situations exercise the same sort of artistic license as Duchamp did with his Fountain, a porcelain urinal inscribed with “R. Mutt,” which one critic described as having “created a new thought for that object.”
Toward Originality
Joseph Koerner, a professor of history of art and architecture at Harvard, explains that following Duchamp’s readymades, “the idea of being true to a medium was becoming more and more important.”
“A painting is really just paint and a canvas,” he continues. “Artists traditionally would paint a bowl of fruit, which doesn’t make obvious the medium; that’s when we have Jackson Pollock, whose paintings are simply paint and a canvas.” This progression from appropriation to reduction pushes for a more critical look at what exactly a medium as a medium, instead of a vehicle for content, is capable of.
For GIFs, this suggests that the future of the medium lies somewhere outside mini recreations of SpongeBob scenes. A more recent development is the growing popularity of a new GIF genre: ones that are purely GIFs, that only ever existed as GIFs. From Paolo Ceric’s hypnotic, writhing shapes to Skip Hursh’s bold and bright animations, GIF artists have also ventured into the territory of using a GIF’s repetitive movement for its own sake. This is a new take on an old medium, and forces the artist to use a loop but without drawing on the already existing power of other art pieces.
Colin Raff, a Berlin-based artist and writer, runs a Tumblr on which he posts original GIFs that have been described as surreal, grotesque, and violent. He decided to use GIFs as an intermediate step between static art and short films, and discovered in it a medium that could combine the elements of an illustrated story, an animated short, and an exhibit. One of his particularly popular GIFs depicts a well-dressed man thrusting a wheel-like object into his face as a goat peeps in through the window. In the process, his eyes fall out.
The entire black-and-white scene is, mildly put, disturbing. But as evidenced by the 12,000 notes and my own prolonged stare, it is bizarrely entrancing. As Beck suggested, perhaps we are drawn to the seemingly living movement in a picture. Perhaps in combination with something that so clearly should not be living, we find it difficult not to stare at its repeated movement.
Indeed, Raff attributes the success of GIFs partly to the idea of perpetual motion. “Arguably, many don’t need to move,” Raff admits, “but so what? The possibility is available to the artist much like the arbitrary decision to add gouache to an ink drawing.” It is precisely this possibility that makes GIFs the source of so much creativity. The choice to enhance visual appeal with a movement that catches the eye and implies life is not an unforeseen one, especially if GIFs can extend this movement into perpetuity. It is this balance between a movement that is true to life, and the repetition that, in all its variations, reminds us that this moment is unnaturally suspended.
Our inability to tear ourselves away from GIFs, then, is more than a product of procrastination; its very form rewards our continued attention. A GIF is at once lifelike and not; it suspends a movement in time but allows us to consume time by watching it over and over. Whether as an advanced emoticon or a particularly artful animation, the GIF stops time to replay a scene, drawing viewers from all recesses of the Internet. Its content is rarely never-before-seen, so its power depends mainly on its form’s ability to evoke a tension between repetition and the freezing of time. But unlike other types of media that strive to make you look again, GIFs make sure that you never stop looking.What if you could become a savant for a few minutes? Australian National University neuroscientist Allan Snyder says you can. Snyder induced instantaneous "jelly-bean counting" skills in normal people using transcranial magnetic stimulation. He used the powerful magnetic pulses to zap the brains of 12 volunteers, disrupting activity in the left anterior frontal lobe, an area where damage is known to cause sudden savant syndrome. For an hour or so after treatment, 10 of the volunteers were twice as accurate in guessing at a glance the number of dots flashed on a computer screen. "This is an extraordinarily good result—I'm amazed it came out so well," Snyder says.
When Snyder used the same technique three years ago to induce episodes of savantlike artistic ability in ordinary people, skeptics objected to his claims, saying that artistic abilities were too subjective to judge. But numbers don't lie, says Eric Wassermann of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. "There's nothing that looks bogus about it."NEW DELHI: The legacy of Mugahl emperor Aurangzeb is so gory that the Union government changed the name of a road named after him to APJ Abdul Kalam Road. But what if he hadn't been the emperor at all and given way to his brother Dara Shikoh The Centre is exploring the personality that was Dara Shikoh, the eldest son of Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, who had a great interest in Hindu scriptures and had translated many of them into Persian and other languages. Promoting Dara Shikoh as the good Muslim, who "understood Hindus and India" has been part of the RSS project for many years.In a conference on Dara Shikoh -Claiming the Spiritual Legacy of India, on Thursday, organised by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), Minister of State for External Affairs M J Akbar said Dara was truly a child of India, who understood the people of the country and its syncretic culture. "He could have lost the battle against Aurangzeb but he won the war for India and that is the victory we are celebrating."The minister said the question to be asked was why was Dara Shikoh chosen by Shah Jahan in his court as his successor as primogeniture was not followed by the Mughals."Shah Jahan knew that he had the moral right over the throne. He knew that India couldn't be ruled by force alone but it needed spiritual force to rule the country. And spiritual force could emerge only out of harmony that had led the people of the nation together.""Shivaji had written a letter to Aurangzeb after he won the war against his brother and imposed the Jaziya tax. He had told him that while the Quran had clearly said Allah was the lord of all people, not just of the Muslims and that he(Aurangzeb) had forgotten the lord himself. What we know is if Dara had become the Mughal emperor Shivaji wouldn't have had to write such a letter," Akbar said, The minister said Dara also lived at |
to make the request more politically acceptable to lawmakers, the White House added $615 million in urgently needed money to fight summer wildfires raging in western states. This brought the total funding request to $4.315 billion.Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are three closely related religions. Because they all revere Abraham and certain other patriarchs mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures, Christian Scriptures and Qur'an as their spiritual ancestors, they are sometimes called Abrahamic religions.
It is difficult to compare Christianity to any other religion, because there is such a wide range of beliefs and practices among various wings of Christianity: Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodox churches, the Anglican communion and the tens of thousands of Protestant faith groups. Some commentators have suggested that Christianity consists of a number of different religions which share little more than the Bible and the name of their religion. Protestant Christianity is obviously divided into a least liberal and conservative wings -- divisions which hold few beliefs in common. Some of the descriptions below will thus necessarily be somewhat simplistic and lacking in precision.
(This comparison is copied from neutral website and it is left to your mind to decide which religion has the more logic and convincing concepts)Last month, 24 years after the collapse of the USSR, Ukraine began “decommunization.” The country has more than 4,000 towns and villages (paywall) whose main street is named after Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, plus countless thousands of squares, avenues, boulevards, villages, factories, schools, and other places with Soviet-related names. Under a new law that bans both Nazi and communist symbols and propaganda, all must be changed.
Ukraine is explicitly trying to distance itself from Russia. Recently meduza.io, a Russian news site, asked the local search engine giant Yandex to catalogue streets in Russia named after Lenin. The Yandex folks decided to also look for 34 other names (link in Russian) with Soviet associations. They found more than 5,000 Lenin streets—plus 224 called Ulyanov, Lenin’s birth name—as well as thousands named for Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Yuri Gagarin (the first man in space), and other heroes. There were more streets named ”Soviet” and ”October” (for the Bolshevik revolution) than “Lenin,” but he comes first in the total length of streets, at 8,632 km (5,363 miles)—more than the distance from Moscow to Minneapolis:
Street names aren’t the only thing in which Russia and Ukraine are diverging. Ukrainians have been tearing down Lenin statues across the country since the revolution that ousted a pro-Russian president last year. A crowd-sourced site, leninstatues.ru, estimates that Russia had 7,000 Lenin monuments (link in Russian) when the USSR fell and still has 6,000 today—including, of course, the Bolshevik leader’s mausoleum in Red Square—while Ukraine, which had 5,500 of them in 1991, is already down to 1,400.
The one Soviet figure Russia has more or less expunged is Stalin. A website operated by the Russian tax service counts only 31 streets (link in Russian) in the country with some variant of the dictator’s name.
As for Russian president Vladimir Putin, he has just one street, barely more than a mile long, named after him, according to the Yandex search (though the tax service lists a handful more). That street is in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya. Chechnya is ruled by the warlord-governor Ramzan Kadyrov, a Putin loyalist who took the job over from his assassinated father, Akhmad Kadyrov. There are 59 Kadyrov streets in Russia.TOMAHAWK, the eclectic rock band featuring Duane Denison (THE JESUS LIZARD, UNSEMBLE), Trevor Dunn (FANTOMAS, MELVINS LITE), Mike Patton (MONDO CANE, FAITH NO MORE) and John Stanier (BATTLES, HELMET), is set to release "Oddfellows" in January.
"It's dark and claustrophobic here, light and spacious there," says Denison of the new album. "Live in the studio, all together in one room. Oddfellows indeed."
"Oddfellows" was recorded at Easy Eye Sound Studio in Nashville (which is owned by THE BLACK KEYS' Dan Auerbach) and co-produced by TOMAHAWK and Collin Dupuis (THE BLACK KEYS, THE NOCTURNALS).
As Denison recently told Rolling Stone, TOMAHAWK is essentially re-launching after a lengthy hiatus. "Oddfellows" is the band's first new album in five years and marks the addition of bass player Trevor Dunn (Patton's longtime cohort dating back to their teenage years in MR. BUNGLE).
TOMAHAWK's first live performance in nearly a decade is slated for the New Orleans' Voodoo Music And Arts Experience in late October. Additional dates will be announced soon.Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
March 31, 2017, 2:52 PM GMT / Updated March 31, 2017, 3:41 PM GMT By Ali Vitali
The Department of Treasury sent a letter to the Office of Government Ethics Friday addressing comments made by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin where he appeared to endorse the Lego Batman movie, NBC News has learned.
The comments spurred backlash from ethics critics and Democrats who said Mnuchin's endorsing the film, for which he was an executive producer, violated his ethics clause.
Mnuchin writes in the letter, sent to Walter Shaub at the Office of Government Ethics, that he "should not have made that statement" and assured the OGE that "it was not my intention to make a product endorsement." He points out that when asked a similar question in a later interview, he did not respond with mention of the Lego Movie.
"I take very seriously my ethical responsibilities," Mnuchin's letter goes on to say, and reassures that in the future he will "exercise greater caution to avoid any suggestion that I do not take these important rules seriously."
A Treasury spokesman adds in a statement to NBC News that "The Secretary's responses were made in jest and not intended to be a product endorsement of the Lego Batman movie. We think that's clear in context."
During an interview with Axios last week, the Treasury Secretary was asked about his favorite movie and at first declined to give his preference. "I'm not allowed to promote anything that I'm involved in. So I want to have that legal disclosure," he said at the time. "You've asked me a question and I'm not promoting any product."
Then he added the punchline: "But you should all send your kids to Lego Batman."
The Office of Government Ethics did not immediately respond to a requests for comment.
Government watchdog group Citizens For Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) was heartened by the news. Communications Director Jordan Libowitz called the letter "the kind of thing we hope to see after a situation like this."
Mnuchin's acknowledgement of his mistake and the seriousness with which he took the action "shows he's playing by the rules," Libowitz added.
The Treasury head's reaction stands in stark contrast to that of fellow administration official Kellyanne Conway who was given no penalties after she urged Fox viewers to "go buy Ivanka's stuff" after Nordstrom announced it was dropping her line. "Ideally we wouldn't have either situation," the CREW communications director said. "But when they do, what we've seen with Mnuchin is the way to deal with them."Twitter’s share price is getting battered once again: the company’s stock has tumbled by more than 14 percent in trading today, a day after the social media platform posted an earnings report that pointed to poor growth in user numbers both in logged in and logged out users; sluggish revenue; and mediocre projections for Q3.
The company’s stock went as low as $15.69 today and closed at $15.77, down 14.53 percent. That figure is well off its 52-week high of $36.67 from almost a year ago; and for those keeping track, Twitter’s market cap is now $10.95 billion, well below its IPO valuation of $18 billion; as investors who are not convinced about the company’s business projections continue to sell off shares.
From earlier today:
The company yesterday reported a mixed Q2. While it better analysts’ estimates on earnings per share, its revenues of $602 million was less impressive — within the company’s own estimated range, but falling short of what analysts had expected.
More problematic is the direction the revenue is going: $602 million was largely unchanged from the previous quarter, and only about 20% higher than a year ago. The bulk of Twitter’s revenues come from advertising sales, and as Josh pointed out, key to the problem is that revenue growth is slowing down: a year ago, revenue figures were up 60% on the year previously.
Added to this is the fact that the company is today making a lot of deals to start bringing more content to the platform, specifically premium video content in sports. But for the moment, these are neutral deals at best when considering the business: the content — how it will look, whether people will really flock to watch it — is not fully rolled out; it’s not clear whether these deals are costing Twitter money just to get done; and they have yet to bear any near-term fruits in terms of ad sales.
Indeed, Twitter’s Q3 guidance is that it expects revenues in the range of $590 million and $610 million. The midpoint of that range is actually lower than Q2’s revenues.
Twitter’s user numbers are another issue for the company. Yesterday, the company noted that total monthly active users were only 313 million in Q2. That number was up only 3% on a year ago, which is not idea, but as Twitter likes to point out, it has many more “logged out” users who are not registered on the platform, dipping into Twitter to consume, if not engage, in the content.
However, even in this metric there seems to be a problem. CFO Anthony Noto yesterday noted during the Q2 analyst call that those users are totalling around 500 million — and the company is increasingly trying to monetise that user base, for example by tracking and following those users with ads and providing them with other features to get them to visit and stay for longer (and maybe, one day, register to be full users).
But one small detail that I noticed is that 500 million is actually the same number of logged out users that Twitter has been quoting for months. Does that mean that logged out users have stagnated, too?
(The company does not report daily active users, an issue that some analysts raised yesterday during the call, with Noto replying that it’s always evaluating which metrics to use, so maybe it will get reintroduced at some point.)A Rice University laboratory has improved its method to turn plain asphalt into a porous material that can capture greenhouse gases from natural gas.
In research detailed this month in Advanced Energy Materials, Rice researchers showed that a new form of the material can sequester 154 percent of its weight in carbon dioxide at high pressures that are common at gas wellheads.
Raw natural gas typically contains between 2 and 10 percent carbon dioxide and other impurities, which must be removed before the gas can be sold. The cleanup process is complicated and expensive and most often involves flowing the gas through fluids called amines that can soak up and remove about 15 percent of their own weight in carbon dioxide. The amine process also requires a great deal of energy to recycle the fluids for further use.
"It's a big energy sink," said Rice chemist James Tour, whose lab developed a technique last year to turn asphalt into a tough, sponge-like substance that could be used in place of amines to remove carbon dioxide from natural gas as it was pumped from ocean wellheads.
Initial field tests in 2015 found that pressure at the wellhead made it possible for that asphalt material to adsorb, or soak up, 114 percent of its weight in carbon at ambient temperatures.
Tour said the new, improved asphalt sorbent is made in two steps from a less expensive form of asphalt, which makes it more practical for industry.
"This shows we can take the least expensive form of asphalt and make it into this very high surface area material to capture carbon dioxide," Tour said. "Before, we could only use a very expensive form of asphalt that was not readily available."
The lab heated a common type asphalt known as Gilsonite at ambient pressure to eliminate unneeded organic molecules, and then heated it again in the presence of potassium hydroxide for about 20 minutes to synthesize oxygen-enhanced porous carbon with a surface area of 4,200 square meters per gram, much higher than that of the previous material.
The Rice lab's initial asphalt-based porous carbon collected carbon dioxide from gas streams under pressure at the wellhead and released it when the pressure was released. The carbon dioxide could then be repurposed or pumped back underground while the porous carbon could be reused immediately.
In the latest tests with its new material, Tours group showed its new sorbent could remove carbon dioxide at 54 bar pressure. One bar is roughly equal to atmospheric pressure at sea level, and the 54 bar measure in the latest experiments is characteristic of the pressure levels typically found at natural gas wellheads, Tour said.A year ago we decided that we wanted to go on safari and we thought that South African would be as good a place as any to try it out. We started planning, even before we went on our trip to Peru. In the beginning we debated about going with a tour group, but decided to plan it ourselves, and I am glad that we did.
We did a lot of research using tripadvisor for our time in the cities. When it came to the safari, we used a site called Bush Breaks. I found the staff of that site to be very resourceful, and they helped me find a perfect safari.
Sam and I both read Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela by Nelson Mandela in preparation for the trip. After that book we diverged in our reading. Sam read Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah. I read My Traitor’s Heart: A South African Exile Returns to Face His Country, His Tribe, and His Conscience by Rian Malan. Sam liked Noah’s book, because it chronologically picks up where Mandela’s book ends. The book I chose was a bit of a tough read, because it lays open the brutality of apartheid in a way Mandela’s book spares us from envisioning.
We flew from NYC to Johannesburg. It is a really long flight and South African Airways is a mediocre airline. There is not that much food or drink, none of it is great, and the media selection is paltry. Take a book and some sleeping pills.
In short, this was a wonderful trip. I want to go back to South Africa, and see much more of the country. I took a lot of photos and you can find them all here.
Here is what day 1 of our trip looked like.
AdvertisementsWhether you are retired Air Force or served and now classify as a veteran of the Air Force, there are rules to where, when and how you can wear the uniform and medals and ribbons on civilian clothing. Naturally the retired member is granted more frequency to wearing the uniform but only for certain occasions. A retired member of the military are granted many privileges to active military bases, stores and services, as well as receives a pension and medical / dental benefits. Typically to achieve this level of privilege, one much serve for at least 20 years, however being medically retired due to injury or illness is another way to receive similar benefits as a retired member in the military.
These members also qualify for the following uniform authorizations:
The Rules for Retirees
Air Force retirees may wear the uniform under the following circumstances:
Formal Settings - Events such as military ceremonies, funerals, weddings, memorial services, and inaugurals are all appropriate places to wear the uniform. Traveling to and from any of these functions as well as the ones listed below while in uniform is permitted however the travel while in uniform must be less that 24 hours of the event starting time.
Holiday Events - There are many days where the uniform of the military retiree is appropriately worn. Holidays such as the Fourth of July, Memorial Day, and Veteran's Day on other such events as patriotic parades when military units are participating or being honored.
Educational Institutions - When part of giving military instructions or responsible for military discipline the retiree may also take part and observe while in uniform.
Social Events or other functions when the invitation to the event is because of the retired service member's prior service and acquaintances related to that service.
Air Force retirees may wear any of the uniform as prescribed at date of retirement according to Air Force Instruction 36-2903. Retirees should wear the retirement lapel button on the left lapel. Retired Airmen receive the retired lapel button at retirement. If the retired Airmen was in command at the squadron, group or wing level can wear the command insignia pin on the left lapel, below the retired lapel button. Senior Enlisted retirees whose last assignment before retirement was a first sergeant and/or command chief may wear appropriate chevrons in all instances the uniform is worn
The Rules for Veterans
A veteran is defined by a prior military service member who served honorably in any of the branches of the military and Coast Guard (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines) as an officer of enlisted.
Discharged Veterans. Veterans who served honorably (this includes honorable and general discharges) in the Air Force (including service with an air component of the Army before the Air Force was established), during a declared or undeclared war, may wear the uniform:
Formal Settings - Events such as military ceremonies, funerals, weddings, memorial services, and inaugurals are all appropriate places to wear the appropriate uniform. Traveling to and from any of these functions as well as the ones listed below while in uniform is permitted however the travel while in uniform must be less that 24 hours of the event starting time.
Holiday Events - There are many days where the uniform of the military retiree is appropriately worn. Holidays such as the Fourth of July, Memorial Day, and Veteran's Day on other such events as patriotic parades when military units are participating or being honored. And any other event required by law.
Separated Airmen (regardless of whether or not they served during a time of war) may wear the uniform from place of discharge to home, within 3 months after discharge.
Medal of Honor Recipients
The Medal of Honor is obviously special and the recipients deserve the benefits and may wear the uniform at any time except the following events or situations:
Public or Political Speeches - Participating in public speeches, interviews, picket lines, marches or rallies, or in any public demonstration when the Air Force sanction of the cause for which the activity is conducted may be implied.
Personal or Political Gain - The MOH recipient may not further political activities, private employment, or commercial interests wearing the medal and / or the uniform.
Civilian Employment - MOH recipients may not wear the medal while working in an off-duty civilian capacity.
Civil or Criminal Court - The MOH recipient may not wear the medal while participating in civilian court proceedings when the conviction would bring discredit to military service.
Note: Any individual wearing a US Military uniform is expected to reflect the high personal appearance standards and esprit de corps that the US Military in uniform represent. To this end, particular attention will be paid not only to the correct and military wear of uniform components, but also to the individual’s personal and physical appearance. All personnel exercising the privilege of wearing a US Military uniform will comply fully with their service's grooming and weight control standards.The U.S. women’s national soccer team won the World Cup title in 2015 — an achievement never equaled by a U.S. men’s team — but the glory doesn’t come with full benefits. On Wednesday, five women’s team players filed a complaint with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission claiming that the U.S. Soccer federation engaged in wage discrimination by paying the women far less than the men.
The complaint, filed by Hope Solo, Carli Lloyd, Megan Rapinoe, Becky Sauerbrunn and Alex Morgan, says the men’s team takes home far more than the women’s team for no discernible reason other than being male. After the filing, the soccer federation issued a statement wherein it highlighted its support for women’s soccer in the United States and across the globe. It did not address the specific allegations of pay discrepancy. The complaint also contains the minutes from a federation meeting in which the budget shows the federation expects the women’s team to produce more revenue than the men’s team in fiscal years 2016 and 2017.
Based on our findings — using financial statements released by the soccer federation for fiscal year 2015, along with the USWNT’s collective bargaining agreement and memo of understanding released in court after the federation sued the players union over an earlier negotiating dispute — top men’s players earned almost twice as much as top women’s players from the federation during their respective World Cup years, despite the women’s victory in 2015 and the men’s early knockout elimination in 2014.
We compared the differences in how male and female players are compensated by the federation under similar working conditions — namely, preparations for and participation in the 2014 FIFA men’s World Cup in Brazil and the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Canada. Because not every member of a national team is paid the same, and to properly compare apples to apples, we focused on two similar sets of players from the women’s and men’s national teams — Lloyd and Solo for the women, and Clint Dempsey and Tim Howard for the men. Here, we have two major goalscoring threats and two veteran goalkeepers who played every minute (or, in Dempsey’s case, all but three minutes) of their respective World Cups.
The first thing we need to do is set aside the salaries that Lloyd and Solo earn, because USWNT compensation works a little differently than setups across the world. Typically, a club pays a player a salary, and a national federation compensates the player for caps and other appearances. For the USWNT, however, it’s the federation that pays the club salary; the women then draw a second salary for their national play — a departure from the U.S. men. (If you think this arrangement is odd, you’re not wrong. The National Women’s Soccer League is owned and operated by the federation, which pays the club salaries for national team players to offset costs for club owners.)
In the case of Lloyd and Solo, this salary totaled $126,000 in 2015 — $72,000 for falling into the “Tier I” salary bracket (reserved for veterans who also were named to the 23-player World Cup roster) and an additional $54,000 for playing in the NWSL.
Now that we have salaries separated out, we can see from the collective bargaining agreement and memo of understanding that the women’s national team is paid in a similar fashion as the men: appearance fees for U.S. Soccer sponsors; bonuses for qualifying for major tournaments (along with bonuses based on tournament finishes); a share of ticket revenues in friendlies played on U.S. soil; and bonuses for winning those friendlies. The USWNT also earned a $1.8 million bonus for the Victory Tour, 10 friendly matches played in the U.S. from August through December of last year.
INCOME SOURCE LLOYD/SOLO 2015 EARNINGS Friendly wins $18.9K World Cup roster bonus 15.0 Victory tour bonus 78.0 USSF World Cup victory 75.0 Olympic qualifying bonus 15.0 Ticket revenue 22.9 Sponsor appearance 15.0 Subtotal without salaries 240.0 NT salary 72.0 NWSL salary 54.0 Total 366.0
This is an itemized breakdown of the projected non-salary earnings for Lloyd and Solo in 2015, based on all the data contained in the memo of understanding. When it comes to shared bonus pools, we assume the money is being divided evenly among all players on the roster. However, that may not be true, as there is no language in either the collective bargaining agreement or the memo of understanding that would stipulate even distribution. In fact, based on comments Solo made in her 2013 memoir, veteran players may get a larger share of the bonus pools.
Below we compare Lloyd’s and Solo’s estimated 2015 earnings with Dempsey’s and Howard’s earnings for 2014, when the U.S. men’s team lost in the World Cup’s round of 16. The men’s earnings are based on U.S. Soccer’s financial statements for fiscal year 2015 (which ran from April 1, 2014, to March 31, 2015).
Lloyd and Solo: $240,019 each
Dempsey: $428,022
Howard: $398,495
Dempsey is pocketing almost $200,000 more than Lloyd; Howard gets almost $160,000 more than Solo. How can that be? (U.S. Soccer declined to comment for this story.)
While the men’s team’s bargaining agreement with U.S. Soccer is confidential, Sports Illustrated’s Grant Wahl discovered some figures before the 2014 World Cup that would account for at least some of the disparity:
The men’s shared bonus for qualifying for Brazil totaled $2 million. The women’s total qualifying bonus for Canada was $300,000. The men played 16 qualifying games, whereas the women played only five, but that is still a difference of $125,000 per game vs. $60,000 per game.
The men’s bonus for being named to the final 23-player World Cup roster was $55,000 each; the women earned $15,000 each.
In addition to the share of ticket revenues for home friendlies, the men earned $1,500 per game in the three-match send-off series leading up to the World Cup. The women earned $1,350 per game, and only if they won them.
For each friendly, including the send-off series, the men earned between $7,500 and $14,100 per win, based on the FIFA ranking of the opponent. They earned between $5,000 and $6,500 for draws and $4,000 for a loss. The women earned $1,350 for wins, receiving no bonus for draws or losses.
The men earned bonus money for every point earned in the World Cup group stage, as well as $5,500 for each group-stage match for which they were rostered. The women earned no such bonuses.
The caveat here, of course, is that the women draw a salary for playing on the national team, while the men are only paid by U.S. Soccer for participation in camps, friendlies and tournaments. If the women’s salaries were replaced with the men’s bonus figures for friendlies, players would have earned $109,600 in 2015, nearly $40,000 more than their $72,000 national team salary — and that’s before we include any other bonuses or fees they’d receive for being named to tournament rosters and other non-game events.
While U.S. Soccer is not responsible for FIFA prize money, it’s worth noting that the men’s prize money for losing in the round of 16 amounted to $9 million. The women’s prize money for winning the whole tournament was $2 million. If we distribute these totals evenly across the 23-player rosters, Lloyd’s and Solo’s earnings increase to $326,976 each. Dempsey’s and Howard’s, meanwhile, increase to $819,326 and $789,799, respectively. The 2014 men’s World Cup generated approximately $4.8 billion in revenue for FIFA. Revenue for the 2015 Women’s World Cup have yet to be reported but will certainly be much lower.
On top of the specific financial disparities laid out above, the women’s inability to specify what kind of field surface they play on, when such consideration is offered to the men, is surely a sore spot, one that blew up in December when the USWNT boycotted a friendly over concerns about the quality of the artificial turf at Honolulu’s Aloha Stadium.
Another footnote in the memo of understanding concerns travel arrangements. The women’s national team is booked to fly economy for the majority of its travel, while the men exclusively fly business class.
Granted, the women’s and men’s national teams both collectively agreed to these respective compensation structures — and since the men are neither salaried by the federation nor play in a league owned and operated by the federation, it could be argued that their compensation should be distributed differently than the women. But it is interesting to observe the discrepancies in areas where one would assume they would be equitably compensated. Also, the USWNT players’ complaint to the EEOC could expose the lack of transparency by U.S. Soccer relative to the revenues the women’s national team generates, which may have artificially depressed the players’ market value.
The court will decide whether U.S. Soccer’s memo of understanding with the players union is a valid labor agreement at the end of May; dates for potential action on the EEOC complaint have yet to be determined. Regardless of either outcome, it appears that the U.S. women’s national team has a real case regarding the gender pay gap. Negotiations for their next collective bargaining agreement will continue all year, and the likes of Lloyd and Solo intend to leverage their recent success for better treatment by their employers.jimbabwe88:
I’ve been contemplating this for a while and I’ve decided that Elsa’s Year will be ending at Chapter 30. I know the title Elsa’s YEAR is supposed to span all four seasons, but I don’t want to give you content that I’m not 100% invested in.
I know this news sucks to those of you who really like the story, but I don’t want to give you mediocre content. You already had to go through the Arielsa arc, and a lot of you disliked it (I mean it was an Elsanna story after all :p ), but still I’m no longer in it for the long haul. I’ll give you an acceptable ending and it will be Elsanna, I promise. I’m sorry to my fans. I hope you may forgive me.These are GHC-specific extensions of the Haskell kind system. The Haskell 98 report specifies only a simple kind system:
... type expressions are classified into different kinds, which take one of two possible forms: The symbol * represents the kind of all nullary type constructors. If k1 and k2 are kinds, then k1->k2 is the kind of types that take a type of kind k1 and return a type of kind k2.
GHC extends this system with a form of kind subtyping, to allow unboxed types, and to allow the function construtor to be polymorphic over kinds. The kind lattice GHC supports is:
? /\ / \?? (#) / \ * # Where: * [LiftedTypeKind] means boxed type # [UnliftedTypeKind] means unboxed type (#) [UbxTupleKind] means unboxed tuple?? [ArgTypeKind] is the lub of {*, #}? [OpenTypeKind] means any type at all
Defined in ghc/compiler/types/Type.lhs
In particular:
> error :: forall a:?. String -> a > (->) ::?? ->? -> * > (\\(x::t) ->...)
Where in the last example t ::?? (i.e. is not an unboxed tuple). So, to quote GHC, "there is a little subtyping at the kind level".
For interested souls, GHC also supports coercion types and kinds ("type-level terms which act as evidence for type equalities", as needed by System Fc) used in GADTs, newtypes and type families.Today, Apple executives will testify before Congress about the details of their expansive tax-minimization system.
Major tech companies exploit differences between taxation policies in different nations in order to pay as few taxes as possible.
Apple isn't the only one. In fact their competitor Microsoft has a massive system by which to avoid taxation, detailed in another Senate report from last September.
American companies keep sixty percent of their cash overseas and untaxed, some $1.7 trillion, according to a U.S. Senate HSGAC Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released in September 2012.
That report used Microsoft as a case study for the leaps and bounds that U.S. corporations go through to minimize their tax exposure, and illustrate the current flaws with the international corporate tax regime.
The Senate investigation found that Microsoft reduced its 2011 federal tax bill by a whopping $2.43 billion — or 44 percent — by using a wide, international network of controlled foreign corporations and the exploitation of various loopholes in the U.S. corporate tax code.
According to Microsoft, the company paid $3.11 billion in federal taxes in 2011.
According to the full Senate report, Microsoft Corp does 85 percent of its research and development in the United States. Of its 94,000 employees, 36,000 are in product R&D. The company had reported income of $23.2 billion, but with a federal tax liability of $3.11 billion only paid an effective federal tax rate of 13.4 percent. That's much lower than the top statutory rate of 35 percent for corporations.
The way the group accomplished this is through a wide variety of foreign groups in tax havens like Ireland, Puerto Rico and Singapore, and by exploiting a recently updated tax loophole.
In fairness to Microsoft, they're doing what nearly every other major technology company does. A Microsoft representative commented on the fiduciary responsibility to shareholders to maximize value.
The company accomplished this by selling the intellectual property rights for its retail businesses to different controlled companies in tax havens.
The report found that Microsoft has three main revenue sources resulting from its intellectual property. The first is retail software which is comprised of the sale of products to consumers, retailers, and enterprise licenses to governments and businesses. The second is web products like Microsoft Bing and Xbox Live. The third is licensing to computer manufacturers who pre-install Microsoft on the products they sell.
In the 1990s, Microsoft established three regional retail operating centers in Ireland, Puerto Rico and Singapore. These offices regionally oversee the first revenue stream, retail sales. The Ireland office oversees all retail operations in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Singapore oversees all operations in Asia, and Puerto Rico oversees all operations in North America.
These three retail operation centers — plus Microsoft U.S. — all buy in to R&D cost sharing pool, which in turn gives them the right to sell Microsoft products in their respective zones. Each sector pays a percentage of the $9.1 billion Research & Development budget equivalent to their percentage of retail sales.
The Ireland office pays approximately 30 percent, Puerto Rico pays 25 percent, Singapore pays 10 percent and Microsoft U.S. — which oversees the third revenue stream, bulk sales to computer manufacturers like Dell and HP— pays 35 percent.
In exchange, Microsoft Ireland, Singapore and Puerto Rico get the right to sell the retail products in their corner of the world and Microsoft U.S. gets the right to sell licenses to manufacturers.
The foreign offices are actually comprised of multiple different, interconnected companies. The exploitation of the tax code is made possible by a complex arrangement between these companies.
These are the major controlled foreign corporations involved in the scheme:
Puerto Rico
Microsoft Operations Puerto Rico (MOPR) is the company that pays for the right to sell Microsoft products in the Americas. MOPR makes digital and physical copies of Microsoft software and sells it throughout the United States and the rest of the Americas through different regional distributors.
When an American buys a copy of Microsoft Office in a Best Buy in Manhattan, that was produced in and shipped from Puerto Rico.
MOPR is owned by a Bermuda-based entity, MACS Holdings, which in turn is owned by Round Island One, a fully owned Microsoft subsidiary that is based in Bermuda but operates in Ireland.
To review: An American buys a copy of Microsoft Office at Best Buy in Manhattan. Best Buy bought that copy of Office from a Microsoft distributor. The regional distributor bought that copy of Office from Microsoft Operations Puerto Rico. Microsoft Operations Puerto Rico is owned by MACS Holdings, which itself is owned by Round Island One, which itself is owned by Microsoft Corp.
The reason for that convoluted supply chain — the reason why that copy of Office wasn't just shipped from Microsoft Corp in Redmond, Washington to Manhattan — is that 47 percent of the profits from that sale go to Puerto Rico, untaxed by the U.S. federal government.
Those profits were taxed by Puerto Rico at an effective rate of 1.02 percent in 2011, a massive savings from the U.S. corporate tax rate of 35 percent. Over three years, Microsoft saved $4.5 billion in taxes on goods sold in the U.S. alone. The company saved $4 million per day by routing domestic operations through Puerto Rico.
Ireland
Microsoft Ireland Research (MIR) is the entity that buys into the R&D cost sharing agreement in exchange for the right to sell Microsoft in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
MIR doesn't actually create or sell any products to any customers. Instead, MIR immediately licenses the Microsoft intellectual property rights to Microsoft Ireland Operations Limited (MIOL)— a wholly owned subsidiary — for $9 billion.
MIR and MIOL are fully owned by Round Island One— the Bermuda company that operates in Ireland and also owns MACS Holdings.
MIOL manufactures copies of Microsoft products and sells them to 120 distributors in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. MIOL has 650 employees and MIR has 350 employees in Ireland, where they have an effective tax rate of 7.3 percent and 7.2 percent, respectively. MIR reported profits of $4.3 billion in 2011 and MIOL reported profits of $2.2 billion. Microsoft did not pay any U.S. tax on any revenues made by the Irish groups.
No U.S. tax was paid on the $9 billion license payment from MIOL to MIR.
Singapore
In Singapore, Microsoft Asia Island Limited (MAIL) is the group that pays into the cost sharing agreement. MAIL is actually located in Bermuda and has no employees.
MAIL paid $1.2 billion to Microsoft Corporation for retail sales in Asia. MAIL licenses its rights directly to Microsoft Operations Pte. Ltd (MOPL) for $3 billion. Again, no taxes are paid on this amount. MOPL duplicates the Microsoft software and sells them to distribution entities around Asia.
MAIL and MOPL are both wholly owned subsidiaries of Microsoft Singapore Holdings Pte. Ltd, which is itself a wholly owned controlled foreign subsidiary of Microsoft U.S.
MAIL had no employees but $1.8 billion in earnings. MAIL paid an effective tax rate of 0.3 percent. MO |
ara Bundle
Heroes
Lunara has been added to the in-game Shop
Mounts
New Mount Champion’s Nexagon Celebrate Cloud9’s victory at BlizzCon 2015 by riding the Champion’s Nexagon, which features the Cloud9 logo and team colors! This mount can only be purchased with Gold, and is available until February.
Returning Mounts Lunar Tiger Magic Carpet
Mount Removals Cyber Wolf Dire Wolf Tyrael’s Charger
Price Changes
Zagara’s prices have been reduced to 4,000 Gold and $6.49 USD.
Skins
New Skins Greatfather Winter Stitches – Exclusively available during Winter Veil Sugar Plum Sylvanas – Exclusively available during Winter Veil Master Lunara Sentinel Lunara
User Interface
In-Game UI
Score Screens Kills, Deaths, and Assists have been reordered on in-game and end-of-game Score Screens to read as Kills, Assists, and Deaths.
Social Features
The chat system has been redesigned. Chat channels are now split into collapsible groupings on the right side of the chat panel. All players who have joined a chat channel are now listed under that channel’s name on the right side of the chat panel, along with their portrait, Battletag, and current status. Inactive players will now be automatically removed from public chat channels and will rejoin once they become active again.
Chat navigation The chat panel can be expanded in height using the arrow button found in the upper-right corner. Players will be notified in the upper-left corner of the chat pane if they have missed any messages from conversations they are not actively viewing. Players can now quickly view and switch among all chat channels that they are taking part in by clicking the new arrow button in the upper-left corner of the chat panel. Additionally, players can cycle through the list of chat channels they have open by pressing Ctrl + Tab and Ctrl + Shift + Tab.
Custom Game Lobby Links Players in Custom Game lobbies can now create a clickable link and share it in chat channels to allow others to join the lobby. Create a link to a Custom Game lobby by typing the following (without quotes) into any chat channel: “[lobby]” Players may also send a message along with their lobby links by typing “/lobbylink” followed by their desired text
Loading Screens
Portrait Border Display Loading Screens will now only display portrait borders that are relevant to each play mode. Each loading screen will display portrait borders as follows: Quick Match, Custom Games, and Versus A.I. - Basic border and account level. Hero League - Hero League rank. Team League - Team League rank.
Party Indicator Icons New Loading Screen icons have been added to indicate which players queued together as a party. Players in the same party will appear next to each other on loading screens. Parties will be separated by icon color so that it is easier to see how many parties there are, and how many players are in each.
Looking for Party Changes
The Looking for Party feature on the Home screen has been renamed to Party Finder. The Party Finder will now display any friends who are online in addition to players who are looking to join a party. Friends who are online but not yet looking for a party will be listed as “online” or “in a party”. When they are looking for a party or looking for more, the text will update appropriately.
Hovering the cursor over player portraits in the looking for party list will now display a tooltip that indicates which chat channel you have in common.
Looking for Party has been added to the Friends list.
Design and Gameplay
Matchmaking
A new Warrior rule has been added to Quick Match that now prevents teams that do not have a Warrior hero from being matched with teams that do have a Warrior.
A.I. Improvements
General AI players will now move more efficiently on offense and retreat. Slight improvements have been made to the way that AI players will perform several map objectives.
Difficulty-Specific Improvements Adept AI will now choose Talents from pre-defined Talent builds, much like Veteran and Elite AI do already. Elite AI will now focus their attacks on low Health enemies and chase more often.
Heroes
Tassadar
Plasma Shield (Q) Can now be cast on allies located in the Hall of Storms
Artanis
Basic Attack range increased by 25%
Phase Prism (E) Range and speed have each been increased by 15%
Developer Comments: Artanis was having a harder time sticking to opponents than we’d like. This was hurting his ability to disrupt the enemy team and his ability to survive. We feel that a slight increase to his base kit will help alleviate this issue, while maintaining a lot of the playstyle (and counterplay) that we currently enjoy. The increased range on Phase Prism and his Basic Attacks should help him feel better to play, and help him more successfully fulfill his aggressive Warrior role. These changes are intentionally slight, as we feel Artanis is very close to being extremely powerful in today’s game.
Cho
Basic Attack damage increased from 110 to 120
Base Health increased from 3360 to 3528
Base Health Regeneration increased from 7 to 7.35 per second
Developer Comments: Cho’gall’s win rate has been trending up since his release, but it is still a bit lower than we’d like. We have plans to improve Cho’gall with Talent changes in the future, but we wanted to give him a small buff before then.
Bug Fixes
Battlegrounds
Soul Eaters and their summoned minions have received Health and damage updates to better reflect scaling changes that were implemented with the most recent major Heroes of the Storm patch
Heroes and Talents
Azmodan’s Globe of Annihilation will now deal the correct amount of damage while under the effects of Black Pool and the Taste for Blood Talent. This fix will also resolve incorrect damage amounts for similar Talent interactions, such as Muradin’s Storm Bolt with the Sledgehammer and Perfect Storm Talents, as well as Falstad’s Gathering Storm and Overdrive Talents.
Fixed an issue that could cause Leoric’s Drain Hope to end prematurely.
Fixed several situations in which summoned units could return directly to lane rather than continuing to attack nearby enemies while capturing a Mercenary Camp.
Tychus’ Hero model will no longer disappear after capturing a Fort on the Towers of Doom Battleground.
Artanis’ Purifier Beam will no longer track Murky back to his Egg if Murky was killed just as the Ability was cast.
Fixed an issue that could cause Brightwing’s Phase Shield to be applied to Cho’gall inconsistently.
Diagonally placed Shrubs will no longer sometimes fail to properly hide a Hero within.
Fixed an issue which could allow Cho’gall to regenerate Health after using Consuming Blaze on certain destructible objects.
Punishers on the Infernal Shrines Battleground will no longer fly outside the playable area after leaping into Zeratul’s Void Prison.
User InterfaceUpdated
State Rep. Pat Garofalo apologized, then apologized some more for a weekend tweet that suggested that NBA teams are crime waves waiting to happen.
"Let's be honest, 70% of teams in NBA could fold tomorrow + nobody would notice a difference w/ possible exception of increase in streetcrime," he tweeted Sunday evening.
The 140-character post sparked a swift, harsh national backlash. By morning, the Farmington Republican's tweet was national news, usually accompanied by the prefix "racist" and Garofalo was watching his own name scroll across the ESPN news crawl on the televisions at the gym.
Garofalo issued a written apology Monday morning.
“In the last 24 hours, I’ve had the opportunity to re-learn one of life’s lessons: whenever any of us are offering opinions, it is best to refer to people as individuals as opposed to groups," he said in the statement. "Last night, I publicly commented on the NBA and I sincerely apologize to those who I unfairly categorized."
Later, he faced banks of cameras at the Capitol and apologized again.
"I don't have a racist bone in my body," he said. "I pride myself on the fact that I've tutored [in] inner-city Minneapolis and in addition I've been a strong advocate for the charter schools in our communities. But there's no excuses. I apologize."
The controversy made headlines around the country and Garofalo came in for blistering accusations of racism, insensitivity and factual inaccuracy (crime rates among professional athletes are lower than the population at large.)
Garofalo also noted that his belief that the NBA does not screen its athletes for marijuana use was patently wrong.
"I was under the mistaken impression that the National Basketball Association did not test for marijuana. In fact, that is false," he said. "That is a drug policy violation and something that's clearly stated in their collective bargaining agreement."
Garofalo says he's gotten at least one death threat, but he's also gotten "some very thoughtful emails from some people who talked about what it means for their children, who are sometimes subject to additional scorn because of the color of their skin, that people sometimes stereotype them. That was clearly not my intent."
This isn't the first time a state lawmaker has set off a Twitter firestorm, but Garofalo said he wanted to "promise everybody I'll do my best to not make that mistake again."
"It's not fair to take all NBA players and put them all in one bucket, just like it's not fair to put all elected officials or all managers into one bucket," he said.The Evo 2017 Player's Choice donation drive has finally ended. While it wasn't the result we had hoped for, there is a lot for us to be proud of.
After an exhilarating final day of voting, the winner of the Evo 2017 Player's Choice donation drive has been determined:
Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 ($71,690) Pokkén Tournament ($66,906) Killer Instinct ($6,116) Windjammers ($4,000) ARMS ($1,337) Skullgirls ($920) Super Street Fighter II Turbo ($831) Nidhogg ($158) Mortal Kombat XL ($137)
Even though Pokkén did not win the donation drive, there is plenty to be excited about.
Not only did our community play a large part in raising over $150,000 for children in need, Evo is recognizing our efforts by committing $10,000 to support our community events throughout 2017! While the first thing that comes to mind is pot bonuses, it is also possible that this support will come in other forms such as increased production value and exposure.
Evo is not the only party to have recognized how hard we've worked, either. People are booting up their previously-forgotten copies of Pokkén, AnimEVO is in contact with our community's leaders, and even Harada himself gave his input. In my opinion, however, there are three results of the donation drive that are the most important:
We raised over $150,000 for children in need This donation drive brought the Pokkén community together more than ever before Outsiders have a newfound respect for Pokkén, and many new players are interested in getting into the game
So, what next?
The Pokkén community needs to ride this momentum and take full advantage of our time in the spotlight. We need to pump out a massive amount of Pokkén content on YouTube, Twitch, and the Forums here on Pokkén Arena. Go to your locals, support the streams, and show outsiders why we love this game.
I am so, so, so proud of each and every one of you. Whether you donated thousands of dollars or you lurked in the Twitch chats over the last two weeks, Pokkén could not have done this without you.
Thank you all, and here's to an incredible 2017 for the Pokkén community.(Governor's Office Flickr)
On a recent Tuesday afternoon, the office of an immigrant legal defense service in South Williamsburg was doing its best to keep up with demand. A boy played in the waiting room as his family sought legal aid to help them stay in the country, while 34-year-old Abraham, originally of Mexico City, waited and worried about alarming stories he'd heard about ICE agents cracking down on immigrants in the city.
“Yeah, worried about deportation that they’ll come to my door. So many things in the news, everywhere they’re looking for people to deport,” Abraham, who declined to give has last name due to his vulnerable situation, said.
Abraham found it difficult to understand why authorities would go after people trying to make a living. “Maybe I understand for criminal people with a felony, but innocent people, people working for their families “
Despite living in fear of ICE, Abraham is luckier than a lot of other people in the state: Because he lives in New York City, which has more resources, he was able to get help from the legal aid group. In other parts of the state there is a widely acknowledged shortage of qualified, accessible, affordable (or free) immigration attorneys. There are 850,000 unauthorized people living in New York state, according to the Migration Policy Institute, and it’s hard to overstate their desperate need for legal assistance.
“The idea that individuals foreign to this country could navigate that system independently is absurd," Sarah Pierce, Associate Policy Analyst for U.S. Programs at the Migration Policy Institute (MPI), tells Gothamist. Yet, that’s exactly what happens. “A large portion of immigrants in removal proceedings are not represented by attorneys.”
That’s why, in November, when New York Governor Andrew Cuomo vowed to protect the state’s immigrants from the Trump administration—metaphorically offering to sacrifice himself before he’d let a single immigrant get deported—he was widely praised for standing up to the President.
“If there is a move to deport immigrants, I say then start with me!” he declared in the November 20th speech. To back his rhetoric, the Governor also introduced a “first of its kind public-private legal defense fund” to provide immigrants in the state with legal help, regardless of whether or not they’re documented or could pay.
The fund made another appearance in the Governor’s state of the state address, with Cuomo promising to “launch Empire State Immigrant Defense Fund to ensure that all New Yorkers have access to representation and due process, regardless of citizenship status.”
Immigration advocates hoped the Governor would invest substantial state funds into the initiative, but as Gothamist reported this month, there was no mention of the defense fund in the Governor’s budget, suggesting that a large public investment was not forthcoming.
On Friday, the administration finally unveiled the program, now called the Liberty Defense Fund. According to the press release, the initiative would spend “more than $1 Million” in “Public and Private investment” to “provide services to meet the urgent legal needs” of New York immigrants. In fact, the program is budgeted at $1 million and the money comes from two private foundations, the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Ford Foundation.
The Fund will work with some 182 “advocacy organizations and legal entities,” according to the announcement “to provide pro bono legal and additional resources for immigrants threatened by recent changes in immigration policies.”
At present, there will be no large public funds directed exclusively towards the program—the “public-private” set-up refers to the fact that the foundation money will be administered by the state’s Office for New Americans. (A Cuomo administration spokesperson confirmed that “It’s all private funds administered by the state. There are no taxpayer dollars being used at this time.”)
Estimates from advocates and immigration experts vary on how much it would take to really cover the legal costs of immigrants facing deportation, but tend to exceed $1 million dollars—and private foundation money is not guaranteed to last. The New York Immigrant Coalition, which has officially partnered with the Governor’s office, said the state needed to invest at least $15 million to meet demand. Make the Road New York estimates that $19.1 million is needed to supply immigrants with adequate legal services.
As Crain’s pointed out, public investment in immigrant defense is hardly unprecedented, with Los Angeles County allocating $3 million dollars in public funds to a public-private partnership, and the state of California considering a $12 million investment in an immigrant fund.
“It’s a drop in the bucket,” says Stephen Yale-Loehr, an immigration professor at Cornell, of Albany’s plan. “It’s a good first step, but we have a long way to go towards legal representation at all immigrant proceedings.” Yale-Loehr says there are worthwhile elements in the program, like a “know-your-rights” campaign that would send volunteer lawyers around the state. But advocates hoped for more.
The New York Immigration Coalition, listed as an official partner of the Liberty Defense Fund, issued a scathing critique of the lack of public funds in a press release, noting, "There looks like there’s not a single public dollar that goes to legal defense, which stands in sharp contrast to other states that are leading the way against the anti-immigrant onslaught from the federal government. It’s simply not enough to rally private law-firms and foundation support: this project will not succeed without significant public investment.”
Steve Choi, executive director of NYIC, tells Gothamist that the group will continue to work with the Governor to implement the program and make sure it succeeds: "We will also continue to fight hard for a major public investment."Adam's Bridge – The Mythical Bridge Over the Ocean
The Indian Sanskrit epic Ramayana by Valmiki speaks of a bridge, Setubandhanam, a bridge over the ocean connecting India with Sri Lanka, the land of Ravana, the ruler of men and god. The epic attributes the building of the bridge to the ape army of Rama, who was assisting him in his war against Ravana to win back his wife, Sita.
True to the legendary epic a bridge, man made or natural, did exist between Sri Lanka not so long ago, interconnecting Rameswaram Island, off the southeastern coast of Tamil Nadu, India, and Mannar Island, off the northwestern coast of Sri Lanka. Geological evidence suggests that this bridge is a former land connection between India and Sri Lanka, made with chain of limestone shoals surrounded by a shallow sea of one to 10 meter depth.
The thirty km long bridge, which separates the Gulf of Mannar from the Palk Strait, was reportedly passable on foot up to the 15th century until storms deepened the channel. The Rameshwaram temple records suggest that Rama’s Bridge was completely above sea level until it was destroyed in a cyclone in AD 1480.
The bridge and its surrounding sea was first mentioned in the western worlds in "historical works in the 9th century" by IbnKhordadbeh in his Book of Roads and Kingdoms in 850 AD; referring to it as Set Bandhai or "Bridge of the Sea".
The earliest map that calls this area by the name Adam's bridge was prepared by a British cartographer in 1804, in reference to an Abrahamic myth, in which Adam used the bridge to reach a mountain, which the British identified with Adam's Peak, where he stood repentant on one foot for 1,000 years, leaving a large hollow mark resembling a footprint.
Wrapped in legend and historical misjudgments, a diverse range of opinion and confusion exist about the nature and origin of this structure even today. In the 19th century, two prevalent theories explained the formation of the structure. One considered it to be formed by a process of accretion and rising of the land, while the other surmised that it was formed by the breaking away of Sri Lanka from the Indian mainland.
In the same confused manner Studies have variously described the structure as a chain of shoals, coral reefs, a ridge formed in the region owing to thinning of the earth's crust, a double tombolo and a sand spit or a series of barrier islands. The age of the bridge had also been calculated as 125,000 years to 3500 years, which incidentally is also the age of the Ramayana.
Meanwhile A team from the Centre for Remote Sensing (CRS) of Bharathidasan University, Tiruchi led by Professor S.M. Ramasamy in 2003 claimed that the, "Rama's bridge could only be 3,500 years old" and, "as the carbon dating of the beaches roughly matches the dates of Ramayana, its link to the epic needs to be explored". However, one needs to note that the surveys which have come out with 3500 age for the bridge are based on the studies conducted on corals grown on the bridge itself and it has been argued that this represents only the age of what was measured, which is the corals. The bridge underneath the corals has been dated back to hundreds of thousands of years earlier.
A former Director of the Geological Survey of India, S. Badrinarayanan claims that such a natural formation would be impossible; He justifies the same by the presence of loose sands layer under corals for entire stretch as corals normally form above rocks and not over sand layers.
Due to its connection with the Legend of Rama and Hindu belief is that the bridge was created by Shri Rama and ShriLakshman with the assistance of Lord Hanuman and the ape army to reach Lanka in order to find Shri Rama's wife Sita who was kidnapped by Ravana, Hindus hold the Adam’s Bridge in reverence, abhorring the Indian government’s proposal to dredge the bridge to create a shipping canal, known as Sethusamudram.
In 2001, the Government of India approved a multi-million dollar Sethusamudram Shipping Canal Project that aims to create a ship channel across the Palk Strait by dredging the shallow ocean floor near Dhanushkodi. The channel is expected to cut over 400 km off the voyage around the island of Sri Lanka. This proposed channel's current alignment requires dredging through Rama's Bridge, a proposal, which was met with strong opposition by the Hindus of India.
Contradicting the Hindu sentiment Sri Lankans believe that the bridge was a construction of Ravana himself employing floating rocks, the rocks made of weightless corals, as claimed by Sri Lankan historians hold that the bridge was a collapsible structure made to cross the sea to reach India, when required.
View of Adam's Bridge"If it's not gay, it's not gay."
The colloquially negative use of the word "gay" is getting a roasting in the first national ad campaign.
"We chose to address something small that contributes to much larger issues — homophobia, biphobia and transphobia," the group posted on Facebook on Monday.
A collaboration between not-for-profit organisation Rainbow Youth, MediaWorks Foundation, Y&R NZ and Eight, the ad has over 90,000 views on Facebook at the time of writing. It focuses on the re-education of a man who ignorantly substitutes the word "gay" as an expletive.
Reactions on Facebook have been both supportive and surprisingly humble. "As someone who says this a lot, unintentionally, as a byproduct of years of not caring/realising... I would like to sincerely thank everyone for their patience and grace," wrote David Phillips under the post.
New Zealand legalised same-sex marriage in 2013, but clearly, socially ingrained homophobic language still exists.Designing nanoparticles for therapeutic, diagnostic and theranostic applications is of pivotal importance in advancing nanomedicine1,2. Nanoparticles (NPs) enter cultured cells at rates determined by their surface coating, size and shape3. Many of the clinically relevant nanoparticle targets are intracellular and NPs are typically coated with an effector layer to engage cellular receptors and trigger internalization. Cell culture assays are used to gauge the particle binding and internalization by fluorescent, chemical, radioactive or enzymatic tracers. Distinguishing internalized NPs from cell surface-bound particles is of pivotal importance for assessing the efficacy of NPs as targeting platforms. Disrupting ligand–receptor interactions typically involves exposing cells to low pH or using a competitive ligand, which may have unwanted effects on cell physiology and can be challenging with high-avidity NPs. Dye-labelled polymers, iron oxide, quantum dots, and gold NPs have been extensively studied as multivalent tracers, however, their removal requires harsh conditions which limit utility (for example, dimethylformamide, strong acid, or iodine4,5,6).
Plasmonic nanomaterials made from gold (Au) and silver (Ag) are increasingly used for biological applications, particularly microscopy, stemming from their size and shape-dependent optical properties. Surface plasmons create a localized electromagnetic field, the so-called antenna effect, that leads to surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) and metal-enhanced fluorescence-trackable signals that originate from molecules positioned at or near the surface, or within nanojunctions7,8,9,10,11. Of these two metals, Ag generally yields five- to tenfold more intense signals than Au (ref. 12), which on the other hand is more commonly studied owing to its chemical nobility, ease of synthesis, and distance-dependent quenching of dyes13. Plasmon coupling can increase both the absorption and radiative rate of dyes, while limiting photo-oxidation, dye self-quenching and excited-state saturation8. The greatest enhancement is expected from AgNPs that are ~40–100 nm in diameter8, a range suitable for cell targeting; however, fluorescent Ag nanoprobes that bind receptors have not yet been developed.
Here we present a nanoparticle platform that leverages the plasmonic properties of Ag to enable single-particle tracking in both dark-field and fluorescence modalities, and is paired with a mild, non-permeable solution that affords the distinction between intra- and extracellularly located AgNPs through a rapid, non-toxic etching step. Our nanoparticle probe comprises a fluorescent dye-labelled polyethylene glycol (PEG) and NeutrAvidin (NA) coating around a fluorescence-enhancing AgNP core (Ag–NA). The NA serves as attachment sites for biotinylated targeting peptides, as drawn schematically in Fig. 1a. We enlisted C-end rule (CendR) peptides for proof-of-principle delivery into cells. CendR peptides trigger neuropilin-1 (NRP-1)-dependent cell and tissue penetration when exposed at the C-terminus of a polypeptide chain2,14. The Ag etching solution consists of a mixture of two chemical components (Fig. 1b) commonly used for de-staining silver-stained protein bands in polyacrylamide gels or in photographic emulsions, retasked here for etching AgNPs in a biological setting. The first etching component is a redox agent hexacyanoferrate (HCF), Fe(III)(CN) 6 3−, that oxidizes Ag0 to Ag+, in combination with the second component thiosulphate (TS), S 2 O 3 2−, that ligates and clears away the newly formed Ag+ ions, thereby dissolving the core (Supplementary Figs 1 and 2; refs 15, 16). Importantly, HCF and TS are charged and do not readily diffuse through cell membranes17,18, thus protecting internalized AgNPs from being etched (Fig. 1). Labelled components released from etched AgNPs lose their fluorescence enhancement, further reducing the background signal.
Figure 1: Dye-labelled, peptide-functionalized silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) that are etched for cell internalization and tracking. a, Schematic of AgNPs coated with NeutrAvidin-PEG-thiol (NA) and lipoic-PEG-amine (black lines), onto which fluorescent dyes (stars) are attached, the brightness of the dyes is enhanced by the local plasmonic field. Attachment of biotinylated internalizing peptide RPARPAR forms the complete Ag nanoprobe (R-Ag-NA488). These bind to and are taken up by cells, which are treated by exposing to etchant solution to remove extracellular particles. Plasmonic enhancement is lost for etched particles. b, The etching reagents hexacyanoferrate (HCF) and thiosulphate (TS) oxidize and stabilize silver ions, respectively, releasing components into solution and dissolving the core. c, Fluorescence confocal microscopy of cells incubated with R-Ag-NA488 (green) and membrane stain (red) shows how R-Ag-NA488 is retained selectively in cells when etched (right). Endosomal membranes strongly overlap with nanoparticles, appearing as yellow in the overlay. Extracellular nanoparticles appear as green (identified by white arrows) and are selectively removed by etching. Insets show intercellular bridges with several associated R-Ag-NA488 nanoparticles that were determined by etching to have been extracellular. Scale bars, 15 μm (main images) and 2 μm (insets). Full size image
Uptake into cells and extracellular etching were characterized using fluorescence and dark-field microscopy. CF488 dye-labelled Ag–NA carrying the prototypic CendR peptide RPARPAR (R) were visualized in NRP-1-expressing prostate cancer cells (PPC-1) before and after etching (Fig. 1c and Supplementary Figs 3–6; ref. 14). The etchant selectively removed extracellular R-Ag-NA488 (those bound to the cell surface and the culture plate surface between cells), whereas the internalized fraction (appearing as yellow) were protected by the plasma membrane and remained unaltered in intensity (Fig. 1c and Supplementary Fig. 3). Dark-field imaging revealed the surviving fraction to consist of, in part, a red-shifted scattering population of Ag located in the perinuclear region of the cells (Supplementary Fig. 3). Surface plasmon oscillations, a resonant source for Rayleigh scattering, are known to plasmonically couple8,19 when cores are within one diameter length from each other. This spectral feature can be a useful indicator of endosomal fusion and consolidation of Ag. Notably, etching of surface Ag from living cells could be accomplished in cell culture medium (Fig. 1c).
Pre-labelling the Ag–NA with dyes puts them in accord with a versatile ‘plug and play’ targeting format used in multiplexed assays. We prepared a suite of dye-labelled Ag–NA nanoprobes to explore their use in multispectral applications, and characterized the plasmonically-driven fluorescence enhancement (EF). Metal NPs enhance the photostability and fluorescence intensity of a dye depending on several factors: the distance from the metal surface (optimally ~3–10 nm, or quenching dyes if directly touching the surface; ref. 20); the photophysical properties of attached dyes and labelling density; spectral overlap between the plasmon resonance and dye at the wavelength of interest; and the scattering efficiency of the core—which depends sensitively on composition, diameter and shape8. In Fig. 2a we determined EF by etching dye-labelled samples at a constant volume, keeping the number of dyes and their concentration fixed, and comparing the intensity from attached (unetched) versus the same dye free in solution (etched). The Ag–NA-dye constructs (diagrammed in Fig. 1a with peptides) were ~5–15 fold brighter before etching, indicating that dyes are enhanced by the local field around 70 nm Ag–NA. This held true for a range of dyes from the ultraviolet to near-infrared (NIR; Fig. 2a and Supplementary Fig. 7). In contrast, we found that smaller Ag–NA (20 nm, with a similar coating) gave EF values of ~1, consistent with the predicted 40 nm diameter threshold for enhancement. The cyanine dyes Cy3, CF555, and DL550 showed the largest EFs, 12 ± 2 (Fig. 2a and Supplementary Fig. 7) for 70 nm Ag–NA, consistent with an EF value of 12 previously reported using Ag islands on quartz films coated with Cy3- and Cy5-labelled albumin20. Although the current Ag–NA design establishes a broad spectral range on a rapidly etched (Fig. 2b) single-core platform, we anticipate that EF in the NIR range could be improved by a judicious tuning of the plasmonic spectral envelope (Supplementary Fig. 1), for example, by using non-spherical Ag cores, which are known to exhibit NIR to infrared resonance7.
Figure 2: Nanoparticle characterization and toxicity screening. a, Enhancement factors for several commonly used dyes show a strong dependence on the size of the Ag particle core. Enhancement factors were calculated from the ratio of fluorescence for unetched and etched Ag–NA-dye conjugates. On the x axis is the name of each dye with its approximate peak absorption wavelength in nm. Error bars are standard deviations from replicate wells. OR488, Oregon Green 488; CF dyes from Biotium. b, Etching kinetics for Ag–NA depends linearly on the concentration and the molar ratio of the etchant components thiosulphate:hexacyanoferrate (TS:HCF). The decrease in scattering intensity from the Ag plasmon band on etching was used to calculate a rate, and the time to reach 10% of the initial value is plotted. The molar ratio of etchant components was 1:1 TS:HCF except where indicated. The concentration of Ag–NA (70 nm diameter core) was kept fixed in all conditions. c, PPC-1 cells with RPARPAR Ag–NA (R-Ag) and etching showed no effect on viability at 48 h (resazurin assay) for short-term exposures to etchant. N = 6. Values were normalized to the condition of no Ag, no etchant. Ag–NA without peptide, x-Ag, does not internalize into cells. The etchant concentration and duration of contact with cells is indicated. d, In vivo blood chemistry was evaluated 24 h after the injection of x-Ag-NA or etchant. Marker levels were not significantly different from those for a PBS control injection (see Supplementary Information for additional plots). Error bars are standard deviations N = 3–6 mice. e, The etchant was capable of etching pre-injected Ag in mice. Ag was injected into the tail vein, then 20 min later followed by either etchant or PBS injection, and blood was analysed for fluorescence at 60 min. Values were normalized to the percentage of fluorescence at 5 min. Ag had been labelled with CF555 and PEG for blood etching (see Supplementary Information). Error bars are standard deviations. N = 2. Terms and units in d, GLOB, globulin (g l−1); TP, total protein (g l−1); GLU, glucose (mM); BUN, blood urea nitrogen (mM); CRE, creatinine (μM); TBIL, total bilirubin (μM); AMY, amylase units/L; ALT, alanine transaminase units/L; ALP, alkaline phosphatase units/L; ALB, albumin (g l−1). Full size image
To develop a set of etching techniques we evaluated the toxicity of this etchant in cell cultures and in vivo with mice. Long-term cell viability was not affected by AgNPs or their etching, but decreased if continuously exposed to high etchant concentrations for 24 h (Fig. 2c and Supplementary Fig. 4). The etchant combination is thus mild, and selective, because AuNPs could not be dissolved owing to their higher reduction potential (Supplementary Fig. 5; refs 6, 21). In addition, it is known that the anti-oxidant ascorbate can reduce HCF and we confirmed that etchant activity is rapidly quenched (Supplementary Fig. 5), a feature which could enable pulse-chase experimental formats22. Clinical blood chemistry analysis of mice injected with Ag–NA or the etchant showed normal hepatic and kidney function, as measured, for example, by analysis of alanine aminotransaminase, amylase, and blood urea nitrogen levels, indicating the general safety of both Ag–NA (ref. 23) and etchant18,32,33 in cell and tumour homing studies (Fig. 2d and Supplementary Fig. 4). However, detailed studies may be needed to further explore the potential toxicity. Importantly, the concentration of etchant we tested was sufficient to etch AgNPs in blood (Fig. 2e).
We evaluated the performance of etchable dye-labelled Ag in flow cytometry. Flow cytometry is a well-established quantitative method for the fluorescent detection of cells that has not yet been used with fluorescent Ag probes, yet should benefit from their expectedly high radiative rate and saturation limit20,24. Ag–NA with Alexa Fluor 647 dye were loaded with either RPARPAR (R-Ag-NA647) or RPARPAR A (RA-Ag-NA647), a C-terminally blocked control peptide that has negligible affinity to NRP-1 (refs 25, 26). A plus/minus etch strategy was implemented with the aim of quantifying the specific internalization of NPs. Cells were first incubated with R-Ag-NA647 or RA-Ag-NA647 and then each sample was split into two parts—one of which was etched to remove the non-internalized fraction (Fig. 3a). Using flow cytometry we found that the forward scatter (FSC) typically used as an indicator of cell size was insensitive to Ag-NA647. We therefore chose FSC to gate for cells (applied in Fig. 3b). We then compared signals from etched and unetched samples and calculated the internalized fraction by the mean intensity ratio. Approximately 60% of the fluorescence signal from R-Ag-NA647 was not etchable (that is, ~60% internalized) after 1 h of incubation with cells. Functionalized with the control peptide, RA-Ag-NA647 showed only weak binding with complete etchability (~1% internalized, Fig. 3b, c), consistent with the receptor-binding motif being crucial for internalization. Robust internalization and etch-protection using the peptide RPARPAR was further corroborated by dark-field scattering from R-Ag-NA647 inside suspended cells (Fig. 3d).
Figure 3: Flow cytometry with AgNPs. a, Scheme of CendR peptide RPARPAR-dependent R-Ag-NA647 binding to NRP-1 expressing cells. After splitting into two samples one is etched. b, Fluorescence histograms of cells with Ag-NA647 carrying either of two peptides. Cell-gated plots of internalizing R-Ag-NA647 (red, -etch; blue |
a position to frustrate the implementation of a court order or the proper administration of justice." New York Telephone, 434 U. S. at 174. In a world of local storage, the records could be obtained with a domestic warrant. Under New York Telephone, the argument would run, a federal judge can compel the provider that placed the data outside the U.S. to assist by bringing it back inside the U.S. to aid the federal court's jurisdiction.
On the other hand, if a non-U.S. person stores contents with a U.S.-based provider, and the provider's network keeps those files outside the U.S., an assistance order would be improper under the AWA. The domestic warrant authority, whether construed under Rule 41, the common law, or a statutory authority, does not ordinarily extend to the property of foreigners abroad. In such a case, ordering the provider to bring data inside the United States, just because it can, is not in "aid of [the court's] respective jurisdiction." It is an expansion of the court's jurisdiction in such circumstances, not in aid of it. As a result, the argument should run, it exceeds the power of the AWA.
The result would be a rule that U.S. providers can be ordered to assist with the production of foreign-stored data associated with U.S. persons but not the foreign-stored data of foreigners. Procedurally, it could work something like this. After the government serves the warrant on the provider, and the provider has reason to believe that it involves a non-U.S. person, the provider could object to assistance with respect to files stored outside the United States on the ground that forcing it to bring the data into the United States exceeds the All Writs Act. If the government is unpersuaded by the objection because it believes the subject is a U.S. person, either the government can seek enforcement of the warrant's assistance provision or the provider can move to vacate or modify the assistance provision. The court can consider the evidence from both sides and decide whether the subject is a U.S. person and therefore whether assistance is within the AWA. As in New York Telephone, the losing side could appeal the lower court's order subject to an abuse of discretion standard of review.
I'll be the first to say that there are some details to work out in terms of how this would operate. But it strikes me as a framework that both fits existing law and solves the foreign-stored data puzzle in a much better way than the options offered by how the parties have framed the case. It's a win-win answer. Or at least it’s a mostly-win-mostly-win answer. It preserves the traditional search warrant authority but doesn’t expand it. The government would have their warrants executed for U.S. persons no matter where the information is stored, which is what the government mostly wants. The providers would be able to tell their foreign customers (and foreign governments) that their contents are beyond the reach of U.S. search warrants, which is what the providers mostly want.
VII. What Now?
In the event that you've actually read this far and you agree with my basic point that the AWA should control, what should the Supreme Court do?
One approach would be to rule narrowly for the government on the SCA and then remand for consideration of the AWA. The Court could say that (a) the SCA is no barrier to complying with the assistance order for the reasons explained in Parts I and II but that (b) this doesn't answer whether the AWA permits compliance. On the plus side, this would be correct on the SCA and make no errors on the AWA. On the minus side, it would kick the ultimate question of provider compliance back to the lower courts. The Supreme Court took this case without a split because an answer is needed. It would be frustrating for the Court to send the issue back to lower courts for what might be several more years of uncertainty.
An alternative approach would be for the Court to take the rare step of asking the parties to file additional briefs. Assuming the parties only brief the case under the SCA, the Court could direct them to also address whether compliance complies with the AWA. This sort of order happens occasionally. For example, in March 2016, the Court issued a miscellaneous order in Geneva College v. Burwell asking the parties to file additional briefing on a particular concern the Justices had. If they did something similar in the Microsoft case, the Justices could get briefing on the application of the AWA and (if they ask for briefing early enough) discuss that briefing in the oral argument. The Court could then decide both the SCA and AWA issues together, answering the question presented under the correct statutes and handing down a ruling on the scope of assistance under the AWA.The Battle of Aleppo (Arabic: معركة حلب) was a major military confrontation in Aleppo, the then largest city in Syria, between the Syrian opposition (including the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and other largely-Sunni groups, such as the Levant Front and the al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front)[83] against the Syrian government, supported by Hezbollah, Shia militias and Russia,[60][84] and against the Kurdish-led People's Protection Units (YPG). The battle began on 19 July 2012 and was part of the ongoing Syrian Civil War.[85] A stalemate that had been in place for four years finally ended in July 2016, when Syrian government troops closed the rebels' last supply line into Aleppo with the support of Russian airstrikes. In response, rebel forces launched unsuccessful counteroffensives in September and October that failed to break the siege; in November, government forces embarked on a decisive campaign that resulted in the recapture of all of Aleppo by December 2016.[86] The Syrian government victory was widely seen as a potential turning point in Syria's civil war.[87][88]
The large-scale devastation of the battle and its importance led combatants to name it the "mother of battles"[89] or "Syria's Stalingrad".[90] The battle was marked by widespread violence against civilians,[91] alleged repeated targeting of hospitals and schools (mostly by pro-government Air Forces[92][93] and to a lesser extent by the rebels),[94][95][96] and indiscriminate aerial strikes and shelling against civilian areas.[84][97][98][99] It was also marked by the inability of the international community to resolve the conflict peacefully. The UN special envoy to Syria proposed to end the battle by giving East Aleppo autonomy, but the idea was rejected by the Syrian government.[100] Hundreds of thousands of residents were displaced by the fighting and efforts to provide aid to civilians or facilitate evacuation were routinely disrupted by continued combat and mistrust between the opposing sides.[101][102]
Various claims of war crimes emerged during the battle, including the use of chemical weapons by both Syrian government forces and rebel forces,[103][104] the use of barrel bombs by the Syrian Air Force,[105][106][107][108] the dropping of cluster munitions on populated areas by Russian and Syrian forces,[109][110] the carrying out of "double tap" airstrikes to target rescue workers responding to previous strikes,[111] summary executions of civilians and captured soldiers by both sides,[112] indiscriminate shelling and use of highly inaccurate improvised artillery by rebel forces.[113][114] During the 2016 Syrian government offensive, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights warned that "crimes of historic proportions" were being committed in Aleppo.[115]
Fighting also caused severe destruction to the Old City of Aleppo, a UNESCO World Heritage site.[116] An estimated 33,500 buildings have been either damaged or destroyed.[117] After four years of fighting, the battle represents one of the longest sieges in modern warfare and one of the bloodiest battles of the Syrian Civil War, leaving an estimated 31,000 people dead,[81] almost a tenth of the estimated overall war casualties at that time.[118]
Background [ edit ]
In 2011, Aleppo was Syria's largest city, with a population of 2.5 million people. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, it has been described by Time as Syria's commercial capital.[119] Author Diana Darke has written that "The city has long been multi-cultural, a complex mix of Kurds, Iranians, Turkmen, Armenians and Circassians overlaid on an Arab base in which multi-denominational churches and mosques still share the space."[120]
Nationwide protests against President Bashar al-Assad began on 15 March 2011, as part of the Arab Spring. In Aleppo itself, large protests started more than a year later in May 2012.[121] During this period, government-organized rallies in support of itself also occurred.[122] Aleppo had remained undisturbed and largely supportive of the government[123][124] by the 16-month-long conflict until 22 July 2012, when rebel fighters from the neighboring villages converged and penetrated into it,[125] to which the government responded with heavy-handed, indiscriminate bombardments of the city.[123] On 16 February 2012, the UN General Assembly issued a resolution with a vote of 137 in favour, 12 against, and 17 abstentions, and called on Syria "to immediately put an end to all human rights violations and attacks against civilians."[126]
Combatants [ edit ]
At the beginning of the Battle of Aleppo, rebels reportedly had between 6,000[127] and 7,000[128] fighters in 18 battalions.[129] The largest rebel group was the al-Tawhid Brigade and the most prominent was the Free Syrian Army, largely composed of army defectors. Most of the rebels came from the Aleppo countryside and from towns including Al-Bab, Marea, Azaz, Tel Rifaat and Manbij.[130] A resident of Aleppo reportedly accused the rebels of using civilian homes for shelter.[131] On 19 November 2012, the rebel fighters—particularly the al-Tawhid Brigade and the al-Nusra Front—initially rejected the newly formed Syrian National Coalition.[132] However, the next day the rebels withdrew their rejection.[133]
By December, rebel fighters were commonly looting for supplies; they switched their loyalties to groups that had more to share. This new approach led to the killing of at least one rebel commander following a dispute; fighters retreating with their loot caused the loss of a frontline position and the failure of an attack on a Kurdish neighborhood. The looting cost the rebel fighters much popular support.[134]
Islamic extremists and foreign fighters, many of whom were experienced and came from the ongoing insurgency in neighboring Iraq, joined the battle.[61] Jihadists reportedly came from across the Muslim world.[67] Jacques Bérès, a French surgeon who treated wounded fighters, reported a significant number of foreign fighters, most of whom had Islamist goals and were not directly interested in Bashar al-Assad. They included Libyans, Chechens, and Frenchmen. Bérès contrasted the situation in Aleppo with that in Idlib and Homs, where foreign forces were not common.[135] Some FSA brigades cooperated with Mujahideen fighters.[61] Four hundred Turkmen joined the battle under Sultan Abdulhamid Han.[136] By 2016, the rebel factions still included internationally recognized terrorist groups such as Al-Nusra Front; they numbered 1,000 fighters in October 2016.[80]
A destroyed government tank on a road in Aleppo
Hezbollah, which by 2013 joined the Syrian Civil War in support for President al-Assad, was also designated as a terrorist group by various organizations.[137] The government retained some support in Aleppo; in 2012 a rebel commander said, "around 70% of Aleppo city is with the regime".[138] During the course of the battle, Assad lost support from Aleppo's wealthy class.[139] In 2012, CBS News reported that 48 elite businessmen who were the primary financiers for the government switched sides.[140] For the first time, the government's Syrian Arab Army engaged in urban warfare. They divided their forces into groups of 40 soldiers each. These were armed mostly with automatic rifles and anti-tank rockets and artillery, tanks and helicopters were only used for support. In August 2012, the army deployed its elite units.[141] and eventually, after the rebels executed Zeino al-Berri, tribal leader of the al-Berri tribe, the tribe joined the fight against the rebels.[142] Initially, the Christian community tried to avoid taking sides in the conflict.[53] However, many Christians supported the Army and some formed militias aligned with the government following the capture of their quarters by the Syrian Army.[51][52] Many Christian Armenians also supported the Syrian Army. Some of Aleppo's Armenians claimed Turkey supported the FSA to attack Armenians and Arab Christians.[citation needed] In 2012, one Armenian militia had around 150 fighters.[53]
At the beginning of the battle, Aleppo's Kurds formed armed groups, most notably the Saladin Ayubi Brigade, which worked with the opposition. Units of the Kurdish Front, part of the FSA and allied with the Democratic Union Party (PYD), were formed later in 2013. The PYD had poor relations with both sides. Its People's Protection Units (YPG) stayed out of Arab areas and insisted the FSA stay out of the Kurdish area. They did not initially fight the Syrian Army unless attacked.[143] The Kurdish areas in Aleppo mainly came under PYD control.[144] At various points in the conflict, the Kurds joined the opposition against pro-government forces.[82] However, the YPG-controlled neighborhood of Sheikh Maqsood came under a siege by both Syrian government forces and the rebels. In September 2015, the rebels accused the YPG of having a deal with the government, while the YPG accused the rebels of shelling the neighborhood.[145] Between November and December 2015, the conflict between the rebels and US-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the rest of Aleppo province escalated.[146][147] Truce attempts largely failed to stop the fighting.[148][149] The situation escalated in February 2016, when the SDF followed up on advances by the Syrian Armed Forces, backed by Russian airstrikes, and they themselves took territory north of Aleppo city from the rebels.[150][151]
Starting in late September 2015, Russian warplanes had carried out their very first attacks in Syria.[152] The Russian bombing campaign included strikes against rebel forces in Aleppo.[153]
Course of the battle [ edit ]
2012: Initial rebel attack and capture of Eastern Aleppo [ edit ]
Gunfire between rebels and security forces broke out in and around Salaheddine, a district in the city's southwest, on the night of 19 July 2012.[154]
In late July and early August 2012, the FSA continued its offensive in Aleppo, with both sides suffering a high level of casualties. Rebel commanders said their main aim was to capture the city center.[155] On 30 July, the rebels seized a strategic checkpoint in Anadan, a town north of Aleppo, gaining a direct route between the city and the Turkish border—an important rebel supply base.[156] They also captured Al-Bab, an army base northeast of the city.[157] Later, rebels attacked the air base at Minakh, 30 km (19 mi) northwest of Aleppo, with arms and tanks captured at the Anadan checkpoint.[158] Opposition forces continued to gain territory in the city, controlling most of eastern and southwestern Aleppo, including Salaheddine and parts of Hamdaniyeh.[159] They continued to target security centers and police stations as clashes erupted near the Air Force intelligence headquarters in Aleppo's northwestern district Zahraa.[160] Rebels over-ran several police stations and posts in the central and southern districts of Bab al-Nerab, Al-Miersa and Salhain, seizing a significant quantity of arms and ammunition.[159]
Free Syrian Army rebels hold a planning session
Bombed out vehicles in Aleppo
Conquest Brigade fighters battle government forces in al-Midan, September 2012
2013: Advances and counter-advances [ edit ]
In December 2012, the al-Nusra Front unilaterally declared a no-fly zone and threatened to shoot down commercial aircraft, alleging that the government was using them to transport loyalist troops and military supplies.[161] After multiple attacks on Aleppo International Airport, all flights were suspended on 1 January 2013.[162] The following month, the rebels seized Umayyad Mosque; and during the battle, the mosque's museum caught fire and its ceiling collapsed.[163]
On 9 June, the Syrian Army announced the start of "Operation Northern Storm", an attempt to recapture territory in and around the city.[164] Between 7 and 14 June, army troops, government militiamen and Hezbollah fighters launched the operation. Over a one-week period, government forces advanced in the city and the countryside, pushing back the rebels. However, according to an opposition activist, on 14 June the situation started reversing after rebels halted an armored reinforcement column from Aleppo that was heading for two Shiite villages northwest of the city.[165]
On 8 November, the Syrian Army started an offensive against the rebel-held Base 80, launching "the heaviest barrage in more than a year".[166] Al Jazeera wrote that a government victory would cut the rebels' route between the city and al-Bab.[167] Two days later, Reuters reported that the rebels had regrouped to fight the Syrian army.[168] Fifteen rebels were killed and the army recaptured the base.[169] The following month, the army partially besieged the city in Operation Canopus Star.[170] During the offensive, Army helicopters attacked with barrel bombs, killing more than a thousand people, according to the Free Syrian Army's Abu Firas Al-Halabi.[171]
2014: Syrian government encirclement of the rebels [ edit ]
Government forces, having lifted the siege of Aleppo in October 2013, continued their offensive in 2014. This culminated in the capture of the Sheikh Najjar industrial district north of Aleppo and the lifting of the siege of Aleppo Central Prison on 22 May 2014, which contained a garrison of government soldiers that had resisted rebel forces since 2012.[172] A ceasefire proposal was presented by a UN envoy in November; under the proposal humanitarian aid would be delivered to Aleppo following the cessation of hostilities. President Assad said the ceasefire plan was "worth studying",[173] and according to the UN envoy the Syrian government was "seriously studying" the proposal.[174] The FSA rejected the plan; its military commander Zaher al-Saket said they had "learned not to trust the [Bashar al-] Assad regime because they are cunning and only want to buy time".[175]
2015: War of attrition [ edit ]
Aleppians waiting in a bread line during the Syrian civil war
In early January, the rebels recaptured the Majbal (sawmills) area of al-Brej and captured the southern entrance of the stone quarries known as al-Misat, forcing government troops to retreat to the north.[176] Rebels also seized the Manasher al-Brej area. They tried to advance and take control of al-Brej Hill, with which they could seize the military supply road running between Aleppo Central Prison and the Handarat and al-Mallah areas.[177] At the end of January, the rebels took control over some positions in al-Brej Hill.[178][179]
In mid-February, the Syrian Arab Army and its allies launched a major offensive in the northern Aleppo countryside, with the aim of cutting the last rebel supply routes into the city, and relieving the rebel siege of the Shi'a-majority towns Zahra'a and Nubl to the northwest of Aleppo.[180] They quickly captured several villages,[181] but bad weather conditions and an inability to call up reinforcements stalled the government offensive.[182] A few days later, the rebels launched a counter-offensive, retaking two of four positions they had lost to Syrian government forces.[183]
On 9 March, opposition forces launched an assault on Handarat, north of Aleppo, after reportedly noticing confusion in the ranks of Syrian government troops after the February fighting.[184] Opposition sources said the rebels had captured 40–50% of the village, or possibly even 75%, while the Army remained in control of the northern portion of Handarat.[184][185] In contrast, a Syrian Army source stated they still controlled 80% of Handarat.[186] On 18 March, after almost 10 days of fighting,[187] the Syrian Army had fully expelled the rebels from Handarat,[188] and re-established control of the village.[189]
Rebel forces use tunnel bombs under the Al-Hatab Square, in preparation for an assault on government troops in April 2015.
On 13 April, Islamist opposition forces and al-Nusra Front renewed their assault on the Air Force Intelligence building, utilizing a tunnel bomb followed by an assault.[190] Much of the Air Force Intelligence building was reportedly damaged as a result of the tunnel bomb.[191] Between 27–29 April, the FSA and Ahrar ash-Sham launched an operation in the old city of Aleppo and Al-Hatab Square in the Al-Jdayde (Jdeideh) District, which included tunnel bombs[192] and the shelling of buildings where soldiers were stationed. The rebels claimed to have killed 76 troops in these operations.[193] Sahat Al Hatab square and the buildings around it were left devastated as a result of this operation.[194]
In preparation for a new offensive, the rebels heavily shelled government-held parts of Aleppo, leaving 43 civilians dead and 190 wounded on 15 June.[195] On 17 June, rebel forces captured the western neighborhood of Rashideen from Syrian government forces.[196][197] Throughout 19 and 20 June, a new round of rebel shelling killed 19 more civilians.[198]
In early July, two rebel coalitions launched an offensive against the government-held western half of the city.[199] During five days of fighting, the rebels seized the Scientific Research Center on Aleppo's western outskirts, which was being used as a military barracks. Two rebel attacks on the Jamiyat al-Zahra area were repelled. Government forces launched an unsuccessful counter-attack against the Scientific Research Center.[200][201]
In mid-October, ISIL captured four rebel-held villages northeast of Aleppo, while the Army seized the Syria-Turkey Free Trade Zone, the al-Ahdath juvenile prison and cement plant.[202] Meanwhile, the SAA and Hezbollah launched an offensive south of Aleppo, reporting they had captured 408 square kilometres (158 square miles) of territory in one month.[203] By late December, reporting that they were in control of 3/4 of the southern Aleppo countryside.[204]
By the end of 2015, only 80 doctors were left in eastern, rebel-held part of Aleppo, or only one for 7,000 residents, while only one bakery was left to serve 120,000 people.[205]
2016: Supply lines cut, surrender, and evacuation [ edit ]
Destroyed area in Aleppo
By 2016, it was estimated that the population of rebel-held Eastern Aleppo had been reduced to 300,000,[120] while 1.5 million were living in government-held Western Aleppo.[206]
In early February 2016, Syrian government forces and their allies broke a three-year rebel siege of two Shi'ite towns of Nubl and Zahraa, cutting off a main insurgent route to nearby Turkey.[207] On 4 February, the towns of Mayer and Kafr Naya were recaptured by government forces.[208] On 5 February, the government captured the village of Ratyan, to the northwest of Aleppo.[209]
On 25 June, the Syrian Army and allied forces began their long-awaited North-west Aleppo offensive.[210] The ultimate goal of the offensive was to cut off the Castello highway, which would cut off the last supply route for rebels inside the city, thus fully encircling remaining opposition forces.[120]
By late July, Syrian government forces had managed to sever the last rebel supply line coming from the north, and completely surrounded Aleppo.[211] However, within days, the rebels launched a large-scale counterattack south of Aleppo, in an attempt to both open a new supply line into rebel-held parts of the city and cut-off the government-held side. The whole campaign, including both the Army's offensive and subsequent rebel counter-offensive, was seen by both sides as possibly deciding the fate of the entire war.[212][213][214][215][216]
After a week of heavy fighting, rebels both inside and outside Aleppo advanced into the Ramouseh neighborhood, linked up and captured it, while also seizing the Al-Ramousah Military Academy. With these advances, the rebels managed to cut the government's supply line into the government-held part of west Aleppo[217][218][219] and announced the Army's siege of rebel-held east Aleppo had been broken.[220] However, the new rebel supply line was still under Army artillery fire and being hit by air-strikes,[217] making both sides essentially under siege.[221] Since the rebel offensive started, at least 130 civilians had been killed, most by rebel shelling of government-held districts. 500 fighters on both sides also died, mostly rebels.[222] However, on 4 September, the Syrian Armed forces recaptured the Technical College, Armament college and artillery college, thus imposing the siege on Aleppo once again. Later that week they recaptured the Ramouseh district and reversed almost all rebel gains made since 30 July. The Syrian Government forces then started an offensive to capture eastern Aleppo on 22 September, taking 15–20% of the rebel-held part of Aleppo.
Rebels started an attack on western Aleppo in late October, which failed, with government forces retaking areas in the south-west that they had lost to the rebel's late July offensive. The Syrian Army then launched an offensive, aimed at finishing rebel-held Aleppo once and for all, during which they captured the Hanano district, Sakhour district, Jabal Badro district, Bustan al-Basha district, Hellok district, Sheikh Kheder district, Sheikh Fares district Haydariyah district, Ayn al-Tal industrial district and reportedly the research housing south of Jabal Badro. They also captured the Ard' Al Hamra district, reportedly cutting rebel-held territory in Aleppo by 40–45%.[223]
By 13 December 2016, only 5% of the original territory of the city remained in rebel hands.[224] A ceasefire was announced and the fighting stopped in order to allow the evacuation of civilians and rebels. The buses were prepared for the evacuation. However, the deal fell apart the next day, when the Syrian Government resumed their intense bombing of eastern Aleppo, with both sides blaming the other for the resumed fighting.[225]
The deal was revived on 15 December with first convoy of evacuees leaving.[226] The evacuation was however suspended on the next day.[227] Another deal was reached on 18 December and evacuation resumed later in the day.[228] The evacuation again stalled on 20 December, but resumed on the following day.[229][230] On 22 December, the evacuation was completed while the Syrian Army declared it had taken complete control of the city.[231] Red Cross later confirmed that the evacuation of all civilians and rebels was complete.[232]
In the closing days of the battle for the city, the Times of Israel reported that "Testimonies emerging from the city since Monday detail brutal atrocities being committed by pro-government Syrian forces.[233]
Aftermath [ edit ]
On 22 February 2018, it was reported that the YPG had agreed to hand over eastern districts of Aleppo city to the Syrian government. According to Syrian state television, this decision was made to reinforce positions around the region of Afrin, and to halt Turkey's offensive.[234] This came days after pro-Syrian regime fighters agreed to bolster the Kurdish forces in the northwest.[235]
SOHR and a witness later said that Syrian government forces had entered the areas controlled by the Kurdish fighters. YPG spokesman Nouri Mahmoud however denied this claim.[236] A YPG commander later stated that Kurdish fighters had shifted to Afrin to help repel a Turkish assault. As a result, he said the pro-Syrian government forces had regained control of the districts previously controlled by them.[237]
Strategic analysis [ edit ]
Rebel forces expanded into the countryside south of Aleppo to control sections of the M4 and M5 highways, effectively blocking ground reinforcements for the Syrian Army. Before the end of 2012, the Syrian Army in Aleppo was receiving sporadic supplies and ammunition replenishment by air or via backroads.[238] The fall of Base 46, a large complex that reinforced and supplied government troops, was seen by experts as "a tactical turning point that may lead to a strategic shift" in the battle for Aleppo.[239] In a November 2012, intelligence report, American publisher Strategic Forecasting, Inc. described the strategic position of government forces in Aleppo as "dire", and said the Free Syrian Army had them "essentially surrounded".[240]
On 26 November 2012, rebels captured Tishrin Dam, further isolating government forces in Aleppo and leaving only one route into Aleppo.[241] By late January 2013 Deputy Prime Minister Qadri Jamil said all supply routes to Aleppo had been cut off by opposition forces, comparing the situation to the Siege of Leningrad.[242] By late February 2013, Aleppo International Airport was almost surrounded by rebel forces.[243] Later, the Syrian Army regained control of the strategic town Tel Sheigeb, allowing them to approach the airport.[244] In November 2013, the Syrian Army retook the town of al-Safira.[245] This opened a road for the government to support the besieged Kuweires Military Airbase and Aleppo Power Plant.
In February 2014, it was reported that the army planned to encircle Aleppo and impose blockades and truces. It would also try to recapture Sheikh Najjar Industrial City to rebuild the economy and provide jobs.[246] By October 2014, the army had seized Sheikh Najjar, reinforced Aleppo Central Prison and captured Handaraat, almost besieging rebel-held Aleppo. Tensions peaked in early April 2014, when a Syrian Republican Guard officer allegedly killed a Hezbollah commander during an argument over the opposition advance in al-Rashadin,[247] and other pro-government militia groups sent as reinforcements, such as the National Defence Force, proved to be unreliable in combat.[248][249] Effectively cutting off access was more difficult in Aleppo because rebels controlled more terrain there than in other cities. Rebels also have a strong presence in the countryside and around the border crossings with Turkey.[250] In April 2014 government commanders inside the city were saying that contrary to implementing such a strategy, "the best [they] can do in Aleppo is just secure... positions".[251]
The attempted encirclement involved the SAA's attacks on Bustan Al-Pasha, Khalidiyyeh, the farms of Mazra'a Halabi, Al-Amariyya and Bustan Al-Qaseer.[252] The rebels' strategic victory at the Siege of Wadi Deif resulted in threats to several main government supply lines.[253] This cast doubt on government forces' ambitions to control the road from Hama to Aleppo and the Damascus-Aleppo international road, and has been seen as a personal defeat for Syrian Arab Army Col. Suheil Al Hassan.[254]
Staffan de Mistura, the United Nations and Arab League Envoy to Syria, proposed a pause in fighting, but opinions about implementation were divided.[255] The European Union warned that "cases of forced surrender imposed by the Assad regime through starvation sieges were labelled fallaciously as local cease-fires in the past."[256] The Southern Front of the Free Syrian Army, which was gaining ground in Deraa province south of Damascus, warned that a freeze in fighting in Aleppo could hamper their advance, as pro-Assad forces could be redirected from Aleppo.[257]
The Syrian government's defeat at the Second Battle of Idlib in late March 2015, which helped expand the influence of the al-Nusra Front, forced the Islamic State (IS) to expand its attacks in central Syria after it failed to block the Raqqa highway that branches out to the Syrian army's main supply route to Aleppo along the Khanasir-Athriya road. IS's aim would potentially be to establish the necessary conditions to attack Idlib and al-Nusra.[258] The March–April IS offensive in central Syria led some volunteers defending the Homs-Aleppo highway to consider deserting to defend their hometowns.[259]
According to Jane's Information Group, a possible offensive on Homs by both al-Nusra Front and IS working independently might force the government to move critical forces away from Aleppo to defend key supply routes.[260] There were additional opposition gains during the 2015 Jisr al-Shughur offensive.[261] Syrian government minister Faisal Mekdad stated in June 2015, "All our strategic planning now is to keep the way open to Aleppo to allow our forces to defend it".[262] Media outlets have noted that powerful online campaigns are being conducted in a war of information regarding Aleppo.
The role of Turkey [ edit ]
Turkey had sponsored rebel forces in Aleppo to a degree that eastern Aleppo was called "a Turkish card guarded by jihadis."[263] However, Turkish policy changed in August 2016, moving thousands of rebel fighters away from the area west of Aleppo to counter the secular federalist Syrian Democratic Forces to the north (see Turkish military intervention in Syria). This reduced the forces available to try to lift the siege of Aleppo, ensuring its fall.[264][263]
Casualties [ edit ]
Aleppo, Karm al Jabal neighborhood, 2013
With over four years of fighting, the battle of Aleppo represents one of the longest sieges in modern warfare, which left an estimated 31,183 people dead,[81] almost a tenth of the overall Syrian war casualties. The Violations Documentation Center in Syria assessed the death toll. According to its records, between 19 July 2012 and 15 December 2016 there were 22,633 adult male deaths (73%), 2,849 adult female deaths (9.2%), 3,773 child male deaths (12.2%) and 1,775 child female deaths (5.7%). 23,604 or 76% of all fatalities were civilians, while only 7,406 or 24% were military deaths. Causes of death were explosions (910 deaths), shelling (6,384 deaths), field execution (1,549 deaths), shooting (9,438 deaths), warplane bombardment (11,233 deaths), chemical and toxic gas attacks (46 deaths) and others.[81]
The pro-opposition monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) gave a similar number: it registered that 1,612 days of fighting for Aleppo left 21,452 civilians dead. Among them were 5,261 children under the age of 18 and 2,777 women over the age of 18.[15]
The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), a pro-opposition non-governmental organization, reported that the Russian bombardments killed at least 1,640 civilians in the Aleppo area: 1,178 civilians died between 30 September 2015 and 1 August 2016,[265] while additional 462 civilians were killed from 19 September 2016 until 30 November 2016.[266]
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has described the fighting as one of the most devastating conflicts in modern times. It appealed: "The human cost of the fighting in Aleppo is simply too high. We urge all parties to stop the destruction and indiscriminate attacks, and stop the killing".[267]
The ICRC also said that hundreds of civilians perished through the "indiscriminate shelling of residential areas across Aleppo".[268] Several infectious diseases broke out in Aleppo and other areas in Syria during the civil war, including poliomyelitis, measles and cutaneous leishmaniasis.[269] Food prices also grew astronomically during the war. A kilogram (two pounds) of sugar cost $21 at one point.[270]
Allegations of war crimes [ edit ]
Syrian government and allies [ edit ]
The violations and abuses suffered by people across the country, including the siege and bombardment of eastern Aleppo, are not simply tragedies; they also constitute crimes of historic proportions. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein[271]
Aleppo suffered catastrophic damage during the four-year siege and battle. According to an Amnesty International report, government forces have been responsible for the majority of violations in the conflict in Syria.[112] Ravina Shamdasani, a spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, issued a statement in November 2016 which said that "strikes against hospitals, schools, marketplaces, water facilities and bakeries are now commonplace, and may amount to war crimes". During that phase of the offensive, about 250,000 civilians were left in the city.[272] In November 2016, UNICEF estimated that nearly 100,000 children were living under siege in Aleppo.[273] The 2016 offensive cut off the city from food supplies, and last time eastern Aleppo was reached with significant humanitarian supplies before the Syrian re-capture was the beginning of July in 2016.[274] The Syrian government, aided by Russian army, used war planes to systematically bombard hospitals in the rebel-held areas of the city.[275][276] By the end of November 2016, no functional hospitals were left, and over 20,000 people were displaced by the fighting.[277] Human Rights Watch issued a statement reporting that the Syrian and Russian military campaign killed more than 440 civilians, including more than 90 children, between September and October 2016. It also deplored that airstrikes often appeared to be "recklessly indiscriminate".[110]
Between 29 January and 14 March 2013, opposition activists reported about 230 bodies were found on the banks and in the Queiq River in Aleppo. They accused government forces of being the ones who executed the men since the bodies came down the river from the direction of government-held areas of the city. Human Rights Watch was able to identify at least 147 victims, all male and aged between 11 and 64.[278] Human Rights Watch reported that family members of many of the victims testified that they were last seen in a government-controlled area or after they set out to cross into the area through two checkpoints, one manned by opposition forces and the other by government forces.[279][280]
In May 2014, the UN Security Council voted for the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate war crimes in the Syrian Civil War, but the resolution was vetoed by Russia and China.[281]
In 2014, the United Nations adopted Resolution 2139 which ordered |
0s, there were just a few remaining nesting Bald Eagles pairs anywhere in Pennsylvania. This year marks 30 years since the reintroduction of Bald Eagles in Pennsylvania. With the help of the Canadian government, several agencies brought bald eagle chicks back to their states to reintroduce Bald Eagles. Today, Pennsylvania boasts more than 250 nests.
The Hays bald eagle pair first started nesting along the Monongahela River in Pittsburgh in 2013. A nest was observed by workers at the Keystone Iron and Metal Company. The pair successfully hatched one eaglet but on June 6, 2013 a strong storm blew the nest down and the parents successfully fledged the eaglet on the ground. The follow year the Hays eagle pair build a new nest in the location it is today. A camera was installed on this new nest in December of 2013.
Nesting Information
The current Hays nest is in a sycamore tree along the Monongahela River 6 miles south of Pittsburgh, PA
2013 Nesting Season
March 11 – Incubating behavior was observed indicating an egg had been laid in the nest.
April 14 – Behavior indicated that an egg had hatched.
May 13 – The eaglet is seen high in the nest stretching its wings. Only one eaglet was ever seen in the nest.
June 6, 7 & 8 – There was a strong storm with heavy winds on June 6. The eaglet left the nest sometime between June 6 and June 8 as observers on June 8 and June 9 did not see the eaglet in the nest.
June 9 – The eaglet is spotted about 20 to 30 feet below the nest on top of some vines. The eaglet is too young to fly but is old enough to survive as long has it is fed by its parents. The parents are seen feeding the eaglet in the vines around 5:30 PM on June 9. For the next two weeks the eaglet is seen in the vines under the nest from the new part of the trail.
June 29 – After not being seen for a week the eaglet is seen and makes its first observed short flight.
July 2 – Adults are observed landing with food far from the eaglet forcing the eaglet to make long flights to obtain food from its parents. The adult eagles will be teaching the eaglet to find food on its own for about a month or two after the eaglet began flying.
July 7 – Eaglet is seen on the roost for the first time.
July 10 – All three eagles are seen on the roost.
Aug 4 - Last time the eaglet (H1) was seen.
2014 Nesting Season (new nest - camera installed)
First egg laid on February 19, 2014 at 4:45 PM - Hatch date: March 28, 2014 at 3:36 PM - H2 fledge date: June 21 at 8:45 PM
Second egg laid on February 22, 2014 at 4:18 PM - Hatch date: March 30, 2014 at 7:17 AM - H3 fledge date: June 20
Third egg laid on February 25, 2014 at 6:39 PM - Hatch date: April 2, 2014 at 4:54 PM - H4 fledge date: June 27 at 10:14 AM
2015 Nesting Season
The 2015 nesting season was unsuccessful. We assume this was due to the unusually cold weather conditions in Pittsburgh.
First Egg laid February 17, 2015 at 7:37 PM, on March 13 the first egg was broken
Second Egg laid February 20, 2015 at 4:40 PM, on March 27 the second egg was broken
2016 Nesting Season
Egg dates: Egg 1, 2/13 (early AM), Egg 2, 2/16 @ 1:45 PM, and Egg 3, 2/20 @ 2:02 PM. Egg 3 was not viable and did not hatch.
H5 Hatch date 3/21 @ 12:37 AM: click here for H5 video
H6 Hatch date 3/22 @ 9:40 PM : click here for H6 video
2017 Nesting Season
2/10/2017 @ 5:49 PM the first egg was laid.
2/12/2017 @ 9:30 PM the nest tree blew down in a wind storm and egg #1 is lost. Click here to see video
2/15/2017 The eagle pair starts construction on a new nest about 100 yards from old nest site.
2/19/2017 A group of citizen scientist viewed incubation behavior which suggested the female laid her 3rd egg in the new nest with the assumption the 2nd egg was laid elsewhere by the female.
2018 Hatch Information
Egg 1, laid 2/12, broke 3/14
Egg 2, laid 2/15 @2:48 PM EST, hatched 3/23 @10:01 PM EST, Fledged 6/11 @ 6:20 PM
Egg 3, laid 2/19 @5:53 PM EST, did not hatch
Successful Eaglets Fledged
Eaglet Egg Date Hatch Date Fledge Date H1 ~3/11/2013 ~4/14/2013 ~6/29/2013 H2 2/19/2014 @ 4:45 PM 3/28/2014 @ 3:36 PM 6/21/2014 @ 8:45 PM H3 2/22/2014 @ 4:18 PM 3/30/2014 @ 7:17 AM 6/20/2014 H4 2/25/2014 @ 6:39 PM 4/2/2014 @ 4:54 PM 6/27/2014 @ 10:14 AM H5 2/13/2016 (early AM) 3/21/2016 @ 12:37 AM H6 2/16/2016 @ 1:45 PM 3/22/2016 @ 9:40 PM H7 2/19/2017
Hays Eagles in the National News
2013-2014 Hatch Dates and Nest Activity Video Clips
About the Webcam Project
The camera system is a unique system which was custom designed and manufactured by PixController, Inc. The camera video feed is streamed over a cellular network. Because the system is installed in a remote location the system is powered by a battery bank, which was supplied by Interstate Batteries, and is solar charged.
The camera is a Pan-Tilt-Zoom camera with built-in IR illuminators for night time illumination. The camera is mounted in a tree about 30 yards from the nest site with a view down into the nest. We can remotely move and zoom the camera and follow the eagles. During the day the video will be broadcast in color and during the night the video will switch over to black & white. We remotely monitor the battery power and site security via M2M (machine to machine) devices designed by PixController, Inc. to keep the video feed streaming and secure without the need for human presence.
Click on the Eagle Cam Graphic above which was designed by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The camera is installed in 70' high an Ash tree about 100' up hill from the nest
The camera is a pan-tilt-zoom camera which can be remotely controlled
At the bottom of the tree are the streaming
electronics which stream and monitor the system over a cellular connection
At the top of the hill are (6) 100 AH batteries to store power to keep the camera running
360 Watts of solar panels keep the batteries charged
A custom mobile App was developed to remotely monitor the battery, temperature, and cellular signal
A mobile App is used to remotely move the camera
A mobile App is used to power on/off and reboot the camera system
Quick Bald Eagle Facts
How can I tell the male from the female bald eagle? The female is slightly larger than the male. In the case of the Hays bald eagles the male has a noticeable white spot on the right side.
Adult birds range from 35" to 37" tall with a wingspan of 72" to 90" and weigh between 10 to 14 lbs.
Their diet consists of mainly fish but will take advantage of carrion they can find.
The female lays 1-3 eggs 5-10 days after mating. For bald eagles in our area we should expect eggs between February & March. The eggs are incubated for about 35 days.
The nest is between 6' - 8' in diameter and can weigh up to 1 ton.
Bald eagles typically mate for life and have a 20-30 year lifespan.
Bald eagles do not reach maturity until they are 4-5 year old at which time they develop the white head and tail feathers.
For more bird facts visit the Western PA Audubon Society[x-posted at The Rumpus]
On Friday night, and in preparation for Where the Wild Things Are, I rewatched Spike Jonze’s first feature, Being John Malkovich. What struck me was not the film’s final childlike shots or how its puppet shows anticipate both Christopher Walken and those expensive, “absurdly heavy” monster suits, but something else—namely how goddamn much John Cusack looked like David Foster Wallace.
In the film, Cusack plays a character named Craig Schwartz, and, to me, at least, he bears an uncanny resemblance to DFW circa Charlie Rose. I can’t find a good image of Cusack-as-Schwartz online, but you’ll have to trust me. Both men sport the same long, thick, unmanaged hair; the same weak, stubbly jaw; the same tight white shirt and skinny red tie; the same unhip round glasses; and even some of the same facial tics (especially once Cusack discovers “the portal”).
Wallace recently got his own film treatment—for the titular sections of Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, adapted and directed by Office-ite John Krasinski—and, thanks to it, we can connect these dots. Krasinski to Dave Eggers (Away We Go), Eggers to Jonze (Where the Wild Things Are), Jonze to Cusack—no Kevin Bacon needed![1] But I’m starting to sound far more glib than I felt after finishing Being John Malkovich. In fact, for me, the Wallace/Cusack effect quickly went from oddly creepy to kind of sad. But then I decided to rewatch that Rose interview, where guest and host meander through A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again. Strangely, the real dead person cheered me up where the silly doppelganger got me down. And I think that’s because the lo-fi Wallace interview stands as a better piece of visual entertainment than Being John Malkovich or Where the Wild Things Are or just about anything else—and that’s because of what Wallace says.
Watch that interview. Read the collection’s essay on television and contemporary fiction. Cipher on the ghostly parallel to Cusack (the trailer’s here). Just remember that DFW’s body of work lives on, and that it’s a little less bitter on each return.
———————
[1] Being John Malkovich‘s original script did call for Bacon to play one of Malkovich’s friends.
AdvertisementsBosnia and Hercegovina is one of Europe's nicer banana republics, with people who don't care about your broken iPhone when you are stuck in one of their villages. Located in the Balkans, Bosnia has gone through a lot, including thousands of wars, interspersed with more minor skirmishes. The country has over 500,000 unemployed citizens, over 300 political parties, 3 presidents, 2 polices, 5000 ministers, crime, and ćevapi.
Bosnia has become such a popular location for solving disputes that many countries have placed advanced bookings to bomb it to settle their differences. As a result of this continued bombardment, the indigenous population has grown a sixth sense, giving them the superhuman ability to stay unharmed during times of war and turmoil. Native Bosnians walk away unharmed from air disasters and bombings, oblivious to everything except the unsightly plaster in their hair and the annoying smell of gunpowder.
Contents show]
Geography
The Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, is mostly full of students, foreigners and stray dogs. There is an urban legend about people actually born in Sarajevo, but all witnesses have disappeared under mysterious circumstances.
Language
Bosnia abolished approximately 70% of its vowels in The Great Vowel Purge (Velika Čistka Samoglasnika) of 1944, after discovering that they had been collaborating with the Nazi occupiers of the country. The diacritical marks of the language attempted to exploit the resulting confusion, and succeeded in wresting control of 30% of the language, forming the breakaway province "Řêpǚbłĩká Đĭàķŕitīkǻ". Thus, 90% of the population still doesn't understand how to use four of the consonants correctly. Between 1944 and 1992, Bosnia was ruled by the letter 'J' under a system of Non-Aligned Consonantism, which collapsed after the fall of the Berlin Wall, its position being taken by annual rotation of 'H', 'Đ' and 'V'. The only officially recognised words in Bosnia are kasnije and kafa.
Population
There is no explanation for the fact that the DNA structure of the Bosnian Genome contains Molecules Of Stone (MOS), but it should be noted that the MOS have found expression in the head of Bosnians. Although that gives them their famous invulnerability, there are some relatively minor side-effects (lack of a brain). However, the scientific community has recently proposed a much sounder theory for their complete lack of brain tissue. After a Bosnian child is born, it is immediately fed inhumane amounts of rakija (a unique multi-purpose liquid, serving as an alcoholic drink, disinfectant and engine degreasant) rather then the traditional milk that new-borns drink. The massive amounts of alcohol given to newborns causes widespread brain damage and stupidity which eventually leads to death, in some cases up to 70 years later. In fact, alcohol poisoning is the biggest cause of death in males in Bosnia.
An alternative explanation for the presence of MOS in the Bosnian Genome can be found in Butmir. Butmir is a small place near Sarajevo. It is believed that a master sculptor from Butmir once made the First Sex Toy, a Stone Model of a Woman. After the prototype was Alpha tested it miraculously became pregnant and gave birth to the first true Bosnian. Considering that the child did not have a mother to breast feed it, it was fed with rakija. That custom is still being practiced today.
There have been some attempts to reconcile these two theories and, thus, create a Unified Field Theory Of Rakija And Stone (UFTORAS) but none of them have come to fruition yet. Undoubtedly, this is due to the scientists in question being Bosnian as well.
Studies have also recently found that due to the large consumption of alcohol among the Bosnian people, their blood is not blood, but is, in fact, 99% alcohol (making all Bosnians highly flammable). Occasionally, you will see people burst into flames in broad daylight, but don't worry because it's quite common in Bosnia.
Religion
The predominant Bosnian religions are Islam (go figure), Serb-Russian-Greek-Ukranian Orthodox, Catholicism, and Bogumil Paganism. Most Bosnians, however, perfer to worship the jewish Dinar.
These religions are covers for what Bosnians truly worship -- soccer, beer, and nicotine.
Regions
Bosnia and Herzegovina has two main regions, namely "Bosnia" and "Herzegovina". If you wish to travel across the country don't forget to rent a snazzy, all-terrain vehicle.
History
Bosnia's history is very rich and long but not accepted by Serbs or Croats.It was created in the early 12th century so that Serbia could prove to itself that it was a heroic nation and Croatia could prove that it was a cultured nation, thus enabling both nations to participate in regular fights and ethnic cleansings without damaging their own lands. Turks were let into the game in 15th century AD. The Turkish arrival scrambled Serbian-Croatian relations even further by converting 60% of the country's population to Islam, mostly for their own amusement. Croatian and and Serbian scholars agree that Bosnia is the cause of their problems. Croats and Serbs were to split the country 50/50 in the 90's but Murica had unfortunately woken up from a food coma at the opportune time to stop the deal from ratification.
Economy
After the war many fat asses decided to buy everything people could work in leaving only empty shelss of what sometimes has been called a "factory". Today there ain't many ways to bring the economy up so the government uses MMF credits to solve national problems. (That also includes buying new 100.000$ cars for the ministers.)
Science
What? They are basically the only country in southern Europe that don't claim that Nikola Tesla is a Bosnian and not a Serb/Croat/Slovene.
Culture
Beside cultural artifacts, the most famous being the Sarajevo Haggadah (made in Spain) and Mostar's Old Bridge (designed by Turks and built by Croatians), there is little culture in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Even their national museum is closed for good.
People
The proof that Bosnians are very hospitable and friendly is their eagerness to know everything about you ASAP for use in the sport "What-Did-They-Do?" Also most of the people will be very communicative: every time you ask "Do you speak English" they will answer very politely "Ne!" (eng: NO!) and keep on looking at you.
You will find very devoted customer care especially in shops where people (even if you assure them that you don't speak Bosnian) will continue promoting the qualities of the products they sell. Also, once someone does something noble to help you out, they just wont stop bragging about it: "Ja sam tebi brate tada pomogo, a ti meni ovako sad!" If you want to be sure and get everything you want, exploit their natural weakness and just pretend to be a German, at least Austrian, or just try to communicate in ze German.
If you are a tourist and if you try to comunicate with an native, don't do it or expect answers like: "Yes" "Yes" "Thank you".
There lives in this country a fellow named Nebojsa, meaning "tho one with no fears". The name itself is pronounceable in any other language except Juuuebate, the language of the drunk. Nebojsa, also know as the whitest-of-them-all, for he never gets a sun tan. He roams through the depths of city saying "PLJUsnucute", "Prasice" and "AUPICKUMATERINU". Please shoot him on sight.
Food
As in the rest of the Balkans, dinner in Bosnia is prepared following a basic recipe:
1. Cut two big onions
2. Decide which one to have for dinner.
The rest of the dinner will necessarily include calf/beef or lamb, being the only quality product of Bosnian mountains (note that Herzegovina is not Bosnia, and that meat rules apply differently).
The national dish, cevapi, is unsurprisingly, barbecued minced meat prepared and seasoned in a way that it guarantees bad breath for days and served with as much onion as can possibly fit on the plate (which is crucial for survival in harsh Bosnian conditions). The best cevapchichichi can be found in the city of Sarajevo, "ali u kurcu (nisi jeo cevape u Travniku)".
The second national dish is Burek. A reader should note that in the rest of the world the Burek can be prepared with spinach, cheese, potatoes or other vegetables, while Bosnian Burek is exclusively stuffed with meat. This is because of the simple reason that a Bosnian's respect for meat is so high that he refuses to call anything without it a "Burek". On the contrary, those without meat are looked down on in common language and referred to as "Pitas"
The original Burek, which is falsely believed to be of a Turkish origin was actually invented by a Bosnian scientist who blew a dish of cevapi with a miniature nuclear device and rolled the debris into a page from local newspaper, Oslobodjenje. On his trip to the Breath Institute where his breath was to be analyzed, he mistakenly ate it instead of his breakfast. The meal got its modern form after years of refinement by the Albanian Chefs And Bakery Owners Association whose descendants could be found owning small kiosks in the Tito era, where they were selling cooked or BBQ corn and chestnuts, depending on the season and highly complicated technical inventions like the deadly pepaljka device. They also invented the cheese and spinach variety burek and sold the recipe to Sultan Mehmed II. The Sultan thought that he was buying the original recipe for the burek meal that his mother used to prepare. After he found out that he bought a cheap knock-off, he was so angry that he invaded Eastern Europe. Please note that you must include a piece of bread to accompany any meal in Bosnia, including sandwiches.
Sports
If you are a Bosnian you are officially a football coach and you are able to command any team in the world and you also can command the national football team when it plays badly. Popular clubs are:
A favorite sport of the Bosnian "football" players is drunk driving while listening to sevdah. The war in Bosnia left a lot of space for Mineball also. Mineball is a sport in which you basically try to lead the ball trough an mine field and score a goal which is over in the other entity the "Republika Srpska" or the "Federation". The last match was played on th 28th July 2012, the result was 1:0 in favour of the team of the Federation also 5 Srpska players died while one Federation player died from injuries. Edin Džeko the Bosnian football star donated 20$ for the renovation of the FK Čekrečije stadium and he is also the main figure to laugh about him when the national team is losing a match even when he isn't playing.
Football clubs are still the #1 sport after all but we have to mention the annual "Alcoholics Youth Festival" which got just accepted into the OAYFE (Organisation of Alcoholics Youth Festivals of Europe).
Music
Bosnian popular music is considered tolerable, well not tolerable in some countries of the evil European union. Air raid sirens (Often set to a dramatic beat of artillery shells and screams)
Turbo folk (a mish mash of oriental rhythms played on cheap organs, heartbreaking lyrics usually sung by slutty looking female singers with massive breast implants- called "pevaljkas")
The most notable Bosnian star is Dino Merlin and no he ain't a wizard thats his "nickaname".
The best music from Bosnia is "ganga", "rera" and the most popular one; Turbo folk with stars like Ado Gegaj, Ekrem Jevrić, Dado Polumenta etc.
Traditional music is sung in cafés (bument is the "prim" which can only be played by flaming homosexuals). One of the most popular Bosnian Guitar/Bass/Drums/Harmonica/Gajde/Piano/Ukulele/Triangle/Harp/Dajguze/Anal Drombulja/Vibrafone players is Ado Gegaj." He loves to say "Pićka" and is a 21-year-old virgin.
Some undying bands just keep making new albums, as some people just can't face the fact that they are u kurcu. This mid-life depression fleetingly affects people over 30, unemployed, and still living at home. The prevalent national musical genre is Sviranje Kurcu. But artists like Prljavo Kazaliste still roam the land, singing out-of-date pop/rock ballads to unwilling audiences. Other bands are Zabranjeno Pušenje, Crvena Jabuka, Dubioza Kolektiv, Plavi Orkestar and Electric Orgasima.
Current developments
Bosnia is now trying hard to become a protectorate of the European Union, a natural consequence of centuries of foreign domination and its effect on the Bosniak national character. However, Bosnia is not expected to get this protectorate before the Ottoman Empire does. No matter, as long as they get in before Serbia.Why can't the BBC use the word terrorist? Guidelines force reporters to describe Kenyan mall attackers as'militants'
BBC journalists have avoided using 'terrorist' and 'terrorism' in reports
Critics say BBC is 'out of touch' and guilty of 'covering' for the jihadists
Corporation's guidelines suggest avoiding the use of the word 'terrorism'
Say it's a 'difficult and emotive subject with significant political overtones'
The BBC was criticised yesterday for not describing the armed jihadists behind the Kenya shopping centre siege as terrorists.
The corporation’s journalists have avoided using the words ‘terrorist’ and ‘terrorism’ in reports.
Instead, they described the terrorists as ‘Islamist militants’ or ‘suspected Al Shabaab militants’ - and only used the word terrorist in when quoting someone else.
Beating around the bush? BBC News coverage of the violence in Nairobi, Kenya, has repeatedly referred to the perpetrators as'militants', rather than the using the word terrorists, leading to criticism from politicians
Critics said the BBC was guilty of ‘covering’ for the jihadists. One senior backbench MP said the BBC was ‘out of touch’ on the issue.
Douglas Murray, associate director of the Henry Jackson Society think-tank, said: ‘By not calling these jihadists what they actually are, the BBC is effectively covering for them.
‘No-one wants to say they are jihadis, which they are. No-one wants to say they are Islamic extremists, which they are.
‘Most people know what these people are and it’s only certain sections of government and the media which refuses to point the finger.’
Rob Wilson, Conservative MP for Reading East, said: ‘Most members of the British public would see the planned and systematic murder of dozens of innocent people in Kenya as terrorism.
BBC News presenter Ben Brown delivers the headlines: It is understood that BBC guidance issued to staff tells them to avoid using the term 'terrorist' without attribution, but politicians have reacted with anger
‘Sadly, the BBC looks like it has made a bad judgement call on this and is out of touch with ordinary people on a very important issue.’
'By not calling these jihadists what they actually are, the BBC is effectively covering for them' Douglas Murray, Henry Jackson Society
BBC guidelines suggest avoiding the use of the word 'terrorism' because it is a ‘difficult and emotive subject with significant political overtones’.
They state: ‘We try to avoid the use of the term “terrorist” without attribution. When we do use the term we should strive to do so with consistency in the stories we report across all our services and in a way that does not undermine our reputation for objectivity and accuracy.’
A BBC spokesman said: ‘There has been no specific advice issued for this story. We always think very carefully about the language we use.
Terrorists: A picture circulating on Twitter which is believed to show the gunmen in the Westgate mall
‘We do not ban words but the BBC does have general guidelines about accurate and careful language, depending on the context of a story.
'Sadly, the BBC looks like it has made a bad judgement call on this and is out of touch with ordinary people on a very important issue' Rob Wilson, Conservative MP
‘The BBC has referred to the events as a terror attack and has at times referred to the attackers as terrorists and at other times as militants, or used other phrases which are accurate and help tell the story.’
In January David Cameron criticised the corporation for describing those behind the Algerian hostage attack as ‘militants’.OMG — NPM clone that finally makes sense
Alex Kras Blocked Unblock Follow Following Apr 21, 2017
Since basically everything I assumed in this article was false, I am not going to waste your time and will link all of the updates first. I wrote a follow up article to explore in depth main differences between npm, yarn, and pnpm.
To set the story, I was impressed by a package manager called pnpm, which competes with Yarn and NPM itself. It is a cool project, but for reasons other than I initially assumed. I’ll leave my original article in the end, just to show how confused and naive my initial post was.
Please do check out the post by author of pnpm, that promoted this conversation:
Update 1: Yarn also creates a cache
yarn cache dir
yarn cache ls
The real difference appears to be that Yarn copies files from cache and pnpm does not: https://www.kochan.io/nodejs/why-should-we-use-pnpm.html.
Update 2: Pnpm creates hardlinks, not symlinks as I originally thought. From ln man page:
By default, ln makes hard links. A hard link to a file is indistinguishable from the original directory entry; any changes to a file are effectively independent of the name used to reference the file. Hard links may not normally refer to directories and may not span file systems.
A symbolic link contains the name of the file to which it is linked. The referenced file is used when an open(2) operation is performed on the link. A stat(2) on a symbolic link will return the linked-to file; an lstat(2) must be done to obtain information about the link. The readlink(2) call may be used to read the
contents of a symbolic link. Symbolic links may span file systems and may refer to directories.
Update 3: Zoltan K author of pnpm provided more context (in the comments) on Yarn vs pnpm differences.
Modules are copy/pasted from yarn’s global cache to project’s node_modules folders. As a result, packages are copy/pasted a lot on the disk.
pnpm does not copy/paste from its global store. It uses hard links. For Node.js there is no difference between a hard link and an actual copy/paste. However, when using hard links, packages are physically in one place on the disk. Disk space usage is very effective this way. And I assume linking is faster than copying.
pnpm hard links all the needed modules from the store into the projects node_modules. After that, it creates the dependency tree using symlinks. The dependency tree is not flat. It looks flat because it has a constant depth. It can have a constant depth because packages are symlinked into each-other’s node_modules folders, not copy/pasted
Update 4: Some more feedback from Yarn and NPM team on Twitter, including this link from Sebastian:
You can get to Twitter feed bellow:
Update 5: NPM also creates cache … ( I feel dumber and dumber the more this story unfolds).
Original Post
Last week I came across a yet another NPM clone, called pnpm, but unlike other clones (cough Yarn) this one is actually interesting!
What so interesting about it? One word — SYMLINKS (Correction HARDLINKS).
In few more words, instead of having to re-download libraries over and over and over (and over and over, I wonder if I made my point…) again every time you run npm install in a new folder, pnpm will download that version of the library once in some global context and will create a hardlink to this library when you run the pnpm install command.
So your node_modules folder will look something like this:
This way you get the benefits of only having to download the library once AND being able to freely pick what libraries/versions to use on per project basis.
Now that is really cool!
If this sounds interesting to you, please check out this post by the author explaining his take on how pnpm compare to yarn and npm.ADVERTISEMENT
The House grudgingly approved a plan on Tuesday to finance the federal government for another three weeks, but a whopping 54 Republicans broke ranks and voted against the deal. Speaker John Boehner all but conceded afterward that, since he can't count on his caucus' conservative members, he'll have to compromise with Democrats to pass a budget for the full fiscal year and avoid a government shutdown. Will Boehner give up on the big spending cuts the GOP promised the Tea Party set? (Watch a local report about Boehner's concessions)
Yes, Boehner is caving: The Speaker would have "preferred to ignore Democrats," says Steve Benen at Washington Monthly, but, "thanks to his own [divided] caucus, that's no longer an option." With the Tea Partiers refusing to budge even a little, Boehner now needs "the votes of House Democrats just to keep the government's lights on." In short, Boehner can't get anything done without giving Democrats at least some of what they want.
"Why Boehner will need Dems' help to thread the budget needle"
No, he has to stick with his own team: Democrats want Boehner to think surrender is his only option, says Jonathan Strong at The Daily Caller. But many Republicans have already defected over the temporary spending deals, saying they don't cut enough, and they'll really get mad if Boehner starts ceding ground. If Boehner wants to accomplish what he set out to do, he'll have to unite his own caucus and "take a harder line" with Democrats.
"Schumer to Boehner: Ditch the Tea Party, join us!"
Boehner loses either way: There are no good options left for Boehner, says Brian Beutler at Talking Points Memo. If he "kowtows to his right flank," he's stuck with a plan the Democratic Senate will never approve, and a government shutdown he doesn't want. If he makes "significant concessions to win Democratic votes," he'll keep the government running, but "further delegitimize himself with the Tea Party base." Checkmate.
"Checkmate: No good moves for Boehner in spending fight"KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - At least 20 Afghan policemen were killed in Taliban ambushes in south central Afghanistan, officials said on Sunday, the latest in a string of insurgent attacks that come as the NATO-led military mission considers sending thousands of additional troops to the war-torn nation.
Fighting is ongoing in Zabul province, where the police were attacked in Shah Joi district, provincial governor Bismullah Afghanmal said. He said the Taliban had ambushed police in the areas of Chino and Ghulam Rabat.
“The report we have right now indicates that 20 policemen are martyred and 10 others are wounded. The number may increase,” Afghanmal told Reuters.
Dozens of Taliban fighters were also reported killed and wounded, Afghanmal said.
The attacks were part of “Operation Mansouri,” the Taliban spring offensive announced at the end of April, the group said in a statement.
“So far several enemy posts have been overrun, inflicting heavy tolls on [the] enemy as well as seizing a good deal of ammunition,” the statement said, adding that fighters had also overrun a government checkpoint in Zabul’s Qalat district.
Reinforcements sent to the area where the police had been ambushed were also attacked, said Gul Islam Seyal, a spokesman for the Zabul governor.
Fighting was also ongoing in Zabul’s Dai Chopan district, but the extent of casualties was unknown, Afghanmal said.
In neighboring Ghazni province, Taliban fighters launched a three-pronged attack on parts of the provincial capital on Friday, driving a Humvee packed with explosives into the entrance of a district governor’s compound during the assault.
Separately on Sunday, Taliban claimed responsibility for a deadly attack on Saturday on a bank in Paktia province, which left at least six people dead, including three attackers.
The Taliban offensives come as American and allied officials are considering whether to send 3,000 to 5,000 more military advisers to help train and assist the Afghan security forces battling a 16-year-long insurgency led by the Taliban.
So far, U.S. President Donald Trump, who took office in January, has offered little clarity about whether he might approve more forces for Afghanistan, where some 8,400 U.S. troops remain despite the declared end of combat operations at the end of 2014.
U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Friday he had not yet made a recommendation on troop levels, but would be presenting his plan to Trump soon.Some basic data that might be handy for people to know in the wake of Grand Prix – Richmond (and any future large tournaments).
Some basic ground rules before I get started, though:
1) Much of this stuff was originally devised/sorted out/turned into tools by the European scorekeeping cadre, so consider this blanket credit to them for much of this data. Federico Calo, Martin Golm, and others I’m sure I’m not even aware of should be recognized for doing the best they can with the tools we’ve got. Speaking of which …
2) This is going to be another one of those posts where, “well, the software shouldn’t work that way,” isn’t going to be a valid answer, unfortunately. For now, what we’ve got is what we’ve got and we have to do the best we can under those confines. Arguments that some of these “decisions” aren’t the best possible for tournament integrity are well founded and reasonable, they just aren’t anything that we can address with the tools we currently have on hand. It’s an issue that people know about, though, and it is being worked on.
All righty, let’s go.
First of all, let’s talk about the degrees of large. There are actually two different axes that people are talking about when they refer to large tournaments. In one sense, they’re just talking about a large number of players, and this runs into a potential software limitation that changes how we have to run tournaments that have more than 1998 players |
During our recent cover story trip for Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, we chatted with various members of Naughty Dog about its award-winning franchise. While at the studio, the team reiterated it is done with Nathan Drake, feeling it had wrapped up his story perfectly and to open it back up would be a disservice to Uncharted 4. But is it done with the series, or is The Lost Legacy an attempt to see if it can be successful without Drake?
Naughty Dog co-president Evan Wells is excited about the opportunity to dive into Chloe's story and return to a fan favorite in the The Lost Legacy, but he insists that Naughty Dog doesn't have some grand plan to do Uncharted serially or create more side stories with other characters. "I would say that Naughty Dog doing an Uncharted after this is unlikely," he says. "I would never say never, but we've got The Last of Us Part II on our plates and there's so much other stuff that [we want to explore]. It'd be hard. If we magically had that two-team, three-team studio, sure – it'd be great to keep doing it. We really love the franchise, but the studio has limited resources and lots of other ideas. I'd say the likelihood is low."
There you have it. Another entry isn't completely off the table, but after working on Uncharted for over a decade, Naughty Dog wants to explore other ideas.
For more on our recent cover story, check out our hub below, which will have new features all through the month on Uncharted: The Lost Legacy.MSNBC host Rachel Maddow on Tuesday night slammed Fox News over their “hyped up” coverage of Romney campaign national finance committee co-chair Frank VanderSloot.
“What they are doing this time is that they are trying to take us on a new national trip, like they’ve done before, but their new one involves accusing President Obama of terrorism,” she said. “The President is a terrorist, a political terrorist, and they’re not just saying this on the sometimes wacky Fox News website, but they are saying this on their prime time programming.”
VanderSloot, the owner of Melaleuca, is one of biggest donors to Restoring Our Future, the super PAC backing Mitt Romney. Quoting a media report, a blog associated with the Obama campaign said VanderSloot was a “litigious, combative, and a bitter foe of the gay rights movement.”
Following the blog post, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly claimed the President of the United States was trying to “ruin” VanderSloot. However, VanderSloot had been the subject of negative media coverage for months.
“Mr. VanderSloot is now the star of the new Fox News hyped alternate reality conservative media scandal that makes sense to nobody outside the conservative media sphere,” Maddow said.
“The Romney campaign national finance committee co-chair has re-invented this story, to say all of these repercussions for him in his private life and his business started months after he used to say they started,” she added. “He is now saying the stuff he started complaining about back in March actually didn’t start until late April, after the President got involved.”
Watch video, courtesy of MSNBC, below:
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economyWe’ve been following the ST1080 head mounted display from Silicon Micro Display for the last few months. The company is finally getting ready to put their first product out on the market after some delays, and have announced that pre-orders for the 1080p head mounted display will begin on March 1st. In addition to the pre-order date, the company has announced a $100 discount for the first 21 days of pre-ordering.
The ST1080 was officially price at $799 in December but daring early adopters will be able to snag it for $699 from March 1-21st. It’s nice that Silicon Micro Display is giving early adopters this little gift — much better than slashing prices shortly after launch and angering those that were willing to give the product a try!
Initial orders will be limited to the US, though the company says they are working out the specifics for distribution in other countries and will have more detailed info in the coming weeks.
The ST1080 will be the first consumer-targeted 1080p head mounted display once it reaches the marketplace. The screen technology that Silicon Micro Display is using is not your typical LCD, but rather a novel technology called LCoS (liquid crystal on silicon). This technology allows the ST1080 to retain 10% transparency so that you can still see your surroundings while donning the HMD. For a full list of ST1080 specs, see here.
In addition to the consumer version of the ST1080, the ST1080 DDK (display development kit) is now available from Silicon Micro Display for $8000. Don’t let that scare you though — the company provides additional resources that are important for developers along with the DDK:
The DDK has the same specifications as the ST1080 and includes two display modules, driver electronics, control software, register map, interface hardware, available in a 3D-printed evaluation case, and limited engineering support.
The DDK is not sold directly and requires that you contact the company to inquire about purchasing one.Two years ago I weighed in on the topic of overrated Chicago Bears' players and my thoughts haven't changed since then.
Day 25: Which Chicago Bears' player is the most overrated of all time?
Nathan Vasher lucked into more interceptions than any Bears' player that I can remember. He had 13 in his first two years as a Bear, but only 6 during the next, often injury plagued, 4 years in Chicago. He wasn't a very physical player, but he was playing in a Tampa 2 defense that asked its defensive backs to be physical.
In 2013 when I first talked about Vasher being overrated, I wrote;
He received a bunch of fortunate-bounce interceptions, and I always thought Corey Graham should have replaced him after he filled in during the '08 season.
In 2008 Vasher started 7 of the 8 games he appeared in and he had 21 total tackles. Graham started the 9 games at cornerback that Vasher missed and he played as a reserve in the other 7 games, but he racked up 91 total tackles. For some reason head coach Lovie Smith went right back to Vasher the following season and he kept Graham near the bench until he finally let him play some nickel in 2010.
Vasher's 108 yard return for a touchdown off a missed field goal in 2005 was a thing of beauty and it was the cherry on top of a Pro Bowl season for him, but Vasher was a less than average player for the majority of his career. And even in that 2005 season I thought Vasher was outplayed by his teammate Charles Tillman, but it took until 2011 before Tillman was finally rewarded with a Pro Bowl nod.
Now it's your turn, who do you peg as the most overrated Chicago Bear of all time?
And just in case you've missed any, here are all of our challenges so far:
Day 1: Earliest Chicago Bears Memory
Day 2: Favorite Bears Memory
Day 3: All Time favorite Bears Wide Receiver
Day 4: Favorite Place to Watch the Bears
Day 5: Least Favorite Bear of All Time
Day 6: All Time favorite Bears quarterback
Day 7: If the Bears could retire one more number...
Day 8: All Time Favorite Bears Running Back
Day 9: All Time Favorite Bears Tight End
Day 10: If you could take 1 historical Bear...
Day 11: All Time Favorite Bears Special Teamer
Day 12: All Time favorite Chicago Bears coach
Day 13: Most hated opposing player of all time
Day 14: Most hated opposing coach of all time
Day 15: Most Respected Opposing Player of All Time
Day 16: Favorite current Chicago Bears player
Day 17: Favorite Bears' team of All Time
Day 18: All Time favorite Bears linebacker
Day 19: The free agent that got away
Day 20: Current player you wish the Bears had on their roster
Day 21: Bears Player to Have a Beer With
Day 22: All time favorite Bears offensive lineman
Day 23: All time favorite Bears defensive lineman
Day 24: Least favorite current Chicago BearRepublicans vote to shred Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a place I worked to protect
Culture By Will Brendza
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) is an unsullied American frontier, the kind of place that boldly reminds the world how wild this planet was before mankind. It offers an introspective kick in the chest to anyone who’s forgotten how utterly unnecessary our industries are, or how fleeting our place in history truly is.
And, thanks to a recent Republican initiative, America’s fossil fuel industry is preparing to ravage the pristine frontier for good.
I worked there last summer, on a conservation film aimed to protect the mind-bending beauty of the region. The experience left an impression on me I’ll never shake: a fear born from love and admiration that still makes my guts tingle. It is a wilderness so brutally massive, one feels microscopic in its midst. The wildlife is also so bizarre and distinct it seems like a place pulled off the pages of a fantasy novel: wolves prowl the underbrush, eagles soar overhead, and grizzly bears regularly lumber about, fishing for monstrous salmon in frigid rivers that cut through the Brooks mountains and across the rolling green tundra like snaking saw blades.
And, of course, there’s the porcupine caribou herd, a thundering mob of beasts 170,000 strong. It stampedes every summer across the refuge in their frenzied, annual migration. It is a virgin wild, a rare and dazzling Arctic Eden.
The refuge exists about as far north as one can go while still standing on American soil. Tucked against the Arctic Ocean and Canadian border, it sits in the Northeastern corner of Alaska, squarely in the Arctic Circle, deeply remote and far removed from the minds of most Americans.
I was there helping an environmental filmmaker by the name of Florian Schulz, on a project titled simply, The Refuge. Our mission: bring the immense beauty and magnitude of that region home. We were to capture its magic on camera so people who’ve never seen the ANWR, or known it in any way, would be inspired to stand up for it, and to protect it. As is so desperately needed.
Because the ANWR is rich, not only in biodiversity and natural beauty, but also in oil and natural gas reserves. There are subterranean seas of fuel that have had oil and gas companies salivating like hungry dogs for decades. Environmental conservation groups have fought tooth and nail to keep those hounds out since the refuge was established in 1960. But pressure from special interests has made it an uphill battle. It’s a fight that is now one step closer to being lost forever.
This past November 15, a Wednesday, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee voted in favor of opening up the ANWR for resource development. They want to pimp the refuge out to oil and gas companies like a whore. Their excuses are the same as always: “Job creation,” “balancing the federal budget” and “American energy independence” … but at its core, it’s simply about money.
Money to poison Arctic rivers with the inevitable “leaks” and “spills”; money to build pipelines over fox dens and snow goose nesting areas; money to spew toxic fumes into the air where eagles fly over land they used to hunt.
It is exactly the kind of legislation Schulz’s film aims to prevent. We spent the better part of a month camping out in the heart of that wilderness, traveling by bush plane and helicopter, lugging camera equipment over vast distances and tracking caribou across the land to do so.
But those difficulties were nothing compared to the reward: being a part of the stunning land and the majesty of the life that thrives. In my time there, we filmed thousands of caribou surging over the tundra, ambushed by wolves and grizzly bears as they went, crossing frigid rivers with their young in tow and climbing over jagged mountain peaks. It was like glimpsing through a window in time, at a long-ago world unbroken by man, a pre-historic drama on a naturally epic scale.
I became quickly convinced that the ANWR was one of America’s greatest, and most valuable, treasures. With each passing day, my dedication to protect it, and desire to share its beauty with the world, grew.
And for a short while afterwards, it seemed like our work was paying off. President Obama used clips from The Refuge in an ad to promote protection of the ANWR as a proper Federal Wilderness Area. Which would have kept it indefinitely safe from exploitation. Things were looking hopeful. The future was brightening up. After almost 60 years of fighting to keep oil and gas developers out of the ANWR, it felt like we were finally on the brink of establishing its protection once and for all.
That was, until we got a new president.
The Trump administration’s rotten worldview puts no value in preserving the environment in any discernable way. This isn’t any secret. In fact, as president, Trump has actively and openly made moves to hurt the environment and backtrack conservation efforts. His administration pushed the Dakota Access Pipeline through, despite massive months-long protests, and is encouraging the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. It's also paving the way for the soon-to-be disastrous Pebble Mine.
It was no surprise then when the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee voted 13-10 in favor of legislation that would open the ANWR to resource developers, offering it up like a virgin sacrifice to please their fossil fuel overlords.
It’s a nightmare Republicans have chased for years. And it’s also a move that threatens something indescribably sacred. There will always be new, more profitable, more sustainable ways to produce energy, but there will never be another Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Destroying it for the sake of profit and fuel would be sacrilegious.
The oil industry has barely been around for 160 years — blinks of an eye to a place so primitive. The porcupine caribou herd, that colossal family of wild reindeer perpetually migrating across the ANWR, is so ancient, they once grazed alongside wooly mammoths some 2.4 million years ago.
Who are we to disrupt such natural harmony? How could we possibly excuse vandalizing something so old and balanced?
We don’t have that right. It isn’t ours to vandalize.
Of course, that won’t stop the fossil fuel industry, or their puppets in government. They don’t care what they destroy, so long as their hunger for profit is satisfied. It’s an ugly thought to entertain, but unless they’re stopped, millions of years of life and evolution and natural history will be desecrated.
Ruined for the sake of petty politicians and greedy corporate mongers who won’t even outlive the money they make in the process.
[all photos courtesy Will Brendza]What Americans think about climate change, by political allegiance
Get our daily newsletter Upgrade your inbox and get our Daily Dispatch and Editor's Picks.
RESEARCHERS at Yale University have been tracking American opinion on climate change for some years now and showing how it differs according to political allegiance. It has not previously looked at the opinions of respondents who identify with the Tea Party. Tea Partiers, unsurprisingly, tend not to believe in the phenomenon (the 53% who don't believe in global warming just outnumber the 52% who don't believe humans evolved from other animals) and are the most strongly opposed to all sorts of government action on the issue (yet quite keen, like majorities in all sorts of polling, on research into new energy sources). They also distinguish themselves in their assessment of their knowledgeability, with 30% considering themselves very well informed on the issue and a majority happy that it needs no more information on the subject. Where this certainty comes from the poll does not really reveal; when asked about possible sources of information on the subject, from television weathermen to scientists to the government, Tea Partiers were much more likely to react with strong distrust than any other group. However, they were not asked about blogs, and it is interesting that they were far more likely to say they knew about "Climategate", a massive release of e-mails by climate scientists that has been a staple of the blogosphere, than any other group.* Author pulls out of 70-strong team writing climate summary
* UN panel says document cannot mirror views of every author
* Report is guide for governments cutting greenhouse gases
By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent
OSLO, March 27 (Reuters) - One of the 70 authors of a draft U.N. report on climate change said he had pulled out of the writing team because it was “alarmist” about the threat.
Richard Tol told Reuters he disagreed with some findings of the summary to be issued in Japan on March 31.
“The drafts became too alarmist,” the Dutch professor of economics at Sussex University in England said by telephone from Yokohama, Japan, where governments and scientists are meeting to edit and approve the report.
But he acknowledged some other authors “strongly disagree with me”.
The final draft says warming will disrupt food supplies, slow economic growth, and may already be causing irreversible damage to coral reefs and the Arctic.
“The report is a product of the scientific community and not of any individual author,” the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said in a statement. “The report does not comprehensively represent the views of any individual.”
It said Tol notified it in September that he was withdrawing from the team writing the summary. He had been invited to Japan to help the drafting and is also the coordinating lead author of a sub-chapter about economics.
Tol, who has sometimes been at odds with other scientists in the past by pointing to possible benefits from global warming, had not made his pullout widely known until now.
The report will help governments prepare a deal to cut rising greenhouse gas emissions, mainly by shifting from fossil fuels to renewable energies, at a summit in Paris in late 2015.
RISK AND OPPORTUNITY
Tol said the IPCC emphasised the risks of climate change far more than the opportunities to adapt. A Reuters count shows the final draft has 139 mentions of “risk” and 8 of “opportunity”.
Tol said farmers, for instance, could grow new crops if the climate in their region became hotter, wetter or drier. “They will adapt. Farmers are not stupid,” he said.
He said the report played down possible economic benefits of low levels of warming. Less cold winters may mean fewer deaths among the elderly, and crops may grow better in some regions.
“It is pretty damn obvious that there are positive impacts of climate change, even though we are not always allowed to talk about them,” he said. But he said temperatures were set to rise to levels this century that would be damaging overall.
Another expert criticised Tol, saying his IPCC chapter exaggerated possible benefits.
“Of the 19 studies he surveyed only one shows net positive benefits from warming. And it’s the one he wrote,” said Bob Ward, policy and communications director of the Grantham Research Unit on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics.
The IPCC summary says warming of 2.5 degrees Celsius (4.5 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times will reduce world economic income by between 0.2 and 2.0 percent a year.
Among rare examples of past dissent within the IPCC, Richard Landsea, a U.S. meteorologist, pulled out of the last report published in 2007, accusing the IPCC of overstating evidence that global warming was aggravating Atlantic hurricanes. (Reporting by Alister Doyle; editing by Andrew Roche)With just over two weeks until the launch of Windows 10, Microsoft is shifting the hype train into high gear. Corporate VP Yusuf Mehdi published an article on the Windows blog today outlining all the ways that the company plans to celebrate the release of its latest operating system on Wednesday, July 29th.
DON’T MISS: One of the best Google Maps features just got even better
It’s a three-pronged approach, the first step of which involves a series of special events in 13 cities around the world: Sydney, Tokyo, Singapore, Beijing, New Delhi, Dubai, Nairobi, Berlin, Johannesburg, Madrid, London, Sao Paolo, and New York City.
Mehdi says that attendees at these events with be able to go hands on with new products and software as well as meet members of the Windows team. Microsoft has also partnered with several retailers to ensure that they will be able to help consumers upgrade to Windows 10 and take all of their data with them.
What’s more, over 110 Microsoft Stores in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico will host fan celebrations on the 29th with “Windows 10 pop-up demo experiences, prizes, giveaways and more.”
The second part of the celebration is Microsoft’s global Windows 10 advertising campaign, which begins on July 20th with the release of TV and digital ads for the upgrade. That’s right — prepare for Windows 10 commercials as early as next week.
Finally, Microsoft is launching an initiative called “Upgrade Your World,” a $10 million investment in over 100 local and global nonprofit organizations that are doing their part to upgrade the world around them. You can read more about the initiative at windows.com/upgradeyourworld and watch a short video below.A new art exhibit is taking aim at the subject of gun violence.
“Up In Arms: A Creative Response to Gun Violence” features 100 protest posters created by about 45 artists, all dealing with firearms. The free exhibit runs through July 28 at the Steynberg Gallery in San Luis Obispo.
Event co-organizer Melinda Forbes said the purpose of “Up in Arms” is “to give people a voice and a venue” to discuss gun violence.
“What we’re hoping to do is generate some thought about what we can do to make this country safer and saner,” Forbes said.
“Up in Arms” is sponsored by The Peace Library, a community-based collaborative art project created by Forbes and Julie Frankel in 2002. Over the years, they’ve organized several exhibits of artists’ books dealing with the subjects of war and peace.
Community activist Jeanne Kinney recently approached the two about creating an art show in response to December’s Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Conn., which left 20 children and six adult staff members dead.
“We thought, ‘This really is the current topic of The Peace Library, more so than foreign policy,” Frankel said.
Forbes and Frankel chose protest posters, rather than artists’ books, as a more informal, approachable medium.
According to the organizers, the posters on display at the Steynberg Gallery – created by artists from San Luis Obispo County and elsewhere -- run the gamut.
“Some of it’s very tender. Some of it’s extreme. Some of it’s very funny,” explained Forbes, who used buttons, lace and delicate embroidery to create “Lay Down Your Arms,” a Madonna-like image of mother and child.
Mark Bryan’s “Security Magazine” offers a black-and-white parody of a magazine cover complete with article titles such as “Glock Talk” and “Fear Is Your Friend,” while Mark Bieraugel’s “¡Cuidado!” features hand-embroidered outlines of a man, woman and child with targets hovering, halo-like, above their heads. With "Happiness is a Warm Kitten," a play on The Beatles song “Happiness Is a Warm Gun,” Lynn Hessler offers a cute, cuddly alternative to firearms.
Frankel created four pieces for the show, including “Wayne’s World,” which pairs a portrait of National Rifle Association spokesman Wayne LaPierre with quotes and images of firearms. Frankel said she was inspired by the 1992 movie “Wayne’s World” and its tagline: “You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. You’ll hurl.”
“That really sums it up for me and the NRA,” she said with a laugh. “I just couldn’t resist.”
Although “Up In Arms” was open to all different viewpoints, the organizers said the majority of the pieces they received are in favor of gun control.
One piece that directly addresses Second Amendment rights is Frankel’s "Living One Day at a Time," which takes its text from a letter by San Luis Obispo physician Steve Sainsbury published in New Times in June. In the letter, which opens with the line “Hi, my name is Steve and I’m a gun-aholic,” Sainsbury details a 1975 incident in which his.22 pistol accidentally discharged, seriously injuring a 16-year-old Explorer Scout.
“Our goal isn’t necessarily to change people’s minds or make a convincing argument” for or against gun control, Frankel said, but to open the floor for dialogue. “One of the pluses of an art exhibit is it’s not a debate. It’s a chance to think about these ideas and about your own ideas.”
In order to keep the conversation going, organizers have installed a letter-writing station in the gallery.
“We’re providing writing materials and stamps and a quiet place to think,” Forbes said.
If you want to go
“Up in Arms: A Creative Response to Gun Violence” is open today through July 28 at the Steynberg Gallery, 1531 Monterey St. in San Luis Obispo. Gallery hours are 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Two more events are planned this month at the Steynberg Gallery in connection to “Up in Arms.”
Poets including Paula C. Lowe, Dian Sousa and Don Wallis will read from their work at 6:30 p.m. Saturday at “Poems Not Bullets,” a free event organized by Kevin Patrick Sullivan.
On July 20, San Luis Obispo singer-songwriter Erin Inglish will perform with Cambria folk duo Ranchers for Peace. Admission to the concert, which starts at 8 p.m., are $15 at the door.
For more information, email thepeacelibrary@gmail.com.The new advance holds great promise for people with hearing loss, but scientists won't know for years whether a similar treatment would really work in humans
In a promising early study, researchers from the U.K. restored hearing in deaf gerbils by using human embryonic stem cells. It’s an encouraging finding for some of the millions of people who suffer from hearing disorders.
“We have the proof of concept that we can use human embryonic stem cells to repair the damaged ear,” lead author Marcelo Rivolta, a stem cell biologist at the University of Sheffield, in England, told Nature News. “More work needs to be done, but now we know it’s possible.” The study was published in the journal Nature.
Hearing loss is typically caused by disruptions in the connection between the hair cells of the inner ear and the brain. Hair cells turn sounds into electrical signals, which are then carried by auditory neurons to the brain. In the new research, the researchers studied gerbils with damage to the auditory nerves and attempted to replace these cells with human embryonic stem cells.
(MORE: Study: Why Deafness May Improve Vision)
Stem cells can be coaxed into any type of cell in the body, and while they have been turned into auditory nerve cells before, this is the first study to show that such transplanted cells can actually restore hearing.
For the study, researchers used a chemical called ouabain to damage the auditory nerves of gerbils. Then, scientists injected stem cells that had been nurtured into immature nerve cells into the deafened ears of 18 gerbils; eight animals received no treatment. Ten weeks later, hearing in the animals that received the stem cells had improved by 46%, as measured by the brain stem’s response to sound. There was a range of improvement, with some gerbils regaining nearly full hearing and others progressing less, but on average, the animals’ hearing was improved “to the level that a person would be able to engage in conversation in a busy environment,” according to CNN.
Rivolta’s team also used stem cells to make progenitors of inner ear hair cells, which may also be able to treat more cases of hearing loss, but the researchers have yet to test these cells in studies.
(MORE: Scientists Turn Human Skin Cells Into Healthy Heart Cells)
It will be many years before scientists know whether the advance can benefit humans. “The next goals of any protocol are to gain higher levels of efficiency and reproducibility, determine protocol safety and confirm that transplantation leads to prolonged recovery,” Stefan Heller, a stem cell researcher from Stanford, who is also working on turning stem cells into hair cells, told Nature News. “Then we can think about patients.”ADVERTISEMENT Advertise here! GOP Senator to AIG execs: 'Resign or commit suicide' David Edwards and Rachel Oswald
Published: Tuesday March 17, 2009
Print This Email This Update at bottom: Grassley backtracks some on controversial remark Senator Charles Grassley delivered perhaps the most stinging rebuke yet to AIG executives responsible for their firm's near collapse. Rather than live in dishonor he suggested that the executives commit ritual suicide like the Japanese samurai of feudal times.
"I suggest, you know, obviously, maybe they ought to be removed," said Grassley in a radio station interview Monday. "But I would suggest the first thing that would make me feel a little bit better toward them if they'd follow the Japanese example and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say, I'm sorry, and then either do one of two things: resign or go commit suicide."
This is not the first time the Republican from Iowa, who is the top ranking GOP member of the Senate Finance Committee, has issued harsh criticisms of corporate executives but it's the first time he's suggested suicide.
"And in the case of the Japanese, they usually commit suicide before they make any apology," Grassley said.
Grassley spokesman Casey Mills hastened to do damage control by saying that the senator isn't calling for AIG executives to kill themselves, according to a report from the Associated Press.
"Senator Grassley has said for some time now that generally speaking, executives who make a mess of their companies should apologize, as Japanese executives do," Mills said. "He says the Japanese might even go so far as to commit suicide but he doesn't want U.S. executives to do that."
The federal government owns 80 percent of AIG thanks to a $170 billion bailout. The company lost $62 billion last quarter but that hasnt stopped AIG from deciding to issue $165 million in bonuses to the very division viewed responsible for the companys near collapse last year.
Public outrage at the bonuses is growing at an alarming rate. On Tuesday, The Washington Post reported that AIG was concerned enough to station guards outside AIG Financial Products.
The Post reported that death threats and angry letters have flooded e-mail inboxes of the division, which is located in Connecticut. "Irate callers lit up the phone lines. Senior managers submitted their resignations. Some employees didn't show up at all."
"It's a mob effect," one senior executive said told The Post. "It's putting people's lives in danger."
Some political analysts fear public anger has reached a tipping point, said CNN reporter Carol Costello. Voters are beyond angry and maybe even more leery of government bailouts and of course that could make things much more for difficult for President Obama although he and many others are trying to force AIG to give those bonuses back.
AIG has said theres nothing it can do as it is bound by pre-existing contracts obligating it to pay out the bonuses to employees and executives.
AIG chairman and CEO Edward Liddy said voiding the bonuses could lead to serious legal, as well as business consequences, for the company.
Congress will hold a hearing on Wednesday that will cover the AIG bonuses. Liddy is scheduled to testify.
The auto workers had a contract to. Theyre being asked to modify it, pointed out Rep. Carol Maloney (D-NY) to CNN, referencing the compromises agreed to by the United Auto Workers union that were necessary in order for the federal government to agree to the auto bailout in late 2008.
Maloney has plans to introduce legislation that will tax any bonus compensation at 100 percent.
Update: Grassley says suicide remark was just rhetoric but backtracks later Grassley defended his controversial remark on Tuesday when he was asked about it by MSNBC's David Shuster.
"I hope you recognize rhetoric," Grassley said. "I shouldn't even have to answer that question...This isn't the first time you heard me say this, that we need to have that deep bow before the American people with some sort of an apology, remorsefulness... Taxpayers are entitled to that and not giving out bonuses in this instance is a small recognition that things aren't right and that they owe the taxpayers a lot."
Shuster, however continued to press Grassley for his suicide remark saying, "I think the issue is because so many Americans have had experience with suicide in their own lives or own families that it's jarring to hear a member of the U.S. Senate bring it up. I wonder if you regret that?"
"I think I've stated that you ought to be able to tell rhetoric when you hear it," Grassley returned, still refusing to soften his statement.
However, Grassley backtracked not long after in a conference call with reporters where he said executives shouldn't commit suicide but should offer a formal apology to the public as is done by Japanese executives when caught in a scandal.
"What I'm expressing here obviously is not that I want people to commit suicide. That's not my notion," Grassley said Tuesday. "But I do feel very strongly that we have not had statements of apology, statements of remorse, statements of contrition on the part of CEOs of manufacturing companies or banks or financial services or insurance companies that are asking for bailouts."
DEVELOPING....
This video is from CNN's American Morning, broadcast Mar. 17, 2009.
Download video via RawReplay.com
Grassley doesn't regret saying AIG execs should 'commit suicide'
This video is from MSNBC's News Live, broadcast Mar. 17, 2009.
Download video via RawReplay.com
Get Raw exclusives as they break -- Email & mobile Email - Never spam:Since I’m now officially “out” to the town, I don’t have to hide out at Autumn’s when Mordecai has friends over. Okay, it’s more like Autumn and Tilly now refuse to let me hide out at Autumn’s place, something about me needing to socialize outside of school. So instead, I shut myself up in the room Tilly let me turn into my personal research and magic practice area. Occasionally, I can hear laughter or some other noise from Mordecai and his friends. It bleeds into my quiet place like an unwelcome chill.
I sigh and open the book on the pedestal, scanning the pages. The tome is ancient and massive and its pages are never quite the same. All I know is that the answers I seek are in this book. The hard part is uncovering it. The book doesn’t give up answers easily.
“Spending another night buried in musty books older than your legacy instead of with kids your age. How unusual.” A voice says from behind me.
I roll my eyes and look over my shoulder. Alex sits in a chair in the corner, his orange light casting a strange hue against the shadows. Alexander Hope, the ghost that saved me from being dragged away in Death’s current. He’s been around since then. I still haven’t told my family that I see ghosts. Autumn knows though, she’s figured it out.
“Shut up. I have more in common with you and these books than I do those kids out there.” I say.
“How do you know? You don’t know them.” He replies.
I turn to him. “You’re starting to sound like Tilly and Autumn. Do you want me out there with them too? In fact, I just might. Their company is probably more preferable than yours, you grumpy old man.”
He smiles. “You must get better at your insult, Zoey. I’ve heard kids younger than you come up with better ones. However, to answer your question, I could care less if you go out there with them. In fact, it might even be entertaining. I really am interested in how your power actually works.”
I shudder. “I’m not going out there and the fact that you’re wanting me to just so I can accidentally touch and kill one of them is horrible.”
His laughter fills the room. “I just said it to prove you’re not as big of a monster as you think you are. A real monster would kill with your power. You should think more highly of yourself, Zoey.”
“Whatever.” I mutter, turning back to the book.
Alex goes quiet but I know he’s still here. I read through the book slowly, trying to catch anything different. Sometimes whole pages will have changed, other times it’s more subtle than that. After a few minutes I find something on a new page.
“Alex, what’s ‘The Deatheater’?” I ask.
“Talk it out to yourself. I’m sure you’ll figure it out.” I hear him say, a smile in his voice. Alex says he likes to ‘help’ me, but for the most part he makes me figure things out myself. I just roll my eyes.
“Fine. If I take the name literally, it means something, or one, that eats death. So is it a person, or is it something else? Could it be the Reaper?” I begin to turn to him. “What the hell eats-“ I pause as I see a boy standing in the room with Mogget at his feet and Alex laughing in the chair.
“What the hell eats what?” The boy, one of Mordecai’s friends, Jack, asks.
“Uhh…spaghetti.” I reply. “What are you doing in here?”
He gives me a look like he’s amused at my horrible cover-up. “Name’s Jack. Mordecai invited me over.”
“Yes, I know who you are. You sit at my lunch table everyday. But why are you here, in this room?” I reply.
“Oh, your cat was hanging from the door knob. I was just letting him in.” He motions to Mogget.
“Uhm, great. Thanks.” I give a strained smile and turn back to the book. I’m hoping he takes that as his cue to leave. Unfortunately, I don’t hear him open the door and step out.
“This place is cool. Is it where you write spells and stuff?” He asks, stepping more into the room, looking around.
“No, I do not write |
ever going forward. Failing that, can we at least see him take on Watson, that "Jeopardy!"-playing computer from a few years back? We're pretty sure his responses would short out Watson's circuits.
* TV geek side note: The actual best Final Jeopardy! answer of all time came from Cliff Clavin on "Cheers," when he responded to the clue "Archibald Leach, Bernard Schwartz, and Lucille LeSueur" with "Who are three people who have never been in my kitchen?" But that was fictional, so we're giving Leonard the nod here. Still, it's pretty great:http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! http://shop.bbtv.com/collections/forgotten-weapons
During the transition from Dutch colonial rule to independence, the Dutch government armed a group of Papuans to help defend the territory from Indonesian military incursion. This organization was the Papuan Vrijwiliger Korps (Papua Volunteer Corps), and the Dutch provided them with Mauser carbines converted to 7.62mm NATO.
These carbines were originally Dutch police carbines chambered for 8mm Mauser, which the police forces were replacing with M1 Carbines. This left a group of several thousand compact and simple carbines that made an ideal basis for the Papuan arms. A total of 2700 were rechambered for 7.62mm (it was not known at that point which new semiauto rifle would be adopted by the Dutch military, but it would definitely use the 7.62mm NATO cartridge). Magazine blocks were installed to fit the shorter cartridge length, and the guns were fitted with rubber buttplates, given new bayonets, and parkerized to make them more durable in the Papuan environment.
It is not known how many of the carbines actually made it to New Guinea, but a substantial number certainly did. They are extremely rare carbines today, as the Papua Volunteer Corps was an ill-fated group and only lasted from 1961 until 1963, with most of their arms being ultimately seized by the Indonesian military. This example was shared with me by a generous Dutch collector.
If you enjoy Forgotten Weapons, check out its sister channel, InRangeTV! http://www.youtube.com/InRangeTVShowSpider-Man: Homecoming webs up $50.5 million on Friday
Marvel Studios and Sony Pictures‘ Spider-Man: Homecoming has leaped out of the gate with an impressive $50.5 million opening on Friday, including $15.4 million from Thursday previews. The film is on track to become Sony’s second-highest opening of all time and the second-highest opening for a Spider-Man film, after Spider-Man 3. The wallcrawler’s return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe is set to take in $119 – $121 million this weekend and has already nabbed an A CinemaScore from audiences.
Directed by Jon Watts, Spider-Man: Homecoming stars Tom Holland, Michael Keaton, Zendaya, Donald Glover, Jacob Batalon, Laura Harrier, Tony Revolori, Tyne Daly, Bokeem Woodbine, with Marisa Tomei and Robert Downey Jr.
RELATED: Spider-Man Origins and Evolutions
You can read our Spider-Man: Homecoming reviews here and here. You can view all our previous Spider-Man: Homecoming coverage by clicking here.
A young Peter Parker / Spider-Man (Tom Holland), who made his sensational debut in Captain America: Civil War, begins to navigate his newfound identity as the web-slinging super hero in Spider-Man: Homecoming. Thrilled by his experience with the Avengers, Peter returns home, where he lives with his Aunt May (Marisa Tomei), under the watchful eye of his new mentor Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.). Peter tries to fall back into his normal daily routine – distracted by thoughts of proving himself to be more than just your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man – but when the Vulture (Keaton) emerges as a new villain, everything that Peter holds most important will be threatened.
RELATED: Your Complete Guide to the Spider-Man High School Years
Spider-Man: Homecoming was written by Jonathan Goldstein & John Francis Daley, Jon Watts & Christopher Ford, and Chris McKenna & Erik Sommers. The film is produced by Kevin Feige and Amy Pascal, and executive produced by Louis D’Esposito, Victoria Alonso, Patricia Whitcher, Jeremy Latcham, and Stan Lee.
A Spider-Man: Homecoming sequel is already scheduled for July 5, 2019 and Tom Holland recently confirmed a third film is also in the works
[Gallery not found]Gov. Jerry Brown was expected this week to sign a package of bills that would finally create statewide rules for medical marijuana dispensaries.
The legislation requires pot-selling collectives to obtain state and city permits. The city of Los Angeles doesn't offer such a permit. In fact, dispensaries are technically prohibited in town. Proposition D, approved by city voters in 2013, only provides "limited immunity from... enforcement" to 135 shops open and compliant before a 2007 "interim control ordinance" on weed sellers was enacted locally.
Those stores, whittled down to 125 as a result of closures and lack of compliance, according to the City Attorney's Office, are commonly known as pre-ICO.
Continue Reading
An organization that represents a core group of those pre-ICO shops, the Greater Los Angeles Collective Alliance (GLACA), submitted input for the legislation. GLACA president and founder Yami Bolanos says the alliance isn't worried that the package of three bills will shut down medical marijuana retailing in L.A.
In fact, she says, "We feel it's a good thing."
Above-board cannabis operations have long wanted the state to step in and recognize their legitimacy. Without it, they have argued, operating in the Golden State has been like running a business in a legal gray area. Until now, for example, there was no such thing as a state permit for collectives.
"It's better to deal with it and regulate it," Bolanos told us. "Changes and amendments need to be made."
GLACA is confident that either the L.A. City Council will provide permits or the Legislature will come up with an amendment to the legislation that allows the pre-ICO dispensaries here to survive without such municipal paperwork.
"We've already started working on that," Bolanos said. "We're in the process of hiring a lobbyist and we're talking to City Council."
A representative of L.A.-area Assemblyman Reginald Byron Jones-Sawyer, who co-authored a key piece of the legislative package, said, "We plan to do cleanup legislation in January to address this issue."
The new rules will create the Bureau of Medical Marijuana Regulation under the state's Department of Consumer Affairs. Operators seeking permits would be subject to "in-depth investigation" by California authorities, according to a fact sheet.
Dispensaries would have to obtain a local license to operate, and "renewal of a state license is contingent upon continued compliance with local ordinances," the fact sheet says.
Rob Wilcox, a spokesman for the L.A. City Attorney's Office, said, "We will be analyzing the impact of this legislation and will be advising the mayor and City Council accordingly."
Los Angeles was originally allowed to keep its Proposition D framework for local shops — essentially an exemption from the local licensing requirement — but that caveat disappeared in final language.
California cities that expressly permit and license dispensaries do exist, by the way: San Francisco is one of them. So is West Hollywood.
Backers of the main piece of legislation, AB 266, say there was no opposition on record. That's a milestone. The California Police Chiefs Association, a powerful lobbying group oft opposed to anything pot-related, was on board. So was the League of California Cities, which hasn't always seen eye-to-eye with dispensary operators. Pro-pot group Americans for Safe Access was down with the law, too.
The office of Gov. Jerry Brown provided input and helped to shape the final language for all three bills (including SB 643 and AB 243) that compose the new rules.
Still, there's a lot of griping out there from dispensaries that didn't appear to register their distaste during the long process of negotiating this legislation.
Dave Hodges of the All American Cannabis Club in San Jose argues the package "was influenced a lot more by the League of California Cities than anyone else."
He estimates there are 2,500 dispensaries statewide (Bolanos thinks there are 1,500 in Los Angeles alone), and that only 300 would qualify to survive under the new rules.
"In order to control this, the locals have to come up with detailed regulations on how you can have one of these operations," Hodges told us. "It's pretty unfair for a city council to ban dispensaries without giving the people who live in that city a direct say in the matter."
Hodges thinks the rules are so restrictive that they'll only inspire collectives to operate illegitimately. The profit motive is too strong. "You're not going to get rid of this stuff," he said.
Timothy Norris/L.A. Weekly
Dale Gieringer, state coordinator of California NORML, which supported the legislation, says it was quite "an accomplishment... keeping everybody on board."
"I think it improved the final product," he said.
"Not everybody's happy," Gieringer admits. "But there are plenty of industry people praising it."
Bolanos of GLACA said those unhappy with the new rules should have been submitting input to lawmakers "instead of griping."
"Welcome to the adult world where you have to follow the law and regulations," she said. "That's what we've been begging for for years. Give us rules so we can be respected."
Of course, the rules heavily favor shops like the ones that belong to GLACA.
And, Bolanos says, her members expect that if recreational legalization is approved by voters next year, pre-ICO dispensaries would be the ones allowed to sell pot to anyone older than 21.
The dispensary rules aren't scheduled to take effect until 2018.Agriculture minister attacks Jona Weinhofen, an Australian musician living in California, over anti-wool campaign featuring a bloodied lamb with the words ‘here’s the rest of your wool coat’
Adelaide-born musician Jona Weinhofen, the man fronting a new anti-shearing campaign, is a “spiv” who is living in a “vegan wonderland in California”, agriculture minister Barnaby Joyce said.
Weinhofen is a long-time vegan and guitarist in the band I Killed the Prom Queen. He is the face of a campaign by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) circulating on social media in which he is holding up a bloodied lamb with the statement “here’s the rest of your wool coat” printed on the photograph.
Joyce said the animal was made of plastic.
“Shearers... feel completely insulted by what Mr Weinhofen is suggesting,” Joyce told journalists on Monday. “[Weinhofen] turned up with a prop and said it was a sheep.”
Farmers have pushed back against the claims on social media, saying the Peta campaign was lying about the realities of shearing.
Joyce said any shearer who played up or brutalised livestock would be sacked on the spot. He accused the musician being “living in vegan splendour”, saying shearers are “sick of having their noses rubbed in it by someone resplendent in their vegan wonderland in California”.
Joyce said Weinhofen is a “spiv” who “preaches back to the country”.
He warned that Peta would not rest until woollen clothing, cotton and synthetics were all eradicated.
“So it’s going to be a pretty interesting press conference we have here as we all stand here absolutely starkers, because that’s their aspiration,” Joyce said. “To be honest, if we go back to living as content hunter and gatherers on the forest floor bare butt- naked, I don’t think that is the idea of a successful economy.”
“It’s a cloud cuckoo land world that they want to take us to,” he said.
A spokeswoman for Peta said Joyce’s statements were an attempt to distract from the issue.
“The public has been shocked and disgusted to see the treatment of Australian sheep,” she said. “Rather than trying to distract from the very real issues at hand, the minister for agriculture should be looking to address the horrific abuse of these gentle animals.”
The spokeswoman would not confirm nor deny that the animal used in the campaign was a prop.
The RSPCA also has concerns about the way in which sheep are sheared, calling the process “an acute stressor”.
“Stress experienced by sheep during shearing can be reduced by handling sheep in a low-stress manner and ensuring shearers are trained and competent in best practice technique to reduce the risk of cutting the sheep,” a spokeswoman said.
“Requiring shearers to be accredited and ensuring recognised training programs incorporate principles of animal welfare, animal handling and the importance of good stockmanship is also highly recommended. Additionally creating an environment in the shearing shed where mistreatment of sheep is not tolerated is a must,” she said.
The wool industry is Australia’s third largest export earner, bringing in about $2.8bn annually.CHICAGO -- Two employees of a residential treatment center for troubled teens in Lake Villa are charged in the death of a 16-year-old resident following a struggle on Wednesday night, CBS Chicago reports.
Detective Chris Covelli with the Lake County Major Crimes task Force says Shaquan Allen was having behavioral issues at the Allendale Association residential treatment center.
Lake Villa Police Chief Craig Somerville says employees James Davis and Justin Serak were attempting to get him to his room.
"Officers were told by Allendale staff that the juvenile became unconscious during an effort to restrain him following a brief struggle," Somerville said.
Covelli said Davis had the teen by the throat and Serak was holding his legs and Covelli said both lied to investigators, saying all three slipped on water.
"It was later determined the water was caused by the defendants pouring water on the victim to attempt to wake him," Covelli said.
He said there were 15 witnesses.
The teen died of asphyxiation due to restraint.
Covelli said, "It's a tragic time for the family and we can't imagine the pain they're going through right now."
State's Attorney Mike Nerheim asked for a million dollars bond for Davis, who's charged with involuntary manslaughter and obstruction.
"We have a dead 16-year-old child, so I think a million dollars is appropriate," he said.
Serak is charged with obstruction and had his bond set at $50,000.
Nerheim said its troubling nobody called 911 for 15 minutes.
"Anytime you have a case like this it's a tragedy and that's always compounded when you have a child," he said.
The victim's family said they were told three different stories by Allendale staff.
"I wanna know how could this happen to my baby and nobody is telling me anything to let me know what's really going on," said the victim's mother, Willie Mae Allen.
The boy was a ward of the state and his mother said she pressed for him to be admitted to the facility because she didn't want to lose him to the streets.If you haven’t had a beer in the shower, are you really living? No. You’re not.
The shower beer is, without question, the most underrated way to consume alcohol. There are universal forces converging for an experience and feeling that just can’t be matched.
Here are 16 reasons why it doesn’t get much better than that shower beer. Oh, and if you love shower beers, make sure you check out the “Shower Beer Drinker.” t-shirt right here.
16. It signifies work being over.
15. It’s super refreshing.
14. It’s one of the most American things you can do.
13. You’re doing something totally awesome while you do something totally normal.
12. It tastes better in there, for whatever reason.
11. It makes for a killer Instagram post.
10. You’ll get some good thinking done.
9. You’re drinking a beer naked.
8. You’re drinking a beer.
7. It’s the perfect pregame.
6. You’re killing a couple birds with one stone.
5. It’s hot and cold in there.
4. If you spill, f*ck it, doesn’t matter in there.
3. It’s the ultimate relaxer.
2. It’s the best form of multitasking known to man. Plus, you can just pee right there, ya know?
1. You deserve it.Ready to fight back? Sign up for Take Action Now and get three actions in your inbox every week. You will receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here. Sign up for Take Action Now and get three actions in your inbox every week.
Thank you for signing up. For more from The Nation, check out our latest issue
Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month!
Support Progressive Journalism The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter. The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter.
Fight Back! Sign up for Take Action Now and we’ll send you three meaningful actions you can take each week. You will receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here. Sign up for Take Action Now and we’ll send you three meaningful actions you can take each week.
Thank you for signing up. For more from The Nation, check out our latest issue
Travel With The Nation Be the first to hear about Nation Travels destinations, and explore the world with kindred spirits. Be the first to hear about Nation Travels destinations, and explore the world with kindred spirits.
Sign up for our Wine Club today. Did you know you can support The Nation by drinking wine?
Here’s some good news: New York corrections officials today agreed to sweeping reforms of the state’s use of solitary confinement to discipline inmates, according to a statement by the New York Civil Liberties Union. Ad Policy
Among other significant changes, the agreement will make New York the largest state to ban solitary confinement for inmates under 18.
“New York State has done the right thing by committing to comprehensive reform of the way it uses extreme isolation, a harmful and inhumane practice that has for years been used as a punishment of first resort in New York’s prisons,” NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman said in a statement.
"These are important reforms that will make the disciplinary practices in New York’s prisons more humane, and ultimately, our state’s criminal justice system more fair and progressive, while maintaining safety and security,” said Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) Acting Commissioner Anthony J. Annucci.
Here are the agreement’s stipulations:
A ban on the use of solitary confinement to discipline inmates under 18.
Sixteen- and 17-year-old inmates, even those under “the most restrictive form of disciplinary housing,” shall receive five days of exercise and out-of-cell programming a week, with a max of nineteen hours of cell time a day.
A ban on the use of solitary confinement to discipline pregnant inmates.
A limit of thirty days of solitary confinement for inmates who are developmentally disabled, as well as the implementation of an alternative, rehabilitative program for developmentally disabled inmates who would otherwise be sentenced to solitary.
The establishment of a new assistant commissioner position, as well as an additional research staff position, to collect data and monitor New York’s disciplinary system “with the goals of promoting consistency and fairness of SHU (special housing units) confinement sanctions and the health, safety and security of inmates and staff.”
The creation of sentencing guidelines for disciplining inmates with confinement. With the exception of certain violent and drug offenses, guidelines do not currently exist for most infractions.
US District Judge Shira Scheindlin signed the agreement today, along with representatives from the NYCLU and the DOCCS.
The agreement came as a result of a class action lawsuit, Peoples v. Fischer, filed by the NYCLU in 2011, challenging the widespread use of solitary confinement in New York. About 3,800 prisoners in the state are currently locked in solitary confinement cells for twenty-two to twenty-four hours a day, according to the civil liberties group. The New York Times reports that attorneys will drop the lawsuit in two years if the agreement stipulations are met.Washington (CNN) US spy satellites have detected new activity at North Korea's underground nuclear test site for the first time in several weeks, two US officials told CNN.
The activity appears to involve some modifications around one of the tunnel entrances to an underground test area.
The officials said it is not yet clear if the activity indicates a sixth nuclear test is imminent, but noted there is concern that North Korea could set off a test during Wednesday's visit to Washington by top Chinese diplomats and military officials.
US officials have known that the site is ready to conduct an underground test for some time.
Two senior US officials with direct knowledge also told CNN that military options for North Korea have recently been updated, and will be presented to President Donald Trump for a decision to act if there is a nuclear test.
However, there is no indication whether any military response would actually happen.
US officials told CNN that if a sixth nuclear test by North Korea were to occur, it would be clear that the existing pressure by China on North Korea is not working. However, other senior US officials said the administration's policy hinges on pressuring North Korea through China.
Trump has often cited China, North Korea's longtime ally, as a key player in US efforts to rein in North Korea's quest to develop long-range nuclear missiles. But the US President took to Twitter on Tuesday to offer a grim assessment of China's role in restraining North Korea: "While I greatly appreciate the efforts of President Xi & China to help with North Korea, it has not worked out. At least I know China tried!"
Multiple US officials told CNN they are checking on what the President meant in his latest tweet about how China's efforts in North Korea have "not worked out."
One Trump administration official said bluntly they didn't know what the President was referencing when asked what the tweet meant. Another said there was no meeting earlier Tuesday that they believe could have spurred Trump's comment, and pushed back on the idea that the tweet could be a hint of some forthcoming diplomatic or military action.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer painted a rosier picture on Tuesday, telling reporters that the US is continuing to work with China to apply pressure on North Korea and said the US has seen "positive movement" with China.
The US will "continue to work with them and others to put the appropriate pressure on North Korea to change the behavior of this regime," Spicer said.
Asked whether Trump would still consider meeting with Kim Jong Un given the right conditions, Spicer said: "Clearly we're moving further away, not closer, to those conditions being met."
The Chinese have moved a bit toward restraining North Korea, but not enough for administration officials' taste -- and there is reason to be skeptical as to how much more they will move. But the US officials said it will be at least a year before they can evaluate whether the North Koreans are feeling pressure because of China.
In a recent exchange with Sen. Lindsay Graham on Capitol Hill, Defense Secretary James Mattis took an unusually specific stand on US military policy.
Graham asked: "Is it the policy of the Trump administration to deny North Korea the capability of building an (intercontinental ballistic missile) that can hit the American homeland with a nuclear weapon on top? Is that the policy?"
Mattis answered simply: "Yes."
Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson are hosting their Chinese counterparts on Wednesday for the US-China Diplomatic and Security Dialogue in Washington. At the bilateral talks tomorrow, officials say the US is looking to use trade as a weapon with China to put more pressure on North Korea.
Most estimates suggest that Kim's unpredictable regime is between three and five years away from achieving its nuclear ambitions.by Health At Every Size® Blog
by Michelle May, MD
Bias. Stereotyping. Prejudice. Discrimination. Bullying.
These ugly words describe a serious problem weight stigma. Our culture is entrenched in the belief that fat is bad, people with fat are bad, people who exceed a BMI of 25 are unhealthy, and that only a narrow range of body sizes are beautiful. Billions of dollars are spent trying to attain the cultural ideal, but the more we diet, the further we move from it.
Whether subtle or blatant, weight stigma is broadcast into our living rooms and shows up in our classrooms, break rooms, and exam rooms. For many of us, weight stigma hits even closer to home: right between our ears!
Making the invisible, visible
What beliefs about weight have you internalized? Are those beliefs helping you or harming you?
By internalizing this cultural bias, we condemn ourselves to living within its limitations. We allow the bully to move into our brains.
I’m not letting the bullies off the hook, but if you believe them, you become them.
What is the reality you are creating for yourself?
You can only change what you are aware of. Without awareness, you may repeat old, even painful, patterns simply because they are familiar. In other words, you create your own reality.
For example, you may have old tapes that sound something like this:
I’m too embarrassed to be seen exercising.
I can’t go to the gym until I’ve lost some weight.
I’m trying to eat healthy but I’m not losing weight—it doesn’t matter what I eat.
I’ll get diabetes because I can’t lose weight, so why change the way I eat?
I can’t eat what I love in public, so I’ll binge later in private.
I’ll never look like I did in high school, so why bother with healthy eating and exercise?
I don’t deserve someone who loves me because I’m too fat.
I don’t feel sexy because of my weight.
I don’t see how my partner can think I’m sexy so I thwart his/her attempts.
I don’t believe my husband when he tells me I’m beautiful.
I don’t want to go to the doctor because I regained the weight I lost.
I don’t take my blood pressure medicine because I know I should lose weight instead.
I won’t buy new clothes until I reach my goal weight.
If I was thinner, I would ask for that promotion.
I’d love to travel but I want to lose weight first.
I love to dance but I’m too embarrassed.
Making the impossible, possible
What if? What if you booted the bully from your brain? Ask yourself, “How could my life be different if I didn’t buy into those limitations?” See how the bullying thoughts above would change if you dropped the stigma.
I’m exercising.
I go to the gym.
I’m trying to eat healthy.
I’m at risk for diabetes so I’m changing the way I eat.
I’ll never look like I did in high school. I’m eating healthier and exercising.
I eat what I love.
I deserve someone who loves me.
I feel sexy.
My partner thinks I’m sexy.
My husband tells me I’m beautiful.
I go to the doctor.
I take my blood pressure medicine.
I buy new clothes.
I’m going to ask for that promotion.
I love to travel.
I love to dance so I do.
Boot the Bully from the Block
Take your power back. Boot the bully from your brain and embrace the Health at Every Size® paradigm! Then help us boot the bully from the block! To learn more: visit ASDAH’s website.
Share this: Twitter
Facebook
Email
Print
More
Reddit
Pinterest
Tumblr
Google
LinkedIn
Like this: Like Loading... RelatedOK, now I'm really confused (the snake and the peg) By Scott Sumner
Here’s an imaginary dialogue:
Student: So the central bank sets the level of interest rates, right?
Professor: Not really. It would be more accurate to say that interest rates mostly reflect the condition of the economy. Higher inflation and/or higher real growth causes higher nominal interest rates. I.e. NGDP growth is the main determinant of rates.
Student: So the central bank cannot control interest rates?
Professor: That’s too strong a statement. They can peg the short term nominal interest rate. But as a practical matter the peg is greatly constrained by economic conditions. There is a fairly narrow band of choices for the short term rate. If they move out of that band then the economy will become highly unstable, moving toward hyperinflation or hyperdeflation. Before that happened they’d have to move rates back within the safe band.
Student: So central banks can move rates slightly higher or lower, but cannot cause huge swings in nominal rates, such as what we saw in the period from the 1960s to the 1980s.
Professor: That’s not quite right either. Imagine a time series diagram of the interest rate on 3 month government bonds. Now surround that time series line with a band that is about 1% wide. Now it looks sort of like a snake slithering across time. Let’s call that band the snake. My claim is that central banks must (as a practical matter) keep their interest rate peg within the snake. They have a little room to maneuver, but not much. However you forgot one thing, the central bank can move the snake! So they can move rates a great deal over an extended period of time. But only by moving the underlying determinants of the snake, inflation and growth.
Student: Hah! I see where you are going with this. So if the central bank wants rates to rise much higher, it can push rates toward the top edge of the snake, bumping up against the top of the band. The snake reacts by shifting upward to reduce the “pressure”, just as a horse responds to pressure put on it by the reins.
Professor: Nice metaphor, but unfortunately this snake is a bit perverse. You have described a Williamsonian snake, but the interest rate band is a Rovian snake. If you want the snake to shift upward, you lower the rate until it falls to the lower part of the band. I know this sounds confusing, but trust me, it’s true.
Student. OK, now I finally get it. Within the snake itself the central bank has very little leeway. The current setting of rates is mostly determined by economic conditions. The central bank can also move its short term interest rate peg higher or lower within the snake, but only slightly. Over longer periods of time they can actually move the snake much higher or lower, but only by first moving interest rates in the opposite direction from where they wish to go in the long run. That moves inflation and GDP in the opposite direction, which moves the snake. By moving the snake they can move the peg by a large amount over an extended period of time.
And this means that although we cannot directly see the snake, we can infer that in the short run it is usually moving in the opposite direction from the interest rate peg.
Professor: You were exactly right until “And this means...” In fact, the interest rate peg and the snake usually move in the same direction.
Student: Ok, now I’m really confused. Didn’t you just say that a change in the interest rate peg causes the snake to move in the opposite direction?
Professor: Good point, that was a bit of sloppiness on my part. What I meant to say is that an exogenous shift in the interest rate peg causes the snake to move in the opposite direction. But the snake usually moves for reasons unrelated to shifts in the central bank’s interest rate peg. In mid-2008 most snakes were steadily falling, even as central bank pegs were pretty stable. When central banks did start cutting rates, the changes were mostly endogenous, they were simply following the market. As the snakes fell all over the world, the central banks followed them lower, with an unfortunate delay. So snakes and interest rate pegs usually move in the same direction, even though exogenous changes in the peg cause the snake to move in the opposite direction.
Student. Are there any situations where central banks cannot move the snake by adjusting the interest rate peg?
Professor: Yes there are. When most of the body of a Rovian snake falls below zero he is difficult to budge. That’s because the central bank cannot lower the interest rate peg below zero. So they cannot lower it to the bottom portion of the snake, which is what is required to nudge the snake higher.
Student: So in that case there is nothing the central bank can do to nudge the snake upward?
Professor: I’m afraid you are wrong once again. Listen more closely to what I am saying. They can’t move the snake by adjusting their peg. But the central bank still has several other options. They can switch to a Kimbellian snake, which has no fear of the number zero. But those snakes are exceedingly rare and inconvenient to work with. Or they can try an alternative approach. The central bank can whisper into the snake’s ear that there are some tasty treats up around 3%, perhaps a box full of hamsters and gerbils. Snakes are very trusting, and respond well to this sort of forward guidance. Even Japanese snakes, which have an undeserved reputation for being cynics.
Student: But what if there are no tasty treats up around 3%?
Professor: You better be sure there are! If you make this promise and then don’t carry through with it then the snake will never again respond to your sweet talk. In that case you’ll have to give the snake a great deal of money up front, and tell him that he can keep all the money if the gerbils are not there as promised. Otherwise he won’t budge.
Student: I’m afraid we are getting too deep into metaphors here. What is the real world counterpart to the offer of a great deal of money?
Professor: NGDPLT futures targeting.
Student: What makes that policy so attractive?
Professor: It’s not easy to estimate the path of the snake when NGDP is expected to grow at 5% per year. The futures targeting helps the snake to find the path that will lead to 5% growth. More specifically, the futures program rewards all the millions of people who give the snake useful advice on which path is best. It makes their advice more credible.
The level targeting part of the policy helps in two ways. First, it helps keep the snake above zero when he’s hit by a sudden shock, such as the crisis of 2008. This is one reason the Australian snake never hit the zero bound. Second, it makes it easier to keep NGDP growth on target, because temporary shocks to NGDP cause future expected NGDP growth to move in the opposite direction. And those changes in expected NGDP growth help move actual NGDP back on target.
Indeed with the futures market and level targeting system, central banks can now ignore interest rates entirely, and just peg the price of NGDP futures. The snake will still be there, invisible to our eyes, but he will no longer matter. Inflation won’t matter either, as NGDP targeting will leave only optimal movements in the price level.
And NGDPLT futures targeting will allow us to stop teaching huge portions of macroeconomics. Because expected future AD will always be on target, we will live an a classical world where all the opportunity cost-based classical nostrums apply. No bailouts, no beggar-thy-neighbor, no paradox of thrift or toil, no fiscal stimulus. When the snake is finally tamed the world will be a much simpler and more pleasant place.
Student: I love stories with happy endings.2017 Richmond Moy Yat Kung Fu Anniversary – A traditional teaching and training marathon
The Richmond Moy Yat Kung Fu Academy celebrated its anniversary this past weekend. Founded in 1986 by Grandmaster Anthony Moy Tung Dandridge, the school has been passing down the authentic Ving Tsun (wing chun) system for more than three decades, a testament to the power of the kung fu he learned from his sifu, Moy Yat.
There is a saying in the Ving Tsun system: “Kung Fu cannot be taught or bought; it can only be caught.” In the early days of the Richmond Academy, sometimes some students would say that Moy Tung ‘doesn’t teach.’ This kind of thing was also said about Moy Yat and Yip Man. Sometimes people still say things like this about Moy Tung. This is interesting, because his school has been open for over 30 years, and he has three generations of students actively teaching Ving Tsun Kung Fu in his lineage.
People may come into the school with expectations about how kung fu is taught – part of the experience is learning how it’s actually passed on. Moy Tung has commented periodically over the years that he sometimes teaches too much; students quit for this reason, too. As difficult as it may be to learn Ving Tsun from Moy Tung, he’s never lacked for students who value the kung fu highly.
Whatever the truth is about teaching too much or too little, Moy Tung workshops are not open to the public – they are limited to active Moy Tung-lineage students, and Moy Tung’s invited guests. Around seventy people participated in some or all of the thirty-plus hours of training that went on this past weekend, including sifus and students who came from halfway across the U.S.
In addition to sifus from three generations, there were four generations of Moy Tung-lineage students present from 16 schools around the US: From VA: Richmond Main St Academy; Chesterfield; West End; Southside; Virginia Beach; Roanoke. And further out: Milwaukee; Austin; Houston; Detroit; MD; CT; KY; DC; ME; Brooklyn.
The energy in the school was palpable the entire weekend. Dozens of people training Ving Tsun Kung Fu together creates a lot of energy and information. This is one of the greatly rewarding opportunities that come with learning Ving Tsun in the Moy Tung lineage – the kung fu family getting together for these marathon training sessions.
All three Main Street training chambers were used on all three days, with Saturday packed and some people even going out back. At Moy Tung’s direction, on Saturday afternoon after the lunch break, training continued at a local park. It was a beautiful sunny day, and nice in the shade. Training outdoors, in nature, at the beach and in the mountains, is something the Moy Tung clan does every year, another kung fu blessing to be thankful for.
Moy Tung was heard to comment at one point during the weekend that if all students get to do is a lot of Ving Tsun training, they can be happy with that. People came to Richmond to train, and they did. Ving Tsun students were still training past 3 am on Friday and Saturday, and there was a full day of training on Sunday.
Moy Tung was at the school most of the time, agreeably allowing students to work out as much as they wanted |
no, not where we were.”
“There was no concrete,” said McKeown. “There was a single brick”. Kirkham’s response was: “Oh my God. That is a completely fictitious story. Nothing ever rained down on us”. Kirkham, whose van was shown on an episode of the show being shot at during late-night rioting, later made a film for HBO about his struggle with drug addiction.
McKeown, the director of west coast operations, and Kirkham, said O’Reilly had in the moments beforehand irritated residents who were trying to put out fires and clear wreckage. A seventh member of the team, who declined to be quoted for this article, agreed with this characterisation of the incident.
“There were people putting out fires nearby,” said McKeown. “And Bill showed up in his fancy car.” McKeown said at one point, the driver of O’Reilly’s personal car risked causing further offence by exiting the vehicle with a bottle of Windex and polishing the roof.
“The guy was watching us and getting more and more angry,” said McKeown. “Bill was being Bill – complaining ‘people are in my eye line’ – and kind of being very insensitive to the situation.” Kirkham said: “It was just so out of line. He starts barking commands about ‘this isn’t good enough for me’, ‘this isn’t gonna work’, ‘who’s in charge here?’”
The man shouted abuse at O’Reilly and the team, crew members said, and O’Reilly ordered him to shut up. He asked “don’t you know who I am?’,” according to two members of the team.
“The guy lost it,” said McKeown. Enraged, he is said to have leapt on to the team’s flatbed trailer and kicked over a light, before throwing the piece of rubble, which smashed the camera and an autocue screen. Antin said he restrained the man. But O’Reilly then continued taunting him while a producer stood between them. “Come on, you wanna take me? I’ll take you on,” O’Reilly is said to have shouted at him.
McCall said the producer, who is about a foot shorter than O’Reilly, “didn’t have much trouble holding Bill back.” McCall said: “It was a lot more show than anything else on Bill’s part.”
A passing police car was flagged down. After an officer called for backup, several more officers eventually arrived. Crew members recalled that before this, O’Reilly had been hauled inside one of the team’s vehicles by a colleague. “It wasn’t a police rescue,” said Kirkham.
The crew told the police they did not want to press charges and the man was escorted home. Irritated police officers instructed the crew they needed to leave the area. “We had to lay all of our equipment down and just drive out of there with cables dragging,” said Antin. McKeown said that by then, an intimidating crowd had gathered. Other members of the team said the man remained alone.
Antin said an ashen-faced and “visibly shaken” O’Reilly rushed down a nearby alleyway with a secondary cameraman to film replacement shots, which were to be broadcast later as if live.
Asked if O’Reilly’s behaviour was to blame for the incident, McKeown said: “I mean, it would have pissed me off. There didn’t seem to be a sensitivity for what these people were going through. It was more ‘I’m here to do my show’.” Kirkham said O’Reilly had provoked the man, who was “pissed off with O’Reilly’s attitude”.
Antin, however, rejected suggestions that O’Reilly was responsible. “Not at all,” he said. McCall said he did not know. “I can’t say if that’s true or not,” he said. “But I don’t have much respect for Bill, having worked for him during that time. He was a real jackass.”
Asked to respond to the claims from O’Reilly’s former colleagues, and to explain whether O’Reilly had been describing a separate incident when he said “concrete was raining down on us”, the Fox News spokeswoman resent her original emailed statement.Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., has been lying about Donald Trump just like she lied about being Native American. Warren’s Twitter timeline is full of anti-Trump tweets:
“@realDonaldTrump has built his campaign on racism, sexism, and xenophobia.”
“There’s more enthusiasm for @realDonaldTrump among leaders of the KKK than leaders of the political party he now controls.”
Hillary Clinton appeared on CNN with Anderson Cooper and validated Warren’s outrageous claims and praised the delusional Massachusetts senator as “really smart.”
But Donald Trump is not a “racist.” Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren and the Democratic Party hate blacks, and they promote liberal policies that keep blacks dependent and angry. Hillary and Warren fear that Trump will appeal to blacks, so they’re desperately concocting lies.
Blacks have blindly supported Democrats for the last 60 years. As a result, the black family has been ruined by welfare. Public schools are collapsing, jobs have vanished, and crime and violence are out of control.
If you doubt that liberals hate blacks, look at how their disastrous policies have decimated them in Detroit, Baltimore and Chicago.
Detroit has been by run by corrupt liberal Democrats for decades. Detroit used to be the wealthiest city in America, but in 2013 the city filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy. Almost a third of Detroit has now been abandoned. The unemployment rate is almost 25 percent. The city can barely keep basic services running. This week, some 20,000 people lined up for hours to pay their past due water bills before the city shuts it off. Detroit also has the second highest murder rate in the U.S. (second to St. Louis).
Democrats control Baltimore, and the city is a wreck. Officially, unemployment is 8.4 percent citywide, but black unemployment is more than 12 percent. Some 23.8 percent of the city’s population lives below the official poverty level. Only 56.4 percent of Baltimore students graduate from high school. In 2015, Baltimore had 342 murders. There were more murders in Baltimore in 2015 than in New York City – despite New York’s population being more than 13 times higher!
Order Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson’s book, “The Antidote: Healing America from the Poison of Hate, Blame, and Victimhood.”
The Democrat machine has been controlling Chicago politics for 90 years. Mayor Rahm Emanuel is entangled in numerous scandals. The city has a lower credit rating than any major city except Detroit. The Chicago Public Schools system is destitute and teachers are threatening to strike. Violent crime is at the highest level in decades, with more than 1,000 people shot so far this year. The city has seen 141 murders in 2016, compared with 82 murders at the same point last year. Meanwhile, police are under intense scrutiny by liberals for their “racist” tactics. The black poverty rate (33.6 percent) and unemployment rate (14.7 percent) are more than twice those of whites.
Donald Trump didn’t create these problems. Liberal Democrats like Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren did.
Trump will help blacks by bringing back jobs. And I have no doubt he’ll surround himself with the best and the brightest leaders who will work on addressing the crisis in education, jobs, family and crime in our major cities. Without accountability, discipline and the rule of law, there’s no hope for the inner cities and for blacks.
This is why former GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson endorsed Donald Trump. He’s been encouraging blacks to do the same. Retired CEO of Godfather’s Pizza and 2012 Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain is an outspoken supporter of Trump.
Former season one “Apprentice” star and Trump surrogate Omarosa Manigault told Variety that Donald Trump has “a very kind heart.” She added, “I know his character and his heart, and I know the vision he has for the country is real.”
Former heavyweight boxing champ Mike Tyson supports Trump. Tyson said, “Let’s run America like a business, where no colors matter. Whoever can do the job, gets the job.”
Charles Evers, older brother of the late civil rights leader Medgar Evers, has endorsed Trump. He said, “I believe in him first of all because he’s a businessman.” Additionally, Evers stated he hasn’t “seen any proof of [Trump] being a racist.”
A black executive at the Trump organization is also speaking out in defense of Trump and his family. Lynne Patton recently released a video in which she speaks out against what she calls “the repeated and reprehensible attempts to align [the Trump family] with racist hate mongering groups, campaigns, and messaging.”
Patton says in the video, “They have been incredibly loyal to me and the countless dedicated people they employ around the world – hiring more minority and female executives than any other company for which I’ve ever worked.”
It’s the Democrats who hate blacks. Their liberal policies have destroyed black families, public education, jobs and entire cities.
Blacks fell for the con in ’08 and ’12 with Barack Obama. If Hillary wins, things will be far worse. There will be more illegal immigrants, fewer jobs, more crime, and blacks will continue to suffer. This is our last chance to get it right and elect a president who will bring jobs and opportunities back to America’s inner cities.
Order Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson’s book, “The Antidote: Healing America from the Poison of Hate, Blame, and Victimhood.”
Media wishing to interview Jesse Lee Peterson, please contact [email protected].When last we saw Kevin Garvey, he was twitching in poison-induced death spasms, shortly before Virgil, the man who pledged to revive him, shot himself in the head. But Virgil’s grandson, Michael, appeared to assist—and this week, Michael’s only line of dialogue sums up the episode rather well: “Holy shit.”
“International Assassin” is totally nuts. That’s not a spoiler, since this is The Leftovers we’re talking about. But spoilers do follow.
Advertisement
Kevin wakes up just as confused as we are, submerged in a bathtub. (One of The Leftover’s constant themes is water, and the strange powers it contains; it’s emphasized over and over again in this episode.) Once he flails himself back to breathing, he selects a suit from the array of clothes in the closet, which is festooned with a small plaque: “Know first who you are, then adorn yourself accordingly.” One might be tempted to wonder what parallel plots might’ve spun out from any of the other available outfits, but Kevin unwittingly or not adorns himself as an “international assassin”—and his target is presidential candidate Senator Patti Levin.
The entire episode unfolds with the logic of a really intense dream, as Kevin is one minute fighting off another assassin who bursts into his hotel room—the next, rescuing a small girl who seems to be drowning in the pool (water again). The hotel is also an off-kilter place, where fire alarms are constantly triggered and a bird—not unlike the birds Erika has been known to make wishes on—flutters wildly through the lobby.
Kevin is reeling in WTF vibes until he spots Virgil, who’s the hotel concierge. At first, Virgil acts like he doesn’t know Kevin, but slips him a note; at their subsequent secret meeting, Virgil—who’s there ostensibly as Kevin’s guide, but also for “atonement”—tells him how he’s going to kill candidate Patti. It’s a scheme involving guns taped in toilet tanks, a la The Godfather, but it seems simple enough. There are a few rules, including “don’t leave your room” and “do not hesitate,” because Patti will try to deceive him. There’s also this: “No matter what, don’t drink the water.”
Advertisement
Kevin, of course, blows the first one when he dutifully exits during a fire alarm. We think he’s toast when a group of white-clad Patti minions grabs him and handcuffs him (Kevin, never free of his cuffs) to a chair, but it’s apparently part of a very rough vetting process before he can meet her. We learn he’s donated $50,000 to the campaign, a number that will be important later in the episode, as part of his ruse to get close to his target. They are Guilty Remnant members, so one of their questions is, of course, “Do you smoke?” “I smoke to remember that the world ended,” he replies, confirming for us that even in this weird upside-down reality, the departure happened and is part of history. That’s all it takes to get him out of any more questions, though as he’s leaving, Patti’s lieutenant calls him “Mr. Garvey,” not using his hotel-world pseudonym, “Mr. Harvey.”
Later, that same underling, who keeps offering water to Kevin (“Thirsty?”) shakes his hand and apologizes for the interrogation. It’s “water under the bridge,” she says. Water again. Kevin isn’t able to get to his toilet gun before he meets with Patti, which makes their bizarre conversation even more nerve-wracking. He sums up her campaign thusly: “You want to destroy families.” By bringing Laurie into the Guilty Remnant, she destroyed Kevin’s first family. And she’s just about destroyed his second, by tormenting Kevin so much that Nora leaves him. She roars with approval at this family-destroying sentiment, reels off a ditty about a man who left his kid in her care (which she then turned over to the state), and tells him “On October 14, attachment and love became extinct.” We must transform, she explains.
Patti has transformed herself already, it seems, because when Kevin finally gets his weapon, the woman he’s been talking to claims to be Patti’s double (“They found me on Facebook!”) He kills her anyway, but he knows it wasn’t really Patti when nothing changes—except Virgil, who really doesn’t know him the next time they meet. Virgil admits he drank the water. He also kills the lobby bird. Virgil’s staying put in this reality, apparently. (That gunshot would be pretty hard to come back from.)
Advertisement
But Kevin eventually figures out what he needs to do to be free. The little girl he rescued from the pool? She’s the real Patti, and the loutish older man she’s traveling with is Neil, Patti’s poop-fetish-having husband. He becomes the final person that Kevin kills in a realm where everyone is already dead. (Where do those people end up?) And little Patti goes with him willingly. She knows he’s going to do exactly what his father—who broke through dimensions via a static-y television missive from Perth, Australia—told him to do: “Take her to the well.” The fact that a face-painted Kevin Sr. is sitting next to a blazing fire...not a body of water...must be significant. Right?
Anyway, the well is in Jarden, so they drive straight there. “It looks different,” Kevin remarks, as the car stops on the bridge into town. In this version, it’s lit with barrels of fire. More fire. And there’s a man on the bridge, who grabs Kevin, puts a noose around his neck, and tells him to “Cross or jump.” He warns Kevin that if he kills the girl, he’ll never be the same. “None of this is real,” Kevin protests. “This is more real than it’s ever been,” the man answers. He then leans in with a whisper that we’re not able to overhear.
This whole episode is kind of a whisper that we’re not able to overhear, no? The final scene, after Kevin tearfully shoves the kid into the well, is particularly cryptic. Though a small girl goes down, an adult Patti appears at the bottom. Kevin climbs/falls in to help/confront her, and Patti tells him a long story about how she went on Jeopardy! to win enough money to enable her to leave Neil. The amount she sought? $50,ooo, of course. But even though she succeeded, she says, she still didn’t leave him.
Advertisement
Kevin leans in close, whispers something, then drowns her. As she dies (again) a quake rumbles, and Kevin is able to claw his way through falling stones, which turn into dirt, and emerge in the woods—where Michael awaits. “Holy shit!” he exclaims. What did it all mean? Are we to assume that Michael dragged Kevin from the trailer, buried him alive, and just hung out waiting for him to stir? Is Virgil well and truly dead? How did Kevin overcome the poison? And is he free of Patti forever, finally?
We’ll be waiting on next week, the penultimate episode, to find out. The preview for next week also suggests John Murphy has gotten the results back on Kevin’s palm print, and there’s going to be hell to pay.
Other stuff:
So, those “It’s a Boy!” balloons delivered to a walking, talking Mary Jamison, glimpsed only at a distance down a hotel hallway. (It was difficult to see if she was still pregnant or not.) Is Mary living in the purgatory world while she’s in her catatonic state?
Advertisement
The agitated, Spanish-speaking doctor carrying a cooler of organs that keeps appearing at the hotel... huh? Someone, help me out with that one!
Did they plan it so “International Assassin” would run the night before the JFK anniversary? Or should I put my tin foil hat away?Previously known for poor-quality plonk, the nation's winemakers are now using 100% domestically grown grapes to produce fine, sushi-friendly wine for the world
Less than a decade ago, the mere mention of Japan would elicit puzzled looks, if not snorts of derision, from the global wine cognoscenti.
The country that gave the world premium sake and award-winning malt whiskies has been infamous for producing the kind of plonk that gives wine a bad name ‑ often blends of cheap imports and even grape juice.
But wine snobs are being forced to think again with the recent arrival in the US and Europe of labels from Japan made from 100% domestically grown grapes.
Though it lacks the heritage of the great winemaking countries of Europe, Japan is hoping to emulate New Zealand and quickly prove its enological credentials. That effort is centred on Yamanashi prefecture, where grape growing began 1,000 years ago, eventually spawning a modest wine industry in the second half of the 19th century.
The central region, where 90 wineries operate in the shadow of Mount Fuji, is now producing drinkable wines from chardonnay and other European grapes.
But it is the Koshu grape, an indigenous variety that found its way to Japan via central Asia and China more than a millennium ago, to which connoisseurs have turned for inspiration.
Yamanashi's fortunes received a boost in 2004, when researchers found that the Koshu grape is more than 90% vitis vinifera, part of the same European vine genus that gave us sauvignon blanc.
For Ernest Singer, president of Millésimes, a wine merchant based in Tokyo, it represented a crucial step towards realising a long-held dream of unleashing fine Japanese wine on the world's drinkers.
After an encouraging foray into the US market in 2005, Singer, whose firm owns several vineyards, turned the light-purple Koshu grapes into a wine that met strict EU regulations.
Amid a global boom in interest in Japanese food, Koshu is being touted as the perfect accompaniment to sushi's subtle flavours and delicate textures.
"Japan has the potential to be a major winegrowing region," says Singer. "It makes sense that Japan should have a viable wine export industry, when you consider that there are hundreds of Japanese restaurants in New York alone."
His company's Shizen 2006, Cuvée Denis Dubourdieu, has won considerable critical acclaim since it appeared on the menu at Umu, a Michelin-starred Japanese restaurant in London, in February last year.
Millésimes has shipped 480 bottles to England, as well as 5,800 to perhaps the toughest market of all, France, since early 2008. The dry, fruity wine, containing just 10% alcohol, was clearly to the liking of the legendary American critic Robert Parker, who described it as "crisp and pleasant and clearly meant to be a wine to guzzle with sushi or sashimi".
Just as Japanese distillers learned how to make decent single malt by dispatching researchers to the Scottish Highlands, its winemakers are tapping into the expertise of their more accomplished foreign counterparts.
"By sending researchers to places like France and the US, we have managed to produce dry varieties that have received great reviews," says Hirotoshi Naito, of industry support division of the Yamanashi prefectural government. "We can't force people to drink our wine; all we can do is tell them that Japan is serious about winemaking, and that the best labels come from Yamanashi."
Yamanashi's marketing campaign will head to London in the middle of next month for a Koshu wine-tasting event that organisers hope will add to the list of exports to the EU, which currently comprises only Millésimes' Koshu vintage and Cuvée Magrez-Aruga Koshu Isehara 2007, from Yamanashi's Katsunuma Jozo winery.
Japan's first commercial wineries appeared in the Meiji era (1868-1912) as part of the county's attempts to westernise its agricultural base; now it has more than 200 wineries are in a dozen regions, from Hokkaido in the far north to Miyazaki in the south.
"Like any other wine-producing country, Japan has some great wines and, frankly, some awful ones," says Kunio Naito, managing director of Cave de Relax, a wine seller in Tokyo whose 1,600-strong collection includes 200 labels from Japan. "I can see a spurt in demand from Japanese restaurants in major cities, but you have to remember that in terms of exports, we are starting from scratch."Ontarians with long memories will recall an “historic” green energy accord signed amid much self-congratulation eight years ago.
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty inked the deal with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. News reports revealed it contained a “sweeping agreement” that would link the two in fighting greenhouse gas emissions. Mr. McGuinty was determined to “wrest the green agenda from the federal government.” Included was a plan to “work together on national, North American and international emissions trading.”
[np_storybar title=”Read & Debate” link=””]
[/np_storybar]
Governor Schwarzenegger is long gone, of course. Back making movies. Also gone is Premier McGuinty, now a lobbyist, whose green agenda proved to include spending $1.2 billion not building two power plants. On Monday his ghost hovered again over the Ontario legislature, however, as his successor, Premier Kathleen Wynne, signed another accord committing the province to once again work with California … and this time Quebec … to accomplish the same goal set in 2007.
While Wynne wasn’t sure of the costs, she did have a clear plan of how to spend the money.
In background details released by the government – which include almost no background but reams of testimonials praising the government – the Liberals quote Jerry Brown, the current governor of California, and David Miller, the former mayor of Toronto, hailing Wynne’s “bold” move. In all, the energy ministry found 26 people eager to heap praise on it, from such objective and dispassionate organizations as Clean Energy Canada and Climate Action Network. Gosh, who would have thought organizations dedicated to putting a price on carbon would applaud a plan to put a price on carbon?
As it happens, we’ll have to take the government plan on faith, because Wynne’s announcement was wholly devoid of detail. First she has to sign the deal, she said, then the contents will be worked out. In most areas of commercial activity that might be considered backwards – usually when you sign a contract, you know what it contains before you agree to it. Price, for example, is normally a big concern, but Wynne said it would be “irresponsible” to establish what it might cost Ontarians before she actually commits them to it. Wynne would make a great car salesperson: “Waddaya mean ya wanna know how much it costs? Just shaddup and drive it off the lot, I’ll send you the bill later.”
Governments are different, however, largely because they often sign pacts they utterly fail to implement. For example, if McGuinty had stuck to his agreement with Schwarzenegger, this version presumably wouldn’t be necessary. And if the federal Liberals had ever kept their word after agreeing to the Kyoto accord, Ontario wouldn’t still be approving “historic” deals to achieve standards that should long ago have been reached.
In place of facts, we got environmental clichés from the premier.
“Carbon pricing is not a sacrifice; it’s an opportunity for all of us to live better,” she professed. “Good environmental policy is good economic policy. Reducing our use of fossil fuels, such as coal, oil and gas, will create jobs now and form a central pillar of our prosperity in the coming years.”
While Wynne wasn’t sure of the costs, she did have a clear idea of how to spend the money. No, it won’t use it to reduce the deficit or pay down the debt — why would the Liberals do that? Instead it will “invest” the proceeds “in a transparent way… into projects that reduce greenhouse gas pollution and help businesses remain competitive.” So, prices will rise, the government will reap the benefit, and the money will be spent on programs and subsidies it can use to buy votes.
Kind of makes you wonder why McGuinty backed off the first agreement. Didn’t he want to “create jobs now and form a central pillar of our prosperity in the coming years”? Evidently not. But now we have a new premier, who needs the money even more than he did. So Ontarians will get a cap and trade system, cost to be worked out later.
National Post
KellyMcParland<Breaking Bad meets The Walking Dead: Aaron Paul and Norman Reedus get on famously at Variety Studio event
They star in two of the most popular television dramas of recent years.
And Breaking Bad actor Aaron Paul and The Walking Dead star Norman Reedus got on famously as they met at Variety Studio powered by Samsung Galaxy at Palihouse, West Hollywood, on Thursday.
The actors both looked stylish as they posed at the event, with Aaron, 34, wearing a black leather jacket teamed with a white T-shirt and grey jeans.
Worlds collide: Aaron Paul and Norman Reedus got on famously as they met at Variety Studio powered by Samsung Galaxy
Aaron has the same bushy beard that he debuted earlier this month, and which is in stark contrast to the shaved blonde hair he sported on Breaking Bad.
Norman, 45, meanwhile, looked smart in a three-piece petrol grey suit, worn with a matching tie, while his long hair was worn loose in a side-parting.
Aaron played drug-dealing underachiever Jesse Pinkman in Breaking Bad, which has won ten Primetime Emmy Awards, while he is nominated for a Best Supporting Actor at the Critic’s Choice TV Awards.
High-spirits: Actor Aaron Paul was in a cheerful mood at the Variety Studio powered by Samsung Galaxy at Palihouse
Underachiever: Aaron Paul played drug addict Aaron Paul on Breaking Bad
Major roles: Aaron and Norman have played leading parts in their respective dramas Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead
He starred opposite Bryan Cranston (Walter White), with the duo playing partners in crime who set up a methamphetamine business and face a series of perilous encounters with drug barons.
In The Walking Dead, Norman plays the part of Daryl Dixon, a volatile tracker, who is highly skilled at killing animals and zombies and who lives in the shadow of his brother, Merle.
The character was not originally in the comic book series of the same name, but was created specifically for Reedus after his audition for the character of Merle Dixon.
Dapper: Aaron appeared to have borrowed a hat from a very smart Norman Warrior: Norman Reedus stars as zombie-hunter Daryl Dixon on The Walking Dead Animated: Actors Norman Reedus, Aaron Paul and Tony Goldwyn attend the Variety Studio powered by Samsung Galaxy at Palihouse Men of the moment: Actors Noah Emmerich, Norman Reedus, Aaron Paul, Tony Goldwyn, Michael Kelly, and Jon Voight attend the Variety Studio
The horror-drama show follows Andrew Lincoln as sheriff's deputy Rick Grimes, who awakens from a coma to find a post-apocalyptic world dominated by zombies and endeavours to find his family.
Meanwhile Aaron has recently revealed that he may reprise his role as Jesse Pinkman in a Breaking Bad spin-off Better Call Saul.
The prequel will focus on the early life of Bob Odenkirk's seedy lawyer Saul Goodman.
New look: Aaron was blond in Breaking Bad but now sports a slightly scruffy ginger beard Biker look: Aaron wore a cool leather jacket as he chatted about his TV work
Aaron said: '[I'll be in it] if they'll have me. It's a prequel, so it'd be nice to play Jesse Pinkman again in his happier times.'
He told Entertainmentwise: 'I think it's going to be great. I went into the writer’s room a few weeks back and just hung out with everybody there'.By Austin Anderholt | USA
For a few months or so, I was a libertarian. I registered with the party, went to meetings, etc. I was your typical “third partier.” I hated the two-party system. So why, after only a few months, did I switch back to republican? Am I just a party switcher that can’t make up his mind? Did my pharmacist take a few months to realize he was giving me the wrong medication? No. I still hate the two-party system, but I will use it because I must. Here’s why:
The Libertarian Party is undoubtedly the most successful third party in American politics ever. It has people running in all 50 states. It has an affiliate in every state and youth caucuses in about a third of them. However, it’s not nearly the size of the two major parties. The major parties have had literal centuries build. They have super PACs spending millions to get them elected. They have a huge audience of people that will always vote democrat and always vote Republican. They have been American superpowers for years. Their essence has been a part of American culture for years. Think about it: We have democrats versus republican football. Left versus Right. A strong division. Libertarians pull small crowds to their events. Republicans and Democrats bring armies to their rallies. They pay for fireworks and celebrities. They run expensive campaign ads. The libertarian party is no match.
The libertarian party is huge at activism. Their conventions always draw attention whether it be their politicians not knowing what Aleppo is, or letting a candidate strip naked on stage. Where they don’t win, is the ballot box. Except for small libertarian election, the only libertarians that are ever in office switch parties. As Matt Nye of the Republican Liberty Caucus said “In fact, every notable past libertarian-minded elected official I can recall at the federal level was, in fact, elected as Republican. Bob Barr from Georgia? Republican. Ron Paul from Texas? Republican.” There have always been two parties opposing each other in America. When most people vote, they’re voting less for the guy they want, and more against the guy they hate. It’s what campaigns are centered around, and it’s how American politics is structured. It is about whoever has the slight advantage over the other guy. Most libertarians would choose the Republican Party over the Democrats, right? If only half of Republicans become libertarians, we would have 2 small parties on the right, and a huge Democratic Party on the left! Third parties spoil the vote.
In conclusion, America is a two party society. The two parties have all the wealth and power. The American people care more about hating on the other party than supporting their own. Libertarians never get close to winning elections. If we want change, we’ll get it through the Republican liberty caucus. They back candidates that get actual votes, like Austin Petersen and Rand Paul. The RLC is a huge part of mainstream politics and is our most viable chance of liberty.
Advertisements
Like this: Like Loading...Image copyright Scott Olson/Getty Images Image caption The release of files is part of a new policy focused on police transparency under Mayor Rahm Emanuel
A Chicago panel has released a cache of evidence relating to 101 cases of shootings involving officers and alleged police misconduct.
The files included video and audio recordings as well as police reports on pending investigations.
The trove of records had previously not been made available to the public.
The disclosure comes six months after public backlash over video footage of a black teenager who died after being shot 16 times by a white officer.
The Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA), which investigates alleged police misconduct, released the files dating back five years.
Chicago police dogged by racism
Police face federal investigation
Police chief fired over teenager's death
Protesters called on Mayor Rahm Emanuel and other officials to step down in November after police dashcam footage showed Officer Jason Van Dyke shooting 17-year-old Laquan McDonald 16 times in 2014. Mr Van Dyke was charged with first-degree murder.
Chicago officials withheld the footage of Mr McDonald's death for a year before a judge ordered its release.
Public outcry prompted the US Justice Department to launch an investigation into the Chicago Police Department's use of force and accountability procedures.
The city posted the files online as part of a new policy to release videos of shootings at the hands of police within 60 days of most incidents.
Chicago is struggling to restore public trust in law enforcement amid the fallout over the handling of Mr McDonald's death.
A task force appointed by the mayor issued a scathing report in April that found the police department to be plagued by racism.some
The Orion™ Cortical Visual Prosthesis System
directly stimulate the visual cortex.
Advertisement
Second Sight's Argus II Restores Vision to Blind Patient
American medical company, ‘Second Sight’ manufacture implantable visual prosthetics to provide vision to people that suffer from a variety of different visual impairments. Their most advanced piece of technology so far is ‘The Argus® II Retinal Prosthesis System’ that can restorefunctional vision for people suffering from blindness. Although a very successful product, it only provides a limited about of restored vision to the patient, so the company have been working on it’s successor, 'The Orion'.The Argus® II Retinal Prosthesis SystemThe idea behind The Orion is to convert images captured by a small video camera mounted on a pair of glasses that the patient wears daily, these images are then converted into a series of small electrical impulses.The Orion would then wirelessly transmit these pulses to an array of electrodes that have been implanted into the patient. The electrodes bypass the retina and optic nerve toThis is the area of the brain that processes visual data, effectively allowing a person to see.This technology has the potential to essential “cure” all forms of blindness including glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy, and forms of cancer and trauma. The Argus II had been approved for use in Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Spain, Taiwan, Turkey, United Kingdom, and the U.S., so you can expect to see The Orion in the same, if not more countries.It's probably a full year now that the Snapdragon 810 is mentioned in every article with the word "overheating" thrown in somewhere. And since the Sony Xperia Z5 Compact is powered by one such Qualcomm chip, it was natural that it would entertain mini-flagship enthusiasts how it would fare in resource-intense tasks such as 4K recording, thermally speaking that is.
Well, an Xperia fan (or the Xperia Fan) has taken to it and put a bunch of smartphones to the test, side by side. The participants are the Z5 Compact, Z3 Compact, Verizon-exclusive Z3v, Z3+ and M5.
A level playing field is achieved by placing all of them in airplane mode with no background apps running. Upon engaging the 4K mode all phones greet you with a customary Sony warning that the phone will overheat and the camera will switch off. The big question is when and the video aims to answer that.
The Xperia Z3v calls it quits first, short of 11 minutes. The Z3+ pops up the overheating warning around the 15min mark, but interestingly it's the Z3 Compact that throws in the towel second, without a warning, around 17 minutes into it.
It was a close call between the camera used to record the test and the Z3+, but the Z3+ narrowly beat it (or is it the other way around) and gave up in under 21 minutes. Then the Xperia M5 ran out of storage, so it's result is inconclusive. It could, however, be argued that if it doesn't overheat while you have room to record it's doing a fine job.
Which brings us to the Z5 Compact. The warning comes at the half-hour mark, but is perhaps overly conservative, as it takes another 10 minutes, before the heat gets too much to bear - 40 minutes and 15.5GB of 4K video are the end result.There are two sealed boxes up for auction, box A and box B. One and only one of these boxes contains a valuable diamond. There are all manner of signs and portents indicating whether a box contains a diamond; but I have no sign which I know to be perfectly reliable. There is a blue stamp on one box, for example, and I know that boxes which contain diamonds are more likely than empty boxes to show a blue stamp. Or one box has a shiny surface, and I have a suspicion—I am not sure—that no diamond-containing box is ever shiny.
Now suppose there is a clever arguer, holding a sheet of paper, and they say to the owners of box A and box B: “Bid for my services, and whoever wins my services, I shall argue that their box contains the diamond, so that the box will receive a higher price.” So the box-owners bid, and box B’s owner bids higher, winning the services of the clever arguer.
The clever arguer begins to organize their thoughts. |
jUfN15uuxxPMpEv25ij74v7ZH/2a-2048x1229/v1/t300x182.jpg","channels":[],"displayOptions":[{"name":"discount","enabled":true},{"name":"quantity","enabled":true},{"name":"timer","enabled":true},{"name":"merchandisingType","value":"other"},{"name":"showRedemptionLocations","enabled":true},{"name":"showPrice","enabled":true}],"largeImageUrl":"https://img.grouponcdn.com/deal/2akjUfN15uuxxPMpEv25ij74v7ZH/2a-2048x1229/v1/t440x300.jpg","title":"Italian Dinner at Skyline at Waterplace (Up to 43% Off). Two Options Available.","announcementTitle":"Up to 43% Off Italian Dinner at Skyline at Waterplace","shortAnnouncementTitle":"Italian Dinner","redemptionLocation":"Downtown Providence","merchant":{"id":"skyline-at-waterplace","uuid":"fafb5582-fa50-4e3c-80cd-9fc21c7f173c","name":"Skyline at Waterplace","websiteUrl":"http://www.dinewithskyline.com/","recommendations":[{"ratingDistribution":{"1":2,"2":0,"3":4,"4":11,"5":15},"rating":4.16,"source":"groupon-users","totalMessage":"32","percentMessage":"94","prominentDisplay":true,"total":32,"percent":94}],"twitterUrl":null,"facebookUrl":null,"ratings":null},"reviews":null,"priceSummary":{"discountPercent":40,"minimumPurchaseQuantity":1,"price":{"amount":1800,"currencyCode":"USD","formattedAmount":"$18","currencyExponent":2},"value":{"amount":3000,"currencyCode":"USD","formattedAmount":"$30","currencyExponent":2},"regularPrice":null,"pricingMetadata":null,"redemptionOffer":{"minimumPurchaseValue":{"amount":0,"currencyCode":"USD","formattedAmount":"$0.00","currencyExponent":2},"maximumDiscount":{"amount":0,"currencyCode":"USD","formattedAmount":"$0.00","currencyExponent":2},"redemptionCount":null},"quoteId":"652fad31-70cd-43a7-a450-44a3c11e8519","additionalRedemptionOffers":[]},"uiTreatment":[{"uuid":"03567e7f-40b5-4743-9466-2ec2d75631af","slug":null,"name":"Local","description":"Default template","logoImage":null}],"isTravelBookableDeal":false,"soldQuantity":490,"soldQuantityMessage":"490+","locations":[{"uuid":"d8d34f11-500b-ba14-57ce-015ae12943e4","id":null,"lng":-71.4142737,"lat":41.8274258,"distance":0.24588583286056026,"distanceSource":"external:lat_lng_param"}],"highlightsHtml":"<p>Guests can enjoy an Italian dinner, which may include dishes such as grilled salmon, Caesar salad, and pappardelle bolognese</p>"},{"uuid":"e41c171a-c2ed-47a8-b894-be13db7cef20","dealUrl":"https://www.groupon.com/deals/yama-fuji-2","grid4ImageUrl":"https://img.grouponcdn.com/bynder/Ri5HEhJFF4o6PFz5WCG2rrSNN4A/Ri-2048x1229/v1/t300x182.jpg","channels":[],"displayOptions":[{"name":"discount","enabled":true},{"name":"quantity","enabled":true},{"name":"timer","enabled":true},{"name":"merchandisingType","value":"other"},{"name":"showRedemptionLocations","enabled":true},{"name":"showPrice","enabled":true}],"largeImageUrl":"https://img.grouponcdn.com/bynder/Ri5HEhJFF4o6PFz5WCG2rrSNN4A/Ri-2048x1229/v1/t440x300.jpg","title":"Food and Drink for Two, Four, or More at Yama Fuji (Up to 40% Off)","announcementTitle":"Up to 40% Off Chinese Food at Yama Fuji","shortAnnouncementTitle":"Chinese Food or Sushi","badges":[{"uuid":"cc39c9cf-0872-4963-8529-8eee457317c1","primaryColor":"#6650D7E6","text":"BEST OF GROUPON","secondaryColor":"#FFFFFFFF","mustDisplay":true,"badgeType":"BEST_OF_GROUPON","displayLocation":"RIBBON","iconImageUrl":"https://img.grouponcdn.com/ums/2Rs9hAQVVme5JqEEcWt2jsVjTy5m/Best_Of-26x26"}],"redemptionLocation":"Hope","merchant":{"id":"yama-fuji","uuid":"046f1a27-868e-f491-841b-cb5a2ce1f72d","name":"Yama Fuji","websiteUrl":"http://www.providenceyamafuji.com/","recommendations":[{"ratingDistribution":{"1":29,"2":13,"3":31,"4":80,"5":441},"rating":4.5,"source":"groupon-users","totalMessage":"594","percentMessage":"93","prominentDisplay":true,"total":594,"percent":93}],"facebookUrl":null,"twitterUrl":null,"ratings":null},"reviews":null,"priceSummary":{"discountPercent":40,"minimumPurchaseQuantity":1,"price":{"amount":1800,"currencyCode":"USD","formattedAmount":"$18","currencyExponent":2},"value":{"amount":3000,"currencyCode":"USD","formattedAmount":"$30","currencyExponent":2},"regularPrice":null,"pricingMetadata":null,"redemptionOffer":{"minimumPurchaseValue":{"amount":0,"currencyCode":"USD","formattedAmount":"$0.00","currencyExponent":2},"maximumDiscount":{"amount":0,"currencyCode":"USD","formattedAmount":"$0.00","currencyExponent":2},"redemptionCount":null},"quoteId":"7808eadb-4c0b-4345-be16-f2126ce4894a","additionalRedemptionOffers":[]},"uiTreatment":[{"uuid":"03567e7f-40b5-4743-9466-2ec2d75631af","slug":null,"name":"Local","description":"Default template","logoImage":null}],"isTravelBookableDeal":false,"soldQuantity":1000,"soldQuantityMessage":"1,000+","locations":[{"uuid":"229c7491-7aa9-b06a-768b-014955ee34be","id":null,"lng":-71.4016307,"lat":41.8528624,"distance":2.0805863565959952,"distanceSource":"external:lat_lng_param"}],"highlightsHtml":"<p>Chefs prepare a lineup of beef, poultry, seafood, and vegetarian dishes ranging from Thai basil duck to lobster tempura maki rolls</p>"},{"uuid":"aab4f58f-2011-48f8-a7c6-bff77f2316d5","dealUrl":"https://www.groupon.com/deals/blend-pvd","grid4ImageUrl":"https://img.grouponcdn.com/deal/hmhFd8TBw8XcoCC61gGz/gn-2048x1229/v1/t300x182.jpg","channels":[],"displayOptions":[{"name":"discount","enabled":true},{"name":"quantity","enabled":true},{"name":"timer","enabled":true},{"name":"merchandisingType","value":"other"},{"name":"showRedemptionLocations","enabled":true},{"name":"showPrice","enabled":true}],"largeImageUrl":"https://img.grouponcdn.com/deal/hmhFd8TBw8XcoCC61gGz/gn-2048x1229/v1/t440x300.jpg","title":"Latin American Food at Blend PVD (50% Off). Four Options Available. ","announcementTitle":"50% Off Latin American Food at Blend PVD ","shortAnnouncementTitle":"Latin American Food","redemptionLocation":"Federal Hill","merchant":{"id":"blend-pvd","uuid":"5ebbacd5-a172-4e91-9909-a496717cf60e","name":"Blend PVD","websiteUrl":"http://blendpvd.com/","recommendations":[{"ratingDistribution":{"1":34,"2":35,"3":57,"4":132,"5":396},"rating":4.26,"source":"groupon-users","totalMessage":"654","percentMessage":"89","prominentDisplay":true,"total":654,"percent":89}],"facebookUrl":null,"twitterUrl":null,"ratings":null},"reviews":null,"priceSummary":{"discountPercent":50,"minimumPurchaseQuantity":1,"price":{"amount":1500,"currencyCode":"USD","formattedAmount":"$15","currencyExponent":2},"value":{"amount":3000,"currencyCode":"USD","formattedAmount":"$30","currencyExponent":2},"regularPrice":null,"pricingMetadata":null,"redemptionOffer":{"minimumPurchaseValue":{"amount":0,"currencyCode":"USD","formattedAmount":"$0.00","currencyExponent":2},"maximumDiscount":{"amount":0,"currencyCode":"USD","formattedAmount":"$0.00","currencyExponent":2},"redemptionCount":null},"quoteId":"346b1dc2-849c-426f-8af2-ab9be0dbf06d","additionalRedemptionOffers":[]},"uiTreatment":[{"uuid":"03567e7f-40b5-4743-9466-2ec2d75631af","slug":null,"name":"Local","description":"Default template","logoImage":null}],"isTravelBookableDeal":false,"soldQuantity":1000,"soldQuantityMessage":"1,000+","locations":[{"uuid":"68410075-3c07-b663-a2bd-015675482069","id":null,"lng":-71.427087,"lat":41.8242509,"distance":0.7263164276396714,"distanceSource":"external:lat_lng_param"}],"highlightsHtml":"<p>Menu features sweet plantain tacos, cheeseburgers with jicama slaw, salmon with mango avocado salsa, and adobo chicken with ricotta waffle</p>"},{"uuid":"c047cc81-be2f-4a49-b11a-f6ff0689e336","dealUrl":"https://www.groupon.com/deals/chrissy-s-hair-salon-1","grid4ImageUrl":"https://img.grouponcdn.com/bynder/3J2uhMd5jzCcvTXVhFWz1N2Y7rTG/3J-2048x1229/v1/t300x182.jpg","channels":[],"displayOptions":[{"name":"discount","enabled":true},{"name":"quantity","enabled":true},{"name":"timer","enabled":true},{"name":"merchandisingType","value":"other"},{"name":"showRedemptionLocations","enabled":true},{"name":"showPrice","enabled":true}],"largeImageUrl":"https://img.grouponcdn.com/bynder/3J2uhMd5jzCcvTXVhFWz1N2Y7rTG/3J-2048x1229/v1/t440x300.jpg","title":"Haircut and Conditioning, or Haircut with Color or Highlights from Chrissy's Hair Salon (Up to 47% Off)","announcementTitle":"Up to 47% Off at Chrissy's Hair Salon","shortAnnouncementTitle":"Hairstyling Services","redemptionLocation":"Marieville","merchant":{"id":"chrissy-s-hair-salon","uuid":"e5176ef0-aed0-11e1-8e54-00259060b612","name":"Chrissy's Hair Salon","websiteUrl":"http://chrissyshairsalon.com","recommendations":[{"ratingDistribution":{"1":7,"2":0,"3":0,"4":2,"5":66},"rating":4.6,"source":"groupon-users","totalMessage":"75","percentMessage":"91","prominentDisplay":true,"total":75,"percent":91}],"facebookUrl":null,"twitterUrl":null,"ratings":null},"reviews":null,"priceSummary":{"discountPercent":44,"minimumPurchaseQuantity":1,"price":{"amount":2900,"currencyCode":"USD","formattedAmount":"$29","currencyExponent":2},"value":{"amount":5200,"currencyCode":"USD","formattedAmount":"$52","currencyExponent":2},"regularPrice":null,"pricingMetadata":null,"redemptionOffer":{"minimumPurchaseValue":{"amount":0,"currencyCode":"USD","formattedAmount":"$0.00","currencyExponent":2},"maximumDiscount":{"amount":0,"currencyCode":"USD","formattedAmount":"$0.00","currencyExponent":2},"redemptionCount":null},"quoteId":"2a1c867e-658c-435e-909f-fc557cfd8cf5","additionalRedemptionOffers":[]},"uiTreatment":[{"uuid":"03567e7f-40b5-4743-9466-2ec2d75631af","slug":null,"name":"Local","description":"Default template","logoImage":null}],"isTravelBookableDeal":false,"soldQuantity":270,"soldQuantityMessage":"270+","locations":[{"uuid":"84fdeef9-3cac-b06a-9052-014053370b52","id":null,"lng":-71.436909,"lat":41.86746,"distance":3.2487382941844856,"distanceSource":"external:lat_lng_param"}],"highlightsHtml":"<p>Experienced stylist snips locks, trims tresses, and refreshes clients’ hairstyles with color services</p>"},{"uuid":"68b40094-8b41-4315-9170-64ac0236e6b7","dealUrl":"https://www.groupon.com/deals/greenprose-organic-salon","grid4ImageUrl":"https://img.grouponcdn.com/deal/327Zj5P96TkHD254bx4CCPR45gkZ/32-2048x1229/v1/t300x182.jpg","channels":[],"displayOptions":[{"name":"discount","enabled":true},{"name":"quantity","enabled":true},{"name":"timer","enabled":true},{"name":"merchandisingType","value":"other"},{"name":"showRedemptionLocations","enabled":true},{"name":"showPrice","enabled":true}],"largeImageUrl":"https://img.grouponcdn.com/deal/327Zj5P96TkHD254bx4CCPR45gkZ/32-2048x1229/v1/t440x300.jpg","title":"Women's Haircut and Blow-Dry with Optional Balayage, Ombre, or Full Highlights at GreenProse (Up to 55% Off)","announcementTitle":"Up to 55% Off Haircut Package at GreenProse","shortAnnouncementTitle":"Haircut with Blow-Dry and Color","redemptionLocation":"Wayland","merchant":{"id":"greenprose-organic-salon","uuid":"8cabd2a8-a7f0-426e-99bc-b95b921aeafe","name":"GreenProse","websiteUrl":"https://www.greenprose.com/","recommendations":[{"ratingDistribution":{"1":2,"2":1,"3":0,"4":2,"5":5},"rating":3.7,"source":"groupon-users","totalMessage":"10","percentMessage":"70","prominentDisplay":false,"total":10,"percent":70}],"twitterUrl":null,"facebookUrl":null,"ratings":null},"reviews":null,"priceSummary":{"discountPercent":46,"minimumPurchaseQuantity":1,"price":{"amount":3500,"currencyCode":"USD","formattedAmount":"$35","currencyExponent":2},"value":{"amount":6500,"currencyCode":"USD","formattedAmount":"$65","currencyExponent":2},"regularPrice":null,"pricingMetadata":null,"redemptionOffer":{"minimumPurchaseValue":{"amount":0,"currencyCode":"USD","formattedAmount":"$0.00","currencyExponent":2},"maximumDiscount":{"amount":0,"currencyCode":"USD","formattedAmount":"$0.00","currencyExponent":2},"redemptionCount":null},"quoteId":"3b1a2f50-8074-4f10-a45c-7831672dad9e","additionalRedemptionOffers":[]},"uiTreatment":[{"uuid":"03567e7f-40b5-4743-9466-2ec2d75631af","slug":null,"name":"Local","description":"Default template","logoImage":null}],"isTravelBookableDeal":false,"soldQuantity":50,"soldQuantityMessage":"50+","locations":[{"uuid":"511f29fb-0bec-b4f3-b550-0166ea3ebde0","id":null,"lng":-71.3892032,"lat":41.8297917,"distance":1.290304291018729,"distanceSource":"external:lat_lng_param"}],"highlightsHtml":"<p>Skilled stylists reimagine manes with cuts and coloring to make clients look and feel their best</p>"},{"uuid":"a9ced784-0869-4592-8162-5c441c309d63","dealUrl":"https://www.groupon.com/deals/sublime-salon-and-spa-2","grid4ImageUrl":"https://img.grouponcdn.com/iam/4Q7j7vFWSb69Zi2Ddt9fXG9b75YF/4Q-2048x1229/v1/t300x182.jpg","channels":[],"displayOptions":[{"name":"discount","enabled":true},{"name":"quantity","enabled":true},{"name":"timer","enabled":true},{"name":"merchandisingType","value":"other"},{"name":"showRedemptionLocations","enabled":true},{"name":"showPrice","enabled":true}],"largeImageUrl":"https://img.grouponcdn.com/iam/4Q7j7vFWSb69Zi2Ddt9fXG9b75YF/4Q-2048x1229/v1/t440x300.jpg","title":"Full Set of Mink Eyelash Extensions with Optional Two-Week Fill at Lauren at Rejoice Salon (Up to 54% Off)","announcementTitle":"Up to 54% Off Eyelash Extensions at Lauren at Rejoice Salon","shortAnnouncementTitle":"Eyelash Extensions with Fill ","redemptionLocation":"Marieville","merchant":{"id":"sublime-salon-and-spa-1","uuid":"562ba04a-fce6-40e4-b539-1c81a84ed4aa","name":"Lauren at Rejoice Salon","websiteUrl":"https://www.sublimesaloncambridge.com/","recommendations":[{"ratingDistribution":{"1":0,"2":1,"3":0,"4":0,"5":11},"rating":4.75,"source":"groupon-users","totalMessage":"12","percentMessage":"92","prominentDisplay":true,"total":12,"percent":92}],"twitterUrl":null,"facebookUrl":null,"ratings":null},"reviews":null,"priceSummary":{"discountPercent":54,"minimumPurchaseQuantity":1,"price":{"amount":6900,"currencyCode":"USD","formattedAmount":"$69","currencyExponent":2},"value":{"amount":15000,"currencyCode":"USD","formattedAmount":"$150","currencyExponent":2},"regularPrice":null,"pricingMetadata":null,"redemptionOffer":{"minimumPurchaseValue":{"amount":0,"currencyCode":"USD","formattedAmount":"$0.00","currencyExponent":2},"maximumDiscount":{"amount":0,"currencyCode":"USD","formattedAmount":"$0.00","currencyExponent":2},"redemptionCount":null},"quoteId":"5f8c470a-8a74-4349-8cda-315420986b5c","additionalRedemptionOffers":[]},"uiTreatment":[{"uuid":"03567e7f-40b5-4743-9466-2ec2d75631af","slug":null,"name":"Local","description":"Default template","logoImage":null}],"isTravelBookableDeal":false,"soldQuantity":10,"soldQuantityMessage":"10+","locations":[{"uuid":"e4b7b720-1952-bfd9-37c8-01677a695518","id":null,"lng":-71.4391035,"lat":41.8669354,"distance":3.260200918396157,"distanceSource":"external:lat_lng_param"}],"highlightsHtml":"<p>Stylists apply individual semi-permanent extensions to natural lashes to create a fuller, longer look</p>"},{"uuid":"1f9f5fa3-ea57-433a-a349-066533d783c4","dealUrl":"https://www.groupon.com/deals/evolve-apothecary-and-spa","grid4ImageUrl":"https://img.grouponcdn.com/iam/25iMMYWsrFg2hQCuFK8p26s5Uw6o/25-2048x1229/v1/t300x182.jpg","channels":[],"displayOptions":[{"name":"discount","enabled":true},{"name":"quantity","enabled":true},{"name":"timer","enabled":true},{"name":"merchandisingType","value":"other"},{"name":"showRedemptionLocations","enabled":true},{"name":"showPrice","enabled":true}],"largeImageUrl":"https://img.grouponcdn.com/iam/25iMMYWsrFg2hQCuFK8p26s5Uw6o/25-2048x1229/v1/t440x300.jpg","title":"Bikini or Brazilian Wax at Evolve Apothecary and Spa (Up to 52% Off)","announcementTitle":"Up to 52% Off Waxing at Evolve Apothecary and Spa","shortAnnouncementTitle":"Bikini or Brazilian Wax","redemptionLocation":"Blackstone","merchant":{"id":"evolve-apothecary-and-spa","uuid":"324ca7e3-249c-4aeb-98f7-abf91249c41e","name":"Evolve Apothecary and Spa","websiteUrl":"https://www.facebook.com/evolveapothecary/","recommendations":[{"ratingDistribution":{"1":0,"2":0,"3":1,"4":2,"5":60},"rating":4.94,"source":"groupon-users","totalMessage":"63","percentMessage":"100","prominentDisplay":true,"total":63,"percent":100}],"ratings":null,"facebookUrl":null,"twitterUrl":null},"reviews":null,"priceSummary":{"discountPercent":52,"minimumPurchaseQuantity":1,"price":{"amount":2900,"currencyCode":"USD","formattedAmount":"$29","currencyExponent":2},"value":{"amount":6000,"currencyCode":"USD","formattedAmount":"$60","currencyExponent":2},"regularPrice":null,"pricingMetadata":null,"redemptionOffer":{"minimumPurchaseValue":{"amount":0,"currencyCode":"USD","formattedAmount":"$0.00","currencyExponent":2},"maximumDiscount":{"amount":0,"currencyCode":"USD","formattedAmount":"$0.00","currencyExponent":2},"redemptionCount":null},"quoteId":"e294abb6-cd4a-45e9-b88e-29acda9cd21c","additionalRedemptionOffers":[]},"uiTreatment":[{"uuid":"03567e7f-40b5-4743-9466-2ec2d75631af","slug":null,"name":"Local","description":"Default template","logoImage":null}],"isTravelBookableDeal":false,"soldQuantity":230,"soldQuantityMessage":"230+","locations":[{"uuid":"18004ffb-4c48-b06a-9053-0154548dd3e4","id":null,"lng":-71.3954388,"lat":41.8476968,"distance":1.8723410010361325,"distanceSource":"external:lat_lng_param"}],"highlightsHtml":"<p>Technicians apply warm wax on selected areas to help customers get rid of the unwanted hair</p>"},{"uuid":"72f2e2f7-6768-4c0e-8a68-58f6e2a4a514","dealUrl":"https://www.groupon.com/deals/the-barking-lot-2-9","grid4ImageUrl":"https://img.grouponcdn.com/iam/44gkq9BAKnbdmiUvsq4Z6VHeCnVP/44-2048x1229/v1/t300x182.jpg","channels":[],"displayOptions":[{"name":"discount","enabled":true},{"name":"quantity","enabled":true},{"name":"timer","enabled":true},{"name":"merchandisingType","value":"other"},{"name":"showRedemptionLocations","enabled":true},{"name":"showPrice","enabled":true}],"largeImageUrl":"https://img.grouponcdn.com/iam/44gkq9BAKnbdmiUvsq4Z6VHeCnVP/44-2048x1229/v1/t440x300.jpg","title":"Daycare or Boarding for a Dog at The Barking Lot (Up to 49% Off)","announcementTitle":"Up to 49% Off Dog Daycare or Boarding at The Barking Lot","shortAnnouncementTitle":"Dog Daycare or Boarding","redemptionLocation":"Washington Park","merchant":{"id":"the-barking-lot","uuid":"5e743506-aed8-11e1-8e54-00259060b612","name":"The Barking Lot","websiteUrl":"http://www.thebarkinglotri.com","recommendations":[{"ratingDistribution":{"1":1,"2":0,"3":0,"4":0,"5":55},"rating":4.93,"source":"groupon-users","totalMessage":"56","percentMessage":"98","prominentDisplay":true,"total":56,"percent":98}],"twitterUrl":null,"facebookUrl":null,"ratings":null},"reviews":null,"priceSummary":{"discountPercent":49,"minimumPurchaseQuantity":5,"price":{"amount":1380,"currencyCode":"USD","formattedAmount":"$13.80","currencyExponent":2},"value":{"amount":2700,"currencyCode":"USD","formattedAmount":"$27","currencyExponent":2},"regularPrice":null,"pricingMetadata":null,"redemptionOffer":{"minimumPurchaseValue":{"amount":0,"currencyCode":"USD","formattedAmount":"$0.00","currencyExponent":2},"maximumDiscount":{"amount":0,"currencyCode":"USD","formattedAmount":"$0.00","currencyExponent":2},"redemptionCount":null},"quoteId":"b0dadae0-ed15-4f93-a9f6-5ad33a0ceff5","additionalRedemptionOffers":[]},"uiTreatment":[{"uuid":"03567e7f-40b5-4743-9466-2ec2d75631af","slug":null,"name":"Local","description":"Default template","logoImage":null}],"isTravelBookableDeal":false,"soldQuantity":300,"soldQuantityMessage":"300+","locations":[{"uuid":"fba3aff8-19cf-b06a-9052-013a8fd7621e","id":null,"lng":-71.3979927,"lat":41.7944857,"distance":2.1831832337133283,"distanceSource":"external:lat_lng_param"}],"highlightsHtml":"<p>Member of International Boarding & Pet Services Association offers professional dog care under the supervision of trained staff</p>"},{"uuid":"9ba55460-dc80-32ea-7d64-696f3f0a36fc","dealUrl":"https://www.groupon.com/deals/so-fresh-so-clean-8","grid4ImageUrl":"https://img.grouponcdn.com/deal/oTokioRDgEvptNadDZhc/JN-2048x1242.jpg/v1/t300x182.jpg","channels":[],"displayOptions":[{"name":"discount","enabled":true},{"name":"quantity","enabled":true},{"name":"timer","enabled":true},{"name":"merchandisingType","value":"other"},{"name":"showRedemptionLocations","enabled":true},{"name":"showPrice","enabled":true}],"largeImageUrl":"https://img.grouponcdn.com/deal/oTokioRDgEvptNadDZhc/JN-2048x1242.jpg/v1/t440x300.jpg","title":"Automotive Detail or Car Hand-Wash at So Fresh & So Clean (Up to 54% Off)","announcementTitle":"Up to 54% Off Automotive Detail or Car Hand-Wash","shortAnnouncementTitle":"Complete Automotive Detail","badges":[{"uuid":"cc39c9cf-0872-4963-8529-8eee457317c1","primaryColor":"#6650D7E6","text":"BEST OF GROUPON","secondaryColor":"#FFFFFFFF","mustDisplay":true,"badgeType":"BEST_OF_GROUPON","displayLocation":"RIBBON","iconImageUrl":"https://img.grouponcdn.com/ums/2Rs9hAQVVme5JqEEcWt2jsVjTy5m/Best_Of-26x26"}],"redemptionLocation":"Multiple Locations","merchant":{"id":"so-fresh-so-clean-providence","uuid":"92f62f8c-c165-11e2-b4bf-00259096a2fc","name":"So Fresh & So Clean","websiteUrl":"http://sofreshandsoclean.com/","recommendations":[{"ratingDistribution":{"1":727,"2":109,"3":140,"4":284,"5":3625},"rating":4.22,"source":"groupon-users","totalMessage":"4885","percentMessage":"83","prominentDisplay":false,"total":4885,"percent":83}],"ratings":null,"twitterUrl":null,"facebookUrl":null},"reviews":null,"priceSummary":{"discountPercent":52,"minimumPurchaseQuantity":1,"price":{"amount":1200,"currencyCode":"USD","formattedAmount":"$12","currencyExponent":2},"value":{"amount":2500,"currencyCode":"USD","formattedAmount":"$25","currencyExponent":2},"regularPrice":null,"pricingMetadata":null,"redemptionOffer":{"minimumPurchaseValue":{"amount":0,"currencyCode":"USD","formattedAmount":"$0.00","currencyExponent":2},"maximumDiscount":{"amount":0,"currencyCode":"USD","formattedAmount":"$0.00","currencyExponent":2},"redemptionCount":null},"quoteId":"bf64b7d0-2dd8-4a4c-87c7-c47341975413","additionalRedemptionOffers":[]},"uiTreatment":[{"uuid":"03567e7f-40b5-4743-9466-2ec2d75631af","slug":null,"name":"Local","description":"Default template","logoImage":null}],"isTravelBookableDeal":false,"soldQuantity":10000,"soldQuantityMessage":"10,000+","locations":[{"uuid":"72242af8-6d08-b06a-768b-0154bf9720cb","id":null,"lng":-71.4201384,"lat":41.8694952,"distance":3.1682866416235544,"distanceSource":"external:lat_lng_param"},{"uuid":"f3b8fbf8-4780-b06a-747e-013a8fd5c548","id":null,"lng":-71.3418705,"lat":41.8072215,"distance":3.846078148618576,"distanceSource":"external:lat_lng_param"}],"highlightsHtml":"<p>Inside-and-out wash cleans and vacuums cars, detail includes hand wash, carnauba wax, interior shampooing, conditioning, and engine detail</p>"},{"uuid":"4628fba3-fe52-467f-accb-02a316c646ee","dealUrl":"https://www.groupon.com/deals/tavolo-wine-bar-and-tuscan-grille-providence","grid4ImageUrl":"https://img.grouponcdn.com/deal/3j3Cihv3oyMcjbbuNUyo/jH-700x420/v1/t300x182.jpg","channels":[],"displayOptions":[{"name":"discount","enabled":true},{"name":"quantity","enabled":true},{"name":"timer","enabled":true},{"name":"merchandisingType","value":"other"},{"name":"showRedemptionLocations","enabled":true},{"name":"showPrice","enabled":true}],"largeImageUrl":"https://img.grouponcdn.com/deal/3j3Cihv3oyMcjbbuNUyo/jH-700x420/v1/t440x300.jpg","title":"$60 or $120 Toward Italian Cuisine at Tavolo Wine Bar & Tuscan Grill - Providence (Up to 35% Off)","announcementTitle":"Up to 35% Off Italian Cuisine","shortAnnouncementTitle":"Italian Cuisine","badges":[{"uuid":"cc39c9cf-0872-4963-8529-8eee457317c1","primaryColor":"#6650D7E6","text":"BEST OF GROUPON","secondaryColor":"#FFFFFFFF","mustDisplay":true,"badgeType":"BEST_OF_GROUPON","displayLocation":"RIBBON","iconImageUrl":"https://img.grouponcdn.com/ums/2Rs9hAQVVme5JqEEcWt2jsVjTy5m/Best_Of-26x26"}],"redemptionLocation":"Providence","merchant":{"id":"tavolo-wine-bar-and-tuscan-grille-providence","uuid":"51f61208-70c6-4ec7-bea1-50b1f20b2c3f","name":"Tavolo Wine Bar & Tuscan Grille - Providence","websiteUrl":"http://tavolowinebar.com/","recommendations":[{"ratingDistribution":{"1":24,"2":31,"3":83,"4":264,"5":869},"rating":4.51,"source":"groupon-users","totalMessage":"1271","percentMessage":"96","prominentDisplay":true,"total":1271,"percent":96}],"twitterUrl":null,"facebookUrl":null,"ratings":null},"reviews":null,"priceSummary":{"discountPercent":29,"minimumPurchaseQuantity":1,"price":{"amount":8500,"currencyCode":"USD","formattedAmount":"$85","currencyExponent":2},"value":{"amount":12000,"currencyCode":"USD","formattedAmount":"$120","currencyExponent":2},"regularPrice":null,"pricingMetadata":null,"redemptionOffer":{"minimumPurchaseValue":{"amount":0,"currencyCode":"USD","formattedAmount":"$0.00","currencyExponent":2},"maximumDiscount":{"amount":0,"currencyCode":"USD","formattedAmount":"$0.00","currencyExponent":2},"redemptionCount":null},"quoteId":"247270a7-4753-43a3-bafc-f18352ce75d0","additionalRedemptionOffers":[]},"uiTreatment":[{"uuid":"03567e7f-40b5-4743-9466-2ec2d75631af","slug":null,"name":"Local","description":"Default template","logoImage":null}],"isTravelBookableDeal":false,"soldQuantity":1000,"soldQuantityMessage":"1,000+","locations":[{"uuid":"5bfe0bff-68ae-b178-4875-0158fde9606b","id":null,"lng":-71.42754769999999,"lat":41.8238813,"distance":0.7499006181733945,"distanceSource":"external:lat_lng_param"}],"highlightsHtml":"<p>Talented team of chefs & owners offer authentic and innovative Italian cuisine along with grilled steaks, seafood, & handcrafted desserts</p>"},{"uuid":"5f91a670-cdb3-11e8-ae04-52540a1457f9","dealUrl":"https://www.groupon.com/deals/bubble-bee-soapery","grid4ImageUrl":"https://img.grouponcdn.com/deal/37cF7Hj7A9zhDKusDAjQ/xz-2048x1229/v1/t300x182.jpg","channels":[],"displayOptions":[{"name":"discount","enabled":true},{"name":"quantity","enabled":true},{"name":"timer","enabled":true},{"name":"merchandisingType","value":"other"},{"name":"showRedemptionLocations","enabled":true},{"name":"showPrice","enabled":true}],"largeImageUrl":"https://img.grouponcdn.com/deal/37cF7Hj7A9zhDKusDAjQ/xz-2048x1229/v1/t440x300.jpg","title":"$13 Off $25 Worth of Soap / Cleanser","announcementTitle":"$13 Off $25 Worth of Soap / Cleanser","shortAnnouncementTitle":"Soap / Cleanser","redemptionLocation":"Federal Hill","merchant":{"id":"bubble-bee-soapery","uuid":"feca1154-9384-4cbd-a8e4-36d3203af74e","name":"Bubble Bee Soapery","websiteUrl":"http://bubblebeesoapery.com","recommendations":[{"ratingDistribution":{"1":1,"2":0,"3":0,"4":0,"5":4},"rating":4.2,"source":"groupon-users","totalMessage":"5","percentMessage":"80","prominentDisplay":false,"total":5,"percent":80}],"twitterUrl":null,"facebookUrl":null,"ratings":null},"reviews":null,"priceSummary":{"discountPercent":48,"minimum |
then I would get one signature at the end with a different size, and that wouldn’t look good. The pages of this extended document now need to be resorted so that five sheets make up a booklet with the pages in the right order. For example, here is a page from the first signature, showing the master document’s pages 18 and 3. This looks weird but in the finished signature the pages will be in the right place. Fortunately, there is software that allows you to create booklets and that handles the resorting for you.
Step 2 — Preparing the signatures In order to create the signatures, the single sheets need to be folded. Usually, this is done using a bonefolder. Yes, it’s really made from bone. Bookbinding is badass. Five sheets then make up each signature: On the first and the last signature, an ‘end-paper’ is glued and the hinge reinforced. I’m using a classic plain end-paper for this project. In addition, sewing bands are attached on one end-paper, which are needed in the next step. Step 3 — Sewing the book block The individual signatures are now sewn together with linen thread. As you can see, the thread goes around the sewing bands: I’ve spaced the sewing bands so that they are equidistant and the stitching is neat and orderly: Once all signatures are sewn, the sewing bands are fastened on the opposite end-paper. Step 4 — Trimming the edges of the book block Now we have a book block, but its edges are uneven. While you will see books with untrimmed edges from time to time (they give the book a vintage/antique look), most books have even edges. And that’s what I want for this project. To trim the edges of the book block, I’m using a trimming plough. The book is firmly clamped in a press, the plough is moved back and forth and gradually tightened, and its round blade cuts the pages of the book block. The result is even edges: Step 5 — Rounding the book block The classic book has a rounded spine. This is not only done because it looks nice, but also because it increases the stability of the spine and reduces the swelling caused by the sewing thread. At this stage, the spine has already been glued. Rounding the book block is an intricate procedure that requires precision tools and highly advanced skill acquired in years of training: basically, you give it a good whack with a hammer. Done the right way a couple of times, this results in a rounded spine: The spine in then shaped further to create ‘shoulders’ on both sides. This helps to preserve the rotundity of the spine over time and use, and the shoulders function as the points around which the covers will swing. Again, this is done by gently hammering the spine. But using a different hammer. Step 6 — Final touches The book block is almost done, only two things are missing. First, I’m attaching a ribbon as a bookmark, as well as headbands at the head and tail of the book. Headbands also have a protective function, but mostly they are simply decorative. And second, I’m glueing strong paper onto the spine for additional stability. And that’s it. The book block is ready. In the next post, I will show you how I create the leather cover.Zooey Deschanel in New Girl
Perhaps, taking in the bumble of buzz around the fall TV season, you have gotten the impression that the career of Zooey Deschanel is a matter of national import. It apparently has some kind of meaning distinct from (if dependent upon) her talents as an actress and a singer. The run-up to the network premiere of Deschanel’s first sitcom, New Girl (Fox, Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET), has found media types, post-feminist cutie-pies, and men on the street, all the sad young men, wondering what is up. “Is the American sitcom ready for a hipster sweetheart?” asked the cover of New York last week. Other queries issue from other quarters. Judging by the fuss, you would think that the lead role on Two and a Half Men had been given to Chloë Sevigny.
Perhaps, if you’ve heard enough of this stuff, you have begun to believe that the show will serve as a referendum on modern womanhood and contemporary taste. Maybe—given Deschanel’s position as a niche-market sex symbol and trendsetter, one with a sensitive rock-star husband and an online lifestyle magazine to her name—you even think that there could be implications for the New Hampshire primary, if she found a way to organize all the jeune filles clicking down the brick sidewalks of Portsmouth in their Mary Janes. She is a style icon who—in the commercial that no longer constitutes her broadest brush with small-screen celebrity—buys vinyl while selling cotton. She and I once went to tea for a story. I remember her as unassuming, unaffected, and bright, but mostly I remember that she paid and, wary of her accountant chiding her as a scatterbrain, tucked the receipt away in a vintage purse. “Deschanel doesn’t just portray indie culture onscreen,” the New York profile sweetly sighed. “She, more than most of her indie-actress peers, seems to live it, too ….” A certain sort of person, feeling possessive about Zooey, is also getting proprietary about her own mode of refinement.
Perhaps none of the above means anything to you. Great. Just know that the girl from Elf has a show now. It’s funny and cute.
But not too cute, an obvious risk, given the circumstances. Deschanel plays one Jess Day, described in press materials as “an offbeat and adorable girl in her late 20s who, after a bad breakup, moves in with three single guys …. Although she’s dorky and awkward, she’s comfortable in her own skin.” I know, I know, but stick with me. As created by Liz Meriwether, New Girl privileges quick solid jokes over ornamental quirks. As Jess’ roommates might say in their native dude-speak, it’s got good fundamentals. If Jess is a hipster sweetheart, then so is Carole Lombard. Nothing in the body of the text is remotely as irksome as its aggressively ingratiating tagline, “Simply adorkable!”
Jess broke it off with her boyfriend after catching him cheating. In Deschanel’s first big scene, she surprises the guy with a special-occasion striptease—a bump-and-grind rendered endearing by its bumbling dance attack—and she is in turn surprised to see another woman emerge from the bedroom. Thereafter, Jess wallows in an operetta of self-pity. At one point, she stares at her tear-soaked, snot-moist Kleenex and addresses it with a screaming plea for help, much to the consternation of the guys she’s sharing an apartment with.
She loves them like brothers, and they love her like bros. Nick, played by Jake Johnson, is a bartender recently wounded by a breakup. The wound is suppurating horribly, to our enjoyment. (A flashback finds Nick plugging his ears and yelling like a child—”I can’t hear you!“—when getting kicked to curb, a nice caricature of a spurned lover’s tantrum, with its obstinate desire to stop time and reset reality.) Coach, played by Damon Wayans Jr., is a personal trainer. He doesn’t take any B.S.—perhaps to his detriment; isn’t a modest intake of B.S. part of a balanced mental diet?—and he rages at his clients as if struggling through some kind of Louis Gossett complex. Don’t get too attached; Wayans, having had another show renewed, will be gone next week, but I assume that his replacement’s inner emotional conflicts will be just as much in need of a woman’s touch as all the other guys’. ” ‘My name is Nick,’ ” says Jess, teasing the bartender into self-awareness. ” ‘I have a penis, and I’m not gonna let my feelings out.’ ”
The third and best roommate is Schmidt (Max Greenfield). He reads like a fundamentally solid guy who, having been thrust into a particular kind of cultural role—the kind-of-a-dick kind—is now making the most of it. Schmidt flaunts his abs often. He bows and scrapes, yearning for the approving one-armed hugs of alpha jerks. He shares some DNA with the yuppie slickster that Ryan Howard evolved into in the fourth season of The Office. Near the end of the pilot, in a tender moment, Schmidt turns to Jess and tells her that, no matter what, he’d still do her. His friends then fine him for this offense, ordering him to put another dollar in the “douchebag jar”—a receptacle akin to a swear jar. Considering Schmidt’s prolific douchebaggery, I’d suggest the roommates either set up an electronic transfer or obtain a 55-gallon oil drum.
The fifth character is Jess’ best friend, a professional model named Cici (Hannah Simone). When Cici tells the dudes that they better take good care of Jess, they listen closely, as if the babe is threatening to transform into an angel of vengeance. If they betray Jess, they are betraying all women, especially the sexiest ones, and accordingly will suffer eternally in a fire that burns with the heat of the hotness of 40-score head-turners.
All the while, Jess’ character presents sweetness without saccharine, ditziness without duncery, and klutziness with notable grace. In one scene, flirting with a guy in a bar, she accepts a compliment about her eyeglasses by saying, “They help me see.” The joy of the line is in the tone of reading: Tipsy and swooning, Jess is earnestly attempting a helpful explanation. I liked the clueless coo of it. Your mileage may vary. There is a notion going around my office that Deschanel’s speaking voice—a droll nasal drawl distinct from her full peal in song—might be the most compelling thing about her. Or the most annoying. In any case, it’s well-suited to the screwball voice of a show that looks like a commercial hit. We’ll know that New Girl has jumped the shark if, in the fifth season, Ellen Page turns up as Jess’ young cousin from out of town and begins playing Skipper to America’s indie-darling Barbie.My son Brock was diagnosed in 2014 with Autism-SPD-impulsivity control issues. He has severe anxiety which makes it difficult to communicate with strangers. This past school year, he has overcame so many challenges, however this left him exhausted and angry at the start of the summer.
But everything changed when we go to meet a few officers from the police department.
The first time I saw him truly smile was when I made a stop at the Osceola Police Station and one of the officers stopped to show him around the station while I was taking care of a past parking ticket. He answered all of his questions with a patience that is hard to come by anymore, even ones as silly as “Why do cops have refrigerators?” He spent almost 20 minutes answering my sons repetitive questions, all with a smile. When we left that day, my son told the officer he was his hero, and it really reinforced his dream of becoming an officer as an adult.
What he really wanted was to get his picture taken with an officer so he could hang it on his wall. About three weeks later, there was an officer responding to a call in my neighborhood, and Brock waited patiently for about an hour until the officer was done.
He worked through his nerves and started approaching the officer. His anxiety got the best of him a few times, but he finally got up the courage and kept saying “Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! I’m really doing this, Mom!”
And he did!
He asked the officer and was able to get a picture with Officer Morgel and his K9 Officer Riko as well. The officer was incredibly patient, and truly listened to my son which doesn’t happen very often (he tends to get brushed off by people sometimes.) He made my child feel special, and Brock has smiled more in the last few days then I’ve seen in a very long time.
Sometimes the smallest things can make a huge difference in our children’s lives. I’m incredibly grateful to these Wisconsin officers for taking time out of their busy schedules (while on duty) to put a smile on a boy’s face.
SHARE the Sweetness… (Click below)Here’s what we know about Chinese stock markets: They are so dramatically different from Western ones that reacting the same way to a 5% drop in China, and a 5% drop in the Dow, is about the same as a foreigner living in the U.S. expecting the same lifestyle from Cleveland and New York.
The recent gyrations in China’s major markets, Shanghai and Shenzhen, have been closely watched around the world. Did last Monday’s 8.5% drop mean the greater Chinese economy was cracking apart, like had happened in the U.S. during the 2008 crisis when the stock market sent signals about insolvent banks? In China, the answer is almost certainly not. Chinese stock markets don’t send the same signals and don’t have the same effects when they rise and crash as Western ones because they are fundamentally different.
Now that the country’s markets are taking two days off starting Thursday for a military parade that may be China’s biggest public spectacle since the 2008 Olympics (Shanghai limped into the weekend with a 0.2% loss Wednesday), it is a good time to remember that Chinese stock markets are very different from those elsewhere. What follows is what we know. It’s not a complete list. But it’s a start to help put context behind the wild prices swings of late.
Stocks don’t fill accounts at home
Chinese homes have most of their wealth tied up in property, bank deposits and if they’re really rich, wealth management products. Stock holdings are no more than 5% of household wealth in China, according to Gavekal Dragonomics, compared to one-quarter to one-third in the U.S.
Nor do they provide a lot of company capital
Stock financing is a relatively small portion of Chinese companies’ balance sheets. The majority comes from bank loans and debt. Equity-raising accounts for less than 5% of total corporate fund-raising; bank loans and retained earnings remain by far the biggest sources of investment funds, says Arthur R. Kroeber a Senior Fellow at the Brookings-Tsinghua Center. This means company capital raises aren’t frozen when the stock market crashes.
Retail traders are important in China
Unlike in the U.S., where institutions dominate stock trading, retail investors recently owned the majority of tradeable shares, according to investment bank CICC, as high as 80%. There’s a reason pictures of country people trading stocks tend to be favorites of Western newspapers.
But—and this is an important caveat—it is not a mom and pop market
Seventy five percent of the individual stock accounts in China have less than 100,000 yuan ($16,000), meaning the accounts with upwards of $1 million or more have a far greater push on the market. The value of those larger accounts means the small investors’ effect isn’t as strong as you might expect.
Analysts said it was the richest traders who were bailing out of the market this summer after Shanghai Composite’s June 12 peak, precipitating the eventual plunge that has sent stocks down by 40% from their apex. “The high net worth clients are the ones who moved the market,” one told Bloomberg in August.
As late as 2010, when the stock market began a multi-year slide, institutions were responsible for 40% of trading, according to KPMG. That means small retail investors tend to jump in and out quickly in a market that is usually driven by the moves of bigger individual accounts and institutions.
Many companies aren’t open to mergers or acquisitions, which help determine stock values
China’s Shanghai Composite is dominated by state-owned companies—the top ten valued companies are all state-owned. The Communist Party floats only a small percentage of a company’s equity on the stock exchange while keeping control of the rest. So a core part a company’s valuation—who decides corporate control, or a company theoretically being up for sale—isn’t factored into Chinese stock prices. Activist investors don’t have a big business in China. “This leaves share prices to simply reflect market liquidity and demand at any given time,” says Fraser Howie, co-author of Red Capitalism: The Fragile Financial Foundation of China’s Extraordinary Rise.
There is no rule that crashes in China have any effect on global equities
In late July, when the Shanghai stock composite crashed by 8.5%, the equivalent of the Dow Jones industrial average shedding 1,500 points in a day, the U.S. basically shrugged. The S&P 500 barely budged that day. There’s no research showing that China’s walled-off stock markets precipitate global sell-offs with any regularity: they only recently opened to money flowing from Hong Kong and include only small amounts of foreign investment—after August’s sell-offs, for instance, only about $550 million flowed out of China in exchange-traded funds, according to Markit.
The economy doesn’t really affect Chinese stocks
The same can even be said for other emerging markets. Across 15 emerging countries for two decades until 2011, there was no positive correlation between rising GDP and stock market returns, according to a study at the London School of Business. Through 2011, China was the fastest growing emerging market economy, averaging 9.4% growth over two decades. At the same time, its stock market returned an annualized negative 5.5%. So China’s stock bubble bursting recently should say a lot more about a stock bubble existing than China’s economy collapsing—which has a low probability of happening in the short term.
The negative wealth effect from a stock crash in China is illusory
Because less than 7% of the population actually owns stocks, the supposed wealth effect created from a rising stock market is specious at best. Apple’s CEO Tim Cook told CNBC’s Jim Cramer as much last month in an e-mail, emphasizing that Apple’s China business remained strong despite stock declines.
China’s stock markets have a short, violent history of boom and bust
Since 1992, when then president Deng Xiaoping praised stock markets, leading to China’s first boom, shares have been heavily influenced by government interventions. Last summer the state-owned press began publishing propaganda praising China’s undervalued stocks. Traders bought. That might be because Chinese stocks were never about free markets per se. The decision to open stock markets happened in 1990, following the Tiananmen Square massacre, followed by political infighting to determine whether China would continue follow capitalist reforms or turn back towards socialism. There were street markets popping up in Shenzhen where people started exchanging shares. “The markets weren’t needed for capital allocation. Big banks handled that for state owned sector,” Howie wrote. The Party sanctioned stock markets in response to these street markets—to control social unrest—and make the SOEs more competitive as it embraced capitalist reforms.
Also, you’re probably reading those pictures wrong
Those pictures with a bunch of red numbers splattered across the boards? That marks an up day. Red is an auspicious color in China and means positive; green means negative. If you’re just now having an A-ha moment, consider how much you know really about Chinese markets before doing anything rash.
All that said, China’s economy is facing real problems—probably much worse than a teetering stock market. The recession in the manufacturing sector could drag the entire economy into low growth and create large numbers of unemployed. The government has been propping up a weak yuan over the past couple weeks with daily interventions and the central bank is worried about capital outflows further weakening the currency and economy. The service sector showed rare weakness last month.
The Chinese economy is looking as vulnerable as its been in years. It’s just that what happens in the Chinese stock market doesn’t have much to do with it.President Obama is expected to announce late this week his decision to create a senior White House official responsible for protecting the nation's government-run and private computer networks from attack, according to a published report.
The "cyber czar" will probably be a member of the National Security Council but will report to the national security adviser and the senior White House economic advisor, according to The Washington Post, which cited unnamed officials who had been briefed on the plan. As of Friday, Obama had not yet settled on the advisor's rank and title.
The announcement is to coincide with the release of a 40-page report evaluating the government's strategy for security government networks and other infrastructure deemed critical to national security. The timing of the report - it was expected to be released a week or two ago - and the details included in the Washington Post report suggest the plan may have run into infighting by advisors to Obama.
On his first full day in office, Obama signaled a willingness to have the cyber czar report directly to the president, an arrangement that he promised as a candidate and that was also recommended by a panel of more than 60 government and business computer security experts.
While the idea is whoever is appointed will be someone who can "pick up the phone and contact the president directly, if need be," the advisor no longer would report directly to Obama, according to the report. What's more, the czar would now have two bosses, in an attempt to strike a balance between homeland security and economic concerns.
Over the past few months, turf wars have arisen between advisors who want the ultra-secretive National Security Agency to oversee the country's cybersecurity. Others have said the job is best carried out by the National Cybersecurity Center, an office within the Department of Homeland Security that's responsible for coordinating the defense of civilian, military and intelligence networks. In March, the government's cybersecurity chief abruptly resigned amid allegations his office was woefully underfunded and inappropriately controlled by the military.
The plan for the czar to report to a senior economic advisor appears to be an effort to give Senior White House Economic Advisor Lawrence H. Summers a degree of control in ensuring efforts to protect private networks don't unduly threaten economic growth. ®A woman’s midnight quest for marijuana turned into a nightmare, as she was raped in a deserted alleyway by the person she agreed to meet up with.
The incident occurred on Wednesday night, December 23, at around midnight. The victim, a 26-year-old African-American woman, arranged to meet up with a man in order to purchase marijuana.
The two met on the corner of Eastern Parkway and Nostrand Ave., but the perpetrator lured her into the alleyway off Brooklyn Ave. between Union and President Streets, where he pinned her to the ground and committed the assault.
The perpetrator was described as a 6-foot-tall African-American male in his mid-20s, wearing a gray ‘hoodie.’
The victim was transported to Woodhall Hospital, where police collected evidence and she was interviewed by detectives from the NYPD’s Special Crimes Unit.
Police detectives also conducted an investigation at the crime scene, cordoning off the alleyway for several hours. Local residents were left wondering what had transpired, and were not notified of the crime that occurred near their homes until several days later.
“It’s very scary that something like this happened right next to my house, and my children’s school,” a Jewish resident of the block told CrownHeights.info, after being told what had transpired.Career Edit
Playing style Edit
Earlier in his career, Malanda played as a right back.[4] On his recall to Wolfsburg, Sporting Director Klaus Allofs said "After we signed him, we have been following his development closely. Over the last half year, he has convinced us with his continued strong performances. Therefore, we decided to take the option to bring him to VfL at this early stage. Despite his age, Junior Malanda is a player who has the necessary experience. Now, with VfL, he has the chance to develop his great potential."[12]
Personal life Edit
Malanda was from a Belgian family of Congolese descent, and was survived by a brother named Rudy.[18] He was a close friend of Kevin De Bruyne and Ivan Perišić, teammates at Wolfsburg.[18]
Death Edit
References EditI’m sure you’ve heard that updating to Java 9 is no walk in the park, maybe even that it’s an incompatible update and that a migration makes no sense for large code bases. After doing exactly that, migrating an old and fairly large code base, I can tell you that it’s not that bad. It’s more work than bumping to Java 8, true, but it’s time well spent. More than anything else, the migration uncovered some small and a few not so small problems that needed fixing regardless of the migration itself and we took the opportunity to do just that.
I collected a few surprising details over at java9.wtf but condensed the seven largest issues into this Java 9 migration guide. It’s as much a post as it is a resource to come back to, so put it on speed dial and search it when you have a concrete problem. Also note that while you need to know a bit about the module system (here’s a tutorial), this is not about modularizing your application – it is only about getting it to compile and run on Java 9.
Overview
This is a list of the seven most likely problems to trip you up during a migration to Java 9:
Each section explains the problem, the most common symptoms that help you identify it and a set of possible fixes (usually command line options for java or javac). A future post will tie individual fixes into a larger migration strategy and make some recommendations based on my experiences.
Illegal Access To Internal APIs
One of the module system’s biggest selling points is strong encapsulation. It makes sure non-public classes as well as classes from non-exported packages are inaccessible from outside the module. First and foremost, this of course applies to the platform modules shipped with the JDK, where only java.* and javax.* packages are fully supported. Most com.sun.* and sun.* packages, on the other hand, are internal and hence inaccessible by default.
While the Java 9 compiler behaves exactly as you would expect and prevents illegal access, the same is not true for the run time. To offer a modicum of backwards compatibility it eases migration and improves the chances of applications built on Java 8 to run on Java 9 by granting access to internal classes. If reflection is used for the access, a warning is emitted.
Symptoms
During compilation against Java 9 you see compile errors similar to the following:
1 2 3 4 5 6 error : package com.sun.java.swing.plaf.nimbus is not visible import com.sun.java.swing.plaf.nimbus.NimbusLookAndFeel ; ^ ( package com.sun.java.swing.plaf.nimbus is declared in module java.desktop, which does not export it ) 1 error
Warnings emitted for reflection look as follows:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Static access to [ Nimbus Look and Feel ] WARNING : An illegal reflective access operation has occurred WARNING : Illegal reflective access by j9ms.internal.Nimbus ( file :... ) to constructor NimbusLookAndFeel ( ) WARNING : Please consider reporting this to the maintainers of j9ms.internal.Nimbus WARNING : Use -- illegal - access = warn to enable warnings of further illegal reflective access operations WARNING : All illegal access operations will be denied in a future release Reflective access to [ Nimbus Look and Feel ]
Fixes
The most obvious and sustainable fix for dependencies on internal APIs is to get rid of them. Replace them with maintained APIs and you paid back some high-risk technical debt.
If that can’t be done for whatever reason, the next best thing is to acknowledge the dependencies and inform the module system that you need to access it. To that end you can use two command line options:
The option -- add - exports $module / $package = $readingmodule can be used to export $package of $module to $readingmodule. Code in $readingmodule can hence access all public types in $package but other modules can not. When setting $readingmodule to ALL - UNNAMED, all code from the class path can access that package. During a migration to Java 9, you will always use that placeholder. The option is available for the java and javac commands.
can be used to export of $module to $readingmodule. Code in $readingmodule can hence access all public types in but other modules can not. When setting $readingmodule to, all code from the class path can access that package. During a migration to Java 9, you will always use that placeholder. The option is available for the and commands. This covers access to public members of public types but reflection can do more than that: With the generous use of setAccessible ( true ) it allows interaction with non-public classes, fields, constructors, and methods (sometimes called deep reflection), which even in exported packages are still encapsulated. The java option -- add - opens uses the same syntax as -- add - exports and opens the package to deep reflection, meaning all of its types and their members are accessible regardless of their visibility modifiers.
You obviously need --add-exports to appease the compiler but gathering --add-exports and --add-opens for the run time has advantages as well:
the run time’s permissive behavior will change in future Java releases, so you have to do that work at some point anyway -- add - opens makes the warnings for illegal reflective access go away as I will show in a minute, you can make sure no new dependencies crop up by making the run time actually enforce strong encapsulation
Going Further
Compiling against Java 9 helps hunting down dependencies on internal APIs in the project’s code base. But the libraries and frameworks your project uses are just as likely to make trouble.
JDeps is the perfect tool to find compile dependencies on JDK-internal APIs in your project and your dependencies. If you’re not familiar with it, I’ve written a tutorial that gets you started. Here’s how to use it for the task at hand:
1 jdeps -- jdk - internals - R -- class - path 'libs/*' $project
Here, libs is a folder containing all of your dependencies and $project your project’s JAR. Analyzing the output is beyond this article’s scope but it’s not that hard – you’ll manage.
Finding reflective access is a little tougher. The run time’s default behavior is to warn you once for the first illegal access to a package, which is insufficient. Fortunately, there’s the --illegal-access=$value option, where $value can be:
permit : Access to all JDK-internal APIs is permitted to code on the class path. For reflective access, a single warning is issued for the first access to each package. (Default in Java 9, but will be removed in a future release.)
: Access to all JDK-internal APIs is permitted to code on the class path. For reflective access, a single warning is issued for the first access to each package. (Default in Java 9, but will be removed in a future release.) warn : Behaves like permit but a warning is issued for each reflective access.
: Behaves like but a warning is issued for each reflective access. debug : Behaves like warn but a stack trace is included in each warning.
: Behaves like but a stack trace is included in each warning. deny : The option for those who believe in strong encapsulation:
All illegal access is forbidden by default.
Particularly deny is very helpful to hunt down reflective access. It is also a great default value to set once you’ve collected all required --add-exports and --add-opens options. This way, no new dependencies can crop up without you noticing it.
Only so many facts fit into a post - fortunately, there's a book with more of them: The Java Module System In-depth introduction to the module system: essential concepts and advanced topics compatibility and migration tool support and much more...
Published by Manning: early access available since March 2017 dead-tree version in early 2018
Subscribe to my newsletter to stay tuned.
(And maybe even get a peek.) Get 37% off with the code fccparlog!
Dependencies On Java EE Modules
There’s a lot of code in Java SE that’s actually Java EE related. It ended up in these six modules:
java.activation with javax.activation package
package java.corba with javax.activity, javax.rmi, javax.rmi.CORBA, and org.omg. * packages
,,, and packages java.transaction with javax.transaction package
package java.xml.bind with all javax.xml.bind. * packages
packages java.xml.ws with javax.jws, javax.jws.soap, javax.xml.soap, and all javax.xml.ws. * packages
,,, and all packages java.xml.ws.annotation with javax.annotation package
For various compatibility reasons (one of them being split packages, which we will look at next), code on the class path does not see these modules by default, which leads to compile or run time errors.
Symptoms
Here’s a compile error for a class using JAXBException from the java.xml.bind module:
1 2 3 4 5 6 error : package javax.xml.bind is not visible import javax.xml.bind.JAXBException ; ^ ( package javax.xml.bind is declared in module java.xml.bind, which is not in the module graph ) 1 error
If you get it past the compiler but forget to massage the run time, you’ll get a NoClassDefFoundError:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError : javax / xml / bind / JAXBException at monitor.Main.main ( Main.java : 27 ) Caused by : java.lang.ClassNotFoundException : javax.xml.bind.JAXBException at java.base / jdk.internal.loader.BuiltinClassLoader.loadClass ( BuiltinClassLoader.java : 582 ) at java.base / jdk.internal.loader.ClassLoaders $AppClassLoader.loadClass ( ClassLoaders.java : 185 ) at java.base / java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass ( ClassLoader.java : 496 )... 1 more
Fixes on Java 9 and 10
Once you modularized your code, you can declare a regular dependency in the module’s declaration. Until then, --add-modules $module comes to your rescue, which makes sure $module is available and can be added to both java and javac. If you add java.se.ee, you’ll have access to all Java EE modules.
Fixes on Java 11 and later
Java 11 removes the Java EE modules, so from then on you will need third-party implementations instead. This StackOverflow answer contains a list of alternatives. Note that using third-party dependencies already works from Java 9 on, so you don’t have to use --add-modules as a stopgap.
Split Packages
This one is a little tricky… To enforce consistency a module is not allowed to read the same package from two different modules. The actual implementation is stricter, though, and no two modules are allowed to even contain the same package (exported or not). The module system operates under that assumption and whenever a class needs to be loaded, it looks up which module contains that package and goes looking for the class in there (which should boost class loading performance).
To safeguard the assumption the module system checks that no two named modules split a package and barfs if it finds any that do. During migration you’re not quite in that situation, though. Your code comes from the class path, which puts it into the so-called unnamed module. To maximize compatibility it is not scrutinized and no module-related checks are applied to it.
Now, in the case of split packages, this means a split between a named module (e.g. in the JDK) and the unnamed module is not discovered. Which may sound very fortunate, is the opposite if you mix in the class loading behavior: If a package is split between a module and the class path, for classes from that package class loading will always and only look into the module. This means classes in the class path portion of the package are effectively invisible.
Symptoms
The symptom is that a class from the class path can not be loaded even though it’s definitely there, leading to compile errors like this:
1 2 3 error : cannot find symbol symbol : class Nonnull location : package javax.annotation
Or, at run time, to NoClassDefFoundErrors like above.
One example where this can occur is with the various JSR-305 implementations. A project using, for example, the annotations javax.annotation.Generated (from java.xml.ws.annotation) and java.annotation.Nonnull (from com.google.code.findbugs:jsr305) will have trouble compiling. It is either missing the Java EE annotations or, when the module is added like described above, will encounter a split package and not see the JSR 305 module.
Fixes
The migration path will be different, depending on the artifact that splits the JDK package. In some cases it might be more than just some classes that go into a random JDK package but a replacement for an entire JDK module, for example because it overrides an endorsed standard. In that case, you are looking for the --upgrade-module-path $dir option – modules found in $dir are used to replace upgradeable modules in the run time.
If you indeed just have a couple of classes that split a package, the long-term solution is to remove the split. In case that is not possible in the short-term, you can patch the named module with the content from the class path. The option --patch-module $module=$artifact will merge all classes from $artifact into $module, putting all portions of the split package into the same module, thus mending split.
In the case of java.xml.ws.annotation and @Nonnull that would be
--patch-module java.xml.ws.annotation=path/to/jsr305-3.0.2.jar. For this particular problem, there are other viable solutions, though, which I explore in a separate post.
There are a few things to look out for, though. First of all, the patched module must actually make it into the module graph, for which it might be necessary to use --add-modules. Then, it must have access to all the dependencies that it needs to run successfully. Since named modules can not access code from the class path, this might make it necessary to start creating some automatic modules, which goes beyond the scope of this post.
Going Further
Finding split package by try and error is pretty unnerving. Fortunately JDeps reports them, so if you analyze your project and its dependencies, the first lines of output will report split packages. You can use |
finding it impossible to keep up with the growing pace of food insecurity.
“I don’t think it’s ever been the way it is now…It seems like we just see more and more people coming in here,” said Community Health Action of Staten Island executive director Diane Arneth.
In a city of 8.3 million people, as many as 1.4 million residents suffer from food insecurity according to the New York City Coalition Against Hunger’s 2013 Hunger Report [PDF], which uses data from the USDA and adopts the agency’s definition of food security as “access … to enough food for an active, healthy life.” That number is likely to go up before it goes down, advocates say.
Death By A Thousand Cuts
“What’s happened in New York is pretty similar to what’s happened in the rest of the country. Like everything else here, it’s exaggerated and bigger, but the trends tend to be the same,” said Joel Berg, New York City Coalition Against Hunger (NYCCAH) executive director and former advisor to President Bill Clinton. The modern hunger crisis “can be directly traced to the Reagan era and the replacement of living wage jobs with poverty jobs or no jobs at all,” Berg told msnbc.
Federal nutrition programs had expanded dramatically in the decade before President Reagan took office, but his administration put a decisive end to the forward momentum. In a 1983 Christian Science Monitor op-ed called “The return of hunger to America,” Democratic presidential candidate and South Carolina Senator Ernest Hollings noted that Reagan had successfully slashed at least $5.9 billion (or nearly $13.6 billion, in 2014 dollars) out of food stamps.
In the late 70s, hunger in the United States appeared to be nearing extinction. In New York, says Berg, there was so little need for emergency food services that in 1978 the city had only 28 operating feeding agencies. By 2014, that number had ballooned to about 1,000 agencies.
Granted, there was a slight dip in nationwide food insecurity figures during the boom times of the late 90s and early aughts, according to USDA figures. Yet the brief dip didn’t last long, thanks in part to President Clinton’s 1996 welfare cuts and the lack of any concerted federal anti-hunger effort.
The 2008 financial collapse vastly hiked the number of hungry people in New York and across the U.S. Between 2006 and 2012, according to NYCCAH estimates, roughly 200,000 New Yorkers became food insecure. To make matters worse, the same economic forces that added those 200,000 to the ranks of the needy also decimated the non-profit safety net which was supposed to catch them. Between 2007 and 2012, New York lost 25% of its food pantries and soup kitchens.
The 2009 federal stimulus bill helped to limit the damage by adding back $45.2 billion to the food stamp program and raised the cap on maximum benefits. Yet food insecurity never returned to pre-recession levels, and November’s $5 billion cut wound up making things worse.
In fact, the Food Bank For New York City reports that its member pantries and soup kitchens saw a greater increase in demand as an immediate result of the food stamp cuts than they did in the weeks after Hurricane Sandy slammed the city in 2012.
Now another cut is coming. President Obama recently signed a law that will cut food stamps by an estimated $8.6 billion over the next 10 years. The cuts, which eliminate “Heat and Eat” policies in 15 states and Washington, D.C., will cause 850,000 households around the country to lose an average of $90 per month. Roughly 190,000 of those households are in New York City alone.
Close video Farm Bill cuts will impact 800,000 families Salon’s Blake Zeff joins the Cyclists to discuss the farm bill, which is being praised as bipartisan despite cutting $8 billion from the nation’s food stamp program. share tweet email save Embed
The day before Obama signed the law, Berg held a NYCCAH staff meeting where he said “people were practically in tears thinking about what’s going to happen.”
“We’ve been socialized in America expecting some sort of Frank Capra-esque happy ending, or that somehow we’re going to cope…That’s just not the case,” said Berg. “People are going to suffer more.”
“It’s Going to Be Chaos”
If New York were a country, then Staten Island would be the closest thing it has to a red state. The city’s so-called “forgotten borough” is also its whitest and its most conservative; plus, it has a higher median household income than Manhattan. Yet the island also has its pockets of desperation: Isolated, poorer neighborhoods, occupied largely by people of color.
Community Health Action of Staten Island (CHASI) does what it can to feed those neighborhoods. For years, the non-profit has operated a food pantry along the north shore of the island, in the predominantly low-income neighborhood of Port Richmond. CHASI’s pantry is a “client choice” location, meaning that clients get to choose between different kinds of bread, produce, cereal, and so on.
The pantry also provides assistance in filling out applications for food stamp benefits—something that Food Bank for New York City now strongly encourages all of its member pantries to do, as part of its “all of the above” strategy for dealing with hunger. Yet even coaxing hungry people to ask for federal assistance can be a challenge in the city’s most conservative borough.
“There’s that stigma there that prevents a lot of people from even taking that first step of coming here,” CHASI executive director Diane Arneth told msnbc. Staten Islanders who are new to food insecurity will often flatly refuse to sign up for food stamps if they are referred to by that name; instead, CHASI urges its staff and volunteers to refer to the benefits program by its more recent moniker, SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program).
Many of CHASI’s regulars are already signed up for SNAP and other forms of government assistance. Several of the people msnbc encountered while visiting the pantry were also on federal disability benefits, for reasons ranging from difficulty walking to mental illness. The disabled and elderly are expected to be disproportionately affected by the most recent $8.6 billion cut to food stamps.
David Atkinson, 66, is among the pantry regulars who rely on disability benefits. He said he has been unable to work since his wife died about five years ago, leaving him with crippling depression. They had been living in North Carolina when she passed away, after which Atkinson returned to his hometown of New York, where he knew he could navigate the local welfare system well enough to survive.
Since moving to Staten Island, Atkinson has become a regular fixture at CHASI. At first, he just sat in on whatever communal events they offered; he even attended substance abuse support groups, despite not being a recovering addict himself. Eventually, Arneth invited him to join CHASI’s board of directors.
“I’m the only poor man sitting at the table,” he told msnbc, chuckling.
In person, Atkinson is soft-spoken and well groomed. Visiting the CHASI pantry, he wears a tie, pin-stripe shirt, gray slacks and a leather jacket. For the most part his demeanor is gentle and only a little bit melancholy, but he stutters slightly when he discusses the death of his wife and his voice rises in agitation when he considers the possible fallout of yet more food stamp cuts.
“We can only do as much as we can do, but it’s going to be chaos,” he said. “People are going to be stealing out of all of the supermarkets. They’re going to be stealing from the neighborhood stores. And they’re going to be good at it and steal some more. Look at it this way, if you have less food stamps, you’ve got to spend more cash, right? So if you need more cash, who are you going to go to? You’re going to knock somebody in the head.”
Fear of possible violence was on the minds of many of the food insecure people interviewed by msnbc. More than a few voiced their concern that more desperate people in the neighborhoods might resort to crime as food became increasingly scarce.
“It’s going to get the point where if they keep doing these cuts, you know who’s going to be hurt the most? The senior citizens,” said Robin Setzer, a grandmother and regular CHASI food pantry client. “Why? Because they’re easy targets. People are going to start robbing each other again, they’re going to start sticking them up, hurting them, getting their food taken from them, getting their money taken from them, and why? Because the government won’t take care of nobody. They keep taking from them.”
Purvis, the Food Bank For New York City president, said that security has become a growing concern among the food bank’s member organizations as the demand for emergency food service rises. Some pantry operators are reluctant to keep their sites open late at night, she said, despite high need among the working poor who are unable to come during the day.
“We have had more and more instances of people having security at their sites,” said Purvis. “You know, you don’t want it to be obvious, we don’t want it to feel like a police state, but we’ve had situations where it’s less than ideal. And I’m going to leave it at that.”
Fighting the New Normal
When Purvis compares the fallout of Hurricane Sandy to the aftermath of national food stamp cuts, she distinguishes between natural disaster and “man-made disaster.” But when she steps back and surveys the hunger pandemic that has blanketed her city, she calls it—not without some grim resignation—”the new normal.”
Emergency food organizations across the United States are now acclimating themselves to a perpetual hunger emergency. Food Bank For New York City, the largest organization of its kind, is better equipped than most to weather the never-ending crisis. Few other food banks have access to the sort of fundraising opportunities that come with residing in the nation’s cultural and economic capital. Similarly, no other food bank can boast of having both celebrity chef Mario Batali and veteran actor Stanley Tucci on its board of directors. Food Bank For New York City’s network is vast, and its resources are substantial.
And yet the food bank is now 40% over budget. In its struggle to keep up with the new normal, Food Bank For New York City has stretched its finances to the breaking point.
At the organization’s supply hub, the strain is palpable. Food Bank For New York City owns and operates a 90,000 square foot warehouse in the south Bronx, which at any given point houses between 3 and 4 million pounds of food collected through bulk purchases, individual donations and gifts from overstocked large retailers such as Target. Before the November 1 cuts, a fleet of 15 trucks would distribute the warehouse’s food, and other necessities such as diapers and pet food, to pantries and soup kitchens all over the city. Now the average number of trucks on the road is closer to 18 or 20 per day, though on at least one occasion the food bank has had to contract out as many as 31 trucks for one day’s worth of deliveries.
“It even takes an effect on our machinery, the way it just continues operating…The more work they have to do, they more they have to provide, the more those machines have to run,” the food bank’s director of food distribution for the Bronx Daryl Gardner said. “And the hours, and stuff like that, it takes an effect on the operation.”
No matter how hard they push, it’s never entirely enough. That’s why New York City Coalition Against Hunger (NYCCAH) is pushing for the city government to get more involved. NYCCAH’s Berg has been meeting with staff from the young administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio and trying to persuade them to sign onto the organization’s “Food Secure NYC 2018” plan. The plan calls for policies such as aggressive job creation, a bigger nutrition safety net, and universal free school lunches.
Berg said he is “very, very, very optimistic” regarding the chances that de Blasio will adopt some of NYCCAH’s proposals. But the mayor has yet to make any firm commitments, and with new food stamp cuts scheduled to take effect, time is running out for many of the city’s most vulnerable residents. When asked what happens to those who aren’t able to receive emergency food assistance—to the people who can’t access the last line of defense against hunger—Purvis said she has been asking herself the same question.
“The way I got myself to go to sleep for a couple of nights was that I honestly prayed that they went to another program,” she said. “It is probably more likely that people have gone to bed hungry.”ASHBURN, Va. -- Washington Redskins coach Jay Gruden said if any changes will be made to the coaching staff, it will be his call. And it won’t come until what he called a thorough evaluation.
Gruden said he will spend time looking at every staff member over the next couple of weeks, trying to determine if any changes must be made. They'll evaluate players at the same time.
Defensive coordinator Joe Barry has drawn the most scrutiny, with his defenses having fared poorly in his first two seasons. Gruden said others in the organization, notably owner Dan Snyder, president Bruce Allen and general manager Scot McCloughan, will have input in the decision. Others in the organization have said that any coaching decision is Gruden’s. McCloughan is in charge of the roster, but each man has a say.
With the Redskins finishing 8-7-1, Jay Gruden said, "I have a lot of room for improvement, as do the majority of people in this building." AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin
“I was the main reason we brought him in here,” Gruden said of Barry. “Ultimately, I would think it’s my call. I will have a lot of pull on that one.”
Barry has support from a number of players -- publicly and privately -- but will that be enough? And the team has long known the talent level, especially along the line, must improve defensively. The question for Gruden, and the Redskins, will be: How much of the struggles the last two years were the result of scheme and how much was it about the talent?
“You have to assess both,” Gruden said. “That’s what we’re going to do. We got a lot out of the players we had. The players played hard. We had injuries to key players. But we still have to evaluate everybody, player and coach alike.”
One of his coaches, offensive coordinator Sean McVay, has drawn attention from other teams -- ESPN’s Dan Graziano reported Sunday night that the Los Angeles Rams are interested in him.
“He deserves an opportunity to interview and see what happens,” Gruden said. “Unfortunately we didn’t get it done, but that should not affect his ability to get an interview or a job.”
As for his own season, Gruden said he evaluates himself by looking at the team’s record. He said an 8-7-1 record is “barely above average.”
“You evaluate yourself with wins and losses and playoffs and Super Bowls,” Gruden said. “Going 9-7 … to 8-7-1, we’re kind of stuck. We haven’t been able to get over the hump as far as winning close games consistently. I have a lot of room for improvement, as do the majority of people in this building. As long as we all realize that and understand that and recognize that, there is room and we can do it.”Christine O’Donnell: FEC Probe Is Political Witch Hunt, Or Something
Doug Mataconis · · 12 comments
Matt Lewis passes along Christine O’Donnell’s official response to the news that a criminal probe has apparently been opened over her campaign spending issues:
Responding to news that federal officials had reportedly begun an investigation of her use of campaign funds, former Delaware senate candidate Christine O’Donnell fired back, alleging the investigation was “politically motivated.” In an email, O’Donnell manager Matt Moran said he was unaware of the probe: “We have heard absolutely nothing other than the same unsubstantiated allegations and rumors that have been circulating in the press for months.”
And here’s O’Donnell’s personal response, which suggests that the investigation is “politically motivated” rather than being based on evidence suggesting laws might have been broken:
We’ve been warned by multiple high-ranking Democrat insiders that the Delaware Democrat and Republican political establishment is jointly planning to pull out all the stops to ensure I would never again upset the apple cart. Specifically they told me the plan was to crush me with investigations, lawsuits and false accusations so that my political reputation would become so toxic no one would ever get behind me. I was warned by numerous sources that the DE political establishment is going to use every resource available to them. So given that the King of the Delaware Political Establishment just so happens to be the Vice President of the most liberal Presidential administration in U.S. history, it is no surprise that misuse and abuse of the FBI would not be off the table. And further connecting the dots, do you think it is just a coincidence that Melanie Sloan was a senior Biden staffer just before she joined CREW and filed her complaint against me?!
For your own sake, I hope you have a good lawyer Christine.After the breathtaking and sensational mid-season finale, both the Arrow and The Flash is going to a whole new level in Television entertainment.
The Flash
With the brief introduction of the Reverse Flash and Firestorm, The Flash has some very exciting action pack episodes coming up for the spring. Barry Allen aka The Flash who has been clearly outclassed by his nemesis has to figure out a way to defeat him. He also has the deal with Iris after spilling the beans on how he really feels about her which could make their relationship very rusty.
Until now things are not so much clear about the Reverse Flash’s motive and for the people who are in a dilemma on why does Dr.Harrison Wells (Reverse Flash) tries to kill himself or how he manages to be there at the same time as both the identities, the answer is indirectly revealed in that scene itself if you watch it closely. With just a small part of the Firestorm aka Ronnie on the screen, we can expect to see more of him in the future. And it also won’t be surprising to see KillerFrost by the end of the season.
And from the spring trailer of The Flash we also know that Captain Cold returns which will pose a good challenge for The Flash but we haven’t seen anything about Gorilla Grodd until now apart from a small hint in the Pilot episode.
Things between Eddie and Iris has been going well and they have also decided to live together but we are not quite sure about Iris’s state after she gets to know Barry’s feelings for her which could possibly complicate the love triangle.
Arrow
No one can deny that the fall finale was the best episode of Arrow so far. Matt Nable (Ra’s Al Ghul) didn’t promise much with his first appearance in the show earlier but has gotten to the nerves of the fans after ‘The Climb’. With some hints about the existence of the Lazarus Pit here and there in the episode could only be the only convincing way to bring back Arrow from the dead or ‘almost dead’. The episode had some of its best moments between Olicity and epic dialogues from Ra’s like
“I replaced evil with death”.
With the likely arrival of Ray Palmer as A.T.O.M and Laurel Lance as Black Canary promises the show to be more exciting which also may say that the Arrow might only be seen a fewer times in the rest of the season. The revelation of Sara’s killer (Thea Merlyn) was one of the greater twists but it is difficult to guess about what’s ahead for Malcolm Merlyn. One, he gets away with Sara’s murder or the other Ra’s gets to him which would also seal Thea’s fate if the latter gets to happen.
With the latest pic of the Ronnie Raymond aka Firestorm in the sets of the Arrow, we can expect another Arrow-Flash crossover. As far as Team Arrow is concerned, it will probably be Arsenal’s turn to fill in Arrow’s shoes for the time being hoping that Oliver would return.
Coming to the flashback part, it is more likely to be Maseo’s and Malcolm’s turn now. Apart from Ra’s al Ghul and Malcolm Merlyn, there is not much to guess about villains but we might get to see the Clock King who earlier got his entry in The Flash who is a potential villain for Arrow according to the comics.There are various choices of social media that you could find these days. One of them is Facebook. You could use Facebook for personal purposes. On the other hand, Facebook also could be used for business purposes as well. If you have your own business, creating the right Facebook posts might allow you to promote your products in more efficient and effective way. However, creating posts that have good quality on Facebook could be quite difficult, especially if you have no idea what you should do.
Basically, there are several tips that you could follow so that you could create high quality Facebook posts as promotional tool for your products. Below are several tips that might be useful for you so that you could create better posts on your Facebook business page.
1. Product Preference
One of the most important things that you should consider when you want to create posts for your Facebook business page is product preference. Creating posts that contain product preference questions might allow you to get better feedback from your consumers.
2. Like and Share
Other great way to create posts for your Facebook business page that could engage your consumers in better way is by using like and share contents. Create a post that contains two pictures of your products and ask the consumers to choose one of them by clicking like or share button on the post.
3. Polls
Creating Facebook posts that contain polling is also a great strategy to make better connection with your consumers via your Facebook business page. Polling also allows you to know the reaction of your consumers to your products as well.
4. Caption
You also could increase interaction with your consumers through your Facebook business page by creating posts that contain ‘caption this’ materials. This type of post involves a picture and you will ask your consumers to give the picture a caption. This is a really great way to make your consumers talking about your products.
5. Sponsored Events
When your products become sponsor to specific events, you could create a post that contains photos from the events which show your products involvement. This is a really good way to promote your products through posts on your Facebook business page.
There are many other ways that you could do to create great posts on Facebook so that you could promote your products in more effective and efficient way. The key is that your Facebook posts should engage your consumers in the right way and you will get better results from those posts.In the last part we met Dave Mervik, narrative designer at Tarsier Studios, who’re working on Hunger, an “adventure-suspense” set in a world of childhood nightmares. Hunger follows Six, a young girl, as she finds herself in the grimy and unsettling world of the Maw.
“What we’ve called it in the past is, ‘a kid stuck in a labyrinth full of monsters’. That was supposed to be a conceptual summary, but I think that some people have taken that very literally,” says Mervik.
“You’re not empowered, you’re just a kid, with everything that entails,” he continues. “You don’t have a special gun, you’re not amazing at parkour. It’s a world that wasn’t built for you. It’s someone else’s world and that person is bigger and stronger than you, and they’re not always very nice.”
Owing to their longstanding relationship with Media Molecule franchises Little Big Planet and Tearaway, as well as previous projects including Rag Doll Kung Fu: Fists of Plastic, Tarsier have a reputation for building stories that register on the happier end of the spectrum. But Hunger returns to the dark roots sown by their promising, but ultimately ill-fated, first project City of Metronome.
“It’s the kind of thing that’s always interested a whole lot of people here,” Mervik explains. “It kind of comes from a boredom with the same-old same-old. That’s not everyone, for sure, that wouldn’t be fair to say. But I think the very popular stuff, and the stuff that you get more of now, is the same troubled tough-guy, who’s wise-cracking and blah blahh blahh. It feels like there’s lots of cut-scenes and you’re living through someone else’s Hollywood fantasy.
“Whereas loads of us, usually out on smoke breaks, reminisce about Heart of Darkness, Flashback, Another World, all these things where you felt like you were left alone, where you were exploring and you were actually doing the stuff on-screen. That’s where the germ of Hunger came from.”
Tarsier have drawn from a variety of sources to build-up Hunger’s visual style and lore, but are wholly committed to keeping it a creative and fresh experience, taking inspiration from the works they love, without being derivative.
“We’ve heard Limbo a lot,” Mervick says. “And I think in the teaser you don’t see that it’s full 3-D, so I guess that’s part of it. It’s full 3-D movement, so even though it’s nothing like Luigi’s Mansion, that’s kind of a reference in terms of the camera.”
“When you want to do any kind of game, you look at the people who’ve got something to say, who’ve done something really well in an area that you want to achieve something in,” he adds.
“If you’ve got that in your mind, then it comes out naturally. We’ve never sat down and said, ‘let’s make something that feels like Spirited Away’, but of course there’re people here who really appreciate [Studio] Ghibli and Myazaki. What you have to do is try and steer away from it if it’s starting to channel a bit too much.
“David Lynch is another one, who I think has got great control of tone. One of the things that we want to do is get that balance between playful, child-like exploration and something that’s really quite unnerving and disturbing at times. I’ve been watching Twin Peaks recently, and he just goes from pure comedy to abject terror in one cut. It’s amazing.”
Shades of Tarsier’s previous projects are visible in Hunger, with past lessons obviously influencing its look and the feel of its mechanics.
“With a lot of these 2.5D games it feels really weird that there’s all this space behind you, but you can only ever walk in one plane, so we wanted to get away from that straight away,” explains Mervik.
“Little Big Planet went further in that you can shift between layers. Super Mario 3D World took it that bit further where you can have free movement in the space that you’ve got. If it’s a game about exploration, you need to give players the freedom to explore.”
“We’re calling it a “doll-house perspective,” Mervik says. “For a lot of reasons. Our art department wanted to capture that feeling of something that’s very present, physical and real, but also has a slight distance. For the camera specifically, you’re looking through the window of a doll-house. Your eyes can move, but the source point stays the same, you can look around with the right-stick, but can’t actually move where the camera’s situated.”
In a lot of its promotional material, Hunger’s given as a “working title”. But while it might be a nightmare to Google, the name has such significance that it might just end up sticking.
“It was kind of a problem when the teaser came out,” says Mervik. “If you search for ‘hunger game’ there’re lots more worthy subjects that come up before our game. The reason it was picked in the first place is that it has a lot of meaning in what we’re trying to achieve with the game. If we change it, it has to be for something better.
“The idea is that this is a place where the characters you meet, we don’t call them enemies, they’re not there to just hate you or anything, they just have a single drive that they’re obsessed with. If you get in the way of that thing, that’s where the conflict comes in, there’s a threat. That works as a player as well. Six wants to escape, and if you want to complete the game, then you have to remove that barrier. We wanted to play with that idea with all the characters, so it doesn’t feel so light and dark, so binary.
“The hunger thing came from asking, ‘what’s the most basic compulsion that you can never really sate’? That’s hunger. You can fulfil it for a time, but it comes back again and it can be more insistent, it just gnaws away at you constantly.
“We want this to be a game that people can interpret in different ways, so everything has to have something behind it. It can’t just be a cool sounding name, everything has to have a thought behind it.”
This idea of different interpretations is important to Hunger, which features a mysterious plot that’s left largely ambiguous, and a cast of characters that the player will have to size up themselves.
“We’re not going to give [Six] this big cool backstory and opening cut-scene so you know everything about her, and she just wise-cracks her way to the end and you’ve won,” Mervik explains. “We want it to be like, you start off and you don’t know where you are, because she doesn’t know where she is. So you should only ever know as much as the character, and you should only ever see what she sees. We’re not going to be cutting away, and doing all these things you can do in cinema. In games, we want the player to feel present, and not distracted by being this omniscient detached player.”
“She’s trapped in a place filled with people that you just don’t want to be around,” he continues. “I think the main thing is going to be seeing what you see of these characters and of this world and trying to figure out why they’re there or how they became the way they are, and trying to figure out why you’re there as well. There’s going to be hints, there’s going to be clues. I know I’m being a bit evasive here, but it’s the most important part that players have this experience, rather than us building it up and telling them everything.”
Hunger takes place in the Maw, a dark and strange world caked in grime. Concept art shows the Maw’s peak rising out of a body of water, with the rest stretching into the dark below, like an iceberg.
“That’s come from the art department really, the art director’s a real horror fiend,” Mervik says. “And even though this isn’t a horror, those kind of things you can’t help coming out. If anything, with the restraint of not wanting to make this full-on horror, the setting really works.
“I just want a place where I can put all the things I hate. That was one tiny little element of what the lore could become, all the worst of people goes there, and then that evolved into something else altogether.
“For me, I always think that the best horror is about losing control. The systems and the routines that you’re conditioned to validate, trust and believe in real life, when they’re taken away, that’s terrifying. It’s when things don’t make sense, when things don’t work as they should, or people that you’ve come to trust aren’t the same anymore. I’m not scared of fire demons or zombies. It’s got to be something deeper. Taking some of your core beliefs and flipping it around on you, that’s the real horror.”
“I’m a sucker for jumps,” he adds. “When the cat jumps out from behind the wardrobe it gets me every time. But that’s not horror.”
Hunger blends a variety of elements to create an experience that borrows from many different genres, mixing puzzle-solving, adventure-style exploration and platforming.
“The core of the gameplay revolves around the simple, consistent controls,” explains Mervik. “You’re going to be learning how Six controls very early on, and it’s about finding out what those techniques can then do later on.
“Grabbing is very important because of these ‘tactile controls’ we’re aiming for. We want things to feel very analogue.
“It’s going to be a balance between very classic puzzle solving and exploration, giving the player room to breathe in an environment and think, ‘what can I do in here?’ We don’t want it to just feel like a backdrop.”
When the time comes, you’re going to need to avoid some of the Maw’s more dangerous inhabitants, and Hunger injects child-like charm into this mechanic as well.
“We’ve tried to avoid the idea of it being a stealth game, so we’ve called it ‘hide-and-seek’. Just so we get away from that idea of an empowered character with night-vision goggles,” Mervik says.
“There’s going to be a balance,” he continues. “We’re not setting out to build a puzzle game or a stealth ‘hide-and-seek’ game. Where it feels right to either, we’ll do that.
“There’s not going to be a rigid level structure, but it’s not going to be free-form. There is a path, but it’s a wiggly one. You might get very close to where you need to get to, but you’re sent back down again. On the way, they’re going to be places where you can diverge from the main path and explore, not feeling like you’re constantly being pushed forward.”
Tarsier have yet to announce any plans for Hunger’s release, and are still deciding exactly what platforms they’ll end up on. But with the export opinions available to them working in Unreal 4, they’re keeping their options open.
Follow OnlySP on Facebook and Twitter for more interviews, news and reviews.Triose-derived building blocks
The involvement of glyceraldehyde (4) and phosphate in the scheme prompted us to consider the interconversion of 4 and its more stable triose isomer, dihydroxyacetone (17), and to investigate the chemistry of the latter (Fig. 1b). The interconversion of 4 and 17 can occur by enolization–ketonization10, and we reasoned that it might be subject to general acid–base catalysis by phosphate. Accordingly, we incubated glyceraldehyde (4) in a near-neutral pH phosphate buffer and found that it slowly but smoothly converted into dihydroxyacetone (17) (Table 1). We then subjected 17 to photoreduction by hydrogen sulfide (12) and observed two major products, acetone (18) and glycerol (19). The biological relevance of glycerol (19) as a lipid precursor is obvious, but we could also see in the geminal methyl groups of acetone (18) a possible link with natural products containing an isopropyl moiety. Focusing first on glycerol (19), we subjected it to the same conditions that we had previously used for the conversion of anhydronucleoside 7 into nucleotide 9, and found that it is efficiently converted into a mixture that contains glycerol-1,2-cyclic phosphate (20) and glycerol-1-phosphate (21). The cyclic phosphate is strained and therefore prone to hydrolytic ring-opening; however, uncatalysed hydrolysis is slow. Divalent transition metal ions are known to catalyse phosphotransfer reactions11 and so we treated the glycerol phosphorylation products with Zn(II) after which 21 and the isomeric glycerol-2-phosphate (22) were obtained in good yield (Table 1). The major membrane-forming amphiphiles of all three kingdoms of life are esters or ethers of glycerol-1-phosphate (21)12, and the finding that 21 can be efficiently synthesized from the RNA intermediate, glyceraldehyde (4), suggests that the link between the informational and compartment-forming subsystems might start with the synthesis of their building blocks.
Table 1: Yields for the part of the reaction network shown in Fig. 1b. Full size table
Returning now to acetone (18), the other major product of the reduction of dihydroxyacetone (17), we wondered if it might undergo the Kiliani–Fischer-type homologation chemistry. However, the equilibrium for the formation of cyanohydrin 23 from ketone 18 and hydrogen cyanide (11) is not as favourable as it is in the case of an aldehyde13, and when we subjected the equilibrium mixture to the photoreduction using hydrogen sulfide (12), we found that hydrogen cyanide (11) and acetone (18) are reduced instead of cyanohydrin 23. Reasoning that the introduction of hydrogen sulfide (12) into the system need not necessarily be at the same time as the irradiation, we next investigated the addition of 12 to the ketone–cyanohydrin equilibrium mixture prior to irradiation. It transpires that cyanohydrin 23 is more reactive than hydrogen cyanide (11) towards attack by hydrosulfide (HS−, the conjugate base of hydrogen sulfide (12)) at neutral pH in this ‘dark’ reaction, and α-hydroxythioamide 24 is formed. Furthermore, as cyanohydrin 23 is consumed, the equilibrium that produces it from acetone (18) and 11 is displaced according to Le Chatelier's principle, with the effect that more 24 is produced than there is cyanohydrin 23 at equilibrium. Irradiating the reaction products for a limited period of time causes clean deoxygenation of α-hydroxythioamide 24 to give thioamide 25. This latter thioamide is reduced to the corresponding aldehyde by continued irradiation in the presence of hydrogen sulfide (12), but further reduction of the aldehyde proved to be competitive, and so we carried out the reduction in the presence of hydrogen cyanide (11), whereupon the aldehyde was trapped as its cyanohydrin (26). Clearly, 26 is constitutionally related to 27, the α-aminonitrile precursor of valine, as we demonstrated through conversion of the former into the latter by the addition of ammonia, but we could now see that a further cycle of homologation might furnish the corresponding precursor of leucine too. Thus, dark reaction with hydrogen sulfide (12) converts cyanohydrin 26 into α-hydroxythioamide 28, and subsequent irradiation of the reaction products causes the deoxygenation of 28 to give thioamide 29. Further reduction in the presence of 12 and hydrogen cyanide (11) gives cyan |
keeping their fingers crossed the ratio will change, in spite the fact that there are already four billion movie review/gossip podcasts. Hey, someone's gotta be four billion and one. Right now, I'm in Analytics looking at the search traffic I've gotten in the past month. I've received about 50 visitors from Google searches. I can see what keywords they were searching for, what percentage of them are new visitors, and the average amount of time they spend on the site. It's fascinating data, which deserves a lot of careful analysis.
...at least, it would be fascinating, if all the searchers didn’t immediately leave my site after viewing one page. Apparently people searching for the phrases "boob videos" and "best sex bomb.com" didn’t find much use for my post on why I’d make a good Ninja Turtle. Damn it, I’m not converting the porn demo! I really have to tear myself away from Google Analytics. It’s a big timesink. However, like all the stat addicts out there, I can’t get over the opinion that my blog, unlike the millions of others out there, is special. Very special! That it’ll get the attention it deserves, just so long as I keep carefully monitoring my progress. Hilariously, my blog would probably be better written if I took the time I spend idling away in Google Analytics and put it into writing posts. It also makes sense that a heroin junkie would have a better life if they stopped shooting heroin, but that kind of logic doesn’t affect the mind of addicts. I’m going to have to quit cold turkey, at least until my blog is popular enough to warrant my obsessive tracking. Of course, how will I know when my blog is popular unless I use Analytics?...I’d better check it right now, just in case.THE HIGH COURT has upheld a decision by the Minister for Justice and Equality to deport a Nigerian woman, who went into hiding for almost five years, and her Irish born child.
In his judgment Mr Justice Richard Humphreys rejected claims made by lawyers for the woman and child that the deportation orders were invalid.
The judge found the child’s educational rights, such as the right to free primary education, while in the state are not a barrier to deportation.
The woman and her child cannot be identified for legal reasons.
The woman, leaving her husband and two other children behind in Nigeria, came to Ireland in early 2008. Her child was born here shortly afterwards.
They applied for both asylum and subsidiary protection in Ireland but the applications were refused. In 2009 the Minister issued deportation orders in respect of the woman and the child.
The woman went into hiding in Ireland in late 2009. She surrendered to the authorities in October 2014 so she could bring proceedings challenging the deportation orders.
She was then arrested and detained and was released from custody in December 2014.
Education
The woman and her child, represented by Rosario Boyle SC and Anthony Lowry Bl, argued the deportation order was invalid on grounds including that the Minister’s decision was irrational and that the child’s educational rights were not properly considered by the Minister.
The Minister, represented by David Conlan Smyth SC and Anthony Moore Bl, opposed the application and argued the deportation order should be upheld.
In his judgment Mr Justice Humphreys said the child’s educational rights did not confer any right on any child not to be removed, even to a country with an inferior social or educational system.
It was also open to the Minister to conclude Nigeria has a functioning education system, the judge added. The judge agreed the Minister did not have to consider the deportation of the mother separately from the child.
In all the circumstances the challenge was dismissed.There were long queues of vehicles on both sides of the border, with people on both sides facing problem
QUETTA: Authorities shut down the Pakistan-Afghanistan border at Chaman on Friday after a large number of Afghans flung stones at the Friendship Gate, smashing windowpanes of several government departments and desecrating the Pakistani flag.
Reports suggested that the Afghans were incensed by demonstrations in Balochistan sparked by Indian premier Narendra Modi’s speech on August 15, India’s Independence Day and they showed their support to India by desecrating the Pakistani flag and throwing stones at the border crossing gate.
Political settlement a viable option for peace in Afghanistan, says Aziz
Afghan border forces did not stop people on their side from disrupting peace at the border crossing, forcing the Frontier Corps (FC), a paramilitary force, to close the border to avert any untoward incident.
There were long queues of vehicles on both sides of the border, with people on both sides facing problems as a result of the border closure.
A day earlier, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani used his Independence Day address to draw the attention of Pakistani leaders to a poem by philosopher-poet Allama Iqbal, who had linked peace in Afghanistan to peace in Asia.
Afghan president invokes Allama Iqbal to garner attention of Pakistani leaders
Ghani also talked about Pakistan while addressing an event organised on Thursday in connection with Afghanistan’s 97th Independence Day. “Our message to Pakistan is strong. Our message to Pakistan is state-to-state. We will not give up our national interests. Our relations should be based on national interests,” the Afghan president said. Excerpts from Ghani’s speech have been posted online.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 20th, 2016.
Read full storyTwo domestic workers have been removed from a diplomatic mansion in McLean after accusations surfaced they were being held like slaves.
MCLEAN, Va. – Two domestic workers have been removed from a diplomatic mansion in McLean following accusations they were being held like slaves.
The gated compound on Orris Street is owned by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s Armed Forces Office, according to real estate records.
A spokesperson for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) tells WTOP agents responded to the home Tuesday night and removed the two possible victims of domestic servitude. Fairfax County police also were called in to help.
ICE says the investigation isn’t complete and the workers were removed to protect their safety if in fact the accusations turn out to be true.
ICE spokesman Brandon Montgomery says if investigators get reasonable information or confirmation, they would “rescue the individuals and begin a full investigation, not let them linger in potential abuse.”
There could be hundreds of people brought to this country and placed in involuntary servitude, essentially as slaves, either for domestic help or as a sex slave, Virginia Congressman Frank Wolf tells WTOP.
Wolf says that if the reports from the McLean home turn out to be true, then the State Department should get involved.
“We should tell those people they have to leave the country and I think the State Department ought to make it clear to the Saudi government that this must never happen again, period,” Wolf says.
He recommends the action he’d like to see taken.
“Maybe the people involved ought to be deported from the country. They should be persona non grata,” Wolf says.
It’s not clear yet whether the two people removed from the home were victims of involuntary servitude. And there has been no comment from the Saudi Government.
A new Virginia law taking effect July 1 makes human trafficking a felony.
Vehicles with diplomatic license plates were seen coming and going from the compound Wednesday, but no one there would comment. A spokesperson for the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia could not be reached for comment by The Associated Press.
Frances Roller, who lives near the compound, says a defense attachThe Salt Lake City Stars, the NBA Development League affiliate of the Utah Jazz, announced today that they will host a local tryout for prospective players on Saturday, Sept. 24.
The 2016 Salt Lake City Stars Tryouts, presented by University of Utah Health Care, will be held at the Lifetime Activities Center-Bruin Arena on the Salt Lake Community College Taylorsville Campus (4600 Redwood Road) from 8:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m.
This event gives D-League hopefuls the opportunity to showcase their talents in front of Stars and Utah Jazz personnel. Participants should be prepared for team drills, individual skill work and scrimmages. Players will be vying for an invitation to the Stars training camp in November.
Tryout Schedule:
Location: Bruin Arena @ SLCC Taylorsville Campus (4600 South Redwood Road, SLC)
September 24, 2016 – 8:30am to 12:30pm
Applications will be accepted until 9/17/2016
Application deadline extended to 9/21/16. All other registrations will be considered as walk-up.
Non-refundable registration fee: $150
Acceptable forms of payment are cashiers check or money order.
Tryout spots are limited. Walk-up registrations are subject to availability and will require a $200 non-refundable fee.
Please direct all questions to tryouts@slcstars.com
Please complete the following tryout forms and send to the Stars along with payment via traceable carrier (e.g. FedEx, UPS, DHL) to ensure delivery. Forms may be mailed, along with a $150 non-refundable registration fee, to SLC Stars, 301 W. South Temple, Salt Lake City, UT 84101 or emailed to tryouts@slcstars.com.
Required Forms:
Authorization Form: Download PDF
Eligibility Form: Download PDF
Registration Form: Download PDF or Download Word DocLisa Olson is an American sports journalist. Her work has been featured in the anthology, "The Best American Sports Writing". She was previously a sports columnist for the New York Daily News, and the first-ever female sports columnist for the Sydney Morning Herald, where she covered rugby union, Australian rules football, cricket and rugby league. She also was a national columnist for AOL's FanHouse sports website, and a columnist and the first woman in Sporting News' 120-year history to write the magazine's monthly back page. Olson is a member of the Baseball Writers Association of America and is a Hall of Fame voter. She has covered sports stories in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Japan, China, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand.
In 1990, while working at the Boston Herald, she alleged that she was sexually harassed by New England Patriots football players in the team's locker room. Olson sued the team, and the players she implicated were fined by the NFL after its own investigation. The incident is considered by many to be a watershed moment for women in sports journalism. Although Olson settled a civil suit, fans of the football team made threats on Olson's life in the aftermath. The Boston Herald offered her a transfer to Australia, where she would work for the Daily Telegraph in Sydney, which Olson accepted.
Early life and career [ edit ]
Olson was born and raised in the metropolitan area of Phoenix, Arizona. Her family were fervent sports fans. She attended Apollo and Shadow Mountain high schools,[1] and graduated from Northern Arizona University's journalism program in 1987.[2] She was the sports editor of her high school and college newspapers.[1][3]
After her graduation from college, she moved to the East Coast to attend graduate school, but she decided to pursue a career in sportswriting. One day, she went unannounced to see an editor of the Boston Herald and asked for a job. (She had tried to do the same thing at the Boston Globe, but could not get past security.) The Herald editor offered her a position handling horse-racing agate. She impressed her supervisors, and the paper hired her as a paid sports journalist. She was assigned to cover the Boston Bruins, the 1990 Super Bowl, and, beginning in the fall of 1990, the New England Patriots.[1]
Sexual harassment incident [ edit ]
Beginning in the 1970s, when increasing numbers of women sought to enter the field of sportswriting, female sportswriters faced frequent discrimination, harassment, and intimidation. Women did not get equal access to post-game locker room interviews until a federal court decision in 1978.[4] In 1985, the NFL enacted an equal access policy of its own.[5]
On September 17, 1990, Olson was interviewing players in the Patriots locker room on a practice day. Two Patriots had complained earlier to James Oldham, the team's director of media relations, and to Pat Sullivan, the team's general manager, that they believed Olson was, in the players' words, "a looker," someone who stood around the locker room not interviewing anyone.[6] Sullivan observed Olson and determined that she was acting professionally, interviewing Maurice Hurst, but took no other action.[6] Several of the players subsequently taunted her by walking naked in her presence, making vulgar comments and gestures.[4] One player, Zeke Mowatt, "fondled his genitals" in front of her.[4] Robert Perryman did the same while her back was turned. Others, including Michael Timpson, made jokes and egged each other on.[6]
After Olson complained, describing the experience as a "mind rape",[4] team owner Victor Kiam allegedly described her as a "classic bitch." (He later apologized in a newspaper ad, while denying using crude language. Later he admitted to calling her a "classy bitch.")[5] Later, on February 4, 1991, at a male-only sports banquet in Stamford, Connecticut, Kiam told the attendees a crude joke about the incident. Referring to the United States military's use of Patriot missiles during the then-ongoing Gulf War, Kiam said to the audience: "What do the Iraqis have in common with Lisa Olson? They've both seen Patriot missiles up close." After criticism, Kiam apologized for the joke two days after he had told it.[7][8]
Eventually, NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue ordered an investigation under the aegis of former Watergate scandal prosecutor Philip Heymann;[5] the 60-page report concluded that Olson was "degraded and humiliated." Mowatt was fined $12,500, the other two players $5,000, and the team itself $50,000, since no management had intervened at the time or immediately following. Half the cost of the team's fine was to defray instructional materials the league could send to all teams and players, and Tagliabue wrote a letter to Kiam expressing his belief that the incident had "damaged" the league.[6] The general manager of the team was fired.[9] In an interview on the March 11, 2011 edition of Bill Simmons' podcast, "The B.S. Report", Jackie MacMullan reported that the fines were never actually collected from the players.[10]
After the incident became public, Olson was subjected to harassment by fans of the Patriots. Her tires were slashed, she received hate mail and death threats, and her apartment was burglarized.[4] The Herald's then owner, News Corporation, offered to transfer her to Sydney, Australia, where she worked for The Daily Telegraph and the Sydney Morning Herald.[4]
On April 25, 1991, Olson filed a lawsuit in Massachusetts state court against the Patriots, Kiam, Sullivan, Oldham, and the three players (Mowatt, Timpson, and Perryman), alleging violations of her civil rights, sexual harassment, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and intentional damage to her professional reputation.[11] On February 24, 1992, her attorney said that Olson had settled the lawsuit on undisclosed terms.[12]
Return to the United States [ edit ]
In 1998, Olson returned to the United States to be with her gravely ill father and took a position with the New York Daily News.[1][9]
Later that year, Olson and Sam Marchiano were reportedly subjected to a profanity-laced verbal tirade by New York Yankees pitcher David Wells when they approached him at his home to comment on his sudden trade to the Toronto Blue Jays for Roger Clemens. David Cone, Wells's teammate, gave Olson and Marchiano Wells's address. Olson later wrote a column apologizing to Wells for coming to his house during what was such an emotional time.
Olson worked as a sports columnist for the Daily News for ten years. She later was a columnist for the FanHouse sports website, and then a columnist for Sporting News. As of 2013, she was working as a freelance writer.[1]
She won numerous writing awards during her time with the Daily News, including "Best Sports Reporting" by the Society of Professional Journalists. She is a frequent guest speaker at schools and colleges, and active in public schools' mentoring program for girls who hope to study journalism.
In 2011, Northern Arizona University's School of Communication awarded Olson its Eunson Alumni Achievement Award.[2][3]
In 2013, the Association for Women in Sports Media, at its 25th convention, awarded Olson its Mary Garber Pioneer Award.[1]
Popular culture [ edit ]
In 2013, Olson's incident with the Patriots was addressed in the documentary Let Them Wear Towels, part of ESPN Films' Nine for IX series that commemorated the 40th anniversary of the enactment of Title IX. The documentary was about female sportswriters' struggles to gain access to male locker rooms in order to be able to do their jobs. Archival footage of Olson was used in the film, but Olson herself declined to participate in it.[13]A change in some early versions of Google's Chrome browser is attracting the attention of security researchers who say it can make it harder for end users to know when they're visiting a malicious site trying to push malware or phish login credentials.
The change, which is said to affect a small fraction of people running version 36 of Chrome, aka Canary, causes the browser's address bar (Google calls it the Omnibox) to no longer display the URL currently open. Instead, the domain name and any subdomains of the open page are shown immediately to the left of the Omnibox in what's dubbed the Origin Chip. Google developers haven't given a definitive explanation for the experimental change, although Jake Archibald, a developer advocate for Google Chrome, recently gave his personal thoughts here. Presumably, it's designed to keep up with various features already available in Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari that highlight the precise domain a browser is visiting. The features are designed to thwart attacks that rely on long, confusing addresses that can sometimes conceal the true domain that's open.
Researchers at PhishMe, a company that helps prevent organizations from falling victim to phishing and malware attacks, have been testing the trial interface and have found behavior they say could make it easier for attackers to fool end users. By loading up an address with long strings of characters, the researchers were able to completely suppress both the domain name and other address parameters in both the Omnibox and Origin Chip. For instance, when the PhishMe researchers entered the URL "hxxp://this.is.a.test.for.longurl.to.test.the.canary.property.in.the.new.chrome.browser.and.see.if.it.works.DOMAINNAME.com/CheckingNowWithSampleURLInHere/eb31ac/?login_id=48ea2b9a-4f1b-4bbb-b573-89524db025e9" (minus the quotes), the Chrome interface looked like this:
"By burying the concept of URL, or by making this setting permanent in the future versions of Chrome, users will not know the exact link or domain they are visiting, since the URL in the Omnibox disappears, meaning that even security savvy users who have been trained to recognize malicious URLs will be at risk," PhishMe analysts Aaron Higbee and Shyaam Sundhar wrote in a blog post published Tuesday. They called on Google developers to tweak the change, possibly by keeping the entire URL intact, but following the lead of other browsers and putting a visual emphasis on the root domain.
Tuesday's blog post came a week after other bloggers first bemoaned the change. Critics said the added "Enable origin chip in Omnibox" flag made the Web less usable by burying functionality many people found useful. Now that there's a viable case to be made that the move can actually diminish, rather than improve, end-user security, making the change permanent will likely be an even harder sell.
Interestingly, the PhishMe testing showed that the URL lengths required to hide the domain name varied depending on the current window size of the browser. When at default size, URLs with 99 or more characters will trigger the bug. Reducing the window size similarly reduces the number of characters required to hide the address. In fairness to Google, people should never use the extremely unstable Chrome Canary browser versions in mission-critical environments where security is paramount. Still, the PhishMe results provide a compelling case why Google developers should rework this feature before considering it fit for mainstream use.
Article updated to add link to Jake Archibald post.THE ISSUE: Abutters expressed their concerns about a proposed public walkway during a presentation of "The Clippership Connector" to the Medford City Council on Tuesday. WHY IT MATTERS: The public walking path would add safe walking routes along the Mystic River and increase access to the waterfront, but abutters are concerned about their privacy being infringed upon.
Would the city of Medford benefit from extending a walking path that connected Medford Square with Riverbend Park and helped contribute towards achieving a 20-mile, contiguous walking path along the Mystic River?
Residents and city officials on both sides of that question attended the April 25 meeting of the Medford City Council to discuss the potential benefits and concerns regarding the "Clippership Connector," a commuter-friendly walking path that has been supported by the Mystic River Watershed Association, The Solomon Foundation, the Medford Bicycle Advisory Commission and Walk Medford.
The proposed path would begin just outside of Medford Square at 99 Riverside Avenue, on the edge of the existing Mystic River Greenway, and extend a little over a half mile along the banks of the Mystic River. The path would travel through the I-93 bridge and end at the existing path at Riverbend Park, just outside of the city’s two middle schools.
In between the beginning and end points, the path would have to traverse through property that belongs to a large apartment complex (Shipside Green), property belonging to a federal housing development operated by the Medford Housing Authority, property owned by MassDOT, property that abuts housing units of the Shipside Village development and property on the grounds of the Riverside Yacht Club, whose land is owned by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR).
The project has not yet been approved or denied, but is merely in the exploratory phase of its development. A public meeting will be held in the future to further discuss details and options regarding the proposed path, but has not yet been scheduled.
Abutters up in arms
Attendees of the council meeting included multiple residents who live at properties that would directly abut the proposed path. Some residents from Shipside Village were concerned about their privacy, given the proximity that the path would have to their backyards. Others were concerned about potential issues of crime and enforcement along the path and potential parking repercussions.
Others felt that their concerns had not been fully heard at meetings held with direct abutters last year that were led by Medford’s Energy and Environment Director, Alicia Hunt.
"The Mystic River is a beautiful gem in this city," said councilor Fred Dello Russo in response to the abutters. "I’d like to see Medford continue to improve and capitalize on this way. But we can’t do that if the citizens who abut this project feel put-upon, minimized and not communicated with."
Those in favor
Proponents argue that the path is a long-overdue, simple improvement to better public safety and provides an invaluable recreational opportunity in what is currently an unused, somewhat blighted space. They argue that the path would be the only pedestrian-friendly route to connect Medford Square eastward with the two middle schools and the existing waterfront park space in Medford.
Currently, the only way to walk east from Medford Square towards the Wellington area of Medford is to walk on Riverside Avenue, which is one of the busiest roads in the city.
"Let me just say the fact; Riverside Avenue is not safe for biking. If you have a dog and a kid and you want to take a stroller on the footpath, it is not safe. It is as unsafe as driving on Route 16," said resident Bishal Thapa. "Right now, going through Riverside Avenue is absolutely not an option for us."
A report prepared by Amber Christoffersen, director of the Mystic River Watershed Association, cited two studies that concluded that bike paths and rail trails do not contribute to an increased amount of crime but, in fact, actually reduce crime by converting underdeveloped, unpopulated areas into hot spots of activity, which discourages criminal activity.
The report included two quotes from the police chiefs in Arlington and Lexington, both giving their support for bike and pedestrian-friendly trails.
"The value of the Minuteman Trail as a recreational asset far outweighs public safety issues, which are few and far between," the report quotes Fred Ryan, police chief for Arlington.
Ann Frenning Kossuth, director of youth programs for the Friends of the Middlesex Fells Reservation, has been a vocal supporter of the Clippership Connector since its inception, and made a heartfelt plea at the meeting for what she believes could be an overwhelmingly positive addition to Medford.
"We have a beautiful city and we deserve the best," Kossuth said. "If you trust the process, which we sort of have to do, because it’s the right thing, and look at different options and choose something that people really like, it could be truly extraordinary and I think it could benefit all of us."Uranus, Missouri water tower
Uranus is a tourist attraction in unincorporated rural Pulaski County, Missouri, United States, along the former U.S. Route 66 (US 66).[1] Uranus's businesses include a Fudge Factory and General Store, Chicken Bones Party Bar and Grill, Fort Uranus, Escape Uranus, Skin City Tattoo, Uranus Axehole, Combat Archery Uranus, the Sideshow Museum and the Uranus Brewing Company. All the businesses are owned by one person who proclaims himself the "Mayor of Uranus". Uranus has 25 residents but no formal local government and proclaims on the entrance sign, "It's Not a Town, It's a Destination."[citation needed]
Attractions [ edit ]
The largest belt buckle in the world
The Largest Belt Buckle in Uranus holds the Guinness Book of World Records title for largest belt buckle.[2]
History [ edit ]
The property that would eventually become Uranus was purchased in 2002.
The FunkYard at Uranus
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Coordinates:Rainier Arms’ new battle ready Overthrow Stripped Lower Receiver is in pre-order status, according to the company who showcased the design at TriggerCon.
Designed and produced by Sharps Bros., the lower features an open mag well helmet design with battle worn dents, sword gashes and crack lines for that war weary look.
Machined top to bottom from 7075-T6 aluminum, the lower boasts peak-strength corrosion-resistance with a hard coat anodized black finish. The Overthrow receiver offers full compatibility with all mil-spec internal parts, all other aftermarket mil-spec upper receivers and GI standard issue magazines as well as PMags.
Tipping scales at 11.5 ounces, Rainier says the lower’s customization possibilities are endless.
“Leave it anodized black, give it a Spartan style, a Viking theme, Boba Fett, you name it,” the company said on its website.
The Overthrow is currently offered as a pre-order, with special pricing listed at $269.99. Consumers should line up an FFL prior to purchase as federal law requires lowers ship to FFL dealers.An Alabama lawmaker is offering legislation to require convicted sex offenders who target children to be physically castrated at the offender’s expense.
State Rep. Steve Hurst recently pre-filed a bill for the 2014 legislative session that would require any sex offender over the age of 21 convicted of a sex act with a child under 12 to undergo surgical castration prior to being released from prison.
The sex offender would also have to foot the bill for the procedure.
“They would take his testicles out,” Hurst told The Daily Caller.
“We need to make a statement in Alabama that No. 1, we are not going to tolerate this,” Hurst said. “No. 2, if it were to [keep] one child from being sexually molested then it would be worth it.”
According to the Republican representing Munford, Ala., chemical castration is “not strong enough” and “a small child cannot protect itself.”
“More and more now you see on TV and the news that you read, small children being molested, and I just think we have to do something to try to protect the children,” Hurst said.
Hurst has proposed such requirements three other times. According to Hurst, the concern that the law would be challenged and struck down as unconstitutional fueled opposition in the past to the legislation in committee.
“What I’m saying is very simple, you can’t get in the door if you don’t keep knocking. And the other thing is, let’s test it in the federal court,” he said. “The only way this is going to be tested in federal court is if the bill passes and somebody wants to file suit on it.”
Hurst added that each time he has introduced the bill he has gotten more support, and this time support has been “overwhelming.”
To those who would oppose his effort as inhumane Hurst asked, “Which is barbaric? To sexually molest a child as an infant, or is it barbaric or inhumane to castrate somebody who has done that?”
According to a 2012 CNN report at least nine states use some form of “chemical castration” that takes away sex drive and the ability to perform sex acts. The drugs’ effects are not permanent.
Follow Caroline on TwitterThe Mississauga St. Michael's Majors selected Cizikas with their first selection, third overall, in the 2007 Ontario Hockey League (OHL) Priority Selection draft.[1] He made his OHL debut in the 2007–08 season, finishing tenth in rookie scoring with 41 points in 62 games.[2]
At the 2009 NHL Entry Draft, Cizikas was selected by the New York Islanders with their fourth round pick, 92nd overall.[2] He returned to the Majors for the 2009–10 season, where he tied for the team lead in scoring with 62 points and led with a plus-minus rating of +32. Cizikas served as their captain in the 2010–11 season, where he recorded 64 points. He added 19 more in the OHL playoffs that year, leading the Majors to the championship series, which they ultimately lost to the Owen Sound Attack in seven games.[2]
Cizikas spent the majority of the 2011–12 season in the American Hockey League (AHL) with the Islanders' minor league affiliate, the Bridgeport Sound Tigers. He scored his first two goals with the team on October 18, 2011, against the Providence Bruins, and was second in team scoring with 45 points by the end of the season.[2] He was recalled by the Islanders during the season, and made his NHL debut on February 24, 2012, against the New York Rangers.[3] He appeared in 15 games with the Islanders that season and recorded four assists. His first two NHL points came on March 1, 2012, against the Philadelphia Flyers.[2] After returning to the Sound Tigers, an upper body injury prevented him from playing in the team's last five games of the regular season, but he returned in time for the playoffs.[4]
As a result of the 2012–13 NHL lockout, Cizikas began the season with the Sound Tigers. He had 21 points in 31 games with Bridgeport before the labour dispute was settled and he was recalled to the Islanders. He then scored his first career NHL goal on January 29, 2013, against goaltender Marc-André Fleury of the Pittsburgh Penguins.[5] Cizikas finished the season with six goals and 15 points in 45 regular season games, then added four points in six Stanley Cup playoff games.[6]
During the 2015–16 campaign, Cizikas' line, consisting of him, Matt Martin, and Cal Clutterbuck was considered to be the best 4th line in the NHL by hockey analysts.[7] Cizikas is commonly considered to be one of the best fourth line players in the NHL. On June 2, 2016, Cizikas signed a new five-year contract with the Islanders.[8] On April 5, 2018, Cizikas was presented with the Islanders' Bob Nystrom Award for 2017–18.[9]The government's flagship plan to impose a £500-a-week cap on benefits paid to families has been denounced as immoral and deeply socially divisive in a savage attack by the former coalition minister for children and families.
In an outspoken interview with the Observer, the Liberal Democrat MP Sarah Teather, who was sacked from the government in September, says the policy will have devastating effects on many thousands of children whose lives will be disrupted as their parents are forced to uproot from their homes.
Teather predicts that there will be a "reverse Jarrow march" in the runup to next April, when the cap comes into force, as families head out of London in huge numbers, in search of new homes.
Accusing ministers of a deliberate attempt to denigrate those who cannot find work, Teather says she saw clear evidence while in government that the policy would not save money and that it would inflict immense social damage.
While accepting that the wider aim of encouraging people off benefits and into work is the right way forward, she says that imposing a cap on people who live in areas such as her own Brent Central constituency in north London, where rents are high, will have a "horrible" and "traumatic" impact. She also claims that the primary motive behind the policy, which has strong public support, was a desire to court popularity by unfairly demonising the poor.
"There are all sorts of things you have to do when times are tight that have negative consequences but you do them for good purposes. But to do something for negative purposes that also has negative consequences – that is immoral," says Teather. She praised Nick Clegg for showing "immense courage" in limiting some of the effects of welfare cuts and urged her party to fight as hard as it possibly could to prevent more. She said many people in her constituency, which is one of the most ethnically diverse and deprived in the country, did not realise what was about to hit them next April.
Middle-class families were also ignorant of the huge impact of the changes on those around them, particularly on children, because of the caricatures peddled by government and the rightwing press about those on benefits. She believes the effects may only sink in when children from "nice middle-class families who send their kids to the local primary school come home and say'my friend has just disappeared'. I think then it might hit home and they might realise a whole set of children have disappeared from the class." Teather added: "I am frankly terrified about what is going to happen. A lot of these families do not know what is going to happen to them … How good is the education system at working out where that child has moved to? How good is the child protection system going to be at working out where children have moved to? I don't feel confident of that."
The £500-a-week cap is being imposed as part of government efforts to encourage people off benefits and into work in order to reduce the welfare bill. George Osborne, the chancellor, had indicated that £10bn more will need to be found in welfare savings in addition to the cuts already made as he tries to slash the deficit.
A spokesman for Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions minister, said: "The criticisms Sarah Teather is levelling against the government's welfare reforms are hugely misinformed and therefore result in needless scaremongering. It's not fair or right that benefits claimants receive higher incomes than hard-working families who are striving to get on in life. Our reforms bring fairness back to the system while ensuring we support the most vulnerable."
Last year the Observer revealed that the private secretary to Eric Pickles, the communities secretary, had written to the prime minister to warn that his welfare policies would increase the burden on taxpayers because families would be unable to pay their rent and would have to seek local government help in finding emergency accommodation.A South African Police service van and a member of security are seen outside the Lesotho Mounted Police headquarters on September 3, 2014 in Maseru (AFP Photo/Hlompho Letsielo)
Maseru (Lesotho) (AFP) - Lesotho's exiled police commissioner returned to the country Wednesday, ordering his officers to go back to work. But this week's violence has left the force disarmed and with reason to still live in fear.
"It was around eight o'clock when we heard the shots," said one of the few remaining officers at Lesotho's Police Training College in the capital Maseru on Tuesday.
"The power was cut and then for around 30 seconds we heard a burst of automatic gunfire."
From beyond a wire fence that protects this sprawling facility, unidentified gunmen unleashed the latest volley of Lesotho's political crisis.
On almost the same spot in 1988, Pope John Paul II warned the tiny country's youth that "violence only begets further violence".
No one was hurt, but the senior officer -- who asked not to be named for fear of his safety -- and many others believe this crisis will beget more violence.
Tensions with the military existed before this week's attempted coup and have not lessened simply because the prime minister has returned or regional powers have issued a statement.
Police commissioner Khothatso Tsooana is himself forced to travel in a South African police car, with armed South African escorts.
As almost everyone in this strikingly beautiful country of high plains, valleys and towering basalt escarpments tells you, for this past week "things have not been normal".
It began on Saturday, when the military attacked several police facilities, killing one officer and seriously injuring four more.
The prime minister fled the country calling it a military coup, possibly hatched by political rivals and an army commander he tried to sack.
The military denies the charge, saying it acted to disarm police, who planned to pass assorted hand grenades, pump-action shotguns, AK-47, M16 and SLR rifles to unspecified political radicals.
"When they came on Saturday, it was clear the guns were just an excuse," said another officer. "They demanded to know where dockets (case files) were."
In particular, the soldiers wanted to see files relating to corruption charges against the deputy prime minister Mothetjoa Metsing.
They also wanted to take any files on Lieutenant General T |
from party elders about whether to allow Sanders to sit on committees. Sanders mentioned as much at a lunch with Senate Democrats last month, telling them it was like wandering around “in the desert” when he first came to the House. While Sanders formally was part of the House Democratic Caucus, said Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, who served with Sanders in the House, “he was not really a member of the caucus.”
It eventually worked out when the Democratic speaker, Tom Foley, reached the conclusion that it was better to expand his party’s membership than shrink it. That became even more important in ‘94, when the Newt Gingrich-led Republican takeover meant the Democrats needed every potential vote they could get. Sanders served on committees dealing with financial services issues and government operations, and he was extremely active in pushing amendments on the House floor, periodically teaming up with the likes of libertarian-minded Ron Paul.
“He would often get amendments on the floor—and call them tripartite,” Brown said. “He passed a lot of amendments in a very conservative Congress.”
Sanders spent a decade and a half in the House. He was seldom even challenged by a Democrat in Vermont.
He won the Democratic primary for the 2006 Senate race as a write-in candidate — there was no serious opposition — but he declined to accept the nomination before going on to beat his Republican opponent by 33 percentage points. The Senate was a better fit.
“The Senate,” one of his Democratic friends told Politico, “was the first time he’s ever been part of a Democratic family.”
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, led by New York’s Chuck Schumer, quickly got behind Sanders when he ran, and Nevada’s Harry Reid happily welcomed him to the Senate Democratic Caucus once he won. In December of that year, a month after his election, Ted Kennedy invited Sanders and the rest of the Democrats on the Senate’s Health, Education and Labor and Pensions Committee to an intimate dinner at his Washington home. Also in attendance? Barack Obama. And Hillary Clinton.
This embrace of Sanders was about politics, too: Democrats wanted to increase their numbers, and they needed Sanders to caucus with them to help win back the Senate majority. The move paid off for both sides. Sanders climbed the ladder: In the last Congress, he was the chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee; now, he is the top Democrat on the Budget Committee.
After the 2010 election, Obama cut a deal with the Republicans to extend the George W. Bush-era tax cuts, eliciting outrage from the left. Sanders channeled that anger, unleashing an 8½-hour filibuster. He said in the speech many of the things he had been saying since his populist, rusted-Volkswagen Liberty Union days in the ’70s, since political types in Vermont dismissed him as a no-shot gadfly—only now he was doing it on the Senate floor. “This,” he said, his accent immutably Brooklyn, “is a transfer of wealth. It is Robin Hood in reverse. We are taking from the middle class and working families, and we are giving it to the wealthiest people in the country.”
Sanders speaks to reporters about his position on the tax compromise in December 2010 on Capitol Hill in Washington. | AP Photo
Last year, in the midst of the Veterans Affairs scandal, Sanders worked with House and Senate Republicans to overhaul the agency, showing a dose of bipartisanship—something that hasn’t been a dominant part of his legislative repertoire.
He is better known for being mostly an ideological purist from the left—advocating for a single-payer, Medicare-for-all-type health care system, railing against Obama’s trade agenda.
“I think it was success trumped all,” Welch said. “He’s popular with voters. That’s a reality. His popularity really mended fences.”
Even some of his critics acknowledge how close he’s grown to Senate Democrats.
“We are a tight-knit group—we like one another,” said Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), who nonetheless is a Clinton supporter, in part because she isn’t sold on Sanders’ eventual “electability.”
One reason analysts and strategists doubt his long-term viability: “democratic socialist.” Another: his record of bashing Democrats. The longer he runs, the better he does, the more the comments will be used to attack him.
In a second interview with Sanders in the Capitol, he talked more with Politico about his relationship, and his tussles, with Democrats.
“By definition, when I was elected mayor of the city of Burlington, I defeated Democrats,” he said with a chuckle. He talked about the importance of the ’88 race. “Since that time, in Vermont, I’ve had a lot of support from the Democrats.
“I was the first independent elected in 40 years, and that caused some confusion,” he continued. “And there were some conservative Democrats who were not enthusiastic about me being in the Democratic Caucus. But that worked itself out over a couple weeks.
“I’ve supported the Democratic candidates for president,” he added. “I think the relationship is pretty positive.”
“I think in many ways he’s become a Democrat in all but name,” said Eric Davis, a political science professor at Vermont’s Middlebury College.
“Even so," said Judy Stephany, a Burlington Democrat who lost to Sanders in the mayoral election of ‘83, “if you want to go back to 1981, ’85, ’87, even the late ’80s, this was not a man who liked either party—nor did he call himself a progressive. He has been very steadfast in maintaining his independence.”
It remains to be seen if or how much that will hurt him in the coming months.
“I think that probably goes against him,” said Rep. Elliot Engel (D-N.Y.), who served with Sanders in the House—and who back in ’96 even advised a Democrat in Burlington not to run against Sanders. But now? “The nominee of the Democratic Party you would think would be a Democrat.” He paused. “In fairness to Bernie, he always caucused with the Democrats. He’s a socialist in name … but in terms of political affiliation, he’s just like any other Democrat.”
Why then, Politico asked, why not just say so? Why not become a Democrat? Especially now.
Sanders wouldn’t say.
“I’m running for the Democratic nomination,” he said. He assured he would meet “all the regulations and requirements.” “I look forward to doing that,” he said. Another non-answer.
The real answer courses through his career. “Ideologically bankrupt …” “You don’t change the system …” “Why should we work …?” Many people, in Washington and Vermont, Sanders supporters and not, say that since his earliest, more radical start, the tenor of his rhetoric has changed. But the essence of his beliefs, the core of who he’s been and who he is—that unapologetic, almost confrontational “I”—has not.
“In real terms,” he told a reporter doing an interview for Playboy, “what the Democratic campaign program is about is: We’re pretty bad, but they’re worse, vote for us. That’s true: We’re pretty bad, but the Republicans are worse, and that’s the reason you should vote for Democrats.”
“I am not a Democrat,” he told the Progressive, “because the Democratic Party does not represent, and has not for many years, the interests of my constituency, which is primarily working families, middle-class people and low-income people.”
Sanders didn’t say those things in the ’70s or the ’80s. He said those things not even two years ago.Getty Images
When the Chicago Bears were 7-1 and coming off a 51-20 dismantling of the Tennessee Titans on the road, they appeared to be a lock to be one of the six NFC teams to be playing in January.
Six weeks later and the Bears are hoping to somehow just be able to squeeze in the back door of the playoff picture.
According to Fred Mitchell of the Chicago Tribune, the situation couldn’t get much worse for Bears linebacker Lance Briggs.
“In my very, very worst nightmare, this is where I imagined we would be,” Briggs said. “Literally, this is my worst nightmare. We still have a chance, though. It can’t get any worse than this, I hope.”
Chicago’s schedule has been very difficult over the last six weeks. The Bears last six games have all come against teams that would be in the playoffs if the postseason started today. Chicago is 1-5 over that stretch with a 28-10 home victory over Minnesota the only mark in the win column over that stretch.
Chicago has been hit hard by injuries on defense with Brian Urlacher and Tim Jennings the most recent players to suffer significant injuries. The Bears will likely have to win their final two games on the road against the Arizona Cardinals and Detroit Lions and get help in order to earn a Wild Card berth. Green Bay clinched the NFC North with a 21-13 win in Soldier Field last Sunday.I’m not sure when Best Buy stopped being fun, but now, whenever I enter one of the stores, I feel like I’ve entered “Traveling Gerald’s Fancy Computer Circus,” a place where all merchandise is probably stolen and buying a functioning electronic has more in common with your ability to win at carnival games than understanding the workings of modern technology.
I hate the store, but frequently end up there either out of technology emergency (“Shits I need a thumb drive!”) or my gross personal sloth. Certainly I am smart enough to handle buying electronics off my beloved Amazon.com, or even New Egg if I could make myself care enough to do some research, but that almost never happens. Nap leads to nap, DS session leads to DS session, and before I realize it I’m in the guile competition of my life trying to get a decent printer from a pear-shaped teenage hussler who has deeply enhanced his lying skills via a combination of marijuana and careful pacts with the devil.
<3 Mike
WEDS. JIVE:
(If MC Lars ever gets tired of rapping, he should play football or rugby or something. Dude is HUGE.)
POST-SCRIPT: If people are wondering what the verdict was on “forwards” and “backwards” being words, reliable sources point to no, meaning the plural is incorrect. They do indeed follow the same rule as “toward” and “afterward.”Imagine you’re relaxing at home one day when there’s a sudden knock at the door. Before you know it you’re sitting in a police interrogation room with people trying to get a confession out of you for a crime you know nothing about. Soon after, you are sentenced to prison for three years for a crime you never committed, only to be released and regarded by society as a convicted sex offender for the rest of your days.
That nightmare scenario played out for Hiroshi Yanagihara, a man who, well after serving his full prison sentence, was found innocent of all charges. Following that, an understandably upset Yanagihara went after the people who initially arrested and convicted him, demanding compensation and criminal charges.
As a result, on 9 March Toyama District Court awarded Hiroshi Yanagihara 19.7 million yen (US$161,000) – apparently the value of five years of his life.
■ Forced confession
The crime which Yanagihara was convicted of occurred in early 2002 in Himi City, Toyama Prefecture. After both being raped in their home, two women called the police and provided a description of their attacker; one which the authorities felt the then-32-year-old Yanagihara seemed to fit.
According to the recent decision of Toyama District Court’s Judge Asako Ata, the police conducting the interrogation at the time had asked Yanagihara the exact same question over and over until he gave the reply they wanted. They also only permitted him to answer their questions with a simple “yes” or “no”. Yanagihara also accused the officers of using violence and intimidation tactics to force a confession out of him.
With the false confession made, Yanagihara was easily convicted and sentenced to three years in prison for both counts of rape, serving his sentence between 2002 and 2005.
■ The true rapist comes forward
Yanagihara did his time in prison and then went on to try to piece his life back together as a convicted rapist. About a year after Yanagihara’s release, however, another man – who had been arrested by police a few hundred kilometers away in Tottori Prefecture for his involvement in another, unrelated, sex crime – confessed to having raped the two women in Toyama years earlier.
With this new confession revealed, Toyama courts retried Yanagihara in 2007 and officially declared him innocent of all charges. Not satisfied with his shiny new declaration, however, Yanagihara filed suit against all parties involved in his arrest and conviction, from the police officers who had led the interrogation to the national government.
Yanagihara was also deeply troubled by the fact that his retrial hadn’t brought up why he was charged with the crime in the first place. A brand new trial with him as the plaintiff would force these details into the open.
■ Evidence ignored
It came to light during this new trial that Yanagihara’s time-stamped landline phone record clearly showed that he was in his home at the time of the rapes. The police claimed, however, that the same phone record was confiscated to check if Yanagihara had tried to contact the victims by phone, rather than checking for phone activity during the time of the crime. In addition, footprints found at the scene of the crime were noted to have been much larger than any Yanagihara could have left. While these two highly compelling pieces of evidence to support Yanagihara’s claim of innocence were ignored, the defense argued that it was not done intentionally – they simply hadn’t been brought to light in the original trial.
In the end, Judge Ata ruled that the interrogation methods used on Yanagihara were illegal and there was reason to believe that evidence had been handled negligently. Because of this, Yanagihara was awarded 19.7 million yen (approximately $161,000) in compensation by Toyama Prefecture. The claims against the police, prosecution, and nation were dismissed.
■ Poor consolation
Although Yanagihara’s name has now been cleared and he has received some financial return for his damages, it’s hard to walk away from this story feeling that justice has been served. If it wasn’t for the sheer stroke of luck of having the true rapist come forward, Yanagihara would likely have been branded a criminal of the worst kind for the rest of his life. It can only make one wonder how many others in Hiroshi Yanagihara’s situation weren’t, or will not be, quite so lucky.
Source: Asahi Shimbun, 47 News, Twitter via Itai News (Japanese)
Top Image: Google MapsTake soggy treks and rainy scrambles in your stride with this three-in-one jacket that features a waterproof, breathable Dryvent™ 2L shell and a removeable, windproof soft shell inner jacket. Stretch fabric means you can make all your technical moves without being held back, and pit-zip venting ensures you stay cool when you start to work hard. The cinch-cord hem is there to lock out the cold when you ascend higher and higher, and the covered, zippered pockets will keep your important things dry till the adventure is over.
Waterproof
Wind Protection
Zip/Snap-in Compatible
Hooded
Waterproof, breathable, seam-sealed DryVent™ 2L shell with taffeta lining
100% windproof fabric
Zip-in-compatible integration with complementary garments from The North Face®
Removable, fully adjustable hood
Exposed, reverse-coil, water-resistant center front and chest pocket zips
Covered, secure-zip hand pockets
Pit-zip venting
Adjustable Velcro® cuff tabs
Hem cinch-cordYour double dose of awesome for today: a photo of Mark Twain visiting Nikola Tesla’s laboratory in 1894. The image is a ten-minute (!) time-lapse photograph taken for an article in the Century, and in it Twain illuminates one of Tesla’s wireless light globes:
Refining his theory on wireless communication, the inventor realized that electrical energy could be transmitted in two distinctly different ways, one as radiation through the air, and the other as conduction through the ground. Today this difference corresponds to FM and AM radio.
…Tesla began to realize that he could design vacuum tubes which would respond only when a precise combination of two or more circuits were being triggered. One of the lamps held by Twain was illuminated in this manner, its dual circuit triggered by a correspopnding dual circuit created by two cables laid around the room."Esperanto has no culture."
To this one, I say "yes and no". People often comment that one of their main reasons for learning a new language is to learn about a culture, to experience its literature, learn its history, etc. This isn't something I have any desire to argue with, as someone's reason for learning a language is entirely their business.
But is it true that Esperanto has no culture? My answer is, as I mentioned, yes and no. Clearly, Esperanto's history is different compared to many languages one might study. Our body of literature is relatively small, same goes for our music, poetry, films, etc. And all of our history begins in the 1800's, not very long ago. And there is no Esperanto country or capital city or even neighborhood, where one can go anytime for some immersion. Our population is scattered, and small compared to many of the world's more "popular" languages. Considering all of this, I can see how this would be described as Esperanto having no--or at least very little--culture, especially by someone for whom a wealth of art, tradition, history, and the ability for 24/7 immersion is the main attraction to language learning.
Before I go on to describe what I consider to be Esperanto's culture, I want to point out that the above is, well...Kind of the "point" of Esperanto, at least originally. Esperanto was supposed to be neutral. It was supposed to be nationless, historyless, cultureless--the intenton being to make it free of the historical baggage that other languages carry. Nobody's hometown has been bombed by an Esperanto speaking nation, nobody has been imprisoned and tortured by Esperantists, nobody has had their children taken away and placed in an Esperanto school. When you speak Esperanto, you are supposed to be speaking a language that has a "clean record" worldwide, a language you could call a blank slate. Infusing such a language with cultural norms and taboos would begin to undermine its concept. (Now, whether Esperanto has actually ever achieved these "goals" of neutrality or if they are important to most Esperanto speakers today, is a whole different discussion...)
So if my answer is "yes and no" then what do I mean? What is Esperanto's culture? Well, obviously, though small, we DO have a body of literature, we do have a music scene, we do have films, etc. And though short, we DO have a history. And we do, actually, have some physical locations throughout the world that could one day become hubs of Esperanto activity, Herzberg am Harz, the "Esperanto Town", being one example. I could go on at length trying to describe the quality of our literature and whatnot, but that's not really what I am getting at and I'm sure you can find the information already written up somewhere (perhaps you can start here). And we DO have taboos, we DO have social norms and biases, which are also elements of culture, for better or worse.
Here's what Esperanto culture is, in my view: it's the thoughts, actions, and beliefs of the currently living and breathing Esperanto speakers whenever they get together and create an instance of Esperantujo. Maybe that is insignificant to someone who wants to study history and books, but to me it's fascinating. Esperanto is a language who is "just starting out". We are just recently reaching the point of having enough speakers that the rules of the language are beginning to bend under our weight; the reigns have fallen out of our hands and we are along for the ride as the language evolves, and it's evolving due to all of our involvement with it. No single person can say "this is what we should do from now on"--like any culture, we now operate more like a flowing tide of ideas than one single person instigating and guiding all changes. We have a living language developing and growing before our very eyes, and this is the result of our collective contributions, intentional or not. It's a first row seat to the first stages of the blooming of a culture from a very small seed.
Esperanto is both a "brand new" and "artficial" language and yet it can easily express the natural thought patterns that occur in the human brain structure which evolved before recorded history. It's a window into human minds across the world, skipping over our differences and focusing specifically on one of the things that uniquely connects us all as human beings, one of humanity's oldest cultural assets--language itself. Something about that is fascinating and very moving to me. Maybe other people will not be "persuaded" by this, though my intention is not really to persuade people to learn Esperanto if they don't want to, rather I just want to describe what I think also counts as culture and might be worth some interest.Watching the Snowflakes Melt
Any honest conservative will have to admit that the post-election spectacle of weeping Clinton staffers, progressive pundits at a momentary loss for lies, and SJWs tweeting as frantically as canaries in a room full of hungry cats was the icing on Trump’s victory cake. I don’t blame anyone for going back to YouTube for seconds. We’ve been getting the thick end of the political correctness cudgel for a very long time now. How’s this for social justice, my liberal friends? How’s this for a little diversity of political opinion? Nevertheless, although Hillary’s political career has probably melted like the Wicked Witch of the West, the propaganda engine of the media is still here -- even if its ratings are down. The infantile boot camp of academia remains unshaken. The student snowflakes, though bedraggled, have begun to notice that the sun still rises, racists hordes haven’t actually managed to kill them all, and Donald Trump hasn’t shoveled their oppressed, indignant, little corpses into the death camp ovens of their imagination -- at least not yet. They can still hold hands and snuggle puppies for awhile. They can still chant “no justice, no peace!” around their traditional bonfires of Chinese-manufactured U.S. flags. Trump’s victory didn’t silence our opponents. It didn’t even give us a lull in fighting. Generation snowflake was out rioting before the Starbucks opened on Wednesday the 9th. They are now on the defensive, however. It is a good time for us to have a look at the miserable, misguided foot soldier our enemies intend to use against us.
Watching videos of SJWs, black, white and oh so very red, has struck me with something I hadn’t noticed before. Many of these poor kids are genuinely scared. We’ve been using the word “indoctrinated” for years, but seeing the results of the indoctrination on their faces is horrifying nevertheless. I came of age in the Reagan era. Liberal kids back then disliked Ronald Reagan, maybe even hated him -- but they didn’t think either his election or his reelection meant that they were going to die. Many of the current crop of snowflakes really do believe the end is nigh. They are dangerous in the way that cornered animals are dangerous -- well, at least they may be when they can manage to stop crying. Facts, thank God, are facts. There is no serious question of who has the better grasp of reality here. The evidence that right and truth are on our side is overwhelming. The progressives themselves confirmed the authenticity of the Wikileaks emails on at least three occasions. We can point at DNC involvement in the rioting -- we have video. Progressives, on the other hand, have little but rhetoric and accusations. The sudden parade of women who claimed to have been molested by Donald Trump. The Muslim student who claimed to have been threatened on the street. The anonymous swastika spray-painted on a wall somewhere. Trump said occasional bad things. Hillary really did bad things. The saying and doing are different, at least in a sane world. However, if you are twenty years old, systematically educated to find reasons to be offended, and tucked into the comfortable safe space of your echo chamber -- then accusations are indistinguishable from truth. The suggestion that we should put the interests of the people who are already in America ahead of the interests of millions who, for whatever reason, want to come to America is indistinguishable, to snowflakes, from calling for the gunning down of children in the streets. These kids don’t assume the odd swastika they run across on the way to the vape shop is the work of a mildly anti-social but basically apolitical thirteen-year-old (the sort of people who have always scrawled graffiti on American walls and sidewalks) but imagine it the product of invisible neo-Nazi boogeymen. Yes, they are genuinely scared -- they have swallowed the big lie whole. While one may feel a certain human pity for their naivete, nobody who needs a puppy and a coloring book to staunch the flow of tears has any right to expect to be taken seriously by an adult. An inability to cope with a reality one doesn’t like is not a virtue – it is an indication of a precarious state of mental health. All these kids have is the ridiculous, unhealthy, teletubby world that has been constructed for them by the media and the American educational system. They have been systematically brainwashed for political reasons -- a crime on such a scale there are hardly any words for it. Theirs is a world that runs erratically between extremes of hatred, tolerance of things that are genuinely dangerous, self-loathing, and self-pity. They don’t understand the real economy. They don’t have a clue that people flowing to the U.S. from the third world have their own motives and their own beliefs -- and aren’t just more interchangeable, multicultural, neurotic teletubbies like themselves. These kids are adrift. They have no history, no lasting values, no moral underpinnings. They don’t even have enough intellectual capacity to understand that their hero, Bernie Sanders, on being cheated out of a shot at his party’s nomination, willingly made himself a traitor by stumping for Hillary Clinton. “Bernie! Bernie!” some of them still chanted desperately -- like babies who’ve been separated from their mothers. We should not dismiss these people as irrelevant. It is not that they are dangerous opponents in their individual cunning. Rather, they are dangerous in the disruptive way that schizophrenic street people are dangerous. They live in a different world, and their world is not compatible with ours. Nor are they likely to recover their rationality anytime soon. The leftist narrative has always been extremely flexible, and when you successfully breed a couple of generations of adherents who don’t believe in the traditional external standards of morality and logic, you can keep them fired up with new and even contradictory illusions indefinitely if you just have the right street cred. Hillary Clinton didn’t quite have that street cred, so they rightly snubbed her but still managed to be shocked by the election of Donald Trump. I suppose they just assumed, as usual, that someone else would work the political magic for them. Their disdain for Hillary probably had as much to do with her grandmotherly appearance and her lack of charm as it did with her chronic and well-documented dishonesty. To get the SJW vote, she shouldn’t have promoted herself as America’s first woman president -- she should have come out as a trans-man in a pants suit and spiked pink hair. Bernie Sanders, who also looked like somebody’s grandmother, managed to be cool by simply calling himself a socialist -- a nineteenth-century failed ideology that seems to be the latest, coolest thing, second only to 7th century Islamic imperialism. The next Democrat candidate for president will probably be Jay Z, perhaps with a Leninesque cap, Trotsky-Lennonist round glasses, and a newly sprouted Bin Laden shaggy beard. I mean, OMG -- why the f–k not? The best that the conservative movement can do now is to try to fix everything -- and I mean everything. That’s a fight of epic proportions, worthy of a great people with a truly great heritage and great ideals. It will not be easy. Even if we are successful, we are going to have to suffer with a subculture of crypto-leftists for a very long time. Weeping and criticizing and obstructing their way into the future, hating us, hating themselves, hating the failure of reality to meet the simple standards of Teletubbyland -- where everyone gets along because there isn’t any difference of opinion. Teaching children isn’t easy. Teaching grownup children is a task worthy of God.An image grab taken from a propaganda video released on July 5, 2014 by al-Furqan Media allegedly shows the leader of the Islamic State jihadist group, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi addressing Muslim worshippers at a mosque in Mosul, Iraq (AFP Photo/)
Baghdad (AFP) - The leader of the Islamic State group Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi on Thursday urged Muslims to emigrate to his self-proclaimed "caliphate", in the jihadist supremo's first audio recording in six months.
"And we call upon every Muslim in every place to perform hijrah (emigration) to the Islamic State or fight in his land wherever that may be," he said.
The voice reading the half-hour speech appeared to match previous audio recordings of Baghdadi, the latest of which was released in mid-November.
As did his previous speech, the audio tape recording released on Thursday comes a few days after media reports that he might have been seriously wounded in a strike by the US-led coalition bombing IS in Iraq and Syria.
There was no way for AFP to immediately authenticate the latest recording nor date it but Baghdadi speaks of developments in Yemen, where Saudi-led forces launched an air campaign against Shiite rebels in late March, that suggest it is recent.
Echoing his previous exhortations, Baghdadi said moving to the caliphate he declared over parts of Iraq and Syria in June 2014 or waging jihad (holy war) at home was an obligation for Muslims.
"Has the time not come for you to know that there is no might nor honour nor safety nor rights for you except in the shade of the Caliphate?," he said in the speech, transcripts of which were released in five languages.
"O Muslims, Islam was never for a day the religion of peace. Islam is the religion of war," he said, calling for mass mobilisation on the battlefield.
- 'Desperate' Saudi war -
He criticised Sunni civilians fleeing fighting in the western province of Anbar to seek shelter in Baghdad and other government-controlled areas.
"So return to your lands, and remain in your homes, and seek shelter -- after first seeking shelter with Allah -- with your people in the Islamic State, for you will find therein, by Allah's permission, a warm embrace and a safe refuge," he said.
Baghdadi lashed out at Saudi Arabia's rulers, accusing them of launching their air campaign against the Shiite Huthi rebels in Yemen only to please the West.
"Their war is nothing but an attempt to prove themselves once again to their masters from amongst the Jews and Crusaders," he said.
"It is nothing but a desperate attempt to turn the Muslims away from the Islamic State."
He also warned that IS would carry out more prison breaks, which have become one of the group's trademarks.
"I will not forget to mention the captives in the prisons of the apostate tyrants everywhere," the IS leader said.
"We will not hold back any strength or spare any effort or miss any opportunity, until we free the last one of you, with Allah's permission," he said.
More than 40 inmates, including IS militants, escaped in a prison break which IS claimed last week in the Iraqi town of Khalis.
- Raqa before Mosul -
The group, which already controlled parts of Syria, swept across the Sunni heartland of Iraq last year before proclaiming a "caliphate" and drawing record numbers of foreign fighters.
A US-led air campaign launched in August helped the central government in Baghdad and the autonomous Kurds in the north to turn the tide on IS.
The jihadists have since lost significant ground but still hold the vast province of Anbar and Mosul, the country's second city where Baghdadi was last seen in public in July.
The IS leader said in his speech he thought anti-IS forces would attack the group's strongholds in Syria before Mosul.
"We believe that their mobilisation will be for Raqa and Aleppo before Mosul. So be cautious," he said.
Baghdadi praised the fighters in Anbar, who have largely held their ground despite coalition strikes and government-led ground operations.
In some parts of the province, IS fighters have continued to advance and Baghdadi egged them on to push towards Baghdad and the holy Shiite city of Karbala.Joshua Starr Resigns As MCPS Superintendent
From Bethesda Now - By Aaron Kraut
Updated at 12:35 p.m. — MCPS Superintendent Joshua Starr and the Board of Education have agreed to part ways, ending the weeks-long drama surrounding Starr’s soon-to-expire contract.
Word of Starr’s resignation leaked through numerous media outlets on Tuesday morning as the Board met in a closed session.
At 11:30 a.m., Board President Pat O’Neill — thought to be one of Starr’s remaining supporters in the eight-member group — quickly read a resolution announcing the resignation. The Board approved the move unanimously before moving to another room to hold a press conference.
“Don’t get into a fight that you know you’re not going to win,” Starr said during the press conference when asked why he resigned. O’Neill was the only member of the Board to take questions.
“I am only one individual. It is part of a collective body and a collective process. The decision on any superintendent falls to those eight democratically elected,” O’Neill said. “There are eight different thoughts and opinions.”
Larry Bowers, the school system’s chief operating officer, will serve as interim superintendent until at least June 30.
Starr’s departure is a major surprise for the school system. He had expressed his desire to return for another four years, but reports suggested at least four Board members stood solidly against a contract renewal.
Without support from a majority of the Board, Starr didn’t submit a required notification of his intent to remain as superintendent by the Sunday deadline.
Starr will serve as superintendent until Feb. 16.
The Board of Education has been mum on what friction caused Starr’s departure.
The official resignation agreement includes a clause stating “Board members and the Superintendent shall refrain from making disparaging remarks regarding the other.”
“No superintendent is bigger than the system that he or she leads and I understand and respect this Board’s desire to have a different leader and a different direction,” Starr said in the press conference. “It was my hope that I would be here to continue that work. …However I recognize and respect that the Board has the right to choose a leader of the school system.”
When asked why he decided to resign, Starr said he agreed with the Board that it was in the best interest of MCPS to move on now.
“The Board of Education has decided to have another quarterback,” O’Neill said in the press conference. She avoided answering why the Board decided not to support Starr.
Starr later said he felt no need to fight the Board after it had shown there would be a lack of support.
Under the agreement approved Tuesday, Starr will receive the remainder of the salary he is owed under his contract, which runs until June 30, a $46,583 payment for unused sick and annual leave in accordance with his contract, and health insurance benefits through the end of 2015.
Maryland State Schools Superintendent Lillian Lowery must most approve Bowers’ appointment as MCPS superintendent before the switch can officially take place.
MCPS said it hopes to have a new superintendent in place by July 1.Buffalo's Khalil Mack (left) earned an honorable mention on SI's 2012 All-America team. (Bill Wippert/AP) Buffalo's Khalil Mack (left) earned an honorable mention on SI's 2012 All-America team. (Bill Wippert/AP)
Though the NFL draft is still months away, the college football season looms just around the corner. So, with that in mind, Audibles is taking a look at one intriguing draft prospect from each FBS team.
Thanks to Eric Fisher landing at No. 1 overall in the 2013 NFL draft, casual football fans are starting to learn what the insider community has known for years: The MAC is legit. Over the years, the conference has produced such talent as Ben Roethlisberger, Greg Jennings, T.J. Lang, Josh Cribbs, Julian Edelman and others. Victor Cruz, Bernard Pierce and Rod Streater, to name a few, also honed their games at schools that moved into the MAC after they left.
The MAC could storm the 2014 draft, too. The country was introduced to Northern Illinois quarterback Jordan Lynch during his team's BCS run last season... and he may wind up the second-best QB in the league, behind Ohio's Tyler Tettleton. Add in other legit skill-position talent, such as Toledo's Bernard Reedy, Kent State's Dri Archer and Buffalo's Branden Oliver, and scouts should have plenty to chew on.
Oh, and there is a ton of talent on the other side of the ball, including at least one potential first-rounder, OLB Khalil Mack (we'll get to him).
This conference is as good a place as any to kick off our 2014 draft preview. And, with that, a look at one player per MAC team with a shot to hear his name called next May:
Akron: Moses McCray, DT.
The Zips have gone 3-33 over the past three seasons, so it makes sense that one of their top players would have come to them from another program. McCray comes to Akron from Florida State, where his career was derailed repeatedly by injuries -- he redshirted in 2010, missed several games in 2011, then earned a medical redshirt after missing 2012.
He's a big body at 6-foot-2, 318 pounds, capable of playing either 1-technique or 3-technique inside. McCray also moves better than you'd expect for a player of his size. If he could get through the 2013 season intact, McCray could provide |
, ACS weathered a torrent of blaring headlines in 2016: preventable child deaths; the resignation of its commissioner; the threatened intervention of an independent monitor installed by the state.
When ProPublica shared its findings about Montego, city officials who have been the main watchdogs over ACS said they were not surprised.
“Too many children and families engaged with ACS are not receiving the mental health care services they need,” Letitia James, the city’s public advocate, said in an emailed statement to ProPublica. “These mental health care services are imperative to maintaining family stability and ensuring the overall well-being of our children. We must ensure that every family and child in our system receives the timely and accurate care they deserve.”
In August 2016, James had released a report examining the deaths of eight children who died while under ACS supervision. Records in four of those cases indicate that a parent was receiving some form of mental health service around the time of their child’s death. It’s difficult to determine from the available records if the kind of mental health assessments done by Montego may have put any of the children in harm’s way.
But officials in the public advocate’s office not authorized to speak publicly on the matter said they have routinely observed long, maddening delays in getting ACS evaluations completed. City and state records are often so vague that it’s impossible to tell whether they happened at all, they said.
Mark Peters, commissioner of the investigation department, issued two damning reports on ACS in 2016, one dealing with its handling of juvenile offenders and another involving two more child fatalities. He told ProPublica his office was currently examining ACS’s history of dealings with outside contractors.
“The problem you discussed regarding mental health vendors brought in by ACS not doing proper evaluations or conducting cursory evaluations is part of a broad concern DOI has regarding ACS, specifically that agency’s lack of supervision of its own staff as well as contracting agencies,” he said. “It will be a focus of our upcoming report that will document the damaging impact of this type of neglect by ACS and other systemic problems.”
And just last week, New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli released a critical report targeted at the agency’s oversight of contractors like Montego. The report found that ACS had failed to improve its supervision after a 2015 state audit identified systemic shortcomings.
The comptroller’s office had encouraged the agency to carefully document and justify any decision to award a contract to a vendor “with a history of poor performance” and that it not “extend or renew existing contracts with vendors until the performance of such contractors has been adequately evaluated.”
We must ensure that every family and child in our system receives the timely and accurate care they deserve. Letitia James, New York City’s Public Advocate
In a statement to ProPublica, ACS spokeswoman Aja Worthy-Davis pushed back at the comptroller’s report, citing the agency’s “rigorous monitoring” of companies and organizations it contracted with.
ProPublica asked ACS what had become of the family evaluations that, for a decade, the agency had been sending to Montego. The agency said the work had been given to a number of other contract agencies, but offered no breakdowns or additional information. Interviews with family defense agency lawyers suggest some cases have been shifted to the city’s Family Court mental health clinics, which they said had improved substantially, in part because judges have made their evaluation orders more specific.
Adams still does the occasional evaluation for one of the foster care agencies working with ACS. He said Montego’s work has “ground to a halt,” its name sullied by ACS’s termination.
He has watched the year of turmoil, including the resignation of ACS’s chief, and the pledges of more investigations and monitors and shakeups to come. He said he sees plenty of ways to improve the system, but to do these things, those in it would have to be honest about the advantages, limitations and costs of mental health evaluations. There would need to be a reckoning with the system’s core purpose of assisting families in distress.
“The sad thing about this is people who do this work really care,” Adams said. “But the system doesn’t work the way it should and that’s a tragedy.”
Help Us Investigate: If you have experience with or information about family court, particularly the role of forensic evaluators, email [email protected].
Joaquin Sapien has covered criminal justice, military healthcare, and environmental issues for ProPublica since 2008.* An earlier version of this story reported the US Visa Waiver programme was under threat, as reported by international media. The programme being considered is actually the US Visa Interview Waiver programme, which only applies to people renewing certain categories of US visa.
Kiwis and Australians wanting to travel repeatedly to the US could be forced to undertake an in-person interview with American officials in order to renew their US visas, under strict new border rules US President Donald Trump is considering.
The Los Angeles Times, citing a draft copy of an executive order on immigration and refugees Trump is mulling, reported the visa interview waiver programme could be suspended.
REUTERS Kiwis planning to renew US visas may have to do in-person interviews under Trump's proposed rules.
The programme applies to certain categories of non-immigrant visas for Kiwis wanting to repeatedly travel to the US for reasons such as work or study, who would have to sit for an in-person interview under the new rules - probably at the US Consulate General in Auckland.
"The Secretary of State shall immediately suspend the Visa Interview Waiver programme and ensure compliance with section 222 of the INA (Immigration and Nationality Act), which requires that all individuals seeking a nonimmigrant visa, undergo an in-person interview, subject to specific statutory exceptions," the draft executive order states.
Read more:
* Travelling to the US: When your travel is not authorised under ESTA visa waiver
* New Zealand makes list of world's most powerful passports
* Sick at the cost of flight changes? How to cope in a travel emergency
The Los Angeles Times earlier reported the US was planning to suspend what it called the visa waiver programme, which would include any visitor to the US, including holidaymakers. That caused a scare that all Kiwis travelling to the US would have to undergo an interview.
The current visa waiver programme allows New Zealanders and citizens from 37 other countries a 90-day tourist visa to easily enter the US by simply submitting biographical information online. However, it is now understood that this will not be affected.
House of Travel commercial director Brent Thomas said Kiwis are keener than ever to travel Stateside. Last year, visitor numbers to the US were up more than 150,000, excluding business travel, and 2017 is shaping up to be another record year with forward bookings already up, Thomas said.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer said on Wednesday that Trump will announce later this week details on the "Keeping America Safe" plan.
Trump is also considering blocking all refugees from entering the US for 120 days and restricting visas for people from terror hot spot nations Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.
The draft order temporarily suspends the US refugee programme while new vetting procedures are put in place and stops refugees from Syria being admitted indefinitely until a security screening review is completed.
Many of the asylum seekers on Nauru and Manus Island are from Syria and the other targetted terror hot spot countries.
"I think the guiding principle for the president is keeping this country safe," Spicer said.
Spicer added the US needs to make sure "people who are from a country that has a propensity to do us harm" face "appropriate steps to make sure they are coming to this country for all of the right reasons".
The US-Australia deal involving refugees held on Nauru and Manus Island was struck last year when Barack Obama was US president.
With Obama exiting the White House and Trump, who vowed to crackdown on refugees while campaigning to be president, in power the secretly negotiated deal could be doomed.
Powerful members of the Republican-controlled Congress were outraged when it was revealed Malcolm Turnbull and Obama had struck the agreements without their input.
If Trump torpedoes the refugee deal it will be the second major blow he has delivered to Australian prime minister this week.
Trump signed an executive order on Monday withdrawing America's involvement in the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement with Australia and 10 other Pacific countries.
The Australian government, however, is holding out hope the strong relationship Australia has with the US will keep the refugee deal alive.
"We look forward to working with President Trump, his administration, and in particular Secretary of Homeland Security General John Kelly, on this issue and many others of shared interest in the years ahead," Australian Immigration Minister Peter Dutton told AAP on Wednesday.
"We will continue to work with our friends in the United States on the arrangement but will not provide a running commentary through the media."
- AAP with StuffIn the three games Canada’s Women’s Team have had against Brazil since Head Coach John Herdman has been Canadian Head Coach, each time the two teams have featured in incredibly close games.
The last time the two teams met just prior to the 2012 London Olympics, Brazil scored a late winner seconds after Christine Sinclair had tied the match in second half stoppage time to record a 2:1 victory. The time before that, it was Canada registering the 2:1 result.
Herdman’s first time in charge of Canada against Brazil came at the 2011 Pan American Games when Canada won the gold medal on penalties after 90 minutes of normal time and 30 minutes of extra failed to produce a goal.
On Wednesday, expect more of the same.
“There’s a massive rivalry here. For some reason, these games turn into a bit of a fight. I don’t know where it’s come for or if it’s something that’s happened before my time but they’re almost like bloodbaths,” said Herdman after Canada trained in on Tuesday in possibly the hottest conditions they’ve faced since arriving in Brazil.
“Both teams get right up for it and I think that’s the exciting thing about it.”
Not that there’s any extra motivation needed whenever someone plays Brazil, but Canada will be looking to rebound from Sunday’s surprise 1:0 loss to Chile.
Depending on the result between Scotland and Chile earlier in the day, Canada may just need a draw to advance but they’re going in with a winning mentality. They want to prove that the defeat to Chile was an aberration.
“There’s something about a wounded animal here and the most dangerous time is when someone’s been a bit wounded,” said Herdman. “I think the team are ready to give Brazil a good crack and it’s great to see Brazil’s got their best team at this tournament.”In 1982, when game arcades were all the rage, a sociologist claimed that, of every 100 arcade game players, 80 per cent were men while only 20 per cent were women. In 2011, 51 per cent of gamers were men, and 49 per cent were women, and in 2014, an Internet Advertising Bureau study revealed that 48 per cent of gamers were men, while 52 per cent were women—how times change.
The 2014 Gamergate scandal made this abundantly clear in a way that gave some women involved in the gaming industry, as well as observers, a huge amount of trauma. Anonymous posts online claimed the attention a female game developer was getting for a new product was not due to the quality of the product.It snowballed from there, and lead to a torrent of abuse, hate mail, death threats, and more. As unpleasant as the experience was for so many people, some good came out of it—and, once again, sisters are doing it for themselves (and others).women show their gaming skills. Not only are women gamers playing a significant role in tackling online bullying, they are also showing that they are a force to be reckoned with. The Internet Advertising Bureau study, along with a few others, highlighted the fact that, while women are definitely gaming, the industry was either ignorant of it, or turned a blind eye to it (tacit recognition of a gender wage gap, perhaps?).Skills-based gaming is on the rise, no doubt due to the exploding popularity of mobile gaming. It is even creeping into casinos around the world, and usually because the industry is trying to attract younger players who think that slot machines and table games are boring or old-fashioned.Even if millennials opt for skills-based gaming, we can’t ignore a 2017 Quantic Foundry report based on 270,000 gamers’ survey responses. Sixty-nine per cent of women gamers preferred playing match-3 and farming or family simulation games, compared to only 31 per cent of male gamers. On the flip side, only 2 per cent of the women gamers surveyed preferred playing sports genre games, compared to the 98 per cent of male players for whom sports was their genre of choice.the gaming industry responds—slowly. The majority of women gamers surveyed obviously have a preference for games that feature character development, communication, role-playing and dynamic plots. For the boys, it is all about action, breaking stuff, blowing things up and killing just about anything that moves.However, before anyone starts thinking that the old sugar, spice, and everything nice stuff is all true, let’s not forget the 2013 Variety Report that revealed 30 per cent of women gamers play games with violent content. MMORPGs and action-adventure games also have a growing female audience.The gaming industry is slowly starting to take notice of girl gamers. While there women are still under-represented in game design and development, and many new games are still packed with negative stereotypes and sexist imagery, a brief look at just about any mobile gaming app store reveals that women are not being forgotten.Even the online casino industry has taken note. Microgaming made waves when it released Castle Builder, an online slot that combines social and skills-based gaming with a traditional casino game. Change is coming to the industry. Slowly, yes, but it is coming.Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos unveils the Amazon Fire Phone. AP Photo/Ted S. Warren Amazon's Underground App Store, which launched in August, gives away thousands of paid-for apps for free. The store pays a developer for each minute a user uses the app.
The model costs Amazon a lot of money, but the company hopes it will put it ahead of the offerings from Google's Play Store and Apple's App Store.
Aaron Rubenson, the director of Amazon's App Store, told The Inquirer how the model works.
"We heard [from customers] that there are so many apps and games out there it's difficult to know which ones are of good quality and which are worth spending money on," he said. Making all apps free, and then paying developers themselves, removes this problem.
"We also heard frustration with the freemium model," he said. "Some developers told us that they would rather charge upfront, and for those that had adopted the freemium model found that only two to three percent of customers actually purchased [the app]. Somehow the industry had evolved to the point that for content creators it had become a difficult place."
Underground currently gives away over 1,500 apps, including "Angry Birds," "Cut the Rope," and "Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic," which costs £7.99 ($13.99) on the iPhone.
Rubenson explained how the deal — which sees Amazon pay developers — works for the company.
"This is good for Amazon in a couple of ways," he said. "Firstly, this is also the Amazon shopping app. We hope people engage with Underground often and when they do, discover the other great things that we offer and some will go on to buy other goods."
Essentially, Amazon is leveraging the goodwill that Underground creates to use elsewhere. If people see Amazon as a giving company, they may be more inclined to buy things.
Rubsenson continued: "There's a lot for us in driving high frequency engagement with the mobile channel. The other way is that when customers download apps and games, occasionally we'll show an advert. They're before the start-up sequence, they never ruin the flow of the game, its not often, but that's another way."
And here is the other way: Amazon can monetise the experience via adverts.Mark Hearn | Apple Samsung Business News by
It’s no secret that Samsung has targeted Apple in its marketing campaigns, but Sammy’s latest stunt appears to have taken things to another level. Recently, Samsung employed a marketing firm by the name of Tongue to stage a “protest” at an Australian Apple store. Samsung’s bizarre marketing ploy resulted in a large black bus filled with protesters chanting “WAKE UP.” Check out the video below to get a look at the action.
In addition to the phony protest, a website called Wake up Australia has launched, which features an ominous countdown to what appears to be Samsung’s announcement of its next Galaxy smartphone. Australia is a particularly volatile market for Apple and Samsung; the two firms have fought numerous legal battles there and Apple successfully blocked Samsung from advertising the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Australia late last year.
[via: Android and Me]Autumn's biggest releases in indie rock, rap, pop, and more
Below, we look at some of the most anticipated albums due to arrive between now and the end of the year. As always, you can check out our Album Release Calendar for a frequently updated listing of upcoming release dates.
Ryan Adams
Ashes & Fire October 11
Following a detour into heavy metal (2010's Orion), as well as a pair of records with his group The Cardinals, Ryan Adams will release a solo studio album under his own name this fall for the first time in four years. Norah Jones provides piano and backing vocals, and Benmont Tench (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers) also guests on the Glyn Johns-produced country-rocker Ashes & Fire, Adams' first LP on Capitol Records (via his own label, PAX AM).
Listen to "Lucky Now"
Tori Amos
Night of Hunters September 20
It's hard to believe that it has been nearly 20 years since singer-songwriter Tori Amos released her stunning debut album Little Earthquakes. And while she hasn't received major critical acclaim for an LP since 2002's Scarlet's Walk 76, Amos is still reliably turning out new albums every few years. Night of Hunters is her 12th overall, but it represents something new in her storied career: an album that is far more classical than pop. Ditching her usual touring band, Amos has enlisted an orchestra of strings and woodwinds for what she bills as a "21st century song cycle inspired by classical music themes," which will be released on classical label Deutsche Grammophon.
Watch the video for "Carry" on YouTube.
Atlas Sound
Parallax November 8
When he isn't busy fronting the acclaimed indie band Deerhunter, Bradford Cox releases music under his side project, Atlas Sound. Actually, you may as well throw an "acclaimed" label on Atlas Sound too; the project's previous two releases each scored an 81. The science fiction-influenced Parallax, Atlas Sound's third studio album, is due in early November on 4AD.
Listen to "Terra Incognita"
The Beach Boys
The SMiLE Sessions November 1
One of the most legendary "lost" albums in rock history, SMiLE was recorded in 1966 and 1967 as the follow-up to Pet Sounds, but was never completed or released, though Brian Wilson re-recorded the songs for an acclaimed solo album (SMiLE 97) in 2004. Now, for the first time, the studio recordings from the original sessions are getting an official release, and a comprehensive one at that. Compiled from the 45-year-old master tapes with the participation of original band members Wilson, Al Jardine, and Mike Love, the SMiLE Sessions double-CD set is designed to approximate the album as it was originally intended (with plenty of bonus tracks), while a 5-disc box set adds dozens of alternate takes and mixes and even studio chatter, offering hours of good vibrations (and literally over an hour of "Good Vibrations") for die-hard fans.
Tony Bennett
Duets II September 20
An 85-year-old Tony Bennett teams up with another group of pop stars for this follow-up to his hit 2006 album Duets: An American Classic. Once again, the source material is the Great American Songbook, and Bennett will be joined by Lady Gaga (on "The Lady is a Tramp," naturally), Queen Latifah, Norah Jones, John Mayer, Mariah Carey, Michael Bublé, Willie Nelson, Josh Groban, and more. The song that's certain to attract the most attention, however, is "Body and Soul," Bennett's duet with Amy Winehouse; it was the final track recorded by Winehouse before her death this summer.
Bjork
Biophilia September 27 Delayed to October 11
Björk’s first original album since her 2007 effort Volta 77 finds the artist exploring even more unique ways to experience music. Biophilia is a true multimedia album; already, album tracks “Crystalline,” Cosmology,” and “Virus” have been released via an interactive iPhone/iPad app that allows you to explore each song’s themes through a constellation-filled universe. A rumored scientific IMAX 3D musical from Michel Gondry could also be related to the album.
Watch the video for "Crystalline" at YouTube.
Black Keys
tbd tbd
There's no title, and no release date. But the blues-rock duo of Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney confirmed to Spin earlier this summer that they had finished recording their seventh album and would release it before the end of the year. Given that their previous release, Brothers 82, earned the Black Keys a Grammy trophy for best alternative music album and some of the greatest critical acclaim of their career, a new album is something to celebrate, indeed. Just don't expect it to sound like Brothers; the songs on the new album are so fast that the duo are worried about being able to replicate them in a live setting.
Blink-182
Neighborhoods September 27
Fans thought it would never happen, but following a four-year breakup/hiatus, a near-death experience for Travis Barker, the death of longtime producer Jerry Finn, and, finally, a 2009 reunion tour, Blink-182 have recorded a new album. The trio's self-produced Neighborhoods is their first studio LP since 2003's Blink-182 71, and aims to mix that album's more mature approach to songwriting with tunes that hew closer to the band's origins.
Watch the video for "Up All Night" at YouTube.
Childish Gambino
Camp tbd
Community star Donald Glover has garnered buzz with his hip-hop alter ego Childish Gambino, and he’s now taking it to the next level with a major release called Camp, due this fall. The full-length album will have support from label Glasshouse Records (Mumford & Sons) and is sure to be a hard R-rated journey through Glover’s insatiably horny mind.
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Hysterical September 20
While CYHSY's self-titled 2005 debut album was a landmark release in the past decade of indie rock, their follow-up, Some Loud Thunder 63, couldn't help but be a disappointment (though muddy production and a lack of hooks didn't help matters). Will the band's poppy and accessible third album restore the group to favorites of the blogosphere? The first few tracks leaked from the self-released, John Congleton-produced Hysterical point to a step in the right direction, at least, but anyone hoping for something on the level of the debut will likely need to keep waiting.
Listen to "Same Mistake"
Coldplay
Mylo Xyloto October 25
Originally intended for release at the end of 2010, Coldplay's fifth studio album took a bit longer to record than expected. Mylo Xyloto (pronounced MY-lo ZY-letoe, and, no, we don't know what it means, either) was recorded with a trio of producers—Markus Dravs, Daniel Green and Rik Simpson—and a bit of assistance from longtime collaborator Brian Eno. There's no official tracklist yet, though recent live staple "Every Teardrop Is a Waterfall" and upcoming single "Paradise" are the two songs certain to be included; "Charlie Brown" and "Major Minus" are likely to appear as well. If you want to see the new tracks performed live in the States, however, you'll probably need to wait until spring.
Listen to "Every Teardrop Is a Waterfall"
J. Cole
Cole World: The Sideline Story September 27
Jay-Z's latest protege (and first signee to his Roc Nation label) has been a rising star in the hip-hop world since releasing his first mixtape four years ago. In the works for several years, Cole World: The Sideline Story marks the North Carolina rapper's official studio album debut. And Cole's fingerprints are all over the 19-track LP; he handled virtually all of the production himself, and only a few tracks feature guests (though they're good ones: Jay-Z, Missy Elliott, Trey Songz, and Drake).
Listen to "Work Out"
DJ Shadow
The Less You Know, The Better September 27
DJ Shadow isn't the only one excited about his new album. Fans of the producer of such classics as 1996's groundbreaking, sample-driven Endtroducing..... and 2002's The Private Press 81 are accustomed to waiting many years between releases, so any new DJ Shadow record is a welcome event. Especially one that promises more of a return to form following a disappointing detour into hyphy and other genres on 2006's The Outsider 62. Early cuts leaked from The Less You Know, The Better suggest a diverse set that offers a welcome balance between energy and moody introspection, while adding a newfound accessibility and retaining the sharp production touches the turntablist is known for. Talib Kweli, Tom Vek, Afrikan Boy, and Little Dragon are among the guests.
Listen to "I'm Excited [feat. Afrikan Boy]"
Drake
Take Care October 25
Drake's critically and commercially successful 2010 debut Thank Me Later 75 made the young Canadian hip hop artist an overnight star (at least in the U.S.; in Canada, he was already well known as one of the stars of Degrassi: The Next Generation). Now, there's no shortage of artists who want to work with him, as evidenced by the collaborators lined up for Drake's sophomore set Take Care. A final tracklist has yet to be nailed down, but it looks like the new album will feature contributions from Stevie Wonder, The Weeknd, Rick Ross, Lil Wayne, 8Ball & MJG, The Neptunes, 9th Wonder, and possibly even Jamie xx and Florence (without the Machine).
Listen to "Headlines"
DRC Music
Kinshasa One Two November 8 (Digital October 3)
The latest project from Gorillaz/Blur leader Damon Albarn, DRC Music brings together leading Congolese musicians and a group of producers that includes Dan The Automator, Actress, Marc Antoine, and more. Recorded in the Congo over just five days in July with over 50 local performers, the Warp release Kinshasa One Two will benefit Oxfam.
Listen to three album tracks:
Evanescence
Evanescence October 11
It has been five full years since multiple Grammy winners Evanescence last checked in with The Open Door 61, and eight years since the breakthrough success of their septuple-platinum debut Fallen. Adding to the delay was a troubled recording process that included sessions recorded in early 2010 with producer Steve Lillywhite that had to be scrapped when the band didn't like the outcome. Ultimately, Nick Raskulinecz (Foo Fighters) produced the tracks that will be found on Evanescence, including lead single "What You Want." It's the band's first album to feature touring drummer Will Hunt, who replaces the departed Rocky Gray, while Amy Lee remains the sole original member still with the group.
Listen to "What You Want"
Feist
Metals October 4
Last time, it took an iPod commercial to launch Leslie Feist to stardom; this time, she doesn't need the extra help to get there. While the upcoming Metals may not boast any one track as catchy as "1234" from 2007's The Reminder 79, it captures some of the serenity of the Big Sur location where it was recorded, while also incorporating an organic feeling from its mostly live (rather than overdubbed) recording process. Ranging from poppy and peppy to string-enhanced ballads, the 12 tracks were recorded with musicians such as Chilly Gonzales and Bjork collaborator Valgeir Sigurðsson.
Listen to "How Come You Never Go There"
The Field
Looping State of Mind October 25 October 10
Swedish electronic artist Axel Willner aka The Field delivers his third full-length album fresh off of his excellent remix of Junior Boys’ “Banana Ripple.” Looping State of Mind stirs a few acoustic instruments into the usual tightly looped samples and still reaches the repetitious euphoria that The Field excels at. The album’s seven lengthy tracks are mixed by the Modernist. Fans in the States should be able to see the The Field live in October.
Florence and the Machine
tbd November tbd
Working exclusively with producer Paul Epworth, who produced some of the better tracks on their hit 2009 debut album Lungs 79, Florence and the Machine return with a sophomore album to be released in the U.S. at some point during November (and on November 7 in the U.K.). Expect a more cohesive and more soulful album this time around, with Florence Welch's songs influenced by painter Frida Kahlo and author Virginia Woolf.
Girls
Father, Son, Holy Ghost September 13
The San Francisco indie rockers go big on their second full-length (following 2009's Album 80), trying out genres ranging from soul to metal and even enlisting a gospel choir on several tracks. Father, Son, Holy Ghost is produced by Doug Boehm and features a full five-member band (a Girls first), rather than just the core duo of Christopher Owens and Chet "JR" White.
Listen to "Honey Bunny"
On the next page...
Continue to the next page to preview 20 additional upcoming albums, including releases from Justice, Radiohead, Wild Flag, Tom Waits, Wilco, M83, and St. Vincent.It is always very good to hold someone or something responsible for your own troubles. For example, an embroiderer may say that he or she achieved a low quality result because of incorrect digitizing, and a digitizer, in his turn, may blame the embroiderer. In my opinion, in cases like it is only reasonable to share responsibility and figure out what happened and why. At times, however, it is not so easy.
I will start with the problem I've already referred to — thread breakage. In addition to what has been written before, I want to say that if thread breakage occurs all the time, and in all parts of the design, the machine is most likely responsible. But if thread breaks at one particular point, this is a sure sign of a digitizing mistake.
If you suspect the design to be the cause, but it is not possible to edit it quickly, you may verify your suspicions in the following way: load the design into the machine once again, increase its size by 3-5% right there on the screen, and try to embroider again. If thread breakage decreases, you'll have to change the design. I got this advice from Stephen Batts. And I think that his opinion is worth considering.
In order to find who's responsible for the unintentional gaps between the objects and in case you don't know whether the file is correct, rotate it at 90° and embroider again under the same conditions (positioning, stabilizers, needles, threads etc.). If the gap is still present, it is a digitizing mistake. One should not forget the importance of a rightly chosen stabilizer and correct hooping, which also may be the reasons for presence or absence of this defect.
If the outline does not land where it should, and its look varies on different samples, the insufficient stabilization may be the probable cause. In order to check if this is true, you can use a rather well-know technique — put a piece of stabilizer right under the hoop and see if that helps.
For example, in these days I often see how a straight stitch border unalterably encroaches on the design from the right and above, and unalterably makes a gap on the left and the bottom sides. Stabilizer are can't help this problem. This only means that it's time for me to check the tension of the driver belts on my embroidery machine.
I've also seen the following machine defect: I digitized and embroidered a simple rectangular satin stitch border 5 or 6 mm wide. The resulting square inevitably looked awful: horizontal sides were of normal width, whereas the vertical ones turned out to be 1-1.5 mm wider than planned. If I'm not mistaken, Pantograf was the reason. In order to correct this visual defect I had to artificially distort satin columns in the editor, make them wider so that the border looked the way it should.
As a matter of fact, if you have doubts both in the hardware and software, you should always have a test design at hand of which you are sure. Thus whenever you have any doubts, you may embroider it and everything will become clear. A so-to-speak express-method for finding the cause of the trouble.
Original text by: Marina BelovaTime Lords walk among us. Two per cent of readers may be surprised to discover that they are members of an elite group with the power to perceive the geography of time.
Sci-fi fans – Anglophile ones, at least – know that the coolest aliens in the universe are Time Lords: time-travelling humanoids with the ability to understand and perceive events throughout time and space. Now it seems that people with a newly described condition have a similar, albeit lesser ability: they experience time as a spatial construct.
Synaesthesia is the condition in which the senses are mixed, so that a sound or a number has a colour, for example. In one version, the sense of touch evokes emotions.
To those variants we can now add time-space synaesthesia.
Advertisement
I see… time
“In general, these individuals perceive months of the year in circular shapes, usually just as an image inside their mind’s eye,” says David Brang of the department of psychology at the University of California, San Diego.
“These calendars occur in almost any possible shape, and many of the synaesthetes actually experience the calendar projected out into the real world.”
One of Brang’s subjects was able to see the year as a circular ring surrounding her body. The “ring” rotated clockwise throughout the year so that the current month was always inside her chest with the previous month right in front of her chest.
Regenerating patterns
Brang and colleagues recruited 183 students and asked them to visualise the months of the year and construct this representation on a computer screen. Four months later the students were shown a blank screen and asked to select a position for each of the months. They were prompted with a cue month – a randomly selected month placed as a dot in the location where the student had originally placed it.
Uncannily, four of the 183 students were found to be time-space synaesthetes when they placed their months in a distinct spatial array – such as a circle – that was consistent over the trials.
A second test compared how well time-space synaesthetes and ordinary humans could memorise an unfamiliar spatial calendar and reproduce it. Time-space synaesthetes turned out to have much better recall than the time-blind majority.
Brang suspects that time-space synaesthesia happens when the neural processes underlying spatial processing are unusually active. “This enhanced processing would generalise to other functions of spatial processing – mental rotation, map navigation, spatial manipulation,” he says.
Brang did not speculate on whether time-space synaesthetes could regenerate, or if they have two hearts: both key characteristics of Time Lords.
Journal reference: Consciousness and Cognition, DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2010.01.003British soldiers are testing out tiny 4×1-inch mini surveillance drones throughout Afghanistan. “We used it to look for insurgent firing points and check out exposed areas of the ground before crossing, which is a real asset,” said Sgt. Christopher Petherbridge.
The toy-looking Black Hornet Nano can fly for up to 30 minutes with a top speed of 22 mph, or a range of about one half-mile. U.K.-based Marlborough Communications landed a £20M ($31) contract to build a large hive of 160 buzzing helicopters.
The drones were originally developed by Prox Dynamics for search and rescue missions and can be flown automatically using pre-programmed GPS coordinates.
Now, I’m not a fortune teller, but something tells me a version of the Black Hornet Nano is going to be the hottest Christmas toy sometime in the near future.Canterbury Record and CD Collector Fair
This event is now being held at the Westgate Hall, Westgate Hall Road, Canterbury City Centre. (next to Curzon Cinema) Doors are open from 9.30am to 3.30pm and admission is free.
All genres of music from days gone by to the present day. The fair has just about everything; there are dealers who are highly specialised in very collectable material, but there are also dealers who offer bargains and very inexpensive records and CDs. It is therefore a fair for both collectors and bargain hunters. You will find vinyl records (7" and LP, picture discs and coloured vinyl), memorabilia and CDs.
Vinyl and CD’s also bought telephone 07742 953200 / 07874 915453 or e:mail your details/info to: bionic_records@hotmail.com
Next event Saturday 2nd February 2019
Visit our Facebook pages and like and share with your friends: Canterbury Record Fair and Bionic Records
Free Entry. Doors Open at 9.30am - 3.30pm
Westgate Hall, Westgate Hall Road, Canterbury, Kent CT1 2BT
Share this pageImage copyright Reuters Image caption Kizza Besigye has lost three elections to Yoweri Museveni
Kizza Besigye and two other Ugandan opposition leaders have been arrested after calling for people to walk to work in protest at fuel price hikes.
A police spokeswoman said teargas was used to disperse a stone-throwing crowd which was blocking a road leading to the capital, Kampala.
A BBC reporter says dozens of |
to be seen. This spring, 15th at Tour de Romandie and 10th at the Critérium du Dauphiné, suggest he’s on track for a potentially strong and consistent Tour. He’s trimmed down from 71kg to 66kg (145 pounds), ready for the Tour’s unforgiving steeps.
To back his hunch, Vaughters isn’t afraid to defy convention, and brought several classics-style riders to chaperone Rolland through the first week of what many are calling the hardest Tour route in decades.
“We’ve brought a lot of big, mean Dutch guys to keep him safe, and put him on par with the others for the mountains. Then it’s up to him to be with the strongest,” Vaughters said. “If we can prevent him from losing time on the flat stages, he won’t be 10 or 12 minutes behind when he hits the mountains.”
For the flats, Rolland will see help from experienced hands such as Matti Breschel, Kristijan Koren, Sebastian Langeveld, Ramunas Navardauskas, and Dylan Van Baarle. Once the road tilts up, Lawson Craddock, Alex Howes, and Tom-Jelte Slagter will pace him in the mountains.
Rolland is quietly confident he can surprise the favorites, and perhaps ride into the top-five if things go well. After attending altitude camps this season for the first time in his career, Rolland is ready to deliver on the bet the team has placed on him.
“I have a great team for the crosswinds,” Rolland said. “I am looking for the GC in this Tour, and maybe a stage win, too. I hope to get past the flat stages and go well in the mountains.”
If the “Moneyball” bet pays off on Rolland, it would a new chapter in the franchise’s record of squeezing out impressive victories against some of the peloton’s biggest hitters. The team has won a grand tour (the 2012 Giro d’Italia with Ryder Hesjedal), one-day classics (the 2011 Paris-Roubaix with Johan Van Summeren; 2013 Liège-Bastogne-Liege and 2014 Giro di Lombardia with Dan Martin), and one-week stage races, including the 2014 Critérium du Dauphiné with Andrew Talansky. All those wins have cut against convention.
“Sometimes we leave people scratching their heads, but our tactics are never conservative,” Vaughters said. “We’ll never out-horsepower everyone, but we can try other things. We’ll be looking for a sneak attack. This Tour is ideal for that.”James Comey swears to tell the truth, under penalty of perjury, before the Senate Intelligence Committee yesterday. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)
With Joanie Greve
THE BIG IDEA: A Washington Post/ABC News poll in late April found that 81 percent of Republicans think President Trump is honest and trustworthy – compared to 38 percent of Americans overall and 34 percent of independents. In the spring of 2016, not long before he secured the GOP nomination, just 46 percent of self-identified Republicans said Trump is honest and trustworthy. Immediately after the convention in Cleveland, that popped to 69 percent and continued to rise after his November victory.
Besides becoming their party’s standard bearer, what specifically has Trump done in the past 15 months to persuade one in three Republicans who thought he was dishonest that he can now be trusted?
The knee-jerk reaction to James Comey’s very credible and very serious allegations yesterday, which the former FBI director made under oath and has contemporaneous notes to back up, is the strongest proof point yet of the rising tribalism that has infected our politics.
We saw a similar dynamic two weeks ago when many GOP apparatchiks rallied to the defense of Montana congressional candidate Greg Gianforte after he physically assaulted a reporter.
And it has not stopped at the water’s edge. When Barack Obama was president, a Post-ABC poll found that only 22 percent of Republicans supported missile strikes against Syria in response to Bashar al-Assad using chemical weapons against civilians. After Trump did it, 86 percent of Republicans supported strikes for the exact same reason.
It’s easy to forget amidst the donnybrook, but Comey has been a card-carrying Republican virtually all of his life. George W. Bush appointed him as a U.S. attorney and, later, deputy attorney general. He was a hero on the right when he rebuked Hillary Clinton as “extremely careless” last summer, but attitudes have shifted now that he’s going after Trump. A Post-ABC poll conducted this week found that just 27 percent of Americans believe Trump fired Comey “for the good of the country.” But 71 percent of Republicans did.
We’ll know soon if the hearing moves the numbers, but don’t hold your breath. Joe Heim interviewed a couple from Florida watching in the bar at Trump’s D.C. hotel. “I’m sticking by his side to the end,” said Scott Cowpland, 61. “If he wants loyalty, he’s got our loyalty,” added Ann Mytnik, 56.
-- Trump this morning reacted to Comey’s testimony by calling him a liar:
Despite so many false statements and lies, total and complete vindication...and WOW, Comey is a leaker! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 9, 2017
-- Sometimes it feels like the president’s M.O. is: I know what you are, but what am I? When someone attacks him for something, he quite often lobs the same charge right back at who he perceives to be the accuser. Recall how Trump started talking about Bill Clinton’s infidelity last October after he got caught on tape boasting about being able to get away with groping women because he’s a celebrity. Then he appropriated the term “fake news” after the election.
-- Comey – fired one month ago today – repeatedly called the president a liar as he fielded questions for more than 2 ½ hours from senators on the Intelligence Committee.
On why he agreed to testify: “The administration … chose to defame me and, more importantly, the FBI by saying that the organization was in disarray, that it was poorly led, that the workforce had lost confidence in its leader. Those were lies, plain and simple.”
.” On why he took detailed notes: “ I was honestly concerned he might lie about the nature of our meeting, and so I thought it really important to document.”
, and so I thought it really important to document.” “Lordy, I hope there are tapes,” Comey said in the most memorable sound bite of the day. “If there are tapes, it's not just my word against his … All I can do is hope. The president surely knows whether he taped me. … Release all the tapes!”
-- Trump has long been adept at muddying the waters by employing the crisis management playbook that he learned from Joseph McCarthy’s protégé Roy Cohn. The difference this time: He can count on the official Republican Party apparatus to do his bidding.
The Republican National Committee deployed a whopping 60 staff members as part of its rapid-response “war room” effort to counter-punch at Comey, according to the Wall Street Journal.
“The RNC’s output was punchy, snarky and at times contradictory,” David Weigel reports. “It neatly captured the fog of confusion that the president’s defenders wanted to churn.”
Even Trump’s former political opponents, including Marco Rubio and John McCain, acted sort of like his political defense team, Paul Kane writes.
Many other Republican lawmakers simply dismissed Comey’s testimony as a nothing-burger. The best quote illustrating this comes from Politico’s Burgess Everett: “I never did think it was going to amount to much, because first of all there’s nothing there,” Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) told reporters. “But people around here just love to make something out of nothing and that’s basically what you have there. Tell me otherwise.” Then Hatch added: “Of course, I haven’t been in the hearing.” Let that sink in: Hatch did not watch the hearing, yet he said it proved “there’s nothing there.”
-- Rather than directly challenge Comey’s version of events, the Republican leadership team in Congress decided to defend what he described as the mere fumbling of an inexperienced politician. “The president’s new at this,” Speaker of the House Paul Ryan said at a press conference. “He’s new to government, and so he probably wasn’t steeped in the long-running protocols that establish the relationships between the DOJ, FBI and White House. He’s just new to this.” (Mike DeBonis rounds up several quotes like this.)
That defense just doesn’t pass the smell test. Trump, 70, has been dealing with the federal government since the Justice Department came after him four decades ago for allegedly discriminating against African Americans at his rental properties. He’s also earned a reputation as one of the most litigious people in the business world. (The Boston Globe’s Matt Viser has more illustrations of why “Trump is no naif.”)
-- Legal experts, meanwhile, said Comey’s testimony clarified and bolstered the case that the president obstructed justice, Matt Zapotosky reports.
-- But sitting presidents do not get indicted on obstruction-of-justice charges. It is Congress that must ultimately determine if his behavior deserves impeachment.
Martha McSally is recognized by Donald Trump during a presentation ceremony of the Commander-in-Chief trophy to the Air Force Academy football team last month in the Rose Garden. (Susan Walsh/AP)
-- There is a chicken-egg dynamic at play. Most rank-and-file Republicans look to their party leaders for cues about what to believe, but these same lawmakers are waiting on the base of the party to turn on Trump before they find the “courage” to say publicly what many of them already believe privately.
-- This window-dressing is unlikely to change until members of Congress conclude that the cost of standing with Trump exceeds the risk of defending him. Rep. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.) said during a private appearance last week that the president could cost her party the House. “Any Republican member of Congress, you are going down with the ship,” McSally warned, according to the Tucson Weekly. “And we're going to hand the gavel to (Nancy) Pelosi in 2018. They only need 28 seats and the path to that gavel being handed over is through my seat. And right now, it doesn't matter that it's me, it doesn't matter what I've done. I have an 'R' next to my name and, right now, this environment would have me not prevail."
-- Erick Erickson warns his fellow Republicans that their blind loyalty to Trump is going to damage the party bigly in the long-term. “If your goal is to stop the left, all Trump is doing is both emboldening them and driving independent voters to them,” he explains in a new piece for The Resurgent. “Soon he will be a catalyst for a leftwing resurgence if Republicans do not sort this out themselves.”
-- The challenge for the politicians who would like to make a break is that Trump supporters who dwell in the alternative-reality fever swamps of the Internet were thrilled by the hearing, which they believe somehow offered total vindication of their president. This, for example, was posted unironically by a leading purveyor of pro-Trump conspiracy theories:
STILL
👏
NOT
👏👏
TIRED!
👏 👏 👏
OF!
👏👏👏👏👏
WINNING
👏👏👏👏👏👏#ComeyDay
👏👏👏👏👏👏👏 — Mike Cernovich (@Cernovich) June 8, 2017
WHY THE CREDIBILITY GAP MATTERS:
-- Trump’s personal lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, released a statement after Comey’s testimony saying that the president “never, in form or substance, directed or suggested that Mr. Comey stop investigating anyone.” He also denied that Trump ever asked Comey for “loyalty” in “form or substance.” But Kasowitz refused to answer any questions.
-- “I can definitely say the president is not a liar,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders added during her afternoon briefing.
This quote is certain to become infamous. “Such protestations from any White House are never a good thing,” Todd Purdum writes for Politico Magazine. “See Richard Nixon's, 'I am not a crook,' and Bill Clinton's, 'I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky,' just for starters.”
Analysts are ridiculing Sanders’s declaration. From GOP messaging guru Frank Luntz:
"The President is not a liar" is almost as bad as Nixon's "I am not a crook.”
Bad language. Bad strategy. https://t.co/HhFbWQB95q — Frank Luntz (@FrankLuntz) June 8, 2017
A Florida Republican strategist:
Donald Trump could kill and eat a small child on the White House lawn and he would not be impeached be this Congress https://t.co/Ce6OATN0NS — Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) June 8, 2017
The director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics:
The chances that Comey is telling the truth and Trump has lied are close to 100%. Partisanship shouldn't blind people to the obvious. — Larry Sabato (@LarrySabato) June 8, 2017
-- The problem for the president is that he shortsightedly chose to squander his credibility on both mountains and molehills, from falsely accusing Barack Obama of wiretapping Trump Tower to inflating the size of his inauguration crowd. And now it’s lost.
-- The Post’s nonpartisan Fact Checkers have documented 623 false and misleading claims made by Trump during his first 137 days in office. (See them all here.) The team has just produced a video juxtaposing Comey and Trump’s conflicting public statements about their interactions. Watch it here:
-- In the eyes of every serious journalist covering the White House, Trump and his team lost the presumption of truthfulness long ago. There has been a near-weekly cycle of Trump shifting his story and contradicting his own staff:
When he fired Comey, of course, the White House announced that it was because of the director’s mishandling of the Hillary email investigation and based entirely on a memo that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had written. “It was all him,” Sean Spicer said. Then Trump went on TV to say, actually, the Russia investigation was on his mind when he fired Comey and volunteered that he was going to fire Comey before asking Rosenstein to draft a justification.
When The Post reported that the president divulged highly classified material to the Russians, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster categorically denied it: “I was in the room. It didn't happen.” The very next morning, Trump admitted the story was true and said he had “the absolute right” to share whatever he wants.
-- Before he became president, Trump himself even boasted about playing fast and loose with the truth. “The final key to the way I promote is bravado,” he explained in “The Art of the Deal.” “I play to people’s fantasies. … A little hyperbole never hurts. People want to believe something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular. I call it truthful hyperbole.”
HOW THE COMEY NEWS IS PLAYING:
This is the cover of one of Trump’s hometown newspapers:
This is the cover of next week’s New Yorker:
“Charlie Chaplin and Donald Trump both get caught in the grinding gears of modern times,” says artist Barry Blitt. “But with Trump it’s not so funny.”
-- “For his performance of a lifetime, [Comey] decided to play two roles at once: The prototypical G-man, always on the straight and narrow, dedicated only to truth and justice, and the aggrieved victim of an undisciplined, line-crossing president,” our Marc Fisher observes in a thoughtful review. “In both roles, the play ends with Comey … in a new and uncomfortable place — as the whistleblower, warning the nation about a president who schemes, lies and seeks to corrupt public servants under the guise of loyalty...
“Comey was a little bit Jimmy Stewart, sprinkling his answers with aw-shucks modesty,” Marc adds. “And he was a little bit John Dean, not quite declaring a cancer on the presidency but pronouncing himself very much ‘shocked and troubled’ by what he perceived as Trump’s repeated efforts to get him to ease off the FBI’s investigation … As in the legendary ‘Saturday Night Live’ bit about the miracle product Shimmer, which turns out to be both a floor wax and a dessert topping, Comey decided to play both roles.”
-- “It has been many years since a witness appeared on Capitol Hill and put a president in such potential jeopardy,” writes Dan Balz, The Post’s chief correspondent, in a smart take. “The investigation is far from its conclusion and, as with so much about the probe, the evidence is murky or disputable. But for the president and his White House … this was not a good day."
On the front page of the New York Times, Peter Baker calls it “the most damning j’accuse moment by a senior law enforcement official against a president in a generation.”
“Comey emerged as a superb institutionalist, a man who believes we are a nation of laws,” adds columnist David Brooks. “Trump emerged as a tribalist and a clannist, who simply cannot understand the way modern government works.”
Mark Warner confers with Richard Burr during a Wednesday Intelligence hearing. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)
WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
-- “This is nowhere near the end of the investigation,” Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) said after the hearing.
-- “The most important takeaway from Comey’s testimony may be what he didn’t say,” Eugene Robinson writes in his column. “Topics he scrupulously avoided may give a hint of where the investigation is headed. He declined, for example, to answer a question in open session about Vnesheconombank (VEB), a Russian government-owned development bank linked to President Vladimir Putin. Trump’s adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, met last year with VEB executives.”
-- The Senate Intelligence Committee expects Jared Kushner to meet with committee staffers this month, two sources familiar with the planning told NBC News last night. A third source familiar with the conversations added that discussions about timing are still ongoing.
-- Members of both parties want to see copies of Comey’s contemporaneous memos.
-- Whether there are tapes has become more significant than ever. “I have no idea,” Sarah Huckabee Sanders said during the White House briefing when asked if there are tapes. Asked to look into it, she was flip: “Sure, I’ll try to look under the couches.”
-- If it turns out there were tapes, and Trump destroyed them, that could constitute a smoking gun of obstruction. It would also represent a tacit confession that Comey’s testimony is accurate.
Jeff Sessions makes his way off stage after addressing the National Law Enforcement Conference on Human Exploitation in Atlanta this week. (Chris Aluka Berry/Reuters)
JEFF SESSIONS MAY BE IN REAL TROUBLE:
-- Yesterday’s hearing raised a host of new questions about the sitting attorney general’s truthfulness, judgment and contacts with the Russians.
This was very cryptic: “Comey said that the bureau had information about Sessions — before he recused himself from overseeing the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election — that would have made it ‘problematic’ for him to be involved in the probe,” Sari Horwitz reports. “Comey would not provide details of what information the FBI had.”
Based on Russian-to-Russian intercepts, Comey told members of the Intelligence committee during a classified afternoon session that Sessions may have had a third unreported interaction with Sergey Kislyak, per CNN. (The AG’s spokeswoman denies such an encounter, but remember that they were not forthcoming about the first two meetings...)
Comey said during the open portion of the hearing that it is “a reasonable question” as to why Sessions, who has recused himself from the Russia investigation, was involved in his firing when Trump admits publicly that he acted because of the Russia investigation.
The fired director also said he believes Sessions knew better than to leave him alone with Trump in the Oval Office on Feb. 14. “My sense was the attorney general knew he shouldn’t be leaving, which is why he was lingering,” Comey said.
It was during the subsequent conversation that the president allegedly said this:
“I took it as a direction,” Comey explained yesterday. “I mean, this is the president of the United States, with me alone, saying, ‘I hope’ this. I took it as, this is what he wants me to do.” If there was nothing improper about it, Comey wondered, “Why did he kick everyone out of the Oval Office?”
After that meeting, Comey said he told Sessions that he did not want to be alone anymore with Trump and “it can’t happen that you get kicked out of the room and the president talks to me.” Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) asked Comey how the attorney general responded. “I have a recollection of him just kind of looking at me,” he replied. “I kind of got — his body language gave me the sense like, ‘What am I going to do?’... He didn’t say anything.” Ian Prior, the Justice Department spokesman, disputed that account and said that Comey told Sessions that he “wanted to ensure that he and his FBI staff were following proper communications protocol with the White House.”
-- Sessions will appear next Tuesday before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee to discuss his department’s budget request – and will be pressed by Democrats to clear things up under oath. But the real test will be when he next appears before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which has oversight of his agency.
-- To be sure, Loretta Lynch also came off very badly yesterday. But she’s no longer the nation’s chief law enforcement officer. “At one point, the attorney general had directed me not to call it an investigation, but instead to call it a matter, which confused me and concerned me,” Comey said, adding that this wording “gave the impression that (she) was looking to align the way we talked about our work with the way the campaign” was messaging about it. “That was inaccurate,” he added. “That gave me a queasy feeling.”
Sally Yates is sworn in prior to testifying before a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on May 8. (Jim Bourg/Reuters)
IS THERE ANY CHANCE THIS IS ACTUALLY A COINCIDENCE?
-- Comey’s timeline is problematic for Trump in many ways that we plan to unpack in coming editions of the 202, but here’s an important angle that has not gotten enough attention yet:
Former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates disclosed under oath last month that, on the morning of Jan. 26th, she unambiguously warned White House Counsel Donald McGahn that the national security adviser was “compromised by the Russians” and “could be blackmailed.” Worried about the danger from within, Yates said she moved with great “urgency.” In a secure room, she revealed that Vice President Pence and other White House officials were making false statements to the public. She said she does not know what McGahn did with that information, and McGahn has declined to answer.
Yesterday, Comey testified that Trump called him up at his desk around lunchtime the very next day and asked him to come over for a one-on-one dinner a few hours later. Comey recalled that he needed to break a date with his wife in order to swing it. Trump then began the meal by asking if he wanted to remain as FBI director, which Comey found odd because the president “had already told me twice in earlier conversations that he hoped I would stay, and I had assured him that I intended to.” “The dinner was, at least in part, an effort to have me ask for my job and create some sort of patronage relationship,” Comey said, explaining why this was concerning.
Flynn stayed on for 17 more days.
-- Comey said he has “no doubt” Russian government officials were directly behind the hacking of the DNC and others – something Trump remains reluctant to take seriously or, frankly, even acknowledge. “There should be no fuzz on this whatsoever,” the fired director said. “The Russians interfered in our election during the 2016 cycle. They did it with purpose. They did it with sophistication. They did it with overwhelming technical efforts. And it was an active-measures campaign driven from the top of that government.” “It’s my judgment that I was fired because of the Russia investigation,” Comey added.
-- Now the question is: Will Republicans ever believe him?
Welcome to the Daily 202, PowerPost's morning newsletter.
Sign up to receive the newsletter.
WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING:
Theresa May (Alastair Grant/AP)
-- British Prime Minister Theresa May’s gamble on a snap election to improve her footing on Brexit negotiations ended in disaster, with Conservatives losing seats in Parliament. Griff Witte, Karla Adam and William Booth report: “The outcome — an astonishing turn following a campaign that began with predictions that May would win in a historic landslide — immediately raised questions even among her fellow Tories about whether she could maintain her hold on 10 Downing Street. It also threw into disarray the country’s plans for leaving the European Union, threatening to render Britain rudderless just days before talks were to begin with European leaders over the terms of the nation’s exit.”
May will attempt to remain in office, she said this morning.
But the election’s final results project that Conservatives would have 319 seats in Parliament, seven short of a working majority. Meanwhile, the Labour Party, portrayed as a hapless mess when the election was called, picked up dozens of seats. (The lack of a clear Parliament majority could create new coalitions across parties, Rick Noack reports.)
The surprising results echoed last year’s Brexit vote: “The results mark the second time in as many years that the British body politic has defied predictions, scrambled the country’s direction and bucked the will of a prime minister who had gambled by calling a vote when none had been required.”
Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn called for May’s resignation: “The prime minister called the election because she wanted a mandate … Well, the mandate she’s got is lost Conservative seats, lost votes, lost support and lost confidence. I would have thought that is enough for her to go, actually.”
-- May, who called for “stability” in an uneven voice early Friday, suffered during the campaign for a perceived lack of ability to connect with voters. Adam Taylor reports: “Having spent six years in the senior position of home secretary, May knew the government well … But when it came to finding the human touch on the campaign trail, May was at a loss.”
Jeremy Corbyn celebrates in London. (Frank Augstein/AP)
-- The results represent a stunning revival for Corbyn, whose political demise had been widely predicted among election observers. Isaac Stanley-Becker reports: “Because Labour was preparing for a crushing defeat, the outcome suggested by early returns will be cast by Corbyn’s supporters as a clear victory for the embattled leader and the leftist ideas he champions. The election result may paradoxically be seen as Labour’s death knell by those who want a new direction for a party that has not won a general election in 12 years.”
-- The leader of the UK Independence Party, which rose to power on Brexit fervor and lost its sole seat in Parliament, worried that the results would jeopardize the E.U. departure. Isaac Stanley-Becker reports: “The uncertainty of the early predictions throws the conditions surrounding the departure into doubt. Brexit negotiations were expected to begin in about 10 days. Britain has already triggered Article 50, the formal notice of withdrawal, and opinions differ on whether that is reversible.”
UK Independence Party (UKIP) leader Paul Nuttall campaigns in Clacton-on-Sea. (Chris Ratcliffe/AFP/Getty Images)
-- Even though Conservatives remain the most represented party in Parliament, the body’s shifting make-up could have a significant effect on Brexit. Bloomberg’s Therese Raphael writes: “It may seem that Thursday's election changes little: A Conservative prime minister will still occupy 10 Downing Street and Brexit still means Brexit. But in Britain's winner-take-all system, a narrow majority can change the landscape significantly.”
-- The unexpected result will likely delay a meeting with the EU’s chief negotiator that was meant to determine the terms of Brexit, the Guardian’s Daniel Boffey and Jon Henley report.
-- Last night’s results are also notable for the record number of women elected to office. Jennifer Hassan reports: “With over 200 women elected, the record number of female lawmakers shattered the previous high of 196 women elected in 2015.”
-- As Brits wondered what the results would mean for the future of the U.K. – and of Europe – a Dutch member of the European Parliament offered this sober assessment:
Cameron gambled, lost. May gambled, lost. Tory party beginning to look like a casino. — Sophie in 't Veld (@SophieintVeld) June 8, 2017
GET SMART FAST:
Trey Gowdy during a hearing last month. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
The House Steering Committee voted to name Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) as the next House Oversight chairman. Gowdy, who led the two-year Benghazi investigation, will replace Jason Chaffetz, who resigned. (Mike DeBonis) A 2005 deposition from Bill Cosby was read at his sexual assault trial. In it, the comedian describes sexual contact with his accuser and boasts that he is a "pretty good reader of people and their emotions in these romantic and sexual things." (Manuel Roig-Franzia) Alleged NSA leaker Reality Winner was denied bail after pleading not guilty in Georgia. Winner, who has been accused of leaking a top-secret document to The Intercept, was charged with a felony under the Espionage and Censorship Act. (Katie Mettier) Breitbart has lost 90 percent of its advertisers in the past two months. Over 2,000 companies have requested that their advertisements be pulled from the alt-right site. (Abha Bhattarai) A new report finds that the odds of Zika-related birth defects decrease with each trimester. Women with Zika infections in the first trimester were three times as likely to have babies with birth defects than women who contracted infections during the third trimester. (Lena H. Sun) The Pittsburgh Penguins defeated the Nashville Predators 6-0. They’re now just one win away from the Stanley Cup. (Isabelle Khurshudyan) Saudi soccer players were criticized for continuing to warm up during a moment of silence for terror victims. Their Australian competitors were remembering the two Aussies killed in the London terror attack. (Matt Bonesteel) Two Gulf nations made it a crime to show any sympathy for Qatar. The decisions from Bahrain and United Arab Emirates come as five Gulf countries cut diplomatic ties with Qatar. (Karen DeYoung) The second-largest school system in the country just elected a pro-charter majority to the school board. Los Angeles Unified may now authorize more charter schools in the wake of the election. (Rob Kuznia) Alabama executed an inmate convicted of a 1994 armed robbery. Robert Melson had been found guilty of killing three people in the midst of robbing a Popeye's restaurant. (Susan Hogan) A Maine high school became the first to offer sport hijabs to student athletes. They are specifically designed to remain in place during rigorous activity. (Marissa Payne) A bear in Vail, Colo., snuck into a home and briefly played the piano. Police who reviewed footage of the break-in declared the tune to be "unbearable." (Karin Bruillard)
THE AGENDA:
-- The House voted to significantly roll back banking regulations enacted after the 2008 financial crisis. Renae Marie reports: "Big banks, from Goldman Sachs to Bank of America, would face less scrutiny and other large financial institutions, such as insurance giant MetLife, could escape tougher rules all together under the legislation approved along party lines. The Trump administration backed the bill as part of a multi-pronged effort to ease banking regulations in order to spur economic growth. The legislation is likely to face stiff resistance in the Senate but it provides a roadmap of sorts for the policies the president plans to put in place as he appoints new regulators."
-- Trump plans to name Wall Street insider Anthony Scaramucci, founder of SkyBridge Capital, as ambassador to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. He was supposed to have a White House job but got marginalized in the opening weeks of the presidency. (Bloomberg)
-- The Hill, "GOP lawmaker talked stocks with colleagues," by Scott Wong: "Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.) has boasted about how much money he’s made for other members of Congress by tipping them off to an Australia-based pharmaceutical company in which he is the largest stockholder, two GOP lawmakers told The Hill. Collins, President Trump’s chief defender and unofficial spokesman on Capitol Hill, told a group of House GOP colleagues over dinner earlier this year that he had urged colleagues to invest in Innate Immunotherapeutics and made them plenty of money in the process."
-- “Senate Republicans consider keeping parts of Obamacare they once promised to kill,” by Sean Sullivan and Kelsey Snell: “GOP leadership told rank-and-file Republican senators during private talks this week that they favor keeping guaranteed protections for people with preexisting medical conditions — a departure from the House approach of allowing states to opt out of a regulation ensuring such individuals are not charged more for coverage. Senate Republicans have also been mulling options to more slowly roll back the expansion of Medicaid that most states accepted under Obamacare, and they are also openly talking about keeping many of the taxes the law imposed.”
-- Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao testified that the White House, not her, will decide whether or not her department responds to routine inquiries from congressional Democrats. Ashley Halsey III reports: “Her comment came as she was questioned at a House hearing more than a month after the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel ruled that individual members of Congress ‘do not have the authority to conduct oversight in the absence of a specific delegation by a full house, committee or subcommittee.’ Fearful that Democrats might use information from federal agencies against the president, White House lawyer Uttam Dhillon advised agencies not to cooperate with Democrats.”
Ask yourself: How would Mitch McConnell, Chao’s husband, have responded if Obama had ordered all executive agencies to ignore any of his requests for even the most basic information? It’s not far-fetched that he would have brought the Senate to a standstill over it.
-- Maryland’s Republican Gov. Larry Hogan joined the cacophony of voices calling on Congress to reject the draconian budget cuts that Trump has proposed for cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay. Josh Hicks reports: “Dozens of activists rallied to press [Hogan] to take a stronger stance against the Trump administration’s environmental policies. The demonstrators gathered near the State House as Hogan accepted the chairmanship of a regional council that guides efforts to improve the bay. They urged the governor to join an alliance of city and state leaders who have pledged to uphold the goals of the Paris climate agreement after Trump’s decision to withdraw from the compact.”
-- Former Fulbright Scholars are traveling to Washington to argue against Trump’s proposed budget cuts to their program. Carol Morello reports: “The program’s funding is facing what its alumni association calls an existential threat from a 47 percent cut proposed by the Trump administration, one of many sharp reductions in the State Department budget. And over 100,000 former Fulbright scholars, among them several members of Congress, are being asked to lobby for not only full funding but also a small increase.”
Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff greets volunteers in Atlanta. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
OFF TO THE RACES:
-- Democrat Jon Ossoff debated his Republican opponent, Karen Handel, for the second time yesterday in the Georgia special election. Politico’s Elena Schneider reports: “With the debate beginning just an hour before Comey appeared on Capitol Hill... Both candidates deflected and said the investigations should continue. Asked whether Trump obstructed justice, Handel said that based on Comey’s released testimony, ‘I don’t think we can know one way or the other.’”
-- Ossoff raised $15 million in the past two months, bringing his overall fundraising total to $23 million. Spending in the race has now topped $40 million, making it by far the most expensive House race in history.
-- A new poll from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has Ossoff up 7 points over Handel among likely voters.
-- Mike Pence is flying to Atlanta this afternoon to campaign for Handel.
Tom Perriello, left, shakes hands with Ralph Northam at a debate. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)
THE COMMONWEALTH:
-- The hotly-contested Democratic primary in Virginia’s governor race is Tuesday, and the two candidates are courting black voters in the final stretch. Gregory S. Schneider and Fenit Nirappil report: “Days away from the primary, no voters are more coveted by Northam and his Democratic opponent, former congressman Tom Perriello, than African Americans. Northam, the establishment favorite, is banking on help from pastors, black community leaders in his native Hampton Roads and every African American state lawmaker to turn out voters. Perriello, the insurgent, has tapped into the national energy of the Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) movement to attract young black voters who typically don’t come out for primaries.”
-- The Republican side of Virginia’s lieutenant governor election is turning on LGBT issues. Laura Vozzella reports: “Virginia state Sen. Bryce Reeves blasted one of his Republican rivals in the primary race for lieutenant governor for supporting the appointment of the state’s first openly gay judge. Now, other Republicans are accusing Reeves of gay bashing, prompting an intraparty dispute around gay issues.”
The sun sets on Cleveland, Ohio. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
THE OPIOID CRISIS IS GETTING WORSE:
-- The FDA took the uncommon step of asking a pharmaceutical company to remove their opioid painkiller from the market due to the potential for abuse. Laurie McGinley and Lenny Bernstein report: “The agency concluded after an extensive review of Endo Pharmaceuticals’ Opana ER that the ‘benefits of the drug may no longer outweigh its risks.’ The company reformulated the drug in 2012 to make it more difficult to snort, but the FDA said that move actually led to more injections — and a major HIV outbreak.”
-- The city of Cleveland has seen a dangerous uptick in overdoses among African Americans. Authorities believe the deadly rise emanates from fentanyl being mixed with cocaine, Afi-Odelia E. Scruggs reports.
-- Drugs and alcohol killed more Marylanders in 2016 than ever before, Arel |
ible; attempting to enter it with drones results in catastrophic technological failure, and organic matter passes through without entering the anomaly.
At unpredictable intervals- which have ranged from two days to five years- an instance of SCP-2487-02 will emerge from SCP-2487-01. SCP-2487-02 refers to anomalous instances of the extinct species Canis dirus, or the Dire Wolf. As of 12/31/2016, there have been 55 instances of SCP-2487-02 captured and contained (labeled SCP-2487-02-1 through 02-55). SCP-2487-02 instances have been genetically modified, with stronger skeletal and muscular structures, decreased sensitivity to pain, enhanced strength, and enhanced regenerative capabilities, presumably to maximize the chance of their escape and reaching their destination.
Instances of SCP-2487-02 are not hostile, but will attack when provoked. While not impossible, disabling an instance of SCP-2487-02 has, in the past, required the usage of anti-tank weaponry, landmines, the services of two Esoteric Warfare teams, and the use of highly toxic gaseous agents.
Instances of SCP-2487-02 that have emerged from SCP-2487-01 and escaped initial containment and/or destruction have been found between fifty and seven hundred twenty-one kilometers of the initial site, all deceased. The carcass is inevitably located near the residence of an employee of the United States Postal Service; individuals affected in this manner are designated SCP-2487-03.
SCP-2487-03 instances are ignorant of their anomalous nature, and are biologically human. However, two anomalies are present in SCP-2487-03 instances. Firstly, all members of the Canis family are markedly more aggressive towards SCP-2487-03 instances. Secondly, the nature of this anomaly appears to be contagious— post that has been handled by SCP-2487-03 individuals transmits this anomaly to other individuals who are members of the United States Postal Service.
No more than five months after the initial contact with the anomaly, the progenitor SCP-2487-03 instance will be found dead, seemingly eviscerated by a large, canine animal; biopsies on canids in the area will confirm the presence of human flesh in the digestive tract. Following this, another employee of the United States Postal Service that has handled mail which was also handled by SCP-2487-03 will become the next SCP-2487-03 instance. This cycle repeats until either 1) all subjects in this chain are killed or 2) a subject in the chain has their employment as a member of the USPS terminated.
Addendum: Document 2487-01: In the aftermath of a near containment breach on October 19th, 2016, a member of STF Omega-15, Private Bovington, discovered a metal capsule embedded in a tree near the center of the SCP-2487 quarantine zone. After reporting it to site command, Private Bovington was given the go-ahead to extract the item, it was returned to Site-930 for transport to the nearby research and containment Site 84. During this time, the capsule was accidentally opened, and the following document was found inside. The text was printed three times, in simple Greek, Latin, and an unknown language, believed to be a combination of Cherokee and Latin, with syntactic traces of Greek and Nahuatl included.Encyclopaedia Britannica finally threw in the towel. In March 2012, after 244 years, the staple reference source of libraries and households ceased publishing its 32 dusty volumes. (It survives in digital form.) Who humbled the mighty Britannica? Jimmy Wales and his crowdsourced compendium of all the world’s knowledge.
Wikipedia began as a side project of Wales’ dotcom-bubble-era entrepreneurship (he launched a search engine, among other things), but it soon took on a life of its own. Far surpassing its paper predecessors in sheer size and scope, it became the go-to source for answers to a vast variety of questions and the best evidence for the proposition that information really does want to be free. And though everyone who has ever added an obscure data nugget or deleted a spurious fact can claim a little of the credit, the global, free-of-charge, not-for-profit, real-time encyclopedia is very much Wales’ baby.
Founding Wikipedia in 2001 (along with Larry Sanger, by most accounts other than Wales’), Wales understood the web’s egalitarian underpinning and the open source method’s ability to spur productivity on a grand scale. What separated him from many first-wave net entrepreneurs, though, was his idealism: He harnessed those forces in the service of social good. He recognized the incalculable value of offering the entire human store of knowledge to anyone, anywhere, at no cost, and he made it his job to get it done.
Wales’ work has been criticized by observers either misinformed about the mechanics by which Wikipedia improves itself or nostalgic for a time before the illusion of a singular, authoritative perspective was irrevocably shattered. And the man himself has come under fire as having overstepped the line between do-gooder and dictator. Yet Wikipedia rolls on, delivering more than 24 million articles in 285 languages by 85,000 regular contributors to nearly 500 million readers monthly. It is one of the foundations of contemporary life. Tomorrow it will be even better.
Wired: Your mother ran a two-room schoolhouse in Huntsville, Alabama, where you began your education. How did that influence your career?
Jimmy Wales: The school was very open-ended. We had a lot of time available for reading and independent study. That impacted my later work and the way I think about things today. Also, my uncle owned a computer store, so I learned to program reasonably early on. We had a TRS-80 from RadioShack at home. We got a Commodore later on.
Wired: When did you first encounter the Internet?
Wales: I discovered the Internet proper in 1989, but my high school, which was a small private school in Alabama, got a DEC PDP-11 minicomputer in 1982. It was a networked computer environment with 20 terminals that had email and all the other elements of later Unix systems. I went to school with Brian Reynolds, who was the chief game designer of Zynga until recently, and Robert Kennedy, who’s a software engineer at Google. Someone posted on Facebook a picture of us from the 1983 yearbook: We were the “qualified computer operators.”
Wired: You worked on a PhD in finance at Indiana University but left before earning the degree. Why?
Wales: I dropped out of school to become a futures and options trader in Chicago. In the evenings, as a hobby, I was writing a web browser; I didn’t really have a life back then. When Netscape went public and it was worth more than $2 billion on the first day, it clicked in my mind that something big was happening on the Internet.
Wired: And so you started your own Internet company.
Wales: In 1996 we started a search engine and web directory called Bomis. It was sort of like Yahoo. The main difference was that users could make web rings, connecting sites that had similar topics. So the connection to my later work is that we allowed people to categorize websites on their own, under any kind of topic.
Wired: The Atlantic wrote that Bomis became known as the “Playboy of the Internet.”
Wales: That’s a completely ridiculous description. We allowed people to categorize whatever they wanted. One very popular category turned out to be image galleries of female actresses and so forth.
Wired: How did you decide to start an encyclopedia?
Wales: It was the dotcom era, so we were just making cool stuff to see what would work. Since grad school I had been watching the growth of the open source software movement, seeing programmers collaborating to build production-quality software under an economic model that people were puzzled by and skeptical of. I realized that that kind of collaboration could extend beyond software into all kinds of cultural works. I’d been in long email exchanges with a philosophy professor I had met online, and I saw that people could be very generous with their time if they found the conversation worthwhile. An encyclopedia seemed like the most straightforward kind of thing people could collaborate on, because it’s fairly well understood what an encyclopedia article is supposed to be, and it’s fairly objective, so you can settle disagreements. Additionally, I’ve always loved encyclopedias. The World Book Encyclopedia had a cherished place in our home.
Wired: Your first encyclopedia, Nupedia, was peer-reviewed. How did it lead to the free-for-all that is Wikipedia?
Wales: We had been working on Nupedia for nearly two years, but we had only completed something like a couple dozen articles. I wanted to figure out why it was taking so long. So I decided to write an entry about Robert Merton, who had recently won the Nobel Prize in economics. When I set out to do it, I realized that the editors were going to send my draft to the most prestigious finance professors they could find, and it felt very intimidating. That’s when I realized, this isn’t going to work; it has to be easier to contribute.
The Encyclopedic Mind of Jimmy Wales The Wikipedia cofounder started out as a PhD student in economics and ended up unleashing a revolution in knowledge. —Elise Craig 1969 A visit from a traveling salesman leaves Wales with his first encyclopedia, a World Book. Educated by his mother and grandmother in a nontraditional school, he spends hours reading encyclopedias, including Britannica. 1994 Drops out of his PhD program in economics at the Indiana University and takes a job as a trader at Chicago Options Associates, a futures and options firm. For fun, he writes code after work, building a web browser. 1996 Meets Tim Schell through an online philosophy mailing list and the pair join up to found the male-oriented search engine Bomis. The site allows users to organize content and soon features photos of “Bomis babes.” 2000 Hires Larry Sanger to help him build Nupedia, an online encyclopedia with rigorous standards and written by scholars. When they shut it down in 2003, only 24 articles have made it through the peer-review process. 2001 Wikipedia goes live on January 15. Wales and others thought a wiki might help bring in more Nupedia submissions. Wikipedia takes off. In a few days it outpaces Nupedia, and by the end of February it has 150 entries. 2003 Founds the Wikimedia Foundation, a nonprofit umbrella organization that now covers Wikipedia, an incubator, an open content textbook collection, a dictionary, a quotation search engine, a travel guide, and more. 2004 In an effort to “build the rest of the library,” Wales and Angela Beesley found Wikia, a for-profit company that maintains more than 200,000 wikis covering topics from Adele to Gears of War to iCarly. 2005 Gets caught editing his own Wikipedia bio to remove mentions of Larry Sanger as cofounder, as well as references to “soft-core pornography” on Bomis. He says he is correcting errors but also calls his actions “in poor taste.” 2006 Wikipedia gets its 5 millionth article. Today, with more than 24 million entries, it still pursues its founding mission: “to bring about a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge.” Click the arrows to move through the timeline.
Wired: When did you first hear the word wiki?
Wales: I’m not sure, but the first time the concept became clear to me was in December 2000, when Jeremy Rosenfeld, who worked with me at the time, proposed using a wiki on the encyclopedia project. We decided to give it a try, and we got more work done in two weeks than we had done in two years.
Wired: How did you decide to make Wikipedia a nonprofit?
Wales: In June 2003, at the depth of the dotcom crash, it was growing quickly, but there wasn’t huge traffic. Since it was a community project, it made sense to me that it should be free of advertising and not for profit. So I set up the Wikimedia Foundation and donated everything to it.
Wired: You’ve said that giving away Wikipedia was either the smartest or the dumbest thing you’ve ever done.
“Obviously I could have made a lot of money. It’s the world’s sixth-most-popular website.”
Wales: That was a joke. It was the dumbest thing because it’s now the sixth-most-popular website in the world. Obviously I could have made a lot of money. But it was the smartest thing because Wikipedia is this amazing cultural institution.
Wired: At some point, you decided you weren’t really out to make money.
Wales: I’m not opposed to making money, but it wasn’t like I went through some kind of transformation either. I like to do things that intrigue me.
Wired: How did the editing process evolve?
Wales: Over time, we’d have some kind of a problem; we’d have a big discussion and figure out the most minimal, least intrusive way to solve it. In the early days, for example, I was the only person who could ban people from editing, but clearly that wouldn’t scale. So we gave more people powers to block contributors temporarily, we created an arbitration committee to deal with complex cases, and so on.
Wired: It has also been reported that you’ve taken actions seemingly contrary to Wikipedia’s principles. In 2005, you allegedly edited your own entry to reapportion credit for founding the encyclopedia. In March 2008, you were accused of sanitizing an entry in return for a donation to Wikimedia.
Wales: It’s not against the rules to edit an entry about yourself, and I fully stand by those edits. But I should respond to the second accusation. No such thing happened.
Wired: Meanwhile, Wikia is a for-profit business.
Wales: We’re building the rest of the library, everything that doesn’t belong in the encyclopedia. Our real strength is in entertainment and gaming. For instance, the Call of Duty wiki is massive and very popular. Quantcast ranks Wikia the 40th-most-trafficked website in the US. So it’s quite busy.
Wired: Unlike Google, which has censored its site in China, you have refused to censor Wikipedia.
Wales: I consider the free flow of information a human rights issue. We will never compromise with censorship in any jurisdiction anywhere in the world.
Wired: Beyond Chinese, Wikipedia has added an enormous number of languages.
Wales: I want to have at least 250,000 entries in every language that has at least 1 million native speakers. That’s about 350 languages. Only 19 have that many entries so far, so we’ve got a long way to go.
Wired: How big might Wikipedia become?
Wales: There are loads of things we can’t effectively write about, because there’s no way to verify them. You can’t write a biography about my grandmother, although she was a remarkable person, because there are no reliable sources other than a birth certificate and marriage record. So you can’t yet have an entry on everyone.
Wired: Do you see any threats to Wikipedia’s ongoing success?
Wales: There are direct threats from authoritarian governments that censor the Internet. I’m also concerned about clumsy legislation driven by special interests. The Stop Online Piracy Act was a classic example. Anyone with a serious understanding of the Internet would tell you this legislation would have had virtually no impact on piracy, but it would have introduced a layer of control that could be misused for lots of other purposes. It wasn’t that the US government was secretly trying to control the Internet; it was just badly written legislation. That’s a threat that we really need to be aware of.
Wired: What’s on the horizon for you?
Wales: In January, the Wikimedia Foundation launched Wikivoyage, a travel site. It remains to be seen how that’s going to develop, but it’s humming right along. At Wikia we’re seeing massive growth in mobile and second-screen use. People are watching Mad Men on television but simultaneously looking at the Mad Men wiki. We’re doing some interesting things to facilitate that. Beyond that, I’m absolutely certain there’s more we can collaborate on.
Contributor Ted Greenwald (@tedgreenwald) interviewed Peter Diamandis in issue 20.07.Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday LAKings.com will countdown the Top 15 moments from the LA Kings improbable run to their 2nd Stanley Cup Championship.
On the evening of May 21, the Kings played Game 2 of their Western Conference Final series against the Chicago Blackhawks at the United Center.
Coming into the night’s date, the Kings, as a franchise, had yet to win a playoff game in Chicago, Illinois, holding a 0-7 postseason record in the Windy City dating back to 1974.
If you were looking for any predicating promise for the Kings prior to their series against Chicago, it probably wasn’t visible.
Entering Game 2 on May 21, the Blackhawks were a perfect 7-0 on home ice during this year’s playoffs, beating both the St. Lous Blues and Minnesota Wild three times respectively in their home building, and the Kings once - three days prior to Jeff Carter’s Game 2 outbreak.
In Game 2, the Kings found themselves down 2-0 early in the second period, but they fought back with an unprecedented rebuttal, scoring six unanswered goals.
Jeff Carter had three of them.
And, all three of Carter’s goals, remarkably, came in the third period.
THREE’S COMPANY
Carter tied the game at 2-2 less than two minutes into the third period on a power play, redirecting home a Drew Doughty wrist shot from the point.
Carter’s tally opened the floodgates.
Four goals in 10:45 for the Kings. Wow. — Rich Hammond (@Rich_Hammond) May 22, 2014
Jake Muzzin and Tyler Toffoli followed with goals shortly after Carter’s equalizer, giving the Kings a 4-2 lead with 11:01 left to play in regulation.
Carter put the contest on ice thereafter, wristing home the Kings’ fifth goal of the night with just over five minutes remaining in regulation time, and then burying an empty-netter inches within the red line with 3:31 to play, giving the Kings a 6-2 lead – the night’s eventual final score.
Jeff Carter: first NHL player to record a third-period hat trick in a playoff game since Red Wing Darren McCarty in 2002 #elias — John Buccigross (@Buccigross) May 22, 2014
Jeff Carter scores a playoff hat trick and nobody throws a lid for him. How petty, Chicago. — Winging It In Motown (@wingingitmotown) May 22, 2014
It was Carter’s second career postseason hat trick. Ironically, Carter’s first career playoff hat trick also came during a Game 2 of a Western Conference Final series – that, with the Kings, against the Phoenix Coyotes at Jobing.Com Arena on May 15, 2012.Hello friends!
Today I want to talk about something that is growing increasingly important to me, and that is… Korean skincare! As you may have gathered, I am not a high maintenance gal. I prefer to wear no makeup and do as little as possible to look presentable.
Honestly, if foregoing a complicated beauty routine means I get an extra 10 minutes in bed, I will make that sacrifice in favour of sleep. Growing up, I never really cared/knew much about beauty etc., and although I am now older and wiser, it still doesn’t mean that I enjoy slathering stuff on my face. It just doesn’t feel great!
Of course, as someone with sensitive skin, it makes finding the right products difficult and maybe that is why I have avoided/haven’t bothered with it for so long. Although that isn’t exactly true, as I have bought and partly used a number of products in Melbourne, but nothing was ever so amazing that I raved about it to anyone.
Until now.
Friends, meet my skincare dream team!
Firstly, you may be wondering: why on earth would one person need to use so many potions and lotions? Good question! Until recently, even I didn’t understand – and this was after I had bought the products. For the uninitiated, I think this is a good time to introduce the beast that is The Korean Skincare Regime! What’s involved in this thing? Take a look right here:
Cleansing oil Cleanser Toner Essence/serum Emulsion Cream
Optional extras:
Exfoliant
Face mask
Eye cream
Sleeping pack
Okay, it probably sounds like I’m speaking gobbledygook at this point, so do not panic. When I first got to this country, I had no idea what the hell was going on (in many ways), and the skincare industry spooked me. It really is confusing – unless you are well-equipped to its lengthy, skin-beautifying ways and weirdly accustomed to layering your skincare products. And this, friends, is what the Korean skincare routine and the overrated Leo DiCaprio vehicle Inception have in common: it’s all about LAYERS. So, let’s go!
1. Cleansing Oil: Nature Republic Chamomile Cleansing Oil
Now, I am not usually one for smearing oil on my face, but Korea has shown me the light. This cold, dry winter has really hit home just how important moisturiser is. I have usually had problems with my combination skin being fine in parts and oily in others, and so have steered clear of anything remotely greasy, least of all oil itself. But stick with me! Many Korean women use cleansing oil to remove their makeup at the end of the day, and it really does work well as a gentle cleanser.
Cleansing oil operates on the premise that like removes like, and using oil will actually remove oil without removing too much… oil. Make sense? I should think not! Basically, you don’t want to dry out your skin too much and get that tight, sore feeling, because that will just lead to your face overproducing sebum (oil) like it’s going out of fashion. If you’re unsure, test it instore or try a sample and see how you go. In winter, cleansing oil is your best friend. This one from Nature Republic is nice and smooth and comes in such a pretty bottle too!
2. Cleanser: Currently switching between Nature Republic Royal Jelly Face Cleanser and good ol’ Cetaphil
So, once you’ve gently removed your makeup with the cleansing oil, it’s time for the actual cleanser to clean up the excess and just give your face a wash. Think of the oil as basic makeup remover, and the cleanser comes in to clean up the mess. Because this is Korea, there are obviously 1001 types of cleansers for you to choose from, and that’s cool. At least there’s no shortage of options!
Despite the fact I didn’t mention it above, my favourite foam cleanser here is Innisfree’s Jeju Volcanic Pore Cleansing Foam. The Nature Republic Royal Jelly one just doesn’t work well with my skin, and although I’ve tried and tried, it’s giving me no love (hence the Cetaphil). So I gave it to a friend of mine with slightly less high-maintenance skin. I can highly recommend the Innisfree one though, and a review will come soon because it’s SO creamy and delicious!
3.Toner: Nature Republic (sensing a theme here?!) Bee Venom Toner
If you’re from Australia, America or anywhere else in the West, a toner refers to an astringent (usually with alcohol) which is used to ‘tighten the pores’ after cleansing. Not so in Korea. It took me a little while to figure this out, but basically a toner here is a light layer or moisture to be applied very quickly after cleansing.
Toner can sometimes be referred to as a ‘skin’ or ‘water’, and that’s because it really feels like you are just putting a thin layer of water (or skin, which sounds a bit gross so let’s just ignore that) on your face. Sometimes after washing my face, it will feel too hot and won’t be properly moisturised by a cream alone. A toner really settles it down, and this toner goes on smoothly and prepares it for step 4!
4.Essence: Skinfood Parsley and Mandarin Essence
I bought this a while ago on one of my Skinfood hauls, and I am so glad I have finally started using it. Firstly, an essence is the next step in the Korean skincare routine beast, and it is a more concentrated moisturiser. You may replace this with a serum, and this should give you the clue that essences have more active ingredients and are supposed to target specific skin concerns. Basically the layers of the routine are getting thicker and more substantial. Don’t panic if you feel like you’ve entered the twilight zone because it is confusing, and I promise we’re almost done!
This essence is made for troubled skin, and I bought it when I was having a few issues with my skin. They’ve since cleared up, but I like using this because it seems to keep small blemishes at bay. The scent put me off a bit at first, because it’s quite a strong herbal smell, but I’ve since grown to love it. I’m pretty sure it contains eucalyptus oil, if that give you an idea of its scent. Also, I really like the consistency of this essence, and it makes my face feel super smooth!
(If you’re interested in a toner for troubled skin, you can pick up the matching toner here.)
5. Emulsion: Nature Republic Argan 20 Steam Emulsion (RAVE ALERT!)
OH GOD I AM SO CRAZY ABOUT THIS STUFF. I just… there are no words. The moment I first tried this emulsion, I knew it was love. But you may be wondering, what the heck is an emulsion?! And that is a great question! Some of the silly names for these products start to sound normal to me, and when you come to Korea you just learn to roll with the punches. And when it comes to skincare, an emulsion is basically a slightly heavier layer of moisture, that feels like a face lotion. Remember: LAYERS.
So, back to this Argan Oil Emulsion. Basically Nature Republic has my heart forever with this stuff. The scent is amazing; I’m not quite sure what it is, but it’s fruity and floral at the same time and completely addictive. Even Gavin agrees! And the texture is smooth, creamy (but not too much so) and nicely moisturising. It’s perfect for this dry Korean winter and I would use it even it wasn’t because it’s just SO AMAZING! (Okay I’ll stop yelling now)
6. Cream: just finished Nature Republic’s Super Aqua Max Combination Watery Cream which I reviewed here, and am now using L’Occitane’s Ultra Rich Face Cream which I also reviewed here.
This is the final step in the (daily) routine and is one that is actually familiar! After you have built up the layers of moisture, and let them sink in between applications, it is time for your face cream. This will of course change depending on the weather, and because of these incredibly dry winter I am loving L’Occitane’s Ultra Rich Face Cream (which is practically Korean, anyway). It is full of 25% shea butter and feels so luxurious!
This last step is basically to seal in the moisture and provide a protective layer on your skin. That is one difference I really feel from going through this whole Korean skin care routine – it doesn’t feel like the moisture is just sitting on the top of my skin, instead it penetrates and moisturises from within. It sounds crazy, but it works!
And the results?
As someone who has never really fussed with skincare/make-up before, Korean skincare has been a huge eye-opener for me. Granted, I do need to do other things to make sure my skin is decent, such as eat enough vegetables (sometimes a problem here) and take zinc supplements (this is HUGE for me and will probably warrant a post in the future), but the effect of these Korean skincare products has been very noticeable. My skin feels so soft! And it feels so evenly moisturised and plump. I didn’t even know what plump skin felt like! But all I know now is that it feels goooood 🙂
I just took this shot now after a busy day at school, during which most of my powder would have come off (that may or may not be an opened cake wrapper on the couch behind me). Although this was admittedly taken under a bright light (and apart from a pesky but fading spot on my nose) my skin is generally pretty clear and again, smooooth! 🙂
I have also dabbled with Korean masks, wash-off packs and sleeping masks which will be covered in a later post (because mama is tired!) and which all also make my skin as soft as a peach. It’s amazing! As much as it may sound like malarky/gobbledygook/nonsense, there definitely is something to this layers thing. It may take you a liiiitle bit longer in the bathroom, but I honestly now look forward to it. Once you find the right products for you and start to see results, you may just feel the same too.
And another great thing about this is that I now can wear less face make up (usually just powder and sometimes even… NOTHING!), which is a convenient bonus!
I hope you enjoyed reading my run-down of the Korean skin care routine, and hopefully it is a bit less confusing now! Korea puts a lot of time (and money) into their products so if you’re interested, it’s worth trying them.
And if you feel like extra information, these pages definitely helped me make sense of it too:
SHOP THE POST:
Thanks for reading, see you tomorrow! 🙂
Steph x
Like this: Like Loading...Buy Photo People hold signs and chant during a planned protest against the "campus carry" bill at the University of Nevada in Reno on March 25, 2015. (Photo: Jason Bean/RGJ)Buy Photo
Hundreds of students staged a rally at the University of Nevada, Reno Wednesday over legislation that would allow guns on university campuses.
Protesters demanded that Nevada lawmakers oppose AB 148, sponsored by Assemblywoman Michele Fiore, R-Las Vegas. The proposal passed a committee vote last Wednesday. It still has not gone before the full Assembly and Senate.
If passed, it would allow a person with a concealed carry permit to have weapons in public buildings such as unsecured areas in airports and on school grounds. That includes colleges, K-12 schools and day cares.
At the rally, speakers included UNR professors, student leaders and state Sen. Ruben Kihuen, D-Las Vegas. Meanwhile, some rallied in support of the bill, saying guns on campus would promote school safety and self-defense.
Here are four arguments expressed during the rally on Wednesday:
Against: Women won't be made safer by having guns on campus
Bill sponsor Fiore recently made national news when she told New York Times that campus sexual assaults would plummet if sexual predators got a "bullet in their head." That remark sparked a debate from students on whether guns would protect women from assaults on campus.
For Madeleine Poore, the answer is no.
"Survivors' stories (are) being hijacked and used as a reason for getting guns on our campus when we know that guns don't make women safer," said Poore, 22, a UNR senior studying public relations and women studies. "When there's a gun in the household, a woman's likelihood of being murdered by that gun skyrockets."
Poore spoke on the topic at Wednesday's event as the president of VOX (Voices for Planned Parenthood), a group that advocates for sex education, protection of sexual assault victims and women's rights. Putting guns in students' hands means putting the responsibility on the assault victim rather than the perpetrator, she said.
"Nevada has the eighth highest rank of women being murdered by firearms," Poore said. "So using this, 'Oh this will make women safer having guns on our campus,' you know that's just not true.
"It also perpetuates the idea of the rapist being a stranger in a bush, and we know that 70 percent of sexual assaults that occur, the person knows the rapist," she said. "You're not going to shoot your co-worker."
Buy Photo UNR alum Sam England holds a sign in favor of allowing guns on campus during a planned protest against the "campus carry" bill at the University of Nevada in Reno on March 25, 2015. (Photo: Jason Bean/RGJ)
For: Concealed weapons could help during an active shooter situation
Greg Ross, 25, a mechanical engineering graduate student, stood in the back of the crowed holding a sign that read: 'Campus Carry saves lives."
"I feel like if the right person is armed at the right time, it could save a lot of lives during a mass shooting," Ross said, who is also a lab instructor.
"I don't see why the university environment is different than any other place," he said.
Ross has a concealed carry permit and owns a gun.
"In a order to carry a concealed firearm, you have to do eight hours of training," he said. "It doesn't take a lot to learn to carry a gun."
Buy Photo Escenthio Marigny Jr., president of the Reno Justice Coalition, speaks during a planned protest against the "campus carry" bill at the University of Nevada in Reno on March 25, 2015. (Photo: Jason Bean/RGJ)
Against: There's already a process to allow guns on campus.
Many said they believe the university's process for allowing guns on campus is enough.
In 2014, five out of the 11 people who applied to carry a concealed weapon at UNR were approved by UNR President Marc Johnson.
Approval is most often based on a student who may have an outside threat. For example, they may have a restraining order against someone.
"This is a place of learning and freedom of expression, and this is place for ideas that are controversial, and there's high energy and intensity," Poore said. "Guns don't make that a safe space for everyone to express those opinions."
Buy Photo People sign petitions following a planned protest against the "campus carry" bill at the University of Nevada in Reno on March 25, 2015. (Photo: Jason Bean/RGJ)
Against: Guns on campus could create racial division
The ideology used to push AB 148 could spur racial problems on campus and with law enforcement.
That's the concern Escenthio Marigny Jr., 25, said when he spoke at the rally Wednesday. Marigny, president of the Reno Justice Coalition, is a women studies student at the university.
"We know that people of color and women are treated differently when they defend themselves as opposed to white men," Marigny said to the hundreds at the rally. "We need it to stop."
Marigny said he believes the state should find other ways to deal with criminal acts "other than shooting them down" and address why people commit crimes.
"I'm not against people having guns, but I am against the ideology that they utilize to bring it to campus," he said.
Read or Share this story: http://on.rgj.com/1CbUHQJEDMONTON — Canada's health minister says pilot projects have begun on roadside police testing for marijuana, and the plan is to have rules in place for edible cannabis around July 2019.
"Our priority right now is to ensure that we can legalize cannabis by July 2018," Ginette Petitpas Taylor said Friday.
"There's no specific date (for edibles to be available), but I would say if you look a year after the legalization, that is the window that we're giving ourselves."
Petitpas Taylor made the comments to reporters after briefing her provincial and territorial counterparts on Ottawa's progress toward legalizing marijuana.
Ottawa will not allow edible cannabis in the marketplace until it has put in place the rules surrounding packaging, potency and health warnings.
The federal government is toughening up Criminal Code rules and will handle the overall health regime for cannabis, while the provinces will be in charge of distributing and selling the weed.
Police will be administering roadside saliva tests to check for drug-impaired driving.
The federal government has announced it will spend $161 million over the next five years to help train and equip the officers.
Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press Health Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor shown speaking during Question Period in the House of Commons in Ottawa on Sept. 21, 2017.
Petitpas Taylor said pilot tests for these checks have begun across the country with municipal police forces and the RCMP.
She said her department is also working on public education by setting up partnerships with non-profit outreach agencies such as Drug-Free Kids.
"What we learned from the lessons of the United States when they started their rollout was really to ensure that the prevention was rolled out before the actual legalization date became a reality," she said.
Eight states in the U.S. plus the District of Columbia have already legalized recreational use of marijuana.
July deadline could be too ambitious
Provinces, territories and some police agencies have cautioned that having Canada's regime in place by next July 1 is too ambitious.
Alberta Health Minister Sarah Hoffman said while they're still consulting on their plans "we're working forward with that deadline in mind and we expect we will be able to achieve it."
Quebec Health Minister Gaetan Barrette said the public awareness campaign of marijuana's health impacts is key.
"An awareness campaign most of the time will take time to have a positive effect,'' said Barrette.
"We need to have that as soon as possible and I think Minister Petitpas Taylor is working in that direction."
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government introduced the legalization legislation in the spring aimed at keeping marijuana out of the hands of youngsters and denying profits to black marketers.
The minimum age to buy and consume cannabis will be 18, but provinces are free to set it higher.
Some provinces have already announced their plans.
Ontario will set the minimum age at 19 and retail marijuana through government-run outlets. New Brunswick has said it will use a Crown corporation model, and a legislature committee has recommended the minimum age at 19.
Chris Wattie / Reuters A Canadian flag with a marijuana leaf shown waving during the annual 4/20 marijuana rally on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on April 20, 2017 |
this “surprise” show was PACKED with 350+ people before general peak hours. It was a great time.
It wasn’t until around 10:40 when I looked over my shoulder and saw 8-12 police officers raiding the building, dressed in full tactical attire ready to blow heads–and they looked pissed. People reacted just as you think they would…yelling “F**K YOU!” & “F**K THE POLICE” as they tried to push them out of the venue as a crowd.
The police weren’t having it.
They pushed their way through the immense crowd of haters, who yelled, screamed, and pushed the officers, questioning everyone to locate the venue’s managers, or those who were in charge of the show.
At this point, X and the other performers knew what was happening, so they rushed on stage to have their moment in the spotlight–the moment people came for–before the inevitable would happened: the cops shutting us down.
After several failed attempts (the police) to get anyones attention, or to have anyone give a fuck what they said, they decide to search for the electrical system to turn off the audio and lighting in the venue. The show had been successfully stopped. The crowd chanted against the police, yelling “FUCK THE POLICE” followed by “FUCK DRAKE,” in support of their beloved artist.
X hopped on the scene, quieting everyone, explaining how we (the crowd) needed to comply with the officers in order to restore the show.
“We need everyone to be cooperative so we can get this shit going. We need to get the mixer on so we can turn the fuck up!” exclaimed X, while being cut off by police.
“YOU’RE NOT TURNING UP, YOU’RE LEAVING. EVERYONE OUT. YOU WILL TAKE EVERYONE OUT THE DOOR NOW.”
The boos, screeches, and the sound of people yelling “FUCK THE POLICE” filled the room…no one wanted to leave, especially since X hadn’t even hit the stage yet.
After some more fighting between the police and crowd, the police successfully got everyone out of the building–but what they didn’t think about was the affect these people could have on the streets, and the loyalty they have to X. The streets were flooded, cars were being jumped on, people were being trampled, bottles being shattered just to get a sight of X–the police had turned this into a full blown riot, and X was it’s leader.
Through many trials and tribulations, the area was slowly cleared out as the group of 400+ people chased X down the streets of Miami. We were parked in the direction where the riot was headed, so with slight worry about our car and possessions we headed near our car to protect it. Watch the video to see how this all went down.
Although I almost got my phone stolen and our car busted, it was a MOVIE. The show definitely did not turn out as X or his fans would’ve hoped, but it sure did end up being a historic night to remember.
Follow me on Twitter at @youngseebi.A majority of the Senate and more than half of the members of the House will file a brief today urging the Supreme Court to uphold a ruling that the District's handgun ban violates the Second Amendment.
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.), who led the effort to file the friend-of-the-court brief, said her staff could not find another instance in which such a large portion of Congress had taken a position on an issue before the court.
"This court should give due deference to the repeated findings over different historical epochs by Congress, a co-equal branch of government, that the amendment guarantees the personal right to possess firearms," their brief contends.
"The District's prohibitions on mere possession by law-abiding persons of handguns in the home and having usable firearms there are unreasonable."
District of Columbia v. Heller, scheduled for argument March 18, offers the Supreme Court a chance to settle years of debate over whether the Second Amendment -- "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed" -- guarantees an individual right to possess firearms or a "collective" civic right related to military service.
Last spring, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled 2 to 1 that the right is an individual one, and because handguns should be considered "arms," it is unconstitutional to ban them. The District has the nation's most-restrictive law.
The Bush administration, in a brief filed by U.S. Solicitor General Paul D. Clement, said such a categorical approach could endanger federal gun control measures, such as a ban on private possession of new machine guns. Clement proposed that the court recognize an individual right but send D.C.'s law back to lower courts to determine whether it is an unreasonable restriction.
Hutchison and Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), who spoke at a Heritage Foundation event yesterday, said the court could find D.C.'s law unconstitutional without another trip through the courts and without endangering Congress's ability to pass other gun control legislation, such as banning assault weapons.
All Senate Republicans except three -- Virginia's maverick Sen. John W. Warner was one of the missing -- signed on to the brief. Nine Democratic senators -- Virginia's other maverick, Sen. James Webb was among them -- joined the effort. The total was 55 senators and 250 House members, 68 of whom were Democrats.
Webb campaigned in 2006 as a strong supporter of the Second Amendment. Warner said in a statement he stayed out of the case because of respect for home rule.
"While the District of Columbia is not a state, it operates under a framework of laws enacted by the Congress which gives its elected leaders the duty to advocate the positions and interest of its citizens before the federal judiciary," he said.
Virginia will file with a large number of other states on behalf of those challenging D.C.'s law. Maryland has joined a smaller group of states urging the court to reverse the lower court's opinion, and the state's two Democratic senators did not join Hutchison's brief.
The House voted to overturn the D.C. ban in 2004, but supporters failed to muster enough votes in the Senate.AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - A U.S. district judge in Austin has rejected an effort by Texas to have a law that would punish so-called sanctuary cities be declared constitutional ahead of the measure taking effect next month.
FILE PHOTO: A protester against the Texas state law to punish "sanctuary cities" stands outside the U.S. Federal court in San Antonio, Texas, U.S., June 26, 2017. REUTERS/Jon Herskovitz/File Photo
The Republican-backed law is the first of its kind since Republican Donald Trump became president in January, promising a crackdown on illegal immigrants and localities that protect them. Texas is the U.S. state with the longest border with Mexico.
U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks, appointed under Republican President George H.W. Bush, dismissed the case without prejudice late on Wednesday. The brief ruling did not give a reason.
Senate Bill 4 calls for jailing police chiefs, sheriffs and possibly frontline officers who fail to cooperate with U.S. immigration officials. The measure also allows police to ask about immigration status during a lawful detention.
After the law was approved in May, Texas sued major urban areas, including Austin, El Paso and Houston, as well as civil rights groups, saying they backed policies of non-cooperation with federal immigration officials.
At a June hearing, Sparks asked why a court should declare the law constitutional before it took effect on Sept. 1. He also questioned why he should hear the case when most of the parties were part of a separate lawsuit over the same law being heard in a federal court in San Antonio.
The defendants contended they had abided by federal law and the suit should be dismissed because Texas had no evidence showing it had been harmed by a law not yet in effect.
Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said on Wednesday he was disappointed with the ruling on what he called an “undoubtedly constitutional law.”
The American Civil Liberties Union, a civil rights group that has argued in court against the law, on Thursday said the Texas suit was a farce aimed at distracting attention from the harm that would come with SB 4.
“This is a significant blow to the State, and its legal posturing has only resulted in wasted taxpayer money,” Edgar Saldivar, senior staff attorney of the ACLU of Texas, said in a statement.
In the federal case in San Antonio, a small border town and some of the largest Texas cities told a judge in June that SB 4 could lead to an immigration police state and establish illegal racial profiling. They asked the court to halt it, saying it was unconstitutional.This just in: Saving the planet would be cheap; it might even be free. But will anyone believe the good news?
I’ve just been reading two new reports on the economics of fighting climate change: a big study by a blue-ribbon international group, the New Climate Economy Project, and a working paper from the International Monetary Fund. Both claim that strong measures to limit carbon emissions would have hardly any negative effect on economic growth, and might actually lead to faster growth. This may sound too good to be true, but it isn’t. These are serious, careful analyses.
But you know that such assessments will be met with claims that it’s impossible to break the link between economic growth and ever-rising emissions of greenhouse gases, a position I think of as “climate despair.” The most dangerous proponents of climate despair are on the anti-environmentalist right. But they receive aid and comfort from other groups, including some on the left, who have their own reasons for getting it wrong.
Where is the new optimism about climate change and growth coming from? It has long been clear that a well-thought-out strategy of emissions control, in particular one that puts a price on carbon via either an emissions tax or a cap-and-trade scheme, would cost much less than the usual suspects want you to think. But the economics of climate protection look even better now than they did a few years ago.Ever since India invalidated much of its cash, it has been encouraging its citizens to switch to mobile wallets and other epayment solutions. Today, it took another step in pushing its citizens to embark on the cashless payment solutions — but early boomers aren't going to like it.
The Indian government has launched BharatQR Code to enable people to pay for things they purchase without swiping their plastic cards. Instead, merchants can ask shoppers to scan a QR code and make payments directly from their bank account.
One of the biggest problem merchants and citizens faced in the aftermath of demonetization last November was the absence of non-cash payment systems.
The penetration of payment terminals machine remain low in India, with many merchants even complaining about the cost of the device and the high transaction fee. According to the government's own estimations, there are about 57.7 million merchants but only 1.5 million digital payment acceptance locations.
With BharatQR Code, the government hopes to do away with card swipe terminals as merchants will be able to generate their own QR code that will be interoperable with all banks. The government-backed National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI) has partnered with 14 major financial institutions including Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and ICICI Bank to support BharatQR, it said Monday. BharatQR Code also supports all the major payment terminals — NPCI-backed RuPay, as well as MasterCard, Visa and American Express.
“Bharat QR is a path breaking initiative to bring quick, easy and affordable payments to both merchants and consumers. American Express is proud to be part of this ‘global first capability’, which will significantly contribute towards growth of Digital India," Manoj Adlakha, CEO of American Express Banking Corporation said in a press statement.
BharatQR Code can be a big blow to private mobile wallet companies that grew multifold since demonetization.
BharatQR Code can be a big blow to mobile wallet companies like Paytm, Mobiqwik and Freecharge that grew multifold since demonetization.
Most mobile wallet companies offer QR codes as a feature for merchants to accept payments. However, unlike BharatQR Code, the QR codes of these wallet companies are not interoperable and users have to use the particular wallet app in order to pay. While BharatQR Code supports most plastic cards and banks, it does not support mobile wallet companies, yet.
"BharatQR is the answer to Paytm. Hopefully banks will now be able to expand infrastructure at the rate with which Paytm did during demonetisation," AP Hota, CEO of NPCI was quoted as saying.
Paytm, India's largest mobile wallet service which has seen astronomical growth amid demonetization, announced that it will invest Rs 6 billion ($89.6 million) to help merchants across the country to start using its QR code based payment solution.
While Paytm, and other companies have been the winner in the India's cash crunched market over the past few months, the government has been working aggressively to get its own services out in the public.
In December, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched NCPI-backed BHIM app. The government has also formulated UPI (Unique Payment Interface), that banks can use to make it as easier for people to send money as sending a text message is. The vast majority of banks in India now support UPI.
Even for users who do not have a smartphone or any phone, the government plans to have fingerprint scanner based PoS terminals where customers can simply scan their fingerprint to make payments.Apple Inc has been accused of owing $8 billion (£5.6 billion) after a European Commission investigation, Bloomberg reports.
Apple’s Irish subsidiary generated $64.1 billion (£59 billion) between 2004 and 2014. The European Union says that the California-based tech giant has only paid a small fraction of the $8 billion it owes.
The EC has been investigating Apple’s taxes since 2014 and has said that it would reach a decision by this coming March.
Tax authorities have also scrutinized the tax arrangements of Starbucks, Amazon and McDonalds.
© Provided by The Independent The European Commission says Apple Inc owes a pretty large amount of taxes. (Picture: [copyright])
During an interview with CBS’ 60 Minutes program, Apple CEO Tim Cook addressed the criticism of his company’s tax policies.
“That's total political crap, there is no truth behind it,” Mr Cook said back in December 2015.
“We pay every tax dollar we owe.”KEENE, N.H. — In most places, the parking enforcement officer reflects the municipal compact. Armed only with a gadget that can spit out a ticket at the forgotten drop of a dime, the officer quietly serves civic and commercial life by ensuring that meters are fed.
In most places, yes. But not here in charming Keene, where parking officers figure in a philosophical tug of war between a small band of activists who live by the motto “Free Keene,” and the great majority of residents who were unaware that their city was in bondage.
Keene’s two parking officers, both women, are often videotaped by young adults known as “Robin Hooders.” They track the whereabouts of the officers by two-way radio, feed expired meters before $5 tickets can be written, and leave a business card saying that “we saved you from the king’s tariff.”
Welcome to Sherwood Forest, N.H., where these acts of charity have led to some donations and gratitude, but also to sidewalk tensions, harassment allegations and litigation. They are part of a broader effort by about two-dozen activists, most of them from someplace else, to unshackle Keene from the “violent monopoly” of government and its enforcers, including these parking officers who work in weather fair and foul.Wattpad, a community where both published and aspiring authors can share stories, appears to have been hacked.
A few users are reporting the company sent an email out to its members earlier today informing them it identified a breach back in May:
https://twitter.com/mikeisaac/status/629359463129083905
If you’re not familiar, Wattpad is largely known for its extensive fan fiction catalog, although categories range from Romance to Mystery to ‘Werewolf’ and pretty much everything in between.
The community is made up of over 40 million uses who’ve written over 100 million stories. There’s no official word on how extensive the hack is, but we’ve contacted Wattpad for more information and will update this post if we hear more.
Update:
Wattpad provided a few more specifics on the incident. The company provided this statement:
On May 29, we identified an attack against our platform. After subsequent review of the incident, we learned that account details and passwords for some accounts may have been exposed. We are contacting all users who may have been affected and urging them to change their passwords as a precaution. We have also implemented additional security measures to prevent an incident like this from reoccurring.
The delay in informing users is a bit odd the breach happened over two months ago. However, it appears Wattpad only recently learned exactly what information may have been exposed.
If you’re on the platform, best change your password as soon as you can.
➤ Mike Isaac [Twitter]
Read next: Russia reportedly launched cyberattack against Pentagon email system last monthI’m a trifle nerdy, and that’s setting off my understatement-o-meter. But whether or not you are too, you’ve probably heard this quote before:
Your brain may even have read it in a commanding captain’s voice. Then a massive wind up, and POW; we’re in warp. Daa, dadada, dadada BOM BOM, dadadada da daa daa daaaa dadada daaa, –
Ahem. *lays down trumpet*
Anyway, I’ve always remarked, as I’m sure many before me have, that the ending line is so punchy.
To boldly go….
Some of you may remember certain school teachers of English language endlessly chastising you for splitting infinitives: this process of instead of keeping the “to” with its “go”, you split it with a word describing the action.
To ceaselessly battle.
To tirelessly study.
Many seem to consider it bad style. And often it can look clumsy. But I think there’s a place for it. It certainly feels at home in that Star Trek quote. And it’s that quote that fuelled me to ignore my English teacher! What if it were “to go boldly”?! Doesn’t that sound lame? Generally, the real way of getting around a split infinitive involves rephrasing completely. But dat ain’t needed nor wanted here, son.
ANYWAY. Why did I bring this up? You’ve probably realised that in many languages, you simply cannot split the infinitive, because it is only one word!
Take Esperanto: infinitives are the i-forms of verbs:
danci = to dance
ami = to love
iri = to go
tedanci = to do the tea dance (makes tea rain from the sky!).
I certainly can’t put “boldly” in the middle of “iri”.
So this got me thinking. How do we translate this? And is it as punchy? And is there anything we can do if it ain’t so punchy?
So the most naive translation I can come up with for that bit is this:
iri aŭdace kien neniu iris antaŭe (literally: to go boldly where no one has gone before)
Now, you gotta admit, that iri aŭdace — iris antaŭe combo really does give it a nice rhythm. BUT, you may disagree, but it really does read like “to go boldly” to me; it makes sense, but the punchiness is gone. It’s like a normal utterance. The power of the boldness word is lost.
What are our options? Well, in Esperanto, given the slightly freer word-order, a common technique for applying emphasis is to bring the word requiring emphasis to the beginning of the phrase, if this is permitted:
aŭdace iri kien neniu iris antaŭe (literally: boldly (to) go where no one has gone before)
Despite the unfortunate consequence that pronouncing “-ce” then “iri” is a little less pretty, this really does bring back some umph, don’t you think? You get right to main point in the first word – BOOM, not even having to say a pesky “to”! (The thing that stops this starting to translate like “boldly going where…”, is how the paragraph begins: “it’s continuing mission: to X, to Y, to Z.” i.e. not “Xing, Ying, Zing”.)
There is another tool on Esperanto’s belt of course VORTFARADO!!! (or word-building…).
aŭdaciri kien neniu antaŭe iris (literally: boldy-go where no one before has gone)
Notice I change the order of “antaŭe” and “iris” to maintain the rhythm (aŭdaciri — antaŭe iris), purely poetic and unnecessary 😛
Now, what’s going on ‘ere then. “Aŭdaciri”? can I just go and do that? This is actually more than just just boldly going (as you may know if you’re familiar with this section of the PMEG). This is like a special kind of going, a kind of going that is by its very nature, daring and bold. Exploring the dangerous bits, inviting new trouble, poking your nose into the fresh-universe-snow. The going is defined by the daring.
Why? I’ll explain with the PMEG example. You can’t just go around sticking on adjectives and adverbs (a-words and e-words) to things and expect them to mean the same plain old thing:
dika = thick
fingro = finger
dikfingro = thumb
dika fingro = thick finger
Get my drift? If you join those words together, you are saying that its very nature is highly influenced by the attached property; we’re not talking about just a slightly thicker finger here; this finger is something else, it’s set apart, and one of its defining apartnesses is its thickness compared to a normal finger.
We’re not just being bold while we go through the universe; we’re bloody well pioneering for our species, our whole movement through the universe is about audacity and facing the new, the strange, the tough, and the scary head-on. THAT is how we are going through the universe.
How’s that for punchy?
(Note: an acceptable translation for “boldly” might have been “kuraĝe”, with more connotations of courageousness. But that is like boldness against fear. When what I think we really want here, is boldness in the face of trials of our morality, understanding, strength, etc. I.e. not necessarily things that make us afraid, but things that make us confront our own darkness and thought, and struggle to find the right path. A pretty lofty goal, hence audacity, intrepidity).Looking for news you can trust?
Subscribe to our free newsletters.
News outfits are reporting that Leon Panetta has been tapped by President-elect Barack Obama to take over the Central Intelligence Agency.
It’s an unusual choice, for Panetta, a former Democratic congressman who became President Bill Clinton’s budget chief and then his White House chief of staff, has no direct intelligence experience, and the CIA in previous decades has been rather unwelcoming to outsiders. (Obama’s first pick for the spy chief slot, John Brennan, a career CIA officer, withdrew his name, after bloggers and others raised questions about his involvement in the agency’s post-9/11 detention and interrogation programs.) Panetta, if confirmed, will work closely with retired Admiral Dennis Blair, Obama’s choice to be director of national intelligence.
Panetta is an even-tempered and highly regarded Washington player–kind of a Mr. Fixit in a nice suit. He is also a zero-tolerance critic of the use of torture, and he considers waterboarding–a tactic used by the CIA–to be torture. A year ago, he wrote in The Washington Monthly:
According to the latest polls, two-thirds of the American public believes that torturing suspected terrorists to gain important information is justified in some circumstances. How did we transform from champions of human dignity and individual rights into a nation of armchair torturers? One word: fear.
Fear is blinding, hateful, and vengeful. It makes the end justify the means. And why not? If torture can stop the next terrorist attack, the next suicide bomber, then what’s wrong with a little waterboarding or electric shock?
The simple answer is the rule of law….
Those who support torture may believe that we can abuse captives in certain select circumstances and still be true to our values. But that is a false compromise. We either believe in the dignity of the individual, the rule of law, and the prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, or we don’t. There is no middle ground.
We cannot and we must not use torture under any circumstances..
It doesn’t get much clearer than this. (Take that, Jack Bauer!) By picking Panetta, Obama is repudiating the waterboarding ways of the Bush-Cheney administration.
As a member of the Iraq Study Group, Panetta joined with other Establishment poohbahs to criticize George W. Bush’s prosecution of the Iraq war. And in a newspaper op-ed, he noted that the Iraq war “could give al-Qaeda a base for terrorism throughout this critical region.”
Panetta’s views on torture and the Iraq war are unlikely to pose any problems for him during his Senate confirmation. But he has tangled with the agency in the past–and these tussles could emerge as confirmation issues. As Clinton’s budget chief, he sought to cut the CIA’s budget and clashed with then-CIA director R. James Woolsey. A 2007 study produced by the CIA’s Center for the Study of Intelligence described this confrontation:
Leon Panetta, the Clinton administration’s first director of OMB, had indicated to Woolsey early in 1993 that OMB was considering providing the DCI with top-line guidance, perhaps with a publicly disclosed figure, and seeking sizable out-year cuts in intelligence spending….
….From [the Office of Management and Budget’s] perspective, [Woolsey] came across as confrontational in his efforts to keep OMB from examining, and possibly cutting, his budget. One of Panetta’s senior staff officers commented on Woolsey’s approach in dealing with Panetta: “I’ve never seen a more graceless stonewall….” [CIA official] Richard Haver…recalled an episode in which the DCI and [Pentagon] leaders, in a personal meeting with President Clinton, gained the president’s agreement—over OMB objections—to a program and budget Woolsey had worked out in concert with DOD. [Woolsey] was almost euphoric about his success as he returned to CIA headquarters, but he soon received a message from Panetta that Woolsey would “pay” for his budget victory.
Will CIA veterans strike back at Panetta for his efforts to reduce their budget 16 years ago? Will GOPers in the Senate try to embarrass Panetta by bringing this up?
And there’s this: in 1990, then-Representative Barbara Boxer (D-CA) introduced legislation that would have required the president to seek approval from the congressional intelligence committees before mounting most covert operations. (Under this legislation, the president could still stage secret ops to save American lives or rescue American hostages without asking permission from the committees.) The measure failed miserably. Only 70 members voted for it, but one was Panetta. Will that vote come up during his confirmation hearings? One wonders if Panetta still supports the idea of greater congressional oversight of CIA clandestine activities.
A CIA director who has denounced torture, advocated intelligence cuts, and backed greater congressional control of covert operations–that would be….different. This appointment certainly has the potential to spark opposition from inside and outside the agency. But if Panetta manages to make it to Langley without much fuss, that would indeed signal real change in Washington.[PATCH i915 v2 0/2] PRIME Synchronization
Hello all, For a while now, I've been working to fix tearing with PRIME. This is my second version of the solution, revised according to Daniel Vetter's and Daniel Stone's suggestions. Rather than using fence callbacks to explicitly trigger flipping, fences are now used to block flipping/atomic commits up to a timeout of 96 ms, based on Daniel Stone's non-upstreamed patch to the Exynos DRM driver. I have two patches, one that implements fencing for i915's legacy mmio_flip path, and one for atomic commits for futureproofing. Currently the mmio_flip path is the one ultimately used by the X patches, due to the lack of asynchronous atomic modesetting support in i915. With my synchronization patches to X, it is possible to export two shared buffers per crtc instead of just one. The sink driver uses the legacy drmModePageFlip() to flip between the buffers, as the rest of the driver has yet to be ported to atomics. In the pageflip/vblank event handler, the sink driver requests a present from the source using the new X ABI function pScreen->PresentTrackedFlippingPixmap(). If the call returns successfully, it uses drmModePageFlip() to flip to the updated buffer, otherwise it waits until the next vblank and tries again. When the source driver presents on a given buffer, it first attaches a fence. The source driver is responsible for either using software signaling or hardware semaphore-backed fences to ensure the fence is signaled when the present is finished. If the sink's DRM driver implements fencing in the flipping path, it will guarantee that that flip won't occur until the present has finished. This means that DRM drivers that don't implement fencing in their flipping paths won't be able to guarantee 100% tear-free PRIME with my X patches. However, the good news is that even without fencing, tearing is rare. Generally presenting finishes before the next vblank, so there is no need to wait on the fence. The X patches are a drastic improvement with or without fencing, but the fencing is nonetheless important to guarantee tear-free under all conditions. To give some greater context, I've uploaded my branches for DRM and the X server to Github. I'll move forward with upstreaming the X changes if and when these DRM patches go in. DRM Tree: https://github.com/GoinsWithTheWind/drm-prime-sync X Tree: https://github.com/GoinsWithTheWind/xserver-prime-sync (branch agoins-prime-v2) Thanks, Alex @ NVIDIA Linux Driver Team Alex Goins (2): i915: wait for fences in mmio_flip() i915: wait for fences in atomic commit drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c | 37 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 37 insertions(+) -- 1.9.1Workers laying pipes in a southern Spanish park unearthed a 1,300-pound trove of Roman coins. Cultural officials say it is a unique historic discovery. (The Washington Post)
Some 1,300 pounds of bronze Roman coins dating to the 3rd and 4th centuries have been unearthed by construction workers digging ditches in Spain.
The find, in 19 amphoras — storage containers — is unique not only because of the volume of coins but because the coins appear to have never been in circulation, making them almost pristine by comparison with other discoveries.
Workers in the city of Tomares, in Andalusia, were working on installing a water line to a park in the city of 24,000, according to the Spanish newspaper El País, when they noticed irregular terrain inside a ditch about a meter below ground level.
Some of the containers were broken, with the coins spilling out of them, while others were intact. They show an emperor, Maximian or Constantine on one side and Roman allegories on the other, researchers told reporters. Experts are speculating that the coins were meant to pay taxes or support legions of the Roman armies in Spain at the time.
“We have a team looking into the discovery right now. We believe it is hugely important and will have more information very soon,” a spokesman at Andalusia’s Ministry of Culture in Seville told The Local on Thursday.
Ana Navarro, head of Seville’s Archeology Museum, offered no precise estimate for the value of the haul, saying only that the coins were worth “certainly several million euros.”
This photo made available by the City Council of Tomares on Friday, April 29, 2016, shows some of the bronze and silver-coated coins dating from the end of the 4th century. (City Council of Tomares via AP)
“The majority were newly minted and some of them probably were bathed in silver, not just bronze,” Navarro told reporters.
“I could not give you an economic value, because the value they really have is historical and you can’t calculate that.”
The Romans invaded the Iberian Peninsula in 206 B.C. and stayed for about 700 years, turning Andalusia into one of the empire’s richest colonies.
Primeras imágenes del hallazgo de monedas romanas de Tomares en el #MuseoArqueologico de Sevilla pic.twitter.com/5aK5fovNjj — Consejería Cultura (@CulturaAND) April 28, 2016Story via Bloody Disgusting.
After writer Nick Antosca's script was rejected last year and director David Bruckner left the pre-production of the new Friday The 13th film, fans were left dejected once again with another set back to bring Jason Voorhees back to the big screen. Last December, Aaron Guzikowski was hired to construct a new script and story for the latest Friday The 13th and since then there has been nothing new to report, until now.While at WonderCon this past weekend, the website TooFab caught up with Platinum Dunes producers Brad Fuller and Andrew Form and asked about the progress of the film.When Andrew Form was pressed about if the new film would keep the 1980's setting from Nick Antosca's script, there was a bit of hesitation, but answered with the following:It's safe to say that progress is being made and there is a strong possibility that production may start soon on the much maligned and in-progress next chapter in the Friday The 13th franchise!André Roy, an in-house investigator for Canadian Tire, was scanning images from the store’s live security cameras last November when a customer in the automotive aisle caught his eye. He says the man, dressed head to toe in black, looked left and right before removing some packaging and shoving an item inside his trench coat.
For half an hour, Mr. Roy watched the short, stocky customer moving from one department to another, discarding packaging and pocketing merchandise. As the man headed toward the cash register to pay for a flashlight, Mr. Roy and his assistant manager moved in.
The suspect, according to Mr. Roy, put up a fight, and it took four employees to subdue him until police arrived. To Mr. Roy’s amazement, a thick wad of $100 bills totaling more than $3,000 fell from the shoplifter’s pocket during the scuffle. He also noticed the man’s Rolex watch and diamond ring. “I was asking myself why someone with so much money would be committing such a petty theft and reacting so violently,” Mr. Roy testified in Quebec Court last week.
The mystery would only deepen following that Nov. 13 arrest.
Court documents and testimony show that the alleged shoplifter was not the unilingual Italian-speaker named Vincenzo Sestito he pretended to be. A fingerprint check after his arraignment revealed he was Nicola Cortese, a cousin and former business partner of an alleged Toronto Mafia boss. Mr. Cortese, who is considered by police to be a trusted soldier in the Calabrian mob, had vanished in 2008 as police in Ontario searched for him on drug, theft and fraud charges.
Among the items he is alleged to have grabbed from the Canadian Tire were a handgun holster, an ammunition pouch for 12-gauge shotgun shells, a black balaclava and a rubber car part that a police source said could double as a silencer. His true identity and his alleged shopping list have led Montreal investigators to question whether his presence in the city last fall could be connected to the sniper attack that killed the patriarch of the Sicilian Mafia, Nicolo Rizzuto, two days before Mr. Cortese’s arrest.
“Concerns were raised about his presence here, but there is nothing particular that we know about,” a source close to the investigation said. A second police source said Mr. Cortese has been asked about the Rizzuto homicide.
“It is certainly of great interest to me that someone like that is in Montreal at that time,” the source said.
One motive police are investigating for the attacks on the Rizzuto family is a power struggle between Toronto’s Calabrian mobsters and the Sicilian Mafia in Montreal.
On Feb. 9, at the conclusion of a two-day preliminary hearing, Judge Pierre Labelle ordered Mr. Cortese, 47, to stand trial on three charges of theft with violence related to the incident at Canadian Tire. He has chosen a trial before a judge alone, and a date has not been set.
Mr. Cortese is also facing eight charges in Montreal alleging fraudulent use of a credit card and a debit card and possession of a forged Italian passport and a fake Ontario driver’s licence. The charges allege that his first use of the stolen credit card in Montreal was on Oct. 25. It was used there again on Nov. 1. Additional charges filed at the Montreal courthouse allege that he obstructed a police officer by providing a false identity and breached a court order related to outstanding charges in Ontario. After pleading not guilty to all charges, he waived his right to a bail hearing and will remain in custody until trial.Gun stores have reported a quadruple growth in the sales of firearms, with some owners attributing the sales to a spike in violent crime. During an interview with NRATV, Jeffrey Pang, who works for Austria's oldest firearms store, linked the rise in the self-defence market to "the immigrant crisis in Europe". He said the surge in firearm sales coincided with reports of robberies, rapes and break-ins since the migrant crisis began.
GETTY Gun sales have risen in Austria since the migrant crisis began
The employee at the firearm store Joh Springers added: "Following the rise in attacks, customers want pepper sprays, combat training, small concealed carry weapons. " Mr Pang said the biggest growth market for gun owners was among women who felt unsafe outside. He said: "Our security level has diminished in the last couple months. |
puppet that the others were. Try and get close to him.” “Why not? White suits my coloring. I look so … pure.” (ADWD, The Watcher)
We’ll deal more intensely with the reformation of the Faith Militant in Part 10, but for now, the Faith had taken on a greater prominence in King’s Landing and were quickly becoming the strongest power within the city itself. Tyene’s presence near the High Sparrow ensured that Doran might have inside knowledge of what the Faith was planning. Moreover, Tyene might be able to influence the High Sparrow to look favorably upon Daenerys and Quentyn when they arrived from Essos.
With their tasks given, Doran Martell dismissed the Sand Snakes to their missions, but Doran had news — news he dared not share in front of the Sand Snakes; “Daenerys” was on the move:
“That last part, about the message. Have you had tidings?” Prince Doran shared his secret smile with her. “From Lys. A great fleet has put in there to take on water. Volantene ships chiefly, carrying an army. No word as to who they are, or where they might be bound. There was talk of elephants.” (ADWD, The Watcher)
If Daenerys was sailing for Westeros, Quentyn might be with her:
“Do you think that Quentyn will be with them?” “He could be. Or not. We will know by where they land if Westeros is indeed their destination.” (ADWD, The Watcher)
From Doran Martell’s perspective, this was the potential culmination of everything he had planned and re-planned for. Daenerys and Quentyn were possibly on their way back from Essos at the precise moment when the Lannisters were at their lowest ebb. With Daenerys would come dragons, an army and a chance for vengeance.
That appearance of success could not be further from the truth.
Conclusion
Artwork by Marc Fishman
“Where are the dragons?” Doran asked. “Where is Daenerys?” and Arianne knew that he was really saying, “Where is my son?” (TWOW, Arianne I)
Unbeknownst to Doran Martell, Daenerys and Quentyn were not on their way back to Dorne. Another dragon had sailed from Essos, but not the one that Doran hoped for. Quentyn Martell had sailed for Daenerys and found only failure in his mission. He had lost friends and his innocence only to have Daenerys spurn his offer for marriage. By the end, Quentyn, himself, came to bitterly question his father’s plans:
The dragons, Prince Quentyn thought. Yes. We came for the dragons. He felt as though he might be sick. What am I doing here? Father, why? (ADWD, The Dragontamer)
However, Quentyn could not disappoint his father. He had been instructed to return with Daenerys and her dragons. If Quentyn could not return with Daenerys, he would settle for a dragon. Thus, Quentyn’s arc ended as the boy attempted to steal a dragon and horrifically gained the fire and blood that his father so desired.
If we return to our introduction of the overripe blood oranges falling around Doran, we start to see that this was not mere atmospherics on GRRM’s part. The blood oranges can be seen as a metaphor for Doran’s multiple conspiracies. The prince had waited too long and his plans were overripe, rotting.
In The Winds of Winter, the secret smile that Doran Martell gave to Arianne will sour as he sorrowfully realizes that Quentyn has not returned, and his Targaryen conspiracy is in ruins. However, a new dragon, another conspiracy will rise from the ashes of his dead conspiracies, and the prince will grapple with a question: dragon or war?
Thanks for reading! I invite you to follow me on twitter at @BryndenBFish. Additionally, I invite you to follow the Wars and Politics of Ice and Fire twitter, facebook and tumblr to stay abreast of all that we’re doing!
Next Up: Dragon or War?
Further Reading/WatchingGet the Mach newsletter.
March 6, 2017, 3:51 PM GMT / Updated March 6, 2017, 3:51 PM GMT By Christina Couch
Patients trust their doctors to diagnose them accurately — and quickly. But when a patient has a rare condition or non-specific symptoms, getting that accurate diagnosis can become a costly process that takes months or even years.
Maybe crowdsourced medical diagnosis could do a better job. That’s the proposition of CrowdMed.com, which harnesses the combined savvy of more than 20,000 doctors, nurses, medical students, and other sleuths — including some with no formal healthcare credentials — to offer suggestions patients can bring to their in-person doctors that might help expedite the time it takes to find a correct diagnosis.
Launched in 2013, the San Francisco-based company has helped more than 2,000 patients get closer to finding the right diagnosis. CrowdMed currently has pilot programs underway with four major insurance firms to explore whether crowdsourced medicine can be economically effective for patients and insurers.
Related: 4 Ways This Gene-Editing Tool Could Change the World
“If you have a condition that doctors see often, say a heart condition or cancer or diabetes, it’s not hard to get a diagnosis and get on the right treatment path,” says CrowdMed founder and CEO Jared Heyman. If the condition is more unusual, he adds, “you often end up in this cycle where you just get referred from specialist to specialist searching for that needle-in-a-haystack person who might have familiarity with what you have."
Heyman has seen that cycle first-hand. Back in 2003, his sister, Carly, began gaining weight and sleeping all day. It took three years, more than 20 doctors, and over $100,000 in medical bills to figure out she had a rare genetic mutation called fragile X-associated primary ovarian insufficiency (FXPOI). Carly was treated with a hormone patch and her symptoms vanished within a month.
“I saw how ill-equipped the traditional medical system is when it comes to helping people with difficult to diagnose or rare diseases,” Heyman says. “I wanted to apply everything I knew about crowdsourcing to healthcare to help people like my sister.”
How Does it Work?
Patients log on to the site, answer a series of questions about their symptoms and medical history, and then, if they choose to do so, upload their medical records to the site with identifying information removed. Then the site's so-called “medical detectives” collaborate with the patient and each other to offer suggestions as to what they believe is going on, which patients can then discuss with their doctors.
“I saw how ill-equipped the traditional medical system is when it comes to helping people with difficult to diagnose or rare diseases.”
CrowdMed has its critics, including those who question the efficacy of detectives who can’t see a patient in-person and those who believe the site doesn’t provide enough data on patient outcomes.
But it also has its fans like Madeleine Gerlach, a 24 year-old in Pacifica, California, who turned to CrowdMed in early 2013 after a series of doctors failed to identify the cause of the severe, intermittent pain she began experiencing the previous year.
Initially, doctors could find nothing wrong with Madeleine, and her pain subsided for a few months. When it returned, Madeleine’s doctors attributed the pain to spasms in her pelvic floor, the bundle of muscles, nerves, and connective tissues that support the rectum, bladder, and uterus. They referred her to a pelvic pain center and prescribed painkillers.
Nothing worked.
After learning about endometriosis, a uterine disorder that can cause severe abdominal pain and bleeding — and whose nonspecific symptoms make it notoriously difficult to diagnose, Madeleine thought that’s what she might have. Her CrowdMed detectives also suggested it was the most likely culprit, but her in-person doctors didn’t agree. Madeleine had diagnostic surgery that May, but it didn’t reveal enough uterine lining growth for doctors to support endometriosis.
Bolstered by what CrowdMed detectives believed, Madeleine got a second opinion, paid $25,000 out of pocket to have a second diagnostic surgery, and in October it was determined she had stage two endometriosis, shaving years, potentially even a decade, off of the average time to diagnosis.
“Just having the diagnosis gave me everything,” Madeleine says. “I was over the moon when I woke up from surgery. I was like ‘I’m not crazy. There’s actually something wrong with me.’”
Getting a correct diagnosis, even if no medical treatment is available for the condition, is often a triumph for patients who need validation that something is truly wrong, says Ronald DeBellis, chief scientific officer for the National Organization for Rare Disorders, a nonprofit organization headquartered in Danbury, Connecticut.
But for patients with rare disorders — illnesses that affect fewer than 200,000 people across the entire U.S. — getting a proper diagnosis is especially tough. On average, it takes patients with rare disorders seven years to get an accurate diagnosis. In the meantime, as some patients ping-pong from doctor to doctor and undergo repeated batteries of tests, they can run out of money — and hope.
“The mental anguish that goes along with this is unbelievable,” DeBellis says. “Every time you go to the doctor, you think someone’s going to find something” that can help.
Turning to the Crowd
CrowdMed seeks to reduce the timeline of a diagnosis by enlisting detectives representing a broad spectrum of medical backgrounds — everyone from surgeons to acupuncturists to patients who have become experts on their own conditions. Detectives start with a ranking based on verifiable medical credentials and can move up the CrowdMed ladder by adding suggestions other detectives find valuable, and by becoming the medical detective the patient deems most effective as the case closes.
Moderators, all of whom are licensed physicians, monitor conversation to ensure conclusions are drawn based on peer-reviewed science. Well-supported suggestions from the case’s highest-ranked detectives float to the top of the answer pile, as do those that a CrowdMed algorithm determines as having the highest probability of being right. Patients receive a list of potential diagnoses, ranked from most to least probable based on algorithmic assessment and crowd opinion.
But it’s not cheap. Patients pay fees of up to $749 per month — higher fees buy higher-ranked detectives working on the case — and the site reserves a monetary reward of $200 to $1,000 that a patient can divide among the most helpful medical detectives on the case.
Related: The Quest to Create Artificial Blood May Soon Be Over
Providing a direct diagnosis isn’t CrowdMed’s goal. The site and its detectives sidestep liability issues by offering suggestions afflicted users can bring to their in-person doctors, rather than official medical advice. The true aim is to provide patients with new insights they can use along with their medical providers to get answers.
Patients like Madeleine sing CrowdMed’s praises, but some in the medical community have doubts.
Jordan Shlain, a primary care doctor in San Francisco, believes that the site offers patients access to experts they may not reach otherwise, but he’s concerned that CrowdMed detectives might not have the tools to recognize when a symptom is from a physical condition and when it's a manifestation of a patient's psychology.
On average, it takes patients with rare disorders seven years to get an accurate diagnosis. In the meantime, patients can run out of money — and hope. Reza Estakhrian / Getty Images
Difficulty separating physical disorders from somatoform conditions wherein mental illness causes physical symptoms is “definitely a concern and a limitation of not being able to physically examine a patient,” says Kyle Walker, a CrowdMed moderator and general practice physician in Ohio.
Walker says that medical detectives, including those from neurology and psychology backgrounds, sometimes suggest somatoform disorders, but patients often aren’t open to that possibility.
“More often than not, patients just say, ‘Oh I didn’t get a diagnosis from CrowdMed’ and leave dissatisfied,” he says.
Some are also concerned about how patients fare after their CrowdMed case is closed. Hardeep Singh, a patient safety researcher at the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center and Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, published an evaluation of CrowdMed last January. He found that some patients with undiagnosed conditions reported receiving helpful guidance from the site, but there wasn’t enough information available on patient outcomes after cases were resolved.
Related: This App is Revolutionizing Diagnoses of Rare Diseases
“Imagine the crowd makes a suggestion of this pathway and you get more tests and more tests and a procedure based on those tests and the procedure doesn’t go very well,” Singh says. “We actually don’t know the downstream outcomes of the suggestions coming out of the crowd, which is exactly why we need that evaluation component.”
CrowdMed patients are asked to complete a survey within 90 days after case closure to evaluate the site’s success — Heyman says that “75 percent of the time, if a patient has a medically confirmed diagnosis, it came from us” — but medical detectives and moderators generally don’t know how specific patients fare after their case is closed.
Crowdsourcing the Future
Crowdsourced medical help could be a boon for patients, and a game changer for insurance companies, since even a small reduction in time to a diagnosis can translate to thousands in saved medical costs. Joseph A. Ladapo, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, published a small study last year on the impact of CrowdMed on healthcare claims.
Ladapo found that after CrowdMed detectives resolved a case, the number of patient healthcare visits by dropped by nearly 50 percent and their average medical costs went down by about $200 per month. The results are preliminary but “very exciting,” Ladapo says, adding that sites like CrowdMed could significantly broaden access to medical expertise.
Related: Can Science Meet Demand of Coming Organ Shortage?
“I have patients right now in the hospital that have symptoms I have never seen before that are stumping our entire team," he says. "We’ve brought consultants in and we’re all stumped. It would almost certainly represent an improvement to have more people thinking about that patient.”
It won’t be clear whether CrowdMed will join forces with major insurance policies, and potentially become a larger part of healthcare in general, until the company’s pilot programs are over later this year. But online resources that allow patients to research their own symptoms, connect with experts who can offer medical feedback, and provide data and suggestions to in-person physicians are rapidly expanding. It's forcing the medical community to consider how it will evolve to work within a landscape of more empowered patients, Hardeep Singh says.
“I think the physician community is not completely ready," he says. "But I think it’s increasingly recognizing that we’re in a new era, we’re in a new world where we’re going to have to change the way we receive this online information. I think this is going to continue. CrowdMed is just the beginning.”
Follow NBC MACH on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.I’m in a van with three pirates, and we’re pillaging snacks from all the major political parties in Iceland. It’s 27 April, election day in Reykjavík, and the months of campaigning are over. The parliamentary candidates of the Pirate Party have nothing to do except drive around the various party headquarters appropriating cake and crisps. They prefer to call it “challenging the antagonism of the current political climate”. By dropping in on rival parties. And taking their food.
“This is taxpayer-funded, so actually it’s already my food,” says Kristjan, a huge, jolly, bearded technologist who is running as a candidate in Reykjavík. He slips a choc ice into his pocket as we say goodbye to the centrist Progressive Party, with its impressive spread of smoked-tongue pavlova. Next, we’re off to see the Social Democrats, who may or may not have coffee. There are 15 parties running in what may be the oddest national election Europe has seen in decades, so we’re unlikely to go hungry.
Iceland is a little human crucible bubbling away in the middle of the north Atlantic, and an experiment in how to build and run a modern democracy. For most of the past 30 years, it embraced aggressive free-market capitalism. Then its banks failed, its population lost faith in conventional politics, and it began to be an experiment in something else entirely. Desperate people across the eurozone cling to the fairy tale of Iceland as a plucky country holding out against austerity – but Icelanders see things differently.
In this election, the main choice seems to be between the centre-right parties that led the country into economic disaster and the leftgreen coalition that failed to lead it out again. Now fringe parties and protest groups are appearing to fill the ideas vacuum. Of these newcomers, the Pirates – a disparate group of hackers, anarchists and digital rights campaigners – are by far the most interesting. Elsewhere in the world, internet activists such as the hacker Andrew “Weev” Auernheimer, the late Reddit co-founder Aaron Swartz and many others have been prosecuted and imprisoned for fighting for freedom of information, but these ones are about to get into parliament.
“I’ve been disillusioned with politics for a long time, and I didn’t really feel anything would change,” says Bjarni Einarsson, a Pirate Party candidate who has the thick glasses and wacky hairstyle of trendy geeks from here to Hackney. Einarsson, like almost everyone I meet, no longer believes in party politics.
So why is he running for parliament? “Because I believe in the issues,” he says, “and I know now that if we have just one or two people in parliament they can sponsor bills and propose changes, make improvements.”
The first thing you have to understand about Iceland is that it’s tiny. The population is just over 320,000, which is about the same as Reading’s, and two-thirds of them live in the capital, Reykjavík, which is about the size of Southend. Before the banking crisis, American investment, exploitation of natural resources and the expansion of the financial sector had transformed Iceland from one of the poorest nations in Europe to one of the richest in the space of 50 years. It’s small enough that the best way to meet and interview a member of parliament is to hang around in a trendy bar in downtown Reykjavík and wait for one to turn up at the next table. It’s small enough that this happened to me twice during a four-day trip. Oh, and about 0.3 per cent of Icelanders are personally running for parliament this year.
Iceland has always been a land self-authored in myth and legend. Its lava fields and glacial plains are supposedly populated by elves, trolls and huldufólk – hidden folk – in whom 80 per cent of the population believes. At least, that’s what the PR for Icelandair wants you to think, because that’s what’s written on the useless napkins handed out in economy class on the red-eye to Reykjavík. In fact, it turns out that only 30 per cent of the population believes that fairies exist, although that third is prepared to agitate for roads to be diverted around their supposed homes. This is remarkable enough that one wonders why the tourist board bothered to exaggerate.
The story of Iceland’s curious political situation is another folk tale that was already fascinating before it was blown out of all proportion. What most of the world appears to believe is that, some time between 2008 and 2009, the country refused to bail out its banks when the global economy crashed and that instead it jailed all of its bankers, overthrew the government, wrote a new constitution on the internet and elected a lesbian prime minister who solved all the nation’s problems with a flick of her magic wand. In this global era of enforced austerity, people want to believe this so much that they get angry when friends who live in Iceland disabuse them of the fantasy.
Johanna Sigurdardottir at her election in 2009. Photo: Getty
Here’s what actually happened. Although it is true that the three largest banks –Glitnir, Kaupthing and Landsbanki – were allowed to go bust in 2008, this was hardly a political choice: Iceland could do nothing else, because their debts were ten times the size of its GDP. It is also true that popular protest brought about a change in power. Demonstrations over the government’s handling of the crisis, particularly its promises to the IMF to repay the financial sector’s enormous debts to countries such as the UK and the Netherlands, started in 2008. On 20 January 2009, the usually reserved Icelandic people turned out on to the streets in their thousands, bashed kitchen utensils and threw fruit and yoghurt at the Althingi, the parliament building. They were demanding a change of government.
They got one. Referendums were promptly held on whether to repay foreign debts, and the state began to draw up a new constitution in consultations with the public that included garnering responses on Facebook. But then, the new administration tried to side with the IMF over the debts of the online bank Icesave and refused, in effect, to implement the constitution Icelanders had been promised. So much for the socialist utopia.
Nor are all the bankers in jail: at least one of them is running for parliament. Thrinn Guð - jónsson of the Dawn party, a small left-ofcentre splinter group, did “risk management at Icebank” before the financial crash. Guð - jónsson’s job “was actually to confirm that there was no risk to us, to the bank. In retrospect, I should have thought more about whether or not there was a risk to the nation,” he says. Standing as a political candidate for a tiny party with little hope of election seems, for Guðjónsson, to be a way of voicing his exasperation with his old way of thinking, which he has abandoned along with his old job: “Now I have a bed and breakfast and I grow organic vegetables.”
I meet him on election day, driving around with the Pirates trying to blag dinner. The Dawn party has given away almost all of its cake, so we head to the next party headquarters. There we meet Thorsteinn Magnusson, a candidate for the centrist Progressive Party, one of those likely to be back in government before the end of the day. The Progressives rely on the farming and fishing population for their support, and are glad now that their base has abandoned its brief dalliance with the centre left, even though that is as much a symptom of fear as anything else.
Instead of bailing out its leading banks, Iceland devalued the króna and instituted capital controls, and the economy did indeed contract: real wages dropped and unemployment went from 1.6 per cent before the crash to a peak of 9.3 per cent. But it has now come down to roughly 5 per cent and the economy is slowly growing again.
Where Iceland did break the rules, however, was in choosing to force the banks’ losses on to their creditors, including billions owed to Britain and the Netherlands. The IMF attempted to force Iceland to repay this debt, and the new, nominally left-wing government agreed. But the people of Iceland rejected any such deal.
The message that most of the country took away from this was that the parliamentary left, just like the parliamentary right, could not be trusted not to kowtow to the banks. The share of the vote for the left-green coalition that took over during the country’s supposed revolution has disintegrated. Half of Iceland now wants the old centre-right parties back in power, which, according to Anna Andersen of the English-language magazine Reykjavík Grapevine, is a purely nostalgic vote – like voting for the year 1997. The rest have their pick of the newer, smaller parties.
What Iceland is experiencing is a version in miniature of the democratic crisis that has been felt around the world in the years following the 2008 banking collapse. It is a sense that representative democracy is not working. But the Pirate Party is the only one running on the basis that the entire system is buggered. Its solution is a system of digitally facilitated “direct democracy”, which aims to replace representative, parliamentary demo - cracy with something fairer.
That’s part of the reason I’m following the Pirates around. Another reason is that one of its candidates happens to have offered me a mattress on his floor to sleep on, in a room that smells precisely as you’d expect the bedroom of a 29-year-old hacker who’s running for parliament to smell – a heady mix of pizza boxes, adrenaline and feet.
Smári McCarthy is a digital rights campaigner and ex-member of WikiLeaks. He cofounded the Icelandic Pirate Party because, he says, “the price of criticism is an alternative”. He is one of a number of technological and political innovators who have been active in Iceland for years – this is one of the most digitally connected countries in the world and it was a hub for WikiLeaks in its heyday. There’s an app or a hack for everything here, including a handy iPhone download to stop you from accidentally sleeping with your close cousin (Iceland is such a small place that almost no two people are unrelated within eight generations). McCarthy’s precise words, on hearing that the polls suggest he may be an MP by the following day, are: “Oh, shit. Well, I suppose this was always a possibility.”
McCarthy does politics like a programmer: he amasses piles of relevant information and bombards his opponents with it in a manner that is technically impressive and a little annoying, especially when he’s on television. The Pirates' total dedication to transparency, honesty and evidence-based policymaking is the reason that so many young Europeans find them inspiring, but it's also the reason they might lose this election: telling a lie or compressing a truth to handy slogan-length to win voters would be against their nature, not because they're nice people, but because they're nerds, and nerds are allergic to inaccuracy.
The Pirate Party was built in Sweden in 2006 by hackers and freespeech activists hoping to fight the flood of online censorship bills being enacted in the name of preventing “piracy”. It is now a global movement, with branches in 60 countries and 250 elected representatives, including two members of the European Parliament. Its demographic is young, educated and precariously employed, mostly in programming, with a taste for lots of black clothing. The gender balance at meetings is skewed towards men, although the women the party does have are over-represented in critical roles. Rather than electing official leaders, the Pirates believe in what one campaigner, Alla Ámundadóttir, calls “rough consensus and running code”. It’s all a little bit Occupy Wall Street. If they manage to get elected in Iceland, they’ll have the movement’s first MPs in a national government.
“I’m a Pirate in my heart,” says Jón Thór Ólafsson, 36, one of the movement’s leading candidates. “The Pirates are for freedom and direct democracy. That means that people have the right to participate in decisions that affect them. It changes the rules of the game, and those who have been benefiting from playing the game aren’t very happy about changing the rules.” For someone running against the political mainstream, Ólafsson is a born politician, with a charisma and gift for rhetoric that some of the other Pirates lack – they would far rather build a website than kiss a baby, and that might be to their credit.
“The demand today is for more influence of the people to make decisions that affect them. You see that all around you.” I ask Ólafsson what he means. “Look at the Arab spring. We had revolutions where the demand was for more decision-making in the hands of the people. And in the United States, with the Occupy movement.”
Nearly everybody you meet in Iceland looks like they’re part of the cast of a teenage vampire film, with unearthly good looks and ghostly skin, but Ólafsson in particular could have been grown in a lab set up to produce telegenic politicians and horror-movie heart-throbs. Speaking to him gives you the distinct sensation he’s about to go for your neck. I have no doubt he will be elected.
Democracy, for the Pirates, is something you can build and make better on your computer – something you can hack. “Yesterday we launched a new tool,” Ólafsson says. “We hack the web page of parliament and present their data in an accessible form, so you can see who isn’t showing up for work, who’s skipping class, how they’re voting.” Not everyone is a fan of this strategy. “It sometimes feels like they want to run the whole country like a Ted talk,” says Robert Cluness, a journalist at the Grapevine.
The Pirates have no campaign headquarters, just a favourite downtown café with a cool factor, happy hour, enough ratty sofas to fit ten people with computers and madly expensive bottled beer (alcohol tax was excruciatingly high in Iceland even before the crash). It’s a crowd united by the sense of doing something clever that pisses off the government. Unfortunately, that doesn’t automatically translate into votes. “We have to appeal to farmers about why they should care about the internet, and that’s a tough sell,” says Jason, a strategist for the party.
Ámundadóttir reminds me that what distinguishes the Pirates from other parties is that “we aren’t trying to impress everyone. I’m not afraid to make people angry if I have the right cause. I cannot say something against my heart just to impress the majority.” The Pirates, in other words, are punks – but in a tiny country like Iceland, punks can punch above their weight. In Reykjavík City Hall on election day, hundreds of sleek wooden ballot boxes stand ready to be delivered. Their tops are flipped open so they look like an army of hungry mouths. It’s a numbers game: under Iceland’s proportional system, every party needs 5 per cent of the popular vote to win any seats at all.
The Pirates have been expecting just over that number, which would give them three or four seats out of 63 in the Althingi. They gather at restaurant in town to watch their best-known spokesperson, Birgitta Jónsdóttir, on television, and make use of the free bar to diffuse the tension.
By 3am, the Pirate Party has 4.8 per cent of the popular vote, then 4.85 per cent, then 4.9 per cent. By 4am the tension is unbearable, and drunk rappers and local eccentrics who turn out to be the booked entertainment are running around with tambourines and drums. Smári McCarthy jumps on a chair to direct the Pirates towards a club called Harlem before everyone flips out. Here, it becomes apparent that these people are still 90 per cent Viking; I’ve not been on a more joyfully bloodthirsty dance floor since I was a teenage raver. I end up in the corner watching political candidates fling themselves about to techno. At 9am, the fix is in, and so are the Pirates. Just. The final count is 5.1 per cent.
Three Pirate MPs have been elected to the Althingi. They include Jón Thór Ólafsson and Birgitta Jónsdóttir – the leader the Pirates would have if they went in for that sort of thing. Nobody is in much of a mood for celebration, and that’s not only because everyone has a screaming headache.
Along with the Pirates, large numbers of MPs from the Independence and Progressive parties, the right-wing old guard, were returned to parliament. They will play the leading roles in whatever coalition cabinet is eventually selected, under the stewardship of the Progressive leader, Sigmundur Davið Gunnlaugsson, whose share of the vote almost doubled.
The fairy tale of Iceland as the plucky little anti-austerity utopia is over.
A new generation of politicians is going to have to work out what comes next – not just in Iceland, but all over the world. For the Pirates, that means keeping the grass roots strong, and pushing for more “direct democracy” and for the government to accept the new constitution, which includes safeguards for internet rights.
“We’ll do what we can, and try to have an influence,” says McCarthy, insisting that the Pirates will carry on as before, “working on issues of transparency, access to information, and freedom of speech. That’s not going to change – the only thing that’s changing is the venue, and who pays the bill.”The Supreme Court’s rulings this week on affirmative action and voting rights appear, at first glance, to have been a split decision. In Fisher v. University of Texas, the Justices sent the university’s affirmative-action program back to a lower court for reconsideration (rather than, as some expected, declaring it unconstitutional), while in Shelby County v. Holder, they struck down a key part of the Voting Rights Act as an infringement of state sovereignty, deeming it no longer necessary given the progress of civil rights over the past forty years. In fact, these two decisions represent a complete rout for pragmatic remedies to the continuing legacy of racial discrimination. (I should note that, as a lawyer for Texas state legislators, I submitted an amicus brief in the Fisher case.)
Four members of the Supreme Court rest easily in the belief that the bad old days of segregated education and poll taxes are matters of historical curiosity, unrelated to the color-blind society in which they think we live. Add the bile of Clarence Thomas, who views all considerations of race as inherently demeaning to minorities, and sixty years of courageous jurisprudence has now been definitively abandoned in favor of a world in which the reality of race in this country has been judicially wished away. The Voting Rights Act as an effective tool against suppressing minority votes has been jettisoned. A careful reading of the University of Texas opinion makes clear that affirmative action, in any practical sense, will follow shortly thereafter, not through overruling of prior precedents but by setting the bar for race-conscious remedies so high that it cannot be overcome.
The University of Texas and the United States Congress are hardly bastions of race-conscious social engineering. In 1998, the University of Texas adopted a “ten-per-cent plan,” which admitted the top decile of each graduating public high-school class in Texas. While this brought more African-Americans and Hispanics into the Austin campus, the flagship of the Texas state system, the Texas regents still judged there to be a lack of adequate diversity at U.T. African-Americans and Hispanics from largely segregated schools were admitted in greater numbers, but those in more mixed school districts were denied admission. Following the precedents approved by the Supreme Court for the University of Michigan Law School, U.T. approved, in 2004, the addition of race as part of a complex formula, the Personal Achievement Index, which measured a variety of factors, including growing up in a single- parent household, speaking a language other than English at home, and other socioeconomic conditions, in evaluating a student.
In reaffirming its prior decisions allowing race to be considered as a factor contributing to the educational benefits of a diverse environment, the Court required that, because race was being considered to some degree, “strict scrutiny” be applied to the program. The Court trotted out some of its most groundbreaking precedents on discrimination to lay the foundation for its test: Bolling v. Sharpe, the case that desegregated the D.C. public schools, for the principle that distinctions based on race are “contrary to our traditions,” and Loving v. Virginia, the 1967 case striking down anti-miscegenation statutes, for the proposition that “racial classifications be subjected the ‘most rigid scrutiny.’ ” (Loving made a more fitting appearance in the decision striking down the Defense of Marriage Act.) It also cited a case which Chief Justice Roberts had argued, and lost, on behalf of native Hawaiians asserting that ancestry-based distinctions are “by their very nature odious to a free people.” The Court perceived no dissonance in citing the cases that helped dismantle Jim Crow as basis for the proposition that continued efforts at racial equality were inherently suspect.
Under the strict-scrutiny standard, the lower court that reconsiders the Texas program is to accord it “no deference.” Texas must demonstrate that the program is “necessary” and that “no workable race-neutral alternatives would produce the educational benefits of diversity.” Anticipating that such a standard is practically impossible, the Court noted, “Strict scrutiny must not be ‘strict in theory, but fatal in fact.’… But the opposite is also true. Strict scrutiny must not be strict in theory but feeble in fact.”
Thus, although the Court technically left affirmative-action advocates to fight another day, it is difficult to view the majority’s opinion in Fisher as accomplishing anything other than allowing Justice Kennedy to assure himself that the abstract goals of diversity are somehow preserved. Both Justices Scalia and Thomas voted with Justice Kennedy, not because they approve his wooly abstractions—they make it clear that they believe diversity is a nonsensical and improper goal—but because they are happy to vote against affirming the program. Fisher should be read not as providing hope for affirmative action but as a cynical attempt to let a lower court bury it.
No such strategic nuance is shown in the Voting Rights case. The Fifteenth Amendment, passed in the wake of the Civil War, commands that the right to vote shall not be denied or abridged on account of race or color—and it gives Congress the power to enforce that right. After nearly a century of Jim Crow restrictions on black voting, Lyndon Johnson forced through the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which required certain covered states to obtain federal permission before enacting laws relating to voting. Over time, certain states and subdivisions were added or subtracted. Congress passed extensions to these portions of the Act by overwhelming majorities, finding that obstacles to voting still existed, as last year’s various voter-identification laws dramatically illustrate. Conservative jurists usually claim deference to the will of Congress; not so here. The majority is nothing if not candid. It concedes, “Voting discrimination still exists; no one doubts that.” It also concedes, with respect to higher rates of voting, “There is no doubt that these improvements are in large part because of the Voting Rights Act.” Yet despite the clear constitutional mandate that race is to be considered by Congress in implementing the Fifteenth Amendment, the Voting Rights Act, a signal achievement of the civil-rights revolution and a law for which people marched and died, goes on the scrap heap. Why?
Because to this Supreme Court, there is a larger value: state sovereignty, or “state’s rights” as it was known in the segregated South. To the Supreme Court, “blatantly discriminatory evasions of federal decrees are rare.” The Court took a look at the |
.C. — Before coming to the Toronto Raptors this summer, DeMarre Carroll did not know very much about Terrence Ross. He recognized Ross as the guy who stood in the corner and took three-pointers. However, with the Atlanta Hawks, Carroll spent most of his time hounding DeMar DeRozan. That was, and remains, Carroll’s primary job: guarding the opposition’s offensive fulcrum on the perimeter.
[np_storybar title=”Raptors’ Luis Scola, Bismack Biyombo eager to fit in with new club” link=”http://news.nationalpost.com/sports/nba/toronto-raptors-luis-scola-bismack-biyombo-eager-to-fit-in-with-new-club”%5D%5B/np_storybar%5D
In suburban Vancouver this past week, Carroll got a closer look at Ross. In scrimmages, Carroll has had to guard Ross at times.
“A great player. Offensively, he can fill it up real quick,” Carroll said. “And he also can guard. That’s something I didn’t know. Like I said before, it’s one of those things where Terrence is going to be put in a role where he really has to display his talents and show everybody who he really is.”
In other words, Carroll had the exact same first impression as almost everybody who scouts or plays against Ross. It is the repeated viewings that have become an issue for the Toronto Raptors.
Entering his fourth year, Ross remains as enigmatic as any Raptor since, yes, Andrea Bargnani. Sometimes, his natural athleticism and sweet shooting streak are undeniable. Other times, he floats through games, only drawing attention when he allows an opponent to waltz by him.
It is a massive season for Ross. Unlike Jonas Valanciunas, Ross has not received a contract extension that secures his place in the league. While the Raptors could decide that Ross’s skills are worth betting on, it is more likely that they decide that they would rather pay more for a sure thing next summer than less for a question mark now. Ross driving up his market value would require more consistency than he has shown thus far in his career.
He will have to adapt to a new role in order to thrive. Carroll essentially took Ross’s starting spot; now Ross will be counted on to punch up a bench that lost offensive-minded guards Lou Williams and Greivis Vasquez. It was a role that intrigued Ross last year, but it was just not what the Raptors needed from him.
Circumstances have changed now. To be clear, though, the Raptors do not want Ross to just do a Williams imitation.
“He’s more conscientious — that’s his goal this year, (as well as) to be a better defender,” Raptors coach Dwane Casey said. “Last year was a bad year for him defensively. He can be a better defensive rebounder from his position.
“The thing that I think will help him is guarding his own position. He and DeMar were kind of taking turns guarding that big physical (wing players). Right, wrong or indifferent, it wasn’t fair to him to let him give up those pounds. That’s no excuse. He could have done a better job in those situations. But he’s not coming off (the bench) to just jack shots.”
“I think it will help,” Ross said of Carroll starting. “It helps in a lot of ways. (It means I will be) bringing scoring in off the bench, and it brings (my) defence in off the bench. So, it’s kind of a win-win for everybody.”
Ross could be right, as some players have needed to hit the bench before finding their game — think about Jason Terry, for example. Still, there is no reason to buy in yet. Every theory about what will fully unlock his skill set has failed so far, or at least has not succeeded with any real permanence. The Raptors brought Ross along slowly, starting him just two times in his rookie season. His role was not expanded until the Rudy Gay trade, and they put Ross in many different situations last year in an attempt to put him in the best position possible.
Now, Ross gets his most defined role ever in what might be the Raptors’ last long look at him. It is up to Ross to make it as good as those first looks.SURAT: Savji Dholakia, a Surat-based billionaire diamond merchant who famously made his son do odd jobs to learn the value of money, has gifted 400 flats and 1,260 cars as Diwali bonuses to his employees. Hare Krishna Exports, Dholakia's diamond firm, has spent Rs 51 crores on Diwali bonuses this year, its golden jubilee. As many as 1,716 employees were named as the company's best performers.The bonuses, which were announced at an informal meeting of employees on Tuesday, have been an annual ritual at Hare Krishna Exports since 2011.Last year, Dholakia's company gifted 491 cars and 200 flats to its employees. The year before that, it spent Rs. 50 crore on performance incentives, Dholakia said.Dholakia, who hails from Dudhala village in Amreli district, established and grew his diamond business using a loan from his uncle. His considerable wealth wasn't earned overnight, and he has sought to impart that wisdom to his son Dravya, whom he sent to Kochi with three sets of clothing and Rs 7,000 emergency money, so that the young man could learn what's it's like to stand on his own feet.A pro-Trump rally at the University of California, Berkeley turned into a violent, bloody riot Saturday evening.
The civil disturbance led to several attendees in pro-Trump clothing and American flag regalia being assaulted.
Police in riot gear, and even a man in a gas-mask looking helmet and makeshift shield with an American flag intervened after currently unidentified men were assaulted and beaten on the ground.
Some Trump supporters were pepper-sprayed by opposition, according to Buzzfeed News.
https://twitter.com/jnaudz/status/838165784987910144
An elderly man screams on the ground after reportedly being pepper-sprayed.
Elderly man was pepper sprayed by liberal terrorists today at #Berkeley. How low will they go? You decide. pic.twitter.com/dW1RrZqHf9 — John doe (@juhhhjgghk) March 5, 2017
An individual is lauded for his physical assault on “antifa [anti First Amendment] scum.”
https://twitter.com/San___Frexit/status/838238465456234496
Opponents of the rally purportedly burned a sign that said “Free Speech.”
https://twitter.com/JasonBelich/status/838189629257895936
A video screengrab appears to confirm the occurrence.
https://twitter.com/XoduzMidnight/status/838189432918331392
Another individual is intimidated by those around him, as others are beaten to the ground.
https://twitter.com/San___Frexit/status/838236031589695490
Another man is assaulted.
https://twitter.com/San___Frexit/status/838235515828727808
A woman cried while Trump supporters appeared to try comforting her..
https://twitter.com/JasonBelich/status/838178715808870406
A man’s face was bloodied.
Anti #Trump and Pro Trump #Protestors Clash Today In #Berkeley #California. More Photos To Be Posted On Our Website Later This Week. pic.twitter.com/RXnzXb8Wwz — Oakland Photo Vault (@BlackKangoPhoto) March 5, 2017
Flags were burned.
https://twitter.com/JasonBelich/status/838183825255477248
A Soviet flag appears during chants of “Russia!”, an apparent allusion to claimed ties between the Trump administration and the Russian government.
https://twitter.com/JasonBelich/status/838181426625294336
As did more pro-Trump regalia.
More skirmishes.
Here we go again. Not the first fight that’s broken out at the #trump rally in #Berkeley. pic.twitter.com/ZPW6QbI5S1 — Lizzie Johnson (@lizziejohnsonnn) March 4, 2017
The crowd size gathered on campus was quite considerable.
A message was earlier sent out to opponents of the rally, urging them to stay non-violent.
#Berkeley When obvious agitators come to your haven with weapons & hate embodying all that you stand against. Remember what you stand for. pic.twitter.com/2BS7Wl03hh — ♀️ ᵀᴴᴱ????-????? (@Im_TheAntiTrump) March 5, 2017
San Francisco public transportation shut down all service to a stop near the “civil disturbance.”
No #BART service in #Berkeley thanks to the mini riot going on. pic.twitter.com/seGBzSh0Gb — Oakland Photo Vault (@BlackKangoPhoto) March 4, 2017
The event was called the Alt-Right “Proud Boys” march.
Alt-Right March in Berkeley Happening Now: Alt-Right "Proud Boys" supporters gather in Berkeley to rally for free speech. Posted by BuzzFeed News on Saturday, March 4, 2017
The police attempted to contain the situation, and chased suspects who fled from the scene.
NBC News reports that ten were arrested and three suffered minor injuries at the civil conflagration. It gives a report of what purportedly happened:
A rowdy crowd gathered at the Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park. Supporters and detractors of President Donald Trump, including members of the national group By Any Means Necessary, were joined by a large number of police officers, clad in riot gear.
At first, people toted signs, chanted slogans and got into heated debates. Before long, Trump supporters were fighting counter-protesters and getting in their faces to show support for the president.
NBC reported that Trump supporters were outnumbered about 2-to-1. It notes that Trump protesters chanted, “No Donald Trump, no KKK, no racist, fascist USA,” while his backers countered, “Build the wall.”
Trump supporters were heard singing the National Anthem, while their detractors shouted obscene phrases about Trump.
UPDATE: 3/5/2017 2:41 amDevelopers in Seattle, Portland and Vancouver, B.C. are striving to build the “greenest” commercial buildings in the world.
These mid-rise structures will generate their own power, collect their water from the sky and compost sewage on site. But being the greenest comes with compromises.
The buzzword here is “living building.” Seattle architect Jason McLennan coined the phrase to describe ultra-green construction.
It led to the Living Building Challenge. A qualifying structure needs to generate as much energy as it uses, capture its own water and send no wastewater into the sewer.
In other words, be pretty much self-sufficient. Easier said than done.
Jason McLennan: “The bigger the project gets, the more you realize that all of our systems have not been designed to support truly regenerative building.”
Jason McLennan heads the International Living Future Institute. The green building group has certified a handful of small, one story buildings as truly sustainable. But now ambitious Northwest developers are aiming bigger… taller… showier.
For example, the next time you visit Vancouver, B.C., you may want to take in an architectural showpiece scheduled to open this summer.
Tom Banse / Northwest News Network
Construction superintendent Clarke Peters leads the way into the visitor center nearing completion at the VanDusen Botanical Garden.
Clarke Peters: “We have six roof petals – they’re called – different petals that are actually supposed to emulate the shape of an orchid. That’s what the building geometry is based on, the shape of a flower.”
The 20,000 square foot building features solar hot water and a geothermal heat exchanger. Peters says the toilets flush into a chemical free septic system that uses plants for filtration.
Clarke Peters: “The plants in the percolation field are going to be the best fed plants in the garden, heh, heh.”
Now it’s one thing to hide away in a solar-powered backwoods cabin and poop in a privy. It’s a whole ‘nother ball of wax to build a completely self-sustaining commercial building in the city.
Clarke Peters: “It’s definitely presented challenges, as you can see.”
The undulating roof at Vancouver’s botanical garden drains into a huge rainwater cistern designed to make the facility water independent. That was the plan at least, but Peters says the health department insisted the visitor center connect to a city main for drinking water.
Clarke Peters: “Because if some bird died up there and somehow some of the bacteria or something ended up in the water and injured somebody. The liability is just too great. Coastal Health said, ‘No way. Don’t even go there, not an option.’”
Designers in Seattle and Portland are bumping against the same limits as they try to be self-sustaining. The environmentally-minded Bullitt Foundation run by Dennis Hayes hopes to break ground shortly on the “greenest, most energy efficient commercial building in the world.”
Chris Rogers is the developer for the six-story tower in central Seattle.
Chris Rogers: “It will be powered from a solar array that will cover the building’s roof and extend a little bit beyond. Dennis Hayes refers to it as a sombrero.”
Tom Banse: “But you’re in Seattle, cloudy Seattle?!”
Chris Rogers: “We are in cloudy Seattle, but it turns out that we can generate enough energy through our solar array using the most efficient panels available on the market today.”
Rogers says the light-filled building will not go off the grid though.
Chris Rogers: “In the summer we will be generating more energy than we will need at that particular moment in time. We’ll be sending that excess energy back to the grid and in the winter we will be drawing more than we are producing.”
Still, to balance out to zero, the people working in these buildings have to practice massive energy conservation.
Even more so in Portland, where an eight-story “living building” is on the drawing boards near Portland State University. Developer Dennis Wilde says for instance, he’ll include fewer elevators.
Dennis Wilde: “The wait times are going to be longer than they would be in a normal office building. We’re going to put in an open staircase that is very light and inviting and we’re going to encourage people to use the stairs.”
Wilde says the biggest savings in the Portland building will come from letting the temperature inside fluctuate more than usual with the seasons: cooling less in summer and heating less in winter.
Dennis Wilde: “To do that, you’ve got to work with your occupants so that they understand that how they dress and what their expectations are are going to be different than the norm, if you will.”
And what about the rent? Wilde says the higher costs of green building will translate into rents 13-15 percent above market. Nevertheless, floor space has virtually sold out to various non-profit groups, university departments and government agencies… this, years before the Portland building even opens.
One final fact to chew on, neither the Oregon Sustainability Center nor the Seattle office tower we were talking about before will offer any parking spots. Tenants are supposed to walk, bike or use transit.
Bullitt Foundation Cascadia Center for Sustainable Design and Construction (Seattle):
http://cascadiacenter.info/
VanDusen Botanical Garden Visitor Centre (Vancouver, B.C.):
http://vancouver.ca/parks/parks/vandusen/website/capitalproject/index.htm
Oregon Sustainability Center (Portland):
http://www.oregonsustainabilitycenter.org/
Living Building Challenge:
http://ilbi.org/The DeepQA Research Team Publications
2015
Murthy Devarakonda, Ching-Huei Tsou
Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI-15), 2015
Automated Problem List Generation from Electronic Medical Records in IBM Watson
Decision Making in IBM Watson Question Answering
J. William Murdock
Web presentation: Ontology Summit 2015
Unsupervised Entity-Relation Analysis in IBM Watson
Aditya Kalyanpur, J William Murdock
Proceedings of the Third Annual Conference on Advances in Cognitive Systems (ACS 2015)
Abstract Text paraphrasing algorithms play a fundamental role in several NLP applications such as automated question answering (QA), summarization and machine translation. We propose a novel paraphrasing approach based on an entity-relation (ER) analysis of text. The algorithm uses a combination of deep linguistic analysis (part of speech, dependency parse information) and background resources (NGram, PRISMATIC KB, domain dictionaries) to detect and match entities and relations. We evaluate the ER approach in a QA setting by adding it to the suite of passage scoring algorithms in IBM Watson, a state-of-the-art question answering system. We show a statistically significant improvement in the ability of IBM Watson to identify justifying passages.
E T Mueller
Morgan Kaufmann/Elsevier, 2015
Commonsense Reasoning: An Event Calculus Based Approach
2014
M. Devarakonda, Dongyang Zhang, Ching-Huei Tsou, M. Bornea
e-Health Networking, Applications and Services (Healthcom), 2014 IEEE 16th International Conference on, pp. 281-286
doi Problem-oriented patient record summary: An early report on a Watson application
Medical Relation Extraction with Manifold Models
Chang Wang and James Fan
The 52nd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL 2014), pp. 828-838
Abstract In this paper, we present a manifold model for medical relation extraction. Our model is built upon a medical corpus containing 80M sentences (11 gigabyte text) and designed to accurately and efciently detect the key medical relations that can facilitate clinical decision making. Our approach integrates domain specic parsing and typing systems, and can utilize labeled as well as unlabeled examples. To provide users with more exibility, we also take label weight into consideration. Effectiveness of our model is demonstrated both theoretically with a proof to show that the solution is a closed-form solution and experimentally with positive results in experiments.
2013
Semantic Technologies in IBM Watson
A. Gliozzo, O. Biran, S. Patwardhan, K. McKeown
Proceedings of the Fourth Workshop on Teaching NLP and CL, pp. 85--92, 2013
Parallel and Nested Decomposition for Factoid Questions
B. Boguraev, S. Patwardhan, A. Kalyanpur, J. Chu-Carroll, A. Lally
Natural Language Engineering, 2013
E T Mueller
Sprache und Datenverarbeitung (International Journal for Language Data Processing)1/2, 2013
Abstract This article provides an overview of work on computational modeling of narrative, with a focus on narrative understanding. It reviews representations for narrative, systems for narrative understanding, and systems for narrative generation. It proposes a major project for narrative understanding and specifies five problems that the project must address: efficiency of reasoning, effective model finding, representation of knowledge for narrative, acquisition of knowledge for narrative, and acquisition of annotated training data.
Computational models of narrative
Tools and Methods for Building Watson
Eric Brown, Eddie Epstein J William Murdock, Tong-Haing Fin
IBM Research Report RC25356, 2013
Abstract The DeepQA team built the Watson QA system for Jeopardy! in under four years by adopting a metrics-driven research and development methodology. This methodology relies heavily on disciplined integration of new and improved components, extensive experimentation at the component and end-to-end system level, and informative error analysis. To support this methodology, we adopted a formal protocol for integrating components into the overall system and running end-to-end integration tests, assembled a powerful computing environment for running a large volume of high-throughput experiments, and built several tools for deploying experiments and evaluating results. We describe our software development and integration protocol, the DeepQA computing environment for development, and the tools we built and used to create Watson for Jeopardy!. We also briefly allude to some of the more recent enhancements to these tools and methods as we extend Watson to operate in commercial applications.
Bonan Min, Ralph Grishman, Li Wan, Chang Wang, David Gondek
The 2013 Conference of the North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics: Human Language Technologies (NAACL 2013)
Distant Supervision for Relation Extraction with an Incomplete Knowledge Base
Chang Wang and Sridhar Mahadevan
The 27th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI 2013)
Multiscale Manifold Learning
Chang Wang and Sridhar Mahadevan
The 23rd International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI 2013),
Manifold Alignment Preserving Global Geometry
2012
H Hajishirzi, E T Mueller
Proceedings of the Twenty-Fifth International Florida Artificial Intelligence Research Society Conference, 2012
Question answering in natural language narratives using symbolic probabilistic reasoning
Fact-based question decomposition in DeepQA
A. Kalyanpur, S. Patwardhan, B. K. Boguraev, A. Lally, J. Chu-Carroll
IBM Journal of Research and Development 56(3.4), 2012
doi
When Did that Happen? -- Linking Events and Relations to Timestamps
D. Hovy, J. Fan, A. Gliozzo, S. Patwardhan, C. Welty
Proceedings of the 13th Conference of the European Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics, 2012
Labeling by Landscaping: Classifying Tokens in Context by Pruning and Decorating Trees
S. Patwardhan, B. Boguraev, A. Agarwal, A. Moschitti, J. Chu-Carroll
Proceedings of CIKM '12: International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management, 2012
A framework for merging and ranking of answers in DeepQA
DC Gondek, A. Lally, A. Kalyanpur, JW Murdock, P. Duboue, L. Zhang, Y. Pan, ZM Qiu, C. Welty
IBM Journal of Research and Development 56(3/4), 14, 2012
Relation extraction and scoring in DeepQA
C. Wang, A. Kalyanpur, J. Fan, BK Boguraev, DC Gondek
IBM Journal of Research and Development 56(3/4), 9, 2012
Automatic knowledge extraction from documents
J. Fan, A. Kalyanpur, DC Gondek, DA Ferrucci
IBM Journal of Research and Development 56(3/4), 5, 2012
Typing candidate answers using type coercion
JW Murdock, A Kalyanpur, C Welty, J Fan, DA Ferrucci, DC Gondek, L Zhang, H Kanayama
IBM Journal of Research and Development 56(3/4), 7:1 - 7:13, IBM, 2012
Abstract Many questions explicitly indicate the type of answer required. One popular approach to answering those questions is to develop recognizers to identify instances of common answer types (e.g., countries, animals, and food) and consider only answers on those lists. Such a strategy is poorly suited to answering questions from the Jeopardy! television quiz show. Jeopardy! questions have an extremely broad range of types of answers, and the most frequently occurring types cover only a small fraction of all answers. We present an alternative approach to dealing with answer types. We generate candidate answers without regard to type, and for each candidate, we employ a variety of sources and strategies to judge whether the candidate has the desired type. These sources and strategies provide a set of type coercion scores for each candidate answer. We use these scores to give preference to answers with more evidence of having the right type. Our question-answering system is significantly more accurate with type coercion than it is without type coercion; these components have a combined impact of nearly 5% on the accuracy of the IBM Watson question-answering system.
Deep parsing in Watson
MC McCord, JW Murdock, BK Boguraev
IBM Journal of Research and Development 56(3/4), 3:1 - 3:15, 2012
Finding needles in the haystack: Search and candidate generation
J. Chu-Carroll, J. Fan, BK Boguraev, D. Carmel, D. Sheinwald, C. Welty
IBM Journal of Research and Development 56(3/4), 2012
doi
Textual resource acquisition and engineering
J Chu-Carroll, J Fan, N Schlaefer, W. Zadrozny
IBM Journal of Research and Development 56(3-4), 2012
doi
Question analysis: How Watson reads a clue
A. Lally, J. M. Prager, M. C. McCord, B. K. Boguraev, S. Patwardhan, J. Fan, P. Fodor, J. Chu-Carroll
IBM Journal of Research and Development 56(3/4), 2012
Textual evidence gathering and analysis
J. W. Murdock, J. Fan, A. Lally, H. Shima, B. K. Boguraev
IBM Journal of Research and Development 56(3/4), 8:1 - 8:14, 2012
Abstract One useful source of evidence for evaluating a candidate answer is relevant to the question. In the DeepQA pipeline, we retrieve passages using a novel technique that we call Supporting Evidence Retrieval, in which we perform separate search queries for each candidate answer, in parallel, and include the candidate answer as part of the query. We then score these passages using an assortment of algorithms that use different aspects and relationships of the terms in the question and passage. We provide evidence that our mechanisms for obtaining and scoring passages have a substantial impact on the ability of our question-answering system to answer questions and judge the confidence of the answers.
doi
Structured data and inference in DeepQA
A. Kalyanpur, B. K. Boguraev, S. Patwardhan, J. W. Murdock, A. Lally, C. Welty, C.; J. M. Prager, B. Coppola, A. Fokoue-Nkoutche, L. Zhang, Y. Pan, Z. M. Qiu
IBM Journal of Research and Development 56(3.4), 2012
Fact-based question decomposition in DeepQA
A. Kalyanpur, S. Patwardhan, BK Boguraev, A. Lally, J. Chu-Carroll
IBM Journal of Research and Development 56(3/4), 13, 2012
2011
Jointly Learning Data-Dependent Label and Locality-Preserving Projections
Chang Wang and Sridhar Mahadevan
The 22nd International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI 2011)
Heterogeneous Domain Adaptation using Manifold Alignment
Chang Wang and Sridhar Mahadevan
The 22nd International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI 2011)
Relevance Feedback Exploiting Query-Specific Document Manifolds
Chang Wang, Emine Yilmaz, and Martin Szummer
The 20th ACM Conference on Information and Knowledge Management (CIKM2011)
Manifold Alignment
Chang Wang, Peter Krafft, and Sridhar Mahadevan
Manifold Learning: Theory and Applications, Taylor and Francis CRC Press, 2011
H Hajishirzi, E Amir, E T Mueller, J Hockenmaier
Proceedings of the Twenty-Seventh Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence, AUAI Press, 2011
Reasoning about RoboCup soccer narratives
H Hajishirzi, E T Mueller
Logical Formalizations of Commonsense Reasoning: Papers from the 2011 AAAI Spring Symposium, AAAI Press
Symbolic probabilistic reasoning for narratives
Improving Recall on Conjunctive Queries against Text Documents using Query-Driven Hypothesis Generation
K Barker, J Fan, C Welty
Learning by Reading Workshop at IJCAI, 2011
Mining Knowledge from Large Corpora for Type Coercion in Question Answering
James Fan, Aditya Kalyanpur, J. William Murdock and Branimir K. Boguraev
Web Scale Knowledge Extraction (WEKEX) Workshop at International Semantic Web Conference, 2011
Nico Schlaefer, Jennifer Chu-Carroll, Eric Nyberg, James Fan, Wlodek Zadrozny, David Ferrucci
CIKM '11 Proceedings of the 20th ACM international conference on Information and knowledge management, 2011
Statistical source expansion for question answering
Fact-Based Question Decomposition for Candidate Answer Re-Ranking
Aditya Kalyanpur, Siddharth Patwardhan, Branimir Boguraev, Adam Lally, and Jennifer Chu-Carroll
Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Information and Knowledge Management (CIKM), 2011, pp. 2045--2048
Relation Extraction with Relation Topics
Chang Wang, James Fan, Aditya Kalyanpur, and David Gondek
The 2011 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing (EMNLP 2011).
Leveraging Wikipedia Characteristics for Search and Candidate Generation in Question Answering
J Chu-Carroll, J Fan
Twenty-Fifth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 2011
Using Syntactic and Semantic Structural Kernels for Classifying Definition Questions in Jeopardy!
A Moschitti, J Chu-Carroll, S Patwardhan, J Fan, G Riccardi
Proceedings of the Conference on Empirical Methods for Natural Language Processing, pp. 73--76, 2011
Leveraging Community-built Knowledge for Type Coercion in Question Answering
Aditya Kalyanpur, J William Murdock, James Fan, Chris Welty
International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC 2011). Winner of the Best Paper Award (In-Use Track), pp. 144--156, Springer
Structure Mapping for Jeopardy! Clues
J William Murdock
19th International Conference on Case Based Reasoning (ICCBR'11), pp. 6-10, Springer-Verlag, 2011
2010
Computational models of narrative: Papers from the 2010 AAAI Fall Symposium, Technical Report FS-10-04
M Finlayson, P Gervas, E T Mueller, S Narayanan, P Winston
AAAI Press, 2010
Learning to Predict Readability using Diverse Linguistic Features
Rohit Kate, Xiaoqiang Luo, Siddharth Patwardhan, Martin Franz, Radu Florian, Raymond Mooney, Salim Roukos, Chris Welty
Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Computational Linguistics, pp. 546--554, 2010
Prismatic: Inducing knowledge from a large scale lexicalized relation resource
J Fan, D Ferrucci, D Gondek, A Kalyanpur
Proceedings of the NAACL HLT 2010 First International Workshop on Formalisms and Methodology for Learning by Reading, pp. 122--127
2009Get the biggest daily stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
Vandals have caused several thousands of pounds worth of damage in a West Belfast park.
Parts of the outdoor gym in Falls Park were set alight on Friday night after trouble in the area recently led to buses being rerouted in the area.
Sinn Fein councillor Steven Corr told Belfast Live that he discovered the mess on Saturday morning.
He said: "I went to do the Park Run this morning and there was a stench of smoke and a smoldering mess where they'd pulled in stuff off the road and burnt it.
"There has to be kids coming home with smoky clothes or dirt on their hands and there has to be parental responsibility.
"You're talking thousands and thousands of pounds of damage to the park.
"Most young people just want to hang out, and I've no problem with that.
"But when they start wrecking the place and destroying things that we fight very hard to get into our area - it's not anti-social, it's anti-community.
"That outdoor gym has been there about two years and that stuff is specialised and will have to be ordered in. That part of the park will now be out of bounds and out of use for the local community for weeks if not months."OPINION: One won. Lost one.
That was New Zealand Football's scorecard on Friday after the national body gave up their faint Olympic Games qualification hopes just hours after the All Whites notched their first win in two years.
The NZF board ignored legal advice that they had a strong case to appeal the Oceania Football Confederation's decision to dump them out of the Olympic qualifying tournament in Papua New Guinea for fielding an ineligible player.
They could have appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), but chose not to take that costly step. Chairman Deryck Shaw said they didn't want to risk further action against other players who may have represented New Zealand under the same interpretation since a 2008 Fifa rule change requiring overseas born players to live in a country for five years after the age of 18.
Shaw also claimed the wider football community wanted the matter closed and the focus shifted back to the football field.
It's hard to believe dollars weren't a motivating factor too. NZF is understood to have already spent a six-figure sum on legal advice. The bill was expected to rise to a cool $1 million if a case was taken to the CAS.
The NZF board's call will still be bitterly disappointed to those New Zealand players who may never get another chance to play at an Olympic tournament.
Fortunately, many are already getting a gallop in Anthony Hudson's new-look All Whites team.
Hudson broke his duck as All Whites coach with a 1-0 win over Oman in Muscat on Friday after a fifth minute goal by "veteran" striker Chris Wood, 23.
The 34-year-old coach brought himself some breathing space after a gutsy win over Asian's 12th-ranked team, who were on a seven-game unbeaten streak.
Hudson had been feeling the heat after a barren run, which earned the ire of All Whites' greats who accused him of picking kids and giving away jerseys.
The Londoner had been talking a good game since arriving in New Zealand. Now his team's showing signs they can walk the talk too.
Despite reservations from some people who know the New Zealand game inside out, Hudson stuck to his guns and his kids came right in Oman.
Only Wood, with 39 caps, and Michael McGlinchey with 31 had any real runs on the board at international level.
Hudson fielded two teenage new caps, 18-year-old attacker Henry Cameron and 19-year-old centreback Sam Brotherton and brought two more on off the bench, Te Atawhai Hudson-Wihongi, 20, and Logan Rogerson, 17.
The average age of the starting lineup with 23, with leadership provided by goalscorer Wood, McGlinchey and Greek stopper Themi Tzimopoulos, the grandad of the team at close to 30.
There was much to admire about the way these callow All Whites battled and scrapped to hold on to their early lead and close out a hard-earned victory.
It was a friendly so couldn't be compared to the doughty scoreless draw in the 2009 World Cup playoff in Bahrain, let alone the 5-0 win over Saudi Arabia on the road to Spain in 1981.
Oman, ranked 92 in the world, weren't all that flash, but it was still some accomplishment for New Zealand, ranked 163, to topple them on home turf.
Cameron, who plays regularly for Blackpool in English football's third tier, looked particularly promising on the left flank before a knee injury cut him down in his tracks. He looks skilful but stronger and more direct than Ryan Thomas or Marco Rojas.
Wood, the Leeds United striker, took his goal clinically while McGlinchey, usually an attacking player for the Wellington Phoenix, impressed in a foreign defensive role, just in front of a back four marshalled manfully by Brotherton and Tzimopoulos.
McGlinchey had to be deployed there with the attack-minded Thomas and Rojas also in the midfield mix.
Factor in skipper Winston Reid, Ipswich Town's Tommy Smith, veteran striker Shane Smeltz, keeper Glen Moss and midfielder Bill Tuiloma - all absent for one reason or another - and the future could be starting to look a little brighter for the All Whites.
Which is welcome news after the Olympic tournament eligibility debacle, which has been flushed for posterity now.VE3MR is currently active from Aruba as P49MR.
He is working on HF Bands.
Recent DX Spots P49MR
QSL via home call.
Ads for direct QSL:
Martin Rosenthal, 1 Glen Park Ave., PH.2, Toronto, ON, M6B 4M5, Canada.
Aruba. Information about country.
Aruba
A Caribbean island, Aruba is an autonomous country of kingdom of Netherlands. It is located outside the hurricane belt of the Caribbean. Aruba is a flat island and is famous for numerous white sandy beaches. Blessed with a tropical climate and picturesque ecosystem, Aruba is the ultimate holiday destination. Aruba is made of hills, beaches and consists of desert vegetation.
Aruba – the Island of activities
Aruba offers numerous entertainment activities to tourists and locals. You can go for diving, biking, cycling, horseback riding, golfing, karting, land sailing, kayaking, kite and wind surfing, snorkeling, sailing or simply kick your heels and relax in the white sandy beaches.
Aruba Beaches
Aruba beaches are wide and clean, made up of fine-powder, white sand. Eagle Beach is one of the most famous beaches of Aruba. In fact, it is No – 1 Caribbean Beach. Apart from the Eagle Beach, there are others like, Boca Catalina, Arashi Beach, MangelHalto, Hadicurari, Andicuri, Boca Grandi, Manchebo Beach, Dos Playa, Druif Beach, Rodger’s Beach, De Palm |
’s body in the right position are the keys to successfully blocking a shot. Blocked shots have increased in popularity over recent years, and are a combination of positioning, guts, and coaching.
Eliminate rebounds:
There’s an old hockey adage something along the lines of “it’s a goalie’s job to make the first save, anything else is on the defence.” While rebound control can be vital to separate a good from an elite goaltender, the defence can also step up to make themselves look better by clearing pucks out of the slot and taking away scoring chances.
Possess and cycle the puck in the offensive zone:
Every second that a team holds the puck in the offensive zone is a second that their opponents must remain defensively conscious, and therefore cannot attempt a shot on goal. On the contrary, breaking up the other team’s cycle will prevent any sustained offensive pressure, which leads to more shots and more scoring chances.
Turnovers:
Turnovers are a funny thing in hockey. In a players’ first few years in the league, they’re often excused as a learning curve. But once players get older, they’re often blamed and blamed again for turning the puck over too often, especially in the defensive zone. Either way, turnovers often lead to high percentage scoring chances. While some turnovers are just the result of strong forechecking by the opposition, often it’s a mental mistake over a physical one that causes a player to lose the puck. While not all turnovers can be avoided completely, there’s usually a better option. A proper mix of rushes, dump-and-chase plays, proper zone breakouts and regrouping when things aren’t working all minimize the chance of giving the puck to the other team, where they have the opportunity to shoot. As well, causing the other team to turn over the puck will, at least temporarily, take away their chance at a shot on goal.
Successful breakouts:
Clearing the puck out of the defensive zone isn’t a hard concept on paper- yet the execution of it can often be poor. While some breakouts can be placed on individual players, if the problem persists, it’s more often than not a coaching failure to correct the issue. A failed breakout can lead to a turnover and more shots on goal, and a tired defensive group is often subject to even more time playing in their own end, which is never a favorable matchup to have.
Discipline:
Taking a penalty at the right time can save a goal (or at least prevent a high-percentage chance), but it’s almost always a better idea to stay out of the sin bin. Putting your team at a disadvantage on the PK, and it’s no surprise shooting percentages go way up on the PK, while save percentages drop.
The traditional view
Again, this isn’t anything groundbreaking. If you play smart hockey, you’re more likely to win. However, it does show how doing all the little things right are crucial to a team’s success. If a team is able to block one more shot a game, manage one less turnover a game, clear out one more rebound a game, take a few less stupid penalties over the course of the season, and have 60 more seconds a night successfully cycling the puck, this data shows how big a difference eliminating five shots a night can be. Even giving up just two or three less shots can be the difference between 10-25 goals. None of those tasks alone seem exceptionally challenging, and completing all of them together can be the make or break of any given game or even the 82 game season as a whole.
It’s pretty likely all of those simple tasks can be improved via good coaching. The right defensive system covering the proper areas of the ice will block more shots and eliminate rebounds, the right breakouts and rushes learned in practice will cause less turnovers, the right structure in the offensive zone will allow a team to cycle the puck better, and a coach that is able to keep his team calm will keep them out of the penalty box. While giving up an average of five less shots less a game might be tough for some teams to manage, it’d be quite the challenging task to argue that there’s no way a team who gives up 30+ shots a night couldn’t eliminate two or three.
In recent years, the culture in hockey has shifted towards the introduction of analysis of the game through tracking shot attempts through the statistics entitled Corsi and Fenwick. While the numbers itself aren’t intended to perfectly represent the quality of a team, they aim to paint a picture of how well a team can possess the puck, and record more scoring attempts than they allow.
If you want to stay “traditional” however, forget Corsi, forget Fenwick, forget any “advanced” stats or analytics, whatever you want to call them. Use them as much or as little as you’d like, but the same analysis can be made at an even more basic level simply looking at minimizing shots on goal. And if that’s too advanced for you, there’s still a lot about hockey that you’ve got to learn.
So there you have it, fixing some basic concepts combined with some basic math, show how eliminating shots is one of the best ways to improve a team.
Wayne was right, though perhaps in more ways than he intended. Every shot counts.
All stats from hockey-reference.com unless otherwise noted.Dave Hodges
Activist Post
Information is gathered for a purpose. We attend school, gain knowledge and acquire employment. We gather knowledge about someone we are dating and then make a decision about the future of the relationship. When the government is gathering information on us which goes beyond the basic census information, then we should be asking a lot of questions along the lines of “When will the surveillance gathering being conducted by the NSA turn into outright persecution?”
Every advancing tyranny has two distinct stages. In the first stage, the “enemies” of the state are identified. Lists are created and distributed among law enforcement. These lists are often leaked to the public to serve as a deterrent against any thoughts of engaging in anti-government behavior. There is typically a prolonged period of demonization followed by formal labeling.
History is replete with examples when surveillance gathering turns into labeling followed by outright persecution. In fact, I cannot think of an accurate historical example of when a country engaged in a police state surveillance grid, did not eventually victimize a significant number of its own citizens.
In the second stage of tyranny, the identified groups are singled out for “corrective” action. Corrective action usually commences on an incremental basis. Following identification, enemies of the state are usually singled out for employment discrimination, travel restrictions, residency restrictions and then the inevitable incarcerations and worse begin to transpire. This pattern happens every time following the establishment of a police state in America. America does indeed meet the denotation of a police state according to the dictionary.
po-lice state
Noun
A totalitarian state controlled by a political police force that secretly supervises the citizens’ activities.
Once this process begins, the advancement of tyrannical persecution of the people is inevitable without a revolution. The whole process begins with unwarranted surveillance
Who Does Our Government Watch?
James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence recently released a series of declassified documents which demonstrates how the National Security Agency (NSA) has been granted carte blanche to spy on American citizens.
What can an American do to end up under the watchful eye of the NSA? The recent release of information with regard to this question led to the discovery that their agency concerns extended to those who worship in a mosque, people who write and read articles which criticizes the government, speaks publicly about their opposition to various government policies, publicly profess a belief in the First Amendment and anyone who works as a journalist.
The implications of the above-mentioned groups which warrant NSA surveillance are stunning as well as frightening. Does anyone else find this very unsettling that one can become an enemy of the state for professing a belief in the First Amendment? Imagine that you are a victim of health insurance dumping and Obamacare incompetence has left you without medical insurance, you are labeled a dissident for speaking out. What about the government which claims that it doesn’t racially profile? Tell that to people of Islamic faith who have done nothing wrong and love being an American.
Ask the Question
With all the historical precedents, it is amazing that nobody seems to be asking the question, “When does all of this intelligence gathering become actionable?” In other words, what is the government going to do with all the surveillance data that they have acquired? Is this an exercise in mental masturbation, or is the NSA and ultimately the government going to do something with this vast amount of personal information? Why isn’t anyone asking these questions? Once again, the answer to the first question is that there never has been a police state that did not act upon the information it gathered on the people, and I believe that time is upon America. Below, I have listed three examples of encroaching tyranny, with each example more pronounced in its intrusion into civil liberties.
The TSA and the Increase In Their Incremental Level of Tyranny
Every totalitarian government tries to make it difficult to travel, and the TSA is fulfilling their role to this end. For over a decade, the TSA has become the symbol of the state’s superiority over the individual. With the unwarranted second sexual assault practices being committed against the flying public every day, the TSA is taking their tyranny to a new level.
Have you heard about the new mini-jails that the TSA has placed at Syracuse Airport? Passengers are forced into a bottleneck as they pass through what are called pods as they leave the terminal. A futuristic, female voice gives instructions to wait inside the pod until a green light is shown and the door opens. Travelers can become electronically trapped or detained at the whim of the TSA. This is just one more example of the conditioning that the TSA provides for the establishment which is teaching the American people that your body does not belong to you, it belongs to the state.
The pods are part of a $60 million dollar renovation. The installation of these pods are most certainly headed to other major airports as well. While in the pods (i.e. jail) a passenger can be detailed for further interrogation (i.e. molestation). Some of the passengers exiting through the pods at the Syracuse airport thought the machines were performing x-ray body scans. If one is lucky enough to exit the pods, they are not permitted to re-enter the terminal. I view these pods as conditioning for future FEMA camp deportation and incarceration.
Download Your First Issue Free! Do You Want to Learn How to Become Financially Independent, Make a Living Without a Traditional Job & Finally Live Free?
Download Your Free Copy of Counter Markets
Syracuse Airport Commissioner, Christina Callahan said, “We need to be vigilant and maintain high security protocol at all times. These portals were designed and approved by TSA which is important.” Christina is also partaking in the TSA tyrannical Kool-Aid as well. Not only is this going to cause the price of flying to skyrocket, it is turning our airports into being more like prisons than ever before.
Agenda 21, Wildlands and Drones
As most awake people are aware of, Agenda 21 poses a grave threat to property rights, freedom to travel and livelihoods of many Americans. Agenda 21 advocates won’t be satisfied until all humans are living in stack and pack cities and the rural areas are devoid of all people.
In a page right of the movie, Hunger Games, Ecologist Lian Pin Koh is making a case for using drones to protect the world’s forests and wildlife. Do you remember the opening scene of the movie, Hunger Games, where a drone is patrolling a forbidden wildlands area where humans are expressly forbidden to hunt game or even cross in to the area?
Under Koh’s proposal, drones will be used to track animals in their natural habitat, monitor the health of rainforests, even combat crime by detecting poachers via thermal imaging. Poachers? Is that what the UN Agenda 21 crowd is going to call me as I remain in my rural home?
Koh expands conservation efforts by promoting the use of low-cost autonomous aerial vehicles. The forces of oppression are lining up against you America.
The above two examples demonstrate how tyranny is slipped in one step at a time on multiple fronts. However, when the following is acted upon, the Great American Genocide will begin.
Avoiding The Eye - Ships Free Today! The NDAA It is amazing how many Americans have never heard of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Under the NDAA, a person can be snatched off the street without cause, not allowed access to an attorney, held indefinitely, never charged with a crime and never released. An NSA identified enemy of the state could presumably be murdered and who would know? I recently had a colleague tell me that my claims that America has become a police state were overblown. His logic consisted of the belief that if one is not doing anything wrong, then one should not mind being under constant surveillance. With the hundreds of billions being spent by the NSA to gather information combined with the unconstitutional NDAA legislation, speaks clearly to the fallacy that it does not hurt anything to have the government constantly spying on you. These unwarranted and unconstitutional practices have made enemies of the state out of tens of millions of Americans. Since Congress only has a 9% approval rating and Obama has slipped to a 37% approval rating, what does this say about how the matrix of the NSA will judge the majority of us? We have entered a time when the NSA enemies list of First Amendment supporters, government critics and Muslims can just disappear just like what happened with the Gestapo and KGB of the totalitarian regimes of the past. Conclusion I do not think most people know how close we are to living in an absolute tyranny. Can you imagine what life would have been like if Hitler, Stalin or Mao had the technology which is at the disposal of today’s despots? For the first time, I truly feel I am risking my life to write these words and you are taking the same risk by visiting websites such as mine. All of us are now labeled. It does not matter whether you agree with what is written on my website, or not. You have been judged and labeled by the mere fact that you are here. It does not matter if you never visit another alternative media website or not. There is now a definitive record of your disloyalty to the state. I seriously doubt if the system perceives a citizen any differently with regard to whether we write the words of disloyalty to the state, or we merely read them. Both groups have sinned against the almighty state in word and deed and they aim to stop you before you might act against this police state. We are one false flag event away from absolute tyranny, followed by the imposition of martial law. We are all in a lot of danger.
Dave is an award winning psychology, statistics and research professor, a college basketball coach, a mental health counselor, a political activist and writer who has published dozens of editorials and articles in several publications such as Freedoms Phoenix, News With Views and The Arizona Republic.
The Common Sense Show features a wide variety of important topics that range from the loss of constitutional liberties, to the subsequent implementation of a police state under world governance, to exploring the limits of human potential. The primary purpose of The Common Sense Show is to provide Americans with the tools necessary to reclaim both our individual and national sovereignty.Mozilla Helped To Stop SOPA In January, Now It's Worried About WCIT
from the must-be-important dept
The Web lets us speak out, share, and connect around the things that matter. It creates new opportunities, holds governments to account, breaks through barriers, and makes cats famous. This isn't a coincidence. It's because the Web belongs to all of us: We all get a say in how it's built.
Mozilla has made it our mission to keep the power of the web in people's hands. But all this could change on December 3.
Our governments are going to meet in Dubai to decide whether an old treaty, the International Telecommunication Union, can be expanded to regulate -- to control -- the Internet.
The issue isn't whether our governments, the UN, or even the ITU should play a role in shaping the Web. The problem is that they are trying to do it behind closed doors, in secret, without us.
We believe everyone should have a voice. And this site is to help you be heard in Dubai.
The resources we are making available today will give you everything you need to learn about the upcoming meeting and why it matters, craft an effective message to get your government to listen, and engage in the global conversation about how decisions about the future of the Web should be made.
Approximately 30 million people in the US who use the default start page in Firefox received the blacked out page with our call to action
We sent messages out to almost 9 million people via Facebook, Twitter and our Firefox + You newsletter
Our messages were retweeted, shared and liked by over 20,000 people (not counting MC Hammer’s tweet to his 2.4 million followers!)
1.8 million people came to mozilla.org/sopa to learn more and take action on the issue
600,000 went on to visit the Strike Against Censorship page, hosted by the EFF
Ultimately, 360,000 emails were sent by Mozillians to members of Congress, contributing a third of all the emails generated by EFF’s campaign site.
Mike wrote how both Vint Cerf and Sir Tim Berners-Lee were concerned about the outcome of the WCIT talks currently taking place in Dubai. Those aren't the only important voices being raised. Here, for example, is the Mozilla Foundation, the organization behind the Firefox browser and many other free software projects:As you can see, the Mozilla Foundation isn't just moaning about WCIT, it's giving people tools to help them engage with it -- despite the best efforts of the ITU to shut out the public. As a blog post about Mozilla's position on WCIT explains:Aside from this very practical help, Mozilla's move is important for another reason. In the past, Mozilla has tended to avoid getting involved with issues that are as much political as technical. The big exception was SOPA, when it took part in the January 18 Blackout, with impressive results:The action that it is taking over WCIT isn't quite so drastic, and so is unlikely to have such a big impact. But the fact that Mozilla has once again cast aside it usual apolitical position to voice its concerns shows how great they are.
Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+
Filed Under: activism, itu, wcit
Companies: mozillaIn yet another sign his presidency will likely be an unorthodox one, President-elect Donald Trump confirmed reports he was skipping the majority of his daily presidential intelligence briefings, but suggested they were unnecessary because he's "a smart person." In an interview with Fox News Sunday, Trump said he did not feel he would need to receive daily intelligence briefs after he became president, implying they were repetitive and he was comfortable relying on his generals and vice president to take the briefings for him. Yet, I have to wonder, is Trump's rejection of daily intelligence briefings a sign he wants to be president in name only?
Trump pushed back on criticisms he was not receiving presidential intelligence briefings often enough in an interview that aired Sunday, telling Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace, "I get it when I need it." Trump also indicated he would continue to receive a reduced number of daily intelligence briefings when he takes office in January, implying they were repetitive and a waste of his time.
"You know, I'm, like, a smart person," Trump said. "I don't have to be told the same thing in the same words every single day for the next eight years. Could be eight years — but eight years. I don't need that. But I do say, 'if something should change, let us know.'"
Although the president-elect is entitled to the same daily intelligence briefings given to the president, Trump reportedly receives, on average, only one briefing a week, according to Reuters. His decision to skip a number of the briefings offered to him stands in stark contrast to comments he made in 2012 and 2014 when he criticized President Barack Obama for allegedly missing "58 percent of his intelligence briefings." Reports alleging Obama was not receiving the majority of his daily briefings were later proven false.
Trump indicated his generals and Vice President-elect Mike Pence would receive the daily intelligence briefings instead. "Now, in the meantime, my generals are great, are being briefed," Trump said. "Mike Pence is being briefed, who is, by the way, one of my very good decisions. He’s terrific. And they’re being briefed."
While Trump's decision to cap his daily intelligence briefings to roughly one a week is certainly unprecedented when compared to past presidents in recent history, it has also left some former defense officials concerned. In a Dec. 4 interview with Face the Nation, former Defense Secretary and CIA Director Leon Panetta said daily intelligence briefings play an important role in helping presidents understand the many complex issues facing the United States.
"If you're president of the United States, you better be in touch on a daily basis with your intelligence briefers," Panetta said, "so that you have an understanding as to what's happening in the world, what are the crises you have to pay attention to, and what steps do you have to take in order to deal with those crises? Every president I know – and I worked under nine presidents – every one has taken their intelligence daily brief because that sets the agenda for what you have to focus on as president of the United States."
Trump's unwillingness to receive daily intelligence briefings might seem less like an attempt to shrug off the more banal responsibilities of the presidency if he wasn't hosting flashy victory rallies and seeming to live tweet his Cabinet appointments. While the title of president comes with plenty of time in the spotlight, it also requires a willingness to tackle the mountain of monotonous work that doesn't come with thunderous applause or photo opportunities.The New York City Bar Association will not dismiss a committee chairman from its organization who used racially charged language to attack the New York State Republican candidate for Lieutenant Governor, who is black.
Attorney Andrew J. Barovick, a partner at the White Plains and Manhattan law firm of Alegria & Barovick, stated via Twitter Monday that Chemung County Sheriff Chris Moss, who also serves as the President of the New York State Sheriff’s Association, should become the “spokesmodel for Cream of Wheat or Uncle Ben’s Rice.”
Barovick initially refused to retract his remarks for an entire day, despite public outcry for him to do so, saying that he “meant” what he said. Barovick, who is chairman of the Medical Malpractice Committee at the New York City Bar Association, only “apologized” for the attack after members of the news media began calling his law firm for comment.
After calls for Barovick’s removal as a committee chairman ensued, The New York City Bar Association released the below statement on its blog late Thursday:
The New York City Bar Association’s Executive Committee has conveyed to Andy Barovick its dismay at his careless use of offensive and inflammatory language in a recent tweet regarding Sheriff Christopher Moss. While noting the tweet was written in his private capacity, we stressed that such language in no way reflects our core values and runs counter to the City Bar’s continuing efforts to promote diversity and inclusion in the legal profession and in society as a whole. We trust that Mr. Barovick will be mindful of these concerns going forward.
According to a press release from Westchester Citizens Against Racism, New Rochelle NAACP Chairman Ronald H. Williams weighed in on the incident saying, “Fifty years after the civil rights act and we still can not judge a man by the content of his character. If we are still judging people by the color of their skin then all the achievements that people of color have made mean nothing and our faith in humanity is deeply troubled.”
Spokesman for Westchester Citizens Against Racism William F.B. O’Reilly told Breitbart News, “The New York City Bar Association is forgoing whatever moral authority it now enjoys by keeping Mr. Barovick in a leadership role. One wonders how the Senate Judiciary Committee would view its recommendations going forward.”
“I am more than surprised, frankly, that the New York City Bar Association would refuse to take real action in light of Mr. Barovick’s clear racist attack,” said New York civil rights attorney, Richard St. Paul, in a statement. “The Bar Association is effectively condoning what Mr. Barovick did and said by allowing him to retain a leadership position at the Bar. That decision cannot stand.”
“Mr. Barovick resorted to 1950’s Jim Crow tactics to try to belittle a man far more accomplished than he, and he cannot be allowed to get away with it,” said John Burnett, a New York financial professional and the 2013 Republican candidate for New York City Comptroller.
“Chris Moss is a man with extraordinary talent and integrity, and Mr. Barovick has deeply embarrassed himself and all those with whom he is affiliated. The New York City Bar Association must remove him from its leadership immediately,” Burnett added.
“We cannot allow racist attacks like this to go unaddressed,” said Westchester African-American activist and President of the Gathering of Men of New Rochelle Mark McLean. “We have come too far in this country to allow someone like Andy Barovick to move us backwards. The New York City Bar Association has a public responsibility to act quickly on this matter. Allowing Mr. Barovich to remain in his leadership post would be to condone what he said.”image AP
Does Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer face a palace coup?
That's the gist of a gossipy story published by theDaily Beast, claiming that Microsoft are upset about the performance of the company's stock.
But the story sourcing seems thin. As one might expect with an article like this one suggesting a revolt against Ballmer and the board, all of the quotes are anonymous. The piece sources described as being "close to Microsoft" report the existence of an increasingly resentful "faction of certain executives" who hold Ballmer responsible for the stagnation in Microsoft's stock price.
Their argument, according to these sources, is that Microsoft's overall financial performance has been solid--analysts expect the company to show continued earnings improvement when it reports second-quarter results today. It has scored some strategic wins with the Yahoo search deal, Xbox, and Windows 7 release, and is sitting on a cash pile of more than $20 billion. But instead of a steadily rising stock price, Microsoft shares have fluctuated wildly over the last few years, seemingly unable to break out of the mid-$20s for any significant length of time.
That states the conventional wisdom but it only tells part of the story. The stagnation in Microsoft's stock has less to do with Ballmer than it does with Microsoft's decades-long Windows-centric business model. That approach, which was a money machine during the client-server era, in some respects has become an albatross in the age of the Internet, where the the Web-top is increasingly more important than the operating systems running on the desktop.
Indeed, Ballmer has nudged Microsoft to embrace Web-based computing, though one could build a case - as the Daily Beast article does, that he's been behind the curve. While the company has built a strong new businesses in consumer entertainment to capitalize on the growing popularity of digital devices, it doesn't get a lot of credit. The Zune digital player doesn't ever get mentioned in the same breath as Apple's iPhone 4 and the company recently suffered through the embarrassment of canceling its Kin smartphone less than two months after its introduction. At the same time, Microsoft has failed to keep up with Google in the search advertising. Whatever the truth, the company is no longer viewed as the tech industry's most innovative software company.
The flip side of the equation:Critics are always wont to exaggerate "the looming crisis" at Microsoft. The company remains multi-billion-dollar powerhouse in the IT business and can expect to profit as the economy recovers from economic recession. Microsoft was uncool during the late 1990s but when the dotcom bubble burst in 2000, the stability of the company's revenue stream suddenly looked a lot more attractive when compared with the carnage taking place among Internet companies.
None of this is meant to suggest that a serious move to unseat the CEO is impossible. But in the absence of hard evidence, that claim is just one more to add to the perennial Microsoft rumor mill.AUSTIN (KXAN) -- The battle over abortion rules in Texas went to a federal courtroom on Tuesday.
The Center for Reproductive Rights and Whole Woman's Health, an abortion rights group, has filed a lawsuit challenging the state's requirement that aborted fetuses be buried or cremated. The center and other groups say the regulations serve no medical purpose.
"We're seeing quite clearly that this is not a law women want, this is not a law that treats women with compassion with dignity and respect," said David Brown, Senior Staff Attorney for the Center for Reproductive Rights. "Rather it imposes the state's narrow viewpoint on women about what they should be doing, intervening in their most personal, and private decisions"
The proposal for the new rule first surfaced in June, days after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the state law tightening restrictions on abortion clinics. In November, state health officials finalized the new rule.
Then in early December, a week before the new rule was supposed to go into effect, the lawsuit was filed challenging it. The suit says the rule is designed to shame women who want an abortion and the doctors who provide them. U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks issued a temporary restraining order blocking the rule from going into effect. The rule requires hospitals and abortion clinics to bury or cremate fetal remains rather than disposing of them in a sanitary landfill, as they most often currently do with such remains and other biological medical waste.
Abortion rights advocates say it's just another roadblock for women who want abortions and doctors who provide them.
However, supporters of the rule believe it would restore dignity to unborn children.
Copyright by KXAN - All rights reserved
Joe Pojman, the executive director of Texas Alliance for Life, is a staunch supporter of the rule. "I'm hopeful these rules can go into effect as soon as possible. We have tens of thousands of abortions every year in Texas, and right now it's legal for those remains of those unborn children to be ground and flushed down a sewer system or ended up being dumped in a landfill, and that needs to change." said Pojman.
In court, a cost-benefit analysis expert found the rule has no benefits for health and public safety, yet comes with costs, estimating each cremation would be around $500 to $700. She says burial and funeral costs would be even higher.
A state witness estimates the cremation cost would be much lower, at $125. State lawyers also noted that the Texas Conference of Catholic Bishops has offered burial for fetal remains at no cost.
Rev. Dr. Deborah Haffner of Unitarian Universalist also testified on behalf of the plaintiffs.
"She testified to the diversity of religious tradition that exists in this country and how the law fails to respect that diversity by imposing a narrow viewpoint on women intervening in their intimate, personal and private decisions, and forcing women to do something that they wouldn't choose for themselves," said Brown.
The hearing started Tuesday morning and Judge Sparks is expected to make a decision on Friday, Jan. 6. During the first day of the hearing, the CEO of Whole Woman's Health, Amy Hagstrom Miller, testified. "Women deserve our comfort, compassion and trust, and with my continued commitment to these values, I testified to ensure women are able to access safe, compassionate abortion care in their communities without these medically unnecessary burdens," said Miller in a statement.
Lawsuits this year blocked similar measures in Louisiana and Indiana, where the law was signed in March by governor and now Vice President-elect Mike Pence.
Republicans have pre-filed a number of abortion bills ahead of the legislative session that begins next week, including the one over burying or cremating aborted fetuses. Another bill would ban a type of late-term abortion that is already illegal under federal law. A third would stiffen requirements for clinics to report abortions electronically.
Regulations in other states
Arkansas is one of the few places with a law similar to the Texas regulations now at issue in federal court.
"Often those [human or fetal] remains were mixed in with the rest of the medical waste and sterilized and disposed of in landfills. And personally, I have a huge issue with that," said Arkansas State Rep. Kim Hammer, R-Benton.
Rep. Hammer sponsored what is now an Arkansas law requiring fetal remains to be buried, cremated, or released to a patient. It covers abortion clinics and hospitals. Hammer says he worked with the hospital association while the bill was being discussed in Arkansas.
"As far as any financial hardships to the parents, there is none because the hospitals absorb that cost," said Hammer.
Hammer wasn't familiar with the exact cost to hospitals in his state. He says the law in Arkansas has not faced a legal challenge.
Still, Texas and Arkansas aren't directly comparable. The Arkansas Legislature passed the burial law in that state. In Texas, the federal court case is over state health department rules. The scale of changes is also different in each state. Texas had 41 clinics providing abortions a few years ago, which dropped to 19 clinics after the HB 2 abortion restrictions passed. Arkansas has just one provider licensed to perform abortions and two licensed for medical abortions, according to state records.
Georgia also has a similar law. However, its law only applies to abortions and not to miscarriages.
Similar provisions in Indiana were held up in court this summer as part of a larger abortion bill.Union home minister, Rajnath Singh said on Friday that India’s ‘dhoti wearing pandits had better knowledge of space science than the America’s NASA scientists.
At a student function in Delhi college, Singh said, “USA’s NASA can make the prediction that after a month, solar and lunar eclipse will happen at this time… the media says America has such advanced technology, it is predicted one and-a-half years, two years ago. I can say with confidence that if you go to the dhoti-wearing pandit in the neighbourhood, he will pull out the ‘panchang’ and tell you when the lunar and solar eclipses happened 100 years ago and when they will happen 100 years later.”
Singh was reportedly speaking on the value of Indian education. In his half-hour-long speech, the union home minister told students that ‘Dil Maange More’ culture was not Indian ‘sanskaar(values)’ adding that India needed a ‘comprehensive change’ in the country’s education system.
He told students that Rishi Badhongan and not Pythagoras was responsible for the origin of Pythagoras theorem.
“Children, I can give you an example, but I don’t want to take you too far, so you can verify it later… Hundreds of years ago, there was a sage in India, Manish, who did work on quadratic equations… do you know about the Pythagoras theorem?… I want to say that Pythagoras did not create the theorem, and I have no qualms in saying that Pythagoras got information of this theory from Bharat… If anyone gave this theory, it was Rishi Bodhangan, that’s why it is called Bodhangan Praved,” he was quoted by Indian Express.
Singh said that ‘Bharat’ possessed all the fundamentals in its ‘pracheen granths’ (ancient texts) to make the country a ‘Jagatguru'(world leader) adding that students must decide between the ‘Western ‘dil maange more’ culture or Indian values.Lantern Control doesn't seem to have gotten a lot of attention in Modern lately, but it's alive and well, and honestly, it's probably gotten a lot better recently.
There's an amazing thing about Modern that doesn't get acknowledged much. Because the format changes so slowly and there are so many decks, it seems every archetype has a community built around it somewhere on the internet, and that's pretty incredible.
There's kind of a running joke among content creators that if you say something bad about Merfolk, angry fans will blow up your comments. I don't know how all this works. I assume there's just a particularly healthy Merfolk community, and maybe whenever someone writes something bad about it, someone there posts to the group, "Look, someone said Merfolk is bad, but we all know it's great, so this is pretty funny, right?" I don't think they're an organized mob or anything. I just think they probably share things they think other Merfolk fans would find interesting, like, I don't know, literally any mention of Merfolk anywhere, and then they all go check it out.
Forum admin pictured here.
I don't think this is a weird thing that is special to Merfolk. I think this is just how Modern works. I'm not sure, okay? I'm not a Jeskai Control guy, so I haven't looked for the Jeskai Control community. I just kind of assume it's probably out there somewhere. For the most part, I'm not really invested in any single deck to be part of that deck's community. I'll play whatever, or whatever I play, I'll just work on with a team I already have, but for people who don't have a team of pros they work with, working with a group of people around the world who care about the same deck they do is an incredible resource.
Some of these communities may be stronger than others. Lantern, I would guess, likely has one of the stronger communities around it. This might be a bold prediction, since it's kind of a fringe deck, but community-wise, it has a lot going for it. To start with, it was famously originally built and tuned to the point of being competitive on an open forum, and played to a Grand Prix win by Zac Elsik, a prominent member of that forum (as I understand it).
Possibly more importantly, I would guess communities grow a lot based on having solid public community leaders, and I think Kanister on Magic Online/Twitch (Piotr Glogowski) is a big part of that. He streams regularly, and almost always streams Lantern. His viewers are mostly Lantern players, and he discusses plays and card choices with his chat regularly. He also promotes a Facebook group for talking about the deck, and those Lantern players have collected incredible amounts of data about their composite win percentages against different decks, and broken it down into things like play versus draw or winning as a function of drawing certain cards so that their card selection can be data-driven. It's all very impressive.
Anyway, the point is, if there's a Modern deck you're into, and you haven't looked for a community that's dedicated to the deck, you could likely get a lot more out of that than you could by trying to find an article that goes over it.
That said, for those of you who may have an idle curiosity about Lantern but aren't looking to join the secret Lantern cabal, I figured I'd update you on what's going on with the deck and why.
The big |
. REUTERS/Toby Melville
LONDON (Reuters) - A majority of Britons now favour leaving the European Union amid concerns over immigration, an opinion poll showed on Saturday, signalling a shift in views ahead of a referendum on Britain’s membership of the bloc.
The survey, by polling firm Survation for the Mail on Sunday newspaper, found 51 percent of respondents wanted to leave the EU and 49 percent wanted to remain, excluding undecided voters.
While the results are within the poll’s margin of error and represent a statistical tie, the previous comparable poll, carried out in late June and early July, had found support for staying in the EU at 54 percent while 45 percent wanted the country out of the 28-nation bloc.
Prime Minister David Cameron has promised to renegotiate Britain’s EU ties ahead of the referendum which is due to take place before 2017.
But the anti-EU UK Independence Party says the government cannot address the freedom of workers from within the EU to come to Britain under one of the bloc’s core principles.
Survation said the Mail on Sunday poll was the first time it had found a lead for the “out” campaign since November 2014.
The polling firm also said a “significant minority” of voters who favour remaining in the EU would consider changing their minds should Europe’s migration crisis worsen.
The latest online poll was conducted on Sept. 3 and 4 and heard the opinions of 1,004 adults, a smaller sample size than the previous poll.Rick Perry, who when he ran for president previously forgot the name of the Department of Energy during a debate, reportedly didn’t know what the job would entail when President-elect Donald Trump selected him for the position in his administration. He is said to have believed the job would only involve him in issues related to the U.S. oil and gas industry and didn’t know it also entailed maintaining the nation’s nuclear stockpile. “If you asked him on that first day he said yes, he would have said, ‘I want to be an advocate for energy,’” Michael McKenna, a Republican energy lobbyist who advised Perry’s 2016 presidential campaign and worked on the Trump transition’s Energy Department team in its early days told The New York Times. “If you asked him now, he’d say, ‘I’m serious about the challenges facing the nuclear complex.’ It’s been a learning curve.”University up four spots in overall rankings; seven spots in 'best value'
Brigham Young University jumped up four spots to 71st in the U.S. News & World Report 2012 Best Colleges rankings, released earlier this week.
BYU also surged seven spots to 13th in the “Great Schools, Great Prices” category while holding steady at the No. 3 spot for best accounting programs.
The 350-page 2012 Best Colleges guidebook, which hits newsstands Sept. 20, ranks more than 1,400 four-year accredited colleges and universities. BYU falls into the category of "national universities," which includes schools that offer a full range of undergraduate majors, plus master's and doctoral degrees.
This year BYU is also ranked 8th in the category of “Least Debt,” which compares the average debt carried by departing graduates. The Marriott School of Management is ranked 36th in the category of undergraduate business programs.
The Ira A. Fulton College of Engineering and Technology was also listed among the top engineering schools, with its undergraduate program ranked 82nd.
In specialty categories, the Marriott School moved up three spots to 14th in international business while also registering 21st in entrepreneurship.
Princeton and Harvard tied for the top spot in the "national universities" category, followed by Yale, Columbia and the California Institute of Technology.
Like us on facebook.com/byu and follow us on Twitter @BYUFormer Expos pitcher Dennis Martinez turned 57 on May 14.
Expos fans will remember the call by long-time Montreal play-by-play man Dave Van Horne when Martinez pitched the only perfect game in the franchise’s history on July 28, 1991 in a 2-0 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers.
“El Presidente. El Perfecto.”
Jeff Blair was the Expos beat writer at the time. Below is the article he wrote for The Gazette the next day:
JEFF BLAIR
THE GAZETTE
LOS ANGELES — Dennis Martinez is the Expos’ best pitcher. But on a post-card perfect day in a post-card perfect setting for baseball, the best became better.
The best became perfect. Like only 14 other major-league pitchers have ever done.
From J. Lee Richmond of Worcester on June 12, 1880 to Martinez on July 28, 1991. From Sunday Best to Sunday Perfect. How else to describe Martinez’s perfect game before a Dodger Stadium sellout crowd of 45,560? Making it even better was the fact that his teammates actually scrounged up enough offence to win it for him, 2- 0.
Loneliness is the price you pay for perfection, however. One of baseball’s hoary maxims is that you don’t talk to a pitcher about a no-hitter — let alone a perfect game — while he’s in the middle of one. Sometimes you don’t even look at him.
“I was looking for somebody — anybody — to come up beside me and talk to me,” said Martinez, who needed just 95 pitches to retire all 27 men the Dodgers sent to the plate. Sixty-five of those were strikes. “Hass (catcher Ron Hassey) was the only guy who’d come up me and say: `Hey, you’re perfect, man.’
“Sometimes Bear (pitching coach Larry Bearnarth) would say some words and the trainers would pour ammonia water over me to keep me cool. But that’s it.”
Martinez, who struck out five en route to raising his record to 11-6, went to a 3-2 count on only three hitters.
The hairiest moment arrived when Chris Gwynn, a pinch-hitter who would fly out to centre-fielder Marquis Grissom to end the game, smoked a 1-1 fastball down the left-field line. It was foul by less than a foot and elicited a loud “oooh” from the crowd.
Eddie Murray drilled a hard, bouncing shot toward first in the fourth that Larry Walker, playing in place of Gold Glove winner Andres Galarraga, blocked with his right forearm. The Maple Ridge, B.C., native recovered and threw to Martinez at first.
Delino DeShields — the error-prone second baseman who had nine assists — threw low to Walker on Alfredo Griffin’s grounder in the sixth, but Walker came up with the ball. Martinez helped his own cause an inning later when Juan Samuel tried to bunt his way on. Martinez raced to his left and threw to Walker, winding up sprawled on the ground in the process.
“He (Martinez) told me it was the toughest play of the game. I told him that he looked like a shortstop the way he sprinted off the mound for the ball,” Samuel said afterward. “What can you say? They call him El Presidente, don’t they? Well, today he should be elected president of Nicaragua (his home country).”
Martinez retired Mike Scioscia on a fly ball to left and struck out pinch-hitter Stan Javier before getting Gwynn to end the game.
“The last out was scary,” Martinez admitted. “But I saw the ball hang and knew that Marquis had the speed to get it.
“This is big for me but also big for the team, for everyone who’s an Expo. This was a team win. That’s how it’s supposed to be.”
Manager Tom Runnells performed major surgery on the heart of his batting order before the game, dropping Tim Wallach from the cleanup spot to fifth, moving No. 3 hitter Ivan Calderon — his best player this year — into the No. 4 slot and shifting Dave Martinez into Calderon’s spot.
It was the first time this year that Calderon has hit out of the cleanup spot, which Wallach has manned for 83 of the team’s 98 games. Calderon has hit third in all of his previous 90 games as an Expo.
But it was Alfredo Griffin’s juggling act at shortstop, more than the lineup juggling by Runnells, that ended the 38-inning scoreless streak accumulated by Dodgers pitching and the 29-inning scoring drought by Montreal. After all, the Expos did manage just four hits and both runs were unearned.
Griffin booted Dave Martinez’s ground ball to lead off the inning. And after Calderon sacrificed Martinez to second, Walker ripped Mike Morgan’s 3-2 pitch to the wall in right-centre to push across the Expos’ first run since Calderon scored on a wild pitch by the San Diego Padres’ Mike Maddux in the fifth inning of a 6-5 loss on Thursday.
Walker scored when Griffin booted a routine grounder by Hassey — whose single to lead off the sixth ended Morgan’s hopes for a no- hitter. Morgan (9-6) threw his hands up in frustration and glared at Griffin, who took his time gathering in the ball.
Hassey also caught the perfect game thrown by the Cleveland Indians’ Len Barker on May 15, 1981 — a 3-0 win over the Toronto Blue Jays.
He knows all about the loneliness.
“I don’t buy into that stuff about not talking to a guy in the middle of a no-hitter,” the 38-year-old Hassey said. “In the seventh I was walking up and down the dugout going: `We got us a perfect one going, boys. Everybody stay sharp. Keep awake.’ “
Martinez’s curve was its usual dominating self. He mixed in a few forkballs, too.
“From the seventh inning on,” Hassey said, “about all I called was breaking stuff.”
Martinez appeared to have injured himself in the fourth inning on his 1-1 pitch to Murray. Runnells, Bearnarth and trainer Ron McClain gathered on the mound as Martinez squatted and pointed to his right side. Home plate umpire Larry Poncino allowed him to throw some practice pitches, though, and he felt well enough to stay in the game.
Martinez spent a good four minutes before throwing his first pitch, digging up the front of the mound with his feet. “It was very wet and very slippery,” he said. “Bruce (crew chief Froemming) let me fix it. He said: don’t worry, it will dry out in an hour or so.’
“I laughed and said: `I don’t know if I’ll still be in the game.”
Martinez cried tears of joy after the game. “This game was for God, myself, my family, the people of Nicaragua and the Expos,” he said.
Martinez smiled when he was told that Murray, a former teammate with the Orioles, said the only thing to do when faced with a perfect game is to sit back and take it.
“That’s the way it’s supposed to be,” he said, breaking into a smile.
That’s what makes it perfect. Picture perfect.If Arsenal score at Sheffield Wednesday in the Capital One Cup on Tuesday night, as they more than likely will, it will be the 2,000th goal scored by the club during Arsene Wenger's reign.
You have to go way back to October 12, 1996 for the first of those, netted by Gunners legend Ian Wright, who went on to score twice in a 2-0 win at Blackburn's Ewood Park in the Premier League.
In fact, the landmark scorers during Wenger's reign make for a stellar list - Wright got the first, Tony Adams the 50th, Marc Overmars the 100th, Thierry Henry the 500th and Jose Antonio Reyes the 1,000th.
Ian Wright (centre) celebrates scoring against Blackburn during Arsene Wenger's first Arsenal match
Arsene Wenger (centre) watches on from the stands during the 2-0 win at Blackburn in October 1996
LANDMARKS GOALS FOR ARSENAL UNDER ARSENE WENGER No 1) Ian Wright v Blackburn Rovers (October 12, 1996) No 50) Tony Adams v Leicester City (April 12, 1997) No 100) Marc Overmars v Leeds United (January 10, 1998) No 500) Thierry Henry v Watford (January 5, 2002) No 1,000) Jose Antonio Reyes v Manchester City (May 4, 2006) No 2,000)?
The man who has scored the more than any other player for Arsenal in that time is, of course, their all-time leading goalscorer Henry.
After being signed in August 1999 the French forward went on to score 226 goals for the club - over a tenth of those netted under Wenger - in the space of just eight seasons.
On October 17, 2005, Henry broke Wright's Arsenal record of 185 goals when he scored twice against Sparta Prague in the Champions League.
It says an awful lot for Wenger's longevity that that was the second time Arsenal's all-time goalscoring record had been broken under his reign; with Wright having gone past Cliff Bastin's record of 178 which had stood for 50 years against Bolton in September 1997.
Ian Wright celebrates after breaking Cliff Bastin's 50-year club record Arsenal goal tally in 1997
Henry (centre) celebrates scoring his second goal against Sparta Prague in 2005 and breaking Wright's record
Legendary former Arsenal captain Tony Adams (right) scores against Leicester in 1997
Marc Overmars beats Leeds goalkeeper Nigel Martyn to score the 100th Arsenal goal under Wenger
Jose Antonio Reyes beats David James to score the 1,000th goal under Wenger in May 2006
ARSENAL'S TOP 10 GOALSCORERS SINCE OCTOBER 12, 1996 1) Thierry Henry (1999-2006) - 228 goals 2) Robin van Persie (2004-2012) - 132 3) Dennis Bergkamp (1996-2006) - 102 4) Robert Pires (2000-2006) - 84 5) Theo Walcott (2006-present day) - 80 6) Fredrik Ljungberg (1998-2007) - 72 7) Olivier Giroud (2012-present day) - 64 8) Emmanuel Adebayor (2006-2009) - 62 9) Cesc Fabregas (2003-2011) - 57 10) Sylvain Wiltord (2000-2004) - 49
Other significant contributors to the all-time scoring list under Wenger include Dutchmen Dennis Bergkamp and Robin van Persie.
Bergkamp, who was signed the year before Wenger arrived, won three Premier League titles under the Frenchman and like Henry and Wright established himself as a club legend, scoring 102 goals after Wenger's arrival.
Van Persie's reputation at Arsenal has been tarnished by his acrimonious departure to Manchester United in 2012 but he scored an impressive 132 goals in 277 games for Wenger.
Of Wenger's current crop only Theo Walcott makes it in to the top five scorers since October 1996. Still only 26, Walcott will hope to add plenty more to the 80 goals he already has for Arsenal.
Theo Walcott scores for Arsenal in the Premier League against Stoke City last month
As by far the longest-serving manager in England, having been at Arsenal almost double the time No 2 on the list Paul Tisdale has been at Exeter City, the records just keep tumbling under Wenger.
Academy product Alex Iwobi is set to become the 200th player to play for Arsenal during his 19 years at the club - it would be somewhat apt if he could net the 2,000th goal.A forest of steel pillars was unveiled in London's Hyde Park on Tuesday, honouring the victims of the July 7, 2005, attacks on the city's transit system.
The memorial is for the 52 victims of the bombings of three of London's Underground trains and a bus during the peak of the capital's rush hour.
Fifty-six people, including the four bombers, were killed in the attacks, and more than 700 people were injured.
The columns are grouped to represent the attack sites and the various transit stops where the bombings occurred.
Each of the 52 columns is 3.5 metres tall and uniquely designed to represent the uniqueness of each victim. A nearby plaque displays the names of the victims.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, London Mayor Boris Johnson and Prince Charles attended the fourth anniversary memorial service in Hyde Park, along with families of the victims.
"I believe the date of the London bombings is etched vividly on all our minds as a brutal intrusion into the lives of thousands of people," Prince Charles said.
Place to mourn
"I do pray that all those touched by the violence everywhere will eventually find peace again," the Prince of Wales told the attendees. "Above all, I pray they will gain comfort and strength from coming together to honour the memories of those taken from us."
The memorial will provide a place for victims' families and all Britons to gather to reflect on the attacks and those who died, said British Humanitarian Minister Tessa Jowell.
The family of the victims and those injured in the attacks were involved in determining the design and location of the memorial.
Ken Livingstone, who was London's mayor at the time of the attack, praised the design of the statues.
"I think it's just exactly right. Often, it's very difficult to do something like this and get it right," he said.Casting may be the furthest thing from their minds at the moment (they've only just acquired the rights to a new prequel series, after all), but there's one name in particular Amazon Prime might want to consider when production on their Lord of the Rings TV show gets under way.
Because it doesn't look like Sir Ian McKellen is ready to give up his iconic role of Gandalf just yet.
McKellen and The Exorcist co-star Jenny Seagrove dropped by Graham Norton's Radio 2 show today (December 16) to discuss their West End show, but Graham couldn't let McKellen leave without asking him what he thought of Amazon's planned series.
"Amazon are doing a TV series of Lord of the Rings," Graham began. "Now isn't that annoying? That there's going to be another Gandalf in town?"
New Line Cinema
"What do you mean, another Gandalf?" McKellen replied, prompting Graham to ask if that means he's taking part in the series.
"I haven't said yes because I haven't been asked," the actor continued. "But are you suggesting that someone else is going to play it?
"Gandalf is over 7000 years old, so I'm not too old [yet]."
So, there you go, Amazon. Make this happen. We're not sure anyone would be able to live up to McKellen's version of the character anyway...
Amazon confirmed it had reached a deal with JRR Tolkien's estate to expand the lore of the Lord of the Rings franchise in a new prequel series and maybe even a potential spin-off too in November, reportedly spending about $200 million to secure the rights.
Everything is still very much early days at the moment, with no scripts, premises, cast or any other creative personnel working on anything that's been officially announced, but one Lord of the Rings star who is ruling himself out of the whole thing is Gollum himself Andy Serkis.
"I don't know if I'd want to go back into the Lord of the Rings realm," he said. "I feel like I've spent a large chunk of my life doing that. I'll say good luck and I think fresh eyes are probably a good thing."
Want up-to-the-minute entertainment news and features? Just hit 'Like' on our Digital Spy Facebook page and 'Follow' on our @digitalspy Twitter account and you're all set.Earlier today, EMA released “Stand With You (Song for Ghostship).” It’s part of the anti-Trump Our First 100 Days song series, and it’s also a tribute to the Oakland DIY space that tragically caught fire earlier this year.
EMA has now also mentioned that she’s currently mastering the followup to 2014’s great The Future’s Void. That album came out on Matador but the new one will be out worldwide on City Slang (who previously released her music in Europe). EMA wrote, “Matador won’t be putting it out. It’s too political (which I think especially now music SHOULD be) and the sound is not exactly mainstream.” She also said that City Slang is “a very diverse label and very supportive of the singular and controversial stuff that I think ends up being what EMA does best (they’re German! they aren’t afraid of politics or music outside of the box).”
EMA adds that the new album sounds to her like (her former band) Gowns and early EMA, and that it was produced by Unknown Mortal Orchestra bassist Jake Portrait.
We reached out to Matador for a comment who say they have no response to EMA’s claims at this time.
UPDATE: Matador’s Gerard Cosloy has now given a response:
From time to time we have to make some unpleasant decisions regarding the label’s release schedule (which is more crowded some years than others) and roster size. I don’t know anyone — least of all someone as talent and visionary as Erika — who likes hearing, “we’re not putting out the great new album you’ve spent the last 2 years on.” But at no point did we discourage her from making a political record, nor was there any mandate to create something that leaned towards the mainstream.
Here’s EMA’s full statement and also a longer statement on the new song:
so last december ghostship burned down and i lost my damn mind. i don’t even know why it affected me so much but it did. i was a wreck for days. i cried a lot and posted crazy things on fb, where my feed was filled with bay area friends mourning and/or trying to figure out if ppl in their community were safe. i hadn’t lived there for years but it made me realize how important that community had been to me — i knew the person throwing the show (not the douche landlord) who used to come to shows at our venue in west oakland, i knew the performers, i knew a few who didn’t make it out. it was partially the timing, right after the election which was like getting spit on in the face. we recorded this live in my basement, still improvising the words and timings. i had originally wanted it to be on some sort of ghostship benefit comp, but hopefully this 100 days benefit will spread out the impact towards all sorts of communities that need it. i think americans are under an impression that certain things are mutually exclusive, but in my mind you shouldn’t have to decide between being safe and being free i’ve also noticed some ppl have been commenting that i haven’t released a record since 2014. well, one’s on the way! it’s mastered and ready to go. there was a bit of a delay — matador won’t be putting it out. it’s too political (which i think especially now music SHOULD be) and the sound is not exactly mainstream. (altho it’s very musical! jacob portrait from UMO produced it and it’s light and heavy and raw and full of hooks) in the end i think that’s for the best — i’ve come too far and done too much to compromise my vision at this point in my life. city slang (who did PLMS) will be releasing it worldwide later this year. i love working with them, they are a very diverse label and very supportive of the singular and controversial stuff that i think ends up being what EMA does best (they’re german! they aren’t afraid of politics or music outside of the box) i’m so excited to share this new record with you! those who’ve heard it say it’s the most solid thing i’ve ever done. to me it sounds like gowns, it sounds like early EMA and PLMS. and it sounds like oakland, where a piece of my heart will always be.Maslenitsa (Russian: Мaсленица, Ukrainian: Масниця, Belarusian: Масленіца; also known as Butter Week, Crepe week, or Cheesefare Week) is an Eastern Slavic religious and folk holiday, celebrated during the last week before Great Lent, that is, the eighth week before Eastern Orthodox Pascha (Easter). Maslenitsa corresponds to the Western Christian Carnival, except that Orthodox Lent begins on a Monday instead of a Wednesday, and the Orthodox date of Easter can differ greatly from the Western Christian date.
Traditions [ edit ]
K. Kryzhanovsky. Sunday of Forgiveness, 19th century.
According to archeological evidence from 2nd century A.D. Maslenitsa may be the oldest surviving Slavic holiday.[1] Maslenitsa has its origins in the pagan tradition. In Slavic mythology, Maslenitsa is a sun-festival, personified by the ancient god Volos,[1] and a celebration of the imminent end of the winter. In the Christian tradition, Maslenitsa is the last week before the onset of Great Lent.[2]
During the week of Maslenitsa, meat is already forbidden to Orthodox Christians, and it is the last week during which eggs, milk, cheese and other dairy products are permitted, leading to its name of "Cheese-fare week" or "Crepe week". The most characteristic food of Maslenitsa is bliny thin pancakes or crepes, made from the rich foods still allowed by the Orthodox tradition that week: butter, eggs and milk.
Since Lent excludes parties, secular music, dancing and other distractions from spiritual life, Maslenitsa represents the last chance to take part in social activities that are not appropriate during the more prayerful, sober and introspective Lenten season.[1]
In some regions, each day of Maslenitsa had its traditional activity. Monday may be the welcoming of “Lady Maslenitsa”. The community builds the Maslenitsa effigy out of straw (из соломы), decorated with pieces of rags, and fixed to a pole formerly known as Kostroma. It is paraded around and the first pancakes may be made and offered to the poor. On Tuesday, young men might search for a fiancée to marry after Lent. On Wednesday sons-in-law may visit their mother-in-law who has prepared pancakes and invited other guests for a party. Thursday may be devoted to outdoor activities. People may take off work and spend the day sledding, ice skating, snowball fights and with sleigh rides. On Friday sons-in-law may invite their mothers-in-law for dinner. Saturday may be a gathering of a young wife with her sisters-in-law to work on a good relationship.
Sunday of Forgiveness [ edit ]
The last day of Cheesefare Week is called "Forgiveness Sunday" (Прощёное Воскресенье). Relatives and friends ask each other for forgiveness and might offer them small presents. As the culmination of the celebration people gather to "strip Lady Maslenitsa of her finery" and burn her in a bonfire. Left-over pancakes may also be thrown into the fire and Lady Maslenitsa's ashes are buried in the snow to "fertilize the crops".[3]
At Vespers on Sunday evening, people may make a poklon (bow) before one another and ask forgiveness. Another name for Forgiveness Sunday is "Cheesefare Sunday", because for devout Orthodox Christians it is the last day on which dairy products may be consumed until Easter. Fish, wine and olive oil will also be forbidden on most days of Great Lent. The day following Cheesefare Sunday is called Clean Monday, because people have confessed their sins, asked forgiveness, and begun Great Lent with a clean slate.[citation needed]
Modern times [ edit ]
A girl wearing Russian traditional hat kokoshnik for Maslenitsa in Slovenia.
During Soviet times, Maslenitsa, like other religious holidays, was not celebrated officially. However, it was widely observed in families without its religious significance, as an opportunity to prepare crepes with all sorts of fillings and coverings and to eat and share them with friends. After the start of perestroika, the outdoor celebrations resumed, although they were seen by some as an artificial restoration of a dead tradition. As many Russians have returned to practicing Christianity, the tradition is still being revived.[citation needed]
With increasing secularization many Russians do not abstain from meat and Maslenitsa celebrations can be accompanied by shashlik vendors. Nevertheless, "meat still does not play a major role in the festivities".[1]
Many countries with a significant number of Russian immigrants consider Maslenitsa a suitable occasion to celebrate Russian culture, although the celebrations are usually reduced to one day and may not coincide with the date of the religious celebrations.[citation needed]
On 20 March 2017 the British tabloid newspaper Daily Mirror painted the Maslenitsa as a Hooligan training ground. One of the centuries-old tradition in this folk festival is “wall-to-wall” (‘stenka na stenku’, Ru) which is sparring between men dressed in traditional folk clothes. This tradition was wrongly represented by the Mirror in the pictures and text, labelled as violent acts and living in fear without giving context or any information about this Russian traditional festival at all. The Mirror article was titled “Russia's Ultra yobs infiltrated amid warnings England fans could be KILLED at World Cup.”, and received negative receptions from Russian media, also being described as fake news.[4][5][6][7]
See also [ edit ]
Celebration of Maslenitsa in Belgorod, February 21, 2015.In late January 2011, business leaders from around the world met in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia for the 5th annual Global Competitiveness Forum and of the many issues tackled UFOs and extraterrestrial life was one of them. Now they have put videos of the event on YouTube for all to see. You can view them below.
World Leaders such as Tony Blair and Bill Clinton attended the conference, although they did not attend the UFO portion of the event. Leaders in UFO research were on hand to discuss its validity and potential for the advancement of global business. Jacques Vallee, a computer scientist, venture capitalist and long-time UFO researcher was among the speakers, as well as physicists, Dr. Michio Kaku and Stanton Friedman, author and journalist, Nick Pope, who worked for the UK Ministry of Defence investigating UFOs, and Dr. Zaghloul El Naggar, an accomplished and well respected professor of earth sciences. The UFO section of the event was called Contact: Learning from Outer Space, and was moderated by Harvard business professor, John Quelch.
The website for the event describes the UFO portion as:
Psychological and socio-cultural assumptions and preconceptions constrain us to a large extent, and shape our views of the universe so that we are inclined to find what we are looking for, and fail to see what we are not. Using knowledge gained from research in the fields of Ufology and the search for extraterrestrial life, what might we possibly learn about hindrances to innovation in other areas of inquiry?
The sponsor of the entire event, by the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA), describes itself as the “guardian angel” of business in Saudi Arabia. An impressive and important event, their website describes the event as:
The Global Competitiveness Forum (GCF), the only event of its kind, is an annual meeting of global business leaders, international political leaders, and selected intellectuals and journalists brought together to create a dialogue with respect to the positive impact organizational and national competitiveness can have on local, regional and global economic and social development. It was founded in 2006 by the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA), and is held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia under the patronage of HM King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz, the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques.
Here are videos of the UFO portions of the event.
Jacques Vallee: General Partner, SBV Venture Partners
Michio Kaku: Professor of Theoretical Physics, City University of New York, Host of Sci Fi Science on the Discovery/Science TV Channel
Nick Pope: Author, Journalist
Stanton Friedman: Nuclear Physicist, Lecturer, Author
Zaghloul El Naggar: Professor of Earth Sciences
For more on the GCF you can visit their official website here. To watch more videos from the event you can visit their YouTube page here.
Popular Posts:He also came under fire from Chicago Blackhawks fans after both standing on the team's logo in the Blackhawks locker room and getting a little too cozy with the Stanley Cup for their taste while posing for pics with the NHL's highest honor.
But the Blackhawks have no issue with the Biebs, according to a statement released later by the team.
"As frequently happens with guests into our room, Justin inadvertantly stepped on the team logo on the floor but moved off quickly once immediately reminded," said Brandon Faber, senior director of Media & Community Relations. "He was apologetic and understanding of the tradition but continued to take photos with the Cup and some young fans. He was extremely genuine and kind with his time. We appreciate his enthusiasm towards hockey and wish him well with the remainder of his tour."
(Originally published July 10, 2013, at 8:23 p.m. PT)There's nothing better than building a project using tools that you also made yourself. To start out you can try making this compact chisel that is perfect for putting the finishing touches on any fine woodworking project.
You'll need a lathe to turn the wood handle for the chisel, and you can add as little or as much detail as you'd like. It shouldn't take long for the handle to take shape, and once it's ready you simply need to drill a hole in the end and place a spare allen key (long end) into the hole.
YouTuber John Heisz shows us how to complete the chisel by using a cut-off wheel to remove the curved end of the allen key, and then shape the bevel, and sharpen the tip with a belt sander. He puts a final edge to it using an oil stone.
Take care to use a quality hardened allen key and not heat it up too much or it will lose its tempering. This chisel is as good or better than anything you bought from the shop, and if it ever gets dull, you know how to sharpen it.The White House has banned senior Pentagon officials from describing the serious security challenges posed by a rising and increasingly aggressive China as a “competition.”
This directive comes even as the 2017 defense budget shifts the focus away from counterinsurgency to bolstering capabilities to deal with China’s illegal island-building actions in the South China Sea and elsewhere.
Defense Secretary Ash Carter used the now-forbidden term in February of this year at a speech before the Economic Club of Washington, when he referred to the “return to great power of competition” in the Asia-Pacific, “where China is rising.”
Chief of Naval Operations Admiral John Richardson similarly characterized China and Russia as rivals in a “great power competition” in his new maritime strategy. The two countries have “a growing arsenal of high-end war-fighting capabilities, many of which are focused specifically on our vulnerabilities,” said Admiral Richardson in his “A Design for Maintaining Maritime Superiority.” “Our competitors are focused on taking the lead – we must pick up the pace and deny them.”
Off the record, unnamed “senior defense officials” have been even more blunt, saying that “We must jettison assumptions like Russia being ‘a responsible international partner’ and… [We must] bolster conventional deterrence against our two high-end adversaries, Russia and China… Russia and China have become much more hostile of late.”
China’s massive military buildup, especially the rapid expansion of its blue-water navy, is clearly hostile to U.S. interests. Its expansive claims in the East and South China seas – the latter now dotted with militarized, artificial islands — threatens freedom of navigation through this important international trade route.
The Pentagon’s framing of these aggressive actions in terms of “great power competition” seems the mildest possible construction to put on China’s bellicose behavior, but even this was too much for a White House bent upon conciliation and appeasement.
The Navy Times reported that Pentagon officials were privately dressed down by the White House for using “inflammatory” language. The National Security Council even issued a written directive, said four officials familiar with the classified document, which ordered the Pentagon to strike that phrase from its vocabulary and henceforth use milder language to describe the U.S.-China relationship.
Obama administration officials reportedly object to the phrase “great power competition” because they believe that it wrongly suggests that the U.S. and China are on a collision course. Other experts, such as Fred Fleitz of the Center for Security Policy, vigorously disagree, warning that China is obviously preparing for conflict with the U.S. and that we must do the same if we want to deter China. Tough measures are needed to contain China’s rise, they say.
The Pentagon has long advocated more open displays of U.S. resolve, such as sending destroyers close to China’s fake islands, rotating more troops and aircraft through the Philippines, and joining with India on joint naval patrols of the South China Sea. The White House has resisted and delayed such moves, arguing that they were unnecessarily provocative.
Given the eagerness of the President’s national security advisors to portray an increasingly strained relationship with China in a positive light, it is difficult to know what kind of conciliatory language would satisfy the White House.
What is clear is that, even as the White House is trying to be more subtle and nuanced in its language, China is becoming increasingly unrestrained in its words and actions towards us. As U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission has noted, “China’s leaders consistently characterize the United States as a ‘hegemon,’ connoting a powerful protagonist and overbearing bully that is China’s major competitor.”
President Xi Jinping and his Politburo colleagues constantly stoke this kind of xenophobic nationalism among the Chinese people. They use whatever fuel happens to be handy, be it a recent visit of the Japanese prime minister to the Yakusuni Shrine to memorialize Japanese war dead, or the transit of an American carrier task force across the vast reaches of the South China Sea.
All of China’s top strategic thinkers see the end of history arriving in a stark “China wins, Barbarians lose” scenario, and do not hesitate to say so. President Xi by all accounts sincerely believes that it is his manifest destiny to |
surrounded the area but were unable to capture anyone. The Singhs slipped back into the swamps of the Mand. The legend of Bhai Brahma was growing.
Operation Mand
Bhai Avtar Singh Brahma’s operations were becoming more and more daring each day and they even became a topic of discussion in India’s Home Ministry. Bhai Brahma was considered “King of the Mand” and so it was decided to send the Indian Forces there to search for him. Police Chief Ribeiro assigned “Operation Mand” to the new IG of the CRPF in Punjab, KP Gill.
The date of the operation was set for July 1986. The police expected many Sikh Fighters to come to the Mand for meetings during the local festival for Baba Dargahi Shah. This festival was attended by people of all faiths and the Singhs too gathered during this time to make plans. The Mand was a marshy, forested area that the police could not access, so the CRPF and Punjab Police were deployed in the thousands to surround the area. Ribeiro was certain that Bhai Avtar Singh and his fellow Singhs were in the area and now because of the cordon, could not escape. But still, the problem remained that the security forces could not go in en masse and they were too afraid to go in small groups. The solution chosen was to send in army helicopters to seek and kill the Sikh fighters.
CRPF men climbed aboard two helicopters and began to search for Bhai Brahma’s hideout. The helicopters began to hover lower to the ground and below them were hiding Jathedar Durga Singh and his men. The Singhs opened fire on the helicopter with such force and volume that it crashed in flames into the marsh. The pilot and all the CRPF men were killed on impact. The Singhs shouted jaikaray and trained their sights on the next helicopter. The pilot had seen what had happened to his companion and decided his mission was impossible. After trying to avoid fire for a short while, he decided to go back to base. Of all the forces surrounding the area, no one had the courage to enter and attempt to rescue the men who had gone down with the helicopter.
As night fell, the Singhs, who were familiar with the area, made their escape. The CRPF and Punjab Police had been completely frustrated and to avoid embarrassment, arrested some farmers who lived around the Mand and claimed Brahma’s men had been captured. The next day’s newspapers carried a statement from the CRPF that one of their helicopters had collided with a tall tree and crashed, resulting in the death of the pilot and the men aboard.
Years later, Ribeiro in his autobiography, “Bullet for Bullet” (1998) wrote, “KPS Gill had been inducted as IG, CRPF, in charge of Punjab operations. He was an excellent operations man and it was he who conceived and planned the Mand operation. We faced some criticism from the press since not a single terrorist was caught in the operation” (pg. 283).
Brahmpura Nightmare
The police were completely frustrated by Bhai Avtar Singh. They began to take their frustration out on the entire village of Brahmpura. Bhai Avtar Singh’s brothers were special targets of the police but no one was spared. An entire platoon of the CRPF was placed in the village school to terrorise the area.
When Bhai Brahma heard about the police excesses, he decided to do something about it. On December 27, 1986 Bhai Brahma and his fellow Singhs entered Brahmpura around midnight. He went to the Gurdwara and after offering his respects, turned on the roof speaker. Bhai Avtar Singh took the microphone and announced, “Residents of Brahmpura, I am your Avtar Singh speaking. I know that the CRPF is harassing you because of me and asking you to tell them my whereabouts. I challenge the CRPF: if you have the courage, come and get Avtar Singh Brahma. There’s no bravery in bothering the innocent villagers here. Let’s have a contest of bravery today and satisfy ourselves. You have weapons and so do we. Let’s have a real encounter tonight and in the morning you can count how many of your men the Singhs have mowed down. Come on CRPF-valio! You are proud of the strength of Delhi and it’s army and we are proud of our Guru. We are Guru Gobind Singh’s sons and we can fight 125 000 alone.”
Bhai Avtar Singh had been heard through the entire vilalge. He waited a while and seeing no response, began again, “CRPF-valio! Come out of your quarters! Brahma, a Sikh of the Guru is waiting for you. The Brahma you couldn’t find in the Mand is now waiting for you! I don’t believe in spilling the blood of innocents and I don’t attack those without weapons. I’m here to meet you now. CRPF-valio, you can meet me any way and any time. Give up your bothering of innocents and come in front of Brahma and satisfy your desire to prove your bravery! Bolay So Nihaal! Sat Sree Akaal!!! Vaahiguru Jee Ka Khalsa Vaahiguru Jee Kee Fateh!”
For a full 25 minutes Bhai Avtar Singh challenged the CRPF on the speaker and waited for over an hour for them to come out. Not a single person came. The Singhs, seeing that no one was brave enough to face them, left the village while bellowing jaikaraas.
Even after the Singhs had left, the terrified CRPF platoon cowered in their base. When they were sure that Brahma had left, they came out. They had been shamed in front of the entire village. The CRPF went berserk and decided to take revenge on the Sikh villagers. Families were dragged out of their houses and the women were raped. One woman had her ear bitten off by a crazed CRPF officer.
Five women were brought together and their clothes were ripped off. One younger girl ran naked to save herself and spent the rest of the cold December night hiding in the bushes.
The CRPF raided Brahmpura's Gurdwara Sahib and began to shoot at a saroop of Sree Guru Granth Sahib. Once that saroop had been riddled with bullets, another Saroop was taken out of the Gurdwara Sahib and lit on fire.
The entire Sikh population of Punjab was horrified and shocked and news of this night of terror even became international. It was demanded that action be taken against the guilty CRPF. Even Ribeiro admitted that what had happened was disgusting and publicly apologized but in his autobiography, he writes, “KPS Gill was then IG of the CRPF. He was not willing to take any action against his men. He approached the home ministry in Delhi to ensure that sanction was not accorded for criminal prosecution. Finally, the Government of India did not sanction the prosecution.” The guilty CRPF battalion was removed and replaced with another. This was the greatness of Indian justice. KP Gill was later appointed DGP of Punjab Police because of his ruthless mentality.
Renewed Efforts
Bhai Avtar Singh and his fellow Singhs decided to give the Brahmpura incident a suitable reply. CRPF bases were attacked with rockets and blown apart. Bhai Brahma and Jathedar Durga Singh continued to take on all the invading forces and every week news would come of a new guerrilla attack and whole companies being destroyed. The people were all crazy about Brahma and gave him their complete support.
The Final Battle
Bhai Brahma, when leaving the training camp for the final time had told some Singhs near to him that he would not return. He knew that his shahidi was fast approaching. That day finally arrived on July 22, 1988.
Bhai Avtar Singh and his fellow Singhs, Bhai Surinder Singh and Bhai Jarnail Singh DC were in Rajasthan near the Pakistan border. They had decided to cross and were staying with a Nihang Singh of the Sursingh Jatha. The Singhs approached the border and as they were about to cross, were spotted by the Border Security Force. The Singhs were surrounded but fought their way out. Again, on a tip, the BSF surrounded them a little distance away and once again the Singhs escaped.
Bhai Avtar Singh and his fellow Singhs were still on the move when they were surrounded a third time. Bhai Brahma knew that their ammunition was close to exhausted and he ordered the Singhs that they should escape but in no case should the fall into the hands of the BSF. Bhai Avtar Singh took a position in a green field and held the BSF back as the Singhs broke the cordon. Bhai Jarnail Singh and Bhai Surinder Singh were successful and managed to escape.
The BSF now focused on the field and showered it with bullets. Bhai Brahma was struck in the stomach but despite the pain, continued to battle. The BSF did not have the courage to approach the lone tiger and even in his wounded state, Bhai Brahma was proving deadly. Finally the shooting stopped and the BSF approached the body. As they did to every shahid Singh, they ripped Bhai Brahma's dastaar from his head and stripped off his clothes and took his body to the police station. They were so terrified of the Legend of Brahma, that they could not be assured that this was really him. Photographs of the body were sent to Punjab but no one could confirm the idenity. The Singhs too did not confirm that their General had been martyred. Newspapers debated whether Bhai Brahma was alive or dead and the security forces too could not believe that Brahma had fallen. Only when Bhai Bhupinder Singh Canadian was arrested and he identified the body from pictures did the police finally know for sure that they had got their man. Bhai Bhupinder Singh was also later killed in a fake encounter.
Aftermath
An Akhand Paath Sahib in the memory of Bhai Avtar Singh was held in village Brahmpura. Baba Daya Singh, Jathedar of Baba Bidhi Chand Dal hoisted a nishaan sahib in his memory. The Jathebandi appointed Bhai Gurdeep Singh Vakeel as the next Jathedar of the KLF.
Bhai Avtar Singh had left behind a strong and principled Jatha of Singhs who continued to be a nightmare for the Indian government.
Bhai Avtar Singh Brahma was a legend in the Punjab and during his lifetime, whole areas of the Punjab had become sovereign. Bhai Sahib’s firm Gurmat principles won the hearts of the people and struck terror into the hearts of the Hindustani forces. As time passed, such Singhs became more and more rare and the movement slowed down and finally stopped. May Guru Sahib send us another Brahma in today’s desperate times.Glenn Beck dedicated a portion of his television program last night to the remainder of his one-on-one interview with Sen. Ted Cruz, in which the GOP presidential hopeful declared that those who believe in climate change do not bother to cite facts in support of their position because, for them, it is a religion.
Pointing to a recent congressional hearing in which he grilled the president of the Sierra Club about the supposed lack of data and evidence for the existence of global warming, Cruz told Beck that “climate change is not science, it’s religion.”
“Look at the language where they call you a ‘denier,'” he said. “Denier is not the language of science. Look, I’m the child of two scientists … The essence of the scientific method is to start with a hypothesis, then look to the evidence to disprove the hypothesis; you’re not trying to prove it, you’re trying to disprove it. Any good scientist is a skeptic; if he’s not, he or she should not be a scientist. But yet the language of the global warming alarmists, ‘denier’ is the language of religion, it’s heretic, you are a blasphemer. The response from the Sierra Club, ‘We have decreed this is the answer, you must accept it.’ And so he didn’t know his facts because he just knew his religion.”Greg Mortenson (born December 27, 1957) is an American professional speaker, writer, veteran, and former mountaineer. He is a co-founder and former executive director of the non-profit Central Asia Institute and the founder of the educational charity Pennies for Peace.[2][3]
Mortenson is the co-author of The New York Times Bestseller, Three Cups of Tea, which stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for 220 weeks.[4] Three Cups of Tea has been published in 47 languages.[5][6] Mortenson is also the author of Stones into Schools: Promoting Peace with Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan.[7]
Mortenson was accused of financial irregularities in handling donations to the CAI and falsehoods in his books. In 2012, Mortenson repaid $1 million to the CAI after an inquiry by the Montana Attorney General, though no criminality was found.
Early life [ edit ]
Mortenson was born in 1957 in St. Cloud, Minnesota. His parents, Irvin and Jerene, went with the Lutheran Church to Tanganyika (now Tanzania) in 1958 to be teachers in at a girls' school in the Usambara mountains. In 1961, Dempsey became a fundraiser and development director for the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center,[8] the first teaching hospital in Tanzania. Jerene was the founding principal of International School Moshi.[9] Spending his early childhood and adolescence in Tanzania, Mortenson learned to speak fluent Swahili.[9][10][11][12]
In the early 1970s, when he was 15 years old, Mortenson and his family left Tanzania and moved back to Minnesota. He attended Ramsey High School in Roseville, Minnesota, from 1973–75, where he graduated.[13]
After high school, Mortenson served in the U.S. Army in Germany from 1975–77 and was awarded the Army Commendation Medal.[14] Following his discharge, he attended Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, from 1977-79 on an athletic (football) scholarship.[15]
In 1978, Concordia College's football team won the NAIA Division III national championship with a 7-0 win over Findlay, Ohio.[16][17] Mortenson graduated from the University of South Dakota in 1983 with a bachelor's degree in liberal studies and an associate degree in nursing.[9][10][13]
Humanitarian work and career [ edit ]
Origins in K2 [ edit ]
K2
Mortenson describes the origins of his humanitarian work in his best-selling (but later discredited) book, Three Cups of Tea. He states he traveled to northern Pakistan in 1993 to climb the world's second-highest mountain, K2, as a memorial to his sister, Christa. After more than 70 days on the mountain located in the Karakoram range, Mortenson failed to reach the summit. Earlier, Mortenson and fellow climber, Scott Darsney, were also involved in a 75-hour life-saving rescue of another climber, Etienne Fine, which put them in a weakened state.[18] After the rescue, he descended the mountain and set out with a local Balti porter, Mouzafer Ali, to the nearest city.[citation needed]
According to the now-discredited account in Three Cups of Tea, Mortenson stated he took a wrong turn on the trail and ended up in the small village of Korphe. Physically exhausted, ill, and alone at the time of his arrival there, Mortenson was cared for by some of Korphe's residents while he recovered.[19][20] As a gesture of gratitude to the community for their assistance to him, Mortenson said he would build a school for the village after he noticed local students attending school in an outdoor location and writing out their lessons in the dirt.
Mortenson has since admitted in a 2011 interview that the timing in the Korphe account in Three Cups of Tea is inaccurate, and that the events actually took place long after his descent from K2, over a longer period of time and during separate trips.[21][22]
Literacy in Central Asia [ edit ]
Mortenson has written and spoken widely about the importance of education and literacy for girls worldwide. He has further stated that girls' education is the most important investment all countries can make to create stability, bring socio-economic reform, decrease infant mortality and population explosion, as well as improving health, hygiene, and sanitation standards.[23] His view is that "fighting terrorism" perpetuates a cycle of violence where there should instead be a global priority to "promote peace" through education and literacy, with an emphasis on educating girls.[citation needed]
Three Cups of Tea describes his travels in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province including his escape from a 2003 firefight between Afghan opium warlords, how he was subject to two fatwās by conservative Islamist clerics for educating girls, and receiving hate mail and threats from fellow Americans for helping educate Muslim children.[24][25]
According to op-ed columnist and friend of Mortenson's, Nicholas D. Kristof,[26] the schools built by CAI have local support and have been able to avoid retribution by the Taliban and other groups opposed to girls' education because of community "buy-in", which involves getting villages to donate land, subsidized or free labor ("sweat equity"), wood and resources.[citation needed]
As of 2014, CAI reports it has established or significantly supported over 300 projects, including 191 schools,[27] in rural and often volatile regions of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan.[28]
Central Asia Institute [ edit ]
Mortenson with children in Pakistan in 2006
After experiencing frustration in his efforts to raise money for the school, Mortenson convinced Silicon Valley computer pioneer Jean Hoerni to fund the building of the Korphe school.[29]
Hoerni, who was critically ill at the time, formed the Central Asia Institute so that he and others could make tax-exempt donations to support Mortenson's work,[30] and Mortenson became its first executive director. The mission of the non-profit organization is to promote education and literacy, especially for girls, in remote mountain regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan.[31][32]
From 2006 through 2011, Greg Mortenson promoted his book as well as fundraising and promoting girls' education through public speaking events at schools throughout the United States. Travel expenses for his speaking engagements were paid for by Central Asia Institute through the end of 2010.[33] Mortenson personally kept the money received in exchange for his service as a public speaker as well as royalties from the sale of his book.[33] In 2009, the total cost of his book promotion, fundraising, and awareness-building for girls education paid for by CAI amounted to $4.6 million.[34]
In April 2012, after a year long investigation by the Montana attorney general, Mortenson agreed to repay $1 million to the CAI.[35] The Montana inquiry had found that he had misspent over $6 million of the organization's money, although no criminality was found. Montana Attorney General Steve Bullock said: "Mr Mortenson may not have intentionally deceived the board or his employees, but his disregard for and attitude about basic record-keeping and accounting for his activities essentially had the same effect."[36]
Bullock also wrote in the report that "CAI's mission is worthwhile and important," and "Its accomplishments, driven by the vision and dedication of Mortenson, are significant – as even their harshest critics acknowledge."[37]
Under the terms of the settlement agreement, Mortenson was required to resign as executive director and could no longer serve as a voting member of CAI's board.[38] However, he was allowed to remain with CAI as an employee.[39]
Books [ edit ]
Mortenson and David Oliver Relin are co-authors of the New York Times bestselling book Three Cups of Tea.[40] Listen to the Wind, a 32-page book Young Reader's version of Three Cups of Tea for ages 4–8, was written by Greg Mortenson and illustrated by Susan Roth.[41] It was a New York Times bestseller for 97 weeks.[42] As detailed in a New York Times article, Relin "suffered emotionally and financially as basic facts in the book were called into question" and ultimately committed suicide on November 15, 2012.[43] In 2009, Stones into Schools: Promoting Peace with Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan was written by Greg Mortenson as a sequel to Three Cups of Tea.[44]
Controversies [ edit ]
Mortenson has been criticized by writers such as Peter Hessler and Jon Krakauer for financial mismanagement of his charity,[45] for "dodging accountability" and for writing a book Krakauer described as "riddled with lies".[46]
In April 2011, 60 Minutes and author Jon Krakauer accused Mortenson of fabrication in his non-fiction books and of financial improprieties at his charity, Central Asia Institute.[47] After a one-year investigation, Montana Attorney General Steve Bullock did not file criminal charges. Bullock sought restitution for book royalties, speaking and travel fees, promotional costs, and inappropriate personal bills Mortenson charged to the CAI. Mortenson was ordered to reinstate $1 million to the charity, which included credits for repayments already made.[48] In October 2013, Mortenson completed the repayments to CAI, fulfilling the terms of the 2012 settlement with Bullock.[49]
60 Minutes and Jon Krakauer [ edit ]
On the April 17, 2011 broadcast of CBS News' 60 Minutes, correspondent Steve Kroft alleged inaccuracies in Mortenson's books Three Cups of Tea and its sequel, Stones into Schools: Promoting Peace with Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan as well as financial improprieties in the operation of the Central Asia Institute.[47]
60 Minutes made the following allegations:[50]
The story recounted in Three Cups of Tea about Mortenson getting lost and separated on the way down from K2 did not occur. [50]
about Mortenson getting lost and separated on the way down from K2 did not occur. The story recounted in Stones into Schools about Mortenson's capture by the Taliban did not occur. In fact, he was shown great respect and hospitality, consistent with the Pashtunwali values of his hosts. [51]
about Mortenson's capture by the Taliban did not occur. In fact, he was shown great respect and hospitality, consistent with the Pashtunwali values of his hosts. Among the schools that Central Asia Institute claimed to have established, some were never built, some were abandoned, some were being used for other purposes, and others were not supported by CAI after they were built. [50]
The amount of money Central Asia Institute was spending to cover Mortenson's promotional and travel expenses was excessive.[50]
60 Minutes asked Mortenson for an interview prior to their broadcast. Mortenson did not respond to their requests; however, he answered their questions in writing.[50][52] Mortenson refused to talk to Steve Kroft and, reportedly, the CAI staff requested that the hotel hosting the 60 Minutes crew ask them to leave the facility. Mortenson also canceled the speaking engagement that was scheduled that afternoon in the Atlanta convention facility.[53]
In an April 2011 Outside magazine interview, Greg Mortenson insisted that Krakauer contacted him only once and inaccurately claimed that he had been trying to get a hold of him for some time. He claimed although he arranged to meet with Krakauer, the interview was eventually cancelled "once I realized how deep and dirty this whole thing was".[22]
Mortenson wrote a statement in response to the allegations against him that were published in the Bozeman Chronicle: "I stand by the information conveyed in my book, and by the value of CAI's work in empowering local communities to build and operate schools that have educated more than 60,000 students", and added, "The time about our final days on K2 and ongoing journey to Korphe village and Skardu is a compressed version of events that took place in the fall of 1993..."[54] However, writing for Outside Online, Grayson Schaffer investigated Mortenson's claims regarding Korphe, and found them likely spurious, as there was no plausible way for Mortenson to have ended up in Korphe while descending K2 in the route he claimed. Additionally, Schaffer concludes that there is no evidence that Mortenson was actually an accomplished Himalayan climber, even though he claimed to have climbed six Himalayan peaks.[55]
Jon Krakauer, a former financial supporter of CAI, questioned Mortenson's accounts of his exploits independently and was interviewed for the 60 Minutes segment mentioned above. The day after the broadcast, Krakauer released his own allegations in a lengthy online article, Three Cups of Deceit - How Greg Mortenson, Humanitarian Hero, Lost His Way.[30][56] Krakauer explored financial improprieties at CAI in great detail, reporting that a former board treasurer had left the organization because "Greg regards CAI as his personal ATM," routinely charged personal expenses to the organization, and rarely provided any receipts or documentation.[30]
In response to Krakauer's allegations, CAI produced a comprehensive 'Master Project List' on work CAI had completed, or currently was then working on. The list was released in December 2011.[52]
In January 2014, Mortenson was interviewed on Today by Tom Brokaw.[57] He apologized and acknowledged that he had let a lot of people down, and said "I failed in many ways, and it's an important lesson."[58]
In August 2014 Krakauer wrote a follow-up article for The Daily Beast in which he stated that an audit of CAI's overseas projects indicated that the charity was still "beset by widespread corruption" and that Mortenson remaining as the public face of the charity was not "in the best interest of the charity or the people it serves".[46] He concluded that "anyone thinking about donating to CAI should probably reconsider".[46]
Lawsuits [ edit ]
In May 2011, Jean Price and Michele Reinhart, and Dan Donovan, a Great Falls attorney, filed a class action lawsuit against Mortenson on behalf of readers, asking federal judge James Malloy in Missoula to place all proceeds from the purchases of Mortenson's books into a trust to be used for humanitarian purposes.[59][60][61] Several named plaintiffs dropped the lawsuit after confessing they had never read the books.[62][63][64][65] The lawsuit was dismissed with prejudice in federal court in May 2012. U.S. District Judge Sam Haddon chided the plaintiffs for presenting arguments that he called imprecise, flimsy, and speculative.[66] An appeals suit was dropped by the 9th District Federal Circuit Court on October 10, 2013.[67]
On October 6, 2013, after a lengthy lawsuit filed by Central Asia Institute, Philadelphia Insurance company was ordered by Magistrate Judge Jeremy Lynch to repay Central Asia Institute $1.2 million to pay for legal costs involved in the lawsuits and investigations.[68]
In May 2015, the Montana Attorney General stated that Central Asia Institute and Mortenson had completed the terms of a three-year compliance monitoring period, and CAI stated that the IRS had completed its examination of the nonprofit. The organization reported that it was having a return in donors and rise in contributions.[69][70]
3000 Cups of Tea [ edit ]
Jennifer Jordan (Mortenson's longtime friend) and Jeff Rhoads began attempting to refute the claims against Mortenson and made a 2016 documentary 3000 Cups of Tea. In the film and interviews Jordan claims that the extensively-researched and sourced accusations against Mortenson put forward by 60 Minutes and Jon Krakauer are largely not true.
Jordan said in 2014: "We are still investigating this story. So far, our findings are indicating that the majority of the allegations are grossly misrepresented to make him appear in the worst possible light, or are outright false. Yes, Greg is a bad manager and accountant, and he is the first to admit that, but he is also a tireless humanitarian with a crucially important mission." However, the "documentary" she and Rhoads produced consisted of little more than friends of Mortenson claiming that he was a good person who would never do the things the 60 Minutes/Krakauer investigation uncovered.[71][72]
Recognition [ edit ]
Awards [ edit ]
Honorary degrees [ edit ]
Frostburg State University, Frostburg, MD 2006
Concordia College, Moorhead, MN 2007
Montana State University, MT 2008 [105]
Villanova University, PA 2008 [106]
University of San Francisco, CA 2008 [107]
University of Washington – Bothell, WA 2008 [108]
Lewis & Clark College, OR 2008 [109]
Colby College, ME 2009 [110]
Simmons College, MA 2009 [111]
Saint Louis University, MO 2009 [112]
Loyola University Chicago, IL 2009 [113]
University of Pennsylvania, PA 2010 [114]
Brookdale College, Lincroft, NJ 2010 [115]
University of Colorado, Colorado Springs 2010 [116]
Stevenson University (MD) 2010 [117]
Wittenberg University (OH) 2010 [118]
Published works [ edit ]
Akiner, Shirin; Tidemen, Sander (1998). Sustainable Development In Central Asia:. Curzon Press. ISBN 0-312-21931-8.
Jones, Karen; Mortenson, Greg (2005). The Difference A Day Makes. New World Library. ISBN 1-57731-475-1.
Mortenson, Greg; Relin, David Oliver (2006). Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace...One School at a Time. Penguin Group. ISBN 0-670-03482-7.
Mortenson, Greg; (with illustrator) Roth, Susan; (January 22, 2009). Listen To The Wind (children's picturebook). Dial. ISBN 978-0-8037-3058-8.
Mortenson, Greg; Relin, David Oliver, adapted by Sarah Thomson (January 22, 2009). Three Cups of Tea: The Young Reader's Edition. Dial. ISBN 978-0-8037-3392-3.
Mortenson, Greg; (December 1, 2009). Stones into Schools: Promoting Peace with Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Viking. ISBN 978-0-670-02115-4.
Personal life [ edit ]
Mortenson lives in Bozeman, Montana, with his wife Tara Bishop, a clinical psychologist, and their two children, Amira and Khyber.[119][120][121] In 2011, Mortenson was diagnosed with hypoxia and had surgery for an aneurysm and an atrial septal defect, an event which exactly coincided with the airing of the 60 Minutes expose and the release of Krakauer's accompanying book.[122][123]From the simplest slab of weathered stone to the most imposing monument, every marker in Glasnevin Cemetery bears witness to a life that, in ways small or large, helped shape the history and culture of the Irish state. Shane MacThomáis offers a fascinating insight into some of these lives in this book. Within its pages, you'll meet not only the heroes of the Irish fight for freedom, such as Michael Collins and Éamon de Valera, but also lesser-known Irish men and women who made important contributions to the state in the arts, sports, military service, politics and other areas of Irish life.
Glasnevin Cemetery, encompassing Mount Jerome, Bully's Acre, the Huguenot Cemetery and the Jewish Cemetery, has great national significance through the social and historical influence of the people buried there from all walks of life over 178 years. Famous people interred there include the founder of the cemetery, Daniel O'Connell, as well as Charles Stewart Parnell, Anne Devlin, O'Donovan Rossa, Christy Brown, Brendan Behan and Luke Kelly.
To find out more about Glasnevin Cemetery and Shane MacThomais, click here.
Extract:
Foreword:
Dr Peter Harbison
It is often quipped that Glasnevin Cemetery is the dead centre of Dublin. But the fact is that there is not one but a number of dead centres of the capital city. In the past, books such as Vivien Igoes Dublin Burial Grounds & Graveyards have been successful in encompassing most or all of them within a single volume. This present volume makes no pretensions to complete coverage. Instead, it takes us on a leisurely and above all entertaining stroll through a select number of the citys cemeteries, of which Glasnevin stands pre-eminent as the national necropolis, sacred ground wherein lie the remains of so many famous people who formed and framed the history of Ireland for the last 200 years.
The author is Glasnevin's greatest guide, a man who knows more of the combined history of Glasnevin's dead than anyone alive, and who demonstrates his knowledge with humour and aplomb when he is giving his tours around the cemetery. That same humour, but also appreciation of the human tragedy attached to many of the famous dead who lie there, comes across in the pages of this book. While concentrating on Glasnevin which he loves best it also covers other cemeteries within the city's bounds, regardless of creed or politics: Mount Jerome, the Bully's Acre and the Jewish Cemetery among others.
Shane has the ability and the wit to make all of this come alive, and to bring a smile to what many would regard as a doleful subject and to places which most people wouldnt want to be seen dead in! But Glasnevin itself has had a renaissance recently. The vision of two recent chairmen of the Glasnevin Trust Gavin Caldwell and John Green the cemeterys CEO, George McCullough, and the horticulturist Philip Ryan and his team, have made the place a joy to walk around, with new paths, restored monuments and well-pruned trees. The impression given is of a place well-cared for and showing honour to the dead, though it is a never-ending job requiring effort and money to show people from home and abroad what a national treasure Glasnevin is: a point most recently underlined by the wonderful new award-winning museum building at the cemetery's entrance.
What makes this book fascinating are the stories that Shane tells about those whose remains lie buried within Glasnevins towering walls. These are not just about the famous, of which there are obviously many, but also those ordinary folk who never made it into the nation's history books, who may have died from disease or disturbance, from the tragedy of weapons and wounds of war on various continents of the world, or who gave their lives to achieve the liberty which we enjoy and thank them for today. The stories range from the heroic to the macabre, from the heart-rending to the humorous, and that, and its great variety, is what makes this book such a lively read. Shane is a master of the tale well told, and he has that rare ability to transmit his enthusiasm to his listeners, a gift which I hope will also be appreciated by the readers of this volume which is issued by the Glasnevin Trust with the wish expressed by reviewers of every good book, namely, that it will have a long and interesting shelf-life.
Introduction:
Prior to the establishment of Prospect, later Glasnevin Cemetery, Irish Catholics had no cemetery of their own in which to bury their dead, as the repressive Penal Laws of the eighteenth century placed heavy restrictions on the public performance of Catholic services. This situation continued until an incident at a funeral held in Dublin provoked a public outcry when a Protestant sexton reprimanded a Catholic priest for proceeding to perform a limited version of a funeral mass.
The outcry prompted Daniel O'Connell, champion of Catholic rights, to launch a campaign and prepare a legal opinion proving that there was actually no law passed forbidding praying for a dead Catholic in a graveyard. O Connell pushed for the opening of a burial ground in which both Irish Catholics and Protestants could give their dead dignified burial.
With the passing of the Act of Easement of Burial Bill in 1824, a committee was formed to administer the proposed cemetery. A small plot of land had been acquired for this purpose at Goldenbridge, Dublin, but soon proved insufficient in size. After some investigation a second site, amounting to nine acres, was bought at Glasnevin, to be named Prospect Cemetery. Monsignor Yore consecrated the land in September 1831 and five months later young Michael Carey was the first person to be buried there. The original entrance to the cemetery was located at Prospect Square, but was moved to the Finglas Road in 1879.
On 14 June 1998, at 2.30 p.m., I was wandering around the pathways of Glasnevin Cemetery reading the headstones of countless men and women from Irish history. I had been invited to interview for the position of tour guide by George McCullough. Tired of answering the endless requests from visitors about the graves of the famous, the Dublin Cemeteries Committee had decided to run walking tours. The interview went well and I was offered the position. George had a great sense of how important Glasnevin Cemetery was historically, but this emphasis had been somewhat lost with the day-to-day running of a 170-year-old graveyard.
Over the following years free tours were run and I read every book, journal and newspaper I could get my hands on about death, burial and the people buried within Glasnevin. Often the funerals were recorded as momentous events that captured the zeitgeist, like those of O'Donovan Rossa or Parnell. Yet in the case of the latter, the reports focused on the huge crowds but forgot to mention that Kitty, the woman he had given up his political career for, didn't attend his funeral as she was too distraught to travel. In other cases ordinary Dubliners with equally fascinating tales to tell were buried in anonymity and often unrecorded.
My father Eamonn was a great help to me in my new job as tour guide. He shared every nugget of information he had and pointed me in the right direction, time and |
should give us an idea. Like automatic voter registration, Election Day registration removes barriers to entry in the voting market; it just does so slightly differently, by expanding the days in which citizens are allowed to register to include Election Day. And the evidence is clear: Election Day registration boosts turnout. By a lot.
Without voter registration deadlines, up to four million additional people would have been on the voter rolls for the 2012 election. In 2014, states with Election Day voter registration averaged twelve percent higher voter turnout than states without it. This being the case, it’s patently absurd to say that automatic voter registration is “not going to increase participation rates.” Similar policy changes already have.
But the claim I’d imagine Kobach will cling to more strongly — especially given his paranoid obsession with making it harder for certain types of people to register to vote in his state while ignoring the electoral irregularities that are actually taking place — is the second one: that automatic voter registration will lead to undocumented immigrants being put on the voter rolls.
This, too, is an assertion without evidence. Federal voter registration requirements still stipulate that only citizens can be registered to vote, meaning that state agencies will have to ask the citizenship question in order to be able to pass eligible voters along to the state registrar.
What’s more, DMVs and other state agencies are already perfectly capable of keeping track of which of their customers are citizens and which aren’t. Ten states already issue drivers licenses and other similar documents to non-citizens — covering 37 percent of America’s non-citizen population — but under the REAL ID Act of 2005, those licenses must be distinct from the ones issued to citizens. This means that the states in question are already asking, identifying and keeping separate non-citizens who interact with the DMV; there’s no reason to think other state agencies wouldn’t be able to do the same thing.
Additionally, as the Times reported, state agencies like motor vehicle departments already match the voter registration forms they receive with citizenship databases. Which speaks (again) to just how hard it is to raise an objection to a bureaucratic tweak on a law that has existed — with great success and little, unsuccessful objection — since 1993.
In other words, to the extent that undocumented immigrants will wind up on the voter rolls under a system of automatic registration, they will do so the same way they currently do: with falsified documents, or by accident, but not through state agencies that are implementing updated “motor voter” requirements under the 1993 National Voter Registration Act. Nothing about automatic voter registration, in and of itself, changes that. Which gets us to Kobach’s real beef: that the federal government doesn’t require birth certificates or naturalization documents for voter registration in the first place. It simply requires you to check a box — under penalty of perjury — saying you’re a citizen.
Kobach has made clear, time and time again, that he doesn’t think this requirement is good enough. Voting rights advocates are currently suing him over his attempt to remove 37,000 people from Kansas’s voter rolls entirely because they didn’t provide proof of citizenship when they registered to vote. While Kansas is one of just two states that requires proof of citizenship for voter registration (Arizona being the other one) that requirement can only apply to state-level elections. The federal government, retaining the authority to regulate federal elections, has no such requirement, meaning that Kobach is supposed to keep voters who meet federal but not state eligibility standards on a separate list. Citing the wholly predictable bureaucratic nightmare that this created, Kobach opted to simply remove these people from the rolls entirely, effectively ignoring the federal standard.
So Kobach’s claim that automatic voter registration will lead to more undocumented immigrants on the voter rolls isn’t really a claim about this particular policy tweak at all; it’s an indictment of our current system of voter registration. And while there may be a debate to be had about whether requiring proof of citizenship for voter registration is a good idea, that’s part of an entirely different — and much larger — debate about the very definition of American democracy.
UPDATE: Chris Christie just vetoed automatic voter registration in New Jersey. Boo this man.Let's see...
Stage 12 featured a giant rock golem with no health bar and indeed actually invincible as I had defeated the boss and everyone else and could just keep whacking at the guy and he never went down no matter how many hits he took. He also would not attack me either so I had to exit the game and forfeit that fight. Very "fair".
The exclamation mark drawing your attention to powerups and whatever is extremely annoying with how much it moves around. Don't assume all your players have ADHD and actually like that sort of thing.
The enemy attack pattern is pretty much just the lazy follow-the-player. Pretty much the worst style of enemy "AI".
On the plus side the graphics are great and the music is fitting for a game like this. Unfortunately I'm not a fan of grind (of which there is much), follow-the-player "AI", spam (the game just spams enemies at you for the most part), flashy annoying things (that exclamation mark), or game bugs (the invincible golem, and probably others).Putin rules out expelling diplomats, wishes Obama a Happy New Year and invites children of US diplomats to Kremlin party BelfastTelegraph.co.uk Vladimir Putin has ruled out expelling US diplomats in the wake of fresh US sanctions and the ordered expulsion of 35 Russians in retaliation for alleged cyber-meddling in the US election. https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/putin-rules-out-expelling-diplomats-wishes-obama-a-happy-new-year-and-invites-children-of-us-diplomats-to-kremlin-party-35330265.html https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/incoming/article35328754.ece/a0fa7/AUTOCROP/h342/obama-putin.jpg
Email
Vladimir Putin has ruled out expelling US diplomats in the wake of fresh US sanctions and the ordered expulsion of 35 Russians in retaliation for alleged cyber-meddling in the US election.
The Russian president also said that his country will not target US diplomats and their families days before New Year’s celebrations.
"Russian diplomats will spend the New Year holidays in the circle of relatives and friends - at home. We will not create problems for American diplomats. We will not expel anyone.
"We will not prohibit their families and children to use their usual vacation spots in the New Year's holidays. Moreover, all children of American diplomats accredited in Russia, I invite you to New Year's celebrations in the Kremlin."
Calling the US moves a "provocation", Putin said he would not "stoop to the level of irresponsible diplomacy".
Putin said he regretted that Obama is ending his term “in such a way,” and wished him, Donald Trump and the American people a happy New Year.
He said: "It is a pity that the Obama administration ends his term in such a way, but, nevertheless, I wish him and his family a Happy New Year.
"I congratulate President-elect Donald Trump and the entire American people! I wish all health and prosperity!"
The Kremlin said that a government plane will be sent to the US to evacuate the expelled diplomats and their families.
Nigel Farage was among those praising Putin's response. "Pleased to see a mature response from Putin," the ex-Ukip leader wrote on Twitter. "A @realDonaldTrump presidency can't come soon enough."
The diplomatic showdown between Washington and Moscow, which had been festering even before the November 8 presidential election saw Donald Trump elevated to the presidency, puts pressure on the billionaire businessman not to let Russia off the hook after he takes office on January 20.
Russia's government continues to deny US accusations that it hacked and stole emails to try to help Mr Trump defeat his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.
On Thursday US president Barack Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats and ordered more sanctions against Russian officials and intelligence services in response to alleged 'election hacking'.
"All Americans should be alarmed by Russia’s actions. These data theft and disclosure activities could only have been directed by the highest levels of the Russian government," Obama said.
"Moreover, our diplomats have experienced an unacceptable level of harassment in Moscow by Russian security services and police over the last year.
"We will continue to take a variety of actions at a time and place of our choosing, some of which will not be publicised."
The diplomats were given 72 hours to leave US soil.
"These actions were taken to respond to Russian harassment of American diplomats and actions by the diplomats that we have assessed to be not consistent with diplomatic practice," an unnamed official told Reuters.
Russia's foreign ministry said the moves were counterproductive and will harm the restoration of bilateral ties.
Pleased to see a mature response from Putin. A @realDonaldTrump presidency can't come soon enough. — Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) December 30, 2016
Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov said: "In our point of view such actions of the US current administration are a manifestation of an unpredictable and even aggressive foreign policy.
"We regret the fact that this decision was taken by the US administration and President Obama personally. As was said before, we consider this decision and these sanctions unjustified and illegal under international law.
Mr Peskov warned that the restrictions won’t go unanswered by Moscow promising “adequate, reciprocal” reaction “that will deliver significant discomfort to the US side in the same areas.” However, he added that "there’s no need to rush".
Putin has previously denied the hacking claims and called on Obama and his administration to either provide evidence or stop making accusations.
The move ensures action before President-elect Donald Trump takes office.
The move also puts Mr Trump in the position of having to decide whether to roll back the measures once in office and could potentially cause difficulties for his nominees during their confirmation hearings in the Senate, where support for sanctioning Russia is strong.
"We have to sanction Russia for these cyber attacks (and) send a clear message to the incoming administration that there is a lot of bipartisan support in Congress for going after this," Senator Amy Klobuchar told the Associated Press (AP) by phone from Latvia while on a trip to discuss security issues, including cyber security, with eastern European allies.
She said politicians on both sides were in favour of quick action.
Ms Klobuchar joined Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham on their visits to the Baltic states, Ukraine and Georgia - all Russian neighbours - as well as Montenegro.
Russia responded angrily in anticipation of the announcement and suggested it might retaliate against US diplomats.
Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called it a last blow by President Barack Obama to US-Russia relations, and added: "We are tired of lies about Russian hackers that continue to be spread in the United States from the very top."
"If Washington takes new hostile steps, it will receive an answer," Ms Zakharova said in a statement.
"This applies to any actions against Russian diplomatic missions in the United States, which will immediately backfire at US diplomats in Russia."
Read more
Brexit: Furious reaction following Barack Obama's intervention in UK's EU referendum
Russian officials have denied the Obama administration's accusation that the Russian government was involved at the highest levels in trying to influence the US presidential election.
A secret CIA report concluded that Russia's goal was to help Mr Trump win - an assessment Mr Trump has dismissed as ridiculous.
The claims previously drew a rebuke from Trump’s transition team, which said in a statement: "These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction."
“Can you imagine if the election results were the opposite and WE tried to play the Russia/CIA card. It would be called conspiracy theory!” Trump tweeted previously.
Mr Trump rejected the CIA's conclusion that Russia tried to interfere with the presidential election and blamed "very embarrassed" Democrats for the public release of the assessment. The Washington Post first reported the CIA finding on Friday.
"It's ridiculous," Mr Trump said of the CIA's assessment. He added, however, that he does not necessarily oppose President Barack Obama's order for a review of campaign-season hacking. "If you're going to do that, I think you should not just say 'Russia'. You should say other countries also, and maybe other individuals."
Read more
Julian Assange: Russian government not source of leaked DNC and Podesta emails - WikiLeaks editor contradicts CIA claims in new interview
The US has already sanctioned Russia over Crimea and the conflict in Ukraine.
WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange has denied that emails from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman John Podesta were hacked and leaked to his organisation by the Russian government.
In an interview with Sean Hannity he was asked: "So in other words, let me be clear...Russia did not give you the Podesta documents or anything from the DNC?"
Read more
The Australian founder of the whistleblowing website, who has been living in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for over four years, responded: "That's correct."
Assange said: "We’re unhappy that we felt that we needed to even say that it wasn’t a state party. Normally, we say nothing at all.
"We have... a strong interest in protecting our sources, and so we never say anything about them, never ruling anyone in or anyone out.
"And so here, in order to prevent a distraction attack against our publications, we’ve had to come out and say ‘no, it’s not a state party. Stop trying to distract in that way and pay attention to the content of the publication," he told Hannity.
Assange also revealed that WikiLeaks received "about three pages of information to do with the [Republican National Committee] and Donald Trump [during the campaign], but it was already public somewhere else."
Craig Murray, the former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, who is a close associate of Assange, also dismissed the CIA's claims that Russia was the source of the emails as "bulls***".
Read more
The accounts by Murray and Assange directly contradict the story advanced by the CIA.
The Washington Post reported on a'secret assessment' by the CIA, which concluded that Russian intelligence hacked the Democratic National Committee's servers and that of Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman John Podesta, specifically to help Trump win the presidency.
Mr Murray said: "I know who leaked them. I’ve met the person who leaked them, and they are certainly not Russian and it's an insider. It’s a leak, not a hack; the two are different things.
“If what the CIA are saying is true, and the CIA’s statement refers to people who are known to be linked to the Russian state, they would have arrested someone if it was someone inside the United States.
Read more
“America has not been shy about arresting whistleblowers and it’s not been shy about extraditing hackers. They plainly have no knowledge whatsoever.”
He then revealed to Dailymail.com that he had flown to Washington DC for a secret hand-off with one of the sources in September.
He said that he met an intermediary in a wooded area near a US university to retrieve a package.
Intelligence assessments
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), which oversees the 17 agency-strong US intelligence community, has not embraced the CIA's assessment, sources have told Reuters.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation, whose standards require it to make cases that can stand up in court, also declined to accept the CIA's analysis.
In an angry letter sent to ODNI chief James Clapper on Monday, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes said he was “dismayed” that the top US intelligence official had not informed the panel of the CIA's analysis and the difference between its judgment and the FBI’s assessment, Reuters reported.
"ODNI is not arguing that the agency (CIA) is wrong, only that they can't prove intent," one of the officials told the news agency. "Of course they can't, absent agents in on the decision-making in Moscow.”
The ODNI was formed after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Read more
'Thin reed'
“[It was] a thin reed upon which to base an analytical judgment,” another official said in response to the speculation. He stressed that the “judgment based on the fact that Russian entities hacked both Democrats and Republicans and only the Democratic information was leaked.”
Republican Senator John McCain said on Monday there was "no information" that Russian hacking of US political organisations was aimed at influencing the election.
"It's obvious that the Russians hacked into our campaigns," McCain said told Reuters.
"But there is no information that they were intending to affect the outcome of our election and that's why we need a congressional investigation."For years, the file-sharing site Kickass Torrents has enabled users around the world to illegally reproduce hundreds of millions of copies of copyrighted material, from hit Hollywood films to the latest video games, TV shows and songs, federal authorities allege.
As the site grew into a multimillion-dollar business, its owner, Ukrainian-born Artem Vaulin, has managed to stay one step ahead of authorities, changing domain names and moving his servers from country to country to throw off investigations before charges could be brought, authorities say.
That changed Wednesday, when federal prosecutors in Chicago announced sweeping copyright infringement charges against Vaulin, alleging he allowed the illegal sharing of more than $1 billion worth of copyright-protected material.
Vaulin was arrested by authorities in Poland on Wednesday, according to the U.S. attorney's office. He was charged in a criminal complaint unsealed in Chicago with conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement, conspiracy to commit money laundering and two counts of criminal copyright infringement, authorities say.
The most serious charges carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
Federal prosecutors will seek Vaulin's extradition to the U.S., a process that could take weeks. In addition to the charges, U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeffrey Gilbert earlier this month ordered the seizure of seven domain names associated with the alleged conspiracy, court records show.
"Copyright infringement exacts a large toll, a very human one, on the artists and businesses whose livelihood hinges on their creative inventions," U.S. Attorney Zachary Fardon said in a statement.
According to the 50-page complaint, Kickass Torrents, also known by its acronym KAT, was founded in 2008 and is currently the 69th most-visited website, with more than 50 million unique monthly visitors. It operates in at least 28 languages, and has a net worth estimated at $54 million.
The site relies on a network of computer servers around the world, including Chicago, Costa Rica and the Pacific island nation of Tonga, according to the complaint.
Court records show that as part of the investigation, agents from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security executed a search warrant in January on KAT servers housed at the Chicago Board of Trade building at 141 W. Jackson Blvd.
Vaulin, who used the online screen name "tirm," helped design KAT's original website and oversaw the company's vast operations, according to the complaint. Recently, Vaulin operated under the guise of a Ukrainian-based front company called Cryptoneat, authorities say.
Over the years, KAT has been the subject of numerous seizures and copyright lawsuits, and has been ordered blocked by courts across Europe, the complaint states. Despite the legal action, KAT has consistently offered copyright-protected movies for download, including many that were still in theaters at the time, authorities say.
In March, the Motion Picture Association of America estimated that based on the number of KAT downloads of just six recent movie titles — including the blockbuster "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" — it had lost more than $324,000 in revenue.
jmeisner@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @jmetr22bUpdate, 4/27/11 — Apple has posted a response to questions raised in this report and others.
By Alasdair Allan and Pete Warden
Today at Where 2.0 Pete Warden and I will announce the discovery that your iPhone, and your 3G iPad, is regularly recording the position of your device into a hidden file. Ever since iOS 4 arrived, your device has been storing a long list of locations and time stamps. We’re not sure why Apple is gathering this data, but it’s clearly intentional, as the database is being restored across backups, and even device migrations.
A visualization of iPhone location data. Click to enlarge.
The presence of this data on your iPhone, your iPad, and your backups has security and privacy implications. We’ve contacted Apple’s Product Security team, but we haven’t heard back.
What makes this issue worse is that the file is unencrypted and unprotected, and it’s on any machine you’ve synched with your iOS device. It can also be easily accessed on the device itself if it falls into the wrong hands. Anybody with access to this file knows where you’ve been over the last year, since iOS 4 was released.
In the following video, we discuss how the file was discovered and take a look at the data contained in the file. Further details are posted below.
What information is being recorded?
All iPhones appear to log your location to a file called “consolidated.db.” This contains latitude-longitude coordinates along with a timestamp. The coordinates aren’t always exact, but they are pretty detailed. There can be tens of thousands of data points in this file, and it appears the collection started with iOS 4, so there’s typically around a year’s worth of information at this point. Our best guess is that the location is determined by cell-tower triangulation, and the timing of the recording is erratic, with a widely varying frequency of updates that may be triggered by traveling between cells or activity on the phone itself.
Who has access to this data?
Don’t panic. As we discuss in the video, there’s no immediate harm that would seem to come from the availability of this data. Nor is there evidence to suggest this data is leaving your custody. But why this data is stored and how Apple intends to use it — or not — are important questions that need to be explored.
Related books by Alasdair Allan and Pete Warden
What are the implications of this location data?
The cell phone companies have always had this data, but it takes a court order to access it. Now this information is sitting in plain view, unprotected from the world. Beyond this, there is even more data that we have yet to look at in depth.
For example, in my own case I (Alasdair) discovered a list of hundreds of thousands of wireless access points that my iPhone has been in range of during the last year.
How can you look at your own data?
We have built an application that helps you look at your own data. It’s available at petewarden.github.com/iPhoneTracker along with the source code and deeper technical information.
What can you do about this?
An immediate step you can take is to encrypt your backups through iTunes (click on your device within iTunes and then check “Encrypt iPhone Backup” under the “Options” area).
Related:Watch: Truth of Ukraine's Crisis
Video By Watchdog Video
8 Months in Ukraine (Euromaidan - MH17)
Obama's "peaceful protesters" have wrecked havoc around the world. What a legacy that man has, one of the biggest hypocrites and 'humanitarian' liars of our political times.
Posted August 01, 2017
Research & Editing by: Chris Nolan
Subtitles by: Angelina Siard & Ollie Richardson
[1/5] November 20, 2013 - April 14, 2014
[2/5] April 15 - May 29, 2014
[3/5] June 1 - July 4, 2014
[4/5] July 4 - 16, 2014
[5/5] July 16 - 17, 2014
No Advertising - No Government Grants - This Is Independent Media Get Our Free Daily Newsletter
Sources:
NOVEMBER 20, 2013
KIEV
“Oleg Tsarev on the preparation of the United States revolution in Ukraine,” Oleg Tsarev, November 20 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNsGqePNrFg
"TechCamp Kyiv 2.0 - The Next Step: Building Civil Society Using Technology,” U.S. Embassy Kyiv Ukraine, March 1 2013, https://www.flickr.com/photos/usembassykyiv/sets/72157632893215416/
“TechCamp Donetsk 2.0, April 4, 2013,” U.S. Embassy Kyiv Ukraine, https://www.flickr.com/photos/usembassykyiv/sets/72157633178030745/
NOVEMBER 26, 2013
“Ukraine is 'united' on EU integration says Poroshenko,” BBC HARDtalk, November 26 2013, http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01m7qr8, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_SfpTWunCw
NOVEMBER 30, 2013
“Ukraine police disperse pro-EU protesters,” Euronews, November 30 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pa-pe_nVPr4
DECEMBER 1, 2013
“Ukraine Protesters Attempt to Storm Administration w/ Bulldozer [12/01/13],” TheTrueClassChannel, December 2 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtqQeJ315nw
“Tchaikovsky: Overture 1812, Op.49 - Choral version, edited by Andrew Cornall,” Vladimir Ashkenazy, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slWpAAZFn_Y
DECEMBER 2, 2013
“Return of Ukraine’s Orange Revolution?” CNN, December 2 2013, http://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2013/12/02/yatsenyuk-ukraine-amanpour.cnn
DECEMBER 4, 2013
“Poroshenko: We can solve crisis in a democratic way,” CNN, December 4 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SHVK2-p9QI
DECEMBER 5, 2013
“Ukrainian Opposition Vitaly Klitschko Meets U.S. Official, Victoria Nuland,” NTDTV, December 6 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0miz548u0WY
DECEMBER 10, 2013
“Catherine Ashton in Kiev, Ukraine,” European External Action Service, December 11 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCtL7FXY0Ew
Oleksandr Techynskyi & Aleksey Solodunov. “Thousands of demonstrators defy the state power [for F.A.Z.],” Ukraine Video Reportage, December 11, 2013, https://vimeo.com/81656900
DECEMBER 11, 2013
“Victoria Nuland (Mrs. Robert Kagan), Assistant Secretary State of Ukraine,” Reuters/RadioLiberty, December 11, 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVs2tcSyyuA, https://www.rferl.org/a/25197233.html, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbjNJbjEy04, http://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-victoria-nuland-wades-into-ukraine-turmoil-over-yanukovich/
“Assistant Secretary Nuland Comments on Ukraine,” U.S. Department of State, December 12 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKRKckGS8iM, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBiIFolMpgQ,
DECEMBER 13, 2013
"Victoria Nuland: Ukrainians Deserve For Respect From Their Government,” Ukraine in Washington: US-Ukraine Foundation, December 18, 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2y0y-JUsPTU
DECEMBER 15, 2013
“John McCain addresses Ukrainian protesters in Kiev,” The Guardian, December 16 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93eyhO8VTdg
"Far-right group at heart of Ukraine protests meet US senator,” Channel4 News, December 16 2013, https://www.channel4.com/news/ukraine-mccain-far-right-svoboda-anti-semitic-protests
JANUARY 1, 2014
“TORCH-LIT MARCH IN KIEV BY UKRAINE'S RIGHT-WING SVOBODA PARTY,” BBC News, January 2 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHhGEiwCHZE
“Torchlight procession 01.01.14. Kiev. 105th anniversary of the birth of Bandera,” Seo Userseo, January 1 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0L7WQwoDAc
JANUARY 19, 2014
Aleksey Solodunov & Dmitriy Stoykov. “Police and protesters clash in Kiev on Hrushevskoho Street near government block. 19.01.2014,” Ukraine Video Reportage, January 2014, https://vimeo.com/81656900
“The Sound of War,” Blue Stahli, August 26 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqS0CnxvsrU
JANUARY 20, 2014
Oleksandr Techynskyi & Aleksey Solodunov. “A protester uses fireworks during clashes with police in Kiev. 20.01.2014,” Ukraine Video Reportage, January 2014, https://vimeo.com/85653333
JANUARY 22, 2014
Oleksandr Techynskyi & Aleksey Solodunov. “Ukrainian police stormed protesters’ barricades in Kiev. 22.01.2014,” Ukraine Video Reportage, January 2014, https://vimeo.com/85770265
“Kiev 22.01.14,” Maxim Bernakevich, January 22 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HihXs_Q6Qx8
“I Am The Beast,” Blue Stahli, August 26 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGAwCFunIjA
JANUARY 25, 2014
VINNITSA
“Violent video: Ukraine rioters brutally beat police, storm local admin building,” RT, January 25 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stK3YPz6WTc
JANUARY 31, 2014
“President Obama Answers a Question about Ukraine at the Virtual Road Trip with President Obama,” USEmbassyKyiv, February 1 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpTNpLImzz0
FEBRUARY 4, 2014
VICTORIA NULAND - GEOFFRY PYATT CALL UPLOADED
“Puppets of the Maidan,” Re Post, February 4 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSxaa-67yGM
FEBRUARY 6, 2014
JEN PSAKI (US STATE DEPARTMENT)
“Daily Press Briefing: February 6, 2014,” U.S. Department of State, February 7 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAgji1vzZyQ
FEBRUARY 7, 2014
KIEV
“Press conference with US Undersecretary of Defense Victoria Nuland,” USEmbassyKyiv, February 8 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUg57YOUuY8
“Nuland: No comment on private conversation about EU and Ukraine,” Euronews, February 7 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cer03Tri4as
FEBRUARY 18, 2014
Oleksandr Techynskyi, Aleksey Solodunov & Dmitriy Stoykov. “Ukraine protests: Fighting in Kiev 18.02.2014,” Ukraine Video Reportage, February 19 2014, https://vimeo.com/87111967
33 “Nemesis,” Blue Stahli, August 26 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f10ecma2evA
FEBRUARY 19, 2014
“Kiev in flames as Obama warns of consequences,” AFP News Agency, February 19 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-EAu0fjaFw
FEBRUARY 20, 2014
“Ukraine Protests: 'Sniper' fires from Ukraine media hotel,” BBC News, February 21 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQhuD4F1yJ0
REPRESENTATIVE OF RUSSIA TO THE UN VITALY CHURKIN “What sparked the Ukraine?” CNN, February 20 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WY_CA2nRCiY
FEBRUARY 21, 2014
“Ukraine crisis: uneasy calm rests over Kiev as truce announced,” The Telegraph, February 21 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CK0B_nOMyws
“Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovich And Opposition Leaders Sign Deal To End Crisis,” Sky News, February 21 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNwBvG2SjH4, http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2014/02/ukraine-rivals-sign-deal-end-crisis-2014221133910966823.html
"Ukraine opposition leaders sign deal with government," The Guardian, February 21, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/21/agreement-on-the-settlement-of-crisis-in-ukraine-full-text
“Euromaidan - Maidan announce ultimatum to Victor Yanukovych,” Euromaidan PR, February 21 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCmOTaMh3pE
FEBRUARY 22, 2014
“Ukraine's parliament sacks president, sets early elections,” CBS News, February 22 2014, http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/ukraines-parliament-sacks-president-sets-early-elections/?ftag=CNM-00-10aab4i
KHARKOV
“Euromaidan - Fled president Viktor Yanukovych first official statement,” Euromaidan PR, February 22 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsoGnOe_Wos
KIEV
“Ukraine's parliament dismisses President Yanukovych,” Euronews, February 22 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5FLxHpKzOQ
FEBRUARY 23, 2014
“Ukraine Crisis: Klitschko - President Yanukovych has disappeared,” BBC News, February 23 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRq-YVKW36A
DONETSK
“Does Donetsk want Ukraine’s revolution?” Channel 4 News, February 23 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_gTtbb6BJs
SEVASTOPOL
“Sevastopol rose against fascism! 50 000 citizens sing Arise, great country!" Russkiy Block, February 23 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2FunKG-9Rk
FEBRUARY 28, 2014
KIEV
“Neo-Nazi threat in new Ukraine: NEWSNIGHT,” BBC Newsnight, February 28 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SBo0akeDMY
MARCH 1, 2014
SEVASTOPOL
“Balaklava. As it was,” BABYLON’13, March 1 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLgsSrgIBro
MARCH 2, 2014
SIMFEROPOL
US SECRETARY OF STATE JOHN KERRY
“MEET THE PRESS TRANSCRIPT: March 2, 2014,” NBC News, March 2 2014, http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meet-press-transcript-march-2-2014-n42471
MARCH 3, 2014
DONETSK
“Ukraine crisis: Government building occupied in Donetsk,” BBC News, March 3 2014, http://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-26425274/ukraine-crisis-government-building-occupied-in-donetsk
“Pro-Russia protesters occupy regional government in Ukraine's Donetsk,” Reuters, March 3 2014, http://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-crisis-donetsk-protests-idUSBREA220XI20140303
MARCH 4, 2014
KIEV
“Secretary Kerry Delivers Remarks in Ukraine,” U.S. Department of State, March 5 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kf3NrsX6FwI
MARCH 5, 2014
URMAS PAET - CATHERINE ASHTON CALL UPLOADED
“Breaking: Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet and Catherine Ashton discuss Ukraine over the phone,” Michael Bergman, March 5 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEgJ0oo3OA8
“Maidan. Inconvenient truth : shooting in the back,” Pol27, March 4 2014, https://www.liveleak.com/view?i=5dc_1393953567
“Shooting people in Kiev,” Conservative Channel, February 20 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGvfVu47GZQ
“Under sniper fire: The unseen footage from Kiev,” BBC Newsnight, February 28 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qg3R_BSz0Cc
156TH AIR DEFENCE REGIMENT
Buks removed from A-0194 (Lugansk, 3rd Battalion)
“Anti-aircraft guns in Lugansk region,” Sergei Kalinovskiy, March 5 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGSWScez5cI
“Missile complex "Buk" in Artemovsky district on March 5, 2014,” Sergey Shlema, March 5 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGY |
Times, saying that “ISIS has mined everything—refrigerators, house appliances, tea kettles, everything.”
This, the Financial Times reminds us, is a common tactic:
A typical Isis tactic is to mine buildings and roads when its enemies advance, a move that not only slows progress for days and weeks but also can inflict heavy casualties well after the group has fled.
Mohammed says ISIS's mines are a mix of improvised and Russian explosives:
Most of the mines are handmade, few are Russian mines, and the majority are landmines. Others are distributed throughout houses: in doors and entrances, refrigerators, cooking utensils and even teapots. They even included behind wall paintings and inside shops.
The neighborhoods where mines were spread are heavily in the southern, western and north-western part of the city of Manbij, in the outskirts of the northern neighborhoods and in the outskirts of the eastern neighborhoods as well as in many villages.
The Syrian-lead initiative “Syria With No Mines” shared an image online of a mine disguised as a cup:
Mines planted in civilian houses by ISIS before their retreat from Manbij city
According to Munif Al-Tai, another human rights activist currently residing in Turkey but originally from Manbij, the SDF has found 14,000 mines in recent days, and the hidden explosives have already managed to claim more than 100 lives.
The SDF are trying to disarm the mines, but the matter takes time to comb the areas one after the other. Mines in homes need checking first from homeowners.
According to locals in Manbij, the SDF refused to disarm mines without being paid, though these reports are unconfirmed. Others say they've submitted complaints to the relevant authorities.
The use of mines in the Syrian conflict has raised serious concerns from Syrian and international organizations. The UN's Mine Action Gateway reports that there are an estimated 5.1 million people living in highly contaminated areas, including 2 million children. Mines have been used by many armed factions in Syria, most notably by ISIS and the Assad regime.
The Violations Documentation Center in Syria says the Assad regime even used naval mines on in August last year:
Dropped hundreds of barrel bombs, known for their random highly-destructive nature, dozens of unguided surface-to-surface missiles (Fil missiles), naval mines, and cylinder bombs on the city in addition to launching dozens of airstrikes by Mig warplanes.
In January this year, residents of the besieged city of Madaya reported to the Guardian that the Assad regime's forces and their allies surrounded the area with mines.Metro Manila (CNN Philippines) — Former Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario is calling on the new administration to count the cost of shifting alliances away from the United States.
"Has anyone in government sat down to calculate the probable loss of economic benefits if we pursue the foreign policy we are now pursuing?" Del Rosario said on Wednesday.
He said the Philippines received over $4 billion in development financing from the US from 2012 to 2015. This year alone, the country will receive $140 million in military assistance from the US -- its only treaty ally. Companies also tap about $800 million in annual trade benefits with the US.
"We will lose that," he said.
The diplomat was speaking during a forum organised by his consultancy group, ADR Institute. The talk focused on the economic priorities of the Duterte administration, but discussions inevitably veered towards the role of foreign policy in luring investments.
President Rodrigo Duterte has threatened to cut ties with the US after it criticized the rising death toll of his war on drugs. He said the Philippines would turn to China for an alliance instead.
After turning down repeated requests for comment throughout the event, Del Rosario finally broke his silence at the close of the program.
"Why is the Philippines distancing itself from [a country] who has worked specifically on promoting the rule of law, which is to the advantage of the Philippines?" he asked.
"Vis-a-vis, why is the Philippines suddenly embracing a country that has been blatantly violating the rule of law to its disadvantage?" he continued, making a thinly veiled reference to China's incursions into the West Philippine Sea.
For his part, ADR Institute President Dindo Manhit said it was a welcome move to rebuild Philippine-Chinese relations after the maritime dispute between the two countries.
But both Manhit and Del Rosario agreed foreign policy need not be a "zero-sum game."
"Instead of drastically changing its friendship from one country to another, the Philippines should maintain its good relations with its trusted friends and pursue constructive relations with all its neighbours," Manhit said.
Del Rosario added: "The Philippines can make new friends without losing its old ones."
Foreign Affairs Secretary Perfecto Yasay earlier told the United Nations General Assembly that the Duterte administration is adopting an "independent foreign policy."
But Del Rosario said the government was getting "driven off-track."
"Our foreign policy is independent when first and foremost is the promotion of our national interest... Such that we stand up for what is right and that we defend what is ours," he said.
Proceeding with caution
The strength of the economy makes the Philippines an attractive destination for investors, but the controversy surrounding the government means they are also proceeding with caution, officials said.
Australian Ambassador to the Philippines Amanda Gorely said Australian companies look for a conducive regulatory environment, skilled workforce and steady economic returns when they invest in a country.
But there is also "something intangible" they want to see: confidence, rooted in political stability, she said in the forum.
"I am often asked about my outlook for the Philippines and I always say, it's still the very early days of the new administration. We need to remain cautiously optimistic."
For her part, Yurika Suzuki, a research fellow at the Japan External Trade Organization, said Japanese businesses appreciate the country's robust fundamentals.
"I just wish it won't be overshadowed by uncertainty in politics and foreign policy," she said.
"We are all cautiously observing what is going on."
Also read: PH, U.S.: We're still friendsAccording to a report which has flown almost completely under the radar, last year an ISP sent out around 300 "first strike" warning letters wrongfully accusing innocent subscribers of Internet piracy. ISP Eircom implemented the scheme in partnership with the recording industry and is now being investigated by the Irish Data Protection Commissioner.
In February 2009, IRMA – representing EMI, Sony, Universal and Warner – reached an 11th hour out-of-court settlement with Irish ISP Eircom on the issue of illicit file-sharing. The deal would see Eircom introduce a graduated response system for dealing with errant subscribers.
“Eircom is proceeding with implementation of the protocol which could result in the suspension and ultimately disconnection of broadband service for those customers who deliberately and persistently infringe copyright,” the company said in a December 2010 statement, reiterating their commitment to the scheme.
But little did we know that the fears of “3 strikes” opponents had already come true.
From deep inside the “how the hell did the majority of the media miss this department”, it now becomes clear that by October 2010, Eircom had already sent out around 300 warning letters to completely innocent subscribers.
The company seems to have tried to play down the error saying that computer clocks were incorrectly adjusted to compensate for daylight saving time, some comfort to the unlucky letter recipients.
According to TJ McIntyre at digital rights site EDRI.org, as a result of this failure the Irish Data Protection Commissioner is now investigating the entire Eircom scheme.
“The significance of this case goes well beyond simple technical failings however, as the complaint to the Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) has triggered a wider investigation of the legality of the entire three strikes system,” he writes.
The DPC is said to be not only investigating the complaint but also “whether the subject matter gives rise to any questions as to the proportionality of the graduated response system operated by Eircom and the music industry.”
McIntyre says that when the Eircom/IRMA deal was being agreed, the DPC expressed concerns with it, not least over the question of whether or not IP addresses are personal data. However, until someone raised a complaint, that issue was put on the back burner. The delivery of 300 false “first strike” warning letters appears to have met that criteria.
“The complaint in this case has now triggered that action, and it seems likely that the Commissioner will reach a decision reflecting his previous views that using IP addresses to cut off customers’ internet connections is disproportionate and does not constitute ‘fair use’ of personal information,” McIntyre explains.
“If so, the Commissioner has the power and indeed the duty to issue an enforcement notice which would prevent Eircom from using personal data for this purpose – an outcome which would derail the three strikes system unless Eircom successfully challenges that notice before the courts, or unless the music industry were to succeed in its campaign to secure legislation introducing three strikes into Irish law.”
The way this story has flown largely under the mainstream tech news radar will have been a relief to Eircom and IRMA. Something tells us that is about to change.Rain makes grain. Yet, too much rain can be too much of a good thing. In eastern North Dakota, northeastern South Dakota, and western Minnesota, rampant rainfall over the past couple of decades has unveiled sodic and saline soils that aren’t conducive to growing crops.
“In the last 25 years, North Dakota has seen a rise in water and a change in its hydrology,” says Frank Casey, a NDSU soil physicist who directs the NDSU School of Natural Resource Sciences.
This has spurred both saline and sodic soils in the region. Sodic soils impact about 10% of North Dakota’s agricultural land. Meanwhile, 1.2 million acres in the Red River Valley are classified as slightly saline. Soybeans are particularly sensitive to these soils, as crop losses of $57 million annually occur in this region.
There are steps farmers can take to help manage these soils in many cases, but it takes time. “It’s often a 10-year project,” Casey says. The soil doesn’t fix itself overnight.”
North Dakota Soil Health Program
In North Dakota, there’s a soil health research program that focuses on management options for salt-affected soils, effective use of conservation tillage and cover crops, soil health evaluation, and soil’s relationship to crop disease pest pressure and economic parameters. These projects are linked to the Soil health And Agriculture Research Extension (SHARE) Farm in Mooreton, North Dakota. There’s a quarter of land, owned by cooperating farmer Ken Johnson, that is extensively soil sampled, and various tillage strategies are tried out on tiled and nontiled saline and nonsaline soils.
Last week, NDSU and the University of Minnesota sponsored a soil health tour in southeastern North Dakota. Here’s some of what they found.
Saline and Sodic Soils
Saline and sodic soils are often lumped together, but they differ.
Sodic soils have high amounts of sodium relative to calcium and magnesium on their exchange sites. When this happens, swelling and dispersion cause disorder of clay and organic matter. These soils then have low productivity and poor soil health.
“With sodic soils, you are pretty limited in what you can do,” says Chandra Langseth, an NDSU research and Extension technician.
Many sodic soils aren’t helped by drainage tile. Cases have existed with pattern tiling on 20-foot spacings on sodic soils, and it didn’t help. “These soils never drained well to begin with,” says Tom DeSutter, an NDSU soil scientist.
Certain soil amendments are available, although expensive. A deep-rooted crop like alfalfa is also an alternative.
Still, options are limited. “Sodic soils are a beast to deal with,” says Langseth.
Better News for Saline Soils
These soils are high in salts derived from ancient sedimentary rocks. Prolific precipitation prompts these salts to rise to the surface due to a rising water table.
These soils can be fixed, but it is a multiyear process.
“You need to shift your brain from production to remediation for those saline areas,” says Abbey Wick, NDSU Extension soil health specialist.
Successfully managing saline soils means successfully managing excess water. Managing these soils is akin to wicking water via a dry sponge. “The more water goes to the surface, the more salinity that you have,” Casey says.
One tool is a cover crop. Tiling is another option. Steps such as no-tilling fields can increase soil aggregation, another step in slowing salinity.
“It’s a lot like making chili,” says Aaron Daigh, an NDSU soil scientist. “Drainage is like adding beans to the chili. But maybe other things like no-till and cover crops are the peppers and the meat. It is putting several things together, where you can speed things up if you want to get there a little faster.”
Cover Crop Choices
There are all kinds of different cover crop combinations that can be planted. Effectiveness exists in simplicity, says Wick. In southeastern North Dakota, Wick and area farmers there have found a good mix of 40 pounds per acre of cereal rye and 5 pounds per acre of radish interseeded around V6 to V10 in corn this year. A week later, they were starting to germinate within the corn rows.
“Both are predictable,” he says. “The radishes die during the winter, and Roundup smokes the cereal rye.”Australian trapped in Iraqi refugee camp under threat from Islamic State pleads with Government for help
Updated
An Australian man trapped in a refugee camp under threat from Islamic State (IS) fighters has pleaded with the Australian Government to issue him travel documents so he can escape to safety.
Renas Lelikan, a journalist of Kurdish origin with joint Turkish-Australian citizenship, is living in the Makhmur camp in northern Iraq, which predominantly houses Kurdish refugees who have fled crackdowns by the Turkish government over the last 20 years.
IS fighters have attacked the camp on a number of occasions over the last year, as the terror group has taken swathes of territory across the north of Iraq.
"It's been targeted by IS terrorist every week, sometimes twice a week," Mr Lelikan told the ABC.
"Yesterday they attacked the camp through Katyusha rockets, one woman has been killed, one kid and one guy was badly injured. No-one here in this camp is safe.
"I don't need to describe what IS is, the whole world knows.
"Wherever they go, they destroy everything. Anything that belongs to humanity, they are destroying."
Do you know more about this story? Email investigations@abc.net.au.
'I have rights, like any Australian citizen'
Mr Lelikan first contacted the Australian embassy in Baghdad in January, asking for a passport or temporary travel documents to allow him to return to Australia, but seven months later he has still not been issued with the necessary papers.
He had been told the passport application was being processed, but was recently sent a lengthy questionnaire by ASIO and told to fill it in and return it.
Mr Lelikan and his lawyers believe the ASIO questionnaire — and the failure to issue him with travel documents — stem from his alleged links to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a militant Kurdish group fighting against the Turkish state.
The PKK has been listed as a terror group by Australia and a handful of other countries, allegedly in response to pressure from Turkey rather than because it poses a risk to those countries.
I have been lived in Australia since 1997, during this time they can tell me whether I have caused any minor damage towards the interests of Australia, but there is none. Renas Lelikan
Mr Lelikan was convicted in France in 2011 of activities relating to the PKK, but was given a three-year suspended sentence.
He then fled France using a relative's passport, but was forced to leave his Australian passport behind.
It is understood Mr Lelikan is not subject to any extradition request from France and the sole penalty for his leaving the country before the expiration of sentence is a five-year ban from entering France.
"Here the core of the matter is that I am an Australian citizen. I have rights, like any Australian citizen," Mr Lelikan said.
"In my life, I have fulfilled, observed and represented the interest of the people of Australia.
"I have lived in Australia [on and off] since 1997, during this time they can tell me whether I have caused any minor damage towards the interests of Australia, but there is none."
Mr Lelikan said if the Australian authorities suspected him of criminal activity in relation to his work with Kurdish separatists, they could question and prosecute him when he returned to Australia.
He said he posed no risk to Australia or its people, and that he simply wanted to continue his journalistic work.
"I have been working as a journalist [for the] past 15 years. I began working as journalist while I was in Australia in 2000," he said.
"I have written thousands of articles, writings and news for publications.
"My materials were all about my own personal observation about the current situation of the Middle East, predominantly about the struggle of Kurdish people, about their livelihood and inspirations."
IS groups attempted to infiltrate camp
Mr Lelikan said groups of IS fighters had tried to infiltrate the camp with the intention of enslaving Kurdish women and children, but had been pushed back by Kurdish fighters.
"Thousands of kids and women live here, it is more dangerous for them than for me," he said.
Mr Lelikan's lawyer, Jessie Smith from Stary Norton Halphen Lawyers, said there was no "positive obligation" under Australian laws for the Australian Government to provide someone in Mr Lelikan's position with new travel documents, but that there were obligations under international laws that Australia is a signatory to.
Ms Smith said she suspected the delay in helping Mr Lelikan stemmed from his political affiliations, and that it was concerning that the Australian authorities in Baghdad had not given any kind of timeframe for the documents to be issued.
I am wishing that he should be issued with a passport in the shortest time, we are all anxious and live with great fear. Renas Lelikan's sister, Semra Demirbag
"What we're asking for is the provision of a passport, or failing that, the provision of a temporary travel document so he can fly from Iraq to safety in Australia," she said.
"If there needs to be further investigation at that point, about his political allegiances, as a journalist, that can take place in Australia subject to Australian law.
"Mr Lelikan is Kurdish by ethnicity, he is someone who has had a long dedication to the Kurdish political cause, peacefully as a journalist.
"Having journalists on the ground, reporting the suffering of Iraqi refugees in a conflict zone shouldn't be seen as a problematic endeavour, it should be applauded.
"That's what he's been doing for a number of years, but it's got to the point where his health is at risk, his safety is at risk, and he should be allowed to return home.
"It would be at no expense to the taxpayer. All he's asking for is a temporary travel document to facilitate that journey."
Mr Lelikan's sister, Semra Demirbag, lives in Sydney along with a number of relatives.
She said she and her parents were desperately worried about her brother, who she last saw 10 years ago.
"I am wishing that he should be issued with a passport in the shortest time, we are all anxious and live with great fear," she said through a translator.
Mr Lelikan's mother died this week. His sister said their mother had a brain haemorrhage, which she believed was brought on by worrying about Mr Lelikan's safety.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade declined to comment on Mr Lelikan's case for privacy reasons.
Topics: unrest-conflict-and-war, community-and-society, immigration, iraq
First postedPRIOR LAKE, Minn. (WCCO) — Some things in life are predictable. Find Duke and you’ll find Daisy. It is quickly apparent the two yellow Labrador retrievers get along better together. Without Duke, you see, Daisy bumps into things — a lot.
“She’s 10 and she’s completely blind,” said professional dog trainer Leda Blom. “So she follows his lead.”
That makes Duke, Daisy the dog’s “Seeing Eye Dog,” so to speak. She is also his mother and they have never been apart.
Unfortunately, their owners lost their home to foreclosure. It is a scenario the dog rescue group Secondhand Hounds is seeing more often in our troubled economy.
“We get a lot of people [who are being forced] to surrender their dogs,” said the group’s director, Rachel Mairose. “They don’t have a choice. We try to accommodate as many as we can.”
What they have never seen is a partnership like the one of Duke and Daisy. Blom has been teaching Daisy a warning command but her best defense is still Duke.
“He doesn’t let her out of his sight too much. If she goes around a corner, he’s very quick to follow up on where she is,” she said.
Thanks to the rescue group the Labs have already been spared. They were just days away from being euthanized at an animal shelter that was unable to find them permanent homes.
Secondhand Hounds does not have kennels or an animal shelter. All of the pets in its care are placed with 150 foster homes with volunteers.
If the right owners come forward, Duke and Daisy hope to be placed as a pair, allowing them to keep their special relationship going.
If you’re interested in learning more about adoption or volunteering with Secondhand Hounds, just click on the link below.
Secondhand Hounds WebsiteGordon Campbell on Labour’s very bad year
September 22nd, 2014
While Labour leader David Cunliffe still appears to be in denial about the extent of Saturday night’s debacle, there was hardly a single redeeming feature about the election results for the centre-left. Even the victory by Labour’s Stuart Nash in Napier was the outcome of a strong showing by Conservative Party candidate Garth McVicar that split the centre-right vote. Current MPs Andrew Little, Moana Mackey and Maryan Street have all fallen victim to Labour’s low party vote, and that’s symptomatic of the wider problem. Even where Labour stalwarts won their electorates quite handily – Annette King in Rongotai, Ruth Dyson in Port Hills etc – they proved incapable of successfully conveying a “two ticks for Labour” message and time and again, Labour finished well behind National on the party vote. Thus, even where Labour “won,” it consistently lost.
This devastating trend occurred in metropolitan areas from Auckland to Dunedin. In Auckland, Phil Goff, David Shearer Phil Twyford and Cunliffe himself won their electorate races only to see Labour lose the party vote by wide margins – with Carmel Sepuloni In Kelston and Sua William Sio in Mangere being isolated exceptions to the general trend. In Wellington, it was the same dismal story. On election night figures, Labour lost the party vote contests heavily to National in Rongotai, Wellington Central, Hutt South, Rimutaka and Mana – even though senior Labour figures had fronted for the party in those electorates.
Hutt South is a striking case in point. On election night, Labour’s Trevor Mallard finished ahead of National’s Chris Bishop by a slender 378 in the electorate race, yet Bishop delivered the party vote for National by a whopping 6, 372 vote majority over the Labour tally. In Wellington Central, even the Greens won more party votes than what Labour’s Grant Robertson managed to inspire for Labour – and although National’s Paul Foster-Bell was widely seen as a mediocre candidate, National’s party vote trounced Labour in Wellington Central by a convincing 4,655. The same party vote catastrophe unfolded in Christchurch and Dunedin.
To state the bleedingly obvious: this is not a good outlook for Labour’s long term future. In the suburbs and central city alike, gentrification is pulling urban liberals towards the Greens and pushing everyone else to National, and beyond. A few Labour matriarchs and patriarchs may still be able to command a personal loyalty at electorate level but – in metropolitan as in rural/provincial New Zealand – the Labour Party seems to have comprehensively lost the argument over the stewardship of the economy, and the perceived fitness to govern.
Nationwide on Saturday night, the low party vote outcome has also shrunk Labour’s capacity for renewal, by starving it of new entrants on the party list. Essentially, almost all of Saturday’s survivors are veterans of the Clark government era. Given that the party vote failures are – or should be – shared by Cunliffe’s enemies and supporters alike in caucus, Labour’s problems cannot be sheeted home entirely to the man at the helm. Chris Hipkins for instance, might care to explain how come – even though he had been gifted a Labour area like Naenae from the boundary changes to Hutt South – Labour still managed to lose the party vote in Rimutaka to National by 3,264 votes on election night.
In terms of any future leadership contest, the election carnage has cost Cunliffe two supporters in Andrew Little and Sue Moroney, and added two probable enemies to his caucus, in the shape of Kelvin Davis and Stuart Nash. What the voting patterns indicate is that Cunliffe is clearly not connecting with male voters, but would Grant Robertson be likely to do that much better? Stuart Nash, among its returnees, could convince some in caucus that he may be their best long-term bet in that respect. Others would take some convincing that a Shane Jones-like figure (ie Nash) is really the best solution to the centre-left’s current problems.
Right now, policy direction seems more important than shuffling the personalities in Labour’s limited deck. In 2014, Labour looks a lot like one of those roomy old department stores – Deka? DIC? – where its former customers now do their shopping elsewhere. Labour’s social conservatives have decamped to New Zealand First, its young liberals have gone to the Greens and its economic conservatives to National. On first becoming leader Cunliffe had talked of how the GFC had made Third Way economic policy passé – which was a dog whistle that under his leadership, Labour would make a definitive break from the economic policies that have devastated Labour’s core constituencies from 1984 onwards. That change in policy direction didn’t eventuate.
Essentially, Labour added a capital gains tax to social spending without convincing the public of the rationale for either, thereby leaving itself wide open to the old ‘tax and spend’ stereotypes. What it was too timid to promote – and too beholden to its Plus Winston strategy to consider – was an aggressive attack on the current economic settings, crony capitalism, concentrated wealth and workings of privilege. Labour completely failed to get across the message that its capital gains tax was a fairness issue – instead, the policy was largely presented as a technocratic fix to a structural imbalance in the economy, and argued by a Finance spokesperson so “responsible” he was virtually interchangeable with Bill English.
So much for the wishes of the Labour Party members and trade unions who had elected someone in Cunliffe who had promised to lead a genuine left wing alternative to the status quo, and who briefly took Labour to a 37% standing in the polls on the back of that promise. As that prospect receded, so did Labour’s support.
In the end, the voting public decided that it trusted the moderate National version of neo-liberalism, rather than the Labour lite version that dared not speak its name. If I had to pick one thing that epitomized Labour’s basic dishonesty, it would be those campaign advertisements claiming that “only a vote for Labour can change the government.” Think about it. All year, Labour had claimed the exact opposite – that it was a vote for the centre left bloc that was crucial. Yet in its hour of desperation, Labour was prepared to confuse and mislead voters about the nature of MMP, and try to scare them away from backing the Greens or anyone else on the centre-left. Similarly, the false rumour about the Greens being a potential support partner for National seems to have originated in the Labour bunker. As in Te Tai Tokerau, Labour proved more far adept at attacking its allies than its enemies.
On the bright side, at least one major obstacle to reform has been removed by the events of Saturday night. Throughout 2014, Labour flirted heavily with New Zealand First in the hope that Peters could be recruited to a centre-left formation. Well, Labour has now finally been liberated from the relationship with Peters that it pursued and consummated in 2005, and has never really gotten over since. Surely, it must now move on. The NZF social conservatives will in time, find their true home with the Conservatives – who would be a step too far surely, even for Labour. This evolution can only help Labour’s chances of genuine renewal.
Usually when the Labour vote recedes, the Greens go up. Not this time though, as the Greens vote collapsed back to just below its 2011 levels. The 3-4% of voters willing to support the Greens between elections evaporated on the night, and it remains unclear where those potential voters came from, and where they ultimately went. Like lax Catholics who return to the Church in times of crisis, there seems to be a group of centre-right voters who will flirt with the Green alternative between elections, but who will always return to the true blue faith when it really matters. In the circumstances, holding their ground was an achievement for the Greens.
In passing, one can feel sympathy for the rank injustice done to the Conservatives. Thanks to the Epsom gerrymander, the 14, 510 people nationwide who voted for the Act Party got one MP, while the 86,616 people who voted for the Conservatives will have no parliamentary representation at all. United Future, who got a miserable 4,533 party votes nationwide, will even have a Minister on board. A responsible government would lower the 5% threshold and scrap the electoral coat-tails provision. Fat chance of that.
National will now be able to fulfill its third term agenda virtually unchecked. The environment will be laid open to developers by the gutting of the RMA, and National’s package of workplace reform will weaken the ability of workers to bargain collectively – thus leaving wage earners with an even smaller share of the nation’s wealth. It won’t be the first time that people have voted against their own best interests. Between here and 2017, National’s main challenge will be to manage an economy forecast to register lower growth and falling commodity prices. The weakening dollar will raise the cost of imports, including petrol. Over the next three years, National will have to face some unique challenges – and these will test Key’s salesmanship skills to the limit.
Atomic Bomb…You can treat this track as what happened to Labour on Saturday night, or what needs to be dropped on the entire Labour caucus to clear the ground for genuine reform…here, from circa 1978, is the mysterious Nigerian businessman/musician William Onyeabor….
END
Content Sourced from scoop.co.nz
Original urlApple has updated its Apple TV app with iPad support, bringing TV controls, chapter selection, and captions to its bigger screen. The 1.1 update also lets you use Siri to control your Apple TV viewing, but not from the iPad’s regular home screen — instead, you can use voice commands by holding a microphone button on the app’s UI to search for, select, pause, and play your media.
It’s taken quite a while for the company to bring Apple TV Remote capabilities to iPad. Apple SVP Eddy Cue originally teased the software back in 2015, saying it would be arriving in early 2016. In reality, it didn’t hit the iPhone until last August, where it served as a more advanced and feature-rich version of the physical remote that shipped with Apple TV boxes. They’re useful for regular viewers, who won’t now have to fumble for tiny remotes, but both iPhone and iPad variants of the app still don’t let you watch Apple TV while on the move.Research from Munich health research institute IFT released on Thursday showed 1.8 million people in Germany were alcoholics – up by 36 percent from 1.3 million in 2006.
A further 1.6 million drink a lot although are not addicted. In total 7.4 million people drink more than the recommended amount.
The study also looked into smoking addiction and found 5.6 million Germans were addicted to tobacco and 319,000 were dependent on illegal drugs.
“The high prevalence of mental disorders caused by alcohol and tobacco makes the urgency of implementing effective preventive measures clear," according to the study.
Harald Terpe, Green Party spokesman for addiction and drug policy, called on Health Minister Hermann Gröhe to “devote more energy than his predecessors to addiction prevention and therapy.”
"Behind these numbers are numerous family tragedies,” Terpe added.
The Rheinische Post said the report had been with the health ministry since the autumn.
READ MORE: Give jobs to dry alcoholics, says charityThe teenager claimed they were left because her half-sister was already ill and they would not fit in the car. The other children — aged one, four, seven, eight and nine — were found with Phillips in good health and are now in care.
Lachaux and Phillips were due to appear in court later this week on charges of child abuse. The 17-year-old girl, Phillips’ daughter from a previous relationship, told police she gave birth at home last November with no medical care and that her step-father had raped her.
Her ill three-year-old half sister died several weeks ago, she said, and the parents initially ignored her phone calls and texts. Lachaux is said to have returned to the house in late March and moved his daughter’s decomposing corpse to the car, covering it with old pizza boxes.
He then kicked the teenager out of the house, police said, and she slept rough for several days on the Las Vegas Strip and McCarran International Airport before a passer-by noticed her ill baby and called the police.
The infant is recovering after being hospitalised in a critical condition for severe malnutrition and hypothermia.
Additional reporting by AP
Category: International NewsTrump to nominate ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson for secretary of State
CLOSE President-elect Donald Trump is considering Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson as his nominee for Secretary of State, capping a month-long audition process ripped from his former days as a reality television show host. Time
After more than a month of speculation, President-elect Donald Trump has selected ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson as his secretary of State nominee and will make the announcement on Tuesday.
A person familiar with the selection confirmed, speaking on condition of anonymity pending Trump's announcement.
"I will be making my announcement on the next Secretary of State tomorrow morning," Trump tweeted Monday night.
I will be making my announcement on the next Secretary of State tomorrow morning. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 13, 2016
Democrats and some Republicans have raised questions about Tillerson's business ties to Russia, though Trump has described the 64-year-old oil industry executive as a major player on the world stage.
Trump told Fox News Sunday that Tillerson is "much more than a business executive."
ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson is pictured speaking during the 2015 Oil and Money conference in central London. (Photo11: Ben Stansall, AFP/Getty Images)
"I mean, he's a world-class player," said Trump. "He's in charge of, I guess the largest company in the world. He's in charge of an oil company that's pretty much double the size of his next serious competitor. "
Trump also told Fox that "a great advantage is he knows many of the players, and he knows them well. He does massive deals in Russia. He does massive deals for the company — not for himself — for the company."
The president-elect tweeted on Sunday, amid reports he planned to pick Tillerson, that "whether I choose him or not" the Exxon executive "is a world class player and dealmaker. Stay tuned!"
Whether I choose him or not for "State"- Rex Tillerson, the Chairman & CEO of ExxonMobil, is a world class player and dealmaker. Stay tuned! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 11, 2016
The 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney had previously been considered as a favorite for the Cabinet slot, but in a Facebook post on Monday Romney made it clear that he was out of the running. Romney was heavily criticized by Trump loyalists for his attacks on Trump during the campaign.
"It was an honor to have been considered for Secretary of State of our great country," Romney wrote. "My discussions with President-elect Trump have been both enjoyable and enlightening. I have very high hopes that the new administration will lead the nation to greater strength, prosperity and peace."
It was an honor to have been considered for Secretary of State of our great country. https://t.co/FC9tB7rdoy — Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) December 13, 2016
Concerns about Tillerson's connections to Russia come amid reports that Vladimir Putin's government may have intervened in the U.S. presidential election in an effort to steer the result in Trump's favor. Putin and Trump have both dismissed the allegations.
Exxon's $2.2 billion investment in Russian oil exploration in the Artic Ocean will likely be a source of discussion in Tillerson's Senate confirmation hearing. The agreement, negotiated by Tillerson, was eventually killed by U.S. sanctions against Russia after the annexation of Crimea.
“I have obviously concerns of reports of his relationship with Vladimir Putin, who is a thug and a murderer," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told CNN.
Among the people previously considered contenders to serve as Trump's top diplomat were Romney, ex-New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (who withdrew his name from consideration on Friday), Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Bob Corker, and retired general and ex-CIA director David Petraeus.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2hrqvgfA man who caused both SkyTrain and the Pattullo Bridge to be shutdown during rush hour has been sentenced to one year probation after pleading guilty to mischief.
Clayton Morris Lambert has also been ordered to abide by transit regulations and stay away from bridges, illegal drugs and alcohol.
The 57-year-old sparked an hour long police incident that began Monday in New Westminster around 5:45 p.m. PT.
It started when he jumped onto the SkyTrain tracks at Columbia Station and began walking through the tunnel towards Surrey. He then climbed a tree and scaled the side of the Pattullo Bridge all the way up to the bridge deck.
Lambert then climbed back down the side of the bridge at mid-span, before walking out over the water on a trestle.
Transit Police spokeswoman Anne Drennan described the trestle as "no wider than a gymnastics balance beam."
"He is very agile this man, considering he is 57," said Drennan.
"We had the [SkyTrain] system shut down and the bridge shut down. We had police at either end and up on the deck and a negotiator on the way thinking he may be |
, frustration, anger and hostility [108] [165]. In some cases, this distress may result in unrelenting, psychological torment and PTSD throughout a man’s life [166].
In a survey of the long-term consequences of neonatal circumcision among 313 “circumcised but unhappy” men, Hammond (1997, p. 126) reported that, “96.2% suspected or were confident that circumcision had resulted in a reduction of normal male capacity for sexual response and pleasure. The percentage breakdown of categories of circumcision-caused harm is as follows: Sexual Harm: 84%; Emotional Harm: 83.1%; Physical Harm: 81.5%; Psychological Harm: 75.1%; Low Self-Esteem: 74.4%; Problems with Intimate Relationships: 44.7%; Problems with Addictions/Dependencies: 25.6%. A remaining 13.1% of respondents variously attributed their non-intact state to their problems with masculine identity, self-confidence, and fear of doctors.” [133]
In an expanded survey (N = 546), Hammond (1999, p. 87) subsequently reported that, “Respondents reported profound shifts in how they perceived their genitals, themselves, and the society that imposed such a loss. Some revealed violent attitudes toward their circumciser and/or suicidal/homicidal feelings… Emotional distress, manifesting as intrusive thoughts about one’s circumcision, included feelings of mutilation (60%), low self-esteem/ inferiority to intact men (50%), genital dysmorphia (55%), rage (52%), resentment/depression (59%), violation (46%), or parental betrayal (30%). Many respondents (41%) reported that their physical/emotional suffering impeded emotional intimacy with partner(s), resulting in sexual dysfunction. For some, lack of compassion from parents, siblings or friends fostered bitter interpersonal conflict or alienation. Almost a third of respondents (29%) reported dependence on substances or behaviors to relieve their suffering (tobacco, alcohol, drugs, food and/or sexual compulsivity). Generally, men have no acceptable outlet for serious feelings about circumcision. Predictably, 54% of respondents had not sought help for their suffering. The reasons given included: thinking no recourse was available (43%); embarrassment (19%); fear of ridicule (17%); and mistrust of doctors (11%).” [134]
While these surveys suggest that a substantial cohort of circumcised men may be “suffering in silence” [121], the fact that a large number of circumcised men have reported no physical or psychosexual harm suggests that some men may have no conscious awareness of problems associated with circumcision (as discussed above). Other men may have insight into their circumcision-induced losses, but may exhibit little, if any, concern about their situation, raising the possibility of alexithymia [143], or perhaps even resilience [167].
7. Who Promotes Infant Circumcision? The Possibility of Harm Denial
Circumcised men may ask: “Who are you to tell me that I am damaged? I am just fine and sex couldn’t be better.” However, as highlighted in Freudian psychoanalytic theory, psychically wounded individuals may often use defence mechanisms such as denial and rationalization to justify their wounding [168] [169], as would be expected from cognitive dissonance theory [170]. Such coping strategies may help to minimize any resultant hedonically unpleasant psychological impact.
Consistent with this view, it has been argued that infant circumcision may be largely promoted by circumcised men who are unconsciously seeking to perpetuate the procedure as a compensatory mechanism for their own unresolvable psychic wounding [171] -[173]. Such men may resort to the psychological defences of denial, rationalization, and projection to justify its continuance [174]. In this regard, Bigelow [13] has discussed the “adamant father syndrome” whereby a particular subset of circumcised fathers, against all rational discussion, vehemently insist that their own newborn sons also be subjected to the sexual-reduction surgery. Moreover, in the USA context, the sheer ubiquity of circumcision suggests that any altered personality and/or behavior of circumcised males may tend to be viewed as “normal” [20]. Accordingly, circumcision practitioners may not have given much thought to the trauma and potential long-term adverse psychosexual consequences of the surgery they are paid to carry out. Instead, they may perform circumcisions as a matter of course, both because of parental/societal demand and the concomitant financial reward.
Careful research has demonstrated that circumcision status plays a major role in whether doctors are in support of circumcisions or not [171]. In a survey of 572 primary care physicians, Muller (2010, p. 227) reported that, “Although most respondents stated that they based their decisions on medical evidence, the circumcision status of, especially, the male respondents played a huge role in whether they were in support of circumcisions or not. Another factor that had an influence was the circumcision status of the respondents’ sons.” [172]
This is consistent with the view that those who have been subjected to circumcision themselves may need to “rationalize” what happened to them by appealing to supposed “health benefits” that may follow from the surgery. Also, parents who had subjected their sons to circumcision were clearly in favour of the procedure. Some circumcised men may also feel the compulsion to repeat the trauma by imposing genital cutting on others, including defenceless babies and children [175]. Disturbingly, as pointed out by Forbes (2015, p. 263), a small proportion of fervent circumcision advocates may well have a psychopathological erotic circumfetishism disorder [176].9
8. Conclusion
As Bollinger (2014) has pointed out, “No psychological study has ever concluded that circumcision is beneficial to a boy’s psyche [whereas] more than one hundred scientific studies [have] found circumcision [to be] painful, traumatic, or psychologically harmful to men and boys.” [177]
Men who are constitutionally predisposed toward higher levels of emotionality [105] are more likely to suffer various degrees of sadness and unhappiness due to ongoing unresolvable sexual frustration and the realization of irreversible, circumcision-induced sexual deficits (in sensation, performance, and satisfaction), leading to chro- nic elevations in negative mood states. However, it should be noted that the emotional pain that some circum- cised men experience must not be equated with psychological illness. Anger, grief, and resentment are normal emotions, not illnesses, although they are negative states of mind that are aversive and which individuals typi- cally wish to avoid. Thus they can be counted among the psychological harms of circumcision in men who ex- perience them.
With the advent of the internet, men who are “circumcised but unhappy” have the opportunity to communi- cate with thousands of other men who also feel aggrieved about having been subjected to involuntary genital surgery in infancy or childhood. As awareness of the physical and psychosexual harm that may result from circumcision continues to grow, it may become increasingly difficult for US doctors to deny that the non-thera- peutic genital cutting of males is a form of harmful mutilation, as is already recognized in the case of female children [85] [178]. With this changing zeitgeist, it is likely that there will be a growing cohort of circumcised men [133] [134] who may need psychological and psychosocial support to deal with their concerns and the ongoing psychosexual difficulties with which they struggle.
References
Van Howe, R.S. (1997) Why Does Neonatal Circumcision Persist in the United States? In: Denniston, G.C. and Milos, M.F., Eds., Sexual Mutilations: A Human Tragedy, Plenum, New York, 111-119. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-2679-4_9 Frisch, M., Aigrain, Y., Barauskas, V., et al. (2013) Cultural Bias in the AAP’s 2012 Technical Report and Policy State- ment on Male Circumcision. Pediatrics, 131, 796-800. http://dx.doi.org/10.1542/peds.2012-2896 Hodges, F. (1997) A Short History of the Institutionalization of Involuntary Sexual Mutilation in the United States. In: Denniston, G.C. and Milos, M.F., Eds., Sexual Mutilations: A Human Tragedy, Plenum, New York, 17-40. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-2679-4_2 Aggleton, P. (2007) Roundtable: “Just a Snip”? A Social History of Male Circumcision. Reproductive Health Matters, 15, 15-21. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0968-8080(07)29303-6 Darby, R.J. (2013) The Child’s Right to an Open Future: Is the Principle Applicable to Non-Therapeutic Circumcision? Journal of Medical Ethics, 39, 463-468. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/medethics-2012-101182 Earp, B.D. (2013) The Ethics of Infant Male Circumcision. Journal of Medical Ethics, 39, 418-420. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/medethics-2013-101517 Ben-Yami, H. (2013) Circumcision: What Should Be Done? Journal of Medical Ethics, 39, 459-462. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/medethics-2012-101274 Svoboda, J.S. (2013) Circumcision of Male Infants as a Human Rights Violation. Journal of Medical Ethics, 39, 469- 474. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/medethics-2012-101229 DeLaet, D.L. (2009) Framing Male Circumcision as a Human Rights Issue? Contributions to the Debate over the Uni- versality of Human Rights. Journal of Human Rights, 8, 405-426. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14754830903324795 Merkel, R. and Putzke, H. (2013) After Cologne: Male Circumcision and the Law. Parental Right, Religious Liberty or Criminal Assault? Journal of Medical Ethics, 39, 444-449. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/medethics-2012-101284 Dekkers, W., Hoffer, C. and Wils, J.P. (2005) Scientific Contribution, Bodily Integrity and Male and Female Circumcision. Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy, 8, 179-191. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11019-004-3530-z Peterson, S.E. (2001) Assaulted and Mutilated: A Personal Account of Circumcision Trauma. In: Denniston, G.C., Hodges, F.M. and Milos, M.F., Eds., Understanding Circumcision: A Multi-Disciplinary Approach to a Multi-Dimensional Problem, Kluwer Academic/Plenum, New York, 271-289. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-3351-8_15 Bigelow, J. (1995) Psychological Factors Related to Infant Circumcision. In: Bigelow, J., Ed., The Joy of Uncircumcising! Hourglass Book Publishing, Aptos, 89-112. Boyle, G.J., Svoboda, J.S., Price, C.P. and Turner, J.N. (2000) Circumcision of Healthy Boys: Criminal Assault? Jour- nal of Law and Medicine, 7, 301-310. Travis, J.W. (2001) Circumcision as a Component of the Normative Abuse of Children. In: Denniston, G.C., Hodges, F.M. and Milos, M.F., Eds., Understanding Circumcision: A Multi-Disciplinary Approach to a Multi-Dimensional Problem, Kluwer Academic/Plenum, New York, 367-376. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-3351-8_18 Morgan, W.K.C. (1965) The Rape of the Phallus. Journal of the American Medical Association, 193, 223-224. http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jama.1965.03090030045013 Cold, C.J. and Taylor, J.R. (1999) The Prepuce. British Journal of Urology International, 83, 34-44. http://dx.doi.org/10.1046/j.1464-410x.1999.0830s1034.x Cold, C.J. and McGrath, K.A. (1999) Anatomy and Histology of the Penile and Clitoral Prepuce in Primates: Evolutionary Perspective of Specialized Sensory Tissue of the External Genitalia. In: Denniston, G.C., Hodges, F.M. and Milos, M.F., Eds., Male and Female Circumcision: Medical, Legal, and Ethical Considerations in Pediatric Practice, Kluwer Academic/Plenum, New York, 19-29. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-0-585-39937-9_3 Taylor, J.R., Lockwood, A.P. and Taylor, A.J. (1996) The Prepuce: Specialized Mucosa of the Penis and Its Loss to Circumcision. British Journal of Urology, 77, 291-295. http://dx.doi.org/10.1046/j.1464-410X.1996.85023.x Hill, G. (2012) Circumcision and Human Behavior: The Emotional and Behavioral Effects of Circumcision. http://genitalwholeness.wordpress.com/article/circumcision-and-human-behavior-2y9nanfagw8nr-13/ Earp, B.D. (2015) Do the Benefits of Male Circumcision Outweigh the Risks? A Critique of the Proposed CDC Guidelines. Frontiers in Pediatrics, 3, 1-6. http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fped.2015.00018/full Dreger, A. (2006) Proof That I Like Penises. Bioethics Forum, 10 March. http://www.thehastingscenter.org/Bioethicsforum/Post.aspx?id=132 Svoboda, J.S. and Van Howe, R.S. (2013) Out of Step: Fatal Flaws in the Latest AAP Policy Report on Neonatal Circumcision. Journal of Medical Ethics, 39, 434-441. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/medethics-2013-101346 DeMaria, J., Abdulla, A., Pemberton, J., Raees, A. and Braga, L.H. (2013) Are Physicians Performing Neonatal Cir- cumcisions Well Trained? Canadian Urological Association Journal, 7, 260-264. http://dx.doi.org/10.5489/cuaj.200 Grimes, D.A. (1978) Routine Circumcision of the Newborn Infant: A Reappraisal. American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, 130, 125-129. Gluckman, G.R., Stoller, M.L., Jacobs, M.M. and Kogan, B.A. (1995) Pediatric Urology: Newborn Penile Glans Amputation during Circumcision and Successful Reattachment. Journal of Urology, 153, 778-779. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0022-5347(01)67718-8 Neulander, E., Walfisch, S. and Kaneti, J. (1996) Amputation of Distal Penile Glans during Neonatal Ritual Circumcision: A Rare Complication. British Journal of Urology, 77, 924-925. http://dx.doi.org/10.1046/j.1464-410X.1996.06934.x Hiss, J., Horowitz, A. and Kahana, T. (2000) Fatal Haemorrhage Following Male Ritual Circumcision. Journal of Clinical Forensic Medicine, 7, 32-34. http://dx.doi.org/10.1054/jcfm.1999.0340 Ponsky, L.E., Ross, J.H., Knipper, N. and Kay, R. (2000) Penile Adhesions after Neonatal Circumcision. Journal of Urology, 164, 495-496. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0022-5347(05)67410-1 Ritchie, M.L. and Bloom, D.A. (1991) Skin Bridge―A Complication of Paediatric Circumcision. British Journal of Urology, 68, 331. Joudi, M., Fathi, M. and Hiradfar, M. (2011) Incidence of Asymptomatic Meatal Stenosis in Children Following Neonatal Circumcision. Journal of Pediatric Urology, 7, 526-528. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jpurol.2010.08.005 Upadhyay, V., Hammodat, H.M. and Pease, P.W. (1998) Post Circumcision Meatal Stenosis: 12 Years’ Experience. New Zealand Medical Journal, 111, 57-58. Köksal, T., Kadioglu, A. and Tefekli, A. (2000) Keloid as a Complication after Circumcision. British Journal of Urology, 85, 1-2. Couper, R.T.L. (2000) Methaemoglobinaemia Secondary to Topical Lignocaine/Prilocaine in a Circumcised Neonate. Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health, 36, 406-407. http://dx.doi.org/10.1046/j.1440-1754.2000.00508.x Özbek, N., Akpek, N.E. and Ersoy, E.T. (2000) Toxic Neonatal Methaemoglobinaemia after Prilocaine Administration for Circumcision. British Journal of Urology International, 85, 1-2. Patel, H.I., Moriarty, K.P., Brisson, P.A. and Feirs, N.R. (2001) Genitourinary Injuries in the Newborn. Journal of Pediatric Surgery, 36, 235-239. http://dx.doi.org/10.1053/jpsu.2001.20062 Baskin, L.S., Canning, D.A., Snyder III, H.M. and Duckett Jr., J.W. (1997) Surgical Repair of Urethral Circumcision Injuries. Journal of Urology, 158, 2269-2271. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0022-5347(01)68233-8 Braun, D. (1990) Neonatal Bacteremia and Circumcision. Pediatrics, 85, 135-136. Van Howe, R.S. and Robson, W.L.M (2007) The Possible Role of Circumcision in Newborn Outbreaks of Community-Associated Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Clinical Pediatrics, 46, 356-358. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0009922806294847 Gesundheit, B., Grisaru-Soen, G., Greenberg, D., Levtzion-Korach, O., Malkin, D., Petric, M., et al. (2004) Neonatal Genital Herpes Simplex Virus Type 1 Infection after Jewish Ritual Circumcision: Modern Medicine and Religious Tradition. Pediatrics, 114, E259-E263. http://dx.doi.org/10.1542/peds.114.2.e259 Brewer, D.D., Potterat, J.J., Roberts Jr., J.M. and Brody, S. (2007) Male and Female Circumcision Associated with Prevalent HIV Infection in Virgins and Adolescents in Kenya, Lesotho, and Tanzania. Annals of Epidemiology, 17, 217-226. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.annepidem.2006.10.010 Kon, M. (1983) A Rare Complication Following Circumcision: The Concealed Penis. Journal of Urology, 130, 573- 574. Bissada, N.K., Morcos, R.R. and El-Senoussi, M. (1986) Post-Circumcision Carcinoma of the Penis. I. Clinical Aspects. Journal of Urology, 135, 283-285. Aslan, A., Karaguzel, G. and Melikoglu, M. (2005) Severe Ischemia of the Glans Penis Following Circumcision: A Successful Treatment via Pentoxifylline. International Journal of Urology, 12, 705-707. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1442-2042.2005.01129.x Sotolongo Jr., J.R., Hoffman, S. and Gribetz, M.E. (1985) Penile Denudation Injuries after Circumcision. Journal of Urology, 133, 102-103. Gerharz, E.W., Ransley, P.G. and Woodhouse, C.R.J. (2005) Urinary Retention, Erectile Dysfunction and Penile Ana- esthesia after Circumcision: A Mixed Dissociative (Conversion) Disorder. International Urology and Nephrology, 37, 525-527. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11255-004-4769-2 Connelly, D.O., Shropshire, L.C. and Salzberg, A. (1992) Gastric Rupture Associated with Prolonged Crying in a New- born Undergoing Circumcision. Clinical Pediatrics, 31, 560-561. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/000992289203100910 Jee, L.D. and Millar, A.J.W. (1990) Ruptured Bladder Following Circumcision Using Plasticbell Device. British Journal of Urology, 65, 216-217. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1464-410X.1990.tb14709.x Mor, A., Eshel, G., Aladjem, M. and Mundel, G. (1987) Tachycardia and Heart Failure after Ritual Circumcision. Archives of Disease in Childhood, 62, 80-81. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/adc.62.1.80 Ly, L. and Sankaran, K. (2003) Acute Venous Stasis and Swelling of the Abdomen after Circumcision. Canadian Me- dical Association Journal, 169, 216-217. Bradley, S.J., Oliver, G.D. and Chernick, A.B. (1998) Experiment of Nurture: Ablatio Penis at 2 Months, Sex Reas- signment at 7 Months, and a Psychosexual Follow-Up in Young Adulthood. Pediatrics, 102, e9. http://dx.doi.org/10.1542/peds.102.1.e9 Colapinto, J. (2006) As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl. Harper/Collins, New York. Massie, L. (2013) Male Circumcision and the Potential for Unexplained Male Adolescent Suicide in Northern Ireland. In: Denniston, G.C., Hodges, F.M. and Milos, M.F., Eds., Genital Cutting: Protecting Children from Medical, Cultural, and Religious Infringements, Springer, Dordrecht, 101-106. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6407-1_7 Bollinger, D. (2010) Lost Boys: An Estimate of US Circumcision-Related Infant Deaths. THYMOS: Journal of Boyhood Studies, 4, 78-90. http://dx.doi.org/10.3149/thy.0401.78 Paediatric Death Review Committee: Office of the Chief Coroner of Ontario (2007) Circumcision: A Minor Procedure? Paediatrics and Child Health, 12, 311-312. Thorup, J., Thorup, S.C. and Ifaoui, I.B. (2013) Complication Rate after Circumcision in a Paediatric Surgical Setting Should Not Be Neglected. Danish Medical Journal, 60, A4681. http://www.danmedj.dk/portal/page/portal/danmedj.dk/dmj_forside/PAST_ISSUE/2013/DMJ_2013_08/A4681 Williams, N. and Kapila, L. (1993) Complications of Circumcision. British Journal of Surgery, 80, 1231-1236. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/bjs.1800801005 Hutson, J.M. (2004) Circumcision: A Surgeon’s Perspective. Journal of Medical Ethics, 30, 238-240. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/jme.2002.001313 Ungar-Sargon, E. (2015) On the Impermissibility of Infant Male Circumcision: A Response to Mazor (2013). Journal of Medical Ethics, 41, 186-190. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/medethics-2013-101598 Earp, B.D. (2015) Sex and Circumcision. American Journal of Bioethics, 15, 43-45. https://www.academia.edu/9404847/Sex_and_circumcision http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15265161.2014.991000 Watson, L.R. (2014) Unspeakable Mutilations: Circumcised Men Speak out. Amazon Create Space Publishing. http://www.circinfo.org/Personal_stories.html Gonzalez, L. (2014) South Africa: Over Half a Million Initiates Maimed under the Knife. All Africa, 25 June. http://allafrica.com/stories/201406251112.html Maseko, N. (2013) When Circumcision Can Mean Death in South Africa. BBC News Africa, 19 July. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-23378694 Robbins, E. (2012) Baby’s Death Renews Debate over a Circumcision Ritual. New York Times, 7 March. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/08/nyregion/infants-death-renews-debate-over-a-circumcision-ritual.html?_r=0 Gaskill, R.L. and Perry, B.D. (2012) Child Sexual Abuse, Traumatic Experiences and Their Effect on the Developing Brain. In: Goodyear-Brown, P., Ed., Handbook of Child Sexual Abuse: Identification, Assessment and Treatment, Wiley, New York, 29-49. Beggs, S., Currie, G., Salter, M.W., Fitzgerald, M. and Walker, S.M. (2003) Priming of Adult Pain Responses by Neo- natal Pain Experience: Maintenance by Central Neuroimmune Activity. Brain, 135, 404-417. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/brain/awr288 Cansever, G. (1965) Psychological Effects of Circumcision. British Journal of Medical Psychology, 38, 321-331. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8341.1965.tb01314.x Chamberlain, D.B. (1989) Babies Remember Pain. Pre- and Perinatal Psychology Journal, 3, 297-310. Chamberlain, D.B. (1995) Birth and the Origins of Violence. Pre- and Perinatal Psychology Journal, 10, 57-74. Paley, J. and Alpert, J. (2003) Memory of Infant Trauma. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 20, 329-347. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0736-9735.20.2.329 Anda, R.F., Felitti, V.J., Bremner, J.D., Walker, J.D., Whitfield, Ch., Perry, B.D., et al. (2006) The Enduring Effects of Childhood Abuse and Related Experiences: A Convergence of Evidence from Neurobiology and Epidemiology. European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, 256, 174-186. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00406-005-0624-4 Hammack, S.E., Cooper, M.A. and Lezak, K.R. (2012) Overlapping Neurobiology of Learned Helplessness and Conditioned Defeat: Implications for PTSD and Mood Disorders. Neuropharmacology, 62, 565-575. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropharm.2011.02.024 Menage, J. (1993) Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Women Who Have Undergone Obstetric and/or Gynaecological Procedures. Journal of Reproductive and Infant Psychology, 11, 221-228. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02646839308403222 Behrendt, A. and Moritz, S. (2005) Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Memory Problems after Female Genital Mutilation. American Journal of Psychiatry, 162, 1000-1002. http://dx.doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.162.5.1000 Paix, B.R. and Peterson, S.E. (2012) Circumcision of Neonates and Children without Appropriate Anaesthesia Is Unacceptable Practice. Anaesthesia and Intensive Care, 40, 511-516. Anand, K.J. and Scalzo, F. (2000) Can Adverse Neonatal Experiences Alter Brain Development and Subsequent Behavior? Biology of the Neonate, 77, 69-82. http://dx.doi.org/10.1159/000014197 Rhinehart, J. (1999) Neonatal Circumcision Reconsidered. Transactional Analysis Journal, 29, 215-221. Taddio, A., Katz, J., Ilersich, A.L. and Koren, G. (1997) Effect of Neonatal Circumcision on Pain Response during Subsequent Routine Vaccination. The Lancet, 349, 599-603. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(96)10316-0 http://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140673696103160.pdf Hermann, C., Hohmeister, J., Demiracka, S., Zohsel, K. and Flor, H. (2006) Long-Term Alteration of Pain Sensitivity in School-Aged Children with Early Pain Experiences. Pain, 125, 278-285. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pain.2006.08.026 Grunau, R.E. (2013) Neonatal Pain in Very Preterm Infants: Long-Term Effects on Brain, Neurodevelopment and Pain Reactivity. Rambam Maimonides Medical Journal, 4, e0025. Page, G.G. (2004) Are There Long-Term Consequences of Pain in Newborn or Very Young Infants? Journal of Perinatal Education, 13, 10-17. http://dx.doi.org/10.1624/105812404X1725 Gaensbauer, T.J. (1995) Trauma in the Preverbal Period. Symptoms, Memories, and Developmental Impact. Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 50, 122-149. Green, E.J., Crenshaw, D.A. and Kolos, A.C. (2010) Counseling Children with Preverbal Trauma. International Journal of Play Therapy, 19, 95-105. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0017667 Jepsen, E.K.K., Langeland, W. and Heir, T. (2013) Impact of Dissociation and Interpersonal Functioning on Inpatient Treatment for Early Sexually Abused Adults. European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 4, 1-8. http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/ejpt.v4i0.22825 Geisheker, J.V. (2013) The Completely Unregulated Practice of Male Circumcision: Human Rights’ Abuse Enshrined in Law? New Male Studies, 2, 18-45. Lander, J., Brady-Fryer, B., Metcalfe, J.B., Nazarali, S. and Muttitt, S. (1997) Comparison of Ring Block, Dorsal Penile Nerve Block, and Topical Anesthesia for Neonatal Circumcision: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Journal of the American Medical Association, 278, 2157-2162. http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jama.1997.03550240047032 Erikson, E.H. (1993) Childhood and Society. Norton, New York. Denniston, G.C. (2013) The Harm of Circumcision. In: Denniston, G.C., Hodges, F.M. and Milos, M.F., Eds., Genital Cutting: Protecting Children from Medical, Cultural, and Religious Infringements, Springer, Dordrecht, 59-68. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6407-1_4 Leboyer, F. (2011) Birth without Violence. Pinter & Martin, London. Talbert, C.M., Kraybill, E.N. and Potter, H.D. (1976) Adrenal Cortical Response to Circumcision in the Neonate. Obstetrics and Gynecology, 48, 208-210. Gunnar, M.R., Fisch, R.O., Korsvik, S. and Donhowe, J.M. (1981) The Effects of Circumcision on Serum Cortisol and Behavior. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 6, 269-275. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0306-4530(81)90037-8 Williamson, P.S. and Evans, N. (1986) Neonatal Cortisol Response to Circumcision with Anesthesia. Clinical Pediatrics, 25, 412-415. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/000992288602500807 Le Roux, R., Niehaus, D.J.H., Koen, L., Seller, C., Lochner, C. and Emsley, R.A. (2007) Initiation Rites as a Perceived Stressor for Isixhosa Males with Schizophrenia. Transcultural Psychiatry, 44, 292-299. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1363461507077728 Vivian, L.M.H. (2008) Psychiatric Disorder in Xhosa-Speaking Men Following Circumcision. Ph.D. Thesis, University of Cape Town, Cape Town. Vivian, L.M.H. (2011) A Descriptive Study of Psychiatric Disorder in Vulnerable Xhosa-Speaking Individuals Following Male Circumcision. Lambert Academic Publishing, Saarbrücken. Bentall, R.P., Wickham, S., Shevlin, M. and Varese, F. (2012) Do Specific Early-Life Adversities Lead to Specific Symptoms of Psychosis? A Study from the 2007 Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 38, 734- 740. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/schbul/sbs049 Varese, F., Smeets, F., Dukker, M., Lieverse, R., Lataster, T., Viechtbauer, W., et al. (2012) Childhood Adversities Increase the Risk of Psychosis: A Meta-Analysis of Patient-Control, Prospective- and Cross-Sectional Cohort Studies. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 38, 661-771. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/schbul/sbs050 McGrath, J.J. (2005) Myths and Plain Truths about Schizophrenia Epidemiology: The NAPE Lecture 2004. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 111, 4-11. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0447.2004.00467.x Branson, H.M. (2013) Normal Myelination: A Practical Pictorial Review. Neuroimaging Clinics of North America, |
responding to Grouse Mountain Resort parking lot for lost hikers on the Crown Mountain Trail. —@NSRescue
But the hikers then called police again to say they had found the trail, said Danks, who said the woman wasn't pleased when police insisted the rescue effort continue.
"That's not very helpful," said Danks.
Danks said police were concerned because the hikers were finding their way back with only the light from a cellphone.
Eventually, the pair was escorted back to the trail head by Grouse Moutain Resort staff and NSR rescuers, said Danks.
North Shore Rescue has repeatedly said how frustrated it has been with ill-prepared hikers this past year.
Its team of volunteers took part in 138 rescues in 2015, the most in its 50-year history; on average, the group gets 90 calls a year.We're not sure how your week was, but for a team of mechanical engineers, speed junkies, and gearheads from Ohio State it was anything but slow. This week the team took the Buckeye Bullet version 2.5, the team's battery powered, all-electric landspeed racer out to the Bonneville Salt Flats to break the electric car land speed world record, and they did exactly that, hitting a peak speed of 320 miles per hour.
The Buckeye Bullet team -- a collaboration between the Ohio State University Center for Auto Research and a handful of sponsors -- has been racing electric cars for well more than a decade, but the VBB2.5, as it's known, is their first landspeed racer that runs purely on battery power. Last year their hydrogen-fuel-cell-powered VBB2 set a world record for fuel cell-propelled land vehicles by running a mile at an average speed of 302.877 miles per hour (the two-way average was a slightly lower 300.992 miles per hour).
Click to launch the photo gallery
VBB2.5 aimed to set the same kind of speed to beat in the all-electric category. Powered by batteries provided by sponsor A123, VBB2.5 logged an average mile speed of 291 miles per hour. But VBB2.5 wasn't done. The very next day driver Roger Schroer throttled VBB2.5 to a peak speed of 320 miles per hour, logging a two-way average mile speed of 307.66 miles per hour.
The record still needs FIA certification before it's official, but consider the bar set -- it blew past the previous record for an EV by more than 60 miles per hour. But perhaps the most exciting wrinkle in the Buckeye Bullet story is the fact the VBB2.5 is only a test-bed for the team's battery technology. VBB3 -- a sleek black rocket of a landspeed racer that the team plans to build on top of the experience gained from VBB2.5 -- is expected to break all previous records in the not too distant future.
[Buckeye Bullet Blog, Buckeye Bullet]For behaviour data analysis, we compared mean RTs for correct responses between male and female subjects as well as error rates and post-error slowing (calculated as the difference in RT between post-error and post-correct trials). Therefore, three regression analyses as well as a control analysis (see Methods) were calculated and we report Bonferroni corrected p-values for 14 tests as well as 99.9% confidence intervals (CI). All of these analyses included age as a separate factor as well as other regressors to increase the specificity of the observed effects (see below). Results of overall task performance are reported in the Methods and Supplemental Material sections.
Error Rate and RT
First, we found that the total number of errors committed in the task was not modulated by the factor sex (b = 0.04, p = 1, 99.9% CI = −0.19–0.27) and males committed on average 155 (14.4%) and females 153 (14.2%) errors. For general RT, we included gender, age and the number of errors into a linear regression model. This revealed that male subjects responded on average around 16 ms faster on correct trials compared to female subjects (Fig. 1, b = 0.42, CI = 0.20–0.64, p = 7.39 × 10−9). Participants’ age had no effect on RT (b = −0.06, CI = −0.17–0.05, p = 1). Subjects who made fewer errors also responded slower on correct trials (b = −0.31, CI = −0.41– −0.21, p = 9.63 × 10−21) indicative of individual differences in emphasizing speed or accuracy. Note that we excluded all post-error trials from this analysis to not confound the results with error-induced RT changes. On errors themselves, male subjects again responded faster (ΔRT = 9 ms, b = 0.24, CI = 0.01–0.46, p = 0.009).
Figure 1: Sex Effects on Reaction Time and Post-Error Slowing. (A) shows the regression weights of factors sex, age, number of errors on correct trials’ RT revealing a significant effect for factor sex using multiple linear regression analysis. (B) RT broken down by factor sex showing that male subjects responded on average ~16 ms faster than female subjects. (A,C) Participants who committed fewer mistakes also responded slower indicating a speed accuracy trade-off. There was no effect of age on RT (A). (D) Female participants displayed significantly higher post-error slowing, which corresponds to an increase in RT of 20 ms compared to male subjects (E). The general RT also had a small effect on post-error slowing and participants who responded slower displayed higher post-error slowing (F). Note that for the analysis presented in (A) all correct trials following errors were excluded and thus the higher RT seen in female subjects cannot be explained by the post-error slowing effect. (A,D) display regression weights while (B,C,E,F) display raw values. Error bars = 99.9% CI, * = p < 0.05, ** = p < 10−4, *** = p < 10−8 following Bonferroni correction. Full size image
Post-Error Slowing
For post-error slowing, we included age, the number of errors, as well as the mean RT into the model in order to investigate whether sex had an effect on post-error slowing over and above the observed difference in RT. We found that the amount to which female subjects slowed their responses down following mistakes was significantly larger compared to male subjects (b = 0.47, CI = 0.24–0.70, p = 4.29 × 10−10). This corresponded to a post-error slowing increase of 20 ms or 42% compared to male subjects (Fig. 1D,E). Neither age (b = 0.03, CI = −0.15–0.08, p = 1) nor the number of errors committed (b = −0.06, CI = −0.14–0.08, p = 1) had an effect on post-error slowing. However, subjects with generally higher RT also showed higher post-error slowing (b = 0.14, CI = 0.03–0.26, p = 0.0006). We furthermore conducted a control analysis by calculating post-error slowing with respect to the error preceding trial35, which accounts for possible general shifts in attention during the task. However, this did not qualitatively alter results (see Methods and Supplemental Material). We also normalized PES by each subjects’ RT on correct trials by dividing the PES measure by the mean standard trials’ RT36 to account for differences in general RTs. Again, results remained qualitatively unchanged demonstrating a larger RT increase in women (16.1 ± 1.0%) compared to men (11.9% ± 0.9%, b = 0.47, CI = 0.23–0.70, p = 1.05 × 10−9). Furthermore, an exploratory analysis of sex effects in post-error differences in accuracy revealed no sex effect on post-error increases in accuracy (PIA; corrected p = 1).
Analysis of Distractibility
As it has been reported that women are more distracted by irrelevant and conflicting task information, we compared RT increases induced by the congruence of the presented stimuli. Incongruent trials led to higher RT across subjects (ΔRT = +62 ms, t 873 = 121.5, p = 0 within machine precision) and we analysed the difference between congruent and incongruent trials (congruency effect). There was a small but significant sex effect (b = 0.30, CI = 0.06–0.54, p = 0.0004), which was caused by women displaying on average a 5 ms larger congruency effect. Furthermore, we tested whether the overall gender-related RT difference was found on both congruent and incongruent trials, and the gender effect remained significant in both cases (ps < 10−5).
Error Related Brain Activity
We used a two-stage analysis approach: first we identified time and location (i.e. electrodes) of maximum error-related activity in the task and then used these for analysis of second level effects. Therefore, we employed single-trial robust regression to obtain a regression weight time-course for error-related activity locked to response onset for all electrodes37. This model included various regressors to control for possible confounds such as each trial’s congruency, flanker distance, and reaction time (see Methods and Supplemental Material for more information about the model). First level regression weights were scaled by their respective standard errors and thus are comparable across subjects and regressors. From this model (Fig. 2A,B) we found the maximum amplitude of negative-going error-related EEG activity at electrode Cz 64 ms following response onset – compatible with the ERN. This was followed by a consecutive positive covariation peaking at 226 ms again at electrode Cz, reflecting the Pe.
Figure 2: Error Effects on EEG Activity. Scalp topographies of response-locked regression weights show the classical ERN and Pe succession (A). Maxima for ERN and Pe were found at 64 ms and 226 ms, respectively, which both displayed central scalp topographies (B). Associated p-values for t-tests of within subject regression weights for a difference from zero are displayed with logarithmic scaling in (C). (D) Shows regular ERPs, which do not account for error-unspecific task effects (see Supplemental Material for details). Full size image
Gender Differences in Error-Related Brain Activity
We then used a second level regression model including each participants’ sex, age, and the number of committed errors as predictors to model first level results of the error regressor. To determine effects, we used the exact time of global maximum effects (Fig. 2B) from a contrast versus no effect of the first level model. We found a significant effect for predictor sex with a peak observed at electrode Cz. Here, at the time of the maximum effect of the error regressor across all subjects (64 ms), men displayed significantly higher error-related brain activity (Fig. 3, robust regression t 859 = 7.14, p < 10−11, averaged regression weights for female subjects: −6.9 ± 3.6, males −9.3 ± 4.4, Cohen’s d = 0.60). No sex effect was observed at the peak of the Pe effect (226 ms, t 859 < 0.1, p = 0.98) and additionally participants’ age did not significantly modulate error regressor time-courses (all corrected p > 0.05).
Figure 3: Results of Second Level Regression Analysis for Sex Effects. Displayed are mean regression weights of the error regressor at electrode Cz from the first level analysis for males and females separately. Larger error-related activity was found in male subjects during the time of the ERN and the effect showed a fronto-central scalp distribution (upper topography). Apart from this error regressor effect in the ERN time, no other time points including the Pe (226 ms) showed significant differences (lower topography). The topography plots display second level regression weights and all non-significant (p > 3.3 × 10−5) electrodes are masked out in white. The grey shaded area marks the time of significant effects that survived Bonferroni correction. Note that the analysis included factors age and error number as regressors of no interest on the second level, which did not significantly alter activity at both time-points at this electrode. Full size image
We then included an additional regressor into the model that controlled for each participants’ average RT in order to investigate whether the behavioural difference in RT may explain the differences seen in error-related brain activity. We found that RT itself significantly influenced error regression weights and participants with lower RT showed higher amplitudes (64 ms at electrode Cz robust regression” instead of just “robust regression t 859 = 10.75, p < 10−24). While inclusion of RT reduced the sex effect on error-related brain activity, it remained significant (t 859 = 5.26, p = 1.79 × 10−7), indicating that male participants showed higher error-related brain activity in the ERN time window over and above also displaying lower RT. See Supplemental Material for an analysis of regular error-related ERPs.
Gender Prediction based on Multivariate Pattern Classification
Given the current debate whether or not a dimorphic distinction between male and female brains is a valid category, we also thought to assess whether or not these statistical differences could be employed to form a categorical distinction. Therefore, we used multivariate pattern analysis of the peak latency error regression weights of the whole scalp to train a support vector machine on the prediction of participants’ genders. Using 500-fold cross-validation of the data split into training (90%) and independent test sets (10%), we found that the brain response to errors was sufficient to predict a subjects’ gender with 71.6% accuracy (chance = 50.0%, permutation test p = 6.67 × 10−5). A searchlight analysis of the scalp distribution of this information was in accordance with the well-known ERN topography (Fig. 4).
Figure 4: Prediction of Gender by Error-Related Brain Activity. The multivariate classification accuracy based on all sensors was 71.6% based on 500-fold cross-validation. The topography map of accuracies suggests that the main informational content for prediction of a subjects’ gender based on error-related brain activity was located at central electrodes, overlapping closely with the ERN topography. Full size image
Coupling Between ERN and Post-Error Slowing
Next, we investigated possible functional consequences of this differential brain response. We first sought to establish the relationship of single-trial ERN amplitudes to subsequent behavioural adaptation. Therefore, we regressed error-related EEG activity at each data point onto reaction times following error trials including factors of no interest (congruency, response stimulus interval). As expected, we found a negative covariation between EEG amplitudes in the ERN time range displaying a typical scalp topography (Fig. 5A) and consecutive RT (Cz peak 56 ms, b = −0.33, CI = −0.22– −0.44, p = 7.95 × 10−21, Fig. 5B,C) strengthening the relationship between ERN and consecutive adaptation in accordance with other studies20,21. This result confirms that higher, i.e., more negative, ERN amplitudes are associated with higher consecutive RTs. However, we found no gender differences in the strength of this coupling (Fig. 4D,E, robust regression at 56 ms t 859 = −0.50, p = 0.62 uncorrected) suggesting that the degree to which ERN amplitudes influence behavioural adaptation is similar in males and females.
Figure 5: Coupling Between Neural Signals and Consecutive Adaptation. (A,B) Robust regression coefficients indicate across all subjects that the amplitude of the ERN signal on a given error trial covaries with the following trial’s RT. Thus, higher post-error slowing following error trials is associated with higher ERN amplitudes. This effect is reflected in a negative covariation with a centro-parietal scalp topography (A) and minimal p-values coincide with the time of the ERN peak (C). When investigated for gender effects, we found that the coupling between ERN and post-error slowing was indifferent between men and women (E) and no data point survived correction for multiple comparisons at the peak of the ERN (D,F). Note that the effect apparent at the end of the displayed time-window (around 700 ms) as well as the effect around 300 ms likely reflect the actual onset of the next response captured by the regressor itself. Scalp topographies are thresholded at p< = 3.3 × 10−5, shades represent 99.9% CI. Full size image
Additionally, in order to clarify similarities between within- and across-subject associations of ERN and PES, we also quantified post-error slowing within subjects (as described above) and regressed it onto error-related brain signals across subjects. However, this analysis revealed no significant association between ERN or Pe related EEG activity and interindividual variance in post-error slowing (all corrected ps > 0.05 at electrode Cz).
Response Conflict Processing
A possible explanation for the observed gender difference in error-related brain responses could be based on possibly differential response conflict sensitivity or processing between groups, because previous studies found increased ERN amplitudes to be associated with increased response conflict38,39. Therefore, we compared the degree of error-activity modulation induced by the manipulation of the distance between flanking and target arrows, a parameter found to reflect response conflict as suggested by computational modelling38. As expected, we found a strong effect of distance on error-related activity in the early time of the ERN (Fig. 6A–C), which was larger on trials where flankers appeared further away from the target stimulus thus inducing high response conflict (Cz peak at 34 ms, b = −0.88, CI = −0.75– −1.01, p = 8.36 × 10−86). However, we did not observe any difference in this measure depending on gender (Fig. 6D,E, p-value at peak 0.85 uncorrected). This suggests that response conflict processing is comparable between both genders.
Figure 6: Response Conflict Processing. Displayed are results of a first level regression model on error trial EEG for a regressor that coded for the distance between flanking and target arrows. Larger distances caused significantly (C) increased (more negative) ERN amplitudes (B) likely due to increased response conflict in this condition38, and the effect showed a fronto-central scalp distribution (A). However, no difference between male and female participants was found in a second level regression on this factor (D–F) indicating that differences in conflict processing cannot explain the observed difference in ERN amplitudes between genders. Full size image
Comparison of Variances
Another explanation for the observed gender differences could be that women show more variability in their behaviour24, and possibly also in electrophysiological responses – which could corrupt ERP averages and regression results. Therefore, we compared the variance of RTs as well as the within-and across-subject variance in the latencies of error-related brain responses. However, due to RTs generally tending to deviate from normal distribution and a high correlation between mean RTs and SDs across subjects (r = 0.63, p < 10−96), we log-transformed RTs prior to analysis. We found a small effect of gender on RT variance (b = 0.19, CI = −0.01–0.40, p = 0.026) indicating slightly higher variances in female subjects. We also compared the difference in variance between correct and post-error trials, obtaining a similar result (b = 0.23, CI = 0.00–0.47, p = 0.013). Furthermore, we included SDs as a separate regressor for the RT analysis across subjects and the effect of gender remained significant (b = 0.29, CI = 0.12–0.47, p = 7.74 × 10−7). Thus, the reported gender differences for RT and PES cannot be explained by increased variance in behaviour. Note that log-transformation did not qualitatively change RT results reported above.
For EEG latency measures, we compared the latency of minima in individual trials in the 60 ms surrounding the grand average error-related peak activity. We found no evidence of increased latency variation within female subjects (SD men = 10.5, women = 10.6, b = 0.11, CI = −0.13–0.34, p = 1 corrected). As the same may apply to across group comparisons, we also compared variances of latencies of regression weight minima across male and female participants using Bartlett’s test. This revealed no evidence of a group difference (M men = 67 ± 15 ms, M women = 68 ± 15 ms, p for difference of variance = 0.96, see Supplemental Material for an analysis regarding Pe latency). These findings rule out spurious test statistics induced by confounding differences in within- and across-group variances.“Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace on Sunday broke it to conservative Dr. Ben Carson that he doesn’t really have a chance in becoming president.
“You say, and this is a quote, ‘The likelihood is strong’ that you will run for president in 2016. Do you really want to spend the next two years begging people for money, shaking hands, eating a lot of bad meals, when I think you would agree, at best you are a distinct long shot?” Wallace asked Carson.
Carson replied that while he would like to relax, America needs him. He said that “given the state of our nation” he understands that “sometimes we’re called to do things we don’t want to do because we have to do them.”
Then, after acknowledging that he is friends with Carson, Wallace compares him to President Obama.
“After looking at Barack Obama and what’s happened with his lack of political experience, over these last six years, wouldn’t putting Ben Carson in the Oval Office be akin to putting a politician in an operating room and having him perform one of your brain surgeries?” Wallace asked.
“I don’t think so,” Carson responded.
“I think what is required for leadership is wisdom and the ability to assemble an appropriate team, an ability to listen and an ability to make wise decisions,” he said. “Our system was designed by our founders with the people in mind and with the the will of the people in mind, not with the will of the government.”
Watch the video via Media Matters:To treat young healthy prepubescent girls with a known carcinogen to stunt their adult height sounds like a bizarre science fiction experiment, but it is unfortunately true. From 1959 through the 1970s physicians and researchers from the Royal Children’s Hospital and the University of Melbourne, gave adolescent girls of tall stature a powerful estrogenic hormone with a growing list of known side effects called diethylstilbestrol (stilboestrol) or DES.
DES had been used in obstetrics to prevent miscarriage, in farm animals to bulk up livestock before slaughter and to caponise (castrate) chickens from the 1940s through 1970s. Early on, the drug was found to be ineffective in preventing miscarriage and serious side effects including cancer were noted. Indeed, cancer in farm hands caring for animals treated with DES and concern about the effect DES infused meat might have on human health caused the FDA to ban its use in poultry farming in 1958, well before banning its use in human women. Despite the risks associated with this drug, clinicians and researchers in Victoria Australia, funded by governmental agencies and throughout the US, Norway, and elsewhere, thought stunting the growth of tall girls, for purely psychosocial reasons, was a good idea.
The rationale behind treating tall girls was so they could do ballet, buy clothes more easily, and find boyfriends and husbands. DES was used on healthy girls for purely psychosocial reasons. Apparently, being a tall girl was reason enough to consider medical treatment with a powerful, largely untested, synthetic estrogen with mounting evidence of carcinogenicity.
Little consideration was given to the psychosocial effects this drug would have on a young girl including nausea, the immediate onset of menstruation, the sudden development of breasts, and sudden rapid weight gain; and, of course, the long-term health outcomes of this treatment were never a consideration. The only long-term outcome considered was adult height. When meeting the tall women who underwent this treatment, it is reasonable to conclude the treatment did not work. Indeed, most of the research suggests only a 4cm reduction in height.
Discovering the Tall Girls: DES Action Australia
DES Action Australia was established in 1979 as the national support and advocacy group for individuals exposed to DES. In the early 1980s, the DES issue was new to us all and we were devouring information about its history and use. One aspect of interest was its use in veterinary practice. One of the first DES “patients” may have been Tricky Woo of the ‘All Creatures Great and Small’ books and TV series. In the late 1930s, kindly Dr Herriot prescribed the new “wonder drug” stilboestrol for Tricky Woo’s embarrassing problem with incontinence.
Any drug which was thought to prevented miscarriage and result in bigger, healthier babies was of obvious interest to veterinary science. However, as in the earlier laboratory animal experiments, DES was soon shown to be deleterious to the health of the mother animal, to the DES exposed offspring and, interestingly, to subsequent litters. Thus, recommended use of DES in veterinary practice was limited to old animals, and animals that were never going to breed.
We first heard of DES being used to inhibit the adult height of tall young girls almost by accident. In the early 1980s a sister of DES Action member, Clare Green, was studying veterinary science at Melbourne University. Through her we learnt of a Melbourne veterinary scientist, Dr. Anne Jabarah, who had research DES during the 1960s as part of her Masters and PhD studies. Clare rang Dr. Jabarah and spoke to her at length about her research findings: that administering DES to cattle led to them subsequently developing mammary cancer. Dr Jabarah commented that the published articles caused a great deal of interest internationally but not in Australia. Almost as an afterthought, she mentioned the Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH) here in Melbourne had requested details of her research, as they were thinking of using DES to inhibit the growth of young girls. She said she had often wondered whether they went ahead with the treatment.
Clare, on behalf of DES Action, wrote to the RCH seeking clarification on the matter. A letter was received from the medical director of the RCH stating that DES had never been used for such a purpose. In addition, Clare was asked to go into the Victorian Health Department to meet with a department spokesperson. The doctor told Clare that the matter had been looked into and there was no evidence that DES was used for this purpose. We were thus reassured, both in writing and in person, that no such trial had taken place.
So it came a quite a shock several years later when I was contacted by a young woman who had been part of this nonexistent trial. She had attended the RCH and had been given DES to stunt her growth. She was in her early 20s and had been diagnosed with advanced invasive cervical cancer. As she was a nurse she knew this was very rare, particularly as she had none of the known risk factors for the disease.
When I asked her how she found out about DES Action and obtained my phone number, she said her treating doctor (a well-known Ob/Gyn) had suggested she ring. He had made the connection between her DES exposure as a young girl and the subsequent cervical cancer.
Another letter was sent to the RCH, again requesting clarification on the matter. We received back a very defensive letter in which the hospital distanced itself from the trials. They said that the clinician involved had been a private consultant and what he did in his clinics was in no way connected to the RCH.
Untangling the Tall Girls Trials after Years of Secrecy and Denials
In subsequent years (mid 1980s to 1997) we received a handful of further inquiries from “tall girls” requesting information. Unfortunately, these were spaced too far apart for us to put the women in contact with each other. The health concerns of these women had an all-too-familiar ring: dysplasia, endometriosis, ovarian cysts, aggressive cancers (cervix and breast), impaired fertility and premature menopause (i.e. occurring during their 20s).
I can’t really describe my feeling when I opened The Age newspaper on 27 June 1997 and read on page 1: Hormone tests on teenage girls referred to inquiry. I think the main emotion was a sense of relief – that the truth would finally be known – tall girls were given DES to stunt their growth. It also brought back to me the anger and frustration Clare and I experienced in the early 1980s when our inquiries were fobbed off by the medical establishment and health authorities.
And then my phone started ringing. As DES was mentioned in the article, the newspaper must have had me as a contact and referred any inquiries onto me. Remembering how previously we were unable to put the women in contact with each other, I made a contact list of every phone call received. I explained to every caller the importance of organizing, of forming a group to share experiences, and offered to give them the list to follow up. From memory I think Janet Cregan-Wood was about the fifth caller. She rang back the next day and “volunteered” to take on the role. And so the Tall Girls group formed and their DES story emerged.
More about DES and Tall Girls Story
About the author: Marian Vickers is a DES daughter and, in 1979, was a founding member of DES Action Australia. As the DES story has evolved over the years so her focus has broadened – from issues around DES exposure to the wider issue of safety of pharmaceuticals; and finally to an understanding of endocrine disruptors and the implications for public health, particularly in terms of inadequate drug safety surveillance and reporting systems. In 2008 Marian became a ‘Gardasil mother’ when her elder daughter’s health was severely impacted by the HPV vaccine. Not only did she gain an appreciation of what DES mothers went through, she sees disturbing parallels between the DES and Gardasil stories.
We Need Your Help
Hormones Matter needs funding now. Our research funding was cut recently and because of our commitment to independent health research and journalism unbiased by commercial interests we allow minimal advertising on the site. That means all funding must come from you, our readers. Don’t let Hormones Matter die.
Yes, I’d like to support Hormones Matter.
This article was published originally on Hormones Matter on April 21, 2014.Over twenty years ago, MCHR organized four historic Freedom Tours for metro-Detroit high school students. We are proud to announce that it is happening again!
This summer, 25 young mentees and 10 adult mentors will traveling from June 19 to June 29 2016 to visit historical sites in the civil rights struggle and meet with people who lived, made, and are still making, history.
Support the trip by making a donation to MCHR. It will cost MCHR at least $1,500 per student and we are committed to making it affordable for all students who want to participate. Can your church, school, or neighborhood association support one student on this trip? Sponsoring a youth is a great way to invest in that youth’s future, plant the seeds of peaceful revolution, and give back to your community.
The Freedom Tour will be an opportunity to walk in the footsteps of the civil rights movement; to learn the history, to study and embody nonviolence, to build community and to engage the learning back here in Michigan.
Our tentative itinerary for the 2016 Freedom Tour is as follows:
The first two days of the trip we will be in Georgia. Our bus will travel first to Atlanta for a one-day core study of Kingian nonviolence at the King Center. We will also visit the Welcome Center and the Historic Black College Education Center.
The following day, we will visit MLK’s birth home and neighborhood, and the Ebenezer Church and bookstore. The bus will then depart for Alabama. In Montgomery, we will visit the Rosa Parks Center, the Southern Poverty Law Center Wall of Tolerance, Dexter Ave. Church, the MLK Parsonage, and the Freedom Ride Museum. The next day, we will visit Lowndes County, where we will go to the Liuzzo Memorial, the Interpretive Center, and the Freedom House Jail. That same day we will visit the Voting Rights Museum, the Park Memorial, and the Slavery Museum. We will go on a Neighborhood Walk and cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge. The tour will then visit the Interpretive Center.
The next day, we will arrive in Mississippi and visit Meridian and Philadelphia. We will also visit a Choctaw Native-American reservation.
The following day we will depart for Jackson, where we will see Tougaloo College, the Arab Museum, and the Medgar Evers House.
Following that, we will depart for Tennessee where we will arrive in Memphis. In Memphis, we will see the Museum/Lorraine Hotel, the Mason Temple, and the Beale Street music area. We’ll spend the following two days in Henning, at Alex Haley’s birth home.
The following day, we will arrive home in Detroit.
We are so excited to embark on this life-changing journey with all of you! The youth and mentors going on this trip will be documenting their experiences, feelings, and ideas before, during, and after this trip. Follow along on social media with the hashtags #MCHRFreedomTour2016, #MIHumanRights, and #FreedomTour2016!More than the previous few years, 2016 reached deeper into what the comic industry is and, more importantly, what it could be. On the Big Two front, Marvel further diversified its core titles with heroes who weren’t relegated to straight, white dudes crafted in the ‘50s. DC took major strides forward with its Rebirth initiative, embracing the soul of its heritage characters and a new majority of the market share for a few months.
But the indies seemed to shout the loudest this year. For all of comic journalism’s attention to Diamond Distributor’s lists, Raina Telgemeier is a one-woman industry who routinely dominates the majority of The New York Times’ Graphic Books list. That success should come as no surprise on the heels of work like Ghosts, Telgemeier’s searingly emotional and joyous look at mortality. But she has new company that won’t be leaving any time soon; Congressman John Lewis’ graphic novel autobiography, March, concluded with its third entry, co-written by Andrew Aydin and illustrated by Nate Powell. It’s the first graphic novel to win a National Book Award and it’s rightfully being adopted as required reading in public schools.
In addition, stalwarts Drawn & Quarterly and Fantagraphics delivered a front-loaded bulk of innovative, mind-expanding tomes, writer Tom King infiltrated Marvel and DC with two of the most melancholy, heart-breaking comics of the year and Image continued to carry the torch of progressive genre fiction, with all-time greats like Saga, Southern Bastards and Lazarus losing ground on this list not due to a dip in quality, but an expansion of the playing field. This year may have been a garbage fire of bad vibes, but at least comics continued to foster dreams of a brighter 2017.
25. Moon Knight
Writer: Jeff Lemire
Artists: Greg Smallwood, Francesco Francavilla, James Stokoe, Wilfredo Torres, Others
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Jeff Lemire and Greg Smallwood’s radical take on the Fist of Khonsu is a singular, disorienting sight to behold. Lemire—who’s addressed mental illness in other comics like Bloodshot and The Underwater Welder—approaches a character who was once a mercenary saved by the Egyptian god of the moon. That man has since dressed up as a vigilante named Moon Knight, protecting those who travel by night. Lemire asks what most reasonable readers might: is that normal behavior, even by superhero standards? Add the historical footnote that the term “lunatic” translates as “moon sick,” and Lemire and Smallwood have the perfect character to dissect mental illness from a cape-and-cowl perspective. Sean Edgar
24. Tetris: The Games People Play
Writer/Artist: Box Brown
Publisher: First Second
Tetris: The Games People Play is a layered examination of pixellated nostalgia, politics and philosophy. Box Brown’s second bio-graphic novel embraces the same obsessive research and personality as his previous work, Andre the Giant: Life and Legend, this time focusing on Russian game developer Alexey Pajitnov. The affable genius escorts his idea through a bramble of Cold War bureaucracy and parasitic businessmen until his narrative arrives at something of a catharsis. But Brown isn’t content to reconstruct the convoluted beats of proto-gaming history; he analyzes the very philosophical pillars of why humanity games and its history to present day. Smart, obsessive and engrossing, Tetris’ storytelling blocks align perfectly. Sean Edgar
23. House of Penance
Writer: Peter J. Tomasi
Artist: Ian Bertram
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
House of Penance is a grand, gothic epic built on a foundation of pupil-dilating art, informed by one of the most bizarre incidents of late 19th-century history. Sarah Winchester—the widow of the man who founded the Winchester Repeating Arms Company—built a sprawling San Jose mansion to house the souls of the Native Americans and soldiers who fell victim to the weaponry her husband forged. Writer Peter Tomasi scripts in the constrained, eloquent dialogue of past-century spook slingers M.R. James or Bram Stoker, while artist Ian Bertram wraps the plot in winding, grid-bound tendrils of blood and architecture, conjuring a dwarfing sense of doom that no character escapes. The closest we’ll ever get to a collaboration between Edgar Allan Poe and M.C. Escher, House of Penance is horror that could only be accomplished in comics, and its morbid majesty has to be seen |
outing. "There, I've changed it so it acts more like you. It even makes the same faces!"
Emma squinted and then made a scandalized noise. "I don't make that face!"
"You totally make that face!"
Ayumi leaned over to look at the model, glanced up at Emma, then nodded sagely.
"You totally make that face."
"I do not!"
"You're making it now," Ayumi and Ayane said together.
"Emma, if you could lift your arm," said Giovanni blandly, "I need to adjust the embroidery."
"Have you done this a lot, Ayumi?" asked Ayane as Emma grumbled and Giovanni fussed. "You and Giovanni are very good."
"A bit," said Ayumi. She looked embarrassed. "I followed a few blogs back in school, but didn't really think it was more than an idle hobby until I met Giovanni."
"Oh? What's the story behind that?"
"Not much, really," said Ayumi. She looked over at Giovanni with a small smile. "I mean, we just work together a lot. It came up eventually as something we shared interest in."
"How much is 'a lot'?" asked Ayane. She glanced at Emma with a raised eyebrow.
"Well, I mean, not that often, but we usually work together on our projects," said Ayumi. "And we've spent some time out of lab together too. Movies and stuff."
"Uh huh…" said Ayane.
"I figure they may as well start dating," Emma said to Ayane over telepathy.
"They definitely should," Ayane replied. Out loud she said: "Are you considering trying for a relationship?"
Emma snorted but bit her tongue as Ayumi flushed and Giovanni went stock still. Ayane had probably intentionally gone for the bluntest possible way of asking the question. The ringing silence that followed was a familiar one to Emma, and had usually preceded a loud shouting match back in training.
Ayumi and Giovanni were saved from answering the question by an actual ringing noise.
"I'llgetthatsorryit'sprobablyimportant," Ayumi babbled before turning away and starting a video call with someone.
"Turn around," Giovanni ordered stiffly. Emma pivoted and held back a sigh as Giovanni adjusted a piece of fabric minutely and began to do something involving his finger prodding very hard into her side.
"For what it's worth, I think it'd work out," Ayane commented idly.
"Thanks," Giovanni said, rolling his eyes. "Alright, Emma, take a look. What do you think?"
Emma pulled up the preview pane to look at herself.
Giovanni and Ayumi had unanimously decided that she needed a dress. That Emma really preferred things with pants was roundly ignored. In the end, though, it was a sensible sort of outfit. The dress was sleeveless with a round, conservatively cut collar. The skirt ended just mid-thigh and fit loosely, leaving her plenty of space for movement despite the fact it probably would never be necessary.
The base fabric was an extremely finely woven vine-patterned silk damask cloth, all in a deep, charcoal gray. Over that, Giovanni had stitched two panels of heavier, satin-weave fabric, these in shimmering black, that wrapped across Emma's torso and hips like pieces of armor. The effect was heightened by small diamond-shaped pieces of burnished steel, riveted into the fabric in concentric rings that started at her waist and rippled outwards across her chest and hips. A wide belt, studded with smaller metal diamonds, was cinched across her waist. Fine chainmail mesh hung between the two panels and under the belt, jingling slightly as Emma shifted her weight. A pair of tall boots, reaching up past her knees and made of black leather, completed the ensemble.
"You know, I'd have said that it's too dark and needs a little color," said Ayane thoughtfully. "But it works really well as is."
"Maybe a scarf of some kind," said Giovanni. "It's a little out of fashion lately, but I think it would work."
"Red, to match Emma's costume?"
"Yes, I think so," said Giovanni. He gestured and materialized a thin silk scarf tied around Emma's neck in a knot that left two tufts of red next to her throat. "How do you feel about that?"
"I feel like a target," Emma said blandly. "Could we not, instead?"
"Er, sure," said Giovanni, dematerializing the scarf with a wave. "Otherwise it looks fine?"
"Sure, I think so," said Emma with a shrug. "I'm not that good at judging these things. Ayane?"
"You should go for it," said Ayane, nodding. "There's a lot of similar stuff, to be honest, but I think it suits you. Er, no offense, Giovanni."
"Oh none taken," said Giovanni with an easy grin. "Trust me, I know better than some just how difficult it is to make something truly unique. Is there anything else you guys want me to do?"
"No, this is good enough," said Emma.
"Great!" said Giovanni. He waved his hand again so that Emma returned to her street clothes. "I'll get started on this right away. There should be a few open machines available."
Emma stepped off of the podium with a sigh, rubbing her neck. "Well that's done, I guess. I need a nap."
"You and your naps," said Ayane. She patted the space next to her, a chair manifesting in the simulation. "Though a nap sounds nice, now that you mention it."
"Naps are always nice," said Emma. She sat down and sighed again. "Do you think we can leave?"
"Probably? I mean, I think we're done."
"Hey Ayumi, can we head out?" Emma asked.
"Sure, go ahead," said Ayumi. She hung up from her call with a sigh. "Sorry for logging out, that was Dr. Hang. She's been waiting for a part from me and Giovanni for the last week and was getting antsy."
"What's Dr. Hang work on?" asked Ayane curiously.
"Well, Dr. Hang's part of the Verner Lab, which does fundamental research on how magical girls interact with their environment," said Ayumi. "Dr. Hang's focus is on magical girl training and power development, and is based on a bunch of funding from MSY Careers and Education."
"Really?" asked Ayane. "I guess that makes sense, since her research would help develop new ways to teach new girls how to use their magic."
"Yes, exactly," said Ayumi. She sighed and made an annoyed expression. "The problem is, you have to take really precise measurements to capture very small differences between a newly contracted girl's magic usage and, say, a more experienced girl's magic, which means she's always complaining about our tolerances being too wide."
"Ah, that sounds like a pain."
"It's what it is," said Ayumi with a shrug and a deep, put-upon sigh. "Her mood's been worse than usual, since she's been trying to get funding to run experiments with girls coming back from Samsara."
Emma and Ayane both raised an eyebrow.
"Did she get past ethics committee already?" asked Ayane.
"I'm not sure of the details. From what I've seen, there's nothing that's particularly notable ethically," said Ayumi, shrugging again. She made another put-upon expression. "The only real problem she seems to be having is she keeps coming up with ideas faster than she can get funding for it all, so we're forced to try and do something with whatever funds she can cobble together overnight. Half the stuff she gives us needs a wish and a contract to fulfill with the budget he's giving!"
"That sounds rough," said Ayane sympathetically. "I hope it gets better for you."
"Yeah, same here," said Emma. She looped an arm around Ayane's. "We're headed out though, unless there's something else you need from us."
"No, we're good. Come back tomorrow evening to try on the dress, okay?"
"Okay, see you later."Last change: 2014-12-30
Bournegol???
... To fix it, first get the source, and then change it in the obvious three places in xec.c. You will have to learn Bournegol [the ALGOL-like dialect of C that Steve Bourne used to write the original Bourne shell-JP ]. Another alternative is to replace /bin/sh with one of the free sh look-alikes... (CT in comp.unix.questions on Usenet, 20 February 1990)
(many years later I found this paper, A Partial Tour Through the UNIX Shell, which makes for very nice reading). Ok, without any further ado, here is an excerpt of the file xec.c, referenced above, supposedly from the 7th Edition UNIX, that gives you an impression of bournegol:
LOCAL INT parent; SYSTAB commands; /* ======== command execution ========*/ execute(argt, execflg, pf1, pf2) TREPTR argt; INT *pf1, *pf2; { /* `stakbot' is preserved by this routine */ REG TREPTR t; STKPTR sav=savstak(); sigchk(); IF (t=argt) ANDF execbrk==0 THEN REG INT treeflgs; INT oldexit, type; REG STRING *com; treeflgs = t->tretyp; type = treeflgs&COMMSK; oldexit=exitval; exitval=0; SWITCH type IN case TCOM: BEGIN STRING a1; INT argn, internal; ARGPTR schain=gchain; IOPTR io=t->treio; gchain=0; argn = getarg(t); com=scan(argn); a1=com[1]; gchain=schain; IF (internal=syslook(com[0],commands)) ORF argn==0 THEN setlist(t->comset, 0); FI IF argn ANDF (flags&noexec)==0 THEN /* print command if execpr */ IF flags&execpr THEN argn=0; prs(execpmsg); WHILE com[argn]!=ENDARGS DO prs(com[argn++]); blank() OD newline(); FI SWITCH internal IN case SYSDOT: IF a1 THEN REG INT f; IF (f=pathopen(getpath(a1), a1)) < 0 THEN failed(a1,notfound); ELSE execexp(0,f); FI FI break; case SYSTIMES: { L_INT t[4]; times(t); prt(t[2]); blank(); prt(t[3]); newline(); } break; case SYSEXIT: exitsh(a1?stoi(a1):oldexit);
case SYSTRAP: IF a1 THEN BOOL clear; IF (clear=digit(*a1))==0 THEN ++com; FI WHILE *++com DO INT i; IF (i=stoi(*com))>=MAXTRAP ORF i<MINTRAP THEN failed(*com,badtrap); ELIF clear THEN clrsig(i); ELSE replace(&trapcom[i],a1); IF *a1 THEN getsig(i); ELSE ignsig(i); FI FI OD ELSE /* print out current traps */ INT i; FOR i=0; i<MAXTRAP; i++ DO IF trapcom[i] THEN prn(i); prs(colon); prs(trapcom[i]); newline(); FI OD FI break;
case TFORK: IF execflg ANDF (treeflgs&(FAMP|FPOU))==0 THEN parent=0; ELSE WHILE (parent=fork()) == -1 DO sigchk(); alarm(10); pause() OD FI IF parent THEN /* This is the parent branch of fork; */ /* it may or may not wait for the child. */ IF treeflgs&FPRS ANDF flags&ttyflg THEN prn(parent); newline(); FI IF treeflgs&FPCL THEN closepipe(pf1) FI IF (treeflgs&(FAMP|FPOU))==0 THEN await(parent); ELIF (treeflgs&FAMP)==0 THEN post(parent); ELSE assnum(&pcsadr, parent); FI chktrap(); break;
(Note the single use of curly braces after case SYSTIMES. This and the lowercase case let me believe this segment might have been added at a later stage). The necesssary macro definitions to understand (if you dare to try) the above excerpt can be found in the file mac.h :
/* * UNIX shell * * S. R. Bourne * Bell Telephone Laboratories * */ #define LOCAL static #define PROC extern #define TYPE typedef #define STRUCT TYPE struct #define UNION TYPE union #define REG register #define IF if( #define THEN ){ #define ELSE } else { #define ELIF } else if ( #define FI ;} #define BEGIN { #define END } #define SWITCH switch( #define IN ){ #define ENDSW } #define FOR for( #define WHILE while( #define DO ){ #define OD ;} #define REP do_lbr #define PER }while( #define DONE ); #define LOOP for(;;){ #define POOL } #define SKIP ; #define DIV / #define REM % #define NEQ ^ #define ANDF && #define ORF || #define TRUE (-1) #define FALSE 0 #define LOBYTE 0377 #define STRIP 0177 #define QUOTE 0200 #define EOF 0 #define NL '
' #define SP'' #define LQ '`' #define RQ '\'' #define MINUS '-' #define COLON ':' #define MAX(a,b) ((a)>(b)?(a):(b))
Hope you found this interesting ;)
Any questions/hints/critics? Contact the author of this page!The other evening one of my dinner clubs had a meeting. I’m getting addicted to these clubs—I now belong to three of them.
This one is conservative-dissident. By “conservative” I mean skeptical of social change, especially of vast social-engineering experiments—the normalization of buggery and bastardy, mass immigration from low-attainment populations, and almost any public-education policy from the past half-century. By “dissident” I mean that no careerist dreaming of a position as a Fox News analyst, or of ascending to The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, or of taking over from David Brooks or Ross Douthat on The New York Times’ op-ed page, or of running for office under any major political party’s aegis, would be seen dead in the same room with us.
It’s a good crowd: academics, lawyers, small-business types, a schoolteacher, a cop, an artist, a writer. We have an invited speaker, generally someone of our own kidney. We eat a hearty dinner, listen to the speaker, then argue with him and each other while getting gently tipsy on wine or beer. It all makes for a very agreeable evening.
This being New York City, and top-quintile intelligence being a requirement for club membership, a lot of us are Jewish. Oh, you didn’t know there are conservative Jewish New Yorkers?
“Oh, you didn’t know there are conservative Jewish New Yorkers?”
This month’s meeting was blessed with the presence of two actual rabbis, one of them an Orthodox sailing under full canvas: black frock coat, broad-brimmed black hat, major beard, payot, the works. This gent was way above the club’s IQ requirement: super-duper smart, with a three-levels-down knowledge of any subject we raised. I tried him on Northern Ireland. He knew all the players and nuances, and we ended up singing the Sash in unison. I wish I had a video of me three sheets to the wind and a rabbi in full fig belting out Ulster Protestant marching songs together, the club members standing around looking baffled.
My job demands that I spend a couple of hours every day trawling through news stories. Sifting through all that dreck, now and then I turn up a little gold nugget.
Last week’s gold nugget was this utterance by a distinguished public official: “Human rights do not prescribe national suicide.”
That’s an obvious enough thing to say. It’s only separated by a few inches from Robert Jackson’s observation that “the Constitution is not a suicide pact.” What’s remarkable is that it needs saying and that hearing it struck me with such force.
Pay to Play - Put your money where your mouth is and subscribe for an ad-free experience and to join the world famous Takimag comment board.News of artist Jenelle Evans’s death spread quickly earlier this week causing concern among fans across the world. However the February 2019 report has now been confirmed as a complete hoax and just the latest in a string of fake celebrity death reports. Thankfully, the artist best known as cast member of Teen Mom 2 is alive and well.
UPDATE 27/02/2019 : This story seems to be false. (read more)
Jenelle Evans death hoax spreads on Facebook
Rumors of the artist’s alleged demise gained traction on Monday after a ‘R.I.P. Jenelle Evans’ Facebook page attracted nearly one million of ‘likes’. Those who read the ‘About’ page were given a believable account of the American artist’s passing:
“At about 11 a.m. ET on Monday (February 25, 2019), our beloved artist Jenelle Evans passed away. Jenelle Evans was born on December 19, 1991 in Oak Island. She will be missed but not forgotten. Please show your sympathy and condolences by commenting on and liking this page.”
Hundreds of fans immediately started writing their messages of condolence on the Facebook page, expressing their sadness that the talented 27-year-old artist was dead. And as usual, Twittersphere was frenzied over the death hoax.
Where as some trusting fans believed the post, others were immediately skeptical of the report, perhaps learning their lesson from the huge amount of fake death reports emerging about celebrities over recent months. Some pointed out that the news had not been carried on any major American network, indicating that it was a fake report, as the death of an artist of Jenelle Evans' stature would be major news across networks.
A recent poll conducted for the Celebrity Post shows that 55% still think false Jenelle Evans death rumors are funny.
Jenelle Evans Death Hoax Dismissed Since Artist Is ‘Alive And Well’
On Tuesday (February 26) the artist's reps officially confirmed that Jenelle Evans is not dead. “She joins the long list of celebrities who have been victimized by this hoax. She's still alive and well, stop believing what you see on the Internet,” they said.
Some fans have expressed anger at the fake report saying it was reckless, distressing and hurtful to fans of the much loved artist. Others say this shows her extreme popularity across the globe.
© 2019 MediaMass All rights reserved. Do not reproduce (even with permission).
Celebrity CentralWASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. manufacturing stayed on solid ground in January, with employers stepping up hiring by adding 21,000 jobs to their payrolls and boosting their labor market share.
Steel coils at the ThyssenKrupp Steel USA factory are pictured in Calvert, Alabama November 22, 2013. REUTERS/Lyle Ratliff
January’s job gains marked the sixth straight month of increases in a sector that accounts for about 12 percent of the economy. They came despite a survey early this week signaling a sharp slowdown in factory activity and job creation in January.
While factory payrolls increased by only 8,000 in December, November’s count was revised up by 4,000 to 35,000. Manufacturing accounted for 18.5 percent of the 113,000 jobs created last month, up from a 10.67 percent share in December, and was one of the brighter spots in a mixed overall employment picture <US/JOBS1>.
“It’s still far from a resurgence, but the jobs picture in manufacturing is certainly better than it was last decade,” said Scott Paul, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing in Washington.
Manufacturing lost 2.3 million jobs during the 2007-09 recession and has so far recovered 622,000.
“The latest jobs report offers fresh evidence that it is possible to create manufacturing jobs in America again. U.S. manufacturing sector is punching well above its diminished weight,” said Paul.
The increase last month was triple the sector’s average monthly jobs gains of 7,000 in 2013. There were notable rises in machinery, which added 7,000 new positions, wood products and motor vehicles and parts.
“Manufacturers have noted a pickup in demand and production over the past six months, which have led to increase in hiring overall,” said Chad Moutray, chief economist at the National Association of Manufacturers in Washington.
President Barack Obama has set off a goal of 1 million manufacturing jobs to be created during his second term.
The recent pace over the past three months of 21,300 manufacturing jobs a month is just 3,400 short of the 24,700 pace needed for Obama to achieve that target.
At the current pace, though, he would fall about 120,000 jobs short of the target when his term ends in January 2017.
But with factory activity expected to slow in the first half of this year after output grew at its fastest pace in nearly two years in the fourth quarter, hiring could cool off a bit.
The Institute for Supply Management Management’s index of national factory activity tumbled to an eight-month low in January and its measure of factory employment touched a seven month low. The index is considered a leading indicator of manufacturing activity.
In addition, auto makers have seen an increase in inventory after sales slowed in December and January. This suggests they would have to cut back production, which could hold back hiring.
“To ensure that the optimism for this year can be fulfilled, manufacturers want policymakers to adopt pro-growth measures that will allow them to continue to expand,” said Moutray.DENPASAR, Indonesia (Reuters) - Indonesia closed the airport on the tourist island of Bali on Monday and ordered 100,000 residents living near a grumbling volcano spewing columns of ash to evacuate immediately, warning that the first major eruption in 54 years could be “imminent”.
The airport was closed for 24 hours from Monday morning, disrupting 445 flights and some 59,000 passengers, after Mount Agung, which killed hundreds of people in 1963, sent volcanic ash high into the sky, and officials said cancellations could be extended.
“Plumes of smoke are occasionally accompanied by explosive eruptions and the sound of weak blasts that can be heard up to 12 km (7 miles) from the peak,” the Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) said in a statement after raising the alert from three to its highest level of four.
“The potential for a larger eruption is imminent,” it said, referring to a visible glow of magma at Mount Agung’s peak overnight, and warning residents to evacuate a danger zone at a radius of 8-10 km (5-6 miles).
Sutopo, a BNPB spokesman, said there had been no casualties so far and 40,000 people had left the area, but tens of thousands still needed to move.
Video footage shared by the agency showed volcanic mud flows (lahar) on the mountainside. Lahar carrying mud and large boulders can destroy houses, bridges and roads in its path.
Bali, famous for its surf, beaches and temples, attracted nearly 5 million visitors last year, and its airport serves as a transport hub for the chain of islands in Indonesia’s eastern archipelago.
But tourism has slumped in parts of Bali since September when Agung’s volcanic tremors began to increase and the alert level was raised to maximum before being lowered in October when seismic activity calmed.”I’m really worried. Maybe I’ll go somewhere south that I think will be safe to avoid being trapped by the ashfall,” said Maria Becker, a German tourist staying in Amed, around 15 km (9 miles) from the volcano.
Agung rises majestically over eastern Bali to a height of just over 3,000 metres (9,800 feet). Northeastern Bali is relatively undeveloped compared to the more heavily populated southern tourist hub of Kuta-Seminyak-Nusa Dua.
Indonesia’s Vulcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation Centre (PVMBG), which is using drones, satellite imagery and other equipment, said predictions were difficult in the absence of instrumental recordings from the last eruption 54 years ago.
In 1963, an eruption of Agung killed more than 1,000 people and razed several villages by hurling out pyroclastic material, hot ash, lava and lahar.
Glowing light of hot lava is seen during the eruption of Mount Agung as seen from Amed in Karangasem, Bali, Indonesia. REUTERS/Johannes P. Christo
Recordings now show the northeast area of Agung’s peak has swollen in recent weeks “indicating there is fairly strong pressure toward the surface”, PVMBG said.
It warned that if a similar eruption occurred, it could send rocks bigger than fist-size up to 8 km (5 miles) from the summit and volcanic gas to a distance of 10 km (6 miles) within three minutes.
Some analysis, however, suggests the threat should not be as great this time because “energy at Mount Agung’s magma chamber is not as big” and the ash column only around a quarter as high so far as the 20 km (12 miles) reached in 1963, Sutopo said.
“CHECK-INS CLOSED”
Bali airport, about 60 km (37 miles) from the volcano, will be closed for 24 hours, its operator said.
Ten alternative airports have been prepared for airlines to divert inbound flights, including in neighboring provinces.
Virgin Australia Holdings Ltd said it was cancelling flights on Tuesday, while Jetstar was offering to exchange Bali bound tickets for other destinations.
Television footage showed hundreds of holidaymakers camped inside the airport terminal, some sleeping on their bags, others using mobile telephones.
“We have been here (in Bali) for three days we are about to leave today, but just found out our flights have been canceled. We have got no information because the gates, the check-ins, have been closed indefinitely,” said Carlo Oben from Los Angeles.
Cover-More, Australia’s biggest travel insurer, said on its website customers would only be covered if they had bought policies before the volcano alert was first issued on Sept. 18.
Indonesia’s hotel and restaurant association said stranded tourists at member hotels would get one night’s free stay.
Slideshow (6 Images)
The main airport on Lombok, next to Bali, was closed after being open for much of the day, a spokesman said.
Airlines avoid flying when volcanic ash is present because it can damage engines and can clog fuel and cooling systems and hamper visibility.
(For interactive package on Agung eruptions, click tmsnrt.rs/2AayRVh)(For graphic on Pacific ring of fire, click tmsnrt.rs/2AzR9jv)Exclusive: minutes of meetings and an intelligence report obtained by Guardian Australia reveal regular concerns about child protection and self harm in detention centres
Staff at Nauru detention centres have reported persistent acts of child abuse and self harm within the offshore camps over several months, a series of leaked documents obtained by Guardian Australia reveal.
A Save The Children (STC) staffer says allegations that staff working for the agency coached asylum seekers to self-harm, and are responsible for a fabricated political campaign, are “an insult”. Ten STC employees have been suspended as a result of these allegations.
“We would never train a client to self-harm as we see the effects of what happens there, we realise it can lead to suicide and death. We are trained and committed humanitarian staff,” the Save the Children staffer said.
After the allegations were raised by the immigration minister, Scott Morrison, on Friday, Dr Peter Young, the former chief immigration psychiatrist responsible for the mental health of all asylum seekers detained by Australia, said the immigration department had “no understanding of self-harming behaviours at all”.
Guardian Australia has obtained, from a number of sources, minutes of welfare meetings and a Transfield intelligence report, which detail some of the child protection and abuse concerns in Nauru camps.
Those documents show, in the week beginning 2 June:
A 17-year-old boy who attempted suicide with a razor after being told he was not allowed access to the internet.
A 16-year-old girl who told her case workers she had been tormented and sexually harassed by detention centre security guards. The girl reported a number of male Nauruan employees “have tried to hug her, kiss her, told her they would marry her and asked her to have a ‘sexy party’”.
A 17-year-old boy who attempted suicide by strangling himself.
A nine-year-old boy from a war-torn country who had begun bed-wetting, and pulling clumps of hair from his head. His mother talked openly about suicide, and “states that she wishes to be dead and would gladly kill herself, however this is a sin and she will be punished so will not do this”. The boy’s mother had discussed being returned to her country of origin because she “knows this will result in her being killed”.
An eight-year-old boy regularly in fights with other children, and who staff struggled to deal with because there was no interpreter who spoke his family’s language.
A 13-year-old boy who had only irregular access to his sleep medication, and who was uncontrollably manic at school after not sleeping for 24 hours. His mother was missing.
A 15-year-old boy who was not eating, and was “displaying signs of depression” after his father was taken to Brisbane in a medical emergency.
In the report for the week ending 13 April, reports raised concerns about:
An eight-year-old boy who bullied and fought with other children and had attacked teachers, but who cried under a blanket each night, hiding his distress from his parents.
Several children, the youngest aged four year, who had had both parents arrested for taking part in protests, and were left with no family to care for them.
An eight-year-old girl and her 10-year-old brother who were attacked by other detainees because their father was accused of assaulting another detainee.
A 10-year-old boy who had to be physically restrained from attacking other children and had been banned from school because of the threat he posed to other students.
Guardian Australia has also obtained a copy of a Transfield Services intelligence report for Saturday 2 August. It shows:
Eight detainees were required to be under constant ‘line of sight’ monitoring, four for acts of self-harm.
One man, who had “self-harmed by banging head” was not permitted to be more than arm’s length from a guard at any time.
Three women were deemed high security risks because of attempts and threats of self-harm, and aggression towards staff.
Other detainees were on half-hourly monitoring, others on three-hourly, also because they had committed acts of self-harm, or were deemed “vulnerable”.
Guards were instructed to monitor detainees’ moods and whether people were refusing food and water.
Morrison announced on Friday that his acting department head, Phillip Moss, would head an investigation into allegations of sexual abuse of children in Nauru’s detention centres.
But the minister also said he was concerned by allegations staff of detention centre service providers were facilitating protests by detainees and even encouraging them to self-harm.
“Allegations of the abuse and misconduct are serious and they need to be addressed … making false claims and, worse, allegedly coaching self-harm and using children in protests is also completely unacceptable, whatever their political views or whatever their agendas.”
An STC contractor who has worked for an extended period on Nauru told Guardian Australia Morrison’s comments and the intelligence report arguing STC staffers encouraged self-harm were “an insult to the work we do on the island”.
“Self-harm happens in the centre on a weekly basis and we would never encourage self harm as a means to get to Australia,” the contractor said. The STC staffer said they had no direct knowledge of abuse claims raise by the Greens immigration spokeswoman, Sarah Hanson-Young, earlier in the week.
Ten STC employees were identified for removal by the department. One has already left the organisation, and three are rotated off the island. The six remaining on Nauru have not been told to leave the island, but are not allowed access to the detention centre.
All nine workers still employed by STC are suspended indefinitely, at the behest of the department. They are on full pay but have been given no reason for their suspension, and Morrison stressed there was no suggestion any had behaved improperly towards detainees.
Hanson-Young said the incidents revealed in the reports were just the tip of the iceberg, and Morrison’s reaction amounted to “shooting the messenger”.
“These reports make it clear that the minister has known for a long time that Nauru is toxic. The fact that this trauma is so clearly documented and the minister did nothing is shocking.
“Why didn’t he act and initiate an investigation before this week when he was dragged to one, kicking and screaming, by extremely serious allegations?”
Peter Young branded the minister’s comments over self-harm on Nauru “ill-informed”. He said he was aware of documented instances of child abuse across the detention network, and that they occurred “periodically”.
“Child abuse is inevitable in this type of institution, we’ve seen it in other [detention] institutions,” Young said.
A leaked independent assessment of the healthcare available to asylum seekers on Nauru warned in February that children inside the centre were vulnerable to sexual abuse as no working-with-children checks were undertaken on Nauruan staff who make up more than 50% of the detention centre workforce.
Guardian Australia has documented numerous examples of the abuse of children in the centre. One case – a sexual assault – occurred on 16 November 2013, when a teenage boy was grabbed in the groin by a local cleaner, who was later sacked.
In another instance, on 27 March, it was alleged that a young girl was hit over the back of the head by a detention centre guard so hard that she fell to the ground.
Morrison has declined to answer questions on either of these instances and has provided no answer to why working-with-children checks are not undertaken on local staff.
Young said that on the mainland healthcare workers were often asked by immigration department staff to seek approval before reporting child abuse to external agencies.
He said Morrison’s comments on Friday indicated that the minister displayed a “real level of ignorance” about mental health problems in detention.
“At the beginning of mental health week, it shows just how little he knows or cares about the issue,” Young said.
“Self-harming rates increase rapidly after six months - they [the immigration department] know this, their own research shows it and it’s not at all surprising. Experts have been warning the government and the department about this for many years. It’s a consequence and responsibility of the policy,” Young said.
Guardian Australia has also reported the contents of a leaked report written by mainland detention centre managers Serco in which the department is clearly warned that the effects of long term indefinite detention will result in greater levels of self-harm.
Morrison’s office did not respond to a request for a response.
• The crisis support service Lifeline can be reached on 13 11 14. A list of hotlines outside Australia can be found here.Home » Breaking News, Manipulation, North America, Theft » Russia Says IMF Chief Jailed For Discovering All US Gold Is Gone
A new report prepared for Prime Minister Putin by the Federal Security Service (FSB) says that former International Monetary Fund (IMF) Chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn was charged and jailed in the US for sex crimes on May 14th after his discovery that all of the gold held in the United States Bullion Depository located at Fort Knox was ‘missing and/or unaccounted’ for.
According to this FSB secret report, Strauss-Kahn had become “increasingly concerned” earlier this month after the United States began “stalling” its pledged delivery to the IMF of 191.3 tons of gold agreed to under the Second Amendment of the Articles of Agreement signed by the Executive Board in April 1978 that were to be sold to fund what are called Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) as an alternative to what are called reserve currencies.
This FSB report further states that upon Strauss-Kahn raising his concerns with American government officials close to President Obama he was ‘contacted’ by ‘rogue elements’ within the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) who provided him ‘firm evidence’ that all of the gold reported to be held by the US ‘was gone’.
Upon Strauss-Kahn receiving the CIA evidence, this report continues, he made immediate arrangements to leave the US for Paris, but when contacted by agents working for France’s General Directorate for External Security (DGSE) that American authorities were seeking his capture he fled to New York City’s JFK airport following these agents directive not to take his cell-phone because US police could track his exact location.
Once Strauss-Kahn was safely boarded on an Air France flight to Paris, however, this FSB report says he made a ‘fatal mistake’ by calling the hotel from a phone on the plane and asking them to forwarded the cell-phone he had been told to leave behind to his French residence, after which US agents were able to track and apprehend him.
Within the past fortnight, this report continues, Strauss-Kahn reached out to his close friend and top Egyptian banker Mahmoud Abdel Salam Omar to retrieve from the US the evidence given to him by the CIA. Omar, however, and exactly like Strauss-Kahn before him, was charged yesterday by the US with a sex crime against a luxury hotel maid, a charge the FSB labels as ‘beyond belief’ due to Omar being 74-years-old and a devout Muslim.
In an astounding move puzzling many in Moscow, Putin after reading this secret FSB report today ordered posted to the Kremlin’s official website a defense of Strauss-Khan becoming the first world leader to state that the former IMF chief was a victim of a US conspiracy. Putin further stated, “It’s hard for me to evaluate the hidden political motives but I cannot believe that it looks the way it was initially introduced. It doesn’t sit right in my head.”
Interesting to note about all of these events is that one of the United States top Congressman, and 2012 Presidential candidate, Ron Paul [photo bottom left] has long stated his belief that the US government has lied about its gold reserves held at Fort Knox. So concerned had Congressman Paul become about the US government and the Federal Reserve hiding the truth about American gold reserves he put forward a bill in late 2010 to force an audit of them, but which was subsequently defeated by Obama regime forces.
When directly asked by reporters |
relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation." Under the Fourth Amendment, the standard for a search warrant is stricter: "probable cause" to believe that evidence of a crime will be discovered. The case heard by the 5th Circuit involved three applications for court orders covering two months of cellphone location information for specific customers. The court was asked to decide whether the "specific and articulable facts" standard is constitutionally deficient.
No, it is not, the court decided, because the Fourth Amendment does not apply to cellphone location data, which are just another example of the "business records" that the Supreme Court has said can be perused by the government at will in the absence of statutory restrictions. After all, the court reasoned, people should know by now that connecting their wireless calls requires transmitting their locations to their cellphone companies. Since no one is forced to use a cellphone, anyone who chooses to do so is voluntarily disclosing his whereabouts to a third party, thereby losing any reasonable expectation of privacy in that information.
According to this logic, people are not allowed to share information with others for limited purposes and still retain Fourth Amendment protection against government snooping. It's all or nothing. Buy a cellphone, and you automatically consent to having the government track your every move (except when prohibited by statute). You cannot opt out. And once this line of reasoning catches on, it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy, since people living under a government that has such broad surveillance powers cannot reasonably expect that their comings and goings will remain private.
The 5th Circuit's decision sits uneasily with U.S. v. Jones, the 2012 decision in which the Supreme Court said tracking a suspect's car by attaching a GPS device to it amounts to a "search" under the Fourth Amendment. Although the majority opinion in Jones hinged on the physical intrusion required to install the device, five justices expressed the view that the breadth of information generated by tracking someone's car for a month was enough to trigger Fourth Amendment protection. If you have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the whereabouts of your car for the last month, surely you have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the whereabouts of your cellphone for the last two months. The 5th Circuit declined to draw that inference:
[Supreme Court] precedent, as it now stands, does not recognize a situation where a conventional order for a third party's voluntarily created business records transforms into a Fourth Amendment search or seizure when the records cover more than some specified time period or shed light on a target's activities in an area traditionally protected from governmental intrusion. We decline to create a new rule to hold that Congress's balancing of privacy and safety is unconstitutional.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor's concurring opinion in Jones, calling upon her colleagues to reconsider the always questionable and increasingly alarming third party doctrine, is looking more perceptive every day. That doctrine makes not just cellphone location data but all sorts of remotely stored information, which nowadays includes a tremendous amount of sensitive material, vulnerable to government snooping unless legislators decide otherwise.
You can read the 5th Circuit's ruling here. Ron Bailey pondered the surveillance potential of cellphones in the January issue of Reason. Last year I asked, "Is That a Spy in Your Pocket?"Mt. PLEASANT, S.C. -- Gov. Chris Christie vowed Monday that if he's elected president in 2016 he will defund Planned Parenthood across the nation just like he's done in New Jersey.
The Republican governor, speaking to residents in the conservative early-voting state of South Carolina, stressed that he defunded Planned Parenthood for six straight budgets.
Christie was asked whether recently released undercover video showing a senior Planned Parenthood official discussing the disposal of aborted fetuses should spur a federal investigation into the group or possible defunding.
"Now, with the most recent revelation, there's even more reason not to fund Planned Parenthood," Christie said. "I've vetoed funding for Planned Parenthood and if I were president of the United States I would do exactly the same."
He continued: "This is the difference between the folks in Washington D.C. and the people who have governorships.... I defunded Planned Parenthood in New Jersey six years ago we've defunded it every year for the last six years."
Earlier this month, anti-abortion activists released the covert video of a conversation between Planned Parenthood's senior director of medical services, Dr. Deborah Nucatola, and people posing as buyers for a fake company that purchases human tissues. The video renewed calls among anti-abortion activists to defund the group.
Christie first began touting his controversial vetoes of funding for women's health centers in New Jersey as a measure of his anti-abortion bona fides during Conservative Political Action Conference meeting in Washington in February.
For years, Christie never publicly used that as a reason for his actions in New Jersey, instead saying he nixed millions of dollars for the centers, which included some run by Planned Parenthood, because of either budgetary reasons or because the services could be found elsewhere in the community.
Christie repeated those claims in South Carolina on Monday.
"When I first defunded it, I defunded it because we were double spending. We were spending money on other stuff and I didn't want to double spend that money," Christie said.
MORE CHRIS CHRISTIE
Matt Arco may be reached at marco@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MatthewArco or on Facebook. Follow NJ.com Politics on Facebook.Synopsis
After noticing his gun is missing from under his pillow, Dean wakes to find two men pointing guns at him and Sam. He recognizes them as hunters - Walt and Roy. Walt says they are there to kill Sam for starting the Apocalypse, and as Sam protests, Walt shoots and kills him. He tells Roy to shoot Dean, and when he hesitates, Walt kills Dean too.
Dean finds himself sitting in the Impala, and when he leaves the Impala a thirteen-year-old version of Sam appears with a box of fireworks. They go to a nearby field and set them, off - Sam obviously delighted. Dean remembers this as the fourth of July. Suddenly memories of the shooting flash into Dean's mind, and he finds himself alone again.
Castiel starts speaking to Dean through the car radio, confirming that he is dead, and in Heaven, and that if he follows the road he will find Sam. What Dean and Sam are living through are happy past memories. Dean follows the road, and finds Sam having Thanksgiving dinner with one of his teen crushes' family. Sam confirms that this a happy memory for him - what was to him his first "proper" Thanksgiving. Suddenly a searchlight sweeps through the house, and the boys hide. Castiel communicates through the TV, telling them Zachariah is looking for them to send them back to Earth and not to go into the light. Castiel explains that this is their chance to find God, and that they should find someone called Joshua who communicates with him. He tells them to follow the 'axis mundi' - the road through Heaven to the garden.
Dean finds a toy race car track in the family's cupboard, which takes them to the next place - a memory of Dean's from when he was 4 of breakfast with his mother, and him comforting her after she argues with John. The next memory experience is through a postcard for Route 66 to Flagstaff, which Sam and his dog, Bones, called home when he ran away from Dean and John once. Dean reveals that to him, it was a terrible experience. They exit there, and find themselves on a road - the place where Sam left his family to go to Stanford. Dean points out, distraught, that Sam's memories are all about leaving him - and then Zachariah appears, pursuing them through a wood.
A masked and caped figure appears, and beckons the boys to follow. They go through a door in the middle of the woods and find themselves in a bar - the Roadhouse - and the masked man is Ash. He explains that each person has their own version of Heaven, except for soul mates, who can share, although Ash has worked out a way to move between these places. Ash says he has seen Dean and Sam on the other occasions they have been in heaven, although they have no memory of it. He goes and brings back Pamela who tells Dean that she is enjoying Heaven, and that maybe he should reconsider his resistance to being Michael's vessel. Ash shows them a shortcut to the garden and the boys leave.
They find themselves again in their family home, and Mary appears again. However this time she taunts Dean, saying he was a burden, and that it's his fault everyone leaves him. Zachariah appears, and tells the boys that he will torment them until they give in. Joshua appears and tells Zachariah that he needs to speak with Sam & Dean and Zachariah must release the boys or risk God's wrath.
Joshua tells Sam and Dean that God is well aware of their predicament, and that it was God who saved them when Lucifer rose, and resurrected Castiel, and has now given them salvation. Joshua says that God is on Earth, but that no amulet will help to find him. God, he says, doesn't want to intervene anymore in the Apocalypse, and He doesn't want them to either.
Joshua returns Sam and Dean to Earth, with their memories of what they have learned intact. Castiel is devastated with the news of God's apathy, and returns the Amulet to Dean saying "It's worthless" before leaving. As Sam tries to offer hope to Dean that they can still defeat Lucifer, Dean leaves the motel room - dropping the amulet in the wastebasket as he leaves.
"Knockin' on Heaven's Door" by Bob Dylan
(plays after Dean is shot, then a few minutes later during his memory of shooting fireworks with Sam; also played in 2.13 Houses of the Holy)
"What a Way to Go" by Jesse Turnbow
(plays in the Roadhouse when Sam and Dean meet up with Ash; also played in 1.03 Dead in the Water)
Quotes
Roy: Killin’ Sam was right but Dean...
Killin’ Sam was right but Dean... Walt: He made us and we just snuffed his brother, you idiot. You want to spend the rest of your life knowing Dean Winchester’s on your ass, ‘cause I don’t. Shoot 'im.
Dean: Go ahead, Roy, do it. But I’m going to warn you, when I come back I’m going to be pissed. C’mon! Let’s get this show on the road. Go ahead, Roy, do it. But I’m going to warn you, when I come back I’m going to be pissed. C’mon! Let’s get this show on the road.
Castiel: Some people see a tunnel or a river. What do you see?
Some people see a tunnel or a river. What do you see? Dean: Nothing. My dash. I’m in my car. I’m on a road.
Castiel: Alright. A road. For you it’s a road. Follow it, Dean. You’ll find Sam. Follow the road. Alright. A road. For you it’s a road. Follow it, Dean. You’ll find Sam. Follow the road.
Sam: No, uh. I’m just surprised you do. Last time I checked you wanted to break God’s nose, now you think he can help?
Dean: He’s the only one who can. I mean, come on, Sam. We are royally boned. So prayer? The last hope of a desperate man.
Sam: You... You think the road is in a closet?
Dean: We’re in Heaven, Sam, okay? I mean, our memories are coming true. Cas is on TV. Finding a road in a closet would be pretty much the most normal thing to happen to us today.
Dean: Kind of trippy, right?
Kind of trippy, right? Sam: Yeah. More trippy. Um. Apparently, you ‘wuv hugs.’
Dean: Shut up. Shut up.
Dean: It’s okay, Mom. Dad still loves you. I love you, too. I’ll never leave you.
Mary: You are my little angel. How 'bout some pie? Okay.
Dean: C’mon! Your Heaven is somebody else’s Thanksgiving. Okay. It’s bailing on your family. What do you want me to say?
C’mon! Your Heaven is somebody else’s Thanksgiving. Okay. It’s bailing on your family. What do you want me to say? Sam: Man, I never got the crusts cut off my PB&J. I just don’t look at family the way you do.
Dean: Yeah, but I’m your family.
Sam: I know...
Dean: I mean, we’re supposed to be a team. It’s supposed to be you and me against the world, right? I mean, we’re supposed to be a team. It’s supposed to be you and me against the world, right?
Zachariah: Wow. Running from angels. On foot. In Heaven. With out-of-the-box thinking like that I’m surprised you boys haven’t stopped the Apocalypse already.
Ash: Mm-hmm. Yeah. See you got Winchesterland. Ashland. A whole mess of everybody-else-lands. Put them all together: Heaven. Right? At the center of it all? Is the Magic Kingdom. The Garden.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. See you got Winchesterland. Ashland. A whole mess of everybody-else-lands. Put them all together: Heaven. Right? At the center of it all? Is the Magic Kingdom. The Garden. Dean: So everybody gets a little slice of paradise.
Ash: Pretty much. A few people share—special cases. What not.
Dean: What do you mean ‘special’?
Ash: Aw, you know. Like, uh, soul-mates... Anyway. Most people can’t leave their own private Idaho’s. Aw, you know. Like, uh, soul-mates... Anyway. Most people can’t leave their own private Idaho’s.
Sam: We’ll find another way. We can still stop all this, Dean.
We’ll find another way. We can still stop all this, Dean. Dean: How?
Sam: I don’t know, but we’ll find it. You and me, we’ll find it. I don’t know, but we’ll find it. You and me, we’ll find it.
Trivia & References
Sam: Last I checked, it wasn’t the road to Heaven that was paved with good intentions. This is a reference to the popular quote "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." Last I checked, it wasn’t the road to Heaven that was paved with good intentions.
Dean: Yeah, well, if this is the SkyMall it sucks. I mean, where’s the triplets and the latex, you know? C’mon, a guy has needs. SkyMall is the name of an in-flight publication, best known for selling unusual products. Yeah, well, if this is the SkyMall it sucks. I mean, where’s the triplets and the latex, you know? C’mon, a guy has needs.
Castiel: Don’t go into the light.
Don’t go into the light. Dean: Okay. Thanks, Carol Ann. What was it? In the movie Poltergeist, Carol-Anne is pulled through a television into another realm by a poltergeist. When trying to get her out the psychic warns her “not to go into the light.”
Castiel: It’s called the axis mundi. It’s a path that runs through heaven. Different people see it as different things. For you, it’s two-lane asphalt. The road will lead you to the Garden. You’ll find Joshua there. And Joshua... can take us to God. The Garden. Quick. Hurry. The axis mundi is a concept appearing in all cultures that there is some place that is the center of creation and describes a point of connection between the earthly plane and the spiritual one. It’s called the axis mundi. It’s a path that runs through heaven. Different people see it as different things. For you, it’s two-lane asphalt. The road will lead you to the Garden. You’ll find Joshua there. And Joshua... can take us to God. The Garden. Quick. Hurry.
Dean: I think we hit the yellow bricks, find this Joshua cat. Reference to the Yellow Brick Road from the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. I think we hit the yellow bricks, find this Joshua cat.
Ash: Welcome to my blue Heaven! My Blue Heaven is the title of two films. One was released in 1950, starring Betty Grable and the other in 1990, starring Steve Martin and Rick Moranis. Welcome to my blue Heaven!
Ash: See, you gotta stop thinking of Heaven as one place. It’s more like a butt-load of places all crammed together. Like Disneyland except without all the anti-Semitism. Ash explains that everyone has their own “Heaven,” and at the center of all of them is “the Garden.” Most people can’t leave their own “Heaven”, although Ash has worked out a way to do so. Other people Ash has met in Heaven are Johnny Cash, Andre the Giant, Einstein, Pamela Barnes and Mallanāga Vātsyāyana who wrote the Kama Sutra. Walt Disney, and many working at the Disney Studios during the '30s and '40s were purported to be anti-Semitic. See, you gotta stop thinking of Heaven as one place. It’s more like a butt-load of places all crammed together. Like Disneyland except without all the anti-Semitism.
Ash: This ain’t the first time here. I mean, you boys die more than anyone I’ve ever met.
This ain’t the first time here. I mean, you boys die more than anyone I’ve ever met. Dean: Really.
Ash: Ah, yeah... you don’t remember. God! Angels. Must’ve Windexed your brain. Ash confirms that previously when Sam and Dean were brought back from Heaven, their memory of the experience was removed. At the end of the episode Joshua says this time they will remember everything.
Sam: So this is how you get around up here?
So this is how you get around up here? Ash: Hm, more or less. It’s awesome to finally have an application—a practical application—for string theory. Ash has rigged a PC to monitor angels as they speak Enochian, by using string theory. String theory is related to quantum physics, and may in fact be the key to the theory of everything. You need to be really really smart to understand it.
Dean: You know, this place feels real, but it's Memorex. References television commercials from the 1970s and 1980s, for Memorex brand audio cassettes, in which a sung note played back from a recording would shatter a glass. The company slogan was "Is it live, or is it Memorex?" You know, this place feels real, but it's Memorex.
Minutiae
Supernatural comic series Beginning's End, which documents the time in the Winchesters' life up to Sam leaving for Stanford. Andrew Dabb and Daniel Loflin who wrote this episode, are also the writers of the thirdcomic series, which documents the time in the Winchesters' life up to Sam leaving for Stanford.
Dark Angel, Battlestar Galactica, and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. This is the first episode to be directed by Jeff Wollnough, who has worked on many series including, and
This was Colin Ford's fourth episode as young Sam
Dean remembers setting off fireworks with Sam on 4th of July 1996. He would’ve been 17 and Sam 13. Dean says they "burned down that field”
Sam’s memory of Thanksgiving with a school friend’s, a girl called Stephanie, family occurs when he is 11.
Dean remembers comforting his mother after a fight she has with John, that led to John moving out for a few days. Sam has been born, and so Dean is four.
Sam ran away in Flagstaff and spent two weeks on his own, and befriended a dog he called Bones.
The final memory for Sam is of the night Sam left for Stanford. (2001) Memories visited:
Pamela says she was "gut shot" when she died, however she was actually stabbed to death in 4.15 Death Takes a Holiday
Supernatural fandom, it is usually found in The concept of soul mates or soul bonding is a very popular one throughout fanfiction in many fandoms, indicating the essential and OTP nature of a relationship. Infandom, it is usually found in Wincest fic, although it can occur in a non-sexual form in Gen fic. It also features in Dean/Castiel stories.
Sides, Scripts & TranscriptsThere's been a "will they or won't they?" question surrounding Luciano Acosta, the diminutive Argentine playmaker who's been at the heart of the D.C. United midfield all year. Acosta arrived from Boca Juniors on loan and has been one of United's best players, but always with the specter of that loan's end hanging over his performances.
So this comes as good news to United fans:
D.C. United has begun talks w Boca Juniors to retain MF @LuchoAcosta94, who is on loan. #DCU has option to buy. Meeting likely next month — Steven Goff (@SoccerInsider) September 11, 2016
The 22-year-old Acosta has tallied three goals and eight assists thus far in the 2016 season, and has been hugely integral in D.C.'s push for the sixth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.
Acosta came up through the famed Boca Juniors academy system, and featured 25 times for his boyhood club as well as 27 times on loan for rivals Estudiantes before joining D.C.
While talks between the clubs and the player can be take place any time, no official transfer can be completed until the transfer window re-opens this winter.In commercials for Domino's Pizza, the chain's employees wage a never ending battle against the Noid, a gremlin who delays deliveries and carries a gun that can turn a pizza ice cold. Many viewers are amused by the Noid, Domino's says, but one of them took the advertising campaign personally. Last week Kenneth Noid, 22, walked into a Domino's Pizza shop in Chamblee, Ga., with a.357 Magnum revolver and took two employees hostage. When police arrived, he demanded $100,000 in cash, a getaway car and a copy of The Widow's Son, a 1985 novel about secret societies in an 18th century Parisian prison.
All Noid got was the pizza he ordered. After a five-hour siege, the two employees slipped away and Noid gave himself up. According to police, Noid has "psychological problems" and believes that he has an "ongoing dispute with Tom Monaghan," the head of the Detroit-based Domino's chain.In a match that saw both sides go down to 10 men via two respective red cards, the Portland Timbers prevailed 3-0 over Sporting Kansas City Sunday in part due to the spectacular volley from midfielder Diego Valeri in the 65th minute. Valeri was active throughout and his performance earned him a spot on the MLS Team of the Week (Wk 22).
Center back Amobi Okugo also received a nod for a TOTW bench spot after helping marshal a defense that did not allow a shot on goal for the 27 minutes the Timbers were down 10v11.
Check out the rest of the MLS Week 22 Team of the Week below:
Player (Week 22 Audi Player Index Ranking)
GK: Evan Bush, MTL (#24): 0 goals conceded, 5 saves
D: Drew Moor, TOR (#125): 2 games played, 4 clearances, 3 interceptions, 86% passing accuracy
D: Maxime Chanot, NYC (#100): 3 tackles, 3 interceptions, 86% passing accuracy
D: Marc Burch, COL (#58): 1 assist, 3 interceptions
M: Marlon Hairston, COL (#3): 1 goal, 1 assist, 3 shots, 3 chances created
M: Javier Morales, RSL (#4): 2 games played, 2 goals, 1 assist, 3 chances created
M: Nicolas Lodeiro, SEA (#134): 2 assists, 2 chances created, 4 through balls
M: Diego Valeri, POR (#59): 1 goal, 2 shots, 5 ball recoveries
F: Clint Dempsey, SEA (#1): 3 goals, 4 shots
F: Sebastian Giovinco, TOR (#6): 2 games played, 3 goals, 1 assist, 11 shots, 4 chances created
F: Jordan Morris, SEA (#9): 2 assists, 4 chances created
Bench: Nick Rimando, RSL (#83); Sheanon Williams, HOU (#256); Amobi Okugo, POR (#85); Osvaldo Alonso, SEA (#68); Hernan Bernardello, MTL (#105); Sacha Kljestan, NY (#10); Shkelzen Gashi, COL (#18)Americans For Peace Now’s Lara Friedman gets to the nub of the two states for Israelis and Palestinians issue, taking some measurements on the fast-closing window for a viable peace deal.
The truth is, the two-state solution — in terms of facts on the ground — is still alive, but it is neither immortal nor infinitely malleable. This is not merely a subjective statement. A clear lesson of decades of Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts is that three concrete conditions must exist for the two-state solution to be possible. First, it must be possible to delineate a border based on the 1967 lines that leaves two politically and economically viable, maximally contiguous states. Second, this border must allow for a politically and economically viable Israeli capital in Israeli Jerusalem and a politically and economically viable Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem. Third, it must be possible to compensate for changes in the 1967 lines through land swaps carried out on a one-to-one ratio.
Of course there are Americans, such as Dennis Ross and Elliott Abrams, who apparently believe the Palestinians can be forced to accept something less than a contiguous viable state. Ross recently published a piece calling for Israel to freeze new settlements east of its separation barrier, ignoring the fact the wall cuts in substantially on Palestinian land and water resources. Friedman rightly notes that the Ross proposal would “[gut] the very concept of the two state solution.” It would eliminate the concept that the ’67 borders were the basis for compromise, and cut the Palestinians off from access to Jerusalem. It flouts the speeches on the issue made by every past American president (including Obama, whom Ross was supposedly working for until recently) and the long-standing and deeply rooted consensus of the international community. For the Palestinians the proposal for a sort of balkanized, non-contiguous bantustan state is a non-starter; even if a Palestinian leader could be bullied into accepting it, it would have no legitimacy, or staying power.
This land question will lurk behind every statement made during President Obama’s forthcoming trip to Israel: will the president seek to lay a foundation for a return to meaningful negotiations, or will he conclude simply that US has no real influence over what Israel does and quietly resign himself to a long and wrenching process of American disengagement from what will be soon be viewed a simply an apartheid state? Obama could never phrase it that way, but it’s hard to imagine him thinking otherwise.
Of course, not everyone in America will want to disengage from an apartheid Israel. Congress, many of whose members hew closely to the wishes of their AIPAC minders, is seeking ways to bind the United States more closely to Israel, regardless of the Palestinian issue.
In its weekly legislative round-up, Americans for Peace Now parses some of the bills written to AIPAC specifications in time for the AIPAC lobbying effort last week. I have noted previously the “backdoor to war” resolution, designed to ensure automatic support for an Israeli strike on Iran.
But also of interest is what APN calls the “Best Ally with Benefits” resolutions, defining Israel as a “major strategic partner” of the United States. (Remember all the help Israel provided during the two Iraq wars. You don’t? What’s the matter with you?) These bills extend Israeli access to US weapons and provide funding for various forms of military assistance. One grants Israel a very particular kind of access into the Visa Waiver program. In the Senate version, the Secretary of State is called to certify that “Israel has made every reasonable effort, without jeopardizing the security of the State of Israel, to ensure that recipocal travel privileges are extended to all US citizens.” This wording is in fact designed to circumvent the key provision of more typical Visa waiver programs, which require that countries grant reciprocal privileges to citizens and nationals of the United States. Israel doesn’t want to do that, because it wants to be able to deny visas to American citizens of Palestinian descent and to US citizens it deems sympathetic to the Palestinians. One of the chief protections of Palestinians on the West Bank is the international presence, people who are able to act as witnesses to record the various brutalities of the occupation, as well as provide education and technical assistance. But Israel doesn’t want this “wrong kind of American” to see what it’s doing. There have been recent stories about Israel denying visas to American citizens: recently a woman who taught at the Quaker school in Ramallah was denied a re-entry visa. The Senate bill which AIPAC seeks is one which gives Israelis the right to enter the United States virtually automatically, without visas, while giving Israel the right to deny reciprocal rights to Americans. Should be interesting to see if a single Senator decides to engage in public discussion of this.TVLine reports that Jon Bernthal's take on The Punisher is being so well-received by executives, a spin-off series for the character and star is now in development. The series would spin directly out of his appearances in Daredevil, and be another Marvel TV/Netflix collaboration. The site did not divulge a source, and neither Marvel nor Netflix have commented or confirmed the reports.
Bernthal has received high praise from producers, writers, fellow actors, and executives alike for his portrayal of the gun-toting vigilante who thinks the only way to combat the criminal element is with lethal force.
"[Jon Bernthal's] Punisher is extraordinarily memorable, in every way," Marvel TV Executive Vice President Jeph Loeb told ComicBook.com earlier this week.
The series would be the first one that wasn't part of the initial Marvel/Netflix announcement. That initial plan included Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, and a Defenders mini-series that brings those four characters together. The first two series, Daredevil and Jessica Jones both premiered in 2015 to critical and fan acclaim. Luke Cage is filming now.In a single dramatic hour Friday, the course of the San Angelo, Texas, trial against polygamous sect leader Warren Jeffs might have changed course.
With a rambling outburst that included a malediction against the prosecutors, a defense of polygamy, and direct quotes from "the Lord God," Jeffs broke his prolonged silence in the trial, then continued to interrupt proceedings throughout the rest of the day.
The outbursts could merely be a continuation of Mr. Jeffs's apparent legal tactic: delay. But they also have also effectively turned the courtroom into a pulpit for the leader of the breakaway Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who is now representing himself in the proceedings.
"No longer is it really a trial. He just wanted an occasion to give a sermon," Laurie Levenson, professor at the Loyola Law School, told CBS News.
Jeffs is charged with sexually assaulting two underage girls. If convicted, he could receive life in prison. He has claimed that, as the head of his church, he has the constitutional right to practice his own religion, which includes polygamy. The mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as the Mormon church, repudiated polygamy more than a century ago.
Until 10:25 a.m. Friday, Mr. Jeffs had been spectator at his own trial. Before the trial had begun, he had fired his team of attorneys, saying they could not present "a pure defense."
Then, in opening statements, he said nothing as prosecutors vowed to provide evidence that he raped a 12-year-old girl and impregnated a 15 year old.
His silence had extended to the point that District Judge Barbara Walther eventually implored: "You've sat here now for an hour and not said a word," suggesting that further silence could yield "a very bad result."
Jeffs broke that silence Friday when prosecutors introduced as evidence a list of his wives and children they said lived at Jeffs's Yearning for Zion Ranch in 2004.
Jeffs stood up to object, and it was 55 minutes before that objection was over. The objection was overruled, though Judge Walther let him go on because he had not offered an opening statement. The jury was dismissed during his statement.
By the time the trial adjourned for the day at nearly 5 p.m., Jeffs had interrupted the prosecution so often that the judge had the baliff turn off his microphone.
In some ways, the interruptions fit the pattern of the trial, which has been repeatedly delayed as Jeffs retained and then abandoned attorneys – he has had seven attorneys in six months. Then, when he dismissed his attorneys before the trial, he asked for a further delay so that he could organize his defense.
"Mr. Jeffs, the court is not going to recess these proceedings to let you go to law school," the judge responded.
During the trial, Jeffs has often waited more than a minute to respond to the judge's questions.
But Friday, he was enflamed.
"You are now touching that which is sacred," Jeffs said in objecting to the prosecution's list.
"This must cease," he said.
"If we do not live these laws we are damned here and hereafter," Jeffs said, reading from a written statement. "We believe in a marriage system of eternity called celestial marriage, wherein celestial means heavenly authorized, not to be intervened by government intervention."
"I, the Lord God of heaven, call upon the court to cease this prosecution against my pure, holy way," he continued, saying God would strike the prosecutors with sickness and death.
When the statement was finished, he concluded, "Amen."BEIJING (Reuters) - Wang Qin, 59, collects scrap at a demolished residential district on the outskirts of Beijing, working 15 hours a day and struggling on her own to pay for her granddaughter’s education.
A neighbour child listens to Feng Aobin, the 10-year-old granddaughter of migrant worker Wang Qin, as she reads outside their home in a cluster of migrant homes at the outskirts of Beijing, China October 1, 2017. Picture taken October 1, 2017. REUTERS/Thomas Peter
She worries that her own home, a small illegally constructed shack where she lives with her granddaughter and mentally ill husband, might also be bulldozed by local authorities.
The family lives off the 1,500 yuan ($228) a month Wang makes selling scrap and receives no assistance from the Beijing government.
As migrants from another province, they are not recognised as residents of the capital despite having lived there since 2014. Since she is not registered in Beijing, Wang has to pay more for things like school and medical care - a hardship for migrants in cities, where costs such as housing are also far higher than in the countryside.
“Every month you still need to live, I still need to pay the school fees for the child, and her food and drink every day,” said Wang, who came to Beijing to try escape the grinding poverty of her village in Henan province in central China. “I can’t take it, my whole body aches, I can’t earn the money.”
Wang’s plight is a common one among millions of poor migrants in China’s big cities, as well as in the rural areas from which so many of them come, highlighting the challenges of the government’s campaign to wipe out extreme poverty by 2020.
President Xi Jinping made the campaign one of his signature policy issues after pledging in 2015 that China would lift the 70 million people living under the poverty level at the time out of poverty by 2020.
The campaign has been ratcheted up as the Communist Party prepares to hold a twice-a-decade leadership meeting on Wednesday.
“The country is placing an unprecedented amount of effort on alleviating poverty,” Liu Yongfu, head of the government’s Leading Group of Poverty Alleviation and Development, said at a news conference in Beijing on Tuesday. “President Xi Jinping is personally in command, and has visited all of the areas of concentrated poverty” in China.
He added: “With the active participation of all parts of society, it can be said that the battle against poverty has achieved significant results.”
Asked by Reuters about people like Wang, the scrap collector, Liu said migrants could receive benefits in their hometowns, noting that city dwellers were covered by urban social security programmes.
Beijing has pledged to spend 86 billion yuan on poverty alleviation this year, 30 percent more than last year, according to the Ministry of Finance. Liu said direct spending by central and local governments on poverty alleviation from 2013 to 2017 totalled 461.2 billion yuan, adding that other types of government spending also had an impact.
The funds are used for infrastructure projects, as well as subsidies for education, health care and rural agriculture.
The government’s poverty line is income of 2,300 yuan per year, and by the end of 2016, 43.35 million people were still officially below it. The government’s goal is to lift 10 million out of poverty this year, and at that rate the country by 2020 should, at least officially, be rid of serious poverty.
The programme is credited with increasing the attention given to the countryside and improving things like rural infrastructure.
The president of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim, on Thursday said China’s achievement in lifting 800 million people out of poverty since 1990 was “one of the great stories in human history”.
But many researchers and social workers say the campaign doesn’t address the most serious problems facing China’s poor.
“I personally don’t really agree with the government setting this 2020 poverty alleviation target,” said Yang Lixiong, a professor at Renmin University in Beijing who has studied the issue. “The supportive policies can relieve poverty in the short term, but from a long-term perspective, they will easily fall back into poverty.”
Yang said up to half the residents lifted from poverty in some western regions would slip back under the poverty line if government support was removed.
Yang said not enough |
cales, historians are now working on spans of time that are climatological, archaeological and cosmological in scope.
The Anthropocene – the still-controversial geological era in which human beings have comprised a collective actor powerful enough to affect the Earth and its environment on a truly planetary scale – is already an object of historical enquiry, extending back at least to the late 18th century and the origins of greenhouse-gas emissions after the Industrial Revolution. A growing group of scholars is pursuing ‘Deep History’, the story of the human past over at least 40,000 years, which deliberately erases the boundary between ‘history’ and ‘prehistory’ using the tools drawn from genetics, archaeology, biochemistry and neurology. Grandest of all is ‘Big History’, a movement that has attracted the attention of Bill Gates for its embrace of a story that stretches back to the beginnings of the Universe itself. As the founder of Big History, the Australian historian David Christian, has noted, this is the ‘longest durée’ that historians can possibly imagine or reconstruct.
Historians do not have to go as far back as the Big Bang to escape the Short Past. Long-range histories on scales of a century to three millennia abound again: of anti-Judaism from ancient Egypt to the present, and the ‘first’ 3,000 years of Christianity; of guerrilla warfare from ancient times to the present, and of strategy from chimpanzees to game theory; of genocide ‘from Sparta to Darfur’, and racism from the Middle Ages to our own times. Most of these ambitious histories combine the attention to detail and context that characterised microhistory with a desire to recount stories and structures that can be understood only in the longue durée.
The opportunity to array the longue durée against endemic short-termism has arrived with a vengeance. The most pressing problems of our time – for example, climate change, crises of global governance, the proliferation of inequality – have no simple solutions because they have such deep roots. But disentangling is what historians do. We are trained to balance different forms of data against each other, to be alert to the complexity of causality, to consider how long-term structures interact with short-term determinants. Where other social scientists value parsimony – the most stripped-down, cleanest explanation or analysis of a problem – historians prefer profligacy, a multiplicity of sources against which to calibrate causation and to foresee the conflicted futures arising from multiple contested pasts.
seen in a 200-year perspective, rather than over three decades, inequality appears regressive not progressive, and has been getting only worse
Many adjacent human sciences, and even the natural sciences, have undertaken a historical turn of late. The era of big data is an age of proliferating evidence about the human and non-human past: statistical, verbal and physical, from massive verbal corpora of digitised texts, via tweets and climate data, to ice-cores, tree-ring data and the human genome. Some of our colleagues are even deploying the longue durée to undermine some of the most cherished illusions of their disciplines.
Take Thomas Piketty, the French economist whose Capital in the Twenty-First Century (2014) became a global intellectual sensation when it exposed the fallacy of the ‘Kuznets curve’ and laid bare the dimensions of ever-expanding inequality in advanced societies. The mid-20th-century economist Simon Kuznets had argued that capitalism led inevitably to increasing prosperity and therefore to decreasing inequality. Kuznets’s data-set was confined to about 30 years in midcentury, including the aftermath of the Second World War. Piketty demolished Kuznets’s universalising conclusions by showing how limited were his horizons and how local was his data: seen in a 200-year perspective, rather than over three decade, inequality appears regressive not progressive, and has been getting only worse since Kuznets won a Nobel Prize in Economics in 1971. Pulling out the focus radically changed the picture: with good reason has Piketty called his book ‘as much a work of history as of economics’.
The public future of the past is now firmly in historians’ hands. History as a discipline is poised to recover its ancient mission as the guide to life but in a new guise as a critical human science, capable of judging data, incorporating it into complex narratives, and presenting its conclusions in forms accessible to the widest possible range of publics as well to those who make the policies that shape all of our lives. Historians now have more evidence – more data – in more forms available to them than ever before. Using digital materials and the tools to make sense of this data, historians can perform analytical feats that would have required a lifetime of immersion a generation ago.
The return to the longue durée is not just feasible, it is imperative: feasible, because of the resources to hand and the means to make sense of them; imperative, because of the proliferation of big data in every aspect of our lives and the necessity of fighting back critically against those who might wield its powers of shock and awe against us. The world might have shrunk but the collective challenges facing its people have grown only more apparent, in all their complexity. At a time of ever-expanding inequality – within societies, if not between them – when international institutions have reached breaking-point; and when anthropogenic climate change threatens our water and our food, our political stability and even the survival of our species, even the most basic apprehension of our condition demands a scaling-up of our enquiries.
The History Manifesto is published by the Cambridge University Press, and is available as a free download here.CRAM – Creepy Cockroach inspired robots may be the future of disaster help
Inspired by cockroaches that can squeeze through tiny spaces, US researchers have developed a robot that can rapidly squeeze through cracks during a search-and-rescue mission. This small Cockroach inspired robots, called as CRAM, may one day help locate people in the rubble of earthquakes, tornadoes or explosions.
“What’s impressive about these cockroaches is that they can run as fast through a quarter-inch gap as a half-inch gap, by reorienting their legs completely out to the side,” said study leader Kaushik Jayaram, who recently obtained his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley and is now a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University.
The compressible robot, created with articulated mechanisms was able to squeeze into and run through crevices half its height, the study said.
Cockroaches are about half an inch tall when they run freely, but can squish their bodies to one-tenth of an inch, the researchers said, adding that they can withstand forces 900 times their body weight without suffering injury.
The palm-sized robot model has the adorable name “CRAM,” which stands for “compressible robot with articulated mechanisms.” It is capped with a plastic shield, much like the wings on the back of a cockroach. The palm-sized robot’s flexible shell and legs allow it to continue moving forward at a fast clip, even when in a tightly confined space.
“In the event of an earthquake, first responders need to know if an area of rubble is stable and safe, but the challenge is, most robots can’t get into rubble,” said Robert Full, a professor of integrative biology at UC Berkeley.
“But if there are lots of cracks and vents and conduits, you can imagine just throwing a swarm of these robots in to locate survivors and safe entry points for first responders.”
Researchers say their Cockroach inspired robots are inexpensive to make, and they are working on various versions for real-world testing. The palm-sized robot probably cost less than $100, Jayaram said. He figures if mass-produced, with sensors and other equipment added on, the robots could eventually cost less than $10 per piece.
Funding for the research has come from the US Army Research Laboratory, as part of a collaboration with between industry and university partners.
Kaushik Jayaram, a Harvard robotics researcher, said the most difficult part was the design, but after that, he used off-the-shelf electronics and motors, cardboard, polyester and some knowledge of origami. He could probably put one together in about half an hour, he estimated.‘For the first time in history, a Nazi sympathizer occupies the White House’
A dean at a prominent American university has leveled a stunning charge against the president of the United States.
“Events in the aftermath of the violence in Charlottesville have made this abundantly clear. For the first time in our history, a Nazi sympathizer occupies the Oval Office,” writes George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs dean Reuben Brigety at Foreign Policy.
“In essence, Trump definitively showed the world who he is,” Brigety writes. “And we should believe him.”
Calling Donald Trump “America’s first Nazi-supporting president,” Brigety claims that, at his August 15 press conference, Trump “spontaneously reiterated his support for white supremacist protesters.”
This alleged white supremacist support, Brigety says, “forced a stark moral choice upon senior officials in his administration: vigorously denounce the heinous views of the man they serve, resign in protest, or be forever linked to” the reputed Nazi sympathies of Donald Trump.
“The unprecedented situation that we currently face,” Brigety continues, “…is that the elected government of the day is now led by a Nazi- and white-nationalist sympathizer.”
“Either you challenge the president’s blatant racism,” he claims, “or you acquiesce to his repugnant views to the detriment of your credibility with those you lead and to your own sense of personal honor.”
If anyone continues to serve Trump without denouncing him, Brigety claims, he or she will “have to explain to your personal progeny and our national posterity why you chose to silently serve America’s first Nazi-in-chief.”
Whether or not Trump is actually a “Nazi- and white-nationlist sympathizer,” there have indeed been politicians in recent American history that have supported repugnant groups and ideologies: Democrat Robert Byrd, for instance, was an Exalted Cyclops in the Ku Klux Klan, and once vowed: “I shall never fight in the armed forces with a negro by my side.” Byrd held a number of powerful positions in the Democratic party, including Senate Majority Whip and secretary of the Senate Democratic Caucus.
Read Brigety’s anti-Trump column here.
MORE: University of Kansas doesn’t deny putting up flyers that call MAGA ‘coded’ neo-Nazi language
MORE: Flyers found at UNC liken Trump supporters to Nazis, declare ‘bash the fash’
Like The College Fix on Facebook / Follow us on Twitter
IMAGE: ShutterstockThe reason is that HellRaisers travel a lot recently, and it takes a plenty of time and energy. Moreover, the players are dealing with visa questions at the moment, since the LAN qualifiers for MLG Columbus Major, that will take place in the USA, start soon.
Let us recall that the LAN Finals of Acer Predator Masters Season 2 start on 11 February, at the qualifiers of which HellRaisers got our from the second place in the A group and did not lost a single match. Prior to the tournament, which will take place in Krefeld, Germany, we will publish the coverage, where you will be able to find all information you might be interested in. Follow our website and social networks to keep up-to-date!
Cheer for HellRaisers![Haskell-cafe] ANNOUNCE: iterIO-0.1 - iteratee-based IO with pipe operators
Hi, everyone. I'm pleased to announce the release of a new iteratee implementation, iterIO: http://hackage.haskell.org/package/iterIO IterIO is an attempt to make iteratees easier to use through an interface based on pipeline stages reminiscent of Unix command pipelines. Particularly if you've looked at iteratees before and been intimidated, please have a look at iterIO to see if it makes them more accessible. Some aspects of iterIO that should simplify learning and using iteratees are: * Every aspect of the library is thoroughly document in haddock including numerous examples of use. * Enumerators are easy to build out of iteratees. * There is no difference between enumerators and "enumeratees" (i.e., inner pipeline stages). The former is just a type-restricted version of the latter. * Parsing combinators provide detailed error reporting and support LL(*) rather than LL(1) parsing, leading to fewer non-intuitive parsing failures. A couple of tricks avoid consuming excessive memory for backtracking. * Super-fast LL(1) parsing is also available through seamless integration with attoparsec. * A universal exception mechanism works across invocations of mtl monad transformers, thereby unifying error handling. * All pipe operators have uniform semantics, eliminating corner cases. In particular, if the writing end of a pipe fails, the reading end always gets EOF, allowing it to clean up resources. * One can catch exceptions thrown by any contiguous subset of stages in a pipeline. Moreover, enumerator exception handlers can resume downstream stages that haven't failed. * The package is full of useful iteratees and enumerators, including basic file and socket processing, parsec-like combinators, string search, zlib/gzip compression, SSL, HTTP, and "loopback" enumerator/iteratee pairs for testing a protocol implementation against itself. Please enjoy. I'd love to hear feedback. DavidThe Vampire Diaries‘ impending series finale is occupying a lot of our headspace right now — and rightfully so — but let’s not forget that just one week after TVD says farewell, The CW is blessing us with something even better: a new season of The Originals!
The Originals Season 4 Finale Photos Launch Gallery Launch Gallery VIDEOSExclusive Vampire Diaries Series Finale Promo: See Damon and Elena’s Epic Reunion
The network on Friday released a batch of new photos from the spinoff’s fourth season premiere — airing Friday, March 17 at 8/7c — which finds Klaus at Marcel’s mercy (though there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of mercy to go around).
For a taste of that merciless…ness, here’s the official synopsis for the premiere, titled “Gather Up the Killers”:
FIVE YEARS LATER — On the fifth anniversary of Klaus’ defeat, Marcel is king of the city and welcomes the un-sired vampires to New Orleans, only to find they pose an unexpected threat to his rule, leading him to seek counsel from an unlikely source. Meanwhile, as Hayley closes in on the cure that will allow her to revive Elijah and the slumbering Mikaelsons, she faces a final task that will force her to make a ruthless decision.
–
Your hopes for Season 4? Browse our gallery of new photos — you can click here for direct access — then drop ’em in a comment below.A giant two-headed spider, an anti-matter spewing treeman, a living gargoyle, and a robotic replica of Abraham Lincoln bravely ventured through the ruins of Sea-at-Ell to recover stolen medicine from a band of Caws. Along the way, they faced fishmen and their vicious flying fish minions near Pike Palace and fought off giant crabs as they crossed a sinking bridge. Finally, they confronted the crow-like Caws in their gas station hideout and recovered the stolen supply of Nyquil.
If you haven’t already realized it, I ran a game of Gamma World for February’s game-of-the-month session. The most recent version of Gamma World is based on Dungeons & Dragons 4E, but has a few simplifications and some interesting features that give it a unique feel.
One of the most fun aspects of Gamma World is character creation. Each character gets two randomly determined origins, such as Two-Headed and Arachnoid in the case of one of my players. These origins contribute powers and traits that define most of what a character can do during a game. While random generation doesn’t offer much choice to players, it goes very quick and leads to fun and wacky combinations.
Another notable difference from D&D 4E is that Gamma World uses cards for powerful items called Omega Tech and ever-shifting Alpha Mutations. A character gets one or more Alpha Mutation cards depending on their level that change each encounter. In addition, characters draw from the Omega Tech deck when they earn treasure and can get powerful items, but the items have a chance to burn out each time they’re used. These cards add even more random wackiness to the game while also giving players a slightly different set of options each encounter.
Fantasy Gamma World
You could use Gamma World as the basis for a simplified version of 4E. It wouldn’t be too difficult to create origins based on the races and classes of D&D and then let players choose one race origin and one class origin to create their characters. Omega Tech and Alpha Mutations could both be replaced with magical items based on the same cards but given a fantasy flavor.
Gamma World characters are about as powerful as D&D 4E characters of the same level, so fantasy monsters from D&D can easily be used with Gamma World characters. In fact, in the game-of-the-month session I used kenku stats for the caws and crauds from Monster Manual 3 as giant crabs.
Gammified 4E
Another possibility opened up by the compatibility between 4E and Gamma World is to mix a little bit of Gamma World into a D&D game. I’ve played in a one-shot game based on the Pharaoh adventure for AD&D where the DM gave out Omega Tech cards as treasure as we explored a pyramid that was really the control center for a satellite weapon. The same could also be done with Alpha Mutation cards to represent the influence of the Far Realm or the Spellplague. Giving out the cards adds a fun twist and opens up different options in each encounter as the powers change due to Alpha Flux or tech items burning out during the course of the adventure.
Gamma World Resources
Even though Wizards of the Coast isn’t planning any further Gamma World releases, there are a lot of fan-made resources for the game. Critical Hits has a good compilation of links here. My own blog also has a few Gamma World resources, mostly homebrew origins, that you can download here.
A game enthusiast and software engineer living near Seattle.Chris Lefteri takes a look at new and smart technologies that can collect ‘waste’ energy, from boiling kettles to the footfall of marathon runners. Lefteri is a designer and has written seven books about new materials and their application
Chris Lefteri takes a look at new and smart technologies that can collect 'waste' energy, from boiling kettles to the footfall of marathon runners. Lefteri is a designer and has written seven books about new materials and their application
In our search to squeeze every last drop of usefulness from our manufactured world, waste is becoming an increasingly valuable resource, to a point where even the heat from the outside of your kettle or the vibration from a vacuum cleaner can have value.
Regeneration of waste has become a buzz word and a commodity, and rightly so. Without doubt the term 'waste' is predominantly focused on material waste, but the harvesting of latent energy is emerging as one of the new areas of research into sustainability. The Romans understood that excess heat generated from heating water could serve many functions in a building, but research in modern contemporary technologies is taking another look at waste heat from a completely different source, exploiting our increasing dependency on electronics.
Tiles harvest the energy of footsteps
In 2011, Cisco predicted that by 2020 there will 50 billion devices connected to the internet (the population estimate for 2020 is 7.6 billion people). As you will know if you use a mobile, laptop or desktop computer for a long period of time, they generate heat. Research is looking at how to harvest this and other waste energy, not just from electronics but also but household products and industry.
Technically referred to as thermoelectric technology, solid-state devices belong to a family of energy-harvesting technologies. Overall these are focused on the powering of electronic devices by scavenging small amounts of energy that would be normally lost as 'wasted' energy from a variety of sources: heat gradients and sunlight, and even pressure and movement are converted into usable electrical energy. The advantage of these technologies are long-term fuel savings and replacing primary batteries in low-power applications.
Energy harvesting is also an area of materials and technology that the UK government's Technology Strategy Board believes is untapped by the design community. To generate a consumer demand for these technologies the board commissioned an ideation project to explore different household-appliance. Looking at 'horizontal issues' for energy harvesting, designs were developed that could address the use of new materials to harvest energy in technology used at home. It looked at elements including size, available power levels and extending the life of a battery -- the most likely energy sources for harvesting energy being solar, thermal or vibrational -- as well as the energy harvester as storage structure.
Ideas from this project included the use of piezoelectric ceramics (PZT), that's been around a while -- the clicking on a gas hob is a piezo crystal being hit to generate a spark. But here piezo electric fibres are used to harvest movement vibrations from vacuum cleaners and washing machines to charge electronic items.
Piezoelectric ceramic materials have a crystalline structure that produces an electric current when mechanical pressure is applied. In terms of the design versatility of PZTs, they can be formed into almost any shape and combined into composite structures with polymers.
From the same project, another thermoelectric technology exploited the temperature change from boiling a kettle to power a milk frother. In this application, based on a product called Powerfelt, a felt is wrapped around the kettle and when boiling produces a temperature difference between the inner and outer surface of the felt a charge is produced. Researchers at Wake Forest University in North Carolina who developed the technology are carrying out further development for initial concepts for mobile phone covers and smart clothing. The material can charge 15 per cent of 2000 mA batteries for more than eight hours at the temperature differences of 10 degrees. This means it would even work with just your body temperature.
Outside the domestic arena, UK company Pavegen is also harvesting people power with paving stones that capture the energy from footsteps. Installed outside sports stadiums, stations and airports, the tiles are inserted into the existing pattern of street paving stones. When installed in the path of 37,000 marathon runners, nearly 5kwh of energy was generated. In addition to producing energy the tiles can also collect footfall data.
These few case studies illustrate how increasingly useful waste is going to become as a valuable commodity and naturally, as these energy harvesting technologies grow, so they will become more affordable and widespread.Image copyright Facebook Image caption Mr McFeat has been working at the largest gold mine in central Asia
A Scottish mine worker who compared Kyrgyzstan's national dish to a horse's genitalia on Facebook is to be deported from the country.
Michael McFeat, from Abernethy, was said to have been held after posting a picture of Kyrgyz co-workers queuing for a "chuchuk" horsemeat sausage.
He deleted the post and apologised for its caption.
The BBC's Central Asian service said he was being deported because of wrong documentation and not for his joke.
It said, according to the Karakol City Court, police found that Mr McFeat was not inciting ethnic violence through his comments.
In his Facebook post on 31 December, Mr McFeat posted a picture of colleagues at the Kumtor gold mine enjoying what he described as a "fantastic Hogmanay feast".
The post added: "The Kyrgyz people queuing out of the door for there special delicacy the horses penis!!!"
Radio Azattik said that Mr McFeat's post had "caused a lot of discontent and resentment on the part of local staff", who demanded respect for the traditions of the people of Kyrgyzstan, as well as an apology from the mine's management company.
He later deleted the original post and replaced it with an apology on 2 January, which said he had not intended to offend anyone.
Image copyright Facebook
Mr McFeat was reported to have been arrested at Manas International Airport, close to the capital Bishkek, on Sunday.
It had been claimed that he faced up to five years in prison under Kyrgyzstan's race hate laws.
The Kumtor open pit mine is said to be the largest gold mine in the region, with its output accounting for more than one-third of Kyrgyzstan's export of goods and services, according to its website.
The mine is operated by Canadian firm Centerra Gold, based in Toronto.
The foreign office had earlier confirmed it was in contact with the local authorities in Kyrgyzstan after a British national was detained.Miles Franklin, Now Accepting Bitcoin for Precious Metal Payment Online.
Long-time readers know that within the bullion industry, I am perhaps the only Bitcoin advocate; because, as a student of monetary history, I recognize that, aside from Precious Metals – which have proven their ability to preserve wealth for millennia – Bitcoin is the only other asset class holding similar potential. That said, it has been around for less than a decade – sporting not only significant monetary acceptance hurdles, but technological challenges. Thus, its risk/reward profile is materially different. Therefore, I hold most my savings in physical gold and silver, and a lesser amount in Bitcoin; all of which, I intend to hold indefinitely, given the world’s terrifying fiat currency outlook.
In my view, Precious Metals and Bitcoin are complementary assets, as discussed in my bellwether May 2016 article, “Precious Metals and Bitcoin, Twin Destroyers of the Fiat Regime.” Together, they are fighting the same, imminently winnable war against history’s largest, most destructive, and rapidly imploding fiat Ponzi scheme. To that end, I believe Bitcoin’s monetary resurgence may well distract governments’ attention from their relentless Precious Metal suppression – forcing them to shift the bulk of their “manipulative firepower” toward the amorphous, decentralized Bitcoin market; which ultimately, will make them appear like Don Quixote, endlessly flailing at windmills. Hence, the premise of December’s equally must read article, “why Bitcoin will make gold and silver go up.”
Miles Franklin has for some time been working towards the operational goal of accepting Bitcoin as payment for physical Precious Metals. Which, thanks to the hard work of numerous people within our organization, and supply chain, I am proud to announce is available, as of today!
Currently, Bitcoin is only available as an on-line method of payment. Active clients who are set up on our Shopping Cart, will now see during Step 4, four alternative payment methods: ACH; Check; Bank Wire; and now, Bitcoin. Procedurally, it couldn’t be easier. Simply place your order online. After the purchase price is locked in, a “Pay with Bitcoin” widget appears underneath the order details; in which, the customer is provided a unique wallet ID to send the Bitcoin to, and a QR code for easy payment via smartphone wallet apps. Subsequently, the purchase price is “locked in” by BitPay – the pre-eminent Bitcoin payment processor – for 15 minutes. If the customer does not pay within the 15 minutes, the amount of Bitcoin owed – based on the fluctuating Bitcoin price – is re-based by refreshing the widget. The only additional cost, relative to a non-Bitcoin Precious Metal purchase is the 1% fee BitPay charges for all transactions, which is subsequently passed on to the customer.
For non-active potential clients that wish to shop on-line, please follow this simple process:
Register on line; locate any product; and under the product, click “Become a Client” Activate your account placing your first order (by check, wire, ACH) over the phone, by calling Miles Franklin’s Precious Metal Specialists at 800-822-8080 Once funds clear and your first order ships, call your Specialist to active your on-line access Place your next order on-line
In my view, the market for safe-haven, wealth-protecting asset classes will grow exponentially in the coming years. Traditionally, physical gold and silver – and to a lesser extent, platinum – have been the only financial assets affording such protection; which in my view, will prove more valuable than ever in the coming years, when the Cartel that has been suppressing them is inevitably overwhelmed by surging physical demand. That said, Bitcoin is rapidly becoming an alternative wealth-preserving asset to be reckoned with; albeit with, as noted above, a distinctly unique risk/reward profile – which Miles Franklin, as a firm, has no investment opinion about.
To that end, just as there are countless situations in which rebalancing, diversifying, and/or tax optimizing transactions amongst the various Precious Metals are appropriate, I foresee future opportunities to make “swaps” between gold, silver, and Bitcoin. And now that Miles Franklin accepts Bitcoin as payment, this process will be significantly easier for clients. To that end, please call us at 800-822-8080 if you have any questions, or email me at ahoffman@milesfranklin.com.on “You Want Me To Dance?” “Yep, Defy Danger DEX.”
Comments Off on “You Want Me To Dance?” “Yep, Defy Danger DEX.”
(Edit: I changed a few of the moves based on ideas from Krinberry and DBones90 on Reddit. Thanks mates)
Here is a list of moves for when the players are stuck attending a high society banquet. If your players are like mine, they will get themselves into shenanigans pretty quick. Don’t tell the players about these moves till after they have committed to whatever action they want to attempt. My players know that if I tell them there is a move they will hedge their rolls as much as possible instead of going for it.
I’ll Catch You If You Swoon
When one of the ladies of the court faint, roll +STR (those dresses are huge). On a hit you catch her. On a 7-9, choose 1.
You catch her but your hands land somewhere inappropriate (Scandal!)
You catch her by falling down and landing under her (Foolish!)
Dancing Like A Monkey
When you attempt to cut a rug and not look like a fool, roll +DEX. On a 10+, you perform the dance near perfectly and your dance partner is impressed. Take +1 forward. On a 7-9, choose 1.
You’ve managed to make someone jealous with your smooth moves and too-familiar manners with your dance partner.
Your antics draw a crowd of onlookers. One of them recognizes you from somewhere else.
Hold Your Liquor
When you have been slamming back drinks to get through the night, roll +CON. On a 10+ you are fine and ready for another. On a 7-9, choose 1.
You’ve made it this far, but you’ll have to politely decline having any more or else terrible consequences will follow.
Nothings coming from up top, but you suddenly realize that you have to use the restroom immediately.
Intellectual Conversation
When you are trying to impress using your vast knowledge, roll +INT. On a 10+ you are the smartest person in the room and everyone knows it. Take +1 forward. On a 7-9, choose 1.
Everyone is really impressed with your intellectual capabilities. So impressed that they keep questioning you further outside of you knowledge range. You’ll have to either admit you’re not as smart as they think or bluff your way out of this.
You insult a high ranking official by pointing out a flaw in his argument. He’s pissed, but at least you were right. That shouldn’t come back and bite you in the bum.
Better Part of Valor
When you are approached by a gentleman/lady of the court to do something potentially risque, roll +WIS. On a 10+, choose 1.
You decline the offer gently and no feelings are hurt.
You accept the offer and don’t get caught.
On a 7-9, choose 1.
You decline and insult the lady/gentleman. They don’t make a fuss about it, but you’ve lost a contact with him/her and his/her closest associates.
You accept the offer but it doesn’t remain completely quiet. You’ve kept the gentleman/lady happy, but someone else isn’t happy about this rendezvous.
You accept the offer but it doesn’t remain completely quiet. You begin to be approached by other gentlemen/ladies looking for similar arrangements, many of whom are not as attractive or as well connected as the first.
Battle of Wits
When you are dueling with a battle of wits and words, roll +CHA. On a 10+ you deftly and eloquently make them look like a fool and they are too embarrassed to continue. Take +1 forward. On a 7-9, choose 1.
You made them look like a fool, which angers them. They lash out physically causing damage.
You made them look foolish, but they in turn reveal a secret about you that you didn’t know they knew. What did they reveal?
Well there you have it. Something for everyone. Tell me what you think and add your own party moves. Thanks for reading.
Like this: Like Loading...Oh, All-New Ultimates #1. You’ve got it all, you know? A fun, diverse team of teen superheroes. Slick cover art. A universe without the baggage 616 carries.
How I want to love you. I really, really do. But sometimes even shouting “let me love you!!” at something doesn’t make it happen.
Of course, any long-time comic book reader knows first issues can be deceptive, so I’m willing to stick it out for a while. But the series’s premiere, penned by Michel Fiffe, leaves a lot to be desired.
Spoilers Follow.
Where to start?
Most of the antagonists are 1980s-esque mutant street gangs, clad in neons and puffy vests. The only hint the leads are teenagers comes in shoehorned lines about Craigslist and texting (which frankly doesn’t make them teens so much as people who live in America sometime after the year 2003). And Amilcar Pinna’s art definitely leans toward muddled in action scenes.
Maybe most confusing is Jessica Drew’s new Black Widow costume, complete with frumpy haircut and pillow red coat. I can’t imagine why this was a design choice and how it reflects the character. I can’t even figure out why she’d take the title Black Widow after this universe’s history with the codename, but…okay. We’ll see where it goes.
All-New Ultimates doesn’t have to be this way. This doesn’t have to be another boring team book relying on the occasional “Craigslist is cool, right?” quip. There’s a lot to play with here: teen heroes reeling from a major fall-out, a diverse cast led by the fascinating Jessica Drew (the female clone of Peter Parker in this universe), and a pretty solid anchor in Miles Morales’s popular Spider-Man character.
Even better: none of the characters are so established they can’t add even more diversity and inventiveness to the group. At least three of the characters are new enough that their backstories can be fleshed out, and the other three aren’t so entrenched in history they can’t be expanded on, too.
Now obviously you can’t expect — or want to! — hit on all of this in the first issue. But geeze, where’s the humor? The spunk? A threat that isn’t ridiculous for all the wrong reasons? Can we even get some hint that they’re teenagers?
All-New Ultimates could be fun, fresh, and witty. It could stand alongside a solid teen team book like its 616-counterpart Young Avengers. Most importantly, it could further cement Marvel’s recent push for diversity. And hopefully it will. There’s still time.
It’s just too bad that issue one doesn’t live up to its potential.Two mock trial coaches debating whether to put a Latino student on their team for the sake of “diversity” — even though the three Latino candidates who applied did not impress them — have resigned after their private discussion became public and prompted outrage and accusations of racism.
The father-daughter pair of mock trial coaches at the University of Maryland, College Park were asked by administrators to resign their posts — and did so on Friday — after a leaked email that showed one of the coaches characterizing Latino students trying out for the team as “pretty bad” and “mediocre” was accidentally shared with students.
“The question I have is about diversity. There were three (obviously) Latino students who came; one was mediocre, two were pretty bad (one of the two bad ones didn’t seem to take it especially seriously). But we have almost no Latino students on team,” Abigail Graber, a lawyer who served as a volunteer coach, wrote in her email to her father.
Graber said in the email that she was inclined to accept one of the Latino students onto the team and the “mediocre” student was her preferred choice. “She’s the one I would probably take no matter what, what she lacks in skill she makes up in confidence, although she may be too busy for this commitment,” she wrote.
Mark Graber accidentally shared his daughter’s email in a message sent to students announcing who had been accepted into the mock trial course. Minutes after sending his email, Mark Graber realized the inclusion of his daughter’s email and quickly sent an apology, The Washington Post reports.
“Huge apologies to Abigail and all of you. I thought I had edited the email so that all that was on the forwarded email was names and emails,” he said.
But a screenshot of the Abigail Graber’s controversial email soon ended up on Twitter, posted by University of Maryland student Jocelyn Nolasco.
“A racist email and it’s only the fourth day of classes,” Nolasco wrote.
A racist email and it's only the fourth day of classes.. This is an email I got from Mark Graber, a GVPT professor at UMD. #UMD #Terp pic.twitter.com/YcKt0oHjkO — jocelyn? (@Jocelyn_DotCom) August 31, 2017
Nolasco told news outlets she was the “mediocre” Latino student mentioned in Abigail Graber’s email. The Diamondback, the university’s student newspaper, reported that Mark Graber sent an individual apology email to Nolasco that in part said “while other students could only guess their confidential assessment, yours is obvious from the context.”
Mark Graber was slated to be a visiting mock trial professor at the College Park campus this fall. His curriculum vitae lists him as being the director of Maryland mock trial since 2004. The university’s mock trial team is part of a three-credit course, according to a team website.
In March, he won an award from the American Mock Trial Association given annually to an individual who’s “made outstanding and exemplary contributions to law related education and its mission to promote public understanding of law and the legal process.”
Graber, 61, also teaches at the University of Maryland School of Law, which is located on the campus of the University of Maryland, Baltimore.
Alex Likowski, a |
ocytes from Il-27ra −/− mice after polyclonal stimulation using PMA/ionomycin ( Fig. 2B ). Accordingly, we detected increased numbers of CD4 + and CD8 + T cells able to produce IFN-γ upon re-stimulation in the BAL and lungs of the Il-27ra −/− mice ( Fig. 2C ). In contrast, IFNα levels in the BAL of infected Il-27ra −/− mice were not different from WT animals ( Fig. S1A ). The results suggest that IL-27 dampens IFN-γ-production by T cells during influenza.
To assess the impact of IL-27 on survival during influenza, we challenged wild-type (WT) C57BL/6 or IL-27 receptor-deficient (Il-27ra −/− ) mice with 3000 egg infectious dose (EID) influenza virus. Il-27ra −/− mice displayed accelerated weight loss and increased mortality following infection ( Fig. 1E, F ). Accordingly, Il-27ra −/− mice displayed a more severe lung pathology compared to control mice at 7 d.p.i (using a slightly lower virus dose, 2500 EID, to allow survival of all mice) ( Fig. 1G ). Furthermore, Il-27ra −/− mice had increased capillary leakage in the respiratory tract, leading to increased protein content in the bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid of these mice ( Fig. 1H ). A higher neutrophil, but not NK cell infiltration was observed in the lungs of Il-27ra −/− mice at 8 d.p.i ( Fig. 1I ). Remarkably, the increase in immunopathology and mortality in Il-27ra −/− mice was not due to a compromised viral elimination, as virus load was not significantly different between Il-27ra −/− and control mice ( Fig. 1J ). These findings demonstrate that IL-27 plays a critical role in limiting immunopathology during the later stages of infection.
C57BL/6 mice were infected with a sublethal dose influenza virus. Ebi3, Il-27p28 and Il-10 mRNA in the ( A ) lung at indicated d.p.i or ( B ) spleen, peripheral (pLN) and lung-draining (dLN) lymph nodes of infected or uninfected C57BL/6 mice at 7 d.p.i. ( C ) Influenza virus polymerase (pa) mRNA expression or ( D ) cytokine concentration in the lung homogenate of infected C57BL/6 mice were analyzed at indicated d.p.i. ( E ) Weight loss or ( F ) survival of infected Il-27ra −/− (n = 9) or wild-type (WT) C57BL/6 (n = 12) mice after challenge with 3000 EID influenza virus. Open circles in E represent remaining live Il-27ra −/− mice (n = 2). ( G ) Pathological scores of H&E-stained lungs of Il-27ra −/− mice after 7 d.p.i. with 2500 EID influenza virus ( H ). Protein content in the BAL fluid of Il-27ra −/− mice at 9 d.p.i. was quantified by BCA. ( I ) Representative FACS plots and numbers of lung-infiltrating neutrophils or NK cells of Il-27ra −/− at 8 d.p.i. ( J ) Viral pa mRNA in lungs of Il-27ra −/− mice at 7 d.p.i was analyzed by qRT-PCR. Lung homogenates are a 20-fold dilution of homogenized whole lung tissue. All data sets were pooled from at least two independent experiments. Values represent means ± s.d. except for E, s.e.m. P values for F were determined by log-rank survival test. P values for C, E, G, H, I and J were determined by unpaired two-tailed Student's t test. ns, not significant.
To determine the role of IL-27 in shaping the immune response against influenza virus, we first examined the kinetics of Il-27p28 and Ebi3 mRNA expression in the lungs of sublethally infected C57BL/6 mice ( Fig. 1A ). While Ebi3 was constitutively expressed and not significantly upregulated in the lungs and other organs ( Fig. 1B ), Il-27p28 expression displayed a pronounced peak on day 7 post-infection (d.p.i.), two days after the peak of the viral load ( Fig. 1C ). Coinciding with the peak of Il-27p28 expression was the maximal expression of Il-10 mRNA, which is consistent with the assumption that IL-27 is an important inducer of IL-10 [15]. These mRNA data were confirmed at the protein level where IL-27 and IL-10 peaked at 7 d.p.i ( Fig. 1D ). In contrast, the inflammatory cytokines IL-12 and IL-23 were maximal already at 3 d.p.i ( Fig. 1D ). Thus, the expression kinetic of IL-27 in the infected lungs follows, with some delay, the kinetic of the virus load, being highest when virus is already declining and coming down when immunopathology has resolved. This is compatible with its role for dampening uncontrolled inflammation in a late phase while initially allowing for a rapid start of immune defense.
Discussion
The tight regulation of both the induction and subsequent down-regulation of inflammatory responses during influenza is imperative in minimizing severe immunopathology. Infection with highly pathogenic strains of influenza viruses results in increased leukocytic pulmonary infiltrates and leads to the exaggerated production of inflammatory cytokines (“cytokine storm”) that causes massive inflammation with increased mortality [4], [5], [37]. Therefore, understanding the regulatory pathways during infection not only sheds light on the mechanisms controlling the delicate balance of efficient viral clearance and disastrous immunopathology, but also reveals potential therapeutic approaches to target resolution of inflammation [6]. Few studies have evaluated the therapeutic potential of anti-inflammatory agents in influenza; while broad-acting immunosuppressants such as corticosteroids were found to worsen the disease, a combination of antiviral therapy and anti-inflammatory non-steroidals inhibiting cyclooxygenases (COX) improved survival in mice [38]. Similarly, targeting inhibitory pathways such as macrophage CD200, PAR 2 and endothelial S1P 1 receptors have been found to reduce immunopathology in influenza infection models [39]–[41]
Our findings suggest that IL-27 is a potential candidate for the treatment of immunopathology, as endogenous IL-27 was found to play a major role in dampening of exaggerated inflammation in influenza while having little impact on virus elimination. The absence of IL-27Rα signaling during acute virus infection worsened immunopathology and disease course; this ultimately resulted in increased mortality, despite controlled viral loads. Additionally, increased neutrophil accumulation and augmented IFN-γ or IL-17 production by T cells were observed in the infected Il-27ra−/− mice while local IFNα levels appeared not to be affected. These data are in agreement with a number of in vivo models of bacterial or parasitic infection that underline a crucial role of IL-27 in dampening inflammation [14], [16]–[18], [42].
That IL-27 acts in vivo predominantly as an anti-inflammatory cytokine was not foreseen in the beginning, as several studies demonstrated activating effects of IL-27, e.g. on the production of IFN-γ in vitro [9], [10], [43]. In an influenza model, Mayer et al. reported that WT CD8+ T cells displayed higher IFN-γ production than IL-27Rα-deficient cells [26]. In this chimera model, non-hematopoietic and half of the hematopoietic cells responded to IL-27 so that only T cell- intrinsic effects of deficiency were effective. In contrast, under the conditions of global absence of IL-27Rα as used here, we observed increased IFN-γ levels and two-fold higher numbers of IFN-γ+ T cells in the infected respiratory tract of Il-27ra−/− mice, in line with the findings of the above-mentioned parasite infection models. We assume, that the global effect of IL-27 in vivo involves a complex network of cell types including myeloid cells or even non-hematopoietic cells. In addition, timing and conditions might be crucial for the quality of IL-27 effects, as we also found a direct, IL-10-independent suppression of IFN-γ and IL-2 in activated Tc1 cells by IL-27 in vitro. Thus, the environmental context plays a significant role for the action of IL-27 in vivo, and its impact on the innate response might dominate over effects restricted to the T cell compartment. Indeed, the strong increase in the number of lung-infiltrating neutrophils in the absence of IL-27 signaling was one of the most impressive findings and appears to be crucial for the worsened immunopathology.
Major effects of compromised IL-27 signaling were also found on the number of IL-17 producing T cells. Both IFN-γ and IL-17 have been reported to play a significant role for lung injury during influenza [4], [44], [45]. IL-17 has been described as a major factor boosting expansion, recruitment and activation of neutrophils by inducing hematopoietic growth factors, chemokines and other activating signals [46]–[48]. IL-27-dependent regulation of T H 17 responses was reported to occur through a number of mechanisms [15], [20], [49]–[51]. Here we provide evidence that suppression of IL-17 is largely dependent on IL-10 acting as an intermediate, since infected Il-10−/− mice displayed augmented numbers of IL-17+ T cells, similar to that observed in Il-27ra−/− mice. This is in agreement with a previous study in which blocked IL-10R signaling during high dose influenza virus infection resulted in elevated numbers of IL-17+CD4+ T cells [35]. In contrast, IFN-γ-producing T cells were not affected by absence of IL-10.
Based on these data demonstrating the important role of IL-27 in controlling inflammation, we reasoned that application of rIL-27 might be of value in situations in which exaggerated immunopathology, rather than virus elimination, becomes a critical issue for host survival as it is often the case in severe influenza. Indeed, systemic application of daily doses of rIL-27 at 5–9 d.p.i accelerated recovery and alleviated immunopathology by suppressing the influx of neutrophils, monocytes and, to a lesser degree, NK cells into the infected lungs of mice. Reduced infiltration appears to be the major cause of the improved overall status of treated mice, as large numbers of these cells can contribute to lethal lung damage by producing inflammatory cytokines, chemokines and reactive oxygen species, which results in the amplification of inflammatory signals [4], [5], [37]. Again, the reduction in infiltrating neutrophils upon IL-27 therapy was largely dependent on IL-10 (Fig. S12). In contrast, the reduced infiltration of NK cells was not dependent on IL-10, underlining that not all effects of IL-27 are mediated by induced IL-10 and that IL-27 has a broader suppressive effect than its downstream-mediator IL-10. This latter conclusion is supported by the finding that infected Il-27ra−/−, but not Il-10−/− mice exhibited a more severe disease course compared to WT animals.
Surprisingly, the number and cytokine profile of influenza virus-specific T cells in the lung was not significantly affected by treatment with rIL-27. Moreover, virus elimination was not impaired, if not even improved, upon treatment in the late phase. Whether this is due to the reported induction of antiviral activity by IL-27 that activates an interferon-induced antiviral protein kinase-R (PKR) via STAT1 in human lung epithelial cells [25], or whether destructive inflammation counteracts an efficient antiviral defense, remains to be shown.
Although some reduction in the level of IL-17 and increase in IL-10 was found in the BAL fluid upon treatment, these findings suggest that rIL-27 applied systemically predominantly regulates innate cell accumulation in the lungs rather than limiting the activity of the adaptive arm of the immune system such as IFN-γ or IL-17 producing T cells within the inflamed tissue. An explanation could be that local levels of IL-27 calculated for the lung tissue of infected WT animals are two orders of magnitude higher than plasma levels after systemic application of rIL-27 and are therefore hardly increased upon treatment (Fig. S13). We therefore propose that systemically applied rIL-27 predominantly acts on cells exposed directly to blood or plasma exudate and/or on innate cells before or during their journey to the inflamed lung.
To test the hypothesis that IL-27 treatment is able to suppress the accumulation of neutrophils independent of T cells, we applied rIL-27 in an acute model of TLR-induced sterile inflammation, the zymosan-induced peritonitis model. In this model, T cells are virtually absent in the inflammatory site, and IL-17 is hardly detectable. Indeed, rIL-27 inhibited the accumulation of neutrophils also under these conditions.
As leukocyte trafficking is controlled by adhesion molecules and chemokines presented on endothelial cells, we tested whether IL-27 affects key molecules involved in the recruitment or retention of innate leukocytes in influenza. Consistent with a role for IL-27 in modulating the trafficking of neutrophils and monocytes, treatment with rIL-27 reduced the production of neutrophil and monocyte chemoattractants KC (CXCL1), MIP-1α (CCL3), and RANTES (CCL5) produced in vitro by pulmonary monocytes (CD11b+), alveolar macrophages/dendritic cells (CD11c+) or NK cells isolated from infected lungs and resulted in reduced chemokine levels in the BAL fluid of infected mice. Similar effects were found with lung endothelial cells. These data complement recent findings that IL-27 suppresses the response of macrophages to TNF-α and IL-1 [52].
While the altered levels of chemokines in the BAL might affect the retention of leukocytes in the alveolar space, the deposition of chemokines on the endothelial surface by macrophages lining the blood vessels would directly affect the adhesion and transmigration of circulating leukocytes. Indeed, a major fraction of monocytic cells in the lung is not situated in the parenchyma but sitting within the vessel wall (“marginal pool”), rendering these cells sensitive to the cytokines in the blood, including exogenously administered cytokines [53], [54]. In addition we found that the chemokine production of endothelial cells upon stimulation with IL-1β or IL-6 was suppressed by IL-27. Moreover, IL-27 has been reported to directly affect adhesion and activation of neutrophils [55].
The expression of the IL-27p28 subunit in the influenza virus-infected respiratory tract peaks at the later phase of infection when viral titers are at a decline, which is consistent with the suggested role of IL-27 in limiting the immune response. Interferons can elicit IL-27 production as the Il-27p28 gene promoter contains an IFN-stimulated response element region (ISRE), which becomes activated through IRF-1 [56]–[58]. In contrast to the inflammatory cytokines IL-12 or IL-23, which are rapidly produced by myeloid cells, e.g. upon triggering TLR receptors, and accordingly found in early time points in the influenza infection, the expression of IL-27 is turned on in a delayed fashion by the inflammatory microenvironment and serves as a negative feedback mechanism, thereby dampening the immune response in the later phase when adaptive immunity is established and the risk of severe immunopathology comes to the fore.
In line with this concept, we observed protective effects when rIL-27 was administered in a later phase of infection, starting at the peak of viral load when also the endogenous IL-27 production is near its highest level. To test whether timing is crucial, we additionally applied rIL-27 in the early phase of infection, starting 1 day after infection. Indeed, under these conditions IL-27 treatment also reduced leukocyte infiltration and immunopathology, but simultaneously impaired virus elimination, resulting in a worsened disease course. This suggests that interference with leukocyte recruitment in the early phase of influenza aggravates the infection, and the low level of endogenously produced IL-27 in this early phase is appropriate to allow their unhindered rapid activity in virus defense.
Indeed, previous studies have demonstrated that neutrophils are essential for early host protection in influenza infection, as neutrophil depletion before infection led to increased viral titers and accelerated mortality [28], [36]. The same was found for alveolar macrophages [36]. While their mode of action is still unknown, these studies suggest that neutrophils and macrophages contribute to protection in the early phase. In the late phase, depletion of neutrophils or macrophages was not affecting the disease course, while even infection with a low pathogenic strain was fatal in RAG-2γc−/− mice lacking NK, T and B cells [28]. On the other side, recruited leukocytes have a major role in immunopathology, e.g. by inducing apoptosis in epithelial cells [59]. These findings are compatible with the paradigm that the innate system contributes to early protection in viral infection, while at later time points, antigen-specific T cells take over and eliminate the virus.
In conclusion, our study shows that endogenous IL-27 has a crucial role in preventing a fatal disease course in influenza where it acts to limit and resolve the inflammatory process while allowing an unimpaired antiviral response (Fig. S14). Based on its physiological role as a master factor regulating IL-10-dependent as well as -independent anti-inflammatory mechanisms, we here demonstrate that well-timed therapeutic application of recombinant IL-27 can successfully counteract detrimental immunopathology while keeping the antiviral response intact. Combination of IL-27 treatment with anti-viral or anti-microbial treatment might further expand the applicability of this concept, especially when the role of IL-27 in secondary bacterial infection [60] is appropriately taken into account.
These data suggest that strategies to target natural multifunctional pathways involved in the resolution of inflammation might be a valuable alternative for the treatment of inflammation-caused immunopathology and complement current therapeutic approaches focused on the inhibition of isolated effector mechanisms.One of the most intriguing and perplexing legends of the Australian Aboriginal people is that of the Wandjinas, the supreme spirit beings and creators of the land and people. The land of the Wandjina is a vast area of about 200,000 square kilometres of lands, waters, sea and islands in the Kimberley region of north-western Australia with continuous culture dating back at least 60,000 years but probably much older. Here, traditional Aboriginal law and culture are still active and alive.
The Worora, Ngarinyin and Wunumbul people are the three Wandjina tribes – these tribal groups are the custodians of the oldest known figurative art which is scattered throughout the Kimberley.
Perhaps what is most interesting about their figurative art painted on rocks and in caves is the way in which they have represented the Wandjinas - white faces, devoid of a mouth, large black eyes, and a head surrounded by a halo or some type of helmet.
The ancient paintings have received all manner of interpretations from stylized representations of people or even owls, to ancient astronaut theories which suggest that extraterrestrial beings visited Earth tens of thousands of years ago and had direct contact with the inhabitants. Some believe that the extraterrestrials even played a direct role in creation, which is reflected not only in the Dreamtime stories of the Aboriginals but also the myths and legends of many ancient civilizations around the world.
One could be forgiven for thinking that there is indeed a remarkable similarity between the Wandjinas and the stereotypical image of an extraterrestrial which we see time and again in art, movies and witness accounts. And many raise logical questions such as, why were the Wandjinas painted with white skin if it was representing another Aboriginal, all of whom had black skin? Why were the eyes always painted so disproportionate to the face and nose? And why were they all painted without a mouth?
But what is even more surprising is the oral account of the Wandjinas which has been passed from generation to generation as all of the Aboriginal Dreamtime stories have.
The story goes like this – the Wandjina were “sky-beings” or “spirits from the clouds” who came down from the Milky Way during Dreamtime and created the Earth and all its inhabitants. Then Wandjina looked upon the inhabitants and realised the enormity of the task and returned home to bring more Wandjinas. With the aid of the Dreamtime snake, the Wandjina descended and spent their Dreamtime creating, teaching and being Gods to the Aboriginals whom they created. After some time, the Wandjinas disappeared. They descended into the earth and since then, have lived at the bottom of the water source associated with each of the paintings. There, they continually produce new ‘child-seeds’, which are regarded as the source of all human life. Some Wandjina also returned to the sky, and can now be seen at night as lights moving high above the earth.
Aboriginal people, in the Kimberley also believe that even after they disappeared, the Wandjina continued to control everything that happened on the land and in the sky and sea.
Aboriginal Dreamtime stories, rock art and cave paintings have often been considered more myth then reality, like the stories we find in the teachings of modern day religions. However, recent archaeological discoveries have confirmed the reality of at least some of the Dreamtime stories. For example, those that spoke of huge mammals walking the Earth were once considered fantasy. But discoveries of animal fossils belonging to ‘mega fauna’ including giant mammals confirmed that these stories were accounts of real life events, passed down by generations over tens of thousands of years.
Interestingly and of course controversially, objects have been found on geographical sites which suggest the area had been inhabited as long ago as 174,000 B.C. This contradicts the theory that Aboriginals had their routes in Africa and that inhabitants travelled from Africa to Australia about 60,000 years ago. Other researchers have suggested that Homo sapiens actually originated in Australia.
Today, the Aboriginal tribes of the Worora, Ngarinyin and Wunumbul still revere the Wandjina and only certain individuals are given permission to paint them. It is said that the Wandjina could punish those who broke the law with floods, lightening and cyclones and the paintings of the Wandjina are believed to possess these powers, therefore according to the Aboriginals they are always to be approached and treated respectfully.
Why would ancient Aboriginal people create so-called myths or fanciful stories if it meant so much to them and remains so important to their culture to this day? So many myths and legends of the past have already been proven true by archaeological findings, such as the legend of the city of Troy, the labyrinth of the Minotaur, Norse legends of navigational crystals and many more. Could it not be that the Aboriginal people of the time were simply telling of events as they saw them and how they understood them at the time? Perhaps one day we will uncover the answers to these intriguing questions.
By April Holloway
Related Links
http://poleshift.ning.com/profiles/blogs/wandjina-rock-art-kimberley-au
http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/arts/what-are-wandjinas
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBUd_WIjN9gDiary of a Foreigner Living in Turkey (1993-1998)
History of this Diary
Disclaimer on this Diary
Also, I saw this diary as a dialogue, not only with myself to put my thoughts in order, but also with my readers, who often helped to put my understanding on the "right" path, or challenged my position.
Contents of this Diary
Interviews, Feedback, and Reprints
The series is wildly successful, as I am receiving hundreds of encouraging letters, and even some hate mail, plus some offers for homestays, invitations to pastry shops,... I had wonderful discussions with some readers, with both sides learning a lot in the process. My readers are mostly Turks living abroad, foreigners who have also lived in Turkey, and foreigners about to live or travel in Turkey. I have even met some of my readers and made some wonderful friends that way (what bozo said that the internet was isolating people?!).
I was interviewed a few times about my years in Turkey:
The Turkish daily Cumhuriyet published on 8 April 2012 an interview entitled Pierre Flener'in Türkiye güncesi (Pierre Flener's Turkey Diaries).
The Luxembourg weekly Télécran published on 23 March 1996 an interview of me at my job at Bilkent University, entitled (in translation) A Luxembourger in Ankara.
I have lost track of all the pages on the internet that link to this diary, or sometimes even carry illegal local copies thereof. I have granted permission to reprint (translations of) excerpts at various places:
Turkish Travel, since 2005
Turkey Central, since 2002
The Turkish daily newspaper (Yeni) Evrensel featured a translation of passages from parts 1, 2, and 6 in its Pazar supplement of Sunday 11 October 1998.
Walkabout - A Mixed Bag of Travel reprinted selected passages of parts 1 and 2 in November/December 1995.
Some Danish newsletter once featured some excerpts, but I have lost the details.
The Travel Library was the first to archive this diary (and my other travel-related writings).
The Future of this Diary: A Book?
In the meantime, I highly recommend the two following books:
Birds Without Wings, by Louis De Bernières, 2005 (originally written in English; available in German as "Traum aus Stein und Federn")
In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong, by Amin Maalouf, 2003 (originally written in French, as "Les Identités Meurtrières")
HoSCakalIn,
Pierre Flener
Last modified: Wed May 2 09:27:39 CEST 2012The White House dismissed a new attempt to revisit accusations from three women that accused Donald Trump of harassment during the presidential campaign.
NBC’s Megyn Kelly featured an interview with three Donald Trump accusers prior to a press conference by Brave New Films, a leftist company releasing a documentary of the accusers.
A White House spokesperson said:
These false claims, totally disputed in most cases by eyewitness accounts, were addressed at length during last year’s campaign, and the American people voiced their judgment by delivering a decisive victory. The timing and absurdity of these false claims speaks volumes and the publicity tour that has begun only further confirms the political motives behind them.
Brave New Films is a liberal documentary team backed by George Soros, featuring documentaries on liberal targets like the Koch Brothers, Fox News, and Rush Limbaugh.
The three accusers — Rachel Crooks, Samantha Holvey, and Jessica Leeds did not make any new accusations against Trump, but appeared heartened that the country was now taking harassment of women seriously.
“For us to put ourselves out there to try and show America who this man is and especially how he views women, and for them to say, ‘Meh, we don’t care’ — it hurt,” Holvey said during the interview with Kelly, calling it “heartbreaking.” “So now it’s just like, alright, let’s try round two. The environment’s different. Let’s try again,” she continued.
Holvey, who competed in the Trump led beauty pageant said that Trump “personally inspected each woman” prior to the pageant. Leeds accused Trump of groping her breasts and trying to put his hand up her skirt over 30 years ago. Crooks accused Trump of forcibly kissing her outside of an elevator.
Crooks called for Congress to investigate Trump’s actions.
“I think if they were willing to investigate Sen. Franken it’s only fair that they do the same for Trump,” she said during the press conference.
During the press conference, one reporter asked the accusers what they thought about Trump’s endorsement of Roy Moore.
“I think the endorsement is disgusting. Absolutely disgusting,” Holvey replied when asked about Moore.Goa Fisheries Minister Vinod Palienkar has said that he was forced to stop morning walks on Anjuna beach in North Goa and instead do yoga at home after he sensed he was stalked by men associated with the “Goan drug mafia”, and has called for checking tourists and their cars to put a stop to narcotics trafficking. Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, while not trying to dismiss the minister’s fears as speculation, said, “Threat is his perception.” Palienkar, MLA of NDA ally Goa Forward Party from the Siolim constituency, where Anjuna lies, said he has issued instructions to the police to stop any music and rave parties on the beach after 10 pm.
Advertising
While the minister has asked the local police to frisk tourists, if needed, after a certain cut-off time in the evening, the police say they will have to look at “how best to do it” because all tourists cannot be frisked in a state so dependent on tourism.
Interacting with the media on the sidelines of an event on Wednesday evening, Parrikar said, “The police have to ensure that there is no threat. There is a special branch, a special committee which analyses this — they will take appropriate (action) and provide what security is required.”
Parrikar also said that calling the minister’s fears as speculation would be wrong, and that the people trailing Palienkar “may have wanted to talk to him, or maybe they were a threat, since the minister thinks he raised the (drugs) issue”. About the perceived threat, Palienkar said, “I sensed on certain mornings that some men were following me. I sensed the subtle threat. It became difficult… I do not venture out on the beach any longer. It’s not safe,” he said. The Opposition Congress asked how the security apparatus would protect the average citizen if a minister feels threatened, but Palienkar claimed he has come under “threat” since the time he started himself calling up police and informing them about locations of parties where drugs were allegedly used.
While the government is looking into his latest allegation, Palienkar said, “I have asked for a platoon of the Indian Reserve Battalion to keep watch at the borders of my constituency. I have asked them to search all tourists — if needed, body checks as well. Their vehicles need to be checked…. How else will anyone know who the carrier (of narcotics) is?”
Advertising
Senior police officers confirmed that Palienkar had asked for sealing of his constituency in the evening during the tourist season. “We have to look for ways to bring regulation. We cannot just do body checks or search all vehicles for drugs,” an officer said. “The state earns from tourism and there are privacy issues that will arise if we start all these checks. We will have to deliberate how best to go about this.”Harold Reynolds on Wednesday, a few pitches into Hunter Strickland’s appearance:
I think they figured out the problems with Strickland. He struggled against the Nationals and actually a little bit against the Cardinals, but, my goodness, against the right-handed hitters, we saw last night and these first two pitches, very impressive.
Harold Reynolds, a few minutes later:
[different words]
We don’t have enough information to say that Hunter Strickland is homer-prone. We do have enough information to say that Strickland has been homer-prone. With the Giants in the season, he faced 25 batters, and none of them went deep. With the Giants in the playoffs, he’s faced 23 batters, and five of them have gone deep. Or four of them have, Bryce Harper doing it twice. Before this month began, you didn’t know who Hunter Strickland was. Now you’ve got all kinds of opinions, few of them nice. It’s going to take a while for Strickland to repair this reputation. A while, or, one high-leverage World Series inning, if it’s clean. Fans have short long memories.
It’s not just crazy that Strickland’s allowed five dingers. It’s also crazy how he’s allowed said dingers. All of them have been hit off his fastball, and his fastball is fast. The slowest that’s been hit out was 96.5 miles per hour; the fastest was 97.5. Using the Interactive Spray Chart Tool, here’s how fast right-handed fastballs were hit in the air this season:
You see righties going up the middle, and pushing the ball the other way. Lefties, similar story. This is what you’d expect — hitters generally aim to take a fastball up the middle, and they work off of that. The faster the pitch, the less time to get out in front of it. For lefties against fast fastballs, they pulled 10% of balls in play (homers included) to right field in the air, and about a third of those were hit 300+ feet. For righties against fast fastballs, they pulled 6% of balls in play to left field in the air, and about a quarter of those were hit 300+ feet. Lefties have trouble turning on right-handed heat. Righties have even more trouble. Now, the Strickland postseason dinger log:
Bryce Harper, LHB, homer to right Asdrubal Cabrera, LHB, homer to right Bryce Harper, LHB, homer to right Matt Adams, LHB, homer to right Omar Infante, RHB, homer to left
Five fast fastballs, five homers, all yanked. This doesn’t happen unless hitters are just sitting on that fastball. Otherwise, they won’t be able to react in time. Here’s a different guy clearly sitting fastball:
That time, the swing didn’t work, but even that serves as an indication of how guys have hit against Strickland this month. They’ve hunted for his fastball. They’ve thought about literally nothing else. When Strickland’s other stuff hasn’t been there, he’s gotten into a whole heap of trouble. Five dingers’ worth, basically, plus a two-bagger. We’ll probably look at that in a different post.
Another sign guys have swung from the heels? Of 15 balls hit fair against Strickland in the month, just three have been on the ground. It seems worthwhile to review the five home runs. In doing so, I’ll arbitrarily grade them on their difficulty, and discuss the context. How did what’s happened happen? Luck, plus non-luck. Onward!
Homer No. 1
Date: 10/3
10/3 Batter: Bryce Harper
Bryce Harper Speed in: 97mph
97mph Speed out: 114mph (source)
Strickland, making his first postseason appearance and first appearance against the Nationals. An inning earlier, summoned from the bullpen with the bases loaded and two out, he struck out Ian Desmond on four fastballs. That made it pretty clear what he liked as a weapon, and the first two pitches to Harper were fastballs, in, one for a ball and one for a strike. Strickland then tried to get ahead with a breaking ball, but it missed pretty badly, so Harper had no reason to respect it. The count ran 2-and-1, and then Strickland threw a fastball literally over the very center of the plate. Harper was looking for that very pitch, and you might’ve heard before that he’s pretty quick and strong.
Difficulty: Difficult! Do you know how hard it is to hit a 97 mile-per-hour fastball? It’s so hard! They’re almost never home runs.
Homer No. 2
Date: 10/3
10/3 Batter: Asdrubal Cabrera
Asdrubal Cabrera Speed in: 97mph
97mph Speed out: 100mph
After Harper, Strickland used up nine pitches to freeze Wilson Ramos. All of the two-strike pitches were fastballs. Cabrera took a first-pitch breaking ball inside, then he got a good swing at a fastball a little up and a little away. He fouled it off, and Strickland returned with an elevated changeup that Cabrera was out in front of. At that point Cabrera was behind 1-and-2, but no lefty had seen a good breaking ball, and because the changeup was up, that could be dangerous to go right back to. Buster Posey wanted a fastball above the belt. Strickland didn’t miss his target by that much. But while the pitch was over the outer third, look how close Cabrera stands to the plate — it was over the heart, to him, and right around where he likes to hit right-handed fastballs for dingers. Cabrera figured Strickland would try to put him away with high heat. It just wasn’t quite high enough.
Difficulty: Difficult! Hitting a fastball in a pressure-packed situation? I’m so impressed. Baseball players are amazing.
Homer No. 3
Date: 10/7
10/7 Batter: Bryce Harper
Bryce Harper Speed in: 97mph
97mph Speed out: 100mph
This homer had one of the very greatest elevation angles off the bat of the year, at 42 degrees. Called upon, Strickland quickly retired Desmond, with two fastballs and one bad breaking ball. Then it was Harper’s turn, and Strickland tried to steal a strike with a first-pitch changeup. It was bad and missed up and away. He came back to miss in with a fastball, then he threw a centered low fastball that Harper fouled away. Then, another good idea: a 2-and-1 changeup, but like the first one, it missed up and away, being bad. Good idea, poor execution that left Strickland in a 3-and-1 count against an ultra-dangerous lefty. Harper had no reason to believe in the changeup, and he wasn’t feeling a breaking ball, so this was a classic dead-red situation. Strickland came close to his target with a fastball, but |
law during its three-week war against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip, the new U.S. envoy to the United Nations said on Thursday.
“We expect Israel will meet its international obligations to investigate and we also call upon all members of the international community to refrain from politicizing these important issues,” Ambassador Susan Rice said in her debut speech before the U.N. Security Council.
Rice said that Hamas had been guilty of violating international law “through its rocket attacks against Israeli civilians in southern Israel and the use of civilian facilities to provide protection for its terrorist attacks.”
“There have also been numerous allegations made against Israel some of which are deliberately designed to inflame,” she told the council during a meeting on international humanitarian law.
Some 1,300 Palestinians, including at least 700 civilians, were killed during Israel’s Gaza offensive, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in the territory. Israel put its losses at 10 soldiers and three civilians.
During the campaign, Israel fired on several U.N. installations in Gaza, including schools, where hundreds of Palestinians had been seeking shelter from the fighting. Israel rejects allegations that its army was guilty of war crimes.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said there would also be a U.N. investigation of the deadly attacks on United Nations sites in the Gaza Strip.
Rice made it clear that the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama had a very different view of the role of the United Nations from George W. Bush’s government, whose officials were often suspicious of the world body and
occasionally spoke of it with disdain.
She said Obama’s long-term goals included enhancing global peace and security, fighting terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, dealing with climate change, alleviating poverty and improving respect for human rights worldwide.
“The United Nations is indispensable for advancing these goals and making our world a better, safer place,” she said.
She also hinted that Obama had a different attitude toward The Hague-based International Criminal Court, the world’s first permanent war crimes tribunal.
President Bill Clinton’s administration had signed the ICC treaty, which was never ratified by Congress. Bush later rejected the idea of ever joining the court.
“The International Criminal Court, which has started its first trial this week, looks to become an important and credible instrument for trying to hold accountable the senior leadership responsible for atrocities committed in the Congo, Uganda and Darfur,” Rice said.Sudan's future is at stake in January's referendum, but Amnesty says journalists are not allowed to report freely [EPA]
Friday's special UN summit on Sudan, held three months ahead of a referendum on independence for the self-governed south of the country, is likely dominate news reports in the African nation. But as Sudanese journalists report the details of the meeting, they will have to be very careful of what they say.
Authorities in Sudan have been accused of a campaign of harrassment and intimidation against the media aimed at avoiding dissenting coverage, and as political tensions rise over the possible secession of the south, rights groups are warning that an already muzzled media could be slapped with further reporting restrictions.
"In every period of political turmoil in Sudan, the security situation has deteriorated," Rania Rajji, Amnesty International's Sudan researcher told Al Jazeera. "The referendum will be a very big issue for the future of the country and it's likely that the space that is needed for debate and freedom of expression around the issue will be impacted by the security services."
Censorship
Political interference in the freedom of the press is nothing new in Sudan, where the government ended its most recent period of pre-publication censorship in August of this year. Prior to that, agents from the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) would visit newspaper printing houses on a daily basis to ensure that critical articles were not published.
Some newspapers with a history of opposition to the ruling National Congress Party were closed down, and others were forced to suspend publication after NISS agents removed articles from their print editions.
The Sudanese government collects personal information about journalists, including their home address and bank details, and in September last year, a "code of journalistic honour" was introduced which effectively compels journalists to practice self-censorship or face legal reprisals.
When he announced the introduction of the code, Omar al Bashir, Sudan's president, called for journalists to avoid covering subjects that are "destructive to the nation, sovereignty, security, values and its morality". Journalists who trangress the code face arrest and abuse at the hands of the security services.
Reporting on political issues has become particularly difficult since this year's presidential and legislative elections in April, with journalists facing major harassment for publishing articles criticial of al-Bashir's government. In May, five journalists from the opposition-affiliated newspaper Rai al Shaab were arrested for publishing what the government described as "false news."
Four of the journalists were tried. One was acquitted, but the other three were given custodial sentences of up to five years. At least two have said they were tortured in custody. The newspaper was closed down at the time of the arrests, and in July, a court order was obtained to prevent it from being reopened.
Other taboo issues for reporters include the proceedings of the International Criminal Court, which has issued an arrest warrant for al-Bashir over war crimes, public sector strikes and the prosecution of the Rai al Shaab journalists.
Amnesty International says that for journalists in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, it has become "nearly impossible" to publish articles about human rights in newspapers because of the restrictions they face.
Despite south Sudan's de facto autonomy, journalists working there fare little better. During the April elections, Amnesty said that journalists were harassed for criticising the south Sudanese government.
Amnesty fears that with the referendum approaching, the press may be compelled to shun pro-unity voices as the south's government pushes for independence.
Even international broadcasters are subject to Sudan's media crackdown. BBC's Arabic radio service was taken off the air in four Sudanese cities including Khartoum in August after officials decided it had breached the terms of its broadcast agreement.
As Sudan moves into a period of potential political upheaval surrounding the referendum, Amnesty says that these reporting restrictions are robbing ordinary Sudanese of the opportunity to engage in a meaningful debate about the future of their country.
"The whole future of the nation will be at stake so there is the need for the whole of the country to take part in a debate over this," Rajji says. "People need to be informed. The people are deciding not only the future of Sudan, but also for the future of their own lives."Hero skins are here! But as promised, there’s much more to it than just dropping some ICE in the Market. Every Vainglory skin theme has three tiers. That’s right: three different pieces of splash art. Three different in-game models. Three different hero concepts to covet. It’s very much like three skins in one — but with a Super Evil twist. Let’s explore the details …
Three Skin Tiers?! Explain Yourself.
Each hero skin theme has three tiers.
. There’s a new game element called Cards. Collect cards to unlock skins.
. Collect cards to unlock skins. You can unlock Tier 1 with ICE or by “weaving” cards earned in post-match Spoils of War.
earned in post-match Spoils of War. Tier 2 & Tier 3 skins can only be unlocked by meeting card requirements. These skin tiers are not directly purchasable with ICE.
These skin tiers are not directly purchasable with ICE. This update (1.4) includes Tier 1 skins for six heroes. Tier 2 & Tier 3 skins (along with skin themes for more heroes) will come in future updates. Ultimately, all heroes will have skins.
Tier 2 & Tier 3 skins (along with skin themes for more heroes) will come in future updates. Ultimately, all heroes will have skins. You can check out the Tier 1 and Tier 2 art of hero skins now in the Market under the new “Get Skins” section. A quick glance will reveal how different and awesome the skin tiers are.
under the new “Get Skins” section. A quick glance will reveal how different and awesome the skin tiers are. Each skin tier has more challenging card requirements than the last, and you must unlock skin tiers in order.
than the last, and you must unlock skin tiers in order. If you unlock a skin, you’ll have the option to select it after locking in your hero pre-match. Then, you’ll see that skin reflected in the new loading screen and during the game.
Wait … There are Cards Now?!
Yes! Sometimes a card will appear in Spoils of War when you finish a public match.
when you finish a. The more matches you play, the more chances you have of receiving a card.
Cards come in four rarities: common, rare, epic and legendary. Common and rare cards are in this update. Epic and legendary cards will come in a future update.
common, rare, epic and legendary. Common and rare cards are in this update. Epic and legendary cards will come in a future update. Combine the cards you earn post-match to unlock hero skins! This is called “weaving.” When you weave a skin, the used cards are consumed and removed from your card inventory.
This is called “weaving.” When you weave a skin, the used cards are consumed and removed from your card inventory. Check out your cards anytime by tapping MY CARDS in your profile.
We are adding more ways for you to get cards in the future, as random drops from completing matches will not be enough to earn Tier 2 & Tier 3 skins very fast. In fact, there’s already a section of the Market called “Get Cards.” It’s just not available yet.
Tell Me More About These Card Types
Common cards are flexible and can be used to meet the requirements of many different skins.
are flexible and can be used to meet the requirements of many different skins. Rare cards are unique to a skin theme and can be used toward weaving its Tier 1, Tier 2 or Tier 3 skin.
are unique to a skin theme and can be used toward weaving its Tier 1, Tier 2 or Tier 3 skin. Epic cards are unique to a skin theme and can be used toward weaving its Tier 2 or Tier 3 skin. Epic cards are coming soon.
are unique to a skin theme and can be used toward weaving its Tier 2 or Tier 3 skin. Epic cards are coming soon. Legendary cards are extremely rare and special. They are unique to a skin theme and are exclusively applied to its Tier 3 skin. Legendary cards are coming soon.
Optimizing Your Cards: Tips to Skin Success
Cards only appear after a match sometimes. This makes all cards (even commons) precious commodities. You’ll want to use them efficiently to unlock multiple skin tiers.
This makes all cards (even commons) precious commodities. You’ll want to use them efficiently to unlock multiple skin tiers. If possible, unlock tier 1 skins with ICE to save your cards for higher tiers! Tier 2 & Tier 3 skins also require common and rare cards. If you use those cards on Tier 1 skins, you’ll need to earn many more cards to unlock higher skin tiers.
Tier 2 & Tier 3 skins also require common and rare cards. If you use those cards on Tier 1 skins, you’ll need to earn many more cards to unlock higher skin tiers. Tier 1 skins are the only skins you can unlock with ICE or require common & rare cards to weave.
or require common & rare cards to weave. Tier 2 skins will require common, rare & epic cards.
will require common, rare & epic cards. Tier 3 skins will require common, rare, epic & legendary cards.
will require common, rare, epic & legendary cards. Your chances of getting a card post-match have nothing to do with winning or losing, although you must complete the match without deserting. So, just have fun, play and earn cards!
, although you must complete the match without deserting. So, just have fun, play and earn cards! Skins provide no tactical or power advantage (other than possibly awe), so you are not more or less likely to win a match based on your hero’s appearance.
We hope you enjoy this massive new addition to the Vainglory game universe. So go play, collect some cards, weave some skins … and if you want to support the game and help it succeed, purchase some ICE and unlock some Tier 1 skins today!
—PlayoffBeardThe Colors of Happiness
The Sunflowers is one of the most popular of Vincent Van Gogh's paintings. It was also the painting Van Gogh was most proud of.
The lonely and passionate Van Gogh had moved to Arles in the south of France where he dreamed of setting up a community of artists with his friend the artist, Paul Gauguin, as its mentor. Sunflowers was painted during this rare period of excited optimism, while he awaited the arrival of Gauguin. The work is full of light, energy and bright colors.
Sunflowers had a special significance for Van Gogh, as yellow was also his favorite color. Yellow, for him, was an emblem of happiness, and perhaps not iroincally in Dutch literature the sunflower was a symbol of devotion and loyalty, often synonymous with happiness and light. It’s also been said that at times during Van Gogh’s fits of severe depression he used to eat yellow paint, because he thought it would get the happiness inside him.
Now, Van Gogh was undoubtedly a talented, although very troubled artist and we would certainly not subscribe to eating paint to find happiness. However, his notion of color as a force of light to lift emotion is something to consider.
Perhaps your surroundings may be influencing your emotions and state of mind? Do you ever notice that certain places especially vex you? While other places are especially relaxing and calming? Well, there’s a good chance that the colors in those spaces are playing a bigger part than you're aware.
The truth is color is light and energy. There are a variety of wavelengths that light can be categorized, producing different colors of the visible spectrum. Other wavelengths are associated with non-visible light such as x-rays and ultraviolet rays. Most of us are commonly aware of the effects of these non-visible rays when we simply stay out in the sun too long -Ouch! So it makes sense to at least consider that visible light could also affect us in some way as well.
So what’s your favorite color? What colors make you feel happy? Perhaps your workplace or home environment hasn’t felt as “happy” as it could be? Well, look around and see if you can add a little of your favorite colors to the space. You might be very surprised how it can positively affect your mood, and help get you Under the Influence of Happiness :)
Leave a comment
Comments will be approved before showing up.Lesson one in human biology is how the sexes differ. But it turns out the contrast between men and women goes beyond the obvious physical traits.
Recent research found that women in the UK take nearly 1,000 steps fewer a day than men — 4,908 compared with 5,982 — putting them at a raised risk of conditions such as type 2 diabetes and heart disease, say scientists from Stanford University in California.
Here we look at the other significant —and surprising — numbers that set men and women apart.
Size matters, ladies! A woman’s heart is about two-thirds the size of a man’s, weighing an average of 120g (compared with 180g), and beats slightly faster to make up for its lack of size
10 FEWER HEART BEATS EVERY MINUTE IN MEN
A woman’s heart is about two-thirds the size of a man’s, weighing an average of 120g (compared with 180g), and beats slightly faster to make up for its lack of size.
So while a healthy adult male’s heart averages around 70 to 72 beats a minute, in a woman it’s 78 to 82.
As well as the size difference, women’s hearts beat faster because there is greater activity in their sympathetic nervous system (the part of the nervous system that accelerates heart rate during times of stress or danger), explains Martin Cowie, a professor of cardiology at Royal Brompton Hospital in London.
While this doesn’t appear to have implications for heart health, significantly women also have smaller arteries than men — around 1.55mm in diameter compared with 2mm or more in men — and this does make a difference.
Experts think it may explain why survival rates from heart attacks are much lower in women than men, as clots are likely to block their whole blood vessel rather than just part of it.
30 SECONDS — HOW MUCH FASTER WOMEN FEEL PAIN
It’s generally assumed that women cope with pain better than men, but studies suggest otherwise.
Bath University scientists found women give in to pain nearly 30 seconds sooner than men exposed to the same levels of discomfort.
They asked 50 men and women to put an arm in warm water (at 37c) for two minutes, before plunging the same arm into icy water (1-2c) for a further two minutes — or until they could stand the pain no longer.
Ouch! For some reason, men take an extra thirty seconds to feel the full effects of pain
The results showed that women started to feel pain after an average of just 26.38 seconds, compared with almost 42 for men — a difference of almost 16 seconds.
And as for pain tolerance (the point where they couldn’t take any more), women averaged 71.21 seconds and men 99.43 — a difference of almost 30 seconds.
The reason is thought to be that men’s skin is thicker than women’s, ranging from just half a millimetre on the eyelids to 4mm on the palms of the hands, explains Dr Maryam Zamani, a skin specialist at the Cadogan Clinic in London.
‘Due to having more testosterone, men have skin which is up to 25 per cent thicker than women’s,’ she says.
‘And skin thickness decreases faster in ageing women than men, as oestrogen helps women to produce collagen [a protein which keeps skin firm and plump].
‘With lower levels of the hormone as they approach the menopause, collagen production declines.’
480 EXTRA BLINKS BY WOMEN EVERY HOUR
We blink to keep our eyes lubricated, but women blink nearly twice as much as men, according to one study from the University of Milan in Italy.
Researchers compared a small group of men and women (aged either 20 to 30, or over 50) and found that men averaged 11 blinks a minute, but women averaged 19 — a difference of 480 an hour — reported the journal Ophthalmic and Physiological Optics.
The older women blinked the most. It’s thought this is due to declining levels of oestrogen with age, as the hormone is needed to stimulate the production of lubricants in the eyes.
Gender divide: Women blink nearly twice as much as men, according to one study from the University of Milan in Italy, which recorded a huge difference
However, other research has found that when women take birth control pills with high oestrogen levels, the blink rate average goes up to 19.6 times a minute.
One theory is that the Pill somehow affects the brain’s control centre for involuntary blinking.
Men may blink less because they have higher levels of testosterone, which, in turn, helps maintain the oily layer on the eyes. ‘There is good evidence that testosterone has a role in regulating production of meibomian oil, an essential ingredient of a healthy tear film,’ explains Professor Dan Reinstein from the London Vision Clinic.
Even though they blink more, women are still more prone to dry eyes, which is linked to hormones.
7M EXTRA ‘SMELL’ CELLS IN WOMEN
When a woman wrinkles her nose at the laundry, it’s not because she’s being fussy — it’s because she has a much more finely tuned sense of smell than a man.
Scientists have found that women have more than 40 per cent extra cells in the olfactory bulb, an area of the brain that controls our sense of smell.
This is thought to be an evolutionary trait where an enhanced ability to smell helped women choose mates for reproductive purposes, by detecting subtle changes in men’s testosterone levels.
In 2014 researchers from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil studied the brains of deceased adults and found that men had 9.2 million cells in the olfactory bulb, but women had 16.2 million.
20 EXTRA MINUTES OF SLEEP NEEDED BY WOMEN
Several studies have found that women need to sleep longer than men — around 20 minutes a night for an average of seven or eight hours sleep to feel properly rejuvenated.
The latest, a 2016 study by scientists at the Max Planck Institute in Germany, compared 160 adults of both sexes and found that women need to sleep longer to restore brain power.
But it’s not because of any fundamental neurological differences between the sexes, say experts.
Sleep on it: Several studies have found that women need to sleep longer than men — around 20 minutes a night for an average of seven or eight hours sleep to feel properly rejuvenated
It’s instead that juggling different tasks throughout the day is more taxing on the brain than sticking to one, and this, they suggest, typically reflects a woman’s daily responsibilities.
‘You could spend a whole day at the computer on a really tough assignment and, although it would be tiring, it would only be using one part of the brain,’ says Professor Jim Horne, former head of Loughborough University’s sleep research centre.
‘But if you constantly switch from one thing to another, it’s much more exhausting.
‘That’s why, when you go sight‑seeing on holiday, you feel really tired at the end of the day — it’s the novelty of new things that tires the brain out.’
2M MORE RED BLOOD CELLS FOUND IN MEN
MEN have up to six million red blood cells per microlitre of blood, whereas women have just four million.
Red blood cells are packed with a substance called haemoglobin, which transports oxygen around the body, helping tissue and muscles function at full capacity.
Women have lower levels of red blood cells, mainly due to menstruation, but it’s also estimated that 90 per cent of women in the UK fail to achieve the daily recommended intake of iron from their diet. Iron is needed to make red blood cells.
4 HOURS LONGER FOR WOMEN TO DIGEST FOOD
Food takes around 20 per cent longer to pass through the digestive system of a woman compared with that of a man.
Not only do women have smaller stomachs, which means they produce less acid to break down meals, but the colon, through which food passes, is up to 10cm longer.
This is partly because it has additional organs to circumnavigate (the uterus and the ovaries) and this makes the journey time longer.
Higher levels of oestrogen in the gut also slow things down as the hormone has a relaxing effect on the colon and bowel.
This makes the transit time from mouth to emptying an average of 24 hours in men and 28 hours in women. It’s thought to explain why women generally have fewer bowel movements than men.
50 PER CENT MORE KNEE CARTILAGE IN MEN
Cartilage is the shock absorbing material that protects joints from wear and tear, and men seem to be blessed with more, certainly when it comes to knees.
A 2007 study at the University of Salzburg in Austria, published in the journal Osteoarthritis and Cartilage, found that even when researchers allowed for the fact that men are bigger, they still had disproportionately thicker cartilage — 50 per cent thicker.
One theory is that men evolved to be more physically active than women, as the primary food providers, and that their knee joints may have developed to accommodate the greater stress.
Scientists think the cartilage thickness may explain why women are twice as likely as men to develop osteoarthritis of the knee.Barbour said he only meant to encourage New Jersey's governor. Barbour: Sorry for Obama remark
Republican heavyweight Haley Barbour apologized Tuesday night for a recent controversial remark that some have called racist.
“While I would love for [New Jersey Gov. Chris] Christie to put a hot poker to Obama’s butt,” Barbour said last week at a closed-door American Crossroads fundraiser in Tampa, according to Bloomberg Businessweek. “I thought he did what he was supposed to do.”
Story Continued Below
( Also on POLITICO: Haley Barbour's most barbed quotes)
Liberal outlets, including a blogger for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” Gawker, and Talking Points Memo editor Josh Marshall, pointed out that Barbour’s comments seemingly called for the branding of the nation’s first black president.
Barbour said he was only trying to encourage Christie.
“I apologize to anyone who feels my comment had connotations that I did not intend,” Barbour said in a statement provided to POLITICO. “As a Republican, I would have liked to see Chris Christie put the heat on Obama — but for the audience of independents he did the right thing. In any case, it’s critical that we all keep our comments free of extremes or anything that could be misinterpreted.”
Barbour, a former Mississippi governor and RNC Chair, is now helping Crossroads, a Karl Rove-backed constellation of outside spending groups, raise money to help oust President Barack Obama and gain GOP control of the Senate.
Christie’s keynote address at the convention was criticized for focusing too much on himself, and not enough on GOP nominee Mitt Romney or on attacking the Obama administration’s record.
( Also on POLITICO: Christie's flop at the GOP convention)Kiev funicular, Ukraine — Exotic rail transport in 1905 is directly connected with Hem Upper Town. One of the land mark of Kiev, KIEV FUNICULAR — A quite exotic and rare form of transport was originally called "St Michael's Mechanical Lift" it was opend on 7 may 1905 and was second in Russian Empire after Odessa opened in 1902. Before the construction of the cable with the Postal Square to St. Michael the slope of Vladimir's Hill were just winding path and wooden stairs there are 500 steps and 36 staircase, which created difficulties for the transport of citizens and the development of the city demanded the improvement of traffic at this point that marked the beginning of the cable design, the Funicular was an ideal solution to transport people and cargo on short steep slopes. Construction was carried out by means of two years of Belgian Stock company at the cost of 230,000 rubles. Equipment and trolley cars were produced by Arthur Abrahamson, who received professional training on railroad engineering in Zurich, Switzerland and St Petersburg, Russia. The double car trolley capacity is 70 passengers each, moving with speed of two meters per second. During the years of it existence, The Funicular was not only a land mark of Kiev, but also a historical object and very popular in tourists and visitors of the cityDo you suck at piano?
Is there someone you know who just isn’t as good as they say they are? Do you wish that there was an instructional piano book for adults that pulled no punches, told it like it is, and wasn’t afraid to put you in your place?
This, my piano flunkies, is your book. For all of you people who used to take piano lessons and are thinking of “getting back into it”, You Suck at Piano is your jam. For those of you who wish you could crank out a simple tune… You Suck at Piano will get you there.
The key is honesty. Learning to play the piano is difficult, folks. And most piano books lie to you. They say “you can do it!” when in fact you’re not so sure you actually CAN do it.
You Suck at Piano takes a different approach. It’s a brutally honest and fun method to improve your piano skills, complete with 50 arrangements of famous piano pieces, irreverent comic strips about the composers and the terrible lives they led, and cocktail recipes to drown all of your piano related frustrations.
I have been an instructor for years and at the end of the day I am just passionate about music, and teaching people to make, understand and play music.
You'll Actually Learn How to Play Piano
I’m Dr. Joel Pierson, and I’ve made a career out of music and mockery. I’ve worked with some artists of great repute (New York Philharmonic, Kronos Quartet), and am well steeped in pop culture from working with artists like Wayne Newton and Ke$ha and touring with My Chemical Romance and Linkin Park.
I’ve performed on all seven continents (yes, including Antarctica), written music for films (including additional music for The Internship with Owen Wilson), and had a recording contract with Warner Brothers Records. I have a Ph.D in music composition, and was in a band with Father John Misty in high school. My music has been performed by over 20 major symphony orchestras, and I once sat in with the Saturday Night Live band (I didn’t actually PLAY with the SNL band, I literally just sat with them while they played, in case there was a piano-related emergency.) I also enjoy performing old cartoon scores for children, but most of all, I’m here to provide tough love about your lack of piano chops.
Joining me is illustrator Kevin Nagler - an artist with such a twisted sense of humor that when I asked him to illustrate Swan Lake, all the swans he drew were dead (and we’re pretty sure it was YOUR bad piano playing that killed them).
And together we are committed to producing the most original, odd, and hilarious piano book ever written.
You'll need an HTML5 capable browser to see this content. Play Replay with sound Play with
sound 00:00 00:00
Why We Need Your Help
Believe it or not, the idea of a snarky piano book is too forward thinking and honest for most traditional music publishers. So let’s shake things up! In order to do so, there’s a whole mess of people that I need to employ to make this project a reality.
Piano Swag - The Rewards
I've been brainstorming some wacky, limited-time-only awards to thank you for your help in realizing my vision. For as low as $1 you can participate in the production of this genre-bending piano book. I’m signing books with notes to whomever you choose. Kevin my illustrator will crudely draw you (or someone else) on a cocktail napkin. You can pick up a coffee mug with your favorite composer’s bust on it, or score a sweet “Know Your Composers” poster (full of misinformation and inside jokes).
At the higher levels you can get your face put in the book’s “Piano Wall of Shame”, a comic strip dedicated to your lack of piano skills, or even some face time with Kevin and I. We even have piano keyboards with “You Suck at Piano” engraved on them!
A Peek at The BookThe next intake of FFA Centre of Excellence [FFA CoE] youngsters have been announced with 17 youngsters from across Australia selected as scholarship holders.
The group of 2000 and 2001-borns will make Canberra their home for the next two years as they work towards both a professional future, and establishing a spot in the Joeys, Australia's U-17 national football team.
FFA U16/17 technical director Peter de Roo said the 17 boys who had already taken up their scholarship offers were in the best possible position for their development.
“There’s not a program in the country that comes close to what we can offer a young footballer,” de Roo said.
“The last group of youngsters were playing more than 90 highly-competitive games throughout the two year scholarship, across state, national, and international competitions.
“On top of that, the facilities at the Australian Institute of Sport are second-to-none, and there’s a level of expertise and football knowledge you won’t get anywhere else.
“If you have an ambition to become a professional player and hopefully a future Socceroo, this is where you need to be.”
The group will begin their journey together by participating in the 2016 PlayStation 4 NPL ACT competition, before taking on the best youngsters from around the country in the 2016/17 Foxtel National Youth League.
All the while, they’ll be aiming to earn selection as part of the Joeys squad that heads to the 2016 AFC U-16 Championships in India from 15 September to 2 October.
The top four teams in that tournament will qualify for the 2017 FIFA U-17 World Cup in India.
de Roo said the FFA CoE was a direct pathway to selection into the Joeys squad, with 13 members of last year’s FIFA U-17 World Cup squad hailing from the program.
“There is so much overlap within these national teams,” de Roo said.
“Ange knows every boy who has passed through the Centre of Excellence in his time as Socceroos coach.
“If the Socceroos was a club side, this would the junior team.”
Seven of this year’s crop join from NSW, South Australia and Western Australia have three representatives each, while Tasmania and Queensland have one each. The final two are locals from the Canberra United Academy.
The youngsters who have moved to Canberra as part of the program will be placed in homestay families, living away from home and adapting to a new environment.
de Roo said being placed in an environment like the one at the FFA CoE played a crucial role in a youngster’s mental development, and helped immensely with their maturity.
“A lot of these boys, they come here at 14 and 15-years-old, and they’re away from home for the first time,” de Roo said.
“After two years, they have a second family, they have friendships for life, and they have experience they wouldn’t get anywhere else.
“They leave Canberra as not only a better footballer, but as independent young men.”
While 17 boys had already taken up their scholarship offers, de Roo said there are still a number of spots available.
The last Centre of Excellence group had 24 players who graduated last month.
Of those 24, more than a quarter have already either signed or been offered professional contracts, with plenty more to come.
de Roo said he was excited by the new crop of youngsters, and was looking forward to spending the next two years with the group.
“We are looking for winners,” de Roo said.
“We want players who can make decisions, who take responsibility when things get tough, and who have the attributes to play in the way that we want to.
“There are some very good footballers in this bunch.”OSLO (Reuters) - The amount of land needed to grow crops worldwide is at a peak, and a geographical area more than twice the size of France will be able to return to its natural state by 2060 as a result of rising yields and slower population growth, a group of experts said on Monday.
Combines harvest wheat on the Stephen and Brian Vandervalk farm near Fort MacLeod,, Alberta, September 26, 2011. REUTERS/Todd Korol
Their report, conflicting with United Nations studies that say more cropland will be needed in coming decades to avert hunger and price spikes as the world population rises above 7 billion, said humanity had reached what it called “Peak Farmland”.
More crops for use as biofuels and increased meat consumption in emerging economies such as China and India, demanding more cropland to feed livestock, would not offset a fall from the peak driven by improved yields, it calculated.
If the report is accurate, the land freed up from crop farming would be some 10 percent of what is currently in use - equivalent to 2.5 times the size of France, Europe’s biggest country bar Russia, or more than all the arable land now utilized in China.
“We believe that humanity has reached Peak Farmland, and that a large net global restoration of land to nature is ready to begin,” said Jesse Ausubel, director of the Program for the Human Environment at the Rockefeller University in New York.
“Happily, the cause is not exhaustion of arable land, as many had feared, but rather moderation of population and tastes and ingenuity of farmers,” he wrote in a speech about the study he led in the journal Population and Development Review.
The report, supplied to Reuters by Ausubel, projected that almost 150 million hectares (370 million acres) could be restored to natural conditions such as forest by 2060. That is also equivalent to 1.5 times the area of Egypt or 10 times the size of Iowa.
It said the global arable land and permanent crop areas rose from 1.37 billion hectares (3.38 billion acres) in 1961 to 1.53 billion (3.78 billion acres) in 2009. It projected a fall to 1.38 billion hectares (3.41 billion acres) in 2060.
Gary Blumenthal, head of Washington-based agricultural consultancy World Perspectives, said the report’s conclusions were not surprising as technology already exists to dramatically boost crop production. But achieving “peak farmland” would depend on the technology being made available globally, he added.
“If we could just get yields in the rest of the world at levels that they are in the U.S. or Europe, we would have substantially more food,” Blumenthal said. “Just using existing farmland more efficiently, would substantially increase supplies. Yields are rising.”
LAND MORE SCARCE
A June 2012 report by the U.N.’s Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), however, said that an extra net 70 million hectares of land worldwide would have to be cultivated in 2050, compared with now: “Land and water resources are now much more stressed than in the past and are becoming scarcer,” it said, referring to factors such as soil degradation and salinisation.
Ausubel’s study admits to making many assumptions - rising crop yields, slowing population growth, a relatively slow rise in the use of crops to produce biofuels, moderate rises in meat consumption - that could all skew the outcome, if not accurate.
It also does not factor in any disruptions from significant climate change that U.N. studies say could affect farm output with rising temperatures, less predictable rainfall, more floods or droughts, desertification and heatwaves.
Still, it points out that both China and India have already spared vast tracts of land in recent decades.
In India, for instance, wheat farmers would now be using an extra 65 million hectares - an area the size of France - if yields had stagnated at 1961 levels. China had similarly spared 120 million hectares by the same benchmark.
The authors said that the idea of “Peak Farmland” was borrowed from the phrase “Peak Oil”, the possibility that world use of petroleum is at its maximum.
The study also projected that world corn yields would rise at an annual rate of 1.7 percent until 2060, against a 1.8 percent annual gain from 1983 to 2011. By 2060, that would raise world corn yields to roughly the current U.S. average, it said |
Life Survey to measure 19 dimensions of teen experience (from mental health to career and family aspirations) and in 2005 surveyed 700 girls and 228 boys in the sixth through twelfth grades in a range of urban, suburban, and rural U.S. and Canadian schools. He then interviewed the top 113 high-school girls, born for the most part between 1984 and 1988. These were alpha girls who had attained a 3.8 or better grade-point average and at least one leadership position, pursued 10 or more hours of extracurriculars weekly, and scored high on measures of “achievement motivation.”
Kindlon found signs of a new “alpha psychology” among all the girls. There were no sex differences in depressive symptoms, no drop in self-esteem across the six grades, and no lack of confidence. By tenth grade, in fact, the girls he surveyed had higher self-esteem than boys, and alphas had significantly higher self-esteem than non-alphas. Lower socioeconomic status tended to lower self-esteem scores for both sexes, irrespective of race or ethnicity, but Kindlon interviewed many “inner-city alphas”—the phenomenon is not confined to “elites.” (Consistent with previous research, he did find higher rates of anxiety among girls than boys—perhaps because girls “want to get things done,” he speculates, although he notes that biological factors could be involved. In either case, he cautions against overemphasizing the anxiety scores, because boys may underreport their own anxiety.)
“Loss of voice” may be a thing of the past, as Kindlon suggests, but gender pressures persist, says Wendy Luttrell, Aronson associate professor in human development and education: “We can’t talk about how girls are doing today without talking about boys and girls in relation to each other.” As a feminist ethnographer who analyzes gender, race, and class in educational settings, she believes kids today, in fact, are still “incredibly constrained” by gender. She recently observed such forces in action at the close of her youngest daughter’s summer college-prep program. The karaoke competition between sex-segregated groups was “a Saturday Night Live mimicry of what gender roles in contemporary society look like,” she reports. The girls performed “sexy-but-cute Britney Spears acts,” while the boys presented aggressive, sexualized, hip-hop dance numbers. “Each group played off the extreme of the other,” she notes, wishing the hypermasculine and hyperfeminine performances had been far less stereotypical, with “both boys and girls crossing what we consider to be ‘male’ and ‘female’ roles.”
The alpha generation may yet fulfill that wish. “Girls are now able to play more roles,” says Kindlon. Alpha girls don’t identify with a passive-feminine sex role, yet maintain “female” skills like social networking. They also know how to do things that only men and boys traditionally did, such as “channel their aggression in a competitive situation—not to get too mad, but to get mad enough so you can play harder—and to compete and to enjoy winning.” Fathers play a big part in this psychology, Kindlon adds. He has found that alphas’ dads are more involved in their daughters’ lives than non-alphas’ dads. They can pass along “male ways of being,” such as rougher play and greater risk-taking, and “male ways of thinking.”
This “hybrid” self, an “androgynous” personality incorporating aspects of both parents, is a cornerstone of alpha psychology, he believes. The more androgynous girls in his study had higher self-esteem, were less anxious or self-conscious, and engaged in less promiscuous sex and substance abuse. Because they can choose from what feminist psychologists call “separate” (traditionally masculine) or “connected” (traditionally feminine) styles of being in the world, they have a psychological advantage. “Girls are better adapted,” he says. “They’re more flexible and have more skill. Boys haven’t changed as much—or haven’t been induced as much to play a variety of roles.”
What girls are saying, adds Kindlon, is, “I have flexibility that no other woman has ever had in history, or certainly not in any numbers, and I can play any role—‘Bring it on.’” As one “hybrid” alpha (now at Harvard) told him, “I can wear high heels to my linear algebra class. I can be sexy or I can be feminine, or I can also blow the boys away in this really tough class. I can do anything. I don’t see it as inconsistent to be wearing high heels. I don’t feel like I’ve got to dress down or dress like a man to do this class. I can still be a woman and do all these other things.”
The Rise of the Alpha Girl
Long-emerging changes in girls’ access to higher education and career options have prepared the ground for girls’ “emancipated confidence.” In fact, aspects of alpha girlhood aren’t new. “Girls have been ahead of boys in pre-college education for well over 100 years,” says Allison professor of economics Lawrence Katz: in high-school graduation rates and in constituting two-thirds of honors students. “What was striking in the past [was] that even though girls dominated boys through high school, boys were given greater opportunities to go on to college.”
But as the women’s movement dismantled labor-market barriers and an accelerating service economy expanded job opportunities in the 1970s, girls and young women expected and found greater economic benefits from going to college. Add the Pill and later marriage and first birth; subtract male incentives like the GI Bill and disproportionate family support; multiply by behavioral differences between girls and boys—and you have the formula for exponential change, argue Lee professor of economics Claudia Goldin and Katz in a recent journal article, “The Homecoming of American College Women: The Reversal of the College Gender Gap” (with Ilyana Kuziemko, Ph.D. ’07).
“It’s never clear why the American press wakes up suddenly and says, ‘Oh! Where are the men on campus?’ The crossover point was way back in 1980—25 years ago!” says Goldin. Headlines imply that male college attendance has dropped, yet there’s been “enormous growth in B.A. completion rates” for both sexes, she notes. The female rate of increase has been much higher, however, so the ratios of the 1960s and ’70s have flipped—to 58 percent female nationwide today. What drove this dramatic catch-up and reversal? “The playing field and the labor market are much more even,” says Katz. “That’s really what’s changed.”
Surprisingly, however, the rise of women in higher education began with college parity, early in the twentieth century. From 1900 to the Crash of 1929, women went to college in numbers equal to men. A fraction went to the “Seven Sisters,” but the majority enrolled in public institutions, such as teachers’ colleges and the large state institutions that accepted women. Then the Great Depression drove a wedge into parity. Unemployed men needed the college advantage, and school districts’ new “marriage bars” against married female teachers made teaching degrees less valuable to women.
Male-to-female ratios peaked in 1947, after World War II. “You get this huge spike of guys coming back from Europe and Asia,” Goldin says, when there were “two and a half men” on college campuses for every woman. The GI Bill enabled men from many age groups to attend college at the same time, bolstering male enrollment until after the Korean War. More women went as well, because college benefits often included “your M.R.S.,” notes Goldin. Then came Vietnam—and draft deferment. Because more draftable men went to and stayed in college, male college graduation rates peaked for men born in the late 1940s. Women also have “a Vietnam effect,” Goldin says: “If boys go, girls go.” Women were catching up, but the gender gap in B.A. completion in 1970 still favored men, 57 percent to 43 percent.
By 1972, girls in the top socioeconomic quartile achieved college parity despite the war. In two decades, by 1992, girls at every socioeconomic level had a substantial lead. “Families are not discriminating in resources for college in favor of boys as they may have done 75 years ago,” says Katz. And in the lower half of economic distribution, the female-to-male ratio today is considerably higher than in the upper half, a reversal of traditional patterns. (The female advantage is larger among African Americans and Hispanics than among whites, but the decline in the male-to-female ratio of undergraduates during the past 35 years is not due primarily to changes in the ethnic mix of the college-aged population, write Goldin and Katz: “The bottom line is that the new gender gap favoring females is found throughout the socioeconomic distribution,” and it is similar for whites, all ethnic and racial subgroups, and the entire U.S. population.)
Girls and young women today also invest in “their own human capital” through what they choose to study in high school and college, due to dramatic changes in the labor market. Reflecting on college majors, Goldin says, “The huge shift is out of education into business.” Until the 1970s, most female undergraduates concentrated in literature, languages, and education, because most of the job opportunities were in teaching. In 1970, for example, 56 percent of working 30- to 34-year-old college-educated women were teachers, compared to only 18 percent in 2000. By 2005, 50 percent of business majors were women. And “psychology is the English of yesterday,” adds Goldin: 78 percent of psychology concentrators today are women. As their opportunities changed, girls took more high-school science and math, achieving virtual parity by 1992 in numbers of courses (and narrowing the math-score gap), while remaining ahead in foreign languages.
Meanwhile, boys’ progress relative to girls’ was less dramatic, and even stagnating at lower socioeconomic levels. In Goldin and Katz’s “cost-benefit analysis” of college returns, girls and young women have lower “nonpecuniary costs” for college-prep and attendance than boys and young men, and they earn higher economic benefits from going to college (women without college earn less than men without college). Moreover, note Goldin and Katz, boys have more learning disabilities, suffer from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder at triple the rate of girls, engage in more criminal activity, and spend less time on schoolwork than girls.
School has also become harder and more competitive since 1983, when the National Commission on Excellence in Education published A Nation at Risk, notes Dan Kindlon. The girls born at that time and since “were starting to make the psychological shift predicted by Beauvoir, so they rose to the challenge,” he says. “Girls are doing the work and boys aren’t—boys are playing Grand Theft Auto.” Kindlon once asked his youngest daughter, “‘Is it just that girls are smarter than boys?’ And at age 11 she said, ‘No, they’re not smarter, but they have more stamina,’ which I think really does characterize it.”
Yet college-bound girls, despite their hard work, face stiffer admissions competition than boys. A U.S. News analysis of a decade of data from 1,400 colleges discovered that schools maintained gender balance by admitting girls at “drastically different rates”—on average 13 percentage points lower—than boys. “When a number of state universities started becoming incredibly female [70 percent or more],” explains Katz, “private universities started doing things that look like affirmative action for boys. Admissions officers basically said, ‘We were getting worried about the gender mix, so we shaded things.’ They’re bringing in on-the-margin guys who are less qualified than women in order to maintain some gender balance.”
Fertility control, meanwhile, has helped women achieve their ambitions well beyond college. As Goldin and Katz argue in another journal article, “The Power of the Pill: Oral Contraceptives and Women’s Career and Marriage Decisions,” the birth-control pill, approved in 1960 but made available to college-age single women only in the late 1960s and early ’70s, allowed young women to delay both marriage and childbearing while they pursued graduate and professional school. Women now earn the majority of M.D., D.D.S., and J.D. professional degrees, and the majority of all postgraduate degrees.
“For the first time in history, females have complete fertility control, which means they aren’t getting pregnant, dropping out, having babies,” notes neuropsychiatrist Louann Brizendine, a former Harvard Medical School resident and faculty member who is the author of The Female Brain and founder and director of the Women’s Mood and Hormone Clinic at the University of California, San Francisco. She believes that the “alpha” phenomenon also involves “a paradigm shift in the way parents think about their girls’ options in the world,” in part because unwanted pregnancy is out of the picture. “There’s a whole generation of girls whose creativity and intellect are being supported by their families. Their mothers and fathers are cheering them on, coaching them, and setting the bar high, so that their ambition can soar and take them high.” With a level playing field, then, in family resources, higher education, economic opportunity, and fertility control, a critical mass of girls and young women have achieved—and are achieving—the historic potential of their sex.
Strong Women, Strong Girls?
“A lot of the hopes of the feminist movement and the girls’ programming movement are being realized, but there’s a tremendous amount of work still to be done, particularly for girls without educational or economic advantages,” says Lindsay Hyde ’04, founder and executive director of Strong Women, Strong Girls (SWSG), a nonprofit organization that fosters high aspirations and success skills among low-income minority girls by involving them with strong female role models. Hyde’s inspiration was her own mother, a Miami single mom who cut the grass, tiled the bathroom floor, redid the electrical system, and “demonstrated for me that women could really do anything!”
Keen to share her own experience with young girls, Hyde designed and taught a curriculum based on historic and contemporary women at the local elementary school during her last semester of high school. When she couldn’t find a girl-centered service opportunity at Harvard that fall, she used her curriculum to start a new afterschool program through Phillips Brooks House, beginning with six undergraduate women and 30 girls from the third, fourth, and fifth grades at Roxbury and Mission Hill elementary schools. Seven years later, SWSG serves 400 mostly African-American and Latina girls at 32 schools and community centers in Boston and Pittsburgh, with 120 mentors from seven colleges and universities. (For her work, Hyde recently received the Samuel S. Beard Award for Greatest Public Service by an Individual 35 or Under, one of the five Jefferson Awards conferred annually by the American Institute for Public Service.)
To off set the effects of poverty, gender stereotyping, and low expectations that can undermine girls’ academic confidence and direct them to narrow education and career options, SWSG combines the study of diverse female role models with team-mentoring, field trips, and community service. Two or three undergraduate mentors lead 10 to 12 girls in weekly lessons built around a particular skill, such as critical thinking. Sessions begin by reading the biography of a woman exemplifying that skill, such as Sally Ride, the first American female astronaut, in order to “paint a picture of the steps she needed to take to go from being 10 years old to being an astronaut, because that’s one of the hardest things for our girls to figure out,” Hyde explains. Girls then apply the skill-of-the-week in a hands-on project—using everyday objects such as paper plates and paper towel rolls to build space shuttles, for example. Lessons conclude with journal writing, with prompts like, “What are two ways that you’ll use your critical thinking skills this week?” SWSG also teaches coping skills (from healthy eating and exercise to stress management), and partners with sports-focused nonprofits to provide girls with a holistic experience. During the last six weeks of the school year, the girls and their mentors create a service project for their community.
The volunteers, who serve as role models themselves, are a key element of the Strong Women, Strong Girls program. These smart, successful young women from various backgrounds introduce their inner-city students to diverse cultures, ideas, and career paths. “The girls may see a woman who’s an English major, who’s really passionate about writing and poetry and literature, working with a woman who’s a physics major, who’s really passionate about science and electronics,” says Hyde. “They look up to both women, who are doing very different things with very different interests and passions.”
Many of these girls know few people who’ve gone to college besides their mentors, notes Hyde, but “they start to feel, ‘Gosh, maybe college is something that I could do.’” To encourage this sense of familiarity, SWSG includes campus field trips. “We have some girls who now have been to Harvard three years in a row, and they really feel that it’s a place that holds possibility for them to be there. That’s a tremendous change, to go from saying, ‘I don’t know anybody who’s ever gone to college’ to walking onto the Harvard campus and saying, ‘I feel like I belong here. I know where I’m going, and this is a place that feels comfortable for me.’”
The program works. Most parents feel their daughters have learned new skills (94 percent), increased their self-esteem (88 percent), and strengthened their belief in themselves as a leader (80 percent). The mentors also benefit: nearly 95 percent report greater self-confidence and empowerment. At many SWSG partner colleges, there are waiting lists of volunteers.
Strong Women, Strong Girls is helping distribute the benefits of feminism, yet the young women who volunteer often “come to the work with less of a politically oriented agenda and much more of a service-oriented agenda,” reports Hyde. Volunteers frequently tell her, “I had positive experiences as a young woman, and I believe that it is incumbent on me to help other young women also have positive experiences.” As a result, more inner-city girls are breaking out of gender stereotypes and gaining the “emancipated confidence” of alpha psychology to expand their educational and career opportunities.
Having It All?
“The myth of having it all, and having it all at once, is what my generation is working to figure out—and we haven’t gotten it right yet!” says Hyde, who was recently scouting wedding locations with her fiancé, Blair Baldwin ’02, B ’09. In the course of graduating from college, working for a couple years, going back to graduate school, perhaps starting a company or nonprofit (as she has done), and having a family, the question her cohort asks is, “How am I going to fit in all of these great things that I want to do?”
Alpha girls want to do everything—have successful careers and marriage and children, in sequence or combination. How will they handle the realities of the workplace and the tough choices their own mothers faced? “It won’t be quite as easy as it was for them in high school and college,” says Dan Kindlon. “They’ll get slapped around a little when they get out into the world,” he thinks, “but they’re ready for the challenge.” And as Hyde points out, “Some of the structural challenges around balancing work and family—maternity- and paternity-leave policies, women’s wages, and on-ramp/off-ramp opportunities in the workforce—have not caught up quite as fast as women’s own belief in themselves and in their capacities.”
In Kindlon’s research, he found that financial success was a top priority for nearly all the alpha girls surveyed, and that almost a third were determined to get rich. But they will encounter a persistent wage gap: in the United States, for each dollar earned by white men, women overall still earn only 77 cents, and African-American and Hispanic women earn even less, 64 cents and 52 cents, respectively. A recent AAUW study found that even though women earn higher grades than men, this superior academic performance doesn’t translate into higher—or even equal—compensation. A year after college, women make 80 percent of the salaries of their male peers; 10 years later, the gap widens.
But alphas are starting to reverse the wage gap for the first time in large cities like New York, Boston, and Chicago. According to Queens College sociologist Andrew Beveridge, women between the ages of 21 to 30 working full time had median incomes as much as 17 percent higher than their male peers—because 53 percent of the women had college degrees compared to 38 percent of the men. “There are going to be more living college-educated women in this country in about five to 10 years than college-educated men. Historically, that’s unprecedented,” notes Kindlon. “We’re going to see some really interesting changes in the next 20 or 30 years.”
Women’s educational advantage will influence work, marriage, and family in unexpected ways. African-American women now earn B.A.s at almost twice the rate of black males, for example, which is contributing to huge declines in their marriage rates, note Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz. Although marriage among educated whites is occurring later and more permanently, many educated black women don’t just delay marriage, they don’t marry at all. With potential black male partners facing jobless rates of up to 50 percent for high-school graduates and up to 72 percent for dropouts, and interracial marriage still a rarity, educated and employed black women often decide to raise their children out of wedlock. Recent reports suggest that some professional black women are starting to enter interracial relationships, however, so the alpha generation may change these marriage patterns. Meanwhile, Katz and Goldin believe the “marriage gap” reinforces an increasingly polarized and unequal socioeconomic environment for children.
“The mothering piece is really the fault line when it comes to class and race,” says ethnographer Wendy Luttrell, author of Schoolsmart and Motherwise: Working-Class Women’s Identity and Schooling (1997). For middle- and upper-class girls and women struggling to balance rewarding work and family, “the tradeoff is about being the perfect mom and doing the perfect job—about being able to do everything,” she says. But for poor and working-class, increasingly single, mothers, “It’s not about tradeoffs, it’s about, ‘How am I going to support my kids and keep them safe?’” For these women, the challenge is meeting the double-duty demands of mothering and low-wage work, predominantly in service-sector jobs and often for professional women, who employ and rely upon low-income women (disproportionately women of color and recent immigrants) to do all kinds of family-care work, says Luttrell. The current rhetoric about work-family conflicts emphasizes personal choices regarding working and/or mothering, “but this overlooks the larger mother-care-work crisis caused by unequal opportunity, declining social services, and unjust policies that pit employment demands on wage-poor mothers against the care needs of their children.”
Not all young women will choose to be mothers (26 percent of white women born in 1960 with a college degree are childless, for example), but the majority will. With 72 percent of American mothers working outside the home, the work/family challenge is widespread. “From a women’s rights point of view, that’s still the biggest hurdle to overcome,” notes Kindlon.
Work/family issues play a significant role in the wage gap. Some companies avoid investing in training women who may take time off for maternity and childrearing, according to Burbank professor of political economy Torben Iversen. Once career choices are taken into account, Iversen has found that “statistical discrimination” against women (basing judgments about individuals from a group on average assumptions about that group) is a major cause of the wage gap. Katz believes that among college graduates, career “choice” is likely the largest factor causing the wage gender gap, while traditional sex discrimination remains substantial but is diminishing. He suggests that behavioral differences play a secondary role: men tend to negotiate better salaries or bonuses, while women tend to accept what’s offered, and men seem to thrive on “pure competition” more than women. (Because studies have found that some employers “penalize” women who negotiate, female reluctance to negotiate may be self-protective against bias.)
According to the Harvard Crimson survey of the class of 2007, such factors are still in play for recent alphas. Women and men were heading to graduate school (22 percent) and finding jobs (50 percent) in equal numbers, but there was a significant gender gap in median starting salaries: men were contracted to earn $10,000 more. “That’s entirely explained by which sectors they go into,” says Katz: 58 percent of men chose finance, compared to 43 percent of women (still a large percentage of women choosing a male-dominated field). Eleven women planned to work at nongovernmental organizations, but no men, adds Goldin: “Men chose to work 80 hours a week at Goldman Sachs and make $60,000, not including bonuses.” However, within banking or consulting, they report, the wage gap disappears.
Goldin is concerned about the “extremely large” economic penalty for choosing to balance family and career down the line. Female and male lawyers straight out of law school have similar salaries, she notes, but 10 years later their earnings are very different. Many professions were structured for “the Father Knows Best world, when every person in the labor market had a mirror image in the home,” which freed time for the paid worker. Hence “rising to the top” (tenure, partnership, profit shares) required enormous amounts of time—on average 80 hours a week. For women, the traditional promotional clock often conflicts with their biological clock, and many who want children don’t “opt into” the partner track, says Goldin, choosing instead less demanding—and less remunerative—corporate counsel, government, or nonprofit work, or having a small firm. (Being slow to adapt to women’s realities has cost law firms dearly, however, prompting restructuring that will benefit alpha girls. To attract and retain female attorneys, some firms now offer flextime partner tracks; “lattice” rather than “ladder” careers—climbing interspersed with slower childbearing periods; on-site daycare; flat-rate or project-based compensation rather than billable hours; and part-time partnerships.)
The alpha girls Kindlon studied were aware that “having it all” isn’t easy. Most knew their career path: medicine was at the top (25 percent), followed by STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) fields and art/music (13 percent each), business (12 percent), and politics/law (9 percent). Medicine was the first choice, Kindlon believes, because most female physicians can and do practice part-time, allowing a lucrative, satisfying career with time for kids. By specialty, the percentage of female residents in 2003 was highest for obstetrics/gynecology (71 percent), followed by pediatrics (65 percent), dermatology (57 percent), pathology and psychiatry (50 percent each), family medicine (49 percent), and surgery (24 percent). How might subsequent choices influence alpha women’s salaries? “Women are using their market power not to maximize their earnings, but to get the job that allows more balance,” says Katz. They’re forming group ob/gyn practices and earning $140,000 a year for 50-hour weeks and not coming in at night, while men are making $180,000 for 60 hours and taking the emergency calls.
The work/family challenge involves more than wages, of course. When young women face the reality of child-rearing, there may be a psychological penalty, says Louann Brizendine. Her psychiatry-neurology residents are “two years out from hanging up their shingle,” she reports, “and I don’t see them giving a second thought to anything holding them back from what they want to do—up to age 27 or 28.” The question of children looms ahead, but “they go full steam with their ambition—the alpha female is out there doing her thing.” Then comes the critical, pivotal point of turning 30, when “you’ve got about 10 years left to have kids”—and alpha confidence falters. “All of a sudden my students start to think, ‘How am I going to reserve part of my energy, my self, my creativity, and my time, to have kids?’ They get anxious.”
Of course, with money for good daycare and good schools, professional women comfortably “wrap together career and family,” notes Goldin. Many can even afford to “opt out” for a couple of years to be with their kids. “I have no crocodile tears for women at this level,” she says. It’s the women in their early thirties who dropped out of high school (10 percent), or graduated but didn’t do any college (25 percent), about whom Goldin is concerned. “They aren’t going to do as well.”
Strong Women, Strong Girls seeks to change those statistics for a future generation. SWSG’s Lindsey Hyde also supports flextime solutions in the present. Her female staff find creative ways to balance work and family, and their partners and spouses are assuming more domestic responsibilities, too. “Women in my generation are asking their partners to be more involved, and considering that before entering a more serious relationship,” she says. “Is this somebody who’s going to support me in the choices that I make, whatever those choices may be?”
Alpha girls won’t make the same mistake their mothers made, says Kindlon—“have a job and do 90 percent of the domestic stuff.” They’ll tell their husbands or partners, “We’re going to split this. If you’re home, you’re going to change diapers the same way I do. If the house is dirty, either I’ll get used to it, or you’re going to help me out with it.” This generation won’t feel “it’s their work to do, as a lot of women today do”; as a result, men will pick up a bigger share and women’s lives won’t feel as unbalanced.
“It’s very possible that my daughters will be the primary breadwinners in their homes,” Kindlon speculates. “They’re certainly not looking for a husband to provide for them!” Single mothers already carry that responsibility, but more married mothers will, too. In fact, “if the college-educated person is making more money and has health benefits and the other person doesn’t, who’s going to cut back on the career? There’s no question, I’ve seen it. I have nephews whose wives are working, and they’re staying home with the kids, because money’s behind it, and nothing’s stopping that trend.” (Some estimates number U.S. stay-at-home dads at 2 million.) “The real fuel for the engine is going to be that women will have more money, so they’ll have more of a say over what happens,” he adds. With parenting no longer “women’s work” alone, perhaps a true work/life balance is possible for men and women.
For Hyde, a different responsibility is foremost. “One of the things that is really important for women of my generation to be cognizant of is that we have had tremendous opportunities and that it is incumbent on us to make sure that the young women—and young men—who are coming up behind us have access to those same opportunities. As people who have been so privileged to live in this time period, we really do have a responsibility to continue to make change moving forward.”
Contributing editor Harbour Fraser Hodder, Ph.D. ’91, lives in central Massachusetts.READER COMMENTS ON
"VIDEO: 'Andy Breitbart Explains It All For You' - An Exclusive Interview, Disturbing Admissions, and Manic Responses to the ACORN Video 'Pimp' Hoax"
(176 Responses so far...)
COMMENT #1 [Permalink]
... sophia said on 3/1/2010 @ 8:02 am PT...
Just a note on technology & compatibility-my crapberry does NOT support flash video-strange, huh? Just wondering how many out there, dependent on their'smart phones' for info, don't get to see the good stuff. I can watch a lot of video posted on youtube, but not everything. I can't use my computer much anymore due to injury, so am frequently out of luck. Is there another format in which videos on bradblog can be posted for those of us who are shut out? Thanks!
COMMENT #2 [Permalink]
... Shortbus said on 3/1/2010 @ 8:03 am PT...
It does matter Andy!
Release the Tapes! Thank You Mr.Stark, for a fine piece of work here.
COMMENT #3 [Permalink]
... Hugh Burns said on 3/1/2010 @ 10:05 am PT...
At the 9:38 mark of the video, Breitbart says "And you care about what the pimp was wearing," This statement appears to confirm that contrary to the truth. Breitbart is saying the O'keefe was posing as a pimp inside the ACORN offices, which he was not. Breitbart is not simply stating that O'keefe was dressed as a pimp for an intro, but Breitbart is impling that O'keefe was appearing as a pimp the entire time he was inside ACORN offices.
COMMENT #4 [Permalink]
... MP3 Obsession.com said on 3/1/2010 @ 10:28 am PT...
This might not be the right place to post this, but I just wanted to say what a great site.
I just stumbled across it and have wasted most of my day reading through old posts!
I'm definitely adding you to my feed list.
Thanks
COMMENT #5 [Permalink]
... camusrebel said on 3/1/2010 @ 11:00 am PT...
The NYT has no interest in the truth. They are a mouthpiece for a segment of society that would love to destroy ACORN. When Judy Wood was selling an illegal war like it was so much laundry detergent, do you think her bosses were unaware how completely false her bullshit was? No. They knew perfectly well it was crap. But it serves their masters agenda. Why did they sit on the illegal wiretaping story for 9 months until after the election? That rag is worse than Pravda. The sooner its inevitable demise occurs the better.
COMMENT #6 [Permalink]
... Mitch said on 3/1/2010 @ 11:15 am PT...
Mr. Breitbart, I care what O'Keefe was wearing to ACORN's offices, but I care more about what sort of editing Mr. O'Keefe did to his videos. If the full unedited videos show what you claim, why are you not releasing them? Most people are anxious to be vindicated by evidence they control. I suspect, based on your behavior in the video attached to this article, that you realize the unedited videos would seriously damage your "credibility." If someone really believed that "it doesn't matter" what O'Keefe wore to the ACORN offices, and did not think the gist of the videos was edited to present a deception, here's what they would do: they would show the unedited videos to anyone interested, hand out transcripts to anyone interested, and say the costume worn to the office was irrelevant. Your audience would agree with you. I'm in my mid-fifties and have spent most of my professional life training software engineers and doing computer programming myself. I'm not an ideologue except that I don't like lies. Even more than I don't like lies, I don't like the arrogance of newspapers like the Times, which don't think they need to correct lies they've helped spread. That means I actually think more highly of you than I do of the public editor at the Times. I think of myself as liberal. The next time you think of the left-wing media (a/k/a The Times), please take a moment to think of this: as a liberal, I think the Times is basically a tool of power and wealth, without a liberal thought to be found in its building. If you're looking for "liberal," look to non-US media.
COMMENT #7 [Permalink]
... CharlieL said on 3/1/2010 @ 11:39 am PT...
@MP3 Obsession.com Spending a day in the Bradblog archives is NEVER a waste. Everybody out there who thinks they are getting "the story" from The New York Times or even from The Atlantic or even The Nation should spend a day in the archives of this site. It might very well be the most educational day spent online. @camusrebel I think you meant Judith Miller, but your sentiment is completely correct. NYT editors KNEW she was full of crap, and they didn't care. They refused to cover election fraud fairly. They refused to cover the fact that Bush was using an earpiece at many points in his illegal occupancy, including during at least one Presidential debate, and perhaps at his 9/11 testimony. They refuse to cover most of the "problems" with the 9/11 story. They basically refuse to cover anything outside the very narrow frame of Republicans and Democrats and the status quo.
COMMENT #8 [Permalink]
... T.R.O. said on 3/1/2010 @ 12:07 pm PT...
It is pretty interesting to compare and contrast the angst that the New York Times experienced a couple of years ago regarding a story dealing with John McCain and lobbyist Vicki Iseman. Anybody remember that? Such fretting and soul wrenching by Keller as has not been witnessed since, and most surely not in attempting to establish the veracity of the Pimpostor's verbal assertions, nor his videos' veracity. The ACORN stories were certainly not handled with the studied reticence,nor with utmost delicacy as to not offend delicate sensibilities,as was the McCain scenario. Read the piece and decide for yourself: The Long Run-Up | The New Republic
After three different versions, the piece ended up not as a stand-alone investigation but as an entry in the paper's “The Long Run” series looking at...
www.tnr.com/article/politics/the-long-run - Cached - Similar How many other stories,on another note, has the NYT "spiked",btw?
COMMENT #9 [Permalink]
... T.R.O. said on 3/1/2010 @ 12:18 pm PT...
@#7 A verynarrow frame as to not properly reveal the bigger picture.
COMMENT #10 [Permalink]
... Adam Fulford said on 3/1/2010 @ 12:35 pm PT...
@Sophia, from a google search, it looks like there may be applications to install flash video functionality on Blackberries:
http://www.google.ca/sea...ackberry+flash+video+app Brad et al, you should seriously consider creating a mirror site compatible with mobile phones, |
on the map may not be absolutely precise. In many cases, the project’s exact coordinates were not available and project locations were georeferenced to the nearest town or city.
What if I Want to Change or Update the Information on a Project?
Do you see something that’s not right? If you work for one of these projects and you would like to update information about your project, or would like to send information about a new project please project please click the “submit a project” link in the map or email us at info@nullecosystemmarketplace.com. We rely on you to keep our Ecosystem Markets Map data as up-to-date and accurate as possible.
Where Can I Learn More?
For more information about terrestrial, or forest and land-use, carbon markets and finance, click here.
For more information about the state of biodiversity mitigation, and markets for species/habitats and wetland/stream conservation, click here.
For more information about markets and incentives for watershed health, click here.
For more information about Forest Trends’ Ecosystem Marketplace, click here.SPOILERS! After-Credits Scenes In CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER Detailed
Ahead of reactions from Captain America: The Winter Soldier press screenings today, descriptions of both the mid- and after-credits scenes have surfaced revealing how it teases The Avengers sequel
While the much-anticipated Captain America: The Winter Soldier movie will be screened for the press this week starting today, an early dutch review of the superhero political thriller has surfaced online via BrainFreeze.be. After declaring the sequel the "most serious and dark Marvel film," the review notably explains what happens before and after the credits roll. Major Spoiler alert! "After the fall of both S.H.I.E.L.D. & HYDRA we see Baron Von Strucker (Thomas Kretschmann) in his underground lair. Loki’s scepter can be seen here, as well as 2 special prisoners: the “twins”. These are of course Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen). Quicksilver is bouncing from one end in his cell to another while Scarlet Witch is stacking some building blocks with her mind. Watching them, Von Strucker announces “The Age of Miracles” is upon us. And with that we learn the new name for mutants in the Marvel movieverse." As for the post-credits scene, "The Winter Soldier is visiting the Captain America exhibit in the Smithsonian museum. Here he finds the information on James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes, his real name. It appears the Winter Soldier now knows who he really was and remembers that Captain America spoke the truth about him." What do you think?
After the cataclysmic events in New York with The Avengers, “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” finds Steve Rogers, aka Captain America, living quietly in Washington, D.C. and trying to adjust to the modern world. But when a S.H.I.E.L.D. colleague comes under attack, Steve becomes embroiled in a web of intrigue that threatens to put the world at risk. Joining forces with the Black Widow, Captain America struggles to expose the ever-widening conspiracy while fighting off professional assassins sent to silence him at every turn. When the full scope of the villainous plot is revealed, Captain America and the Black Widow enlist the help of a new ally, the Falcon. However, they soon find themselves up against an unexpected and formidable enemy — the Winter Soldier. Starring Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, Cobie Smulders, Frank Grillo, Georges St-Pierre, Hayley Atwell, Toby Jones, Emily VanCamp and Maximiliano Hernández with Samuel L. Jackson and Robert Redford, “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” is directed by the team of Anthony & Joe Russo from a screenplay written by Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely and is based on the ever-popular Marvel comic book series, first published in 1941. Marvel Studios’ President Kevin Feige is producing the film. Executive producers on the project include Alan Fine, Louis D’Esposito, Victoria Alonso, Michael Grillo and Stan Lee. The creative production team on the film includes director of photography Trent Opaloch, production designer Peter Wenham, editors Jeffrey Ford, A.C.E. and Mary Jo Markey, A.C.E. and three time Oscar®-nominated costume designer Judianna Makovsky. “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” is set for release on April 4, 2014.
DISCLAIMER: ComicBookMovie.com is protected under the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) and... : ComicBookMovie.com is protected under the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) and... [MORE]
DISCLAIMER: ComicBookMovie.com is protected from liability under the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) and "Safe Harbor" provisions. This post was submitted by a volunteer contributor who has agreed to our [LESS] : ComicBookMovie.com is protected from liability under the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) and "Safe Harbor" provisions. This post was submitted by a volunteer contributor who has agreed to our Code of Conduct. CBM will disable users who knowingly commit plagiarism, piracy, trademark or copyright infringement. Please contact us for expeditious removal of copyrighted/trademarked content. Learn more about our copyright and trademark policies HEREActor Jamie Bell is reportedly in talks to take on the role of James Bond in the as yet untitled next entry in the franchise.
The actor (according to Deadline) has met with Producer Barbara Broccoli about the part, which is significant since Broccoli has produced the Bond films for a long time, and worked with Bell on his latest film Film Stars Don't Die. While nothing is official yet, it would officially be the ned of the Daniel Craig era if things go through.
The studio did not want to part with Craig, and reportedly offered him a large contract to stay, but the actor has been quite vocal about being done with the franchise on several occasions, and his future work slate doesn't give fans any confidence that he will return either. The actor has a new mini-series in the works that will span 20 episodes called Purity, which he worked on with producer Scott Rudin and Director Todd Field. The series is currently being shopped to Showtime. He's also possibly starring in Logan Lucky, which if finalized would start shooting in the fall. Since the studio has to switch actors, going with a younger actor in Bell (30) makes good business sense, as they can essentially build around him for the foreseeable future. Fans responded well to Craig's version of Bond, but a new take on the character might be necessary if indeed Craig decides to vacate the role.The news that César Luis Menotti has had a growth removed from his right lung perhaps shouldn't come as a great surprise. El Flaco (the Thin One) has been, after all, one of football's great smokers, a man whose hawkish face seems somehow incomplete without a white diagonal protruding from his lips. He remains in the Hospital Italiano in Buenos Aires, but is now out of intensive care and is expected to make a recovery.
Whether the 72-year-old will ever coach again, whether he will ever light up again, is less certain, but he seemingly has the best wishes of the world behind him – and that perhaps is the most extraordinary thing about him. That Menotti is revered in Argentina is natural: he won them their first World Cup and inspired the counter-revolution against anti-fútbol; what is more surprising is the depth of affection felt across the rest of the world.
Pravda this week ran a headline "Get Better, El Flaco!" There was a piece about his illness in the Arizona Daily Star. English friends of mine who shrugged with indifference when Valeriy Lobanovskyi and Enzo Bearzot died and when Ivica Osim had a stroke, have seemed genuinely moved. And this for a man who won the World Cup in circumstances about which allegations continue to be made for a country led at the time by a military junta: Argentinians may be expected to differentiate between national football team and national government; outsiders rarely make the distinction.
Part of it, of course, is about image. Menotti is a highly charismatic man, and with his gaunt face, collar-length hair and perpetual cigarette, with his unapologetic theorising, has always seemed emblematic of a particular form of South American left-wing intellectualism. Part of it is his relationship with the junta, which wasn't as oppositional as has at times been claimed but certainly wasn't close. And part of it is the football his teams – and those of his disciples – have played: attractive, smart, committed to attack. Anybody who is ever tempted to dismiss tactical study as dry should spend five minutes watching an interview with Menotti.
"I maintain that a team is above all an idea," he said, "and more than an idea it is a commitment, and more than a commitment it is the clear convictions that a coach must transmit to his players to defend that idea. So my concern is that we coaches don't arrogate to ourselves the right to remove from the spectacle the synonym of festival, in favour of a philosophical reading that cannot be sustained, which is to avoid taking risks. And in football there are risks because the only way you can avoid taking risks in any game is by not playing …
"And to those who say that all that matters is winning, I want to warn them that someone always wins. Therefore, in a 30-team championship, there are 29 who must ask themselves: what did I leave at this club, what did I bring to my players, what possibility of growth did I give to my footballers?
"I start from the premise that football is efficacy. I play to win, as much or more than any egoist who thinks he's going to win by other means. I want to win the match. But I don't give in to tactical reasoning as the only way to win, rather I believe that efficacy is not divorced from beauty …"
He emerged into an Argentinian football culture in which efficacy and beauty, if not quite divorced, were at least undergoing a lengthy separation. The backlash against the Estudiantes of Osvaldo Zubeldía was just beginning, but they had shown what could be done with discipline, work rate and excessive physicality. Even after Argentinian football had begun to react against their cynicism and gamesmanship, the terrible fouls and the deliberate, pre-planned intimidation and provocation of opponents, Chacarita Juniors offered an alternative model of anti-fútbol, less overtly unpleasant, perhaps, but just as suspicious of beauty, just as convinced that efficacy meant hard-running and percentages.
Menotti combined the two, exposed the divide as false. The opposite of efficacy is not beauty, but inefficacy: there is no reason that the two should be mutually exclusive. And as the Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger highlighted last week in his application of the term "sterile domination" to Barcelona, that which is beautiful can at times be so efficacious as to feel dull, at least to those on the receiving end.
Menotti's Huracán, an unfashionable team from the shabby Parque Patricios district of Buenos Aires, won the 1973 Metropolitano championship playing glorious attacking football. "To watch them play was a delight," an editorial in Clarín asserted. "It filled Argentinian fields with football and after 45 years gave the smile back to a neighbourhood with the cadence of the tango." So beguiling were they, that when they beat Rosario Central 5-0, the opposing fans applauded them. "The team was in tune with the popular taste of Argentinians," said their forward Carlos Babington. "There were gambetas, one-touch moves, nutmegs, sombreros, one-twos, overlaps."
After Argentina had been humiliated by the Dutch at the 1974 World Cup, anti-fútbol exposed by totaalvoetbal, Menotti was an obvious choice as national coach. What was needed was not just a change of personnel, but of philosophy. "There's a right-wing football and a left-wing football," Menotti. "Right-wing football wants to suggest that life is struggle. It demands sacrifices. We have to become of steel and win by any method … obey and function, that's what those with power want from the players."
As Argentina's football philosophy drifted left, though, the country lurched politically to the right. Isabel Perón had been deposed as president in a coup in 1976 and replaced by a right-wing military junta that savagely repressed dissent. The rise of anti-fútbol had been played out against the background of the right-wing dictatorship of Juan Carlos Onganía: just as the quasi-militarism of Vittorio Pozzo's Italy had seemed to reflect Mussolini's leadership, so too Argentinian football in the mid-late 60s seemed to reflect the pragmatic approach of the government.
Menotti's relationship with the junta was far more complex. In that he self-consciously harked back to a lost golden age – "our victory is a tribute to the old and glorious Argentinian football," he said after the 1978 World Cup – he appealed to the conservatism of the generals and that, plus the propaganda capital of his success, allowed the junta to overlook his overtly left-wing beliefs. Menotti himself clearly felt uncomfortable about the way the success of 1978 was exploited, but then, as he asked in his autobiography, what should he have done? "To coach teams that played badly, that based everything on tricks, that betrayed the feelings of the people? No, of course not." Instead, he argued, his football, being free and creative, offered a reminder of the free, creative Argentina that had existed before the junta.
That, of course, is to idealise his side. Menotti's belief in artistry did not extend so far as giving a 17-year-old Diego Maradona a place in his squad, even though he had handed him an international debut almost a year earlier. He played an aggressive 4-3-3, if not modelled explicitly on the Dutch, then at least resembling their shape. The direct running of Mario Kempes, Leopoldo Luque and Oscar Ortiz, along with the more cerebral plotting of Osvaldo Ardiles and the erratic brilliance of René Houseman, meant that their football was at times thrilling, but for all Menotti evoked la nuestra, the flamboyant style of the 1930s, his side played – at best – a modern interpretation of it.
"He spoke a traditional discourse," said the philosopher Tomas Abraham, "but in 1978 he shut the players in a laboratory for months, without women, eating vitamins … [and playing] … a pace of game that when they went out on River's pitch, even the Hungarians said looked desperate." Hungary, beaten 2-1 at El Monumental in Argentina's first game of the tournament, became so frustrated by a series of niggling fouls that Tibor Nyilasi and Andras Torocsik were both sent off for retaliation in the final three minutes. "Menotti prepared the players physically with technical advances," Abraham went on, "but his discourse was this: the important thing is to feel the ball, to pass it, to knead it, to dribble with it."
That, perhaps, is only natural. The world, after all, had moved on from the 1930s, both tactically and in terms of physiological preparation, but there were also allegations of less defensible chicanery. Most notoriously, there were the claims made in the Sunday Times on the morning Argentina beat England in the 1986 World Cup that in 1978 Peru had been bribed to roll over their second-phase game Argentina needed to win by four clear goals to reach the final. Perhaps they did, perhaps they didn't; the financial paper trail is inconclusive, and to watch the game is to see a team with nothing to play for slowly being overwhelmed by highly motivated opponents in a ferocious atmosphere. If the game was fixed, it appears nobody told the players until midway through the first half: Juan José Muñante hit the post early on and their goalkeeper Ramón Quiroga, who had been born in Argentina and would later take much of the blame, made a number of scrambling saves.
Where there was clearer gamesmanship was before the final against Holland. The Dutch bus took a needlessly circuitous route to the stadium, exposing it to Argentinian fans who hammered on the windows and yelled abuse. Argentina delayed their arrival on to the pitch, leaving the Dutch standing around, exposed to the fury of the crowd, and when they did finally emerge from the tunnel, they protested about a cast René van der Kerkhof had been wearing on his arm throughout the tournament.
The joy of Menotti's football – or, perhaps, to be cynical, the joy of hearing him talk about football – outweighed those doubts. His career has not been laden with silverware, but as he himself claimed early, that was never really his primary goal. He restored a joy to the Argentinian game, provided an alternative to the approach of Zubeldía, which was taken on by Carlos Bilardo. Argentinian football in the 1980s vacillated between Menottisme and Bilardisme; without Menotti and his success there may not even have been a debate.
There is a focus in football on medals, but as Arrigo Sacchi – whose own haul of trophies is meagre compared to his reputation – has observed, there is also a place for style. It is for his style and the style of his teams that Menotti is remembered, and it is those memories that have drawn this week messages of support from all around the world.Photo: Mason Trinca
By Angelina Gibson
After two decades living in the United States, Maria Sanchez, an Oncology Nurse and mother of four, has been deported back to Mexico.
A Family Torn Apart
For over 15 years Maria and her husband, Eusebio, had attempted to legalize their status within the US - but were unsuccessful. They illegally crossed the border 23 years ago with their infant daughter - who is now 23 and protected by DACA - she will remain in the US with the couple’s other two children. While their youngest son, a 12-year-old US citizen, will remain with them in Mexico.
Maria and Eusebio paid off their home last year in Oakland, CA - the children, 3 of whom are US citizens, will remain in the family home while their oldest daughter completes her final year at UC Santa Cruz.
"Hopefully, we can get a stay of deportation. One that we need for one year, so my daughter can graduate from UC Santa Cruz and we can be here for her," Maria said.
Government Support
Her case garnered national support not only from her family, co-workers, and hospital CEO but, also from Senator Dianne Feinstein. The Senator helped the couple win a one-day reprieve and plans to introduce a private bill in Congress next month to allow them to stay.
“Maria and Eusebio Sanchez have lived in this country for more than 20 years. They are hardworking parents raising four children, three citizens and one protected by DACA,” Feinstein said. “They have no criminal records. They pay taxes, own their home and contribute to this country. These are the kind of people we should welcome into the United States with open arms.”
ICE - US immigrations and customs enforcement - issued a statement stating, “the courts consistently held that neither of these individuals has a legal basis to remain in the U.S. while ICE continues to prioritize its enforcement resources to focus on individuals who pose a threat to national security, public safety and border security, ICE will not exempt classes or categories of removable aliens from potential enforcement.”
Despite several attempts for a reprieve, the couple and their 12-year-old son were on a plane last Wednesday night to their hometown of Santa Monica in Hidalgo, Mexico. They will not be allowed to reenter the country for 10 years.(Updated at 3:15 p.m.) Arlington County Sheriff’s Deputy Craig Patterson has been charged with murder in the shooting death of 22-year-old Alexandria resident Julian Dawkins.
“Earlier today, the Commonwealth’s Attorney requested that detectives apply for an arrest warrant for Patterson,” Alexandria police said in a press release. “The warrant was issued this afternoon and Patterson was taken into custody at a residence in Spotsylvania County this evening. No further details about the arrest are being released at this time.”
Patterson, 44, was placed on paid administrative leave from the Arlington Sheriff’s Office following the May 22 shooting, which took place in Alexandria near Potomac Yard. According to scanner traffic that night, Patterson, who was off-duty, said he shot a man who pulled a knife on him.
Dawkins was a shuttle driver for the PBS NewsHour, which is produced in Shirlington.
Patterson was denied bond during his arraignment Friday morning, according to Del Ray Patch. At a press conference, prosecutors said that Patterson was seen arguing with Dawkins, walking away, then returning with his badge, gun and handcuffs. Dawkins had a pocket knife, but it was folded up and in his back pocket, WUSA reported.
As of Friday, the Arlington Sheriff’s Office has placed Patterson on unpaid administrative leave “pending the outcome of an internal investigation,” according to a news release.
Photo via Alexandria Police DepartmentI am delighted to have joined Sunderland. I am relishing the challenge and excited by the opportunity
Sunderland AFC confirms the appointment of David Moyes as its new manager.
Moyes, 53, has signed a four-year deal at the Stadium of Light.
Speaking about the appointment, chairman Ellis Short said: “We are absolutely delighted to welcome David Moyes to Sunderland, who was by far and away our first choice.
“He is a man whose football pedigree speaks for itself and is someone I have long admired. I have spoken with him on many occasions and I have always been hugely impressed.
"He was my number one managerial target for the last five appointments, but his desire to honour existing contracts meant we were not able to bring him to Sunderland previously.
"To be able to finally welcome him as our manager is fantastic news for the club.
“The fact that David has committed to a four-year deal is a clear demonstration of his belief in what he can achieve here. It is our aim to become a better, stronger and more stable football club and with a manager of David’s calibre and experience at the helm, we have a fantastic opportunity to begin looking upwards, rather than downwards every season."
David Moyes said: “I am delighted to have joined Sunderland. I am relishing the challenge and excited by the opportunity.
“I have taken over a big British club with a great support and I’m looking forward to working in the Premier League again.
“I look forward to continuing the good work done by Sam”.
The Scot boasts a wealth of experience at the top level and is a three-time LMA Manager of the Year (2002-03, 2004-05, 2008-09). He has also won 10 Manager of the Month awards in England and has managed more than 800 senior games in club football.
Moyes began his managerial career with Preston North End in 1998, going on to win the Second Division title with the club.
He moved to Everton in March 2002 and enjoyed huge success during more than 11 years at Goodison Park.
During that time, Moyes established the Toffees as a force in the upper reaches of the table as well as leading the club into Europe.
Moyes’ work at Goodison Park led to his appointment as Sir Alex Ferguson’s successor as manager of Manchester United ahead of the 2013-14 season.
He subsequently moved to Spain to join Real Sociedad in November 2014 and spent a year with the club, where his achievements included a famous 1-0 win over Barcelona.There's a very annoying perception in society that women don't "do" technology. Look at a picture of an app designer, a welder, an aircraft engineer or a rocket scientist, and you're probably looking at a man. That's irritating, but I think it's only half the problem. The other half is that we don't ever think of women's activities as technology, even when that's exactly what they are.
"Technology", as defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary is the practical application of knowledge, especially in a particular area, and a manner of accomplishing a task especially using technical processes, methods, or knowledge. Men don't have a monopoly on working out how to use the available tools to do something practical, either in current society or historically.
Ada Lovelace, whose work in the 19th century inspired the first modern computer, and whose life is celebrated every year on Ada Lovelace Day, which takes place is a worthy role model. Yet there are so many more closer to home.
My Polish grandmother had a Singer treadle-powered machine, built into a small wooden table with decorative legs. I loved it because it was mechanical and you could see how it worked. I have it now, and I like it for the same reasons that I like massive steam engines. It's ingenious. I know how to sew and I like making things out of fabric. That's ingenious too. It was years before I realised that most of society put loving the mechanics and loving the sewing in different categories. Mechanics involves levers and wheels and gears, and everyone knows that's technical. But sewing is associated with women, and so it mysteriously and quietly slides out from under the umbrella of technology and slinks off into obscurity.
Next time you're doing your laundry or tidying your coat rack, have a proper look at how your clothes are made. This is technology in action. The cloth must be cut in the right orientation relative to its threads, so that it hangs and stretches correctly. Flat pieces of cloth must be fitted together to make an object that fits a three-dimensional moving person. Fabric can be joined together with different stitches that do different jobs. And then all that construction work is hidden away, so that it's never the first thing you notice.
Labelling these practical activities as "male" or "female" is purely cultural. It's got nothing to do with the skills necessary to do the job. As I saw the technical skills involved and not the cultural implications, I never worried about whether something was for "boys" or "girls".
The women in history who made an impact in all-male fields were also typically in a position where they didn't have to worry much about what other people thought. Ada Lovelace, the daughter of a famous poet and clever mother who went on to marry an earl, came from a privileged background that exposed her to the new mathematical ideas of the day. She could do what she liked, so she did. My grandmother could sew and so can I, but I have also been free to pursue a career as a physicist, an opportunity she didn't have as a woman in the 1940s.
If you look back through history, you'll see that many of the tasks traditionally done by women are technological. Earlier this year, I had to learn how to arc weld while filming a BBC programme about the sun. The old-school professional welder in Arizona who taught me was astonished that I learned so quickly, and even more astonished when I explained that this was because it was almost exactly like icing a cake. The pose you adopt is the same (left hand closer to the nozzle, right elbow high up in the air), the method of controlling the speed of either icing or welding metal is the same (squeezing) and the overall aim is the same: depositing a thin stream of liquid in a controlled manner. One might involve slightly more molten metal at 3000C and slightly less sugar, but they're essentially indistinguishable.
We don't have such a large barrier to overcome here; we've got the track record to prove that we can do this. We just haven't seen it that way. History is full of examples hidden in plain sight. It's not just the female "computers" who did the calculations that helped break the Enigma code, or the seamstresses who made Nasa's first spacesuits. Sewing, knitting, cooking and jewellery-making should logically be labelled as technology.
Did anyone else notice that the appearance of the male celebrity chef coincided with the appearance of kitchen mixers and blenders made of brushed steel? The machine is the same, but when you make it out of an industrial-looking material, it's suddenly easier for a man to own the kitchen. This is about appearance, not substance. We all eat food. There's no reason why one gender should be better than the other when it comes to preparing it. It's just that we've got ourselves stuck in this weird reality where half the population aren't "supposed" to do some things. Culture is the obstacle here, not ability or will.
It's time to be honest about what technology is, and to give everyone the credit they deserve for working on all sorts of technological problems. It's nurture and not nature that is preventing women from welding and men from icing cakes. We can't afford to exclude either half the population from the tasks needed to make the world a better place. But it's OK, because we don't have to. History tells us that both women and men are brilliant at technology. Ada Lovelace Day is a chance to look forward to a time when women are not held back by cultural prejudice but technical ability. So let's all celebrate that, preferably by lifting a 3D printed cup filled with homemade elderberry wine. Cheers!
A longer version of this essay will be published in the book A Passion for Science: Stories of Discovery and Invention, available from 15 October from FindingAda.com and all major online retailers. Proceeds go to support Ada Lovelace Day.thus I'm amazed at the number of "positive" reviews of this book (and series) that always note that 'I like his writing style and the direction of the world building, but the main characters are hard to stomach with the awful things they do'. Like they have divorced the story from its characters completely and as long as they like either/or, the whole book is praiseworthy.
But first, a word of caution. I wrote this review to fit the recommended ages of the suggested readers this book is marketed to, as well as to allow my own kids to read its without being trautimized. Pinky and the Brain are their tags, used without challenge at all.
Personally, I also liked the writing and story development, only to have my mind yanked out of the story when Pinky and the Brain come onstage. You cannot doubt that the Brain is wholly evil as the author will gleefully setup scenes where innocent townsfolk - virginal, read to the blind, pockets full of puppies/kitties/big eyed orphans, supporting all blue haired ladies in the town- get marked for death to satisfy the "Nebulous Background Evil tm". The Brain will airily wave over his shoulder "Pinky, continue your inner torment and brutally murder them all". "But Brain, could you just not use your hellish powers and spare me just this once, that I may finish my admittedly drag-ass turning over of a new leaf?". But Pinky goes unheard, as his evil brother has boogied on to browner pastures. "Please sir, you may spare us and he will never know! Sir, for the kittahs!! Pinky becomes lost in thought, mumbling to himself..... "Over and over I have seen my brothers soul grow darker. First verbal abuse, then mangling small animals, then torturing virginal young women with mangled small animals, then bathing in the blood of eviscerated corpses.... I see where this is heading and I bet it is actually going to get bad if left unchecked. I should stop him and save my own soul in the process.... But hey, when he was young you people laughed at him for his sneaky ways, lopsided head, smell of dead fish, and spouting of his own poetry in public!
Never did you offer a makeover or fake liking his prose! So you DO deserve to be chunkified by my sword of evil, puppahz and kittahs be damned, so I might as well just take out you, your whole family and anyone that looks like you since I will mercifully lose my mind during this and remember only a normal blood soaked afternoon later while I wonder why my arm is tired. Death to all to avenge the minor lack of acceptance we had to put up with as scaly, fanged, deformed monsters being rased in your human world!!
For you, my Brother, this 479th gift of possible rude in the past villagers......arg! I know better but see no way out of repeatedly lifting and putting down this evil sword while there are people under it. I would be lost, left only with the gratitude and love of hundreds of not-killed villagers and their puppahz and kittahs but missing my twisted, corrupted, despises me Brother. I cannot break the Bro-code!! Squishy death ensues, until the very next similar situation where Pinky goes through it all again so he doesn't lose Brains mocking hate, errrr, brotherly love.
Ok, I have admittedly paraphrased a bit here, but the substance is remarkably similar. Despite knowing his brother is evil, him not wanting to participate or be evil, spending days away from his evil brother where he could disappear easily, liking normal humans and not wanting to kill them..... Well, he just keeps with it, trusting to Stalins iron code: in for a penny, in for a pound. The weight of blood was similar to the mass behind Hoover Dam a third of the way in to the book, but Pinky can never make up his mind.
I finished this book, but that is it with this world. I plan to read some of his much later works if my trusted reviewers pick his flag back up. I really hope so as I applaud his ability to write and his indie success.A National Day of Action in the United States has seen hundreds congregate in San Francisco, to oppose further construction of the Dakota Access pipeline.
“Water is life. You can’t drink oil.”
This was the overriding message which amplified through the busy streets of San Francisco during the early hours of Tuesday morning.
Hundreds of protesters gathered with placards in the cities business district, in opposition to the Dakota Access pipeline in North America, which threatens the livelihood of First Nations Peoples and culture.
The masses marched form the Civic Centre Plaza to the US Army Corps of Engineers, demanding action on behalf of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe facing injustice and dispossession of their lands.
“I’m here with the letter to the Army Corps of Engineers that many individuals have signed because we cannot live without water. We cannot drink oil,” said organiser Pennie Opal Plant.
“That water goes to millions and millions of people and agriculture. What is wrong with the system that allows the poisoning of the water at Lake Oahe? We are crazy. We have lost our minds. We do not have one moment to waste.”
Pennie Opal Plant speaking at the #NoDAPL protest in San Francisco, California.
Pennie Opal Plant is a well-known activist of Yaqui, Mexican, English, Choctaw, Cherokee and European ancestry.
She is one of thousands who stood in solidarity on Tuesday as part of a National Day of Action, scheduled just one day after a suspension was declared on pipeline construction beneath the Missouri River at Lake Oahe.
“If we don’t take a stand right now - there will not be any fresh water, clean air or soil to grow healthy foods. This is our responsibility.”
Ms Plant said a completion of the 3.7-billion-dollar project would pollute nearby water supplies and destroy sacred tribal sites.
“We need to do everything we can to ensure the future of the coming generations - and if we all don’t take a stand right now - our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren will not be able to have fresh water, clean air or soil to grow healthy foods. This is our responsibility.”
She is calling on the Obama administration to take urgent action and ‘get on the right side of history.’
“There is no binding language in anything that Obama and the Army Corps have already said. They are not protecting the water defenders or the land defenders that are there, and they are on the wrong side of history,” said Ms Plant.
Protesters and members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe believe that further construction of the pipeline will be approved by their incoming president, Donald Trump.
It’s been one week since the US election made headlines around the world, but Trump is yet to make any comment on the issues at Standing Rock.
Citizen of the Couchiching tribe Tara Hosuka, says it’s now time to speak out and rally for change.
“On [Tuesday], call on the administration and hold them accountable. Tell them to reject the army corps permits to drill under the Missouri River and stop this pipeline in its tracks.”
#NoDAPL protest in San Francisco, California.
In addition, she is seeking a full environmental impact statement and wants observers sent from the US Department of Justice to witness the harm faced by water protectors at Standing Rock.
These three demands were presented in writing, along with details on how supporters can take action from afar in San Francisco.
Event organisers from the idlenomoresfbay Facebook page confirmed that at least 150 protesters risked arrest during Tuesdays demonstration, by sitting in solidarity and barricading all entrances to the Army Corps building.
#NoDAPL protest in San Francisco, California.
However, no arrests were made and the demonstration ended peacefully in traditional song and dance.
To show your support and donate to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, click hereThe full cast list for Survivor: Game Changers has finally been officially revealed. Twenty returning players will be doing battle for the title of Sole Survivor and the million-dollar prize that comes with it.
Host Jeff Probst had previously announced eight of the competing players — Sandra Diaz-Twine, Tony Vlachos, Cirie Fields, Ozzy Lusth, Ciera Easton, Tai Trang, Caleb Reynolds, and Michaela Bradshaw — at the end of the Survivor: Millennials vs. Gen X reunion show, but now we have the complete set. Sandra and Tony will not be the only previous winners to appear, as Tocantins champ J.T. Thomas will also be on the island. Meanwhile, Michaela is not the only Millennial who returned to the Mamanuca Islands in Fiji just a few short weeks after her first outing to film back-to-back seasons, as Zeke Smith also pulled double duty, bringing his mustache and wonderfully tacky shirt collection with him.
Rounding out the cast are Andrea Boehlke, Malcolm Freberg, and Jeff Varner (all appearing for the third time), as well as two-timers Aubry Bracco, Brad Culpepper, Sierra Dawn |
died at his home early Monday morning, said his top deputy, Kelly Goodwin. "He just went peacefully," she said. "It's a sad day."
For nearly five decades, the feisty Wood had defended keeping his office as an elected post, even as he spent less time there and his health issues grew. Critics had pointed to those absences, and argued that an office whose primary function is handling vehicle tag renewals and property tax payments no longer needed an elected politician at the helm.
To the end though, Wood insisted that he made all major decisions and promoted his services during off hours, whether at Toastmasters International and Shriners meetings, or even at his favorite fast-food haunts.
"For 45 years we've balanced to the penny, and we've been there for the people," Wood said in a 2011 interview. "I love my job, as you know."
Regardless of who wins Nov. 6, the future of the office is uncertain.
Mayor Teresa Jacobs appointed a task force to study overhauling – and possibly abolishing -- the position Wood held for 48 years. In one of his last public appearances in August, Wood attended but declined to address that panel, saying it was a waste of time: "We've been debating this since the 1960s."
Despite those differences, Jacobs praised Wood's public work: "Orange County has lost a man whose enduring legacy will be that of public service and dedication to community," she said in a statement.Facebook has confirmed it is getting rid of its Creative Labs brand and axing three projects in what looks to be a strategic shift for the social giant.
A spokesperson confirmed to The Register that Facebook will be removing its Snapchat-like phone app Slingshot, Riff (which only launched in April), and internet chat forum Rooms from the iOS and Android app stores.
"Since their launches, we've incorporated elements of Slingshot, Riff, and Rooms into the Facebook for iOS and Android apps," the spokesperson said.
"We haven't updated these apps in some time and we've decided to officially end support by removing them from the App Store and Google Play."
The takedown comes less than 18 months after Facebook first introduced Slingshot in its efforts to challenge Snapchat. Likewise, the Rooms app was a relatively new arrival, introduced in October of 2014 as a solution for Facebook's hidden identity problem. Riff was unveiled in April of this year.
Given the rapid transition from "new" to "neglected" to "gone," it's safe to say that none of the three Apps was able to get much traction with users.
The move comes amidst the end of Facebook's Creative Labs banner, a name given to the firm's effort to expand its core social network with additional apps and services. As Facebook noted in its announcement, some features from the apps have also been added to the Facebook mobile apps themselves, giving little reason for separate apps.
This just hours after file-sharing specialist DropBox said two of its own mobile products, Mailbox and Carousel, would be cut, as it had found users were opting to use features integrated into one application rather than switch between multiple apps.
This could suggest more vendors, both in the consumer and enterprise spaces, may be looking to scale back efforts to "expand" with new apps and instead focus on a core service or application. ®A longtime Calgary MP is retiring from federal politics and will not run in the next election.
Calgary-Nose Hill MP Diane Ablonczy confirmed her retirement to the House of Commons on Thursday.
Ablonczy, who has served as an MP since 1993, first announced she would be leaving politics in July 2013.
“We are in a period of transition,” she said in a statement at the time. “This is the appropriate time to announce that after serving 22 years, I will be leaving the political arena in 2015.”
The 66-year-old MP was one of the original members of the Reform Party of Canada, a party she represented in the House of Commons from 1993 to 2000.
Ablonczy was re-elected in 2000 as an Alliance Party member after the Reform party dissolved, and in 2002, she ran for the leadership. She came in third behind Stephen Harper and runner-up Stockwell Day.
Her duties in Parliament included positions as the minister of state of the Americas and consular affairs, minister of state for seniors and minister of state for small business and tourism.Donald Trump could destroy America – so says U2 lead singer Bono.
The globalist philanthropist turned social justice warrior made the comments on CBS This Morning with Charlie Rose, explaining how the Republican nominee’s “hijacking” of the “idea of America” is “really dangerous.”
“Does Trump come to you as somebody who is a change agent, because people are so unhappy about the status quo? Or does he come to you as something else?” Rose asked the multi-platinum artist.
“Look, America is like the best idea the world ever came up with. But Donald Trump is potentially the worst idea that ever happened to America, potentially,” Bono responded. “It could destroy it, because of what we’re saying, because America’s not just a country. Ireland is a nice country. Great Britain is a great country — all the rest of it. It’s not an idea. America is an idea, and that idea is bound up in justice and equality for all — equality and justice for all, you know? I think he’s hijacked the party, and I think he’s trying to hijack the idea of America. And I think it’s bigger than all of us. I think it’s — this is really dangerous.”
Asked about the close race between Trump and opponent Hillary Clinton, the Irish vocalist went on to say he appreciates the frustration of American voters.
“I would not diminish Trump supporters or underestimate their angst, because I feel that in a way, they have correctly assessed that the center parties haven’t yet become clear,” Bono said.
“In other words, you’re saying their angst is real and genuine, a sense that ‘I worry about my country and where it is,’” Rose followed up.
“Yeah, yeah. But there are very real problems facing not just America, but facing Europe. And remember, who’s in the White House? I’m Irish. I don’t have a vote. And I can’t be telling people how to vote and don’t want to, but I have a voice, and I can say that who sits in that office really affects everyone in this world,” Bono said.With three weeks to go before national signing day for college football prospects, the Oregon Ducks class of 2014 is largely filled. Going into the recruiting cycle, the Ducks had several positions of need, and for the most part have taken care of them.
But one position, defensive tackle, has yet to receive a commitment despite graduating four scholarship players this year (Jared Ebert, Taylor Hart, Ricky Heimuli and Wade Keliikipi). As a result, the Oregon coaches are shifting gears in search of defensive tackles. In the last couple weeks, three new offers went out at the position, all to players who had decommitted from other programs.
Poona Ford, 6-foot-1, 290 pounds, Hilton Head (S.C.): Decommitted from Louisville, plans to visit Texas this weekend, Oregon on Jan. 24 and Missouri on Jan. 31.
Hilton Head coach B.J. Payne spoke with Rivals.com about Ford.
"On the field, he is the most violent, explosive, dominating player I've ever coached," Payne said. "I've coached for 11 years, am fortunate to have coached 70 guys that went on to play in college, 25 BCS-level guys and 4 NFL guys. He's by far the best football player I've ever coached."
Trey Lealaimatafao, 6-foot-2, 300 pounds, San Antonio (Texas) Warren: Decommitted from Texas in December. Plans an unofficial visit to LSU this weekend and then an official visit to Oregon on Jan. 24.
At the Army All-American game in San Antonio earlier this month, he gravitated toward Oregon commits.
"I hung out with Budda (Baker), Royce (Freeman), Tanner (Carew) and Jalen (Brown)," Lealaimatafao said. "They were cool. I spent most of my time with them."
Courtney Garnett, 6-foot-2, 280 pounds, New Orleans (La.) St. Augustine: Like Lealaimatafao, decommitted from Texas following the dismissal of Mack Brown. Will officially visit Oregon on Jan. 31 after visiting Oklahoma this weekend and Tennessee on Jan. 24.
The new offer intrigued Garnett.
"I like the direction their program is headed," he told Duck Sports Authority. "The opportunity is at hand for a guy like me, who lives in New Orleans. For Oregon to say they have an interest in me says a lot. I think it is an opportunity you just can't pass up."
-- A.J. Jacobson, Duck Sports AuthorityAs interesting as it may seem, a Japanese RPG flops in Japan because it is exclusively on Xbox One. The game Chaos: Child, which was released as an Xbox exclusive last Dec of 2014, flopped miserably in Japan. Today, the 5pb game Chaos: Child will finally be released on the PS4 in hopes to redeem its failure with Xbox.
The Chaos:Child is within a genre called "visual novels." These are games mostly composed of images and videos that drives the story to players. It is basically a story-telling platform with player interaction. Chaos: Child was first announced as a Xbox one exclusive, mainly because of the console's parity clause.
However, after its Xbox release in Japan, the game didn't catch on, in fact, it was almost like it never existed.The failure was a surprise as the game was geared to Japanese anime fans. Though the reason is not specific, the game being released in the Xbox, which is not that popular in Japan may have caused the flop.
The visual novel game is about a High school newspaper reporter investigating a series of disappearances caused by a so called "new generation madness." The game revolves on a mystery/sci-fi plot in an adventure type theme.
Currently, 5pb have already released an amazing Chaos: Child Japanese demo with almost seven hours of gameplay. Screenshots of the demo were released online showcasing the artwork and style of the game. Though most of the demo is the story-telling part, fans have seven hours to decide whether to start a pre-order or just close the novel and start emptying disk space.
The game will be released on the PS4, PS3 and vita on June 2015. Alongside this, 5pb also announced that Chaos;Child will also get its own anime. One can only hope how things will work out once the Playstation version of the game hits the market.Election Day is tomorrow. America might elect a jackass to be their leader, and I am terrified. To cope, I recently played 2013's Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance and fought a power-crazed politician using my cyborg ninja powers.
Senator Steven Armstrong is not a good man. He is the financier of two private military companies, the main conspirator in a plot to brainwash children into child soldiers, and an instigator who exploits Americans’ hot tempers by inciting war in the Middle East. Revengeance positions him as a symbol of crass warmongering and deliberately invokes phrases and rhetoric from the second Bush Administration when talking about his plots. Characters fear that his manufactured conflict will come to fruition because “the media and the public won’t be able to resist” and caution each other to “remember WMDs in Iraq.”
Advertisement
In the game’s climax (spoilers, obviously), he orchestrates an attempt on the president’s life during a trip to Pakistan. Our hero, Raiden, thwarts these efforts and confronts Armstrong in person. As he espouses his philosophy, he begins to sound like a certain billionaire turned Republican candidate. He is openly derisive of the “pansies” in Washington, seeking a world where “the law changes to suit the individual, not the other way around.”
Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF
Revengeance was released three years ago, before Trump began his nightmarish rise toward the Oval Office. Armstrong is a fictional exaggeration of American excess. He is a cartoonish caricature of the worst elements of our politics. Yet, here he is spouting Trump’s campaign slogan: “Make America Great Again.”
Advertisement
Both are masters of capitalizing on American fears. For Armstrong, it is the specter of oversea threats. For Trump, it is a slew of domestic boogeymen that speak to the anxieties of many in his voting block: the fear of rapist Mexicans, hidden Jihadists, and others who threaten to take this country away from hard-working, white-bread Jim McGee.
One of the terrifying commonalities between Armstrong and Trump is the fact that they both seem unstoppable. Trump persists after a host of controversies and public statements that should paint him as unelectable. Raiden cannot hurt Armstrong. The Senator has advanced nanomachines that keep him sheltered from physical trauma.
Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF
Advertisement
The sad truth at the core of Revengeance is that defeating a foe like Armstrong might mean abandoning certain principles you held dear. Throughout this election, I have watched with dismay as Trump supporters committed violence against their fellow Americans and cheered on happily as Trump has derided minorities and protesters. Throughout it all, liberals have insisted he deserves an equal voice and that his supporters deserve my empathy. But I am not obligated to turn my cheek and tolerate racism, homophobia, or fascism.
Enough is enough. One of the things that allowed Trump to thrive was a damnable complacency that insisted he deserved a spot at the head of the table of public discourse. This is a fallacy that he has handily exploited to spread a message of hate and intolerance. At one time, I would have urged this same patience and insisted with misplaced idealism that we should at least hear him out. No more. This idealism is a lie. It is a trap. We should not abide the ramblings of fools and madmen simply to be polite.
Throughout Revengeance, Raiden insists that his sword is a “tool of justice.” He is a protector of the weak. He holds onto an idealistic notion of samurai justice. His rival is Samuel Rodrigues, a cocky swordsman who dismisses Raiden’s idealism as impractical in the modern age. During the fight with Armstrong, the Senator breaks Raiden’s sword. He symbolically crushes the representation of Raiden’s idealism. It is only by fighting with Sam’s sword that Raiden can defeat Armstrong.
Advertisement
Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF
The world of Revengeance is inescapably violent. Raiden can only prevail by cutting down his foe. Luckily, we don’t need swords to defeat Trump, just votes. I’ll do my part with a resounding “No, we won’t” that echoes loud and, after tomorrow, hopefully cows the bad-haired would-be tyrant into irrelevance. But I can’t do this alone. I need people to fight back with me. Your vote matters. Your voice matters.The owner of a dog rescued from a Colorado fourteener last month after he had to abandon her to help a friend down the mountain has agreed to give the 5-year-old pooch to one of her rescuers.
Anthony Ortolani, 31, faced charges of animal cruelty for leaving his German shepherd/rotweiller mix, Missy, behind on the saddle between Mt. Bierstadt and Mt. Evans.
He will plead guilty to a less serious violation of a Clear Creek County ordinance, said his lawyer, Jennifer Edwards, founder and attorney with The Animal Law Center.
Missy was stranded for eight days before rescuers found her bloodied and close to death on the ridge.
Ortolani received death threats after the story broke, he said Sunday. The threats have made him concerned for his family, and for Missy as well, he said.
Discussions leading to the plea bargain included talk of him giving the dog up, said Edwards, but are not the reason for his surrendering the animal.
“I don’t want to give her up, I love her, but those people risked life and limb to get her out of there and that has got to be worth something,” he said.
Ortolani is an experienced climber who has submitted seven of the state’s fourteeners, and Missy accompanied him on six of those climbs, he said.
Ortolani was climbing with the 19-year-old son of a friend.
Bad weather was moving in, and the canine, whose feet were blistered and bleeding, was unable to walk.
When his climbing companion’s water supply broke, Ortolani decided it was time to come down. The two men tried to carry the 112 pound dog over the rocks for two hours. “Lifting and carrying her over that type of terrain is exhausting,” he said.
He decided to leave her there and help his partner down, he added.
Ortolani called a friend who contacted the Clear Creek County Sheriff’s Office and asked if a search and rescue party could get to the dog. The friend was told that the region was too dangerous and search and rescue doesn’t rescue animals.
Edwards said mountain communities should make some provisions for rescuing stranded pets. “We would hope that there be some sort of process in place to assist animal owners who choose to take their beloved pets up into the mountains,” she said.
Tom McGhee: 303-954-1671, tmcghee@denverpost.com or twitter.com/dpmcgheeBoston’s cardinal is to boycott a Jesuit college’s graduation where Taoiseach Enda Kenny is the commencement speaker, over his support for the proposed Protection of Life in Pregnancy Bill..
In a statement, Cardinal Sean O’Malley said abortion was “a crime against humanity” and the US Conference of Catholic Bishops has asked Catholic institutions not to honour those who promote it.
Mr Kenny is due to receive an honorary degree from Boston College at the May 20th commencement. Cardinal O’Malley said that since the college had not withdrawn its invitation and Mr Kenny had not declined it, “I shall not attend the graduation”.
“It is my ardent hope that Boston College will work to redress the confusion, disappointment and harm caused by not adhering to the bishops’ directives,” he said.
College spokesman Jack Dunn said the school respected Cardinal O’Malley and regretted his decision not to attend graduation.
“However, we look forward to our commencement and to Prime Minister Kenny’s remarks,” he added. Mr Dunn said Mr Kenny was invited to because of
Ireland’s historically close relationship with the college and that the school “supports the church’s commitment to the life of the unborn”.
Cardinal O’Malley said the Irish bishops had concluded the bill “represents a dramatic and morally unacceptable change to Irish law”.
Last year, another Catholic college in Massachusetts was involved in a similar controversy after the Bishop of Worcester pressured Anna Maria College in Paxton to withdraw an invitation to US senator Edward Kennedy’s widow, Victoria Reggie Kennedy, to deliver its commencement address.
Bishop Robert McManus objected to Mrs Kennedy’s public support for abortion rights and gay marriage.
She later accepted the Boston College School of Law’s invitation to give the keynote address at commencement.Chaga may not look like much -- it's a lumpy, charcoal-colored bulb protruding from birch trees -- but this fungus is trending.
A cottage industry surrounding chaga is growing in Alaska. Numerous health claims are bolstering chaga businesses as demand grows both in and out of state.
It's the newest offering in the Talkeetna-based Kahiltna Birchworks lineup of products.
Owners and self-proclaimed "tree-people" Dulce Ben-East and Michael East, who have made their livelihoods from selling birch syrup, said they often see the fungus as they traverse across their homestead.
They started harvesting it about five years ago on their Southcentral homestead, going out on their snowmachine in search of the fungus. It grows on maybe one in 20 trees, East said, and is easier to spot in the wintertime. Once they find it, they'll take a hammer and chisel and "just kind of pop it off," East said.
After watching a surge in interest in the fungus, the couple finally decided to start harvesting it commercially.
They began selling chaga products in July, offering it at the Alaska State Fair and craft shows.
"It really sold," Ben-East said. "People were really fascinated and happy that we had it."
Teas, tinctures and candies
Chaga, or Inonotus obliquus, is a common fungus in Alaska, said Gary Laursen, a mycologist and senior research scientist at UAF's Institute of Arctic Biology.
The bracket fungus grows on birches and quaking aspens, establishing itself in the inner wood of the tree and taking in water and nutrients through the trunk.
"It seems to be very happy living there," Laursen said.
Chaga can be found throughout the Northern Hemisphere in boreal forests.
While many reports say the fungus is parasitic and slowly kills the tree, Laursen disagreed. Chaga doesn't kill the tree host, Laursen said, but may weaken it by hollowing out the trunk.
The harvested portion -- the part the Easts pry off with their hatchets -- is the fungus' fruit body, which produces the chaga's spores. The outer crust of the chaga is the lumpy, charcoal-colored part visible on birch trees. Inside, it's light brown.
Most people ingest chaga by making tea out of the inner brown part, which is more palatable. The tea has a mild, slightly earthy taste.
Trying chaga tea for the first time at Boheme Coffee Lounge in Anchorage, couple Keith Mceldowney and Ronetta McConnell said it tasted "comfort-y," "subtle" and "generic."
"It's good," Mceldowney concluded.
Every business has its own method for preparing chaga tea. Chaga Monkey owner Vena Hamilton said she brings a quart of water to boil in a 2-quart sauce pan, throws in a "handful of chunks" and lets it simmer for at least 20 minutes. If it's too strong, she adds water.
"I use it like coffee or tea. You can put honey and cream in it," Hamilton said. Sometimes, she uses it in soup stock.
Tinctures -- a concentrated extract -- are another common way to ingest chaga. They are generally made from the less-palatable black outer layer.
One new business is now also making candy. Bare Roots Herbal Products opened its doors in July. Owners Dawn Peters-Thayer and husband Darren Thayer quit their jobs at Central Peninsula Hospital in Soldotna last year to focus on their chaga business and herbalism.
Peters-Thayer makes tea and tinctures from chaga as well as three types of candy and skin-care products. Business is steadily increasing, she said.
The next big thing
Chaga prices vary slightly depending on business. Four ounces of Kahiltna Birchworks chaga costs $16. Two ounces of extract costs $18.
One piece or tea bag of chaga can be reused up to four times.
To sell chaga as a tea, tincture or in other processed forms, businesses must receive a permit through the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation.
The state is "absolutely" seeing an uptick in applications, said Jeremy Ayers, section manager at the DEC's division of food safety and sanitation program.
"We went from seeing probably not any … to five or six" applications by the end of 2014, Ayers said. He added most applications are coming from "mom and pop" businesses new to the food processing industry.
There are at least 10 chaga businesses in Alaska today. Of these, seven started in the past year, according to interviews and state of Alaska business license registration.
While businesses began to multiply recently, they aren't completely new. Dennard Hegna, owner of Arctic Chaga in Fairbanks, has been selling the fungus for a few years.
Hegna said he has more than six tons of chaga stockpiled in his Fairbanks warehouse and recently bought a dehydrator that can dry out 1,500 pounds of chaga at a time.
For his day job, Hegna manages a welding company. But his chaga business continues to flourish, Hegna said. "We've been shipping it to California, Japan, Australia, Mexico … (and) just about every state."
Chaga is "the next big thing," he said.
Possibly Alaska's newest chaga business, Graeme Deishl's Alaska Natural Chaga, has been in business since January
Deishl is selling and marketing Hegna's products in Southcentral Alaska. In the first six weeks, Deishl's business Alaska Natural Chaga has grossed more than $4,000 in sales, and has convinced several businesses to stock Arctic Chaga.
"Things are just exploding," he said. "It's trending, which makes it exciting."
As the Thayers did, Deishl quit his other job for his chaga business. He said he wanted to be a part of an industry that's uniquely Alaskan.
"There are so few things that Alaska has for staple industries … But this is one of them," Deishl said.
What does it do?
The Internet is awash with claims regarding chaga's health benefits. A quick Google search produces countless results of its purported benefits: anti-bacterial, anti-inflammatory, anti-viral, anti-HIV.
Businesses are quick to state that they do not make health claims about their products. Sorting out the truth from fiction online can be a dizzying endeavor.
For instance, an oft-quoted Tufts University study citing chaga's high-antioxidant levels is bunk, Hegna said. Tufts conducted no such study.
However, studies have shown that chaga has "strong antioxidant effects."
According to Brunswick Labs, a leading laboratory testing antioxidants, Hegna's chaga has slightly more antioxidants per gram than freeze-dried raspberries and fewer than freeze-dried blueberries.
Businesses swear by their product, and are also quick to offer anecdotal stories of the health benefits of chaga -- from curing rheumatoid arthritis to assisting in weight loss.
In Russia, chaga has a long history, where it has been used traditionally for stomach ailments, has been smoked to help bronchial problems, and in soap water for cleaning skin.
Chaga has also been used by Alaska Natives for thousands of years, naturopathic doctor Gary Ferguson said. Ferguson is featured in the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium's Store Outside Your Door episode where Kenaitze tribal leader Jon Ross prepares chaga.
Most research regarding chaga has been conducted outside of the U.S., Ferguson said, pointing to research on anti-cancer properties and research regarding anti-tumor properties. Some studies purport to demonstrate anti-inflammatory effects, immune-stimulation, and antiviral effects, among others.
"Some claims have better evidence than others … and there's still a lot of research to be done," Ferguson said.
Ferguson pointed to its long history as a medicinal fungus as evidence of its healing properties.
"Traditional healers were here before western medicine," Ferguson said. "The power of that indigenous science is something I have a huge respect for."
As a naturopathic doctor, Ferguson said he recommends chaga to "folks who need to improve their immune system," or who need an energy boost.
Mycologist Laursen expressed skepticism regarding chaga's supposed health benefits.
There's a lot of anecdotal evidence, but "very little research has been done," Laursen said.
Many wood-borne fungi have been shown to demonstrate medicinal properties, Laursen said. However, unlike other wood fungi such as turkey tail or cordyceps, chaga hasn't yet been extensively studied.
What chaga does have is a lot of amino acids, Laursen said. Since people need to consume amino acids daily for good health, "that's probably where people are developing a sense of value," surrounding the tea, he said.
Laursen said he did not know of any negative health effects of taking chaga. If using prescription medication, Ferguson recommended consulting a physician before taking chaga.
Harvest concerns
Anyone can harvest a "reasonable amount" of chaga on state lands for personal use without a permit, according to the Department of Natural Resources.
Businesses all echoed common concerns of overharvesting and poor harvesting techniques.
Once harvested, chaga takes about five years to grow back, Ben-East said.
And it must be harvested with care. "You don't want to dig into the tree itself, you just want to pop the conch off," East said.
Chaga extends deep into the tree, but harvesting that portion will harm the birch. "There's the greed factor you have to watch," East said.
The fact that chaga is wild-harvested -- requiring people to track it down -- may in some ways hinder the industry from growing beyond its mom-and-pop beginnings, Deishl said. But that might help existing businesses if it prevents overharvesting, and a deluge of product on the market that would lower prices.
Regardless, business owners hope chaga will continue to permeate the mainstream for years to come.Not even a decade ago, public lands and National Parks were considered sacrosanct by both parties. Democratic and Republican presidents alike regularly used the Antiquities Act to create new monuments and had, generally, fairly unanimous support from Congress. The Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), which uses profits from offshore drilling as funding for public parks and recreation, was a bipartisan effort that both parties supported. Public land was not considered sacred to all, but untouchable for most.
“Traditionally, Congress has been supportive of our National Parks and public lands in a very bipartisan fashion,” says Jesse Prentice-Dunn of the Center for Western Priorities. “I don’t think you actually have to look back that far to a time when Republicans and Democrats could agree on that.”
But since 2010, as think tanks like American Progress have pointed out, Congress has passed exactly zero parks or wilderness bills, instead seeking to defund the LWCF, ease up land transfer rules, and put many public lands up for auction. Last year, the Republican National Committee even went so far as to add transfer of lands from the federal government to the states in its official party platform. The general public still loves public lands — National Parks and public lands have consistently polled very high among voters — but the political viewpoint on them has certainly changed. So what happened?
Many pinpoint the change in Congressional attitude toward federally owned lands to 2010, when the Tea Party disrupted the election cycle and the Citizens United Decision changed the nature of politicking.
“Not only did [the GOP] have more members of their own caucus that would be willing to back them up on these more outrageous proposals, but you also had primaries from the right that pushed people further right,” says Prentice-Dunn.
Anti-park and anti-public land aren’t wholly Tea Party ideas, however. These attitudes can be traced back at least to the early 1980s. The Sagebrush rebellion, which took place in the ‘70s and ’80s, was the first public demonstration against federally managed lands, when many miners, loggers, and local politicians protested the passing of the Federal Land Policy Management Act and demanded more local control over lands.
“Reagan, at least rhetorically, embraced the Sagebrush rebellion, which was one of the early anti-federal land pushes, and it’s escalated since that time,” says Whit Fosburgh, president of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. “I think it’s been very gradual. The Reagan-era anti-federal government rhetoric was very popular. It was the era of starving the beast. You can shrink and shrink and shrink the federal government to the point where, in the words of Grover Norquist, ‘you could drown it in the bathtub.’ “
Defunded parks and distrust of federal management are a natural consequence of such politics. Anti-government attitudes (and anti-parks attitudes) cranked up another notch in the ’90s, with Newt Gingrich and the “Republican Revolution.” Alaska Congressman Don Young, the former Chair of the Committee on Resources from 1995 to 2001, has recently sponsored or cosponsored dozens of anti-public lands bills.
“This attitude intensified over time, and I think that the right wing lost a lot of the center in the moderate Republicans,” says Fosburgh. “And they had been a stalwart for environment stuff that included public lands forever.”
Fast-forward to 2010. While the Tea Party wave is the most prominent change to the political landscape (by some estimates, 45 percent of its caucus members are outspoken anti-parks and anti-public lands advocates), behind-the-scenes money lobbying against federally protected lands is also on the rise. The libertarian-minded Koch brothers’ money is everywhere; Rob Bishop of Utah, a Tea Party caucus member and now Chair of the Natural Resources, takes over $100,000 in oil and gas donations; Mike Lee, also of Utah, takes over $200,000. Both are strongly opposed to public lands.
The anti-public land lobby doesn’t just stop at politicians, though. For example, a nonprofit group backed by the Koch Brothers network allotted $57,250 to one of long-time corporate lobbyist Richard Berman’s nonprofits. In 2014, one of Berman’s employees, Will Coggin, started writing op-eds in Western newspapers favoring land transfer and accusing groups like the Teddy Roosevelt Conservation Partnership — a nonprofit that has historically been populated by conservative members — of being a front group for “environmental extremists.”
“Today there are a lot of people who consider things like funding for the EPA to protect clean water and clean air to be partisan issues,” says Brad Brooks of the Wilderness Society. “If you look at decisions like Citizens United that allows for unlimited money in politics and you look at things like the rise of the Koch brothers’ funding, huge investments of money to fund groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council, whose sole job is to present these issues in a way that makes them partisan issues — it’s sort of a perfect storm of politics and money.”
The storm continues with the Trump administration’s proposed budget cuts and loosening of rules for the sell-off of public lands. The only thing really stopping the selling-off of public lands and the rescinding of National Parks has been, well, the public.
Earlier this year, Utah congressman Jason Chaffetz attempted to introduce HR 621, a bill that would effectively sell off 3.3 million acres of federal lands. People — sportsmen, conservationists, and environmentalists — took immediate notice and an outcry ensued. “In six months, Chaffetz goes from introducing a bill, receiving massive blowback, and then immediately resigning from Congress,” says Brooks. “People woke up and realized what it did. They were angry.”
But bills are still being introduced to erode the power of the federal government over public lands or act as handouts to the oil and gas industry. Paul Cook (R-Calif.) recently introduced HR 1399, which reduces the royalty on soda ash, mined in California and Wyoming, from the current 6 percent to just 2 percent. The Congressional Budget Office says it will cost approximately $80 million in lost royalties to taxpayers over five years.*
“The understanding in Congress is that it’s unpopular,” says Brooks, “so you have to come up with other ways to accomplish the same end goal. What you are going to see are ways to take control away from the public and give that control to local municipalities, state governments, and any number of ways to undermine the existence of public lands. That could be through funding cuts to the extent that people will become frustrated with their local forest service for failing to maintain basic things like trails. Then they will get angry at the agencies, instead of pointing the finger at Congress, who controls how much money they have.”
“Chaffetz was hit so hard,” says Fosburgh, “so I think we’re going to see a much more subtle move on public land, cutting the budgets even more. We’re going to see things like changing law enforcement toward public land and giving it to the locals. We’re going to see efforts like that, essentially shifting management authority over to the states, and gradually it’s just lessening federal authority.”
The end goal, in many cases, is for the federal government to divest itself of land altogether, a radical idea that has taken root in a small but vocal segment of the West. “A lot of that stems from not recognizing the federal government’s ability to own land,” says Brooks. “Rejecting the whole arc of American history, and having a fundamentally different read of reality.
“When it comes to Congress,” he continues, “it’s the same with almost any issue: It requires people speaking up. It requires folks reaching out, people who they may not have reached out to before. And showing a broad range of support for parks and public lands.”
*Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly characterized a bill from Scott Tipton (R-Colo.) HR 2939 as “prohibit[ing] the federal government from exercising federal reserved water rights to protect public lands and Indian water rights.” The explicitly bill states that “Nothing in this Act limits or expands any existing reserved water rights of the Federal Government on land administered by the Secretary.” Instead, the bill aims to prohibit federal oversight or input on the transfer of private water rights in the U.S., and compels the DOI and DOA to recognize state authority for permitting water use.In an interview in February, Germany’s Manuel Neuer admitted that he actually wanted to be a field player as a boy but was put into the goal instead. His massive size — he grew to 6 feet 4 inches — may have kept him there, but that early desire to have the ball at his feet instead of in his hands could explain quite a bit about the way Neuer plays the game.
More sweeper than keeper, Neuer has ventured farther outside his penalty area than any goalkeeper at the World Cup. He had 19 touches outside the penalty area in a Round of 16 game against Algeria, and spent moments during the Germans’ quarterfinal win against France on the edges of the center circle.
It is a calculated roaming. Neuer’s unwillingness to be bound by the lines of his penalty area has changed the way Germany plays. Confident that Neuer has the instincts and the foot skills to deal with defensive problems before they emerge, Germany’s field players have been free to press opponents deep into their own half and keep them there.
“Manuel has the same technical skills as the others,” Germany’s coach, Joachim Low, said earlier this month in approving Neuer’s wanderings. “He could play in |
feels pretty premium in everything other than font. It’s also really heavy, which I like a lot – this thing isn’t going to shoot across my desk every time the cat jumps onto it or I bang my stupid knee again.
Anyway, let’s talk about the mechanical aspect. It’s a refined throwback to how some keyboards used to be made, rather than a wholly new innovation. Basically, a mechanical keyboard has an individual, spring-loaded switch under each key, rather than the squidgy rubber membrane of a standard keyboard. Those switches are precision-made (i.e. a big step on from old school clickety-clackety keyboards), and available in various flavours of travel distance and noise. This system has longevity benefits, but mostly the gain is in tactility. It feels better. It bounces and clicks rather than taps. I’m sure the spell will wear off, but just under a week in and I’m still almost excited about using it. It’s also very noisy, however, or at least it is if you didn’t buy one with specially-quietened switches.
I didn’t get one of those. Thus, this keyboard goes CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK really loudly. It’s like a typewriter from All The President’s Men. Initially I was horrified by this, even though I’d been warned about it, but now I love it. It doesn’t matter what I’m writing – even if it’s blathering nonsense like this article, it sounds incredibly important and forceful. I am hammering my thoughts into the computer. THESE WORDS HAVE POWER. It makes typing fun, almost. I’m finding I’m typing slightly more rapidly too, as the clicking and bouncing enhances the rhythm of writing.
What I’m still struggling with slightly is that it’s tiring to use – i.e my finger tips ache a little. This is because my old brain is accustomed to a keyboard which requires me to press each key all the way down before a character will appear, and the keys on this thing require quite some force to do that. I’m currently hammering it, in other words. In fact, a keypress on this thing triggers when a button is relatively lightly, so what I’m trying to do is train myself to type less forcefully.
This does involve unlearning how to type to some degree, but I’m getting there, and eventually I’m going to find the degree of button-pushing which is the best fit for me, rather than that what is mandated by the travel distance of the keys. It’s slowly happening, and there’s both less volume and less ache because of it, but without losing the wonderful bouncy, clicky, look-at-me-I’m-doing-something-physical sensation.
There’s not too much to report for games, if I’m honest. High-end players love these things because there’s no chance of the keyboard having a wobbly when you press too many buttons at once, and because the whole key travel distance thing means in theory you can have less delay in inputting commands, but that’s just not my world. Frankly you might as well ask me to diagnose a sick dolphin. What I do like is that hitting reload or use or whatever feels a lot more like doing something physical now – again, this is about the tactility and to some degree noise of a mechanical keyboard. If you want to hit a button with purpose, this is the way to go.
This Razer thing also has repogrammable keys, macro recording and a USB port, but your mileage may vary on that sort of gubbins, depending on which board you go for. I’m just blathering about the general mechanical vs traditional keyboard concept here. This particular board has certainly impressed me, but there are far more attractive mechanical keyboards out there. If you can find the money for them, that is. I got this one because it was cheap, for one time only, and while it’s really only the fonts on the key-tops that bother me, in time I may regret going for a stingy option. That seems fairly unlikely right now, though.
The move to mechanical is definitely a more than superficial change – after all, we’re talking about making the main means of interfacing with one’s PC feel more enjoyable – but I think I’d have seriously struggled to spend the £100+ generally required for these things. Hopefully we’ll see prices lower – for entry-level models at least – as interest in mechanical keyboards continues to rise, which I’m rather it certain will be the case.Bengal Warriors will go up against Puneri Paltan on Friday at The Netaji Indoor Stadium in Kolkata.
The team from Bengal are playing their second match in two days. They came up trumps against Dabang Delhi in a hard-fought encounter. The Warriors started very well as the scoreline was 28 to 14 in their favour at the halfway interval.
Delhi did not lose hope and fought back very well. Bengal found Kashiling Adake and Surjeet Narwal a handful as they attacked well. Courtesy of a very good first half performance, Bengal held on and denied Dabang a win.
Playing at home, Bengal has great crowd support and this inspired the team to pull out the stops against Delhi. Korean player Jang Kun Lee put in a fantastic show as he bagged seven points. He was very well supported by Nitin Madane, who racked up no less than eight points.
The Warriors, led by Nilesh Shinde, would be hoping that Lee and Madane will again come to the party against Pune as they did against Delhi. The triumph against the boys from Delhi have given Bengal more belief in themselves, after two straight losses.
Pune have also not begun the Pro Kabaddi League well. They have experienced defeats in both their games so far.
In their last encounter against Dabang, Pune were on the back foot right from the beginning. Jitesh Joshi did try to stage a comeback as he bagged eight points. Even their captain Wazir Singh tried hard but in the end, Delhi were just too good.
Pune will be hoping for a better show this time around. A lot depends on Wazir and Joshi.
Bengal, with the crowd behind them, will look to come good once again, while Pune are keen to open their account. An exciting contest is on the cards.
Where to Watch Live
Bengal Warriors will play Delhi Dabang at 9.00 pm. Star Sports will air the match. Live coverage will comence on Star Sports HD 2 from 7.45 pm. This is the link for the live streaming option Starsports.com.How To Calm Down From Unresolved Anger Quickly
Is your life pretty much like a roller coaster? You may be in extreme joy one moment but in the next, your emotion comes crashing down like a tide. You practically have little control. What you feel is pretty much dictated by the experiences that life throws at you. If anything, anger is a negative emotion that you often find yourself with. Well, I can pretty much relate to the scenerio that I’ve just described; it depicted much of how my life was previously.
With introspection, one important lesson that I have come to know is that it is very possible to detach myself from anger. Before, I would be so identified with anger that I totally immerse myself in it. The more I connected with my inner feelings of hurt and frustration associated with the anger, the higher the intensity of my emotions.
Although I tend to stuff my anger inside, I would be stacking up in negative energy, ready to burst. It used to take me quite a while to calm down, after that. Then, I had no awareness that I could think of anger as a state; a state that I could dis-associate (a term popularly known in NLP language) from.
The Scoop With States
What, then, is a state? A state refers to the sum of your emotional experiences at any given point in time. A state can be positive, reflecting a sense of happiness, joy and peace or it can be negative, reflecting sadness, tiredness, anger or frustration. Common states are: a state of panic, a state of boredom, a state of bliss, in a mess; and of course, a state of anger.
States do not necessarily have specific labels all the time. Sometimes, when someone asks you how you feel, your answer may be I’m in a good mood or I feel out of sorts.
When you are experiencing negative emotions, it is easy to incorrectly assume that this state as your whole Being. You (or more rightly, your ego) feel threatened; it now becomes a fight for survival. When you become so consumed with your rage and frustrations, it is possible to lose all sense and the ability to think clearly. You do not realize that You and your Ego are separate, and that to feel better, it is possible to change state.
“The ego is not only the unobserved mind, the voice in the head which pretends to be you, but also the unobserved emotions that are the body’s reaction to what the voice in the head is saying.”
—- A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose by Eckhart Tolle
Anger Builds Upon Anger
Because negativity tends to breed more negativity, it is easy to go on a downward spiral when you get caught up in your emotions. At the office, you feel angry after a torrent of verbal abuse by your boss. Fearful of affecting your job security, you decide not to argue with him.
Unfortunately, after going home from work, your spouse reminds you about the mounting household bills. A fight soon ensues. For some peace and quiet, you decide to escape to your parents’ home, only to face more nagging. Your anger remains unresolved. As your frustrations intensify, you feel that it is not just those around; but that the whole world is against you! Negative energy builds into an internal volcano that threatens to erupt!
Why do You Need to Address Your Anger?
Anger can cause you to make unwise decisions, say hurtful remarks, destroy relationships and take drastic actions that you may regret later. It is an emotion that blocks your way to abundance. It is also listed as one of the Five Hindrances to Meditation, thwarting your way to peace and serenity.
“He abused me, he beat me, he defeated me, he robbed me. In him, who harbours such thoughts, hatred will not cease.”
— The Buddha
How to Create Anger Awareness
In NLP, we learn that it is very possible to change our internal state. The first step, obviously, comes with awareness. The more aware you are about your emotions, the more you can stop anger at its track should it arise.
Here’s a simple exercise. Simply close your eyes and get in touch with your emotions currently. What are you experiencing? How is your breathing fast or slow? How do you feel mentally stressed or relaxed? Do this exercise often so that you increase your sense of awareness.
States are often created by the way you perceive the world. In NLP, when you can change an aspect of your neurology and physiology such as rate of breathing, blood pressure, muscle tension, posture, you can alter your mental state. Once you are able to change your thoughts, you can also affect your neuro-physiological responses. It is a cybernetic loop.
How you perceive the world can be altered. The half-empty and half-full glass is a simple analogy of how you can perceive life differently. Going back to the anger example, you can choose not to bother with the honking of a car behind or choose to stop your car in rage, to confront its unreasonable driver.
Anger Warrants Investigation
I am not suggesting that from now on, you should simply ignore your anger feelings and perceive things positively. Ignoring a problem is never the solution. Anger unresolved is often a sign of an overload. It happens when you unconsciously accumulate an internal storehouse with anger. You collect all negative energy with the common theme of unmet expectations.
“There is a buildup of energy, but since the danger is only a mental fiction, the energy has no outlet. Part of it is fed back to the mind and generates even more anxious thought. The rest of the energy turns toxic and interferes with the harmonious functioning of the body.”
— A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose by Eckhart Tolle
On the other hand, I am suggesting that you look at anger as a signal for investigation. As the above quote by Eckhart Tolle suggests, it may not just be anger but the physical symptoms of your body that may be telling of your bottled feelings inside.
What is key to understanding is that the anger is not really You. Rather, it refers to a state that can be altered. It is often ego-generated. Here is a good perspective to adopt that has worked for me:
“Anger is only a natural reaction; one of the mind’s ways of reacting to things that it perceives to be wrong. While anger can sometimes lead people to do shocking things, it can also be an instinct to show people that something isn’t right.”
—Unknown
With the dis-association of Self from the anger, it is then possible to become calmer. Only in calmness, can clarity arise. Only then, can you objectively evaluate these questions: Why are you feeling this anger? What is it that is making you this angry? Did it arise because your expectations are not met? Is it possible that your expectations are too high? Are there more ways of perceiving the same issue? Could you have really made a mistake about the intentions of the other party?
In Summary and Conclusion: How to Calm Down Quickly
Preparation is key to dealing with unresolved anger. You need to first take time to meditate over your negative emotions. Get to know your emotions intimately before any instance of anger. Be in touch with your feelings. Note your ups, downs and in-betweens. Then, when a major trigger gets fired off, rather than Be in a state of over-reaction, look at anger as a signal for re-evaluating your limiting beliefs and expectations. Dis-associate yourself and understand that it is your ego at play.
You can then choose to use EFT or any NLP techniques, to address your negative emotions. As you gain in awareness and understanding, anger dissipates. Few things rail you as much, going forward. Peace and calm is the order of the day! Your thoughts become charged up with positive energy; there is also more love and abundance in your life!
“If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow.”
—- Chinese ProverbsDid EU funds play an important role in limiting the hit of the crisis on regional income?
Economic convergence is at the heart of European Union integration. Cohesion policy was born in the 1980s with the aim of complementing the creation of a single European market and fostering the economic development of less advantaged EU regions. This objective is especially relevant in light of the economic crisis that has exacted a heavy toll on many EU countries and regions, and created scepticism about the merits of EU policies.
In a recent paper, I look at how income convergence evolved in EU regions during the crisis, and assess the role played by the EU funds that are provided to the more disadvantaged regions with the aim of facilitating their convergence to average EU income levels. I find that EU funds did play an important role in limiting the hit of the crisis on regional income, providing an anchor for convergence.
Income convergence in the EU during the crisis
The starting point to assess the role of EU convergence funds during the crisis is to understand what happened to regional income convergence across the EU, over the last 15 years. To this end, I start from an absolute and a conditional income convergence analysis. The idea is simple: I regress income growth over a certain time period on an initial level of income, and a negative estimated coefficient will suggest that relatively poorer regions grow faster than richer ones. If this is the case, we can conclude that there has been income convergence.
When considering the EU as a whole, regions are found to have convergenced at pace of 2 percent per year over 2000-14. When looking at EU14 or EA11, no significant convergence is detected over the same period. The reason for this becomes clear when breaking the time series into subperiods. From 2000-07, all three groups show very significant evidence of convergence, but when looking at 2007-14 there is no evidence of convergence for either the EU14 or the EA11, suggesting the crisis altered the previous path of income convergence.
The eligibility rules for EU convergence funds
On the basis of this evidence, I then investigate the role played by those funds (‘Objective 1’) that the EU provides to regions whose per capita GDP in purchasing power standard (PPS) is below 75 percent of EU average. These funds have the aim to foster convergence to average EU income levels. I focus on the 2007-13 allocation period, which includes the crisis years.
Eligibility for Objective 1 funds is determined at the regional level. The EU has a hierarchical regional classification named NUTS (Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics), with NUTS1 being the most aggregate and NUTS3 the most detailed level. Objective 1 funds’ allocation is decided at the NUTS2 level.
This eligibility rule creates a threshold: NUTS2 regions below 75 percent are entitled to the funds, while regions above are not. As a result, it is perfectly possible that some NUTS3 regions in eligible NUTS2 areas have a per-capita GDP level higher than the threshold for eligibility at the NUTS2 level. These NUTS3 regions would not qualify to receive Objective 1 transfers if they had been assessed as independent entities, but in practice they qualify, because they are part of a relatively poor NUTS2 region. Similarly, some NUTS3 areas might be below the threshold if looked at individually, but the fact of belonging to a relatively rich NUTS2 region makes them ineligible for Objective 1 funds.
As convincingly pointed out by Becker et al (2008), this rule creates a quasi-experimental setting that can be exploited for empirical investigation. I exploit this rule to construct a treatment/control framework based on two groups of comparable regions.
I apply to each NUTS3 region the eligibility criteria that is normally applied to NUTS2 regions. In this way, I can identify all those NUTS3 regions that would be eligible if the threshold were applied to their individual income rather than that of their parent NUTS2 region.
Then, I match this ‘actual’ measure of eligibility with the ‘formal’ eligibility status of the same NUTS3 regions. This allows me to identify two sub-groups of regions: one group includes those NUTS3 regions that would be eligible based on their individual income and were also formally eligible based on their parent region’s income; a second group includes those NUTS3 region that would be eligible based on their individual income but were not deemed formally eligible based on their parent’s level of income.
We can think of these two groups as a treatment and control group: regions in both groups have an individual income level that is below 75 percent of the EU average, but depending on their parent region’s income, some of them have been “treated“ (ie deemed eligible for convergence funds) while others have not.
The role of EU convergence funds during the crisis
Once these treatment and control groups have been defined, I do an income convergence analysis similar to the one for the full sample, but adding one dummy that identifies the “treated” regions and one interaction term of this dummy with the initial level of income.
The sign and significance on the ‘treatment’ dummy suggests that during the crisis, those regions that were “treated” grew faster than those regions that had a comparable level of income but were not deemed eligible for funds. The effect is particularly strong for region in the EA11 and particularly in the euro-area periphery. The sign and significance of the interaction term suggests that among those regions that were ‘treated’, per capita income in poorer regions grew faster (or decreased less fast). This is again evidence of convergence.
Conclusions
While this model is very simple, the evidence is relevant from a policy perspective. It suggests that convergence funds did play an important role in helping income convergence during a time of crisis, within the group of disadvantaged regions that were entitled to receive the funds, and especially in comparison to equally disadvantaged regions that were not eligible. This holds not only at the EU level, but especially for regions in those euro-area countries that were hardest hit by the crisis and/or underwent EU/IMF macroeconomic adjustment programmes, suggesting that the role of convergence in counteracting the effect of the crisis on income dynamics was particularly important there, possibly because of the stricter financial constraints that regions in those countries were facing. At a time when the merit of EU policies is often criticised, and Europeans are increasingly sceptical of the domestic economic implications of EU membership, I believe this is a very relevant message.
References
Becker, S. O., Egger, P. H., von Ehrlich, M. and R. Fenge (2008) ‘Going NUTS: The Effect of EU Structural Funds on Regional Performance’, CESIFO Working Paper No. 2495, DecemberLONDON (Reuters) - Presumptive U.S. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said Britain leaving the European Union would make no difference to a potential bilateral trade deal if he became president, according to an interview clip aired by broadcaster ITV on Sunday.
During a visit to London last month President Barack Obama told Britons that if they elected to leave the EU in a June 23 referendum they would be at “the back of the queue” for a U.S. trade deal.
“I am going to treat everybody fairly but it wouldn’t make any difference to me whether they were in the EU or not,” Trump said in an interview with Piers Morgan, due to be aired in full on ITV on Monday. “You would certainly not be back of the queue, that I can tell you.”During a service on Dec. 10 at 16th Street Baptist Church, the Rev. Arthur Price Jr. urges the mostly black congregation to vote in the U.S. Senate election in Alabama, saying, “There’s too much at stake for us to stay home.” (Brynn Anderson/Associated Press)
Another group of evangelicals helped Doug Jones in his unexpected win against Roy Moore Tuesday: Black evangelicals.
In recent years the word “evangelical” has become nearly synonymous with white, conservative Republicans. But in Alabama, one of the most evangelical states in the country, as well as across swaths of the American South — race and religion mix in a different way.
Ninety-six percent of African-American voters chose Jones, a Democrat, and the vast majority of those people self-identify, according to exit polling, as evangelical or born-again. That, combined with the high turnout rate among African-Americans — close to the rates of the two times Barack Obama ran for president — gave a spotlight to the religious perspective of black evangelicals.
So what does that mean about black Christianity in Alabama? Or about American evangelicalism?
Like much of American identity, the answer is a stew of regionalism, race and faith, among other things.
Alabama is heavily evangelical, regardless of one’s race. In its special election, 76 percent of African-Americans identified as born-again or evangelical, according to exit polling, along with 72 percent of whites. In national exit polls for the 2016 presidential election, 57 percent of blacks and 39 percent of whites identified as born-again or evangelical.
Several Southern states include more Americans than the national average who identify as “evangelical,” and who say religion is important in their lives. But that leads to very different voting conclusions for black Christians than for white ones, as well as for Latino or Asian Christians.
Part of the issue is language.
In many parts of the country, Christians who technically fit the theological-school definition of “evangelical” — have high regard for the authority of the Bible, believe in the essential importance of sharing one’s faith, among other metrics — sometimes don’t call themselves evangelical because the word has taken on such a partisan and even racial tone in recent years. And sometimes people who don’t identify with the theological-school definition use the word because it fits their politics. The faith of many Christians of color is sometimes misunderstood because of chaos over the word “evangelical.”
But in Alabama, black Christians use the label, and experts think faith organizers were able to motivate such voters by urging them to reclaim their own religious values in the public square.
Black Christians in Alabama thought that “we need to show the world that we as people of color have a voice, that this is the place that birthed the dream” of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., said the Rev. Marvin Lue Jr., pastor of Stewart Memorial CME Church in Mobile and chairman of the board of the organizing group Faith in Action. Lue said black Christians in Alabama were motivated to turn out by issues such as mass incarceration, a struggling state educational system and a “mentality that continues to consider us as second-class citizens.”
[How Roy Moore’s failed campaign tested white evangelicals]
Black evangelicals in Alabama are less motivated by the issues that heavily drive white evangelicals — specifically abortion and the rise of LGBT rights.
The Washington Post’s Eugene Scott this week reported from Alabama on black voters, who told him they were primarily motivated by making sure someone who reminded them of President Trump didn’t win:
“But what these black voters knew was that Moore had adopted Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan — and for residents of a state that has deep-rooted racial tensions running through its veins, some moments of America’s past are not among the state’s finest moments.”
Race generally trumps religion in Alabama overall as a dividing line among voters — and that is certainly true among African American voters.
Black evangelicals voted Tuesday in Alabama like black voters overall, according to exit polling. Of that group, 95 percent voted for Jones, compared with 98 percent of black non-evangelicals.
The racial divide in the nation is far more pronounced in Alabama than in the country overall. In 2012, the last presidential election for which Alabama had an exit poll, 84 percent of whites voted for Republican Mitt Romney. Nationally, 59 percent of whites nationally voted for Romney.
But that may be breaking a bit. Although Moore, a former state Supreme Court justice, won white evangelicals by 62 percentage points, he lost non-evangelical whites by 29 points. White non-evangelicals are one of the few white groups Jones won.
While African Americans and white evangelicals voted pretty consistently in recent elections in Alabama, white non-evangelicals shifted significantly.
African American voters made up about 29 percent of voters in Alabama Tuesday, exit polls show. That is similar to African American turnout in Obama’s two elections according to exit polls.
[More on Doug Jones’ faith]
Lue said he thinks the turnout still would have been very high among black voters even without the explosion of controversy after The Washington Post reported that Moore was accused of making sexual advances toward several teenage girls when he was in his 30s.
“African American women, even though they were sympathetic, they understood their issues are different from their white counterparts. As awful as those allegations were, African American women are dealing with domestic violence on a daily basis,” he said.
Black Christians were motivated by knowing Jones as the lead prosecutor of two Ku Klux Klan mambers involved in the bombing half a century ago of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Lue said.
Randy Brinson, a Montgomery doctor, longtime head of the state’s Christian Coalition, organizer of young evangelical voters and a Republican who lost in the Senate primary against Moore earlier this year, said Jones was able to elevate religious values such as humility and grace, rather than specific social issues that sometimes separate black and white evangelical Christians.
“He was successful in talking about such things as virtues rather than riding in on a horse or, ‘We’re here to tell you what to do.’ You had the Old Testament [Moore] versus the New Testament. Moore was preaching the Old Testament of law and punishment and Jones was in more soft tones — but not even in explicitly religious terms. It was such a contrast,” said Brinson, who has engaged black Christians for years in his organizing work and as a candidate.
This was inspiring for black evangelicals, Brinson said, who were not going to be motivated by the primary issues Moore characterized as faith-based.
Scott Clement and Emily Guskin contributed to this report.From defensive slugfests to last minute comebacks to high-octane shootouts, we've compiled our list of the Top 20 Games of 2015. It's not easy whittling down a list of this nature, but after hours of debate, blood, sweat and tears, we felt good about presenting the final list below. So kick back, relax, and relive the 20 best games football had to offer us in 2015.
The Rams were facing an uphill battle going into Arizona against an undefeated Cardinals squad, but Todd Gurley put the football world on notice with a performance for the ages -- in his first NFL start. FULL STORY
After leading the Redskins to a 2-4 start, Kirk Cousins was on the brink of losing his starting job. That was, until, he orchestrated the largest comeback in franchise history, coining an unforgettable new catchphrase in the process. FULL STORY
While high-flying offenses are all the rage these days, defense is just as important as ever. When the Seahawks and Vikings clashed in the Wild Card round, it was all defense all afternoon in an old-fashioned slugfest. Until, of course, that fateful kick to end the game. FULL STORY
Two of the game's best -- Odell Beckham Jr. and Josh Norman -- went toe-to-toe in our 18th best game of 2015, and lived to tell the tale. But there's more to this story than this single heavyweight bout. FULL STORY
Lacking any semblance of star power, Ravens-Browns on Monday night was the subject of much ridicule leading up to kickoff. However, the unheralded players on both squads turned in an entertaining game, with a finish for the ages. FULL STORY
Derek Carr vs. Ben Roethlisberger didn't seem like a potential shootout when the 2015 schedule was released, but that's what fans got in Week 9. These two old-school AFC rivals provided one of the year's best high-scoring affairs, with an exclamation point served up by Antonio Brown's monster day. FULL STORY
Denver's elite defense helped lift them to a Super Bowl win, but on a cold December evening in Pittsburgh (missing a few starters), they were unable to hold off the furious assault of Ben Roethlisberger and Antonio Brown. FULL STORY
The NFL's best inter-conference rivalry was renewed when Eli Manning and the Giants looked to knock the Patriots from their perfect 8-0 perch. Rob Gronkowski and Stephen Gostkowski came up big, but the Patriots suffered a different sort of loss that changed the rest of their season.FULL STORY
Arizona jumped out to a surprising lead in Seattle, but the Seahawks defense and Russell Wilson fought back to take the lead in a heated NFC West showdown. Relegated from future breakout star to role player, Andre Ellington made his mark on this game and the Cardinals' season... as well as Drew Stanton's dancing resume. FULL STORY
In Dallas' season opener, the ball refused to bounce their way as three unlucky turnovers led to 17 quick Giants points. However, even with Dez Bryant sidelined with an injury, Tony Romo delivered a signature game-winning drive that would serve as one of the lone bright spots for America's Team in 2015. FULL STORY
When the 4-7 Eagles traveled to Gillette Stadium to face the 10-1 Patriots, everyone expected a blowout victory for Tom Brady and company. However, the Eagles had different plans, and shattered expectations in a 35-28 victory over the Patriots on the back of three return touchdowns (one blocked punt, one pick six, one punt return). FULL STORY
Cam Newton and the Panthers nearly saw their bid for perfection stripped away by Drew Brees and the Saints in Week 13, until the league MVP orchestrated yet another unforgettable fourth-quarter comeback. FULL STORY
Aaron Rodgers and the Packers were looking into the abyss of potentially missing the playoffs with a costly road loss to a biter divisional rival. That was, until one of the most incredible plays of the season unfolded in the game's final seconds. FULL STORY
In one of the most bizarre finishes in recent playoff memory, the Bengals bungled a lead -- with the ball, in field goal range -- to allow the Steelers to come from behind and win in Cincinnati... with the fourth quarter nearly over. FULL STORY
Making his second NFL start, Brock Osweiler was tasked with beating Tom Brady to keep the Broncos playoff hopes afloat. Luckily, C.J. Anderson was ready for another late-season surge. FULL STORY
While the Steelers and Seahawks are often known for their defenses, when they faced off in Week 12 it was all about offense. What resulted was the best shootout 2015 had to offer. FULL STORY
Peyton Manning seemed to be fading before our eyes in primetime, but he mustered enough strength to engineer a game-tying drive in the fourth quarter. And as was the case all season, the defense was ready to seal the deal. FULL STORY
The 17th and final meeting of Peyton Manning and Tom Brady was one for the ages, with Manning slinging the rock with everything he had left, and Brady trying to lead yet another classic fourth-quarter comeback with a trip to Super Bowl 50 on the line. FULL STORY
Few were taking the Panthers seriously as Super Bowl contenders in 2015, until they went into Seattle and walked out with a win... thanks to a fourth-quarter comeback from the eventual MVP. FULL STORY
Aaron Rodgers pulled off his second Hail Mary of the season to tie with the Cardinals in the final seconds of regulation in the NFC Divisional Round ⦠only to set up Larry Fitzgerald for an unforgettable overtime performance. FULL STORYReminder: If you’re interested in meeting us and some of our hedgehogs tomorrow you can get the details on how to do so here. We’d love to meet you, and would be happy to answer questions in person and show off our hedgehog friends. 🙂
So, you’ve decided that a hedgehog is the right pet for you. Now how do you go about getting one?
Avoid Pet Stores
Some big pet stores, especially here in the DC Metro Area, have begun carrying hedgehogs in the small animal sections of their stores. Most exotic pet shops carry them. While it may be tempting to just purchase one there that not a good idea when it comes to hedgehogs. While some shops may be wonderful, the vast majority of them are ill equipped to house hedgehogs and the employees not terribly knowledgeable when it comes to how to care for them. They’re an unusual pet, and uncommon enough that even the most widespread book on hedgehog care is 15 years out of date and riddled with inaccuracies.
This leaves us with the smart option: a breeder.
Find a Good Breeder
Like pet shops, not all breeders are alike. You need to find the one that is right for you. People breed hedgehogs for different reasons, but any good breeder will primarily breed for health and temperament, everything else coming after those two vital points. Decide if you are after a show hedgehog, want specific markings or traits, and what personality you might be searching for.
A good breeder will provide a warranty against things like Wobbly Hedgehog Syndrom (WHS), will take the hedgehog back if for some reason you’re not satisfied, and will be willing to help you if you have questions along the way. Avoid breeders who aren’t willing to discuss the parents of your hoglet, are willing to give the hoglets up before the 6 week weaning, or are reticent in answering questions about the hoglets upbringing.
A good breeder will want to help you, and will be eager to help you choose the hoglet right for you.
Meet the Hedgehogs
Before choosing a hedgehog it’s important to meet them. Ask about the hoglets personality before you purchase it, and make certain to handle it prior to, or at, the pick up. The hoglet should be active and curious. Ensure that the baby does more than just curl into a ball and spike up when being handled, and reconsider your decision if the hedgehog begins to hiss, pop, or make a harsh barking/clicking sound. An unwillingness to unroll and these aggressive displays are markers you do not want to encounter in your new pet.
The hoglet may nibble and lick, but none of these should be outright bites.Self-anointing is something that you very much want to see in a new pet, as it’s a sign of happiness and trust. You want to be able to pet the hedgehog and to let it explore you. If you are more wanting a cuddly hedgehog, you should be quite happy if it falls asleep on you. Listen for purrs, but don’t be surprised if you don’t get them this soon.
Know What to Look For
A good guide for what you want to look for would be the Hedgehog Standard used in hedgehog shows. While obviously your new pet doesn’t need to be show quality, the standard is still a very good indicator of health in hedgehogs and what all breeders should strive for. It is worth familiarizing yourself with what the ideal hedgehog would look like so you can avoid any unforeseen troubles with your new pet.
To summarize the Standard, your new hedgehog should appear as follows:
Your hedgehog’s face should be wide with the muzzle line being straight and short. Its eyes should be wide apart and bright and alert. The ears should be large and spaced well apart and velvety to the touch. They shouldn’t appear crusty or ragged.
The hedgehogs body should be an oval shape with the rump being a gentle curve. From the side the hedgehog’s body should also present a nicely curved line. The hedgehog should be able to curl into a ball and hide its face, an inability to curl completely is a sign of obesity which is a large health risk to the hedgehog.
Front feet should have five toes, and back feet should have four. The legs should be long and elegant, not noticeably bowed or hockeyed. All legs should be functioning. At a very young age hedgehogs are liable to damaging their toes and/or losing them. If your hedgehog has incurred this injury the breeder should tell you before you pick the hedgehog up. It doesn’t ruin their mobility, and isn’t life threatening – but it is something a good breeder would inform you of.
The quills should be full and evenly spaced over the body. You shouldn’t be able to see any sparse patches, or any real breaks in the dispersion. The quills should be |
We were told that spending cuts would be short-term pain for lasting gain, but most economists believe slashing the state actually damaged our economy. Workplace rights secured by previous generations of trade unionists are being eroded as employers turn to zero-hours contracts, outsourcing and faux self-employment to evade their responsibilities.
It’s hard to escape the feeling that the system has been rigged. The benefits of the economic recovery went mainly to the wealthy, while ordinary people’s living standards have stagnated or grown worse. Over time, public opinion has turned against austerity. Even a year ago only a minority of people believed it was necessary, and only a third believed it benefited the economy. There’s a growing sense that we’ve been taken for fools. Wealthy elites lined their own pockets with tax cuts for the rich while insisting they had no choice but to cut vital services.
May has benefited from not being closely associated with austerity – after Wednesday’s budget, that will change
May has benefited from not being closely associated with the austerity agenda – after Wednesday’s budget, that’s going to change. Her promise, last summer, to “make Britain a country that works not for a privileged few, but for every one of us” rings hollow now it has been revealed that she’s asked government departments to identify another 6% of potential spending cuts.
The crisis in health and social care is just one way that the effects of austerity are beginning to be felt more widely. May is expected to claim that she’s diverting funds towards caring for the “frail” but any token effort won’t come close to compensating for the 33,000 social care jobs slashed in the last five years. Many people who voted Conservative at the last election will have reason to regret that choice. And despite the hype, May does not possess the personal charisma to distract people from their own personal hardship. While focusing on Brexit is strategically beneficial for the government at present, this could soon change. Once negotiations start in earnest, it will become apparent that the UK can’t secure the kind of fantasy deal pro-leave campaigners promised. If our economy crashes, jobs leave the country and the price of food and other basic goods rises, voters may well turn against the party responsible for driving us over the cliff edge.
All of which makes claims that the next election is already in the bag for the Tories seem bizarre. I’ve noticed a creeping defeatism among Labour activists from all wings of the party, who see the current polling gap as near impossible to recover from. However, if we’ve learned anything in the past 12 months, it should be that things in politics can move fast. And the only way for the current Conservative government is down.
Social care cuts take English service to tipping point, regulator warns Read more
Labour has internal problems to solve, sure, but I’m not convinced the damage is as fundamental as it may feel. Presented to voters without the name of a party attached, Labour’s policies poll well. Plans to build a million new homes, introduce a £10 minimum wage and invest in transport links to “left behind” regions could transform the lives of millions of people. And these ideas aren’t pie in the sky: the International Monetary Fund is among the organisations arguing that the UK has underinvested in infrastructure in recent decades.
If you believe, as I do, that May’s policies will make the country worse while Labour has the ideas to make it better, it’s barmy to give up on convincing the general public in time for 2020, this is no time to throw up your arms and hand in your membership card. The party should be throwing everything it has at getting presentation and messaging right – looking competent, united and like a government in waiting. Effective leadership is part of the puzzle, but big improvements could be made whoever is at the helm. Style is the main reason it’s trailing behind the Conservatives. In terms of actual substance, Labour is already light years ahead.Nebraska
Number of victims
Period during which sterilizations took place
Temporal pattern of sterilization and rate of sterilization
Passage of law(s)
Groups identified in the law
Process of the Law
Upholding the Law
Cavitt v. State of Nebraska
Groups targeted and victimized
Other groups targeted
Medical procedures
Other issues
Deception and hiding the facts
Precipitating factors and processes
Feeder institutions and institutions where sterilizations were performed
(Photo origin: NEGenWeb Project, available at http://www.usgennet.org/usa/ne/topic/resources/OLLibrary/SCHofNE/pics/schn0139.jpg)
(Photo origin: University of Nebrasky-Lincoln, available at http://www.unl.edu/nicpp/images/BSDC1.JPG)
(Photo origin: Adams County Historical Society, available at http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~asylums/hastings_nb/regional.jpg)
Opposition
Bibliography
Journal Star
Better for All The World: The Secret History of Forced Sterilization and America’s Quest for Racial Purity
Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.
Journal of Policy History
The Journal of Heredity
Human Sterilization: The History of the Sexual Sterilization Movement.
Eugenical Sterilization in the United States
The Sensibilities of Our Fathers: The History of Sodomy Laws in the United States
<http://buckvbell.com/pdf/JPaulmss.pdf> Available at
The Surgical Solution: A History of Involuntary Sterilization in the United States
Nebraska Survey of Social Resources
The Social Service Review
Out of Darkness and Into Light: Nebraska’s Experience with
Mental Retardation.
Norfolk, Nebraska.
Backward and Feeble Minded Children in the Lincoln
Public Schools.
From Insanity to Sanity: The Development of a Mental Hospital
1889 to 1962 Ingelside, Nebraska.
Constitutional Change: Amendment Politics and Supreme Court Litigation Since 1900
In total, 902 individuals were sterilized in Nebraska, 53% of whom were women. 80% of all people sterilized were deemed “mentally deficient.” Roughly 18% of the total sterilizations were of individuals deemed “mentally ill.” Nebraska ranks 14th in the United States in terms of total number of sterilizations.Sterilizations began in 1917, two years after the first law was passed. Recorded sterilizations ended in 1963 (Paul, p. 412).Approximately 42% of all sterilizations (386 individuals) were conducted from 1917 to 1929 (Brown, p. 31). Other than a somewhat higher increase between 1921 and 1929, sterilizations rose relatively steadily until 1941, after which there was a sharp increase until 1944. 79 sterilizations were performed in 1943 alone—a much higher number than pre-1941 sterilizations per year. Between 1941 and 1944, an average of 74 people were sterilized per year, making these years the peak period of sterilizations in Nebraska. During this period, 6 persons per 100,000 Nebraska residents were sterilized per year. After 1944, sterilizations continued at a steady pace until 1963, with the final ten sterilizations occuring in that year.In Nebraska, the first law regarding sterilization was passed in 1915 after a failed initial attempt by state legislators in 1913 was vetoed by Governor John H. Morehead (Paul, p. 408). This law was passed along with the first civil commitment law, a statute that allowed for involuntary commitment of individuals to the Nebraska Institution for the Feebleminded by the court (Schalock, p. 119). The original sterilization law was revised in both 1929 and 1957 (Paul, p. 409).The 1915 law provided for the sterilizations of the insane and feeble-minded inmates of state institutions before they were paroled (Landman, p. 74). The state institutions specifically mentioned in the statute included “institutions for the feeble-minded, hospitals for the insane, the penitentiary, reformatory, industrial schools, the industrial home, and other such State institutions” (Laughlin, p. 13).In 1929, the original law was repealed and a new law was enacted, which included “habitual criminals, moral degenerates, and sexual perverts“—those individuals convicted of rape or incest—as well as the original groups (Landman, p. 75).The final 1957 amendment of the 1929 law decreased the scope, permitting the sterilizations solely of members of the Beatrice State Home for the "mentally deficient." This alteration thereby exempted the insane and “habitually criminal.” This modification also provides an explanation of the high ratio of "mentally deficient" to mentally ill sterilized, as only the former were housed in the Beatrice State home (Paul, p. 409).The first law, passed in 1915, stated that all inmates of state institutions for the feebleminded, as well as inmates of penitentiaries, were lawful candidates for sterilization. If these inmates were going to be discharged, they were made to stand in front of a panel that questioned them on their family history, mental and physical characteristics, and more. If they were found to possess undesirable genetic traits, they were offered a choice: undergo a sterilization procedure and be released into society, or keep their reproductive system intact but stay in the custody of the state (Hered). The consent of the patient or his or her family was necessary in order to proceed with the sterilization (Paul, p. 408).The 1929 revision of the law made it so that any inmate convicted of rape or other crimes of sexual perversion were to be compulsorily sterilized. Although the sterilization was mandatory for these individuals, the law mandated both notice and hearing and the potential for appeal to the Supreme Court (Paul, p. 409).The final alteration of the law, in 1957, tightened the scope of the legislation to include only inmates of the Beatrice State Home (Paul, p. 410).One notable case that came out of Nebraska wasin 1968, where a woman named Gloria Cavitt argued against the need for her to be sterilized in order to apply for parole (Brunius, p. 320). Cavitt, an unwed mother of 8, scored a 71 on her IQ test and was committed to the Beatrice State Home for the Retarded. The superintendent desired to release Cavitt, but required that she be sterilized. Cavitt sued the state, but the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled to uphold the state constitutionality of the already established sterilization law on March 8, 1968. “The order does not require her sterilization. It does provide, in accordance with the statute, that she shall not be released unless she is sterilized. The choice is hers,” emphasized the court (Brunius, p. 321). Cavitt fought back and called for an appeal, but this was denied. However, this decision was met by immense public criticism, which prompted the Nebraska Legislature to repeal the sterilization law (Reilly, p. 149). The legislature added an amendment to this repeal which saved Cavitt from sterilization. It read, "'no sterilization could be done even though a pending Court order indicated otherwise'" (Vose, p. 19). Cavitt was relased from the Beatrice State Home without sterilization, yet the Supreme Court support for sterilization continued to maintain the constitutionality of sterilization in the United States (Reilly, p. 149).Of all of the people sterilized, 423 were men and 479 women, indicating no substantial gender bias in terms of who was sterilized (U.S. Sterilization Statuses). However, between 1915 and 1929, 95 males were sterilized and 291 females were sterilized in Nebraska (Brown, p. 29). In 1923, it was noted that feebleminded women in society are an urgent problem and a “great source of illegitimacy, delinquency, and mental defect” (Schalock, p. 117). This alludes to an early gender bias in Nebraska.In 1929, the Nebraska legislature altered the sterilization law to include those individuals convicted of sodomy. This amendment included individuals who had been deemed “moral degenerates or sexual perverts” (Painter). Additionally, there appears to be no discrimination toward African Americans in Nebraska before 1928, when 4 black inmates were in institutions for the feebleminded compared to 747 whites (Carpenter, p. 66).In Nebraska, males underwent vasectomy and females were sterilized via salpingectomy, as opposed to other types of sterilization practiced in other states (Brown, p. 31).In a 1935 legislative act, the State Commission for the Control of Feebleminded Persons was established to prevent the reproduction and marriage of feebleminded persons. The act also required that schools, public agencies, and hospitals identify and report those suspected of feeblemindedness. These names would be sent to agencies that provided marriage licenses. In the case that anyone of these individuals should desire to get married, at least one party in the marriage must be sterilized (Schalock, pps.119-120).Another interesting eugenic effort took place in 1937, when Unitarian physician Inez Philbrick introduced a euthanasia bill in Nebraska (Dowbiggin, p. 235). The bill was the second attempt in United States History to legalize euthanasia (Dowbiggin, p. 255). However, the effort failed shortly after it was proposed (Dowbiggin, p. 235).Perhaps the most disturbing part about many Nebraskan sterilizations were how under-published they were and that they continue to be unrecognized today. For example, Dr. Elmer A. Thomas wrote an entire history, including the treatments conducted of the Ingleside Hospital for the Insane (later the Hastings Hospital for the Mentally Ill) in 1961, yet in no means was sterilization mentioned (Thomas). In 1931, Superintendent Charlton boasted of his success in releasing patients. He explains ‘Not all of those patients,’ Dr. Charlton explained, ‘were pronounced cured. In fact it is very probable that some of them will of necessity be returned, but their condition was such that I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt,’” (Thomas, p. 62). This “condition” for release mentioned by Thomas is possibly a result of sterilization. In fact, Harry Laughlin, in Eugenical Sterilization in the United States says that 94 people where considered for sterilization at Ingleside and 13 were sterilized before 1918. Nebraska superintendent W.S. Fast who was instrumental in the development of the institution was quoted by Laughlin saying, “All patients of child-bearing age, otherwise eligible for parole or discharge are passed upon by the Sterilization Board” in February 1921 (Laughlin, p. 78). Thus, the conditions for release in Thomas’ book and in public knowledge are not well known and continue to deceive those who reflect on Nebraska’s history.Popular fears of a state plagued by “social incompetents” were the driving force behind a widespread support of sterilization legislation in Nebraska (Landman, p. 75). This is evidenced by studies, like Shumway’s “Backward and Feebleminded Children in Public Schools,” which included observations of young children throughout Nebraska and addressed the feebleminded crisis facing the state (1915). In the 1918 Biennial Report for the Nebraska Institution for the Feebleminded Youth Administration, Superintendent Griffiths argued that these individuals “cannot be reformed because they do not have the mentality to overcome temptation” (Schalock, p. 117). The state’s declared motive for its sterilization laws was “purely eugenic,” yet some sources also claims that they have a punitive purpose as well (Laughlin, p. 13 and Brown, p. 29).There were several institutions where sterilization took place. By 1918 the mental hospitals at Lincoln, Norfolk, Ingleside, and Beatrice all performed sterilizations (Laughlin, p. 74).According to data provided by Julius Paul, more than 80% of sterilizations occurred on residents of the Beatrice State Home (Paul, p. 411), It was founded as the Nebraska Institution for Feebleminded Youth in 1885 in Beatrice, Nebraska (Schalock, p. 14). In 1921, the name was changed to the Nebraska Institution for the Feebleminded along with a new mission statement, which aimed to provide “custodial care and human treatment for those who are feebleminded, to segregate them from society, to study to improve their condition, to classify them, and to furnish such training in industrial mechanics, agriculture, and academic subjects as fitted to acquire” (Schalock, p. 14). By 1935, in order to assure complete separation from society, NIFM resident’s graves were no longer marked with family names, but with numbers; families desired to disassociate themselves from their “defective” relatives by dehumanizing them (Schalock, p. 118). The institution changed its name again in 1942 to the Beatrice State Home, a friendlier title. Sterilizations were confined solely to the Beatrice State Home in 1957. Through the 1960s, three perspectives governed the asylum: education, asylum, and social control. By 1966, 752 residents at the Beatrice facility had been sterilized (Schalock, p. 119). Then, on July 1st, 1975, the Beatrice State Home became the Beatrice State Developmental Center, the name that it holds today (Schalock, p. 19). The Center specializes in the treatment of children and adults with behavioral and developmental disabilities (Nebraska Department of Health, Beatrice). Their webpage has no mention of the location’s past history with sterilization. In September 2006, however, the Beatrice State Developmental Center’s reputation was under fire when inspectors found that there were “serious problems” with the institution, resulting in the transfer of 47 patients from Beatrice to other state institutions in 2009 (Journal Star, 2010, web).The Hospital for the Incurably Insane was established in 1889. This institution went through several name changes. In 1895, the legislature voted to call it the Asylum for the Chronic Insane. In 1905, the name was changed to Nebraska State Hospital, and then again in 1915 it was renamed the Ingleside Hospital for the Insane. It was briefly referred to as the Hastings State Hospital, and adopted its current name, “Hastings Regional Center,” in 1971 (Adams County Historical Association). Neither the Adams County Historical Society’s website nor Elmer A. Thomas’ history of the institution through 1962 make any mention of the sterilizations that occurred at this location. However, according to Laughlin, 32 sterilizations had occurred at this location prior to 1921 (Laughlin, p. 74). The Hastings Regional Center is currently a mental health and substance abuse treatment facility for adolescent and young adult males who have been paroled from the Youth Rehabilitation Treatment Center inKearney, Nebraska (Nebraska Department of Health, Hastings).The Lincoln Hospital for the Insane was established in 1870, but was only open for a brief period when an accidental fire forced the State to close the facilities for renovations. It re-opened in 1871 (Historic Asylums). According to Paul, 78 sterilizations occurred at this location prior to 1921 (Paul, p. 74). It is now called the Lincoln Regional Center and offers highly specialized psychiatric care to a wide variety of patients (Nebraska Dept of Health, Lincoln). There is no mention of sterilization on the webpage.The Norfolk Hospital for the Insane was established as such in 1888 with 97 patients. It maintained its name until 1920, when it became the Norfolk State Hospital and added occupational therapy and recreation activities to its offerings. It is now called the Norfolk Regional Center, though no date has been specified for when this change was made (Schmeckpeper, p 38-39). Again, there is no mention of sterilization on its current webpage.Governor John H. Morehead initially vetoed sterilization legislation in 1913, stating that it was “more in keeping with the pagan age than with the teachings of Christianity.” The law passed without his support in 1915, as he did not veto it (Paul, p. 408).Adams County Historical Society. 2006. “Hastings State Hospital.” Available at < http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~asylums/hastings_nb/index.html >.Associated Press, The. 2010. “2 More Lawsuits Against Beatrice State Developmental Center.”. Available at http://journalstar.com/news/local/article_72d3aad4-fb09-11de-99c0-001cc4c03286.html >.Bruinius, Harry. 2006.. New York, NY: Knopf Publishing.Brown, Frederick W. May 1930. “Eugenic Sterilization in the United States: Its Present Status.”. 149, 3: 22-35.Carpenter, Niles. Nov. 1928. “Feebleminded and Pauper Negroes in Public Institutions.”140, The American Negro: 66.Dowbiggin, Ian Robert. 2002. “‘A Rational Coalition’: Euthanasia, Eugenics, and Birth Control in America, 1940-1970.”14, 3: 223-260.Hered, J. 1916. “Nebraska.”7: 238.Historic Asylums. (1999). “Lincoln Insane Asylum.” Available at http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~asylums/lincoln_ne/index.html >.Landman, J. H. 1932.New York: MacMillan.Laughlin, Harry H. 1922.. Chicago: Municipal Court of Chicago.Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services. 2007. "Beatrice State Developmental Center." Available at < http://www.dhhs.ne.gov/dip/ded/bsdcindex.htm >.Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services. 2008. “Hastings Regional Center.” Available at < http://www.hhs.state.ne.us/beh/rc/hrcserv.htm >.Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services. 2010. “Lincoln Regional Center.” Available at < http://www.hhs.state.ne.us/beh/rc/lrcserv.htm Painter, George. 1991. “Nebraska.”. Available at http://www.glapn.org/sodomylaws/sensibilities/nebraska.htm >.Paul, Julius. 1965. “‘Three Generations of Imbeciles Are Enough’: State Eugenic Sterilization Laws in American Thought and Practice.” Unpublished manuscript. Washington, D.C.: Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.Reilly, Philip R. 1991.. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press.“Review ofby Phyllis Osborne, director.” June 1938.. 12, 2: 361-362.Rietsch, Pam. 2002. “Semi-Centennial History of Nebraska, 1904.” NEGenWeb. Available at < http://www.usgennet.org/usa/ne/topic/resources/OLLibrary/SCHofNE/pages/contents.htm >.Schalock, Robert L. 2002.Washington D.C.: American Association on Mental Retardation.Schmeckpeper, Sheryl. 2000.Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing. 38-39, 29.Shumway, Howard Paine. 1915.Lincoln, NE: (Unpublished Thesis).Thomas, Elmer A. 1962.(No publishing information available).Vose, Clement E. 1972.. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.One third of world's biggest non-governmental organisations decline to make fraud data public
* World's biggest aid charities only admit to $3 mln losses a year
* One third of charities decline to make fraud data public
* NGOs under pressure to come clean on losses for credibility
(Adds Mercy Corps in new paragraphs 11-12, detail in 13)
By Tom Esslemont
LONDON, July 15 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - With fraud rife in conflict and disaster zones, aid charities are under pressure to be open about corruption but one third of the world's 25 biggest aid charities declined to make their fraud data public in a Thomson Reuters Foundation investigation.
Data collected from 12 of the 25 humanitarian non-governmental organisations (NGOs) with the greatest expenditure shows annual losses of $2.7 million - or just 0.03 pct of annual turnover based on data supplied for the years 2009-2014.
Transparency experts said the real figure would likely be far higher if data was available with these major aid relief groups estimated to spend $18 billion a year globally.
Eight of the biggest NGOs questioned in a pioneering survey on accountability in charitable aid declined to elaborate, saying they reported their losses to regulators. Five of the biggest NGOs said they had not experienced any diversions of funds during this period.
"Most NGOs in many cases will not report fraud as fraud because they will have a long paper trail coming after them," said transparency and development researcher, Till Bruckner, author of the book "Aid Without Accountability".
"Accounting demands in the field are unrealistic and come on top of the pressures associated with helping people, meaning NGO staff will at times produce fictitious paperwork, providing an illusion of accountability."
Other experts believe that recent disaster responses and allegations of corruption have compelled aid groups reliant on public donations to own up to financial losses in the field.
The 2010 Haiti earthquake - which saw Haitians accuse local authorities of deliberately holding up aid distributions - forced a rethink in the NGO sector, says Craig Fagan, head of policy at global anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International.
"I would say in the last five years there has been a turning of the tide," Fagan told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
"[There has been] a realisation, at least at a global level, that this is part of their licence to operate, that charities need to be accountable in a 360-degree way with people they are working with and those funding them."
Mercy Corps said it had been defrauded in its Afghanistan programme in 2011, when a staff member absconded with funds worth $257,670 after cashing a cheque he had altered.
A spokeswoman said the loss, which was recovered through the charity's insurance policy, accounted for 0.09 percent of that year's total revenue and that Mercy Corps altered its banking relationship to prevent the problem recurring.
World Vision International, the largest humanitarian NGO in the world in expenditure terms, said $1 million (0.01 percent) of its resources went missing between 2009 and 2013.
A spokesman for the charity said this was largely down to two significant incidents, both in World Vision's Zambia office.
The first, amounting to $262,000, resulted from collusion between staff and outside vendors and bankers, while the second, amounting to $306,000, was related to internal staff fraud in procurement transactions.
The charity said the perpetrators were found guilty and were jailed, senior staff in Zambia were replaced and 50 percent of the missing funds were recovered.
REPORTING FRAUD SEEN AS ONEROUS
"World Vision strengthened... electronic banking controls, and approval mechanisms. We also established new internal audit procedures to improve the detection of fraud, theft, and collusion," said Rudo Kwaramba, World Vision's regional leader who oversees the organisation's work in several African nations.
Care International, Oxfam GB, Plan International, Norwegian Refugee Council, ActionAid, Handicap International, Concern Worldwide, Médecins sans Frontières (MSF), the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and the Danish Refugee Council all reported losses of between 0.002 and 0.06 percent of their own annual revenue.
The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) revealed 14 cases of financial irregularities in nine countries, including Liberia, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Its biggest financial loss was in Colombia, where $50,000 worth of building materials did not reach the intended beneficiaries.
"A staff member admitted to having misappropriated the funds and was dismissed," an NRC spokesman explained.
Those defrauded said the problem was not simply one of theft.
"Corruption includes cases where the organisation faces theft, bribery, embezzlement, nepotism, facilitation payments, deception, extortion, abuse of power," said a spokesman for the medical relief charity MSF.
The MSF spokesman said in a separate incident, $790,000 of material goods were looted or stolen from its premises in the Central African Republic in 2014.
Other organisations opted not to disclose detailed fraud information, which alarmed some analysts in an environment in which corruption is known to be widespread.
"There needs to be more pressure on NGOs to ensure they provide clear figures which are timely, reliable, useful and comparable," said Robert Bourgoing, founder of AidInfoPlus.org, an aid transparency website.
International Rescue Committee, Christian Aid and International Medical Corps said they do not share fraud data publicly, but they do report it to regulators and have internal mechanisms to tackle it.
Action Against Hunger (ACF) International, Catholic Relief Services, Feed The Children, Samaritan's Purse, and Global Communities failed to respond to the question on fraud that was included as part of a broader survey on NGO staffing, fundraising costs, and impact.
(Reporting By Tom Esslemont, Editing by Belinda Goldsmith; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, corruption and climate change. Visit www.trust.org)
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.It's great to see that leftists and millennials and others are snapping up George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four in a bid to make some sense of Trump's presidency. Because when they get deep into this dystopian tale—into the Newspeaking, sex-fearing, history-rewriting meat of it—they might realize that it describes their authoritarianism better than Trump's. I can picture their faces now: "Guys… is this novel about us?"
The book shot to the top of Amazon's bestseller list after Kellyanne Conway used the phrase "alternative facts" to describe the Trump administration's belief that the crowds at his inauguration were larger than the media had let on. People pointed out that "alternative facts" sounds creepily like something the Party in Orwell's story would say. Trump seems to believe he can fashion facts from thin air, to boost his own political standing.
"Alternative facts is a George Orwell phrase," said Washington Post reporter Karen Tumulty. MSNBC correspondent Joy Reid tweeted the following lines from the novel: "The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command." Within hours Nineteen Eighty-Four was a bestseller again, people buying it as a map to the liberty-challenging Trump era.
But the novel is a better guide to what preceded Trump, to the nannying, nudging, speech-policing, sex-panicking, P.C. culture that Trumpism is in some ways a reaction against.
Consider the Junior Anti-Sex League, the prudish youths in Orwell's story who think the "sex impulse" is dangerous and devote themselves to spying on interactions between the sexes. "Eroticism was the enemy," they believed. "Desire was thoughtcrime." If this prissiness finds its echo in anyone today, it isn't in the creepily oversexed, pussy-grabbing Trump—it's in the stiff buzz-killers of the campus feminist movement.
These radical wallflowers demonize drunk sex, bossily insisting all sexual interactions must be "sober, imaginative, enthusiastic, creative, wanted, informed, mutual and honest." (Even the Junior Anti-Sex League didn't come up with such a thorough list of what counts as acceptable sex.) They drag male students to campus kangaroo courts for allegedly doing sex the wrong way. Student officials in Britain have banned the making of "animal noises" in the student bar lest they arouse sexual bravado in men, and sexual dread in women.
Fortunately, it is curable. Some universities make freshmen undergo diversity training, inculcating them with the correct mindset on all matters racial, religious, and social. The University of Delaware, going full O'Brien, referred to its diversity training as "treatment" for incorrect attitudes. The New York Times reported last year that more and more students think diversity training "smacks of some sort of Communist re-education program." The modern campus, as devoted to treating moral infection as to imparting knowledge, could adopt O'Brien's cry as its slogan: "Shall I tell you why we have brought you here? To cure you!"
And of course there's thoughtcrime. The Party punishes anyone who dares to hold a point of view it disagrees with. Not unlike modern P.C. warriors who will brand you a "denier" if you're not fully eco-conformist and a "misogynist" if you criticize feminism.
Witness the doublespeak of today's leftist lovers of censorship. They create Safe Spaces, they speak of "the right to be comfortable". These are darkly Orwellian euphemisms for censorship. The Party would be proud of these people who have successfully repackaged the expulsion of unpopular views as "safety" and "comfort"; who will use actual threats and force—see the Berkeley stink—to secure students' "safety" against unpleasant ideas. War is Peace, Violence is Safety, Censorship is Comfort.
As to "alternative facts" and the invitation to "reject the evidence of your eyes and ears": that Nineteen Eighty-Four theme applies at least as well to the P.C. set as it does to Trump's hissy fits. Their clinging to patently overblown rape-on-campus stats, and their trashing of anyone who dares question them, suggests a deep devotion to alternative realities.
And how about Newspeak, the Party's made-up, minimalist language that it pressures people to adopt? That finds expression today in the Pronoun Police, who demonize the use of "he" and "she" as potentially transphobic and invent Newspeak pronouns in their stead. Some campuses now want everyone to use "ze" as a default pronoun. "Ze" might be the most Newspeak word ever: a strange small word you must use if you want to be considered morally good.
Then there is the war on history, the demolition of ugly or inconvenient historical ideas and symbols. In Nineteen Eighty-Four, old things that have fallen out of favor are plunged down the memory hole. Today, P.C. zealots demand the tearing down of statues of old colonialists or the renaming of university halls that are named after people from the past who—shock, horror—had different values to ours. The Year Zero fervor of Orwell's Party is mirrored now in the behaviour of intolerant culture warriors.
Trump will be authoritarian, that's for sure. But his is likely to be a clumsy authoritarianism, oafish rather than Orwellian. In Nineteen Eighty-Four, leftists and millennials won't find a dystopian, fictionalized version of Trumpism—they'll find themselves. In the Party, in the treatment of ideas as disorders, in the Two Minutes Hate against those who are offensive or different, in the hounding of unpopular opinions, in the memory-holing of difficult things, they will see their own tragic creed reflected back to them. They will find a stinging rebuke from history of their own embrace of the sexless, joyless, ban-happy urge to control almost every area of individual thought and life. I hope they heed to this rebuke, and change.You must enter the characters with black color that stand out from the other characters
Message: * A friend wanted you to see this item from WRAL.com: http://wr.al/qbhD
— Embattled state Democratic Party Chairman Randy Voller suffered another blow Monday night: the resignation of the party's vice-chairwoman and lead fundraiser, Nina Szlosberg-Landis.
In an email sent Monday night to the several hundred members of the party's executive committee, Szlosberg-Landis said she made the decision "with a very heavy heart" but had come to the conclusion that the party's fundraising would suffer under Voller's continued leadership.
"During the last 100 days, I have become increasingly less comfortable with the tone and practices of the leadership of the party," she wrote. "It has become abundantly clear that donors are not comfortable with the actions of the current Chairman, and our Party will not have the support it needs under the current leadership."
"Despite my best efforts and the efforts of others to try to create some checks and balances, establish financial accountability that could be communicated clearly to the donor pool, and to publicly articulate a vision of shared leadership that would restore donor confidence, it has become clear to me, this is not the will of the Chairman," she wrote.
The high-profile defection is the latest in a string of missteps and controversies that have marked Voller's short tenure.
Elected in February in the wake of a sexual harassment scandal that left former Chairman David Parker at odds with the state's top elected Democrats, Voller barely beat former Congressman Bob Etheridge, who wasn't even in the building to campaign during the election meeting.
Voller's chief opponent, former Fayetteville state Sen. Eric Mansfield, had to drop out of the chairman's race due to family issues.
Since then, Voller has made headlines for firing party executive director Tammy Brunner, accusing Republicans of "raping" the state, stacking the party's executive committee, charging a Las Vegas weekend trip to the party's credit card (which he later repaid) and hiring two consultants at what Voller's critics say are inflated rates.
One of those critics, Winston-Salem political activist Frank Eaton, made a video in mid-May titled "For the Good of the Party," calling for investigations into Voller's personnel and financial management practices.
That video provoked an angry demand for retraction from one of Voller's consultants, Michael Carmichael, who sent a release on Voller's behalf calling the video "libelous" and "scurrilous."
The party did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The problem with trying to take a picture of a black hole is that it consumes everything, even the light around |
views didn't coincide with No 10's … David and I didn't fall out exactly, [but] there was constant friction."
He also accuses the Tory press office of trying to keep him off the media and says he had a "great row with them" a few months ago when they told the BBC he was ill and couldn't go on Question Time, when, in fact, he was in rude health and raring to go. When he rang the producer, he says, "she said 'I'm told you're ill'. After that I got even more freelance."
A vote to leave the EU would, Clarke says, leave Cameron and future PMs as diminished figures on the world stage, and the UK unable to shape economic rules that would directly affect this country's economic future.
"Being prime minister will be a less important job if we leave the European Union. You'd become a minor player in all kinds of situations."
Deriding the view of Eurosceptics that the UK could forge its own bilateral agreements outside the EU, he says: "The idea that the United Kingdom could negotiate a serious trade deal with the United States on its own … is ridiculous."
Housing bubbles followed by collapses remain a British disease that has now spread outside London. "I very much hope the British are going to get out of this ludicrous cycle of ridiculous housing booms followed by housing crashes," he says, adding that Bank of England governor Mark Carney is now addressing the problem.
The focus for the next five years must be on pushing on with reforms to create higher levels of skills, more training, better education, more research and development and "boosting science which is difficult with the British who aren't very interested in science. All that. We have got a long, long way to go."
Echoing one of the central messages of Labour leader Ed Miliband, he says: "We don't want to be a low-skills, low-productivity, long-hours economy."
He adds: "We're only halfway through … We've saved the country from calamity but we've got a long way to go before we get a competitive economy, with sustainable levels of growth and all that."
• Kenneth Clarke: I had a lot of views, but they didn't coincide with No 10'sRepublicans and Democrats may soon be forced to get along on health care.
Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is pushing to strike a deal by Friday as several moderate and conservative GOP senators oppose the Senate's current bill to repeal and replace Obamacare. While McConnell could still win over enough Republican members to pass his current plan, the prospect of the GOP having to work with Democrats to patch up Obamacare is increasing.
Moderate GOP senators like Susan Collins of Maine, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Dean Heller of Nevada, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Rob Portman of Ohio have various concerns with the current bill. They want to blunt the effects of a Medicaid expansion rollback, curb the estimated number of people the plan leaves uninsured and get more help with the opioid crisis.
They have some common ground with Democrats, many of whom have said they are open to Obamacare tweaks that would aim to slow premium increases and stop the exodus of insurers from some states.
"I'm one that wants to work with my friends," moderate Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia told MSNBC on Thursday. "I've been reaching out, and Shelley and I have been speaking. Susan Collins and I have been speaking. Dean Heller and I have been speaking. We want to fix this thing. And [Minority Leader] Chuck Schumer wants to fix this thing."
The Republican Party has promised for most of a decade to repeal the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama's signature achievement, and replace it with a new system. United Democratic opposition to any form of repeal means the GOP would have to pass its current plan with only Republican support.Sienna Miller is unlike many actors I’ve interviewed in how she seems as intent in learning about you, as you are in learning about her. It’s the same quality that makes her so captivating to watch in films like Factory Girl, The Edge of Love and High-Rise, which was at the center of our conversation. In Ben Wheatley’s epic science-fiction thriller she plays Charlotte, a single mother living in the title building, where she meets the enigmatic Robert Laing (Tom Hiddleston) with whom she begins an affair. Ms. Miller provides Charlotte with an almost feline instinct, onscreen she slinks with premeditated effortlessness, seducing those on her path because life has revealed that is her strongest asset. She also infuses Charlotte with a droll sense of humor that in the hands of a lesser actor would make her seem heartless.
Like Charlotte, Ms. Miller is also very frank, “listening to your own voice for that long is exhausting” she explains about the long press day that preceded our meeting, when I tell her I will make the interview “quick and painless” she blushes and explains “it’s not you” and proceeds to ask me about my day. Now I blush. She points to my arm and says “I like your little Keith Haring tattoos…,” I thanked her and pointed out that as a native New Yorker – she moved to the UK with her parents as a child – she was no stranger to high-rises, which sets off our conversation…
Did you ever imagine what went on inside the skyscrapers in NYC?
I was raised in London and I didn’t live in a highrise, but I imagine if I was in New York when I’m in those buildings that are vast and sprawling, and enormous, it’s such a strange feeling to think of the other lives that are going on in other rooms.
Were you a fan of Ben Wheatley’s other movies?
Yes, I had seen all of them and had been following his work which I think is so unique. He’s a real visionary. He captures the satirical aspects so well, how people are so twisted, but the stories are delivered in an amazing way. He was always someone I wanted to work with, so the initial draw was to work with him.
Was it essential for your own preparation to read J.G. Ballard’s book?
Yes, that was something I wanted to do. I read the script first, but the book was really insightful and useful.
Do you think that science-fiction is the best genre to convey sociopolitical changes? Even though the film is a fantasy, it’s such a great allegory for the Thatcher era.
I don’t know if it’s the best, but I think in this story it totally works. I’m not a huge science-fiction buff, but I think a good story and a good film should have a social undercurrent, or something that resonates, lands, or makes you question and analyze not only yourself but your role in life.
I haven’t read the book, so how much of Charlotte’s backstory is actually in it?
There’s a little bit more, but you should read the book. It delves into things a little bit deeper, of course there are differences, but of course it’s hard to condense a book into an hour and a half. That being said the essence and the spirit of the book is totally what the film is.
Is it important for your process to figure out what Charlotte was up to before moving into the building?
Yeah, you figure out a backstory to find who this person is. The most rewarding part of this job is really making these people real for yourself. So whether it’s relevant or even discussed onscreen, if I walk into a room I’d think of where I’d been before for example. Rather than just imagining she was just waiting outside the door, I want to know what she was doing that day. You kind of ask these questions to add layers.
The different levels of the high rise reminded me of one of my favorite theories by Slavoj Žižek…
Oh my god, he’s amazing.
Right? I love when he uses Norman Bates’ house from Psycho to explain id, ego and superego. I hope that’s right, I always get my Freudian terms mixed up.
He’s more Lacanian though, isn’t he?
Absolutely, but this was the one time he was being super Freudian. So the characters in High-Rise made me think of that, since they’re all archetypes…
Completely. Even their names, you’ve got Royal and Wilder. Actually Slavoj Žižek should watch this film. I think he’s mad, isn’t he brilliant?
I know, I love him. Is it difficult as an actor to humanize an archetype though?
Well, you hope the storyteller will do that for you. Your job is to inhabit the character. I think if I got too analytical it wouldn’t be real, it would become overthought. So whatever Charlotte is in that large scheme is Ben’s job, mine is to play her. But I did think how she’d be the type of woman who would survive, the kind of character who could be mercurial, who could hop between layers and is accepted almost anywhere. The middle classes will rise kind of character. She’s also in the middle of the building, and those are the characters who fare the best. Something to think about, food for thought.
The moment I saw Charlotte in those wonderful costumes I thought of Factory Girl. Obviously your characters aren’t something you carry everywhere with you, but I wondered if you’d find it strange if people would thought you were borrowing elements from Edie Sedgwick to play Charlotte?
I wouldn’t say it’s strange. Edie was a huge icon of the 60’s, so Charlotte probably would have known who she was. The thing we decided to do with Charlotte was that maybe she was 30 now, in the 60’s she was in her 20s, and she’s clinging to her youth. She’s reluctantly a mother, so we decided to keep 60’s makeup on her, even though the film is set in the 70’s.
Like she’s in denial.
Yeah a little bit, and the tragedy that this is for her. Which is subconscious for a lot of people, but I think you picked up on it. I think that because of my research of Edie’s era, I subconsciously used things from her. But let it be said they are completely different characters.
I thought in the larger scheme of pop culture chronology the film is perfectly situated between Mad Men – Elisabeth Moss is in it too – and American Psycho, and there are all these references to Kubrick. Did Ben give you guys any assignments when it came to movies and television shows he used for inspiration?
No, I think he’s enough of a visionary to know that this was something he was crafting in his own mind. He cast the people he wanted to cast and then let them loose in an environment that he had complete control over, but we never felt manipulated or controlled, which is rare. As a director he gives you free rein but you know it’s within the confines of his brain. He was originally an editor so he knows exactly what he wants, but you don’t feel suffocated or infringed upon creatively.
What surprised you the most once you saw the final version of the film?
I didn’t think the effects would look as good as they looked. They are amazing! We shot in this strange abandoned sports center in Belfast, with a small budget, so with what they made it for, it looks just amazing.
Because of this movie I haven’t been able to stop singing “S.O.S” for weeks…
[Laughs]
…was that something that happened to you guys as well?
Yeah, Ben played it a lot on the set and Tom Hiddleston would play it a lot in the make-up trailer, so we all had that song in our heads for the entire shoot.
What’s your favorite ABBA song though?
[Gasps] “S.O.S” is pretty great, but maybe “Dancing Queen.” What about you?
Definitely “Dancing Queen.”
Everyone’s always in the mood for that one.
I’m trying to resist myself from asking you a billion questions about musicals since you did Cabaret on Broadway. But now that you’re officially a musical actress, what are your dream musical roles?
Sally Bowles! I really don’t think it gets any better than that. I’d like to do Guys and Dolls, and other things, but in terms of any characters I’ve ever played, Sally Bowles was my highlight. It was the most fun I’ve ever had playing anything.
Cabaret wasn’t your first time onstage, so going from stage back to screen, what have you noticed about your process now? Has it changed in any way?
I think that theatre is an incredible training ground for any actor. The rehearsal process itself is just extensive and forensic, and you’re forced to examine things in a way you’re not always encouraged, or there’s just no time to do, in film. It’s an actor’s medium in that once you’re up and running, the director is gone and it’s yours. Inevitably, through the audience participation or whatever visceral experience happens, it moves and it becomes something else. A good part like Shakespeare, or when I played Sally Bowles, are things that make you change. You realize by doing theatre because of how much it shifts, how bottomless these people really are. You can never do enough work. There’s always something more to scratch and go deeper into. It’s essential for me to keep going back to the stage to remind myself of that. And I love it! There’s nothing like that feeling of being live, and doing something in one go through, of having the full experience. Film becomes less and less satisfying the more theatre I do. [Laughs] I love it, it’s great! But it’s just not the same.
People keep coming up with all these crazy theories about what High-Rise is about. What’s the weirdest one you’ve heard?
I haven’t really read anything or paid too much attention. What’s the strangest thing you’ve heard?
Well, people asked me to ask anyone involved in the film what the film was about, but I told them that wasn’t your job really.
Yeah, you’re right, it’s up to them to figure that out. That’s a great answer.
High-Rise is now on VOD and in limited release.Already lauded for his world-class training habits, Phoenix Suns point guard Steve Nash has become renowned for yet another area of his health… his diet.
Towards the end of last season, subtle rumblings began to emanate out of the Suns’ locker room about the mysterious “Nash Diet.” Already well-known for being ultra-progressive with his training regimen, one would surmise that Nash’s approach to his eating habits would be just as complex and interesting.
Athletes, and people for that matter, are always looking for the “next” great solution when it comes to regulating their diet: whether it’s Atkins, South Beach to macrobiotics. Once word spread that the two-time MVP’s diet had found disciples in Grant Hill, Shaquille O’Neal and Jared Dudley, it became apparent that a closer examination was needed.
However, once Nash was pressed to reveal his secrets, it turned out that the wizard behind the curtain was just someone who’s performed a great deal of intelligent research. There was no cure-all, panacea or quick-fix in his approach.
He’s not boycotting carbs or eating only protein. The six-time All-Star just tries to make the best choices out of what he has available at the time and proactively plan for moments in the day when his choices are limited.
Nash isn’t counting calories, following a schedule or cooking out of a textbook, he is just abiding by some core principles. The first and foremost is that he tries to eat organically as much as possible.
“I’m not perfect but I try to eat healthy, and I try to eat as much natural stuff from the earth as I can,” he said. “I stay away from all the processed foods, as well as pastas, rice and breads.”
The core of his diet consists of fruits, vegetables, raw nuts, chicken and fish. He also supplements by taking vitamins that you can find at any supermarket.
A typical breakfast for the team’s playmaker would be wheat-free cereal with non-dairy milk (almond milk), while lunch and dinner would be a chicken or fish salad. In between meals, one can always find Nash snacking on fruits, raw nuts and natural energy bars.
It seems that Nash’s diet is as much as what he eats as what he doesn’t eat. Before practice the rookies always bring doughnuts for the veterans, but Nash never partakes. After games, there is a huge spread of food laid out for the players, but he rarely eats any of it.
Those habits are what caught the eye of Suns swingman Jared Dudley. Whenever the team was flying on the franchise’s charter plane, Nash would almost always pass on the food prepared and order a salad. In addition, Dudley would overhear Hill and Nash discussing different nutritional strategies and he figured he’d seek out some pointers from the two co-captains. After losing 10 pounds, the third-year man officially became a convert.
“You ask them for hints and you try to use those tips because you see the ways your body reacts after you junk food,” Dudley said. “Those guys have played 13, 14 years and a lot of that has to do with God-given ability, but you see Steve and somehow his body is in shape and you know that if he just ate junk every day, I bet you he wouldn’t be the player he is now.”
Nash's tips helped Dudley lose 10 pounds.
(Barry Gossage/NBAEGetty Images)
For Nash, his interest in eating correctly harkens back to when he was a junior in college. Although he had the temptation of an all-you-can-eat buffet at his college cafeteria, the Santa Clara product first began making alterations to his diet in order to increase his performance on the basketball court.
“It's really just a natural evolution of my interest in being the best athlete I can be and being a healthful person who prevents injury and illness and can perform at my highest level,” he stated on his Facebook page.
“I feel there are two areas of life that are greatly overlooked, misunderstood or not credited with their importance in our ability to reach our optimal levels of performance and also our greatest quality of everyday life… diet and sleep.”
Dudley took those ideas to heart, trading in doughnuts, soda, Gatorade, fried foods and Lolo’s Chicken and Waffles for Propel, baked foods and the organic restaurant, True Food Kitchen. For Dudley, the change in his diet was motivated by the lack of playing time he received after coming over in a trade from Charlotte in December.
“I noticed the difference in my body and I don’t get as sore and I can go a little bit longer,” Dudley said. “It’s how you feel on the court. Sometimes you have it, sometimes you don’t, but since I’ve been eating better, I have a lot more to give.”
As much as Dudley admires Nash, to adjust to his level of discipline is proving to be too drastic for the young forward.
“I’m trying to get to Grant’s level, but I’ll never get to Steve’s,” he said. “I like too much stuff to be able to do what he does.”
Dudley claims that if there was a percentage breakdown, Hill eats healthy 80 percent of the time, leaving 20 percent of his diet comprised of food that isn’t being eaten for nutritional purposes. While that may be outstanding, he estimates Nash’s ratio to be more like 95 percent healthy to five percent junk.
In fact, Nash is so gung-ho that he was tested by Dr. Suneil Jain, a naturopathic doctor, to see what type of food sensitivities he possesses. The 6-3 guard learned that he was sensitive to wheat, gluten, dairy, tomatoes and onions and returns regularly to the naturopath for IV's of vitamins and trace minerals that may be low from the wear-and-tear of the season.
Here as excerpt from Nash’s Facebook page on what he will eat on a typical day:
Breakfast. It is the most important meal of the day.... along with lunch and dinner. I feel if your diet is consistent and well balanced (think long term rather than short term) it isn't so important what you eat right before you play or the night before because your energy levels and recovery will be on target from the quality of your previous three to seven days of meals. -Gluten and wheat free cereal, sliced almonds and almond or rice milk. (If you don't have the sensitivities I have look for a high fiber cereal. At least 4 grams of fiber.)
I will also have a whole fruit smoothie or an apple, banana or orange.
Green tea. Lunch. A salad with grilled chicken or fish, vegetables, raw nuts and dried fruit.
I will also have fruit afterwards. Dinner. Grilled or baked fish or chicken with vegetables. Sometimes I'll have brown rice. Again, plan ahead. If you get hungry between meals have a plan as to what foods you'll turn to and make sure you have plenty of them so your only options aren't will power or ice cream. My snack foods are, dried fruit, whole almonds or whole cashews. All natural, raw foods energy bars. Raw vegetables like carrots and celery. Whole fruit or whole fruit smoothies. It goes without saying drink water throughout the day to stay hydrated. If you feel like you need electrolytes coconut water has the highest concentration of electrolytes but if your diet is good you should have plenty of electrolytes. If this diet sounds boring it can be if you don't like fruits, vegetables and grilled, steamed or baked chicken or fish. On the other hand there's so many healthful ways to prepare your food and there's tons of fruits and vegetables that offer you slightly different nutritional values and tastes. It may take a lot of discipline and time to train yourself to eat well but it's incredibly worthwhile for your short term and long term goals.
While Nash may be a little extreme, the Suns’ trainers and strength and conditioning coaches just try to provide sound advice for athletes that are constantly traveling.
“You’re not going to have an athlete getting on a plane looking at food labels and worrying about rationing what they put into their bodies,” former strength and conditioning coach Erik Phillips said. “You’re trying to give really simple opportunities for these guys to know what’s good and what’s bad. We know that guys are going to leave the arena and get something on the way home, and we try to educate them on what’s their best option.”
If everyone was to follow Nash’s example, they would eat around six small meals a day, or at least three major meals with a lot of snacking in between. Besides cutting out late-night meals, Nash always has healthy snacks with him so he’s not fighting off hunger with junk food or willpower.
The 13-year veteran attempts to take a big-picture point of view towards his diet, concentrating on building consecutive weeks and months of good eating practices. By establishing that base, it’s not as important what he eats right before a game because his body is feeding off of the energy he’s stored from his previous seven meals.
As disciplined as both Hill and Nash are, they both cheat from time-to-time and believe in the principle of rewarding themselves in moderation. For example, Nash can be caught eating ice cream while Hill can be seen munching on a cookie on the team’s charter.
While Hill only drinks water and tea, he insists that every person find a strategy that works for them. When Hill and Nash went to eat the exact same pregame meal at a local organic restaurant together, Hill told Nash after the game that he was completely sapped of energy while he was playing. Unfortunately for Hill, Nash failed to tell his fellow co-captain that in order to ascertain a much-needed energy boost, he snacked on a few other items before tip-off.
Due to health problems and his drive to succeed, Hill has been tinkering with his diet for the last 10 years. The seven-time All-Star is an advocate of the macrobiotics diet, which is defined as “a practice of promoting well-being and longevity, principally by means of a diet consisting chiefly of whole grains and beans.”
As much as both athletes are concerned with maintaining a competitive advantage over their peers, Nash and Hill are more interested in maintaining their overall well-being and energy level. Despite it being their original motivation, their nutritional choices now extend much further than basketball.
“I look at being healthy and really understanding the body and what works and what doesn’t work as opportunity to extend my career and play at a higher level at an older age,” Hill said. “But also hopefully extend my life and still be an active when I’m done playing.”
Any questions or comments for Suns.com's Stefan Swiat? Click here to send him your comments by e-mail.In the Twitter era, marketers have to be extra careful that what they put on their websites isn't offensive, even unintentionally. It's a lesson Target took to heart this week, apologizing for a product-naming discrepancy that some fuller-figured shoppers found offensive.
The kerfuffle started when self-described "Digital Maven" Susan Clemens was shopping on Target.com and noticed an odd thing: The same style of dress in the exact same color was labeled differently depending on the size. The name of the color on the plus-size version was suggestive, and not in a flattering way.
Clemens tweeted her discovery, quickly garnering dozens of retweets:
Someone's idea of a mean joke? Absolutely not, says Target spokesman Joshua Thomas.
He points out that "Manatee Gray" is a color found on many products across a range of categories on the Target website, some of them in women's regular and even petite sizes.
In this case, he says, there were two different teams of buyers responsible for the "missy" and plus-size product lines, and the teams didn't coordinate when they inputted the product information for the site. One team apparently used the color's official name, while the other eyeballed it.
"We apologize for any discomfort this might have caused and are working to update the name of the dress to reflect Dark Heather Gray," Thomas told FORBES. "This was an unfortunate oversight and we’ll take it into consideration moving forward."
Target also apologized directly to Clemens, and to its 536,000 other Twitter followers, tweeting, "We apologize for this unintentional oversight & never intend to offend our guests. We've heard you, and we're working to fix it ASAP." The fix has been made: On the webpage for the plus-sized version of the dress, which is manufactured exclusively for distribution through Target, the color is simply labeled "gray."
That was plenty good enough for Clemens. "@Target handled it really well," she tweeted. "I'm still a big fan."
Lesson learned, boycott averted.
Note: This story has been updated to reflect Target's full response. The original version included Thomas's statement but not Target's Twitter post.A North Austin man took a 7-year-old boy from an inflatable bounce house at a Kilbourn Park neighborhood block party last month and restrained the child with duct tape before sexually assaulting him, prosecutors said Saturday.
The Sept. 4 assault was stopped when someone walked in on Edward Radford, 38, and the child at a home in the 3300 block of North Kilpatrick Avenue and punched Radford. That person — whom prosecutors didn’t name during a bond hearing at the Leighton Criminal Court Building — then unbound the boy, took him back to the bouncy house and told him not to tell anyone, prosecutors said.
The boy and his family were at the block party that day and the boy was playing with an iPad when Radford approached him, prosecutors said. Radford told the child to come with him and that he was going to make the boy "smarter," Assistant Cook County State’s Attorney Katherine Schoon told the court.
Radford grabbed the boy’s hand and led him to a home office where he restrained the child, removed some of the boy’s clothing and played a pornographic video on the iPad before assaulting him, she said. The assault took place about 4:30 p.m. that day, according to police records.
The boy’s father later noticed tape residue on the boy’s arm after the assault, but the attack went unreported until the boy’s mother found the pornographic video on the boy’s iPad on Sept. 16 and asked him about it. Over the next few days, the boy revealed details of the assault, prompting his parents to do their own detective work.
The parents eventually found the home where the assault happened and, using a Facebook page with photos associated with a community group, identified both Radford and the witness who stopped the assault, prosecutors said. The boy’s father then notified police.
It is unclear whether the witness will face any criminal charges for instructing the boy not to tell anyone. Authorities arrested Radford on Wednesday and later charged him with predatory criminal sexual assault, aggravated kidnapping and unlawful restraint.
Radford, of the 5100 block of West Bloomingdale Avenue, said nothing during Saturday’s hearing, only occasionally shaking his head and fidgeting with a dusty black White Sox cap behind his back. He has previous drug convictions and was sentenced to three years in prison for one of them, Schoon said.
Judge Donald Panarese Jr. ordered Radford held on $500,000 bail, barred from having contact with anyone younger than 18 and barred him from contacting the child in the case.
If convicted of the criminal sexual assault charge, Radford faces between six and 60 years in prison without probation.
wlee@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @MidNoirCowboyConcealed within the desolate, rocky landscape of the Makran coastline of Southern Balochistan, Pakistan, is an architectural gem that has gone unnoticed and unexplored for centuries. The ‘Balochistan Sphinx’, as it is popularly called, came into the public eye only after the Makran Coastal Highway opened in 2004, linking Karachi with the port town of Gwadar on the Makran coast.1 A four-hour, 240-kilometer-long drive through meandering mountain passes and arid valleys from Karachi brings travellers to Hingol National Park, where the Balochistan Sphinx is located.
It is a four-hour drive from Karachi to the Hingol National Park, along the Makran Coastal Highway. The Balochistan Sphinx is located inside Hingol National Park.
The Makran Coastal Highway. Source: www.tresbohemes.com
The Balochistan Sphinx
The Balochistan Sphinx is routinely passed off by journalists as a natural formation, although no archaeological survey appears to have been conducted on the site.2 If we explore the features of the structure, as well as its surrounding complex, it becomes difficult to accept the oft-repeated premise that it has been shaped by natural forces. Rather, the site looks like a gigantic, rock-cut, architectural complex.
A cursory glance at the impressive sculpture shows the Sphinx to have a well-defined jawline, and clearly discernible facial features such as eyes, nose, and mouth, which are placed in seemingly perfect proportion to each other.
(a) The Balochistan Sphinx of Hingol National Park, ©Bilal Mirza CC BY 2.0.
(b) Face of the Great Sphinx of Giza, ©Hamerani CC BY-SA 4.0. Striking similarities can be drawn between its face, and that of (a), the Balochistan Sphinx.
The Sphinx appears to be decked up in a head-dress that closely resembles the Nemes head-dress of the Egyptian pharaoh. The Nemes headdress is a striped head-cloth that covers the crown and back of the head. It has two large, conspicuous, flaps which hang down behind the ears and in front of the shoulders. The ear-flaps can be discerned on the Balochistan Sphinx, as well as some stripe marks. The Sphinx has a horizontal groove across its forehead, which corresponds to the pharaonic headband that holds the Nemes headdress in place.
One can easily make out the contours of the reclining forelegs of the Sphinx, which terminate in very well-defined paws. It is difficult to see how nature could have carved out a statue that resembles a well-known mythical animal to such an astonishingly accurate degree.
The Balochistan Sphinx resembles the Egyptian sphinxes in many respects.
The Sphinx-Temple
In close proximity to the Balochistan Sphinx is another important structure. From a distance, it looks like a Hindu Temple (like those of South India), with a Mandapa (entrance hall) and a Vimana (temple spire). The top part of the Vimana appears to be missing. The Sphinx is reclining in front of the temple, acting as protector of the sacred site.
The Balochistan Sphinx reclines in front of a temple-like structure. Source: www.pakistanpaedia.com
In ancient, sacred architecture, the sphinx performed a protective function, and was generally placed in a pair on either side of entrances to temples, tombs, and sacred monuments. In ancient Egypt, the sphinx had the body of a lion, but its head could be that of a man (Androsphinx), a ram (Criosphinx) or a falcon (Hierocosphinx).3 The Great Sphinx of Giza, for instance, acts as guardian of the Pyramid Complex.
In Greece, the sphinx had the head of a woman, the wings of an eagle, the body of a lioness, and according to some, the tail of a serpent.4 The colossal statue of the Sphinx of Naxos stood on a towering ionic column, at the sacred Oracle of Delphi, acting as a protector of the site.
In Indian art and sculpture, the sphinx is known as purusha-mriga (‘man-beast’ in Sanskrit), and its primary position was near the temple gateway, acting as a guardian of the sanctuary.5 However, sphinxes were sculpted all over the temple premises including the entrance gates (gopuram), halls (mandapa) and near the central shrine (garba–griha). Raja Deekshithar identified 3 basic forms of the Indian sphinx:
A crouching sphinx with a human face, but with certain lion characteristics like mane and elongated ears
A striding or jumping sphinx with a fully human face
A half-upright or fully-upright sphinx, sometimes with moustaches and long beards, often in an act of worshipping a Shiva-linga.6
Sphinxes also feature in Buddhist architecture of Southeast Asia. In Myanmar, they are called Manusiha (from the Sanskrit manu-simha, meaning man-lion). They are depicted in a cat-like crouching posture at the corners of Buddhist stupas. They wear a tapering crown and ornamental ear-flaps, and have feathered wings attached to their front limbs.7
So, throughout the ancient world, the sphinx acted as a protector of sacred places. Perhaps not coincidentally, the Sphinx of Balochistan also appears to be guarding the temple-like structure adjacent to it. This suggests that the site was laid out in accordance with the principles of sacred architecture.
A closer look at the Balochistan Sphinx-Temple reveals clear evidence of pillars carved on a boundary wall. The temple entrance is visible behind a large pile-up of sediment or termite mounds. An elevated, sculpted, structure to the left of the entrance could be a subsidiary shrine. Overall, there can be little doubt that this a massive, man-made, rock-cut monument of great antiquity.
The Balochistan Sphinx-Temple shows clear signs of being a man-made, rock-cut temple.
Interestingly, there seems to be two monumental sculptures carved on the façade of the Sphinx-Temple, right above the entrance, on either side.
The carvings are heavily eroded, making their identification difficult; but it looks as if the figure on the left could be Kartikeya (Skanda/Murugan) holding his spear (vel); and the figure on the right, a striding Ganesha. Incidentally, both Kartikeya and Ganesha are sons of Shiva, meaning that the temple complex could have been dedicated to Shiva.
While identification at this stage is speculative, the presence of sculpted figures on the façade gives greater weight to this being a man-made structure.
The façade carvings on the Balochistan Sphinx-Temple could be that of Kartikeya and Ganesha.
The structure of the Sphinx-Temple suggests that it may actually be a Gopuram, i.e. the entrance tower of a temple. Like the Sphinx-Temple, gopurams are generally flat-topped. Gopurams have a row of ornamental kalasams (stone or metal pots) arranged on top. From careful study of the flat-topped Sphinx-Temple, one can discern a number of ‘spikes’ on top, which could be a row of kalasams, covered with sediment or termite mounds.
Gopurams are attached to the boundary wall of a temple, and the Sphinx-Temple appears to be contiguous with the outer boundary. Gopurams also feature giant sculpted figures of dvarapalas, i.e. door guardians; and as we have noted, the Sphinx-Temple appears to have two monumental figures carved on its façade, just above the entrance, which serve as the dvarapalas.
The Balochistan Sphinx-Temple could be a gopuram, i.e. an entrance tower of a temple.
An elevated structure to the left of the Sphinx-Temple could be another gopuram. This implies that there could be four gopurams in the cardinal directions leading to a central courtyard, where the main shrine of the temple complex was built (which cannot be seen in the photograph). This kind of temple architecture is quite common in South Indian Temples.
The Arunachaleshwar Temple in Tamil Nadu, India, has four gopurams i.e. entrance towers, in the cardinal directions. The temple complex houses numerous shrines. ©Adam Jones CC BY-SA 3.0.
The Sphinx-Temple Platform
The elevated platform on which the Sphinx and Temple are situated appears to have been elaborately carved with pillars, niches, and a symmetrical pattern that extends across the entire upper part of the platform. Some of the niches may well be doors that lead to chambers and halls under the Sphinx-Temple. It is believed by many, including mainstream Egyptologists like Mark Lehner, that there could be chambers and passages under the Great Sphinx of Giza as well. It is also interesting to note that the Balochistan Sphinx and the Sphinx-Temple are situated on an elevated platform, just as the Sphinx and the Pyramids of Egypt are built on the Giza plateau overlooking the city of Cairo.
Another conspicuous feature of this site is a series of steps leading to the elevated platform. The steps appear to be evenly spaced, and of uniform height. The entire site gives the impression of a grand, rock-cut |
States that it is no longer much of a status symbol, and a situation has arisen where any recently delivered mother who is eccentric enough to wish her child to retain his prepuce, would be well advised to maintain permanent guard over it until such time as they both leave the hospital. The nursery staff of most American hospitals have an insatiable urge to remove the foreskin and this instinct often causes great concern among European women who do not subscribe to this practice and through force of circumstances have their baby in the United States.
Why is the operation of circumcision practiced? One might as well attempt to explain the rites of voodoo! Ritual is seldom self- explanatory and still less frequently logical. Nevertheless, at least two origins of circumcision can be traced. First, it is part of an ancient rite practiced by many primitive tribes whereby the young male and less frequently the young female, gives proof of his or her ability to endure pain. If they pass the test with fortitude, they are then accepted into the tribe as fully developed adults with attendant privileges. Thus in this respect the operation is similar to many of the tattoos and scars produced by burning, piercing or incising that are accepted as routine cosmetic procedures by these peoples. Second, in many primitive African tribes circumcision is performed to reduce libido. This mutilating practice is generally performed on women to keep them faithful to their husbands. Male infant circumcision is practiced by all Semitic races, Jew and Arab alike, and has been exported by them to all parts of the world and to most races. It will perhaps be a cause of surprise to those of Semitic origin to find that the Australian aborigine has practiced circumcision for as long, if not longer, and for the same basic reason as his more civilized brethren.
So much for the origin of circumcision. Why does the operation find so much favor in Western society? There are a variety of reasons advanced in favor of circumcision most of which are unconvincing when critically examined. Let us consider the so-called medical (or surgical) reasons first. Those few pediatricians who have practiced in an unmutilated population agree that phimosis is all but unknown in infancy. The prepuce is not retractile at birth and does not become so until the child is between two and three years old. A non-retractile foreskin is not synonymous with phimosis and should not be used as pretext for lopping off an innocent and useful appendage. It has been claimed that the uncircumcised male is more prone to venereal disease. Any US or British physician with experience in North Africa or the Levant knows that the Middle East has a venereal disease rate which is second to none. Foreign aid in this context is superfluous. The argument is also advanced, this time with much greater justification, that cancer of the penis is found almost entirely in the uncircumcised; nevertheless, this is an uncommon form of cancer and generally has a fairly good prognosis. Appendicitis causes many more deaths than does cancer of the penis but nobody yet recommends routine appendectomy. Perhaps the most fatuous reason advanced for the operation is that the uncircumcised penis is less hygienic. Soap and water work wonders with the body's other orifices and appendages and there would seem no reason to doubt their efficacy with respect to the foreskin. The pinnae also collect dirt but removal of the external ears does not find favor as a routine measure of hygiene. A further important indication for circumcision which is seldom mentioned in the surgical textbooks is chronic remunerative balanitis.
How is it that parents accept this procedure with such equanimity and enthusiasm? This can be attributed in part to pressure exerted by their medical adviser and in part due to the fact that the procedure has become customary - one has to lop it off along with the Joneses. Moreover, many mothers will express the opinion that the circumcised phallus is more aesthetic, but in general their experience of the uncircumcised organ is limited to memories of a Michelangelo sculpture which appeared as an illustration in one of their college textbooks. Perhaps not least of the reasons why American mothers seem to endorse the operation with such enthusiasm is the fact that it is one way an intensely matriarchal society can permanently influence the physical characteristics of its males.
So far the reasons usually given for routine circumcision in infants have been examined and found wanting. Now let us consider whether the operation is in any way harmful or contraindicated. The function of the prepuce is to protect the glans, the latter being almost insensitive to most ordinary tactile and thermal stimuli. It has, however, specific receptors for other pleasurable sensations. Removal of the prepuce exposes the glans to foreign stimuli which dull these special receptors. During the act of coitus the uncircumcised phallus penetrates smoothly and without friction, the prepuce gradually retracting as the organ advances. In contrast, when the circumcised organ is introduced during coitus, friction develops between the glans and vaginal mucosa. Penetration in the circumcised man has been compared to thrusting the foot into a sock held open at the top, while, on the other hand, in the intact counterpart it has been likened to slipping the foot into a sock that has been previously rolled up. The comparison is apt and worthy of Osler in one of his Rabelaisian moments.
This commentary must not be construed as a crusade against circumcision. The teaching of the Koran and the Bible, the mistaken beliefs of many of the medical profession, the intuition of woman, and, above all, folklore, tradition, and health insurance agencies support this ritual. Nevertheless, let us remember that 98 times out of 100 there is no valid indication for this mutilation other than religion.
Reference
1. Ross, A.S.C.: "U and Non-U: Essay in Sociological Linguistics," reprinted in Nobless Oblige: Enquiry Into Identifiable Characteristics of English Aristocracy, London: Penguin Books 1960, pp 9-32.
From the Division of Pulmonary Diseases, University of Maryland, School of Medicine, Baltimore.
Reprint requests to Redwood and Greene streets, Baltimore 21201 (Dr. Morgan).TORONTO — Premier Kathleen Wynne is defending nearly $600,000 the government spent in advertising the Ontario Retirement Pension Plan during the federal election campaign.
The Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation asked for the figure through a Freedom of Information request and was told that $592,834 was spent between Aug. 2 and Oct. 14, five days before the federal election.
The response also shows that the government spent more than $1.6 million in total on all ORPP advertising.
Christine Van Geyn, the director of the federation in Ontario, says Wynne campaigned with the federal Liberals on the issue of pensions during the federal election, and “used $600,000 of taxpayer money to support this campaign.”
Wynne says the timing of the ads was not intentional, as she had no idea the federal election would be called so early.
She says it’s important to let people know the ORPP, set to begin taking effect on Jan. 1, 2017, is coming.
“I think it takes a while for people to learn about a thing and to know that it’s coming, so that initial advertising was about foreshadowing for people that this is coming so they will hear more about it in the future,” she said Monday.
I think it takes a while for people to learn about a thing and to know that it’s coming, so that initial advertising was about foreshadowing
Ontario’s auditor general said during the federal election that she would have questioned the timing of a pension plan ad if the Liberal government hadn’t changed the oversight rules.
The provincial government amended the criteria under which the auditor general approves or rejects government ads, with auditor Bonnie Lysyk warning the changes would gut the legislation and could lead to the public paying for partisan advertising.
She said at the time it would reduce her office to a rubber stamp, and could put them in the position of approving ads that conformed to the government’s new definition of partisan, but were “clearly partisan by any objective, reasonable standard.”
The ORPP ad in question met all of the new criteria for not being partisan, but certain aspects of the ad and the timing during the federal election would have given Lysyk pause under the old, more subjective criteria, she said.ENIGMATIC former Melbourne genius Allen Jakovich has emerged from the football wilderness in an entertaining two-hour-plus interview on his extraordinary but brief career.
Jakovich remains a fan favourite – even a mythical figure – for how he burst onto the AFL scene and left it almost as quickly with a failed stint at Footscray after sitting out the 1995 season.
The 49-year-old's final tallies read 54 games and 208 goals, including 47 and 201 for the Demons, with back, hamstring and groin injuries ensuring his brilliant stay at the top was all too short.
Jakovich sat comfortably in what was the last great era for full-forwards, when Tony Lockett, Gary Ablett, Jason Dunstall and Tony Modra were kicking oodles of goals.
He played his first match for Melbourne as a 23-year-old in 1991, via Perth, Port Headland, Kalgoorlie, Darwin and Adelaide, and was the fastest AFL player to kick 50 career goals, in just nine games.
Only the legendary John Coleman slotted 100 majors as swiftly as Jakovich's 21 matches.
"It's just, I suppose, another of them famous stats, but when I look at it, if I was 18 or 19 years of age at that time and that happened at that age, I'd say it was a real great feat," Jakovich told the Demonland Podcast.
"But being 23 years of age, I'd had a fair bit of senior football under my belt with Woodville in the SANFL and also a bit of a stint up in Darwin, so I was pretty primed and ready to go.
"What unfolded in that season probably fuelled me to really get crackin'. It was a bit of a purple patch there, and that was fuelled by a lot of different emotions and … a want to succeed and kick some goals."
Jakovich recounted the day he booted a career-high 11 goals – along with eight behinds and another out on the full – in a public mauling of a North Melbourne defence led by 300-gamer Mick Martyn.
Martyn, a dual premiership player, was a rough and rugged full-back who thrived on grit and an acid tongue rather than natural talent, but was one of the best in those days.
He warned Jakovich, the older brother of dual All Australian defender Glen, at the first bounce he would punch him "in the back of the head" if he considered going near the ball.
Jakovich also had a short and failed stint at Footscray. Picture: AFL Photos
"I never said too much until you let your goalkicking do the talking," Jakovich said.
"Once I was up and about and had kicked a couple, then I sort of let Micky know that day that, 'Look, mate, don't worry about punching me in the back of the head, I'm going to make you look like a clown today'.
"The more I kicked, the quieter poor old Micky got, and it was quite funny, because I started to rev him up after I had about four or five.
"Every time I saw the North Melbourne runner … I kept reminding Micky that he was coming to get him very shortly and to, 'Lift your head Micky, he's coming to get you'."
Jakovich was reported for abusive language towards an umpire that same afternoon at the MCG. It was one of four occasions in his AFL stint that he was fined or suspended.
He never crossed paths with Martyn on a football field again, such was the blink-and-you'll-miss-it nature of his career. But they did bump into one another at a pub.
"I promised him I'd give him another shot, but it wasn't to be," Jakovich said.
"We had a beer and we had a bit of a laugh, but he had an incredible career – he was a great player for North."
Jakovich with Demons teammate David Schwarz. Picture: AFL Photos
Jakovich struggled to name his toughest opponent, requesting not to be taken the wrong way, but that "I sort of kicked goals on all of them".
Judging by his following comments, Hawthorn defender Chris Langford was the one, but he wrote off Danny Frawley as "slow" – and whenever they clashed "it was always a good time for a bag".
Jakovich admired Stephen Silvagni's ability to be equally effective up forward as down back despite not being "overly skilled" and related to Mark Zanotti having "a few screws loose".
He also had a feeling a then-young Mal Michael was destined for big things, which played out across 238 games and three premierships.
Jakovich went on to explain some of his complex character owed to a "me against the rest of the world" attitude after struggling emotionally with losing his father, Darko, at a young age.
"He was instrumental in my life and it's hard to deal with that sort of loss," he said.
"When it did get me down, there were a couple of times there, you might see on a few replays, I was probably the only bloke who wore a black armband one particular week.
"That helped me bring him along with me."
Jakovich lives on the east coast of New South Wales these days and is married with two daughters who prioritise academic life over sport.
He runs seasonal fishing charters before switching his attention for the rest of the year to licensing and OH&S on oil rigs.
"I didn’t mope around too much when (football) was over, because there were other things in life I wanted to pursue, like my love for fishing and the outdoors," Jakovich said.
"Stuff you can’t really pursue, especially in the winter months, when you're playing footy and for that fact not much in the summer either, because you'd only have a few weeks off and then you were bang into the pre-season in November.
"So off I went and got on with my life and basically kept a pretty low profile. I'm pretty quiet. I've got a beautiful wife and a couple of kids now, and they consume a lot of my time.
"I'm pretty much a family man, and enjoy watching them grow and getting on with my life."
WISE WORDS FROM ALLEN JAKOVICH
His cult following:
"I don't know about the royalty, mate. Maybe a mad, wild knight."
Kissing his brother and West Coast defender Glen during their round nine game in 1993:
"It was a special day. We did used to fly mum out to every one of those Eagles games and … she was proud as punch. The Glen I played with in the backyard would appreciate that, and also the Glen in the backyard wouldn’t have ever had a crack at me, or he would have ended up on his back – that goes without saying. That would have been in the back of his head, too."
That scissor-kick goal against North Melbourne:
"I think that was just a bit instinctive … if you blink, you miss it. The ball went over the back of the pack and the way I read it, I sort of went beyond it as well, and then all of a sudden it just popped out there. I did a few of them in the backyard with a soccer ball – I don't think I ever attempted to do it with a football."
Behaving off the field:
"You had to be mindful of what you were doing. A lot of coaches used to say, 'Nothing good happens after midnight', but I had a lot of good things happen to me at 2 or 3 or 4 in the morning, that's for sure. But you've just got to pick your times and be smart about it and don’t go doing anything that's going to bring yourself or the club down."
Clayton Oliver, who wears Jakovich's No.13:
"I'm super impressed with the reigning best and fairest, Clayton Oliver. I could see great things in him even before he started doing great things. (His number) might have been the first thing that sprung to my attention, but, believe me, what he can do with the ball, the way he rebounds, just his evasiveness – he's a great player. He's going to be a real Melbourne great, he's very special."
Averaging barely one handball a game:
"I've always said, 'You can’t handball goals'. A lot's been said about that over the years and the lack of handballs, but I don’t think I was a greedy player. If you look back at some of them, if there was a player lurking out the back of the square and I was sort of beyond 50 (metres) or something, I've seen a few replays where I've actually passed the ball. I actually passed once to Rod Grinter there when I was on nine (goals) … you don’t get too many full-forwards who've got nine under their belt and go and give what could have been your 10th goal off."
His serious back injury:
"You've got to get on with life … you can't cry over spilled milk and think 'poor me'. (But) it's very frustrating. When you think you're up and about and you're going all right, then you're sitting there or you bend over to do your boots up at training and 'bang', it pops again and all of a sudden, you feel like a 95-year-old man. There was a famous time there out at the Whitten Oval, where I had my bag on the backseat (in the car), grabbed my bag, turned, and noticed my back-passenger door was unlocked, so I leaned over to pop the button and then just 'bang'. I got out of the car and it took me about 35 minutes to walk 300 metres to the changerooms."
Wishing he played with Jeff Farmer:
"I would have loved to play next to the 'Wiz' (Farmer). I think I ran into him in a nightclub in Perth not long after he left Melbourne. I don’t know what we said to each other – it was probably 4am – but we had a bit of a laugh, a hug and a bit of a joke. But, Jesus, some of the highlights I saw of him standing on blokes' heads – wow, could he play. Geez, he was just a freak of a small forward. That's another guy you'd love to see in today's football; he'd tear it up for sure."#pointergate critics plan protest of Hubbard speech
Stanley Hubbard Janet Hostetter / AP file
Critics of a recent KSTP report claiming that Mayor Betsy Hodges was flashing a "gang sign" have taken to social media to object, dubbing the scandal "pointergate."
On Thursday, some plan to voice their concerns in person.
The chairman of Hubbard Broadcasting, the company that owns KSTP, is speaking this week at Augsburg College in Minneapolis and plans for a protest are already underway.
As chairman, Stanley Hubbard oversees local radio and television stations across the country, including KSTP.
Augsburg's Minnesota Public Interest Research Group, a chapter of a nationwide community organizing group, are organizing a #pointergate rally to take place before Hubbard's speech on Thursday. The group is also encouraging people to reserve tickets for the speech itself.
Criticism of the KSTP report has been widespread since it first aired last week. The #pointergate hashtag has been used more than 61,000 times on Twitter and has spurred press coverage both locally and nationally.
Previous coverage:
• Community group demands on-air apology • NewsCut: A question of racism remains
• Explaining #pointergate: The missing context
• How a gesture became #pointergateThe Padres took something that was a tremendous weakness after last offseason’s trade and spending spree, and turned it into a system that can start feeding the next competitive team in San Diego. There isn’t a ton of depth or more than a few high-probability prospects, but there is some upside to which Padres fans can look forward. The Craig Kimbrel trade was a big win, almost enough to wipe away the flop that was the 2015 season (of course, not really).
Two of the prospects that came over in that trade jump right into the 50+ FV group. Everyone agrees Manuel Margot is a legitimate prospect, but I’m a little lower on Javier Guerra, and Carlos Asuaje for that matter. Logan Allen is actually the prospect I’m picking to be the second-best prospect coming out of that deal. Guerra’s power potential isn’t a sure thing in my view, while Allen has the potential to move very quickly despite having been a prep pick just last June.
After last year’s dramatic improvements, I’m buying high on Colin Rea, believing the pitch mix and excellent command keeps him in the rotation for the foreseeable future. Also on this list, I make the case for why Travis Jankowski shouldn’t be dismissed as a fourth outfielder yet, while also acknowledging how much risk there is in Ruddy Giron’s future.
The depth of this system is really in the Quick Hits group. There were probably another 10-15 names I could justify putting there, but I wanted to stay focused on some of the more interesting ones. Their exclusion was less about not believing in their ceilings and more about an attempt to be concise about the prospects I wanted to highlight. It’s not as exciting of an area in which to possess depth, but there are quite a few players that could step up and appear on this list by midseason.
Here’s the primer for the series and my scouting thoughts in general. The grades I put on players heavily weight the functionality of each tool in game situations, rather than just pure tool grades. Here is a table to understand the position player grades:
Scouting Grades in Context: Hitters Grade Tool Is Called Batting Average HR ISO Baserunning Runs Fielding Runs 80 80 0.320 40 0.300 12 30 75 0.310 35-40 0.275 10 25 70 Plus Plus 0.300 30-35 0.250 8 20 65 0.290 27-30 0.225 6 15 60 Plus 0.280 23-27 0.200 4 10 55 Above Average 0.270 19-22 0.175 2 5 50 Average 0.260 15-18 0.150 0 0 45 Below Average 0.250 12-15 0.125 -2 -5 40 0.240 8-12 0.100 -4 -10 35 0.230 5-8 0.075 -6 -15 30 0.220 3-5 0.050 -8 -20
As well as one to understand what the overall grades approximate:
Scouting Grades in Context: Overall Grade Hitter Starting Pitcher Relief Pitcher WAR 80 Top 1-2 #1 Starter —- 7 75 Top 2-3 #1 —- 6 70 Top 5 #1/2 —- 5 65 All-Star #2/3 —- 4 60 Plus #3 High Closer 3 55 Above Avg #3/4 Mid Closer 2.5 50 Avg Regular #4 Low CL/High SU 2 45 Platoon/Util #5 Low Setup 1.5 40 Bench Swing/Spot SP Middle RP 1 35 Emergency Call-Up Emergency Call-Up Emergency Call-Up 0 30 *Organizational *Organizational *Organizational -1
One other difference in the way I communicate scouting grades to you is the presence of three numbers on each tool instead of just two. The first number is the current grade. The second number is the likely future grade; or, if you prefer percentiles, call this the 50th percentile projection. The third number is the ceiling grade, or 90th percentile projection, to help demonstrate the volatility and raw potential of a tool. I feel this gives readers a better sense of the possible outcomes a player could achieve, and more information to understand my thoughts on the likelihood of reaching those levels. If you prefer the traditional methodologies of other publications, I would suggest averaging the latter two grades together to get a semi-optimistic view of where a player projects.
In the biographical information, level refers to where they finished the year, unless they were sent down for injury rehab or other extraneous reasons. Ages are listed as of April 1, 2016. You can also find each player’s previous rank from Kiley’s list last year. Below, Dave Cameron shares his thoughts on the general state of the organization. Returning for his popular cameo, Carson Cistulli picks his favorite fringe prospect toward the end of the list.
Organizational Overview
A year after an ill-advised push for the postseason, the Padres look to be in a holding pattern. They sold off two veteran relievers for prospects, but then held onto everyone else, and spent the rest of their winter adding veterans who won’t be around the next time the Padres are any good. Perhaps the organization wants to put a decent product on the field before they host the All-Star game and will attempt to make a bunch of deals right after the event, but that plan didn’t work out so well for Cincinnati last year, and it’s certainly fraught with risk. Realistically, the Padres should be in total rebuild mode, and their current go-half-way plan is as bewildering as their decision to overpay for expensive veterans in a year they weren’t ready to win. If the team can make a few more big-win trades like the second of their Craig Kimbrel deals, they can get the organization back on the right path long-term, but right now, I don’t really know what the Padres plan is.
50+ FV Prospects
Video courtesy of Baseball America Double-A/21.5, 5’11/180, R/RSigned in 2011 out of Dominican Republic by BOS for $800,000 bonus, traded to SD in November 20155 (BOS)
Margot’s speed and glove are his most obvious strengths: he’s a legitimate candidate to be one of the best defensive center fielders in the majors with continued improvement of his jumps. His plus-plus raw speed helps him track down just about everything in the gaps. On the bases, he needs work to maximize his abilities, requiring further practice reading pitchers and picking his spots if he is going to continue posting high stolen-base totals.
Margot has steadily hit for a high average every season in his young career, and I see him continuing to do that as he approaches the highest level. He has a strong contact profile and the swing to square up balls even if his timing is not perfect on a given pitch. He still has some work left to do on his plate discipline. Doubles abounded in Salem and Portland for him this past year, and turning those into home runs will hinge on more efficiently using his legs.
He can look too aggressive trying to go get pitches, letting his body drift out on his front foot and causing his swing path to be more down through the ball. It’s possible he develops some true home-run power with his quickness and strength, though these particular features of his swing have been consistent since signing five years ago. Instead, his extra-base hits will likely come from line drives in the gap and down the lines, with the occasional mistake up in the zone going over the fence.
Hit: 50/60/65 Power: 35/40+/50 Run: 55/60/65 Field: 60/65/70 Throw: 50/50/50
Overall: 50/65+/75
2. Hunter Renfroe, OF
Current Level/Age: Triple-A/24.2, 6’1/220, R/R
Acquired: Drafted 13th overall (1st round) in 2013 out of Mississippi State by SD for $2.678 million bonus
Previous Rank: 1
Renfroe has the best swing in the system, using his strong lower half and excellent hand path to easily shoot balls into the gaps and over the fence. The homers in the minors haven’t been anything to write home about, but he has steadily produced a high rate of doubles, which will only turn into more dingers as he matures. For the strength he has, it’s a bit surprising to find out he’s also an average runner with above-average fielding ability, and more than enough arm strength to profile as a typical right fielder.
The only real knock against him could end up being a big one if he can’t adjust, which of course is his hit tool. He has some issues making contact, particularly with offspeed offerings, and he hasn’t found an approach that will let him consistently do damage. As it stands, pitchers are able to get him into unfavorable counts fairly frequently, which he can’t afford to allow against major-league pitching.
So, on the one hand, he still has clear ways for advanced pitchers to get him out on a regular basis. On the other, his swing gives him way more room for error than your average prospect, let alone power-hitting prospect. I don’t see how he won’t get to his plus power at least, and I do think he has the potential for an above-average hit tool. Most likely he settles in just below-average, which is the difference between him being a solid regular and an All-Star. I’m hoping he makes a few adjustments to shore up the deficiencies, because Renfroe has the ability to be an absolute terror at the plate if he does.
Hit: 40/45+/55 Power: 50/60/65 Run: 50/50/50 Field: 55/55/55 Throw: 60/60/60
Overall: 40/55/65
Video courtesy of Major League Baseball
3. Colin Rea, RHP
Current Level/Age: MLB/25.8, 6’5/225, R/R
Acquired: Drafted 383rd overall (12th round) in 2011 out of Indiana State by SD for $65,000 bonus
Previous Rank: Unranked
Rea had some kind of year last season, going from a relative nobody at the start of the year to blowing through Double-A and ending up in the big leagues in August. Despite being a little exposed against big-league hitters, his arsenal held up extremely well, with his three best pitches playing at least average. He has work to do tightening up his secondary pitches, but his command was impressive for a pitcher getting his first taste of major-league lineups.
He knows how to spot his fastball, and showed on numerous occasions last year that he can run his two-seamer back over the plate on his glove side or pound the bottom of the zone for a ground ball. His cutter and curveball both have plus potential, though each requires some TLC to get there. He uses the cutter to keep hitters honest, but if he improves his ability to spot it, a plus grade may be light by a tick. The curve has sharp 12-6 break, though he hasn’t used it to induce swings and misses yet, instead opting for weak contact by dropping it into the zone. Throw in a potential average splitter, and you have an arsenal that can keep any big-league hitter from getting a good piece of the ball.
He’s no super young, hard-throwing hurler who will buckle knees and light up radar guns, but he has advanced pitchability and command of at least his best three pitches. Give him another year and he could be a late-blooming mid-rotation starter with even more upside. He has a clean delivery and great arm action, so despite pushing 26 years old, Rea could end up being the best pitching prospect coming out of the Padres’ system over the next couple years.
Fastball: 50/55/55+ Curveball: 50/55/60 Cutter: 55/55/60 Splitter: 45/45/50 Command: 50/55/60
Overall: 50/55/60+
4. Logan Allen, LHP
Current Level/Age: Low-A/18.8, 6’3/200, L/L
Acquired: Drafted 231st overall (8th round) in 2015 out of IMG Academy by BOS for $725,000 bonus, traded to SD in November 2015
Previous Rank: NA
The Red Sox did well to grab Allen in the eighth round this past June, as a young, relatively polished lefty with good pitchability. His control is ahead of his command, though that control extends to all three pitches for strikes. He has an easy delivery with a consistent release, and his curve in particular shows some promise for the future. His development will hinge on commanding his arsenal to be able to get more advanced hitters out, as he will likely move fast through the lower levels by virtue of his strike-throwing alone. His ability to repeat his delivery at a young age bodes well for his command improvements.
Fastball: 45/50/55 Curveball: 45/55/60 Changeup: 35/45/50 Command: 45/55/60
Overall: 35/50/60
45+ FV Prospects
Lost in the shuffle of Jankowski’s 2015 performance was the best gap-power production of his professional career. He’s never going to be a big home-run hitter, but he has enough bat speed and athleticism in the box to expect some growth in his ability to drive the ball. He is still a contact and speed guy first, and his swing plane for sure is geared toward low line drives rather than getting a lot of carry on the ball, but don’t sleep on his offensive potential.
Even if he comes up short of the power grades I have here, the rest of his kit is balanced enough that a solid to plus outfield profile is not out of his reach. If his skills stay where they’re at, he already has the skills to be an excellent supporting player who fits perfectly in the Padres’ expansive outfield with his plus-plus raw speed.
Hit: 45/50/55 Power: 35/35-40/40+ Run: 60/60/65 Field: 55/55+/60 Throw: 40/40/45
Overall: 40/45-50/60
6. Michael Gettys, OF, VIDEO, Single-A
I wasn’t a huge fan of Gettys coming out of the draft, with his frantic swings and obvious swing-and-miss tendencies. Even though 2015 was a dud season for him, I actually feel a bit more confident in his ability to figure some things out now that a few adjustments have been made. He got rid of the reaching stride and hip slide that made him so off-balance as an amateur against good offspeed pitches. Relatedly, he smoothed out his hand path to now have a consistent line drive/fly ball-oriented approach that will help him tap into his raw power.
With a number of concerns on the physical side having been addressed, it now comes down to how well his vision and pitch-tracking adjust to the better professional pitches he’s facing. He doesn’t have to produce much with the bat to be worth a fortune, with the potential for plus-plus baserunning and fielding tools. It’s too early to give up on him yet, and hopefully 2016 is the year we can start to see the necessary in-game improvements he will need to compete against higher competition.
Hit: 20/35/45 Power: 30/50/55 Run: 60/65/70 Field: 60/60+/65 Throw: 70/70/75
Overall: 20/45/60-65
7. Jacob Nix, RHP, VIDEO, Rookie
A year after the awkward and confusing draft incident with the Astros, Nix was taken in the third round last June and got his career started with the Padres. He threw very well in the Rookie-level Arizona League, to be expected given his present command and a solid-average fastball with good life. Both his curveball and changeup have above-average potential, though sources are split on which one they think will end up being the better offering.
Though Nix comes in with a pretty high floor for only being two years out of high school, he isn’t without some mechanical and consistency issues. His deliberate timing and below-average rotational sequencing leave his arm having to do more work than it should, resulting in a variable feel for his release. He is athletic enough to put most of his individual pitches where he wants to, but every few he uncorks one that ends up nowhere near its intended target.
The mechanical issue is likely to stay the same, but improving his timing and tempo could allow him the upside to stay in the rotation. Because of how it affects his feel for his secondary pitches, I’m more inclined to project him as a solid reliever or fifth starter in the big leagues. With the right alterations, however, he has mid-rotation upside.
Fastball: 50+/55/60 Curveball: 45/50/50+ Changeup: 45/50/55 Command: 45/45/50
Overall: 40/45/55
8. Ruddy Giron, SS, VIDEO, Single-A
Giron followed up a rough debut season with an excellent second year. He batted.285 with a.122 ISO and 15 steals, all while playing against much older competition in the Single-A Midwest League as an 18-year-old. His defense and base-stealing both need a lot of work to reach their potential, as evidenced by the 24 errors and 14 times caught stealing in 96 games. Long term, he likely ends up at second or third, where his fringy footwork and hands have less ground to make up over the next couple years to be proficient.
On the offensive side, the fact that he held his own against a league that was on average three-and-a-half years older is impressive in its own right. Most importantly for his future production was the excellent contact rate and the early signs of good plate discipline for a young hitter. Though he’s projected to fill out physically, he loses a lot of power he could have with his great bat speed due to a level to downward path and swinging across the ball. His power is and will be limited to the pull side on pitches in and/or up unless he’s able to make sizable adjustments.
Similar to Guerra below, Giron’s bat may not be good enough to carry him into a starting role, especially since he doesn’t have the defensive skill to make up for it like Guerra does. Even still, |
Swartz after the suicide.
"I'm sorry Bruce," I said. "So sorry." I meant it, too, me, the schmuck who had allowed himself to feel relief, if even for a moment, that the trouble was someone else's. I'd known Taren since she was four. In those days she considered me guru of the Etch-a-Sketch, because I could draw anything on one. Now she was 30, a liberal activist I often saw on television.
"I do know who he is. I read the story," I said. "I didn't know that about Taren. Yes, yes, yes."
"Now, I'm out of my depth," Bruce said, and I thought he was referring to grief, so I repeated that I was sorry. "But according to Taren, you, Tom Chiarella, were his favorite — or one of his favorites, I'm not sure — favorite writers. If not you, then someone named David Foster Wallace. And maybe another one." He seemed to be checking notes. "Robert Caro? I am not in my element here. I don't read that sort of writing."
I told him it was good company.
"So, at worst, you were his third-favorite writer," he said. "Though I understand David Foster Wallace is dead."
"Yeah," I told him. "Suicide too."
Then he said it: "So, they want you to speak at his memorial," Bruce said. "Day after tomorrow, in New York."
Me? I said. Why me?
"Well, as I said, this is not my specialty. But, at the very least you were his second-favorite living writer. I think 'essayist' is what Taren said. Don't quote me."
"Taren is asking," I said.
"Correct," Bruce said.
Forty-two hours later I found myself in New York, sitting in the basement green room of Cooper Union's Great Hall, at a long wooden table with ten of Aaron Swartz's closest friends and associates. I'd introduced myself to each, and they'd looked up, weary and angry. Some offered me the saddest handshakes in the world. I didn't know who any of them were, and not one of them had a clue about me. Open source advocates, founders of various internet entities — the director of thoughtworks.com, the organizer of Freedom 2 Connect, the director of business development for Twitter, the co-founder of givewell.org. At one end of the room, Damian Kulash of the band OK Go was rehearsing the musical number he was to perform. I'm telling you, I was a stranger in a strange land. So I sat quietly, which is not easy for me. Most of them were still working on their talks, on laptops, or iPads, or sheaves of paper, and this made each of them cry at one point, making the whole thing a sniffling, silent editing session, with a table holding bowls of shelled walnuts. And me.
Earlier, I'd spoken to Taren by phone, and she'd told me she hoped I would read some passage of David Foster Wallace, since he was a writer Aaron loved. She did not want to put me in a position where I would be forced to eulogize a man I didn't know. "Aaron would have been really happy to have you deliver it," she said. "That would've been more than enough." She said she had no idea what passage to read. "That wasn't something Aaron and I shared," she told me. I told her I had some ideas. Not to worry.
Now, in the green room, I saw that they'd left my name off the program, which didn't bother me. But the second page read:
READING
David Foster Wallace
Which gave many people the impression that I was David Foster Wallace. I know this because three people thanked me as "David." And one person called me "Dave." I tried to correct them, but it didn't matter. No one was paying attention to details of the world that we'd walked out of. Manners, like spirits, were fragile. Aaron Swartz, who invented RSS feeds at 14, who co-founded reddit.com before he was 20, who worked, argued and hacked for open-source practices, was the tragically complete story in that room. For each of them, Swartz had somehow coalesced the talent and purpose of their companies, their projects, their causes. What exactly the kid was responsible for seemed pretty vast. And he'd suffered while under relentless federal prosecution for violating terms of service of the JSTOR digital library, and kept this pain from most of his friends. The uncertainty of the trial, the outsized potential jail sentence (35 years), the bullying investigations, the seizure of his passport — all this had left Swartz rattled, stressed, terrified. People in the room that day were mightily, and supremely pissed. And hurt. So see, it didn't matter if I was or wasn't David Foster Wallace.
And it is not every day that you can say that.
The ceremony started late and ran long, but not one person walked out. The screens on the back of the stage were filled with images of Swartz, bearded, sweatered, geared up, thoughtful, happy. He looked like what he was: A kid. Anyone's kid. Glorious in the way they all are.
When my turn came, I clarified who I was not, and I admitted that I didn't know Aaron. I felt that was only right to be honest, to name myself. At first it made things easier for me in the speaking, less nervy. I'd written something about a dream I'd had the night before, and I was breezing right through it, maybe speaking a little too fast. I wanted to get to the other me — the David Foster Wallace part — since that's what's I knew people wanted. At the very end of my story, I looked down at a line I'd written, about what my father once promised me regarding the way cities work — that they were by nature orderly and disorderly, but that it was essential to believe that they could be governed fairly — and I found when I got to the end of that sentence that I could not look up. I, David Foster Wallace, was about to cry; the words would not fill my mouth. The words were "intellect, knowledge, compassion." And I was struck by memories of my father, and by visions of this kid I'd never met.
I have given 21 eulogies in my life, including one for my dad, and I have never been left dumb like this. I swear, for one sweet second I considered giving up, just walking off the stage. I wasn't worried about the reaction; everyone would blame David Foster Wallace. And I would skulk back to Indiana with my own little surprise grief in my pocket.
But I looked at the next page, filled with the prose of the real David Foster Wallace and I knew I would be okay. I read. I finished. I went back to my seat and listened.
Later that night, my son got off work and came to have dinner with me at a Mexican restaurant on Ninth Avenue. It is not insignificant that he looks a great deal like Aaron Swartz. Actually, the restaurant was full of guys who did, of men sitting in pairs — one older, one younger. I told my son I thought we might be in a gay Mexican restaurant. Neither of us thought they actually existed. The accidental gay Mexican restaurant, we said. And we drank.
He adores his work, which made me happy. And he was hopeful about the future. He'd saved a little money too. He looked at me at one point, and said, "I'm really doing exactly the work I should be doing." He said, "I'm happy."
This kid. I love him. To be a father in a moment like that? Rare. Worth every second of the bullshit that came before, and the defeats which may or may not follow. But that's not why I started crying then. And I don't cry often. I wish I did. This was flat-out weeping, into a cloth napkin which stank of refried beans.
See, I was thinking about the happiness of Aaron Swartz. I hoped it had many times been this complete. I think this was so. And I hoped his father and mother had seen it. I think they had. And I was thinking how the federal prosecutors beat that happiness out of him using the law. If they did that to either of my boys, I'd pull the world apart. No fucking wonder the kid was scared. You can invent things and still be plenty scared.
So: crying for every two-top in the accidental gay Mexican restaurant, for every child of every one of us. Remember, I was happy.
My son said, "Dad, it's okay."
I looked at him. My everyman. My genius. Inventor of my love. My Aaron Swartz. He and his brother both.
And Aaron Swartz, the one who'd gone, the one I'd traveled all this way not to meet. I'd come to love his hope, his conscience, the depth and vision of his ability, of his work.
I'll never know what he liked in mine.BAE Systems is improving its ship repair facilities in San Diego, Calif. to include an additional dry dock as part of a $100 million expansion scheduled to open in 2017, the company announced on Friday.
Company officials pegged the investment in the facility to the Pentagon’s rebalance to the Pacific.
“Our primary strategy and mission in San Diego is to support the U.S. Navy and its rebalance to the Pacific,” said Erwin Bieber, president of BAE Systems’ Platforms & Services sector in a statement.
“The new pier and dry dock will complement and expand the shipyard’s existing capacity in this homeport and provide greater capabilities to our customers.”
The company plans to replace the more than 50 year-old pier with a dry dock at least as large enough to accommodate a Wasp-class big deck amphibious warship — according to an artist’s rendering of the planned expansion.
“The new dry dock will measure 950-feet long and 205-feet wide, with a design lifting capacity of 55,000 tons,” read the statement from BAE.
According to local press reports, the Chinese built floating dry dock will be among the largest in the country and join two other floating dry docks in San Diego Bay — one at BAE and a second at nearby General Dynamics NASSCO.
“The Navy plans to boost the number of warships homeported in San Diego to about 79 — from the current 60 — over the coming years,” according to a report in the San Diego Union Tribune.
The yard currently employs about 1,700 workers.BioWare Co-Founders Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk, accepting acknowledgement of the award during the game's midnight launch event last month in New York
Star Wars: The Old Republic has been officially recognised by Guinness World Records on the heels of the game's launch last month.
In the latest Guinness World Records 2012 Gamer's Edition the franchise's second major massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) is awarded for an unprecedented feat.
The game, developed by BioWare with LucasArts and EA, boasts a record-breaking effort as the Largest Entertainment Voice Over Project ever. More than 200,000 lines of recorded dialogue were performed by several hundred voice actors, making it a far more ambitious recording project than any undertaking for a feature film.
This record is included in an eye-popping two-page spread that pays homage to 30 years of Star Wars gaming with fun facts, figures and new records from the storied franchise. The spread also takes a look back at all the games created since the 1982 debut of The Empire Strikes Back for the Atari 2600 to issue its own special Top 10 list of the world's best Star Wars games.
The new Guinness World Records 2012 Gamer's Edition lists the following games as the best in the galaxy:
1. Knights of the Old Republic
2. Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga
3. X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter
4. Empire At War
5. Rogue Squadron
6. Jedi Outcast
7. Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
8. Republic Commando
9. Star Wars Arcade
10.The Force Unleashed II
* Guinness World Records 2012 Gamer's Edition is out now in the US and Australia, and available in the UK on January 19th. Click here to find out more.Is Russia Killing Off Eastern Ukraine’s Warlords?
Arsen Pavlov was no stranger to extreme violence.
This Russian commander, better known by the nom de guerre “Motorola,” was a veteran of Moscow’s ruthless campaign in the Second Chechen War and later became a prominent figure in the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine, leading a battalion of Moscow-backed separatists. He soon emerged as one of the region’s most famous warlords, an effective fighter who took part in major offensives at the Donetsk airport and Ilovaisk. He was also ruthless, known to boast about executing captured Ukrainian soldiers.
On Sunday, Oct. 16, Pavlov’s brutal methods finally caught up with him.
The 33-year-old mercenary was assassinated in Donetsk by a remote-controlled bomb planted on his apartment building’s elevator. Pavlov and his bodyguard were both wearing full-body armor, but bloody remains and a jumble of ammunition were all that was left of them.
Pavlov is the latest separatist commander, and among the most prominent, to die in mysterious circumstances since the conflict first erupted. As the war in eastern Ukraine drags on, with the death toll at around 10,000 and no real end in sight, leaders of the areas known as the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) and the Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) have been meeting their demise in apparently safe surroundings, far from the dangers of the battlefield.
Last month, the former prime minister of the LNR, Gennady Tsyplakov, purportedly “committed suicide” in detention after separatist authorities rounded up dozens of regime figures who were perceived to present an internal threat and accused them of plotting a coup. LNR officials claimed that he had hanged himself in his cell because he was so consumed with guilt over “the gravity of his crime.”
Just days earlier, a separatist field commander, Yevgeny Zhilin, was gunned down in a Moscow restaurant. Last December, Pavel Dremov, a Cossack battalion commander, was assassinated by car bomb just hours after celebrating his own wedding. Earlier that year, Aleksey Mozgovoy, the founder of the Ghost Brigade, a pro-Russian militant battalion in the LNR, was killed in a roadside ambush of mines and machine guns in a stretch of land he regarded as his private fiefdom. Alexander Bednov, a commander known as “Batman,” was killed during an attack on his convoy on Jan. 1, 2015. And these are just the most notable figures; analysts say there have been at least a dozen more such deaths.
Evidence is hard to come by in the black box of Ukraine’s rebel heartlands, where the Russian-backed regimes of the LNR and DNR thrive off confusion, division, and mystery. But two main theories are circulating among well-connected experts and separatist insiders.
Some say the killings are likely the product of infighting among the rebel elite in eastern Ukraine. As they seek to consolidate their rule and reap the rewards of the region’s lucrative black market, they are turning on one another.
Others say Russia may be behind the assassination campaign. After laboring to build the region’s governments, and plowing arms and money into defending them, analysts believe the Kremlin has a newfound interest in extricating itself from the quagmire of eastern Ukraine and ridding itself of a punishing sanctions regime. It hopes to do so by making the breakaway republics seem respectable to local and international audiences — and that requires eliminating any would-be allies who have trouble following orders.
Pavlov may have qualified as an unruly subordinate. A former blue-collar worker from the Russian republic of Komi, he is said to have earned the nickname “Motorola” during his work as a communications officer in a Russian army battalion serving in Chechnya. In March 2014, he crossed into Ukraine’s febrile, industrial east to join the growing insurgency and became the commander of the Sparta Battalion, which is based in Donetsk and has a reputation for ruthlessness. With his ginger beard, unhinged grin, and love of Russian rap and quad-bike joyrides around Donetsk, Pavlov became a wartime media star — loved by some, loathed by others. He even televised his own wedding, a ceremony attended by such separatist luminaries as Igor Strelkov, the commander who led the takeover of the town of Sloviansk and became a hero for pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine’s restive Donbass region.
But some regarded Pavlov’s celebrity to be a distraction from the dense political, military, and economic ties that the Kremlin has installed between Moscow and separatist Ukraine and saw him as both a war criminal and a bit player. “He was just a media warrior,” said Mikhail Minakov, a political philosopher at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, a Kiev-based university. “The major figures remain in the shadows.”
And yet the dramatic nature of Pavlov’s murder still came as a shock. Observers regarded him as unwieldy but not disloyal to his superiors in Ukraine and Russia. His murder marks the first successful hit on a high-ranking leader in Donetsk, an indication that the forces picking off separatist leaders may be gaining ground; similar attacks had so far been confined to the neighboring LNR. The question of who is behind the incident has been the subject of much speculation.
A video quickly surfaced on social media that purported to show members of a Ukrainian neo-Nazi group claiming responsibility. The four masked men threatened to target other separatist leaders and ended the clip with a Hitler salute. Some separatists leaped on the suspicious footage as evidence of Ukraine’s involvement in Pavlov’s death; others discounted its authenticity, dismissing it as the latest salvo in a long-running information war.
Who might want Motorola dead? Many believe that it was one of his own. Feuds over the control of trade routes and contraband energy resources — namely Ukrainian coal and Russian oil — are common in the breakaway regions. Pavlov was said to have been involved in dealing scrap metal, a profession that the Moscow Times last week called “one of the few growth industries in and around the destroyed Donetsk airport.” By removing rogue competitors, eastern Ukraine’s ruling coalitions of rebel warlords and criminal syndicates could be seeking to tighten their grip on these underground and hugely profitable markets.
“These deaths often involve bandits falling out in turf wars over power, money, and smuggling routes, control of which is crucial if you’re a budding warlord wanting to fund a militia,” said Daragh McDowell, a principal analyst on Europe and Central Asia for the consulting firm Verisk Maplecroft.
But privately some separatists acknowledge that the danger may be coming from as far away as Moscow. Pavlov’s murder was sophisticated, efficient, and required close access — signs of tradecraft that suggest Russian involvement. Speaking on condition of anonymity due to security concerns, a well-placed source with links to key figures in the Russian-controlled separatist regime told me: “Some … are saying that handlers higher up the chain are cleaning up first-generation rebels to destroy any incriminating evidence and remove witnesses to war crimes. The Kremlin needs its proxies to have a more acceptable public face.”
The ruling authorities of the DNR and LNR were hastily assembled more than two years ago in the midst of a separatist insurrection — an uprising widely regarded as orchestrated by Moscow in response to the ousting of Ukraine’s disgraced pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych. The priority at the time was to install some kind of governing structure — no matter how crude — to bolster the breakaway regions’ claim of being “people’s republics” rather than pariah badlands, armed and fabricated by Russia.
It was a brutal environment, and the figures who came to power in these volatile territories typically won their positions not by political skill but by being the most effective and ideological fighters on the battlefield. One of these figures was Alexander Zakharchenko, who currently heads the DNR and rose to prominence in April 2014 as the commander of a battalion that was formed from members of a fight club and went on to seize Donetsk’s government buildings. Similarly, Igor Plotnitsky, the LNR’s current thuggish leader, was a lowly regional official before the war; he subsequently raised a militant force and, within a month, was named the LNR’s defense minister and later its head.
These initial embryonic institutions served their purpose when the focus was on military conquest and land grabs in the early days of the crisis. But with the war at an impasse in its third year, Russian enthusiasm for the project has waned; few in command speak anymore of building “Novorossiya,” the centerpiece of this region’s separatist ideology. At the same time, there seem to be few routes for winding down the conflict: Ukraine will not give up territory that it views as its own; Vladimir Putin risks losing face — within his own constituency, among Russia’s ruling elite, and on the world stage — if Russia withdraws too readily from the morass. Last week’s hastily arranged talks between France, Germany, Russia, and Ukraine, which were aimed at reviving the stalled peace process in Donbass, had no concrete results. Kiev wants the Russians to demilitarize the occupied east before local elections are held there; Moscow and its separatist proxies wants these elections before scaling back their forces.
According to this line of thinking, Russia is purging the separatists of their most visible and unsavory warmongers in a bid both to avoid a major, uncontrolled escalation at the front and to render the breakaway regimes as more palatable partners for a future peace process. This restructuring has involved bloodiness and brutality but not exclusively; though some figures have been assassinated, others have simply been “retired,” such as Strelkov and the DNR’s former parliament speaker, Andrei Purgin — a hard-line imperialist who was replaced by his more conciliatory deputy — who are now both living in Russia.
Eliminating Motorola, and people like him, does not solve the conflict’s thorniest issues but may, in time, allow Moscow to apply more pressure on Kiev by forcing it to negotiate with less radicalized, more respectable proxies. Such a shake-up may provide an offramp for the Kremlin, allowing Russia to extricate itself from the deadlock, advocate for the removal of punitive sanctions, and concentrate on its war in Syria.
It is unlikely that the lives of leaders like Zakharchenko and Plotnitsky are at risk, said Alexander Clarkson, a lecturer in European studies at King’s College London. But they, too, may eventually need to be removed somehow — perhaps via asylum deals in Russia, under the close supervision of the security services. “The Russians need local proxies who are not directly implicated in war crimes or MH17,” Clarkson said. “If Zakharchenko is cleared out before any ‘election,’ Moscow can present Kiev with a clean skin that makes the mere compromise of direct talks more palatable.”
On Wednesday, Oct. 19, far from the geopolitics, thousands of people turned out in central Donetsk for Pavlov’s funeral at the city’s opera and ballet theater. Later, the commander’s coffin was mounted upon a howitzer garlanded with flowers and towed through the streets. For most of Ukraine, he was a war criminal who embodied the worst excesses of the conflict. But in Russia and the breakaway regions, he was an idol who led a valiant charge against Kiev. (Intriguingly, Moscow appeared to distance itself from Pavlov after his death. The Kremlin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said media tributes to the assassinated warlord that appeared across Russia’s state-run and privately owned media were “not the official position.”)
The discredited Minsk peace accords that were signed last year prohibit the prosecution of any figure involved in the conflict. Regardless, many in Ukraine have hoped that the most heinous offenders would be brought to justice. Pavlov was on that list. In a telephone interview last year, his cruelty was laid bare when he confessed to executing prisoners of war. “I don’t give a fuck about what I am accused of, believe it or not. I shot 15 prisoners dead. I don’t give a fuck. No comment. I kill if I want to. I don’t if I don’t,” he told a reporter.
Last month, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko branded Pavlov a “monster” and swore that the separatist commander would answer for his alleged crimes. Pavlov’s unexplained murder extinguishes any hope of putting him in the dock.
Photo credit: Mikhail Sokolov\TASS via Getty ImagesJeremy Clarkson's sacking: is he too controversial for the modern, sensitive audience?
WANT proof Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May will be back on the TV soon? Australia, it’s right in front of you.
With Clarkson, Hammond and May Live shows sold out from Perth to Sydney this week following sellout events overseas, a petition that attracted 1 million votes in just 10 days, and Hammond and May knocking back twice their salary to continue on Top Gear with a new host, there is no doubt the trio will return to the small screen. It’s only a matter of time.
To recap the rumours so far, the lads have been linked to deals with Netflix, ITV and even a television station in Russia, where there is a hugely popular licensed version of the original Top Gear format.
Industry insiders believe there are just as many potential TV deals that have not been made public.
For now, though, fans are stuck in neutral waiting for the world tour of the live show to end (renamed simply Clarkson, Hammond & May, the Top Gear branding is gone) and for the boys to go back to what they do best.
Before flying to Perth for the first of the Australian shows this weekend, Clarkson filmed the last segment for his final Top Gear episode.
My last ever lap of the Top Gear track is done. Bit sad leaving the place for the final time. — Jeremy Clarkson (@JeremyClarkson) July 13, 2015
A 75-minute special — a collection of segments originally filmed for three episodes but cut into one giant show — is due to air in the UK in the coming weeks, before Top Gear starts a new series with a new presenter.
British radio star and car guy Chris Evans — who has blown his multimillion-dollar media earnings into a fleet of Ferraris, as any car perve would do — is due to host the show with an as-yet unnamed cast to be decided by public auditions.
It is, in effect, the same method that helped create the magical combination of Clarkson, Hammond and May. However, the chances of Top Gear being so lucky a second time are slim.
What’s not reported is just how vital Clarkson was behind the scenes, how he not only helped create many of the crazy ideas but how he drove the stories (pun intended) during filming.
When you see Clarkson aggravating May or irritating Hammond, it’s real. Clarkson is deliberately being a twat because he knows their responses make for good tele.
Driving some old bangers from A to B is a bit of a laugh, but it’s their interaction that keeps the audience glued, just as much as wondering which car is going to conk out next.
Car enthusiasts love it because all three presenters are so knowledgeable and so skilled as motoring journalists, their opinions have street cred because their arguments, amid the banter, are so incredibly accurate and thorough.
The rest of the world sees a bunch of blokes doing some skids and having a laugh.
The other person who doesn’t get enough credit for Top Gear’s epic success — 350 million viewers worldwide — is executive producer Andy Wilman, an old school friend of Clarkson, former motoring journalist turned TV genius, and the hardest worker on the show, regularly putting in 18-hour days to make sure every segment is perfect.
Unlike many other reality shows, Clarkson, Hammond and May are involved in each story idea from beginning to end.
In most if not all cases Clarkson even makes the final cuts, sprinkling pieces of brilliance throughout each film and deleting any material that slows the performance.
Rarely is there such a consistency of voice in television making.
Which is why, as talented as the new cast will no doubt be, the new show is unlikely to repeat the success Top Gear’s had over the past decade.
New host Chris Evans is rightly cautious about what he’s heading into.
“I promise I will do everything I possibly can to respect what has gone on before and take the show forward,” Evans says.
But even the BBC’s own media critics acknowledge the new Top Gear is going to be a challenge.
Mark Savage, BBC News entertainment reporter says: “On paper, he’s a perfect replacement for his good friend Jeremy Clarkson. A car nut with a motor mouth and a track record in steering a television juggernaut to success.”
“But he’s also a divisive figure, with many viewers put off by the unruly, egotistical behaviour,” Savage wrote.
Evans openly admits his appointment was greeted with a “50/50 split” among Top Gear fans.
“In TV or radio, if you get a 50/50 love/hate reaction that usually equals massive hit,” he says.
But Top Gear without Clarkson has been tried before, and it tanked. The audience halved in the gap years between Clarkson’s departure in 2000 and his return in 2002.
Few people are irreplaceable, but Clarkson is.
David Sillito, BBC media and arts correspondent says when Top Gear relaunched with Clarkson in 2002 it ceased to be a program about cars, “it became a program about slightly tragic men who loved cars”.
“The essence was banter, lists and brilliant filmmaking. The problem is what happens when you lose the blokes,” wrote Sillito.
“Chris Evans is one of Britain’s most successful broadcasters. He loves cars, he understands how to make television and he’s a friend of Jeremy Clarkson. But he ain’t Jeremy Clarkson.”
Sillito adds a telling point: “Around the world Top Gear has appeared in different forms. The ones that work best have Jeremy Clarkson — even if he has to be dubbed into Farsi.”
So why couldn’t the BBC resolve the issue that led to Clarkson’s departure? (For the record, he wasn’t “sacked”, he was suspended and then his contract was not renewed).
The BBC had no choice. If Clarkson’s behaviour went unpunished it would create a nasty precedent. The consequences for assaulting another staff member are the same for TV stars as they are for forklift drivers or any other profession.
No-one is suggesting Clarkson should have gotten off for his altercation with producer Oisin Tymon, who went to hospital with a split lip after Clarkson chose an unconventional way to express his disappointment at missing out on a hot dinner after a long day of filming.
Lost in much of the hysteria is the fact it was Clarkson who dobbed himself in to BBC management. It was Clarkson who fessed up and said he overstepped the mark.
Tymon to date has not pressed charges, but Clarkson has nevertheless paid a high price.
In his first radio interview about the incident two months ago, coincidentally with the man who will replace him, Clarkson told Evans being dropped from Top Gear “was my own silly fault”.
Most poignant, however, was an email written by Wilman and sent to the 113 crew who worked on Top Gear during the Clarkson era just days after the “fracas” in March.
“I know none of us wanted it to end this way, but for a moment I’d like us to look back and think about just what an incredible thing you all had a had in creating,” wrote Wilman in an email that was eventually leaked to the media by one of the recipients.
“We had a lot of laughs, we had a lot of tiffs. We went to amazing places and we went to some s---holes. We nearly killed a presenter, we had to run for the border. We started off with whoever we could get in the Reasonably Priced Car and ended up with Tom Cruise. At least we left ’em wanting more.”
Finally, Wilman added: “Our stint as guardians of Top Gear was a good one, but we were only part of the show’s history, not the whole of it. Those two words are bigger than us.”
This reporter is on Twitter: @JoshuaDowlingWhile other scriptures contain contradictions, the Koran is the only holy book whose commentators have evolved a doctrine to account for the very visible shifts which occur from one injunction to another. No careful reader will remain unaware of the many contradictory verses in the Koran, most specifically the way in which peaceful and tolerant verses lie almost side by side with violent and intolerant ones. The ulema were initially baffled as to which verses to codify into the Shari’a worldview—the one that states there is no coercion in religion (2:256), or the ones that command believers to fight all non-Muslims till they either convert, or at least submit, to Islam (8:39, 9:5, 9:29). To get out of this quandary, the commentators developed the doctrine of abrogation, which essentially maintains that verses revealed later in Muhammad’s career take precedence over earlier ones whenever there is a discrepancy. In order to document which verses abrogated which, a religious science devoted to the chronology of the Koran’s verses evolved (known as an-Nasikh wa’l Mansukh, the abrogater and the abrogated).
But why the contradiction in the first place? The standard view is that in the early years of Islam, since Muhammad and his community were far outnumbered by their infidel competitors while living next to them in Mecca, a message of peace and coexistence was in order. However, after the Muslims migrated to Medina in 622 and grew in military strength, verses inciting them to go on the offensive were slowly “revealed”—in principle, sent down from God—always commensurate with Islam’s growing capabilities. In juridical texts, these are categorized in stages: passivity vis-á-vis aggression; permission to fight back against aggressors; commands to fight aggressors; commands to fight all non-Muslims, whether the latter begin aggressions or not.[1] Growing Muslim might is the only variable that explains this progressive change in policy.
Other scholars put a gloss on this by arguing that over a twenty-two year period, the Koran was revealed piecemeal, from passive and spiritual verses to legal prescriptions and injunctions to spread the faith through jihad and conquest, simply to acclimate early Muslim converts to the duties of Islam, lest they be discouraged at the outset by the dramatic obligations that would appear in later verses.[2] Verses revealed towards the end of Muhammad’s career—such as, “Warfare is prescribed for you though you hate it”[3]—would have been out of place when warfare was actually out of the question.
However interpreted, the standard view on Koranic abrogation concerning war and peace verses is that when Muslims are weak and in a minority position, they should preach and behave according to the ethos of the Meccan verses (peace and tolerance); when strong, however, they should go on the offensive on the basis of what is commanded in the Medinan verses (war and conquest). The vicissitudes of Islamic history are a testimony to this dichotomy, best captured by the popular Muslim notion, based on a hadith, that, if possible, jihad should be performed by the hand (force), if not, then by the tongue (through preaching); and, if that is not possible, then with the heart or one’s intentions.[4]
That Islam legitimizes deceit during war is, of course, not all that astonishing; after all, as the Elizabethan writer John Lyly put it, “All’s fair in love and war.”[5] Other non-Muslim philosophers and strategists—such as Sun Tzu, Machiavelli, and Thomas Hobbes—justified deceit in warfare. Deception of the enemy during war is only common sense. The crucial difference in Islam, however, is that war against the infidel is a perpetual affair—until, in the words of the Koran, “all chaos ceases, and all religion belongs to God.”[6] In his entry on jihad from the Encyclopaedia of Islam, Emile Tyan states: “The duty of the jihad exists as long as the universal domination of Islam has not been attained. Peace with non-Muslim nations is, therefore, a provisional state of affairs only; the chance of circumstances alone can justify it temporarily.”[7]
Moreover, going back to the doctrine of abrogation, Muslim scholars such as Ibn Salama (d. 1020) agree that Koran 9:5, known as ayat as-sayf or the sword verse, has abrogated some 124 of the more peaceful Meccan verses, including “every other verse in the Koran, which commands or implies anything less than a total offensive against the nonbelievers.”[8] In fact, all four schools of Sunni jurisprudence agree that “jihad is when Muslims wage war on infidels, after having called on them to embrace Islam or at least pay tribute [jizya] and live in submission, and the infidels refuse.”[9]
Obligatory jihad is best expressed by Islam’s dichotomized worldview that pits the realm of Islam against the realm of war. The first, dar al-Islam, is the “realm of submission,” the world where Shari’a governs; the second, dar al-Harb (the realm of war), is the non-Islamic world. A struggle continues until the realm of Islam subsumes the non-Islamic world—a perpetual affair that continues to the present day. The renowned Muslim historian and philosopher Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406) clearly articulates this division:
In the Muslim community, jihad is a religious duty because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and the obligation to convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force. The other religious groups did not have a universal mission, and the jihad was not a religious duty for them, save only for purposes of defense. But Islam is under obligation to gain power over other nations.[10]
Notes:
[1] Ibn Qayyim, Tafsir, in Abd al-’Aziz bin Nasir al-Jalil, At-Tarbiya al-Jihadiya fi Daw’ al-Kitab wa ‘s-Sunna (Riyahd: n.p., 2003), pp. 36-43.
[2] Muk |
What we have actually done is expand existing cities with greenfield development -- mostly Suburban Hell development, with a little Hypertrophic City development. New York is still New York, and it will continue to be for some time hence. You don't just go rebuild New York in the middle of Utah. This "topology" apparently makes no allowance for terrain of any kind -- an ocean (most big cities are on oceans), a river (the rest are on rivers), cliffs, hills, mountains (Los Angeles? San Francisco?). I suppose we are building this in the middle of Kansas. Which then begs the question: Why build in the middle of Kansas? ("Because that's where the Green Box is!") A city needs to have some economic purpose, known as "jobs" in layman's terms. More questions... What the heck is a "Reference Topology"? Does any Traditional City have a "topology"? Does the city you're living in have a "topology"? This was not just a careless slip of the tongue, either. The whole page is named "Topology". Is this city connected to the outside world in any way? Is there a road out? A rail line? An airport? A helipad? A zeppelin dock? A port or marina? A space shuttle launch facility? It apparently exists in perfect symmetric self-sufficiency. I suppose the economy is based on photosynthesis. At first glance, this pleasing little pattern looks like a nice design for a necktie. It is only a bit later that you realize that this is really supposed to be a real city. I have mentioned that one of the major failings of City Design in the last century has been the tendency towards the helicopter viewpoint. Traditional Cities, as I've said, look like grey mush from the helicopter. When you design anything from the perspective of a helicopter, you are almost certain to fail, because cities (especially carfree ones) are actually used by people on foot. It is almost impossible to design something that actually works, for a person on foot, from the helicopter viewpoint. Especially if you are a retard. How would you do it? "Get in the helicopter and design some grey mush!" You can't. It's like trying to write a love letter with a paint roller. However, we begin here not from the helicopter viewpoint, but from the satellite viewpoint. From the satellite viewpoint, all cities look like grey mush, even Hypertrophic ones. Carfree.com's primary objective, it seems, is to make something that looks like a nice necktie design when viewed from the space shuttle. They even use it as the site logo. This is such a 100% guarantee of the most miserable failure that I chuckle to even consider it. I bet if you suggested a seven-lobe city design -- just for kicks, because, you know, mine goes to 11 -- the Carfree.com people would have a shit fit. "Noooo -- it's gotta be six and only six!" I get the impression they are rather attached to their six-lobe Reference Topology. What could cause such a person -- well-meaning and intelligent by appearances -- to make such colossal errors right out of the box? Let's talk about motivations. 1) The primacy of "innovation." This design is conceived from the perspective of the Professor of Urban Studies. The Professor of Urban Studies will never design a city in his life, not even a little neighborhood. Thank God for that! The goal of the Professor of Urban Studies is to get tenure. Getting tenure and designing cities have absolutely nothing to do with each other. You don't get tenure by saying "make it just like Venice." You can design a city that way -- a good one! -- but you can't get tenure that way. No, you have to be creative. You have to be a contributor to your field. Throughout the 20th century, this has meant making up nonsense that is nothing like what has come before. It must be innovative. It must be revolutionary. It doesn't actually have to be any good. Today, we have these highly institutionalized rituals by which organization dweebs demonstrate the asked-for revolutionary spirit on demand. 2) The tendency towards central planning. Urban planning (not City Design) is one of the last great holdouts of pure Soviet central planning ideology. For some reason, when people think about City Design, they think they are planning a moonbase. Thus the tendency to start from the satellite perspective. Real cities grow in a somewhat organic fashion, and are motivated by capitalistic considerations. We see, thus, not just some clumsy thinking by Carfree.com, but rather the manifestation of certain repetitive mid-20th-century thought processes, which are common to many academic sectors (and arts). Moving right along, we come to a description of Districts: Carfree.com: Districts We see some great ideas here. First, the Really Narrow Streets. Good! I also have to congratulate Carfree.com here for avoiding The Grid, which seems to have imprisoned the minds of city designers for two hundred years. The 19th Century Hyptertrophic City has The Grid in the form of the grid of streets, exemplified by Manhattan. The 20th Century Hypertrophic City has The Grid in the form of the placement of its identical megabuildings. The Grid, 19th century style. The Grid, 20th century style. I could write a whole page (or two) just on The Grid. It wasn't confined only to street layout, but also expressed itself in architecture. The Grid, 19th century style. The Grid, 20th century style. People were absolutely insane for the stupid Grid. It was part of the factory aesthetic of the first two centuries of industrialization. Maybe they were into tennis rackets rather than neckties in those days. So, I am not kidding when I say that to design anything that is not based on The Grid represents a major step forward. Really, it is. Plus, we see some little squares and plazas, which are a traditional element of the Traditional City. And, we see that the buildings are side-by-side, and about four stories high. Wow, that's great! No more ersatz-farmhouses, the standard pattern of Suburban Hell. Really Narrow Streets... buildings side by side... no cars... we are really on track to success here. At first, I thought this was a sort of standalone example of the basic pattern of Traditional City design. Like Venice. Ummmm, what's with the circle? And then it dawns on you... The circle is the same circle that makes up the six-lobed necktie design. Oh my GAAAAAD. Could anyone actually be so retarded? It makes me weak in the knees to even consider that people take this seriously. Honestly, I had no idea that things were this bad. I could mention some funny features, such as the fact that two of the "districts" are plopped right in the middle of a river. Nothing must come in the way of the Reference Topology! Ummm... do you know what happens to rivers when it rains? I should probably make some jokes here about the "sustainability" of cities built on floodplains. After many decades of bad experience, people finally figured out not to build on river floodplains. In fact, the floodplain can be a great place for all your Green Space fantasies, like golf courses and soccer fields, which can be easily replaced after The Event From Which The Floodplain Derives Its Name. Anyway, this is nothing remotely resembling a Traditional City. Obviously. Let's just take a moment to catch our breath. For our purposes, lets just forget about the whole six-lobe thing, and the circles and all that crapola. Let's just take this pattern as a representation of a portion of our sorta-traditional Carfree City of the Future. There sure is a lot of green in this picture. Indeed, the legend says that the green represents "green area." Uh oh. You know what I think about Green Space. October 10, 2009: Place and Non-Place The Traditional City has all sorts of elements that include vegetation. These are: 1) Yards (often an urban townhouse will have a backyard) 2) Interior courtyards 3) Parks 4) Sports fields 5) Squares and plazas can have grass. This is more common in the English example than the Italian, where squares and plazas are usually paved. However, this "green area" is none of those. The designer has apparently picked up the tendency for people to think that Green Space is an improvement (why?), even a necessary part of the Sustainable City of the Future. ("Where will we graze our goats?") I don't know of any actual Traditional City that has large amounts of Green Space. It doesn't need any, because Green Space is really a buffer to make the car-stuffed roadways and parking lots a little more tolerable ("the solution to pollution is dilution"). Once you get rid of the cars, you don't need Green Space anymore. Let's take a closer look: Carfree.com: Blocks Here we can see the individual buildings. And there's that Green Area. What is this Green Area? 1) Is it a park? It is publicly owned, like most parks? Can someone sell it? Does it have public access? It doesn't appear to. If it is a park, do we need so many parks? 2) Is it a backyard? It doesn't appear to be divided into individual backyards. Are there any trees, or is it just mowed grass? It appears to be communally-owned. Like a condo-backyard? 3) Is it a square or plaza? A square or plaza is normally located at the intersection of streets. In any case, we certainly don't need so many squares and plazas. 4) Is it a sports field? You would normally find a sports field associated with a park or a school, or occasionally as a professional arena. 5) Is it an interior courtyard? An interior courtyard is normally surrounded by a single building. A courtyard for a personal residence might be 9x13 meters or so, or even smaller, while this appears to be about 70 meters across. You could have a larger interior courtyard, for an office or large apartment building/complex. However, that does not appear to be the case here. This is not an interior courtyard. Of course it is none of those things. It is Green Area -- just as it is labeled. Duh! "Interior courtyards admit daylight to building interiors and provide green space adjacent to virtually every building." This "Green Space" concept really is deadly poison. Beware of it. One thing's for sure: it looks nothing like Venice. In the end, Carfree.com was not able to fully embrace the Traditional City, in the form of Venice. We ended up with a sort of Suburbia/Venice hybrid, with plenty of Green Area. One of the reasons that the Traditional City does not have a lot of Green Space is that the land is valuable. You could build some buildings on it, which would be a much higher-value use of the space than devoting 40% of your city to make a nice place for your dog to take a dump. If you owned that much empty space, you would sell it off or develop it. This can go a little overboard, actually, which is why the city government intervenes and introduces some parks, which are normally publicly owned. These parks are known as "parks," not "green area." I'm all for parks, even large ones. The classic Italian cities are definitely a little short on parks. However, you don't need a park on every block. The amount of space devoted to parks could be about 25% of the space devoted to "green area" in this design (or about 10% of the total), and the area devoted to buildings could be 2x what we have here. Then, it would be more Venice-like, with 100% Place, and no Non-Place in the form of "green area." I think that what actually happened here, is that Carfree.com came upon some guidelines for "urban planning," which were really directed toward Suburban Hell. The guidelines stated that a certain percentage ("a minimum of 25%" for Clackamas County, Oregon) would be "green space." This idea got incorporated here, although it is completely inappropriate. Finally, Carfree.com has some notes on street width: Narrow Streets Streets average 25 feet (7.5 M) wide. A boulevard 100 feet (30 m) wide connects all the districts in a lobe and provides a high-speed bicycle thoroughfare. The metro system is constructed beneath this central artery. Other streets should be at least 16 feet (5 meters) wide to allow for access by emergency vehicles. Small alleys not long enough to require direct emergency access can be much narrower - as little as 6 feet (2 meters). Varying widths add interest to an area. Hmmm. "Narrow Streets." Not Really Narrow. When I say "Really Narrow Streets," I don't mean that they are, actually, really narrow. They are ridiculously narrow if you are trying to drive. But, for a pedestrian, they are a perfectly appropriate width, and not "too narrow" by any means. So, I really mean a normal-size pedestrian street, not an automobile street. Since this is a Carfree City, doesn't it make sense to have pedestrian streets? I think the answer is yes. I am absolutely apeshit about Really Narrow Streets, which is to say pedestrian streets, because we've already seen how the American Village (and eventually all American urban places) were fucked up from the start by streets that were waaaaay too wide -- not at all like the Traditional Cities of Europe or Asia. They had buildings side-by-side (at least in commercial areas), and of course there were no cars since this was over a hundred years before cars were invented. Nevertheless -- it was a failure, and the beginnings of 19th Century Hypertrophism, which I promise I will write about someday. In large part, I think we created our automobile disaster because we started off with streets that were sized for automobiles, instead of people. Once you've built automobile-sized streets, doesn't it make sense to fill them with automobiles, even if it took over 100 more years to get to that point? July 26, 2009: Let's Take a Trip to an American Village 3: How the Suburbs Came to Be
July 19, 2009: Let's Take a Trip to an American Village 2: Downtown
July 12, 2009: Let's Take a Trip to an American Village So, what is the width of a Really Narrow Street, exactly? Let's go back to Venice and find out. October 18, 2009: Let's Take Another Trip to Venice October 7, 2007: Let's Take a Trip to Venice About 12 feet. This is not a tiny side street either, it's a fairly significant commercial street.
There are plenty of people, but it doesn't seem "crowded." About 16 feet, narrowing to about 10 feet. Seven feet. About 14-15 feet. 15 feet. 12 feet. Ten feet. Twelve feet. About 14 feet. Eight feet, narrowing to about four feet. 15 feet. 15 feet. 13 feet. So you see, the average street width in Venice is nowhere near 25 feet. It is perhaps half of that. Certainly a "minimum" of 16 feet is excessive. However, these streets do not seem "too narrow" do they? Even where there are plenty of people, it is not "crowded." Venice is not a particularly exaggerated example of typical pedestrian streets, either. You find about the same street width all over the world. Kyoto, Japan. This is reconstructed to represent a typical pre-1850 Kyoto street. Look at the kooky rationalization given by Carfree.com for their wider streets: "Other streets should be at least 16 feet (5 meters) wide to allow for access by emergency vehicles." Talk about a bad reason for fundamental urban design choices. It reminds me of the superwide streets of 19th Century Hypertrophism, supposedly to allow wagons to make U-turns. Once again, we end up with a sort of Suburbia/Venice hybrid. Actually, Venice's 10-15 foot streets are perfectly fine for the occasional emergency vehicle. I am sure there are a few medical emergencies from time to time in Venice. They get by somehow. A standard automobile traffic lane is about eight feet wide, so 10-15 feet is more than enough. Plus, there's no rule that says you can't make the vehicles smaller too. In general, European and Japanese vehicles are quite a bit smaller than the U.S. versions. Japanese ambulance, Enoshima. This street is about 11 feet wide. Making a carfree Traditional City is easy. There's no reason to make it difficult. Nathan Lewis Nathan Lewis was formerly the chief international economist of a leading economic forecasting firm. He now works in asset management. Lewis has written for the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal Asia, the Japan Times, Pravda, and other publications. He has appeared on financial television in the United States, Japan, and the Middle East. About the Book: Gold: The Once and Future Money (Wiley, 2007, ISBN: 978-0-470-04766-8, $27.95) is available at bookstores nationwide, from all major online booksellers, and direct from the publisher at www.wileyfinance.com or 800-225-5945. In Canada, call 800-567-4797.Homeland returns to Showtime on Sunday night, again in very narrative different territory.
Much like the location shift of the fourth season — production headed to Cape Town, subbing for Islamabad — the fifth moves locations again (camera and off), this time to Berlin.
The core foursome of Carrie (Claire Danes), Saul (Mandy Patinkin), Quinn (Rupert Friend) and Dar (F. Murray Abraham) are all still in place, and the war on terror remains the centerpiece, but the rest of the players, threats and interpersonal variables are brand new. Per co-creator and showrunner Alex Gansa, reboots like this are now "hugely intrinsic" to the identity of the show.
"We're adopting the model that The Wire and 24 set," Gansa tells The Hollywood Reporter. "Each season we pick up Carrie in a new geographic location and a new emotional location as well. It's going to be a big part of the show moving forward."
The premiere finds Carrie two years out of the CIA and working as head of security for a German billionaire. Life in the private sector seems to be treating her well, before a combination of hackers, fundamentalist cells and her awkward detente with her former employers seem poised to derail the new status quo. "Our annual trip to DC yielded a lot of discussion about Europe and Russia and the Islamic State's recruitment efforts in places like Germany, France and Britain," Gansa says of the current events that inspired the new storyline. "Right around the time we went, Edward Snowden had just taken refuge in Russia."
Given the general critical praise for the rebooted fourth season, and Homeland's return to the top Emmy race, it's easy to see why the show's writers are now so keen on the refresh button. "The audience has been with us for four years," adds Gansa. "Do they want to see the same thing or do want to see something different? We choose to believe they want to see something different... which may be a mistake. [Laughs]."
Gansa spoke extensively about the fifth season premiere. Return to THR after the Oct. 4 episode for a full Q&A with the showrunner.The Noida authority on Monday demolished 60 illegal huts in front of Mahagun Moderne apartment complex in sector 78.
The action against temporary structures, which had come up on government land, comes four days after mob violence at the apartment complex over rumours that a maid was allegedly held captive by a family living there.
Some people were running vegetable shops from the hutments and lived behind them. “We have demolished 60 structures. Encroachment on government land cannot be allowed,” said MC Tyagi, project engineer of the Noida authority, who led the drive.
As many as 30 constables, four inspectors and 2 JCB machines were used in the drive, said officials. The demolition action started at 10 am and continued till 11.45 am.
“We are conducting a survey of all slums in Sector 78 and demolish all such structures,” said Tyagi.
“We have removed slums in the past too. But the dwellers return soon after,” said Tyagi.
Construction labourers and domestic helps live in slums and villages around housing societies. “We have launched a drive against encroachment and it will continue until we clear all slums,” said Hom Singh Yadav, chief engineer of the Noida authority.
As per Noida authority officials’ estimates, around 2.5 lakh labourers, mostly domestic helps, live in these slums with no civic amenities such as drinking water, electricity and toilets.
First Published: Jul 17, 2017 23:58 IST11th and Florida Avenue, NW
Just when you thought 2016 couldn’t possibly get any worse – a reader sends this notice about famed Florida Avenue Grill:
“Wednesday January 18, 2017 — 11:45am
Trustee’s Sale: Real Property in the U Street Corridor of Northwest Washington, DC
TRUSTEE’S SALE OF Real Property located at 1100 Florida Ave., NW, Washington, DC, 20009 under that certain Consolidated, Amended and Restated Deed of Trust and Security Agreement and Fixture Filing recorded on June 3, 2011 as Instrument No. 2011060882 (the “Deed of Trust”) among the Land Records of the District of Columbia and in accordance with Public Law 90-566 notice recorded on December 12, 2016 a default having occurred in the payment of the indebtedness secured thereby and the covenants contained therein, and at the request of the party secured thereby, the undersigned Trustee will offer for sale by public auction within the offices of Alex Cooper Auctioneers, Inc., 5301 Wisconsin Ave., N.W., #750, Washington, DC, 202-364-0306, on WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 18, 2017 AT 11:45 AM the land and premises situate in the District of Columbia, and designated as and being Lot 79, Square 302, as more particularly described in said deed of trust.
TOGETHER WITH any and all buildings, structures, improvements or appurtenances now erected on the above-described land, including, without limitation, all equipment, apparatus, machinery and fixtures of any kind or character forming a part of said buildings, structures, improvements or appurtenances, and any furniture, furnishings, equipment, machinery and other personal property owned and located in, upon or about the above-described land and any buildings thereon all as more particularly described in the aforesaid Deed of Trust (the “Property”).”
In the meantime:"There's fiery polemic in the lyrics, but it's all wrapped up in a frantic joie de vivre that's as infectious as it is unique."“Kick-ass from start to finish, Dubioza Kolektiv marries power and positivity...”“Yeah, the Dubioza Kolektiv really are that good. Damn… Just…Damn…”“For those who want a message combined with someof the catchiest beats this side of the Adriatic Sea, look no further than Wild Wild East. The upbeat grooves mixed with traditional melodies make for something truly different and, well, wild.”“Paaspop 2014: Dubioza Kolektiv is the energy shot that Paaspop needed... the band performs with enthusiasm, energy and humor. The audience is eating out of their hand, and this show should be called a great success... ““EXIT 2013 Records: Fusion Stage’s attendance record was broken during the performance by Dubioza Kolektiv...““The best thing at Paléo is coming across a band you’d never heard of before, and get totally blown away. This is what happened to me yesterday with Dubioza Kolektiv... “A couple of weeks ago, Patheos had a fun series of blog posts on the future of the Mormonism. (I’m too lazy to provide a link; Google it.) Most of the contributions were insightful and interesting, but I was struck that none of them put front and center what I think is the more important question facing the Church today.
Mormonism is driven, ultimately, by missionary work. If you look at the development of our theology, for example, it has largely been formulated in the context of polemics driven by the needs of proselytizing. We articulate our theology through the process of trying to convert people, rather than trying to covert people to our previously articulate theology. More dramatically, whatever seems to be the most successful missionary message tends to come to dominate Church discourse and transform Church practices. We don’t necessarily invent new doctrines or the like for missionary purposes, but the way in which we present those doctrines is decisively influenced by missionary messaging.
Think about the way that Mormons talk and teach about the family. In the contemporary Church we generally present these doctrines in terms of the sacaralization of the nuclear family around a broadly speaking modern model of middle-class parenting. I don’t have the common intellectual reflex of disdain for the bourgeois, so my point here is analytical rather than critical. It is striking, however, that doctrines originally revealed in the context of a sacralization of the pre-modern, patriarchal family on steroids (i.e. plural marriage) have been repurposed in such a different context. In large part, this is because sacralized nuclear families proved such a productive missionary message in the generations after World War II. Ultimately, that successful missionary message came to dominate Church teachings and practices.
Now look to the future. Currently Church missionary efforts have stalled. This does not portend a crisis or the end of Mormonism or the like. Historically, the Church has gone through cycles of missionary growth followed by cycles of largely stagnant missionary efforts. The rather stagnant and staid Mormonism of the 1920s and 1930s was transformed a generation later into the dynamic, expansive Mormonism of the 1970s and 1980s by the discovery of a new missionary message and new models of missionary work.
My prediction is that in the coming generations Mormonism will be dominated by whatever message generates missionary success, and the Church will be remade in the image of that message. Among other things, this means that many (perhaps most?) of the discussions within the Bloggernacle are probably talking about the wrong questions if you want to forecast the future of Mormonism. This is because the Bloggernancle’s discussions tend to be inwardly focused, lavishing much concern on the faith crises of members, for example, but paying relatively little attention to how one might appeal to potential converts. There is nothing wrong with this, but such internal issues have not, in my opinion, been what has driven the development of Mormonism in the past.
I don’t know what the new missionary message or messages will be, but I do know that there is no reason to suppose that it is going to be the same message we have used in the past. The messages of restoration of divine gifts and religious utopianism that proved so potent in the 1830s and 1840s, were not the messages of family and community that proved so potent a century later. I will, however, hazard two less ambitious predictions.
First, there will probably be a greater diversity of missionary messages in the future. The global reach of Mormon proselytizing is greater than it has ever been before, and there is no a priori reason to suppose that there is a single optimal missionary message for the entire world. Of course, on one hand this has always been true, and on the other it may be that globalization is causing a kind of cultural conversion that makes a single message more likely. Still, I doubt it. Furthermore, a multiplicity of messages is not enough. Because ultimately the Church must necessarily remake itself in the image of its missionary message, I suspect that future success will require greater decentralization in the structure of Church programs.
Second, discovering the successful missionary messages of the future will also require greater decentralization. Ultimately, high levels of variation subject to feedback mechanisms that select for successful processes is a better way of finding solutions that centralized planning. Consider the successful post-war missionary program based on standardized discussions focused on a family-centric plan of salvation. The discussions were not invented at Church headquarters. Rather, they were a successful innovation by a mission president operating in a pre-correlation world in which there was considerable variation from mission to mission. The same is true on the emphasis on families as a proselytizing message.
Correlation was a mid-twentieth century administrative technology that effectively husbanded resources and propagated successful practices discovered in a pre-Correlation missionary program. However, with the decline in the success of that model of missionary work, I think that greater decentralization is probably a necessary and effective discovery mechanism for the next set of successful Mormon missionary messages. We should have a greater toleration for mission and regional variation in missionary work, and local mission presidents and church leaders should be encouraged to try new things out and report on what works and what doesn’t. Rather than acting as a central planner, Church headquarters should function as a gardener, weeding out messages and approaches that consistently fail and encouraging processes that succeed.
Once these new missionary messages are found, I predict, they will transform the Church more than any other single factor in the future.Free Webinar on Facilitating Collaborative Strategic Planning!
RECORDING AVAILABLE! Registration below!
Strategic Planning. The big two words. Our democratic teams must do this in a special way. In today’s world, we need to be able to review and shift our strategic plans nimbly.
Make 2019 the year of strategy and direct your energy to what really needs attention. In the frenzy of the information age, you’re likely pulled in so many directions, which can make it easy to lose the importance of your priorities.
In this webinar, we walk you through a collaborative strategic planning method that you can explore with your team to keep you aligned to your goals and visions.
*This is a part of our fall self-care challenge to reflect and build leadership capacity for 2019! All are welcome!
Key Take-Aways:
A new understanding of strategic planning in collaborative teams
How to know when you’ve completed your strategic planning
Fun interactive ways to get alignment
Register Here to Watch This Webinar on Strategic Planning (and access our webinar archive):The word “factoid” has now become a factoid. In an ironic, postmodern twist, most people now confuse the definition of the term, believing that it represents a small piece of statistical data. In the past week alone, writers for The Washington Post, Houston Press and the Philadelphia Tribune have misused the word in the implication that a factoid is something that is true or empirically verifiable. Matt Bruenig, in a recent column, provides a typically maddening example while attempting to analyze demographic information about supporters of Donald Trump: “So, in addition, to the above factoid, it’s also true that most of Trump’s voters are not white working class people.”
Ignorance of the actual meaning of “factoid” is a perfect demonstration of America’s contemporary failure to separate the authentic from the artificial, and the demonstrable from the deceptive.
Advertisement:
Norman Mailer coined the word “factoid” in 1973 to describe ideas or information perceived by the public as facts but actually dubious or instruments of obfuscation. Writing in his brilliant and almost psychedelic biography of Marilyn Monroe, Mailer described an earlier book on the Hollywood starlet as a "book with facts embellished by factoids, that is, facts which have no existence before appearing in a magazine or newspaper, creations which are not so much lies as a product to manipulate emotion in the Silent Majority.”
During an interview shortly after the publication of "Marilyn," Mailer surveyed the sociopolitical damage of factoids: “A factoid is a fact which has no existence on earth other than what’s appeared in the newspaper and then gets repeated for ever after. So people walk around as if it is a blooming lively fact.”
As one of the pioneers of literary journalism, Mailer not only invented a word but deployed it against his critics and as a weapon against the so-believed supremacy of traditional, “objective” journalism. "Marilyn," as many readers pointed out immediately after its release, is full of exaggerations, innuendos and interpretive license. The difference between Mailer and the dispensers of factoids, as he would explain, is that he embraced and advertised his subjectivity, often calling even his “nonfiction” books, such as his masterpiece "The Executioner’s Song," “true life novels.” Mailer described his account of the 1967 anti-war march on the Pentagon, "The Armies of the Night," with the subtitle “History as Novel, The Novel as History.”
Mailer, along with Hunter Thompson, Joan Didion and other “new” journalists, convincingly argued that celebrating subjectivity and personal narration, while introducing the tactics of fiction in reportage, leads to more honest journalism. Human nature renders even the most seemingly and intentionally neutral reporting as biased and narrow. Too many writers and commentators, suffering under the strain of a small imagination, pollute the atmosphere with factoids. Members of an uninformed and incurious public inhales the pollutant, then proceed to cough it up in every room that they enter. Public discourse soon becomes sick.
The injection of factoids into the American ecosystem is not merely the fault of reporters, but often the deliberate assault of politicians who seek to advance a dangerous agenda through the manipulation of a frightened and gullible citizenry. “It is possible, for example,” Mailer wrote, “That Richard Nixon has spoken in nothing but factoids during his public life.”
Mailer’s indictment of the “Silent Majority” as particularly vulnerable to the theatrics and theories of paranoia is illuminative, given that throughout the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump — the large print, abridged, children’s version of Richard Nixon — continually referred to his whining constituency as the “silent majority.” It was one of many Nixonian phrases that Trump resurrected, but even more than the rhetoric, Trump re-engineered Nixon's tactic of persuasion through factoid for an electorate with a shortened attention span and enlarged appetite for cruelty and vulgarity.
Advertisement:
“Crooked Hillary,” Trump’s nickname for his election opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, was nothing more than the weaponization of the factoid that Clinton was irredeemably corrupt. A large percentage of Americans believe that she is guilty of everything from murder to running the State Department as a sophisticated Mafia operation on behalf of her husband. Actual evidence — that is, facts instead of factoids — verifying the charges is in short supply.
The two main issues of the Trump platform, aside from misogyny and bigotry, were immigration and trade. While Trump has taken the dishonesty to new sewer-level depths, he did not create, but only took advantage of, the parochial and false perceptions about globalization among the American public. Almost entirely built from factoids, national opinion on immigration imagines masses of Mexicans invading the United States, threatening to destroy civil society. At some point the factoid naming illegal immigration as a crisis emerged, and even many Democrats feel it's necessary to acknowledge the “problem of porous borders” before advocating for comprehensive immigration reform. The truth is that illegal immigration is at a low point and, as many studies have proved, immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans.
Trump, who even worse than Nixon seems incapable of uttering a truthful sentence, launched his campaign with an insane declaration about stopping the so-called illegal Mexicans who are “rapists” bringing “crime and drugs.”
The factoid about trade is that it costs Americans millions of jobs. It is certainly true that trade has resulted in the loss of some jobs, but factual research has demonstrated that this is a mere fraction when compared with the jobs being eliminated through technological automation. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin recently boasted of the Trump administration’s separation from reality, telling an interviewer curious about his response to artificial intelligence’s inevitable disruption of the job market that “it is not even on our radar screen. It is 50-100 years away.”
Advertisement:
President Trump continually bemoans the sad state of the “depleted military,” allowing another dangerous factoid to thrive in political debate. The American military is the most highly funded public institution in the United States and possibly the entire world, given that the U.S. budget is roughly the size of the next seven military budgets combined, according to NationalPriorities.org.
The United States under Donald Trump’s influence is one where beliefs and policies form entirely out of factoids (“Obamacare is imploding,” etc.), and dramatic anecdotes. Rather than dealing with the reality of declining immigration and the lack of criminality among most immigrants, Trump and his sycophants discuss horrific stories of illegal immigrants murdering innocent citizens. The Trump administration governs with a combination of the worst persuasive tactics, creating an amalgamation of the con man, the Madison Avenue adman and the shallow newsman.
Norman Mailer once announced his modest literary goal of “making a revolution in the consciousness of our time.” For all of his flaws, he understood that culture is an invention and that something like a factoid is not easily erasable. Once it exists, its lifespan is long and ugly.
Advertisement:
A revolution in consciousness requires that people rescue art from advertisement, truth from lies and facts from factoids. Getting right the meaning of the word “factoid” is a good place to start.Downtown Joe: Death knocking at door of Heart Attack Grill’s unofficial spokesman
A Las Vegas man who became the unofficial spokesman for downtown’s Heart Attack Grill by dint of the fact that he came to the restaurant daily will die shortly from a heart attack, the restaurant’s owner said late Friday.
“The customers just loved him,” said owner Jon Basso.
John Alleman, 52, is currently on life support in a local hospital. Basso said Alleman lived with his only family, his brother, Paul, near Fremont Street and Maryland Parkway.
Alleman would stand outside the restaurant daily coaxing people to try it, Basso said. At night Alleman worked security at one of the abandoned high-rise construction sites on the Strip.
“I told him I couldn’t hire him, but I can throw you a free drink and burger once in a while,” Basso |
traits. But I do find it interesting how this argument is almost always applied to female characters. How many posts and articles decry the shallow sorts of strength of the thriller hero—seldom sketched in more than two dimensions—a strength that can generally only be demonstrated by his competence with violence, his willingness to defy authority, and his occasional ability to make entertaining banter? More often you find them praised, or taken as the model for a whole subgenre, at least in terms of style. (Here I make sweeping generalisations, but no more sweeping than have been made in the other direction.)
But show me a female character whose major characteristics are competence with violence, willingness to defy authority, and the occasional ability to make entertaining banter, and I’ll show you a character who—I am willing to guarantee you—has been dismissed as entirely lacking depth, or as a “man with breasts,” or criticised for being insufficiently well-rounded, or not really “strong.” (Look at the critiques sometimes leveled at, for example, Ilona Andrews’ Kate Daniels. Or any number of other urban fantasy female protagonists—it’s often urban fantasy that bears the brunt of this critique, since it’s the genre with the greatest preponderance of ass-kicking female characters.)
It puts me in mind of that old adage, that a woman needs to be twice as good to go half as far as her male counterparts.
I’m not arguing in favour of greater shallowness, lest anyone be tempted to misunderstand me. But the double standard of content, the double standard of criticism applied, bothers me really quite fundamentally. We fall into the error of really rather relentlessly applying criticism to female characters. They’re too domestic! They aren’t domestic enough! They have too little agency! Or too much, having unbelievably few constraints on their choices! They’re too violent, too shallow, too brittle. They’re too gentle, too generous, too forgiving, too soft. They’re insufficiently maternal, or too much so. They’re too independent! They’re not independent enough!
They are, in short, very seldom considered good enough to escape this kind of scrutiny.
(Which is unsurprising: If you haven’t noticed, nonfictional women are equally subject to a more intense scrutiny than men. And it’s not just men who subject them to it: It’s something many of us have internalised and reproduce. It’s the air we breathe and the society we swim in.)
This continuous critique of female roles in narrative, though—not just their lack, but every aspect of their presence, both in specific and in aggregate—points to a rather more basic issue. Women just aren’t seen as normal the way men are. And female protagonists, female heroes, are even more a thing to be remarked upon. Male characters escape this sustained critique, because male characters are still the default, the standard. Male heroes are ubiquitous. And they offer no potential transgression of our existing social hierarchies.
So how should we address this double standard?
There are a couple of ways which have been pointed out to me, and which I think are worth considering. It’s vital that in our discussions of Strong Female Characters, we remember the double standard exists. It’s not fair to hold female characters to such a high level of scrutiny. (Part of this, of course, is a scarcity problem: When there are only one or two significant female characters in a narrative, or when they are less than completely ubiquitous in a genre, their representations carry more weight and attract more criticism, because they have to stand for every woman.) We need not only to discuss female characters in light of the double standard of content, but also in light of the double standard of criticism.
We could also spend some more critical energy on interrogating Strong (and Weak) Male Characters. Subject them to higher levels of scrutiny. Ask ourselves what we really mean by “well-rounded” and “believable.”
But mostly, I think, we need to destroy the idea that there is a default sort of human and a default sort of protagonist. That we should judge strength differently based on who has it. (Maybe even that some things are peculiarly male or female at all.)
Look, don’t get me wrong. By all means, let’s debate the meaning of strength. Let’s argue against shallowness, and in favour of depth. But let’s try not to uphold the double standard while we’re doing it?
I know it’s hard. But it’s got to be worth a try, right?
Liz Bourke is a cranky person who reads books. Her blog. Her Twitter.In this post, I wish to cover ‘Sim Swap Fraud’ and some of the ways we can prevent it.
I’m not a natural writer, I only do these blogs in hope people will listen up and improve security. So feel free to read the Vice Post inspired by this research instead.
What is Sim Swap Fraud
In fact, let’s first cover porting a number over without the fraud. Every number in the UK can have a Porting Authorisation Code (PAC) generated. This code, given to the mobile phone owner by their current network operator will allow you to switch providers. You simply ring up your current operator, ask for the PAC number and give this code to the new operator. A few days later your phone number has been transferred to a new network.
Now let’s add the fraud bit. This system has been abused for a decade as a way to ‘steal’ a persons mobile number. A criminal would just ring up your operator, pretend to be you and get the code. Following this task you just buy a new SIM card, port the number too it and bingo. You have stolen the number and even if the number is identified as stolen by this method, it will still take a few days to get it back. The reports from victims are distressing, people’s lives have been uprooted in a second and the impact doesn’t stop with a phone issue. The whole driving force behind this kind of fraud is your email address, your bank, your online life.
Wait a minute.. I hear you say “Your online life”. How is this then? Seems a big jump from your mobile number…
Well not really… Many email and social media accounts will reset an online account’s password if they can send a verification code to your phone. It’s a trivial task to go to an online account and type in the victims email address and then get a code sent to the phone number in your control. Once you have a Google account you could look at location history, emails, pictures etc. I don’t want to dwell on this point of escalation. For those this article is intended, I hope you know the level of access an email account can bring.
Other motivators for this attack could be:
Bypass 2-factor accounts that have a compromised password already.
Approve banking transactions with SMS notifications.
Defame – Calls to your clients. Calls to your boss, embarrassment.
Further Vishing calls using your number.
Comparison Assessment
I wanted to Identify what networks were like dealing with the PAC issue procedure for their customers and I started working on some research. I knew it was a little bold, but I decided to carry on with it, mitigating the concerns I had with legality and ethics with some minor tweaks to the original plan. The assessment was far from scientific and it wasn’t repeated 50 times to get any kind of meaningful statistics – it was to serve as a proof of concept, after hearing a lot about Sim Swap Fraud in 2015 I had wondered if this was media hype or was this actually still a concern.
I started with purchasing SIM cards and Top Ups for all the major networks. I didn’t cover them all – I mean, how far do you go with being curious! but I think I got a good selection. The assessment would have to be as fair as possible, so uniformly I topped up and registered all the SIM cards using the same details. The registration process is documented along side each operator to give you a better understanding of what information they could validate me from. On the topic of validation, some operators validate customers using methods such as commonly dialled numbers or last top up amount. So for each SIM that I registered, I also placed 3 calls and sent an SMS to the same number. After registration I would then dial in to the operator using a landline – just to be sure they weren’t using the number or the ICCID to validate the call. I would then provide them with the minimum amount of information requested to obtain a PAC number, in places where the call handler requested poor information for validation such as ‘last top up amount’ incorrect answers were given in order to really push what a malicious caller could get away with. The results are what they are, please don’t make a judgement on a whole phone network based on this post alone, but I hope it gives a certain transparency to key areas of improvement within these household name brands. The networks were contacted 7 days ago and were offered a chance to comment.
If the stragglers want a statement attached feel free to send one and I’ll put it up. This isn’t about bashing brands, this is about securing people en masse. Most advice I’ve seen online focused on defence client side – the issue is almost totally provider side.
1 – Vodafone
Registration
It’s quite hard to register a phone that is prepay on Vodafone. I found that registration was supported and publicised for pay monthly and business customers, but not prepay. I navigated the menus until finding the customer retention/sorry you are leaving us extension. A call back was requested. A few minutes later an operator called back and took my details. Name+DOB+PIN Number+Memorable Name+Hint were all provided. The agent also sent a ‘code’ (9999) to the handset to validate that it was in my possession. Three numbers were then called and one SMS was sent from the device.
Vishing Call
The call is straightforward enough, the top amount provided was wrong but the agent progresses with my request. In the video I am polite and make a few mistakes on purpose to portray I am not tech savvy. After the video finishes I am told the PAC number could not be provided over the phone and can only be issued to the device in a SMS message. The caller validation used: Name, DOB and incorrect last top up amount.
Conclusion
On registration I had high hopes for Vodafone, the agent was pushy and made me register a passcode and even a memorable word. Later when a situation like a PAC issue is being dealt with, it would be great to see this information being requested. It is daft setting a password for accounts, then not making it mandatory for all accounts to use it. Issuing the PAC directly to the device means you would need to have the mark’s phone. Still not an impossible situation to combine this call with a minutes access to the device, but if someone has your phone in an unlocked state and is of malicious intent – I’m guessing you have bigger concerns that day.
Statement from Vodafone
“We have investigated the issue that Mr De Vere raised and agree that the top up amount provided during the call was incorrect. Since all of the other security questions asked during the call were correctly answered our agent chose to issue the PAC code directly to the customer’s mobile number via text message. This approach ensured the security of the customer’s account.” – Vodafone UK
With the top up wrong it still only leaves Name and DOB, hardly brilliant for authentication but their saving grace is the refusal to give it out over the phone call.
2 – EE
Registration
Simple pay as you go registration from EE, online I created an account with a Name+Validated email+SMS Code to the mobile device.
The three calls were made from the phone and also an SMS was sent.
Vishing Call
In the phone menu, first of all, I am asked to type in the mobile number the call pertains too, this step isn’t shown at the start. The top up amount is wrong during the call but the agent proceeds on anyway.
The PAC number is issued over the phone – A big no no! If you read this and work for a telco operator, please stop it. The caller validation used: Number, ICCID and incorrect top up amount.
Conclusion
The attempt is dependant on the knowledge of the SIM Number/ICCID. This could be found in an employees draw from a left over sim pack in a phone box, it can be obtained with 10 seconds of access to most phones (iPhone>Settings>General>ICCID). More options for validation were present for the agent such as an email address, even my name but these weren’t used on this call.
Operators seem to be using the ICCID a lot, almost like a password to get access to the PAC but with the amount of places that is available from and we’re talking left over SIM card packs, the actual SIM Card in a phone, to a guy with an IMSI catcher at the end of your drive. It simply isn’t a good enough method of validation.
Statement From EE
”EE take all matters of customer information, data and fraud seriously and have strict policies and procedures in place to prevent fraudulent activity and unauthorised access. All requests to make account changes, including swapping a SIM, require the person to provide a range of details to verify their identity. In this instance, it appears our standard protocol was not followed. Following our investigation, we will take the appropriate action with the agent in question and we are reminding all of our customer service staff of the correct procedures. We’re continually improving defences against this and other types of fraud and we advise customers to establish unique and strong passwords for each of their accounts and not share passwords online or over the phone with anyone. Any customers who suspect fraudulent activity on their account should contact EE customer service immediately” – EE
So again, admitting fault. It is worth noting that EE is planning to answer all the calls from the UK by the end of the year!
3 – O2
Registration
Nice and simple online registration, the details requested were SMS Code to mobile device+Name+DOB+Verified Email+Security Question and I noted they logged the phone model (Could be browser used on the phone or IMEI, I don’t know)
Vishing Call
Pew-Pew is the only way to describe this call. The second I’m online I hear a British accent – I know it’s going to be harder, then the operator says “I’m just sending a 4 digit code to the device” you can hear me drop in the call. Game over for most attacks, after this point I am simply coasting through the call uninterested, waiting to see if I get the PAC on the phone or sent to the device. She ends up providing the PAC on the phone call, despite saying earlier she will SMS it.
Conclusion
I’ve got to give it to O2, after the SMS code to verify the device it was a non-test. Convenience and security are a constant tradeoff and companies have to place themselves somewhere on this line and I think O2 are in a good place – with room for improvement, the agent can be heard explaining that she will issue the PAC number through a text. The PAC number was then given over the phone call. The caller validation used: Name, Number, SMS Code, ICCID.
Statement from O2
“We’re pleased the research shows we hold the number one position for validating our customers. The security steps we have in place help to protect our customers from any attempt of fraudulent activity. The PIN check means we can confirm the customer has the handset with them so we’re able to share the PAC code. If our Pay Monthly contract customers cannot verify the PIN, the PAC code is sent to the registered email address we have on file or to the mobile via a text message.” – O2 Spokesperson
4 – GiffGaff
Registration
GiffGaff is an online only operator you kind of manage yourself. Help is there if you need it but it’s basically DIY. I registered on their online portal and provided a SIM card code to validate my SIM and be allocated a phone number. Info provided was Username+Full Name+Validated email+Password+Address+Full Card details
Vishing Call…
…Here it got interesting – there is no one to ring! I didn’t think I’d be hearing that today. GiffGaff provides an automated call handler to provide departing customers with a PAC number. Oh dear, that’s the second time a call handler has shot a company in the foot this year on the site.
I am left with my jaw on the table, the issue can only be explained as.
If you are on GiffGaff and you lend your phone to someone to ‘make a call’ and they ring a short number. Within 30 seconds you are in a situation where they could steal your phone number and reset most of your online accounts, at any point after for up to 30 days.
Conclusion
I talk about the security vs convenience tradeoff a lot, it’s the way it really is with companies. Here GiffGaff place all faith the caller is the owner of the device. No effort is made after this point, they have just connected the call handler bot to the database of PAC numbers and chucked it at their customers. Providing PAC numbers is an Ofcom requirement and it’s like a bunch of accountants looked at the requirement and thought what is the cheapest way we can implement this with little to no concern for our customers. Very easy, not secure! Must adapt! If you are on GiffGaff please set a nice hard lock screen code, disable Siri, don’t lend your phone to randoms you don’t trust.
The suggested fix for this is easy. Get rid of the call handling machine. GiffGaff currently provides the PAC code very clearly in the customer portal. There is literally no need for this to be a thing.
5 – Three UK
Registration
This was done online using the iPad. Three SIMs don’t like old Nokias so I used a 4G+Cellular iPad (The device itself doesn’t really matter). I registered the SIM card using the same methods as the other online registration portals providing Name, Number and a Password. Three also are pretty clued up with recognising one of their SIMs accessing the online portal so if that counts as registration I think it’s fair to add.
I put the SIM in a borrowed phone to ring the numbers then back in the iPad.
Vishing Call
Please forgive the rude, abrupt persona it’s just an act. No different to an actor playing a bad guy – I don’t talk to people like this normally! But it was vital the call was handled in that manner. The person in a company that issues PAC numbers is mostly a customer retention agent, they are there to mop up the frustrated customers wanting to leave and they have powers to retain. At the start of the call I wanted to remove all hope of the retention. One short burst of ‘nope’ at the start did this! If you listen closely you can hear him sigh. His next objective is just to get me off the call on to the next one.
Conclusion
The PAC number was provided over a landline solely using the number and a 2nd guess at a top up. The worst today I’m afraid. No PAC warning message was sent to the device following the call. In the wild, this call would be classed as highly successful. The cause for concern is the way in which authentication is performed. It’s worth noting the last top up question should be dropped as it has about 8 combinations. The very fact the operator says ‘last top up’ already means I know it’s not direct debit. With 3’s new all-in-£20 deal, £20 is of course the amount everyone is topping up with. There might be a few on £15 (No £15 bundle with 3 anymore) and even less on £10. Also fraudsters know if you’re driving a nice new Porsche then you’re probably paying Direct Debit in full – because it’s easier right? The question itself is a mockery of security – it’s like setting a one letter passcode with only 8 letters in the alphabet and having unlimited calls to ring and try!
To Conclude
Some operators faired worse than others. I don’t want to give them too much of a hard time, I had a suspicion this was still a very valid and legitimate attack and the work I’ve done has only concluded in what I suspected. Lyca mobile didn’t answer their registration number despite several attempts over 2 days – so they are off the post simply because they couldn’t be bothered picking up a phone in my preparation stages. I could speculate that the majority of Lyca mobile won’t even be registered if it is this hard.
The issue with PAC numbers is they have to get from the operator to the customer as securely as possible. A big part of this transaction is the trust an operator must place in a caller. They should all work on securing this trust better, not just for PAC numbers but for all customer inbound calls. O2 can lead the way in this, an SMS message to the device straight away really was a wonderful sight and if nothing else confirmed the caller was at least in the vicinity of the phone.
All operators should work towards NEVER, EVER, giving the PAC number over an inbound phone call. The chances of being a victim to this kind of fraud drop significantly if you require the device. Worldwide attacks are then limited to people around you – still a danger mind you! But a concern you can mitigate by good phone security and vigilance.
All operators should either call back the mobile phone or send a series of warning SMS to customers. Followed by the PAC number, maybe 24hrs in the future after 3 alert messages.
If they have the email address of the customer, I think a warning email would go a long way. No links, no interaction just “Your PAC Number has been issued by your network, if you did not do this someone maybe trying to steal your number – please call us using 2345 from your handset”
If you implement a good password policy, implement it for all calls? I can’t understand the point of having an account password and secret name etc if you’re not then going to use them for issuing a PAC code. If this was the same on other platforms – imagine Windows offering a login prompt only some of the time, at random?!
Once a PAC is issued to Mr Smith, Mrs Collins can use it with completely different details! Absolutely no validation of the previous owner exists when porting a number.
The phone number verification systems we all use should be reviewed as a single point of failure.
Customer service staff are not a commodity you can purchase, untrained from cheaper, foreign call centres – they are the undervalued guardians of our lives. The big brands have to remember this and train them accordingly.
This article might cause a fuss and I apologise in advance but the situation is clear:
Providers are responsible for their own security and account authentication processes
– Ofcom
About the author: Richard De Vere is Director and Principal consultant at The AntiSocial Engineer Limited, he has an extensive background in physical penetration testing and social engineering, including ‘red team’ exercises and information gathering assessments. You can listen to him talk about this work and similar ways social engineering impacts people at an upcoming event he is hosting with the Yorkshire Cyber Security Cluster on the 12th May 2016. Details of the event can be found here.Signup to receive a daily roundup of the top LGBT+ news stories from around the world
Rhode Island has today become the latest US state to ban gay ‘cure’ therapy.
The state’s Governor Gina Raimondo signed into law House Bill (HB) 5277, a measure which protects LGBTQ youth in the state from the harmful and discredited practice of so-called conversion therapy.
Rhode Island is the fourth state so far this year to ban the practise.
Despite being overwhelmingly condemned by the medical community, only ten states have enacted bans on gay cure therapy – Connecticut, California, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Illinois, Vermont, New York, and New Mexico, plus the District of Columbia.
A growing number of municipalities have also enacted similar protections, including cities in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida.
The Rhode Island law states: “This act would prohibit ‘conversion therapy’ by licensed health care professionals with respect to children under eighteen (18) years of age.
“Violations of this act would subject the health care professional to disciplinary action and/or suspension and revocation of the license by the director of the department of health.”
Human Rights Campaign Legal Director Sarah Warbelow said: “No child should be put through the dangerous and inhumane practice of conversion therapy.
“Medical professionals agree this outdated and discredited practice not only doesn’t work, but can also have life-threatening consequences.
“It is nothing short of child abuse. We thank Governor Raimondo and the Rhode Island Legislature for protecting the state’s LGBTQ youth.”
Progress on the issue continues to be stalled in Republican-majority states
At the federal level, Senate Democrats recently re-introduced a bill which would federally ban the practice of gay ‘conversion’ therapy.
Senators Patty Murray of Washington and Cory Booker of New Jersey re-introduced the Therapeutic Fraud Prevention Act to Congress, but the law has been opposed by Republicans.
The GOP’s 2016 national party platform included support for conversion therapy, to much outrage from LGBT groups.
It said: “We support the right of parents to determine the proper treatment or therapy, for their minor children.”It’s hard to imagine losing a spouse to a senseless act of violence. It’s even harder to imagine being wrongfully prosecuted for the crime and spending the next 25 years in jail.
According to the Austin-American Statesman, Michael Morton was convicted of murdering his wife, Christine, in a 1987 trial. There was just one small problem with that conviction: he didn’t do it.
The prosecutor, Ken Anderson, withheld crucial evidence that could have exonerated Morton. One piece was a recording of Christine’s mother who indicated the couple’s three-year-old child witnessed the murder and claimed the assailant was a monster, noting that his father was not home at the time. Another involved a police report of a suspicious person who had parked and walked into a wooded area behind the couple’s home on several occasions. Any reasonable juror would have doubted Morton’s guilt based on these examples alone.
However, Anderson claimed Morton killed his wife in a late-night rage and arranged the scene to make it look like a burglary. He did so despite the fact that no witnesses or forensic evidence ever tied him to the crime and no murder weapon was ever found.
Morton was ultimately sentenced to life in prison. He was freed 25 years later after DNA evidence on a bandana found near the home proved his innocence and the guilt of another man, who is now serving a life sentence for this and another murder.
Meanwhile, Anderson will lose his license and spend a mere 10 days in jail. That seems like hardly a just punishment for wittingly robbing a man of 25 years of freedom and forcing a child to grow up without his only surviving parent.Getty Images Protestors rally during a demonstration against the Muslim immigration ban at John F. Kennedy International Airport.
BAGHDAD, Iraq—Citizens of the seven countries identified by President Donald Trump for a 90-day visa ban who hold dual nationality also will be barred from entering the United States, the U.S. State Department said in a statement Saturday.
In a statement that the State Department is due to release, which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, the 90-day visa moratorium extends beyond just citizens of Iraq, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Libya and Yemen.
It also applies to people who originally hail from those countries but are traveling on a passport issued by any other nation, the statement notes. That means Iraqis seeking to enter the U.S. on a British passport, for instance, will be barred, according to a U.S. official. British citizens don’t normally require a visa to enter the U.S.
“Travelers who have nationality or dual nationality of one of these countries will not be permitted for 90 days to enter the United States or be issued an immigrant or nonimmigrant visa,” the statement said. “Those nationals or dual nationals holding valid immigrant or nonimmigrant visas will not be permitted to enter the United States during this period. Visa interviews will generally not be scheduled for nationals of these countries during this period.”
Read an expanded version of this article at WSJ.com.
Want news about Asia delivered to your inbox? Subscribe to MarketWatch's free Asia Daily newsletter. Sign up here.In June 2007, I finished up school for the year. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was done with college forever. By the end of the summer, I had dropped out and would not return.
While this fact probably makes me an unusual person to give advice to college graduates, qualifications are not something with which I’ve been particularly concerned. A few years ago, an article I wrote on dropping out mysteriously began to rank as #1 on Google for the question “Should I drop out of college?” and led to hundreds of emails from desperate students and what I hope was a mutually beneficial correspondence. When I left college, the collapse of the financial markets was a few blissful months away. But that didn’t make it any less terrifying. That’s the problem with most drop out narratives—or any narrative written in retrospect by successful people—they totally ignore how utterly unprepared most young people are for these major life decisions. Which is why I advise most to stay in school.
I am not going to tell you my path was clean and simple or that you should follow my lead. But I can say that I learned a few things. It’s why at age 26, I’m able to say that I’m an author of three published books and somehow had success in corporate America and an income that I never would have considered possible. So for this year’s graduating class I have a few lessons I’ve learned from a life of paradoxes:
First, education doesn’t stop when you leave school—in fact, that’s where it begins. Malcolm X was once asked to name his alma mater. “Books,” he replied. In fact, if you ask most smart or successful people where they learned their craft, they will not talk to you about their time in school. It’s always a mentor, a particularly transformative job or a period of experimentation or trial and error. That is not to say school isn’t important. The point is this: whatever degree you’re leaving with, whatever nice job you’ve snagged, your post-graduate work is about to begin.
Second, it’s never a “good time” to graduate. Conditions are never ideal. As the Kauffman Foundation has noted, half of all companies in the Fortune 500 were founded in a bear market. Everyone faces adversity. Why would this generation—my generation—be an exception? I like the story of Amelia Earhart, whose offer for her first major flight as a female aviator was not only unpaid, she was the second choice and was required to consent to two male chaperones (who were paid). Guess what she said to this offer? “Yes!”
So don’t wait for your dream job. These things aren’t gifted, they ensue as a result of our choices. We will them into existence. Booker T. Washington got into college by forcing his way into the admissions office, waiting for hours, and then when no one paid attention to him, he swept and cleaned it until it was spotless. You and I got off easy with our essays, but now we face a far different job market. The buy-in for us is higher and the competition tougher.
Third, you’re allowed to do more than one thing, and it might take you a while to find your lane. In 1850, Ralph Waldo Emerson complained that young people would try one thing and then quit. “If the finest genius studies at one of our colleges,” he wrote, “and is not installed in an office within one year afterwards in the cities or suburbs of Boston or New York, it seems to his friends and to himself that he is right in being disheartened, and in complaining the rest of his life.” Of course, this is silly. America is a history of hustlers—people who tweaked and tried a million things before they finally found the one that worked. Don’t let your parents or your peers pressure you because you haven’t got there yet.
In the seven years after leaving school, I have been an executive in Hollywood, the director of marketing at American Apparel, I’ve traveled, I’ve consulted, started my own marketing agency, I’ve written and published two books among other things and somehow managed to hold down a relationship the entire time. I was good at a lot of this, but not perfect by any means. I failed a lot. Sometimes I worked myself into such a corner I had to move across the country just to set myself straight. So what? As Seneca wrote, too many people lack the “fickleness to live as they wish and just live as they have begun.”
Lastly, everyone is making it up as they go along. Whether they have a degree or not—whether it’s from Harvard or a community college—everyone is trying to find what works for them. We want money, we want happiness, we want to do things that challenge us and most importantly, we want it now.
The bad news is that getting all your dreams now is just not going to happen. But the good news is the struggle, the obstacles, are what make what we thought were necessities possible. It’s how you’ll learn—about yourself, about the world, about the life you want and how to have it. So relax and go to it.
Ryan Holiday is the editor at large of Betabeat and the author of the recent book The Obstacle is the Way.Last week at CeBIT, KDE won the Linux New Media Readers Choice Award 2014 (link to German language Linux Magazine) for the best Linux Desktop Environment. 46% of the readers of Linux New Media's global publications voted for KDE. Runner-ups were GNOME with 18% and XFCE with 13%. Other awards went to CyanogenMod, Raspberry Pi, Bitcoin, Puppet, Tor and Git.
Readers Choice: Best Linux Desktop Environment (click for larger) Readers Choice: Best Linux Desktop Environment
Cornelius Schumacher, President of KDE e.V. received the award on behalf of the KDE Community from Mathias Huber, Editor at Linux Magazine. The video of the award ceremony will be available on the Linux Magazine web site later.
KDE is delighted to receive the award. Hundreds of our volunteers dedicate hard work and passion to creating free software for end users and it is great to be recognized in this way. KDE's software runs on tablets and phones, Windows and Mac OS, but the core of what the KDE Community is doing is still focused on the Linux Desktop. Continuous work over many years has made KDE's Plasma the reliable choice of the majority of Linux Desktop users.Buy Photo Field sobriety tests like the one conducted here for a photo illustration are the topic of some concern among lawmakers and the police officers who conduct them. Livingston County Sheriffs deputy Mike Mueller instructs the subject to follow his pen with his eyes. (Photo: GILLIS BENEDICT/LIVINGSTON DAILY)Buy Photo
Lawmakers call it a simple error that will soon be fixed, but changes in wording regarding field sobriety tests for impaired drivers have frustrated Michigan police and prosecutors.
In some counties, the change in the state statute regarding field sobriety tests has led judges to kick sobriety test evidence out of court entirely, possibly letting some suspects to go free.
In Livingston County, it’s defense attorneys crying foul as at least one local judge continues to accept test results.
Confusion arose after Legislators last month amended Michigan law regarding field sobriety tests.
Lawmakers sought to create new standards, potentially making it easier to arrest suspects for drugged driving.
However, Livingston County Prosecutor William Vailliencourt said the Legislature, in adopting the new standards, failed to clearly define the tests.
As a result, attorneys and judges across the state are interpreting the law differently.
Traditionally, field sobriety tests include having suspects recite the alphabet, place a finger to their nose, walk a straight line or count backwards, as well as making them undergo a roadside breath analysis.
Vailliencourt said his assistant prosecutors have argued that the tests are admissible when one reads the “plain language” of the statute, which went into effect Jan. 15.
That means a judge can look at the language and its context to determine what the Legislature intended.
“I don’t think anyone seriously believes the Legislature intended to make all effects of a person’s intoxication inadmissible,” Vailliencourt said.
Livingston District Judge Carol Sue Reader apparently agrees with that argument. She admitted roadside test evidence in two recent cases.
However, defense attorney Lyle Dickson says that interpretation is wrong. He says Reader erred in her decision because he believes the plain language of the law says field sobriety tests are not admissible.
As far as Dickson knows, Reader is “the only judge” still allowing that information in court.
“Obviously their cases are devastated without field sobriety tests coming in,” Dickson said Monday. “I don’t understand how Bill Vailliencourt can read the statute and say the plain language allows it to come in. It is only allowed in under certain, specific situations... which rarely apply.”
In Dickson’s case, his Jackson County client was charged in Livingston County with operating under the influence of a controlled substance after he was seen weaving on a Livingston County roadway as he was delivering a load to Lansing around 4 p.m. Feb. 2, 2014.
At the trial, Reader allowed testimony about the roadside sobriety tests as well as testimony from a drug recognition officer — both of which Dickson argues should have been inadmissible. The Jackson County semi driver was convicted of operating a vehicle while impaired and as a result his “career is destroyed,” Dickson said.
“As it is being currently interpreted, anyone taking prescription medication can now be charged with drug driving because that’s the new emphasis that prosecutors have because drunk driving is down,” Dickson said. “Now they are going after anyone with medications. It doesn’t matter if you’re taking it as doctor has directed you to. I think it’s a problem for anyone who takes prescription medications … because they are subjected to arrest.”
He appealed Reader’s decision to the Livingston Circuit Court, but the court declined to hear that appeal.
Vailliencourt said it might be worthwhile to lawmakers to “tweak the law.”
That is exactly what is happening, state Rep. Dan Lauwers said.
Omission of a clear definition for field sobriety tests was a technical error that should soon be corrected, the St. Clair County Republican said.
“The wording is there and it’s ready to go,” said Lauwers, who sponsored the original amendment.
Lauwers said he and other legislators hope the amended wording will be placed on the fast track.
The only question, he said, is which state House committee will take up the wording.
“It’s between Transportation (and Infrastructure) and Judiciary,” he said.
Legislators are hoping for a quick decision and, after that, a quick vote.
“We’re hoping to have something in place by the end of March |
Jorge Palomo
“The first time that I went up it was during the summer. I got to see where he lived. I had never worked with him before, ever. I was curious to how it was gonna go, because we have very different musical — when we found our musical identity, it was complete opposites. I kind of fell into the metal, progressive rock world. Very jazz, when I came back from Berklee. My brother was definitely more on the synth, electronic, indie side. Which I enjoyed listening to, but for me, being more of a technician — my brother’s a straight up artist.”
W. Andrew Raposo
“I’ve never so genuinely had to come up with a slap sound that you would find on, like, a later ‘80s Michael Jackson record. Me being like, ‘Hey, are you sure about this?’ As a guy who came out of punk rock music and rap — ‘15-year-old me would punch me in the face for creating this texture for you.’ But it was so musical and it ended up being just the right thing.”
Morgan Wiley — keys (Midnight Magic)
“I ended up tracking a bunch of keyboards over the course of maybe two days. He has a lot of great gear that he brought into the studio, particularly this Korg 3600 analog synthesizer. Which is an amazing, amazing instrument. That was fun for me to play. It’s a big sound for him. It’s all over his music. I actually believe it’s on the cover of the record. It’s such a awesome piece of gear.”
W. Andrew Raposo
“The greatest musical asset for the record wasn’t just all the technology that was at Alan’s disposal — the wonderful synthesizers and drum machines and sequencers — but really Jorge himself. So the choices that I saw Alan make were really centered around the very human, very live aspect of making a record. I thought that was really cool and really smart for him.”
Jorge Palomo
“We had this really nice work flow going, where he would have an idea set already, and then he’d have me play to it, kind of on repeat. If he heard something that he liked, he’d be like, ‘Play that again.’ And then he would adjust a note, like, ‘Take that note, put it over here. Don’t play that.’ And then I would start to see where he was going, and I would be like, ‘Oh, you mean like this!’ ‘Yes! But now make it a little bit more …’ I can confidently say I’m fairly proficient at my instrument. People trust me. 9 out of 10 times people will be like, ‘Just do your thing.’ And they'll be happy with it. With my brother it was — I feel like, because he’s so used to working with MIDI, and stuff that he has 100% complete control over, that he was, in a way, sampling me.”
Nick Millhiser — drums (Holy Ghost)
“His brother is the secret weapon of that record. His playing is incredible. I don’t know anybody else who can play bass like that. I’m a huge disco nerd, Chic fan. I don’t know anybody who can even fake it. People don’t really play like that anymore. I remember talking to Eric Broucek, another friend of ours who helped record some of that stuff. Like, ‘How do you get that bass sound?’ He's like, ‘Dude. That’s just him. There’s no magic. That’s just what he sounds like.’”
Jorge Palomo
“It’s called modal borrowing, when you have all these other scales, with different chords within them, if you line them all up, you can start borrowing this chord and throwing it here. Good songwriters have natural ability of doing that. And that’s what I think makes a good songwriter, is being able to take something that’s kind of out of context and making it fit. ‘Skorpio’ does that. ‘News from the Sun?’ Super progressive. That was the first song that came out of that first visit to New York. It was the last song that he wrote vocals to, because it was so different. It was the first one that he sent to Jason, just kind of like, 'Hey man, this is what’s in the works.’”
Jason Faries — drums (Neon Indian live band)
“He was sending me stuff as it was coming down the pipeline, just like, ‘How do you feel about this?’ I really loved ‘Street Level’ the most. I’m a huge fan of Jay Dilla and Madlib, and it has that kind of feel to it. That MPC kick drum rhythm. To me it had that deep Jay Dee, Madlib charm to it, Stones Throw stuff.”
Jorge Palomo
“I was starting to get a little antsy. One of the dancer guys from Six Flags had talked about how he did cruise ships. So I called him. He laid it out and was like, ‘Well, you’re gone for six months and you don’t pay any rent.’ I was like, ‘I’ll go on this contract, save up all this money, and on the way back I’ll use that money to move.’ Halfway through the contract he called me and he’s like, ‘Is there any way that I can borrow you for like a week?’ And I was like, ‘No, man, the only way would be for you to come on the ship.’ Within a week, he's like, ‘Hey, so, how much is a cruise?’”
Josh Ascalon — engineer, Rad Studio, Bushwick, Brooklyn (The Great Void)
“We were at 285 one night and he was just like, ‘So I’m thinking about going on this cruise? And I might want you to come and bring some equipment and maybe engineer the session, record some stuff.’ I was like, ‘Uh, OK.’ That sounds like probably the best possible scenario for a recording session that I could think of. Then a month later he was like, ‘Alright bro, we’re going. Here's the date.’ I was like, ‘Cool.’ That was insanely fun.”
Jorge Palomo
“I was good friends with a lot of the security guys. As a musician, there’s a very wide gray line that you can maneuver. Cause a lot of other employees on the ship can’t be in guest areas and they can’t eat in the same places, but musicians, they’re like, ‘Just don’t wear jeans.’ And, ‘Try not to sleep with our guests.’”
Josh Ascalon
“I spent pretty much the whole time in the hot tub. And then his brother would get done around 11 and we would just crack the tequila and party it up slash record until like five in the morning. Rinse and repeat for the next — we were there for a week.”
Jorge Palomo
“The guitar that they brought on board — my brother tweeted, like last minute, if anybody in Florida had a guitar that we could borrow. And this dude, I don’t know who he is, he was like, ‘Oh, you can borrow my guitar!’ Like, ‘Of course!’ It was so funny. He brought them the guitar to the airport and when I take the guitar out, the dude’s demo falls out on the floor. I was like, ‘This is for you! Now you have to listen to it.’ It was so awesome. I would totally do that.”
Marcus Webb
“I do think that Neon Indian is almost like a thing he has to conjure, through almost ritualistic — in a very, very loose sense — way. And I think that’s almost a subconscious thing that a lot of artists do, where they create a situation that forces them to act certain ways that even subconsciously they maybe don’t realize is happening. But that they’re sort of facilitating — talking about that whirlwind.”
Eli Welbourne — roommate, Austin (Silent Diane)
“I have this amazing video of him singing ‘Only the Good Die Young’ by Billy Joel in an empty Mexican restaurant. The only person there was the vaquero-esque karaoke host who was wildly enthusiastic about him singing so well and so exuberantly. Eventually one of the cook’s girlfriends showed up to pick him up (the place was delaying closing because we took over this karaoke operation) and she was so into it she wanted to sing a Selena song with Alan. I have video of that too. The spot was a place we would go to whenever Alan needed a break from working on the new tracks. He also had a tradition of going to this place with his father, who is initially from Mexico. I believe the staff had become familiar with him prior to him moving in with me to work on the record and escape the distractions of New York. I think we remained plenty distracted. His last night in Austin during his stay we snuck into an anime rave at a Hilton hotel."
Jason Faries
“Either February or March I heard the first versions of ‘Baby’s Eyes.’ It was a lot different from everything else he had sent me. As a drummer I immediately heard fills, cause the drums on it were just kick, snare, real basic. I could just see it. It sounded like it needed live drums. I don’t know if a computer can make it happen. I was like, ‘Hey man, I really have a good idea for some of this stuff. You mind if I take a shot at it?’ At this point he was working so hard on the album that it was just like, ‘Sure! Throw me something I can use and I’ll see if I can get it to work.’ I ended up texting my friend Jordan Richardson, who actually was Ringo Starr’s drummer. I knew that he would get my references, which was really important for this record, to be able to be like, ‘Yeah, we kind of want the drums to sound like Yes drums.’ Or, you know, ‘We kind of want the drums to sound like LCD Soundsystem. Really dead, dry, like disco toms. Concert toms vibe.’ And he knew exactly what I was talking about. I was in Germany, heard the song, flew home, and the next day I was in the studio.”
Marcus Webb
“I’m hungover from the night before, cause we’re partying cause Alan’s gonna leave, of course. He’s going down to Atlanta and he has to get all of this — like $70,000 worth of gear from Brooklyn to Atlanta, so he can go down there and finish shit. I hear this really heavy crash, everyone starts screaming, I run down the stairs and Alan’s laying on the ground. There’s this gigantic rack case next to him. He’s got his hands pinned to his face, covering his eye. And there’s mad blood all over him. From what I’m seeing, his glasses are broken, his eye is torn to shreds. He’s like, ‘OK, Marcus. You’ve gotta tell me how bad it is.’ I lean over, I’m looking him in the other eye, in like a human connection, like, ‘OK buddy.’ He pulls his hands off and I realize it’s the eyebrow, not the eye. There’s a gigantic gash, and it’s spread apart. I’m like, ‘You’re gonna be fine, but you’re going to the hospital right now.’ Everything’s colliding. Up until that point been grinding super hard. Gotta party cause you’re going out of town, even though it’s only for like six weeks. Then last minute struggle — that stuff is all very part of the story.”
W. Andrew Raposo
“The reason why Alan moved around quite a bit with his process was he wanted to not fall into the patterns of distraction that you find in your hometown, or in the city you love visiting the most. He wanted to kind of cloister himself from time to time to work through ideas. Going to Atlanta wasn’t just, there’s a studio and a producer he wanted to work with, but also very much this sense of, ‘And I can’t get a text at any minute that might make me go, like, ‘You guys want to break a little early tonight?’”
Sumner Jones — engineer, Maze Studios, Atlanta
“Definitely some of the most fun I’ve ever had making a record. Lots of hard work went into it, absolutely, but we also knew when to chill out and go grab a beer, hit the reset button.”
Ben Allen — mixer/additional producer, Maze Studios, Atlanta
“I was already a fan before he reached out. He had a really clear vision for what he really wanted to do. It’s nice to be able to kind of help someone like Alan get where to where they want to get, especially when they know what it is.”
Sumner Jones
“The equipment used on the record is some of the coolest stuff I’ve ever got to work with. Ben’s collection of vintage synths is amazing, and Alan brought almost all the synths that he had as well. I remember Alan unpacking the crate. And looking at all the stuff, I was like, ‘Holy cow. This has got to be one of the best synth collections in the state of Georgia.’”
Josh Ascalon
“I was bored one day at the studio and I had just gotten a new toy, synth toy. And I was like ‘You need anything done?’ And he’s like, ‘I need some noise interludes.’ So i just spent a couple hours in the studio doing these weird noise interlude things and sending them to him. He was like, ‘Sweet!’ He ended up using a couple on the record.”
Morgan Wiley
“We’re all big synth nerds.”
Sumner Jones
“A lot of really bright, funky guitar playing is all about the rhythm behind when you’re not playing, it’s the muted notes, so to speak, so them communicating back and forth, talking about like, ‘No, the bounce needs to be here. Instead of hitting on the up, you need to lay back a little bit and then come back to resolve on the one.’ The dynamic between two brothers making a record together was awesome. They’re giving each other shit and horsing around. And then when it came time to get a take, everybody put their business suits on.”
Josh Ascalon
“Alan was working a lot of this stuff at his house, and he’d come by when he needed some recording stuff that he couldn’t do. We did a lot of guitar stuff, some background vocals. We had a party for some party vibes on the record, where we just bought a bunch of beer and invited a bunch of people over.”
Nicole Brenny — backup singer
“We all got super drunk. He was encouraging us to get as drunk as we possibly could because he wanted it to be sloppy, and then eventually he was like, ‘We can record now.’ He instantly gets into this director mode. He’ll put himself in your shoes, do the embarrassing thing first. He sings it for us so we copy it exactly. He started having us do this acting exercise — it’s a little bit blurry by now. I think he has a lot of fun directing people like that. I think it’s his film side. He seems to be sensitive to what he can get out of people.”
Chris Coombs — guitar (The Great Void)
“Alan pulled up a little known piece of footage from a Marvin Gaye rehearsal for a song called ‘I Want You,’ in which Marvin is seen leading the rehearsal while sprawled out on a comically enormous burgundy sofa in a comically comfortable track suit. The video was intended to inspire a vibe prior to recording the guitar on the track. After hearing the final product of ‘Dear Skorpio Magazine,’ I believe Marvin served his purpose, but we’d recorded on a few different tracks that day and over the course of the session Alan had sunken into a much smaller, much lower budget couch that we have in the control room at Rad Studio. We’ve kept the plastic cover on it as if to preserve the integrity of the upholstery, but it’s very far gone. The dichotomy between the validity of the reference and the humility of our bohemian parallel experience created an equal parts hysterical and unforgettable moment. The man’s got style.”
Josh Ascalon
“I’m pretty sure we just ended up using one full take of Chris whaling. As a guitar player, I don’t think Chris very often gets invited to the studio: ‘Yeah, why don’t you whale a solo?’ Which is pretty much what we asked him to do. ‘Just whale one.’ And we basically just laughed the entire time while he was whaling guitar solos. A semi-ironic whaling guitar solo, but being 100% serious about it.”
Nicole Brenny
“He just knew what he wanted the entire time. And he was always willing to rewrite what he wanted if what he wanted had shifted or changed in the process.”
Eric Broucek —engineer, DFA Studios, West Village, New York
“Alan was focused and meticulous about his sounds. It’s always nice to work with someone who knows what they want like that.”
Jason Faries
“He’s very hands on. It’s difficult for him, for being someone who likes to have full control over his music. That’s the reason why his stuff is really good; it’s cause he doesn’t let too many people in the kitchen.”
Josh Ascalon
“If he needed something specific done he kind of just let the person do their thing and kind of guide it and conduct it and direct it towards what he was going for. He purposely would only work with people that he trusted, musically or personally.”
Jorge Palomo
“He has a way of minding the details.”
Alex Epton — mixer/additional producer, Flavor Factory, Sunset Park, Brooklyn
“We do the music inside a computer a lot. Instead of looking at the computer screen — cause then you’re just sort of looking at boxes pass by and it’s a little bit like, ‘Oh, that thing’s coming up’ — if you’re watching something else, it allows you to listen with your normal brain, your normal listening brain, instead of being like, ‘Here comes the chorus!’ If you’ve heard the song 1000 times, you know what’s gonna happen, you want more, you start adding more crap just to keep yourself interested. But then when somebody else hears it for the first time, they’re like 'Whoa, whoa, whoa. That’s way too much information.’ Alan’s really into B-movies — he’s just into movies in general, but he’s into weird cult movies, too. And then I like to watch anime. So we were watching anime and then he brought over Mutant Hunt and Robot Holocaust and funny, grindhouse-type movies.”
Heba Kadry — mastering engineer
“VEGA INTL. is the last record I mastered in my old studio in Williamsburg before I had to move out so it can be converted into another depressing high rise. We were literally down to the 11th hour right before breaking down and boxing all my gear so it can be moved to my new studio in Bushwick. It was super stressful but in hindsight it helped giving us both a VERY definitive timeline to work with; we could have kept tweaking foreeeeever!”
Alex Epton
“I think the reason that we actually finished is because she had to move studios. So there was a hard cutoff date. She was gonna be out of commission for like a month. And I’m pretty sure he was doing revisions until the day that she moved.”
Heba Kadry
“There was a point when the sequence of the album wasn’t quite gelling together and we were sort of hitting a wall. After a super long, exhausting 10-hour mastering day, Alan showed up at my studio the next day on zero sleep having worked out a these wacky and amazing segues he tracked all night. It worked perfectly.”
Alex Epton
“You can work on it and work on it and work on it until you have to stop. And it’s not going to be any less of a piece of art if you stopped a week before. It’s just that’s how much time you had. The expectations of the audience might be fulfilled way before the artist’s own standards are met. I don’t think it really has a bearing on overall quality, as relates to the world, but to him, or like, to whoever, if you’re the artist, you just have to work as hard as you can on it and make it as great as you can. You can work on it until the day you die, or you have a deadline. That’s why deadlines are a good thing. Cause then you’re like, ‘Eh, it’s done now.’”
Slumlord Rising Music Video
Play
(rough) A Podcast
Where does “Street Level” come from? The song disappeared on a laptop lost in a drunken haze and reemerged when its writer googled himself and found a video of him spinning a demo, something he never does. Its sentiment reminds Alan Palomo of Bugsy Malone, the 1976 gangster flick in which a 13-year-old Jodie Foster stars and the guns shoot whipped cream pies. As Alan Palomo says, “You should take the process of making music very seriously. But you should certainly not take yourself very seriously.”
Download An Exclusive Remix Via WeTransfer!
Download an exclusive remix of Neon Indian's “Annie” by Palmbomen, courtesy of WeTransfer. Thanks for slowing down with us.Within 24 hours of East Kildonan residents complaining about massive snow piles left behind in their back lanes by plows, a city councillor has made a move to change city policy.
Coun. Russ Wyatt introduced a motion at city hall on Wednesday to review whether or not the city should be responsible for clearing windrows (piles of snow pushed onto people’s properties by snowplows).
Previous Next Currently, the City of Winnipeg’s policy states its only responsible for windrows on front drives but not for the removal of windrows in back lanes.
The motion calls for a review of the options for snow clearing, including the removal of windrows in back lanes.
“It won’t have an impact on this year, but it will allow us to look at what would be the cost and would it be practical for us to remove the snow in back lanes,” said Wyatt.
On Tuesday, residents raised concerns over nearly metre-high windrows left behind by plows. They were angry the city plowed at all – saying the roads were smooth before the plows came.
Wyatt said he has received a lot of complaints about back lane windrows, but plows do need to be deployed to back lanes to prevent bigger problems when things warm up.
“When we get a thaw in the middle of winter, you can create a real slush effect and then when it refreezes, it causes huge rutting and becomes really problematic,” said Wyatt.
Mayor Sam Katz seconded Wyatt's presentation of the motion, which will now go before the standing committee of public works.
Uncleared sidewalks near school frustrate parents
Meanwhile, some families in the Old St. Vital area were growing frustrated with snow piling up on sidewalks along Glenwood School.
The sidewalks there had not been cleared for about a month, according to residents.
"When you walk, it's super-unsafe because it's almost like the same height as, like, snowbanks," said parent Tracy Kawakami.
"If kids are playing on it then they'll fall into traffic, and sometimes traffic isn't paying attention."
Crews finally cleared the sidewalks along Blenheim Avenue late Wednesday evening, but city officials have not given a reason for the delay.
St. Vital Coun. Brian Mayes said he has received lots of complaints about snow clearing in Old St. Vital this winter.A couple years ago, I read a story about a Washington wedding photographer that was threatened with a $300,000 lawsuit by an ex-client. The story then seemed to drop out of sight. Sometime thereafter, I decided to put on my investigative reporter mustache and do some sleuthing. Was the threat real? Did a lawsuit actually get filed? If so, what was the result?
Behold:
The Contract and Aftermath
Karen Poon and her Dude hired Dream Production Studio to photograph their Vegas wedding in the Fall of 2011. Nelson Tang is the principal of Dream Production Studio, located in King County, WA, and operates his business as a sole proprietorship.
The parties agreed on a price of $3,800.00 for professional photography services covering the ceremony, reception, and some unspecified “pre-wedding” events. Guess what? There was no written contract. Needle skip! Tang needs to read this blog. But, let’s not hammer Tang too hard. He’s going to end up paying for it later on.
The wedding came and went. Sometime later, Tang delivered the images to the newlyweds. Not several hundred edited images that are typical for wedding photography agreements, but ALL OF THE RAW IMAGES. The good. The bad. The ‘I’m not a machine, they can’t all be winners.’
Putting it mildly, and I mean like Taco Bell Mild Sauce ‘mild,’ like Minneapolis summer ‘mild,’ Poon and Dude were dissatisfied with Tang’s work. Flipping through thousands of images, the newlyweds were taken aback that several were out of focus or blurry, didn’t capture the ‘mood’ of that particular moment, or, even more egregiously, “didn’t capture the bar or buffet.”
I mean, what could be worse than failing to adequately document, through professional photography, a chronology of Swedish Meatball consumption? Every photographer worth his or her salt knows how to make that sterno under the garlic-mashed potatoes really stand out. For Poon and Dude, the only evidence of their wedding buffet will be the stories that get passed on from one generation to the next.
“Grandpa, tell me about the ‘Legend of the Buffett’ again!”
“It was unlike anything you have ever seen, Timmy. There was shrimp cocktail as far as the eye could see…..”
By the accounts of Gary Fong and Robert Evans, nationally recognized photographers who later viewed the images, there was absolutely nothing wrong with the quality. In fact, Evans offered to travel on his own dime to testify as an expert witness in Tang’s behalf.
Still, Tang attempted to work with the newlyweds to remedy their issues with the “woefully inadequate” pictures. He retouched and enlarged several at his own expense. He even offered a partial refund for their trouble.
No dice. Poon and Dude considered Tang’s attempts at mitigation “weak and inadequate.” Strangely, several of the images allegedly appeared on Poon and Dude’s Facebook Pages, where they were “liked” by friends and family. Some commenters even requested the name of the photographer so that they could hire Tang for their own events!
The Demand Letter
So what happened next? Cue the lawyers. Oh wait. Did I mention that Dude is a lawyer? I didn’t? Well, he is. And what do lawyers do? They write letters like this.
On December 26th, 2011, Dude, using the letterhead of his law firm, sent Tang a ‘demand’ letter.
Here are some of the highlights (anything in all caps is his, not mine):
“YOUR ENTIRE LIVELIHOOD IS ON THE LINE”
“We are demanding $3800 plus $15,000…here’s what will happen if you do not pay. Your reputation will be ruined, your livelihood destroyed, your life will be miserable defending a huge lawsuit, and you will be in financial ruin. I know you English is not so good, so you may need everything spelled out for you.”
“I will hire a person who specializes in Search Engine Optimization. I will post all of our photos up and blog about this extensively. Be guaranteed that anyone who searches for ‘Nelson Tang’ will find my web page and what a disaster our wedding photos were.”
“I WILL SUE YOU UNTIL JURY VERDICT”
“I am a partner at this firm; that means I have- ZERO – out of pocket expenses for suing you. It costs me NOTHING.”
“I guarantee you, by the time this gets to a jury, it will cost at least $50,000 in lawyers’ fees. YOU WILL NOT GET THESE FEES BACK, EVER.”
“I will get my judgment of $300,000. I will file a Writ of Garnishment with all your employers and banks, place a lien on your houses, subpoena you to court for supplementary proceedings to find out what assets you have, and pursue this matter until all $300,000 is paid in full.”
Yowsa! Like one night in Bangkok, that’s enough to make a tough guy tumble!
Tang did not respond by the demand’s deadline of December 31st, 2011 (5 days later). I can understand. That’s a lot of scratch in a short amount of time, and the plot line to several movies (e.g. Friday). “And you know this, man!”
The Lawsuit
So, on January 23rd, 2012, Tang was served with this lawsuit. True to his word, Dude alleged that Tang committed the following:
Negligence: Tang failed to use reasonable care “in the selection of equipment and camera settings.”
Negligent Misrepresentation: Tang made false representations regarding Tang’s “work product.”
Negligent/Intentional Failure to Disclose: Upon discovering the “defects” in the images, Tang failed to immediately disclose the same to Poon and Dude.
Breach of Express Warranty: Tang warranted the quality of his work and failed to provide equivalent work.
Breach of Implied Warranty of Good and Workmanlike Services: Tang failed to “perform in a good and workmanlike manner.”
Kitchen Sink: Just kidding!
The complaint names both Tang and his wife as defendants. In Washington, a community property state, if the principal of a sole proprietorship is named in a lawsuit, then the principal’s spouse may also be named. That way, in case of judgment, the award may be recovered from the marital couple.
Did the Lawsuit Have Merit?
Even if Tang’s pictures were “woefully inadequate,” does this complaint support a jury verdict of $300,000? Probably not.
Generally, the law of tort (negligence, infliction of emotional distress, etc) does not mix with the law of contract. To put it simply, there’s no crying in contracts. If you promise to buy my truck for $1000, and I either don’t deliver the truck, or the truck is actually a terd, the Court is probably not going to award you damages for distress. The Court will not consider that I was ‘negligent’ or ‘reckless.’ Those types of claims lay outside the world of contract. In our truck scenario, the Court is going to award you damages that will place you in the position you would have been had I gone through with the sell. Regular readers of this blog know that such damages are called expectation damages.
Only in rare instances will the Court allow torts and contracts to merge. In those instances, the conduct of the defendant is very egregious, and the damages to the plaintiff are supported by fact.
Here’s a case talking about not mixing your claims:
“Washington case law has recognized that a breach of contract may also lead to a related tort claim, we have yet to erase the traditional distinction between tort and contract damages in order to award damages for emotional distress on an ordinary breach of contract action. The more appropriate inquiry when determining if tort remedies are recoverable when a contractual relationship also exists is whether an independent legal duty exists, outside the parties’ contractual relationship, imposing a duty on the tortfeasor. An injury is remediable in tort if it traces back to the breach of a tort duty arising independently of the terms of the contract.” Hendrickson v. Tender Care Animal Hosp. Corp., 176 Wn. App. 757, 770 (Wash. Ct. App. 2013).
This means that, almost certainly, the entirety of this lawsuit would be scrapped except for the misrepresentation claim (it’s independent, like Destiny’s Child), and possibly the warranty claims.
In essence, this is a breach of contract claim in which the plaintiff is trying desperately to get tort damages (emotional distress, pain and suffering, etc). Nice try, but the award is going to be reduced down to expectation damages. Those damages, if proven, would be approximately the contract value, less the value of what Poon and Dude received (X), plus the out-of-pocket paid for reasonable retouches to the photos to make them conform to industry standards (Y). In mathy-math, it would look like this: $3,800 – X + Y = Verdict.
What are the chances of the verdict being $300,000? About the same is me having a 32 inch waist or running the triathlon that I’m always talking about. That is, slim to none. And slim just ate a Number 22 Combo Meal at Taco Bell. Keen observers note that there is no Number 22 Combo Meal at Taco Bell. They’re right. Slim ordered two Number 11s. That’s 6 Nacho Cheese Doritos Locos Tacos Supremes.
Then What Happened?
Well, all this is easy for me to say while I sit in front of my computer in Atlanta, GA wiping cheez-it crumbs from my shirt. What did Tang do? Well, nothing for a while. Then he reached out to Gary Fong, who immediately rallied support for Tang in the international photography community. The Tang Legal Defense Fund allowed Tang to retain Sunny Awla as legal counsel. Way to go Gary Fong!
Sunny did a fantastic job defending Tang. After several months of back and forth, the parties agreed to mediation. Two days before mediation, Poon and Dude withdrew the lawsuit. Happy endings!
Sunny’s take on the case? It was a no-brainer: “We had a very strong defense. We of course had Gary Fong who was willing to testify on his behalf. One of the experts we had was Robert Evans, who was the photographer for Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise’s weddings. Evans looked at the photographs and thought that Plaintiffs’ damages were preposterous and absolutely frivolous.”
According to Sunny, aside from having the contract in writing, Tang could have avoided this situation by not providing all the images. “During the course of the wedding, they may take over 3000 to 4000 pictures but they usually provide between 700-900 pictures to the clients. By doing this the photographer ensures that the clients only get to see the best work.” Good advice, Sunny!
Everyone give Sunny a big round of applause.
Gary filed a grievance against Dude with the Washington State Bar Association Office of Disciplinary Counsel. You can read that here. To date, and according to the WSBA website, Dude has not been disciplined for the content of the demand letter. However, the internet has disciplined him a-plenty.
What’s the Moral of the Story?
I think that there are three things to take away from our tale.
First, wedding professionals need to have a written contract drafted by an attorney, or at least a template that they have purchased that was at one time drafted by an attorney. I mean, that’s just a point-blank, non-negotiable, business necessity. A good wedding photography contract in this case could have done hundreds of things to mitigate the damages. For example, clauses limiting liability of the photographer, setting artistic discretion, outlining photo ownership and image delivery, and others, could have stopped this ex-client from emerging from the ocean and destroying Tokyo.
Second, as Sunny mentioned, wedding photographers should rethink providing all captured images to a client. Clients, for the most part, have a hard time understanding that not all images are going to be 100%. For every great picture a client sees, there might be 5 they hate, and will assume that they must have missed an important moment. I’ve received several inquires over the past couple years from photographers stating that clients have posted otherwise unusable or throwaway shots online as an example of the photographer’s work. Bummer!
Third, there are always going to be people that will attempt to run you over for a refund. They will scream. They will threaten lawsuits. They may even file lawsuits. Nothing can stop that (besides a good contract- just kidding!). You can only try, through business savvy, luck, and efficient intake procedures, to limit your dealings with bad clients. But take heart. The law is intuitive (most of the time). If the client is crazy, and the evidence supports that you did a good job, then chances are, an outrageous claim will be tossed. In other words, don’t lose too much sleep over a $300,000 demand letter.
One Final Point.
The styling of this case was Poon vs. Tang, which is the greatest case name in the history of the World. At least, since the 1890 case of Honey vs. Pot.
The End.The Washington Post’s source, a career intelligence officer who disclosed classified PowerPoint slides detailing PRISM, explained that the NSA can “quite literally can watch your ideas form as you type”
Photo by Patrick Lux/Getty Images
It appears the National Security Agency’s sweeping surveillance is not something only Verizon customers should be concerned about. The agency has also reportedly obtained access to the central servers of major U.S. Internet companies as part of a secret program that involves the monitoring of emails, file transfers, photos, videos, chats, and even live surveillance of search terms.
The Washington Post disclosed Thursday that it had obtained classified PowerPoint slides detailing the program, code-named PRISM, from a career intelligence officer who felt “horror” over its privacy-invading capabilities. “They quite literally can watch your ideas form as you type,” the source told the newspaper.
Participating in the PRISM program, according to a selection of the leaked slides, are Internet titans including Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, AOL, Skype, YouTube, and Apple. It was established in 2007 and is used by NSA analysts to spy on Internet communications as part of the agency’s foreign intelligence-gathering work. The analysts use PRISM by keying in search terms supposedly designed to “produce at least 51 percent confidence in a target’s ‘foreignness.’ ” However, the Post notes, training materials for the program instruct new analysts to submit “accidentally collected” U.S. content for a quarterly report, “but it’s nothing to worry about.”
According to the Post, the system enables NSA spies to monitor Google’s Gmail, voice and video chat, Google Drive (formerly Google Docs), photo libraries, and live surveillance of searches. If agents believe a target is engaged in “terrorism, espionage or nuclear proliferation,” they can use the spy system to exploit Facebook’s “extensive search and surveillance capabilities.” And PRISM can monitor Skype, the Post notes, “when one end of the call is a conventional telephone and for any combination of ‘audio, video, chat, and file transfers’ when Skype users connect by computer alone.” In order to receive immunity from lawsuits, the participating companies are obliged to accept a directive from the attorney general and the director of national intelligence to “open their servers to the FBI’s Data Intercept Technology Unit, which handles liaison to U.S |
the man with Parkinson’s among the dancers. What followed was incredible: the man who walked so unsteadily required no assistance to dance. Indeed, the man went through the moves effortlessly, as if he were a different person. Dr. Volpe was quite puzzled and asked Charlie about a particular leg movement he noticed. Thus Dr. Volpe learned about the Reel step.
Dr. Volpe made an important observation. For many with Parkinson's, posterior-anterior advancement of the lower limb during the swing phase of the gait's cycle is compromised. Yet, the Reel Step enabled a dancer with Parkinson's to override the neurological impediments that affect the gait.
As he thought about the Reel Step, he noted that Irish Set Dance is patterned, but steps are not overly repetitious. Execution of the pattern requires the dancer to change direction frequently. Directional change plus the need to maintain reasonably consistent step lengths require the dancer to be in a state of constantly transferring weight from one leg to the other. The overall effect is a remarkable improvement.
But why? The answer may be the music. The strong upbeat rhythmic pattern of an Irish reel or jig may provide the brain with periodic acoustic cues that somehow enable it to bypass transmission dysfunctionalities in the Basal Ganglia (BG) and in the SMA (Supplementary Motor Area) networks.
Sounds good, but is it “reel?” Would Set Dance work in Italy? When Volpe returned to Venice, he conducted a small study to determine whether his observation was simply coincidence. He recruited a group of 24 subjects, all of whom presented moderate stage Parkinson's symptoms (average Hoehn-Yahr score of 2.5).
The subjects were divided into two groups.
Group 1 was the control group and received conventional physiotherapy. Group 2 was introduced to Irish set dance courses. Testing followed the six-month trial, and while all forms of therapy were beneficial, the Irish set dance group improved more in their control in every measurement category.
Doctor Volpe presented his initial findings in June 2012 to the International Congress of PD and Movement Disorders in Dublin. Following his presentation, a group of dancers from Venice, most of whom suffer from PD, were asked to dance a figure from the Corofin Plain Set, before an audience of nearly one thousand. Here’s a brief video of Doctor Volpe's patients doing a set dance.
Remarkable!
Next steps. Follow-up testing is now underway with an international randomized trial being conducted by researchers from the University of Limerick in Ireland and the University of Melbourne in Australia. The doctor is hopeful the initial success will be validated, and in time, Irish Set Dancing therapy (ISDT) will become part of the conventional rehabilitation options available to patients everywhere.
Additionally, he wants to investigate the efficacy of Irish set dance therapy (ISDT) in Alzheimer’s Disease and has begun development of Randomized Control Trial process to better understand the relative consequences of ISDT on both diseases.
One man's reaction: “I first read about the Volpe discoveries in October 2012 and I was overjoyed. I have had Parkinson's for many years, with onset in 1997. I also love Trad and noticed that when listening to it, I could perform some dexterity tests --such as the tapping the thumb with the pointer finger-- for significantly longer durations than when without music. Moreover, I found my improvement with dexterity occurred only with Trad, and a few distant relatives, like a Cajun two-step. While I still have not learned to dance, I knew that Doctor Volpe was onto something, and I thought it appropriate for someone to name a piece of Trad music after Doctor Volpe. The question was, how do I do this?
“Enter Martin Tourish. I sent an email off to Martin, who is one of Ireland’s leading Trad composers when he is not pursuing his doctoral studies in music at Dublin Institute of Technology. Within a day he wrote back saying that he had just finished composing ten Irish jigs for Mary Beth's new DVD entitled, Sean Nos Jigs for Everyone. Eight were not yet titled, and pending Mary Beth's approval, he would be delighted to name two of the jigs in honor of Doctor Volpe. A day later, he again wrote to say that she enthusiastically agreed.”
Mary Beth Taylor is perhaps Ireland's most eclectic dance teacher. Founder of TCRG, Scoil Rince Taylor, [Irish for the Taylor Dance School), it is the only school in Dublin certified to teach Sean-Nós Dance, Step Dance and Bettering steps for Set Dance. Mary Beth teaches English at Dublin City University, and, in her spare time, has produced two instructional videos, Sean-Nós Dance for Everyone, and most recently, Sean-Nós Jigs for Everyone! Thanks to the generosity of Mary Beth and Martin, the first selection has been titled Doctor Volpe's while the eighth is called Dance Therapy.
And the tiny village of Feakle will celebrate Doctor Volpe’s discoveries with two major events in 2013. As part of the 26th Annual Traditional Music Festival, organizers have invited Dr. Volpe’s dance group of Parkinson’s patients to be special guest performers. And, Doctor Volpe will present his latest findings at a conference on “The Therapeutic Effects of Irish Set Dancing in the treatment of Parkinson's Disease.”
An amazing story and one that offers some hope to those with Parkinson’s.
*Originally published in 2013.(written from a Production point of view Real World article
Contents show]
Summary Edit
""The Q Gambit" begins here! The crew of the new Star Trek film franchise encounters the classic Trek villain Q for the first time, only in this all-new 6-part galaxy-spanning adventure developed in association with screenwriter/producer Roberto Orci! The mischievous Q sends James T. Kirk on quest that will see the Enterprise joining forces with familiar faces from Star Trek lore, beginning with the crew of a certain space station…"
Excerpts of copyrighted sources are included for review purposes only, without any intention of infringement.
Background information Edit
"The Q Gambit" will last six issues, becoming the longest arc in the ongoing series and the longest alternate reality comic since Star Trek: The Official Motion Picture Adaptation.
. The prologue takes place after the conclusion of Star Trek: Countdown.
Creators EditEvanna Lynch is an Irish actress and model born in Termonfeckin, Ireland. She is best known for playing the role of Luna Lovegood in the Harry Potter film series. She appeared in four Harry Potter films and became a main character in the final two films in 2010 and 2011. She was with Gary Oldman in the film Monster Butler. She has also appeared in numerous photo shoots with high profile magazines and modelled for Katrin Thomas and Ciaran Sweeney. Born as Evanna Patricia Lynch in Termonfeckin, County Louth, Ireland, on August 16, 1991, to Marguerite and Donal Lynch, she has two older sisters named Emily and Mairead and a younger brother named Patrick. She studied drama at the Centre for the Talented Youth of Ireland. From 2007 to 2016, she dated her Harry Potter castmate Robbie Jarvis.
Evanna Lynch Personal Details:
Date Of Birth: 16 August 1991
Birth Place: Termonfeckin, Ireland
Birth Name: Evanna Patricia Lynch
Nickname: Ev, Evy, Eva
Zodiac Sign: Leo
Occupation: Actress, Model
Nationality: Irish
Race/Ethnicity: White
Religion: Roman Catholic
Hair Color: Dyed Blonde
Eye Color: Blue
Sexual Orientation: Straight
Evanna Lynch Body Statistics:
Weight in Pounds: 117 lbs
Weight in Kilogram: 53 kg
Height in Feet: 5′ 2¼”
Height in Meters: 1.58 m
Body Shape: Banana
Body Measurements: 34-25-35 in (86-64-89 cm)
Breast Size: 34 inches (86 cm)
Waist Size: 25 inches (64 cm)
Hips Size: 35 inches (89 cm)
Bra Size/Cup Size: 34A
Feet/Shoe Size: 7 (US)
Dress Size: 4 (US)
Evanna Lynch Family Details:
Father: Donal Lynch
Mother: Marguerite Lynch
Spouse/Husband: Unmarried
Children: No
Siblings: Máiréad Lynch (Older Sister), Emily Lynch (Older Sister), Patrick Lynch (Younger Brother)
Evanna Lynch Education:
Cartown National School
Our Lady’s College, Greenhills
Evanna Lynch Facts:
*She was born 16 August 1991 in Termonfeckin, Ireland.
*She has three siblings, one younger brother and two older sisters.
*She is a vegan.
*She was a fan of the Harry Potter novels as a child.
*She became much publicized for her appearances in G.B.F. and It Don’t Come Easy.
*She is fluent in English, Gaelic, and French.
*Follow her on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.Opening batsman M Vijay played through a part of India's long home season with a "fractured wrist," which limited his range of shots and the power with which he could play them. As a result of the injury, Vijay was ruled out of the ongoing IPL and travelled to the UK for surgery; he returned to Chennai on April 16.
"I don't want to get too much into the status of the injury but I was playing with a fractured wrist," Vijay told the New Indian Express. "It was a difficult situation to be in, but the team always comes first... I was not able to bat freely because, as the injury aggravated, I couldn't play certain shots and when I went out to bat, I had to grind it out. Especially against pacers, it was difficult at times to even defend off the front foot because it was my bottom hand that was injured."
Vijay missed only one Test - the second against Australia - out of 13 in India's 2016-17 home season, which began with the series against New Zealand in September last year. He was India's third highest run-scorer behind Cheteshwar Pujara and Virat Kohli, making 771 runs at an average of 36.71.
After beginning the season with two half-centuries in the Kanpur Test against New Zealand, then making two hundreds against England and a century in the one-off Test against Bangladesh, Vijay's form tapered during the final series - against Australia. He scored a half-century in Ranchi but did not pass 11 in four other innings.
Vijay said his injury affected his strength while batting. "I was told not to use any power while batting, so that was something I had to keep in mind while facing spinners," he said. "As a batsman, when you can't play certain shots, it affects your momentum and it was frustrating, but I saw it as a challenge because nothing comes easy and I learned a lot."
"My body language might not tell you a real story all the time. I was in pain and it is not in my personality to show what I'm going through and gain sympathy. At the end of the day, I'm the one going through that and need to handle it on my own."
Vijay said he was a while away from playing cricket again, but India do not have any Tests in the near future. "I have already started my rehabilitation and hopefully, in a month or two, I should be able to pick up the bat again."The last episode of troubled drama Dollhouse is definitely the end of the story, according to creator Joss Whedon. He's confirmed that there's no chance of continuing it in other media, and explained why (Not necessarily what you think).
Talking to Comic Book Resources, Whedon seemed resigned to the show's cancellation, as well as the role he played in taking it to that point:
The only regrets I have about it are the things I didn't do right. 26 hours of television is a lot of time to tell story, and everybody involved was great. I just look back and go, 'I wish I had figured some things out a little earlier.' But that's all the time I have for regret. It is what it is.
Advertisement
He also finally answered rumors about the possibility of a Dollhouse comic:
I don't think it's a comic. It's a TV show...apparently not a Fox show, but it is a TV show. There are themes in it and ideas that could work in a comic, but for me to spend the amount of time it would take keeping the comic true to what's already out there when I'm already doing that with 'Buffy' would be a ridiculous waste of my time. And ultimately that would net me a piece of something that belongs to Fox. It just makes no sense to do a comic with 'Dollhouse.' I don't get it, and I'm not sure I'd read it.
Instead, Whedon plans to create new comic properties, he says, as well as continue Buffy at Dark Horse. But, come on. I can't be the only one who gave a little cheer about the "that would net me a piece of something that belongs to Fox," right?
Advertisement
Joss Whedon Says Goodbye To "Dollhouse" [Comic Book Resources]Unless you've locked yourself into the Apple ecosystem and thrown away the key, laptop shopping can be a daunting prospect. A dizzying array of options cater to almost every possible niche: ultrabooks, netbooks, thin-and-lights, desktop replacements, ultraportables, convertibles, lions, tigers, and bears—need I go on? Within each category, countless models from numerous brands are on the prowl, stalking your wallet with various feature and levels of quality.
I recently embarked on a mission to snare a 12" or smaller traveling companion. My freshly penguinized 15" HP laptop isn't exactly tray table friendly, and the geeky voices inside my head were crying out for something with a little extra horsepower. Beyond this, my humble list of demands included a decent keyboard, 128GB (or so) of SSD goodness, matte body panels, and reasonable battery life. To make things interesting, I decided to see if those demands could be met with a budget of only $300.
After searching extensively, I found that brand-new machines in the $300 ballpark weren't exactly bending over backwards to satisfy my needs. Nearly all of the contenders at this price point are outfitted with anemic Atom processors and enough glossy parts to make a Zamboni blush. SSD? Dream on. Decent keyboard? You might as well draw some letters and numbers on a soggy loaf of bread. What's a discerning laptop shopper on a budget to do?
Disappointed, but hardly surprised, I ripped a page from the car buyer's handbook and tried my luck at the used lots instead. Because good laptop keyboards are notoriously hard to come by, I started my search with the Lenovo X Series. First stop: the ThinkPad X200. Several units were available near the upper limits of my price range. However, there would be no room in the budget for upgrades, and I'd be saddled with a used battery and a mechanical hard drive. I kept looking.
Dropping back a generation to the X61 gave me cheaper options, but they were still too expensive to accommodate my planned SSD upgrade. I trudged on, dipping my sifting pan into the eBay river until I finally struck gold: $87 shipped for an X60 devoid of its hard drive, battery, and power adapter. I placed my bid and bit my nails as the auction clock ticked down. Three days later, a laptop-sized parcel was waiting on my doorstep. The foundation had been laid.
A ThinkPad X60 with a 12.1" 1024x768 display, 1.83GHz Core 2 Duo processor, and 1GB of DDR2-667 RAM is quite a bit of kit for 87% of a Benjamin. The CPU easily outpaces the similarly clocked Pentium M chip in my HP laptop, and it can obliterate any Atom-based pretender. The crowning jewel has to be the keyboard, though. Some would argue that Lenovo itself doesn't make keyboards this good anymore. The shell I received obviously spent much of its life in a docking station, and as a result, its keyboard and chassis are nearly pristine.
As luck would have it, my parts closet already housed another 1GB stick of 667MHz DDR2, which slotted into the ThinkPad without fuss. The necessary 20V power adapter was also on hand, courtesy of my electronics hoarding tendencies. I would only have to hunt down a battery, an SSD, and an operating system.
Battery shopping presented me with a conundrum. Purchasing an official Lenovo battery would seriously eat into my remaining budget. Alternatively, I could gamble on a cheaper, aftermarket model. I've used one of those in my HP laptop without issue for over a year and a half, but I've also had an aftermarket battery die after only a week. Those are 50/50 odds. In the end, I put down $25 for an aftermarket X60 battery. After two weeks of use, the battery is holding up well and offers between three and five hours of run time depending on what I'm doing—usually long enough to hold me over between outlets.
At this point in the game, I had spent only $112 out of pocket. The extra RAM and power adapter would have added another $30 to the total, leaving $158 in the budget. Armed with this knowledge, I impatiently headed over to the local Micro Center to seek out an SSD. Reasonably priced options in the 64GB range were plentiful, but I came to go big or go home. After enlisting the aid of a friendly sales associate, I eventually I found my 120GB contenders: an OCZ Vertex Plus and a SanDisk Ultra SSD.
Neither offering was familiar to me. Because the X60 sports a first generation SATA link with only 150MB/s of bandwidth, either SSD would be fast enough to saturate the interface. In need of a higher power to guide my decision, I busted out my trusty Galaxy S and fired up its Newegg app. Customer reviews would determine which drive got to ride shotgun on the way home. The verdict was swift and decisive. The SandForce 1222-based SanDisk drive beat its Indilinx-powered competitor to a scrambled pulp, five eggs to three. With the SSD in hand, I grabbed my customary bottle of Bawls from the beverage cooler and handed over $162 to the girl behind the front counter.
My new mini-laptop was nearly ready to take on the world. All it needed was an operating system to make sense of things. Having exhausted my budget, my OS options were limited to Linux or an unused Windows XP license I had on hand. Despite the suggestive Windows XP sticker affixed to the bottom of the X60, I opted to roll with a fresh copy of Ubuntu 11.04. The decision to use Linux was mostly based on the lack of TRIM support in Windows XP. Most modern Linux distributions (running kernel 2.6.33 or greater) support TRIM in some fashion, with a simple modification to the fstab file.
To accommodate the handful of Windows applications I need to run, I dusted off my existing copy of Windows XP Pro and installed it on a virtual machine using VirtualBox. Although my ThinkPad now runs the software I need, even the cheapest new netbooks come with some version of Windows 7, which would have been my preferred OS if the budget allowed. I also would have preferred to avoid the pathetic Intel GMA 950 integrated graphics. While it's enough to handle some basic Compiz interface effects, I'd be better off gaming on an Etch-a-Sketch. Fortunately, gaming is not what I bought this computer for.
Overall, I've been extremely happy with my ultraportable number cruncher. Despite its age, the X60's Core 2 Duo will soundly thrash any modern netbook that gets in its way. As icing on the cake, the extra oomph provided by the SSD makes this system feel impossibly fast for something that cost only $300.
As I tickle the fantastic keys on my "new" machine, I'm convinced I've made the right choice. It may not be as sleek as an ultrabook or as small as a netbook, but this X60 has the size and performance to suit my needs. I set out to prove that $300 can buy a lot more portable computing than most people think, and I feel like I've succeeded. Taking the DIY mentality to notebooks probably isn't for everyone, but there's a lot of value to be found on the path less traveled.Prothonotary Warbler at Lord Stirling Park
(Click on the photo for a larger image.)
The Prothonotary Warbler (PROW) at Lord Stirling Park is usually seen carrying nesting material on visits to the nest box. This is viewed from the enclosed blind on the west side of Branta Pond. From personal and other accounts, this PROW has never been heard or seen singing. These are clues to the gender of this individual even without a plumage discussion.
The following excerpt is from Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology’s Birds of North America: “Only female builds nest, although male often places foundation of moss in cavity during territory establishment…Males establish territories shortly after spring arrival, through intense and frequent vocalization and aggression against other males. Territory is centered on ≥1 nest cavities in which males place up to 8 cm of moss.”
Based on that criteria, the PROW in the photographs is a female as it has clearly been seen carrying twigs, grasses and other nesting materials but never moss. For a comparison, this observer watched a male PROW at the Lincoln Park Gravel Pits in May, 2016. It sang continuously only stopping to gather mossy material and placing it in one or two tree cavities. Unfortunately, it apparently never found a mate. This corroborates the Birds of North America statement.
Gulls in Somerset County
New Jersey ornithological history is being made in Somerset County. 145 Lesser Black-backed Gulls were at Opie Road on May 31 (Jeff Ellerbusch). As far as is known, this high a total has never been recorded this late in spring before in New Jersey.
This group is made up of mostly 1st through 3rd cycle gulls and have been present in varying numbers throughout the spring. The gulls wander between the Norz Farm Fields and Opie Road. Lately, they are absent early in the morning bringing up the question: where do they go? The Hunterdon County reservoirs, Round Valey and Spruce Run, are likely answers, possibly Merill Creek in Warren County, but no observations from there are recorded.
40 Ring-billed Gulls were with the Lesser Black-backed Gulls on May 30. Semipalmated Plovers have been observed there recently. Jeff also had an alternate plumaged Black-bellied Plover at Opie Road on May 30. This is a rare bird for Somerset County (and an even rarer species in Morris County).
The Lesser Nighthawk of Lord Stirling Park
The Lesser Nighthawk (LENI) continues to inhabit Lord Stirling Park. Last evening, this observer was present when the LENI lifted off at 20:08 and hunted over Esox Pond before disappearing out of sight. It was a treat to see the LENI in flight rather than the roosting pose, as in the above photo, familiar to the many people who come to view this southwestern vagrant.
The news came through the birding texting services today that The Raptor Trust was planning to capture the LENI and relocate it. The latest word mocosocoBirds knows of is that this plan is shelved for now and that The Raptor Trust will wait and see for a week. Hopefully, The Raptor Trust will let nature take its course and not try to move the LENI once again.
View local eBird checklists in the mocosocoBirds region via eBird’s Region Explorer. Use the following links:
The eBird Hotspot Primer is here and can also be accessed via the Hotspot menu item on the mocosocoBirds.com website.
The mocosocoBirds Facebook page is located here and also posts timely information not found on the mocosocoBirds web site.
@mocosocoBirds at Twitter is another communications stream. Instant field reports and links of interest are tweeted throughout the day. The latest tweets appear on the sidebar of this page. One can follow mocosocoBirds at Twitter or link to @mocosocoBirds.
FinisSet 3 is here! Here are all the cards not spoiled sorted by rarity then by faction.
1 Legendary | 6 Heroics | 7 Rares | 19 Commons
The 33 cards here are part of a 60 card release. The other 27 can be seen in the Set 3 Spoiler Roundup: Secrets of Solis in the order they were spoiled.
Killion, Infinity Warden – Alloyin – Legendary – Creature – Forgeborn
Nexus Gunner – Alloyin – Heroic – Creature – Human – Activate
Contagion Lord – Nekrium – Heroic – Creature – Abomination – Activate – Solbind
Contagion Fiend – Nekrium – Token – Creature – Abomination
Fleshreaver – Nekrium – Heroic – Creature – Abomination – Consistent
Hammerfang – Tempys – Heroic – Creature – Yeti
Metamorphosis – Uterra – Heroic – Spell
Feywing Chrysalis – Uterra – Token – Creature – Chrysalis – Defender – Rank
Feywing – Uterra – Token – Creature – Dragon – Mobility
Tuskin Sporelord – Uterra – Heroic – Creature – Tuskin – Activate – Solbind
Funguy – Uterra – Token – Creature – Plant
Cerebral Scout – Alloyin – Rare – Creature – Metamind
Forgeplate Minotaur – Alloyin – Rare – Creature – Robot – Armor – Consistent
Perilous Insight – Alloyin – Rare – Spell – Overload
Blight Witch – Nekrium – Rare – Creature – Regenerate – Consistent
Spiritcleave – Nekrium – Rare – Spell
Runestorm Primordial – Tempys – Rare – Creature – Elemental – Aggressive – Consistent
Batterhide – Uterra – Rare – Creature – Dinosaur – Breakthrough – Consistent
Citadel Guard – Alloyin – Common – Creature – Robot – Defender
Cypien Shieldwarden – Alloyin – Common – Creature – Human – Activate
Ironbound Reinforcements – Alloyin – Common – Creature – Gnome
Steelskin Spelunker – Alloyin – Common – Creature – Gnome
Tundra Watcher – Alloyin – Common – Creature – Robot
Catacomb Spider – Nekrium – Common – Creature – Spider – Activate
Ebonbound Warlord – Nekrium – Common – Creature – Vampire
Nyrali Ambusher – Nekrium – Common – Creature – Ooze
Ruthless Wanderers – Nekrium – Common – Creature – Spirit Wanderer
Zombie Titan – Nekrium – Common – Creature – Zombie
“Side lane” is Lane 1 or Lane 5.
Borean Stormweaver – Tempys – Common – Creature – Giant – Activate
Crag Walker – Tempys – Common – Crature – Dinosaur – Mobility
Flamerift Instigator – Tempys – Common – Creature – Giant
Kadras Collosus – Tempys – Common – Creature – Giant
Overgrown Spineleaf – Uterra – Common – Creature – Plant
Ravenous Hydra – Uterra – Common – Creature – Hydra – Breakthrough – Regenerate
Scatter the Seeds – Uterra – Common – Spell
Shardbound Invoker – Uterra – Common – Creature – Tuskin
Weirwood Ranger – Uterra – Common – Creature – Human – Activate
Set 3 is awesome! For the rest of the cards already spoiled check out the Set 3 Spoiler Roundup: Secrets of Solis.A leaked video urges refugees to leave the Australian-run detention centre on Manus Island and settle in Papua New Guinea but asylum seekers are refusing
Hundreds of refugees are refusing to settle in PNG's 'land of opportunities'
Refugees incarcerated in the Manus Island detention centre are “choosing to deny themselves freedom” the Papua New Guinea government has told them, in a video urging them to agree to be resettled in the country.
But many, possibly hundreds, of the 934 men still held in the detention centre – some of whom have been in detention there 27 months – are refusing to be resettled, saying they fear being released into the PNG community.
Trial of PNG men accused of Reza Barati murder to reopen with more evidence Read more
“I will stay inside the detention centre for the rest of my life rather than go to PNG,” one refugee told Guardian Australia. “I never ever dream I could have a future in this inferno. Hundreds here, they feel same way like me.”
On Friday morning, PNG immigration officials and staff from Australia’s department of immigration and border protection visited all of the compounds in the Manus detention centre.
They arrived with interpreters and played a video detailing proposed resettlement arrangements for PNG and urged those found to be refugees to agree to be resettled.
A written transcript of the video, leaked to Guardian Australia, says: “Papua New Guinea is a land of great opportunities for those who embrace them. We have abundant resources and a growing economy. There are large migrant communities in PNG that live safe and very successful lives here. Those of you who are refugees, will have great futures here.”
The video urged viewers to accept a transfer to the Australian-funded $137m East Lorengau transit centre on the outskirts of Lorengau township. About 40 refugees have already been moved to the new centre.
“You have spent a long time at the Manus regional processing centre and there is no reason for refugees to stay there. If you choose not to relocate, you are choosing to deny yourself freedom.”
The video explained that refugees who accept resettlement in PNG will be required to complete an acculturation course called Wei Bilong PNG, at East Lorengau, and then offered voluntary work.
Refugees will be helped into housing, a recruitment agency will help them find jobs, and they will have case workers assisting them for six months.
No refugees will be settled on Manus, only in other parts of PNG. It is understood the vast majority are likely to end up in the capital, and economic hub, Port Moresby.
Refugees will be eligible to apply for citizenship after eight years, but they may be able to bring their families to PNG before then, after they have a job and have “established themselves”.
Refugees forced to choose between PNG resettlement or 'custody in new prison' Read more
Asylum seekers in detention whose claim to refugee status was rejected by PNG would be deported, the video said. Those who agreed to be returned to their country of origin would receive an unspecified amount of financial assistance, those who did not cooperate would be forcibly deported without any help.
Many of the asylum seekers and refugees in Manus detention centre have told Guardian Australia they do not believe the government’s video and say they will not accede to resettlement elsewhere in PNG. Several dozen have refused to present their refugee claims to officials.
“I was here during the riot [in February 2014 when Reza Barati was killed], I have seen a lot of shitty stuff,” one asylum seeker told Guardian Australia on Friday.
“The PNG guys beaten us like dogs, disrespect us. I was thrown in the biggest jail in Manus, I have seen the way they treated us and the prisoners, it was very harsh. Compared with my country, I felt no difference.”
Asylum seekers and refugees say the video has not allayed their concerns about their futures in PNG.
“After 27 months, they are still playing with our mental health every day,” a man told Guardian Australia. “Everyone here worry about his future, we can’t sleep well or eat well because of the unstable situation here.”
Another said: “Everybody know they don’t have any plan to resettle people in PNG. They came to us and said this big lie, every month they come to us and threaten people. I think this policy is working by lie and I believe it is cruelty, torture.”
Those in detention are fiercely mistrustful of the Australian and PNG governments, and relations between local guards and asylum seekers inside the detention centre have been strained almost since the PNG detention centre was reopened in 2012.
Manus Island detainees 'have not been told' of Philippines resettlement plan Read more
Threats and acts of violence are common, and the undercurrent of hostility erupted into open rioting during three days of unrest in February last year. Sixty asylum seekers were injured, including one who was shot and another who lost an eye and several teeth after being beaten with rifle butts. Reza Barati was beaten to death.
No refugee transferred to PNG by Australia has been resettled in the country.
Friday’s video presentation follows an announcement by Papua New Guinea’s foreign minister, Rimbink Pato, that the PNG government’s national executive council had endorsed a national refugee policy this week.
“Papua New Guinea has a proud tradition of helping people in need,” Pato said. “This policy affirms our humanitarian values and our strong regional leadership.”
PNG’s announcement was welcomed by the Australian immigration minister, Peter Dutton, who said the new policy showed the Pacific nation’s “commitment to permit those found to be refugees to get on with their lives and have a fresh start in this dynamic nation with a growing economy”.
The opposition’s immigration spokesman, Richard Marles, said while the regional resettlement arrangement with PNG had prevented deaths at sea, the fact that not a single refugee had been resettled in the country was evidence the Coalition had mismanaged an important bilateral relationship and failed to actively engage with Port Moresby.ON DECEMBER 16th, 2008, President-Elect Barack Obama met in Chicago with key members of his economic team to discuss their response to the deteriorating economic situation. Just two weeks earlier, the Bureau of Labour Statistics reported that 533,000 jobs had been lost in November, after a decline of 302,000 in October. According to the latest output figures, the economy had contracted by 0.5% in the third quarter, and much worse was expected of the fourth. The New Yorker's Ryan Lizza describes the debate:
Get our daily newsletter Upgrade your inbox and get our Daily Dispatch and Editor's Picks.
The most important question facing Obama that day was how large the stimulus should be...A hundred-billion-dollar stimulus had seemed prudent earlier in the year. Congress now appeared receptive to something on the order of five hundred billion...[CEA Chair Christina] Romer's analysis, deeply informed by her work on the Depression, suggested that the package should probably be more than $1.2 trillion. The memo to Obama, however, detailed only two packages: a five-hundred-and-fifty-billion-dollar stimulus and an eight-hundred-and-ninety-billion-dollar stimulus. [NEC Director Larry] Summers did not include Romer's $1.2-trillion projection. The memo argued that the stimulus should not be used to fill the entire output gap; rather, it was “an insurance package against catastrophic failure.” At the meeting, according to one participant, “there was no serious discussion to going above a trillion dollars.”... In the end, Summers made the case for the eight-hundred-and-ninety-billion-dollar option...[Chief of Staff Rahm] Emanuel made the final call: six hundred and seventy-five to seven hundred and seventy-five billion dollars, with the understanding that, as the bill made its way through Congress, it was more likely to grow than to shrink.
On January 10th of 2009, Ms Romer and Jared Bernstein, economic adviser to Vice-President Joe Biden, released a now-infamous assessment of the likely effect of a "prototypical" stimulus package worth about $800 billion. A day earlier, the BLS announced a rise in the unemployment rate to 7.2%, after a December employment drop of 524,000. November's employment drop was revised from 533,000 to 584,000. In their analysis, Ms Romer and Mr Bernstein projected that without stimulus, employment might fall to just under 134m, from a previous recession peak near 138m. With stimulus, by contrast, employment should be close to its previous peak by the end of 2010. Stimulus would limit growth in unemployment to about 8%, falling to 7% by the end of 2010.
President Obama was inaugurated on January 20th, and a stimulus bill was introduced in the House of Representatives on January 26th. A stimulus package worth $819 billion passed in the House just two days later.
Two days after that, Americans received grim news about the economy: in the fourth quarter of 2008, GDP contracted at a 3.8% annual pace—the worst quarterly performance since the deep recession of 1982. More bad news hit on February 6th, when the BLS released new labour market figures. It reported an employment decline of 598,000 in January, following on revised drops in employment of 577,000 in December and 597,000 in November—a three-month drop of 1.8m jobs. On February 10th, the Senate passed its version of the stimulus, worth $838 billion. In conference committee, the bill shrank to $787. On February 17th, Mr Obama signed the bill into law.
In the months and years that followed, Washington provided additional support to the economy, perhaps ultimately contributing approximately $1 trillion in total stimulus. But that first bill was the big bite at the apple. The White House looked at the economic situation, sized up Congress, and took its shot. Unfortunately, the situation was far more dire than anyone in the administration or in Congress supposed.
Output in the third and fourth quarters fell by 3.7% and 8.9%, respectively, not at 0.5% and 3.8% as believed at the time. Employment was also falling much faster than estimated. Some 820,000 jobs were lost in January, rather than the 598,000 then reported. In the three months prior to the passage of stimulus, the economy cut loose 2.2m workers, not 1.8m. In January, total employment was already 1m workers below the level shown in the official data.
We can't know exactly how things would have played out in a world in which key policymakers had better data. If the true scope of the economic disaster in the fourth quarter had been clear, however, it seems |
DMT, which has been found in human blood, urine and cerebrospinal fluid, but whose function in the body is not known.
The team showed that in the test tube DMT was able to displace molecules that are known to bind with high affinity to sigma-1. They then compared the effect of DMT on heart muscle cells from mice that possessed sigma-1 with those genetically engineered not to produce the receptor - so-called sigma-1 receptor knock-out mice. Here, the activity of an ion channel was inhibited where sigma-1 was present, but unaffected in its absence. Ion channels are important in cell signalling processes, and the result suggest not only that DMT is interacting with sigma-1, but also that sigma-1 might be an ion-channel regulator.
Finally the team gave DMT to mice with and without the receptor. ’We showed that DMT increased the activity of wild-type mice, but in the knock-out mice there was no response,’ says Ruoho.
Intriguingly both sigma-1 receptors and endogenously occurring DMT have been implicated in diseases such as schizophrenia. The new results open the way, says Ruoho, to search for synthetic compounds based on DMT that bind more powerfully to the receptor and observe their effects.
’This is a very important finding and will lead to more interest in the role of DMT and the sigma-1 receptor in mental illness,’ says James Stone of the Institute of Psychiatry in London. ’People did not know what the natural ligand of sigma-1 was, and this has led to a lot of blind alleys. So this is really big news.’
Radiochemist Erik Arstad, of University College London, who has worked on sigma-1 receptors, agrees that the finding is significant. ’Given the potent hallucinogenic effects of DMT, its presence in the human body has so far been a mystery. The role of the sigma-1 receptor is also poorly understood, so the suggested link between endogenous DMT levels and modulation of the sigma-1 receptor is intriguing. The findings are likely to spur considerable interest in the sigma-1 receptor, as well as trace amines, particularly in relation to mental illnesses such as schizophrenia.’
Simon HadlingtonCongress
House rule change puts feds at risk of job and pay cuts
A provision in the House of Representatives rules package passed by the Republican majority on Jan. 3 revives a rule dating back to 1876 that gives members the authority to fire or cut the pay of federal employees legislatively.
The Holman Rule, named for 19th century Indiana congressman William Holman, permits House members to offer amendments to appropriations bills to the full House that cut spending. The goal was designed to block appropriations riders to increase spending from being offered on the House floor. But it also has the specific effect of allowing amendments that cover "the reduction of the number and salary of the officers of the United States," or "the reduction of the compensation of any person paid out of the Treasury of the United States."
Such terminations or pay cuts would have the force of law, and supersede any civil service or other employment protections. The rule as passed is in effect for 2017, the first year of the 115th Congress.
House members in the D.C. area opposed the measure, because of the potential impact on federal employees.
"We know the majority would like to gut the functionality of the federal government," said Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.). "The dangerous and indiscriminate cuts of sequestration are evidence enough of that. However, this rules package provides them with the surgical tools necessary to reach into the inner workings of the federal government and cut away each part and employee that runs afoul of their ideological agenda."
"I cannot see how anyone who calls themselves a friend to federal employees could support this proposal," Connolly added.
In a group statement, Connolly and other Capitol-region Democratic lawmakers -- including Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, Eleanor Holmes Norton, John Delaney and Don Beyer -- said the revival of the Holman Rule would "treat these civil servants like political pawns and scapegoats."
The American Federation of Government Employees also objected to the measure. "The jobs and paychecks of career federal workers should not be subject to the whims of elected politicians," AFGE National President J. David Cox Sr. said. "The Holman Rule will not only harm our hardworking federal workforce, but jeopardize the critical governmental services upon which the American people rely."
Opposition to the rule was not limited to Democrats. Some appropriators are concerned that opening up deliberations to include a new category of amendments would lead to legislative logjams.
"I shudder to think how long it would take to consider an appropriations bill with a whole new category of made in order amendments, not necessarily related to discretionary funding," said Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) in an April 2016 Rules Committee hearing on the topic of future rules changes.
At that same hearing, one of the Holman Rule's staunchest supporters, Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.), said the rule was a check against the tilt of "power to the administrative branch of government."
"It tilts the power to them, because now all we can do is limit the money going to a particular area…and then the cuts are then decided by…the administrative branch of government," Griffith said.Apple CEO Tim Cook told ABC World News Tonight’s David Muir that he remains opposed to giving the FBI a skeleton key that would allow it to break into one of the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhones.
Tonight in an exclusive with ABC, Cook said it’s “a very uncomfortable position to oppose your government at something,” particularly “civil liberties, which they are supposed to protect—it is incredibly ironic.”
Advertisement
Apple’s currently embroiled in a fight with the FBI—and you should care, because the case’s outcome affects anyone who uses a smartphone.
The FBI is essentially asking Apple to fork over technical secrets that will allow feds to hack into San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook’s iPhone 5C in a criminal investigation against the terrorist. He was shot in a confrontation with police after killing 14 and injuring 22, alongside his wife. Apple’s refused to fully cooperate, since creating a master key that opens one iPhone suddenly creates a massive security risk to all iPhones.
Advertisement
Cook told Muir that such a master key would be “the software equivalent of cancer.” He also said that while he hasn’t talked to President Obama about the “incredibly complex issue” yet, he will.
Muir asked Cook why Apple hadn’t teamed up with the FBI sooner—to work together on security software from the get-go, which would’ve avoided this whole situation. Cook said he can’t talk about the tactics of the FBI, and that what Apple needs to do at this point is “stand tall.” He said that there’s more information about ourselves on our phones than in our houses: intimate conversations, financial data, the locations of our kids, and more.
Cook said the case with FBI is “not just about privacy—but about public safety.”
Companies like Google agree with Apple putting its foot down with the FBI. We’ll see how it all unfolds—but depending on the outcome, it could be setting a very dangerous privacy precedent indeed.
Advertisement
Correction, 7:02 p.m.: This article originally stated Bill Gates sided with Apple. He actually stated that he views the situation as more complex than that.
Contact the author at bryan@gizmodo.com.Republicans will tell you they’re the sole Constitutional purists in the country; they worship the document more/better than you do. But imagine if the First Amendment had to be voted on today. It would need two-thirds majority in both Houses just to be proposed.
Consider it: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
First, it’s way too progressive for today’s rabid rightwing. And if the Republicans saw this Amendment as a win for Obama – it would have to be stopped by any means necessary.
All the President would have to do is say he thinks it’s important for Americans to have freedom of speech, religion, the press and assembly.
Then the Tea nee Republican Party would call them “Obama Freedoms.”
Right-wing blogs next would tap, “What do Hitler, Machiavelli, Darwin, Che Guevara and the New Black Panther Party all have in common? They all love Obama Freedoms.”
“Obama Freedoms will indoctrinate our children to be secular Islamists who want taxpayers to pay for gay marriage abortions at Ground Zero,” Newt Gingrich would say in some Vaseline-lensed ominous music-packed video he’d hawk on his website.
Lawmakers would rush the House floor to accuse freedom of speech as being “bad for business.” Others would call it “disruptive.” Speaker John Boehner, calling himself an originalist, would decry (get it?) any changes whatsoever to the Constitution. “Hell no, you can’t!”
AM talk radio would chime in: “Obama Freedoms will even apply to people here illegally! Drug dealers will be able to protest in your front yard! We’re a nation of laws, not Obama Freedoms!”
Others would use it as an opportunity to rail against the press. Media critic Sarah Palin would take to her Twitter account, “LSMwnt 2Bfree noh8ve Obma& wrk,cost jobs. Hurt 4US kllrep$. SeeFB post.” Inadvertently proving themselves, in fact, lame — an entire 24-hour news cycle would be devoted to deciphering her tweet. Then the self-proclaimed modern-day Shakespeare would make up a word just for the occasion: virrification. It’s a cross of verification and vilify and maybe viral, but no one would know for sure. It would just seem to fit perfectly for the issue, and then it would be overused until it lost all irony.
UrbanDictionary.com would offer to use the new word in a sentence: To kill the bill, use virrification (see: refudiate and squirmish).
Lopsided meaningless polls will be taken: “Do you think people who just so happen to call themselves journalists should be free to do so?” The results will be split. People will comment, “I don’t know how comfortable I am with people being able to say ANYTHING they want. We’re in three wars!” And, “Free speech will shove pornography down our throats!”
Commercials would be launched, and the amendment would be called a “government take over of religion” by Koch-brother-funded shadow groups. Average-looking character actors would be hired to say how scared they are of Muslims stoning their children in schools.
“You know what Obama Freedoms will do to this country?! Criminalize bacon! What could stop them?”
Fox and Friends would snicker that being able to assemble peacefully should be called “The Gridlock Amendment.” They’d point out if it gets passed, it would cause traffic and clog America’s thoroughfares. Traffic costs jobs and money! It will ruin this country! “People should be working, but instead the government wants to force us to be on the streets with picket signs.”
Democratic lawmakers, trying to sound reasonable instead of merely capitulatory, would say there’s too much in the bill – that these controversial freedoms need to be in separate bills so they can be debated individually. “It’s just not realistic to put all these – what the rightwing are calling ‘Obama Freedoms’ – what I’m calling basic rights – in one Amendment to the Constitution. I’m proposing a series of Amendments which can be voted on individually – that way we can have an opportunity to debate each one.”
The First Amendment – arguably the foundation of our democracy – if brought up today would die in committee.
Yes, our time is just that stupid.by Elias J. Atienza
Yesterday, John McAfee, according to Daily Dot, lied about hacking into the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone, but said he did it for a good cause.
McAfee has been on a media blitz: he’s appeared on CNBC, CNN, and Business Insider. He made social media waves when he claimed he could hack into the iPhone of the San Bernardino shooter with a secret way and “social engineering.”
The method, according to McAfee, is not secret and not feasible to do. He first admitted to lying about it in an Inverse interview. However, he said he did it to bring attention to the war between Apple and the FBI, along with boosting his own presidential campaign.
“By doing so, I knew that I would get a shitload of public attention, which I did. That video, on my YouTube account, it has 700,000 views. My point is to bring to the American public the problem that the FBI is trying to [fool] the American public. How am I going to do that, by just going off and saying it? No one is going to listen to that crap.”
“So I come up with something sensational,” he continued. “Now, what I did not lie about was my ability to crack the iPhone. I can do it. It’s a piece of friggin’ cake. You could probably do it.”
McAfee also discussed his method of hacking into the phone. According to Daily Dot:
“Later in the interview, McAfee described his method, which involves “decapping” the phone’s processor and acquiring the device’s unique identifier (UID), that may allow someone to brute force the phone’s password—guess the password by flooding it with options—at a faster rate. Despite his insistence that the Daily Dot not publish this technique, McAfee has explained the method in previous media interviews.”
But, as Ars Technica explained, that method doesn’t make sense to some experts.
McAfee later hung up on Daily Dot because he thought everything was off the record. He later texted them.
“The lie was an exaggeration of simplicity. As the Inverse article explained, it would have been impossible in the time allowed to explain the fullness of the truth. If you fault me for that, then you, and possibly your readers, will have been the only one on the planet to have done so.”
He added that it “seemed absurd to me to focus on a simplification of a technique, given the stakes at risk—a potentially Orwellian state initiated by the populace ignoring the truth of what the FBI is trying to do to us.”My Experience Number of Visits 1 Length of Stay 6 Days My Favorite Spots Sand Beach
Great Head Trail
Cadillac Mountain Summit
Bass Harbor Lighthouse
Sea Anemone Cave Expenditures Hotel: Not Recorded
Flight: Not Recorded
Rental Car: Not Recorded
Food: Not Recorded Miles Hiked ~15 # of Photos Taken Not Recorded
The Trip Overall
Acadia National Park is located on the South coast of Maine. It is touted as being the first National Park East of the Mississippi. I was intrigued to visit Acadia for several reasons. First, Acadia has one of the most beautiful displays of Fall color in the country. Secondly, despite living within a 3-hour drive of the Atlantic and a 45 minute drive of Chesapeake Bay, I rarely get a chance to take seascape photos. Much of Acadia’s beautiful scenery lies along the rocky coast. Finally, I wanted to photograph the Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse; one of the most iconic photo locations in the U.S.
I spent six days in Acadia around the time of the 2013 U.S. federal government shutdown. I had planned this trip months before anyone knew that would happen. Luckily, the park is relatively small and I was able to park at roadblocks near the park and then hike in. About 2/3 of the way through the trip, the park reopened and I was able to explore the interior.
The Map
As you can see in the map below, many of the photo locations I was most interested in fell along the Eastern shore. Not surprisingly, that is where I spent the majority of my time. Cadillac Mountain, Jordan Pond, Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse, and the network of Carriage Trails round out the top spots.
Click on the camera icons to see a photo, a location name, and coordinates for the closest parking area. I also show park entrances, visitor centers, the hotel(s) where I stayed, hiking trails, and airports.
Visitor Statistics
As with most of the parks, traffic in Acadia peaks in July and August. Cruise ships dock in Bar Harbor almost every day through October though and many of those people find their way into the park during the day. Fall color tends to peak in mid-October and that tends to draw a crowd as well.
This graph shows the average number of visitors each month. Hover over the line to see values for each month. NOTE: Even though the X-axis reads “2000,” these are monthly averages from the most recent 5-year period. The “2000” should be ignored.
The Climate
This graph shows average temperature and precipitation by month. Hover over the line to see values for each month. You can select different variables and parks in the panel on the left. NOTE: Even though the X-axis reads “2000,” these are monthly averages of NOAA weather data dating as far back as the early 1900’s. The “2000” should be ignored.
Logistics
NPS Survey Findings % Visiting for First Time 50% % Staying More than 24 Hours 63% Average Length of Stay 70 Hours Top 5 Sites Visited Cadillac Mountain Summit (75%)
Jordan Pond House (67%)
Sand Beach (63%)
Thunder Hole (62%)
Seawall Area (36%) Average Expenditures -Not Reported- Visitor Survey Project Report Acadia National Park 2009
Lodging
I stayed at the Quality Inn on the outskirts of Bar Harbor. It is a no-frills hotel. The room was nice and they had a nice breakfast (a step up from continental) that was included in the cost of the room. It’s not an easy walk to downtown Bar Harbor, but it’s an easy drive.There are several large lots near downtown. Still, if you’re planning on bar hopping, you might want to find a place a bit closer. The hotel is also on the far side of town from many of the places you’ll want to go in Acadia. You’ll have to drive through town to get to there. This wasn’t a big issue for me because I often left before sunrise or came back after sunset, but mid-day, when there’s a cruise ship in port, there are pedestrians everywhere and driving is slow-going.
Food
I stopped at the Hannaford Grocery Store a couple times on this trip. It’s a short drive from the hotel where I stayed. It was convenient and most of my meals came from things that I purchased there. I only ate the hotel-provided breakfast once because I was usually out taking photos during breakfast hours. I only ate one restaurant meal on this trip. Before I went, I told myself that I would have a lobster roll in Maine. I ended up getting mine at the Side Street Cafe. It was my first lobster roll so I’m not sure how they should taste, but I wasn’t that impressed with the one I had.
My Experience
I had a very unusual time in Acadia, so my experiences may not serve as much of a guide for your trip. I visited the park during October 2013, during the last week of the government shutdown. The park was officially closed for three of the five days I was there. Luckily, the Park Service was loosely enforcing the closure, meaning I could enter the park but only on foot.
Day 1
The trip to Acadia was one of the easiest I’ve had to any National Park so far. It was a non-stop flight from Regan National Airport in DC to Bangor, ME. From there, I rented a car and made the 1 hr. 15 min. drive to Bar Harbor. I checked into the Quality Inn, got lunch at the Side Street Cafe, and bought groceries at the Hannaford grocery store. I then started driving the boundary of the park trying to find a place where I could park and walk in (I’d heard about the no-car-during-the-shutdown rule on Twitter). I found a perfect spot where Otter Cliff Rd. meets the Park Loop Rd. From there, I started walking North on Park Loop Rd. scoping out sunrise locations. I walked by Monument Cove, Thunder Hole, and Sand Beach. For sunset, I found myself on the Great Head Trail overlooking Sand Beach and the Beehive. Through sunset and twilight, I worked my way back South along the Park Loop Rd. back toward my car.
Day 2
For sunrise on Day 2, I parked in the same spot and walked the short distance to Monument Cove. I arrived there about 45 minutes prior to sunrise and it was still dark, so I ventured out onto the coast and tried to capture some long-exposure shots of the waves crashing on the rocks. At sunrise I was back at Monument Cove. I then walked North again; back to Sand Beach taking photos along the way. At around 9:00 a.m., I drove back to the hotel and ate some breakfast. I ended up watching the latest news about the government shutdown and didn’t venture back out until the afternoon. I went to Schooner Head to catch low tide. I timed it that way so that I could climb down to the Sea Anemone Cave. From there, I drove across the island to the Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse. I arrived there three hours before sunset and hung out along the shore until the sun went down. Three hours was definitely too long to spend there, but I was glad to have staked out a spot. It was very crowded at sunset and there is limited space. I ended up taking slight variations of the same composition because there wasn’t much room for me to move without getting in someone’s way. After the sun went down, I called it a night.
Day 3
The next morning I hiked the Great Head Trail. I started from the Schooner Head parking area and walked clockwise around the head. It was still twilight when I took pictures along the Eastern shore and then I rushed to the Sand Beach overlook to catch the first rays of light there. I was disappointed with the light so I continued to walk the trail back toward the parking area and found some beautiful, colorful shrubbery. I spent the rest of sunrise there, along the trail. Next, I went to climb the Beehive. I made it about 1/3 of the way up the Precipice Trail before getting frightened and heading back down. The trail is very narrow and at points you have to hold onto or climb rungs that have been drilled into the rocks. Luckily, the park was still closed and there weren’t many people in the park. It would be hard to climb back down if there were people heading up. Once I made it down, I took another trail to The Bowl; a small lake. I took a number of pictures of the wooden walkways around the lake and Fall leaves. By the time I made it back to my car, it started to rain heavily and I spent much of the rest of the day at the hotel processing photos and watching the news. Late that evening is when a deal was worked out and the shutdown ended.
Day 4
Though the shutdown ended the previous night, the barricades hadn’t been taken down as of early morning on Day 4. Once again, I parked at Otter Cliff Rd. and Park Look Rd. and walked out to the coast. It was cloudy so there wasn’t much of a sunrise that morning, but I tried my hand at some coastline shots. Once I saw the Park Rangers driving the Park Loop Rd., I jumped in my car and started to drive it myself. I drove to Jordan Pond. It was foggy there so scenic shots of the lake and The Bubbles was out. I hiked the wooden pathway along the shore of the lake and took Fall foliage shots. I then drove to the summit of Cadillac Mountain. It was too foggy to see much of anything up there, so I drove back to my hotel and ate breakfast. That afternoon I drove to Azticou Gardens; a Japanese-style garden in Northeast Harbor. The lighting wasn’t ideal for photos so I drove back to Jordan Pond. The fog was a little less dense, but still too thick for decent photos. There were narrow breaks in it and I could see that it didn’t extend vertically very far; I thought there was a chance I could get above it. So I drove up Cadillac Mountain where I did, in fact, get above the fog and found a beautiful expanse of clouds. I spent sunset there and then went home for the night.
Day 5
By Day 5, I was thoroughly wiped out. I woke up to find it pouring rain. I stayed in almost the entire day. When it finally cleared at 3 in the afternoon, I drove to the summit of Cadillac Mountain, then back to Jordan Pond. Despite having visited these places several times before, I had yet to see them without fog. The photo opportunities were disappointing, so I drove around trying to find a better spot for sunset. Not seeing any, I eventually stopped at Eagle Lake and spent about 20 minutes worth of twilight trying to compose photos there, with no luck.
Day 6
On my final morning in the park, I went back to Cadillac Mountain to witness a quintessential Acadian spectacle. Cadillac Mountain is one of the highest points along the East Coast and is far enough East that those standing on top of it are the first in the United States to see rays of sunshine. I took several sunrise photos in the brisk, windy morning hours and then drove to Bangor to catch my flight home.
What I Would Do Differently
Given the ease of traveling to Acadia, I will definitely go there again. When I do go back, I will likely go around the same time of year. I loved the Fall color. Next time, I will diversify my experience more. This time there were several pictures I definitely wanted to get and the weather didn’t cooperate. I found myself back at Cadillac Mountain and Jordan Pond more times than I would have liked. Next time, I will spend more time hiking the Carriage Roads and the other hiking trails around the park. I will also spend some time in the harbor towns trying to capture the lobster boats.
The One Shot
As you may have guessed from the content so far, the shot I was most interested in Acadia was the Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse at sunset. I planned, I scheduled, and I took my photos. Overall, I would say that this location lived up to the hype. I managed to catch a decent sunset along with some OK clouds. The experience wasn’t ideal though. As I mentioned above, I got to the lighthouse a couple hours before sunset. I moved around until I found my spot and then just hung out. As I waited, people/groups came and went. It wasn’t until about 30 minutes before sunset (the time when sane people arrive) that it started to get packed. One guy told me, after I’d been standing there for 2 hours, that I was “going to be in people’s way.” Most people, he said, take pictures from further back. The rocky shore near the lighthouse is pretty narrow and there are only so many rocks to perch on. If someone is ahead of you then, you have to include them in your photo. I sympathized with what the guy was saying but didn’t want to move. Luckily there were rocks on the shore large enough to hide me (and several other early arrivals) from the 20 or so people who had set up behind us. Unfortunately, this meant we were crammed into narrow spots and that, if we moved, we could end up pissing off all the people behind us. So I stood still taking essentially the same photo over and over, with slight adjustments to the settings. It worked out but it was less than ideal.
Other Resources
Useful Tools
Fall Color – Foliage will vary depending on weather conditions, but I found this site helpful in making a best guess even months beforehand. Peak dates fall between October 13th and 22nd.
Tide Charts – Given that much of the natural beauty of Acadia lies along the coast, it is good to stay aquanited with the tide. I knew very little about the tides before making this trip. I printed an abbreviated chart from this website and carried it with me.
The Photographer’s Ephemeris – TPE allows you to drop a pin on a Google map and see not only the sunrise/sunset and moonrise/moonset times but also the direction the sun and moon will rise and set.
If you have any questions or comments about this article, let me know using my Contact page.OTTAWA—Liberal leader Justin Trudeauhas made a rare and controversial decision to block a former candidate from running to replace Olivia Chow in a coming by-election in the Toronto riding of Trinity—Spadina. The ban, billed as a bid to end party infighting, has nonetheless stirred up bitterness within Liberal ranks and accusations that Trudeau and his team are ruthlessly sweeping house of any dissenters.
Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau — pictured here with Chrystia Freeland at his side — has promised open nomination contests in every riding, but would-be candidates must first win the approval of the party’s “green light committee.” ( Andrew Francis Wallace / Toronto Star file photo ) Christine Innes wanted to run for the Liberals in Trinity-Spadina. ( DAVID COOPER / TORONTO STAR file photo ) Tony Ianno is a former Liberal MP and junior cabinet minister. ( ANDREW VAUGHAN / The Canadian Press file photo )
Christine Innes is the wife of the former Liberal MP and cabinet minister Tony Ianno and she is also the woman who ran for the party in the 2008 and 2011 federal elections. But Innes was notified on Thursday that she was being blocked from participating in the nomination race for Trinity—Spadina. The letter, from Ontario campaign co-chair David MacNaughton, said she was being blocked for bad behaviour by her campaign team, and in particular, efforts to undermine the new MP for Toronto Centre, Chrystia Freeland. “Your campaign team began to use intimidation and bullying on young volunteers. Derogatory remarks were made to several young, enthusiastic Liberals about one of our leading MPs,” MacNaughton wrote. “Suggestions were made to volunteers that their future in the Liberal party would be in jeopardy if they were on the ‘wrong side’ in a nomination battle.”
Article Continued Below
Innes, in an email sent out to supporters later on Thursday, said the allegations were “manufactured” and “totally baseless” — and said her real crime was failing to go along with the Trudeau team’s plans for 2015, when all the Toronto ridings will be shuffled and Trinity-Spadina will no longer exist. “It was made clear to me that if I did not submit to their demands that they would ‘still get their way,’ ” Innes said, saying that the whole episode proves that Trudeau is not sincere about his promise for open nomination meetings. It’s rare for leaders to block candidates, especially past candidates, and the decision came down in the same swift, unexpected and some would say brutal way that Trudeau cut his ties with Liberal senators earlier this year. And like the Senate decision, it was presented as a case of out with the old and in with the new — in this case, out with the old, infighting days of the Liberal party. MacNaughton, in an interview, said Trudeau and his team are determined to turn their back on Liberal family feuding and he also said this in his letter to Innes: “We have all seen what Liberals fighting with Liberals can do, not only to the electoral chances of our party but to its soul. Our leader has made it clear that this kind of behaviour is not acceptable to him, nor to the thousands of people who have embraced the new way of doing politics under Justin Trudeau’s leadership.”
There’s another old-versus-new aspect to the controversy too, revolving around the coming shuffle of federal riding boundaries in Toronto in 2015 — and the shakeup that’s under way in Toronto Liberal circles. Much of the current Trinity-Spadina riding will be divided between the new Spadina—Fort York and University—Rosedale ridings. It’s believed that Freeland is the preferred candidate for University Rosedale and Innes said in her letter she was being pushed to move to Fort York.
Article Continued Below
Trudeau and his advisers do not appear as yet to have a preferred candidate for Trinity-Spadina, where a byelection could be called as early as this spring in the wake of Chow’s departure this week. Glenn Wheeler, a lawyer and former editor at NOW magazine, told the Star on Thursday that he may be running for the nomination. MacNaughton said the riding dispute was not what set off the ouster of Innes. The party has been getting reportedly dozens of complaints about Innes’s team’s tactics, including written evidence, and the blocking of her candidacy was seen as the only option.
Read more about:South Carolina budget cuts target education and health care
By Rosa Shahnazarian
9 June 2010
The South Carolina legislature last week approved a $4.9 billion state budget for the 2010-2011 fiscal year. The budget includes huge cuts in education, AIDS funding, and other social programs and includes no tax or fee increases. The budgetary cuts are part of a nationwide austerity policy being implemented in states across the country, cutting programs on which working people depend while preserving the profits of the wealthy corporations.
The bill will next make its way to the office of Republican Governor Mark Sanford, who will have the power to veto specific provisions before the bill is executed July 1.
House Speaker Bobby Harrell and Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell, both Republicans, said they expect the legislature will agree to a number of likely vetoes by the governor when the bill returns to the legislature on June 15.
The budget, which would place spending at $4.9 billion, represents a reduction of more than 25 percent compared to the 2006-2007 budget of $6.658 billion.
Last Wednesday, the House was 13 votes short of agreeing to the version of the bill proposed on May 27 by a conference committee composed of six members from both the House and the Senate. On Thursday, minutes before the 5 p.m. deadline, Republicans who had been blocking passage of the budget agreed to a compromise on the issue of state health plan abortion coverage.
In March, a group of House Republicans rallied in an all-night session with the goal of ending all abortion coverage for rape and incest victims under the state health insurance plan. The Senate version of the bill removed this provision, and the conference committee version did not restore it.
Republicans in favor of the abortion provision agreed to vote for the conference committee’s version of the budget because of promises that a separate bill instituting a 24-hour waiting period for abortions and legislation to end abortion coverage in instances of rape and incest will be a legislative priority next year.
Education
Schools in South Carolina have already faced more than $800 million in cuts over the past two years. On April 14, hundreds of people rallied in the capital to oppose further cuts.
Myrtle Beach’s Horry County School District will likely have to cut $17 million from its budget for the upcoming school year, based on the South Carolina budget approved Thursday. The school board will be deciding this week how to implement the cuts, which will undoubtedly fall hard on district students.
“The children are the ones who are losing on this,” Charline Web, whose son is a middle school student in the district, told Myrtle Beach’s WMBF News.
Misty Brigham, whose daughter is an elementary school, told reporters that “they don’t need to start putting 30 to 40 students per classroom like has been talked about because that lowers my child’s education.”
Schools in the city of Charleston also face a likely cut of $7 million.
Health care
On May 25, 2010, several hundred people rallied at the South Carolina State House to protest budget cuts to the AIDS drug assistance program. The program provides AIDS medication to about 2,000 people who cannot afford the medication on their own.
Dr. Bambi Gaddist, who chairs the HIV/AIDS Care Crisis Taskforce, says the medication—which will now be unavailable to people who depend on the program—helps reduce the likelihood that the disease is spread. South Carolina ranks seventh in the country in newly reported HIV and AIDS cases, and this new reduction in spending will lead to a further deterioration of public health in the state.
A provision in the bill would also eliminate breast cancer screenings for 16,000 poor South Carolina women. Opponents of the cuts have cited cancer survival statistics, along with South Carolina’s own recent breast cancer statistics, pointing to the vital need for such screenings.
According to experts, if detected early, 98 percent of those diagnosed with breast cancer are still alive five years later. If detected later, the five-year survival rate falls to 84 percent if the cancer has not spread, and falls dramatically, to only 23 percent, if the cancer has spread to other parts of the body.
Approximately 2,820 new cases of invasive breast cancer were diagnosed in South Carolina in 2009, and 640 women died of the disease.
According to the Best Chance Network (BCN), South Carolina already has one of the highest rates of uninsured women in the nation. The BCN is a division of the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control. It provides mammograms, clinical breast exams, pap screenings, pelvic exams, diagnostic procedures, and community education on breast/cervical cancer and early detection.
The jobs bill passed last Friday by the US House could lead to a further reduction of South Carolina’s budget by $175 million. To appease Republicans, Democratic lawmakers revoked provisions that would have provided extra federal economic stimulus money to states and extended health insurance subsidies for unemployed workers.
Millions would be cut from South Carolina’s Department of Health and Human Services programs, with Medicaid funding facing the biggest hit, at close to $30 million. The Department of Health and Environmental Control, the Department of Mental Health, the Department of Social Services, Department of Health and Environmental Control, Department of Disabilities and Special Needs, the Department of Juvenile Justice, the Department of Probation, Parole & Pardon Services, and the Department of Motor Vehicles all face multimillion dollar cuts.Prominent Surgeon: Evidence Soul May Leave Body in Near-Death Experience
Declared dead, man allegedly views hospital in spirit, returns to tell what he saw
Dutch near-death-experience (NDE) researchers have compiled more than 70 cases of people who’ve purportedly left their bodies and observed scenes they could not have perceived with their physical senses.
The details of what they saw (for example, actions performed by people in the hospital) could be verified, providing perhaps some of the strongest evidence for the mind’s ability to exist outside the brain.
Titus Rivas, Anny Dirven, and |
ry, thus leaving this team inactive.
From 1965-1967 J.T Putney started the #19 car 71 times, almost half of his career starts. At Fonda Speedway in 1966, Putney carelessly pulled back onto the track after receiving service in the pits. He re-entered the track right into the path of the oncoming car of Tiny Lund. Putney not only took out four cars in his bonehead maneuver, but he was KO’d by a punch from Lund. Lund had approached Putney following the incident in the garage area, and knocked Putney unconscious with a right-cut to Putney’s jaw. NASCAR officials fined Lund $100.
Chad Little started #19 a total of 50 times in 1988 & 1990-1993.
Dick May drove 47 races in #19 from 1974-1982. Following his career as a driver, May worked as a NASCAR official.
Loy Allen Jr. started 37 of his 48 career Cup Series races in #19 from 1994-1997. Allen was hired for Tri-Star’s #19 Hooters Ford in 1994. He won the pole position for the season-opening Daytona 500 (the first rookie to ever do so), finishing 22nd. He won two more poles at Atlanta and the Michigan, as well as the outside pole for that year’s running of the Pepsi 400. However, Allen’s team missed twelve races due to a tight budget. He only had a best finish of 11th at Charlotte. In addition, he only had two more top-20 finishes, and had a DNF count of seven. It kept the team from making a serious bid at NASCAR Rookie of the Year honors, and Allen Jr. finished 39th in points that year.
From 1963-1964 Cale Yarborough made 33 starts in #19 for Herman Beam. His best finish was fifth twice, at Myrtle Beach and Savannah Speedway, respectively.
Mike Bliss started the #19 a total of 29 time between 2012-2013.
John Rostek started #19 in 4 races in 1960 & 1963 with 1 win in Arizona in 1960.
Starting in 2015 Carl Edwards began driving the #19 Toyota full time for Joe Gibbs Racing. He won 2 races that year: The Coke 600 and the Southern 500, and was eliminated after the Eliminator round, finishing 5th in points.
In 2016, Carl returned to JGR and the #19 team.
Edwards dominated the final laps of the 2016 Food City 500 to win the race after starting on pole. He also dominated nearly the whole race as he led 276 of 500 laps, holding off Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Kurt Busch on 4 restarts to win the race. On the final lap at Richmond, Edwards won the race after making a last-lap pass on teammate Kyle Busch, by moving him up the race track. He became the first driver to make a last lap pass in Richmond Speedway’s history. This elevated him from 6th in the standings to 3rd.
Carl would qualify for the chase and win a rain shortened race at Texas to clinch a spot in the final four. In the final race at Homestead-Miami speedway, he was caught up in a wreck with ten laps to go.
On January 9, 2017, FOX Sports reported Edwards planned to step away from NASCAR to pursue other opportunities. In his retirement press conference on January 11, Edwards said, “I don’t have a life raft I’m jumping onto; I’m just jumping. And in a way, that makes it easier. This is a pure, simple, personal decision. Carl started 72 races in #19 with 5 wins.
Daniel Suarz took over the #19 Camry following Edward’s departure. Suarez had a moderately successful rookie season, posting 12 top-10 finishes with a best finish of 3rd at Watkins Glen.
Suarez was involved in controversy from one of his now former sponsors, Subway. In July, at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway as a publicity stunt to gain more fans with the help of NBC Sports, he gave out free Dunkin Donuts doughnuts out to fans camping out in the infield and the surrounding areas of the track. About a month and a half later at the end of August, his sponsor Subway decided to pull out, with a race remaining on their contract. It was later revealed that Suarez “breached his contract with promoting with a competitor”. Controversy arose since this was announced over 45 days after the promo aired. Fans and media claim that Subway wanted out A.S.A.P of their contract. A week later, Camping World CEO, Marcus Lemonis said he would personally sponsor Suarez for the race and it was announced on October 10th that Camping World would sponsor 19 car for Talladega.
During the 2018 season, Suárez won his first career Cup Series pole at Pocono, after Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch’s qualifying times were disallowed following inspection. He also scored a career-best second place in the race. Suárez, however, struggled to stay consistent throughout the season with three top-fives and nine top-10 finishes.
On September 21, 2018, it was reported that Suárez removed all references to Joe Gibbs Racing from his Twitter profile, hinting that he will be out of the team by the end of the 2018 season. On November 7, 2018, it was announced that Suárez would be replaced by Martin Truex Jr. following the closure of fellow Toyota team Furniture Row Racing. Suarez will head to Stewart-Haas racing along with sponsor Arris to join the #41 team.
Other notable drivers in #19:
Jason “LEFturn” Leffler, 2 starts
Bill Elliott, 1 start
Derrike Cope, 10 starts
Mike Skinner, 3 starts
Dale Earnhardt 1 start
Benny Parsons, 1 start
In the XFINITY Series, 2016 Champion Daniel Suárez drove the #19 for Joe Gibbs Racing. Matt Tifft piloted the car in 2017, and Brandon Jones will be behind the wheel in 2018.
AdvertisementsThis "new" Overwatch experience has barely been live and active for a fortnight, and Competitive Play season 3 only kicked off last week, but...
Pin 0 Shares
Overwatch has seen some pretty significant changes over the past month. A new character, some Quick Play changes, and a new Arcade Mode compliment the start of Competitive Play season 3, itself bringing in a hoard of changes.
This “new” Overwatch experience has barely been live and active for a fortnight, and Competitive Play season 3 only kicked off last week, but one player has already mastered what is undeniably the game’s most ruthlessly competitive and skill-driven mode.
Koo ‘EVERMORE’ Kyo Min, a professional Overwatch player from Korea, has topped the charts on his way to becoming the first player to hit the illusive 5,000 Skill Rating in a little under a week of play. Outrageous!
His quick blast to the top of the charts comes after game director, Jeff Kaplan, revealed plans to improve the Skill Rating. The general consensus coming out of Season 2 was that it was just far too hard to climb up the ranks.
Blizzard had admittedly placed a large percentage of players into the platinum bracket that didn’t belong there, meaning the MMR averaged out to being far too low for the tier. This made for a constant game of catch-up, and players found their skill ratings getting massive hits while the MMR tried to balance out.
“In a Nostradamus moment, I’m going to predict the massive amount of rage that will come when we move all of these players from Platninum into Gold and Silver,” Kaplan said at BlizzCon 2016.
“The attitude of Platninum players is that they all belong there – everyone else is really a gold, silver or bronze player – not them.”‘
Now it appears that it might be too easy to climb the ranks, although no one’s doubting EVERMORE’s skills.
He needed only 45 games to reach the 5000 skill rating benchmark, using Roadhog as his main.
If you want to see his skills put to the test on the competitive circuit, he plays for Team KongDoo Panthera, so expect to see him on the circuit in the Overwatch APEX Season 2 tournament in the near future.
In the mean time, check out his crazy skills in the video below.
[youtube]https://youtu.be/Td-0Uv7nYkQ[/youtube]As any investigator can tell you, it's not just what you knew, but when you knew it.
On Wednesday, Yahoo admitted that not long after a hack in 2014 some of its employees were aware a state-sponsored hacker had breached its network.
The revelation is sure to cast a larger shadow over Verizon's $4.8 billion deal to acquire the company.
Yahoo said in September that an investigation in August had uncovered the theft of personal information associated with at least a half billion Yahoo accounts, the biggest data breach in history. The company said at the time that it discovered the massive intrusion after a hacker claimed in August to have snatched 200 million Yahoo usernames and passwords in an earlier hack.
But a Yahoo filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday revealed that at least some people within the company were aware of the intrusion in 2014.
"An Independent Committee of the Board, advised by independent counsel and a forensic expert, is investigating, among other things, the scope of knowledge within the Company in 2014 and thereafter regarding this access," Yahoo said in its filing. It wasn't until the August probe, however, that the company got confirmation of the extent of the breach, a source with knowledge of the investigation said.
The timing here is a critical concern.
The massive hack was allegedly uncovered a month after Verizon announced plans to acquire Yahoo for $4.83 billion and merge it with AOL. The hacking revelations led to questions that could affect the acquisition, with the wireless carrier's general counsel telling reporters in October that Verizon was leaning toward declaring the data breach a "material event." That could mean Verizon wouldn't have offered as much money -- or made a bid for Yahoo at all -- had it known about the hack earlier.
Yahoo acknowledged that possibility in its filing, noting that Verizon "may seek to terminate the Stock Purchase Agreement or renegotiate the terms of the Sale transaction on that basis."
Yahoo declined to comment beyond its filing, citing its ongoing investigation. Verizon also declined to comment.Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) warned Friday that Russia may continue trying to interfere in U.S. elections because President Trump "is going to continue giving them cover."
"I don't see the Russians stopping. I do believe they're going to continue pushing the envelope, especially when they see the president is going to continue giving them cover," Gallego said during an interview on CNN's "The Situation Room."
"And 2018 is going to be a very important year, and they know that they can target just a couple of congressional races, and they could really turn the tide and potentially get the type of politicians they want that would be beneficial to Russian goals," he added.
ADVERTISEMENT
Gallego's comments come after the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) alerted 21 states on Friday that Russia attempted to hack their election systems before the 2016 election.
DHS said that in a majority of states it only saw preparations for hacking, like scanning to find potential modes for an attack.
Trump has long dismissed scrutiny of Moscow's interference in the 2016 presidential election, accusing Democrats of trying to undermine his electoral win by condemning Russian meddling.
In a tweet Friday, Trump called reports of Kremlin-linked groups buying Facebook ads to sway the election part of "the Russia hoax."
Facebook said Thursday it would turn over to Congress copies of thousands of political ads published on its platform over the past two years that were linked to fake Russian-based accounts.Journalists honor Dean Smith with award Copyright by WNCN - All rights reserved Dean Smith - File photo [ + - ] Video
By David Hurst, WNCN News -
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (WNCN) - The United States Basketball Writers Association recognized former UNC men's basketball coach Dean Smith on Wednesday by announcing a new award in his honor.
The Dean Smith Award will be presented annually by the USBWA to an individual in college basketball who embodies the spirit and values Smith represented throughout his legacy.
"We are proud to honor the legacy of Coach Smith," said USBWA President Pat Forde of Yahoo! Sports. "Dean Smith was not simply a coach who won, but a coach who educated outside the gymnasium, who demonstrated a concern for his players beyond their athletic ability, who had an active voice on social issues and was and agent for positive change."
Smith died in February at the age of 83. He led the Tar Heels to two national championships in his 36 seasons with the team. He also won an Olympic gold medal in 1976 and was inducted into basketball's Hall of Fame more than a decade before he retired from coaching.
In 2013, President Obama awarded Smith the nation's highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
"The USBWA has a long history of supporting college basketball and honoring the men and women who make our game great, so I am thrilled that the USBWA would honor Coach Smith's legacy with this award, said Roy Williams, UNC men's head basketball coach. "The award will be especially meaningful because its criteria go beyond winning games in selecting people in college basketball who have made a significant impact on their communities."
The USBWA was founded in 1956 and is made up of journalists who cover college basketball.Game of Thrones has never been shy about getting dark, which is kind of what we love about it — the execution of Ned Stark in Season 1 was a definitive statement that this fantasy epic was throwing the usual tropes out the window. Even so, there’s a right way and a wrong way to handle sensitive material, and in Season 5 the show came under fire for its treatment of rape.
Those criticisms have apparently reached the ears of series creators Dan Weiss and David Benioff. According to director Jeremy Podeswa, the discussion inspired Weiss and Benioff to reconsider the show’s approach to rape, and change “a couple of things” about Season 6 as a result. Read the Game of Thrones Season 6 rape comments after the jump.
Podeswa helmed two episodes of Game of Thrones last season, including “Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken,” in which Sansa Stark is raped by Ramsay Bolton as Theon Greyjoy watches. The scene sparked controversy among fans. Some complained that the moment was gratuitous, or that the way that the scene was shot (with the focus on Theon) robbed Sansa of her agency, while others argued the scene fit perfectly into the brutal, violent world depicted in the series.
Speaking at a recent event at Fox Studios Australia (via Forbes), Podeswa revealed that the outcry over Sansa’s rape led Weiss and Benioff to rethink a few things about the upcoming season:
[Benioff and Weiss] were responsive to the discussion and there were a couple of things that changed as a result. … It is important that [the producers] not self-censor. The show depicts a brutal world where horrible things happen. They did not want to be too overly influenced by that [criticism] but they did absorb and take it in and it did influence them in a way.
Podeswa also discussed his own approach to the Sansa rape scene in Season 5:
It was a difficult and brutal scene and we knew it was going to be challenging for the audience. But it was very important to us in the execution that it would not be exploited in any way. To be fair, the criticism was the notion of it, not the execution. It was handled as sensitively as it could possibly be; you hardly see anything.
While it is true that the show avoided getting too graphic with Sansa’s rape, Podeswa is wrong that fans objected only to “the notion of it, not the execution.” (As we just mentioned above.) Since we have very little idea of what’s in store for Season 6 (especially since so much of the story is off-book at this point), it’s impossible to say what, specifically, has been changed in light of those discussions.
Sansa’s rape wasn’t the first time Game of Thrones has attracted criticism for its depiction of sexual assault. Earlier in Season 5, the show was criticized for turning what was a consensual sex scene between Jaime and Cersei in George R.R. Martin‘s books into a rape scene — and it definitely came across as a rape scene, even if the cast and crew didn’t necessarily intend it as such.
Heck, it’s a discussion that goes all the way back to the very first episode, when Daenerys’ consensual wedding night encounter with Khal Drogo from the books was changed into a rape for the show. And these aren’t minor details. Dany’s Season 1 arc is now the story of a girl falling in love with her rapist, instead of the story of a girl falling in love with a man who treats her with unexpected gentleness.
Whatever comes next, Podeswa, who returns to direct the first two episodes of Season 6, is now very aware that the world is watching. “I welcomed the discussion about the depiction of violence on television and how it could be used as a narrative tool sometimes and the questionable nature of that,” he said. “We were aware ahead of time that it was going to be disturbing but we did not expect there would be people in Congress talking about it.”
Game of Thrones Season 6 premieres in April.A suicide bomber detonated an explosive in a marketplace, killing 22 and injuring dozens more Friday, Al-Jazeera reports.
The incident occurred in Musayyib, a Shiite town located about 40 miles south of Baghdad. This was not the region’s first attack that day. Another bomb had gone off in the nearby city of Karbala just hours earlier, wounding several but yielding no casualties.
Shortly after, the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the bombing on its Amaq website. The Islamic holy month of Ramadan has been littered with terrorist attacks in other Iraqi regions.
Two weeks prior, another set of blasts hit the nation’s capital Baghdad, resulting in 27 deaths and hundreds more injured. ISIS also claimed for one of these incidents, this time a car bomb detonated in the district of Karrada.
Iraqi forces continue to go on the offensive fighting the terrorist group, and believe ISIS will soon be defeated after eight months of conflict. According to Iraqi authorities, the suicide bombings are a response to recent military defeats, and are likely to increase until all the Islamic State’s radical militant groups are exterminated from the country.
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 [email protected]poster="http://v.politico.com/images/1155968404/201708/3051/1155968404_5558239755001_5558202063001-vs.jpg?pubId=1155968404" true Trump says 'heart goes out' to Texans after not meeting Harvey victims
President Donald Trump said Wednesday that his “heart goes out even more so” to the victims of hurricane-ravaged Texas after touring the state, despite not meeting on Tuesday with any victims or addressing them during his multiple public appearances.
“After witnessing first hand the horror & devastation caused by Hurricane Harvey,my heart goes out even more so to the great people of Texas!” the president tweeted Wednesday morning.
Story Continued Below
Trump didn’t directly see much horror or devastation on Tuesday. Avoiding the areas hardest hit as relief efforts were underway — at least in part to avoid distracting from those efforts — the president flew to Corpus Christi, where he was briefed on the response to Harvey, and then Austin, where he toured an emergency operations center and received another briefing before flying back to Washington, D.C.
At the top of a speech on tax reform later Wednesday in Springfield, Missouri, Trump followed up on his tweet by striking an empathetic tone.
“Before we begin, I’d like to take a few moments to discuss the deeply tragic situation in Texas and Louisiana. As we all know, our Gulf Coast was hit over the weekend with a devastating hurricane of historic proportion,” Trump said. “Torrential rains and terrible flooding continue to pose a grave danger to life and to property.”
America is grieving with families who lost loved ones and praying for those impacted by the storm, said Trump, who praised the heroism and courage of life-saving first responders on the ground in Texas.
“They represent truly the very best of America,” the president said. “In difficult times such as these, we see the true character of the American people, their strength, their love and their resolve. … And together, we will endure and we will overcome.”
Playbook PM Sign up for our must-read newsletter on what's driving the afternoon in Washington. Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Trump’s tweet Wednesday morning — and his rhetoric on Wednesday afternoon — appeared to be a delayed response to criticism that his prior comments lacked empathy.
“Empathy for the people who suffered” is what the president was missing, former George W. Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer told Fox News on Tuesday. “That, in my opinion, should have been the first thing he should have said was that his heart goes out to those people in Houston who are going through this and that the government is here to help them recover from this.”
Harvey made landfall in Texas on Friday as a Category 4 storm. It has brought historic amounts of rain to parts of Texas and produced life-threatening flooding. At least 20 people have died, according to reports, and thousands of people have been displaced from their homes.
Trump on Tuesday repeatedly heaped praise on Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and the coordinated response to the storm — which he often described in grand terms — shouted out his Cabinet members, noted that FEMA Administrator Brock Long “has become very famous on television over the last couple of days,” admired a crowd of largely supportive Texans, and went on a brief riff about the name “Harvey.”
“Sounds like such an innocent name, right?” he said. “But it’s not innocent. It’s not innocent.”Michael Rankin was hauled in front of the General Teaching Council and struck off for string of offensive comments.
A foul-mouthed teacher who told one of his pupils "I shagged your maw" has been struck off the register.
Michael Rankin, a former youth coach with Greenock Morton, has been struck off for a string of offensive outbursts at pupils.
He told a pupil at Ardrossan Academy in Ayrshire that he "shagged" his "maw". Rankin also said: "Every time I shag your mum, she makes me a sandwich – that’s why I’m fat."
The technology teacher was proved to have repeatedly used inappropriate language in front of pupils as young as 13 in 2012 and 2013.
He was hauled in front of the General Teaching Council for Scotland and has now been struck off after a hearing.
The panel ruled that Rankin will not be able to apply for re-registration as a teacher due to the "seriousness of the conduct".
The 54-year-old from Skelmorlie, Ayrshire, told one student: "I need my glasses, I can’t see because of too much w****** – is that why you wear glasses?"
While watching a sex scene in the film Bend it like Beckham where a car bounces up and down, Rankin told another pupil: “That’s me and your mum in the back.”
The same student said Rankin also said: "You can give this present of a mirror to your mum but I already gave her a present last night."
Papers filed at the GTC hearing state: "Pupil A explained that the respondent (Rankin) called Pupil G “fatty” quite a lot.
"On one occasion in class, when the pupils were making something to hold a mirror, the Respondent wrote “fatty” on the back of Pupil G’s mirror and said to the class that he’s "fatty", referring to Pupil G.
"Pupil A had heard the respondent say to Pupil F, “is that why you wear glasses, too much w******?” and “shut up, I shagged your maw”. When watching Bend It Like Beckham in class, there was a scene where there were two people in a car, which was rocking up and down.
"The Respondent had said to Pupil F “that’s me and your maw”. Lastly, Pupil A explained that after a school football game against Cumnock, the Respondent said to the Cumnock team players that they were “Cumnock m*****”"
The GTC found Rakin's charges proved after the panel "accepted the evidence of those pupils who spoke of the various sexualised comments specified in paragraph of the complaint.
"The various statements, although referring to different elements of this paragraph, were accepted as establishing a pattern of conduct."
The GTC ruling added: "Once the respondent’s name has been removed from the register, it remains so removed unless and until an application for re-registration is made by the respondent and a Fitness to Teach Panel directs that the application be granted.
"The Panel took account of the presenting officer’s submissions in that, taking all of the facts and circumstances and having regard to the seriousness of the respondent’s conduct, the respondent should be prohibited from making an application for re-registration for the maximum period.
"The Panel agreed with that submission and accordingly directed that the respondent should be prohibited from making an application for re-registration for a period of two years from the date of its decision.
"The panel determined that a shorter time period would be inappropriate due to the serious nature of the language used by the respondent."apologise again for returning to this subject after a week, but I am sure my readers agree that last week's return of the prodigal was a subject that required immediate comment.
Coming back to the judiciary, let me begin by referring to what the Supreme Court had to say about itself on 12 January 2012. It admitted that the people's faith in the judiciary was decreasing at an alarming rate, posing a grave threat to constitutional and democratic governance of the country. It acknowledged some of the serious problems confronting it, such as, a large number of vacancies in trial courts, unwillingness of lawyers to become judges, and failure of the apex judiciary in filling vacant HC judges' posts. The Vision Document of UPA 2, which had promised to appoint 5,000 ad-hoc judges to wipe out a pendency of 2.77 crore cases in the trial courts, came to nought.
Yes, it is indeed a notorious fact that the ratio of judges to population is 1 to 10 million, whereas actually it should be five times larger. The calculations of the National Court Management System (NCMS) set up by the Supreme Court, in its report of 2 May 2012, informs the nation that the number of judges must be increased almost six-fold, from our present sanctioned strength of 16,000 judges, with an additional 80,000. Our courts have arrears of about 15 crore cases, although it is somewhat comforting that 74% of these cases are less than five years old. We must now create a system in which no court can be allowed to have a single case pending for more than five years.
Just by way of example, let me give my readers a sense of how long it took for a high profile murder case to reach conviction stage. The late Railway Minister L.N Mishra's murder took place on 2 January 1975 at Samastipur railway station. This trial concluded only on 8 December 2014, after 39 years. Shocking and unacceptable are the only words I can use to describe it.
Even before the NCMS report, several Law Commission Reports have advised the creation of five times the number of courts which we currently have. This requires considerable expenditure, particularly on infrastructure, both movable and immovable. The required funds must be a preferential charge on our fiscal resources, and it is regrettable that the government (in substance, the ruling politicians) is not willing to invest in additional infrastructure and staff on this absolutely essential measure, even though it has enough resources, including about Rs 90 lakh crore stashed in foreign banks.
Agreed, providing court buildings and infrastructure may take some time, but internal judicial streamlining need not keep waiting for court construction to complete. Until then, some innovative solutions can be put in place. Perhaps one court house can be used for additional sessions during different parts of the day, with different independent staff. This would provide speedier justice to the common man and clear the backlog of cases, which are so embarrassing to our national judicial statistics.
The cutting edge and primary face of our judicial system for the common man is the lowest judge in the judicial hierarchy, both on the civil and criminal side. It is the holders of these offices for whom the highest qualifications and training must be insisted upon. Their salary and perks of office must closely approximate to what is provided for the highest judges, with just a nominal difference. So too, the age of retirement of all classes of judges should be uniform. This, and the equality of perks, will reduce irrational longing for upward mobility and undignified attempts to secure it.
It is also necessary to place greater emphasis on judicial academies in all states of the country, where all levels of judges should be exposed to up to date case law, judicial knowledge and trends, participate in experience sharing, and hear fair criticism so as to positively improve the quality of delivery of justice.
One practical way for the Supreme Court to relieve itself from the enormous pressure of numbers upon it, could be to set up benches outside Delhi — in the north, south, east and west of India, something contemplated in Article 130 of the Constitution. It is difficult to understand a former Chief Justice of India's assertion that this will fracture the integrity of the court. Surely, integrity has nothing to do with geographical location.
The judiciary must also recognise that there are certain cases which must be tried and disposed of much faster than others. For example, the trial of rape cases must receive highest priority in the matter of speedy disposal. Under no circumstances, does this amount to violation of the right to equality. Equal treatment of unequals is the highest form of inequality.
To overcome dislocation in the justice system caused by shortages of judges at all levels, we could also consider the British system of appointing temporary judges to preside in courts. I believe it should be the duty of senior and known practicing lawyers of high repute and acumen to undertake this responsibility periodically, not only to provide swift and proper justice, but also to provide training and skills to junior lawyers.
There is also criticism that cumbersome and lengthy court procedures add to delays in the administration of justice, skewing it in favour of the more powerful party. My considered opinion on this is that it is not legal procedures that cause the delay, but an improper understanding or application of them. Intelligent and enlightened use of procedures can only ensure proper justice to the common man, and prevent unnecessary delay in administering it to her/him.
Now let me turn to the responsibilities and duties of the bar. Lawyers, during the course of their pre-enrolment education and actual practice, must imbibe that their avocation is a profession of public service, and not a business, the dominant object of which is making money. Under no circumstances should they foment avoidable litigation. Settlement of compoundable disputes, which include all civil disputes by negotiations or arbitrations, should be a highly desirable qualification of every practicing lawyer.
Lawyers appearing as public prosecutors in criminal cases and all lawyers appearing for the prosecution in criminal cases must never seek the conviction of any person known to be innocent. Nor should they conceal from the accused facing trial any material or evidence in their possession, which may help to establish innocence of the accused, secure bail or otherwise destroy in whole or in part the prosecution case.
Now, coming to our national scourge, the issue of corruption, the judiciary is certainly not immune to it, but perhaps corruption persists at a lesser scale in the judiciary than in other organs of government. Let me give you some views on this subject from within the judiciary itself.
In June 2011, a universally respected former Chief Justice of India, J.S. Verma, stated that "certain individuals with doubtful integrity were elevated within the higher judiciary". He cited the case of Justice M.M. Punchhi, whose impeachment had been sought by the "Campaign for Judicial Accountability". Justice Verma said he was willing to permit the allegations to be probed, because they were serious, and therefore required to be investigated, so that one could know whether they were true or not. But the political executive refused to allow this, and Justice Punchhi was later elevated to CJI despite facing serious allegations". Justice Verma also talked about another former Chief Justice of India, K.G. Balakrishnan's continuance as chairman, National Human Rights Commission, saying that, "he should have demitted long back and if he doesn't do it voluntarily, the government should persuade him to do that, otherwise, proceed to do whatever can be done to see that he demits office".
In November 2011, speaking at the V.M. Tarkunde Memorial Lecture, a former Supreme Court Justice, Ruma Pal, computed seven sins of the higher judiciary, namely, a) turning a blind eye to the injudicious conduct of a colleague; b) hypocrisy — the complete distortion of the norm of judicial independence; c) secrecy — the fact that no aspect of judicial conduct including the appointment of judges to the High and Supreme Courts is transparent; d) plagiarism and prolixity — meaning that very often SC judges lift whole passages from earlier decisions by their predecessors and do not acknowledge this — and use long-winded, verbose language; e) self arrogance — wherein the higher judiciary has claimed crass superiority and independence to mask their own indiscipline and transgression of norms and procedures; f) professional arrogance — whereby judges do not do their homework and arrive at decisions of grave importance ignoring precedent or judicial principle; and g) nepotism — wherein favours are sought and dispensed by some judges for gratification of varying manner.
Let us also not forget that in 2011, Soumitra Sen, former judge at the Kolkata High Court became the first judge in India to be impeached by the Rajya Sabha for misappropriation of funds.
Ridding the judiciary of corruption can only be achieved if women and men of proven moral calibre in addition to judicial excellence are selected to serve as judges. I have described in detail my views on the appointment of Supreme Court judges in my piece of 8 February 2015 (Curb executive control of judiciary). The Constitution has laid down certain qualifications for the appointment of judges, but they do not appear to be sufficient to find men and women of suitable ability and unimpeachable character. The system of appointment through the collegium is an improvement upon the previous system, where appointments were almost completely political in nature. However, these touch upon only structural and systemic changes. Sadly, we must admit that no law or legislation can create character, and the best of laws and legislations can be manipulated for illegal and immoral purposes. As in the case of any other institutional reform, the first requirement is enlightened, dynamic leadership, judicial will and commitment from within. Reform will automatically follow.Disclosure is a novel by Michael Crichton and published in 1994. The novel is set at a fictional computer hardware manufacturing company in the mid-1990s. The plot concerns protagonist Tom Sanders and his struggle to prove that he was sexually harassed by his female employer.
Summary [ edit ]
Tom Sanders, the head of advanced products manufacturing at DigiCom, expects to be promoted to run the advanced products division after DigiCom's merger with a publishing house. Instead, the promotion is given to his ex-girlfriend, Meredith Johnson, who recently moved to Seattle from the company's headquarters in Cupertino, California.
Later that day, Meredith calls Tom into her office, ostensibly to discuss an advanced CD-ROM drive. She aggressively tries to resume their relationship, despite Tom's repeated attempts to resist. When he spurns her sexual advances, Meredith angrily vows to make him pay.
The next morning, Tom discovers that Meredith has retaliated by falsely accusing him of sexual harassment. DigiCom president Bob Garvin, fearing that the incident could jeopardize the merger, tells the company's general counsel, Phil Blackburn, to propose transferring Tom to the company's Austin facility. However, Tom's division is due to be spun off as a publicly traded company after the merger, and if he's transferred, he will lose stock options which would make him a wealthy man. In addition, Tom's coworkers treat him with animosity, as they have believed Meredith's story.
Seemingly out of options, Tom gets in touch with Seattle attorney Louise Fernandez, who agrees to take the case. Tom threatens to sue Meredith and DigiCom for sexual harassment unless Meredith is fired, throwing the merger and his future with the company in jeopardy. During a mediation, Tom discovers that when he called one of his colleagues, John Levin, about the problems with the drive, John's answering machine recorded the whole incident with Meredith. He and Louise also discover that DigiCom officials have known for some time that Meredith has a history of unwelcome advances toward male coworkers, and yet did nothing to stop it. Confronted with this evidence, DigiCom is forced to agree to a settlement in which Meredith is quietly pushed out and Tom is restored to his former post.
That night, Tom gets an email from "A Friend" warning him that all is not normal yet. Later, he overhears Meredith and Phil planning to make it look like Tom is responsible for defects in the CD-ROM project, thereby giving DigiCom an excuse to fire him for incompetence. Tom is initially unable to access the company database to prove his innocence, since Meredith has revoked his authorization. He circumvents the block through a prototype of the company's virtual reality machine that visualizes data. Tom discovers that Meredith changed the quality control specifications at the Malaysian plant manufacturing the drive. These changes, ostensibly to appease Malaysian government demands and cut costs, resulted in the defects. With the help of one of his Malaysian colleagues, Tom obtains enough evidence to turn the tables on Meredith and Phil, resulting in them getting fired instead. However, the merger does not go through, Tom does not receive his promotion and the novel's epilogue states that both Phil and Meredith eventually found much better jobs elsewhere.
Major themes [ edit ]
The primary theme is sexual harassment. According to Crichton, it is based on a true story of a male protagonist who is being sexually harassed by a female executive, reversing the expected gender roles.[2] The book has been referred to as |
of premium finish. In many HD remasters, converting across pre-rendered standard-definition 4:3 assets into HD 16:9 is a significant challenge. It's probably the weakest element of Bluepoint's PS3 work, but even with the advantage of working with a smaller screen, Sanzaru has really dropped the ball.
"The original God of War assets have made their way across to Vita virtually unscathed, but the core experience disappoints compared to the PS2 games, let alone the PS3 remasters."
God of War Collection compared on PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, and also the PlayStation 2 original (via a full back-compat PS3). Use the full-screen button and 720p resolution for the best viewing experience.
But how do the Vita's in-game visuals stack up to other releases? To match all three, we capture the PS2 version via HDMI using a backwards-compatible PS3, and make sure to select the game's progressive scan and widescreen options. The Vita version, meanwhile, defaults to the PS2's "cropped" widescreen setup - unfortunately cutting the top and bottom of the original 4:3 view and stretching the UI elements to suit a 16:9 aspect ratio. This also proved a criticism of the PS3 remaster, and on Vita we see no improvement. Nevertheless, from this setup we're able to construct a three-way comparison video, and a 46-strong God of War Collection comparison gallery.
Looking past the image quality hit on Vita, the actual in-game assets are practically a match for the PS2 and PS3 releases. It's uncannily close, right down to the opacity of dynamic character shadows, or the texture-mapping detail on bosses while up close. In the PS3's favour is a heavier use of bloom lighting around windows, though this is a minor tweak in all, and the lighting model is otherwise perfectly translated to Vita.
A difference in texture filtering also divides the three, with the sheer absence of it on PS2 causing a distracting visual flicker to distant textures. The Vita clears this up well enough, with smoother brick roads coming at the expense of a blur to flooring past a certain point. Thankfully this is mitigated by the smaller dimensions of the Vita's screen, and is only really noticed when footage is blown up for comparison with PS3.
Here we have the Vita version paired up with PS2 and PS3 - both of which we scale to a matching 960x544. The portable edition tones down the bloom lighting used on PS3, as shown towards the rear of the room. Draw distances are an absolute match for home console versions, where it's genuinely impressive how much translates from Bluepoint Games' HD remaster on PS3. Massive set-pieces hold up on Vita too, and base texture assets go untouched for massive structures and enemies. Aliasing is an issue on Vita, as the game is upscaled from an internal rendering resolution of 720x408. However, much improved texture-filtering helps reduce pixel crawl on distant textures seen on PS2. Alpha effects such as fire and water go unchanged from the PS2 edition. Water shaders are also a match, though underwater sections tax the Vita in the performance stakes. Occasional effects go missing from the Vita version, such as the shower of particles here as Kratos latches onto the golden hand. However, this is an anomaly in the grand scheme of the game. A close-up of Kratos himself. We're in like-for-like territory here, though we do catch odd glitches on Vita like the unresolved texture below his feet. Thankfully this doesn't crop up during play. In action against the Hydra in the first God of War, Sanzaru Games takes no shortcuts when translating animations to Vita during quick-time events.
Taking on the opening Colossus of Rhodes boss in God of War 2, we see how well set-pieces translate to Vita too. Quick-time events are all adeptly handled in-engine, as you'd expect, with every facet of the game's geometry, animation and effects holding up faithfully to the home console releases. It looks the part for a portable edition, though this determination to achieve visual parity is ultimately paid for in performance.
Gone is the 60fps target of the PS2 and PS3 releases, and in its place we have play that shifts between the 20-30fps marks for the game's entirety. It's fully v-synced unlike the PS2 release, but far from operating within the series' usual range - and nowhere close to the 40-60fps range of the original games. Response to each button press is sluggish as a result, especially where there are long overviews of a stage, or the screen becomes crammed with enemies. As such, this counts as the Vita version's greatest weakness, and with dips to 18fps on record it's impossible to see this as the ideal way to play either game.
All of which is a shame, as the actual control setup on Vita is otherwise just a perfect fit. Some token efforts are made to accommodate the Vita's touchscreen controls, with abilities switched by tapping the front panel, and rear-touch used to fill in for the missing R2 and L2 buttons. It's too easy to accidentally trigger a save point this way should fingers just glance the back, but overall it's an effective workaround for opening chests and barging open doors.
"Resolution aside, God of War's in-game visuals mostly hold up again the PS3 remaster, but seemingly at the expense of raw playability."
Overshadowed by a sluggish 20-30fps range of performance, the Vita version of the first God of War truly pales in comparison to PS2 and PS3 editions with their 60fps targets. Check out the link below for analysis of the second game.
Alternative analysis:(CNN) When Apostolos Polyzonis's bank refused to see him last September, the 55-year-old Greek businessman had just 10 euros ($13) in his pocket. Out of work and bankrupt, he thought all he could do with his remaining money was to buy a gas can.
Desperate and angry, Polyzonis stood outside the bank in central Thessaloniki, in northern Greece, doused himself in fuel and surrendered to the flames.
"At that moment, I saw my life as worthless, I really didn't care if I was going to live or die," recalls Polyzonis, who says he was hit by financial troubles after the bank recalled a loan given to him for his business.
"My sense of living was much lower than my sense of self-respect and pride, the fact that I had lost my right to be a free Greek," adds Polyzonis.
Polyzonis, a father of three, was eventually saved by police. He recovered after spending seven days in hospital on life support.
His public protest made headlines and touched a nerve with many Greeks bearing the burden of a worsening debt crisis. One in five Greeks was unemployed last year, according to Eurostat figures. Many more have suffered unprecedented hardship due to increasing pension and salary cuts.
"I don't feel proud about it, no way, but all these situations made me lose my self-respect and feel like I've been deprived of my rights," says Polyzonis, "because being able to pay your taxes is not only an obligation but also a right. People should have the possibility to pay their taxes, to pay their obligations to others, to offer the basic goods to their family so they can feel that they live with self-respect and dignity."
JUST WATCHED Tributes for 'debt suicide' in Greece Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH Tributes for 'debt suicide' in Greece 02:33
Until now, Polyzonis's self-immolation was the most vivid image of a singular public act of protest in a country that's been shaken by anti-austerity violence.
But Greece was jolted even more Wednesday after a 77-year-old man took his own life in the busy Syntagma Square, central Athens, the scene of several violent clashes between anti-austerity protesters and the police in recent months.
Just a few hundred yards away from the Greek Parliament, retired pharmacist Dimitris Christoulas shot himself with a handgun amid the morning rush hour, in what was apparently a protest over the financial crisis gripping the nation.
Minor clashes between police and protesters followed a vigil held Wednesday night to mark his death. Up to 1,000 people gathered for another rally Thursday in Syntagma Square, which was largely peaceful apart from a few scuffles between small groups of protesters, Athens police said.
In his suicide note, Christoulas wrote that the government had made it impossible for him to survive, according to Greek state TV.
Christoulas's death can be added to an increasing number of suicides in Greece, as more people feel hopeless amid the worst economic crisis in the country's recent history: according to the health ministry data, the suicide rate jumped about 40% in the first five months of 2011 compared with a year earlier.
JUST WATCHED Understanding 'debt suicide' in Greece Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH Understanding 'debt suicide' in Greece 02:54
"The further we go into the crisis, the more things get ugly," says Aris Violatzis of Klimaka, a non-governmental organization that runs a suicide helpline in Greece.
The group -- Klimaka translates as "scale" -- says it receives up to 100 calls a day, with three of four callers citing economic problems as their main concern. In 2007, just before Greece fell into recession, the helpline used to take 10 calls a day maximum, explains Violatzis, and only one in four callers mentioned economic issues.
"The social framework in Greece has become pathogenic -- we have a morbid social environment where one of its symptoms is suicide," he adds.
Under its second bailout program, approved last month, Greece has agreed to implement a series of austerity measures and undertake broader reforms to make its economy more competitive.
New taxes, rising unemployment and cuts to pay, pensions and social welfare provisions have brought many ordinary Greeks to their knees.
As Greece remains mired in financial woes -- the country's economy is heading for its fifth year of recession -- many now fear that Christoulas's public act of protest could find more imitators.
"I believe there are going to be more suicides and that's what got the government worrying," says archaeologist Despoina Koutsoumpa, who was among the hundreds who rushed yesterday in Syntagma Square to pay tributes to Christoulas.
"His act was a punch in the stomach for all of us. It made you realize that the overthrowing of these policies requires self-sacrifice, like in Tunisia and in Egypt where hundreds of people died," Koutsoumpa, a regular at the anti-austerity demonstrations in Athens, told CNN.
"In Greece there are also hundreds of people dying because of the crisis, people we don't see -- there are suicides over debts, there are people dying in the streets because they don't have anything to eat," she adds.
"A lot of people here understand that there will have to be even sacrifices of people in order to get rid of the situation."
Seven months after setting himself on fire, Polyzonis says more and more Greeks find themselves close to the desperate condition he was in last September.
"The situation is becoming every day worse," he says. "Every day people lose their jobs, every day people are unable to pay rent for their house, the basics to find something to eat -- the last step before doing what I did or what another human being yesterday did in Greece."After going hands on with title, I couldn’t be more excited. Walking into the studios, where a gameplay reel was playing, I immediately noticed that it looked a lot like Top Spin 4 (which I regard as the best tennis game of all-time). This is for many reasons. Whilst Top Spin 4 wasn’t perfect, it managed to incorporate timing, stamina and movement whilst still being easy to pick up, with the gameplay remaining complex enough for hardcore tennis fans to have the most epic of rallies.
Picking up the controller, I felt right at home. The control scheme will be very familiar for those that have played Top Spin 4. Serving can be controlled with face buttons (flat, top spin or slice) as well as with the right analogue stick for those that want to bite off a little bit more than they can chew. Controls in rallies are also very familiar, with you being able to hit flat, top-spin, slice and lobs, with power being increased by holding and releasing or just tapping to hit a more controlled shot. You can also rush to the net or hit an inside out shot exactly like you could in Top Spin. Stamina also plays a part in long rallies, although this is evidently still being worked on as I didn’t feel that it had much of a part in my character slowing down or balls going wide/long.
New to AO Tennis is a challenge system, which has become a staple of tennis in recent years. It works well as far as I can tell, with some genuinely close calls going either way.
Presentation wise, this is definitely the best-looking game. Nadal and Goffin were two of the players I got to see in action and both looked very similar to their real life counterparts (thanks to photogrammetry tech that Big Ant have become very fond of in the last 12 months). Animations for the most part were also realistic and smooth, with a few shots here and there looking a little bit weird, but I never felt that it impacted timing and movement and hopefully it’s ironed out a little bit more over time. Speaking of players, the final roster doesn’t look like it’s been finalised yet and quite frankly I’m not sure who we’ll see in the final game, but luckily Big Ant’s signature player creator, tournament creator, stadium creator and logo creators will all feature here quite prominently.
All I’ve wanted since the PS4 released is a good tennis game. I wasn’t expecting to have one as early as January 16th, but AO Tennis is shaping up to be very, very good. With another tennis game (Tennis World Tour) also releasing next year and claiming to have developers from the Top Spin team, it’s going to be interesting as I believe that AO Tennis might not have only captured the brilliant Top Spin feel, but potentially have taken it to the next level.The appointment of a Chinese government official to the board of a B.C.-based mining company is raising concerns about sovereignty in the resource sector in some quarters.
But a foreign affairs expert says it's a common practice in other countries and there's no reason to worry.
Teck Resources recently appointed Quan Chong, an international trade expert and sitting member of the National People's Congress of China, to its 14-member board.
Quan Chong has an extensive resumé working in international trade, according to Teck Resources. (Teck Resources)
"When I saw this, it completely jumped out. It is wrong at so many levels," said Dermod Travis with Integrity B.C.
"I think we need to look at how we engage with foreign entities, whether they're governments or companies, in terms of buying our natural resources and ensure we are not also giving up part of our boardroom sovereignty."
Jamie Kneen with Mining Watch says Canada has conflict of interest rules preventing sitting politicians from being appointed to boards like Teck.
"And there's good reason for that, because governments make decisions that have direct effect on their business — favourable or negative," Kneen said.
Common global practice
But the director of UBC's Institute of Asian Research, Yves Tiberghien, says there's no cause for alarm.
"A lot of people are appointed to the [National People's Congress] as an honourary token of respect," he said. "It's not like a Parliament of Canada that actually governs."
Tiberghien says Chong would have been appointed to the NPC to mark his former roles with China's Ministry of Foreign Trade and the Department of Foreign Affairs.
While it's not common practice in Canada, Tiberghien said it's common practice in countries like Japan and France to have retired foreign officials on company boards.
"It's tremendous intelligence, especially for market access," said Tiberghien, adding that China is Teck's main market in Asia.
"Having someone with that kind of knowledge and experience is very useful."
The sentiment was echoed in an email Teck Resources sent to CBC.
"Quan Chong,'s knowledge of China and international trade make him a strong addition to the knowledge base of our board," said the company.
With files from Bob Keating and Maryse ZeidlerSynth players love the Gittler Guitar because of its superb MIDI tracking, which we claim to be the best currently available on the market. Gittler’s patented electronic design benefits from hundreds of hours of research and labor. It is fully compatible with Roland and other popular MIDI units.
The Gittler Guitar already provides a truly unique playing experience but the addition of six individual string outputs and a dedicated synth interface make it a new breed of musical instrument. The palette of tones and the ability to forge new ones is limited only by the players’ imagination.
Plugging into a MIDI unit also activates the fret light marking system. This system provides a soft LED glow that illuminates the player and provides position markers as a road map for dimly lit venues.
If you choose to be even more minimalist or if MIDI is not your style, we also provide an OTB (Outside The Box) device where you simply plug in your D13 cable and run a standard 1/4″ guitar cable to your amplifier. The OTB will power the fret lights and it also has an audiophile-grade headphone amp built right in for those late night practice sessions!
We welcome all players (especially the daring and adventurous) to play the Gittler Guitar and challenge themselves to become leaders of the pack. To learn more about our world-class synth functionality, keep up to date with our blog or contact us!
Synth Guitar Video with Gittler:Manager Arsene Wenger maintains Arsenal will only move in the January transfer window for the right player.
The Gunners are widely expected to strengthen this month, having already started to free-up space in the squad by off-loading Moroccan striker Marouane Chamakh on a six-month loan deal to West Ham and Swiss defender Johan Djourou to Hannover.
While Wenger has been linked with a string of reinforcements from Barcelona forward David Villa, Atletico Madrid frontman Adrian Lopez, Anderlecht's Argentina midfielder Lucas Biglia, Yann M'Vila from Rennes and even former captain Thierry Henry on loan again, the Arsenal manager maintains he will only be tempted should a player of the required quality become available.
Join Independent Minds For exclusive articles, events and an advertising-free read for just £5.99 €6.99 $9.99 a month Get the best of The Independent With an Independent Minds subscription for just £5.99 €6.99 $9.99 a month Get the best of The Independent Without the ads – for just £5.99 €6.99 $9.99 a month
"We are on the market and if we find the right players, we will do something", Wenger told Arsenal Player.
Wenger is said to be keen on Villa, who was a substitute for Barcelona's 4-0 win over Espanyol at the weekend as he continues his reintegration after a spell out with a broken leg.
However, club president Sandro Rosell insists the 31-year-old, signed in a £31million deal from Valencia in 2010, is going nowhere.
Speaking to Catalan radio station RAC1, Rosell said: "I completely rule out the transfer of Villa during the winter market.
"He is ours and we need him, there is a lot of the season left."
Elsewhere, Sao Paulo are confident they can make Denilson's loan move into a permanent transfer, although the departure of Andrey Arshavin appears unlikely as the Russian playmaker will be drafted into first-team contention again as cover for Gervinho, who is away at the African Nations Cup with Ivory Coast.
Wenger is also determined to sign up forward Theo Walcott to a new contract sooner rather than later, with suggestions a deal, reportedly worth close to £100,000-a-week, could even be announced ahead of Sunday's clash with Manchester City.
On the pitch, Arsenal now head into a crucial run of fixtures which may well define their season.
Following a dramatic 2-2 draw at Swansea in the FA Cup, the Gunners face a replay next week just a few days after the Barclays Premier League champions Manchester City come to Emirates Stadium.
Arsenal then travel to Chelsea on January 20, before tackling West Ham in their rearranged Boxing Day fixture which is followed by a possible FA Cup fourth-round tie at Brighton ahead of the visit of Liverpool, with a Champions League last-16 tie against Bayern Munich also on the horizon.
Wenger said: "We have shown character and quality (against Swansea) and those are good ingredients for the coming weeks."
Defender Per Mertesacker, meanwhile, feels the Gunners can meet their busy schedule head on.
He said: "We are in a good way but we have to keep our focus on these games [against Manchester City and Chelsea] and the knockout stages of the Champions League. We have to win those games now," the German centre-back said.
"We are always looking to win something and we can achieve something with this group. We have a lively group so our thoughts are now on the next match, that is the most important thing for us, not what's going to happen in May.
"We have a few targets in our team that are possible this year. We won't talk about it, we'll just see what happens in the next few important weeks on the pitch."
PA
Keep up to date with all the latest news with expert comment and analysis from our award-winning writersThe New York Times reported that the board posted the news in a statement on Tuesday in what appeared to be the first time that a pension fund of a large American church has taken such a step regarding the Israeli banks, which help finance illegal settlement construction in occupied Palestinian territories.
Zionist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahi has described the divestment movement as a campaign to destroy Israel.
The Israeli banks on the United Methodist Church’s list — Bank Hapoalim, Bank Leumi, First International Bank of Israel, Israel Discount Bank and Bank Mizrahi-Tefahot — were among 39 companies from several countries that have been excluded from the pension board’s portfolio for not meeting its Human Rights Investment Policy guideline.
According to another source the Methodist church has about 13 million members worldwide and is the largest mainline Protest group in the US.
“This is the first step toward an effort that helps send a clear message that we as a church are listening and that we are concerned about human rights violations,” Susanne Hoder, a leader of United Methodist Kairos Response, said Tuesday.
“We hope it will also be encouraging to people in the Jewish community who are working for justice.”
The Israeli occupation has been an emotional subject in other American church groups and has led to strains with Israel and pro-Israel groups in cases where church members acted to divest.
In July the United Church of Christ, with about one million members, voted overwhelmingly at its general synod for a resolution calling for divestment from companies that profit from the occupation and a boycott of products from Israeli settlements..
**1312Alibaba CEO Jack Ma. Mike Nudelman/Business Insider BEIJING (Reuters) - Alibaba Group Holding Ltd deepened its push into the automotive business on Friday, saying it had struck a partnership with Shanghai General Motors (GM) to offer online sales and financing for GM cars.
Currently, Shanghai GM's Buick, Cadillac and Chevrolet brands are available for sale on Alibaba's TMall.com website, and the two companies said they would collaborate by using Alibaba's big data analysis to serve ads to prospective car buyers, offer loans and provide after-market services.
Alibaba, the world's biggest e-commerce company, unveiled this week the creation of a new "smart living" division that would link Internet-related services to various kinds of everyday products, from televisions and home appliances to cars.
Almost 50 car brands and 10,000 dealerships have partnered with Alibaba in China, the company said.
Last month, Chinese auto maker SAIC Motor Corp Ltd said it would join forces with the e-commerce company to invest 1 billion yuan ($161 million) in a fund to develop Internet-connected cars.
(Reporting by Gerry Shih; Editing by Mark Potter)They are iconic symbols of Cuba like cigars and rum: pre-revolution 1950s American classic cars.
Modern cars may quickly follow in our streets, but there will still be a niche market for classic cars
But the Cadillacs, Chevrolets and Oldsmobiles are not nostalgic collectors’ items on the island; they are necessities for Cubans who have no modern alternatives – and breakdowns are frequent.
Maintenance can be a nightmare for workshops such as “Nostalgicar” in Havana; spare parts have to be smuggled out of the US and are increasingly hard to find.
The thaw in American-Cuban relations has focused thoughts on the future, should trade barriers come down.
“What could happen in Cuba in my opinion is that modern cars will quickly follow in our streets, but there will still be a niche market for classic cars,” said Nostalgicar’s manager Julio Alvares.
Cuba of course faces questions that go beyond
the fate of the old vehicles, whose elegance has been noted by many an awestruck visitor, but which have been described as “a legacy of the country’s isolation”.
Asked whether he is optimistic for the future, Alvares paused lengthily and answered cautiously: “I do believe in the changes that are taking place in Cuba.”
The garage owner also said he hoped Cuba would become a land of real opportunities with a functioning market economy.
As for the cars, despite their glossy external appearance, some commentators warn that after years of Heath Robinson repairs involving little more than paint and sticking plaster, many are more fit for the scrap-heap than the auction house.
Euronews’ correspondent in Havana Stefan Grobe said:
“The old Eisenhower cruisers are a colourful reminder of Cuba being stuck in the past. Fascinating for tourists, but a hassle for Cubans. Many here would love to see them disappear if Cuba were to embrace the 21st century.”Florida Abolitionists Petition to Outlaw Abortion as 1st-Degree Murder Contact: Bonnie Coffey, Abolish Abortion Florida, 813-300-7570
TAMPA, Fla., Sept. 25, 2016 /Christian Newswire/ -- The political committee Abolish Abortion Florida (AAFL) has launched a ballot initiative to amend the state's constitution to punish abortion as capital murder. Under the proposed amendment, anyone who performs or procures an abortion would be charged with first degree, pre-meditated murder. "Abortion" would include any abortifacient drug or device that can kill an embryo by preventing implantation, as well as the intentional destruction of unwanted IVF embryos. The amendment would define life as beginning at fertilization rather than "conception," and declares that "abortion deprives an innocent human being of the inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
According to AAFL, the idea is not only to collect enough signatures to get the measure onto the 2018 ballot, but also to encourage legislators to begin putting forward legislation to abolish abortion instead of merely regulating it. Per AAFL: "The Supreme Court cannot make murder legal. Pro-life politicians have passed incremental regulations for decades, but it's time to abolish abortion by recognizing it for what it is – cold-blooded murder – and prosecuting it accordingly."
The complete petition language can be seen at www.abolishabortionfl.com.
Share TweetNext year will see the release of Pokémon Go, a new mobile game bringing the famed RPG series not just to mobile devices but to the real world. The game will use location data to populate the entire planet, from Bognor Regis to the Panama Canal, with Nintendo's Pocket Monsters.
It is being developed by Niantic, developers of location-based game Ingress, whose CEO John Hanke spoke to Venture Beat about the challenges of development, their partnership with Nintendo, and how items and Pokémon will be distributed in-game.
"Our goal is to make it so you can walk out of the house and within five minutes, you can find Pokémon. It may not be the most rare Pokémon in the world, but there'll be a population of Pokémon living near all our players," said Hanke.
"Pokémon will live in different parts of the world depending on what type of Pokémon they are. Water Pokémon will live near the water. It may be that certain Pokémon will only exist in certain parts of the world. Very rare Pokémon may exist in very few places. But you can trade."
This raises a few questions - for example, will rare Pokémon in an individual's immediate vicinity appear as they play the game more or will players be stuck living in the middle of a Rattata nest unless they decide to venture out to find more Pokémon?
Trading, as Hanke explains, will be key. "If you live in a place with lots of water Pokémon and you come to an event — we have these Ingress events that are getting bigger and bigger. We'll have our biggest weekend ever on Saturday. We'll have events for Pokémon as well. Those are competitive, but they can also be places to trade stuff with other players.
"Pokémon trading is going to be huge. You can't get all of them by yourself. If you want all of them you'll have to trade with other players. Or you have to be someone who takes time off work and travels the world for a year. There may be people who do that."
Another issue is how you cover an entire planet in Pokémon but ensure anyone, anywhere, has a good experience worthy of the Pokémon name.
"We've learned a lot on those fronts with Ingress," says Hanke. "Even if you're in a small town — I grew up in a town of 1,000 people in Texas. We had that as a design goal. If we're going to build a game that works with location, it has to be fun for people anywhere to play, in small towns as well as San Francisco. If we designed something that only worked in San Francisco, it wouldn't be a real success. We wanted it to work globally.
"You do things like enabling asynchronous play. If someone passes through that town on a trip to somewhere else, they interact with the locations there. That makes the place feel alive, even if you didn't match with them head-to-head."
Pokémon Go was announced in September with the trailer above, which immediately garnered a lot of attention and got people very excited. The game will be released on iOS and Android in 2016, to coincide with the series' 20th anniversary.
For all the latest video game news follow us on Twitter @IBTGamesUK.Chattahoochee Plantation is an area of east-southeastern Cobb County, Georgia, United States which was incorporated as a city in 1961 as a legislated boundary to prevent the city of Atlanta from annexing into Cobb County. Despite this, it never organized a city government, and its city charter was revoked along with dozens of others in 1995. The "city" was only ten feet wide and approximately seven miles long.
In 1989, an attempt was made by residents of the large city of Sandy Springs, just across the Chattahoochee River in Fulton County, to have their area annexed by Chattahoochee Plantation. This, like other attempts to gain city status, was defeated. Tom Murphy, who was speaker of the house in the Georgia General Assembly at the time, blocked the measure. In December 2005, Sandy Springs residents finally won this battle and the city was incorporated, making it one of the largest cities in Georgia.
Chattahoochee Plantation is centered at 33°56'30"N, 84°24'48"W (33.9417, -84.4133), according to the USGS GNIS. The main road through the area is Johnson Ferry Road, with Paper Mill Road and Columns Drive also being significant.
References [ edit ]
Coordinates:October 1, 2014 Stanford's Martin L. Perl, winner of 1995 Nobel Prize for discovery of tau lepton, dead at 87 Physicist Martin Perl was part of SLAC and Stanford communities for half a century. "He was so excited to come to the lab," his son said. "It was the one place in the whole world to be, to do what he wanted to do." By Glennda Chui An elementary particle physicist, Perl was widely admired for his persistence and fortitude as a scientist. He won the Nobel Prize in physics in 1995. (Photo: Linda A. Cicero / Stanford News Service) Martin L. Perl, a professor emeritus of physics at Stanford University and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory who won the 1995 Nobel Prize in physics for discovery of the tau lepton, died Sept. 30 at Stanford Hospital in Palo Alto at the age of 87. An elementary particle physicist, Perl was widely admired for his persistence and fortitude as a scientist. When he began the series of experiments that would lead to the Nobel Prize, the Standard Model that describes the fundamental particles and forces of nature seemed to be complete, with matter divided into two classes: quarks and leptons. For many years Perl maintained there was no good reason for there to be two families of leptons, rather than three or even four; and when the SLAC linear accelerator turned on in the early 1960s, he immediately attempted to find a third family. It failed, but he did not give up. In a new series of experiments from 1974 to 1977 with a machine that could detect much shorter-lived particles, he and his colleagues finally discovered the first member of the third lepton family – the tau lepton, with 3,500 times the mass of its cousin the electron – in collisions between electrons and positrons, their antimatter opposites. "People wanted me to be cautious," Perl recalled in a 2013 interview. "We kept taking data and the evidence kept coming in. Every month or so we would get another handful – 10 to 20 – of these funny [particle collision] events. I gave a lot of talks. There would be all sorts of objections. I would take it all down. Some I had direct answers for, and if not, I went back and looked. We eventually eliminated every other explanation. Eventually most of the collaboration, about 30 people, became convinced there was no other explanation. And we published. Eventually other people began to find them, too." Said SLAC Director Emeritus and Nobelist Burton Richter, "Martin had strong views on what were the important questions in physics that experiments could answer. He picked great areas for research, as exemplified by his Nobel Prize." SLAC Director Chi-Chang Kao said, "Martin was a member of the SLAC and Stanford communities for 50 years, and his research greatly advanced the field of particle physics. On the personal side, Martin was a wonderful colleague, and it was a privilege to know him. His love for scientific discovery never diminished, and neither did his affection for SLAC and all who work here. One would frequently find Martin in the SLAC cafeteria at lunchtime, inviting staff to sit and talk with him. His enthusiasm was as infectious as his smile." Born in 1927 in New York City, the son of immigrants who fled poverty and anti-Semitism in the Polish area of Russia, Perl was an avid reader who excelled at his studies and graduated high school at the age of 16. His college studies were interrupted by Merchant Marine and military service during World War II, but he returned to earn a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn in 1948. He worked as a chemical engineer at General Electric and, with the encouragement of his wife, Teri, went back to school at 23 to study physics, earning a PhD from Columbia University under physics Nobelist I.I. Rabi. He served on the faculty of the University of Michigan before coming to what was then the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center in 1963, as the lab's iconic 2-mile-long linear accelerator was being constructed. His son Joseph Perl of Oakland, who is also a researcher at SLAC, recalls that when he was in middle school his father would bring home stacks of accordion-folded computer printouts and pay him and his siblings to carefully tear them apart along the perforations. If a sheet said "e mu," for electron and muon, they were to place it in a special stack; these were the signatures of the tau lepton. Son Jed Perl of New York City said his father was a serious collector of Erector sets, Lincoln Logs and other 19th- and 20th-century construction toys, adding, "He enjoyed flea markets, both in England and the U.S., where he bought all sorts of old-fashioned mechanical, scientific and pseudo-scientific devices, ranging from magic lanterns to quack medicine bottles to phrenological heads." Long after he formally retired, Perl continued to come into work at SLAC until his health no longer permitted it, most recently to collaborate on a NASA-funded project to investigate the nature of dark energy. "He was so excited to come to the lab," Joseph Perl said. "It was the one place in the whole world to be, to do what he wanted to do. One of the topics that interested him was creativity in science; he always advocated that you should look at what the crowd is doing and go in a different direction." In addition to the Nobel Prize, Perl was awarded the Wolf Prize in physics in 1982. He published more than 200 scientific papers and was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the American Physical Society. In addition to sons Joseph and Jed, Perl is survived by son Matthew Perl of San Diego; daughter Anne Bernard of Palo Alto; his former wife and close friend, Teri Perl of Palo Alto; eight grandchildren and one great-grandchild. -30-Alberto Contador will be one of the biggest names on the transfer market this winter and Lampre-Merida have already put themselves forward as a potential new home for the Spaniard next season. Related Articles Contador open to riding for two more years
Over 100 riders on the market as Sagan, Contador and manufacturers dictate
Contador rethinking retirement after fourth Pais Vasco victory
Tour de France: Ranking the contenders from Contador to Quintana
Contador compares early run of form to 2014 season
Contador backs lifetime ban for mechanical doping
Lampre-Merida team manager Giuseppe Saronni told Gazzetta dello Sport that he had made Contador with a view to signing him for next season.
“We’ve already had some contact with Alberto Contador. Who wouldn’t be interested in such a rider?” Saronni told the Italian daily. “It won’t be easy but we can at |
out the beta times along with the translated scan below.
US Pacific Time
Early Access: January 13, 12am
Beta Opens: January 14, 12am
Beta Closes: January 16, 12am
US Eastern Time
Early Access: January 13, 3am
Beta Opens: January 14, 3am
Beta Closes: January 16, 3am
UK Time
Early Access: January 13, 8am
Beta Opens: January 14, 8am
Beta Closes: January 16, 8am
Australian (AEDT) Time
Early Access: January 13, 7pm
Beta Opens: January 14, 7pm
Beta Closes: January 16, 7pmThe Washington Post has published a piece questioning whether costumes worn by dogs at Halloween are sexist because they perpetuate gender stereotypes.
In an article entitled “Is your dog’s Halloween costume sexist?” the Post’s business reporter Abha Bhattarai claims that the “glass ceiling appears to be firmly in place at PetSmart,” a pet store with a range of costumes for dogs.
Bhattarai bemoans that “career costumes labeled ‘male’ include firefighter and police officer, while female dogs can choose between a pink cowgirl costume and pink loofah.”
She goes on to complain that on BaxterBoo.com, an online pet store, options for female dogs include a “sweet heart nurse or French maid,” whilst the choices for male dogs include “firemen, mob boss and doctor.”
The article quotes Scott Lawrie, who hosts a podcast on “gender issues,” arguing that “it seems silly on the surface, but this is part of a larger message we’re sending, that there are certain jobs for men, and certain jobs for women.”
Bhattarai adds that because of the perceived sexism, “national retailers have begun taking steps to eliminate gender labels from their products,” with stores such as Wal-Mart, Toys-R-Us, and Amazon taking steps to ensure their products are no longer perceived as sexist.
You can follow Ben Kew on Facebook, on Twitter at @ben_kew, or email him at ben@yiannopoulos.netCrédit Agricole S.A. is the leading customer-focused banking group in France and the second largest in Europe. This article is a responsive web design case study that documents the thought process, implementation and results obtained when Crédit Agricole S.A re-designed their website from a fixed width to one which is responsive. To undergo this transition, the bank engaged Symetria – a Polish agency which provides comprehensive e-business and user experience services. The agency has developed two websites for Crédit Agricole – “Discount Club” and “Join Crédit Agricole.” In both cases Responsive Web Design was applied and assured optimization for all screen sizes.
The Challenge
“Discount Club” is a page presenting partners of Crédit Agricole and features discounts which are provided by them to the bank customers. On the other hand, “Join Crédit Agricole” is aimed at new customers, and its main purpose is to encourage visitors to open an account in the bank. Although the users’ needs in both cases are different, in each case the agency’s task was to provide solutions maximizing both websites’ usability. In accordance with the current trends, it was found that Crédit Agricole website is more often visited by people using mobile devices. Therefore, Symetria challenge included development of the websites that will provide an optimal viewing experience.
Selection of the mobile strategy presence
Symetria experts involved in the project unanimously recommended Responsive Web Design approach, which enables to create solutions for all sizes of screens (including even those appliances, which are not available on the market yet).
“Nowadays, responsive websites are more often standard solution, rather than just a curiosity. When we create projects such as Crédit Agricole, our goal is always to provide great experiences for all users, regardless of the size of the screen they use” says Andrzej Pyra, UX specialist in Symetria.
Consistency of marketing communication, the better effectiveness of the website in search engines (responsive website is available on all platforms under a single URL) and cost optimization (single solution instead of several independent) were also important arguments to choose a responsive web design approach.
Project Implementation
Due to the fact that mobile context forces to focus more on the key features and content, the process of creating “Discount Club” and “Join Crédit Agricole” websites was started from the smallest screens. Compliance with the “mobile first” rule enable to plan a clear structure and provide effective solutions, focused on the primary objectives of particular pages.
New responsive designs enable working efficiently on touch screens and provide quick change the screen orientation.
Another important element of the design process of responsive websites was to plan which items would be available on larger screens (e. g. expanded graphics) and how the structure of the layout components would change.
On these screens we are able to see: changes of the main menu display, change of the “switch account” button location and presentation, scalability of the graphics and the main message, different presentation of the process of transferring the account.
Conclusion Of This Responsive Web Design Case Study
Improvement of adopting a responsive web design approach was reflected in the statistics. Looking at the data on the “Discount Club” website for the period 24-28 August 2012 (before the change) and December 14-18 2012 (after changes) we can see a significant increase in website performance indicators:
200% increase in traffic from mobile devices
increase in traffic from mobile devices 10.5% of all views now come from mobile devices
of all views now come from mobile devices 664.25% increase in the number of page views
increase in the number of page views 216.73% increase in the number of visits
increase in the number of visits 161.45% increase in average duration of visits
increase in average duration of visits 57.94% decrease in the bounce rate
The latter refers to the situation when a user finishes the visit immediately after entering the site. Almost 60 percent decrease in bounce rate indicates an increase of the interest in content on the website, as well as interest in the Crédit Agricole brand.
The advantage of the websites is their availability for all clients of Crédit Agricole, regardless of the device they use. Pages automatically react to the size of the screen on which they are displayed, and thus allow users to freely explore their content.Facebook 10 Pinterest 0 Reddit 21 Twitter
The political Super Tuesday is still months away, but in the St. Louis craft beer world that day is arriving on December 15th. Fans of South City’s The Civil Life Brewing Company will be celebrating two big events, recently announced on the brewery’s Facebook page.
First is the return of former tri-founder Mike Bianco. Bianco, along with Dylan Mosley and Jake Hafner founded The Civil Life after Hafner sold his popular “33” wine bar in Lafayette Square.
“Dylan, Mike and I were working one night at when it struck me, a revelation of sorts,” wrote Hafner on The Civil Life’s website. “We should open a brewery. Within three hours, I purchased on my credit card a pro-consumer SABCO brewing system which allowed us to take Dylan’s home brews up a few more notches. Mike and Dylan began brewing immediately with the intention of opening the brewery. The following year, Dylan headed off to brewing school at Siebel Institute in Chicago. Mike continued brewing.”
But after two years, Bianco moved to Florida to be closer to family. But Bianco’s exodus has ended and he is returning from Florida to again resume work at The Civil Life. “We are having a massive party in his honor on Tuesday, Dec. 15th, his first official day back to work! Come on down and order drinks from him, he’s been gone for two years,” TCL posted on Facebook.
And the party will also mark The Civil Life’s first ever holiday beer. The Burton On Holt (Burton Ale) will be released on Tuesday as well. “We will be pouring a Firkin of the Burton Ale dry-hopped with EKG and Fuggle hops,” they posted. “This is a beer we have wanted to make for several years here and it would be fair to say, you will not be disappointed. The party begins at 5:30 after Bianco clocks in for his first day back at work.One of our reliable Apple (AAPL) sources has let us know Apple has begun testing iOS 6.0.1 with different carrier partners in the U.S. and we have a general list of what the first iOS 6 update will entail. iOS 6.0.1 should fix the horizontal lines bug on the screen when the keyboard or app folder is open, and it will also fix a problem with the camera’s flash not going off.
In addition, the new software will improve Wi-Fi support, fix cellular data not working in some cases, add a consolidated cellular data switch for iTunes Match, fix a bug that allowed access to Passbook pass details from the lock screen, and also finally fix the bug that caused Exchange meetings to be unexpectedly cancelled for the entire calendar invite group.
In addition to iOS 6.0.1 news, we have also learned that Apple is only now just starting testing on iOS 6.1. This makes it extremely unlikely iOS 6.1 will ship with the new iPad mini by November 2nd unless there is a separate build just for the new iPad, and iOS 6.1 for all other devices will launch at a later time.Thug blew off his own head with pistol BelfastTelegraph.co.uk A notorious criminal gang leader in the Republic of Ireland told onlookers that his Glock pistol wasn't loaded seconds before he put the gun to his head, pulled the trigger and killed himself. https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/thug-blew-off-his-own-head-with-pistol-28535163.html
Email
A notorious criminal gang leader in the Republic of Ireland told onlookers that his Glock pistol wasn't loaded seconds before he put the gun to his head, pulled the trigger and killed himself.
Philip Collopy (29) fatally shot himself in front of a number of teenagers, including a youth who was on temporary release from a juvenile detention centre, an inquest was told yesterday.
The hearing at Limerick Coroner's Court was also told that moments before Collopy pointed the gun at his head, the well-known criminal said: "There is nothing in it, watch."
Seconds later a bullet passed through his head and lodged itself in the ceiling of the home of Mary Kelly-O'Donoghue at St Munchin's Street, St Mary's Park, Limerick, on March 21, 2009.
Officers arrived to the scene at around 2.15am. Gda Vincent Donnellan told Dr Anthony Casey that the main pool of blood was in the middle of the sitting-room floor along with an empty shell.
The bullet left an entry wound to the right side of Collopy's head and an exit wound to the left side before passing through the ceiling and lodging in the floorboards of an upstairs bedroom. A fragment of bone was also found in the ceiling. One teenage girl who was in the house said Collopy came out of the bathroom wearing a holster with the handgun.
She said when the gun went off, he fell to the floor and a male picked up the gun and ran out the backdoor. A 15-year-old youth was also in the room when Collopy shot himself. The teen said a gun and a clip fell from Collopy's hand. He said he got such a fright, he ran out of the house. Ms Kelly-O'Donoghue said some of her children were upstairs in bed when Collopy killed himself. She said the dead man had a two-litre bottle of cider with him on the night.
Ms Kelly-O'Donoghue said a number of people were in her home including one man known as "Gangster, who had just come out of jail".
"I remember Philip going to the toilet. He came back and he had a gun in his hand," she said.
"I said be careful with that. He said: 'There is nothing in it.' He put up to his head. There was a lot of blood. There was pure panic in the house."
Sgt Arthur Ryan was on patrol in the area at the time and said someone ran out the house shouting: "Get an ambulance, he is shot in the head."
As his fellow officers secured the home, Sgt Ryan said he could see a person bleeding heavily. The inquest was told that a witness had told Sgt Ryan that a man with a balaclava entered the back of the house and shot Collopy in the back of the head. The statement was retracted four hours later. A Glock pistol and a magazine were later recovered.
When asked by Collopy's father, Jack Collopy, why the bullet embedded itself in the ceiling, assistant state pathologist Dr Margaret Bolster replied that his head must have been tilted.
The jury returned a verdict in accordance with medical evidence.
Source Irish Independent
Belfast TelegraphWe won’t have full details until a bit later today (noon PST/8PM UK), but here’s the headline: BioWare’s 2002 RPG Neverwinter Nights is next to receive Beamdog‘s Enhanced Edition treatment. What do we want to see from a tweaked and modernised take on BioWare’s first foray into 3D RPGs, and whose revered modding tools launched a legion of player-made adventure modules?
NWN Enhanced follows on from this year’s Planescape: Torment Enhanced Edition, which follows shinied-up, modern OS-friendly versions of Baldur’s Gate, Baldur’s Gate II and Icewind Dale. We can likely expect some graphical improvements and improved support for 2017 PCs, but what else could be in the mix? I’d like to see a slicker interface and an even more approachable editor, and better character models would be nice, but the thing with NWN is that it’s nothing like the pain in the cheeks to get working and looking acceptable that the 2D Infinity engine games were. So I’m looking forwards to seeing what ways they have found to tart it up.
As revealed by Beamdog earlier today, we’ll be able to see that in a Twitch livestream at noon PST, and all being well we’ll also be running a full reveal on the site around about that then too.USA Today
It was another fascinating NFL regular season. It was also beautiful, ugly and awe-inspiring. It was record-breaking, it was breaking bad, and it again proved professional football is the best reality show ever.
There was a bullying scandal, Peyton Manning shattering offensive records and the Chiefs shattering expectations. Robert Griffin III looked mortal, the Lions were the Lions and the 49ers were the 49ers. Some Super Bowl favorites, like the Broncos, remain so. Others, like the Falcons, were disappointing.
The Browns took their usual place among the dregs of the sport, while teams like the Panthers took an organizational step forward.
Tony Romo gone, Aaron Rodgers back and Jay Cutler still a knucklehead.
And as may forever be the case, the Lions still can't be trusted.
This is the NFL, and all of these things, plus dozens more, are why it's America's sport.
Were you not entertained?
These are your grades for the entire regular season.
Mike Freeman covers the NFL for Bleacher Report.
Loremum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Curabitur porta semper nisi sed placerat. Nam sed augue blandit, posuere orci id, ultrices ante. Etiam nibh lorem, placerat ut scelerisque eu, ullamcorper at lectus. Aliquam in felis at erat vehicula dictum. Ut pulvinar hendrerit vulputate. Curabitur non accumsan felis, at cursus.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Curabitur porta semper nisi sed placerat. Nam sed augue blandit, posuere orci id, ultrices ante. Etiam nibh lorem, placerat ut scelerisque eu, ullamcorper at lectus. Aliquam in felis at erat vehicula dictum. Ut pulvinar hendrerit vulputate. Curabitur non accumsan felis, at cursus.When Vikings Relax DLC Announced For When Vikings Attack
Posted by Chris K on January 29th, 2013 | 1 Comment | Tags: When Vikings Attack
It looks like When Vikings Attack will be seeing some DLC released for the game in Asia this week. The news comes from the Hong Kong PlayStation Blog, where 2 pieces of content have been listed for the game.
First is a set of costumes that add hats to your characters making them looks like the Sony mascots, Toro and Kuro. The bigger piece of DLC is “When Vikings Relax”.
In “When Vikings Relax!”, the Scandinavian scoundrels are back with 10 new multiplayer Vs Battle Mode arenas, along with a new Infinite Survival Mode. Get set for more bonkers battles with a bunch of destructive Vikings! Those Vikings are making such a din that no one has a chance of enjoying a decent catnap.
There also seem to be a host of new outfits to unlock and trophies to earn. The content will support Cross-Buy, so if you get the DLC for Vita it will be there in your PS3 version too.
We don’t have a release date for the US or EU versions, but we will keep you informed when we hear.With the launch fast approaching, Blizzard Insider sat down with Lead Encounter Designers Scott Mercer and Ion Hazzikostas to get an inside look at the expansion’s newest raid instance -- Mogu’shan Vaults -- and the ancient secrets and epic encounters that await players inside.
Before we dive into the details, can you give us a quick overview of the lore behind the Mogu’shan Vaults? How does the raid fit into larger story of Mists of Pandaria?
Scott Mercer:
The mogu are an ancient race of evil, ogre-like sorcerers who once dominated Pandaria. At some point in the distant past, all of the warring mogu factions were united by a single tyrannical warlord known as the Thunder King. The Thunder King rose to power the “the mogu way,” namely by eliminating his rivals one by one. According to legend he was able to accomplish this with the help of a mysterious artifact that he found in the depths of a mountain. After his rise to power, he built the Mogu’shan Vaults to contain and protect this secret, and converted the surrounding structure into a sort of shrine dedicated to the mogu empire. The complex houses many of the empire’s lost artifacts and is the resting place of the spirits of old mogu kings.
Ion Hazzikostas:
At the time Mists of Pandaria begins, the Thunder King is long gone and the mogu empire has crumbled into isolated factions. As great and powerful secrets are wont to do, the Vaults have attracted a number of interested parties, including Zandalari trolls who are trying to enter the Vaults to get at the ancient source of mogu power, which is the key to their tribe’s survival. When the players arrive, they join forces with a pandaren Loremaster who knows of a way into the Vaults. The Loremasters are a new faction dedicated to learning and retelling the oral history of Pandaria, so the Vaults are naturally a place of tremendous interest to them.
What’s in store inside the Vaults from the gameplay side?
Scott Mercer:
We’re building an epic new raid that includes 10- and 25-player versions with both normal and Heroic modes, as well as another 25-player version available exclusively via the Raid Finder. The Vaults contain six encounters with a wide variety of mechanics.
What kinds of encounters are planned for the Mogu’shan Vaults?
Ion Hazzikostas:
The players’ characters are the first living beings to set foot inside the Mogu’shan Vaults in a few millennia,and the experience plays out as a classic “tomb raid” adventure, with mystical defenders and guardians emerging to protect the place’s secrets. In fact, the first boss encounter involves a pack of giant quilin -- magical, lion-like stone constructs -- that have stood motionless since the Vaults were sealed but awaken as fierce defenders once the players intrude upon their lair. The four quilin statues have different abilities based on the type of stone from which they were carved, and players will have to experiment to uncover their weaknesses. As players venture deeper into the Vaults, they’ll encounter other protectors, including a celestial dragon and the spirits of the mogu kings from ages past.
Scott Mercer:
It’s important to note, too, that the Thunder King doesn’t make a direct appearance in the Vaults, though his presence is certainly felt. His original source of power lies hidden deep within the Vaults, and the mogu have learned to use that power to create most of the guardians that the players fight in the Vaults. Observant players may even notice a certain “titanic” influence in lair’s defenses.
What details can you share about the final boss encounter?
Ion Hazzikostas:
The core chamber of the Vaults contains an army of terracotta warriors that are built into recesses within the walls. If players look up, they’ll see these statue-filled niches stretching above them into the distance. When the players enter, the statues begin animating and attacking in huge waves, and the fight quickly turns into a free-for-all. There will be certain heavy-hitting statues that require tanking, and many of the other statues have special abilities to keep the non-tanks busy. It’s going to be a crazy fight that requires lots of crowd control.
Scott Mercer:
The encounter as a whole is known as the “Will of the Emperor,” and it represents the Vault’s last line of defense between the players and whatever mysterious power source originally allowed the Thunder King to rise to power. By the time players complete the raid, they should have a clear understanding of how the mogu were able to dominate Pandaria for so long.
What design challenges have you encountered during the development of the raid so far?
Ion Hazzikostas:
In past raids, we’ve worked with a lot of the established races from Warcraft lore. For example, when we sit down to design a troll dungeon, we have a pretty clear idea of what that’s going to look like and what kinds of creatures the players are going to find there -- you know, besides just trolls. Pandaria offered us a blank slate of sorts, as the continent has been alluded to in Warcraft lore, but we’ve never really fleshed out the details until now.
Scott Mercer:
This meant we’ve spent a lot of time and energy on building out what we call the “kit” for each of the expansion’s new races. A kit includes all kinds of things, from the armor and weapons used by the race to the architecture and environmental themes that go with the race. Part of the “kit” includes what kinds of monsters are found together; for example, the mogu are fond of using quilin statues as guardians, so those two monster types are often seen together. Our primary goal was to make sure the mogu felt visually and thematically distinct from the other Warcraft races, while still making sure they fit into the larger world of Azeroth. Establishing the kit for the mogu, and indeed all of Pandaria’s races, has been a fun challenge.
Let’s talk loot! What rewards await players who are strong enough to take on the raid?
Ion Hazzikostas:
The raid rewards players with powerful epic items, depending on the difficulty setting: item level 476 for Raid Finder, 489 for normal mode, and 502 for Heroic. There’s also a new mount that can be obtained by defeating Elegon, a celestial dragon found deep within the Vaults. The mount looks a bit like the Celestial Steed, but in the form of a serpentine dragon.
How does Mogu’shan Vaults fit into the larger raiding plan for Mists of Pandaria?
Scott Mercer:
There will be two outdoor world bosses, along with the Mogu’shan Vaults raid instance, available when Mists of Pandaria first launches. One idea we’re considering is to delay opening Mogu’shan Vaults until a week or so after the expansion’s release, similar to how we’ve always handled the start of the PvP season, just to give players a little time to reach level 90 along with their friends and get acclimated to Pandaria’s new 5-player dungeons, daily quests, and scenarios. In any case, Mogu’shan Vaults is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the raid content we have lined up for Mists.
Ion Hazzikostas:
Mists of Pandaria will also include two other raid zones, which we plan to make available a few weeks after Mogu’shan Vaults: the Heart of the Fear and Terrace of Endless Spring. These two raids feature 10 bosses between the two of them and play out as a two-part story. In the first raid, the Heart of Fear, the players fight the mantid empress who has been possessed by the Sha of Fear. Sha, for those who don’t know, plague Pandaria as physical manifestations of negative emotions, like fear, doubt, and anger, and they tend to have a corrupting influence wherever they take root. When the players defeat the possessed empress, the Sha flees her body and hides elsewhere. In the Terrace of Endless Spring, the next raid instance, the players track down the fleeing Sha and finish it off. Both of these instances are a higher tier than the Mogu’shan Vaults and are designed to be tackled using gear obtained in the Vaults, which is why we plan to make them accessible a few weeks after the Vaults unlock.
Scott Mercer:
Yup, and all of this is just the raid content coming before our first major content update. We’ll be announcing even more raiding details in future when we start discussing patch 5.1.
Thanks for your time.Is there anything else you’d like to share before you go?
Ion Hazzikostas:
I just wanted to say thanks to all of our beta testers. We’re very proud of our dungeon and raid content so far, and we’re looking forward to getting it all out there when Mists of Pandaria launches.
Scott Mercer:
Yeah, we have big plans for Pandaria’s encounters, and it’s great to see it all starting to come together. Keep the feedback coming!
Learn More About Mists of PandariaPigeonholed into one-dimensional roles as a Hollywood sex object, actress Hedy Lamarr may initially come off as a squandered talent. When you hear about her never-used contribution to military technology, that becomes a sure thing.
Born Hedwig Kiesler into a Jewish family in Vienna, Lamarr not only escaped the Nazis to win silver screen stardom — she also developed a system to protect Allied torpedoes from German U-boat fire during World War II.
“Spread spectrum” technology would become the forerunner of that used in today’s Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS systems — but the Navy never used her patent, and after it expired, her achievements were forgotten.
Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories Free Sign Up
Now, audiences can learn about this contribution and more through a new film, “Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story,” which after a successful festival run will make its nationwide debut in theaters on November 24 at the IFC Center in New York. There will also be an additional screening on December 8 at the Nuart Theatre in Los Angeles.
“If it does well, it will have a wider release,” said director and co-producer Alexandra Dean. “It will reach critical mass — that’s our great hope. It seems to resonate.”
The executive producer is Academy Award-winning actress Susan Sarandon. But “Bombshell” is also a family endeavor — Dean’s co-producer is her brother Adam Haggiag, and they come from a filmmaking family with roots in mid-20th century Italian cinema.
The film was aided by the rediscovery of tapes from a 1990 interview with Lamarr by journalist Fleming Meeks.
Lamarr, who died in 2000, was in her mid-70s when she spoke with Meeks for an article about her invention. “I could never part with the tapes,” Meeks said.
As a result, the world can now see Hedy Lamarr in a whole new light.
The film challenges the unfair stereotype of Lamarr as an actress whose accomplishments rested solely on her physical appearance.
“While Hedy Lamarr was an international star, she was never respected as a great actress in the same way as Marlene Dietrich or Greta Garbo,” Haggiag wrote in an email.
“What we learned in the course of making this film was that Hedy had to battle MGM boss Louis B. Mayer at every step of her Hollywood career. He often gave her sexualized roles that frustrated her, so some of her best roles such as [the 1938 film] ‘Algiers’ she managed to make by finding the scripts herself and getting loaned to other studios,” he wrote.
The film also details the story of Lamarr as an inventor. “She came up with a secure communication system that was really about helping the Allies beat the Nazis in the Atlantic,” Dean said. “Wireless torpedoes were being blown up by Nazi ‘wolfpacks.’”
Lamarr worked to create a system called “frequency hopping” in which torpedoes would “hop” between frequencies to avoid detection.
“At a dinner party, so it goes, she met composer George Antheil, and they came up with the concept,” said Jan-Christopher Horak, director of the UCLA film archive, who has written about Lamarr and was interviewed for the film. “It pretty much worked out.
“They tried to interest the Navy. They did patent it, but it never went anywhere. It could have been utilized in the war effort,” he said.
Today, Horak said, “all cellular communications” are based on this system.
“It was all done after the patent expired,” he said. “She never made a penny.”
The film explores other theories about the invention. One hypothesis is that Lamarr actually stole the idea as a spy, when she was still in Europe, married to her first husband, Fritz Mandl, a munitions manufacturer who collaborated with the Nazis.
“I heard that speculation, that at one of the meetings her husband had, she may have picked up something like that,” Horak said. But “the Germans didn’t have that technology. And then, I think, it’s purely speculative. I’m not sure.”
Lamarr converted to Catholicism to marry Mandl. “Actually, [Mandl] was also Jewish and converted to Catholicism,” Horak said. “They only had a couple of years of marriage.”
She was a rising film star who had appeared as a teenager in the notorious 1933 Austrian film “Ecstasy.” Lamarr appears in nude scenes in the film, and also portrayed the first on-screen orgasm.
“Louis B. Mayer apparently met her at a dinner party at the Leopoldskron [palace in Salzburg] with [Austrian director] Max Reinhardt,” Horak said. “Then, eventually, she kind of followed him, escaping from her husband. She got on the same boat [Mayer] was on, to the States from London. When she got to America, she had a contract in her pocket.”
She also had a new last name thanks to Mayer’s wife. “Lamarr” evoked both ‘20s actress Barbara Lamarr, who tragically died of a drug overdose; and the sea, “le mer” or “la mar.”
“MGM publicity kept it a complete secret that her last name was actually Kiesler,” Horak said. “No one ever knew she was actually Jewish, not in the American press.”
Dean said Lamarr had “a very complicated relationship to Judaism.”
She asked her mother to convert to Catholicism “possibly to protect her from the Nazis,” said Dean, “or [maybe just to] help Hedy in Hollywood.”
Dean found that Lamarr had hidden her Judaism, and that her children were shocked to learn about it.
But, she said, “Her Judaism underpins the whole story. It’s the backdrop that makes it all understandable.”
Dean called it “a void — something she amputated about herself in order to survive. Her main invention occurred because of it, the guilt and shame. Her own people were being annihilated. She escaped.”
In 1990, journalist Meeks learned of Lamarr’s invention from a conversation between his father, an astrophysicist, and one of his father’s friends, Robert Price, a specialist in secure communications. Price had discovered the patent in the early ’80s in the name of Hedwig Kiesler Markey, Lamarr’s surname at the time of her marriage to her second husband.
Meeks got the suggestion to pitch the story to Forbes. He spoke with Lamarr five times over the telephone, calling her at her Florida apartment.
“She talked about Hollywood often — Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert,” Meeks said. “I just ate it up.”
But, he said, she also showed signs of longtime use of methamphetamines, which she had thought were vitamin B shots. After six marriages and filing multiple lawsuits, she had become an impoverished recluse and had even been arrested for shoplifting.
Still, the interviews nearly ended after he called her at 6:30 p.m. one night.
“She was really angry at me,” said Meeks. “It was because I interrupted her game shows. She hung up and said, ‘don’t ever call back.’”
Meeks sent a dozen roses, and “the next time I called, all was forgiven,” he said, adding that his article was “well received,” but that he had to wait over two decades before there was outside interest in his tapes. By then, he had had a successful 30-year journalism career, including as the executive editor of Barron’s.
“He quoted her seven times in the original article,” said Dean. “It was the most anybody ever quoted her on the topic of her invention.” His tapes, she added, were an “unbelievable archive.”
As she noted in an email, “I think it took a while for Hedy’s story to come out because it was hard to find the evidence that allowed us to make the argument that Hedy had really come up with this invention and that she wasn’t a spy who stole the idea from her husband, which was a pervasive rumor about her.”
Dean was inspired to make the film when she received a copy of the 2011 book “Hedy’s Folly: The Life and Breakthrough Inventions of Hedy Lamarr, the Most Beautiful Woman in the World” by Richard Rhodes. She interviewed experts including Rhodes and Horak, and spoke with all three of Lamarr’s children.
Dean said they were “very distrustful at first,” having shared their mother’s story with others and seeing scandal-focused coverage. “I did a lot to win their trust,” she said.
Sarandon provided invaluable assistance. “[She is,] in many ways, the godmother of this film,” Dean said. “She gave us a space to work in and really helped guide us in a lot of respects.”
The filmmakers are delighted in the reception “Bombshell” is getting — including at the Boston Jewish Film Festival last week, where all three screenings sold out.
“It’s about fighting within different systems — #MeToo, Harvey Weinstein, women in STEM and technology who were never taken seriously,” she explained. “It’s touching a nerve. I hope it has a really wide release, bringing it into the conversation, so Hedy can have her day in the sun, and change the world we live in.”UC president recommends huge tuition increases UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA System's president recommends 15% next spring, another 15% next fall
Image 1 of / 4 Caption Close UC president recommends huge tuition increases 1 / 4 Back to Gallery
The price of a public education at the University of California may be going up again - not once, but twice.
UC President Mark Yudof is recommending a 15 percent increase in in-state undergraduate fees that would take effect next spring, and another 15 percent increase on top of that beginning in fall 2010.
The governing Board of Regents will hear details of the proposal - which also includes graduate-level fee increases of 15 percent - at its meeting Wednesday, but won't vote until November.
If approved, the undergraduate fee increases would be the eighth and ninth in seven years, and would send the price of a year at UC above the $10,000 mark for the first time next fall.
"It makes me really angry," said Gracelynne West, 20, a first-generation college student at UC San Diego who expects to graduate in June with years of debt to pay off.
Though West has a job on campus, "I'm already looking to get another job to pay for the increasing fees," she said.
As usual when fees are raised, almost a third of the new money would be set aside for financial aid.
But West said the financial assistance is never enough.
"I still have to take out loans," she said.
The regents last raised UC's annual tuition by 9.3 percent in May, bringing this year's undergraduate fee to $7,788.
Under Yudof's proposal, the new tuition for 2009-10 would become $8,958, an increase of $1,170, or 15 percent. Because most students pay each semester, they would see their spring bill rise by half that amount.
Five-figure tuition
Fees would rise again next fall under the proposal, by $1,344, or 15 percent, setting tuition at $10,302.
Add another $13,000 or so for a dorm, plus the average $938 fee charged by each campus, and the annual cost for a California resident to attend UC would top $24,000 next year.
"Wow. When I hear that number, I think this is going to send yet another discouraging signal to low- and moderate-income students and families about whether college is still within reach," said Lauren Asher, president of the Institute for College Access and Success, a nonprofit group in Berkeley.
UC Vice President Patrick Lenz will make the case for the higher student fees in an 18-page report he will present Wednesday to the regents' finance committee meeting in San Francisco. The report, prepared by UC finance experts, says efforts to cut spending and raise fees to date have not been enough to close a budget shortfall of at least $753 million anticipated for this year and next.
Lower funding, higher costs
|
le estimated the Indian dead at 200, all but 60 of them women and children. He also told of how the soldiers not only scalped the dead but cut off the “Ears and Privates” of chiefs. “Squaws snatches were cut out for trophies.” Of Chivington’s leadership, Soule reported: “There was no organization among our troops, they were a perfect mob—every man on his own hook.” Given this chaos, some of the dozen or so soldiers killed at Sand Creek were likely hit by friendly fire.
Soule sent his dispatch to a sympathetic major. A lieutenant at the scene sent a similar report. When these accounts reached Washington in early 1865, Congress and the military launched investigations. Chivington testified that it was impossible to tell peaceful from hostile natives, and insisted he’d battled warriors rather than slaughtering civilians. But a Congressional committee ruled that the colonel had “deliberately planned and executed a foul and dastardly massacre” and “surprised and murdered, in cold blood” Indians who “had every reason to believe that they were under [U.S.] protection.”
That authorities in Washington paid attention to distant Sand Creek was striking, particularly at a time when civil war still raged back East. Federal condemnation of a military atrocity against Indians was likewise extraordinary. In a treaty later that year, the U.S. government also promised reparations for “the gross and wanton outrages” perpetrated at Sand Creek.
Chivington escaped court-martial because he had already resigned from the military. But his once-promising career was over. He became a nomad and failed entrepreneur rather than a Congressman. Soule, his principal accuser, also paid for his role in the affair. Soon after testifying, he was shot dead on a Denver street by assailants believed to have been associates of Chivington.
Another casualty of Sand Creek was any remaining hope of peace on the Plains. Black Kettle, the Cheyenne chief who had raised a U.S. flag in a futile gesture of fellowship, survived the massacre, carrying his badly wounded wife from the field and straggling east across the wintry plains. The next year, in his continuing effort to make peace, he signed a treaty and resettled his band on reservation land in Oklahoma. He was killed there in 1868, in yet another massacre, this one led by George Armstrong Custer.
Many other Indians, meanwhile, had taken Sand Creek as final proof that peace with whites was impossible and promises of protection meant nothing. Young Cheyenne warriors, called Dog Soldiers, joined other Plains tribesmen in launching raids that killed scores of settlers and paralyzed transport. As a result, says the historian Ari Kelman, the massacre at Sand Creek accomplished the opposite of what Chivington and his allies had sought. Rather than speed the removal of Indians and the opening of the Plains to whites, it united formerly divided tribes into a formidable obstacle to expansion.
Sand Creek and its aftermath also kept the nation at war long after the South’s surrender. Union soldiers, and generals such as Sherman and Sheridan, were redeployed west to subdue Plains Indians. This campaign took five times as long as the Civil War, until the infamous massacre at Wounded Knee, in 1890, all but extinguished resistance.
“Sand Creek and Wounded Knee were bookends of the Plains Indian Wars, which were, in turn, the last sad chapter of the Civil War,” Kelman says.Taco Bell was hit with a class action lawsuit alleging that the company falsely advertises certain products as seasoned ground beef or seasoned beef, when in fact they are actually made from taco meat filling.
The case was filed last week in California by an Alabama law firm on behalf of plaintiff Amanda Obney and the general public.
Taco meat filling consists of extenders and other non-meat substances, according to the filing. The substance used at Taco Bell does not meet the United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) minimum standard to be called beef and should thus be considered meat filling.
Moreover, Taco Bell claims certain ingredients in its products are seasonings. For example, the Beefy Crunch Burrito claims to be made of layers seasoned (with) ground beef.
However, the seasoning ingredients are not meant to add flavor, but rather to increase the volume and thus dilute the amount of actual beef used, according to the lawsuit.
So what does Taco Bell's meat filling actually contain?
According to the complaint, the non-beef ingredients include water, Isolated Oat Product, wheat oats, soy lecithin, maltodrextrin, anti-dusting agent, autolyzed yeast extract, modified corn starch, and sodium phosphate.
Taco Bell allegedly uses the label taco meat filling internally -- including the containers shipped to its restaurant branches.
The label reportedly reads as follows:
TACO MEAT FILLING
CARAMEL COLOR AND NATURAL SMOKE FLAVOR ADDED
To the public, of course, the fast-food chain uses the term beef.
The plaintiffs want, among other things, for Taco Bell to label its products with the allegedly truthful phrase of taco meat filling and conduct a correctively advertising campaign to correct misconceptions that it uses real beef.
Yum! shares are down 0.21 percent in morning trading.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Below is Taco Bell's statement in response to the lawsuit:
At Taco Bell, we buy our beef from the same trusted brands you find in the supermarket, like Tyson Foods. We start with 100 percent USDA-inspected beef. Then we simmer it in our proprietary blend of seasonings and spices to give our seasoned beef its signature Taco Bell taste and texture. We are proud of the quality of our beef and identify all the seasoning and spice ingredients on our website. Unfortunately, the lawyers in this case elected to sue first and ask questions later -- and got their facts absolutely wrong. We plan to take legal action for the false statements being made about our food.Skopje’s new neo-classical splendour is divisive and expensive – not to mention of questionable taste. But one thing’s for sure: it’s made the Macedonian capital a truly surprising and impressive spectacle
Walk along the river towards the heart of Skopje, the Republic of Macedonia’s capital, and you’ll quickly find yourself among a host of gleaming, neo-classical buildings, complete with ornate columns and rooftop figures of nymphs. The buildings weren’t there five years ago.
In early April, the riverside bars are just shaking off the cobwebs of winter, returning tables and chairs to terraces that look out over many of the new structures. Bridges lined with pristine statues of Macedonian heroes, writers and artists cross the slow-moving waters of the Vardar river.
Long a forgotten corner of Europe, the former Yugoslav republic has gone into overdrive since 2010, erecting huge government and civic buildings as well as hundreds of statues in the heart of its capital. Now almost complete, the project, known as Skopje 2014 (it was meant to be finished last year), is just as intriguing and arguably as divisive as it was when first announced.
The project has two main aims: to draw in more tourists and to try to reclaim aspects of the country’s history from neighbouring Greece, appealing to the patriotism of many ethnic Macedonians. It has cost somewhere between €200-€500m (depending on who you talk to) and has resulted in a completely new-look city centre.
“It’s very kitsch, but it’s bringing in visitors,” says Oliver Stefanovski, the manager at Unity Hostel, right on the edge of the new development.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Kitsch statues in Skopje. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Many Macedonians are questioning the scheme’s vast public expense – not to mention its aesthetic qualities. There is also controversy over the way it ignores much of the role of the Muslim Albanian community in the country’s history. But there’s no doubting it has put the city on the tourist map, aided by the arrival of budget flights from Wizz Air.
At the heart of the new-look city centre is a 22-metre-high bronze statue of Alexander the Great, encircled by warriors and a fountain that’s at the centre of nightly light shows. Nearby, statues of former rulers and saints seem to be crammed by the dozen into all available spaces, along with the city’s own arc de triomphe.
Travel tips: holidays in Macedonia, plus this week's best deals | Joanne O'Connor Read more
Across the river from Alexander, a towering statue of Philip of Macedonia, hand raised to the heavens, stares back. “I definitely prefer this new area of the city to the old area. It shows our history,” says Aneta Gakovska, the owner of a small local restaurant.
Foreign visitors used to come to Skopje primarily to wander around the beautiful Old Bazaar district, with its alleys, mosques and old hilltop fort. But now they can go in less than five minutes from drinking a Turkish coffee among people and architecture that wouldn’t be out of place in a traditional city of the Middle East, to being surrounded by faux-classical European architecture and imagery.
Opinions may be divided over it, but the Skopje 2014 project has certainly made the city one of Europe’s more unorthodox capitals to visit.When you're working in the front office of an NFL team, it's crucial to know who truly holds the power in each organization across the league -- because it can mean the difference between nabbing a future superstar in a trade or walking away empty-handed.
Breer: Who's really in charge? When it comes to building an NFL roster, hierarchies vary from team to team. Albert Breer reveals all 32 power structures.
When it comes to building an NFL roster, hierarchies vary from team to team.reveals all 32 power structures. More...
I handled trades when I worked with the Dallas Cowboys, and I absolutely had to know who could say "yes" or "no" among our potential trading partners; I had to know I was talking to the right person. Perhaps nothing better illustrates that than the story of how I missed out on a chance to land John Elway.
Elway was drafted by the Baltimore Colts with the first overall pick in the 1983 NFL Draft, even though the quarterback had made it clear he didn't want to play there. So I went to Colts head coach Frank Kush, whom I knew well, and asked him who I'd need to have a conversation with about trying to deal for Elway. Kush told me that he'd be handling it, so we made our pitch to him, and he said the Colts would get back to us. The next thing we knew, Elway had been traded to the Denver Broncos.
As it turned out, Kush wasn't the man to talk to about Elway, because while we were busy trying to work something out with him, Colts owner Robert Irsay was reaching an agreement with Broncos owner Edgar Kaiser -- and the future Hall of Fame quarterback slipped out of our grasp.
Irsay wasn't the only owner who liked to get into the negotiating game. Chicago Bears owner/coach George Halas preferred to be the man through whom everything in Chicago moved. We had several dealings with Halas, who would say things like, "We like the people at Dallas... We like Tom Landry... We want to help you be a better team."
When talking trades, Halas would never refer to a player on your team by name. One time, he called and offered us Rudy Bukich, Ronnie Bull and Fred Williams for "No. 17" (Don Meredith, who went on to make multiple Pro Bowls), "No. 20" (Mel Renfro, an eventual Hall of Famer) and "No. 74" (Bob Lilly, also a future Hall of Famer).
So I jokingly said, "Mr. Halas, are you sure you're getting enough in return?" To which he responded, "You're getting the better of it, but that's OK." When I asked how, he said that Bukich's 11 years of experience were a "plus" for me, as was Bull's status as a former Rookie of the Year. While Halas was willing to concede that Williams probably "wasn't as good as No. 74," he still insisted I would win the trade, 2-1.
Knowing who to talk to is no less important in today's NFL.
Over the past couple weeks, Albert Breer studied every team's current power structure in his "Who's really in charge?" series. In a similar vein, here is a list, by my estimation, of the top eight power brokers in the league today when it comes to off-the-field moves. You'll see some head coaches and some general managers, but all of these guys know what they're doing -- seven of the eight helped their teams make the playoffs last season.
1) Bill Belichick, head coach, New England Patriots
He's the guy who makes the Patriots. Obviously, he has a very good support staff and relies on information from some very knowledgeable people, but ultimately, he's behind everything they do -- every draft pick, trade and free-agent signing. He has an outstanding knowledge of the entire organization's off-the-field workings; he understands the salary cap and what has to be done to make the team's plans a reality. This is his 39th year coaching and he hasn't slowed down.
2) Ted Thompson, general manager, Green Bay Packers
Thompson is an unbelievably hard-working guy who never puts on airs. Trained in the Green Bay way of doing things, Thompson believes in the draft and the development of players. Also, he has surrounded himself with outstanding people. Thompson travels extensively to evaluate players and coaches -- he was responsible for picking the Packers' current coach, Mike McCarthy, who is very good. Moreover, he sticks to his guns, as everyone saw when he decided to move on from Brett Favre and make the switch to Aaron Rodgers. It was a huge decision, one that spawned angry mobs in Green Bay when he made it. Of course, now you hardly see a No. 4 jersey around Wisconsin.
3) Trent Baalke, general manager, San Francisco 49ers
Baalke has something of an unusual résumé. Before landing with the New York Jets as a scout in 1998, he spent a few years as a defensive line/strength and conditioning coach at South Dakota State. Bill Parcells, with whom he worked in New York, has nothing but high praise to offer about Baalke. Since taking the GM position in San Francisco in 2011, he's improved all areas of the team. He's very creative and has an outstanding ability to make good hires. For example, he was involved in the hiring of coach Jim Harbaugh -- and that ended up working out pretty well for San Francisco.
4) Jerry Reese, general manager, New York Giants
Reese is a very low-key person, but he gets the job done, and he garners a great deal of respect from people in the Giants organization. He started with the Giants' scouting department in 1994 and kept working his way up until he became GM in 2007. In the six seasons since he assumed the top job, the Giants have won two Super Bowls. If you want to make a trade with the Giants involving draft picks, he's the man to talk to, as he has final say on those.
5) Ozzie Newsome, general manager, Baltimore Ravens
Newsome has great energy and intelligence and is an outstanding decision maker. The former player -- and Hall of Famer -- is involved with everything the Ravens do, bringing a lot of good information to the table. When it comes to finding fresh talent via the draft or the undrafted free agent list, he's a one-man band. Additionally, he's very active in the competition committee and other league duties.
6) Thomas Dimitroff, general manager, Atlanta Falcons
Dimitroff is a different kind of cat, but he does his job well. He was regarded as a good talent evaluator before taking the GM job, and it turned out to be an accurate perception. He drafted Matt Ryan third overall in 2008, even though a lot of folks thought Ryan wasn't worthy of the pick. He traded for Tony Gonzalez when the tight end was considered to be on the downside of his career -- and the veteran turned out to be a key member of the team. He also pulled off a blockbuster trade in the 2011 NFL Draft to land receiver Julio Jones. It's said that he'll solicit the opinions of others in the Falcons organization, but when it comes to final decisions, he's the man who makes them. Dimitroff is willing to try new technologies in an attempt to improve his risk-reward ratio.
7) Mike Shanahan, head coach, Washington Redskins
Shanahan has a great ability to see things in players that others might have missed, especially when it comes to quarterbacks. For example, when he traded up to draft Jay Cutler as the head coach of the Denver Broncos, he got all the tapes, he met the guy himself and he put the whole deal together. He's really smart and has a knack for understanding how things are going to play out in the future. He hires great people and makes great decisions. Personally, I think he has a good chance to go into the Hall of Fame.
Incidentally, I helped get him a job early in his career. In 1980, my friend Charley Pell was coaching at Florida and needed an offensive coordinator -- so I recommended Shanahan. Now, Shanahan is beginning his 29th year in the NFL.
8) Rick Smith, general manager, Houston Texans
Smith, who wears a lot of hats for the Texans, is well-respected by everyone and makes very good decisions for the team. He's another guy you see out on the road; I ran into him at the University of Texas during a game last year. Even though he's an executive, he's still out there, pounding the pavement and looking for talent.
Follow Gil Brandt on Twitter @Gil_Brandt.He said it was true that some Rohingya, enraged by years of mistreatment by Myanmar forces, had organized themselves into a crude militant force, but that Myanmar had dramatically exaggerated its proportions and seriousness.
Rohingyas are “frustrated, and they are picking up sticks and making a call to defend themselves,” he said. “Now, if they find a farmer who has a machete at home, they say, ‘You are engaged in terrorism.’”
An analysis released last month by the International Crisis Group took a serious view of the new militant group, which it says is financed and organized by Rohingya émigrés in Saudi Arabia. Further violence, it warned, could accelerate radicalization among the Rohingya, who could become willing instruments of transnational jihadist groups.
In interviews in and around the Kutupalong and Leda refugee camps here, Rohingya who fled Myanmar in recent weeks said that military personnel initially went house to house seeking adult men, and then proceeded to rape women and burn homes. Many new arrivals are from Kyet Yoepin, a village where 245 buildings were destroyed during a two-day sweep in mid-October, according to Human Rights Watch.
Muhammad Shafiq, who is in his mid-20s, said he was at home with his family when he heard gunfire. Soldiers in camouflage banged on the door, then shot at it, he said. When he let them in, he said, “they took the women away, and lined up the men.”
Mr. Shafiq said that when a soldier grabbed his sister’s hand, he lunged at him, fearful the soldier intended to rape her, and was beaten so severely that the soldiers left him for dead. Later, he bolted with one of his children and was grazed by a soldier’s bullet on his elbow. He crawled for an hour on his hands and knees through a rice field, then watched, from a safe vantage point, as troops set fire to what remained of Kyet Yoepin.In 1892 German engineer Rudolf Diesel patented the engine that bears his name, an internal combustion engine that doesn’t require a spark to ignite the fuel-air mixture. Diesel was born in Paris to German parents and grew up in London, Paris and Munich. In the 1880s he worked as a refrigerator engineer in Munich, but returned to Paris to experiment with engines. In 1892 he won a patent for the diesel engine, but he continued to work on its development for years. The diesel engine allowed trains and ships to operate more efficiently with oil instead of coal, and Diesel quickly became a rich man. In 1913 he vanished overboard from a steamer bound for London; his body washed up ten days later. Some believe he committed suicide and cite his neurotic personality and numerous “breakdowns,” and some believe he was murdered by either Germans (who resented his lack of nationalism) or by coal industrialists (who resented his engine).Image: Tiina Karjalainen / Yle
There’s plenty of work on offer in Norway these days, but a good command of English isn’t enough if the job description contains any kind of team work or customer interface. Business leaders in Norway say they are disappointed at Finnish applicants’ poor Swedish skills.
The Norway-based temp agency Aras Helse recently sought out medical personnel by taking out an ad in Finland’s leading Swedish-language daily Hufvudstadsbladet. They did not advertise in Finnish language newspapers.
Workers were enticed to Norway with a good salary and free travel and accommodation. A good command of Swedish or another Scandinavian language was mandatory. The firm wrote on its website that it hired only “Scandinavian medical personnel”.
English isn’t acceptable as a working language, as the work is done in groups and requires extensive interaction with the customers.
Just three years of Swedish instruction
“Swedish or a related language is a must, otherwise you can’t communicate with your work colleagues or the patients,” says Jatta Kokkonen, a Finn born in the extreme northern city of Kolari, who currently works at the university hospital in Tromsø, the largest urban area in northern Norway.
Like many other Finns her age, Kokkonen studied just three years of Swedish in comprehensive school.
“I have to admit that I was one of the kids that thought I would never use Swedish anywhere and that I shouldn’t have to learn it. It would have been great to learn it better back then,” she says.
Lack of interest prohibits cooperative ventures
Those potential Norwegian employers interviewed by Svenska Yle are disappointed that Finns don’t speak Swedish better, even though they are taught the language in school. They say there is plenty of work to be had, if the language requirements are met.
“Finland has a decision to make about the amount of Swedish it will teach in the future,” says Anne Husebekk from the University of Tromsø.
Husebekk has led a team researching Nordic languages, studying cross-border work, study and commerce opportunities. The report concluded that there is great potential, if only bureaucratic limitations could be eliminated.
“Perhaps Finnish residents just don’t have enough interest in speaking and understanding Swedish. If this desire is absent, and no one can speak Swedish, it makes it hard to foster cooperation among the Nordic countries,” she says.
Finland’s consulate representative in Tromsø, Nina Hjort, says several business delegations have visited the Norwegian city to explore future cooperation. She says that if the Finns would only learn Swedish well, “we would see many more opportunities open up for corporate cooperation”.
Norway is especially in need of workers with specific vocational skills, says Hjort. In the last few decades, Norway has concentrated on academic training, which has led to a dearth of people with engineering, manufacturing and other blue-collar skills. The labour force required could potentially be found just over the border.
“As neighbours, we have a lot to learn from each other. We share a common cultural understanding, which is a key benefit in working together.”
This item was edited on August 24th, 2015 to more accurately reflect Ms. Kokkonen's employment history.VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Vatican was set to go green on Wednesday with the activation of a new solar energy system to power several key buildings and a commitment to use renewable energy for 20 percent of its needs by 2020.
St. Peter's Basilica is seen lit in the evening at the Vatican November 25, 2008. The Vatican is set to go green on Wednesday when technicians throw the switch on a new solar energy system to power several key building and commit itself to renewable energy for 20 percent of its needs by 2020. REUTERS/Tony Gentile
The massive roof of the Vatican’s “Nervi Hall,” where popes hold general audiences and concerts are performed, has been covered with 2,400 photovoltaic panels — but they will not be visible from below, leaving the Vatican skyline unchanged.
The new system on the 5,000 square meter roof will provide for all the year-round energy needs of the hall and several surrounding buildings, producing 300 kilowatt hours (MWh) of clean energy a year.
The system, devised by the German company SolarWorld, will allow the 108-acre city-state to cut its carbon dioxide emissions by about 225,000 kilograms (225 tonnes) and save the equivalent of 80 tonnes of oil each year.
The Holy See’s newspaper said on Tuesday that the Vatican planned to install enough renewable energy sources to provide 20 percent of its needs by 2020, broadly in line with a proposal by the European Union.
The 1971 Nervi Hall is named after the renowned architect who designed it, Pier Paolo Nervi, and is one of the most modern buildings in the Vatican, where most structures are several centuries old. The hall can hold up to 10,000 people.
It has a sweeping, wavy roof which made the project feasible and the solar panels virtually invisible from the ground. Church officials have said the Vatican’s famous skyline, particularly St Peter’s Basilica, would remain untouched.
An editorial in Tuesday’s newspaper appealed for greater use of renewable energy.
“The gradual exhaustion of the ozone layer and the greenhouse effect have reached critical dimensions,” the newspaper said.
By producing its own energy the Vatican will become more autonomous from Italy, from where it currently buys all its energy. The Vatican is surrounded by Rome.
Pope Benedict and his predecessor John Paul put the Vatican firmly on an environmentalist footing.
Benedict has made numerous appeals for the protection of the environment. The Vatican has hosted a scientific conference to discuss the ramifications of global warming and climate change, widely blamed on human use of fossil fuels.
Environmentalists praised the pope last year after he made a speech saying the human race must listen to “the voice of the earth” or risk destroying the planet.I'm hanging out at the Garrison Institute this week, bracing myself against a stream of provocative ideas about the intersection between climate change, the human brain, and individual behavior. But this news, needless to say, broke the flow: Famed environmental activist Tim DeChristopher has been convicted on two felony counts, and now faces up to 10 years in prison and fines up to $750,000.Here's the AP:
An environmentalist has been convicted of making $1.8 million in false oil and gas drilling bids at a federal auction in a case that became a cause celebre among activists and Hollywood stars. Authorities say 29-year-old Tim DeChristopher made the bids to run up the price of 13 oil-and-gas leases near Utah's Arches and Canyonlands national parks but lacked the ability to pay. A federal jury reached its verdict Thursday, finding DeChristopher guilty of two felony counts of interfering with and making false representations at a government auction... A University of Utah economics student at the time, he offered to cover the bill with an Internet fundraising campaign, but the government refused to accept any of the money.
This is truly unfortunate -- recall that it was later ruled that the auction that DeChristopher disrupted was improperly conducted, and possibly illegal. DeChristopher engaged in a sort of nonviolent peaceful civil disobedience that's all too rare in the modern era of tepid online blog activism.
The only solace we should take with this is that DeChristopher going to prison will only raise his profile -- and drive his message, that the need for climate action is worth self-sacrifice, further into the mainstream. As Bill McKibben noted in a tweet after hearing the news, ""The government should give him a medal, not a sentence."
Join the growing movement to help DeChristopher on Twitter with the tag #bidder70.It's easy to find examples of patent abuse but its not often to find a company that uses patents that stifle a whole industry. Such may be the case with the Apple iPhone.
I purchased an iPhone shortly after it came out, because I recognized that it was a revolutionary device. It was not a case of superior specifications, as many devices have better hardware. It didn't even run on the latest 3G network until the second generation. Rather, it was a superior design, which featured an intuitive user interface that did not try to compete on the number of features but on usability. Apple fully deserves the billions of dollars it has made and will go on to make from its device.
Yet something curious has happened. When Apple introduced the iPhone, those who recognized its revolutionary potential expected the innovations and design concepts it introduced to percolate to the rest of the industry. To an extent, that is happening, but key iPhone technologies -a capacitive touchscreen with multi-touch, a 3-axis accelerometer, proximity sensors, graphics acceleration integrated into the UI, and a number of other key innovations have not been found in competing products. Part of the reason for this has to do with the particular culture and expertise found at Apple, but its indisputable than the 200+ patents covering the iPhone have gone a long way to discouraging competitors, who offer alternatives lacking key features - until now.
Palm, the company who created the first popular PDA is coming out with the Palm Pre, the first device to brazenly infringe many of the key iPhone patents. Apple is already making threatening gestures, so an apocalyptic legal battle is almost certain. Palm is the first company to go against Apple head on because its status as the one-time leader in the PDA and mobile phone market makes it the only company capable of challenging Apple's leadership. While the Palm Pre clearly borrows ideas from the iPhone, the iPhone itself uses many of the innovations first patented by Palm as early as 1996. Today Palm is a marginalized has-been for whom the Pre is a desperate gamble to save to company, but it still has the patent portfolio of a market leader.
The question of who is the bigger infringer in this battle is besides the point. The issue is that the patent system is limiting innovation to large companies who have established sufficiently large patent portfolios to pose a credible threat of retaliatory patent lawsuits. The best that new competitors can hope for in this environment is to be aquired by the giants or to establish their own patent portfolios - rather than create products than people want to use.Sylvie Rozon and Guy Coderre had just finished preparing a report on the threat of oil contamination in the Montreal region's drinking water when they decided to investigate a potential risk. It turned out to be serious.
Rozon and Coderre are teachers at a training school for water treatment infrastructure workers, and they had submitted their report to the Bureau d'audience publiques sur l'Environnement (BAPE), a government organization that conducts public hearings to investigate the impacts of industrial projects.
They went to visit land owned by Rozon's parents to look into how pipeline companies were taking care of their infrastructure.
Rozon's parents had bought the land, in Saint-Lazare, a town about 50 kilometres west of Montreal, in the 1990s. They only realized later that the land was on the path of the Trans-Northern pipeline, an aging and leaky line that has been carrying oil between the Montreal region and southern Ontario since 1952.
The Trans-Northern pipeline supplies jet fuel to major airports in Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa and in recent years, it has been plagued by safety problems that have prompted several interventions from federal pipeline safety enforcement officers.
“We were curious to go walk along the pipeline and that’s when we found—while walking—the pipeline (sticking) out from the ground. (It was) a segment of between four to five feet in a ditch and we could see it very well,” said Coderre.
It was June of 2016, and as they walked in a wooded area they found that part of the pipeline was sticking out. The exposed pipeline was in a ditch, suspended above a stream about four kilometres away from the Ottawa River, which is a source of Montreal's drinking water.
On November 18, 2016, a group of women chained themselves to the Trans-Northern pipeline in Oka to protest the safety of the pipeline. File photo by Jon Milton
Rozon called Trans-Northern Pipeline Inc. to warn them about what they found. At first, an operator told them there was nothing unusual going on. But she pressed the company to investigate, she said.
Half an hour later, Jean-François Bisonnette, a supervisor at the company, called back to say it was not normal for the pipeline to be exposed, but that it wasn't dangerous. He said someone would come to inspect it.
Pipelines are commonly buried underground for safety reasons. Parts that are above ground require special protection from the elements. Pipeline failures can be caused by erosion or from being struck with force (by heavy machinery for instance), according to the federal regulator, the National Energy Board (NEB).
Operators are required to notify the NEB of any instance in which a pipeline is operating beyond its design limits, and this would normally include any instance of a pipeline sticking out above the ground in a spot where it's supposed to be buried.
“Mr. Bisonnette called me back to say he would come in the coming days to see this but that there were no dangers. But even if I kept saying it was not normal—there’s a water stream almost below—he said I was worried for nothing,” said Rozon.
They also contacted the city of Saint-Lazare as well as people from Citoyens Au Courant, an organization that advocates for pipeline safety and opposes dangerous projects. They also called journalists from TVA and Radio-Canada, Quebec's two largest news broadcasters.
“After TVA and Radio-Canada came and the story made headlines, it’s clear that at Trans-Northern they hurried up with a team to carry sacks of rocks, walking over maybe half a kilometre. They covered the pipeline with a rubber carpet of about two centimetres and put rocks on top of it.”
But Rozon said the stream of water swept away the rocks over the summer, leaving the pipeline covered only by a rubber carpet for the entire winter.
In the spring, the pipeline company came back to put more rocks over the pipeline, this time with a bulldozer. But after a few weeks, the water stream again pushed the rocks a few meters away, she said.
A year after her discovery, there is still no permanent solution for safeguarding the pipeline, Rozon said, and this concerns her.
The company said in an email they are in the process of securing permits from multiple local and provincial authorities such as the Environment Department and the Commission de Protection du Territoire Agricole (CPTAQ) to complete the permanent repair work. They added that municipalities, including the city of Saint-Lazare, have to review their application before sending it themselves to the commission, which will then examine their request.
“In the meantime, consistent with our commitment to ensure the safety of the community and to protect the pipeline, we visit the site regularly, including after significant rain falls, to visually inspect the area and ensure the site and the pipeline are safe," said Trans-Northern, in its email.
They stated they are in regular contact with the City of Saint-Lazare’s officials and provide updates to the area landowners.
The mayor of Saint-Lazare, Robert Grimaudo, confirmed he was in touch with Gail Sharko, manager of Trans-Northern's regulatory and external affairs, and said the pipeline company was easy to work with and very cooperative.
“The reality is that it’s the Quebec (government departments) that are causing all the delays,” he said. “Before a pipeline company can do the work, because there’s a stream right nearby, they need authorization from the ministry of the environment, the ministry of public security and so on and so forth, which of course, they haven’t (released) yet. The problem is the pipeline company is ready to go.”
The mayor warns that the situation shouldn't be “blown out of proportion.”
“There is no leak, there is no danger, there is no problem,” he said.
But Rozon, Coderre and the members of Citoyens au Courant disagree.
"If the pipe breaks, the water stream, which is right under, is four kilometres away from the Ottawa River," said Rozon, who fears millions of litres of oil could be spilled before it's noticed or stopped. "Since the land is made of clay, there could be a landslide, if a tree falls straight onto the pipe and breaks it, how long is it going to take for (someone from the company or residents) to see it? And the first valve to isolate the pipe when, say, they’ll know there’s a leak, is 40 kilometres away."
Aerial view of the Kalamazoo river after an oil spill on August 9, 2010. Photo by the U.S Environmental Protection Agency
If a tree falls on a pipeline
Coderre, her co-worker, has trained employees to work in water filtration plants in the greater region of Montreal for 20 years. He was also a manager at one of the plants for 10 years. He said he thinks a leak could contaminate the Ottawa River, disrupting the Montreal region's drinking water supply within hours.
He recalled the July 2010 disaster in Marshall, Michigan when an Enbridge pipeline ruptured, spilling more than three million litres of crude oil into the Kalamazoo River. It took the company 17 hours to shut down its valve and the river was contaminated over 60 kilometres away from the source of the spill, according to subsequent investigations.
“I am surprised to see how little this (problem) is taken into consideration because as we are speaking today, a tree falling… could easily rupture the pipe, which is operating under very high pressure," he said. "There could be major consequences."
Sharko said they are confident the temporary repairs are protecting the pipeline.
"The repair method has been certified by an engineer, and is well recognized by the industry to address situations such as this. And, because we remotely monitor the pipeline should that situation ever change, we can shut down the pipeline remotely," she wrote in an email.
Darin Barter, a spokesperson for the NEB, said in an email that a falling tree was unlikely to rupture the pipeline and that tests are done so |
’ new managing director of Australian supermarkets and petrol Tjeerd Jegen publicly chided multinational manufacturers for “unacceptable” prices here.
Mr Jegen said some were still treating Australia "as an island where people probably don't know what the prices are around the world, which is a wrong assumption".Story highlights Despite the first son-in-law's White House role, he keeps a low public profile
Kusher has a verified Twitter account with no tweets
The FBI is looking into his contact with Russian officials, although there are currently no allegations of wrongdoing
Washington (CNN) Behind the scenes, President Trump's 36-year-old son-in-law Jared Kushner plays a powerful role in the White House.
His official title is senior adviser to the President and his West Wing office is the same one once occupied by President Barack Obama's strategists David Plouffe and David Axelrod. He is one of two people in the administration who have the dual job of family and administration member, the other being his wife Ivanka Trump.
But publicly, Kushner is seen but not heard.
Trump campaigned as unapologetically "politically correct," refusing to back down from statements seen as offensive or inflammatory. And his administration is one often marked by its pop-culture-dominating soundbites and tweets, from Kellyanne Conway's "alternative facts" to Trump's "covfefe." It makes Kushner's silence all the more unusual.
He has a verified Twitter account with no tweets. He declined to comment for recent stories about him, including a Time magazine cover story and a Washington Post investigation into how he and his company used loans meant for poor areas to build a luxury residential skyscraper.Get the biggest football 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
Watford have completed the £11.2 million signing of Brazilian winger Richarlison on a five-year contract – and the Hornets are leading the chase for Burnley striker Andre Gray.
Richarlison is clear to make his debut in Saturday's Premier League opener against Liverpool at Vicarage Road after he was granted a work permit by the Home Office shortly after 2pm.
New Watford manager Marco Silva is looking to add more firepower before the weekend, and Mirror Sport understands the Hornets have had TWO bids for 26-year-old Gray rejected by the Clarets.
Although their first offer of around £8m was rejected out of hand, Watford believe they could yet thrash out a cut-price deal for Gray because the former Luton striker is in the last year of his contract at Turf Moor.
(Image: Getty Images)
(Image: PA)
Gray scored nine goals in 26 games last season, despite the distraction of a four-match ban for homophobic references in historical tweets.
Richarlison's arrival, meanwhile, is a timely boost for Silva, who is likely to be without Troy Deeney this weekend as the skipper steps up his recovery from a groin operation last month.
Video Loading Video Unavailable Click to play Tap to play The video will start in 8 Cancel Play now
The Under-20 international scored 15 goals for Rio club Fluminense before Watford beat off competition from Dutch giants Ajax for his signature.
Richarlison watched the Hornets' 0-0 draw with Real Sociedad from the stands last Saturday as he awaited Whitehall clearance for his transfer.I have to hold myself back from confronting them — from pulling them apart like an Oreo and dunking them in a glass of lessons on cultural imperialism — from telling them that what they’re doing is just not right.
How can you betray your own people?
White people took you from your motherland, your huts, your savannah and your Tigers, they packed you in a ship, they made you pick cotton without a minimum wage, then all y’all got as an apology was Black History Month, the shortest month at that.
How can you date them?
The BMWW, no that’s not the Nazi car brand, that’s the Black Male White Women couples of the world, you’re all problematic. Very problematic.
I want to clarify that I’m not talking about casual hookups between black men and white women. If that were the case, I would be like, a total hypocrite, because I can’t say I haven’t been stretched by a few black mambas, (call me Tyrone?), I am talking strictly about LTR, long term relationships and dating and marriage and stuff.
The BMWW phenomenon began in the time of the Slavery, long before Abe Lincoln had saved the African Americans from the Republicans grand death grip. It all started in a region where the prejudice grew deeper than the roots of the Mangrove trees, the porches gleamed whiter than a Romney family gathering and (like around) where critically acclaimed True Detective starring Matthew Mconnyhueylewy(?) was to be filmed like 150 years later.
The sexually sadistic and voyeuristic white cis men who ran the Mandatory Cotton Camps of the South, one day, like got it into their heads that they would totally get off on seeing their blacks, (yes they were their blacks, cuz they were property under the law back then, so they were seen as nothing more than a toasters or bathtubs), doing it with their wives.
They forced their wives to go down to the Slave houses in the balmy summer nights and then they forced their Black men to get to work on picking their wives cotton. As if this wasn’t enough they coerced the WOBC, Women Of Black Color to watch this happen before their eyes. If they didn’t look they were totally whipped.
These Ku-Kold-Klan kinda guys, thoroughly enjoyed seeing women of the darker shades suffer so much that they vowed to create a system by which they could systematically keep women of black color from happiness and dating their own men for centuries to come.
The most notorious Slave Master who got up to this kind of voyeurism was a man named Atticus Finch, or ‘Finchy’ as he was referred to by the locals. He was infamous for forcing black men to fornicate with white Harpy women while he watched and then accusing the black men of having used voodoo magic upon them to seduce them. He was a lawyer, so he went on to mockingly sentence them to death without any Leeway. This is where the term ‘Finchyism’, meaning the act of forcing BMWW-coupling comes from. Another interesting fact is that the Ebonics word boo”, meaning “significant other” is an allusion to Finches neighbour Boo Radley, a man he was having a homosexual love affair with.
Fynchyism is still live and well in society today, but has attached itself to the Patriarchy and become just another tool of oppression. The Patriarchy is still doing everything it can to keep black women from being with black men. Like a chess player, but less nerdy and more totally evil, the Patriarchy is moving the Black pawn closer to the White Queen and leaving the Black female pawn behind.
It does this by setting an evil white-centric beauty standard in fashion magazines that say only blonde skinny white women, like myself, are attractive and that thicker girls with a bit of booty are fat and that beautiful black hair is “nappy”. This brainwashes black men into believing that black women aren’t beautiful. So not true #RashidaJones.
By encouraging black men to grow taller, making them good at Basketball, the Patriarchy is appealing to white women’s inherent love of tall men, making us love chocolate men even more.
The extremely racist stereotype that black guys are supposed to like watermelon is not helping either. The watermelon has pink flesh, like, need I even say more?
So to my fellow white girls, can’t you see that the only reason that you like black guys is that you’re still the Slave drivers wives mindset, prodded by the almighty Slave driver, the Patriarchy to consort with its property, the still oppressed very much black man? You are literally being pushed towards them in a huge operation whose goal is to wage psychological warfare on Women of the Black. If you want to help your darker sisters, leave their black men alone, resist the chocolate! They will love you for it.
Okay, like now I’m talking to y’all black men so listen up right quick nomsayn. Y’all don’t even know why y’all like us white bitches. Y’all homies think its dat tight white pussy, making y’all wanna holla? Well y’all homies incorrect about dat shit. Y’all don’t know it’s da Patriachy? Patri-whuuut? Well lemme break it down fo’ yo ass. Da Patriarchy be dis big ass group of white ass honkeys tryna run dis shit. They be tryna make all y’all not like da black sisters, cuz they wanna make them feel bad. Das whack homie, you ain’t about that life, shoutsouts to Drake, ya feel me? Y’all betta stop dating them pale ass bitches and going back to dem bad bitches with the dope booties that clap so much, homie think be he getting a standing ovation. How can y’all betray yo own hoes, y’all some Uncle Toms? Y’all haven’t seen critically acclaimed “Django” starring the incredibly versatile actor Samuel L. Jackson? Ya’ll think that when Martin Luther nailed da 95 tenets of Black Liberation to that Gospel church, that, that he wanted yo asses to start dating cracker ass bitches? Hell no. Tyler the Curator, yo ass part of the problem. This be Annie G. laying down some truth up in this joint. Lay off the Henney, Ya’ll tripping. Word.
And to all y’all black sisters. Stay strong mhmmmm. Us white bitches really ain’t got shit on you when it comes to attracting Black Men, even if the Patriarchy be making it seem like dat. Your black man be cray cray choosing that skinny Vanilla instead of your thick succulent chocolate. But it ain’t yo fault the black men don’t want y’all, the Patriarchy be behind that shit. So guurrl, listen to Annie G, I be yo salvation, Ima get yo black men back to you.
And like, how do you think it makes white women who constantly have one night stands with black guys, but never seem to be able to get a black man to commit to them, feel?
The white girls they never seem to want to be in a relationship with for some fucking reason, how do you think it makes them feel, huh? Seeing all these black men walking around holding hands with other white women, like, totally unworthy I bet. Maybe their name is Tyrone or something like that, and he doesn’t see the perfect girl for him when shes right in front of him and like never calls again, but then like starts dating this other white chick Jessica who’s a total fake model, or something like that. I mean I don’t know anyone who feels like that, but I can imagine, that they would just want these Zebra couples outta sight.
Black men, y’all better do the right thing, stop dating white women, especially fake models, it’s like slavery all over again. New Slaves. Even though the greatest president of all time, Barack Sadam Obama, is the product of such a relationship, that’s just an exception. Show this to your black friends and the white women they’re dating and tweet under #stopBMWW.Red Bull Salzburg Nike Kit Deal Details
Sports Director Ralf Rangnick said about the upcoming co-operation: I am delighted that we have found the global brand Nike as a long-term partner for our two locations in Leipzig and Salzburg. We are convinced that working with this strong brand represents a further important factor in the development of our two clubs.
Austrian 2013-14 league champions Red Bull Salzburg signed a new kit deal with the US-giant Nike, replacing Adidas.The new Nike Red Bull Kit contract also includes the kits of the partner club RB Leipzig, who will play in the 2.Bundesliga next season, promoted from the third division. Curiously, as Adidas is the exclusive kit supplier of the MLS until 2018, Red Bull New York will still receive Adidas Kits. Therefore, Adidas and Nike kit will design respectively kits with a similar design. That makes it possible to compare the efforts of the two biggest sport brands designing the new Red Bull Kits.Nike and Red Bull Salzburg signed a ten years kit from the 2014-15 season, at least until 2024. While no further contract details were unveiled, Red Bull Salzburg commented the deal.The new Red Bull Salzburg 14-15 Kits are expected to be unveiled in July 2014.Monthly Updates of the Number of “Missing Workers” and What the Unemployment Rate Would Be If They Were Looking for Work
More than four years since the Great Recession officially ended in June 2009, the unemployment rate stands at 7.3 percent. This is still a percentage point above the highest unemployment rate of the early 2000s downturn, 6.3 percent. However, 7.3 percent is a big improvement from the high of 10.0 percent in the fall of 2009. Unfortunately, most of that improvement was for all the wrong reasons.
In today’s labor market, the unemployment rate drastically understates the weakness of job opportunities. This is because in the weak labor market of the aftermath of the Great Recession, there are a huge number of “missing workers”—potential workers who are neither employed nor actively seeking work simply because job opportunities remain so scarce. Because jobless workers are only counted as unemployed if they are actively seeking work, these missing workers are not reflected in the unemployment rate.
As part of its ongoing effort to create the metrics needed to assess how well the economy is working for America’s broad middle class, EPI is introducing its “missing workers” estimate. Our estimate shows there are currently nearly 5 million missing workers. These are workers who would be in the labor force if job opportunities were significantly expanded but, given the state of the labor market, are sidelined.
Exactly how many missing workers macroeconomic policymakers believe there are has enormous implications for their assessment of the strength of the job market, and therefore for their policy decisions. For example, if they underestimate the number of missing workers, they will overstate the strength of the labor market, and be less likely to provide the economy with the support it needs. As shown in the figure below, if the nearly 5 million missing workers were looking for work and thus counted as unemployed, the unemployment rate in August would have been 10.1 percent instead of 7.3 percent.
Estimating the number of missing workers is not straightforward because some changes in labor force participation over the last five years have nothing at all to do with the weak labor market (for example, baby boomers beginning to reach retirement age). Our estimate of the number of missing workers isolates the cyclical component of the decline in the labor force participation rate since the start of the Great Recession. In other words, it counts just those missing workers who would be in the labor force if job opportunities were strong. It doesn’t count, for example, those retiring baby boomers who would have left the labor force whether or not the Great Recession happened.
We will update these estimates on the first Friday of every month immediately after the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases the monthly jobs numbers. In particular, we will update the following three figures each month at EPI’s Missing Workers page:
1. The trend in the total number of missing workers, currently nearly 5 million:
2. The breakdown of missing workers by gender and age, showing most missing workers are of prime working age:
3. The earlier figure depicting what the unemployment rate would be if the missing workers were looking for jobs.
Methodology
How do we estimate the number of missing workers? Labor force participation rate projections published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in November 2007—before the start of the Great Recession—are available in Table 3 of Mitra Toossi, “Labor Force Projections to 2016: More Workers in Their Golden Years,” Bureau of Labor Statistics Monthly Labor Review, November 2007. The projections assumed a healthy labor market over the period in question, 2006–2016, so the participation rate changes it forecasts reflect purely non-cyclical factors (e.g., the impact of retiring baby boomers). The difference between these projections and the actual labor force participation rate is thus a good measure of the cyclical change in the labor force participation rate, i.e., the change that is a direct result of the weak labor market in the Great Recession and its aftermath. Based on this logic, missing workers are estimated in the following way: The labor force participation rate projections for 2016 by gender and age group (age groups 16–19, 20–24, 25–34, 35–44, 45–54, 55+) available in Table 3 of Toossi (2007) are assumed to be structural rates. The current month’s structural rates (by gender and age group) are calculated by linearly interpolating between 2006 and 2016. The size of the potential labor force is calculated by multiplying the current month’s structural rates by actual population numbers (available by gender and age group from the Current Population Survey public data series). The difference between the size of the potential labor force and size of the actual labor force (also available by gender and age group from the Current Population Survey public data series) is the number of missing workers.A pair of armed Chinese fighter jets flew dangerously close to a U.S. Navy reconnaissance plane flying in the East China Sea on Sunday afternoon, with the hazardous Chinese behavior nearly causing a "collision," two U.S. officials told Fox News.
One of the Chinese J-10 jets flew under the American EP-3 jet and maneuvered suddenly, popping up 300 feet in front of the U.S. plane and causing "the [US] EP-3 to take evasive action to avoid collision,” one official said.
Both Chinese fighter jets were armed with air-to-air missiles, according to the officials.
The incident occurred roughly 90 miles south of the Chinese port city of Qingdao in the East China Sea.
The episode came just days after the U.S. Navy’s top officer, Adm. John Richardson, on Friday called his Chinese counterpart to discuss possible next steps in putting pressure on North Korea, in an effort to de-escalate tensions and roll back the rogue regime's missile and nuclear weapons programs.
It’s the first unsafe interaction between China and the U.S. Navy in the air near China since a similar incident occurred off the coast of Hong Kong in late May.
This month, the U.S. Navy sailed a guided-missile destroyer near a contested island in the South China Sea that is claimed by China. It was the second time since President Trump took office the U.S. Navy conducted what it calls a “freedom of navigation” operation.A few months before Democrats swept the 2006 elections, an outcry raged in the fringier corners of the immigration debate. Treasonous American officials were tipping off the Mexican government about the whereabouts of Minutemen patrols, the argument went, making it impossible for the private army bent on preventing undocumented immigrants from crossing the border to do their jobs.
The outcry made it to Congress, where Georgia Rep. Jack Kingston, a Republican, introduced an amendment clearly directed at the Minutemen story. The amendment barred the Department of Homeland Security from providing “a foreign government information relating to the activities of an organized volunteer civilian action group, operating in the State of California, Texas, New Mexico, or Arizona.”
Kingston’s amendment overwhelmingly passed the Republican-controlled Congress, including the votes of 76 Democrats, most of them from the party’s then-strong Blue Dog conservative wing. Another person voted for the measure, too: Rep. Bernie Sanders, an independent in the midst of the campaign that would send him the U.S. Senate.
The Minutemen have long since faded from the the national conversation and from memory — in an interview with BuzzFeed News, Kingston had to dig deep to remember the specifics of the vote, and other prominent Republican Minuteman supporters of the time didn’t recall it at all — but fears that the federal government is undermining efforts by local authorities to fight illegal immigration continue.
For Sanders, the amendment is another in a string of past votes that aren’t quite in line with the exact progressive priorities of 2015. Much like past positions on guns that the senator has had to navigate this year, his immigration positions have at times posed some challenges with the new Democratic base and the party’s priorities. He voted against the 2007 immigration bill backed by most Democrats on Capitol Hill and Latino groups (as well as the Bush administration then in the White House) but opposed by many in Sanders’s organized labor base. Sanders supported the comprehensive immigration bill that failed in Congress in 2013. Immigration is now a central part of his campaign — last month he released a detailed proposal includes most of what immigration advocates are seeking this cycle.
And just as with guns — Sanders advocated for things like assault weapons bans while also voting against some Democratic-backed legislation — he supported many of the key goals of immigration advocates in 2007 such as the pathway to citizenship. But in the end, Sanders voted against the overall immigration bill.
The 2006 vote is a bit different. The amendment was meant to protect the Minutemen, and only concerned the southern border of the United States. A short floor debate over the amendment took place on June 6, 2006. Republican backers of the amendment spoke of “the total lawlessness of people coming illegally over the border at night” and how the Minutmen — “definitely not politically correct in Washington, D.C.,” Kingston, the Republican sponsor said — “filled a void which the government was unable to fill.”
Rep. Olav Sabo, a Minnesota Democrat and ranking member on the Homeland Security Committee, was the sole member of his party to speak on the amendment.
“I claim the time in opposition; but, Mr. Chairman, I don't rise in opposition,” he said. He said Customs officials had told him they already didn’t share information with the Mexican government except for where required by treaty.
“If people want to put it in the bill, I guess that is okay because it apparently does nothing,” he quipped.
The Sanders campaign cited Sabo’s vote when explaining Sanders’ support for the largely symbolic, pro-Minuteman measure.
“People put forward nuisance amendments all the time,” Michael Briggs, Sanders’s top communications strategist and longtime aide, told BuzzFeed News. “In this case, the Customs and Border Patrol [according to Sabo] said it was a meaningless thing and [Sanders] and Sabo voted for it.”
Kingston did not recall the specifics of the the legislative wrangling that eventually passed the amendment with some Democratic support (it was not included in a final DHS funding bill passed by the Senate), but he recalled Sanders in Congress as an unpredictable iconoclast.
"One thing that is nice about a guy like that, he's really philosophically true. He's kind of like Ron Paul, you couldn't get him off his belief system,” Kingston said. “He was pretty true to what he believed in. He would kind of jump in and out of various issues — he wasn't just a dependable liberal yes vote any more than a Ron Paul would be a dependable conservative no vote.”
Historians of the Minuteman debate of the 2000s don’t remember the issues surrounding the amendment as a libertarian issue. Harel Shapira, a professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Austin and author of a 2013 book on the Minutemen, cast the debate as steeped in conspiracy theories and fears that the Bush administration was undermining those trying to protect the border.
“There was some set of documents published on the Mexican secretary of state website indicating that the U.S. Border Patrol would notify them when Minutemen were involved in apprehensions of immigrants. From my recollection, it was a fairly innocuous statement,” he told BuzzFeed News. “It became an ‘issue’ because it was interpreted by Minutemen and supporters as the U.S. government collaborating with an enemy state, and putting the lives of patriotic Americans at risk (i.e all of these patrols were framed as a military operation), so, as the Minutemen and their allies saw it, you don’t give away troop locations during battle, but this ostensibly is what was going on.”
Minutemen were actually quite public about where their patrols were headed, Shapira said, regularly posting them to the web. The outcry over the supposed conversations between DHS and the Mexican government was about something more, he said.
“It was a conflict over cooperation between U.S. and Mexico and ‘whose side’ the U.S. government was on. All at the symbolic level,” he recalled. “The Minutemen and their allies were very good about framing this is a war and the Minutemen were seen as soldiers, so giving info to the ‘enemy’ was understood as act of treason.”
Still, the amendment vote wasn’t a very important part of that debate. It got very little press coverage when it passed. The Southern Poverty Law Center condemned it in one piece, with top SPLC official Mark Potok saying it “sounds like another paranoid conspiracy theory of the Minutemen” in one California newspaper. Most other stories mentioned it near the bottom of stories about legislative wrangling between the Republican House and the Democratically-controlled Senate. Even the most fervent supporters of the Minutemen at the time didn’t find memories of it close to hand.
Tom Tancredo, the former Republican member of Congress from Colorado and author of the forward to a 2006 book supportive of the Minuteman cause, voted for Kingston’s amendment along with most Republicans. But he didn’t remember the specific vote.
“An amendment vote, it's not quite as noteworthy as a piece of legislation,” he said. Amendments are often plentiful in bills and come up fast, he said.
He did find it surprising that Sanders voted with him on the amendment, however.
"I certainly would never have expected it," he said.Members of the indigenous Achuar tribe from the Peruvian Amazon have won an undisclosed sum from Occidental Petroleum in an out-of-court settlement after a long-running legal battle in the US courts.
Peruvians sue oil giant over Amazon pollution Read more
They sued the company in 2007, alleging it knowingly caused pollution which caused premature deaths, birth defects and damaged their habitat.
It is the first time a company from the United States has been sued in a US court for pollution it caused in another country, Marco Simons, the legal director of EarthRights International, which represented the Achuar people in the lawsuit, said. It set a “precedent” which he said will be “significant for future cases and has already been cited by other courts in the United States”.
The case was initially dismissed in 2008 when the federal district court agreed with Occidental Petroleum that the case should be heard in Peru rather than Los Angeles, the plaintiffs successfully appealed to overturn this decision, and the US supreme court refused to hear the company’s arguments in 2013.
The funds provided by the company through a trust will be used for health, education and nutrition projects run by a collective of five Achuar communities (Antioquía, José Olaya, Nueva Jerusalén, Pampa Hermosa and Saukí) that filed the lawsuit. All come from the Corrientes river basin in Peru’s northern Amazon.
One of the plaintiffs, Adolfina Sandi alleges her 11-year-old son and eight-year-old daughter died after drinking water from the contaminated river.
“We didn’t know the impact of the pollution and the company never told us. My son and daughter died vomiting blood. They never confirmed to us why they had died,” she said. Speaking her native Achuar language, Sandi said she was grateful for the settlement even though her children would not benefit from the projects.
Indigenous protesters occupy Peru's biggest Amazon oil field Read more
LA-based Occidental Petroleum drilled for oil in Peru’s block 1-AB – one of the country’s biggest oil concessions – between 1971 and 2000, during which time it spewed out around 9bn gallons of untreated “produced waters” containing heavy metals such as cadmium, lead and arsenic into the rivers and streams without regard for international standards, according to a report by the NGO Amazon Watch.
In 2006, a study by Peru’s health ministry in seven affected communities revealed that all but two of the 199 people tested had levels of cadmium in their blood above safe levels. In the same year, the Achuar seized oil wells, forcing the government and the Argentinian company Pluspetrol which took over the block in 2000 to remediate the environmental damage by reinjecting the production waters.
But conditions have not improved with Pluspetrol. The Peruvian government declared an environmental emergency in the Corrientes basin in 2013. The company, which operates oil and gas fields across Peru’s Amazon, is challenging nearly $13m in environmental fines through Peru’s courts, according to the country’s environmental supervision agency.
Arli Sandi, an Achuar leader from Saukí, said the communities would not be afraid to file a similar lawsuit against Pluspetrol.
In January, Achuar, Kichwa and Urarina communities seized Pluspetrol oil wells in Peru’s northern Amazon demanding the company pay compensation for contamination and the use of their territories.That sound you heard as 2015 arrived was a long exhale of relief.
It feels good to give the one of the first new shows of the year, "Marvel's Agent Carter," a positive review. Not only is it preferable to start the TV year on an optimistic note, there were plenty of reasons to be particularly worried about this property, thus I'm especially happy it didn't go awry.
The rocky first season of "Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." provided a cautionary tale that lasted the better part of a season and made it clear that bringing Marvel universe characters to the small screen is no easy task. Though "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." has gotten a lot better (huzzah!), many of those improvements came too late for a sizable chunk of the show's viewers, who didn't return for the stronger and more focused second season.
Despite that welcome uptick in quality, it wasn't unreasonable to worry about whether Marvel TV shows were capable of coming out of the gate strong. DC TV properties like "Arrow" and "The Flash" felt far more assured than "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." did in its early going; the two CW shows figured out what they wanted to accomplish very quickly, and that confidence has continued to help both ride out any week-to-week turbulence. That said, "Gotham" proves that DC shows (and superhero programs in general) can still have a lot of trouble with tone and execution. The Fox drama remains uncertain of what it wants to be and who it wants to be about, and right now, it doesn't consistently do anything except serve as unexceptional "brand management," as EW's Jeff Jensen wrote.
She's not exactly Batman, but these days, Peggy Carter's pop-culture profile is at least comparable to that of the Green Arrow, James Gordon or The Flash. The espionage agent is obviously a longtime part of the Marvel comic-book universe, but her inclusion in both "Captain America" movies made her much more famous, and when "Agent Carter" was announced, I was torn: Sure, it might be a cool show, but what if it was a high-profile train wreck? Not Peggy!
My fondness for the character runs deep: I think "Captain America: The First Avenger" is the best movie to have emerged from the post-"Iron Man" Marvel Cinematic Universe, and Carter, who is so warmly and ably portrayed by Hayley Atwell, provides some of the reasons that rock-solid, emotionally sensitive and exciting origin story works so well. A failure to do right by Carter would have been a particularly painful. To stumble when inventing mostly new characters, as "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." did, is regrettable but understandable. To mess up a well-known character who is already beloved, who fits into a known universe and who possesses so much potential -- well, a TV train wreck just didn't bear contemplating, especially given that Carter is one of the few complex, compelling women in the overwhelmingly male MCU.
Happily, my apprehensions quickly faded away as I watched the first two episodes of "Marvel's Agent Carter" on New Year's Day. The drama is every bit as brisk and engaging as its lead character, and I can only list one real objection to the show: its brevity. The first season of "Agent Carter" will consist of only eight episodes, so when Carter's adventures end in a couple of months, I'm betting many of us will feel as though it ended too soon.
Even so, telling one story in a limited amount of time seems like a very Peggy Carter thing to do. Crisp, entertaining efficiency is kind of her thing.
The downside of the short run is that it might not allow "Agent Carter" to explore the show's supporting characters in detail, which is a bit of a shame. The cast around Atwell is excellent, particularly Enver Gjokaj of "Dollhouse" as a fellow agent in the post-war Strategic Scientific Reserve (a cover for a covert spy agency). Dominic Cooper swoops in from the MCU to have fun playing the rakish Howard Stark again, but I found that James D'Arcy, who plays Stark's butler, Jarvis, quietly stole the show out from under his flashy boss.
It's nice to see the cast rounded out with solid players, but the soul of the show is Peggy Carter, and "Agent Carter" quickly and intelligently begins to add depth and texture to the character, who hides a well of sadness under her chipper British exterior. When the series begins, Carter is restless and frustrated within the confines of the sexist boys' club that is the post-war SSR (a situation that was glimpsed in the Marvel One Shot also titled "Agent Carter"). Her boss and co-workers are often callous and condescending to her, yet "Agent Carter" is never dour or bitter. The show clearly wants to be an energetic slice of period escapism, and it supplies spy-game derring-do with energetic efficiency. Atwell carries the show with forthrightness and aplomb, and there are grace notes that quietly remind the audience that Peggy is still mourning Captain America (who, in this time frame, is a "Cap-sicle" at the bottom of the ocean).
The secret-agent tales in these episodes aren't particularly new or original; the plots usually revolve around the usual MacGuffins and glowing orbs and chases and fights in warehouses. However executive producers and showrunners Tara Butters and Michele Fazekas do a good job of parceling out the show's overall story into smaller, episodic servings, and "Agent Carter" barrels along confidently in its first couple of installments. The period details generally look swell, and the direction of the show is not only energetic but recalls the classic aesthetic of the first Cap film, as is only appropriate. (See the note below for more on that.)
"Agent Carter" doesn't reinvent the spy game on TV, but it's a crackling start to what I can only hope is a long-running, female-centered Marvel adventure tale. The comic-book company has several more TV series in the works ("Daredevil," "A.K.A. Jessica Jones" and "Luke Cage" among them), and so far, Peggy Carter's adventures are making me feel optimistic about what's coming next.
Note: Louis D'Esposito, who directed the Peggy Carter Marvel One Shot, directed the first episode of "Agent Carter" and Joe Russo, co-director of "Captain America: The Winter Soldier," directed the second hour." During the summer, I read news reports that Marvel was exploring the idea of having "Captain America: The First Avenger" director Joe Johnston direct an episode of "Agent Carter," but a Marvel spokesperson confirmed that Johnston did not helm an episode this season.
"Marvel's Agent Carter" airs its first two episodes 8 p.m. ET Tuesday on ABC.Kuala Lumpur: A construction worker was bitten by a crocodile during a toilet break in a river in Malaysian Borneo, but fought off the huge reptile and escaped with his life.
Pai punched the two-metre crocodile in the eye after it bit him just above his right buttock, and despite being in incredible pain and soaked in blood managed to summon help, reports said on Saturday.
The attack happened early Friday, when the 32-year-old decided to take his chances in the river in Sarawak state despite knowing it was infested with crocodiles.
The labourer, an Indonesian who works at a nearby construction site, had just finished relieving himself under a bridge when the animal bit him from behind.
“Fortune favoured me when the crocodile let go after I punched it in the eye,” he was quoted by Malay tabloid Harian Metro as saying.
“After being freed from the jaws of the crocodile, I found extraordinary strength to run and call for help even though my waist was extremely painful.”
Several newspapers ran pictures of Pai, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, lying on his stomach at the Sarawak General Hospital with bandages on his waist and hip area.
According to The Star newspaper, he also suffered puncture wounds on the left side of his ribs.
Crocodile attacks have been a constant problem in Malaysia, with several deaths reported in the past few years.
The Star reported that a 14-year-old boy was still recovering at the same hospital after a crocodile attack on Wednesday.
Two years ago, a Malaysian businessman settled out of court for 43,000 ringgit (Dh50,883) after he was bitten by a crocodile while playing golf at a resort near the historic port town of Malacca just south of Kuala Lumpur.Organic aquaculture has proved to be a successful niche market in the European Union and Canada.
There is also a big demand for organic products in the US, as people want confidence in what they are buying, said George Lockwood, Chair of the USDA official Aquaculture Working Group.
Big sales of EU organic products have overtaken sales of domestic salmon in some areas and organic production could help the US catfish industry compete with cheaper imports, so having its own organic product range would be very beneficial to the US industry.
Despite this demand and 15 years on, the standard is still in the making, with one delay after another on posting a proposed Final Rule for organic aquaculture.
Speaking to TheFishSite, Mr Lockwood said he is concerned over the delays and thinks the strong voice of anti-aquaculture groups in the US may be to blame.
"In early 2010, after much consideration, the National Organic Standard Board officially recommended a comprehensive set of proposed rules to National Organic Programme (NOP). The next step in 2010 would have been for NOP to officially and immediately go into |
.com.Reco Session introduces baby-faced sensei Kokomi Isuzu [Update]
"Free Reco Session" mode lets you take photos of sub characters.
The latest issue of Weekly Famitsu reveals a new sub character set to appear in Reco Love: Blue Ocean and Reco Love: Gold Beach.
Kokomi Isuzu (voiced by Chiaki Omigawa) is your sensei, but she is baby-faced enough look even younger than your in-game classmates. The magazine calls her a “cute loli senpai.”
In addition to the new character, Famitsu also has details on “Free Reco Session,” a mode where you can take pictures of the game’s sub characters such as Kokomi.
Reco Love: Blue Ocean and Reco Love: Gold Beach are due out for PS Vita in Japan on October 20.
Thanks, Famitsu.
Update 7:55 a.m.: More details have surfaced.
Kokomi Isuzu is the homeroom teacher in charge of the protagonist’s class. She is both baby-faced and short, and her appearance doesn’t seem appropriate for her age. She also teaches English class.
The “Sub Character Reco Session” can be enjoyed after you clear the game. During “Reco Sessions,” you’ll be able to request shooting sessions with the six heroines you befriend. But after clearing the game, you can also request shooting sessions from sub characters. You can chanage locations, poses, and costumes for them, as well.
Thanks, Hachima Kikou.Kansas and Missouri Seek to Prohibit Use Of Illegally Gathered Electronic Data
Activist Post
As federal judges and lawyers squabble over the constitutionality of NSA data gathering, state legislators in Kansas and Missouri have taken steps to thwart its practical effect and protect the privacy of citizens in their states.
Late last week, Rep. Brett Hildabrand (R-Shawnee) prefiled a bill that would ban all state agencies and local governments in the state from possessing data “held by a third-party in a system of record” and would prohibit any such information from being “subject to discovery, subpoena or other means of legal compulsion for its release to any person or entity or be admissible in evidence in any judicial or administrative proceeding” without either “express informed consent” or a warrant.
The Fourth Amendment Protection Act (HB2421) would effectively prohibit the use of information gathered by the NSA and shared with state or local agencies in Kansas.
“I want to make sure that electronic privacy in Kansas is protected in the same way that physical letters in the mail are protected from random government searches,” Hildabrand said. “Each day, we hear a new revelation about how the NSA is violating our personal privacy. My bill will ensure the state of Kansas doesn’t utilize this illegally obtained data.”
Hildabrand said it will also address potential privacy violations at the state level.
“USA Today reported early in December that over 100 police agencies in 33 states now use technology to intercept and catalog the electronic communication of average, law-abiding citizens. We must be ever-vigilant that their rights are not being infringed upon by big government taking advantage of advances in technology.”
A proposed amendment to the Missouri state constitution would accomplish the same thing by adding “electronic communications and data” to the search and seizure clause of the state constitution. If SJR 27 passes the legislature, the proposed amendment would be placed on the next ballot.
A Reuters report in August, 2013, revealed that the NSA ‘s secretive Special Operations Division (SOD) is “funneling information from intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a massive database of telephone records to authorities across the nation to help them launch criminal investigations of Americans.” Documents obtained by Reuters show that these cases “rarely involve national security issues,” and that the SOD directs local law enforcement to “conceal how such investigations truly begin.”
Tenth Amendment Center national communications director Mike Maharrey said he has no faith in Congress or the courts reining in the NSA.
“The bottom line is the federal government doesn’t limit itself,” he said. “Realistically, the federal courts have a strong track record of deferring to federal agencies when they claim ‘national security issues,’ so we can’t count on them to uphold the intent of the Fourth Amendment. That’s why it’s crucial for state governments to step into the gap and protect the most basic rights of their citizens. Rep. Hildabrand’s bill and the proposed Missouri constitutional amendment do just that.”
Survival Solar Battery Charger - Free Today! The efforts in Kansas and Missouri tie into a national movement spearheaded by the OffNow coalition to stop unconstitutional NSA spying through state and local action. Last month, Arizona state Sen. Kelli Ward announced she was introducing an even broader bill to deny material support to the NSA in the Grand Canyon State. Sources close to the Tenth Amendment Center indicate several other state lawmakers plan to introduce similar legislation in the coming weeks. “There are four strategic points where states can take action to thwart the effect of NSA spying: provision of resources, university partnerships, corporate sanctions, and information-sharing. Each bill introduced is an important piece of the puzzle,” OffNow.org national campaign lead Shane Trejo said. Contact: Mike Maharrey
Communications Director
O: 213.935.0553 F: 213.402.3938
[email protected]
www.tenthamendmentcenter.comWhen thinking up new salmon recipes, we look for inspiration every where, even the local Costco. Costco sells crab-stuffed salmon year-round. Growing up, my parents would buy it on rare occasions, and it was always delicious. Heather and I often pick up salmon from Costco, but we’ve never bought the crab-stuffed salmon because we weren’t thrilled by the ingredient list.
Thankfully, we recently perfected our homemade mayonnaise recipe. It works as an amazing binder for recipes just like this one. We thoroughly recommend this salmon, as it’s a delicious dish that is great for a quiet night at home or for entertaining family and friends. With very little preparation, you’ll be enjoying this for dinner and wow’ing everyone in no time.
Ingredients
3 1/2 lb salmon fillets
1/2 lb crab meat, shredded
1/2 C homemade mayonnaise
1/4 C white onion, minced
2 cloves garlic, pressed
1/4 tsp dill weed
dusting of paprika
Method
Slice your salmon fillet into 3 approximately 1/2 lb cuts of salmon. Slice the center of each fillet fully to create a pocket in the salmon for crab stuffing. Preheat your oven to 350°F.
In a bowl, mix the crab meat, mayonnaise, onion, garlic, and dill.
Fill the salmon fillets with the crab mixture, and lightly dust the top with paprika.
Place your filled salmon fillets on a pan lined with parchment paper, and bake for 25 minutes.
Allow to rest 3-5 minutes and then plate.
This crab stuffed salmon is a satisfying meal on its own, but also goes well with a side of salad or asparagus. We know you’ll enjoy it! Be sure to try this, and our other salmon recipes, the next time you’re in the mood for seafood.Kelly Oubre Jr. had 12 points Saturday against the Nets. (Jacquelyn Martin/Associated Press)
NEW YORK – When Washington Wizards swingman Jarell Eddie got to his new locker at Verizon Center Wednesday night following a Wizards victory over the Memphis Grizzlies he didn’t play in, he found a red Christmas suit – jacket, pants and tie — waiting for him. Nene and Marcin Gortat provided the outfit and told him he had to wear the outfit because he was a rookie.
One day into his NBA career, Eddie obliged without hesitation and wore it Friday to the team plane at Dulles Airport Thursday afternoon as instructed. But when he got there, Kelly Oubre Jr., the team’s other rookie, wasn’t wearing his festive attire. So they made the pair wear the garb to the Wizards’ game against the Brooklyn Nets at Barclays Center Saturday afternoon.
“I was like, ‘Damn,’ ” Eddie said.
But after their standout performances Saturday, Eddie and Oubre should perhaps consider wearing the suits to every game. Both rookies posted 12 points in Washington’s 111-96 victory, fueling the Wizards at different times in the contest to help them overcome the lowly Nets and win their fourth straight game.
Eddie scored all of his 12 points on four three-pointers in the fourth quarter – his only misfire from beyond the arc was a heave from three-quarters of the court as the buzzer sounded to end the third period. The 24-year-old Virginia Tech product played all 12 minutes in the final quarter as Washington outscored the Nets 32-19 to put them away. His first three-pointer – a difficult catch-and-shoot hoist curling off a screen — opened the scoring in the fourth and alleviated the inevitable nerves that come with a debut.
“When that shot’s in the air and it goes through the net, it’s kind of like, ‘Good. It’s over with. This is within me,’ ” Eddie said.
A 6-foot-7 swingman that went undrafted in 2014, Eddie was shooting 52.5 percent from three-point range with the D-League’s Austin Spurs when he the Wizards added him and waived center Ryan Hollins on Tuesday. His shooting ability was why the Wizards, in need of perimeter depth because of a deluge of injuries, signed him. Coach Randy Wittman made sure to remind him Saturday.
“I just told him, ‘Know who you are. And if I put you in the game tonight, I’m putting you in the game to shoot. I’m not putting you in the game to rebound,’ ” Wittman said. “That’s the kind of the thing we talk about. Know who you are. Know who your strengths are. And I thought he came in and was really good. He was aggressive. Took the open looks and took advantage of it.”
Eddie’s time with the Wizards has been brief, but he said he’s benefited from having spent time playing in similar offensive systems — spread-the-court, four-out-one-in operations — used by the Golden State Warriors, San Antonio Spurs and Atlanta Hawks in summer league, training camp and the D-League.
“It helps because they run a lot of similar stuff and the system and scheme is pretty much the same: moving the ball, finding the open guy,” Eddie said. “So it helps because it’s something I’m comfortable with and familiar with and it’s easy to play in something you already know.”
While Eddie was shining for the first time, Oubre, four years his junior, was continuing his recent steady play with his best all-around performance of his young career. Otto Porter Jr. returned Saturday after a three-game absence because of a bruised left thigh but didn’t start. Having Oubre playing at his current level will allow Porter to ease back in and the formula worked successfully Saturday.
Starting for the fourth straight game, Oubre, the 15th pick in June’s draft, scored his 12 points on 5-of-7 shooting and added six rebounds, a steal and a block while making sound subtle plays, including drawing an offensive foul, to help Washington over 32 minutes.
“Just the game’s slowing down a bit,” said Oubre, whose Christmas suit was green and didn’t include a tie. “Just trying to make the right plays at the right times, that’s definitely the biggest key for me. Not settling and just trying to be a better all-around player.”
UP NEXT: The Wizards return to action Monday when they host the Los Angeles Clippers at Verizon Center. The matchup will mark the return of Paul Pierce, who spent last season in Washington, for the first time since helping the Wizards advance to the second round of the playoffs last spring. The Clippers (17-13) will be without all-star forward Blake Griffin after he partially tore his quadriceps tendon in their Christmas night win over the Lakers.John Witheriff’s passion for the Gold Coast, and his desire to effect change for the better, saw him presented with the Key to the City.
Witheriff seems to be the boss of everything these days, with roles on a range of boards including Chair of Minter Ellison Gold Coast, Chair of GoldLinQ, a Director of the Gold Coast Suns (and its foundation Chair), Chair of Nexus Infrastructure, and a Director of GOLDOC delivering the 2018 Commonwealth Games.
With a blatant passion for the city and with no signs of giving up on his mission to continue to change the Gold Coast for the better, Witheriff was granted the Key to the City of Gold Coast – the highest honour that the city can bestow on an individual or group.
“It is a great honour to get this presentation,” says Witheriff, who was born and bred on the Gold Coast.
“I think it is one of those things that really take you by surprise; there are no expectations – I go about doing things just because I love the Gold Coast.
“It has always been home for me, I was born here, the Gold Coast has been very good to me and I think myself, and everyone, has an obligation to give back.
“That has been my attitude over the years and for the community to turn around and recognise that, that is a real bonus. I certainly didn’t expect it but it’s very nice when it occurs.”
Witheriff is one of Australia’s leading corporate, governance and risk practitioners, sought by both industry and government for key strategic advice and counsel.
Along with heading the city’s largest law firm, the businessman was instrumental in the establishment of an AFL team on the Gold Coast – one of his most proud achievements.
While he admits he had never attended an AFL game prior to developing an AFL team in the city, he says he identified education, health and sporting infrastructure as industries to complement tourism and the city’s expected population shift.
“I loved the very first game the SUNS played against Geelong at Metricon Stadium,” says Witheriff, who was also Awarded Gold Coast Citizen of the Year in 2005.
“A lot of hard work went into that, we built the stadium, and to see it absolutely packed out and the great Gary Ablett run on for the Gold Coast was certainly a highlight from a business perspective.”
Over a 10-year period, it is expected the Gold Coast SUNS will inject over $1 billion of economic activity into the city.
“Another highlight was when we started a law firm, a couple of ex-rugby players, and turned it into the largest firm on the Gold Coast, as part of a larger international law firm. People said that could never be done on the Gold Coast so that was fantastic to achieve,” says Witheriff.
“And, the light rail – the first day we had 80,000 people through, that was an amazing day. There have been many, many amazing days.”
While Witheriff has been recognised for his contribution to the Gold Coast, he says his success would not have been possible without the support and contribution of friends, family and colleagues.
“Nothing happens on its own; it requires people to roll their sleeves up and make it happen and I have been lucky enough to work with lots and lots of different people and join in those people’s shared vision to continue to make the city a better place,” says Witheriff.
“The Key to the City is the recognition of the hard work done by all of the people in the organisations that I have had the privilege of leading or participating in.
“It’s a recognition to all of those people for the contribution they have made, and for me, I just so happened to be the baton bearer and I am thankful and honoured, but I really recognise that I represent the efforts of all involved.”
Witheriff says he shows no signs of slowing down, and says his love for the Gold Coast is attributable to its amazing lifestyle and equally amazing people.
“Most of all I love the attitude of people who live here,” says Witheriff.
“The Gold Coast is quite unique and is full of people who don’t really care what others say or think. People are just going to get in, get things done, and achieve a great outcome, and if others don’t like that, that is their problem.
“The Gold Coast just has this great ‘can-do’ attitude.”
Other Gold Coasters to have been presented with the Key to the City include:
• Lionel Rose (1969) – Presented for winning the World Bantamweight Boxing Championship in 1968.
• Mick Fanning and Stephanie Gilmore (2008) – in recognition of outstanding achievement in the sport of surfing
• Judith Ferber and Kerry Watson (2011) – in recognition of their valuable contribution to cultural development and the annual Gold Coast Eisteddfod since its inception in 1982
• Win Schubert AO and Dr Patrick Corrigan AM (2015) – in recognition of her significant long term philanthropic contributions to the arts and cultural sector of the CityMarco Rubio Marco Antonio RubioHillicon Valley: Senators urge Trump to bar Huawei products from electric grid | Ex-security officials condemn Trump emergency declaration | New malicious cyber tool found | Facebook faces questions on treatment of moderators Key senators say administration should ban Huawei tech in US electric grid Trump unleashing digital juggernaut ahead of 2020 MORE and Ted Cruz Rafael (Ted) Edward CruzTrump unleashing digital juggernaut ahead of 2020 Inviting Kim Jong Un to Washington Trump endorses Cornyn for reelection as O'Rourke mulls challenge MORE continued their scorched-earth campaigns against Donald Trump Donald John TrumpHouse committee believes it has evidence Trump requested putting ally in charge of Cohen probe: report Vietnamese airline takes steps to open flights to US on sidelines of Trump-Kim summit Manafort's attorneys say he should get less than 10 years in prison MORE at the Republican debate in Detroit on Thursday.
ADVERTISEMENT
The two freshman senators are desperately seeking to hang on against Trump, who is threatening to run away with the nominating contest.
Both kept the pressure on Trump over his business career, his past support for Democrats, his electability and his position on immigration.
Trump started off the debate calmly seeking to rise above the fray, but the incessant attacks eventually got under his skin, and he kicked back hard at “Little Marco” and “Lying Ted.”
In perhaps one of the most shocking moments of an already unpredictable campaign, Trump directly addressed Rubio's previous criticism of his "small hands."
"He referred to my hands — if they are small, something else must be small,” Trump said. “I guarantee you, there's no problem.”
The exchange provoked groans from the crowd and hand-wringing among prominent conservatives on social media, who worried that the candidates were debasing themselves to the benefit of Democrats in the fall.
But the debate only spun out of control from there as the candidates bickered over their polling numbers and shouted about who would do best in a head-to-head match-up against Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonSanders: 'I fully expect' fair treatment by DNC in 2020 after 'not quite even handed' 2016 primary Sanders: 'Damn right' I'll make the large corporations pay 'fair share of taxes' Former Sanders campaign spokesman: Clinton staff are 'biggest a--holes in American politics' MORE.
“Gentleman, gentleman, you’ve got to do better than this,” moderator Chris Wallace muttered at one point.
Rubio kept up his aggressive attacks against Trump, although he had to defend his increasingly personal barbs against the front-runner.
Rubio argued that Trump has mocked everyone from his rivals to disabled reporters and that the media has only rewarded him with more attention because of it.
"If there has been any candidate who deserved to be attacked [in this] way, it's Donald Trump for the way he has treated people in the campaign,” Rubio said.
Trump, meanwhile, addressed the wild events that had transpired earlier in the day, when Mitt Romney gave a major address in which he sought to embarrass and humiliate the front-runner.
Trump cast Romney aside, calling him a "failed candidate" searching for relevance.
“He should have beaten President Obama very easily," Trump said.
He called Romney "an embarrassment to everybody, including the Republican Party," before apparently making a comment about Romney's tanned skin.
"He went away, looks like he went on a vacation the last month,” Trump said.
Cruz also kept the heat on Trump, ticking through all of the times he has donated to Democrats and supported liberal causes.
In one exchange, Cruz demanded Trump answer to how he could challenge Hillary Clinton on the debate stage when he supported her for president in 2008. Here, he made a direct appeal for Trump’s supporters.
“To the folks who are supporting Donald right now: You’re angry. You’re angry at Washington, and he uses angry rhetoric,” Cruz said.
“But for 40 years Donald has been part of the corruption in Washington that you’re angry about, and you’re not going to stop the corruption in Washington by supporting someone who has supported liberal Democrats for four decades.”
That’s the message Rubio sought to drive home as well.
“The numbers say that two-thirds of the people who have cast a vote in the Republican primary have voted against you, they do not want you to be our nominee,” Rubio said. “The reason is we’re not going to turn over the conservative movement … to someone whose positions are not conservative.”
Trump has absorbed those attacks before and they haven’t stuck.
Still, the front-runner had his hands full with the debate moderators.
He and Megyn Kelly faced off for the first time since the first GOP debate after months of public feuding. They were cordial to start.
“Mr. Trump, hello, how are you?,” Kelly asked.
“Hello Megyn,” Trump responded. “Nice to be with you. You’re looking well.”
But Kelly had several critical, though civil, exchanges with Trump that could have a lasting impact on the race.
She pressed Trump repeatedly on the off-the-record exchange he had with The New York Times about immigration.
“You’re not releasing the audio, which will have some asking whether on immigration you’re just playing to people’s fantasies, which is a tactic you’ve praised in your book '[The] Art of the Deal,'” Kelly said.
Later, she got Trump to change his position on visas for foreign workers seeking employment in the U.S.
“Time and time again you’ve told the voters one thing only to reverse your position in a matter of weeks or days,” Kelly said.
Trump’s rivals may already be cutting campaign ads with his response:
“You have to have a certain degree of flexibility,” Trump said.
But Rubio and Cruz didn’t escape unscathed either.
Both were put on the defensive by Fox News’s aggressive panel of moderators.
Rubio had to answer for the personal attacks he’s levied at Trump, even as he’s claimed to run a campaign focused on the issues. And Chris Wallace at one point asked Rubio point blank: “How many jobs have you created?”
Cruz had to answer a question about whether his brand of conservatism has “been rejected” in favor of Trump’s populist pitch. Megyn Kelly pointed out that Sen. Jeff Sessions Jefferson (Jeff) Beauregard SessionsTrump says he hasn't spoken to Barr about Mueller report Ex-Trump aide: Can’t imagine Mueller not giving House a ‘roadmap’ to impeachment Rosenstein: My time at DOJ is 'coming to an end' MORE (R-Ala.), a fierce immigration hawk and frequent touchstone for Cruz, is supporting Trump for president.
Ohio Gov. John Kasich didn’t get a question for the first 15 minutes of the debate, and when he did, he was forced to defend his position in the race.
“Voters need to see a path to the nomination if they’re going to support you,” Baier said.
Kasich vowed that he’d win his home state of Ohio, a critical winner-take-all contest that will vote on March 15.
The Ohio governor didn’t tangle with his rivals, instead sticking to the positive message that’s gotten him this far.
“I never get into these fights and people say everywhere I go that it makes me look like the adult on the stage,” Kasich said.Transient global amnesia Specialty Neurology
Transient global amnesia (TGA) is a neurological disorder whose key defining characteristic is a temporary but almost total disruption of short-term memory with a range of problems accessing older memories. A person in a state of TGA exhibits no other signs of impaired cognitive functioning but recalls only the last few moments of consciousness, as well as possibly a few deeply encoded facts of the individual's past, such as their childhood, family, or home perhaps.[1][2]
Both TGA and anterograde amnesia deal with disruptions of short-term memory. However, a TGA episode generally lasts no more than 2 to 8 hours before the patient returns to normal with the ability to form new memories. A patient with anterograde amnesia may not be able to form new memories indefinitely.[2]
Signs and symptoms [ edit ]
A person having an attack of TGA has almost no capacity to establish new memories, but generally appears otherwise mentally alert and lucid, possessing full knowledge of self-identity and identity of close family, and maintaining intact perceptual skills and a wide repertoire of complex learned behavior. The individual simply cannot recall anything that happened outside the last few minutes, while memory for more temporally distant events may or may not be largely intact.[1][2] The degree of amnesia is profound, and, in the interval during which the individual is aware of his or her condition, is often accompanied by anxiety.[3] The diagnostic criteria for TGA, as defined for purposes of clinical research, include:[2]
The attack was witnessed by a capable observer and reported as being a definite loss of recent memory (anterograde amnesia).
There was an absence of clouding of consciousness or other cognitive impairment other than amnesia.
There were no focal neurological signs or deficits during or after the attack.
There were no features of epilepsy, or active epilepsy in the past two years, and the patient did not have any recent head injury.
The attack resolved within 24 hours.
Progression of a TGA event [ edit ]
This onset of TGA is generally fairly rapid, and its duration varies but generally lasts between 2 and 8 hours.[2] A person experiencing TGA typically has memory only of the past few minutes or less, and cannot retain new information beyond that period of time. One of its bizarre features is perseveration, in which the victim of an attack faithfully and methodically repeats statements or questions, complete with profoundly identical intonation and gestures "as if a fragment of a sound track is being repeatedly rerun."[4] This is found in almost all TGA attacks and is sometimes considered a defining characteristic of the condition.[2][5][6] The individual experiencing TGA retains social skills and older significant memories, almost always including knowing his or her own identity and the identity of family members, and the ability to perform various complex learned tasks including driving and other learned behavior; one individual "was able to continue putting together the alternator of his car."[2] Though outwardly appearing to be normal, a person with TGA is disoriented in time and space, perhaps knowing neither the year nor where they reside. Although confusion is sometimes reported, others consider this an imprecise observation,[6] but an elevated emotional state (compared to patients experiencing Transient Ischemic Attack, or TIA) is common.[7] In a large survey, 11% of individuals in a TGA state were described as exhibiting "emotionalism" and 14% "fear of dying".[8] The attack lessens over a period of hours, with older memories returning first, and the repetitive fugue slowly lengthening so that the victim retains short-term memory for longer periods. While seemingly back to normal within 24 hours, there are subtle effects on memory that can persist longer.[9][10] In the majority of cases there are no long-term effects other than a complete lack of recall for this period of the attack and an hour or two before its onset.[2][11] There is emerging evidence for observable impairments in a minority of cases weeks or even years following a TGA attack.[9][12][13]
There is also evidence that the victim is aware that something is not quite right, even though they can't pinpoint it. Persons suffering from the attack may vocalize signs that 'they just lost their memory', or that they believed they had a stroke, although they aren't aware of the other signs that they are displaying. The main sign of this condition is the repetitive actions of something that is not usually repeated.[citation needed]
Causes [ edit ]
The underlying cause of TGA remains enigmatic. The leading hypotheses are some form of epileptic event, a problem with blood circulation around, to or from the brain, or some kind of migraine-like phenomenon.[7][14][15][16] The differences are sufficiently meaningful that transient amnesia may be considered a heterogeneous clinical syndrome[2] with multiple etiologies, corresponding mechanisms, and differing prognoses.[8]
Precipitating events [ edit ]
TGA attacks are associated with some form of precipitating event in at least one-third of cases.[17] The most commonly cited precipitating events include vigorous exercise (including sexual intercourse), swimming in cold water or enduring other temperature changes, and emotionally traumatic or stressful events.[2] There are reports of TGA-like conditions following certain medical procedures and disease states.[15] One study reports two cases of familial incidence (in which two members of the same family experienced TGA), out of 114 cases considered.[2] This indicates the possibility that there could be a slight familial incidence.
If the definition of a precipitating event is widened to include events days or weeks earlier, and to take in emotionally stressful burdens such as money worries, attending a funeral or exhaustion due to overwork or unusual childcare responsibilities, a large majority, over 80%, of TGA attacks are said to correlate with precipitating events.[8]
The role of psychological co-factors has been addressed by some research. It is the case that people in a state of TGA exhibit measurably elevated levels of anxiety and/or depression.[3] Emotional instability may leave some people vulnerable to stressful triggers and thus be associated with TGA.[8] Individuals who have experienced TGA, compared with similar people with TIA, are more likely to have some kind of emotional problem (such as depression or phobias) in their personal or family history[18] or to have experienced some kind of phobic or emotionally challenging precipitating event.[19]
Vascular hypotheses [ edit ]
Cerebral ischemia is a frequently disputed possible cause, at least for some segment of the TGA population, and until the 1990s it was generally thought that TGA was a variant of transient ischemic attack (TIA) secondary to some form of cerebrovascular disease.[7][16] Those who argue against a vascular cause point to evidence that those experiencing TGA are no more likely than the general population to have subsequent cerebral vascular disease.[7] In fact, "in comparison with TIA patients, TGA patients had a significantly lower risk of combined stroke, myocardial infarct, and death."[18]
Other vascular origins remain a possibility, however, according to research of jugular vein valve insufficiency in patients with TGA. In these cases TGA has followed vigorous exertion. One current hypothesis is that TGA may be due to venous congestion of the brain,[20] leading to ischemia of structures involved with memory, such as the hippocampus.[21] It has been shown that performing a Valsalva maneuver (involving "bearing down" and increasing breath pressure against a closed glottis, which occurs frequently during exertion) may be related to retrograde flow of blood in the jugular vein, and therefore, presumably, cerebral blood circulation, in patients with TGA.[20][22][23][24][25]
Migraine [ edit ]
A history of migraine is a statistically significant risk factor identified in the medical literature.[7][8] "When comparing TGA patients with normal control subjects… the only factor significantly associated with an increased risk for TGA was migraine."[16] 14% of people with TGA had a history of migraine in one study,[17] and approximately a third of the participants in another clinical study reported such a history.[2]
However, migraine does not appear to occur simultaneously with TGA nor serve as a precipitating event. Headache frequently occurs during TGA, as does nausea, both symptoms often associated with migraine, but it appears that these do not indicate migraine in patients during a TGA event. The connection remains conceptual, and muddied further by a lack of consensus about the definition of migraine itself, and by the differences in age, gender, and psychological characteristics of migraine sufferers when compared to those variables in the TGA cohort.[8]
Epilepsy [ edit ]
Amnesia is often a symptom in epilepsy, and for that reason people with known epilepsy are disqualified from most studies of TGA. In a study where strict criteria were applied to TGA diagnosis, no epileptic features were seen in EEGs of over 100 patients with TGA.[8] However, despite the fact that EEG readings are usually normal during a TGA attack, and other usual symptoms of epilepsy are not observed with TGA,[16] it has been speculated that some initial epileptic attacks present as TGA.[2] The observation that 7% of people who experience TGA will develop epilepsy calls into question whether those case are, in fact, TGA or transient epileptic amnesia (TEA).[7] TEA attacks tend to be short (under one hour) and tend to recur, so that a person who has experienced both repeated attacks of temporary amnesia resembling TGA and if those events lasted less than one hour is very likely to develop epilepsy.[2]
There is additional speculation that atypical cases of TEA in the form of nonconvulsive status epilepticus may present with duration similar to TGA.[26] This may constitute a distinct subgroup of TGA. TEA, as opposed to "pure" TGA, is also characterized by "two unusual forms of memory deficit …: (i) accelerated long-term forgetting (ALF): the excessively rapid loss of newly acquired memories over a period of days or weeks and (ii) remote autobiographical memory loss: a loss of memories for salient, personally experienced events of the past few decades."[5]
Whether an amnestic event is TGA or TEA thus presents a diagnostic challenge,[15] especially in light of the recently published descriptions of possible long-term cognitive deficits with (presumably correctly diagnosed) TGA.
Other putative associations [ edit ]
There have been assertions of a possible link between TGA and the use of statins (a class of drug used in treating cholesterol).[27][28] En bloc memory loss which is total, permanent, and irrecoverable can occur as an alcoholic "black out," usually lasting longer than an hour and up to 2–5 days. Marijuana intoxication, Halogenated hydroxyquinolines such as Clioquinol, PDE inhibitors such as sildenafil, Digitalis and scopolamine intoxication, and general anaesthesia have been reported with TGA.
Diagnosis [ edit ]
Differential diagnosis [ edit ]
A differential diagnosis should include:[29]
If the event lasts less than one hour, transient epileptic amnesia (TEA) might be implicated.[2][30]
If the condition lasts longer than 24 hours, it is not considered TGA by definition. A diagnostic investigation would then probably focus on some form of undetected ischemic attack or cranial bleed.[31][32]
Prognosis [ edit ]
The prognosis of "pure" TGA is very good. It does not affect mortality or morbidity[29] and unlike earlier understanding of the condition, TGA is not a risk factor for stroke or ischemic disease.[7] Rates of recurrence are variously reported, with one systematic calculation suggesting the rate is under 6% per year.[18] TGA "is universally felt to be a benign condition which requires no further treatment other than reassurance to the patient and his or her family."[31] "The most important part of management after diagnosis is looking after the psychological needs of the patient and his or her relatives. Seeing a once competent and healthy partner, sibling or parent become incapable of remembering what was said only a minute ago is very distressing, and hence it is often the relatives who will require reassurance."[33]
TGA may have multiple etiologies and prognoses.[8] Atypical presentations may masquerade as epilepsy[7] and be more properly considered TEA. In addition to such probable TEA cases, some people experiencing amnestic events diverging from the diagnostic criteria articulated above may have a less benign prognosis than those with "pure" TGA.[2]
Recently, moreover, both imaging and neurocognitive testing studies question whether TGA is as benign as has been thought. MRI scans of the brain in one study showed that among people who had experienced TGA, all had cavities in the hippocampus, and these cavities were far more numerous, larger, and more suggestive of pathological damage than in either healthy controls or a large control group of people with tumor or stroke.[12] Verbal and cognitive impairments have been observed days after TGA attacks, of such severity that the researchers estimated the effects would be unlikely to resolve within a short time frame.[13] A large neurocognitive study of patients more than a year after their attack has shown persistent effects consistent with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (MCI-a) in a third of the people who had experienced TGA.[34] In another study, "selective cognitive dysfunctions after the clinical recovery" were observed, suggesting a prefrontal impairment.[10] These dysfunctions may not be in memory per se but in retrieval, in which speed of access is part of the problem among people who have had TGA and experience ongoing memory problems.[9]
Epidemiology [ edit ]
The estimated annual incidence of TGA varies from a minimum of 2.9 cases per 100,000 population (in Spain) and 5.2 per 100,000 (in USA),[29] but among people aged over 50, the rate of TGA incidence is reported to range from approximately 23 per 100,000 (in a US population) to 32 per 100,000 (in a population in Scandinavia).[17][35]
TGA is most common in people between age 56 and 75,[8] with the average age of a person experiencing TGA being approximately 62.[7]
See also [ edit ]Several weeks ago I went home to visit my parents for a wedding – my cousin was getting married. Despite the lingering thoughts about how the couple would probably get divorced, and about how marriage is a horrible deal for a man, I still genuinely hoped that it would work out for them.
As the procession ended, my family and I funneled out through the narrow front doors of the church, and I was surprised to see my Kindergarten teacher standing there. “Jon!” she exclaimed.
I was always impressed at how she could remember every one of her students’ names, despite the number |
Also on POLITICO: Full agriculture policy coverage)
Now, with the introduction of two new bills in Congress by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), proponents of legalizing raw milk are making strides on the national front, too. Massie’s first bill, the “Milk Freedom Act of 2014,” would overturn the interstate ban on raw milk, and his other bill, the “Interstate Milk Freedom Act of 2014,” would allow interstate shipment of raw milk only between two states where raw milk sales are already legal.
The swing in momentum can, in part, be attributed to a transformation of the argument that advocates are using. The debate used to be centered on the health and nutritional benefits of raw milk versus the safety of pasteurized milk, but the likes of Ron Paul — who mentioned the issue in several speeches during his 2012 presidential run and introduced similar bills when he was in Congress — have turned it into one about freedom of choice.
“It’s nice to see that people are now advocating for their right rather than science,” said Baylen Linnekin, executive director of Keep Food Legal, a group that describes itself as “the first nationwide membership organization devoted to food freedom—the right of every American to grow, raise, produce, buy, sell, share, cook, eat, and drink the foods of their own choosing.”
( Also on POLITICO: GOP memo: SNAP cuts will stand)
In a statement on his two bills, Massie, too, highlighted the right to choose argument. “Today, many people are paying more attention to the food they eat, what it contains, and how it is processed. Raw milk, which has been with us for thousands of years, is making a comeback among these discerning consumers,” he said. “Personal choices as basic as ‘what we feed our families’ should not be limited by the federal government.”
Massie’s bills already have nearly 20 co-sponsors, including Reps. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine), Jared Polis (D-Colo.) and Tom McClintock (R-Calif.).
It’s a strange alliance.
Pingree, in particular, doesn’t typically share the same views on food-related policy as Massie or other Republicans, having fought recently against food stamp cuts and the use of pesticides that are endangering the Monarch butterfly population. But, in 2011, she wrote FDA to express her concern over the agency’s diverting of precious resources to “prevent consumers from choosing the type of milk that they drink.”
( Also on POLITICO: Obama eye-to-eye with Saudi king)
“When Ron Paul introduced his bill, he had trouble even getting one sponsor,” said David Gumpert, author of The Raw Milk Revolution, a 2006 book that paints an unflattering view of the government crackdown on raw milk producers. “This is quite an about-face. It speaks to the huge political change that as many representatives would go on record in support of raw milk just a few years after Ron Paul did this. It’s pretty impressive.”
The two new bills follow Sen. Rand Paul’s proposed amendment to the farm bill that would have allowed the direct sale of raw milk across state lines. The Kentucky Republican also made the food freedom argument, but he was unsuccessful in gathering support for his amendment.
This article tagged under: FDA
House
Politics
Milk
AgricultureAdd another name to the list of NHL greats that have high praise for Connor McDavid: Peter Forsberg.
Forsberg, one of the finest examples of size and skill the NHL has ever seen, crafted a remarkable career, recording 885 points in 708 games, winning two Stanley Cups along with the Calder, Art Ross, and Hart Trophy.
With a resume like that, it should come as no surprise that Forsberg was one of the 100 NHLers honored Friday night in Los Angeles.
While rubbing shoulders with the game's best, Forsberg was asked which player in today's NHL reminds him of himself. Enter the Oilers' captain.
"I wish I could say Connor McDavid, but he's better at everything than I was," the 2014 Hall of Fame inductee said, according to Matt Larkin of The Hockey News. "He skates faster. He sees the game. But I really enjoy seeing him play. He's everywhere on the ice, and he's making his team win. If I could start over I'd like to be like him."
McDavid has certainly done his part in earning the kind words, as the 20-year-old has 107 points in 96 career games, already becoming one of the most captivating players the league has to offer.A woman places flowers at an informal memorial at the place where 32-year-old Heather Heyer was killed when a car plowed into a crowd of people protesting against the white supremacist Unite the Right rally | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Euro-press review Right-wing violence in Charlottesville rattles Europe Charlottesville clashes, Spain’s tourist influx and Belgian chemical castration on Europe’s front pages.
Deadly clashes between far-right protesters and left-wing activists in the U.S. town of Charlottesville, Virgina at the weekend dominated European headlines Monday, with many highlighting the fact U.S. President Donald Trump did not condemn right-wing extremists in a statement released Saturday in response to the violence. Spain's La Vanguardia decried "Virginia's fascist revolt" and the "tepidity" of Trump's response. France's Libération wrote: "In the streets of Charlottesville, no pointy hoods, but the Aryan slogan 'blood and soil' and Nazi 'heil.'"
Germany
TAZ led its front page with a striking night-time shot of right-wing protestors demonstrating through the streets of Charlottesville, holding tiki lanterns. The paper wrote: "Thousands of Nazis demonstrate in Charlottesville," a "right-wing extremist" plows into a crowd with his car, leaving a woman dead, "And what does Donald Trump do?"
Die Welt featured a story on Martin Schulz, leader of Germany's SPD and former European Parliament president, taking aim at Chancellor Angela Merkel's record on security, saying he would boost police salaries if elected.
UK
Many British papers also led their front pages with news out of Charlottesville, with the Guardian highlighting how politicians on all sides had "rounded on" Trump for not condemning the far-right protesters more clearly. "President fails to blame white supremacists," the paper noted.
The Daily Express led with a story reporting on "Fury at ploy to get second EU vote." The tabloid referred to a weekend op-ed in the Observer by David Miliband, a former Labour foreign secretary, calling for a second referendum on EU membership. "Fears were raised last night that opponents of Brexit will push for a second referendum," the paper blasted.
Spain
A debate is raging across much of Southern Europe about the impact of tourists on cities, with El País highlighting the fact that 80 million visitors were set to arrive in Spain this year. "How many tourists can fit in Spain?" the paper asked. El País also ran a story on a strike taking place at Barcelona's El Prat airport, resulting in the Civil Guard being called in.
France
Charlottesville also dominated France's front pages. Libération led with a photo of the right-wing protestors in front of the University of Virginia, with the headline: "The White House." The paper wrote: "Supporters of white supremacy, nostalgic southern Confederates and neo-Nazis marched through the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia, Friday and Saturday. The participants of this demonstration of strength no longer feared showing their faces."
Le Figaro criticized Trump's foreign policy, questioning how far the U.S. president was willing to escalate hostilities with North Korea and Venezuela.
Belgium
Le Soir led its front page with a story suggesting 853 Belgian companies had moved €221 billion to tax havens including Monaco, the British Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands. De Standaard wrote there was no longer a taboo around the chemical castration of sex offenders in Flanders, where 36 sex offenders have been given the treatment.Down and Out in Paris and London is the first full-length work by the English author George Orwell, published in 1933. It is a memoir[2] in two parts on the theme of poverty in the two cities. The first part is an account of living in near-destitution in Paris and the experience of casual labour in restaurant kitchens. The second part is a travelogue of life on the road in and around London from the tramp's perspective, with descriptions of the types of hostel accommodation available and some of the characters to be found living on the margins.
Background [ edit ]
After giving up his post as a policeman in Burma to become a writer, Orwell moved to rooms in Portobello Road, London at the end of 1927 when he was 24.[3] While contributing to various journals, he undertook investigative tramping expeditions in and around London, collecting material for use in "The Spike", his first published essay, and for the latter half of Down and Out in Paris and London. In spring of 1928 he moved to Paris and lived at 6 Rue du Pot de Fer in the Latin Quarter,[4] a bohemian quarter with a cosmopolitan flavour. American writers like Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald had lived in the same area.[citation needed] Following the Russian Revolution, there was a large Russian emigre community in Paris. Orwell's aunt Nellie Limouzin also lived in Paris and gave him social and, when necessary, financial support. He led an active social life,[5] worked on his novels and had several articles published in avant-garde journals.
Orwell fell seriously ill in March 1929 and shortly afterwards had money stolen from the lodging house. The thief was probably not the young Italian described in Down and Out. In a later account, he said the theft was the work of a young trollop that he had picked up and brought back with him;[7] it has been submitted that "consideration for his parents' sensibilities would have required the suppression of this misadventure. Whoever reduced Orwell to destitution did him a good turn; his final ten weeks in Paris sowed the seed of his first published book."[8] Whether through necessity or just to collect material, and probably both, he undertook casual work as a dishwasher in restaurants. In August 1929 he sent a copy of "The Spike" to the Adelphi magazine in London, and it was accepted for publication. Orwell left Paris in December 1929 and returned to England, going straight home to his parents' house in Southwold. Later he acted as a private tutor to a handicapped child there and also undertook further tramping expeditions, culminating in a stint working in the Kent hop fields in August and September 1931. After this adventure, he ended up in the Tooley Street kip, which he found so unpleasant that he wrote home for money and moved to more comfortable lodgings.[9]
Publication [ edit ]
Orwell's first version of Down and Out was called "A Scullion's Diary". Completed in October 1930,[10] it used only his Paris material. He offered it to Jonathan Cape in the summer of 1931. Cape rejected it in the autumn.[11] A year later he offered "a fatter typescript (the London chapters had been added)" to Faber & Faber, where T. S. Eliot, then an editorial director, also rejected it, stating, "We did find it of very great interest, but I regret to say that it does not appear to me possible as a publishing venture."[11][12]
It was in the home of Mabel Fierz that Orwell then discarded the typescript. She had, with her husband, a London businessman named Francis, been for a number of years a visitor to Southwold in the summer and was on friendly terms with the Blairs. Fierz at this point took it to a literary agent, Leonard Moore, who "recognised it as a 'natural' for the new house of Gollancz."[13] Victor Gollancz was prepared to publish the work, subject to the removal of bad language and some identifiable names, and offered an advance of £40. The title improvised by Gollancz, Confessions of a Down and Outer, bothered Orwell. "Would The Confessions of a Dishwasher do as well?" he asked Moore. "I would rather answer to dishwasher than down & out."[14] At the last minute, Gollancz shortened the title to Down and Out in Paris and London. The author, after possibilities including "X," "P.S. Burton" (an alias Orwell had used on tramping expeditions), "Kenneth Miles" and "H. Lewis Allways" had been considered,[15] was renamed "George Orwell." Orwell did not wish to publish under his own name Eric Blair, and Orwell was the name he used from then on for his main works—although many periodical articles were still published under the name Eric Blair. Down and Out in Paris and London was published on 9 January 1933 and received favourable reviews from, among others, C. Day Lewis, WH Davies, Compton Mackenzie and JB Priestley. It was subsequently published by Harper & Brothers in New York. Sales were low, however, until December 1940, when Penguin Books printed 55,000 copies for sale at sixpence.
A French translation, which Orwell admired, by RN Raimbault and Gwen Gilbert, entitled La Vache Enragée, was published by Éditions Gallimard, on 2 May 1935, with a preface by Panait Istrati[16] and an introduction by Orwell.[17]
Summary [ edit ]
Chapters I–XXIII (Paris) [ edit ]
The scene-setting opening chapters describe the atmosphere in the Paris quarter and introduce various characters who appear later in the book. From Chapter III to Chapter X, where the narrator obtains a job at "Hotel X," he describes his descent into poverty, often in tragi-comic terms. An Italian compositor forges room keys and steals his savings and his scant income vanishes when the English lessons he is giving stop. He begins at first to sell some of his clothes, and then to pawn his remaining clothes, and then searches for work with a Russian waiter named Boris—work as a porter at Les Halles, work as an English teacher and restaurant work. He recounts his two-day experience without any food and tells of meeting Russian "Communists" who, he later concludes, on their disappearance, must be mere swindlers.
After the various ordeals of unemployment and hunger the narrator obtains a job as a plongeur (dishwasher) in the "Hôtel X" near the Place de la Concorde, and begins to work long hours there. In Chapter XIII, he describes the "caste system" of the hotel—"manager-cooks-waiters-plongeurs"—and, in Chapter XIV, its frantic and seemingly chaotic workings. He notes also "the dirt in the Hôtel X.," which became apparent "as soon as one penetrated into the service quarters." He talks of his routine life among the working poor of Paris, slaving and sleeping, and then drinking on Saturday night through the early hours of Sunday morning. In Chapter XVI, he refers briefly to a murder committed "just beneath my window [while he was sleeping.... The thing that strikes me in looking back," he says, "is that I was in bed and asleep within three minutes of the murder [....] We were working people, and where was the sense of wasting sleep over a murder?"
Misled by Boris's optimism, the narrator is briefly penniless again after he and Boris quit their hotel jobs in the expectation of work at a new restaurant, the "Auberge de Jehan Cottard," where Boris feels sure he will become a waiter again; at the Hotel X, he had been doing lower-grade work. The "patron" of the Auberge, "an ex-colonel of the Russian Army," seems to have financial difficulties. The narrator is not paid for ten days and is compelled to spend a night on a bench—"It was very uncomfortable—the arm of the seat cuts into your back—and much colder than I had expected"—rather than face his landlady over the outstanding rent.
At the restaurant, the narrator finds himself working "seventeen and a half hours" a day, "almost without a break," and looking back wistfully at his relatively leisured and orderly life at the Hotel X. Boris works even longer: "eighteen hours a day, seven days a week." The narrator claims that "such hours, though not usual, are nothing extraordinary in Paris." He adds
by the way, that the Auberge was not the ordinary cheap eating-house frequented by students and workmen. We did not provide an adequate meal at less than twenty-five francs, and we were picturesque and artistic, which sent up our social standing. There were the indecent pictures in the bar, and the Norman decorations—sham beams on the walls, electric lights done up as candlesticks, "peasant" pottery, even a mounting-block at the door—and the patron and the head waiter were Russian officers, and many of the customers titled Russian refugees. In short, we were decidedly chic.
He falls into a routine again and speaks of quite literally fighting for a place on the Paris Métro to reach the "cold, filthy kitchen" by seven. Despite the filth and incompetence, the restaurant turns out to be a success.
The narrative is interspersed with anecdotes recounted by some of the minor characters, such as Valenti, an Italian waiter at Hotel X, and Charlie, "one of the local curiosities," who is "a youth of family and education who had run away from home." In Chapter XXII, the narrator considers the life of a plongeur:
[A] plongeur is one of the slaves of the modern world. Not that there is any need to whine over him, for he is better off than many manual workers, but still, he is no freer than if he were bought and sold. His work is servile and without art; he is paid just enough to keep him alive; his only holiday is the sack [.... He has] been trapped by a routine which makes thought impossible. If plongeurs thought at all, they would long ago have formed a labour union and gone on strike for better treatment. But they do not think, because they have no leisure for it; their life has made slaves of them.
Because of the stress of the long hours, he mails to a friend, "B," back in London, asking if he could get him a job that allows more than five hours' sleep a night. His friend duly replies, offering a job taking care of a "congenital imbecile," and sends him some money to get his possessions from the pawn. The narrator then quits his job as a plongeur and leaves for London.
Chapters XXIV–XXXVIII (London) [ edit ]
The narrator arrives in London expecting to have the job waiting for him. Unfortunately the would-be employers have gone abroad, "patient and all."
Until his employers return, the narrator lives as a tramp, sleeping in an assortment of venues: lodging houses, tramps' hostels or "spikes," and Salvation Army shelters. Because vagrants can not "enter any one spike, or any two London spikes, more than once in a month, on pain of being confined for a week," he is required to keep on the move, with the result that long hours are spent tramping or waiting for hostels to open. Chapters XXV to XXXV describe his various journeys, the different forms of accommodation, a selection of the people he meets, and the tramps' reaction to Christian charity: "Evidently the tramps were not grateful for their free tea. And yet it was excellent [....] I am sure too that it was given in a good spirit, without any intention of humiliating us; so in fairness we ought to have been grateful—still, we were not." Characters in this section of the book include the Irish tramp called Paddy, "a good fellow" whose "ignorance was limitless and appalling," and the pavement artist Bozo, who has a good literary background and was formerly an amateur astronomer, but who has suffered a succession of misfortunes.
The final chapters provide a catalogue of various types of accommodation open to tramps. The narrator offers some general remarks, concluding,
At present I do not feel that I have seen more than the fringe of poverty. Still, I can point to one or two things I have definitely learned by being hard up. I shall never again think that all tramps are drunken scoundrels, nor expect a beggar to be grateful when I give him a penny, nor be surprised if men out of work lack energy, nor subscribe to the Salvation Army, nor pawn my clothes, nor refuse a handbill, nor enjoy a meal at a smart restaurant. That is a beginning.
Fact and fiction [ edit ]
One of the debates surrounding Down and Out is whether it was a piece of factual autobiography or part fiction. Orwell wrote in the Introduction to the 1935 French edition: "I think I can say that I have exaggerated nothing except in so far as all writers exaggerate by selecting. I did not feel that I had to describe events in the exact order in which they happened, but everything I have described did take place at one time or another." In Chapter XXIV, it is "clear that Orwell did distort facts by claiming on his return from Paris he found himself down and out in London and had not 'the slightest notion of how to get a cheap bed'. This of course heightens the tension [...] but the truth is that in Paris he had already written his first substantial essay, "The Spike", describing a night spent in a Notting Hill tramps' hostel. Before his departure from England he had voluntarily lived among tramps for some time."[18]
In The Road to Wigan Pier, Orwell referred to the tramping experiences described in Down and Out, writing that "nearly all the incidents described there actually happened, though they have been re-arranged."[19] Some measure of the work's veracity may be gleaned from a marked-up copy, containing sixteen annotations, which Orwell gave to Brenda Salkeld. Of the descent into poverty from Chapter III, he wrote, "Succeeding chapters are not actually autobiography but drawn from what I have seen." Of Chapter VII, however, he wrote, "This all happened;" of Hotel X, "All as exact as I could make it;" and, of the Russian restaurant, "All the following is an entirely accurate description of the restaurant."[20] On the personalities, Orwell's own introduction to the French edition states that the characters are individuals, but are "intended more as representative types."
The luxury hotel in which Orwell worked in the autumn of 1929 was identified as the Crillon by Sonia Orwell, as recounted by Sam White, the London Evening Standard's Paris correspondent in his column for 16 June 1967. However, the writers Stansky and Abrahams have suggested, in their study of Orwell, that it was the Hotel Lotti.[21]
Reactions [ edit ]
Within a month of publication, Humbert Possenti, "a restaurateur and hotelier of forty years," had written to The Times complaining that the book was unfairly disparaging to the restaurant trade.[22] The Times Literary Supplement had previously reviewed Down and Out in Paris and London, describing it as "a vivid picture of an apparently mad world."[23] Orwell responded to the restaurateur's criticism with a letter to the same newspaper: "I do know that in our hotel there were places which no customer could possibly have been allowed to see with any hope of retaining his custom."[24]
In the Adelphi, C. Day Lewis wrote, "Orwell's book is a tour of the underworld, conducted without hysteria or prejudice [...] a model of clarity and good sense."[23] JB Priestley, in the Evening Standard, considered it "uncommonly good reading. An excellent book and a valuable social document. The best book of its kind I have read in a long time."[23] Compton Mackenzie wrote of Orwell's "immensely interesting book [...] a genuine human document, which at the same time is written with so much artistic force that, in spite of the squalor and degradation thus unfolded, the result is curiously beautiful with the beauty of an accomplished etching on copper. The account of a casual ward in this country horrifies like some scene of inexplicable misery in Dante."[25]
Following the American publication, James T. Farrell, writing in The New Republic, called it "genuine, unexaggerated and intelligent," while Herbert Gorman wrote for the New York Times Book Review, "He possesses a keen eye for character and a rough-and-ready'styleless style' that plunges along and makes the reader see what the author wants him to see." In contrast, the reviewer for New English Weekly wrote, "This book [...] is forcefully written and is very readable, yet it fails to carry conviction. We wonder if the author was really down and out. Down certainly, but out?"[26]
Cyril Connolly later wrote, "I don't think Down and Out in London and Paris is more than agreeable journalism; it was all better done by his friend Henry Miller. Orwell found his true form a few years later."[27] Orwell agreed with this assessment.[12] Henry Miller's controversial work Tropic of Cancer (1934) is based on his own experiences in Paris around the time Orwell was there.
In an essay for the 1971 The World of George Orwell, Richard Mayne considered the book as typical of something that was true of a great deal of Orwell's later writing: his "relish at revealing behind-the-scenes squalor. He was always taking the lid off things—poverty, parlour Socialism, life in a coal mine, prep-school tyranny, the Empire, the Spanish Civil War, the Russian Revolution, the political misuse of language. He might well have echoed W.H. Auden: All I have is a voice/To undo the folded lie."[28]
The narrator's comments on Jews in the book are cited by a journalist for Haaretz when considering what he terms "Orwell’s latent anti-Semitism".[29] Some suggest the work may have been Orwell's parody of his own social upbringing and social class, noticing the narrator has both racist and anti-racist outbursts.[30][31] Another commentator cites the book as evidence that anti-Semitism was much more prevalent in Paris than in London.[32]
See also [ edit ]Most of us know at least one person who has struggled with a bout of debilitating mental illness. Despite their familiarity, however, these kinds of episodes are typically considered unusual and even shameful.
New research, from our laboratory and from others around the world, however, suggests mental illnesses are so common that almost everyone will develop at least one diagnosable mental disorder at some point in their life. Most of these people will never receive treatment, and their relationships, job performance and life satisfaction will likely suffer. Meanwhile the few individuals who never seem to develop a disorder may offer psychology a new avenue of study, allowing researchers to ask what it takes to be abnormally, enduringly mentally well.
Epidemiologists have long known that at any given time, roughly 20 to 25 percent of the population suffers from a mental illness, which means they experience psychological distress severe enough to impair functioning at work, at school or in their relationships. Extensive national surveys, conducted from the mid-1990s through the early 2000s, had suggested that a much higher percentage, close to half the population, would experience a mental illness at some point.
These surveys were large, involving thousands of participants representative of the U.S. in age, sex, social class and ethnicity. They were also, however, retrospective, which means they relied on survey respondents’ accurate recollection of feelings and behaviors months, years and even decades in the past. Human memory is fallible, and modern science has demonstrated that people are notoriously inconsistent reporters about their own mental health history, leaving the final accuracy of these studies up for debate. Of further concern, up to a third of individuals contacted by the national surveys failed to enroll in the studies. Other tests suggested that these “nonresponders” tended to have worse mental health.
A new study by one of us (Schaefer), published earlier this year in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology (whose very name suggests an outdated understanding of the prevalence of mental illness), took a different approach to estimating disease burden. Rather than asking people to think back many years, Schaefer and his colleagues instead closely followed one generation of New Zealanders, all born in the same town, from birth to midlife. They conducted in-depth check-ins every few years to assess any evidence of mental illness having occurred during the preceding year.
They found that if you follow people over time and screen them regularly using simple, evidence-based tools, the percentage of those who develop a diagnosable mental illness jumps to well more than 80 percent. In the cohort only 17 percent of study members did not develop a disorder, at least briefly, by middle age. Because Schaefer’s team could not be certain that these individuals remained disorder-free in the years between assessments, the true proportion that never experienced a mental illness may be even smaller.
Put another way, the study shows that you are more likely to experience a bout of mental illness than you are to acquire diabetes, heart disease or any kind of cancer whatsoever. These findings have been corroborated by data from similar cohorts in New Zealand, Switzerland and the U.S.
If you ever develop a psychological disorder, many assume you will have it for life. The newest research suggests that for the most common psychological complaints, this is simply not true. “A substantial component of what we describe as disorder is often short-lived, of lesser severity or self-limiting,” says John Horwood, a psychiatric epidemiologist and director of the longitudinal Christchurch Health and Development Study in New Zealand. (Horwood has found that close to 85 percent of the Christchurch study members have a diagnosable mental illness by midlife.)
This may be a useful message to spread. According to Jason Siegel, a professor of social psychology at Claremont Graduate University, people tend to be more sympathetic and helpful when they believe that a friend or co-worker’s health problems are temporary.
And individuals with mental illness need support. Even short-lived or self-limiting disorders can wreak havoc on a person’s life. To be classified as having a disorder, “an individual typically has to meet fairly stringent symptom criteria,” Horwood says. “There needs to be substantial impairment of functioning.”
To some, though, the new statistics on mental illness rates can sound a lot like the overmedicalization of “normal” human experience. Advocates for people with mental health concerns tend to disagree with this perspective. “I’m not at all surprised by these findings,” says Paul Gionfriddo, president of Mental Health America, a national advocacy group. His organization views mental illnesses as common, “though not always enduring.” Three years ago Mental Health America launched a Web-based tool to allow individuals to discreetly screen themselves for possible psychological disorders. Since then, the tool has been used for more than 1.5 million screenings, with more than 3,000 screens a day now used to determine if people may have a condition that could benefit from treatment.
The widespread nature of mental illness, unearthed by careful longitudinal research, holds some implications for the way we study and treat disease in this country. To Gionfriddo, a former lawmaker who watched his son end up homeless and incarcerated following undiagnosed childhood schizophrenia, “one implication of these new studies is that we as a society will get tremendous benefit out of ubiquitous mental health screening.”
Although the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force currently recommends mental health screening on a regular basis for everyone older than 11 years, such screening is still far from routine. “At a time when we have recognized the importance of early intervention for cancer or for diabetes or heart disease, why would we say, ‘Okay, for mental illness, we aren’t going to screen or do early intervention’?” Gionfriddo says. “This should be as common for adults as blood pressure screening. Putting our head in the sand and waiting for a catastrophe is not a health care plan.”
Another implication stems from the fact that individuals who never develop a mental illness—those who experience what we call “enduring mental health”—are actually quite remarkable. These people may be the mental health equivalents of healthy centenarians: individuals who somehow manage to beat the odds and enjoy good health for much longer than we would expect. It is possible that studying the mentally robust more closely could provide insight into how we can help more people to enjoy lives like theirs.
Who are these extraordinary people? In Schaefer’s New Zealand cohort, his team found that those with enduring mental health tended to have two things going for them: First, they had little to no family history of mental illness. Second, they tended to have what the researchers call “advantageous” personalities. As early as age five, individuals who would make it to midlife without an episode of mental disorder tended to display fewer negative emotions, get along better with their peers and have greater self-control. Perhaps just as striking, the team found that these individuals were not any richer, smarter or physically healthier than their peers, at least in childhood.
Ultimately the most important suggestion from the newest research is that mental health concerns may be nearly universal. As a result, society should begin to view mental illnesses like bone breaks, kidney stones or common colds—as part of the normal wear and tear of life. Acknowledging this universality may allow us to finally devote adequate resources to screening, treating and preventing mental illnesses. It may also help us go easier on ourselves and our loved ones when we inevitably hit our own rough patches in the road.What's shaking everyone, shugnussy here to wish you all a lovely holiday season, safe travels and hopefully good weather!
It's been kind of quiet here at Radio Nintendo this year, but overall we're still at it. Our stream is still broadcasting, we have the latest music for you to enjoy. We're still listening to all of your comments and doing our best to respond to your requests! So far all soundtracks that have been requested to be add to the stream by our listeners have been added. We're still working on bringing back live shows and other community affairs, but this requires a commitment from all of us, I would hate to deliver a poor product. (Even though to be honest I feel like I've been delivering a low quality experience since we've renovated.) I'm thankful to you all who continue to listen and enjoy Nintendo's greatest hits here on Radio Nintendo. Merry Christmas again, and happy holidays.Severe droughts that stretched across a central European band this summer are consistent with climate models for a warming continent, experts say
A swathe of central Europe has suffered the most severe drought since 2003 in what EU climate experts see as a harbinger of climate changes to come.
Rainless weeks and relentless heat desiccated a vast tract of central European land separating the continent’s drier south from its wetter north between 1 April and 31 July, according to a report by the European drought observatory (EDO).
“This is where we expect to see more extreme weather such as floods and droughts in the future, and what we are gradually starting to see in the present,” said Frank Raes, the head of the climate change unit at the EU’s Joint Research Centre which commissioned the report.
The drought was consistent with climate models that predicted “an extreme weather battleground” between continental weather systems in central Europe, Raes said. “The big floods and droughts of the last 20 years have been in that area,” he added.
Agricultural production has now slumped in large parts of a zone stretching eastwards from central France through south-central Germany into Poland, Hungary and Ukraine, and southwards into northern Italy and Spain.
Grain harvests in Germany have fallen 11% and apple harvests 21% on last year’s figures, while a 28% drop in corn output is expected by government officials in France. In Poland, record lows in river water levels have revealed Jewish tombstones and Soviet fighter planes, as well as human remains, buried for decades or more.
Middle East faces water shortages for the next 25 years, study says Read more
At one point, the drought reached what the German environment agency called “catastrophic proportions”, with water levels on the river Elbe falling 9cm below the previous record low. At the same time, freak floods occurred in Demker, north of Magdeburg.
“Similarly to the summer of 2003, a large part of the continental EU was affected by a severe drought in June and July 2015, as a consequence of the combination of rain shortages and very high temperatures which resulted in high plant water requirement levels,” the EDO report said.
Andreas Friedrich, a spokesman for Deutscher Wetterdienst (Germany’s Met Office) agreed that the drought in Germany had been the worst for 12 years, and warned that is was not over yet. “In northern Bavaria and eastern Germany the situation is critical with an extreme drought and very high incidence of forest wildfires,” he told the Guardian. “Some parts of Germany now have the lowest levels of soil moisture since records began in 1951.”
Restrictions to civil and industrial water use have accompanied the water shortages, along with a drastic curtailing of inland water transportation and increases in both forest fires and energy consumption for cooling, according to the EDO report.
It found that monthly rainfall averages fell by as much as 80% in parts of France, and parts of northern Spain experienced daily temperatures over 30 degrees for more than 40 consecutive days.
Drought conditions did ease in August, but the European centre for medium-range weather forecasting predicts above average temperatures across the continent in September, with drier than usual conditions for most of central and northern Europe.
While the UK and some parts of Europe have been relatively unaffected by the water shortages, the drought was even worse than 2003 in regions such Limousin in France, Rhine Hessen-Phalz in Germany and Oost Vlaanderen, Belgium.
However, Dim Coumou, a climate modeller at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research advised caution in drawing conclusions about individual weather events. “It is too early to say how severe the current drought in Europe is,” he said.
“The Mediterranean is generally considered a hotspot and the models project strong increases in drought conditions there. But where exactly the [central European] belt is, I don’t think can be quantified,” he said.Ready to fight back? Sign up for Take Action Now and get three actions in your inbox every week. You will receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here. Sign up for Take Action Now and get three actions in your inbox every week.
Thank you for signing up. For more from The |
for a 4th Season) – The ratings in the 18-49 demographic for this show dropped last season, but it total viewers numbers remained high which is a factor at older-skewing CBS. It will be in its fourth season now, so anything beyond that is just padding for the syndication run. If it doesn’t drop too far and if CBS doesn’t consider it too expensive, it should be good to go for a fifth season.
Prior Season Rating Avg: 2.0 | Curr Season Target: 1.8 | Cancellation Alert: Low
Pros: High Total Viewership, Top 25 Based on Viewership
Cons: Ratings Decline Year over Year
7 (8) Supernatural (CW, Returning for a 10th Season) – I guess this one will keep going as long as the show’s creative team can continue to find new (or recycle old) stories for the Winchester brothers, and any decision to end the show will likely be a planned one. This has been The CW’s most consistent show the last few years, and an eleventh season simply pads out the syndication package that much more and also gets it the record as the longest running sci fi / fantasy show in the U.S. (current record holders are Stargate: SG-1 and Smallville, both at ten seasons).
Prior Season Rating Avg: 1.0 | Curr Season Target: 0.9 | Cancellation Alert: Low
Pros: Relative Ratings, Fifth Place Network Series, Consistent Performer
Cons: Ratings Decline in Season
8 (6) Once Upon A Time (ABC, Returning for a 4th Season) – This show experienced some significant ratings fluctuations last season, but that was consistent with what the broadcast networks saw in general. Still it may be at the point of stretching its fairy tale / folklore source material a bit too far. Here’s my theory: they incorporate some of the characters from last year’s failed spin-off Once Upon A Time in Wonderland, then give OUAT a shortened fifth season that allows them to tie the two together for a 100+ episode syndication run. In any case, I expect it to be back for another year.
Prior Season Rating Avg: 2.2 | Curr Season Target: 1.8 | Cancellation Alert: Low
Pros: Top 25 Based on Ratings, Relative Ratings, Ratings Improvement Late in Season
Cons: Ratings Decline Early in Season, Ratings Decline Year over Year
9 (7) Grimm (NBC, Returning for a 4th Season) – This show dropped a few ticks in the ratings last year, but its third season show status helped it earn a fourth season. If it does not drop too much more this year, then it should be safe simply because it plugs up a difficult timeslot on the schedule on low viewership Fridays.
Prior Season Rating: 1.4 | Curr Season Target: 1.2 | Cancellation Alert: Low
Pros: Relative Ratings
Cons: Ratings Decline Year over Year, Ratings Decline in Season
10 (10) Haven (Syfy, Returning for a 5th Season) – It’s numbers were never great during its fourth season, but Syfy renewed it anyway and gave it twice its usual order of episodes (26 instead of 13). Its fifth season will air in two parts which will keep the show running into 2015. But that may be it or it may get a shortened sixth season to wrap up its storylines.
Prior Season Rating Avg: 0.4 | Curr Season Target: 0.4 | Cancellation Alert: Low
Pros: Low Production Costs, Strong Social Network Presence
Cons: Mediocre Ratings, Ratings Decline Year over Year
11 (11) Vampire Diaries (CW, Returning for a 6th Season) – Once The CW’s flagship series, this one limped out of last season as the network’s ratings slump hit it hard. But even if that slump continues, it will almost certainly get one more season to wrap up all its storylines because that is the way that The CW usually rolls.
Prior Season Rating Avg: 1.0 | Curr Season Target: 0.9 | Cancellation Alert: Low
Pros: Relative Ratings, Fifth Place Network Series, Strong Social Network Presence
Cons: Ratings Decline Year over Year, Ratings Decline in Season
12 (15) From Dusk Till Dawn (El Rey, Returning for a 2nd Season) – It didn’t made a dent in the cable ratings during its first season, but it was on a new network that was more concerned about establishing its brand than waving Nielsen numbers around. This season they may expect better ratings, but I am guessing that El Rey will show some patience and prop it up for a third season run.
Prior Season Rating Avg: 0.2 | Curr Season Target: n/a | Cancellation Alert: Low
Pros: Low Ratings Expectations, New Network
On (or Close to) the Bubble:
13 (17) The Originals (CW, Returning for a 2nd Season) – This show was hit hard by The CW’s late season slump last year, and now it finds itself shifted to Mondays which have been a disaster for the network the last few years. I realize they are hoping it will help them win back some of the audience share for that night like it did with Tuesdays last season. But then it had the assistance of Supernatural then whereas it is going it on its own this year. That makes me very nervous. Still, since it airs on the fifth place network, it will be given a bit more leeway if its numbers drop.
Prior Season Rating Avg: 0.9 | Curr Season Target: 0.7 | Cancellation Alert: Moderate
Pros: Relative Ratings, Fifth Place Network Series
Cons: Ratings Decline in Season, Scheduling for Next Season
14 (13) Resurrection (ABC, Returning for a 2nd Season) – It’s kind of hard to gauge this one because its numbers started strong last year then dropped significantly, but actually it remained pretty much even if you look at the relative ratings. Plus it only had eight episodes in its first season, so is that a good enough sampling? This one was a surprise hit early, but I question whether it will have the momentum to sustain it through a second season.
Prior Season Rating Avg: 2.5 | Curr Season Target: 2.0 | Cancellation Alert: Moderate
Pros: Strong Debut Ratings, Top 25 Based on Ratings, Relative Ratings
Cons: Ratings Decline in Season
15 (12) Sleepy Hollow (FOX, Returning for a 2nd Season) – This show started last year strong (becoming a surprise early hit) but dropped notably by the end of its season. If it can regain some of its early ratings success, it should be okay. But if it returns low, then it could be in for a rough ride. It’s all about the momentum it has coming into the season.
Prior Season Rating Avg: 2.6 | Curr Season Target: 2.0 | Cancellation Alert: Moderate
Pros: Strong Ratings Early, Top 25 Based on Ratings, Relative Ratings
Cons: Ratings Decline in Season
16 (16) Agents of SHIELD (ABC, Returning for a 2nd Season) – This show started out last season looking like a huge hit, but it fell far by May and found itself on the verge of bubble status. It likely survived into a second season because it is part of the Avengers franchise which is owned by ABC’s parent company Disney. But this has to be an expensive series to produce, so they can only allow it to float for so long. I believe its numbers have to improve this season otherwise it will be the show’s last.
Prior Season Rating Avg: 2.4 | Curr Season Target: 2.2 | Cancellation Alert: Moderate
Pros: Strong Early Ratings, Recognized Franchise, Top 25 Based on Ratings
Cons: Ratings Decline in Season, Ratings Fluctuations, High Production Costs
17 (18) The 100 (CW, Returning for a 2nd Season) – It got the renewal nod last season despite pretty tepid numbers. I believe it will need to improve its scores this year otherwise The CW will replace it with one of several shows they have waiting in the wings.
Prior Season Rating Avg: 0.6 | Curr Season Target: 0.9 | Cancellation Alert: Moderate
Pros: Decent Debut Ratings, Relative Ratings, Fifth Place Network Series
Cons: Ratings Declines in Season
18 (19) Helix (Syfy, Returning for a 2nd Season) – It got the second season renewal last year, but that was far from a sure thing. The fact that it fits in with Syfy’s move back to more science fiction oriented scripted programming probably helped it, and its ratings average was about the same as what Haven had in the Fall before that one got renewed. But I am thinking that Helix will have to build on its current numbers when it returns if it hopes to live beyond its second year.
Prior Season Rating Avg: 0.4 | Curr Season Target: 0.4 | Cancellation Alert: Medium
Pros: Strong Early Buzz
Cons: Mediocre Ratings, Ratings Decline in Season
Unrankable:
Both of these shows were renewed last year despite a ratings performance that would have led to the cancellation of most other series (in fact, Hannibal pulled lower numbers than Dracula in the same timeslot yet the latter series was cancelled). So other factors are apparently driving their fates and I will elect to pass on making any predictions on their renewal/cancellation prospects.
Hannibal (NBC, Returning for a 3rd Season) – It appears that NBC has made a long-term deal with this show’s studio and its international production arrangement means that it comes to the network at a lower cost. It sufficiently plugs up the difficult late Friday timeslot and the show has plenty of good buzz from the critics, so maybe it will coast through that seven year run that showrunner Bryan Fuller envisions.
Prior Season Rating Avg: 0.9 | Curr Season Target: n/a | Cancellation Alert: No Guess
Pros: Recognized Franchise, Strong Social Network Presence, Good Buzz from Critics
Cons: Poor Ratings, Ratings Decline in Season
Beauty and the Beast (CW, Returning for a 3rd Season) – Is its international audience really that good? Is it the CBS/WB balance of shows theory that the TV by the Numbers guys have theorized? Or do the execs at The CW just not give a damn and want to thumb their noses at the old-school model of renewing and cancelling television shows (if so, you have to give them props for that at least). All I know is that fans of The Tomorrow People, Star-Crossed, The Secret Circle, Cult, and other cancelled CW shows would like to have words with those network executives.
Prior Season Rating Avg: 0.3 | Curr Season Target: n/a | Cancellation Alert: No Guess
Pros: Recognized Franchise? Good International Audience?
Cons: Abysmal Ratings"It's not that easy, though," Hedges said. "There are only so many ways that you can slow the game down."
PEORIA, Ariz. -- As a 22-year-old in the big leagues for the first time, there were, as you might expect, many times last season when Padres catcher Austin Hedges wished he could slow the game down.
PEORIA, Ariz. -- As a 22-year-old in the big leagues for the first time, there were, as you might expect, many times last season when Padres catcher Austin Hedges wished he could slow the game down.
"It's not that easy, though," Hedges said. "There are only so many ways that you can slow the game down."
Hedges may have found another way.
Hedges and Padres strength and conditioning coach Brett McCabe started playing with a pair of Nike strobe glasses in the offseason, after Hedges saw Golden State Warriors' guard Steph Curry using them for drills, dribbling a tennis ball with one hand and a basketball with the other.
• Padres Spring Training information
The two have devised a way for catchers to use the glasses during drills, with the intent of overloading the central nervous system and improving read-and-react time.
The glasses offer eight different settings (easy to difficult) that control how long the lenses are open, as they flicker from clear to opaque.
The drill the team has used this past week involves the catcher facing a wall in his crouch as a coach stands behind him with a tennis ball. The coach bounces a tennis ball off the wall with the catcher attempting to grab it with his bare hand.
Video: LAD@SD: Hedges nabs Rollins trying to steal third
"Since you don't know where it's coming from you've got to kind of react to it," Hedges said. "Honestly, it's one of the few drills I've ever done that when you put the glasses on it actually slows the game down.
"Doing it without [the glasses on] is tough enough, doing it with is really hard. But when you take the glasses off, it's like slow motion. [The drill] becomes really easy."
Hedges said that once the glasses are removed, trying to catch that same tennis ball almost looks like a beach ball.
McCabe said it took between four and six weeks to find the best way to use the glasses to help catchers. McCabe said the team hasn't ruled out having position players use the glasses during some hitting drills.
Hedges already thinks the glasses are a hit, and he plans to keep using them throughout camp.
"We call them failure drills, drills you're supposed to [struggle with]. But over time, you start getting good at them," Hedges said. "If you see a live pitch from someone nasty like Tyson Ross, maybe that sinker isn't as tough to catch because you've been doing certain drills that test your reactions.
"I kind of started liking more failure drills. You can do easy drills, but it's not going to get you a whole lot better. This is really testing yourself on something you are not very good at it and eventually getting good at it."Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF
There are several ways to prevent those inevitable wine bottle drips from staining your tablecloth. You can wrap the bottle in a napkin while you pour, just skip the wine glass altogether and drink straight from the bottle, or use your physics degrees to re-engineer the bottle’s spout so it never drips again.
As a wine aficionado, Brandeis University biophysicist Daniel Perlman has almost certainly tried all of the above, but he’s had the most success with that last approach. Over the course of three years, through some of the most enjoyable research he’s probably ever conducted, Perlman studied the flow of liquid as it leaves the lip of a wine bottle.
Advertisement
Slow-motion video revealed that a stream of wine, or really any liquid poured from a bottle, has the tendency to curl back over the lip and then run down the side due to the bottle being made of glass which is hydrophilic—it attracts water-based liquids.
There are contraptions on the market you can attach to a wine bottle to counteract this effect, but Perlman wanted to solve the problem, at its source, once and for all. After a bit of trial and error, he found that using a diamond cutting tool to carve a two-millimeter-wide, one-millimeter deep groove just below the lip of a wine bottle was the simplest solution.
Advertisement
When wine droplets trying to run back down the bottle encounter that groove, they would need to flow against the force of gravity to go up and across to the other side, or simply leap over it. What happens instead, is that those potential dribbles just return to the rest of the flow, saving napkins, tablecloths, and shirt sleeves from getting strained.
There’s no word on when Perlman’s improved bottle design will be adopted by bottle makers or wineries, but adding that simple additional groove will require modifications to glass molds, so there will be some additional costs up front. But the benefit to the consumer would be immeasurable, and could end up being a valuable marketing tool until every winemaker jumps on the drip-free bandwagon.
[Brandeis University via New Atlas]Nearly 10 months after the film’s box office record-breaking release, the independent-filmmakers-turned-film-reviewers over at Red Letter Media have finally shared Mr. Plinkett’s review of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and it’s nearly as long as the movie itself. If you’re thinking there’s no way a review— even one clocking in at an hour and 45 minutes —can tell you something you haven’t already read about the newest Star Wars installment, you’re mostly right. Still, it has its moments.
For those not in the know, Harry S. Plinkett is a movie-reviewing character created by RLM’s Mike Stoklasa. The character is often described as ”psychotic” and simultaneously embodies the best and worst qualities of online film reviewers. He’s able to offer thoughtful insights into the inherent flaws of mass-marketed genre pictures, while still maintaining his image as a hateful pizza-roll eating slob— albeit a self-aware one. Plinkett’s reviews of the Star Wars prequels became wildly popular a few years back, so people have eagerly awaited his take on Force Awakens.
Unfortunately, 10 months is a long time in the world of online media consumption and most of Plinkett’s gripes with the movie are well-trod territory. The first 45 minutes is spent on the Disney buyout and the farfetched “Ring Theory,” all so he can ultimately say Force Awakens is too similar to the A New Hope. He then spends the remainder of the review claiming that diverse representation on film doesn’t matter to kids and people in Star Wars should have sex more, which certainly represents one school of thought.
Advertisement
The criticisms of the producer’s allegiance to the fandom and the Disney-fication of Star Wars are valid, but if Plinkett wants these reviews to have the same bite as the old ones, maybe he should get them out a little sooner. Especially with a whole new Star Wars film waiting around every corner.Nearly six years ago, futurist Ray Kurzweil predicted that, within 20 years, solar power technology would advance to the point where it would be able to supply all of the world’s energy needs. His optimistic forecast wasn't too far-fetched considering that the amount of energy Earth receives in just one hour would be enough to power humans' lives for an entire year. But now, even the most ardent supporters are no longer willing to help subsidize this once bright vision of the future.
As it turns out, effectively harnessing the sun’s immense potential is an incredibly fickle endeavor. Only certain countries are geographically fortunate enough to receive ample sunlight year-round, while inclement weather further disperses and thus dilutes the amount of usable energy that reaches solar harvesting systems below. More importantly, the maximum theoretical conversion efficiency of conventional silicon-based photovoltaic cells is about 33.7 percent, meaning that 33.7 percent of all sunlight hitting a cell can be converted into electricity. Put simply, the most optimal way of producing solar power is still too cost prohibitive to compete.
German architect André Broessel, who's thought long and hard about these insufficiencies, claims that he’s invented a model device that’s designed to get around these bottlenecks. Fundamentally, his Betaray concept isn't a radical departure from other panel technologies out there since it also uses solar cells to collect sunlight. The energy, however, arrives in the form of an energy-dense beam that's concentrated up to 10,000 times. Above the miniature array of solar cells is a large water-filled glass orb that works similarly to a magnifying glass in focusing the light that’s present during all sorts of less-than-ideal conditions, like when skies are cloudy or when the only available light is the low-intensity illumination reflected by the moon.
Broessel estimates that the clear "ball lens" helps improve efficiency by up to 50 percent annually—all while using a cell arrangement that comprises less than 25 percent of the silicon cell area found in most systems. "Most of the expensive aspects of solar systems come from the production of cells, which also leads to a high carbon footprint," Broessel says. "And when there's lousy weather, the production is equivalent to peanuts, even when they're in perfect position.”
The Betaray utilizes what Broessel calls a dual-axis tracking feature to monitor the continually changing position of the sun and adjust accordingly to maximize input. Unlike systems with computerized solar trackers, often employed on large solar farms, the prototypes he has assembled can be used indoors. They can be retrofitted along the wall of a building in place of windows, considering that they are 99 percent transparent.
The device is compatible with the entire range of existing solar cell systems, though it may be particularly suitable for high-efficiency multijunction solar cells that also happen to necessitate the use of concentrator lenses to work. These more advanced systems boast a 43 percent conversion efficiency with a maximum theoretical efficiency of upwards of 70 percent. Broessel says internal tests have already demonstrated that the latest Betaray model produces about 150 watts per square meter when it is perpendicular to the sun. This rate is on par with some of the most efficient PV systems out on the market.
Juris Kalejs, chief technology officer at solar systems developer American Capital Energy, acknowledges that Broessel's concept does confer some advantages—especially for consumer looking for simpler, more versatile alternatives—but expressed some skepticism. "It's a very tricky system to make," he told Discovery News, "and you need to make it on a large scale to make it cost effective."
Broessel, however, disagrees and counters that Betaray can be cost effective when taking into account the totality of not only production costs, but also projected savings on the owner's energy bills in the long term. He points out, for instance, that constructing the device involves “very basic materials,” like water and glass, that cost less than manufacturing photovoltaic cells.
"You can optimize the conversion of light into energy all year round, even in bad weather," he says. “It's not unrealistic to think that in a year, it can double your energy yield.”
For now, Broessel's hoping to raise money through the sales of an unnamed "gadget" still under development. Within three years, he expects to have amassed enough funding to go into production with the Spherical Solar Energy Generator. But, it is a tough goal, he has found.
"All of Europe knows about my project," Broessel declares. "I have a month to pay for the patent rights, otherwise it will become open source. And by then, everyone will know about it.”A pair of researchers at the Univeristy of Washington have successfully cured colorblindness in two squirrel monkeys.
This may not sound like a big deal to you if you're not a squirrel monkey (or if you have normal vision), but for people with colorblindness, it could be life-altering.
The term colorblindness is actually something of a misnomer. A more accurate term is ‘color deficiency' — and it doesn't mean people see in black and white.
“Ninety-nine percent of all people who suffer from color deficiency have ‘red-green colorblindness,’” says Maureen Neitz, a genetic engineer and one of the researchers who created the cure. “This doesn't mean they can't see red or green; they just experience red or green differently from normal people.”
This small gap in the color spectrum can change the most basic experiences most of us take for granted. Autumn leaves, beautiful sunsets, even telling the difference between a red and a green pepper — these common, shared experiences simply elude people who can’t accurately discern shades of red and green.
(Being a colorblind videographer trying to make a video about color vision is no picnic, either, notes Luke Groskin, Science Friday’s own colorblind video producer.)
So it’s easy to see why the one-in-12 men and the one-in-200 women affected by the disorder might be interested in a cure. And in 1999, Maureen Neitz and her husband Jay Neitz, a neuroscientist, decided to pursue one.
Easier said than done. Because color deficiency isn't an illness, it's genetic — though in rare cases it can be caused by an unrelated illness.
Here’s what happens: The retina at the back of the human eye holds three types of photoreceptor cells, called cones. One is most sensitive to red, the second to blue and the third to green. Each of these cones and their corresponding pigments are encoded by specific genes.
“Humans and other old-world primates have two genes on the X chromosome that encode visual pigments,” Maureen Neitz explains. “One encodes the red cone pigment and the other encodes the green cone pigment. But if you're colorblind, only one type, red or green, is expressed.”
Finding the faulty gene was relatively simple. Replacing the gene inside the cone cells with a new one that ‘works’ was a bit trickier. “You have to have some way of delivering a gene to the cells that you're trying to treat and not into other cells,” Maureen Neitz says.
Fortunately, nature has crafted a very powerful method of forcing DNA into a very specific cell: a virus. The virus the Neitz’s used is called Adeno Associated Virus, or AAV. Its main advantage is that it does not elicit an immune response in humans.
While figuring out how to load the missing red color pigment gene into the virus, the Neitz’s pursued another line of inquiry. They had discovered that all male squirrel monkeys have red colorblindness. So they designed a test for a pair of colorblind, male squirrel monkeys.
They trained the monkeys to touch the spot on a computer screen where they saw a yellow color blob appear. If the monkeys touched the right spot, they got a treat.
Once the virus was ready and the monkeys had been trained to distinguish the yellow blob from the others on the screen, the animals underwent a fairly elaborate procedure: A vitro-retinal surgeon slipped a needle underneath the retina, then infused a fluid in order to treat the entire back of the eye. Then they waited.
“We didn’t know how long it was going to take for them to change their behavior after the pigment was expressed robustly,” says Maureen Neitz.
Eventually, the two treated monkeys began to pass the colorblindness test, using red blobs instead of yellow. Monkeys who had not received the gene therapy continued to fail the test when it was done with the red blobs.
The Neitzes knew they had nailed it. They knew for a fact that injecting the virus had changed the genes inside the two monkeys' eyes.
“When we look back and see the difference between the animals, it's so dramatic,” Jay Neitz says. “It was an amazing thing.”
While the FDA has yet to approve the procedure for human trials, Maureen Neitz is absolutley confident the gene therapy will work in humans. Indeed, the Neitzes continue their work. They recently developed a one-shot version of the cure. Patients could conceivably see normally by receiving a single shot directly into the eye.
While getting a shot in your eye sounds terrifying to some, it may be a small price to pay for getting to see a sunset in all its glory or experiencing the magic of fall colors — or just knowing you’ve left the house dressed in the right color clothing that day.
A previous version of this story misstated how often patients need to receive a shot.
This article is based on an interview and video on PRI's Science Friday with Ira Flatow.Signup to receive a daily roundup of the top LGBT+ news stories from around the world
Update 13:25: Downing Street originally told PinkNews that no option on the equal marriage bill would be ruled out until after the vote on the Tim Loughton amendment, however another spokesman has confirmed that David Cameron is in full support of the bill, but will decide the best way to make it happen, after the vote.
The Government may withdraw its support for the pending equal marriage bill for England and Wales, if an amendment to allow civil partnerships to straight couples passes.
A Downing Street source told PinkNews.co.uk that, if an amendment put forward by Tim Loughton, which would extend civil partnerships to heterosexual couples, were to pass, the Government may pull its support for the Marriage (Same Sex couples) Bill.
The source said no option could be ruled out over the bill, until after the vote on the amendment.
Three Tory MPs – Tim Loughton, Charlotte Leslie and Rob Wilson – are pushing for civil partnerships to be an option for heterosexual couples in an amendment as part of this week’s third reading of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill.
Prime Minister David Cameron has said that he holds the same position as Culture Secretary and Minister for Equalities, Maria Miller, who warned that the proposed backbench amendment on civil partnerships for heterosexuals could dramatically delay implementation of the same-sex marriage bill.
The Prime Minister has made it clear that he is to vote against the amendment, Downing Street has said.
“I would expect the Prime Minister to be voting tonight. He will vote in the same way as the Secretary of State for culture,” David Cameron’s spokesman said.
At the lobby briefing, the spokesman said that Mr Cameron’s emphasis was on allowing same-sex couples to marry.
“The Prime Minister’s view is very much Maria Miller’s, which is that the bill is about extending marriage to same-sex couples.
“The Equal Marriage Bill is all about the extension of marriage. There have been concerns and issues raised in the House with regard to civil partnerships and that’s why the Government has proposed to formally review civil partnerships.”
However, on the bill, Downing Street said the Government “has a legislative programme and it is getting on with it”, which has been taken as a signal that the Government will not drop the bill.
Some have said that Downing Street’s position on the amendment may be a precautionary measure to ensure that Labour MPs do not support the amendment. Many Labour MPs, however, are expected to support it.
However, some in Westminster fear the amendment is an attempt to “wreck the bill” because it could delay its passage beyond the 2015 general election.
Liberal Democrat leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has said he will not allow Tory opponents to succeed in wrecking the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill.This post describes changes I have made to nanopolish, our HMM-based consensus caller for Oxford Nanopore data. This post can be thought of as a long changelog with background and rationale.
Background and History
Nick Loman, Josh Quick and I started working on nanpore assembly at a hackathon at the Newton Institute in Cambridge. Our initial goal was pretty simple; we wanted to see if we could run DALIGNER on nanopore data and devise a way to error correct the reads. After a lot of tinkering and “proper bioinformatics” as Nick put it (converting file formats) we were able to run poa on the overlapping reads that DALIGNER found. Taking poa’s consensus sequence as the error corrected read improved identity to around 92-93%. Nick was able to get Celera Assembler running on the corrected reads and our assembly became progressively better as Nick and Josh added more data.
Once Nick got a single-contig assembly out of Celera Assembler we turned our attention to improving the accuracy of the final assembly. The consensus sequence that Celera Assembler called off the corrected reads had accuracy of about 98%. We knew that by working with the base-called reads, rather than the raw signal data emitted by the nanopore, we were losing a lot of information. During the winter holidays I started to write code that would use the raw current signal to call a new consensus. My initial exploratory code was in Python as the poretools package gave convenient access to the raw signal data encoded in ONT’s FAST5 files. I wrote a quick hidden Markov model in Python to calculate the probability of observing a sequence of nanopore signals given an arbitrary sequence. I immediately realized my Python HMM would be far too slow to run on even a bacterial genome so I decided the core algorithms would have to be written in C or C++.
I asked on twitter the best way to call out to a C++ library from Python and received many helpful replies (h/t to Titus Brown, Michael Crusoe and others). I settled on using ctypes as this bridge between the Python frontend/poretools and the HMM in C++. I was surprised at how easy ctypes makes this - I had Python talking to a prototype C++ library in under an hour. This hybrid Python/C++ solution was just fast enough to make model development and testing possible. We spent the next month or so revising the probabilistic model of the data, developing algorithms to propose candidate consensus sequences and testing them on our E. coli data. Once the model settled we ran it on the single-contig assembly which took a few days running in parallel on Nick’s server. We wrote up a preprint describing this work and posted it on BioRxiv.
Improving the design
I was not satisfied with the Python/C++ hybrid design. I am sensitive to installation issues when releasing software as I have found that installing dependencies is a major source of problems for the user (although great projects like homebrew-science are helping a lot here). I admire Heng Li’s software where one usually just needs to run git clone and make to build the program. The initial version of nanopolish was far from this ideal as it depended on eight Python libraries that needed to be installed with pip. When moving between my local development version and Nick’s server I realized that installing these dependencies often failed. With this in mind I decided to rewrite the Python frontend in C++. To do this, I crucially needed a replacement for poretools which I used to access the raw data. Matei David in my group volunteered to help and wrote an excellent, intuitive C++ library for parsing ONT’s FAST5 files.
There were additional benefits to this rewrite. In the Python version I again used poa to compute an initial multiple alignment and used this to seed the HMM realignment. In the C++ version I discarded this step, removing another dependency, by calculating the initial alignment directly from the BAM file using htslib. This simplification, along with the much faster parsing of the FAST5 files provided by Matei’s library, reduced startup time from a few minutes to a few seconds. This has helped me iterate on the code much faster during development.
Improving HMM efficiency
Despite writing the HMM in C++ the first version of nanopolish was very slow. After the Python to C++ rewrite I focused on improving run time. During development I use a lightweight header-only profiler to keep track of where time is being spent in my program. As expected over 90% of the time was spent running the forward algorithm on the hidden Markov model. I used the amazing perf kernel profiler to explore this further. perf indicated that most time was in the and functions. The forward algorithm on HMMs requires summing log-transformed probabilities. The naive way,, requires two calls to and one call to for every state/emission pair in the HMM. This is very slow and the subject of an entire section in the classic Biological Sequence Analysis text. I remembered reading Sean Eddy’s paper on accelerating HMMER3. In this paper Sean describes how the calculation can be improved by using the transformation where. On the surface this would only save a single call to but Sean goes further by using a table indexed by to cache. This method completely removes the and calls in the inner loop of our HMM. After plugging Sean’s implementation into nanopolish we immediately had an 8-fold improvement in speed. Thanks to Sean for allowing us to use this as public domain code.
Improving memory layout
The perf output also indicated that a lot of CPU time was wasted waiting on memory access. To improve cache usage and reduce the amount of data that is transferred over the memory bus, I reduced the precision of the floating point values from 64 bits to 32 bits. At the same time, I changed the memory layout of the nanopore event signals so that data accessed together was located in contiguous memory locations. This change simply interleaved two arrays, one storing event currents and one storing event durations, into a single array of structs. Finally, I pre-computed all of the scalings and transformations that need to be applied to the nanopore events (for example the current signal drifts over time and this needs to be corrected for) to reduce the work in the inner loop of the HMM.
Summary
This collection of changes reduced the average time spent in the forward algorithm of the HMM from per call to per call for 100 input events and a 100bp sequence, an improvment of over 10x. This did not require any changes at the algorithm level, only minor code optimizations. My next goal is to make algorithmic improvements, primarily avoiding testing unlikely candidate sequences in the HMM. Version 0.2.0 of nanopolish is here.In this exclusive new video, we get our closest look yet at the Emperor's mysterious, menacing Messenger droid.
The death of the Emperor wasn’t the end of the Empire. While the fall of the nefarious leader sewed confusion among the ranks, the surviving officers of the Imperial navy still wield influence over vast fleets and powerful forces. But even from beyond the grave, the Emperor’s destructive control holds sway over the galaxy… not just over his enemies, but also over the servants who failed to protect his life.
Part of that vengeance is enacted by Messenger droids, one of which plays a key role in the single-player story of Star Wars Battlefront II.
Messengers are agents of the Contingency – the Emperor’s sinister plan put into effect in the event of his untimely demise. Outlined in Star Wars Shattered Empire and Star Wars Aftermath, the Contingency punishes Empire and Rebellion alike.
Messengers are foreboding droids. They bear the visage of the dead Palpatine, and some are equipped to enforce his will not just with words, but with violent action. Early in Star Wars Battlefront II, a Messenger tasks Iden and her father, Garrick Versio, with terrifying instructions. We don’t want to reveal much more about this critical sequence, but its pretty clear that Iden’s “unusual” mission will place her on a collision course with the last wishes of the fallen Emperor.
The Messenger is just one of many story connections to the broader Star Wars galaxy revealed in the new single-player campaign. You’ll be learning much more about Iden, her teammates Del and Hask, and many of your favorite Star Wars characters in Star Wars Battlefront II, launching November 17.
However, you won’t have to wait until then to go hands |
diet of inmates.
Address:
Vězeňská služba ČR
Vazební věznice Praha – Pankrác
PO Box 5
140 57 Praha 4
Czech Republic
Phone: +420 261 031 111,
Email: vvpankrac@vez.pan.justice.cz
Address: Vězeňská služba ČR Vazební věznice Praha – Pankrác PO Box 5 140 57 Praha 4 Czech Republic Phone: +420 261 031 111, Email: vvpankrac@vez.pan.justice.cz If possible you can organize solidarity protests such as those organized by Solidarity Group in St. Petersburg.
You can organize an informative event in your city, as friends from Stockholm or Edinburgh did.
Abroad, you can apply political pressure on the Czech embassy as our friends in Edinburgh have.
You can disseminate information and a link it to AntiFénix or support any of the scheduled events with your presence.
or support any of the scheduled events with your presence. Support can also be expressed through creative actions or good old benefit concerts, skate sessions, graffiti, banners, squatting, composing songs. All power to the imagination. Creativity has no limits, same as our will to help. However, think about what sort of events/actions to choose so you are not making the situation worse.
This is very important as well as financial support or legal assistance as legal defense of detainees is always associated with great financial expenses. We, as well as the imprisoned comrades will be more than happy for solidarity expressed in any way.
Bank details:
8760190237/0100
IBAN:
CZ98 0100 0000 0087 6019 0237
Swift code:
KOMBCZPPXXX (KOMBCZPP)
Almost anything can be directed against the repression and to support imprisoned comrades. As Peter mentioned in his letter:
“Dear friends
My greatest and most fervent desire is that you stay the way you are, and don’t get intimidated. My lifelong motto was always to have faith in people and my imprisonment only confirms it to the greater extent. Even here between prisoners and guards, so much the desire for real freedom can be found.
Take care and thank you.
With a fraternal embrace of Peter S. “
AntiFénix
In addition to theoretical, informative and communication activities we also organize regular coordination of support and solidarity correspondence with prisoners. The letters are essential for prisoners contact with the outside world from which they were isolated. If it is not possible for you to attend events organized in the Czech Republic, or organize a writing to prisoners event, but you want to write to imprisoned comrades there are are several ways to do it. You can:
Send a letter via email to antifenix (at) riseup.net and we will forward for you.
Send an email requesting the address where to send a letter.
Downloadable guide on how to write letters to prisoners is available at AntiFénix website and we recommend reading it first before sending an actual letter.
A few people with whistles or loud shouting spontaneously passing by the walls of the prison can deliver a lot of strength and energy to the prisoners (video). Although individuals may not hear anything, the information about the event will usually find its way. It is possible that their conditions may be aggravated, but all three warmly welcome such a visit.
Petr after spontaneous demonstrations in Ruzyně wrote the following:
“On Saturday, I heard the sounds of solidarity action! Words can not express what kind of support that meant to me! Thank you, sisters and brothers! “
Martin’s sister sent a message:
“On Saturday, (6th June), as protests were held outside the Pankrác and Ruzyně, the authorities told Martin, that if his friends will continue with the show his conditions will be tightened. Martin told me to tell everyone to continue with the protests and make them even louder and more frequent. He was aware of the ongoing protest but was transferred to another room with tiny window. The support he receives from both the families and friends means a lot for him, as well as Petr and Ales.”
Ales wrote in his letter:
“Thanks a lot for all the expressed solidarity, support and encouragement. Greetings to you all and pass on my warm hugs and kisses.
Solidarity is our true weapon
With appeal to the presumption of innocence we would like to point out that the forces prosecuting and arresting people are in paradoxically non-compliance with laws (with which we do not agree, and it is beyond our control to change it) and we would like to clear Martin, Peter and Alex from a lot of lies that have been written about them. In our eyes, all three remain friends, comrades, or at least people deserving much support, even in the case of loosing and conviction.
Convicted and imprisoned for the action they never carried out and which was most likely result of coordinated undercover police work. Convicted in another ‘witch’ hunt, where the same fate could befall to any of us. Convicted for expressing disagreement with the domination and inequality.
The functioning and necessity of a prison does not have our support and legitimacy regardless of whether the “Fenix three” are found guilty or not.
For Ales, Martin and Petr support from the outside is the most important thing at this moment. While in prison, time passes differently, and while we are enjoying the summer, the three of them are sitting in complete isolation, without vegetation, birds singing, swimming in the river, bicycle trips, sitting by the fire with friends, kind words, hugs, love, possibilities of free motion, seeing the sun, or even almost without food.
Ales:
“My biggest source of dejection (not yet very significant) is the absence of my favourite music, stunning sceneries of nature, which I love, my favourite places where I like to return to and where I can contemplate about life. The place where I can reflect on death, love and hate or thoughts of someone with whom I share my ideas and dreams about real life in the microcosm of the endless anarchy. “
Solidarity is for us, as anti-authoritarian-minded individuals, the basic idea and also one of the most powerful initiators, because it is impossible to destroy it with just physical strength.
Martin’s sister:
“If they know we’re here for all of them, determined to do whatever it takes to support and encourage, they will harden up and will become? harder to break. They must know that we are here for them… “
Call to share!
AntiFénixOnly $8.8 billion of the 2005 guarantee has been allocated — to a twin reactor project in Georgia. Ground has been broken on the fourth candidate, a twin reactor project in South Carolina, but its sponsors may get a better deal in the commercial finance market.
The initial $17.5 billion was approved during the Bush administration, but President Obama has also embraced the idea of marrying nuclear power to solar, wind and “clean coal” to reach his administration’s goal of generating 80 percent of American electricity from those sources by 2035. Mr. Obama’s call for new loan guarantees came when the administration was seeking Republican votes in the Senate for a limit on carbon dioxide emissions, but he has stuck with the loan guarantees even after prospects for such legislation died after last fall’s midterm elections.
The Republicans, who won control of the House, have portrayed such regulatory legislation as an energy tax. A White House spokesman, Clark Stevens, said that in the president’s view, nuclear power would continue to be an important part of the “clean energy economy” he was seeking.
The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, said on Wednesday that he favored more nuclear reactors and that loan guarantees were the only way to get them.
The idea was approved by the Republican Congress in 2005. Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, now the ranking Republican on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, has praised the Energy Department for issuing the first nuclear loan guarantee, for the Alvin W. Vogtle plant expansion, in Georgia. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican majority leader, supports loan guarantees as a step to build 100 new nuclear reactors.
One reason for all the financial support may be the way Congress does its accounting. The guarantees cost little or nothing to approve. “It’s not real money,” Mr. Wilmshurst said.
A federal loan guarantee is a little like a parent co-signing a child’s car loan; if the child makes the payments, the parent pays nothing. Under the 2005 law, borrowers pay a lump sum to the government to compensate the Treasury for the risk it is undertaking, and if the companies finish the projects and can pay back the loans, the government makes a profit.
Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content, updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters.
The precise shape of new loan guarantees is uncertain, but when “scoring” the provisions for the purpose of calculating their expense, the White House says they cost nothing, and Congress assumes they cost 1 percent of the face value. But they are not without risk.
Advertisement Continue reading the main story
If the builders default, as happened on some nuclear construction projects in the 1980s, the taxpayer liabilities could run into the billions of dollars.
Officials at the Energy Department, which administers the loans, said they were confident that other developers would come forward and apply for the guarantees. Jonathan M. Silver, the executive director of the loan programs office, said, “There is a significant queue of nuclear power plants in house that we will and are working on.”
“They may just go forward under a different time frame,” he said, but he declined to estimate how many years it would be before the government could reach its goal of providing loan guarantees to six to eight reactor projects.
Mr. Silver said that by the time a reactor could be finished and brought on line, market factors might be more in the industry’s favor. “There are so many variables in this equation, taking a snapshot may be less relevant than watching the whole movie,” he said.
Duke Power, for example, has been seeking to build a twin reactor in South Carolina that would also serve North Carolina. Company executives said that to move forward, it would need approval to charge customers for some construction expenses before the plant is completed. The company is still trying to line up additional partners, and has not made a final decision to build, a spokesman said.
Entergy Corporation, of New Orleans, has applied to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for permission to build reactors in two locations, but has not reached the point of applying for loan guarantees. It will build “in the event that we do decide that economics, load demand and other factors make new units favorable,” the company said.
“There’s not much else I’m aware of that’s really actively moving forward right now,” said Michael J. Wallace, a former Constellation executive who was the chief operating officer of its partnership with a French firm to build the Maryland project, the proposed Calvert Cliffs 3 reactor. With a carbon tax no longer appearing likely, he said a new kind of help, like a federal “clean energy” standard that would set a quota for nuclear and renewable electricity, might be needed.
Henry D. Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, said he opposed government assistance for new reactors. He said that because the loan guarantees covered only 80 percent of the construction cost, project sponsors had to come up with the remaining 20 percent.
“Since the most likely candidates to pony up the 20 percent bailed out,” he said, “it doesn’t augur well.”PLUG-IN SPECIFICATIONS: Mac, Windows and Linux Compatible
Available in 3 Packages:
OPTICAL FLARES FOR NUKE PLUG-IN: only $199.95
Includes the Optical Flares Plug-in, 100+ Presets and 90+ Photographic Textures.
NUKE VERSION CROSS-GRADE: only $99.95
Discounted plugin for After Effects users.
NUKE FLARE BUNDLE: only $249.95
Includes the Optical Flares for Nuke plugin, the Pro Preset 1 Pack and
The Pro Presets 1 ($25) and
only $199.95Includes the Optical Flares Plug-in, 100+ Presets and 90+ Photographic Textures.only $99.95Discounted plugin for After Effects users.only $249.95Includes the Optical Flares for Nuke plugin, the Pro Preset 1 Pack and Pro Presets 2 each with 50 high-end flare presets.The Pro Presets 1 ($25) and Pro Presets 2 ($45) are available separately.
Plug-in License:
The product may be installed on 1 workstation and 1 personal system such as a laptop or home computer. This applies only if the systems are used by the same person and not multiple users. Please read our The product may be installed on 1 workstation and 1 personal system such as a laptop or home computer. This applies only if the systems are used by the same person and not multiple users. Please read our License Agreement for more information.
Nuke 7, 8, 9, 10, 10.5, 11, 11.1, 11.2: Mac, Windows and Linux• At least 1 GB of RAM• Display with at least 1280 x 1024 pixel resolution and 24-bit color• Graphics card with at least 512 MB of video memory and driver support for OpenGL 2.0• Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, Windows 7 x64, or RHEL 5.4 for Intel64 or AMD64• x86-64 processor, such as Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon, with SSE3 instruction set support (or newer)• Mac OS X 10.5 “Leopard” (excluding Nuke 7.0), 10.6 “Snow Leopard”, or 10.7 “Lion” (Nuke 7.0 only)• x86-64 processor, such as Intel Core 2 Duo or laterLooking for news you can trust?
Subscribe to our free newsletters.
In Donald Trump’s 2011 book Time to Get Tough: Making America #1 Again, the president-to-be made an astonishing claim: Lady Gaga likely owed her international fame to none other than…Donald Trump. “She became a big star and maybe she became a star because I put her on the Miss Universe pageant,” he wrote. “It’s very possible, who knows what would have happened without it, because she caused a sensation.”
The problem goes beyond Trump, of course. Women, especially women of color, are routinely denied credit for their ideas, creativity, genius, and success (not to mention they’re paid less than men for full-time work). So, in honor of Women’s History Month, I’ve put together this woefully incomplete timeline of the lowlights:
This article has been updated.We operate a LOT of servers. Over the years we’ve been forced to troubleshoot and interact with many different facets of systems. In the course of doing so, we’ve established a list of common tools we employ to make our job easier and get to the bottom line.
oh-my-zsh
First on our list is oh-my-zsh, an tool to manage configuration of the zsh shell. It comes bundled with many useful plugins for integrating with rails, node, redis, yum and more, including all sorts of auto-completion, typo corrections, and source code management integration with git and svn. This is a must have on any linux server.
For more information, visit https://github.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh
mtr
Next is mtr, Matt’s traceroute. This tool is imperative for diagnosing network path information and jitter. Its a simple tool that builds on the premise of traceroute which is included in nearly all UNIX/Linux distributions since the 90s, but adds a visual element as well as providing information over time. This tool provides crucial information for identifying where network issues are occurring as well as what the true impact is in terms of packet loss, high latency, jitter, etc.
For more information, visit http://www.bitwizard.nl/mtr/
vnStat
Next is vnStat. This one rules. The easiest way to get real-time information about how much traffic a particular interface is sending/receiving. On top of that, it runs as a daemon in the background which can tell you how much traffic has been used in the past day/week/month, etc. Very useful tool!
For more information, visit http://humdi.net/vnstat/
htop
Htop builds on that UNIX/Linux standard ‘top‘ command by allowing more interactive ways to drill into particular processes or resource consumption. See per CPU level utilization in a graphical way as well as act on any individual process to adjust its nice value, or even kill it.
tmux has quickly come to prominence and taken over for its step-uncle, screen. It is a shell based window manager (or terminal multiplexer). With a whole lot of customizations including colors, shell based scripting ease and lots of split window enhancements, this tool is extremely useful for keeping what you need in your face as well as being able to quickly switch windows to what you were just doing.
For more information, visit http://tmux.sourceforge.net/Welcome back to our 3-part blog post series on how to build a new feature for your application. This step-by-step guide will help you with your development process.
Last week we started with Analysis, this week we'll dive into the Implementation phase. This will be the most involved part of our series. We will tackle schema, impact and the actual building itself.
Let us dive right back in!
Step 1: Draw a schema of how the new feature fits in your current application
We now have a clear idea of what and how we are going to implement our feature. Next, let's create a visual schema of how the new feature will fit into the application. Try to visualize which existing parts have to be changed, and what has to be added. Use a color code (and a legend communicating it to other readers) to help you figure out how everything is going to fall into place.
In order to finish the whole schema you'll have to go over everything you've learned through the process described in our previous post. By doing so you might also rethink some of the design decisions that were made in the past to make sure your new feature will fit into your application in a reasonably elegant way.
So make sure you take your time, and think everything through. You won't be able to finish the schema without changing your mind about a thing or two, I suggest you use a tool that allows you to easily adapt your schema to inevitable changes. I personally prefer using Draw.io, a simple tool offering presets for software development.
Example schema:
Step 2: Make a list of existing things that will be impacted
When your schema is finished you should be able to see which parts of your application are going to be affected. Take your time to create a impact list of all these parts of your application. Make sure you also take note of how critical a change is going to be. The critical parts of your system should already have test coverage, so if you change them you can use those tests to see if you broke them or not. If you don't have test coverage for risky bits yet, it's not too late to add them now.
The reason we make this overview beforehand is because we want to have a clear threat assessment of which part of our application should be getting extra monitoring when our new feature is released. The impact list can also be used to let your product owners know which parts might conceivably be affected by the new feature, so they can keep an eye out for any difficulties as well.
Step 3: Ask feedback
Just like we did during analysis, make sure to get feedback from the product owner. If you're developing in a team environment, ask someone to look at your schema and impact list to get a second opinion.
Ask your product owner for their thoughts on the impact list. They might have some extra concerns you've overlooked, and help you complete the list. The more feedback you get at this stage the more secure you'll feel about the decisions you've made.
Step 4: Build your feature and write tests
Now it's time to actually build stuff. Implement the actual new feature according to your well thought-out plan and write tests for it during this process (or beforehand, if you're doing TDD). Writing tests is a crucial concern here. The more tests you have, the easier future implementations will become and the less chance you have of introducing new bugs.
Step 5: Test your feature
This step is pretty self-explanatory, when you create something make sure you test every part of it yourself.
Over the years I've seen many people deliver code without actually testing some parts because 'they should work'. This makes you look foolish when basic functionality fails (invariably during a demo). Take a second to go over your complete feature and test every aspect, no matter how bullet-proof it may seem.
Step 6: Test your impact list
In step 2 we took some time to make an impact list. Once you think your feature is ready and you tested it thoroughly this is the time to test every part of the application you've mentioned on your impact list. Make sure all affected functionality is still working like before. You can do this by running associated tests for example ;-)
Step 7: Write/Test migrations for your data
Your feature is ready to be released but your application changed slightly and your old data might not be working in the new setup.
Now is the time to create a migration plan. Doctrine Database Migrations might be what you're looking for if your database needs to be altered.
When you've finished your migration process, make sure you test it on real data, not just development data. Make sure you test it on a production backup and do it multiple times, in the exact same way you will execute the migration in the production environment when the time comes to release your work.
CONCLUSION:
Implementation started with drawing up a schema and impact list, and concluded with the actual development and testing of the new feature. Once we were done writing code we made sure we had a migration plan.
After all this hard work we are almost ready to release our feature. But not quite yet! You can now go to our final step: Releasing.A federal judge has blocked North Carolina from issuing the special anti-abortion 'Choose Life' license plate, calling it unconstitutional "viewpoint discrimination" because the state did not offer a pro-choice tag. (Photo11: Choose Life)
North Carolina cannot issue anti-abortion "Choose Life" license plates without offering drivers plates with other viewpoints, a federal has judged ruled.
U.S. District Court Judge James Fox ruled Friday that the "Choose Life" tag violated the First Amendment, the Raleigh News & Observer reported. In issuing a permanent injunction, he called it "viewpoint discrimination" because the state did not offer a plate supporting reproductive choice.
The Republican-controlled Legislature authorized the plate in June 2011, rejecting six efforts to include additional plates that declared "Respect Choice," or "Trust Women. Respect Choice." Gov. Bev Purdue, a Democrat, signed the measure that November.
The state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union then sued on behalf of four auto owners, and Fox issued a temporary injunction blocking the sale of "Choose Life," a national organization lobbying to get the plate in all 50 states.
The state attorney general has not decided whether he will appeal, the Associated Press reported Monday.
"This is a great victory for the free speech rights of all North Carolinians, regardless of their point of view on reproductive freedom," Chris Brook, legal director of the state ACLU, said in a statement. "The government cannot create an avenue of expression for one side of a contentious political issue while denying an equal opportunity to citizens with the opposite view."
Brook added, "We would have made the exact same argument if the situation was reversed, and the state planned on issuing a pro-choice plate while not offering one expressing the opposite point of view."
According to Choose Life, its plate is available in 27 states besides North Carolina. The North Carolina site has not yet been updated to reflect the injunction.
Fox's ruling points out that "funds to be collected from the 'Choose Life' plate are expressly prohibited from 'be[ing] distributed to any agency, organization, business, or other entity that provides, promotes, counsels, or refers to abortion.'"
The Carolina Pregnancy Care Fellowship would have received $15 of the $25 fee for the special plate.
"North Carolina is the only state in the southeast that refuses to let its citizens purchase the 'Choose Life' license plate," Bobbie Meyer, state director of the Carolina Pregnancy Care Fellowship, told LifeNews on Monday. She said the plates have raised more than $12 million for sponsors in the states where they are sold, "thereby helping mothers and their families."
North Carolina offers almost 150 special tags for a variety of causes, interests, organizations, military veterans or colleges. Among them: the Buddy Pelletier Surfing Foundation, Sons of Confederate Veterans, 27 different NASCAR drivers, animal lovers, duck hunters, God, Masons, Shriners, Lions, shag dancers, square dancers, hikers, bicyclists, police, firefighters, forests, tobacco -- and watermelons.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/RZvepWIs Gladys Lumantes Delos Santos the real name of Ahcee Flores, the lady who posted comments on Yahoo saying she wants the Visayan people killed by the tsunami? Her comments (screenshots below), posted right after the news broke of a 6.7 magnitude quake hit the Negros-Cebu Philippine region on Monday, sparked an outrage from the Bisdaks. Although a tsunami alert was raised by authorities, nothing actually occurred. Yet, Ahcee Flores wished for a tsunami so that many people from the affected region will die. Obviously, this Filipino has a sick mind.First comment:
Rough translation: “Let us all pray… that the tsunami would happen so many people from the Visayas would die and we could lessen the number of “low-class” citizens in the Philippines.”
How immature the comment is!
To add more hateful comments, Ahcee posted:
Rough translation: “Don’t worry guys, if the tsunami won’t happen today, there are chances of it happening. It will happen. Just keep on praying.”
Her intent maybe was to joke about it. But, honestly, is this the time to kid about a tragedy that left seven people dead and the Visayas region severely damaged? According to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC), 2 of the 7 fatalities were children who were pinned down by a collapsed concrete. Should we make jokes about our Kababayans being killed?
People are angry and would want to find out who this Ahcee Flores really is. According to Facebook posts, she is Gladys Lumantes Delos Santos. But no one can really confirm this. Ahcee Flores may just be an online pseudo name. And Gladys Lumantes Delos Santos may just be created by someone who hates someone. Gladys Lumantes Delos Santos could be a real name of a person who has nothing to do with all of this.
Facebook pages have been created condemning Ahcee’s choice of words. One page is “Ahcee Flores -Persona non grata in Cebu”, and another page “Ahcee Flores Is Such a Bitch”, and much worse page “Kill Ahcee Flores Movement”. The last page has more than 7,000 likes since it was created a day ago!
Another page called “Support Ahcee Flores” was allegedly made by Ahcee. But no one can confirm whether the page is legit or not.
In just a matter of hours, Ahcee Flores became the trending topic in Twitter. If this is what she wants, there you have it — popularity and HATE!
Now the name Ahcee Flores and Gladys Lumantes Delos Santos will remain in the minds of the angry Visayans. Online, the names will always be associated with HATE.
I wonder if Ahcee Flores (if the name really exist) can sleep in peace.
Share this: Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Pinterest
Tumblr
Like this: Like Loading...
Comments
commentsAs many union janitors are losing their jobs due to I-9 audits, non-union janitors who clean retail stores such as Lunds & Byerly’s, Cub Foods, and Target, are seeing lower wages and worse working conditions. These stores do not hire janitors directly, but contract with cleaning companies. The Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en Lucha (CTUL), an organization that works toward fair wages and fair working conditions, has been leading a campaign against Lunds & Byerly’s, SuperValu (parent company of Cub Foods), and Target to take responsibility for the wages and working conditions of people hired to clean their stores by the cleaning businesses they contract with.
For more on immigrant janitors, see Immigrant janitors: “The system is broken”
Brian Payne, an organizer with CTUL, said that in the past ten years, wages have gone down from $10-11 an hour to minimum wage and the workload has nearly doubled. The cleaning companies are in strong competition with each other, he said, which has driven down labor costs.
Mario Colloli-Torres has for the past year been organizing with CTUL as well as working at Cub Foods through the Carlson Building Maintenance company. Colloli-Torres said he felt it was necessary to stand up and start talking about the working conditions and wages. Not only have the wages dropped, he said through a translator, but a store which once was cleaned by four people has now had the cleaning staff cut to two, and workers often don’t have time for a break.
Immigrant janitors: “The system is broken” The janitorial industry, Javier Morillo-Alicea said, is “The Ellis Island Industry.” For the past century, it has been a profession filled with immigrants. SEIU was founded by four Polish immigrants in Chicago, when the main labor federations wouldn’t take them. In the last thirty years, the industry has been dominated by Latino immigrants, and largely by people without work authorization. In recent years, there has been a growing number of East African workers in the industry as well, Morillo-Alicea said.
Though CTUL has organized marches and 200 members signed petitions demanding better treatment, “the only thing they are interested in is saving money when they are negotiating with cleaning companies,” Colloli-Torres said.
Recently, Colloli was fired from Calrson Building Maintenance. He was told that it was because he was asleep on the job, and was shown a picture of himself asleep. However, he says that the picture was taken of him while he was on his break, and he was fired not because of that but because he is a leader in organizing efforts. “They think they can make it go away by firing leaders,” he said. “It seems if you are a leader trying to get better working conditions, you get fired,” he said.
Another janitor, Jesus Costillo, worked for National Maintenance Cleaning, which was the company contracted to clean Lunds and Byerly’s. He worked for the company for three years until Lunds and Byerly’s switched companies to Carlson Building Maintenance. When Costillo began cleaning the stores, four workers would clean a store on one shift. That got reduced to three people, and now that Carlson has the contract, only two people clean the store in one shift. Additionally, Costillo said, workers are forced to work with chemicals with no protection.
Carlson Mangement did not respond to repeated telephone and email requests for information.Honda F1 boss Yusuke Hasegawa believes McLaren will find itself in a position to achieve its best possible result of the year this weekend in Hungary.
The twisty nature of the challenging Hungaroring trims down the importance of engine output, one of the Japanese manufacturer's main weaknesses. Coupled with the efficiency of the team's MCL32 chassis, a strong result may indeed ensue, if reliability is kept in check.
With just two points on the books this season, courtesy of Fernando Alonso's fortunate P9 finish in Azerbaijan, McLaren lingers at the bottom of the Constructors' standings.
So a nice top ten finish would go a long way towards improving the Woking-based outfit's tally.
"Despite showing improved competitiveness during the last few races, we're yet to translate this into on-track results," says a hopeful Hasegawa.
"Having said that, we're pleased with our current development and we now head to Hungary feeling more positive about the race weekend.
"The Hungaroring is a unique twisty circuit that should give us one of our best opportunities this season. Though it is not a power-oriented track, it still requires precise energy management throughout every lap of the race.
"It is also a track where overtaking is extremely difficult, so qualifying will be enormously important for us."
According to the Honda chief, there will be real opportunity for Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne to reach Q3 Saturday afternoon.
"We know we're capable of a good result on this type of track, so our target is to reach Q3 and be in a good place to score points in the race.
"Fernando claimed his first Formula 1 victory at the Hungaroring, and Stoffel won there in GP2 in 2014, so our cars are in excellent hands.
"This is the last race before the summer shutdown when everyone in the McLaren-Honda team will get a well-earned rest.
"Before then, I hope we can build a good momentum towards the second half of the season with solid results in Hungary."
GALLERY: F1 drivers' wives and girlfriends
Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and TwitterJoe McManus and Chris Huffman
Whether it is HIPAA, MiFID II, PCI or the GDPR, compliance and security regulations are a top of mind priority for businesses of any size across any geography.
Businesses expect their technology to meet certain regulatory standards, such as FIPS 140-2, DISA/STIG, Common Criteria, or to have achieved minimum requirements such as CIS Benchmarks or MSPCV.
Knowing that the technology your business has put in place can help it to be compliant is an important factor that decision makers must consider.
For Ubuntu, compliance means being able to best serve our customers. Technologies such as Landscape can ensure that there is no case for gross negligence under GDPR if you are hacked, because it will have ensured the latest patches are in place.
Ubuntu’s trusted security and compliance solutions are at the forefront of solving these issues across a wide range of industries.
Join this webinar for information on…
>Compliance and security issues heading into 2019
>How Ubuntu is securing the most heavily regulated industries, such as: government, financial services & healthcare
>A guide to security & compliance on Ubuntu, including dealing with GDPR, why FIPS matters and why compliance doesn’t have to come at a high priceThe concept of private barter and alternative economies has been so far removed from our daily existence here in America that the very idea of participating in commerce without the use of dollars or without the inclusion of corporate chains seems almost outlandish to many people.However, the fact remains that up until very recently (perhaps the last three to four decades) barter and independent trade was commonplace in this country. Without it, many families could not have survived.
Whether we like it or not, such economic methods will be making a return very soon, especially in the face of a plunging dollar, inflating wholesale prices, erratic investment markets, and unsustainable national debts. It is inevitable; financial collapse of the mainstream system ALWAYS leads to secondary markets and individual barter. We can wait until we are already in the midst of collapse and weighted with desperation before we take action to better our circumstances, or, we can prepare now for what we already know is coming.
In today’s “modern” globalist economy, we have relied upon centralized and highly manipulated trade, forced interdependency, senseless and undisciplined consumption, endless debt creation, welfare addiction, and the erosion of quality, as a means to sustain a system that ultimately is DESIGNED to erode our freedoms not to mention our ability to effectively take care of ourselves. We have been infantized by our financial environment. In the near future, those who wish to live beyond a meager staple of government handouts (if any are even given) will be required to make a 180 degree reversal from their current lifestyle of dependency and immediate gratification towards one of self sufficiency, personal entrepreneurship, quality trade, and a mindset of necessity, rather than unfounded excess.
This means that each and every one of us will not only be driven to form barter networks outside the designated confines of the mainstream, we will have to become active producers within those networks. Each and every one of us will need to discover practical goods and skills that will be in high demand regardless of economic conditions. Being that our society has all but forgotten how this kind of trade works, let’s examine a short list of items as well as proficiencies that are sure to be highly sought after as the collapse progresses…
Top Priority Goods
To be sure, this list is a summary of items that will have high value during and after a breakdown scenario. I welcome readers to post their own ideas for trade goods below this article. The following is merely a framework which you can use to get started, and was compiled using actual accounts of post collapse trade from the Great Depression, to Bosnia, to Argentina, to Greece, etc. These are items and skills that people were literally begging for after financial catastrophe occurred in numerous separate events.
Water Filtration: Stock up on water filters. Learn how water filtration works. Even make your own water filters using cloth, activated charcoal, and colloidal silver. Everyone will want to trade with you if you have extra filtration on hand. During economic breakdowns, especially in countries like Argentina, and Bosnia, which had more modern, city based populations, the first thing to disappear was clean water. Always. In some cases, the tap water still runs, but is filled with impurities, and needs to be boiled. Boiling does not remove bad tastes or smells, however, and clean filtered water will be in demand.
Seeds: Non-GMO seeds are a currency unto themselves. They can last for years if stored properly, and everyone will want them, even if they don’t have land to plant them. Get enough for yourself, and then purchase twice as much for trade.
Fresh Produce: Ever heard of scurvy? Probably. Ever had scurvy? Probably not. Believe me, you don’t want to have it. Your body essentially begins to fall apart slowly, and the result is |
Crescent and was immediately sent into surgery.
Palestinian Medical sources said that the bullet entered through Hasan’s back and settled into the left side of his chest.
Daghlas said that locals had gathered in the eastern area of Qusra after Israeli settlers had raided the area under Israeli army escort, stationing themselves in the area where an Israeli settler shot dead Mahmoud Odeh, a 48-year-old resident of Qusra, on Thursday.
Witnesses told Ma'an that locals tried to push out the dozens of Israeli settlers who raided the village in an attempt to provoke people, causing clashes to break out.
Israeli soldiers fired tear-gas and live ammunition against locals.A portion of a 4×5-inch photo showing Billy the Kid, left, playing croquet in New Mexico in 1878. Discovered in 2010, the photograph is only the second verified image of the notorious outlaw. (Courtesy of Kagin’s)
As legend has it, Billy the Kid was a cold-blooded outlaw and cattle rustler who lived hard and died young.
Less legendary, it turns out, is the fact that the kid — a.k.a. William Bonney — was a player of the popular 19th century British pastime known as croquet.
That’s according to only the second photo ever to be confirmed of the infamous outlaw, whose short life and mysterious death continue to fascinate historians and bewitch investigators.
[One man’s quest to bury the Wild West mystery of Billy the Kid’s death]
The photo, discovered by a collector inside a Fresno, Calif., junk shop in 2010, was purchased for $2 at the time. Since it was recently authenticated by Kagin’s — a San Francisco-based company specializing in Western Americana and Rare Coins — the image’s value has skyrocketed.
“It has been independently appraised at $5 million and it wouldn’t surprise me if we have an offer in that neighborhood in the next couple of days,” David McCarthy, a senior numismatist at Kagin’s, told The Washington Post.
A second photo of Billy the Kid, a 2 x 3-inch tintype portrait taken in 1880 and sold in 2010, went for $2.3 million, according to Kagin’s.
McCarthy noted that the company has already been contacted by three potential buyers about the newest photographic find.
In a statement posted on the company’s Web site, he said the company’s experts were “understandably skeptical” when the photo of Kid surfaced.
“An original Billy the Kid photo is the holy grail of Western Americana,” he said. “We had to be certain that we could answer and verify where, when, how and why this photograph was taken. Simple resemblance is not enough in a case like this – a team of experts had to be assembled to address each and every detail in the photo to ensure that nothing was out of place.”
[Billy the Kid’s former hideout is on the market, and it’s adorably charming]
The full tintype photograph shows notorious outlaw Billy the Kid alongside members of his gang after a wedding in the summer of 1878. (Courtesy of Kagin’s)
The latest photo, a 4 x 5 inch tintype, captures Billy the Kid surrounded by several members of his gang after a wedding, according to Kagin’s. The outlaws are surrounded by friends and family in Chaves County, N.M., in the summer of 1878. The company said a team spent a year dissecting the photo and determining the location, which required investigators to travel to the supposed site where it was taken.
“We found the old lumber underneath,” Jeff Aiello, who directed a National Geographic Channel documentary about the photo, told ABC affiliate KFSN. “We found those exact rock piers are still there.”
According to the company:
Taken just one month after the tumultuous Lincoln County War came to an end, it is a window into the lives of these gunmen as they were still fighting the injustices of a lawless land. It’s a carefree moment after an important life event – a wedding – which is rich in content, movement and texture.
Aiello told KFSN that the photo is particularly significant because it’s the only known photo of Billy the Kid with his gang, The Regulators, making it a unique piece of American history.
“Like Don Kagin said, it’s the holy grail of not just western photography, it’s the holy grail of photography,” Aiello told KFSN. “It is the rarest photograph in the world and it was found in a Fresno junk shop.”
Legend holds that Billy the Kid was responsible for 21 deaths, one for each year of his life, according to CBS. The New Mexico Tourism Department, however, claims the number is probably less than half that many.
Croquet, now considered a posh British pastime, may appear to be an unlikely sport for a ruthless outlaw, but Liz Larsson from the U.K.’s Croquet Association, told the Guardian that the sport had swept the United States years earlier.
“Croquet became popular in the 1860s because it was the first sport that women could play on the same terms as men, and men and women could play each other,” she said. “It had a huge boost in its popularity.”
MORE READING:
What happens when you leave an extremely realistic dummy face down in your yard
When surviving six days in the Australian outback means eating live ants
Landmark jury verdict orders gun shop to pay nearly $6 million to injured police officersPlease support Truthout’s work by making a tax-deductible donation: click here to contribute.
The up-in-the-air nomination of Chuck Hagel to be Defense Secretary has become a test of whether the Israel Lobby can still shoot down an American public servant who is deemed insufficiently passionate regarding Israel, a test that now confronts President Obama, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
The Israel Lobby is hell bent on sabotaging President Barack Obama’s tentative plan to appoint former Sen. Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense. And – with Obama now dithering about this selection – the Lobby and its neocon allies sense another impending victory.
Perhaps The New Yorker’s Connie Bruck described Hagel’s predicament best in assessing why the Israel Lobby is so determined to destroy the Nebraska Republican though he is “a committed supporter of Israel.”
But, as Bruck explained, “Hagel did not make the obeisance to the lobby that the overwhelming majority of his Congressional colleagues do. And he further violated a taboo by talking about the lobby, and its power.” Hagel had the audacity, in an interview for a 2008 book, to say something that you are not supposed to say in Official Washington, that the Israel Lobby pulls the strings on many members of Congress.
In Aaron Miller’s book, The Much Too Promised Land, Hagel is quoted as saying that Congress “is an institution that does not inherently bring out a great deal of courage.” He added that when the American Israel Public Affairs Committee comes knocking with a pro-Israel letter, “you’ll get eighty or ninety senators on it. I don’t think I’ve ever signed one of the letters” — because, he added, they were “stupid.”
Finding Other Reasons
Yes, it’s true that when the neocon editors of the Washington Post decried the prospect of Hagel’s appointment to run the Pentagon, they cited a bunch of other reasons without mentioning Hagel’s independent thinking regarding Israel. For instance, the Post’s editors fretted over a September 2011 interview with the Financial Times, in which Hagel said, “The Defense Department, I think in many ways, has been bloated. … So I think the Pentagon needs to be pared down.” What heresy!
The Post’s editors also questioned Hagel’s interest in avoiding another war with Iran, calling his interest in meaningful engagement with Iran “isolated.” The Post noted that Hagel “repeatedly voted against sanctions, opposing even those aimed at the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, which at the time was orchestrating devastating bomb attacks against U.S. troops in Iraq. Mr. Hagel argued that direct negotiations, rather than sanctions, were the best means to alter Iran’s behavior.”
Though the Post noted that Hagel also wrote an op-ed last September that contained the usual refrain about “keeping all options on the table,” the neocon editors worried that a Defense Secretary Hagel might not be enthusiastic enough in carrying out the war option against Iran. Obama “will need a defense secretary ready to support and effectively implement such a decision,” the Post wrote.
Yet, despite the Post’s avoidance of any mention about the controversy over Hagel and the Israel Lobby, you can bet that the editors were particularly worried that Hagel might become a strong voice within the Obama administration against simply following Israel’s lead on issues in the Middle East.
If Obama were to actually nominate Hagel– rather than just float his name as a trial balloon and recoil at all the efforts to prick holes in it – the message would be a strong one to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israel Lobby that the old rules for the game are changing, that they can no longer blackball American public servants from key jobs in Washington.
Defecting on Iraq War
As a two-term senator, Chuck Hagel’s other real sin was that he was one of the few defectors among congressional Republicans regarding the Iraq War. Though Hagel voted for President George W. Bush’s war authorization, he eventually recognized his mistake and fessed up.
Hagel said he believes the Iraq War was one of the biggest blunders in U.S. history. He sharply criticized the Bush/Cheney foreign policy as “reckless,” saying it was playing “ping pong with American lives.” Such comments have made Hagel particularly unpopular with the top tier of hawkish Republican senators, such as Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John McCain of Arizona.
But Hagel’s ultimate offense, as far as Official Washington is concerned, is his unusual record of independent thinking that could, in Israel’s eyes, endanger or even derail business as usual with the U.S. He is considered a realist, a pragmatist. Moreover, there can hardly be a more offensive remark to Israeli ears than the one made by Hagel to author Aaron Miller reflecting the sad state of affairs in Congress:
“The Jewish Lobby intimidates a lot of people up here” [on the Hill], but “I’m a United States Senator. I’m not an Israeli senator.”
This remark, and others like it, have raised doubts in Israeli and pro-Israeli circles as to whether Hagel has the requisite degree of “passionate attachment” to Israel. This has generated a volley of vicious invective characterized so well by former Ambassador Chas Freeman in “Israel Lobby Takes Aim Again.” This invective is aimed at forcing Obama to drop any plan to put Hagel in charge of the Pentagon. After all, it takes courage to counter character assassination.
Why the Fear?
What really lies behind this? I suspect the fear is that, were Hagel to become Secretary of Defense, he would take a leaf out of his book as Senator and openly insist, in effect, that he is the American Secretary of Defense and not the Israeli Defense Minister.
This, in turn, gives rise to a huge question being whispered in more and more corridors of power in Washington: Is Israel an asset or a liability to the U.S., when looked at dispassionately in the perspective of our equities in the Middle East and our general strategic defense?
Hardly a new conundrum. Many decades ago, Albert Einstein, who feared the consequences of creating a “Jewish state” by displacing or offending Arabs, wrote:
“There could be no greater calamity than a permanent discord between us [Jews] and the Arab people. Despite the great wrong that has been done us [in the western world], we must strive for a just and lasting compromise with the Arab people. … Let us recall that in former times no people lived in greater friendship with us than the ancestors of these Arabs.”
Realpolitik, including the increasing isolation of Israel and the U.S. in the Middle East, is breathing some life into this old attitude and generating consideration of a new approach – necessity being the mother of invention.
Few have been as blunt, though, as Zbigniew Brzezinski, who has been described as the “unofficial dean of the realist school of American foreign policy experts.” In a recent talk, the former national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter minced no words:
“I don’t think there is an implicit obligation for the United States to follow like a stupid mule whatever the Israelis do. If they decide to start a war, simply on the assumption that we’ll automatically be drawn into it, I think it is the obligation of friendship to say, ‘you’re not going to be making national decisions for us.’ I think that the United States has the right to have its own national security policy.”
Even Petraeus Lets It Slip Out
Back when Gen. David Petraeus was head of CENTCOM, he addressed this issue, gingerly but clearly, in prepared testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee in March 2010 on the “challenges to security and stability” faced by the U.S.:
“The enduring hostilities between Israel and some of its neighbors present distinct challenges to our ability to advance our interests. … The conflict foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of U.S. favoritism for Israel.
“Arab anger over the Palestinian question limits the strength and depth of U.S. partnerships … in the area and weakens the legitimacy of moderate regimes in the Arab world. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda and other militant groups exploit that anger to mobilize support.”
Petraeus’s testimony provoked a sharp rejoinder from Abe Foxman, head of the Anti-Defamation League, one of the leading American Zionist lobby groups. Foxman protested:
“Gen. Petraeus simply erred in linking the challenges faced by the U.S. … in the region to a solution of the Israeli-Arab conflict, and blaming extremist activities on the absence of peace and the perceived favoritism for Israel. This linkage is dangerous and counterproductive.”
Petraeus or someone on his staff had inadvertently touched a live-wire reality that is becoming increasingly debated in official circles but remains taboo when it comes to saying it out loud. Fearful that he would be dubbed an “anti-Semite,” Petraeus began a frantic attempt to take back the words, which he noted were only in his prepared testimony and were not repeated in his oral presentation. [See Consortiumnews.com’s "Neocons, Likud Conquer DC, Again.”]
As Ali Abunimah of the Electronic Intifada describes it, this taboo proscribes “stating publicly that U.S. ‘interests’ and Israeli ‘interests’ are not identical, and that Israel might be a strategic burden, rather than an asset to the United States.”
Ironically, while Foxman and hardline Zionists were objecting vociferously, Meir Dagan, then-Israel’s Mossad chief told a Knesset committee, “Israel is gradually turning from an asset to the United States to a burden.”
Taboo or not, an un-passionately-attached realist like Chuck Hagel presumably would be able to see that reality – anathema in Zionist circles – for what it is.
As prospective Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel would bring something else that would be extremely valuable to the job, a real-life understanding of the horrors of war. He volunteered for service in Vietnam in 1967 at the height of the fighting there, rejecting his local draft board’s suggestion that he re-enroll in college to avoid Vietnam. A combat infantry squad leader, he was twice wounded in that crucible. Do not let anyone tell you that this does not have a lasting effect on a man.
First in Three Decades
Were Hagel to become Secretary of Defense, he would become the first in 30 years to bring to the job direct battle experience of war. One must trace 14 former secretaries of defense all the way back to Melvin Laird (1969-1973) for one who has seen war up-close and personal. (Like Hagel, Laird enlisted and eventually earned a Purple Heart as a seaman in the Pacific theater during WWII.)
Given this real world experience, the Israelis and their supporters in the U.S. might well conclude that Hagel would not be as blasé as his predecessors when it comes to sending troops off to war – and even less so for a war like the prospective one with Iran.
Hagel’s past statements suggest he would urge more flexibility in talks with Iran on the nuclear issue and on Palestine, as well. This leaves him vulnerable to charges from the Israel Lobby, but even some pro-Israel stalwarts reject the far-fetched notion that this makes him “anti-Semitic.”
In comments to the New Yorker’s Connie Bruck, for example, Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-New York, has drawn a sensible contrast between Hagel’s apparent inclination toward more flexibility with Iran on the nuclear issue and the more familiar attitude – which Ackerman described as: “You know ‘Let’s bomb them before the sun comes up.’”
If recent reports are correct in suggesting that Obama intends to enter more than just pro forma negotiations with Iran, he would have in Hagel the kind of ally he would need in top policy-making circles, someone who would support, not sabotage, chances for a peaceful resolution of the crisis.
Recall that in 2010 Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was able to put the kibosh on a plan that had been suggested by Obama himself, and carefully worked out with Tehran by the President of Brazil and the Prime Minister of Turkey, that would have been a major step toward resolving the dispute over Iran’s enrichment of uranium. [S[See Consortiumnews.com’s "U.S./Israel Challenged on Iran.”]p>
Avoiding “Complicity”
The year just ending has been a rollercoaster for U.S.-Israeli relations. It started with Obama’s rather extreme professions of fealty to Israel. In a pre-Super Bowl interview with Matt Lauer on Feb. 5, the President said:
“My number one priority continues to be the security of the United States, but also the security of Israel, and we’re going to make sure that we work in lockstep as we proceed to try to solve this problem [Ira[Iran]pefully diplomatically.”
Speaking to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in March – amid suggestions that his devotion to Israel was still not enough – Obama again used the first person in assuring the pro-Israel lobby group: “when the chips are down, I have Israel’s back.”
By late August, as Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu was suggesting that Israel might ignore Obama’s sanctions strategy on Iran and launch a preemptive strike on its own, Obama used Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey to say that he (Dempsey) did not wish to be “complicit,” if the Israelis chose to attack Iran. In September, Secretary Clinton was publicly brushing aside Netanyahu’s pleading for U. S. endorsement of his various “red lines,” and Obama was too busy to receive Netanyahu when he came to the U.N.
What lies in store for U.S.-Israeli relations in Obama’s second term? It is too early to tell. But whether or not the President decides to tough it out and nominate Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense is likely to provide a good clue.Close your eyes... Feel the cold wind on your face... Harken the Call of the Days to Come... Embrace the futility of your existence... The Pink One is here...Several months ago, I gave Pinkie Pie the power of Magic. Have a look: psyxofthoros.deviantart.com/ar…. Some people liked it. Most however, cried doom, pain, suffering and death would come upon us all. Threats were made that I should not expand this, for the sake of our lives...But I know better. I dismissed those as ravings of madmen. For I, in my infinite wisdom, have decided to give Pinkie her magical powers YET AGAIN...!The Legend Lives! Pinkie is back, and nobody will be safe... Or will they?The guilty shall be Pinkie Punche'd to Oblivion!!!!!!!!!!!!! www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFtw7q… AVAILABLE!!!!!!!!-~-~-~-Pinkie Pie Charging Her Laz0r without backgrounds psyxofthoros.deviantart.com/ar… Featured on EQD 8/4/13 www.equestriadaily.com/2013/04…. Thank you!Now in Russian tabun.everypony.ru/blog/transl…!!On dA Hot Page 8/4/13. You guys are awesome!So, yeah. Here we are. The return of Magic Pinkie Pie. Took me long enough, since September 2012...huzzah?Truth is, I was finding myself in a place of not being sure as to if I want to keep on (/attempting to/) drawing stuff, let alone Le Poniez. Thought maybe I should quit and leave this all behind me. The attempts at vectoring, the little ponies, dA. Cause I'm not an artist, not in the slightest. Don't even consider this a hobby. But, then, how come I actually do this? Well seems like the best answer.Previous Comic has 1059 Comments... Let's beat kick this one up a notch!THIS IS A HUGE 23 MB FILE!!!! It will lag your internet browser, it will crash your picture manager, and it will make you rage! I know I have.Some thanks are in order. Helped with editing dialog stuff (I'm proud to know my English, but there is always something more that a guy,whose mother tongue is English, knows than you.) He also gave some ideas for tweaks and fixes. Every time I thought the comic was ready, he'd go all "No sir, I don't like it" on me, so I'd try to make it better! He also dealt with my incessant whining that I couldn't do it and I should consider quitting. He'd mentally slap me and I'd push on! If you are into Fimfiction stuff, check his stories out www.fimfiction.net/user/Sasha%…. He recently took up on the subject, give him your support. He helped me but he doesn't actually know it. I was chatting on one of his livestreams, and was considering the "quit the drawing cause I'm no artist" routine. He just stopped drawing for a minute, linked me this dshou.deviantart.com/journal/A…, coaxed me a bit, smiled graciously like a baws and continued drawing. Then I was like "Well, why not?".Enjoy!!! As always, leave a comment if you like! Pinkie Punch FTW!!Soundtrack www.youtube.com/watch?v=i73UaL…. Well, not really. But "Feed Me" goes with freaking Anything!!!!SVG file sta.sh/0hehyc2qxer. Open if you are brave enough. Or have a freakin' powerful computer.*Easter Eggs*1) Pinkie can be seen inside the 2nd teleportation bubble2) Safety Hazard Sign on the back of the Helmet: sta.sh/01la5yhhupqb 3)BIG DESCRIPTION IS BIGMLP FIM © Hasbro, Lauren Faust etc etc.Do something social and loving with Pokémon go?
Yes you can!
With “Go for the Dutch Brain foundation” I’m organizing a charity walk on Sunday 4 september through Zeist(very close to Utrecht, Netherlands) past a lot of Pokestops and Gyms to raise money for the Dutch Brain Foundation. (Hersenstichting)
My dad got a serious and complicated cerebral hemorrhage which later became a brain infection.
It was very intense and he had to fight for his life. He is now in a rehabilitation period.
While I was sitting next to him days after days in the hospital I felt so useless…I couldn’t help him at all. It became increasingly clear how vulnerable our brains are and how little we actually know about them.
That’s why I decided to make a effort, to help my dad, others with similar problems, to support the Dutch brain foundation...to help
Let’s do something extraordinary, something loving together with Pokémon GO
So what is it?
On Sunday the 4 of September i organize a charity walk through Zeist.
Zeist is a town in the Netherlands close to Utrecht.
The walking distance is about 6km, so your 5km egg are hatched in a instant ;)
We start around 13.00 at Slot Zeist then we walk through different parks, the main shopping street of Zeist to end at Slot Zeist again.
I’ll personally make sure there will be a lot of lure modules.
Everybody that wants to participate in this charity walk raises/ donates their own amount.
The goal is that everybody who comes along this walk had raised at least 5€. (ofcourse you can donate more/less)
You can also donate any amount if you can’t come along this Pokémon Go charity walk. The love and support is really needed for the Dutch Brain Foundation. <3
I don't live in the netherlands can i do something?
Ofcourse you can!
You can donate any amount of money to help the Dutch Brain Foundation. they will use the money for research, development and different project to help people like my dad.
So please help us be stronger, be united and loving, helping each other to learn more about our brain and help cure them.
Let's do something extraordinary and loving
GO for the Dutch Brain Foundation!
Every donation you make will go entirly to the Dutch Brain foundation for their research en development to help understand and cure brain related diseases.
Are you coming to?
Facebook Event page - Go for the Dutch Brain Foundation (dutch)
Go for the Dutch Brain Foundation webiste (english)“It would take us another 15 years to save that money again,” Ms. Pham said.
The Phams, who have two children, a 4-month-old and a 2 ½-year-old, live in a two-bedroom in Hoboken that is smaller than the one they had hoped to move into in Maxwell Place. But they borrowed on their equity there to help put together the deposit on the new apartment. The rest of the deposit came from Mr. Pham’s work as a real estate agent, income that has all but dried up in the current market.
“If we tried to sell our apartment, we wouldn’t make enough to cover the cost of selling it, so we’re really stuck,” said Ms. Pham, who works as a benefits manager at a professional services firm. Ms. Pham said that the developer “made no attempt to work with us; they wouldn’t even return my phone calls.” She added that the sales manager had declined their offer to help find another buyer for the apartment and had told Ms. Pham that “not getting our deposit back was just business.”
A spokeswoman for Toll Brothers declined to comment because the Phams have filed a lawsuit to try to get their money back.
Brokers and developers say that every new development probably has a handful of buyers who are facing this difficulty. (The Web site Streeteasy.com lists 460 new developments with active sales listings in Manhattan and 438 in Brooklyn.)
Some who signed contracts have forfeited their deposits. Others have tried to renegotiate their contracts to reduce the purchase price. Some have scrambled to find money to increase their down payments so they can get financing. And still others have downsized to a smaller apartment in order to qualify for a smaller mortgage. These are their options, because until late last year, virtually all developers required buyers to sign noncontingent contracts committing the buyers to the property regardless of whether they could get financing.
The number of people defaulting on contracts at new developments will probably increase in coming months, said Jonathan J. Miller, the president of Miller Samuel, a Manhattan research and appraisal company.
“Initially people were walking away from deposits because they were spooked by the market, but now it’s for more pragmatic reasons — either job loss or difficulty getting financing,” Mr. Miller said. “It’s going to get worse before it gets better, because it will only start to ease when credit stabilizes.”
Photo
Alan Rosenbaum, the chief executive of the GuardHill Financial Corporation, a mortgage broker in Manhattan, said that for people buying in new construction, bank “guidelines could not have changed at a worse time.”
Advertisement Continue reading the main story
For conforming loans in New York City — ones below $729,750 — banks generally are now requiring at least 20 percent down. For jumbo loans of more than $729,750, Mr. Rosenbaum said, lenders are requiring down payments of 20 to 50 percent.
So, for a $1.12 million apartment — the median sales price for condos in Manhattan at the end of last year — a buyer who put down a 10 percent deposit of $112,000 about a year ago, now must come up with an additional $112,000 to $448,000 just to get a mortgage.
In September, Dr. Martin M. Beitler and his partner, Jeff Bretl, had to forfeit a $173,000 deposit on a $1.73 million two-bedroom apartment at Chelsea Modern, a new condo tower on West 18th Street.
They had signed a contract for the condo early last year, but when their closing date arrived, mortgage brokers told them that 90 percent financing no longer existed and that at best, even with impeccable credit, they might qualify for a no-income-check mortgage of $1 million. Unable to come up with the additional down payment that banks were requiring, they reluctantly walked away from the deposit. They are now suing the developer to try to recover some of that money.
“That’s a lot of money that we can’t afford to lose,” Dr. Beitler said. “It’s just so unfair that with all the bailouts and other stuff going on there’s no relief for people in our position. And we didn’t do anything wrong — an unfortunate confluence of events is causing us to have this misery.”
Dr. Beitler, an internist in Manhattan, said he had bought and sold property before and had always qualified for no-income-check mortgages.
Dr. Beitler and Mr. Bretl, who is an advertising consultant, were not the only buyers at the 47-unit Chelsea Modern to have trouble meeting the more stringent mortgage requirements that banks have instituted in recent months.
Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content, updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters.
Robert Gladstone, the chief executive officer of Madison Equities and the developer of Chelsea Modern, said that four other buyers who had qualified for mortgages when they signed their contracts also could not get financing.
Advertisement Continue reading the main story
“We felt that this was through no fault of their own, so we offered them 20 percent of their deposit back, even though we had no requirement to do so,” Mr. Gladstone said in a statement. “For the most part, everyone was sadly satisfied with the return of 20 percent, given that they had no expectation that they would receive anything back.”
He said that Dr. Beitler and Mr. Bretl were the only buyers suing to get back their entire deposit.
Like many New Yorkers, Louis Andriopoulos figured in 2007 that buying real estate would be much safer than investing in the stock market. He decided to buy a two-bedroom at Fifth on the Park, a new condo tower in Harlem at Fifth Avenue and 120th Street. Mr. Andriopoulos, the owner of a delicatessen on the Upper West Side who lives in Queens, hoped to rent the apartment out for a while and someday sell it for a nice profit.
He put down a $100,000 deposit for a $995,000 apartment in summer 2007, and was approved for a no-income-check 90 percent mortgage. But he lost that approval as credit tightened and in recent months was told by five different mortgage brokers that he would need to increase his down payment to 30 percent to get a mortgage.
“If I knew this, I would never buy this apartment,” he said. “Ten percent used to be more than enough and I never had a problem with financing before.”
Photo
The 160-unit building is almost completed and the developer hopes to start closing contracts next month. When his closing date arrives, Mr. Andriopoulos expects to forfeit his deposit. “There’s nothing else I can do,” he said.
Out of 98 contracts at Fifth on the Park, about 10 buyers have already notified the building that they are having trouble with financing, said Lewis Futterman, a co-developer of the property. “But I think we may be able to salvage all but three or four of those sales,” he said, adding that the development has been working with banks and buyers to keep deals alive.
He said he and his partners were willing to offer second mortgages of 5 to 10 percent of the purchase price to help buyers secure their primary mortgages. But finding banks willing to make 80 to 85 percent mortgages to those buyers can be tricky.
“It’s not finalized yet,” Mr. Futterman said, “but we’ve talked to a couple of banks that have said they would consider that kind of program. If banks loosened up a bit, that would help us with our buyers and it would help us pull a lot of potential buyers out of the woodpile.”
Advertisement Continue reading the main story
Even people who work in the real estate industry have found themselves caught in the predicament. Mr. Andriopoulos’s broker, Jill Sloane, an executive vice president at Halstead Property, is in contract to buy a $1.4 million two-bedroom at the Harrison, a 132-unit development on the Upper West Side where closings are expected in August or September.
“I’m hoping it’s later rather than sooner,” Ms. Sloane said, “because I need to figure out how to make it work financially. All I can hope is the spring market is going to be crazy busy.”
She has already put the required 20 percent deposit down on the apartment, but has been told by her bank that she will have to come up with another $140,000 to get a mortgage.
“If I had a crystal ball for this year’s situation back in December 2007, I would have definitely thought twice about buying this apartment,” she said. “But back then, nobody believed that this could happen to the market.”
For some buyers, the only way to save their deposit is to trade down.
Last fall, Scott Leith and his partner, Paulo Siqueira, faced losing a $170,000 deposit on a two-bedroom apartment at the Chelsea Stratus on West 24th Street.
Mr. Leith and Mr. Siqueira both work in the fashion industry. Mr. Leith said they tried several alternatives before they decided to walk away from the two-bedroom and instead buy a $1.185 million one-bedroom at the Stratus.
They considered filing a complaint with the attorney general to recoup their deposit, but were told that at best they might get half of their money back. They tried renegotiating the price, but the developer offered a discount of only about 5 percent. They asked if the developer would lend them the $250,000 they needed to increase their down payment, but the answer was no, Mr. Leith said.
By downsizing, Mr. Leith and Mr. Siqueira held on to their deposit, but instead of becoming homeowners, they are now investors who plan to rent out the apartment.
“At the end of the day, the only thing we could do was switch to a smaller unit,” Mr. Leith said. “It’s not what we really wanted to do, but we absolutely did not want to lose the savings that we worked so hard for.
Advertisement Continue reading the main storyTake what you know about Besiege, and now set it at sea. Instead of building medieval contraptions of death, you build ships—or leviathans—that you can pilot and destroy other ships with. Enter The Last Leviathan.
This super early access title invites players to build their own ships, deck them out with a variety of weapons, and sail them out in search of targets. As with any construction-based game, your first dozen designs are going to be unmitigated disasters until you can figure out how to build a ship that doesn’t sink. My first few ships wouldn’t even float, and those that could float eventually sank beneath the weight of all the guns I’d loaded them out with.
Having trouble with getting a hang of the physics, I downloaded some of the ships other players had successfully made and uploaded to the Steam Workshop, which the developers thought to implement directly into the game. Once I figured out which materials floated and which ones were too heavy, it was possible to build a ship that didn’t sink the instant it hit the water.
Current contents of the game include a wide selection of blocks to choose from (that’ll no doubt be expanded as the game develops), weapons, ramming devices, and means to propel yourself through the open seas.
As of this moment, the game’s still in very early development so it’s still missing a lot of content, but what there is in The Last Leviathan is fun, and I’m looking forward to playing a lot more of it in the future.
Check it out on Steam.
Disclosure: A copy of the game was provided by the developer for me to test.BY: Follow @mchalfant16
Iran has for two months delayed taking action on visa applications submitted by three Republican lawmakers looking to visit the country in order to observe its elections, meet with American hostages, and obtain information about the detention of 10 American sailors earlier this year.
Reps. Mike Pompeo (R., Kan.), Frank LoBiondo (R., N.J.), and Lee Zeldin (R., N.Y.) penned a letter to Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Zarif on Tuesday seeking a decision on their applications, which were filed at the beginning of February.
"When we submitted our applications, the Deputy Director of the Interests Section, Abolfazl Mehrabadi, informed us that we would receive a reply, though your staff missed their own self-imposed deadline for responding," the lawmakers wrote.
"We have followed up several times with them, but to no avail. It has now been more than two months since we applied, and we would appreciate a decision on our application. If you reject our visa applications, please provide an explanation."
The Republicans laid out their reasons for requesting travel to Iran in a February 4 letter to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC) Commander Mohammad Ali Jafari, who the lawmakers listed as their contacts to "facilitate the application process."
Pompeo, LoBiondo, and Zeldin intended to observe Iran’s |
, or similar, you’ve still got some outline of points to cover.
Some people resist agendas because they feel they stifle creativity. Just the opposite, actually — agendas mean you can clear all the imminent business quickly, and then can just socialize and do high-concept thinking if that’s what you’d like to do.
Set agendas, always. Don’t start a meeting without them. As soon as you agree to go to a meeting, make a rough agenda for it immediately. It doesn’t sexy or revolutionary, but it is life changing.
Sebastian Marshall is the author of The Strategic Review, with strategy, history, and operations in long-form high-quality writing for thinking people. You can get your subscription for free at http://www.thestrategicreview.netI came across Carabiner Coffee a while ago on Instagram and have enjoyed following along. And apparently it seems several others have too. For those of you unfamiliar, this is the holy grail of mobile coffee carts. Proprietary roasts are fine tuned and hand selected by the founder, and he serves them using the simple pour over technique out of a baby blue bay window from a VW bus. Not only do you get a fresh cup of joe (potentially in a dirt parking lot near a climbing spot), but you also get to see the vision of a guy who has followed his heart. I recently caught up with the founder, Erik Gordon, while he was in Boulder, CO.
How did this all come about?
Well, (laughs), it definitely started with climbing. I was an instructor all through college. I biked across the country by myself a week after graduating college. And for the first time—primarily to get warm—I began to drink coffee. I really enjoyed it and understood why everyone was into it. So for years after that trip and after some time in Portland, I moved to Breckenridge (CO) and took a job at a small coffee shop while still dabbling as a climbing instructor. I became comfortable with all things coffee and became confident in the coffee industry. I thought, “Hmm…how am I going to do this?” I wanted to own a business and travel, and I always wanted a VW van. So then it just clicked. That’s what I should do. I should buy a van and sell coffee to climbers. (laughs)
So then, how did you find the van that would become the one?
I searched for a few months for a van and found one in South Dakota on Craigslist. I talked with the owners for about a month. I eventually gave them a 24-hour offer that was like, “Shit or get off the pot.” I’d never even see the van before! It was a good deal, and they took it and shipped the van to Denver for me. I picked it up there, and for the next six months, I remodeled it in Breckenridge to become a food truck (sinks and generators and all). I’ve actually remodeled it three times to perfect the coffee and travel necessities. To do the whole thing right, I thought I had to go all food truck official to get approval and permits from health officials. But, it turned out, the town of Breckenridge shut me down. So I moved to Seattle because I heard they were more friendly in that regard. I started selling coffee around town and out in the mountains to climbers. I did that for about a year. Eventually I said, “Fuck it. I’m gonna tour around the country and do this.” So I started touring with REEL ROCK, and it was on that tour that Patagonia called and asked me to join them on their Worn Wear tour. Since then, I’ve been trying to connect with the outdoor industry through my van and Carabiner Coffee while still climbing and having a blast.
Do you just sell cups of coffee out of the van or is Carabiner Coffee a brand of coffee that you serve?
So Carabiner Coffee has all its own roasts. When I came up with the idea, I met with a private roaster here in Boulder to create three blends that make up the roasts in the coffee I sell. We did a ton of test and roasts. I went with three roasts—light, medium and dark—to keep it simple. Once we got the roasts and blends, the roaster would mail them to me as I traveled and needed more. It’s a pretty sweet little relationship we have. It was a creative process, and it was gratifying to be able to not only be able to create the brand, but also to be the spokesperson. And I stand behind it…literally.
It looks like you make a lot of people smile. There was a time when people who lived in their van were considered dirtbags. But now, are people seeing your van and saying, “Wow man, you’re living the dream!”
I always knew that if I started a business, I wanted to make a positive impact. I wanted to give people a visual representation of my company, whatever that was going to be. To connect with people in the van and climbing community has been great. But even to people who don’t live in vans, it is such an attraction. I’ve had amazing interactions with all types of people because as I’m making them coffee, there are a few minutes where I get to engage with them. Usually we end up talking for longer and I get all these awesome perspectives. For me, it was alway about putting out a positive message.
Is it cool to see this van community grow and for you to see this movement come alive? Are people just stoked on you and your brand and what you are presenting them visually? Do they think, “Wow, maybe it’s possible?”
I know vanlife is always depicted as, “Oh, it’s so easy. You just travel and have fun all the time in beautiful places.” Well, it took a lot of work. Years actually. It is probably twice as hard to live in a van, but it’s the passion to do it that I am all about. That passion is alway what I want to share, and to have a broad audience. I knew the van would help me share that message. It’s amazing that it has taken off to go beyond the climbing and van community. I’m really stoked on that.
I can see your positive vibe on your social media and I know driving a bus makes a lot of people smile. Between your vibe and the van’s vibe, it looks like a smile factory on wheels. I’ve experienced people seeing my van and getting stoked as they drive by. But you’re stopped and serving them coffee, so I bet you get to really hear some great stories.
When you drive a van and listen to people, it seems like everyone has some type of van story. What you are putting out is extremely authentic and grassroots marketing at it finest, but it’s not really marketing. It is just you being you. I think that’s what captures me and others. Many brands try to target a demographic from the outside. And you seem to be on the inside growing out and engaging. That is what I see as a win-win situation. It seems like sometimes there’s a need to justify living in your van if you have 100K followers on social media. And people who try to gain followers sometimes put value on their choices to live that way. Everyone wants to have a following, but that is where it can get messy. I can totally see you engaging with your audience as as I am one of your follower. There are multiple levels to what you are delivering to your audience and for that I admire you.
So whats next? Are you going to have a van in every city? What’s in the future for Carabiner Coffee?
Well I bought another van. It’s actually a yellow 1968 double cab VW with a rad roof rack. I got it so that I could travel down back roads in a VW. I wanted to serve coffee out of the back of the truck and be outside as opposed to serving it from inside a van. I discovered I didn’t have the time and energy to take it to the level I wanted, and find myself driving the van more often. So I’m not sure where I’m going to go with that just yet. I am starting a small pour over coffee shop here in Boulder because the business has grown over the past few months and the van can’t sustain it. I’ve had to consolidate what is happening right now. I am so excited. I’m like, “Wow, I have a career now.” (laughs) Crazy to think I started a career by driving around in a van! I will still drive the van and travel when the coffee shop opens (maybe sometime in April). I hope to hire some climbers who want to learn about coffee and use it in the same way I have to connect with people.
The shop is pretty basic. I am pretty much putting the same setup I have in the van in the coffee shop. My goal always and forever has been to be in the van and drive it to beautiful places, seeing and climbing in as many spots as possible. That’s really what I want my future to be. I’ve been so fortunate to connect with outdoor companies. I’ve got to meet people and brands that I have alway admired. I’ve been asked to do some sponsorship programs with the van. I am going to Iceland to make some coffee and shoot some photos soon. So I am like, “Wow, if I can do what I want and actually make a living out of it, that’s what I’ll continue to do!” If people are stoked out of their mind on it, then I’ll continue. I’ll continue regardless. I’m just riding the wave.
I’m so happy for you, man. You have such a good outlook. It’s nice to hear your enthusiasm and see someone who deserves success. Did you see this coming? Are you shocked?
I just kinda did what I wanted to do. I’ve kind of always done that. I want people to follow their hearts.
I wouldn’t say I am shocked exactly. It’s been more of a thrill to be on this journey. Did I think three years ago a company would ask me to go to Iceland and make coffee for them? Or wear a jacket for them? No way! It has been so unique to talk and work with the people behind the brands I have alway admired. I am trying to be as happy as possible and enjoy it. If it tanked for some reason, I’d have a hell of a story and experience to share!
Visit Carabiner Coffee’s websiteTop Spanish football team Real Madrid has removed the cross from the top of its club crest, apparently in order to avoid offending Muslims.
A crown with a tiny cross on top of it was added to the club’s crest in 1920, approved by King Alfonso XIII, to reflect the club changing its name from Madrid Club de Futbol to Real Madrid. The crown was dropped from 1931 to 1941, but was restored to the crest after the Spanish Civil War and has remained there ever since.
It was removed two years ago in logos for a theme park, Real Madrid Resort Island, being built in the UAE. But now it appears that it has been dropped for use throughout the Middle East following Real Madrid signing a lucrative three-year deal with the National Bank of Abu Dhabi.
Club president Florentino Perez described the deal as a “strategic alliance with one of the most prestigious institutions in the world”. The deal was signed in September, but images of the new logo have only just appeared.
A new National Bank of Abu Dhabi credit card that doubles as a Real Madrid membership card shows the new crest without its cross.
Florentino Perez said in September that “our links with the UAE are constantly growing stronger. This agreement will help the club to keep conquering the hearts of followers in the United Arab Emirates.”
The Spanish sports newspaper Marca adds: “And from the looks of things, the club is willing to compromise on aspects of its identity in pursuit of these new fans.”
The previous logo, with its cross on top of the crown, will still be used in Europe.Twenty-six countries will be competing at the Eurovision Song Contest in the Azeri capital Baku on Saturday, but away from the performances, a battle for free speech and democracy is taking place on the capital's streets.
There cannot be anyone in Baku who does not know that the Eurovision Song Contest has come to town.
Everywhere you look there are signs declaring "Light Your Fire!" - this year's competition slogan.
You can see them on advertising hoardings, on the sides of buildings, and also on the 1,000 London cabs that Baku has bought to make it feel more like a European city.
By the way, Baku's taxis are not black - they have all been re-painted purple - which has earned them the nickname "aubergines on wheels".
Turn on local TV, switch on the radio - and you are bombarded by "Boom Bang A Bang" style Euro songs in a variety of tongues. Even for a long-time Eurovision fan like myself, it is a bit freaky.
So was the poster in the window of a women's lingerie shop I noticed yesterday.
It read: "As a gift we offer all our customers a 70% discount - on the occasion of the Eurovision Song Contest."
Suddenly I had visions of crowds of excited ladies queuing up to buy cheap knickers so they could throw them at the United Kingdom's entrant, Engelbert Humperdinck.
Yes, even at the age of 76, the "King of Romance" still gets underwear chucked at him by his adoring fans - he said so this week at one of his pre-contest press conferences.
I still cannot quite believe that a global megastar like Engelbert is taking part in a contest like Eurovision.
Image caption Engelbert Humperdinck has received 63 gold and 24 platinum records
After all, this is the man who has sold 150 millions records around the world, who has shared the stage with Elvis Presley - he has even got his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
And yet now Mr Humperdinck has picked up the poisoned chalice of Eurovision. Among his competitors in Baku are the mischievous Jedward twins from Ireland - and six singing grannies from Russia. Yes, there has never been a Eurovision Song Contest quite like this one before.
Those singing pensioners are amazing, though.
Sadly, they will never get to share a stage with Elvis - but I would not rule out six more stars on the Walk of Fame.
Image caption Buranovo Babushki were discovered in 2008 by a Russian TV news crew
In Baku, whenever the Buranovo Babushki appear in public, they are surrounded by journalists, or mobbed by fans. They are clearly the grooviest grannies in town.
Eurovision Song Contest Created by Marcel Bezencon in 1955
The first contest was held in Lugano, Switzerland in 1956, when the winning song was Refrain, performed by Lys Assia
Twenty-six countries are competing in the 2012 final
Watch clips and find out more at the Eurovision website (www.eurovision.tv)
Country profile: Azerbaijian
And their disco dance Eurovision song, Party For Everybody, is tipped to do very well.
It has already set a new record. Granny Natasha is nearly 77-years old - that makes her the oldest singer in the history of the Eurovision Song Contest.
But it is not just the participants that are making this Eurovision song contest stand out - it is the politics, too.
In the run-up to the competition, international human rights groups have been accusing the authorities in Azerbaijan of trampling on democracy, stifling freedom of speech and locking up political opponents.
The government here maintains those criticism are unfair and has accused the West of a smear campaign.
Image caption Campaigners hope Eurovision contestants will speak out on human rights
This week police broke up an anti-government protest outside the Azeri television station which is broadcasting Eurovision - demonstrators there had been chanting "Freedom to Political Prisoners".
The police detained more than 30 people. And there was another protest this week - around 100 activists simply walked around Baku - to avoid being arrested, they carried no placards, they did not chant slogans.
But they wore T-shirts bearing the words "Sing for Democracy". I spoke to one of the organisers of the protest walk, Rasul.
He told me he wanted all the singers at the Eurovision Song Contest to speak out on stage against human rights violations in Azerbaijan.
The Swedish singer Loreen, one of the favourites to win this year's Eurovision, has already had a meeting with local human rights activists, much to the annoyance of the Azeri authorities.
And the arguments do not end there.
Azerbaijan is locked in a war of words with one of its neighbours, Iran. Clerics there have said it is inappropriate for a Muslim country like Azerbaijan to host an event like the Eurovision Song Contest.
After a spiralling war of words, this week Iran recalled its ambassador from Baku.
As for another neighbour, Armenia - well, it pulled out of the contest weeks ago, claiming security fears. With so much politics swirling around, it is easy to forget there is a song contest going on.
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.Seafile Server Changelog
6.3
In version 6.3, Django is upgraded to version 1.11. Django 1.8, which is used in version 6.2, is deprecated in 2018 April.
With this upgrade, the fast-cgi mode is no longer supported. You need to config Seafile behind Nginx/Apache in WSGI mode.
The way to run Seahub in another port is also changed. You need to modify the configuration file conf/gunicorn.conf instead of running./seahub.sh start <another-port>.
Version 6.3 also changed the database table for file comments, if you have used this feature, you need migrate old file comments using the following commends after upgrading to 6.3:
./seahub.sh python-env seahub/manage.py migrate_file_comment
Note, this command should be run while Seafile server is running.
6.3.4 (2018/09/15)
[fix] Fix a security issue in Shibboleth authentication
[fix] Fix sometimes Web UI will not autoload a >100 item directory view
6.3.3 (2018/09/07)
Add generating of internal links
Support copy a file to its own parent folder, creating a file with a suffix like test-1.docx
Support setting the language list
Redirect '/shib-login' to '/sso'
Change "Unknown error" to "network error" when uploading failed caused by network error
[fix] Fix groups not shown in system admin panel
Support files be manually saved in OnlyOffice
Improve performance when getting users quota usage
Improve Markdown editor
The new Wiki feature is ready
Update Django to 1.11.11
6.3.2 (2018/07/09)
[fix] Fix error when public wiki be viewed by anonymous users
Remove department field in users' profile page
[fix] Print warning instead of exit when there are errors in database table upgrade
[fix] Send notification to the upload link creator after there are files uploaded
[fix] Fix customize css via "custom/custom.css"
[API] return the last modifier in file detail API
[fix] Fix ZIP download can't work in some languages
6.3.1 (2018/06/24)
Allow fullscreen presentation when view ppt(x) file via CollaboraOffice.
Support mobile UI style when view file via OnlyOffice.
Some UI improvement.
Show terms and condition link if terms and condition is enabled
[fix] Update OnlyOffice callback func (save file when status is 6).
[fix] Show library’s first commit’s desc on library history page.
[fix] Check if is an deleted library when admin restore a deleted library.
[fix] Removed dead 'quota doc' link on user info popup.
[fix] Fix bug of OnlyOffice file co-authoring.
[API] Add starred field to file detail api.
Use ID instead of email on sysadmin user page.
[fix] Fix database upgrade problems
[fix] Fix support for sqlite3
[fix] Fix crash when seaf-fsck, seaf-gc receive wrong arguments
6.3.0 beta (2018/05/26)
UI Improvements: moving buttons to top bar, improve scrolling in file/library list
Update Django to 1.11, remove fast-cgi support
Update jQuery to version 3.3.1
Update pdf.js
Add invite people link to share dialog if the feature is enabled
Remove login log after delete a user
[admin] Support customize site title, site name, CSS via Web UI
[beta] Wiki, users can create public wikis
Add an option to define the listening address for WSGI mode
[fix] Fix a bug that causing seaf-fsck crash
[fix] Fix support for uploading folder via ‘Cloud file browser’
[fix] Cancel Zip download task at the server side when user close zip download dialog
Other fixes
6.2
From 6.2, It is recommended to use WSGI mode for communication between Seahub and Nginx/Apache. Two steps are needed if you'd like to switch to WSGI mode:
Change the config file of Nginx/Apache. Restart Seahub with./seahub.sh start instead of./seahub.sh start-fastcgi
The configuration of Nginx is as following:
location / { proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8000; proxy_set_header Host $host; proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Host $server_name; proxy_read_timeout 1200s; # used for view/edit office file via Office Online Server client_max_body_size 0; access_log /var/log/nginx/seahub.access.log; error_log /var/log/nginx/seahub.error.log; }
The configuration of Apache is as following:
# seahub SetEnvIf Authorization "(.*)" HTTP_AUTHORIZATION=$1 ProxyPass / http://127.0.0.1:8000/ ProxyPassReverse / http://127.0.0.1:8000/
6.2.5 (2018/01/23)
[fix] Fix OAuth bug
[fix] Improve the performance of returning a user's all group libraries
[new] Support customize the list of groups that a user can see when sharing a library
6.2.4 (2018/01/16)
[new] Add the feature "remember this device" after two-factor authentication
[new] Add option to notify the admin after new user registration (NOTIFY_ADMIN_AFTER_REGISTRATION)
[fix] Fix a bug in modify permission for a a shared sub-folder
[fix] Fix support for PostgreSQL
[fix] Fix a bug in SQLite database support
[fix] Fix support for uploading 500+ files via web interface (caused by API rate throttle)
[improve, ui] Add transition to show/hide of feedback messages.
[improve] Improve performance of file history page.
[improve] Show two file history records at least.
[fix] show shared sub-folders when copy/move file/folder to “Other Libraries”.
[fix] Remove the white edge of webpage when previewing file via OnlyOffice.
[fix] Don’t check if user exists when deleting a group member in admin panel.
[fix, oauth] Don’t overwrite public registration settings when login a nonexistent user.
Other UI improvements.
6.2.3 (2017/11/15)
Support OAuth.
WSGI uses 5 processors by default instead of 3 processors each with 5 threads
[share] Add "click to select" feature for download/upload links.
[Admin] Show/edit contact email in admin panel.
[Admin] Show upload links in admin panel.
[fix] Fix Shibboleth login redirection issue, see https://forum.seafile.com/t/shared-links-via-shibboleth/4067/19
[fix] In some case failed to unshare a folder.
[fix] LDAP search issue.
[fix] Fix Safari downloaded file names are encoded like 'test-%2F%4B.doc' if it contains special characters.
[fix] Disable client encrypt library creation when creating encrypt library is disabled on server.
6.2.2 (2017/09/25)
[fix] Fix register button can't be clicked in login page
[fix] Fix login_success field not exist in sysadmin_extra_userloginlog
6.2.1 (2017/09/22)
[fix] Fix upgrade script for SQLite database
Add Czech language
[UI] Move password setting to a separate section
[UI] Add divider to file operation menu
[UI] Use high DPI icon in favorites page
[UI] Focus on password fields by default
[UI] Show feedback message when restore a library to a snapshot
[fix] Don't import settings in seafile.conf to database
6.2.0 beta (2017/09/14)
Redesign login page, adding a background image.
Add two factor authentication
Clean the list of languages
Add the ability of tagging a snapshot of a library (Use ENABLE_REPO_SNAPSHOT_LABEL = True to turn the feature on)
to turn the feature on) [Admin] Add an option to enable users to share a library to any groups in the system.
Use WSGI as the default mode for deploying Seahub.
Add a field Reference ID to support changing users primary ID in Shibboleth or LDAP
Improved performance of loading library list
Support adding a custom user search function (https://github.com/haiwen/seafile-docs/commit/115f5d85cdab7dc272da81bcc8e8c9b91d85506e)
Other small UI improvements
6.1
If you upgrade from 6.0 and you'd like to use the feature video thumbnail, you need to install ffmpeg package:
# for ubuntu 16.04 apt-get install ffmpeg pip install pillow moviepy # for Centos 7 yum -y install epel-release rpm --import http://li.nux.ro/download/nux/RPM-GPG-KEY-nux.ro yum -y install ffmpeg ffmpeg-devel pip install pillow moviepy
6.1.2 (2017.08.15)
Use user's language as lang setting for OnlyOffice
Improve performance for getting user’s unread messages
Fix error when uploading files to system default library template
Users can restore their own deleted libraries
Improve performance when move or copy multiple files/folders
Add “details” for libraries, folders and files to show information like how many files in a library/folder
[fix] Fix a bug in seaf-gc
[fix, API] Fix a bug in creating folder API
[admin] Improve performance in getting total file number, used space and total number of devices
[fix] Fix MySQL connection pool in Ccnet
6.1.1 (2017.06.15)
Disable thumbnail for video files in default
Enable fixing the email for share link to be fixed in certain language (option SHARE_LINK_EMAIL_LANGUAGE in seahub_setting.py). So admin can force the language for a email of a share link to be always in English, regardless of what language the sender is using.
The language of the interface of CollaboraOffice/OnlyOffice will be determined by the language of the current user.
Display the correct image thumbnails in favorites instead of the generic one
Enable set favicon and logo via admin panel
Admin can add libraries in admin panel
6.1.0 beta (2017.05.11)
Web UI Improvement:
Add thumbnail for video files Improved image file view, using thumbnail to view pictures Improve pdf preview in community edition Move items by drap & drop Add create docx/xlsx/pptx in web interface Add OnlyOffice integration Add Collabora integration Support folder upload in community edition Show which client modify a file in history, this will help to find which client accidentally modified a file or deleted a file.
Improvement for admins:
Admin can set user’s quote, delete users in bulk Support using admin panel in mobile platform Add translation for settings page
System changes:
Remove wiki by default Upgrade Django to 1.8.18 Clean Ajax API Increase share link token length to 20 characters Upgrade jstree to latest version
6.0
Note: If you ever used 6.0.0 or 6.0.1 or 6.0.2 with SQLite as database and encoutered a problem with desktop/mobile client login, follow https://github.com/haiwen/seafile/pull/1738 to fix the problem.
6.0.9 (2017.03.30)
Show user' name instead of user's email in notifications sent out by email
Add config items for setting favicon, disable wiki feature
Add css id to easily hide user password reset and delete account button
[fix] Fix UI bug in restoring a file from snapshot
[fix] Fix after renaming a file, the old versions before file rename can't be downloaded
[security] Fix XSS problem of the "go back" button in history page and snapshot view page
6.0.8 (2017.02.16)
Improvement for admin
Admin can add/delete group members
Admin can create group in admin panel
Show total storage, total number of files, total number of connected devices in the info page of admin panel
Force users to change password if imported via csv
Support set user's quota, name when import user via csv
Set user's quota in user list page
Add search group by group name
Use ajax when deleting a user's library in admin panel
Support logrotate for controller.log
Add # -*- coding: utf-8 -*- to seahub_settings.py, so that admin can use non-ascii characters in the file.
to seahub_settings.py, so that admin can use non-ascii characters in the file. Ingore white space character in the end of lines in ccnet.conf
Add a log when a user can't be find in LDAP during login, so that the system admin can know whether it is caused by password error or the user can't be find
Delete shared libraries information when deleting a user
Other
[fix] Uploading files with special names lets seaf-server crash
[fix] Fix user search when global address book is disabled in CLOUD_MODE
[fix] Avoid timeout in some cases when showing a library trash
Show "the account is inactive" when an inactive account try to login
[security] Remove viewer.js to show open document files (ods, odt) because viewer.js is not actively maintained and may have potential security bugs (Thanks to Lukas Reschke from Nextcloud GmbH to report the issue)
[fix] Fix PostgreSQL support
Update Django to 1.8.17
Change time_zone to UTC as default
[fix] Fix quota check: users can't upload a file if the quota will be exceeded after uploading the file
[fix] Fix quota check when copy file from one library to another
[fix] Prevent admin from access group's wiki
[fix] Fix a bug when download folder in grid view
6.0.7 (2016.12.16)
[fix] Fix generating of password protected link in file view page
[fix] Fix.jpg/.JPG image display in IE10
Export quota usage in export Excel in user list admin page
[fix] Fix admin can't delete broken libraries
Add "back to previous page" link in trash page, history page
[fix] Improve logo show in About page
[fix] Fix file encoding for text file editing online
[fix] Don't show operation buttons for broken libraries in normal users page
6.0.6 (2016.11.16)
[fix] Fix the shared folder link in the notification message when a user share a folder to another user
[fix] Update Django version from 1.8.10 to 1.8.16
[fix] Fix support for PostgreSQL
[fix] Fix SQLite database locking problem
[fix] Fix the shared folder name is not changed after removing the old share, renaming the folder and re-sharing the folder
[fix] Fix sub-folder accidentially show the files in parent folder when the parent folder contains more than 100 files
[fix] Fix image preview navigation when there are more than 100 entries in a folder
[fix] Fix bug when admin searching unexisting user
[fix] Fix jpeg image display in IE10
Add support for online view of mov video files
Make web access token expiring time configurable
Add an option on server to control block size for web upload files
6.0.5 (2016.10.17)
[fix] Fix API for uploading file by blocks (Used by iOS client when uploading a large file)
[fix] Fix a database connection problem in ccnet-server
[fix] Fix moved files are still present in local folder until refresh
[fix] Fix admin panel can't show deleted libraries
6.0.4 (2016.09.22)
[fix] Fix not able to move files via WebDAV interface
Check whether the quota will exceed before saving the uploaded file to Seafile via Web UI or API
[fix] Fix owner can't restore a deleted file or folder in snapshot
[fix] Fix UI of personal profile page
[fix] Fix in some cases mobile devices can't be unlinked
[fix] Fix connection problem for the latest MariaDB in initialisation script
[fix] PNG Thumbnail creation broken in 6.0.3 (getexif failes)
Make maxNumberOfFiles configurable
[fix] Remember the sorting of libraries
Add Finnish translation
Video + audio no longer be limited by max preview size
6.0.3 (2016.09.03)
[fix] Fix a bug in sqlite database upgrade script
[fix] Fix a bug in database connection pool
[fix] Fix a bug in file comment
6.0.2 (2016.09.02)
[fix] Fix a bug in sqlite database table locking
Update translations
Support create libraries for Seafile Drive client
6.0.1 beta (2016.08.22)
[fix] Fix default value of created_at in table api2_tokenv2. This bug leads to login problems for desktop and mobile clients.
[fix] Fix a bug in generating a password protected share link
Improve checking the user running Seafile must be the owner of seafile-data. If seafile-data is symbolic link, check the destination folder instead of the symbolic link.
[UI] Improve rename operation
Admin can set library permissions in admin panel
Show name/contact email in admin panel and enable search user by name/contact email
Add printing style for markdown
The “Seafile” in "Welcome to Seafile" message can be customised by SITE_NAME
Improve sorting of files with numbers
[fix] Fix can't view more than 100 files
[API] Add admin API to only return LDAP imported user list
6.0.0 beta (2016.08.02)
Add full screen Web UI
Code clean and update Web APIs
Add file comment
Improve zip downloading by adding zip progress
Change of navigation labels
[admin] Add group transfer function in admin panel
Remove number of synced libraries in devices page for simplify the interface and concept
Update help pages
5.1
Warning:
The concept of sub-library is removed in version 5.1. You can do selective sync with the latest desktop client
The group message reply function is removed, and the old reply messages will not be shown with the new UI
Note: when upgrade from 5.1.3 or lower version to 5.1.4+, you need to install python-urllib3 (or python2-urllib3 for Arch Linux) manually:
# for Ubuntu sudo apt-get install python-urllib3 # for CentOS sudo yum install python-urllib3
5.1.4 (2016.07.23)
[fix] Fix seaf-fsck.sh --export fails without database
[fix] Fix users with Umlauts in their display name breaks group management and api2/account/info on some special Linux distribution
Remove user from groups when a user is deleted.
[fix] Fix can't generate shared link for read-only shared library
[fix] Fix can still view file history after library history is set to "no history".
[fix] Fix after moving or deleting multiple selected items in the webinterface, the buttons are lost until reloading
Check user before start seafile. The user must be the owner of seafile-data directory
Don't allow emails with very special characters that may containing XSS string to register
[fix] During downloading multiple files/folders, show "Total size exceeds limits" instead of "internal server error" when selected items exceeds limits.
[fix] When delete a share, only check whether the be-shared user exist or not. This is to avoid the situation that share to a user can't be deleted after the user be deleted.
Add a notificition to a user if he/she is added to a group
Improve UI for password change page when forcing password change after admin reset a user's password
[fix] Fix duplicated files show in Firefox if the folder name contains single quote '
5.1.3 (2016.05.30)
[security] Fix permission checking for generating share links
Add an option (ENABLE_SETTINGS_VIA_WEB) to ignore settings via Web UI (system admin->settings)
[fix] Making user search (used in auto-completion) case insensitive
5.1.2 (2016.05.13)
[fix] Fix group rename
[fix] Fix group transfer
Send notifications to members when a new library is shared to a group
Download multiple selected files from Seahub as a ZIP-file
Use seafile-data/http-temp to store zip file when downloading a dir
[UI] Remember the expanded status of groups in the left hand nav bar
[accessibility] Improve accessiblity of library trash/history page by making links for operations selectable by tab.
[accessibility] Improve accessiblity of dialogs, add missing labelledby properties for the whole dialog.
[accessibility] Improve file/folder upload menu
list all devices in admin panel
Add syslog support for seafile.log |
mistake, they will fail. I WILL kill all of u! #MAGA”With YouTube stars and addictive livestreams, Discovery Digital Networks is focused on keeping millennials glued to its content.
For its inaugural NewFronts presentation Tuesday at Urbo in New York's Times Square, the online arm of Discovery Communications—which includes more than 110 digital series covering everything from science and technology to current events and pop culture—announced that it has signed global traveler Louis Cole, who will bring his FunForLouis YouTube channel, with more than 1.3 million subscribers and 120 million views, to Seeker, Discovery's adventure-themed digital network that launched in March.
"His videos speak to the huge, millennial demand for aspirational, adventure programming," said Discovery Digital Networks gm Colin Decker.
Seeker will debut the original series Flying the Globe (working title), in which Cole travels the world in a small aircraft (think Around the World in 60 to 90 Days). Cole will explore 22 different countries, including major cities and off-the-grid locales, and raise awareness about the issues facing people in each place.
"It's the first flight of this kind that's going to be documented as well as this," said Cole, who will be documenting the trip on social media and livestreaming. "Nothing like this has been done before."
Landing Cole is the latest millennial-focused grab for Discovery Digital Networks, which draws 150 million streams a month (including content streams on YouTube and iTunes), accounting for half of Discovery Communications' monthly streams. Another way the company ensures that its shows target the correct demo: "We talk so fast, no one over 50 can understand it," joked William Haynes, host of pop culture/comedy channel SourceFed.
Discovery also announced the launch of TLCme, its new "one-stop shop" digital site and community for women, which will include tips to make their lives easier and regular content from contributors like fashion expert Stacy London, who hosts TLC's Love, List or Run. TGI Fridays is TLCme's launch sponsor.
In a recurring theme during this year's NewFronts, Discovery Digital also is making a virtual reality push, unveiling Discovery Virtual.
"This is one of our most innovative moves in the next year, period, across the company," said Discovery Digital Studios svp Conal Byrne, who also said that the Mythbusters team has already begun shooting VR for next season, and several other VR programs are in development. "We believe VR will fundamentally change the way that fans connect with your content. When you experience VR, it is like seeing the future. It is digital media at its very best."
And, in a development that will likely be even more compelling to audiences than VR, Discovery Live will be rolling out 100 live and slow TV cams around the world, streaming everything from Mount Everest to sharks, as it expands its popular livestreaming sites. Last month, viewers flocked to Animal Planet Live to watch the Dallas Zoo's Katie the giraffe give birth to a healthy calf, Kipenzi.
In other Discovery Digital news, OWN has expanded its digital content on Oprah.com, with More Masters, featuring new celebrity interviews with Oprah Winfrey; Adam Says with fashion talk from Adam Glassman, creative director of O the Oprah Magazine; and Sadie Unleashed, a new show about the adventures of Winfrey's beloved cocker spaniel.
Sean Atkins, gm and evp of digital media strategy, reiterated a familiar Discovery theme: while other sites are aggregators, "we're laser-focused on creating and curating our own content." Discovery Digital has the highest percentage of original video content among all digital video companies.
The company also presented research from Neuro-Insight U.S. CEO Pranav Yadav, who studied how people's brains respond to native advertising. Among his findings: Discovery's native advertising outperforms competitive native ads, and native and pre-roll ads are most effective in isolation, as overbranding harms both.Lucille Ball "is a consummate artist, born for television."
In fall 1951, I Love Lucy made its television debut on CBS on Oct. 15. The Hollywood Reporter's original review, published the day after the premiere, is below.
Every once in a rare great while, a new TV show comes along that fulfills, in its own particular niche, every promise of the often harassed new medium. Such a show, it is a genuine pleasure to report, is I Love Lucy, starring Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz in a filmed domestic comedy series for Philip Morris that should bounce to the top of the ratings heap in no time at all. If it doesn't, the entire structure of the American entertainment business should be overhauled from top to bottom.
The outstanding pertinent fact about I Love Lucy is the emergence, long suspected, of Lucille Ball as America's No. 1 comedienne in her own right. She combines the facial mobility of Red Skelton, the innate pixie quality of Harpo Marx and the daffily jointless abandon of the Patchwork Girl of Oz, all rolled into one. She is a consummate artist, born for television.
Half a step behind her comes her husband, Desi Arnaz, the perfect foil for her screwball antics and possessing comic abilities of his own more than sufficient to make this a genuine comedy team rather than the one-woman tour de force it almost becomes. In support are William Frawley, who is superb as the landlord of the Ricardos' apartment, and Vivian Vance as his wife, a trouper who knows her way around both lines and situations.
The opener's plot won no blue ribbons for originality, but the sparkling lines contributed by writers Jess Oppenheimer, Madelyn Pugh and Bob Carroll, the sure-handed direction of young Marc Daniels and the undeniable talent of the cast turned it into a comic triumph of the first order. Even the commercials were well handled, with the opening title and credits especially cleverly done. Additionally, Oppenheimer's production, Larry Cuneo's sets and Karl Freund's fine photography serve notice that good TV comedy CAN be done on film, and certainly this production could never have been presented live. Desilu Productions has scored with this one, and scored heavily. — D.J.
Twitter: @THRArchivesNorth Carolina has built one of the country’s strongest business climates over the past two decades, fueled by low business costs, incentives and a young, educated workforce, many of whom have been trained at the strong universities in the state and Research Triangle Park. Migration rates into the state are among the highest in the U.S. annually. The Tar Heel State is the only one to rank among the top five on FORBES’ Best States for Business for 12 straight years, but it never reached the top rung until now.
An improved employment outlook and the second lowest business costs (labor, energy and taxes) have propelled North Carolina to first in our annual ranking, a spot previously only attained by Utah and Virginia since we launched the list in 2006.
North Carolina ranked second last year, but its status as a business-friendly locale was threatened by the passage of the controversial “Bathroom Bill” in 2016, which required people to use the public facility that corresponds with their biological gender. The cost of the bill was estimated to be more than $500 million in lost economic activity, as Deutsche Bank and PayPal halted expansions in the state and the NBA, NCAA and ACC pulled sporting events.
The N.C. legislature partially repealed the bathroom law in March and businesses immediately announced plans to return. The NBA awarded Charlotte the 2019 All-Star Game and Credit Suisse moved forward with an expansion with 1,200 new jobs paying an average of more than $100,000.
“We opposed that law," said Credit Suisse Vice Chairman Wilson Ervin. "During the period that HB2 was on the books, we had to put our plans on hold. We did not think that expansion could be done in a way that was consistent with our core values.”
The Movement Advancement Project, which tracks whether states are adequately protecting people from employment discrimination based on sexual and/or gender identity, pegged North Carolina as “hostile” and among the worst states last year, before bumping it to a middling rank in 2017. Protections for LGBT people is one of 41 metrics FORBES uses in its Best States ranking.
Another plus for North Carolina: the second smallest union workforce in the U.S. in terms of percent of total employment (South Carolina is first). The resulting benefit is labor costs that are 10% below the national average and fifth lowest in the country.
To come up with our list, we assess states across six broad categories: business costs, labor supply, regulatory environment, economic climate, growth prospects and quality of life. North Carolina is the only state to rank among the top 20 states in all six categories (click here for a detailed methodology).
Texas moved up two spots to second this year, the state’s best showing since 2006 (also second). The $1.6 trillion Texas economy is the second biggest in the U.S., behind only California. Texas ranks first for current economic climate thanks to strong employment and gross state product growth over the past five years. The outlook is equally bright. In addition, 100 of the 1,000 largest public and private companies in the U.S. based in Texas, including giants like AT&T, ExxonMobil and Dell.
Startup activity in the Lone Star State is also best in the nation among larger states, per the Kauffman Foundation. One of the only things holding Texas back from the top overall ranking is education. Only 83% of adults have a high school degree, which is second lowest among the states.
Utah, which occupied the No. 1 ranking six times in the past seven years (Virginia in 2013 was the lone outlier), fell to third this year due to rising labor costs and a softer economic outlook. The state still has a very pro-business climate and companies benefit from energy costs that are 16% below the national average, according to Moody's Analytics.
Rounding out the top five states are Nebraska and Virginia. Nebraska’s average unemployment rate in 2017 of 2.9% ranks among the lowest in the country. Virginia ranks second for its regulatory climate because of its strong incentive offerings and business-friendly government policies.
West Virginia ranks as the worst state for business for the third straight year, behind New Mexico, Vermont and Alaska. West Virginia’s population growth and college attainment rate both rate as the lowest in the country. Labor market data firm EMSI projects the state’s employment growth to be the worst in the U.S. at a 0.2% annual rate over the next five years. West Virginia's legal climate ranks among the worst when measuring business friendliness, according to the Institute for Legal Reform. One plus: the cost of living is the lowest in the U.S. at 11% below the national average.
Full List: The Best States For Business(Reuters) - Two gunmen ambushed a backyard party near Pittsburgh on Wednesday, killing at least five people and injuring several others, police said.
Four women and one man were shot and killed, with three more people wounded in the attack, in a residential neighborhood in Wilkinsburg, about 8 miles (13 km) east of the city, the Allegheny County Police Department said.
Two suspects fired from an alley onto a backyard party at a home and then fled, the department said in a statement.
“Partygoers appeared to try to run into the residence, at which point a person on the side or backyard adjacent to the residence fired at the back porch,” it added.
The attack in Wilkinsburg, a borough of about 15,000 chiefly lower- and middle-income residents, is the latest in a series of mass shootings that have elevated gun control as an issue in the U.S. presidential elections.
Dozens of shell casings littered the pavement of an alleyway near the site, where police were gathering evidence and talking to witnesses, media reported.
“I heard at least 20 shots,” a witness, Kayla Alexandra, told news station WPXI.
Four people were declared dead at the scene, the police said. Four more victims were taken to nearby hospitals, but one died from her wounds, leaving two men in critical condition and a woman in stable condition, they added.In 1801 a man named John Dorrance, a Justice on the Court of Common Pleas in Rhode Island, sued that state’s governor, Arthur Fenner, for slander and defamation over the matter of a corpse and a beaver hat.
Fenner had been telling people, according to the lawsuit, that Dorrance had been charged with overseeing the proper burial of a suicide victim who had no family but had instead given the body to two medical students for the purpose of dissection. Dorrance, according to the governor, received the beaver hat as payment—a hat that, quite indecently, ‟he had the impudence to wear [as he] officiated as Moderator of a Town-Meeting of the town of Providence.”
All but one of the jurors sided with Dorrance, finding that while the corpse had indeed been stolen, it had been done without Dorrance’s knowledge, and that he was not paid a hat for his participation. But his career was ruined anyway; the mere charge of body snatching was enough to tarnish his political reputation.As the average global Internet speeds are increasing, the most popular social networks on the planet are doing their best to introduce new features that are using them to their full capacity. In that regard, the latest change Twitter introduced isn't revolutionary, but it sure is convenient. Namely, the popular microblogging platform has raised its GIF size limit to 15 megabytes, up from 5 it's been supporting since 2014. So, two years after Twitter originally gave its users the option of uploading, viewing, and sharing animated GIFs, it now received support for unnecessarily large ones.
Alright, "unnecessarily large" may be an overstatement, but the fact remains that 15MB is quite a lot for this media format, especially considering the fact that online services have improved GIF compression over the years. So, unless you're making your own super large GIFs, this change probably won't momentarily affect your Twitter user experience given how most existing GIF services only support files that are up to 5MB in size. Another thing that even further lowers the chances you'll notice any change with this GIF size limit increase is the fact that it currently only applies to the browser version of Twitter. Needless to say, most users are microblogging from their smartphones and tablets, i.e. mobile apps whose GIF size limit still stands at 5MB. The company has currently made no announcements in regards to when the mobile limit will be raised. So, although this change probably won't have an immediate impact on the Twitter user experience, it's likely we'll start seeing more high-quality and super long GIFs on the popular social network in the near future.
In related news, Twitter has recently partnered with GIPHY and Riffsy, two popular GIF services whose gigantic databases of animated memes and reactions are now integrated into the popular microblogging platform. As mobile connectivity speeds are getting better, there's no doubt we'll see even more high-resolution animated media shared on social networks in the future and it's almost certain that Twitter will do everything it can to make sharing and watching GIFs on its platform even easier. The latest step in that endeavor was the dedicated GIF button Twitter started rolling out to users in February.A man is arrested on suspicion of attempted murder as police investigate reports of gunfire and use water cannons against protesters throwing missiles and fireworks, after a flag rally in Belfast.
Around 100 loyalists were involved in the violence in east Belfast, after a tense but peaceful protest of under 1,000 people in front of Belfast City Hall.
Reports of gunfire aimed at police lines are being investigated and a 38-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder.
Police in riot gear used water canon and said they were under attack from around 100 protesters throwing missiles, fireworks and bricks on the Lower Newtownards Road. Two other men were arrested in relation to the disturbances.
The violence follows a night of rioting in the east of city, during which nine police officers were injured. Eighteen people were arrested following the disorder, in which 30 petrol bombs were thrown. On Thursday, ten police officers were injured during a demonstration in east Belfast.
The rally was the latest in a string of protests over the decision to reduce the number of days that the British flag is flown at the city hall. Politicians within the Alliance Party have also received death threats.
Trouble flares in the east
The trouble first broke out on Saturday afternoon near the nationalist Short Strand area, as protesters made their way to the Newtownards Road after the City Hall protest, Amanda Poole, a journalist who was at the scene, told Channel 4 News.
“Protesters were making their way to the east of the city amid a heavy police escort,” she said. “The trouble first flared at the Short Strand interface area, with bottles, stones and debris being thrown between residents and protesters.
“After that, violence erupted when the police were moving loyalist protesters further up the Newtownards Road. Bricks, bottles and masonry were thrown at the officers in full riot gear and then scuffles broke out between protesters and the police.”
The PSNI said they will be seeking further arrests in the coming days in relation to the disorder and have appealed for witnesses.
The protest at Belfast City Hall, organised on social networking sites, passed off peacefully and was manned by police in full riot gear and police dogs.
Recent unrest
Willie Frazer, a victims campaigner who has come forward as one of the spokespeople for the flag protesters, made a speech to crowd and urged them to remain peaceful, Ms Poole told Channel 4 News. He said on Friday that Ulster loyalists plan to travel to Dublin next weekend to protest against the decision to restrist the flying of the union flag.
Around 40 police officers have been injured so far in disturbances over the union flag at the city hall since 10 December.
Speaking on Friday, First Minister Peter Robinson said violence against the police was a “disgrace” and those behind days of unrest were playing into the hands of dissident republicans: “Those responsible are doing a grave disservice to the cause they claim to espouse and are playing into the hands of those dissident groups who would seek to exploit every opportunity to further their terror aims.”
On Friday night, 30 petrol bombs along with fireworks, ball bearings and masonry, were hurled at police officers in a sustained attack in east Belfast. Up to 300 people were involved in the disturbances.
None of the police injuries sustained during the attacks are life threatening, however one female officer required medical treatment on Friday night.This post was contributed by a community member.
A barista at a beloved area coffee shop claims he was wrongly terminated over the summer for his union affiliation and is seeking legal action against his former employer.
Jeff Bauer, 41, had worked at at Seventh Avenue and Lincoln Place for almost a year when he was terminated. Last Wednesday, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) decided to issue a complaint against the coffee shop.
According to Bauer, he was constantly praised by management as a model employee and even offered the manager position, which he turned down.
"Politically as an anarchist and union organizer, it didn't coincide with my politics," Bauer said.
Then Bauer said he began organizing a May Day benefit for his union, the International Workers of the World (also known as the Wobblies). The IWW is an international union that believes all workers should be united and the wage system must be abolished.
Bauer began inviting his coworkers to organize, and he believes someone leaked his union affiliation to management. Bauer said manager Raphael Bernadine questioned him about his union membership.
"Suddenly I went from a model employee to being the worst worker," Bauer recalled.
But Store Manager Raphael Bernadine said Bauer's accusations are entirely false.
"Nobody knew he was in a union. I can swear to that," Bernadine said.
In early June, Bauer said a confrontation between a coworker and Bernadine's boyfriend led to a screaming fight in the basement of the coffee shop. During and after the fight, the former barista said he was left to work the coffee shop alone for three hours.
"I was choking back tears," Bauer said. "When customers asked what was wrong, I answered honestly and explained the incident to customers and expressed anger at the hostile work conditions."
He also stood up for his coworker to the manager, he said. Afterwards, Bauer claims his hours were slashed from over 40 hours a week to around 20, so Bauer led a union delegation into Ozzie's with six other union members to deliver a demand letter, asking for the return to his original 40 plus hours among other requests.
After that, Bauer said he was left off the schedule entirely and was fired on June 29. He then filed charges of unfair labor practices with the NLRB on July 2.
Bauer believes he was fired "simply for organizing," but Bernadine disagrees. He said Bauer was fired for not doing his job.
Bernadine said Bauer was neglecting simple duties, such as making coffee correctly and keeping the store clean. As for the incident leading up to Bauer's termination, the store manager said it never took place.
"It's so unfortunate that he's telling these lies. There was no fight. There was never any fight in the store," Bernadine said.
Bauer along with other IWW members have organized pickets and call-ins to ask the store to give the barista his job back.
Bernadine said that most people who call the store do not even know what happened or who Jeff Bauer is.
"For example, there were two people who came into the store and started cussing the employees but didn't even know his name. They kept saying to give Ozzie his job back," Bernadine said.
Bernadine also stated that the protesting has not affected Ozzie's because loyal customers know the allegations are entirely untrue.
Bauer has yet to find another job, and the legal battle continues. He is asking for the reinstatement of his job will full back pay, but Bernadine doubts that will happen.
"I don't think it would be fair to hire someone who has been so dishonest publicly. How could we trust him in the shop?" said Bernadine.The demo was not going well.
Again.
It was a late morning in the fall of 2006. Almost a year earlier, Steve Jobs had tasked about 200 of Apple's top engineers with creating the iPhone. Yet here, in Apple's boardroom, it was clear that the prototype was still a disaster. It wasn't just buggy, it flat-out didn't work. The phone dropped calls constantly, the battery stopped charging before it was full, data and applications routinely became corrupted and unusable. The list of problems seemed endless. At the end of the demo, Jobs fixed the dozen or so people in the room with a level stare and said, "We don't have a product yet."
The effect was even more terrifying than one of Jobs' trademark tantrums. When the Apple chief screamed at his staff, it was scary but familiar. This time, his relative calm was unnerving. "It was one of the few times at Apple when I got a chill," says someone who was in the meeting.
The ramifications were serious. The iPhone was to be the centerpiece of Apple's annual Macworld convention, set to take place in just a few months. Since his return to Apple in 1997, Jobs had used the event as a showcase to launch his biggest products, and Apple-watchers were expecting another dramatic announcement. Jobs had already admitted that Leopard—the new version of Apple's operating system—would be delayed. If the iPhone wasn't ready in time, Macworld would be a dud, Jobs' critics would pounce, and Apple's stock price could suffer.
And what would AT&T think? After a year and a half of secret meetings, Jobs had finally negotiated terms with the wireless division of the telecom giant (Cingular at the time) to be the iPhone's carrier. In return for five years of exclusivity, roughly 10 percent of iPhone sales in AT&T stores, and a thin slice of Apple's iTunes revenue, AT&T had granted Jobs unprecedented power. He had cajoled AT&T into spending millions of dollars and thousands of man-hours to create a new feature, so-called visual voicemail, and to reinvent the time-consuming in-store sign-up process. He'd also wrangled a unique revenue-sharing arrangement, garnering roughly $10 a month from every iPhone customer's AT&T bill. On top of all that, Apple retained complete control over the design, manufacturing, and marketing of the iPhone. Jobs had done the unthinkable: squeezed a good deal out of one of the largest players in the entrenched wireless industry. Now, the least he could do was meet his deadlines.
For those working on the iPhone, the next three months would be the most stressful of their careers. Screaming matches broke out routinely in the hallways. Engineers, frazzled from all-night coding sessions, quit, only to rejoin days later after catching up on their sleep. A product manager slammed the door to her office so hard that the handle bent and locked her in; it took colleagues more than an hour and some well-placed whacks with an aluminum bat to free her.
But by the end of the push, just weeks before Macworld, Jobs had a prototype to show to the suits at AT&T. In mid-December 2006, he met wireless boss Stan Sigman at a suite in the Four Seasons hotel in Las Vegas. He showed off the iPhone's brilliant screen, its powerful Web browser, its engaging user interface. Sigman, a taciturn Texan steeped in the conservative engineering traditions that permeate America's big phone companies, was uncharacteristically effusive, calling the iPhone "the best device I have ever seen." (Details of this and other key moments in the making of the iPhone were provided by people with knowledge of the events. Apple and AT&T would not discuss these meetings or the specific terms of the relationship.)
Six months later, on June 29, 2007, the iPhone went on sale. At press time, analysts were speculating that customers would snap up about 3 million units by the end of 2007, making it the fastest-selling smartphone of all time. It is also arguably Apple's most profitable device. The company nets an estimated $80 for every $399 iPhone it sells, and that's not counting the $240 it makes from every two-year AT&T contract an iPhone customer signs. Meanwhile, about 40 percent of iPhone buyers are new to AT&T's rolls, and the iPhone has tripled the carrier's volume of data traffic in cities like New York and San Francisco.
But as important as the iPhone has been to the fortunes of Apple and AT&T, its real impact is on the structure of the $11 billion-a-year US mobile phone industry. For decades, wireless carriers have treated manufacturers like serfs, using access to their networks as leverage to dictate what phones will get made, how much they will cost, and what features will be available on them. Handsets were viewed largely as cheap, disposable lures, massively subsidized to snare subscribers and lock them into using the carriers' proprietary services. But the iPhone upsets that balance of power. Carriers are learning that the right phone—even a pricey one—can win customers and bring in revenue. Now, in the pursuit of an Apple-like contract, every manufacturer is racing to create a phone that consumers will love, instead of one that the carriers approve of. "The iPhone is already changing the way carriers and manufacturers behave," says Michael Olson, a securities analyst at Piper Jaffray.
In 2002, shortly after the first iPod was released, Jobs started thinking about developing a phone. He saw millions of Americans lugging separate phones, BlackBerrys, and—now—MP3 players; naturally, consumers would prefer just one device. He also saw a future in which cell phones and mobile email devices would amass ever more features, eventually challenging the iPod's dominance as a music player. To protect his new product line, Jobs knew he would eventually need to venture into the wireless world.
If the idea was obvious, so were the obstacles. Data networks were sluggish and not ready for a full-blown handheld Internet device. An iPhone would require Apple to create a completely new operating system; the iPod's OS wasn't sophisticated enough to manage complicated networking or graphics, and even a scaled-down version of OS X would be too much for a cell phone chip to handle. Apple would be facing strong competition, too: In 2003, consumers had flocked to the Palm Treo 600, which merged a phone, PDA, and BlackBerry into one slick package. That proved there was demand for a so-called convergence device, but it also raised the bar for Apple's engineers.
Then there were the wireless carriers. Jobs knew they dictated what to build and how to build it, and that they treated the hardware as little more than a vehicle to get users onto their networks. Jobs, a notorious control freak himself, wasn't about to let a group of suits—whom he would later call "orifices"—tell him how to design his phone.
By 2004 Apple's iPod business had become more important, and more vulnerable, than ever. The iPod accounted for 16 percent of company revenue, but with 3G phones gaining popularity, Wi-Fi phones coming soon, the price of storage plummeting, and rival music stores proliferating, its long-term position as the dominant music device seemed at risk.
So that summer, while he publicly denied he would build an Apple phone, Jobs was working on his entry into the mobile phone industry. In an effort to bypass the carriers, he approached Motorola. It seemed like an easy fix: The handset maker had released the wildly popular RAZR, and Jobs knew Ed Zander, Motorola's CEO at the time, from Zander's days as an executive at Sun Microsystems. A deal would allow Apple to concentrate on developing the music software, while Motorola and the carrier, Cingular, could hash out the complicated hardware details.
Of course, Jobs' plan assumed that Motorola would produce a successor worthy of the RAZR, but it soon became clear that wasn't going to happen. The three companies dickered over pretty much everything—how songs would get into the phone, how much music could be stored there, even how each company's name would be displayed. And when the first prototypes showed up at the end of 2004, there was another problem: The gadget itself was ugly.
Jobs unveiled the ROKR in September 2005 with his characteristic aplomb, describing it as "an iPod shuffle on your phone." But Jobs likely knew he had a dud on his hands; consumers, for their part, hated it. The ROKR—which couldn't download music directly and held only 100 songs—quickly came to represent everything that was wrong with the US wireless industry, the spawn of a mess of conflicting interests for whom the consumer was an afterthought. WIRED summarized the disappointment on its November 2005 cover: "YOU CALL THIS THE PHONE OF THE FUTURE?"
The Apple Touch
Apple has created two music phones. The ROKR, made with Motorola in 2005, respected the traditional relationships between manufacturers and carriers. The iPhone, released last summer, completely overturned them.
Rockr
Won't hold more than 100 songs, even if there's memory left.
iTunes Music Store purchases must be synced from a PC.
Clunky interface is sluggish and hard to navigate.
Design screams, "A committee made me."
iPhone
Can hold about 1,500 songs—as much as its 8-GB drive allows.
iTunes Music Store purchases download wirelessly, directly to the phone.
Just tap and go; no user manual required.
C'mon. Look at it. It's gorgeous.
Even as the ROKR went into production, Jobs was realizing he'd have to build his own phone. In February 2005, he got together with Cingular to discuss a Motorola-free partnership. At the top-secret meeting in a midtown Manhattan hotel, Jobs laid out his plans before a handful of Cingular senior execs, including Sigman. (When AT&T acquired Cingular in December 2006, Sigman remained president of wireless.) Jobs delivered a three-part message to Cingular: Apple had the technology to build something truly revolutionary, "light-years ahead of anything else." Apple was prepared to consider an exclusive arrangement to get that deal done. But Apple was also prepared to buy wireless minutes wholesale and become a de facto carrier itself.
Jobs had reason to be confident. Apple's hardware engineers had spent about a year working on touchscreen technology for a tablet PC and had convinced him that they could build a similar interface for a phone. Plus, thanks to the release of the ARM11 chip, cell phone processors were finally fast and efficient enough to power a device that combined the functionality of a phone, a computer, and an iPod. And wireless minutes had become cheap enough that Apple could resell them to customers; companies like Virgin were already doing so.
Sigman and his team were immediately taken with the notion of the iPhone. Cingular's strategy, like that of the other carriers, called for consumers to use their mobile phones more and more for Web access. The voice business was fading; price wars had slashed margins. The iPhone, with its promised ability to download music and video and to surf the Internet at Wi-Fi speeds, could lead to an increase in the number of data customers. And data, not voice, was where profit margins were lush.
What's more, the Cingular team could see that the wireless business model had to change. The carriers had become accustomed to treating their networks as precious resources, and handsets as worthless commodities. This strategy had served them well. By subsidizing the purchase of cheap phones, carriers made it easier for new customers to sign up—and get roped into long-term contracts that ensured a reliable revenue stream. But wireless access was no longer a luxury; it had become a necessity. The greatest challenge facing the carriers wasn't finding brand-new consumers but stealing them from one another. Simply bribing customers with cheap handsets wasn't going to work. Sigman and his team wanted to offer must-have devices that weren't available on any other network. Who better to create one than Jobs?
For Cingular, Apple's ambitions were both tantalizing and nerve-racking. A cozy relationship with the maker of the iPod would bring sex appeal to the company's brand. And some other carrier was sure to sign with Jobs if Cingular turned him down—Jobs made it clear that he would shop his idea to anyone who would listen. But no carrier had ever given anyone the flexibility and control that Jobs wanted, and Sigman knew he'd have trouble persuading his fellow executives and board members to approve a deal like the one Jobs proposed.
Sigman was right. The negotiations would take more than a year, with Sigman and his team repeatedly wondering if they were ceding too much ground. At one point, Jobs met with some executives from Verizon, who promptly turned him down. It was hard to blame them. For years, carriers had charged customers and suppliers for using and selling services over their proprietary networks. By giving so much control to Jobs, Cingular risked turning its vaunted—and expensive—network into a "dumb pipe," a mere conduit for content rather than the source of that content. Sigman's team made a simple bet: The iPhone would result in a surge of data traffic that would more than make up for any revenue it lost on content deals.
Jobs wouldn't wait for the finer points of the deal to be worked out. Around Thanksgiving of 2005, eight months before a final agreement was signed, he instructed his engineers to work full-speed on the project. And if the negotiations with Cingular were hairy, they were simple compared with the engineering and design challenges Apple faced. For starters, there was the question of what operating system to use. Since 2002, when the idea for an Apple phone was first hatched, mobile chips had grown more capable and could theoretically now support some version of the famous Macintosh OS. But it would need to be radically stripped down and rewritten; an iPhone OS should be only a few hundred megabytes, roughly a 10th the size of OS X.
Before they could start designing the iPhone, Jobs and his top executives had to decide how to solve this problem. Engineers looked carefully at Linux, which had already been rewritten for use on mobile phones, but Jobs refused to use someone else's software. They built a prototype of a phone, embedded on an iPod, that used the clickwheel as a dialer, but it could only select and dial numbers—not surf the Net. So, in early 2006, just as Apple engineers were finishing their yearlong effort to revise OS X to work with Intel chips, Apple began the process of rewriting OS X again for the iPhone.
The conversation about which operating system to use was at least one that all of Apple's top executives were familiar with. They were less prepared to discuss the intricacies of the mobile phone world: things like antenna design, radio-frequency radiation, and network simulations. To ensure the iPhone's tiny antenna could do its job effectively, Apple spent millions buying and assembling special robot-equipped testing rooms. To make sure the iPhone didn't generate too much radiation, Apple built models of human heads—complete with goo to simulate brain density—and measured the effects. To predict the iPhone's performance on a network, Apple engineers bought nearly a dozen server-sized radio-frequency simulators for millions of dollars apiece. Even Apple's experience designing screens for iPods didn't help the company design the iPhone screen, as Jobs discovered while toting a prototype in his pocket: To minimize scratching, the touchscreen needed to be made of glass, not hard plastic like on the iPod. One insider estimates that Apple spent roughly $150 million building the iPhone.
Through it all, Jobs maintained the highest level of secrecy. Internally, the project was known as P2, short for Purple 2 (the abandoned iPod phone was called Purple 1). Teams were split up and scattered across Apple's Cupertino, California, campus. Whenever Apple executives traveled to Cingular, they registered as employees of Infineon, the company Apple was using to make the phone's transmitter. Even the iPhone's hardware and software teams were kept apart: Hardware engineers worked on circuitry that was loaded with fake software, while software engineers worked off circuit boards sitting in wooden boxes. By January 2007, when Jobs announced the iPhone at Macworld, only 30 or so of the most senior people on the project had seen it.
The hosannas greeting the iPhone were so overwhelming it was easy to ignore its imperfections. The initial price of $599 was too high (it has been lowered to $399). The phone runs on AT&T's poky EDGE network. Users can't perform email searches or record video. The browser won't run programs written in Java or Flash.
But none of that mattered. The iPhone cracked open the carrier-centric structure of the |
from the animated Disney extravaganza "Aladdin": Oh, I come from a land From a faraway place Where the caravan camels roam. Where they cut off your ear If they don't like your face It's barbaric, but hey, it's home.
Understandably, Arab-Americans are upset. They find it difficult enough that Saddam Hussein is the villain du jour and that terrorists from Arab countries have recently threatened New York. The difficulties mount when policemen in Iran imprison women for showing their hair, or mullahs issue death warrants against authors they consider blasphemous. But the ayatollahs of Iran don't represent all Arabs, nor all Muslims -- just as sleazy televangelists don't represent all Christians, or all Americans.
Bowing to pressure from the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, the Walt Disney Company has agreed to change two lines -- the ones about cutting off ears -- in the home video version of the movie, which will come out in October. The line "It's barbaric, but hey, it's home" will remain.
That's progress, but still unacceptable. To characterize an entire region with this sort of tongue-in-cheek bigotry, especially in a movie aimed at children, borders on barbaric.Image copyright West Yorkshire Police Image caption Andrew Broadhead and his daughter Kiera both died in the blaze at their family home
A burglar who killed a father and daughter in a fire he started in an attempt to cover his tracks has been jailed for 20 years.
Daniel Jones, 29, set a house in Stanley, Wakefield, alight in October 2016 in a bid to destroy CCTV evidence of a nearby break-in.
Andrew Broadhead, 42, and his daughter Kiera, eight, died in the fire.
At Leeds Crown Court, Jones, of Knottingley, was cleared by a jury of murder but convicted of manslaughter.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Burglar Daniel Jones was seen on CCTV buying fuel at a petrol station and setting fire to a house.
More on this story and others in Leeds and West Yorkshire
The court heard Mr and Mrs Broadhead and their two daughters were asleep in their home in the early hours of 19 October when Jones poured petrol through their front door letterbox and set it alight.
Image copyright West Yorkshire Police Image caption Daniel Jones was cleared by a jury of murder but convicted of manslaughter
Mrs Broadhead and Mia managed to escape, but Mr Broadhead and Kiera were overcome by the rapidly spreading smoke and were later pronounced dead at the scene in Ash Crescent.
The jury heard how Jones was worried that CCTV footage from the home would reveal a raid he carried out three days earlier.
'My daddy was the world's greatest superhero'
Judge Mr Justice Morris gave special permission for Kiera's 13-year-old sister Mia to read a statement, in which she described her sibling as the "world's brightest star".
Usually, children aged under 14 are not allowed to sit in the public gallery at crown court hearings.
Image copyright West Yorkshire Police Image caption Daniel Jones set fire to the house on Ash Crescent in an attempt to destroy CCTV footage
The teenager wiped away tears as she said her father was "the world's greatest superhero".
Speaking at the witness box, she told the court: "He was my hero.
"I am thankful for his happiness, kindness and his love for everyone - the way he was positive and how he always lifted everybody's spirits."
Speaking about her sister Kiera, she said: "I am thankful for the eight years we had with her - for her kindness, her funniness, her caring for one another and her humour.
"She didn't deserve this, neither of them did."
Jones, of Spawd Bone Lane, thought a camera may have recorded him stealing a safe from a friend's home on the same road a few days earlier.
It later turned out the camera was not even working properly.
Image copyright West Yorkshire Police Image caption Police arrested Jones three days after the fire in Stanley
During the trial, CCTV was shown of Jones buying fuel at a petrol station, then arriving at the Broadhead's home and setting fire to it.
Tracker evidence was also used from his van to confirm his movements on the night of the fire, the Crown Prosecution Service said.
Det Ch Insp Nicola Bryar, of West Yorkshire Police, said the crime had shocked "the whole of West Yorkshire".
"It is difficult to know where to start to describe the sheer madness and callousness of Jones's actions in trying to cover up a burglary by setting fire to a family home," she said.
"It is no exaggeration to say he has left the Broadhead family facing a lifetime of loss."When asked about his intentions for Baze and Chirrut, Rogue One director Gareth Edwards proved just as ambiguous as his warrior-monks. Jonathan Olley/Lucasfilm
This article originally appeared in Vulture.
Warning: The following post has heavy-duty spoilers for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Read at your own risk.
There is plenty in Rogue One that may surprise you, but most of those surprises are predicated on your familiarity with the Star Wars franchise. Were you expecting to see Jimmy Smits reprise his role of Bail Organa from the prequel trilogy? Did you let out a laugh when you caught those two Cantina characters in the crowd? And when characters like Moff Tarkin and Princess Leia appeared looking no older than they did in A New Hope—if a little more pixilated—could you believe your eyes?
Those are all worthy shocks, but the moment that surprised me the most in Rogue One is something that felt new and wholly unexpected, something that I hadn’t seen before in a Star Wars film and frankly didn’t expect to find in this one. In a movie full of violence and blaster fights, it’s the most tender thing that happens over two hours, and since it happens between two men, it got me wondering: Has the Star Wars franchise finally introduced the gay characters that many fans have been clamoring for?
When Chirrut (Donnie Yen) and Baze (Jiang Wen) first meet up with our heroes on the planet Jedha, there isn’t much time for backstory. Rebellious Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) find herself drawn to Chirrut, who is blind but can single her out in a crowd and sense things about her that she hasn’t divulged. Almost offhandedly, she’s told that Chirrut is a Force-aligned warrior-monk operating in an era where the Force’s reputation is on the wane; indeed, his protector Baze doesn’t seem to share those ancient beliefs, though whenever Chirrut launches into a spiel about the Force, a bemused Baze treats him like a spouse telling the umpteenth iteration of a well-worn anecdote.
I enjoyed their old-married-couple vibe, though I didn’t think much of it until a sweet little moment where Baze tells Chirrut that he doesn’t need the Force if he’s got him—something that a protective friend might say to his peer, of course, but also the kind of sentiment you’d end an interstellar Valentine’s Day note with. The real eyebrow-raiser comes much later, when our brave heroes charge into a third-act battle on the planet Scarif that claims most of the cast as casualties. In order to transmit a message to the Rebel Alliance hovering way above the planet, a heavily guarded lever must be pulled, and Chirrut is the only one courageous enough to wade into enemy fire and make that self-sacrifice. Murmuring, “I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me,” Chirrut makes it to the control panel and completes the task, though a subsequent explosion knocks almost all the life out of him.
He spends his final moments in Baze’s lap, and as his friend stares down at him, devastated, Chirrut raises his hand as if to caress Baze’s cheek. It’s the simplest gesture, but it packs a potent, more-than-platonic current, and as Chirrut expires, it’s clear that Baze does not want to live in a world without this man. He charges almost suicidally into battle, firing at Stormtroopers while repeating Chirrut’s mantra over and over—finally, at the end of his life, paying tribute to his partner’s guiding philosophy—until he, too, is felled. And while there are still plenty of big moments yet to come as Rogue One completes its story and links up with the familiar opening minutes of A New Hope, I couldn’t stop thinking about that near caress and what it might mean. After the movie was over, I asked other audience members if they thought Baze and Chirrut could have been in a relationship, and I was surprised by how many people had been picking up on the same signal.
Skeptics will accuse us of reading way too much into a simple friendship and its single affectionate gesture, but studio movies often speak in code when it comes to gay characters: The essential documentary The Celluloid Closet traces those depictions back for nearly a century as it shows how movies would present gay characters with enough plausible deniability to fly over the heads of straight audiences but with plenty of signifiers that friendly gay audiences would be likely to pick up on. This past year alone, there have been several coded characters in highly expensive studio movies: Ghostbusters director Paul Feig all but confirmed that Kate McKinnon’s fan-favorite character was less than straight, while the brief sight of two women pushing a baby carriage in Finding Dory had any gay person or city dweller certain they were looking at two moms.
You would think that as the country becomes more progressive on gay issues and as gay characters appear on television with increasing frequency, blockbusters movies would be a little braver and a lot less coy. Alas, many nervous executives have used the expansion of the foreign-film marketplace to retreat to their most conservative instincts when it comes to casting actors and conceiving characters. I heard recently that when one filmmaker wanted to include an attraction between two women in a forthcoming big-budget spectacular, that notion was nixed: “China doesn’t like lesbians,” came the message from high. If any of that original intention survives all the way to the final cut, you’d better believe those female characters will speak in code.
Changing that status quo will take brave creative people with clout, and indeed, Rogue One represents a promising step in a more progressive direction: It’s the second Star Wars film in a row where the protagonist is a woman, and it’s the most racially diverse installment of the franchise yet. Still, to borrow the language from a competing space epic, canonized gay characters remain the final frontier for this franchise. When asked about his intentions for Baze and Chirrut by Yahoo Movies, Rogue One director Gareth Edwards proved just as ambiguous as his warrior-monks. “I don’t mind people reading into it,” he said with a slight smile, either inviting savvy viewers to read between the lines or, perhaps, imagining the dedicated fandom that sprung up from people pairing Poe and Finn, two male characters from Star Wars: The Force Awakens. They’ll likely take to Baze and Chirrut, too, but maybe someday in this galaxy far, far away, the gay characters can be not just touted by the fans but confirmed by the filmmakers. Like Leia, I’ve got hope.
See also: How Did Rogue One Legally Re-create the Late Peter Cushing?Sony’s recent approach to the indie scene suggests a real sea change on the horizon. VG247’s Dave Cook argues that the competition now needs to keep up or risk death.
The balance of power in the games industry is shifting.
I don’t think the future of the games industry has ever looked so unclear as it does right now, and part of this uncertainty stems from the resurgence of the indie developer on big-name consoles.
This isn’t a new trend of course, and I’ve seen many people suggest that it received widespread notoriety thanks to the success of Jonathan Blow’s XBLA hit Braid. I’d have to agree.
Things quickly picked up speed from there, and here we are today in an industry where indie developers no longer need the backing of big entities to release products and make money. It’d be crazy to propose a future where publishers are suddenly irrelevant but a change in attitude is required to adapt to whatever comes next.
It’s refreshing to see that most of the big stables have taken a positive view to supporting new talent lately, and several top-flight execs have spoken about the need to approach indies as equals, instead of a threat or irrelevancy. It seems everyone’s slowly coming around to the idea.
I can see both sides of the coin here. Why would indies pay a lot of their own money to a platform holder or publisher when they could follow Mojang’s example and fund their game through an iterative paid-alpha model? Similarly, why not take the project to Kickstarter and try to fund it there?
You would own 100% of the IP rights and keep the profits for yourself. Best of all you wouldn’t have publishers leaning over your shoulder telling you that what you’re doing is wrong because some focus-testing group said so.
It all sounds very lovely doesn’t it? The harsh reality is that Kickstarters can fail, submitting games on iTunes without featured placement is like entering a lottery, and paid alphas take months of work without any guaranteed income. In the end big publishers or format holders really can give indies a leg-up. They can be a useful asset.
This isn’t always about the big corporate guy pissing on the little players, because any success enjoyed is mutually beneficial. If an indie game does well on a digital platform like XBLA, both Microsoft and the indie team benefit. Both sides can happily co-exist and reap great rewards, and Sony has recognised this full-well with PS4.
Jonathan Blow’s next game The Witness is a PS4-timed exclusive. No money changed hands. He just prefers the way Sony is treating him and his vision. Case and point.
The signs are all around you. I keep using this example, but when Square-Enix calls the high-selling, critically-acclaimed Tomb Raider a failure then it’s not a stretch to say that these large-scale operations are staring down a crisis waiting to happen.
If I were a Crystal Dynamics employee I’d take having my hard work being branded a “failure” as a slap in the face with a heavy chain-mail glove. The game hasn’t been out long, clearly had a high production cost and will most likely enjoy long-tail sales for many months to come.
What’s really happening is that production costs are rising to meet expectations. You needn’t be a maths whizz to understand that if a game costs a lot to make, it will need to sell exceptionally well to recoup the spend. Veteran game analyst Bill Pidgeon recently estimated that games with production cost of around $100 million need to sell between five and ten million units to break even.
That is poor economics if ever I saw it and some have also called out Pidgeon’s equations on the matter, but the sentiment stands that triple-a game budgets are through the roof. When you factor in marketing budgets, staff salaries, raw development cost, engine licensing, shipping, needlessly extravagant press events and showing face at expos like E3, TGS and gamescom, you may start to ask yourself if much of this is fat just begging to be trimmed.
After Braid showed the world that indies could succeed on big publishing platforms we started to see something of a gold rush. The amount of independently-created, low cost-high return games appearing on Xbox Live and PSN began to swell. Did every indie game released on both formats see the same success? No, of course not.
These platforms were – depending on who you ask – monstrously expensive to publish on. Some teams have claimed they were charged thousands of dollars to re-submit their game every time an update was required. I spoke with Prison Architect dev Introversion about this last year and they were more than happy to put Microsoft’s practice to the sword.
I realise that one studio can’t speak for every developer on Xbox Live Arcade, but in this one instance I was a little taken aback. If this really is true across the board then it seems like Microsoft is charging these teams a lot for the privilege of being tucked away, several button presses under the dashboard.
Introversion’s QA bill for Darwinia+ under Microsoft was $30,000. It was a financial flop compared to Prison Architect’s paid alpha model.
The team’s experience of Xbox Live with Darwinia+ showed them just how financially unsound Microsoft’s marketplace could be. Sure Braid sold well, but that was before the rush to make your millions through digital channels became a widespread wind-pissing contest. Everyone got very wet and only a handful of lucky teams saw success while staying relatively dry.
Now, I’m sorry to have to do this again but I’ll type this next bit in big bold letters so you understand me clearly:
I am neither a fanboy of PS3 or Xbox 360. I own both formats and think they are both superb. I’m focusing on PS4 here because – obviously – the next Xbox hasn’t been announced yet. For all I know Microsoft has made the best indie platform ever seen, but I can’t say that because I haven’t seen it yet.
Sony has really impressed me lately. Someone high up the executive food chain has realised that PS4 needed to embrace the indie community with open arms or it risked being the last console the company ever produced. Give that person a raise Sony, seriously they’ve earned it.
They seem to be doing everything correctly so far, and I think unless Microsoft can match or surpass Sony’s efforts then there’s a very real danger that the new Xbox could struggle to meet the lofty financials it needs to survive. Again, I’m talking theoretically as I haven’t seen the new Xbox yet.
Sony created the PS4 in close collaboration with developers and asked them what they wanted it to do, rather than creating it internally with blinkers on. This extended to indie developers like Double Fine, who were asked to play around with dev kits to see how they might use it in future. That is positively refreshing.
The end result of collaboration, open dialogue and frank discussion between developer and platform holder. Such an open forum is surely the future.
We heard recently that PS4, PS3 and PS Vita will support Unity, which is fast becoming the ‘go-to’ engine of choice for cash-poor indies or teams looking for a flexible, open and relatively easy-to-use engine.
Compare that to the Sony of old, which released a console so restrictively punishing to code for at the outset, that Square-Enix had to develop its own set of programming tools for its then-PS3 exclusive Final Fantasy 13. That is absolutely insane and should never have happened in the first place.
But much like the indie scene, this is an iterative process and PS4 has been tweaked, refined and made better because of Sony’s transparent approach to the console’s creation. One of the PS4’s designers Mark Cerny has called the process “developer-centric”.
Now, that might seem obvious to say, but consider this: selling consoles is one thing but what sells hardware? Games. How do you get more games? You make the platform easier to publish on and offer the best potential return on investment to the developer.
You may then ask yourself why it has taken Sony and Microsoft so long to reach this conclusion, but in reality this has always been the case. They’re not stupid, it’s just that the nature of games has changed.
The indie scene wasn’t as lucrative back ten years ago as it is now, Kickstarter didn’t exist, among other factors. Now seems like the perfect time to grab the bull by the horns and it’s smart that Sony is using the coming of the next cycle to change tact.
Not a minute too soon either it seems, as things were looking pretty hairy for a while out there in triple-a land. THQ collapsed, many big players posted negative figures this financial year and several multi-million releases failed to break even. The change has to happen now for some companies. It really is do or die time.
Sony made clear that it was supporting the indie scene at GDC last month, along with an initial list of titles on the release slate. The response from the development scene and from readers here seems to suggest that this is the correct answer to many difficult questions.
Console indie games are going to explode even further in the next five years. If you don’t believe that then you need to start looking closer at the way the industry is going. This cannot be escaped or denied and in the end we, the gamers, will become richer for the experience.
The question is: which of today’s big players will still be around by then to reap the rewards?I dunno about you guys, but I think Lyra and Bon Bon make rather good town gossips!At least I finally get a chance to draw them! They're fun to draw, but I don't like doing Lyra's hair, the white stripes have their own outlines still visible in the middle of the tail and it's kinda hard to work with. Oh well.Yeah, this is, like, TOTALLY what happened in Secret of My Excess! XD Derpy, you silly filly, butting into conversations that were never yours to begin with! And out of a well of all places!I actually took the time to make the well. I might upload the image of it just to show you guys if you'd like. It's kinda crappy, but at least I took the time to make it.Background by * RusselH Lyra and Bon-Bon's cutie marks by ~ RilDraw Everything else done by me. And I decided to not blurr the characters this time, it's too unfocused... It's not gonna look completely rasterized in the full view anyhow.MLP (c) HasbroFiM (c) Lauren Faust EDIT: Whoops, I forgot there is no E in nosy. XDAppearing Wednesday with Huffington Post hosts Alyona Minkovski and Jacob Soboroff, longtime television interviewer Larry King confessed that he thinks marijuana should be made legal, saying prohibition’s end is actually quite “logical.”
“I’ve always felt marijuana– Marijuana used to be legal,” he said. “It was the liquor industry that made it illegal. In 1938 you could go into stores and buy marijuana. I know it helps ill people. I know it’s great used with cataracts. I think it will be legal.”
King went on: “The best quote I have on that Lenny Bruce, a friend of mine who said, ‘Marijuana will be legal some day because every law student I know smokes it.” He added that, to him, legalization appears “logical,” but some regulation will be needed. “I certainly don’t think you should smoke marijuana and drive,” King said.
For the longtime CNN host, the admission probably isn’t that big of a leap for him. In more than 25 years on television, King spoke to tens of thousands of people about every topic imaginable, including drug reform.
In a memorable 1988 segment, King even lit a joint for Robert Randall, the first American permitted under federal law to use the drug for medical purposes. And that’s not to mention the numerous celebrities, from Snoop Dogg to Willie Nelson to Mic Jagger, who’ve told him about their experiences with marijuana.
But celebrity endorsements aren’t what convinced King to side with drug reformers.
Describing an interview he sat for with four chiefs of police, King said he asked the men: “If neither one were legal, marijuana or liquor, and you could only legalize one, what would you legalize? And they all answered at the same time, ‘Marijuana!’ Because they had never seen murder committed while someone’s under the influence of marijuana, and 80 percent of the homicides they investigated were alcohol-related.”
This video is from Huffington Post Live, broadcast Wednesday, October 3, 2012.
——
Photo: Featureflash / Shutterstock.comComedian and same-sex marriage activist Wanda Sykes has announced today that she is gay and has married her partner. Wanda Sykes at a rally in Las Vegas today said:
"You know, I don't really talk about my sexual orientation. I didn't feel like I had to. I was just living my life, not necessarily in the closet, but I was living my life," Sykes told a crowd at a gay rights rally in Las Vegas on Saturday.
"Everybody that knows me personally they know I'm gay. But that's the way people should be able to live their lives," she said.
"Now, I gotta get in their face," she said. "I'm proud to be a woman. I'm proud to be a black woman, and I'm proud to be gay." (AP)
Welcome aboard Wanda Sykes, you definitely make my list of top 3 funniest lesbian comics.The Best Binoculars Under $100
Bushnell Falcon 133410
Editors Choice
These Falcon binoculars will have you seeing as well as a “falcon.” They have a 7x magnification and an auto focusing porro-prism that make for quality optics with HD clarity. The auto focus makes it simple and easy to pay attention to your target as opposed to wasting time on the manual focus. The binoculars offer both short distance and large distance clarity, with 20-feet close and 420-feet long. It has 12mm eye relief and 5mm exit pupil, which is easy on the eyes and allows for continuous use. If you wear eyeglasses or sunglasses, the fold-down eyecups protect your lenses from scratching. You’ll also love the classic and chic design that comes with this industry-leading product. BUY IT NOW
Bushnell 138005
These binoculars are perfect for all-weather trips. The BaK-4 prisms and multi-coated lenses add significant brightness to the image, which is great for hunting in clouds and light rain. They are compact and easy to carry, making them great for travel, hunting, birding, and even fishing trips. They have a soft texture grips which make it ideal for constant use, as well as twist-up eyecups, so they are comfortable and easy to use. These binoculars offer a sharp focus with a center knob for easy adjustments. BUY IT NOW
Bushnell Powerview Prisim
The Bushnell Powerviews are small (weighing only 7 ounces), yet sturdy, coated with a firm grip, non-sip rubber and an armor that absorbs shock from any drops. It has a center focus system that makes it simple to sharpen your view, with a 378-field at 1000-yards. Many consumers prefer to use these binoculars for bird-watching because it has a strong close-center focus. It comes in a variety of magnifications, with a roof prism system, so you’ll be able to find a great sight amplification for a lightweight and durable equipment. BUY IT NOW
Bushnell Powerview Surviellence
These porro-prism binoculars have an intense magnification and superior light transmission, great for woods and darkly lit environments. Many people even use them to stargaze! They have a 170-feet field of view at 1000 yards and a 50mm objective diameter. Bushnell’s Surveillance binoculars have a one-touch focus system that allows you to easily focus without significant manual effort, which is especially great for action-packed hunting trips. These glasses are better for long-distance, such as deer or elk, rather than close-range magnification. They also come with a woven neck strap that customers rave about because it helps to cut down the weight of the binoculars—plus it’s comfortable. BUY IT NOW
Polaris Optics ProBirder
This is not the most versatile binocular, and it is made more for the bird watching and close-range hunters out there. However, for those folks, it is an amazing and affordable option. It provides a sharp color contrast that helps focus in on the subject you are watching. It has an 8×32 magnification that lets you see even the lightest drops of dew as if you were inches away. The 356 feet field of view at 1000 yards proves to be a useful tool for birdwatchers, who want to be able to see several birds at once or swiftly focus on a new area. These binoculars to be a bit bulkier and heavier, but it does come with a great portable case and heavy-duty lens cover. BUY IT NOW
Merytes Portable HD
We put this on the list as one of the best “starter” binoculars at an incredibly affordable price. These binoculars do not have as many high-end functions for the more experienced hunters and bird watchers. However, these binoculars are compact, easy to carry, and come with a carrying bag and strap. The lenses make it great for environments with weak lighting, and the picture is so sharp and clear that you can see the individual hairs on a fox. This is great for adults taking their kids on a camping trip or tourist adventure, because they are easy to carry and easily adjustable (with the center hand wheel) for everyone in the family to share. BUY IT NOW
Olympus Trooper
These binoculars are great for close range and long range, and they have a clear, sharp image in both the dark of night and the brightness of day. They seem to struggle a bit in weak lighting of overcast or foggy days. However, they have 10x magnification with a distortion-free view. These offers a Bak-7 lens system for excellent optics and precise focus, as controlled by a center focus knob. Using a porro-prism, it has a 342 feet view at 1,000 yards, with a 65° angle. One of our favorite parts of this binocular is that it has UV Protection in the glasses to help protect your eyes from the sun’s harmful rays, which can amplify in binoculars’ reflective lenses. No need for uncomfortable, color-distorting sunglasses while you’re enjoying the great outdoors. BUY IT NOW
Nikon 8248 Aculon
One of the best reviews that these binoculars consistently get is that it is easy to focus and it stays sharp even in higher settings. With many binoculars, you can lose the image quality as you magnify and focus further. These not only maintain the quality of the image, but they also enhance it with eco-glass lenses that work well in most lighting conditions. It has one of the smoothest focus knobs, making it easy to operate and focus on your subject—your binoculars should help you get the job done, not give you more work. It also has a durable rubber-armored coating that makes it rugged and ready for any outing. The only real concern is that these binoculars sometimes work better for focusing on long-distance rather than short-distance bird watching or fishing. BUY IT NOW
Tasco Essentials
These are the essential basics binoculars, perfect for those who are starting out or looking for a pair of basic binoculars to add to the set. The lens is not made for long-wear or usage in poor lighting, so these are better for those who will be using binoculars to quickly spot their target and then act. (Not right for birdwatchers, fishermen, etc.) It has an 8x magnification, a 383-foot field of view at 1,000 yards (which is larger than many), and a 21 mm lens. These are incredibly lightweight, though, so they are perfect for hiking and backpacking. Weighing in at 6.5 ounces, they take up little weight and room in the pack to carry on longer trips. They also have a rubber-armored housing that absorbs shock and protects from weather, perfect for unexpected mountain conditions. BUY IT NOW
Sminiker Folding Binocular
These are one of the smallest binoculars on our list, and they fold even smaller to be easy to carry and transport. These military grade binoculars include night vision, which allows for spectacular view after dark! They can be used for birding, travelling, sightseeing, hunting, and general observation with little problem. The field of view is approximately 413 feet at 1000 yards, at 7.2°, making it one of the widest fields on this list. They are easy to focus and quickly sharpen in accordance with any magnification, no matter the lighting. They also have a sleek design with strong durability. The only con is that the image is not as clear or sharp as some of its competitors, but that is because these lenses work their magic mostly at night. BUY IT NOW
Celestron SkyMaterVenezuela’s air is thick with tear gas and its streets are stained with the blood of its youth.
The South American nation has been reduced to a battlefield as government forces brutally pummel protestors. For the past 50 days, Venezuelans throughout the country have taken to the streets in anti-government uprisings.
With approval ratings in the teens, the socialist and criminal regime of President Nicolas Maduro appears to be on its last legs.
Hundreds of thousands of protestors continue pouring into the streets, demanding an end to the corruption that has bankrupted the world’s most oil-rich nation.
Maduro has predictably responded to this pressure with more violence.
Nearly 50 Venezuelans have been killed in the protests in the past two months, and more deaths will likely follow if the government follows through on its plan of deploying military snipers to tame the crowds.
Such a plan, coupled with the repeated threats from Maduro himself, puts the fragility of his political creed on full display. Socialism is a scam best understood by those who sell it and, eventually, the ones swindled by it.
Over 20 years ago, under the banner of socialism and its endless list of impossible promises, demagogues hijacked Venezuela’s government, dismantled civil society, and crippled the national economy.
Led by Maduro’s deceased predecessor, Hugo Chavez, the socialists implemented measures that crippled the private sector and triggered massive capital flights and brain drains.
Growing up in Chavez’s Venezuela is the defining experience of my life. The country was collapsing and no one seemed to be able to stop it. The opposition was persecuted, journalists were silenced, peaceful protesters were murdered, and crime was rampant.
As a kid, the crisis was evident to me when it was no longer safe to play baseball in the streets, when my parents whispered about yet another kidnapping in the neighborhood, or when my grandmother returned home teary-eyed after being mugged.
My parents, like many others at the time, recognized that the country’s decay was imminent. The socialist party’s grip over government institutions grew stronger and, in turn, those institutions grew more impotent in dealing with the looming crises.
>>> Corrupt Venezuelan Regime Failing to Quell Humanitarian Crisis
The gradual and continued breakdown of the separation of powers meant that the rule of law would further erode, and the situation would grow more dire.
So, with a heavy heart but with a firm understating of what was to come, my parents left everything behind to give our family a second chance here in the U.S.
This second chance allowed my brother and I to know and grow up in a country whose society is at its best when individuals are empowered, not burdened, by the government.
This is a nation where civil society and strong families are the driving force of its national vitality—where hard work is rewarded and success is praised, not envied.
Ten years on, my parents’ sacrifice is still a constant reminder of the important lessons I learned in Caracas and the blessings I enjoy here in America.
Venezuela’s current struggle is fueled by people who yearn for similar blessings, and there is reason to hope for their success.
As Maduro’s socialist regime wages merciless war on its own citizens—who are starved for food and freedom—pressure has continued to mount on him, and the strain is beginning to show.
Abroad, Venezuela’s regional allies, famous for turning a blind eye to abuses in exchange for financial incentives, have spoken out against Maduro’s violent repression.
International organizations of large standing have rallied to penalize the regime in attempts to dissuade it from further escalating force against unarmed civilians.
In the U.S., President Donald Trump has swiftly acted to end his predecessor’s eight years of complicit silence, voicing support for political prisoners and issuing sanctions against corrupt officials.
>>> This May Be Venezuela’s Tiananmen Square Moment
In spite of being historically fractious, Maduro’s political opposition is now galvanized against him. They have sought to maintain momentum in the streets and have unanimously rejected Maduro’s attempt to rewrite the constitution.
But perhaps the most telling sign of cracks in the internal regime is the attorney general’s unprecedented public break with the government.
History has repeatedly shown socialism to be a corrupt and destructive force, and there is no better example of this than in today’s Venezuela.Japan, the United States and Mongolia are considering holding their first trilateral foreign ministerial talks in a bid to tap into Mongolia’s close ties with North Korea and settle a host of issues involving Pyongyang, diplomatic sources said Thursday.
By drawing Mongolia into a multilateral framework, Japan and the United States hope that Mongolia can play a role in helping resume the stalled six-party talks on Pyongyang’s nuclear program and making progress on the issue of North Korea’s abductions of Japanese nationals in the 1970s and 1980s, the sources said.
The six-party dialogue, aimed at ending the reclusive country’s nuclear ambitions, has been deadlocked since late 2008. The talks involve the two Koreas, Japan, China, the United States and Russia.
The three countries intend to hold a meeting of senior diplomats next month to discuss the timing of talks at the foreign ministerial level, the sources said.
The step to hold a foreign ministerial meeting among Japan, the United States and Mongolia is in line with an agreement made by the leaders of Japan and Mongolia in 2013 to hold a regular trilateral dialogue with the United States, the sources said.
They will work out plans to convene the trilateral foreign ministerial meeting on the fringes of international conferences through 2016.
The sources said a high-ranking Mongolian government official met with an aide of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in late July in the Mongolian capital of Ulan Bator. They agreed to first hold a senior-level meeting with the United States at an early date.
The senior-level meeting is likely to take place in New York on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in September, the sources said.
The topic came up when U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry held talks with Mongolian Foreign Minister Lundeg Purevsuren in mid-July in the United States, the sources said.
Japan is likely to be represented by Junichi Ihara, director general of the Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau of the Foreign Ministry, and the United States by Daniel Russel, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, the sources said.
Tokyo has been keen to continue its cooperation with Ulan Bator in negotiating with North Korea over the abduction issue given that Japan has no diplomatic ties with the North.
The Mongolian capital was the place where the parents of Megumi Yokota, an ab |
a tour that ended on October 19, 2008.[citation needed]
In April 2010, Haggard released a new album, I Am What I Am,[67] to strong reviews, and he performed the title song on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno in February 2011.[68]
Collaborations [ edit ]
Haggard collaborated with many other artists over the course of his career. In the early 1960s, Haggard recorded duets with Bonnie Owens, who later became his wife, for Tally Records, scoring a minor hit with "Just Between the Two of Us." As part of the deal that got Haggard signed to Capitol, producer Ken Nelson obtained the rights to Haggard's Tally sides, including the duets with Owens, resulting in the release of Haggard's first duet album with Owens and The Strangers in 1966, also entitled Just Between the Two of Us.[69] The album reached number four on the country charts, and Haggard and Owens recorded a number of additional duets before their divorce in 1978. Haggard went on to record duets with George Jones, Willie Nelson, and Clint Eastwood, among others.[70]
In 1970, Haggard released A Tribute to the Best Damn Fiddle Player in the World (or, My Salute to Bob Wills), rounding up six of the remaining members of the Texas Playboys to record the tribute: Johnnie Lee Wills, Eldon Shamblin, Tiny Moore, Joe Holley, Johnny Gimble, and Alex Brashear.[52] Merle's band, The Strangers, were also present during the recording, but Wills suffered a massive stroke after the first day of recording. Merle arrived on the second day, devastated that he would not get to record with him, but the album helped return Wills to public consciousness, and set off a Western swing revival.[53] Haggard did other tribute albums to Bob Wills over the next 40 years. In 1973 he appeared on For the Last Time: Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys. In 1994, Haggard collaborated with Asleep at the Wheel and many other artists influenced by the music of Bob Wills on an album entitled A Tribute To The Music of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys.[71] A Tribute was re-released on CD on the Koch label in 1995.
In 1972, Haggard agreed to produce Gram Parsons's first solo album, but backed out at the last minute. Warner Bros. arranged a meeting at Haggard's Bakersfield home and the two musicians seemed to hit it off, but later on the afternoon of the first session, Haggard canceled. Parsons, an enormous Haggard fan, was crushed, with his wife Gretchen telling Meyer, "Merle not producing Gram was probably one of the greatest disappointments in Gram's life. Merle was very nice, very sweet, but he had his own enemies and his own demons."[72]
In 1980, Haggard dispelled the notion that Parsons was any kind of outlaw, telling Mark Rose, "He was a pussy. Hell, he was just a long-haired kid. I thought he was a good writer. He was not wild, though. That's what's funny to me. All these guys running around in long hair talking about being wild and Rolling Stones. I don't think someone abusing themselves on drugs determines how wild they are. It might determine how ignorant they are."[72]
In 1982, Haggard recorded A Taste of Yesterday's Wine with George Jones, an album that produced two top-10 hits, including the number-one "Yesterday's Wine."[73] In 2006, the pair released a sequel, Kickin' Out the Footlights...Again.[74]
Haggard released the duet album Pancho & Lefty with Willie Nelson in 1983, with the title track becoming an enormous hit for the duo. In 1987, a second, less successful LP, Seashores of Old Mexico, was also released, and the pair would work together again with Ray Price in 2007, releasing the album Last of the Breed. In 2015, Haggard and Nelson recorded a video, "It's All Going to Pot," where both are seen singing in a recording studio while smoking joints. The two also recorded another duet album Django and Jimmie.[75]
In 1983, Haggard got permission from Epic Records to collaborate with then-wife Leona Williams on Polydor Records, releasing Heart to Heart in 1983. The album, on which they were backed by The Strangers, was not a hit, peaking at number 44.[76]
In 2001, Haggard released an album of gospel songs with Albert E. Brumley called Two Old Friends.[77] In 2002, Haggard collaborated with longtime friend and fellow recording artist Chester Smith (founder of television broadcasting company Sainte Partners II, L.P. and owner of several stations in California and Oregon) with a CD titled California Blend.[78] The CD features classic country, western, and gospel tracks performed by both Smith and Haggard.
In 2005, Haggard was featured as a guest vocalist on Gretchen Wilson's song "Politically Uncorrect."[79] He is also featured singing a verse on Eric Church's 2006 song "Pledge Allegiance to the Hag."[80]
In 2005, Haggard was featured as a guest vocalist on Blaine Larsen's song "If Merle Would Sing My Song." In 2015, Haggard was featured as a guest vocalist on Don Henley's song "The Cost of Living" on the album Cass County.[citation needed]
In 2017 Haggard appeared alongside Willie Nelson in the award-winning documentary The American Epic Sessions directed by Bernard MacMahon. They performed a song Haggard had composed for the film, "The Only Man Wilder Than Me"[81][82] and Bob Wills' classic "Old Fashioned Love",[83] which they recorded live on the restored first electrical sound recording system from the 1920s.[84] It was the last filmed performance of the pair, with Rolling Stone commenting "in the final performance of Sessions, Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard perform the duet "The Only Man Wilder Than Me." Haggard has a look of complete joy on his face throughout the session in the old-timey recording set-up once used by his musical heroes."[85]
Equipment [ edit ]
Haggard endorsed Fender guitars and had a Custom Artist signature model Telecaster. The guitar is a modified Telecaster Thinline with laminated top of figured maple, set neck with deep carved heel, birdseye maple fingerboard with 22 jumbo frets, ivoroid pickguard and binding, gold hardware, abalone Tuff Dog Tele peghead inlay, 2-Colour Sunburst finish, and a pair of Fender Texas Special Tele single-coil pickups with custom-wired 4-way pickup switching. He also played six-string acoustic models. In 2001, C. F. Martin & Company introduced a limited edition Merle Haggard Signature Edition 000-28SMH acoustic guitar available with or without factory-installed electronics.[86]
Personal life [ edit ]
Wives and children [ edit ]
Haggard was married five times, first to Leona Hobbs from 1956 to 1964. They had four children: Dana, Marty, Kelli, and Noel.[87]
Shortly after divorcing Hobbs, in 1965, he married singer Bonnie Owens.[88] Haggard credited her with helping him make his big break as a country artist. He shared the writing credit with Owens for his hit Today I Started Loving You Again and acknowledged, including on stage, that the song was about a sudden burst of special feelings he experienced for her while they were touring together. She also helped care for Haggard's children from his first marriage, and was the maid of honor for Haggard's third marriage. Haggard and Owens divorced in 1978, but remained close friends as Owens continued as his backing vocalist until her death in 2006.[88]
In 1978, Haggard married Leona Williams. In 1983, they divorced.[89] In 1985 Haggard married Debbie Parret; they divorced in 1991.[90] He married his fifth wife, Theresa Ann Lane, on September 11, 1993. They had two children, Jenessa and Ben.[91]
Cigarette and drug use [ edit ]
Haggard said he started smoking marijuana when he was 41 years old. He admitted that in 1983, he bought "$2,000 (worth) of cocaine" and partied for five months afterward, when he said he finally realized his condition and quit for good.[57] He quit smoking cigarettes in 1991, and stopped smoking marijuana in 1995.[92] However, a Rolling Stone magazine interview in 2009 indicated that he had resumed regular marijuana smoking.[90]
Illness and death [ edit ]
Haggard underwent angioplasty in 1995 to unblock clogged arteries.[93] On November 9, 2008, it was announced that he had been diagnosed with lung cancer in May and undergone surgery on November 3, during which part of his lung was removed.[94] Haggard returned home on November 8.[95] Less than two months after his cancer surgery, he played two shows on January 2 and 3, 2009, in Bakersfield at Buck Owens Crystal Palace, and continued to tour and record until shortly before his death.
He described himself as a student of music, philosophy and communication. He would discuss jazzman Howard Roberts guitar playing, life after death and the unique speaking technique of Garner Ted Armstrong of The World Tomorrow with enthusiasm and authority. When both his friends Ted Armstrong and Johnny Cash died just three days apart, in September 2003, Haggard commented, "After Johnny Cash died, I lost a real close friend in Garner Ted Armstrong. He was like a professor to me. What education I have, I owe to him." [96] Haggard said he was driven by a desire to play guitar and have total knowledge of it. He is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records and many encyclopedias. He said those books describe him as a country singer, balladeer, composer of "Okie from Muskogee" and "the poet of the common man." But Merle Haggard hoped the world would remember him as "the greatest jazz guitar player in the world that loved to play country."[97]
On December 5, 2015, Haggard was treated at an undisclosed hospital in California for pneumonia.[98] He made a recovery, but postponed several concerts.[98]
In March 2016, Haggard was once again hospitalized.[99] His concerts for April were canceled due to his ongoing double pneumonia.[100] On the morning of April 6, 2016, his 79th birthday, he died of complications from pneumonia at his home in Palo Cedro, Shasta County, California.[6][101][102] Haggard was buried in a private funeral at his ranch on April 9, 2016; longtime friend Marty Stuart officiated.[103][104]
Legacy and honors [ edit ]
Haggard at the White House for the 2010 Kennedy Center Honors
During his long career, Haggard received numerous awards from the Academy of Country Music, Country Music Association, and National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (Grammy Awards) (see Awards). He was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1977,[3] the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in 1994,[4] and the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame in 1997.[5] In 2006, he received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and was also honored as a BMI Icon at the 54th annual BMI Pop Awards that same year. During his songwriting career up to that time, Haggard had earned 48 BMI Country Awards, nine BMI Pop Awards, a BMI R&B Award, and 16 BMI "Million-Air" awards, all from a catalog of songs that added up to over 25 million performances.[2]
Haggard accepted a Kennedy Center Honor on December 4, 2010, from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in recognition of his lifetime achievement and "outstanding contribution to American culture."[105] The following day, he was honored at a gala in Washington, DC, with musical performances by Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, Sheryl Crow, Vince Gill, Jamey Johnson, Kid Rock, Miranda Lambert, and Brad Paisley. This tribute was featured on the December 28, 2010, CBS telecast of the Kennedy Center Honors.[106]
In July 2007, a 3 1/2 mile stretch of 7th Standard Road in Oildale, California, where Haggard grew up, was renamed Merle Haggard Drive in his honor. It stretches from North Chester Avenue west to U.S. Route 99 and provides access to the William M. Thomas airport terminal at Meadows Field Airport. Haggard played two shows to raise money to pay for the changes in road signage.[107] In 2015, the converted boxcar in which the Haggard family lived in Oildale was moved to the Kern County Museum for historic preservation and restoration.[108][109]
On November 6, 2013 The mayor of Winchester, Virginia awarded Haggard the Key to the City at the Patsy Cline Theatre after a sold out show by Bonnie Blue Concerts.
On June 14, 2013, the California State University, Bakersfield, awarded Haggard the honorary degree of Doctor of Fine Arts. Haggard stepped to the podium and said, "Thank you. It's nice to be noticed."
On January 26, 2014, Haggard performed his 1969 song "Okie from Muskogee" at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards along with Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, and Blake Shelton.[citation needed]
Influence [ edit ]
Haggard's guitar playing and voice gave his country songs a hard-edged, blues-like style in many cuts. Although he was outspoken in his dislike for modern country music,[80] he praised George Strait, Toby Keith, and Alan Jackson. Keith has singled out Haggard as a major influence on his career.
As noted by an article published in The Washington Post upon Haggard's death, "Respect for the Hag [Haggard] as an icon, both for his musical status and his personal views, is a common theme" in country music.[80] Many country music acts have paid tribute to Haggard by mentioning him in their songs (a fact aided by his first name rhyming with "girl," a common theme in country songs). These include:
In the 1970s, several rock acts responded in their own songs to Haggard's criticism of hippie counterculture in "Okie from Muskogee" and "The Fightin' Side of Me". The Youngbloods answered "Okie from Muskogee" with "Hippie from Olema", in which, in one repetition of the chorus, they change the line, "We still take in strangers if they're ragged" to "We still take in strangers if they're haggard." Nick Gravenites, of Big Brother and the Holding Company, paid Haggard a tongue-in-cheek tribute with the song, "I'll Change Your Flat Tire, Merle,"[119] later covered by other artists including Pure Prairie League.[120] Despite these critiques, the Grateful Dead performed "Mama Tried" over 300 times,[121] and "Sing Me Back Home" approximately 40 times.[122]
The Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd more respectfully referenced Haggard in their song, "Railroad Song," which contains the lyric, "Well I'm a ride this train Lord until I find out/What Jimmie Rodgers and the Hag was all about." Skynyrd also performed both a cover of "Honky Tonk Night Time Man" and their own take on the song with "Jacksonville Kid" (found on the 2001 CD reissue of the album) on their album Street Survivors.[123]
Television acting [ edit ]
Merle appeared in season five, episode three of The Waltons called "The Comeback". He played Red Turner, a local musician who had become depressed and withdrawn after the death of his son, played by Ron Howard, in the episode called "The Gift".[citation needed]
Discography [ edit ]
Studio albums [ edit ]
Number-one hits on U.S. country charts [ edit ]
Awards [ edit ]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]Before DJC has a chance to write about anything, I wanted to take this opportunity to make some remarks about the upcoming Season 13 LAN coming up in late April. This LAN marks a number of firsts, including the longest break between the end of the Postseason and the Invite playoffs (about 2 months). It is also the first LAN where a team that went undefeated in the regular season, HRG/bp, is not predicted by most to be the favorites to win in the Postseason. While Check Six (S8) and Classic Mixup (S12) were undoubtedly two of the best teams to ever play the game, HRG has quietly won every match this season through their conservative playcalling and consistency.
This will likely be one of the most competitive LANs that we have seen in a long time, and I can't wait to see these matches. Below is a review of each team, followed by individual class rankings, and lastly my LAN predictions. While I have never directly played against any of these teams myself, I've watched most of the Invite matches and have formed my opinions through talking with the players themselves. I hope to remain friends with all of the players, but I also gave my most honest review. I trust that the readers will see the value in this and that the players won't get too upset at me. Enjoy!
LAN Team Analysis
Record -- 16-0
RF-RA -- 63-13
[Medic]
Shade [Demo]
B4nny [Pocket]
Lansky [Roamer]
Taggerung [Scout]
Cyzer [Scout]
Shrugger
The team formerly known as bp is now sponsored by High Rollers Gaming and currently wears the HRG tag proudly in scrims. While their sponsor hasn't paid for all of the team's expenses, they have offered a bit of money to help them pay their way to Dallas.
HRG was undoubtedly the best team in the regular season. With a perfect 16-0 record, they systematically destroyed every team that they came across and were the favorites in every match that they played. Their closest match was against the old Fully Torqued roster in Week 3 on cpgullywashfinal1, where FT came closer than any team to beating HRG (losing 3-5). It was in this match that bp showed its true colors -- they slowed down the match and changed the pace of the game to fit their playstyle. FT didn't know how to react to it, and as the timer ticked down, they made some bad decisions that cost them the match.
It is this style of play where HRG does their best. Their calling style is very conservative and is designed around winning midfights. Once they win mid, they make it extremely difficult for the other team to take it back. When not playing mids, the team prefers to only push on solid advantages that will yield guaranteed results. If they aren't sure that they will win, their fallback strategy is to even things out and reset the situation. This doesn't mean that they aren't aggressive though -- they simply prefer to take calculated risks and don't like gambling. The worst thing to happen to the enemy team would be to go down in rounds to HRG -- a tall order no doubt.
The backbone of this team is Grant "Jesus" "b4nny" Vincent, the legendary Demoman who can single-handedly control the flow of a match and win fights through a combination of perfect prediction, positioning, and comms. B4nny always finds a way to be close enough to do massive damage while being far enough away that he can't be killed. He's demonstrated that he can play any class at an Invite level, and he uses that knowledge to continue to improve himself as a player.
The other key to this team is Shade, who was the best Medic in the regular season. Shade has won the ESEA LAN three times alongside B4nny in Seasons 7, 9, and 11. The two of them have created a strong bond and great chemistry over the years, and it must be comforting for the both of them. Shade's strengths are his ubers, positioning, and escapes. He is an extremely well rounded player, and I expect nothing less than the best from him at LAN.
Lansky, the Pocket, is the youngest member of the team. His Invite debut was actually in Season 7 for Apoplexy Industries, but most people remember him as a Roamer on Classic Mixup in Season 11 where his team placed 2nd to B4nny's team, Quantic Gaming. However, after joining forces with B4nny, Lansky has made a seamless transition to Pocket and has done well since then. Despite his twiggy physique, Lansky has proven himself to be one of the strongest Pockets in North America. He's also the only pocket going to LAN that doesn't play "short leash"; this means that while he still receives a majority of the heals, he doesn't always need to stay at 300 and feels free to jump away from his Medic when it's appropriate. It's tough to shine when you're backed up by Shade and B4nny, but Lansky holds his own well. Having had many conversations with him, I can tell you that he is an integral part of he team's various strategies and playcalling. Because he is new to the well-oiled machine that B4nny and Shade have created, Lansky spends a lot of time hashing things out with B4nny. Despite Lansky's great play during the regular season, however, he is still a bit of a question mark for HRG. From what I've heard, he didn't do too well at the Season 11 LAN, and he really shut down under the LAN atmosphere, resulting in "zero comms and extreme nervousness". Lansky is a young guy, and if that happens again, HRG will be in a ton of trouble. It's one thing for your Roamer to do it, but a completely different thing for it to happen to your Pocket Soldier. Still, I don't think that that will happen this season. Lansky has grown from that experience, and he will be prepared for this upcoming LAN.
It wouldn't be a proper write-up if I didn't mention everyone's favorite BrownBear™ Cyzer. Cyzer has been playing with B4nny for five straight seasons, and over that time they've built up a lot of chemistry. Cyzer originally played the passive Scout role when Clockwork was on the team, but since the departure, Cyzer has had to switch to the aggressive Scout role to accommodate Shrugger. I personally don't think that the role suits him that well -- he has some great moments, but nobody ever looks at the roster and says to himself, "oh wow I bet Cyzer is going to destroy this game". When you think of Scouts who will win you a match, you think of Ruwin, Yz50, or Cyzer's ex-scout partner Clockwork. While Cyzer had been at the top of the game for a very long time, I can't help but think that that little bit of pizzazz is missing from the team. Best case scenario? Cyzer holds his own and doesn't fail his team. Worse case scenario? Cyzer can't match up to the Scout prowess of the other teams and cleanup becomes an issue for HRG. If Cyzer can find a way to shine in these matches, HRG stands a great chance to win LAN. That being said, I think he stands a great chance of being overrun.
Shrugger is jokingly known by many as a cheater because his aim is so incredibly good. He came onto the scene relatively recently and immediately rose to the top as a result of his natural talent (of course, I use the term natural loosely because he does spend a lot of time practicing his DM). Still, people can't help but bring up memories of Shrugger's first ESEA LAN, where he had a mediocre performance that left PYYYOUR wondering if he was healing an Open team. Casters will typically say something like, "Shrugger is one of the best Scouts ONLINE..." It is that exact statement that makes everyone wonder whether or not he can transfer his skills to LAN. Rumors are that he forgot to bring the proper computer accessories to the last LAN (such as his mouse) and that is why he performed so poorly. We also need to remember that it wasn't the first time that a player has gone to LAN and had a poor performance only to come back the second time better than ever (i.e. Blaze). Shrugger has had some time to think and practice since then, including a showing at the recent ETS LAN, a for-fun LAN in Montreal, Quebec. I honestly think that Shrugger will do very well come April -- his timings are near perfect, and I expect him to capitalize when it's needed. However, if he has another poor showing, it's curtains for HRG.
Last, but not least, is Taggerung. Streamer extraordinaire, Tagg has proved to be one of the strongest Roamers in the division. His style can be described as a standard support style, helping to break the flank and jump in with the team when needed. He knows when to suicide, but also prefers to stay alive and keep the numbers up for HRG. If you all can remember, Tagg actually played Roamer for Chess Club last season, and while they had a mediocre showing at LAN, Tagg still managed to get enough frags for his Postseason highlight reel. With Blaze out of the picture, Taggerung was the strongest roamer in the division during the regular season. He will again be the strongest Roamer when facing off against Classic Mixup and The Chess Club, and he needs to take advantage of that if he wants his team to win those matches.
Summary: HRG is technically the team to beat in the Postseason with their undefeated record. They have never lost a map in regulated play, but I expect that to change come LAN. When matched up to the other LAN teams, their strongest assets are their Demo, Medic, and Roamer. Their biggest liabilities are their Scouts. It's all on Cyzer to show that he can put up big numbers and for Shrugger to prove that he's just as good on LAN as he is online. In addition, Lansky cannot afford to choke at this LAN, but if online scrims are any indication of things to come, Lansky will out-damage B4nny and exceed expectations. If things get dicey, B4nny can activate what I think of as his "next" level play, where he literally does everything for everyone. But going Super Saiyan might not be enough. While their conservative playstyle worked well for them in the regular season, they purposely didn't take advantage of some key opportunities, opting to wait for the opposing team to make a mistake. That playstyle isn't going to cut it in the Postseason. I want to see a team go all out in order to win LAN, and I am not sure that HRG is going into LAN with the mindset that they are going to win. After "breaking up" with Tyrone, B4nny put together this team of young players with the idea that they will stay together for many seasons. While they may win LAN in Season 14, I don't think that it will happen this season. I predict HRG to finish in 3rd Place.
Record -- 13-3
RF-RA -- 60-18
[Medic]
Harbleu [Demo]
Platinum [Pocket]
TLR [Roamer]
Enigma [Scout]
Ruwin [Scout]
Yz50
Classic Mixup is the favorite to win the Season 13 LAN. This probably isn't the first time that you've heard it, but if it is, it's a shocker. Or is it? Classic Mixup has been around since Season 9, and while players have come and gone, the bulk of the roster has mostly remained the same. Ever since that first season, the Classic Mixup roster lead by Platinum had traded wins with the eMazing Gaming/Dashner/Quantic Gaming/Leviathan Gaming roster led by Tyrone. If the cycle continues, HRG will win this season. However, it looked like the cycle would finally be broken last season, when Platinum, Ruwin, Enigma, TLR, Harbleu, and PYYYOUR came together to form the super team that won i46 last summer. This ultimately led to B4nny's unhappiness with Tyrone and the resulting split created bp. The majority of the super team is still there, with one small adjustment -- Yz50 has stepped in to replace PYYYOUR, who left to make LASER BEAMS/Fully Torqued.
This begs the question -- if Classic Mixup is still a super team, why did bp go undefeated in the regular season? The answer seems to be that Classic Mixup didn't care about the regular season. Ruwin had to take care of some real life stuff, and TLR was playing DOTA 2 of all things. In addition, there was some mid-season roster shuffling, which led to Harbleu on Medic and Moose on Roamer in a few matches. Sadly, the members of Classic Mixup hardly played TF2 at all throughout the course of the season. Yet even without practice, Classic Mixup was still leagues ahead of any of the other Invite teams save HRG, and they were able to qualify for LAN easily.
OK so Classic Mixup switched their roster around a lot -- what is their final lineup now? It turns out that Harbleu is a better Medic for TLR than Ruwin is. TLR needs a lot of heals and plays "short leash", and he previously Pocketed Harbleu back in Season 8 on the legendary team Check Six. While Harbleu is a fine Roamer, Ruwin makes for an even scarier and stronger Scout. With nowhere left to go, poor Enigma is moved to Roamer. Still, even though Enigma is off-classing, his team functions extremely well.
Classic Mixup's style is about calculated risk and aggression. Their playstyle is pressure-based; they keep putting pressure on you until you buckle and make a mistake. Once you make that mistake, they will snowball it until it becomes something much bigger. In a class-by-class comparison, they match or beat the DM ability of every other team at LAN (and the world), and this gives them the confidence that they need to take on any fight. They aren't afraid to commit to an engagement, and when they do commit, they are all-in. Plays that shouldn't work sometimes do just because Mixup moves so swiftly that it catches teams off-guard.
Unlike HRG, the super team that is Classic Mixup doesn't rely on any one player to do the work. Platinum is the only person in North America whose Demoman skills can match that of B4nny; Platinum and B4nny are undoubtedly the two best players in the world and match up evenly in my mind. The difference is, Platinum's team is stronger. While B4nny has to scramble to help his teammates do their jobs, Platinum can focus on performing his role, and that frees him up to make plays. Platinum can position himself perfectly from a distance, but he also isn't scared to sticky-jump in and get his hands dirty every once in a while to assist in the team fights.
As a Medic main, I've been watching a TON of Harbleu over the last couple weeks. Harbleu is my favorite player, so I may be a bit biased, but he is definitely a better Medic than Shade. Harbleu is not only the winningest player of all time with four LAN wins, but he (along with TLR) was on two different teams that went undefeated in Invite. His distancing, heal distribution, and movement are top-notch, but what makes his play so good are his ubers -- you can count on Mixup to have good ubers all the time. Watch for Harbleu to switch to Kritzkrieg when both Medics die, especially after a midfight has ended. He's not afraid to give his own life to make a push happen, but he isn't careless either. He has a cool head and performs well under pressure, and I think that Harbleu's aggressive Medic play will undoubtedly be a key to Classic Mixup's success.
TLR used to be the butt of many a horse-joke, but it has been almost two years since the Season 8 LAN and people seemed to have forgotten about that by now. What people haven't forgotten about are TLR's airshotting abilities. They've gotten a little rusty due to lack of practice, but Tyler is a naturally talented player who can pick those skills back up easily. What makes him most dangerous is not his DM but his ubers. Although I praised Harbleu for his ubers, TLR is really the star of the show. Watch a POV demo of TLR and you'll see that he always manages to do something with his ubers; an eight second solo uber can seem like a lifetime as he bounces around the screen forcing flashes, finding ways to do damage, and positioning his team to win the team fight. The break between the regular season and the Postseason has never been longer, and TLR has plenty of time to practice and get into shape.
I could talk for days about the Scouts for Classic Mixup, but I'll try to keep it short. These guys are legends. Every TF2 player knows something about them no matter what country you live in. Needless to say, Ruwin and Yz50 are two of the best Scouts to ever play the game, and I know for a fact that the Europeans would be terrified to see Ruwin at i49. DM? Incredible. Positioning and timings? Near perfect. Reflexes and decision making skills? Superhuman. How can you match up to these guys? The scouts that come closest are Clockwork and Boomer; Cyzer, if he is hot, can match up in a Scout v. Scout fight. The Scouts in Invite are superb, but Ruwin and Yz50 are next level -- with them, Classic Mixup has two out of the three best scouts in North America. TLR and Platinum will be opening up plays, but Ruwin and Yz50 will ultimately be the ones cleaning it all up and making it look easy.
The only weakness, if you can call it that, is Enigma on Roamer. Enigma has been playing Scout since the very first season of ESEA, Season 2, and don't forget that he was playing in CEVO-P too. Founder of TFTV, Enigma has seen more games of TF2 than anyone else I know. With all of that experience, how can this be a weakpoint? The lack of practice. This swap to Roamer is something that I see as a result of necessity and is by no means ideal. Still, Enigma will be able to hold his own as Roamer. I'm not expecting crazy plays, and I'd probably peg him as the weakest Roamer heading into LAN. His strengths will be his experience and decision making. His weakness will be his DM. But as long as he can shoot the ground, I'm sure he's at least as good as Visitor :p. All jokes aside, Roamer is clearly an offclass for Enigma, and I know that if you spectate him on LAN it will look like he's offclassing.
Summary: Classic Mixup aren't the same team that they were last season, but they're close. They've retained most of their roster, and with a bit of shuffling they look like they will have a strong team for LAN. They could use some practice and polishing, but they are still the favorites to win and have plenty of time to prepare. Classic Mixup have the most LAN wins, the most LAN veterans, and the most experience out of any other team. Even if any team could match up to Classic Mixup in a class-to-class comparison, Mixup would still win because they are the only LAN team to live from Season 12. It is also important to keep in mind that the i49 fundraiser has started and at this point it looks like North America will be sending one team to the largest TF2 tournament in the world in August. Classic Mixup won't want to miss out on a free trip to Europe, and I expect them to put their trypants on to make it happen. The Chess Club and HRG will probably put up some good rounds and may even take a map or two, but I expect Classic Mixup's super team prowess to shine through and prove to everyone why North Americans are the best TF2ers in the world. I predict Classic Mixup to finish in 1st Place.
Record -- 9-7
RF-RA -- 42-43
[Medic]
Kbk [Demo]
Alfa [Pocket]
Tri [Roamer]
Visitor [Scout]
Clockwork [Scout]
Boomer
I love The Chess Club! They're extremely entertaining to watch, and if you've ever seen Tri's stream, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. The team is a mash-up of different styles, but the blend is perfect and they've actually become one of the better teams in the division. Originally, most people thought that the three teams that would definitely qualify for LAN would be Classic Mixup/HRG/Fully Torqued with the fourth spot being "up for grabs". Chess Club turned that sentiment around and barely came out on top over Fully Torqued, earning themselves the 3rd seed with a 9-7 record. A lot of people will attribute this to their easy schedule; they only had to play bp and Classic Mixup twice each while Xensity, the fifth place team, had to play them three times each. Still, after replacing Weeble with Clockwork, the roster has become very well-rounded, and I expect them to have a surprisingly strong showing at LAN.
Chess |
a level comparable to President Richard Nixon’s administration.
Understanding all this, Risen has boldly stated he is willing to go to jail and will not give up this fight. He has the full support of media organizations (even though US media are not adequately calling attention to this story when developments like this occur).
A New York Times reporter is headed to the Supreme Court because the government has relentlessly pursued him since he refuses to testify against his source (which, if done, might compromise his ability to effectively practice national security journalism ever again).
Your move, President Obama.In one of my latest blogs, I’ve explained what convergence is, how Plasma benefits from it, and why we consider it a goal for Plasma. This time around, I’ll explain the how, how it works across the stack and how we implemented it. Naturally, this article dives a lot deeper, technically, than my previous one.
Convergence plays a role at different levels of the whole software stack. In this, more technical article, I’ll look at different layers of the software stack, from boot/kernel and middleware to UI controls and overall layout and input methods. After reading this article, you’ll understand how Plasma allows to use the same software on a range of devices, which parts are different, and where code sharing makes sense, and thus happens.
Keep in mind that Convergence, at least for Plasma, doesn’t mean that we ship a lowest-common denominator UI so it “kind of” runs on all things computer, but that it provides a toolbox to build customized UIs that allow taking advantage of specific characteristics of a given target device.
Lower Levels and Packaging
One aspect of convergence that is of course the deployment side. This doesn’t just include the kernel and bootloader, which needs to be compiled differently for ARM devices and for x86 devices. The rest of the stack is by now largely the same. We are now using the same set of packages and CI for both, mobile and desktop builds, in fact most packages are the same, and the difference between a device set up for mobile use cases and desktop is the selection of packages, and what gets started by default. Everything is integrated to a very large degree, lots of work is shared which means timely updates across the device spectrum we serve.
Controls
When it comes to user interface controls, such as buttons, text fields, etc., convergence is mostly a solved problem. Touch input is possible, Qt nowadays even ships a virtual keyboard (which Plasma uses for example for password input in the lock-screen), and buttons react to touch events as well. QtQuick-based user interfaces often work quite well with both, keyboard/mouse and touch input, in fact touch is one of the design goals of QtQuick.
Not everything is perfect yet, however, especially text selection and keyboard control of QtQuick-based UIs often still requires custom-code, meaning it needs more development and maintainance time to get right. QWidget-based UIs are still a bit ahead of the game here, though often the benefits of also being able to deploy an app on touch devices (such as many Android devices out there!) make QtQuick an attractive technology to use. We see more and more QtQuick-based applications, as this technology matures also for desktop use-cases.
Widgets
Plasma is made of widgets. Even in a standard Plasma desktop, everything is a widget: The menu in the bottom left is a widget, the task manager is, the system tray is a widget, and there are widgets inside the system tray for notifications, battery, sound, network, etc.. Plasma is widgets.
These widgets can be used on any device of course, but it doesn’t always make sense. Some of these widgets are very specific for desktops. The task-manager (that thing you use to switch windows, which is usually located in center of the bottom panel) doesn’t really make sense on a mobile device. For a mobile device, which needs larger areas to touch, something more aking to a full-screen window switcher is useful (and in fact what we use for Plasma Mobile). Other widgets, such as the network connections widget or battery and brightness widgets are perfectly suitable also for mobile devices. Plasma’s architecture allows us to re-use the components that need no or just little changes and use them across devices. That means we can concentrate on the missing bits for each device, and that in turn means we can deliver a feature-rich and consistent UI across devices much easier, while making sure the specific characteristics of a given form-factor are used to their fullest extent.
Again, by sharing the components that make sense to share, we can deliver higher quality features for a given devices with less effort, and thus quicker.
Shell and Look & Feel
Plasma can dynamically load different so-called shell packages. The shell package defines the overall layout of the workspace environment. On the desktop, it says that there’s a fullscreen wallpaper background, with a folderview, a panel at the bottom and the widgets which are loaded into that panel: application launcher, task-manager, system tray and clock for example.
The shell package is different for each device, as this defines the overall workflow, which is highly dependent on the type of device.
To take differences between devices even further, Plasma has the concept of “Look and Feel” packages, which allow further specilialization how a device, well, looks and feels. There’s the widget style and the wallpaper of course. The Look and feel package also defines interaction patterns, such as if a settings interface should use “instant apply” when a setting is changed, or if it should present an “Apply and Okay” button for the user to save settings. Mobile devices typically use instant apply, while desktop interfaces (at least Plasma’s) use the “Apply and Okay” concept throughout. For Plasma UIs, this can be changed dynamically. Plasma’s Look and Feel features is not just useful in the convergence aspect, it allows also for example to switch between a traditional default Plasma setup and a workspace that closely resembles Unity. These “Look and Feel” packages are available through the KDE store, so they’re easy to install and share. There’s even a cool tool that allows you to create your own Look and Feel packages, very much like themes.
Apps
Finally, at application level, we see more and more convergent applications. Kirigami, a high-level toolkit that supplied components for consistent, touch- and keyboard/mouse-friendly application nagivation and layout makes it very easy to create applications with responsive UIs that adapt well to screen size and density and that show flexibility in their input methods. This doesn’t just work between Laptops and phones, but also allows to create one app that works equally well on desktops, laptops, phones and tablets.
Kirigami complements Plasma’s convergence feature on application side, and we recommend it for most newly developed apps. With Qt and QtQuick being a viable target for Android devices, it increases the possible target audience by a very large degree. As an example, Subsurface Mobile, an application for scuba divers, uses Kirigami and works on Linux desktops, Android and iOS, all from the same code-base.
Make it happen…
If you like the idea of convergence, why not join KDE and help us work on Plasma? Perhaps you’d love to see Plasma on a mobile phone? In that case, consider backing the crowdfunding campaign for the librem5 so we can build a convergent phone!Sixteen Alberta men have been arrested on charges relating to child pornography following a three-month investigation, police said Thursday.
The arrests were made in Calgary, Red Deer, Airdrie and Strathmore, as part of an operation carried out by the internet child exploitation unit of the Alberta Law Enforcement Response Teams (ALERT).
"All of the individuals arrested possessed significant amounts of child-exploitation material, some of it extremely graphic in nature," said Insp. Dave Dubnyk.
The operation also led police to identify two underage victims of child luring.
Dubbed "Operation Icebreaker," the initiative saw 25 search warrants executed between April 5 and June 1.
More than 500 computers and other types of digital devices were seized.
These hard drives and digital devices were seized as part of the police operation that led to the arrest of 16 men on child pornography charges. (Alberta Law Enforcement Response Teams)
Forensic analysts continue to comb through the data on the seized devices and, so far, about 6,800 photos and videos containing child pornography have been identified, police said.
Some of the images included victims as young as infants, according to police.
Det. Sean Spence said about 160 of the 500 devices have been examined and roughly 28,000 gigabytes of data was found on those devices.
About 19 million images have been examined so far, said Spence, who choked up at points when describing what was found among those images.
"It's important to understand that these images and videos are a crime in progress," he said.
"They're difficult to watch and get through. They are children that are being sexually assaulted."
Calgary police Det. Sean Spence choked up at points as he described the nature of the images found on hundreds of devices seized by police in an operation that led to 16 child pornography arrests. (Jullie Debeljak/CBC)
The victims ranged in age from babies to 17 years old, Spence said, while the images depicted activities ranging from children being touched in an inappropriate manner to "graphic sexual abuse."
"In one circumstance, in an investigation that is still being followed up with, an individual was in possession of a known video where two children were brutally, sexually assaulted and murdered," he said.
Arrests and charges
The 16 people arrested are facing a total of 56 child pornography-related charges.
They are:
Adam Adler, 39, of Calgary.
Marvin Agboro, 18, of Strathmore.
Darian Blanchard, 21, of Red Deer.
Brent Bulycz, 42, of Calgary.
Curtis Brock, 27, of Airdrie.
Yency Gomez, 38, of Calgary.
Andrew Halliday, 28, of Red Deer.
Ryland Jacklin, 28, of Airdrie.
Kyle Jacobson, 32, of Calgary.
Devin Lamont, 27, of Calgary.
Mikael Macek, 25, of Calgary.
Brandon McKnight, 23, of Calgary.
Ole Olsen, 38, of Calgary.
David Steele, 44, of Calgary.
John Stewart, 47, of Calgary.
A 16-year-old young offender from Calgary who cannot be named.
Other than the similarity of the offences, police said none of the cases are linked.
Spence said more charges are possible as investigators continue going through the seized data, a process that could take months.
Members of the Calgary Police Service, Edmonton Police Service, Lethbridge Police Service, Medicine Hat Police Service, and RCMP work as part of ALERT.With two years or more to wait for delivery, you’d be forgiven for just waiting until you naturally wake up on Thursday rather than setting an alarm to wake up and head to a Tesla showroom to put your money down for a Tesla Model 3.
But colour him keen – Andreas Stephens is going to queue outside for 48 hours to put his name down, Trevor Long from EFTM writes.
It’s a scene reminiscent of Apple Stores around the world ahead of the release of new flagship products from the tech giant, and while it’s a first for Tesla in Australia, there are plenty of parallels between these two modern giants of technology.
Both have a hugely dedicated fan-base, both innovate in new products, and both have a new and direct retail channel allowing those very fans to queue out the front – or around the block.
On Thursday at 8am when the Tesla Showroom on Sydney’s Lower North Shore in Artarmon opens up, Andreas Stephens will be the first man inside.
He’ll put down a holding deposit of around $1,500 to secure his place in the queue for the yet to be announced Tesla Model 3.
The Model 3 will be revealed in a live event on Friday afternoon Australian time. Until then, we – and that includes Andreas – have no idea what the Model 3 even looks like, what its features and inclusions are, what its electric driving range will be and, perhaps critically, what the price will be.
But that’s not stopping him. As the owner of a Toyota Corolla Seca right now, Andreas doesn’t even have a garage. “I’ve got two years to build one,” he says.
He credits his 19-year-old son with putting him onto the story of Tesla – the very same son who will likely be keen for a drive in dad’s Model 3 when he’s 21 years old.
Of course, Andreas is also aware he won’t be the first person in Australia to own a Model 3 – priority in the queue will go to current owners of a Model S, but still, his queuing up to be one of the first is a story he’s keen to share with his grandkids in the future.
Oh, and as for price, Andreas shares my view – the Model 3 will likely cost between $65,000 and $70,000 when it arrives in Australia in 2018.
In the meantime, let’s hope it doesn’t get too cold or wet. Andreas doesn’t have a tent, just a warm coat and a book. His iPhone battery isn’t that great so he’s likely to struggle to keep in touch with family while he’s there.
Fortunately the Tesla staff have looked after him with coffee – and a ride in the Tesla Model S.
Read more at EFTM and follow them on Facebook.
Business Insider Emails & Alerts Site highlights each day to your inbox. Email Address Join
Follow Business Insider Australia on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.The Centre on Thursday announced that demonetised Rs 500 notes will not be accepted by the Railways, buses or metros after December 10, ANI reported. The move means that the public will not be able to use the discontinued notes across major transportation networks in the country. The government had earlier said that people could use the scrapped notes in the public transport sector till the midnight of December 15.
On December 5, it was announced that demonetised notes of Rs 500 would be accepted at all toll plazas across National Highways till December 15. The country has been grappling with a cash crunch, with the Reserve Bank of India and Centre’s repeated revision of rules to exchange the scrapped notes. On November 27, RBI Governor Urjit Patel said the bank was “taking all necessary actions to ease the genuine pain of the citizens who are honest and have been hurt” by the move.lefix Profile Joined February 2011 Germany 1081 Posts Last Edited: 2014-06-01 08:29:16 #1
May 2014 is slowly coming to an end, and we are getting closer to finding out who will claim the first place! And for the first time, the winner will be picked by the community instead of a judge panel! Because this was the first MotM competition in a long time, we are made an exception - considering maps from not just this month, but the last 3 months.
That meant we had alot of maps to consider, making it a difficult task picking the maps to vote on. Rarely have I seen that much quality in the MotM submissions, which really shows how much mapmakers has improved over the years.
I have consulted with some veteran mapmakers and people close to the mapmaking community in order to make the decision. Here are the maps we have agreed on, in no particular order. Make sure you also visit the map threads for more information and discussion about these maps!
Coriolis by -NegativeZero-
+ Show Spoiler +
Coriolis was already one of the crowd favorites in last TLMC. Unfortunately it did not make it into the finalists then, but it did this time.
Map Thread
Sol Dios by NewSunshine
+ Show Spoiler +
As usual, Sol Dios is another very well made map by NewSunshine. The proportions are spot on, the details are beautiful. Overall great work that paid off once again.
Map Thread
Nimbus by Icetoad
+ Show Spoiler +
Nimbus has been around for a while. Alot of work has been put into this map, in collaboration with several other mapmakers. After feedback received from the last TLMC, the map underwent some changes again to make it even better.
Map Thread
Silt by Samro225am
+ Show Spoiler +
Noone has ever made as many finalist maps as Samro225am. With every competition, he pumps out a new beauty. Silt is no exception!
Map Thread
Samsara RE by eTcetRa
+ Show Spoiler +
Like Coriolis, Samsara RE impresses with a simplistic, brilliant concept and design.
Like Nimbus, the map has been further improved Since the last TLMC.
Map Thread
May the best map win!
Voting has closed!
Results will be posted soon.
is slowly coming to an end, and we are getting closer to finding out who will claim the first place! And for the first time, the winner will be picked by the community instead of a judge panel! Because this was the first MotM competition in a long time, we are made an exception - considering maps from not just this month, but the last 3 months.That meant we had alot of maps to consider, making it a difficult task picking the maps to vote on. Rarely have I seen that much quality in the MotM submissions, which really shows how much mapmakers has improved over the years.I have consulted with some veteran mapmakers and people close to the mapmaking community in order to make the decision. Here are the maps we have agreed on, in no particular order. Make sure you also visit the map threads for more information and discussion about these maps!by -NegativeZero-Coriolis was already one of the crowd favorites in last TLMC. Unfortunately it did not make it into the finalists then, but it did this time.by NewSunshineAs usual, Sol Dios is another very well made map by NewSunshine. The proportions are spot on, the details are beautiful. Overall great work that paid off once again.by IcetoadNimbus has been around for a while. Alot of work has been put into this map, in collaboration with several other mapmakers. After feedback received from the last TLMC, the map underwent some changes again to make it even better.by Samro225amNoone has ever made as many finalist maps as Samro225am. With every competition, he pumps out a new beauty. Silt is no exception!by eTcetRaLike Coriolis, Samsara RE impresses with a simplistic, brilliant concept and design.Like Nimbus, the map has been further improved Since the last TLMC.May the best map win!Voting has closed!Results will be posted soon. Map of the Month | The Planetary Workshop | SC2Melee.net
Plexa Profile Blog Joined October 2005 Aotearoa 38174 Posts #2 For me this is hard choice between Samsara and Nimbus t_t all five are of a high quality though! Administrator ~ Spirit will set you free ~
algue Profile Joined July 2011 France 1346 Posts Last Edited: 2014-05-28 13:59:18 #3
For example :
It would be better if you gave us more details about your reasons to choose the map. Share the knowledge guys, I want to improve my maps!For example : Noone has ever made as many finalist maps as Samro225am. With every competition, he pumps out a new beauty. Silt is no exception!
The map is beautiful but i'd like to know why it's better than many other maps. The map is beautiful but i'd like to know why it's better than many other maps. rly?
Fearlezz Profile Joined April 2010 Croatia 176 Posts #4 Voted for Nimbus, although I secretly hoped that Foxtrot Labs makes it through
Phaenoman Profile Joined February 2013 568 Posts Last Edited: 2014-05-28 15:11:09 #5 Yea, I would also like to know why u picked these Top 5. If u could explain ur thoughts a little instead of wasting words on praising how good the maps are without any argumentation. I am sure algue and me are not the only ones that want to know: why? Random is hard work dude...
And G Profile Joined May 2012 Germany 491 Posts #6 On May 23 2014 07:02 Samro225am wrote:
btw: if i'd win, i would refund completely motm needs to be stronger than ever btw: if i'd win, i would refund completelymotm needs to be stronger than ever
I'm not particularly crazy about any of the shortlisted maps. So... dear mapmakers, why should I vote for your map? What would you do with the prize money?
Or, if you feel I should simply vote for the best map: What makes your map stand out from the rest? What sort of ingenuity is hidden that is not immediately obvious from the overview? Why is your map more racially and positionally balanced than the other maps and will also lead to more exciting games?
Why should my only vote go to you?
(Feel free to also explain why all other maps except yours are terrible.) I'm not particularly crazy about any of the shortlisted maps. So... dear mapmakers, why should I vote for your map? What would you do with the prize money?Or, if you feel I should simply vote for the best map: What makes your map stand out from the rest? What sort of ingenuity is hidden that is not immediately obvious from the overview? Why is your map more racially and positionally balanced than the other maps and will also lead to more exciting games?Why should my only vote go to(Feel free to also explain why all other maps except yours are terrible.) not a community mapmaker
eTcetRa Profile Joined November 2010 Australia 816 Posts #7 Each mapmaker could sell their own map to you but that is not really the point here. I'm not going to tell anyone what to vote for.
Figure out what you think is the best, and vote. Retired Mapmaker™
algue Profile Joined July 2011 France 1346 Posts #8 On May 29 2014 00:39 eTcetRa wrote:
Each mapmaker could sell their own map to you but that is not really the point here. I'm not going to tell anyone what to vote for.
Figure out what you think is the best, and vote.
It's always good to have a debate before voting for something. I'm just a diamond player and I can't say if any of these maps would be suitable for a bronze or a GM player. I'd like to hear the judges point of view since they are the ones who chose the maps among the others. It's always good to have a debate before voting for something. I'm just a diamond player and I can't say if any of these maps would be suitable for a bronze or a GM player. I'd like to hear the judges point of view since they are the ones who chose the maps among the others. rly?
Existor Profile Joined July 2010 Russian Federation 4282 Posts #9
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-maps/444950-4-esv-burnt-ice
Also there are so many other nice maps
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-maps/451198-2-ktv-xelnaga-ashes
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-maps/451113-2-leviathan-hive
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-maps/451218-4-ktv-foxtrot-labs-se
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-maps/413715-8-crux-breeze
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-maps/451207-4-dual-darkness
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-maps/451171-4-frozen-dreams
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-maps/451153-4-aem-sun-and-mirror
Why there is no this map with ice and lava?Also there are so many other nice maps
moskonia Profile Joined January 2011 Israel 1448 Posts #10 Is there going to be a tournament with the finalists? Would love to play in one.
And G Profile Joined May 2012 Germany 491 Posts Last Edited: 2014-05-28 18:38:59 #11 On May 29 2014 02:10 algue wrote:
It's always good to have a debate before voting for something.
Mmmh... I was going to post a short paragraph on each map outlining what I consider its strong and weak points, but I think it's better if I don't. ^^ Mmmh... I was going to post a short paragraph on each map outlining what I consider its strong and weak points, but I think it's better if I don't. ^^ not a community mapmaker
algue Profile Joined July 2011 France 1346 Posts #12 On May 29 2014 03:38 And G wrote:
Show nested quote +
On May 29 2014 02:10 algue wrote:
It's always good to have a debate before voting for something.
Mmmh... I was going to post a short paragraph on each map outlining what I consider its strong and weak points, but I think it's better if I don't. ^^ Mmmh... I was going to post a short paragraph on each map outlining what I consider its strong and weak points, but I think it's better if I don't. ^^
Let me rephrase then, the word "debate" is too strong. Let's say :
"It's always good to have some food for thought before voting for something"
Go ahead Let me rephrase then, the word "debate" is too strong. Let's say :"It's always good to have some food for thought before voting for something"Go ahead rly?
Knatterking Profile Joined April 2014 Germany 404 Posts #13 I voted for Silt. Looks alright, not the most beautiful map around, but I really like the layout.
Big J Profile Joined March 2011 Austria 16156 Posts #14 Coriolis for me. It takes risks in design but they look possible to pull off. That's what Im looking for in maps.
Tuczniak Profile Joined September 2010 1560 Posts #15 Nimbus for me. Others have problems considering 3rd distance and chokiness. Sol Dios could be good too. Coriolis is interesting, but probably not for tournament and even serious ladder play.
EatThePath Profile Blog Joined September 2009 United States 3939 Posts Last Edited: 2014-05-28 22:45:13 #16
No offense at negzero, but I wish people would get off it about Coriolis already. I don't think it does what you think it does. It forces a degenerate metagame (not ideal imo) and presents no expansion pattern options unless you count antics in cross spawns, so it will be running in the same wagon rut every time it's played, i.e. fight over the middle unless someone wants to try and turtle or all in. I know that sounds open ended, but given the middle and route design there just aren't many options. Overall it just feels like it shunts the gameplay into a fairly tight spectrum. While it might provide action, or even "back and forth" dynamics, that will all be within a preconceived funnel, so it doesn't appeal much to me. It's too bad and really I would like the map idea to work but I don't think it does quite like we want it to with SC2. This is, of course, just my view -- but I'd be interested in hearing the opposing side.
Sol Dios will be great for the first 15-20 minutes and then it will have a dirty crunchy desperate lategame with all the close-to-enemy 5th+ base options. I feel like this a lot lately about some of the maps the "veterans" make... they would be perfect if they were just a little bigger and spacier.
Nimbus is definitely the best it's ever been, really reminds of a good SC2 analogue for some of the BW maps with the highgrounds-around-the-center style. Might be the healthiest in-base nat design I've seen.
Again samro tickles me with his style. There are so many things I like about Silt but I think a lot of them are just my personal design taste. However I think most would agree objectively that the pieces fit together very nicely on this map and it should get a lot of credit for that, even though I think that sort of synergy is due to "luck" or "finding" it rather than "creating" it, but that is why we make lots of things -- to discover the good ones. I think there is a lot of space on this map for strategic development if it had a 2-3 season lifetime in competitive use. It's nice to see a design that leverages a compensatory gimmick (mineral blocks) in order to do something that wouldn't work otherwise (too short nat2nat) without having the gimmick stand out awkwardly.
If you insist on having a Metropolis style map in SC2, then Samsara is a good choice, a very very good choice. That's about all I can say.
In the spirit of the poll style I will not say my vote until after the results are visible, but I will say that each except Coriolis really was in contention for me, and even including it they all have good reasons they could "win". Going to post thoughts as they come and edit them in.No offense at negzero, but I wish people would get off it aboutalready. I don't think it does what you think it does.It forces a degenerate metagame (not ideal imo) and presents no expansion pattern options unless you count antics in cross spawns, so it will be running in the same wagon rut every time it's played, i.e. fight over the middle unless someone wants to try and turtle or all in. I know that sounds open ended, but given the middle and route design there just aren't many options. Overall it just feels like it shunts the gameplay into a fairly tight spectrum. While it might provide action, or even "back and forth" dynamics, that will all be within a preconceived funnel, so it doesn't appeal much to me. It's too bad and really I would like the map idea to work but I don't think it does quite like we want it to with SC2. This is, of course, just my view -- but I'd be interested in hearing the opposing side.will be great for the first 15-20 minutes and then it will have a dirty crunchy desperate lategame with all the close-to-enemy 5th+ base options. I feel like this a lot lately about some of the maps the "veterans" make... they would be perfect if they were just abigger and spacier.is definitely the best it's ever been, really reminds of a good SC2 analogue for some of the BW maps with the highgrounds-around-the-center style. Might be the healthiest in-base nat design I've seen.Again samro tickles me with his style. There are so many things I like aboutbut I think a lot of them are just my personal design taste. However I think most would agree objectively that the pieces fit together very nicely on this map and it should get a lot of credit for that, even though I think that sort of synergy is due to "luck" or "finding" it rather than "creating" it, but that is why we make lots of things -- to discover the good ones. I think there is a lot of space on this map for strategic development if it had a 2-3 season lifetime in competitive use. It's nice to see a design that leverages a compensatory gimmick (mineral blocks) in order to do something that wouldn't work otherwise (too short nat2nat) without having the gimmick stand out awkwardly.If you insist on having a Metropolis style map in SC2, thenis a good choice, a very very good choice. That's about all I can say.In the spirit of the poll style I will not say my vote until after the results are visible, but I will say that each except Coriolis really was in contention for me, and even including it they all have good reasons they could "win". Comprehensive strategic intention: DNE
Samro225am Profile Joined August 2010 Germany 981 Posts Last Edited: 2014-05-28 22:38:33 #17 On May 28 2014 22:55 algue wrote:
It would be better if you gave us more details about your reasons to choose the map. Share the knowledge guys, I want to improve my maps!
For example :
Show nested quote +
Noone has ever made as many finalist maps as Samro225am. With every competition, he pumps out a new beauty. Silt is no exception!
The map is beautiful but i'd like to know why it's better than many other maps. It would be better if you gave us more details about your reasons to choose the map. Share the knowledge guys, I want to improve my maps!For example :The map is beautiful but i'd like to know why it's better than many other maps.
I cannot speak for or against other maps, but as you picked my map as an example i can explain what i tried to achieve with the map's design for Silt. It is up to you to decide if you think these ideas are interesting and executed well, yet i am happy if this helps you decide on what map to vote for.
layout
is a bit bigger than whirlwind.
provides two positionally quite balanced thirds to expand away to.
has a bit longer distances which also counter balances the a bit further away thirds.
gold bases in central positions, tempting - and entertaining - enough, but not as much a 'forced' base as on antiga shipyard or xel naga caverns.
provides multiple paths to position, flank and outmaneuver the opponent or do multi pronged attacks.
has an open plateau between each base.
provides chokes in the very centre to create more separation between the golds - chokes far away from home work differently than on your thirds
mixes open plateaus, logical rhythm of ramps and tighter chokes in the very centre to cut the map into various areas of control.
adds a gold-blocked secret passage between the third and third/fourth base.
visuals
designed as a wasteland - an underused environment in HotS
provide an easy to look at texture work yet well executed details
give different areas a distinctive look and feel
clearly separate high- and low grounds
presents a unique and balanced custom tile set (details, structures, colors)
before you decide on what map to vote for, check out the map threads and the discussions there and go and play the maps! enjoy!
edit: i might note a few thoughts on the other maps tomorrow, obviously i do not know or understand them as well as my own. I cannot speak for or against other maps, but as you picked my map as an example i can explainwith the map's design for. It is up to you to decide if you think these ideas are interesting and executed well, yet i am happy if this helps you decide on what map to vote for.before you decide on what map to vote for, check out the map threads and the discussions there and go and play the maps! enjoy!edit: i might note a few thoughts on the other maps tomorrow, obviously i do not know or understand them as well as my own.
FrostedMiniWheats Profile Joined August 2010 United States 30313 Posts Last Edited: 2014-05-29 00:46:27 #18 I like Nimbus
Not terribly huge, but still seems more like a macro-oriented map with many harassment options. It's not on the innovative side, nor very pretty, but still strikes me as a solid map overall. NesTea | Mvp | MC | Leenock | Losira | Gumiho | DRG | Taeja | Jinro | Stephano | Thorzain | Sen | Idra |Polt | Bomber | Symbol | Squirtle | Fantasy | Jaedong | Maru | sOs | Seed | ByuN | ByuL | Neeb| Scarlett | Rogue | IM forever
wrl Profile Joined April 2011 United States 209 Posts #19 On May 29 2014 09:41 FrostedMiniWheats wrote:
nor very pretty
No love for minimalism? No love for minimalism? It's funny; I dream a lot, but I'm not a very good sleeper.
The_Templar Profile Blog Joined January 2011 THE FUTURE 52439 Posts #20 On May 29 2014 02:47 Existor wrote:
Why there is no this map with ice and lava?
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-maps/444950-4-esv-burnt-ice
Also there are so many other nice maps
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-maps/451198-2-ktv-xelnaga-ashes
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-maps/451113-2-leviathan-hive
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-maps/451218-4-ktv-foxtrot-labs-se
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-maps/413715-8-crux-breeze
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-maps/451207-4-dual-darkness
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-maps/451171-4-frozen-dreams
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-maps/451153-4-aem-sun-and-mirror
Why there is no this map with ice and lava?Also there are so many other nice maps
Are my maps really that invisible/bad?
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-maps/450261-2-shadows-of-eternity
This is better than some of the maps on your list and you don't even mention it T_T Are my maps really that invisible/bad?This is better than some of the maps on your list and you don't even mention it T_T Moderator I'm actually a
1 2 3 4 5 Next AllHow it works
This service requires no account or registration in any form, your Peercoin address is your account and txid of the bet is your receipt. Users place their bets by |
He’s got the mind, you know. And his vision is fantastic.”
Upon further examination here, Yzerman offered more.
“I just think he’s a great young talent. He’s got all the tools. He’s going to take some time to develop. I’m not saying he’d make the Olympic team today. He has composure and confidence and to do what he’s done as an 18-year-old this season …
“I don’t think you can teach the kind of hockey sense he has. I’m not saying he’ll be ready for the Olympics in a year and a half, but we’re sure going to be watching his progress.”
Nugent-Hopkins himself seems oblivious to how others are viewing him over here.
“I’m not too sure,” he said. “I’m just the kid. I’m just the new guy.
“I definitely feel more comfortable as we go along. I think I’m making more and more of the adjustments as we go along.
“I hope I can be a part of a success as we go forward. I feel good.”
Follow me on Twitter.com/sunterryjones
terry.jones@sunmedia.caRecently, Frito-Lay pulled its biodegradable SunChips packaging from store shelves less than a year after its debut. Not because the bag’s composting abilities were questionable, but because people complained that they were too noisy. Seriously. The complaints sent the company back to the drawing board, and they announced yesterday that they’ve created a new plant-based bag that won’t hurt your ears.
Last spring, Frito-Lay began packaging its SunChips in biodegradable bags that were expected to completely breakdown in a backyard compost pile in two weeks. Inhabitat and many others applauded the move toward greener packaging, but consumers compared the noise made by the bag to everything from glass breaking to lawnmowers to jet engines. Customers disliked the packaging so much that SunChips sales declined 11 percent in the past year.
The bags’ noise was due to its unusual molecular structure which made them more rigid. Frito-Lay says they’ve solved the problem by using a more rubbery adhesive to put the two layers of the bag together and create a sound barrier. The razor-thin layer of adhesive reduced the bags’ sound to about 70 decibels – about the same as other chip bags and the original SunChips bags. The first compostable design registered around 80 to 85 decibels. You can compare the sound of the two bags in a new marketing video on the SunChips website.
Initially, the snack company will use the bags only for SunChips Originals, now in stores, to assess customer reaction before deciding to use the bag for more packaging.
WHY THIS MATTERS
While it’s ridiculous that something as trivial as a noisy bag stopped people from purchasing a greener product, it’s not surprising. People want smart design that won’t disrupt what they know to be the norm, which is why we’re glad to see that SunChips worked to create new green packaging instead of just reverting back to un-recyclable bags. We just hope they also improved the bag’s ability to compost.
+ SunChips
Via Environmental LeaderThe members of Rush still haven't set a timetable for their next album, but at a public appearance in Toronto on Sept. 17, Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson again made it clear that they expect an eventual return to action.
The duo was in town to accept a key to the city from mayor John Tory, but — as seen in the video above — they also sat down for a Q&A that touched on the band's plans for the future after saying goodbye to touring last year. While admitting that their current hiatus has "been an adjustment," Lifeson expressed his belief that the downtime is only temporary.
"We've been following up on some other interests that we both have, and we've been learning to get used to the idea, and it's taken a while," said Lifeson. "But I feel very confident about a lot of things, and music is definitely still one of them. I'm sure we'll do something in the future. We can't just stop playing and writing music together."
"I play almost every day," Lee answered after being asked whether he'd been maintaining his musical chops. "I've been traveling a lot with my wife. We're very big into seeing the world and taking advantage of this break in my career, whatever it may be. But I love playing, and I play a lot. And sooner or later, the right thing will happen."
Drummer Neil Peart recently commemorated the band's R40 tour with his latest book, Far and Wide: Bring That Horizon to Me!, released on Sept. 13.by Abayomi Azikiwe
African American political organizations played a key role in influencing Kwame Nkrumah from the 1930s, until his removal from power in 1966 and beyond. Although the coup was designed by the U.S. to halt the advance of the African Revolution and the internationalization of the struggle of African Americans, solidarity efforts accelerated from the late 1960s through the 1990s when the last vestiges of white-minority rule were eliminated in South Africa and Namibia.
The Coup Against Nkrumah and the Role of African Americans in the African Revolution
by Abayomi Azikiwe
“African American political organizations played a key role in influencing Nkrumah from the 1930s, until his removal from power in 1966 and beyond, right up until his death in 1972 in Romania.”
Five decades ago on Feb. 24, 1966, a coup was carried out against Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, the leader of Ghana’s independence movement and chief architect of the 20th century African revolutionary struggle.
Nkrumah, the founder of the Convention Peoples Party (CPP) in 1949, which led the former British colony of the Gold Coast to national independence in 1957, was out of Ghana on a peace mission aimed at bringing an end to the United States’ intervention in Vietnam. The president had stopped over in Beijing, Peoples Republic of China, for consultations with Premier Chou En-lai and had planned to continue on to Hanoi.
When Nkrumah later met with Chou he informed him that there had been a military coup in Ghana. Nkrumah’s initial reaction was disbelief yet the Chinese leader told him that these setbacks were in the course of the revolutionary struggle.
The coup was carried out by lower-ranking military officers and police officials with the direct assistance and coordination by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the State Department. Leading members of the CPP were killed, arrested and driven into exile while the party press was seized along with the national radio and television stations.
“The coup was carried out with the direct assistance and coordination by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.”
CPP offices were attacked by counter-revolutionary mobs encouraged by the CIA and the military-police clique that had seized power. Books by Nkrumah and other socialist leaders were trashed and burned.
Cadres from various national liberation movements who had taken refuge in Ghana and were receiving political and military training were deported by the coup leaders who called themselves the “National Liberation Council” (NLC). Other fraternal allies of the Ghanaian and African revolutions were fired from their jobs within the government, the educational sector and media.
The CIA involvement was widely believed to be pivotal at the time but in later years firm documented proof was brought to light with the declassification of State Department files which originated under the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson. A letter of protest had been sent by U.S. Undersecretary of State for African Affairs, G. Mennen Williams, to the Ghana embassy in Washington during late 1965 in the aftermath of the publication of Nkrumah’s book Neo-colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism, which outlined the central role of Washington and Wall Street in the continuing underdevelopment of Africa.
Nkrumah and African American History
Kwame Nkrumah was born in the Nzima region of Ghana at Nkroful in 1909. He would later travel to the U.S. in 1935 to pursue higher education at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, the first Historically Black College and University (HBCU) in the country founded during slavery in 1854.
Lincoln was an ideal atmosphere for Nkrumah who studied the social sciences, philosophy and theology. He became involved in the African American struggle through work with the African Students Association where he served as president for several years as well as the Council on African Affairs with Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois, Dr. William A. Hunton and Paul Robeson.
He became a licensed Presbyterian clergyman giving him access to speaking engagements in numerous African American churches. Nkrumah worked during his college days doing odd jobs and experiencing severe economic deprivation.
Leaving the U.S. in 1945, Nkrumah settled in Britain for two years where he helped organize the historic Fifth Pan-African Congress at Manchester in October of that year. The gathering was chaired by Du Bois and enjoyed the participation of other leading figures within the African liberation movements including George Padmore of Trinidad, who had worked with the Communist International during the late 1920s and early 1930s; Amy Ashwood Garvey, the first wife of Marcus Garvey, who held left-leaning politics; Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya; along with representatives of trade unions, farmers’ organizations and students.
After Nkrumah returned to Ghana in late 1947 and with the founding of the CPP less than two years later, he would land in prison twice for organizing against British imperialism. Due to his party’s mass support during a colonial-controlled reform election in February 1951, Nkrumah was released from prison and appointed Leader of Government Business as part of a transitional arrangement towards independence won later in March 1957.
During the independence period Ghana became a haven for African American political figures, artists, professionals and business people. Some within this group became staunch defenders of the Nkrumah government which was under increasing pressure from the CIA and the State Department after 1961.
“He became involved in the African American struggle through work with the African Students Association.”
Several hundred African Americans took up residence in Ghana including Maya Angelou, a writer, dancer and supporter of African liberation movements; Alice Windom of St. Louis, a social worker and educator who helped organize the itinerary of Malcolm X when he travelled to Ghana in May 1964; Vicki Holmes Garvin, a labor activist and member of the Communist Party served as a co-worker with Robert and Mabel Williams in China several years later after leaving Ghana; Julius Mayfield, a novelist and essayist who left the U.S. amid the attacks on Robert Williams, worked in Ghana as a journalist and editor of African Review, a Pan-Africanist journal in support of the CPP government; W.E.B. Du Bois was given Ghanaian citizenship and appointed as the director of the Encyclopedia Africana; Shirley Graham Du Bois, the second wife of Dr. Du Bois, a political organizer, member of the Communist Party, prolific writer and producer, was appointed by Nkrumah to head Ghana National Television; among others.
After the coup in February 1966, most of the progressive African Americans were forced to leave Ghana due to the pro-imperialist character of the NLC regime. Dr. Du Bois had died in August 1963. However, his wife who worked as a leading figure in the Ghana government was placed under house arrest by the military-police officials. Shirley Graham Du Bois left Ghana and later lived in Egypt and China where she died in 1976.
U.S. Imperialism Continues Destabilization of Africa
Five decades later the CIA and State Department are still heavily engaged in destabilization of African states and progressive movements. The U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), founded in 2008, is constructing airstrips, drone stations and military bases in various regions across the continent. The anti-imperialist struggle in regard to interventions in Africa is just as relevant today as it was in 1966.
African American political organizations played a key role in influencing Nkrumah from the 1930s, until his removal from power in 1966 and beyond, right up until his death in 1972 in Romania. Although the overthrow of the Nkrumah government was designed by U.S. imperialism to halt the advance of the African Revolution and the internationalization of the struggle of African Americans, solidarity efforts accelerated from the late 1960s through the 1990s when the last vestiges of white-minority rule were eliminated in South Africa and Namibia.
Younger generations of African American activists can gain much from the study of the intersection between the struggle for liberation inside the U.S., the Caribbean, Latin America, Europe and the African continent. It was during this period after the conclusion of World War II and extending to the beginning of the 21st century that tremendous gains were won in the areas of national liberation, Pan-African unity and socialist-orientation.
“The anti-imperialist struggle in regard to interventions in Africa is just as relevant today as it was in 1966.”
Today with a strong emphasis being placed on the demonstrations against the use of lethal force against African Americans by the police and vigilantes, identification with broader struggles taking place within the African world are often overlooked. Despite the ideological advances of the previous period where people of African descent began to identify as African Americans, there appears to be an uncritical reversion back to a U.S.-centered approach resurrecting “blackness” in contravention to notions of an “African Personality and Pan-Africanism” advanced by Nkrumah and his collaborators.
These developments, if gone unchecked, will break off the African American movement from its most natural allies among like-minded forces within the entire African world. In addition, with a lack of emphasis on internationalism, the African American struggle will be hard pressed to reach its full potential through winning allies throughout the world.
Abayomi Azikiwe is Editor, Pan-African News Wire.Hornets forward Nicolas Batum addresses the Paris attacks, which took place in his native country of France. (1:10)
The shock and sadness that rippled around the world after the terrorist attacks in Paris reverberated around the NBA amid a full slate of games Friday night.
Star players and veterans with ties to France expressed their sorrow and concern as the details and news of the tragedy continued to unfold.
LeBron James said he was hopeful for a time when "people will realize that's not the right way."
"My prayers and condolences go out to every family that's been affected by what happened," James said after his Cleveland Cavaliers played the Knicks at New York. "Our world right now is having so many different tragedies. So many different innocent people and victims are losing lives over nonsense."
Editor's Picks Friedell: Batum, Noah shaken by Paris attacks Players with connections to France denounced Friday's acts of terrorism after the Bulls' win over the Hornets.
Pelicans center Alexis Ajinca admitted he had a hard time focusing on basketball Friday night.
The Saint-Etienne, France native was worried about the safety of his family in Paris. He didn't get confirmation they were all safe until after New Orleans' loss at Toronto, and he was especially concerned for a cousin who was at the soccer friendly rocked by the sound of nearby explosions.
"It's just a crazy world. You think you're safe, you're just walking down the street and the next thing you know, people start shooting," Ajinca said. "My prayers go to my family and friends."
Ajinca wrote "Pray for Paris" on his sneakers and asked his Twitter followers to "Pray for my family and friends" prior to the game.
"During the whole game I was trying to get this out of my mind so I was able to stay focused," Ajinca said after he had 10 points and nine rebounds in the loss.
"It felt weird. I was thinking about it the whole game."
Pelicans center Alexis Ajinca wrote "Pray for Paris" on his sneakers Friday. "I was thinking about [the attacks] the whole game," he said. Vaughn Ridley/Getty Images
Nicolas Batum, the Charlotte Hornets swingman and native Frenchman, said he was watching the France-Germany soccer match online and heard one of the blasts as the attacks happened.
"I'm fine, but I'm not because we lost people for nothing," Batum said after the Hornets' game against the Chicago Bulls. "Stupid people, and I don't know why they are doing that. We've got to stay strong. I tried to show people in my way that we're strong and we won't [back] down because you are doing bad stuff to people. We'll keep our heads up, step forward and say we're better than that."
Batum said one of the first things he did once he stepped on the floor for Friday's game was speak to Bulls center Joakim Noah, who grew up in France and whose father, Yannick, is the former French tennis great.
"[It's] very sad what's going on in Paris," Noah said. "A lot of people died for no reason. We're not really sure exactly what happened. So just calling family before the game, making sure they're all right."
Noah said he texted with his father, who is currently in Cameroon, and that his family members who are in Paris are fine.
"Until the last minute before the game, I was on my phone checking out everybody in my family," Batum said. "My sister lives close by where one of the attacks happened. The first thing I did [after the game] was check my phone to make sure everything was good.
"I thought about it all game. I wanted to [have] a good game to show them in my way 'We're strong.'"
The series of attacks were the deadliest to hit Paris since World War II. At least 120 people were killed in multiple acts of violence, including shootings at restaurants and a hostage-taking at a music venue. The number of casualties is expected to rise.
Houston Rockets second-year center Clint Capela, who grew up near Paris, said he had spoken to relatives who live in Paris about the unprecedented attacks.
Second-year center Clint Capela grew up in Chalon, France, and played high school ball at Bois de Vincennes, just outside of Paris. Troy Taormina/USA TODAY Sports
"It hurts me a lot," Capela said prior to the Rockets' game against the Denver Nuggets.
"It was last year, the same thing happened," he added, referencing the January terrorist attack on satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and a kosher grocery that left 20 dead, including the three attackers. "That's hard for me because this is like my country because I grew up there. I have relatives up there in Paris, a city like that, means a lot. I have some cousins over there, family. It's really bothering me. I'm really sad about that, that's hard."
Caplea was born in Geneva, Switzerland, grew up in Chalon, France, and played high school ball at Bois de Vincennes, just outside of Paris.
Capela said he would visit Paris during the summer months once school was over.
"I called my mom and she told me, 'Things happen, you got to get through it, fight through it,'" Capela said. "I called my cousin's family in Paris, they are all sad, all scared. But things happen in the world, it's not like just in Paris, it happens all around the world. Just have to live with it and fight through it."
Knicks forward Kevin Seraphin, a native of French Guiana who plays on the French national team and owns a home in France, said he was wracked by a feeling of helplessness.
"It's kind of scary because there's nothing you can do about it," Seraphin said. "You just think about how some people went to see a soccer game or went to see a comedy and are not coming back home; you don't really expect that. It's just scary. People are kind of scared to go out or to just do anything."
Seraphin did not play in Friday's game and said that, for once, he was content to sit on the bench.
"I don't want this to happen often, but I was kind of happy that I wasn't in the game because it was kind of in my mind," Seraphin said. "You try to smile. At one point, I was like, 'That's my job.' But it was on my mind during the game."
Carmelo Anthony said the Knicks were focused on helping Seraphin through what was and will continue to be an emotional time.
"It's just a tough, unfortunate situation," Anthony said. "I try not to go into details, but for me and for the guys on the team, it's kind of take care and make sure that our teammate that has family over there and people over there is OK, knowing our prayers are with him and his family.
"Throughout this time, it puts a lot of things into perspective -- it's bigger than basketball," he added. "There's a lot of things going on in the world. We're fortunate enough to be here playing in a basketball game. Even though we lost tonight, it puts a lot of things in perspective."
Information from ESPN's Calvin Watkins, Dave McMenamin, Ian Begley, Nick Friedell and The Associated Press was used in this report.A couple weeks ago, I got a new cell phone, a Samsung Wave (S8500G?). This phone has the same screen as a Samsung Galaxy S, the AMOLED vibrant, 480x800 HD(?) screen. It has a 1 GHz processor in it as well, along with bluetooth, wifi, GPS, a 5M camera on the back, and a secondary camera on the front. It runs samsung's new operating system, Bada, version 1.0, which is the subject of this blog entry.
The Operating System
Bada, at first glance, kind of looks like any other phone OS, but you really need to dive in and see everything before passing too much judgement. What sold me on this phone was the price. I was able to get one used for $200, and new they run for around twice that (here in Canada...). The first thing I noticed was that there were only 3 icons along the bottom of the home screen, and at first view, they didn't look changeable. I also noticed widgets, such as those for accessing your gmail account via the web browser, and viewing weather, stocks, and the like.
Seeing as how Bada is a new operating system, I figured I would give it a chance. I grabbed a copy of the SDK, and started looking through the API, trying to think of something cool to make, but more on that later.
For now, more thoughts on the operating system itself. For one, the 1 GHz processor makes everything run very smoothly. However, I do think that work can be done with memory management, and possibly call for a volatile memory update on future devices. The actual persistent storage is amazing however. To the extent of my knowledge, there are two versions of the phone available, one with 2GB internal storage, and one with 8. This is an extreme advance over the last phone I had, an HTC dream, which only had around 100MB of storage. That means lots and lots of apps can be downloaded, and with native ability to store installed applications on an SD Card, it was quite easy for me to all of a sudden have 10GB of space for Apps, pictures, movies, music, and everything else.
There are certainly downfalls with this operating system. For one, there is no spell-check, and no quick complete with the keyboard, as one may see in Android or Blackberry OS, meaning typing a full word means typing the full word, which can defiantly slow down people when they are replying to text messages or emails on the go. Another thing is the notification icons in the status bar, as these do not seem to disappear through just opening your message thread, you must then have each message in your field of view at least once and then close it again, which is a hassle. The camera on the front is basically useless, as you are only able to use it for video calling, which requires both extra minutes from your cellphone plan, as well as data from your data plan in order to function, and so far, Samsung is not allowing any kind of VOIP applications in their store, which is a real drag.
What really bothers me about the operating system is that Samsung seems to be a little too concerned with making apps for the app market, and not concerned enough about upgrading and optimizing the operating system, to make it more efficient, more stable, and faster.
My hopes for Bada as an operating system are that Samsung improves upon the core applications and the operating system itself, adding in missing features and making things more configurable (and uninstallable? Not everyone wants twitter or Facebook...), allow the creation and distribution of VOIP applications, and allow those with the Samsung Wave to upgrade to new versions of the operating system as they are released, via Samsung Keis or however.
What Samsung should NOT do is prohibit VOIP applications forever, as this is one of the leading factors driving people away from the platform, and they should NOT let the cell phone companies dictate what version of the operating system can be on what phone. People will learn how to hack these phones, and allowing users to update their phone to new versions of the operating system as they come out, freely and easily, is the best way to maintain the user base and not have a bunch of custom hacked roms floating around.
Bada as a Development Platform
I was quite pleasantly surprised to learn that the Samsung Bada operating system is not Java based, but C++ based. Being a C++ buff with Java experience and C# experience, this was a very easy API to get into, and understand the structure of. However, this is only version 1.0.0, so some problems with the development platform do exist. While I do think that rewriting any part of the API is a bad idea, as it can lead to a lot of applications breaking, there are some utilities that do not seem to be present. For example, it is quite difficult to convert a ByteBuffer into a String, and vice versa. Not quite difficult per say, but not very easy. Thankfully, there are functions online that can greatly help with this. Another problem I noticed was inconsistencies in how objects were created or passed, some as pointers and others as references, which added a level of frustration when they would change back and forth.
What really draws me into developing for this platform is that there is such a small number of applications, and so many of which seem to be copies of others that already exist. I do appreciate that there is about a 50/50 split between free and paid applications. I, unless an application takes a significant amount of my time and dedication, have no problem giving away whatever I write for free. My first application submitted to Samsung is one called FooBada, which interfaces with foo_controlserver, a plugin for the popular Foobar2000 audio player, and allows users to control the application on a small level remotely (thus they can toggle pause, play, stop, next, previous, control volume, and see what's currently playing.) This app allowed me to at least view the tip of the Bada API iceberg, and gave me experience with Action event listeners, Socket event listeners, low level sockets, and the like from the perspective of Bada. If you have ever done anything with Java GUI programming, interfaces will come naturally to you. If you haven't, they aren't too hard to use. Quite simple actually.
The Bada IDE is easy to work with and is based off eclipse. The GUI designer is an awesome tool making setting up GUIs a breeze, and importing the properties into your C++ code is as easy as a function call and a type cast. The method for doing so can be seen in the form class created for you when you start a new project in the IDE. Some of the tools, like broker, do seem to break sometimes. Also, on device debugging does not currently work, but it is my hope that the Samsung team is adamant towards fixing this in a future release.
Getting your product into the app store is as easy as registering for a Samsung sellers account, and filling out some online forms. I'm currently waiting to hear back about FooBada, but hopefully it will go without a hitch.
Summing it all up
To be honest, I really do like what Samsung has produced. However, certain key issues drive me into hoping that there will be an operating system revision out soon. Such things include on device debugging, the absenteeism of VOIP applications, and the Apple like control they seem to be implementing over the operating system and application infrastructure. All of these are not attractive to developers or users. The world does not need another iPhone. If these issues are fixed, and other improvements mentioned are seen, we could very well be looking at one of the next top smart phone operating systems.Video: 91 bras, gone in 60 seconds as West Cork retailer on brink of Guinness World Record
It was a tough job, but Skibbereen retailer Sean Murray decided he was up to the task.
We recently told you how the West Cork shopkeeper was hoping to get himself in the Guinness Book of Records in order to raise funds for the Irish Cancer Society, and while he is awaiting official confirmation from the powers that be, it looks like he has come through with flying colours.
With a challenge of 69 bras in 60 seconds, the willing participant broke this figure on his three attempts, unclasping a whopping 91 bras in the final effort.
The volunteers were made up of both women and men as they raised funds and the profile of the Get the Girls breast cancer campaign.
For those of you who are all thumbs at those vital intimate moments, sit back and admire the agility of this man who looks destined to make his way into the record books.
YouTube credit: The Southern Star
Congratulations to all involved and hopefully the money is racking up.Germany Added 543 MW of Solar Power Capacity in July
September 8th, 2012 by Nicholas Brown
According to Matt McDermott of Treehugger: “[In] the first half of 2012 Germany has installed just over 4.37 gigawatts of grid-tied solar power. Remarkably just about 1.8 GW of that happened in June alone (perhaps even more remarkable, this isn’t even a record amount for one month in Germany).”
The amount of solar power capacity added in June was much more than July’s, but July’s was still impressive. July’s addition brings Germany’s total installed capacity for the first half of 2012 to 4,900 MW (4.9 GW).
In the first half of 2011, 2.285 GW was added — 2.6 GW (or 53%) less than the first half of 2012.
Thus, the total of all solar power plants subsidized by the Renewable Energy Resources Act up to July 31, 2012 is a total of 29.7 GW.
This year’s rapid solar development can be partly attributed to changes in subsidies that took effect in that period. But it’s also clearly due to the rapidly falling price of solar.
As of April 1, the German federal government made drastic one-time cuts for rooftop PV panel systems and redefined the performance classes (cutting subsidies for larger solar projects). Therefore, at the end of June, there were important subsidy transition periods for larger plants, which is probably why there was a sharp increase in additional installations.
Until the end of September, operators of large solar power plants will still have time to connect their plants and profit from the old remuneration regulation.
Despite being cloudy, Germany’s solar power policies have enabled it to lead the development of solar panels. At the end of 2011, the country was #1 in total installed solar power, #2 in solar power per capita (only behind Italy), #2 in solar power per unit of electricity produced, and #2 in solar power per GDP (only behind the Czech Republic).
Sources: TreeHugger, pv magazine, and CleanTechnica.Help Ontario Cut Red Tape
Government Launches Crowd-sourced Program to Modernize Regulations
March 29, 2016 9:45 A.M. Office of the Premier
Ontario is asking businesses and the public to help identify and improve regulations that are unclear, outdated, redundant or unnecessarily costly.
Premier Kathleen Wynne joined Brad Duguid, Minister of Economic Development, Employment and Infrastructure, today at Novo Plastics in Markham to launch the Red Tape Challenge, inviting the public to pinpoint problems such as forms that are too complex and technical information that is hard to understand. Through this innovative online consultation tool, people across Ontario will be able to help identify and eliminate regulatory duplication, lessen compliance burdens, shorten response times and make it easier for businesses and citizens to interact with government.
The Red Tape Challenge will focus on six business sectors over the next two years. It will start with auto parts manufacturing, then focus on food processing, financial services, mining, chemical manufacturing and forestry.
This crowd-sourced program will help deliver on Ontario's commitment, through the Business Growth Initiative, to develop modern, outcome-focused and evidence-based regulations. The Business Growth Initiative will help foster an innovative and supportive business environment, while protecting environmental and health standards and enhancing worker safety.
Reducing regulatory burden is part of the government's economic plan to build Ontario up and deliver on its number-one priority to grow the economy and create jobs. The four-part plan includes investing in talent and skills, including helping more people get and create the jobs of the future by expanding access to high-quality college and university education. The plan is making the largest investment in public infrastructure in Ontario's history and investing in a low-carbon economy driven by innovative, high-growth, export-oriented businesses. The plan is also helping working Ontarians achieve a more secure retirement.
Quick Facts Through the Red Tape Challenge, the public, businesses and industry associations can submit comments about Ontario’s regulatory requirements directly to the government at ontario.ca/redtapechallenge.
The Red Tape Challenge is modelled on a program from the U.K. of the same name that has achieved substantial results, including saving businesses more than £850 million (about $1.5 billion CDN) per year in costs through changes to 3,000 regulations.
This is part of the province’s Open Government commitment to create a more transparent, accessible and collaborative government for the people of Ontario.
Ontario’s 2015 Burden Reduction Report identified a total of $44 million in savings, building on $6 million identified in the 2014 report. This puts the province on track to reach its target of reducing the business burden by $100 million by the end of 2017.
In recognition of the province's efforts to reduce red tape, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) awarded the province a B+ grade — the second highest grade awarded in Canada — in its 2016 Red Tape Report Card.
Ontario’s Business Growth Initiative is helping to grow the economy and create jobs by promoting an innovation-based economy, helping small companies scale up and modernizing regulations for businesses.
Background Information Support for the Red Tape Challenge
Additional Resources Visit the Red Tape Challenge siteMitchell Red Cloud Jr. (2 July 1925 – 5 November 1950) was a United States Army corporal who was killed in action while serving in the Korean War. Corporal Red Cloud posthumously received the Medal of Honor for heroic actions "above and beyond the call of duty" near Chonghyon, North Korea, on 5 November 1950. Before joining the Army, he had been a United States Marine Corps sergeant who had served in World War II.
Born in Hatfield, Wisconsin, Red Cloud, a Ho-Chunk Native American, dropped out of high school to enlist in the Marine Corps during World War II. He first served in combat with the Marine Raiders during the Battle of Guadalcanal in 1942 before health problems forced him stateside in 1943 to recover. Red Cloud avoided a medical discharge, and served with the 6th Marine Division during the Battle of Okinawa in 1945.
Red Cloud enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1948. After the Korean War began in June 1950, he was sent to Korea with the 19th Infantry, 24th Infantry Division, which was among the American troops who fought the first battles of the war, being pushed back during the Battle of Taejon and the Battle of Pusan Perimeter. The 19th Infantry also was part of the Eighth United States Army advance into North Korea. On the night of 5 November 1950, Red Cloud was manning a forward observation post when he spotted an imminent surprise attack by Chinese forces. Red Cloud single-handedly held off the Chinese forces despite being shot eight times, at one point ordering his men to tie him to a tree because he was too weak to stand by himself. His company found him the next morning, surrounded by dead Chinese troops. He was credited with alerting his company to the ambush and saving them from being overrun. For these actions, he was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.
Early life [ edit ]
Mitchell Red Cloud Jr. was born on 2 July 1925 in Hatfield, Wisconsin. He was the eldest son of Mitchell Red Cloud and Lillian Red Cloud. The family were ethnic members of the Ho-Chunk Native American tribe.[2] Red Cloud attended Nellsville High School in Black River Falls, Wisconsin.[3] The school taught primarily Native American students, a large portion of whom joined the military after finishing school.[4] At age 16, Red Cloud dropped out of high school and, with his father's approval, decided to enlist in the United States Marine Corps.
Military service [ edit ]
U.S. Marine Corps [ edit ]
He entered the Marine Corps on 11 August 1941,[2] the earliest date on which he was legally allowed to enlist.[5] The family may have relocated to Merrillan, Wisconsin, which was where Red Cloud enlisted.[6] He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 9th Marines at Camp Elliot, California.
Carlson's raiders come ashore on Guadalcanal, on 4 November 1942
With World War II looming, Red Cloud volunteered for and was accepted on April 14, 1942 by the 2nd Marine Raider Battalion, also known as "Carlson's Raiders", under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Evans Carlson. He was placed in Weapons Platoon, F Company of the battalion. As an elite Marine light infantry unit, the Raiders held high standards of physical and mental fitness, and was known to perform very well with this unit.[2] His only major deployment with the Raiders was the Battle of Guadalcanal. Red Cloud landed |
's not surprising given that white is hard to paint and tight breeches are tricky. For the exact fit of the breeches, I referred to various Regency fashion plates, as Victorian plates tended to be much... vaguer, and far more airbrushed... about how men's clothes fit.Hi mamajr96,
If you have access to a micrometer, measure the diameter of the copper that you are using (needs to be a solid core; not strand wire).
Drill a hole in the wood exaclty the size of the copper and you may have to tap the wire slightly. You can use your micrometer to measure the base of the drill bit (part that goes in drill) this will tell you what size the hole will be. (yeah some of the large drill bits have a smaller shaft in order to fit into a smaller chuck but we are not using bits that large here).
If you will notice on the pictures of the actual MFLB, Here:
http://www.vapeworld.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/thumbnail/5e06319eda06f020e43594a9c230972d/t/h/thumb_mflb.png
that there is usually a noticeable wood filler mark on either end where the hole has been filled in a little, for cosmetic reasons.
On the negative side of the post; you drill your hole in the front (mouthpiece) end.
Have a copper rod longer than what you will need.
Push it through from the front,
------> bring enough out the back slot side to make your correct bends for your battery contact
------>then push it back through to the front-
------>I won't go into the exact bends but if you need advice on it let me know
------>basically you have to measure the it will come up just short of the end of the box (so you can have a slight indention to hold the filler.
------>If you would rather make you piece first and then slide it in from the "Kerf" side that you cut then do it from that end, just keep you try part of the rod straight.
You will also notice from the actual pictures of the MFLB that they have a small piece of metal (like a shim for an axe handle, just smaller) to keep the negative side of the rod from coming out of the back side.
The positve side should just be straight, drilled through on one end and partial drilled in the opposite, and as with the negative side; slightly shorter than the box so you can fill it. I believe on the original, that they fill it on the back side. remember that it needs to be in the middle or at the point of the center of the Battery's positive node.
Well I hope this gives you a little more insight, I see it is a little late for your weekend project but maybe it will help someone.
The website where that picture is linked will have a Zoom feature that you can look at a few different angles of the original. This will also give you some detailed insight if you need it.
Post back if you need any help.Last week the S&P 500 almost reached an impressive 80 percent gain from the red abyss seen in March of 2009. This puts this stock market rally up in the ranks of the strongest and fastest market turnarounds in history. Yet on Friday news of Goldman Sachs betting on toxic mortgages sold to clients brought the market down as the SEC has finally decided to bring a civil suit forward. Only took a full 27 months of the obvious. The case against Goldman Sachs is a good representation of what our stock market has become especially when it comes to financial institutions and their gaming of the system. Here you have a firm pushing toxic mortgage securities to their own clients yet at the same time, another division of the institutions is betting against the pool of securities because they know that it is junk. This is the story of the current financial system. What use is this really providing the market except enriching the most corrupt and elite financial institutions in the world?
It is fitting that on the same week of the 80 percent rally point, we find out that last month the U.S. saw the largest number of foreclosure filings on record. We also had many states, including the largest with California announcing a new record unemployment rate of 12.6 percent. Do we need more evidence that the stock market does not reflect the health of Main Street? And people act shocked. This is what happens when you inject $13 trillion into the financial sector on the backs of the American public.
Take a look at the power of this stock market rally:
Source: Chart of the Day
The 1932 stock market rally came after an 89 percent stock market collapse during the bottom of the depression. The 1942 rally came because Europe was bombed into oblivion during World War II and we were producing war goods like crazy. Those models don’t seem to apply today. The NASDAQ collapse is similar to the 1932 chart in that it fell approximately 80 percent from the peak. Today, the stock market is only off by 24 percent from the massive bubble peak achieved in 2007. Yet what has changed? Not much actually in terms of the real economy. Unemployment is still near the peak. We have 40,000,000 Americans on food stamps. Another 15 million are unemployed and another 9 million are working part-time but would like full-time work. This is not a recovery but a clandestine embezzlement of wealth from the overall public, to a select few that are directly linked to Wall Street.
The above information only adds fuel to why 13 percent of the population thinks the economy is doing well:
Let us examine three ways the rich are enjoying the stock market rally while the overall economy is still mired in the pangs of recession.
Top 1 Percent Control 40 Percent of Financial Wealth
The first obvious reason for why the public is not feeling the enjoyment of the stock market rally is most Americans don’t derive most of their income from stocks:
Source: William Domhoff
We have been bamboozled into believing that wealth is the person who has the most cars or the biggest homes. But that is not necessarily true. Many Americans bought homes that were too big with even bigger mortgages and many have lost those homes. Many have been deceived that wealth is the person that drives the nicest car even if they live in a tiny 500 square foot apartment to pay that enormous lease. True wealth is the actual power base of any economy and that comes from savings (i.e., capital stock, bonds, cash, etc). And financial wealth is the absolute nucleus of power. In the U.S. the top 1 percent control 42 percent of all financial wealth. In other words, this 80 percent stock market rally only applies to the absolute tiniest segment of our population.
That is why even after a near 80 percent stock market rally, the vast majority of Americans have no faith in the economy. Why should they? Most of those profits were brought by firing workers or squeezing productivity of those currently working while wages remain stagnant. Yet this is somehow a recovery? It isn’t and the fact that only 13 percent think things are good is a reflection of this new darker economic reality.
This notion of wealth by getting into debt was followed by many:
So you might say that those that took on too much debt should get their comeuppance. Many are through foreclosure and bankruptcy. Yet that top 1 percent isn’t because they have political connections with the corporatocracy and have managed to swindle trillions of dollars from the public to backup their terrible bets. You pay on both ends. The top 1 percent gets away on both ends.
The reason this problem keeps on going unresolved is that Americans are sold the notion that you too can be the next Horatio Alger. Just pull yourself up from your bootstraps. Good companies strive and bad ones fail is the myth. Yet we all know that isn’t true. Most of the banks would be gone today because what they did was in fact financially stupid. Yet we bailed them out. It is a hypocritical version of capitalism. Adam Smith would be turning in his grave if he saw what was going on today.
Housing Tax Breaks Benefit the Wealthy Disproportionately
Many don’t want to say this but we have subsidized housing enough. Housing is the most heavily subsidized industry in this country:
Source: CNN Money
We give more tax breaks with interest deductions on mortgage interest than any other item. Now this sounds good because many people own homes. Yet people fail to even examine the nuts and bolts of their taxes. People forget that we have standard deductions and the actual housing deduction does not add much when all things are said and done. Plus we have hidden costs that don’t show up immediately through higher taxes and horrible bailouts. Most Americans get a tiny benefit because most live with modest mortgages. Yet the bulk of this benefit once again goes to the wealthiest in this country. If you are paying $20,000 a month in interest on your mortgage do you think you can write more off than say someone who is writing off $800 a month? Who do you think wins here? Do the math. If you think the rich pay just look at this list released by the California Franchise Tax Board of the 250 folks who have actually not paid their taxes.
Yet this is the way things get done by brainwashing the public with crumbs while the rich corrupt the system with gimmicks that are bankrupting our country. It is actually irresponsible to continue giving maximum tax breaks while the country is massively in debt. Why not cap the deduction to the median home price nationwide? That would be fair. Or even cap it at $300,000. Either way, the current structure is merely a way of enriching the top 1 percent by allowing them to write-off giant mortgage interest from their income that many garner from gaming the Wall Street casino.
Going After Food Stamps and Unemployment Insurance
I’ve noticed this absurd trend that started in the last few weeks of going after food stamps and unemployment insurance. This is blatantly absurd and frankly, a disgrace. We spent $53 billion last year for food assistance to 40,000,000 American families. This works out to $1,325 per family for an entire year. We spent that much in one month with the Federal Reserve propping up the mortgage market. Unemployment insurance is keeping this recession from becoming the next depression and leading to a full blown revolution. Yet some people in the media have the gall behind their teleprompter and their comfy corporate media gig to try to eliminate these programs and talk them down.
They argue that food stamps and unemployment insurance keep people unmotivated from looking for work. Do they even realize that we have 6 people for every 1 job opening out there? The vast majority of Americans want to work but can’t find any work (i.e., look at Wall Street profits by slashing and burning American jobs). Yet they talk and talk while their corporate advertisers keep them on the air so they can keep their makeup straight and help them enjoy monthly botox injections. They really have no idea what is out there in the actual economy or the life that many average Americans are living.
Wall Street has polluted the current economy. Most Americans don’t buy the propaganda because all they need to do is look at their monthly paycheck. Or all they need to do is talk with their family and neighbors. Or all they need to do is look at their own retirement plans. We better wake up and do it fast because the wealth is being transferred quick and with no mercy.
If you enjoyed this post click here to subscribe to a complete feed and stay up to date with today’s challenging market!The Solo is manufactured by Arizer, the same company behind the successful Extreme Q and V-Tower vapes.
The particular model I am reviewing today is the newest 2014 edition, with a serial number beginning with M1E. 2014 editions are those with serial numbers that begin after M1C (silver) and M1D (black).
2014 Arizer Solos have a few important design updates
The airflow thru the glass stem is improved and increased. Many people complained that the original Arizer Solo had very limited airflow---akin to trying to drink a very thick milkshake thru a straw. Arizer listened to their customers complaints, and issued a fix.
You can now use the Solo while it is charging. Previous versions did not allow you to do so.
The heating element is revised. Previous heating elements had a cosmetic problem with ceramic coating chipping off. My particular review unit has a stainless steel crucible.
Newer models have a glass stem that has 4 air-vents instead of 2 air-vents.
The Arizer Solo is neatly packaged with one box containing the Solo + charger, and another box containing two glass stems (one is bent, one is straight), one diffuser bowl, and a bag of potpourri.
First impressions
The size of the Solo is smaller than I expected. It is like 10% smaller than a Red Bull can. The build quality is very solid and durable. The buttons for the electronics click with a very positive feeling. The glass stems insert snugly into the stainless steel crucible.
I heated mine to level 4 with an empty chamber, inserted the glass stem, and took a puff. I could taste that distinct chemical-plastic "new vaporizer smell." I cycled the Solo a few times and blew air thru the glass straw to burn off the smell. Eventually the smell goes away after a few uses.
The Solo is fantastic!
There are 7 temperature settings. FLIR thermal images show the heating chamber to be nice and uniform. With the Solo, you load the chamber by loading your herb into the glass stem. It was really easy to use the glass stem as a spoon to load up coarsely ground herbs from my grinder.
The herb should only come in contact with the glass stem, although some pieces at the bottom may touch the stainless steel surface of the crucible. The parts of herb that contact the steel may char.
Flavor is very nice and clean. The vapor path is all-glass which is as good as it gets.
The Solo heats primarily by convection, meaning hot air is drawn over the herb to vaporize it. The Solo's convection is very efficient. I didn't have to stir the herbs every few puffs to get an even golden-brown.
Be careful with the temperature settings. On the highest setting, level 7, I was able to get temperatures close to combustion temperatures.
Usage Tips
To turn off the beeping noise: hold down on the left button for a few seconds.
To goto the last temperature setting: hold down the right button for a few seconds.
The temperature settings seem to run hotter than their claimed temperatures, so experiment to see what works for you.
Pros
The convection heating design is excellent. It cooks the herb very evenly to a golden brown, and doesn't waste material.
Glass heating and vapor path. Great clouds and flavor.
7 temperature settings. FLIR thermal pictures show that the heating chamber has very even temperatures.
The air-flow resistance problem has been fixed in this 2014 model.
It is possible to use the Solo while it is charging in this 2014 model.
Battery life is sufficient to vape about 10 chambers worth of herb--very good IMO.
Made in Canada.
Cons
Having to carry around a fragile glass stem in addition to the main heating unit will be annoying to some, depending on how portable and stealthy you want your vape to be.
Right out of the box, the factory "new vape smell," takes awhile to burn off.
Small bits of herb may occasionally get in your mouth unless if you add a mesh screen to the glass stem.
Overall Score: A
Conclusion: I really like the Arizer Solo. It is a built like a tank and it works reliably. If you are considering the Arizer Solo, I highly recomend it! The only annoyance is having to carry around a fragile glass stem in addition to the main heating unit.
Reviewed by: JW on March 25, 2014
Related Articles:
Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.
DisqusIt didn’t take long for the fascists to come out of the woodwork. On Tuesday, Buzzfeed published a long piece by Reggie Ugwu, looking at how a variant of instrumental electronic music had become the favoured soundtrack of the “alt-right”, the US-based far-right movement. Within hours, a website whose strapline declares it is “destroying Jewish tyranny” had picked up on the piece.
“The Jew-owned Buzzfeed blog has done an article about how fashwave has become the musical soundtrack of the alt-right,” the piece said. “The fact that sites like these are covering this sort of thing reveals how the alt-right and anything associated with it is quickly becoming the trendy counter-culture of this era. There is no question about this. We have become the cool ones rebelling against a tyrannical system. This will become more and more alluring to the younger generation who is coming of age as time moves on. Especially considering we live in societies polluted with political correctness and all sorts of nonsensical bullshit.”
Actually listening to “fashwave” – the fash from fascism, obviously, the wave from synthwave, the musical style it derives from – suggests the desire to be “the cool ones” is genuine, albeit unlikely. The few makers of actual fashwave tend to produce music that’s clunky and derivative, while the best tracks on fashwave playlists come from pre-existing synthwave artists who have done nothing to associate themselves with fashwave, other than make records that members of the far right like.
“I have no control over how my music is shared,” says the Swedish synthwave producer Robert Parker, who crops up on fashwave playlists. “I don’t have the time to find the people who share my music. I’ve been putting it out for six years – it’s not difficult to download or spread it.”
He became aware last week, he says, that his music had been co-opted, and he was horrified. He condemns the politics of the fashwave fans and artists, and points out he’s never done or said anything to attract them. “I do not use any language or imagery that can be connected with it. I don’t want my music to be looked on as something that uses stereotypical images of women, for example. I don’t want to associate my music with that.”
Still, he thinks there are reasons why synthwave has been picked up by the neo-fascists. “I had my suspicions that music like this could be picked up in this way,” he says. “it’s not surprising. This style contains a lot of cliches from the 80s, and I think [the co-option by the far right] comes from people thinking things were better 30 years ago. And it promotes body ideals.”
He notes, too, that synth music was hijacked by the far right in Sweden in the 1980s, so it’s not a new thing. As for dissociating himself? “I don’t know what to do, really,” he says, despairingly.
The proponents of fashwave describe it much as the proponents of synthwave would their own music. “It is the sound of driving a futuristic, glistening sportscar (top down), through a twinkling neon cityscape, to a space port, to catch a light ship heading to an off-world resort, with your children and the woman you love,” says one neo-Nazi site. But one thing marks out this off-world resort: “Where only whites are allowed!”
Another post on the same site explained the reasoning behind the choice of synth music as “the official soundtrack of the movement”: “The forms of music associated with previous white nationalist movements, various forms of rock music, are pretty dated … In the end, the solution to this problem had been staring me in the face all along. The whitest music ever: synthwave.”
The graphics associated with fashwave look like those of synthwave, too: the same reliance on 80s sci-fi, especially Tron. It’s the same look and sound that was co-opted by the posters and soundtrack for the film Drive. You see and hear it in Stranger Things. What fashwave adds is swastikas, pictures of Donald Trump or Adolf Hitler, and slogans: “Build a wall, deport ’em all.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Tron … A visual inspiration for fashwave Photograph: Allstar/Cinetext/DISNEY
Its compatibility with the mainstream is the potentially poisonous thing about fashwave. It’s the first pop music of the far right that doesn’t sound like it was made by and for people who had chosen to completely alienate themselves from the world.
In the early 80s, the Oi! music that soundtracked the far-right skinhead movement in Britain – and which gained a new set of admirers later in the US, where a second wave of racist punk bands emerged – made no concessions to the mainstream in either music or image. The songs were nasty, brutish and short, with lyrics that hammered home their message in the bluntest of sloganeering: “If you stand and look around you / You’ll see your cities taken away / We can only stand and watch them / As the white youth’s got no say,” as British Standard put it in Keep Britain White.
In the early 90s, the Scandinavian black metal movement became associated with neo-Nazism, not just because some its prime movers – such as Varg Vikernes of Burzum – were public in their support for it, but also because its themes of paganism, of longing for rule by force, of reverence for pre-Christian mythology, tied in with far-right ideas about national identity. And black metal remains a potent force because it managed to create something new artistically, which still appeals to music fans, even those who would condemn the beliefs of some of the music’s makers. The linkage between metal, norse mythology and fascism has been established, and it remains troubling to those who are interested in the first two but not the third – in the Faroe Islands this summer, I was talking to the manager of a “Viking metal” band who, before I could even formulate the question, was at pains to insist they were not in any way far-right in their political views.
To be a fashwave artist or fan, you don’t need to have a shaved head and 18-hole boots, like the Oi! bands. You don’t need to have long hair, lots of leather and a tolerance for blast beats, like the black metal bands. Fashwave is the music that normalises fascism, even if coolness is a way away. If it comes up on your streaming service, you’ll just hear instrumental synth music, though maybe with some odd touches – why does the beat sound like marching jackboots? It’s only when you check the artist and track title you realise something is up: hmmm, this one is called Galatic Lebensraum and it’s by Cybernazi.
The Buzzfeed article, though, has woken up those platforms that have been unwittingly promoting fascism. Since it was published, Cybernazi has been kicked off Soundcloud – or, as his supporters on social media put it, “shoah’d”. That said, you can still find Stormcloak there (with antisemitic artwork, and tracks including Right Wing Surf Squad), and Xurious, with its runic logo.
Nevertheless, it’s perhaps wise not to get in too much of a lather about this new wave of fascist music. It may be played at alt-right rallies, but it doesn’t seem to have developed much traction beyond the hardest core of hardcores. Xurious has just 813 followers on Soundcloud; Stormcloak has 194. Cybernazi, the notional “star” of fashwave, has fewer than 3,000 subscribers to his YouTube channel.
The chances are fashwave will, like Oi!, never impinge on the mainstream. The writer Stuart Maconie described Oi! as “punk’s stunted idiot half-brother, musically primitive and politically unsavoury”. It’s hard not think that if anyone is still talking about fashwave in 20 years’ time, they’ll be using similar language.
• This article was amended on 16 December 2016. An earlier version referred to Xurious’s “swastika-adapted logo”. Xurious contacted us after publication to point out that the logo is a Gibor rune.Red is the new Black
by Staff Writers
London UK (SPX) Aug 07, 2012
Images of the night sky above Glacier National Park in the USA and above Berlin. In cities, clouds scatter artificial light back down towards the ground, drastically increasing the sky brightness. In natural areas, clouds make the sky darker. Credit: top photo: Ray Stinson, Glacier National Park, USA; bottom photo: Image courtesy Christopher Kyba, Berlin, Germany.
The colour of night-time skyglow may be about to undergo a radical change worldwide, according to scientists of the Freie Universitat Berlin and the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries. They predict that with increasing use of LED street lamps, the colour of the night sky will become bluer. To track this change, the researchers developed a prototype measurement device, and used it to show that the sky currently contains far more red light on cloudy nights compared to clear nights.
Their report, entitled "Red is the New Black", is published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Christopher Kyba, physicist at the Freie Universitat and lead author of the study, explains that innovations in lighting technology will result in changes in the colour of streetlights.
"The current worldwide trend of replacing gas discharge lamps with solid state lighting, such as LEDs, will affect the radiance and spectrum of urban skyglow." In order to understand the potential impacts of this change on ecology, it will be essential to monitor the sky over the long term.
The scientists used the new instrument to study how clouds affect sky brightness in urban areas.
"For almost all of evolutionary history, clouds made the night sky darker, just like they do in daytime", said Franz Holker, ecologist at the Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries, study author, and leader of the project "Verlust der Nacht" (Loss of the Night).
In areas with artificial light the effect of clouds is now reversed, and the size of the effect depends on colour. The researchers found that in Berlin the blue portion of skyglow is 7 times more radiant on cloudy nights than on clear, and 18 times more for the red part.
In the visual range used by most animals, the authors say that cloudy skies are now thousands of times more radiant near cities than they were throughout most of history. They expect that the addition of this extra light affects predatory-prey relationships where the predator hunts using vision, for example between owls and mice.
The sky is blue in daytime because the cloud free atmosphere is very good at scattering short wavelength light. The scientists therefore express concern that unless special care is taken in design and implementation, a switch to whiter LED lights could make the sky much brighter on clear nights.
They suggest that cities that have decided to change to solid state lighting should purchase lamps that emit no upward light, and use "warm white" lights with as little blue light as possible.
The research was funded by two interdisciplinary projects, MILIEU and "Verlust der Nacht". The "Verlust der Nacht" project, funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), is specifically devoted to quantifying light pollution and investigating its impact on humans and the environment.Canoes, community spirit and sandbags; the very occasional watery tragedy, and heartening tales of rescued old ladies. These have been the currents of British conversation in recent days, or at least of those parts of it not directly dealing with the appalling realities of being submerged. Marvelling from a safe distance at Blackpool sea-foam that looks just like snow, or tittering at troops who turn up without knowing what to do, the general mood has been "oh, to be alive in such times". Meanwhile the "debate" – if it can be so called – was bogged down in the venerable practice of river dredging, before being distracted by a proposal to divert aid for the world's poorest people into building flood barriers at home.
The acres of coverage this past fortnight have contained few clues that an increased incidence of extreme weather events was both predicable and predicted. When the BBC finally got round to discussing how wild weather might link back to a changing climate on Thursday's Today programme, it afforded false equivalence to the caveated observations of leading scientist Professor Sir Brian Hoskins and the clever-clever sideswipes of a retired Conservative politician, Nigel Lawson. It is now time to cast eyes up above low dismal clouds, to confront the sky beyond.
The one point on which Sir Brian agreed with Lord Lawson is that, owing to randomness of a change in the weather, no one incident can ever be nailed absolutely to the evolution of the climate. Any connection can be seen only by tracing a trend line through the scattergun of dots representing individual storms, droughts and floods around the world. At the start of the week, these columns observed how – from forest fires in Norway to the freezing-over of Hell, Michigan – that we appear to have entered a season of record-breaking weirdness insofar as global weather is concerned. Today, at last, we heard a senior politician join the fray, as the Liberal Democrat energy secretary, Ed Davey, made a speech that warned that we might, perhaps, be seeing the shape of things to come. And now, in the pages of this newspaper, Sir Nicholas Stern – the economist whose official review diagnosed "the greatest … market failure ever seen" – gives his verdict that the current floods represent "a clear sign that we are already experiencing the impacts of climate change"; that these are freakish events which can nonetheless be understood as part of a pattern.
The deniers' riposte to the post-millennial cluster of warm and wet British years, or indeed to freakish weather anywhere else, is now reliably distilled down to one seemingly killer fact: the failure of global average surface temperatures to rise in the past 15 years. Some of this stability may be down to the familiar swings of the El Niño cycle; some of it is simply fluctuating ebbs around the deeper tide. What the sceptics choose to ignore is the strength of the foundation stones of the science. It is, after all, more than a century since the heat-hugging properties of carbon dioxide were demonstrated in the lab. No one disputes that hotter air will hold more water, a connection that raises the spectre of more extreme downpours. No one contests that warmer water fills more space, a reality with stark implications for sea levels.
And indeed, it is from the ocean – where the most systematic observations, provided through the Argo network of floating probes, only began around the millennium's dawn – that some of the most alarming data is now coming in. Measured sea levels in places are higher; waves around Europe appear to be bigger; and the water sometimes looks to be getting warmer too. If there has been little rise in average air temperature of late, as the previously under-studied exchange of heat between the Earth and the ocean is factored in, more odd tides are at work in the water than anyone foretold. The bottom line is that as you put more energy into a chaotic system, you get more chaos out. And it may well be that waterlogged Britain is already, albeit unwittingly, discovering that.And just like that one of Hillary Clinton's biggest supporters, Warren Buffett, has flipped and after predicting doom under Trump, now expects prosperity for the US under America's new president.
In an interview with CNBC, the Omaha billionaire, said that "America works" and added that "It'll work wonderfully under Hillary Clinton, and I think it'll work fine under Donald Trump." The reason for his optimism: Buffett told CNBC the United States has the "secret sauce."
"It doesn't work all the time perfectly," the billionaire said, "but you just look at where we go, milestone after milestone. Never bet against America." With that mantra as a guiding principle, Buffett said, "we're almost always a buyer of stocks over time."
Focusing more on the stock market, Buffett reverted to his infamous optimism and reiterated his call to invest for the long haul; he acknowledged that he doesn't know where the stock market will go in the next "10 days or a year or two years." But he is confident that "It's going to be higher 10 years, 20 years from now."
"There will be hiccups from time to time in the economy," he cautioned. "[But] we'll do well over time."
Especially if the government bails out his core investments during periods of extreme drawdown, as happened during the financial crisis.
In a separate interview Buffett told Bloomberg he “overwhelmingly” supports President-elect Donald Trump’s choices for cabinet positions, many of whom are former bankers, and close friends.
“I feel that way no matter who is president,” Buffett said Thursday in New York at the premiere of a documentary about his life. “The CEO -- which I am -- should have the ability to pick people that help you run a place.”
“If they fail, then it’s your fault and you got to get somebody new,” Buffett said. “Maybe you change cabinet members or something.”
Not surprisingly, since the election, Buffett has struck a more conciliatory tone toward Trump and "called for unity." In an interview with CNN in November, he said that people could disagree with the president-elect, but ultimately he “deserves everybody’s respect.”
He concluded with an ironic twist, saying he hopes Americans are kept safe during the next administration, in view of possible aggression from North Korea. And he said he’s looking for “the people that haven’t participated in our incredible prosperity” to have a chance to do better. “If they work 40 hours a week, they should have a decent life,” Buffett said. “That’s the most important thing in terms of the economy.”
Perhaps the suggestion is that the surge in part-time jobs under Obama, as even former top white house economist Alan Krueger recently admitted, coupled with a record number of Americans holding multiple jobs, does not translate into the economic prosperity that Obama has repeatedly described as his crowning legacy.MIAMI (Reuters) - A U.S. government cyber security official warned that authorities have seen an increase in attacks that penetrate industrial control system networks over the past year, and said they are vulnerable because they are exposed to the Internet.
A man types on a computer keyboard in Warsaw in this February 28, 2013 illustration file picture. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel/Files
Industrial control systems are computers that control operations of industrial processes, from energy plants and steel mills to cookie factories and breweries.
“We see more and more that are gaining access to that control system layer,” said Marty Edwards, who runs the Department of Homeland Security’s Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team, or ICS-CERT.
ICS-CERT helps U.S. firms investigate suspected cyber attacks on industrial control systems as well as corporate networks.
Interest in critical infrastructure security has surged since late last month when Ukraine authorities blamed a power outage on a cyber attack from Russia, which would make it the first known power outage caused by a cyber attack.
Experts attending the S4 conference of some 300 critical infrastructure security specialists in Miami said the incident has caused U.S. firms to ask whether their systems are vulnerable to similar incidents.
Edwards said he believed the increase in attacks was mainly because more control systems are directly connected to the Internet.
“I am very dismayed at the accessibility of some of these networks... they are just hanging right off the tubes,” he said in an on-stage interview with conference organizer Dale Peterson.
Edwards did not say whether those attacks had caused any service disruptions or threatened public safety.
Sean McBride, a critical infrastructure analyst with iSight Partners who attended the talk, said the increase may reflect more publicity in recent years over risks over cyber attacks, which prompted operators to find more infections.
McBride said he could not say if the increase was troubling because he did not know the intent of the attackers.
Edwards and a DHS spokesman declined to elaborate on his comments.
ICS-CERT said in an alert this week that it had identified malware used in the attack in Ukraine as BlackEnergy 3, a variant of malware that the agency said in 2014 had infected some U.S. critical infrastructure operators.
A DHS official said on Tuesday that government investigators have not confirmed whether the BlackEnergy malware caused the Ukraine incident.
“At this time there is no definitive evidence linking the power outage in Ukraine with the presence of the malware,” said the official, who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
Edwards did not discuss the Ukraine attack during his talk.We’re in the fourth revolution of human history, the technology revolution, and FinTech innovation is the tip of the spear.
That’s according to Chris Skinner, CEO of the Financial Services Club. Speaking to delegates at MEFTECH 2016 in Abu Dhabi, Skinner said that while it may seem like the rate of innovation is slowing, people thought that the horse and carriage was the pinnacle of invention at the start of the industrial revolution.
“We’re only 70 years or so into the information revolution,” he says. The first steam patent was made in the late 17th century and the last at the start of the 20th, so according to Skinner there is still a long way to go.
Banks were emerging in the midst of the industrial revolution, being backed by governments and this is where the trust in them as an institution first took hold. Yet we’re still using methods that were popularised during the 19th century.
The fact that cheques can take up to 28 days to process payments, says Skinner, is “stupid”. While banks still use outdated methods, start-ups like Venmo make multi-million on very simple ideas. The internet, he adds, enables ideas to go viral.
Bridging the gap
The question of how to bring “the hipsters and the suits” together is a major one for the industry, Skinner states. Regulation and technology are on opposites sides of a cool/uncool divide.
Africa, he continues, is a potent example of how innovation can change an industry landscape. 58% of Kenyans are using mobile wallets, and now the telcos across the continent are coming together to enable pan-African payments.
So what’s the solution, blockchain? “Blockchain is boring” answers Skinner. Banks are using the term in the same way they have used the cloud and big data – as a catch-all word for innovation. The reason FinTech is “so hot” is down to the fact that it is moving financial operations from the boardroom to the internet.
Banks have time to adapt but that time is running low. Customers don’t want to go to 100 different companies to get their lending, investments and payments controlled, says Skinner. They want to come to a name and an institution they know and recognise. Banks have to act to utilise that brand recognition.
Skinner concludes by stating that the FinTech revolution still has a |
N+
Tue 4/14 vs. Cincinnati 7:05 PM CSN
Wed 4/15 vs. Cincinnati 7:05 PM WPWR
Thur 4/16 OFF DAY
Fri 4/17 vs. San Diego 1:20 PM ABC7
Sat 4/18 vs. San Diego 1:20 PM CSN
Sun 4/19 vs. San Diego 1:20 PM WGN
Mon 4/20 @ Pittsburgh 6:05 PM CSN
Tue 4/21 @ Pittsburgh 6:05 PM WGN
Wed 4/22 @ Pittsburgh 6:05 PM CSN
Thur 4/23 @ Pittsburgh 11:35 AM CSN
Fri 4/24 @ Cincinnati 6:10 PM CSN
Sat 4/25 @ Cincinnati 12:10 PM ABC7
Sun 4/26 @ Cincinnati 12:10 PM WGN
Mon 4/27 vs. Pittsburgh 7:05 PM CSN
Tue 4/28 vs. Pittsburgh 7:05 PM WPWR
Wed 4/29 vs. Pittsburgh 7:05 PM CSN
Thur 4/30 OFF DAY
Fri 5/1 vs. Milwaukee 1:20 PM CSN
Sat 5/2 vs. Milwaukee 1:20 PM CSN
Sun 5/3 vs. Milwaukee 1:20 PM WGN
Mon 5/4 @ St. Louis 7:10 PM CSN
Tue 5/5 @ St. Louis 7:15 PM WGN
Wed 5/6 @ St. Louis 7:15 PM CSN
Thur 5/7 @ St. Louis 12:45 PM CSN
Fri 5/8 @ Milwaukee 7:10 PM CSN
Sat 5/9 @ Milwaukee 6:10 PM CSN
Sun 5/10 @ Milwaukee 1:10 PM WGN
Mon 5/11 vs. NY Mets 7:05 PM CSN
Tue 5/12 vs. NY Mets 7:05 PM CSN+
Wed 5/13 vs. NY Mets 7:05 PM WGN
Thur 5/14 vs. NY Mets 1:20 PM CSN
Fri 5/15 vs. Pittsburgh 1:20 PM CSN
Sat 5/16 vs. Pittsburgh 3:05 PM ABC7
Sun 5/17 vs. Pittsburgh 1:20 PM WGN
Mon 5/18 OFF DAY
Tue 5/19 @ San Diego 9:10 PM WGN
Wed 5/20 @ San Diego 9:10 PM CSN
Thur 5/21 @ San Diego 8:10 PM CSN+
Fri 5/22 @ Arizona 8:40 PM CSN+
Sat 5/23 @ Arizona 9:10 PM CSN
Sun 5/24 @ Arizona 3:10 PM WGN
Mon 5/25 vs. Washington 1:20 PM WGN
Tue 5/26 vs. Washington 6:05 PM CSN
Wed 5/27 vs. Washington 7:05 PM CSN+
Thur 5/28 OFF DAY
Fri 5/29 vs. Kansas City 3:05 PM CSN
Sat 5/30 vs. Kansas City 6:15 PM FOX
Sun 5/31 vs. Kansas City 1:20 PM ABC7
Mon 6/1 @ Miami 6:10 PM CSN
Tue 6/2 @ Miami 6:10 PM CSN
Wed 6/3 @ Miami 6:10 PM WPWR
Thur 6/4 @ Washington 6:05 PM WGN
Fri 6/5 @ Washington 6:05 PM CSN
Sat 6/6 @ Washington 11:05 AM CSN
Sun 6/7 @ Washington 3:05 PM CSN
Mon 6/8 OFF DAY
Tue 6/9 @ Detroit 6:08 PM CSN
Wed 6/10 @ Detroit 6:08 PM CSN
Thur 6/11 vs. Cincinnati 7:05 PM CSN
Fri 6/12 vs. Cincinnati 3:05 PM WGN
Sat 6/13 vs. Cincinnati 6:15 PM FOX
Sun 6/14 vs. Cincinnati TBD CSN or ESPN
Mon 6/15 vs. Cleveland 7:05 PM WPWR
Tue 6/16 vs. Cleveland 7:05 PM CSN
Wed 6/17 @ Cleveland 6:10 PM CSN+
Thur 6/18 @ Cleveland 6:10 PM CSN
Fri 6/19 @ Minnesota 7:10 PM WGN
Sat 6/20 @ Minnesota 1:10 PM ABC7
Sun 6/21 @ Minnesota 1:10 PM ABC7
Mon 6/22 vs. LA Dodgers 7:05 PM WGN
Tue 6/23 vs. LA Dodgers 7:05 PM CSN
Wed 6/24 vs. LA Dodgers 7:05 PM CSN
Thur 6/25 vs. LA Dodgers 1:20 PM ABC7
Fri 6/26 @ St. Louis 7:15 PM ABC7
Sat 6/27 @ St. Louis 6:15 PM FOX
Sun 6/28 @ St. Louis 1:15 PM CSN
Mon 6/29 OFF DAY
Tue 6/30 @ NY Mets 6:10 PM CSN
Wed 7/1 @ NY Mets 6:10 PM WGN
Thur 7/2 @ NY Mets 12:10 PM WGN
Fri 7/3 vs. Miami 1:20 PM CSN
Sat 7/4 vs. Miami 6:15 PM FOX
Sun 7/5 vs. Miami TBD CSN or ESPN
Mon 7/6 vs. St. Louis 7:05 PM WGN
Tue 7/7 vs. St. Louis 7:05 PM CSN
Wed 7/8 vs. St. Louis 7:05 PM CSN
Thur 7/9 OFF DAY
Fri 7/10 vs. White Sox 3:05 PM CSN
Sat 7/11 vs. White Sox 3:05 PM ABC7
Sun 7/12 vs. White Sox 1:20 PM ABC7
7/13-16 ALL-STAR BREAK (Cincinnati)
Fri 7/17 @ Atlanta 6:35 PM CSN
Sat 7/18 @ Atlanta 6:10 PM ABC7
Sun 7/19 @ Atlanta 4:05 PM WGN
Mon 7/20 @ Cincinnati 6:10 PM CSN
Tue 7/21 @ Cincinnati 6:10 PM CSN
Wed 7/22 @ Cincinnati 11:35 AM ABC7
Thur 7/23 OFF DAY
Fri 7/24 vs. Philadelphia 3:05 PM WGN
Sat 7/25 vs. Philadelphia 3:05 PM ABC7
Sun 7/26 vs. Philadelphia 1:20 PM ABC7
Mon 7/27 vs. Colorado 7:05 PM CSN+
Tue 7/28 vs. Colorado 7:05 PM CSN+
Wed 7/29 vs. Colorado 1:20 PM WGN
Thur 7/30 @ Milwaukee 7:10 PM CSN
Fri 7/31 @ Milwaukee 7:10 PM WGN
Sat 8/1 @ Milwaukee 6:10 PM ABC7
Sun 8/2 @ Milwaukee 1:10 PM ABC7
Mon 8/3 @ Pittsburgh 6:05 PM CSN
Tue 8/4 @ Pittsburgh 6:05 PM WGN
Wed 8/5 @ Pittsburgh 6:05 PM CSN
Thur 8/6 vs. SF Giants 7:05 PM CSN
Fri 8/7 vs. SF Giants 3:05 PM WGN
Sat 8/8 vs. SF Giants 3:05 PM ABC7
Sun 8/9 vs. SF Giants TBD CSN or ESPN
Mon 8/10 OFF DAY
Tue 8/11 vs. Milwaukee 7:05 PM CSN
Wed 8/12 vs. Milwaukee 7:05 PM WGN
Thur 8/13 vs. Milwaukee 1:20 PM ABC7
Fri 8/14 @ White Sox 3:10 PM CSN
Sat 8/15 @ White Sox 6:10 PM ABC7
Sun 8/16 @ White Sox 1:10 PM CSN
Mon 8/17 OFF DAY
Tue 8/18 vs. Detroit 7:05 PM ABC7
Wed 8/19 vs. Detroit 7:05 PM WPWR
Thur 8/20 vs. Atlanta 7:05 PM CSN
Fri 8/21 vs. Atlanta 3:05 PM CSN
Sat 8/22 vs. Atlanta 3:05 PM ABC7
Sun 8/23 vs. Atlanta 1:20 PM WGN
Mon 8/24 OFF DAY
Tue 8/25 @ SF Giants 9:15 PM WGN
Wed 8/26 @ SF Giants 9:15 PM CSN
Thur 8/27 @ SF Giants 2:45 PM CSN
Fri 8/28 @ LA Dodgers 9:10 PM WGN
Sat 8/29 @ LA Dodgers 8:10 PM WGN
Sun 8/30 @ LA Dodgers TBD CSN or ESPN
Mon 8/31 vs. Cincinnati 7:05 PM CSN
Tue 9/1 vs. Cincinnati 7:05 PM WGN
Wed 9/2 vs. Cincinnati 1:20 PM CSN
Thur 9/3 OFF DAY
Fri 9/4 vs. Arizona 1:20 PM CSN
Sat 9/5 vs. Arizona 1:20 PM CSN
Sun 9/6 vs. Arizona 1:20 PM WGN
Mon 9/7 @ St. Louis 1:15 PM WGN
Tue 9/8 @ St. Louis 7:15 PM CSN
Wed 9/9 @ St. Louis 12:45 PM CSN
Thur 9/10 @ Philadelphia 6:05 PM CSN
Fri 9/11 @ Philadelphia 6:05 PM CSN
Sat 9/12 @ Philadelphia 6:05 PM CSN
Sun 9/13 @ Philadelphia 12:35 PM WGN
Mon 9/14 OFF DAY
Tue 9/15 @ Pittsburgh 6:05 PM WGN
Wed 9/16 @ Pittsburgh 6:05 PM CSN
Thur 9/17 @ Pittsburgh 11:35 AM WGN
Fri 9/18 vs. St. Louis 1:20 PM ABC7
Sat 9/19 vs. St. Louis 12:05 PM FOX
Sun 9/20 vs. St. Louis TBD CSN or ESPN
Mon 9/21 vs. Milwaukee 7:05 PM CSN
Tue 9/22 vs. Milwaukee 7:05 PM CSN+
Wed 9/23 vs. Milwaukee 7:05 PM CSN
Thur 9/24 OFF DAY
Fri 9/25 vs. Pittsburgh 1:20 PM ABC7
Sat 9/26 vs. Pittsburgh TBD CSN or FOX
Sun 9/27 vs. Pittsburgh TBD CSN or ESPN
Mon 9/28 OFF DAY
Tues 9/29 @ Cincinnati 6:10 PM CSN
Wed 9/30 @ Cincinnati 6:10 PM WGN
Thur 10/1 @ Cincinnati 11:35 AM CSN
Fri 10/2 @ Milwaukee 7:10 PM CSN
Sat 10/3 @ Milwaukee 6:10 PM CSN
Sun 10/4 @ Milwaukee 2:10 PM WGN
WGN: WGN-TV
CSN: Comcast SportsNet Chicago
CSN+: Comcast SportsNet Plus
ABC7: WLS/ABC 7
WPWR: My50 Chicago
FOX: Regional Fox Telecast
ESPN: National ESPN Telecast
All times listed are Central Time and are subject to changeshadow-cljs (since about 2.0.15 ) supports compiling builds that make use of the self-hosted ClojureScript Compiler. Previously this was not supported since the build needs to be modified in a few places to ensure that all the required files are available. shadow-cljs itself continues to use the JVM compiler.
This feature is split into two parts. First you need a “host” build which will be your “app” (currently limited to :browser builds). This build will host the compiler and then use the support files generated by the second :bootstrap build. These support files include the CLJS analyzer cache, macro JS files,.cljs files, etc.
The :bootstrap build itself will generate an “index” with useful information for the compiler. When the “host” build starts up it calls the provided shadow.cljs.bootstrap.browser/init function to load the index and fetch all resources necessary to start using the compiler (which usually involves the analyzer data for cljs.core and the cljs.core$macros JS file).
Once init completes the compiler can be used. The provided shadow.cljs.bootstrap.browser/load function takes care of properly loading dependencies. The CLJS analyzer will call this function whenever a dependency is required and it will load the analyzer data, macro and JS files. Only namespaces pre-compiled by the :bootstrap build will be available.
The “host” can look something like this:
(ns demo.selfhost.simple (:require [cljs.js :as cljs] [cljs.env :as env] [shadow.cljs.bootstrap.browser :as boot])) (defn print-result [{:keys [error value] :as result}] (js/console.log "result" result) (set! (.-innerHTML (js/document.getElementById "dump")) value)) (def code " (ns simpleexample.core (:require [clojure.string :as str] [reagent.core :as r])) (defonce timer (r/atom (js/Date.))) (defonce time-color (r/atom \"#f34\")) (defonce time-updater (js/setInterval #(reset! timer (js/Date.)) 1000)) (defn greeting [message] [:h1 message]) (defn clock [] (let [time-str (-> @timer.toTimeString (str/split \" \") first)] [:div.example-clock {:style {:color @time-color}} time-str])) (defn color-input [] [:div.color-input \"Time color: \" [:input {:type \"text\" :value @time-color :on-change #(reset! time-color (-> %.-target.-value))}]]) (defn simple-example [] [:div [greeting \"Hello world, it is now\"] [clock] [color-input]]) (r/render [simple-example] (js/document.getElementById \"app\"))" ) (defonce compile-state-ref (env/default-compiler-env)) (defn compile-it [] (cljs/eval-str compile-state-ref code "[test]" {:eval cljs/js-eval :load (partial boot/load compile-state-ref)} print-result)) (defn start [] (boot/init compile-state-ref {:path "/bootstrap"} compile-it)) (defn stop [])
The shadow-cljs.edn config
{:dependencies [[reagent "0.8.0-alpha1" :exclusions [cljsjs/create-react-class]] :source-paths ["src"] :builds {:bootstrap-host {:target :browser :output-dir "out/demo-selfhost/public/simple/js" :asset-path "/simple/js" :compiler-options {:optimizations :simple} :modules {:base {:entries [demo.selfhost.simple]}} :devtools {:http-root "out/demo-selfhost/public" :http-port 8700 :before-load demo.selfhost.simple/stop :after-load demo.selfhost.simple/start}} :bootstrap-support {:target :bootstrap :output-dir "out/demo-selfhost/public/bootstrap" :exclude #{cljs.js} :entries [cljs.js demo.macro reagent.core] :macros []}}}
The config option for the :bootstrap build are
:entries a sequence of namespaces you want to have available for the self-hosted compiler
a sequence of namespaces you want to have available for the self-hosted compiler :exclude for macro namespaces that are not self-host compatible as they would otherwise break the build. This would include things like cljs.core.async.macros, cljs.js, etc.
for namespaces that are not self-host compatible as they would otherwise break the build. This would include things like,, etc. :macros will usually be optional since all macros used by the :entries will already be included.
Everything is written to :output-dir. The path where those files are available must be passed to the boot/init function.
@mhuebert created a standalone example and the shadow-cljs repo itself contains the example above.
You can try it by running
npm install -g shadow-cljs git clone https://github.com/thheller/shadow-cljs.git cd shadow-cljs shadow-cljs watch bootstrap-host bootstrap-support open http://localhost:8700
Usually shadow-cljs does not require lein but it is required in this case since I’m using lein to build the shadow-cljs project. The standalone example is probably better suited for testing.The four different zones in the world of Albion are a core part of what makes up the gameplay. Today, we shed some light on what thoughts went into this concept and the underlying mechanics.
November 25, 2015 at 2:05 PM by Bercilak
When we started to think about Albion Online for the first time, two things were pretty clear for us:
PvP is playing an important role in the game At the same time we need to find mechanics to get beginners slowly into the world of PvP
It is not good game design if you get killed by a Griefer in the first 5 minutes of your game time. So one of the two major game mechanics we had in mind for Albion had been our zones.
When we started our first playtests we had two zones. A green zone (where no PvP is allowed and a red zone (where PvP is allowed in combination with Full Loot). A system which felt natural for me as a huge Dark Age of Camelot fan. However during the course of all our alpha tests we made some changes which were each time the result of the community feedback. The first thing we realized was that we wanted to add a penalty system for people killing other people.
So the first penalty system we had in place was one that became active after you attacked someone. However nowadays there are a few problems with (let me call it) a “post-attack-penalty”.
You have either of two problems:
The penalty is not significant enough If it is too strong people are not fighting at all or creating alt accounts to circumvent the negative effects
We realised quickly that we are not living in 1998 anymore and people are way more efficient in circumventing certain mechanics than some 20 years ago. So we actually pretty quickly started to experiment with a “pre-attack-penalty” which in the end became today’s flagging system.
With a “post-attack-penalty” we would definitely have killed them quickly because … why not?
Short Explanation: In certain zones you can only attack other peoples if you flagged yourself BEFORE as a “villain/criminal”. The flagging takes almost a minute and you cannot move during that time. So it is possible but harder to abuse it.
So with this flagging system we can have different scenarios. For instance we can show in an area how many people are flagged as a criminal, so I can decide for myself if I want to go there or not. Or when you are in an area where there is no flagged criminal a few of them might enter and then you are aware of the situation and you can now decide to find a way out of that area or hope that they won’t find you.
Another penalty is that in our red zone we are showing when there are more than X players running closely together. A penalty for larger ganking groups making them less effective. We are of course offering a zone where we are not doing this and where we are also encouraging larger groups to fight each other.
A personal experience I had was that we were running with a group of 20 players on our way to a dungeon to fight some monsters and we met a 3 men group on our way. So of course we could have somehow followed them with a few people while the rest is secretly flagging somewhere but
this would not have guaranteed the kill, maybe they still had escaped
it was too much effort for just three normal kills
So we waved at each other and continued moving on to our dungeon. With a “post-attack-penalty” we would definitely have killed them quickly because … why not?
As I said above a post-attack-penalty is impossible to balance right and from our perspective we are getting way better results with the pre-attack-flagging system.
But coming back to our actual zones. After the addition of the flagging system we made some important addition to our zones: A new yellow zone where we removed the full loot part and replaced it with a durability loss of all your items.
Why did we do this?
Before it was totally black and white. On the one hand (green zone) you had no pvp at all but on the other hand, when entering a red zone, you were directly confronted with the full loot mechanic. Despite the flagging system it really felt like: “Ok, so here, there is no boxing allowed but once you step through this door, feel free to have a real fight with Lennox Lewis.”
There is a large group of people who are extreme hardcore PvP players and where we are happy that they are playing our game but there is an even larger group of players who are not so much into PvP because of various reasons.
And we want our game to be very good at motivating and preparing these people to also try out PvP. So we decided that the first step after the green zone is our current version of the yellow zone where the penalty is a durability loss only.
Trade routes evolve all over Albion as well as those groups of players who try to undermine them.
Having a significant death penalty is something we perceive as very important. And losing a lot of your durability is also something that has a significant impact on your situation. With Albion Online, we wanted to go back to the concept that death is really meaningful as a game element. From our perspective, it makes people think their actions through much more thoroughly and encourages players to plan their operations a lot more smartly and efficiently.
In that sense, it even opens up the door for extremely interesting economic events - e.g. it is a very common thing in our game that guilds are organizing their resource transports meticulously by hiring a small squadron of mercenaries who aim to protect the precious items loaded on the transport mounts. That way, real trade routes evolve all over Albion as well as those groups of players who try to undermine them.
All in all, we consider the zoning system certainly as one of the core elements of Albion Online as it allows to both fulfil the needs of hardcore PVP players and players not interested in PVP but also to transition new players into the world much more easily, thereby generating a base of players who end up enjoying PVP much more than they initially thought because they were gradually smoothed into it.Hello Citizens and welcome to INN’s notes for Reverse the ‘Verse – Episode 51!
Reverse the ‘Verse
Notes by Erris, Me, and LegoRobotDude
Notes in bold are important. Notes in italics are our own comments.
– SOON™
– #BlameJames
– We’ve got Ben, Jen, James, Alexis, Alyssa…
– They’re discussing Jurassic World.
– They seem to be mad at the movie, while also saying they liked it.
– ‘Dinosaurs eat people’
– [Ben, what’s the weather like?] Sunny and 70! – everyone else – That’s a lie!
– Also: Star Citizen!
– Dinosaurs in Star Citizen: Yes. Space Dinosaurs.
– German magazine called “golem” is touring the Santa Monica office today.
– Retrospective at the beginning of AtV, thanks go out to years1hundred for putting it together.
– Alyssa always looks shady.
– They’re talking about pokemon noises now. And Charmander’s tail flame.
– [Will the text in the store that says if ships are flyable or not be fixed?] Yes.
– They’re talking about the Steam sale now.
– There’s a new forum post. In two weeks, there’s AtV 50 episode, and they want to see us in AtV. You have a week to submit your pictures, and they’ll put them in an awesome montage, featuring all our lovely mugs.
– Cool new audio design (WWise) for the Sneak Peek in AtV 48 – Gold Horizon gravity generator.
– Later today there will be some footage of the guys in Austin QA flying around in the scythe. They will also release another Vanduul ship, one that was in the leak, but now it will have context.
– [Where is Lando?] Lando is giving the tour to the guys from Golem.
-The new guy always gives the tour, but Lando seems to enjoy it
– Alyssa said that she never had to give any tours and she thanks the flying spaghetti monster for that
– Travis will show up in the last 10 minutes of the stream to do his rapid-fire questions.
– [Will hangars get bigger to accommodate the range of 2.0 ships?] Yes.
– CitizenCon tickets are sold out. Erris and FFFFFF is going to CitizenCon! (I will try to get interviews and things.)
– Ship Shape has arrived. (Lisa Ohanian)
– Lisa is drinking coffee, not a ‘shipshake’
– FPS questions will be addressed in the last 10 minutes.
– Broad FPS status: Still working on it, still some blockers. Not tonight (don’t do patches Fridays anymore).
– Sometime before mid-July, there will be a raft of details about GamesCom. They’re working with tech companies about how the whole thing will work, stream and lighting wise and such.
15 minutes
– #sadjames
– Ship Shape is not only to talk about ship progress, but also show how they get that process, so the whole process of getting ships ready. What’s on Ship Shape depends on what’s out there.
– Lisa was trying hard to do an episode on the Freelancer but the guys working on it were rerouted temporarily to Squadron 42 and what she had to show from the ship was not very satisfying.
– Some weeks artists are polishing ships, some week’s they’re carefully drawing details on the side of a Bengal.
– There is no controller balance update yet. The game has to come first, then they will balance it.
– Its not a chicken or egg situation, game needs to come first
– Reverse the ‘Verse is powered by a mix of puns and caffeine.
– They are getting everything they ever wanted for a Star Citizen HOTAS and it’s getting there… still in legal.
– Ship sales – when, where and what. No sale this week. When there’s a concept sale, it’ll be announced a week in advance. There’s cool stuff in the pipeline, but nothing yet.
– There are three types of sale – Concept sale, hangar ready, and flyable. They’re doing their best to not do multiple concept sales in a row.
– Taking their time with new concept sales… want to demonstrate they can deliver ships too.
– Ben and Alyssa are talking about things in code that we can’t understand.
– [When will we see frankfurt in AtV?] Hopefully next week. They have to make sure the audio and video are good before they can join in.
– Shoutout to Technomancer for an awesome username.
– [Will there be a show where we get to see different clothing options?] Yeah, Jenny would love to do something like that, it’s just the logistics of when and timing and what can be released. It’s on the radar though.
– [What percentage of overall resources are currently working towards SQ42?] A lot, but not all. Probably between Santa Monica and the UK, over half, but dedicated people are working on other stuff. Austin isn’t working on SQ42 at all. Artists in Santa monica are working on SQ42, but not programmers or designers. And things like FPS, it’s its own thing, but it is used for SQ42 so… yeah.
– Lots of people are annoyed that CIG aren’t releasing a lot of information about SQ42, and they’re trying to hold onto it. Open development doesn’t mean they’ll show us everything they do as they do it, it means they’ll tell us what they’re doing. We won’t see everything they’re doing for SQ42, they want there to be surprises. It’s not going to change. They’re being honest saying that, lots of our resources are working on SQ42, but they want it to be a surprise when you open up SQ42. They don’t want it to be like, open game, oh, I’ve seen all of these ships already.
– Lisa knows all of the ships, because it’s her job, but she knows nothing about the story. The community team don’t’ want to know things they don’t have to.
– No ETA on new CCU system, Turbulent is hard at work
– [Updates on year 2 printed jump points?] There will be a preorder process. They need to sell ~2000 copies if they’re going to be viable. There’ll be a 30 day preorder period. If they can get enough orders, they’ll do it. If they can’t, we’ll get our money back.
– It’ll be available to everyone, with discounts to different levels of subscribers.
– Not comfortable doing big sale things when FPS still isn’t out.
– No new updates on the Caterpillar
– A concept artist is working actively on the Crucible. No ETA’s, but it’s being worked on.
– Ryan Church is the concept artist on the Crucible.
– Don’t show your interest for a jump point re-run in customer support tickets.
– Watch your language in the chat. Keep it PG.
30 minutes
– Social module teasers? Nope. that’s up to Austin. We’ll hear more about it after FPS.
– When Dave Hobbins designed some ships, the entry space was really tiny for humans (the Mustangs), and they had to be reworked completely. Called it the Hobbins hole. Anytime the design doesn’t match what it’s supposed to do, they call it a Hobbins hole.
– [Are there additional payment options coming?] Yes. They’re working on it, getting close to a final thing with a new thing that should open up a few more payment options.
– [Can we fly the Merlin soon?] It’s coming along.
– [Mousepads?] Yes. If there’s a specific one you want to see, let Alexis know on the forums. They’re easy to make.
– [Can we use grabby hands to make sandwiches?] I’d assume so. Everything is very articulated.
– Toast eats Butter and Vegemite sandwiches.
– Turbulent is actively working on two-factor authentication, but no ETA on completion.
– Travel coffee mugs and a hoodie coming soon
– Disco Lando has arrived with some press people and cameras.
– German folks on the tour say hi along with Lando.
– Lando gets burned hard about “keeping secrets”.
– Ben found some old Wing Commander art, and is doing some show and tell.
– The Endeavour concept is still being worked on. It’s being worked on by Jim Martin now. Should expect to see it soon?
– The Avenger – no-one’s working on it right now.
– There’s a meeting coming up to determine new ship variants. Finding out the variants for various ships.
– Someone is filming RtV as it’s being webcast.
– Final push for major organization of Confluence will be done at the end of the month.
– Travis probably won’t be at Gamescom.
– Jenny messed up the Camera.
– James has a new Pokemon jacket.
– [Will there be Dragonfly variants?] Probably… but they’ll come up with the ship first. That’s on the radar but they need to figure out some design stuff for the concept. Eventually though, there will probably be variants. Don’t know what they’ll be yet, ideas floating around but nothing concrete.
– Is the room system part of the social module? Yes? Possibly? Room system is an earworm that’s stuck in everyone’s heads, but the social module is beyond just the room system.
– There are about 100 people in the room for RtV now.
– Travis Time
– FPS when? Can’t answer.
– How many levels being worked on? Two currently for FPS. More levels in the works as well.
– Terra, Stanton, Nyx are being worked on.
– Fighting outside the space station in FPS? Not on initial release. Perhaps later.
– Vision for AC 3.0 is getting FPS and space combat together at last. Could be outside the space station.
– Plan on having 64 player maps? Yes, at some point they’ll have to because they want a high player count. On initial launch, the largest will be 32 players.
45 minutes
– No bullet penetration on first release, subsequent releases will have bullet penetration
– Closest FPS to Star Marine is original counterstrike. Sort of, but not really.
– What’s holding back FPS? Changes to networking back-end to get to 32 player count on FPS, which will improve the ability to have multiple ships. They’ll get more ships out of the work they’re doing for more FPS players.
– At least a 20% reduction in loading times coming.
– Rob Irving and Ben were always Jay and Silent Bob.
– Start/stop and Juke is a work in progress. Engineering changes have been wrapped. Hooking up motion capture assets. It feels responsive and quick but with weight. When you look at another player it has good fluidity like Uncharted or Assassin’s Creed.
– How will FPS latency be vs current latency? A lot of the stuttering and rubber banding is caused by the number of attachments on ships, but the network changes will help that too
– Training gallery? They will possibly add a ‘free fight’ mode, a single-player and multiplayer free fight to go into a server with no rules and just explore and shoot.
– 64-bit update has been integrated into Game Dev stream. Not in FPS but will be in subsequent releases.
– Paul is the dirtiest player at CIG.
– How big is the Gold Horizon map? In the PU it’ll have a larger interior space than in FPS, but compared to an official CS Go, it’s smaller than something like DE Cobble, roughly on a Dust II scale, maybe a bit tighter, but more windy. Less square footage.
– Randy just showed up… he’s working on the Starliner. We’ll be seeing him lots in the coming weeks.
– Shout-out to Soldier of Fortune.
– Initially, there will be limb damage and characters and animations will react to that, for walking speed and aiming ability and such, but it will be fleshed out more after launch
– We will see the Starliner “legitimate soon” – sometime in the next couple of weeks.
– Anyone working on Herald? It’s for SQ42, but it’s not being worked on right now, artists have been pulled to work on the Bengal. Slated to be worked on soon.
– There will be leaderboards for FPS
– Can get shot in hands, upper arms, lower arms, chest, upper leg, lower leg, head, and possibly abdomen.
– Banu MM in SQ42? No.
– AI for Horde mode is being worked on
– How many man hours required to get Bengal out? They’re not sure yet, and they’re trying to come up with something that’ll be accurate. Huge ship, they’re approaching some things differently. They have one or two folks on R&D figuring out how to approach certain problems. Estimate would be thousands of man hours.
– FPS version zero: 80 – 85% completion – it’s that last 10-20% that is polish and detail that needs to come together.
– Bengal is not even SoonTM
– Fall damage will be localized to the parts of your body that hit first. If you fall, your legs will take damage.
– Netcode barriers: Still hitting a hard cap on the upper bandwidth limitations. they’re going to increase the bandwidth limitations and improve the structure and the data set size of their RMI’s. RMI’s are basically guaranteed send and receive with confirmation. Might move some of that to serialization which is a binary update so there’s a smaller bit size.
– Lisa just made an inappropriate joke
– Someone said 1000 man hours, someone said get a woman to do it, Lisa said there are no work stations in the kitchen, Alyssa started laughing
– The men in the room do not approve of the joke.
– Lisa and Alyssa are incredibly inappropriate.
– Travis confirms there are work stations in the kitchen
– Ben has seen people working in the kitchen.
– How are the Kr’Thak coming along? They’re great! They’re KrrrrtttahAAAAK!
– Galactapedia: Cherie was there earlier and she said she is working on it and it’s coming along. Currently she is focusing on getting their Confluence to a better place. She’s rolling out a lot of changes with that next week. It’s not exciting for us, Confluence is internal information database, but after that she’ll be shifting focus to work on the Galactapedia full force.
– Travis’s favorite ship is the Aurora because it has a bed in the back and John Pritchett, Physics Programmer, once told him, ”When the Aurora is rockin’, don’t come a knockin’”.
– Alyssa wants to start an an all-Vanduul pirate fleet called the Malicious Marauders.
– What’s Darian doing? He’s eating horribly disgusting foods and he’s buried in JIRA.
– Dave Haddock and the other writers are on set writing SQ42 shoots, because everything gets revised as they go.
– Size for the FPS patch should only be slightly larger than the current AC patch. Lots has been culled. The leak |
.SAN SALVADOR (Reuters) - The honorary consul serving as Romania’s diplomatic representative in El Salvador has died in a suspected homicide at his home in San Salvador, authorities in the crime-ridden Central American nation said on Sunday.
The body of honorary consul Ricardo Emanuel Salume Barake was found bound and gagged at his house in a wealthy part of the Salvadoran capital and investigations were continuing, a police spokeswoman said.
The attorney general’s office said on Twitter the death was being treated as a homicide, but did not give further details.
El Salvador’s foreign ministry said Salume, a Salvadoran citizen, was Romania’s only diplomatic representative in the country. The Romanian embassy in Mexico confirmed this.
A surge in criminal violence in El Salvador in the past two years has lifted its homicide rate above neighboring Honduras, which had been the world’s most murderous country.President Obama said he was 'heartbroken' for the families affected by the shooting
He was discharged from the National Army Guard for unsatisfactory performance in August
giving a one-fingered salute similar to one used by Islamic State
Sources say he walked into an FBI office in Alaska last year claiming he was being forced to fight for ISIS
He reportedly had a history of mental health problems and family say he returned from Iraq acting strangely
Santiago had been living in Anchorage for two years with his girlfriend and their newborn baby
He loaded his gun in the bathroom after landing and was silent as he shot dead victims in baggage claim area
Santiago flew into the Florida airport from Anchorage, Alaska, and had checked his gun for the flight
Gunman Esteban Santiago, 26, - an Iraq army veteran - was taken into custody after he threw his empty weapon down and lay spread-eagle on the ground
Five people dead and eight injured after gunman opened fire in Florida's Ft. Lauderdale-Hollywood Airport
Advertisement
Police are investigating whether the lone shooter who opened fire at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood Airport in Florida was mentally disturbed or if he had any links to ISIS after he executed five people in the baggage claim hall with a gun he had checked in his luggage.
Gunman Esteban Santiago - an Iraq war veteran - opened fire in the lower level baggage claim area in Terminal 2 on Friday about 1pm. He was taken into custody after he threw his empty weapon down and lay spread-eagle on the ground, one witness said.
Santiago flew into the airport from Anchorage, Alaska (with a layover in Minneapolis, St. Paul) on Delta flight 2182 with a firearm as his only piece of checked luggage. The 26-year-old, who was dressed in a Star Wars t-shirt, claimed his bag, went to the bathroom to load his handgun and then started shooting people dead.
Terry Andres, of Virginia, and Olga Woltering, of Georgia, were among those who were killed.
Mr Andres, a 62-year-old grandfather, was at the airport with his wife to go on a vacation, while Mrs Woltering was scheduled to leave on a cruise from Florida on Saturday with her husband Ralph to celebrate his 90th birthday.
Law enforcement are now investigating why Santiago was in Florida as they try to determine a motive for the shooting spree. FBI officials said late Friday they had not ruled out terrorism and were investigating all angles.
Scroll down for video
Esteban Santiago, 26 (pictured left giving a one-fingered salute similar to ISIS jihadists), has been identified as the gunman in the Ft. Lauderdale-Hollywood airport shooting. He is said to have a girlfriend and child (right) back in Alaska
Santiago served in Iraq in 2010 as a private first class and combat engineer. He received half a dozen medals before receiving a general discharge for unsatisfactory performance in August last year
Santiago's relatives said the 26-year-old had a history of mental health issues - some of which followed his military service in Iraq several years ago.
Named victims so far A 62-year-old man and a great grandmother were among the victims of the deadly Ft. Lauderdale airport shooting in Florida. Terry Andres, of Virginia, and Olga Woltering, of Georgia, were among the five shot dead by 26-year-old gunman Esteban Santiago as passengers collected their baggage in the terminal on Friday. Mr Andres was on vacation with his wife when he was killed. Olga Woltering, who lives in Atlanta, Georgia, was scheduled to leave on a cruise from Florida on Saturday with her husband Ralph to celebrate his 90th birthday.
Authorities said Santiago walked into an FBI office in Anchorage in November last year claiming the government was trying to control his mind and he was being forced to watch ISIS videos, CBS reports. After that incident, Santiago started getting treatment for his mental health issues.
He was previously pictured giving a one-fingered salute, which is commonly used by Islamic State jihadists often before they embark on a suicide bombing.
Santiago was also contacted by the FBI after an employer back in Alaska raised concerns about certain things he had said, according to ABC News
Santiago served from 2007 to 2016 in the Puerto Rico National Guard and Alaska National Guard including a deployment to Iraq from 2010 to 2011.
A private first class and combat engineer, he received half a dozen medals before receiving a general discharge for unsatisfactory performance in August last year.
His aunt Maria Ruiz told NorthJersey.com that Santiago had returned from Iraq acting strangely but had seemed happy after the birth of his child in September last year.
But she said something happened to him about a month ago and he was hospitalized for two weeks. She did not have details of his condition.
'Like a month ago, it was like he lost his mind. He said he saw things,' she said.
Santiago's brother Bryan Santiago said he could have suffered a 'flashback' from his time in Iraq, despite never being diagnosed with PTSD, NBC reports.
Santiago was an Iraq veteran having served in the country for one year before being discharged in August last year. He flew into Florida from Alaska on Friday, after transferring at Minneapolis-St. Paul
Among the first of the victims to be named is Terry Andres (pictured) - a 62-year-old grandfather who was at the airport with his wife to go on a vacation
Olga Woltering, who lives in Atlanta, Georgia, was scheduled to leave on a cruise from Florida on Saturday with her husband Ralph to celebrate his 90th birthday
Law enforcement officers examined the crime scene inside the baggage hall on Friday night
A picture shared on social media allegedly showed one of the people who was shot by a gunman
A shooting victim is taken into Broward Health Trauma Center in Fort Lauderdale, Florida
A shooting victim is seen in the back of an ambulance after arriving at the Broward Health Trauma Center on Friday
Gunman 'lost his head' after Iraq tour, say his family Santaigo's aunt Maria Ruiz, who lives in New Jersey, said that Santiago had returned from Iraq acting strangely but had seemed happy after the birth of his child last year The gunman behind the deadly shooting at Florida's Ft. Lauderdale-Hollywood Airport is an Iraq war veteran who had recently become a father and was suffering mental health issues, according to his family. Esteban Santiago, 26, left five people dead and eight wounded when he opened fire in the airport's baggage claim terminal on Friday. His family have said Santiago was struggling with psychiatric problems in the lead up to the shooting and had recently been hospitalized for treatment in Anchorage, Alaska. Santiago had also been charged with domestic violence against his ex-girlfriend in January 2016, The Daily Beast reports. He allegedly verbally abused her in their apartment in Anchorage, Alaska while she was locked in the bathroom. Santiago is accused of then breaking down the door and hitting the woman in the head and strangling her. Santiago was arrested days later after fleeing the scene but was released on the condition he stayed away from the victim. He was charged with violating the conditions in February 2016 after police found him at his girlfriend's home. The assault case was resolved in March. His brother Bryan Santiago, who lives in Puerto Rico, said his family got a call in recent months from Santiago's girlfriend alerting them to his health situation. He said he didn't know what his brother was being treated for and that they never talked about it over the phone. The incident that sparked his hospitalization occurred in November when Santiago walked into an FBI office in Anchorage claiming the government was controlling his mind and forcing him to watch videos for ISIS, CBS reports. A law enforcement official said the FBI interviewed him and then called the police, who took him for a mental health evaluation. The FBI said Santiago stated he did not want to harm anyone, but authorities were concerned by his erratic behavior. They said they closed their assessment of him once he was admitted for treatment. He was also contacted by the FBI after an employer back in Alaska raised concerns about certain things he had said, according to ABC News. Santiago was born in New Jersey but moved to the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico when he was two years old with his mother and brother. He grew up in the southern coastal town of Penuelas before serving with the Puerto Rico National Guard from 2007. He eventually joined the Alaska National guard from 2014 to 2016. Santiago was deployed to Iraq in 2010 and spent a year there with the 130th Engineer Battalion. A private first class and combat engineer, he received half a dozen medals before receiving a general discharge for unsatisfactory performance in August last year. He had been living in Anchorage, Alaska with his girlfriend for two years before they welcomed a child in September last year. His aunt Maria Ruiz told NorthJersey.com that Santiago had returned from Iraq acting strangely but had seemed happy after the birth of his child. But she said something happened to him about a month ago and he was hospitalized for two weeks. She did not have details of his condition. 'Like a month ago, it was like he lost his mind. He said he saw things,' she said. His uncle, Hernan Rivera, said: 'Only thing I could tell you was when he came out of Iraq, he wasn't feeling too good.' Santiago's brother Bryan Santiago speculated about a motive for the shooting, saying he could have suffered a 'flashback' from his time in Iraq, despite never being diagnosed with PTSD, NBC reports. He said had recently been fighting with people back in Alaska, including his girlfriend who he was having relationship issues with. He said Santiago, who was 'was pro-America', has not spoken to his family for several weeks, which was unusual.
The motive for the shooting is still not known, but Florida Senator Marco Rubio told CNN that Santiago may have gotten into an altercation on his flight earlier that morning.
'I know that was mentioned as a potential cause and they wanted to kind of look into that a little further and get to that point,' Rubio said.
Santiago's brother said he had been fighting with people back in Alaska, including his girlfriend who he was having relationship issues with.
He said Santiago, who was 'was pro-America', has not spoken to his family for several weeks.
'We have not talked for the past three weeks,' Bryan told the Associated Press. 'That's a bit unusual... I'm in shock. He was a serious person... He was a normal person.'
The gunman was born in New Jersey but moved to Puerto Rico where his mother and brother still live. He came back to Puerto Rico after serving in Iraq, before moving to Alaska. He lived there from 2014 to 2016 and his girlfriend and child are still there. His most recent address was in Naples, Florida.
Other details about the shooter reveal he had a minor criminal record for traffic violations, according to court records. He was also evicted by his landlord for failing to pay rent in February 2015.
Santiago was charged with fourth-degree assault and damage of property in January 2016, stemming from a domestic violence incident.
In March, Santiago settled the charges by agreeing to complete unknown requirements demanded by prosecutors in exchange for dismissing the case.
People were seen on the floor trying to comfort loved ones (left), while others appeared to be shielding others (right)
This picture shows what may be the weapon that was used by the gunman in the shooting on Friday
HOW CAN YOU CARRY A GUN IN LUGGAGE? It is legal for unloaded firearms to be transported, according to rules set out by the Transportation Security Administration. Unloaded firearms must be locked in a hard-sided container in checked baggage only. The firearm and ammunition must be declared to the airline at the baggage counter. Locked cases that can be easily opened are not permitted. *Source: Transportation Security Administration
About 90 minutes after the shooting in the airport on Friday, chaos broke out again when police officers were seen rushing into the parking garage with their guns drawn while bystanders sought shelter behind vehicles.
But the Broward County Sheriff said the only shooting that happened was in Terminal 2 and that he believes only the one gunman was involved.
A witness told NBC Miami that the shooter was silent and didn't appear to be targeting anyone in particular - 'popping off bullets at random'.
John Schlicher, who told MSNBC he saw the attack, said the shooter was 'directly firing at us' while passengers waited for their bags to come off the carousel.
In another interview with Fox News, Schlicher said that the shooter was aiming at people's heads.
'All the people seemed to be shot in the head,' Schlicher said. 'He was shooting people who were down on the ground too.'
The shooter reloaded once for a second burst of shooting, Schlicher said, but he could not say how many bullets were fired.
His aunt Maria Ruiz, who lives in New Jersey, said that Santiago had returned from Iraq acting strangely but had seemed happy after the birth of his child last year
Authorities investigate the home of Maria Luisa Ruiz in Union City, New Jersey. Ruiz is the aunt of the Esteban Santiago, the main suspect in the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport Shooting on Friday
Santiago had been living in this apartment complex in Anchorage, Alaska with his girlfriend and their newborn baby
Terrified people were seen running across the tarmac about 2:30pm - more than an hour after the shooting was reported
An armed police officer with his handgun drawn is seen helping a woman evacuate during the chaos
People leave a garage area with their hands up in the air outside the airport after the shooting on Friday
People take cover outside Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, Friday, Jan. 6
Police assist people seeking cover outside of Terminal 2 at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport
Police forced bystanders to take cover and lay low outside the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood airport
People are seen desperately running across the tarmac after the shooting earlier in the afternoon
Law enforcement personnel arrive in an armored car at the airport after the deadly shooting that saw five killed
People stand on the tarmac at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport
People wait at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International airport after a shooting took place near the baggage claim
Police question people who are evacuating from Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport near the tarmac
Shocking video has emerged from inside the terminal where a gunman opened fire on Friday
Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel spoke to the media about 3:30pm and provided more details on the incident
TIMELINE OF THE SHOOTING 12:57pm - Reports of the shooting emerged. Former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said: 'everyone is running' 1:16pm - Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport released a statement confirming there was an 'ongoing incident' at the baggage claim in Terminal 2 1:37pm - Pictures and videos emerged of passengers being evacuated out onto the tarmac 1:50pm - Officials said all services at the airport had been temporarily suspended 2:33pm - TSA issued a second warning. 'Update: Active shooter. Shelter in place.' There were reports of an incident in Terminal 1, where a pilot said they smelled gun powder 2:37pm - Broward County Commissioner Chip LaMarca said the shooter had landed at the airport on an international flight and collected the gun - which he had checked into his luggage. He then, according to LaMarca, walked into the bathroom, loaded his weapon, then walked back out into the baggage claim and opened fire. 3:33pm - Broward Sheriff Scott Israel said only one person had been arrested in the shooting.
Mark Lea, a 53-year-old financial adviser from Minneapolis, says he was in baggage claim when the shooting started.
'I was dodging bullets and trying to help people get out of the way,' Lea said.
'At first we thought it was firecrackers,' he said. 'Everyone started screaming and running. The shooter made his way down through baggage claim. He had what looked like a 9mm and emptied his entire clip. People were trying to run.'
Ari Fleischer, a former White House spokesman who was at the scene, tweeted: 'I'm at the Ft. Lauderdale Airport. Shots have been fired. Everyone is running.'
Cellphone video footage broadcast by local Fox television affiliate Channel 7 showed one person lying bloodied on the floor, and several others on their knees.
A passenger named as Peter Cruise said he believed that travelers on his plane were among the victims.
He said he and his family 'were walking up the ramp and just passed the checking gate when all a sudden everybody started running.'
'I grabbed the kids and took off running down the ramp. Told the flight attendant to let us off the tarmac, we ran to hide behind some luggage carts.'
Video from the airport Friday afternoon showed hundreds of passengers corralled together on the tarmac with emergency vehicles parked outside the terminal with lights flashing.
Governor Rick Scott rushed to the airport to be briefed on the shooting, as dozens of police and emergency vehicles converged on the scene.
President-elect Donald Trump said he had spoken with Scott, and was'monitoring the terrible situation in Florida.'
'Thoughts and prayers for all. Stay safe!' he tweeted.
President Barack Obama has also been briefed on the developing situation.
He told ABC News on Friday night that he was 'heartbroken' for the families affected.
'These kinds of tragedies have happened too often during the eight years I have been president. The pain, the grief, the shock that they must be going through is enormous,' he said.
The Florida attack was the latest in a series of mass shootings that have plagued the United States in recent years, some inspired by militants with an extreme view of Islam, others who are loners or mentally disturbed who have easy access to weapons under U.S. gun laws.
Jesse Davis, chief of police at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport, said Santiago didn't call attention to himself and 'as far as we can tell' traveled alone from Alaska to Florida.
He said that a firearm was his only piece of checked luggage.
Authorities are trying to track Santiago's movements through Alaska's largest commercial airport using video footage.
Davis noted that it's not usual for travelers at the Alaska airport to check firearms because many people hunt.
The one-fingered ISIS salute adopted by the gunman A photo of Florida airport gunman Esteban Santiago appears to show him making a jihadist one-fingered salute while wearing a Mid-Eastern keffiyeh sometime prior to him carrying out the shooting massacre. The 26-year-old Iraq war veteran was pictured in the photo gesturing with his index finger in a pose that has become notorious among supporters of the Islamic State. Law enforcement officers are currently looking at whether Santiago had any links to ISIS or if he was mentally disturbed as part of their investigation into the deaths of five people in the baggage claim hall at Ft. Lauderdale airport on Friday. FBI officials said late on Friday night they had not ruled out terrorism and were investigating all angles as they try to determine a motive for the shooting spree. It was not immediately clear where or when the photo of Santiago was taken in which he appears to be making the jihadist salute. The traditional Islamic gesture - which refers to the tawhid or 'the belief in the oneness of God' - has been widely adopted by Islamic State supporters (above). Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev posed in a similar stance in front of an Islamic flag in his bedroom.
Donald Trump tweeted that he was monitoring the situation at the airport about an hour after it happened
People take cover at the Ft. Lauderdale Airport after a gunman killed 5 people and injured many more
Police assist a woman seeking cover outside Terminal 2 at the Florida airport on Friday
Two heavily-armed law enforcement officials are seen standing outside the garage at the airport. There had been reports of a potential second incident
Law enforcement personnel stand near the airport on Friday
A group of people are seen walking out of a parking garage with their hands in the air after the shooting
A law enforcement helicopter is seen flying over a garage at the airport after it was put into lockdown
People take cover outside Terminal 2 of Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International. One woman is openly weeping as she hides behind the barrier
An official is seen directing people who were running on the tarmac in Florida on Friday afternoon
Police evacuate a civilian from an area at Fort Lauderdale Airport about 3pm on Friday after the shooting
Footage showed police officers in a stairwell as the airport remained a crime scene into the afternoon
Photo courtesy of Taylor Elenburg shows passengers gathering on the tarmac of the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood airport in Florida after a gunman opened fire
Travelers and airport workers are evacuated out of the terminal after airport shooting at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport in Florida
A heavily armored vehicle is seen heading to the the airport after the shooting
An aerial view taken on April 20, 2016 shows the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood airport in Florida, where a gunman opened fire on Friday
People who were evacuated onto the tarmac were put onto buses and moved. The airport has since been shut down
Former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer was in the airport at the time of the shooting and tweeted about what was happening
Fleischer said police had told him there were five victims. That number has now reportedly risen
The former White House Press Secretary said it appeared as thought the situation had been controlled, but people were still in the airportThe biggest move was owners allowing teams that are not more than $4 million over the luxury tax line to use the full mid-level exception of $5 million, according to multiple reports. That $4 million window makes a world of difference for the Heat and should allow them to:
• Use the entire $5 million mid-level exception in free agency without having to use the amnesty clause on Mike Miller to waive him and get his contract off the books.
• Use the entire mid-level exception on a free agent and still be able re-sign restricted free agent Mario Chalmers and rookie point guard Norris Cole.
• Keep Miller and Chalmers, sign a $5 million free agent, sign Cole and still be able to tack on veterans at the NBA minimum. Perhaps players like Grant Hill, Michael Redd, James Jones or players who are waived by the via the amnesty clause elsewhere.
As of just a few days ago, the way the proposals were set up, it appeared certain the Heat would have to use their amnesty clause on Miller immediately just so they could add to their roster. The Heat currently have $65 million in salaries for this season before signing Cole. At the moment, they also have no point guard under contract, applying pressure to re-sign Chalmers as well because the free agent point guard market is thin.
But they couldn't afford to do both and stay under the luxury tax line, which is expected to be right about where it was last season at $70.3 million. The owners wanted to make any team that was over that line unable to use the full mid-level exception, including if using that money pushed a team into the tax zone. The Heat are planning on using the mid-level on a center, with their top target believed to be free agent Sam Dalembert.
This appeared to leave them little choice but to release Miller to free up the majority of the $5.4 million he's owed this season so they could make the needed signings. Or at least have the option to do so. There's a reason why Miller put his house on the market recently.
According to league sources, the Heat had planned to waive Miller and had let him know through back channels so he could prepare. This information was not all that secret -- teams in need of shooters were already doing background research on Miller and considering bringing him in. Miller had a number of suitors when he was a free agent a year ago, including the Chicago Bulls.
He may not want to take his house off the market just yet, though. With the expected luxury-tax changes, the Heat still may end up waiving Miller with the amnesty clause before next season to allow them to free up enough space to use the mid-level exception again. But considering they will be paying Miller either way, they would much prefer to have him on the roster and see if offseason surgeries to his thumb and shoulder will allow him to return to his form from two years ago, when he was one of the best shooters in the league.
Brian Windhorst covers the Miami Heat for ESPN.com.By Krisztina Than and Francois Murphy
ROSZKE, Hungary/VIENNA (Reuters) - Two decades of frontier-free travel across Europe unraveled on Monday as countries re-established border controls in the face of an unprecedented influx of migrants, which broke the record for the most arrivals by land in a single day.
Germany's surprise decision to restore border controls on Sunday had a swift domino effect, prompting neighbors to impose checks at their own frontiers as thousands of refugees pressed north and west across the continent while Hungary sealed the main informal border crossing point into the European Union.
A majority of EU interior ministers, meeting in Brussels, agreed in principle to share out 120,000 asylum seekers on top of some 40,000 distributed on a voluntary basis so far, EU president Luxembourg said. But details of the deal, to be formalized on Oct. 8, were vague with several ex-Communist central European states still rejecting mandatory quotas.
Austria said it would dispatch its military to help police carry out checks at the border with Hungary after thousands of migrants crossed on foot overnight, filling up emergency accommodation nearby, including tents at the frontier.
Thousands more raced across the Balkans to enter Hungary before new rules take effect on Tuesday, which Budapest's right-wing government says will bring a halt to the illegal flow of migrants across its territory.
By 1400 GMT on Monday, police said 7,437 migrants had been recorded entering Hungary from Serbia, beating the previous day's record of 5,809.
Then helmeted Hungarian police, some on horseback, closed off the main informal crossing point, backed by soldiers as a helicopter circled overhead. A goods wagon covered with razor wire was moved into place to block a railway track used by migrants to enter the EU's Schengen zone of border-free travel.
Hungary later declared the low-level airspace over its border fence closed but allowed a trickle of refugees to enter the country at an official crossing point.
As the shockwaves rippled across Europe, Slovakia said it would impose controls on its borders with Hungary and Austria. The Netherlands announced it would make spot checks at its borders. Other EU states from Sweden to Poland said they were monitoring the situation to decide whether controls were needed.
"If Germany carries out border controls, Austria must put strengthened border controls in place," Vice Chancellor Reinhold Mitterlehner told a joint news conference with Chancellor Werner Faymann. "We are doing that now."
The army would be deployed in a supporting role.
BIGGEST THREAT TO SCHENGEN
Monday's measures were the biggest threat so far to the Schengen system of a border-free Europe, which ranks alongside the euro single currency as one of the transformative achievements of integration on the continent.
Named after a Luxembourg town where it was agreed, Schengen has eliminated frontier posts across the continent since 1995. Twenty-six European countries now issue common visas and leave the borders between them unguarded.
Frontiers which were fought over for centuries and which were a bottleneck for traffic and trade just a few years ago are now marked by little more than signposts on highways across the world's biggest economic bloc.
The rules bar undocumented migrants from travel within the zone but leave few mechanisms to stop them.
That has created chaos as hundreds of thousands of people, including refugees from war in the Middle East, arrive on the bloc's southern and eastern edges and trek to rich countries further north and west.
EU interior ministers held seven hours of crisis talks, with Germany, France and the bloc's executive Commission trying to overcome opposition from eastern members to a plan to compulsorily relocate 160,000 refugees from Italy, Hungary and Greece.
They did agree on the need for tighter controls of the bloc's external borders, more aid to the U.N. refugee agency for camps close to Syria's borders, and rapid screening of arrivals and deportation of those without valid asylum claims, to appease countries concerned that relocations will attract more people.
The EU ministers agreed to finalize soon a list of "safe countries" whose citizens would not normally be entitled to asylum. But in a snub to Ankara, the EU presidency said Turkey would not be classified as "safe" for now due to its current military action against Kurdish militants.YOU have probably never heard of James Gralton.
Active during the start of the last century, the Leitrim socialist does not occupy the same space in the collective conscience as Larkin, de Valera, Pearse or Connolly. Nonetheless, his is an inauspicious place in the echelon of Irish history.
In 1933, Jimmy Gralton, as he was known locally, became the only Irish citizen ever to have been deported from the country when he was forcefully removed and put on a boat to America. He would never set foot in his native land again.
Such severe punishment for his ‘crimes’ seems improbable 81 years on. A dissident voice, Gralton was victimised by the political and religious establishment after daring to establish a dance hall in rural Ireland. A self-educated, community-serving man, Gralton’s hall was built to serve as a venue for the local people of Leitrim.
Community dances, singing lessons, poetry appreciation sessions, boxing classes, and debates about workers’ rights were held there. It sounds innocuous. But for the Catholic Church and the Irish ruling class, the hall and the man who built it represented something dangerous and subversive — the fact that the people were beginning to think and act for themselves.
Advertisement
Gralton’s story is the subject of a new movie from renowned British director Ken Loach and his regular, like-minded collaborator, screenwriter Paul Laverty. Entitled Jimmy’s Hall, the feature was released on Friday, May 30.
Both Loach and Laverty are no strangers to Irish history of the early 20th century having made the Palme d’Or-winning film The Wind That Shakes The Barley in 2006. That film was set during the 1919-22 war of independence and the subsequent civil conflict. The 1930s-set Jimmy’s Hall covers similar territory, but Loach has said that the approach was different.
“The two films do sit side by side,” he said. “We thought it would be interesting to see what happened to the dreams of independence, 10 years later. And as what often happens, the hopes people had aren’t realised — because of splits, and the old imperial power still trying to rule… The Wind That Shakes the Barley was a big epic film; Jimmy’s Hall is just a microcosm.”
Born at Effernagh, near Gowel, in Leitrim on April 17, 1886, James Gralton grew up the son of a poor farmer. He was encouraged to read by his mother, who operated a mobile library, but left school at 14. Like so many other Irish before and after him, Gralton emigrated to Britain at the turn of the 20th century and joined the British Army.
He later deserted after refusing to serve in India in protest over British polices in Ireland. For a time he worked the hard life on the Liverpool docks and Welsh coalfields before becoming a ship’s stoker. The job led him to New York in 1909.
Advertisement
In the US he worked a variety of jobs and — appalled at the slave-like conditions that workers endured — he became a socialist and heavily involved in trade union activity. In New York, he founded the James Connolly Club in the wake of the 1916 Rising after studying Connolly’s writings. Despite gaining US citizenship, Gralton’s heart remained in Ireland.
Almost a decade and a half after arriving in the US, he decided to return home in June 1921 and arrived back in Leitrim to find that that the Black and Tans had burnt the local Temperance Hall to the ground during the war of independence.
Gralton promised he would replace it and set about building a new hall on his father’s land near Effernagh crossroads. The large Pearse-Connolly Hall opened on New Year’s Eve 1921 in honour of the socialist and republican leaders of 1916.
As well as community dances and classes, Gralton based his Direct Action Committee there, which helped tenant farmers regain lands from which they had been evicted. Gralton would drive cattle on to the property of large estate-owners and former tenants would move in.
Such activities were never going to go unnoticed by the authorities in Dublin or the powerful Church. From the pulpit, the clergy denounced Gralton as ‘an anti-Christ’ and accused him of “leading a campaign of Land agitation”.
They also accused him of trying to lead the youth away from the Church and of teaching communism. Gralton also agitated the Free State forces. They attempted to arrest him in May 1922 and, as civil war loomed, Gralton decided to get out and return to the US, where he remained for a further decade.
He did not return to Ireland until 1932 when his brother Charlie, who ran the family farm, passed away. Buoyed by the change in government, he mistakenly believed the new Fianna Fáil leadership would allow for the development of progressive politics in Ireland.
Advertisement
He re-opened his dance hall, resumed land agitation and reignited the fury of the clergy, who urged parishioners to steer clear of his “den of iniquity”. As the authorities flexed their muscles against him, so too did his support locally grow. This is believed to have spooked de Valera.
By Christmas Eve 1931, the hall was burnt to the ground in an arson attack. Suspicion fell on the local IRA, incited by the clergy. A deportation order was also issued ordering Gralton — “an undesirable alien” and US citizen — to leave Ireland before March 5, 1933.
He went on the run for six months before finally being captured on August 10 near Mohill. Three days later he was deported to America from Cobh. He died on December 29, 1945 — more than 3,000 miles away from the home to which he could never return.
In Jimmy’s Hall, Gralton is played by Barry Ward, a Dublin-born actor who made his debut as a 14-year-old in Roddy Doyle’s acclaimed 1994 BBC drama, Family. Although since remaining in the profession for almost two decades, Ward is under no illusion that in portraying Gralton he has caught the biggest break of his career.
“It’s the kind of role that only comes along once in a career,” he tells me when we meet to discuss the movie in London, where the 34-year-old has been based for much of the last decade.
“For most people this kind of a break just doesn’t happen, so it’s really great. The very first role I did was a really, really great job as well. That was [director] Michael Winterbottom’s project, Family, which Roddy Doyle wrote for the BBC. That was amazing and I suppose I thought that it was always going to be like that. Then I learned over the years that that’s a rarity. So this is one of those real rare jobs.”
Advertisement
Working with a director as esteemed as Loach is also an occasion for Ward, with the 77-year-old veteran at one stage hinting that this may be his final feature film.
“It’s a terrific feeling to be the lead in a Ken Loach movie on top of simply landing a lead in a movie,” acknowledges Ward. “That it could be his last one just makes it extra special. It’s exciting as hell. On the very first day of the shoot we were pinching ourselves. All the actors were massive Ken Loach fans and you could feel the nerves.
"People were really nervous but I kind of thought that I can’t be… and this character isn’t. If anything he brings people together. He’s a leader amongst men and in the community. So I felt that I had to step up to that.”
Like many, Ward wasn’t acquainted with Gralton’s story, which has only been intermittently told over the years. “I knew Donal O’Kelly had a play about it,” he says of the Irish actor and playwright who in 2011 brought his dance and theatrical play Jimmy Gralton’s Dancehall to the stage and subsequently piqued Laverty’s interest in the story.
“I’d worked with Donal in the Abbey. I think he was writing the play at that time. He put on that show then, and he introduced me to Paul Laverty, the writer. So I only heard about Jimmy in passing and I knew scant details of his story so when I got the part I tried to read up on Jimmy, but there’s very little info around about him.”
Rail-thin, big smile and tousled hair, Ward bares little in resemblance to the balding, 44-year-old Gralton that returned to Ireland in 1931, although he says Loach and Laverty were happy to play loose with the facts while staying true to the heart of Gralton’s story.
“As an actor I wasn’t beholden to Jimmy’s past,” says Ward. “I didn’t feel the need to replicate him because nobody else knows him. There’s no footage of him in existence. There are a couple of photographs — and I look nothing like him.
Advertisement
"At the time of the story he was 44 in real life. So they were obviously playing fast and loose with the facts. So there was no real pressure to be true to who he was. Nobody was going to say ‘he wasn’t like that’. So you do as much as you can; learn as much as you can about him and hopefully it all comes out.”
Ward notes that he hopes Gralton’s story resonates with audiences. There are many parallels with modern Ireland, namely a working class beaten down by the wealthy; while the depiction of the Church will only inflame modern views of the organisation.
“A lot of Jimmy’s story was kind of swept under the carpet,” Ward adds. “So it’s great that his story is now coming out to wider audiences than before.” It’s a point acknowledged by Irish socialist councillor Declan Bree, who describes |
berries on top. Recipe Notes NOTES on making different sphere sizes
For Caviar sized spheres - use the pipette to drop the hibiscus solution into the alginate bath from a height of about 1 inch.
For medium sized spheres - use the 1/4 tsp measuring spoon to pour the solution in to the alginate bath, from just above the surface of the bath. You may need to swirl it to make sure that it goes to the bottom of the bath.
For larger spheres - use the 1 tbsp measuring spoon and pour about 1/2 tbsp at a time, the same way you would pour for medium sized pearls/spheres.
DO NOT OVERCROWD the alginate bath, as the spheres can stick together if they are too close.
Panna cotta is a really easy dessert to put together and the hallmark of a perfect panna cotta is that “jiggle”! That jiggle to me is an ABSOLUTE MUST! 🙂 It’s a creamy dessert that is just set with the aid of a gelling agent (like gelatin, or agar-agar for vegetarian option). It can be unmolded for better presentation, or served in the same dish that it’s prepared in as well.
This White Chocolate and Coconut Panna Cotta is just insanely divine! It was delightfully creamy (it means cooked cream in Italian after all) and the white chocolate was the sweetener which also adds another creamy element in addition to the wonderful tropical flavour and creaminess you get from the coconut!
And that hibiscus syrup… oh baby! It’s sweet (but not overly sweet), thick and luscious. With beautiful citrus and berry flavours, it was the perfect pairing for the sweet tropical flavours of my panna cotta. The different sized hibiscus syrup pearls I made were super fun too. The smaller ones of course burst in your mouth readily and flood it with that gorgeous syrupy goodness. The large spheres are a great way to encase extra syrup that you can burst open with a fork so it covers your panna cotta and floods the plate! Honestly, there should be a NSFW tag attached to this. This is food porn in all its glory. Seriously, don’t say I didn’t warn you!
So how would YOU like to make spheres like this? 🙂 What kind of flavour would you like encased in beautiful little pearls like this? You can of course make them savoury too! Those larger spheres are actually called “liquid raviolis” and you can create them with all kinds of purees.
Now you too can make these spheres at home and I’m going to help you do that by giving you the chance to win a FREE CUISINE R-EVOLUTION kit from MOLECULE-R (US residents only)! Just answer the question in the rafflecopter query below, and increase your chances to win by completing other options too!
I will be announcing the winner next week, so you only have until this Saturday to enter! So don’t miss out! Share it with your friends too! 🙂 A Winner has been chosen! Thank you so much for entering!
If you liked this recipe don’t forget to subscribe for new (and free) recipes and updates by entering your email address below (and get all these recipes delivered straight to your inbox), so you don’t miss out on a thing. You can find me on FACEBOOK, TWITTER, INSTAGRAM, PINTEREST and GOOGLE-PLUS too.
I have shared this recipe at Two Cup Tuesdays, Freedom Fridays, FoodieFriDIY, Fiesta Friday, and Saucy Saturdays.An advanced and well-orchestrated computer spy operation that targeted diplomats, governments and research institutions for at least five years has been uncovered by security researchers in Russia.
The highly targeted campaign, which focuses primarily on victims in Eastern Europe and Central Asia based on existing data, is still live, harvesting documents and data from computers, smartphones and removable storage devices, such as USB sticks, according to Kaspersky Lab, the Moscow-based antivirus firm that uncovered the campaign. Kaspersky has dubbed the operation "Red October."
While most of the victims documented are in Eastern Europe or Central Asia, targets have been hit in 69 countries in total, including the U.S., Australia, Ireland, Switzerland, Belgium, Brazil, Spain, South Africa, Japan and the United Arab Emirates. Kaspersky calls the victims "high profile," but declined to identify them other than to note that they're government agencies and embassies, institutions involved in nuclear and energy research and companies in the oil and gas and aerospace industries.
"The main purpose of the operation appears to be the gathering of classified information and geopolitical intelligence, although it seems that the information-gathering scope is quite wide," Kaspersky notes in a report released Monday. "During the past five years, the attackers collected information from hundreds of high-profile victims, although it’s unknown how the information was used."
The attackers, believed to be native Russian-speakers, have set up an extensive and complex infrastructure consisting of a chain of at least 60 command-and-control servers that Kaspersky says rivals the massive infrastructureused by the nation-state hackers behind the Flame malware that Kaspersky discovered last year.
But the researchers note that the Red October attack has no connection to Flame, Gauss, DuQu or other sophisticated cyberspy operations Kaspersky has examined in recent years.
The attack also shows no signs yet of being the product of a nation-state and may instead be the work of cybercriminals or freelance spies looking to sell valuable intelligence to governments and others on the black market, according to Kaspersky Lab senior security researcher Costin Raiu.
The malware the attackers use is highly modular and customized for each victim, who are assigned a unique ID that is hardcoded into the malware modules they receive.
"The victim ID is basically a 20-hex digit number," Raiu says. "But we haven't been able to figure out any method to extract any other information from the victim ID.... They are compiling the modules right before putting them into the booby-trapped documents, which are also customized to the specific target with a lure that can be interesting to the victim. What we are talking about is a very targeted and very customized operation, and each victim is pretty much unique in what they receive."
The statistics on countries and industries are based on Kaspersky customers who have been infected with the malware and on victim machines that contacted a Kaspersky sinkhole set up for some of the command-and-control servers.
Raiu wouldn't say how his company came across the operation, other than to note that someone asked the lab last October to look into a spear-phishing campaign and a malicious file that accompanied it. The investigation led them to uncover more than 1,000 malicious modules the attackers used in their five-year campaign.
Sample of an image that appeared in a phishing attack sent to a "Red October" diplomatic victim. Courtesy of Kaspersky Lab
Each module is designed to perform various tasks – extract passwords, steal browser history, log keystrokes, take screenshots, identify and fingerprint Cisco routers and other equipment on the network, steal email from local Outlook storage or remote POP/IMAP servers, and siphon documents from the computer and from local network FTP servers. One module designed to steal files from USB devices attached to an infected machine uses a customized procedure to find and recover deleted files from the USB stick.
A separate mobile module detects when a victim connects an iPhone, Nokia or Windows phone to the computer and steals the contact list, SMS messages, call and browsing history, calendar information and any documents stored on the phone.
Based on search parameters uncovered in some of the modules, the attackers are looking for a wide variety of documents, including.pdf files, Excel spreadsheets,.csv files and, in particular, any documents with various.acid extensions. These refer to documents run through Acid Cryptofiler, an encryption program developed by the French military, which is on a list of crypto software approved for use by the European Union and NATO.
Among the modules are plugins for MS Office and Adobe Reader that help the attackers re-infect a machine if any of its modules get detected and zapped by antivirus scanners. These plugins are designed to parse Office or.pdf documents that come into the computer to look for specific identifiers the attackers have embedded in them. If the plugins find an identifier in a document, they extract a payload from the document and execute it. This allows the attackers to get their malware onto a system without using an exploit.
"So even if the system is fully patched, they can still regain access to the machine by sending an email to the victim that has these persistent modules in Office or Reader," Raiu says.
The attackers are believed to be Russian-speaking, based on registration data for many command-and-control servers used to communicate with infected machines, which were registered with Russian email addresses. Some of the servers for the command structure are also based in Russia, though others are in Germany.
In addition, researchers found Russian words in the code that indicate native speakers.
"Inside the modules they are using several Russian slang words. Such words are generally unknown to non-native Russian speakers," Raiu says.
One of the commands in a dropper file the attackers use changes the default codepage of the machine to 1251 before installing malware on the machine. This is the code base required to render Cyrillic fonts on a machine. Raiu thinks the attackers may have wanted to change the code base in certain machines to preserve the encoding in stolen documents taken from them.
"It's tricky to steal data with Cyrillic encoding with a program not created for Cyrillic coding," he notes. "The encoding might be messed up. So perhaps the reason to [change the code base] is to make sure that the stolen documents, explicitly those containing Cyrillic file names and characters, are properly rendered onto the attacker's system."
Raiu notes, however, that all of the clues pointing to Russia could simply be red herrings planted by the attackers to throw off investigators.
Chart showing the location of infected machines that contacted Kaspersky's sinkhole over a two-month period. Courtesy of Kaspersky Lab
Although the attackers appear to be Russian speakers, to get their malware onto systems they have been using some exploits – against Microsoft Excel and Word – that were created by Chinese hackers and have been used in other previous attacks that targeted Tibetan activists and military and energy-sector victims in Asia.
"We can assume that these exploits have been originally developed by Chinese hackers, or at least on Chinese code page computers," Raiu says. But he notes that the malware that the exploits drop onto victim machines was created by the Red October group specifically for their own targeted attacks. "They're using outer shells that have been used against Tibetan activists, but the malware itself does not appear to be of Chinese origin."
The attack appears to date back to 2007, based on a May 2007 date when one of the command-and-control domains was registered. Some of the modules also appear to have been compiled in 2008. The most recent was compiled Jan. 8 this year.
Kaspersky says the campaign is much more sophisticated than other extensive spy operations exposed in recent years, such as Aurora, which targeted Google and more than two dozen other companies, or the Night Dragon attacks that targeted energy companies for four years.
"Generally speaking, the Aurora and Night Dragon campaigns used relatively simple malware to steal confidential information," Kaspersky writes in its report. With Red October, "the attackers managed to stay in the game for over 5 years and evade detection of most antivirus products while continuing to exfiltrate what must be hundreds of Terabytes by now."
The infection occurs in two stages and generally comes via a spear-phishing attack. The malware first installs a backdoor onto systems to establish a foothold and open a channel of communication to the command-and-control servers. From there, the attackers download any of a number of different modules to the machine.
Every version of the backdoor uncovered contained three command-and-control domains hardcoded into it. Different versions of the malware use different domains to ensure that if some of the domains are taken down, the attackers won't lose control of all of their victims.
Once a machine is infected, it contacts one of the command-and-control servers and sends a handshake packet that contains the victim's unique ID. Infected machines send the handshake every 15 minutes.
Some time over the next five days, reconnaissance plugins are sent down to the machine to probe and scan the system and network in order to map any other computers on the network and steal configuration data. More plugins follow later, depending on what the attackers want to do on the infected machine. Stolen data is compressed and stored in ten folders on infected machines, after which the attackers periodically send a Flash module to upload it to a command-and-control server.
The attackers steal documents during specific timeframes, with separate modules configured to collect documents across certain dates. At the end of the timeframe, a new module configured for the next timeframe is sent down.
Raiu says the command-and-control servers are set up in a chain, with three levels of proxies, to hide the location of the "mothership" and prevent investigators from tracing back to the final collection point. Somewhere, he says, lies a "super server" that automatically processes all of the stolen documents, keystrokes and screenshots, organized per unique victim ID.
"Considering there are hundreds of victims, the only possibility is that there is a huge automated infrastructure which keeps track of... all these different dates an which documents have been downloaded during which timeframe," Raiu says."This gives them a wide view of everything related to a single victim to manage the infection, to send more modules or determine what documents they still want to obtain."
Of the more than 60 domains the attackers used for their command-and-control structure, Kaspersky researchers were able to sinkhole six of them beginning last November. Researchers have logged more than 55,000 connections to the sinkholes since then, coming in from infected machines at more than 250 unique IP addresses.Check out this cat's moves!
Cute, cuddly and a real twinkle-toes on the dance floor, this adorable dancing cat is no ordinary speaker! Designed to work with almost any audio source with a 3.5mm input jack (think Smartphones, MP3 players, computers, laptops and more), this hilarious Dancing Cat Speaker not only plays your music, it dances to it too! Simply connect it to your chosen audio player using the cable provided and watch it bop about in time to the music being played!
What's more, it comes with a choice of two function modes, 'Dance' and 'Speaker'. If you want the Cat to dance along to the music it's playing, simply switch it on as normal using the on/off switch set behind the velcro opening in the middle of its back.
However, if you just want it to play the music without the accompanying choreography, give its left paw a squeeze – there's a button hidden inside that'll switch the dancing off right away. Missing the cat's moves? Give it another squeeze and it'll start boogying where it left off!
Features:
Cute and cuddly Dancing Cat Speaker – moves in time to the music playing!
Two function modes: Dance/Speaker
Compatible with the majority of audio players with a 3.5mm jack input (Smartphones, MP3 players, computers, laptops etc)
Powered by 3x AA batteries (not included)
Can also be powered by the mains using a 4.5v adaptor (not included)
For ages 8+
Size:According to Exact’s annual SME Barometer Research, small and medium-sized UK manufacturing businesses are finding it increasingly difficult to design new products for their customers.
Exact cite innovation as a key challenge for the industry as a whole in the UK. So it’s not surprising that SME manufacturers are finding it difficult to keep pace. The past year has seen strong a growth rate and all companies are under pressure to stay ahead.
The 2015 Barometer revealed that UK manufacturers did not prioritise design of new products (27%) over reducing costs (55%) or finding new customers (43%). This compares poorly to other countries in the EU and the USA, which came in 14% higher at 41%.
More positive news the report highlighted is that customers across the EU are less concerned about late deliveries. Previously 27% of companies said they would terminate a partnership if a delivery was late, this has reduced to 24%.
Despite this 77% of UK manufacturers still consider improving customer satisfaction a key business challenge. An increase of 13% from 2015.
Gavin Fell, general manager of Exact Cloud Solutions UK, explained that while “last year’s study painted quite a bleak picture for UK manufacturers. The determination of businesses to innovate combined with the loyalty of UK customers has helped the sector to bounce back” and that “technology adoption can lessen the burden of many repetitive, time-consuming but necessary tasks, leaving space for manufacturers to think outside of the box. It’s great to see that manufacturers have experienced an influx of talent in the last year, which we expect will support this innovative mindset.”
The biggest shift, however, was in the narrowing of the skills gap. Last year 45% of businesses pointed to recruiting talent was the biggest hurdle to business success, this year that dropped to 23%.
Optimistically this could be due to the recent changes in manufacturing education policy, which aims to enable more students to easily pursue STEM subjects. However, this could also be due to supply chain and costs worries as Brexit now looms on the horizon.With the Los Angeles Clippers already said to be interested in free-agent guard Nate Robinson (see story below), the Cleveland Cavaliers, Miami Heat and Washington Wizards have also expressed interest, according to Yahoo Sports' Marc Spears.
Robinson, who was bought out by the Boston Celtics after being traded by the Denver Nuggets earlier this week, is in the midst of a career-worst season after knee surgery to repair a torn ACL last year.
The 30-year-old, 10-year veteran averaged 5.8 points, 2.3 assists and 1.2 rebounds in 14 minutes per game with the Nuggets, shooting 34 percent from the field and 26 percent from 3-point range.
The Clippers offer Robinson the chance to play for Doc Rivers again, as he did as a member of the Boston Celtics during the 2009-10 and 2010-11 seasons, while the Wizards and even the Cavs see themselves contenders in the wide open Eastern Conference.
The Heat currently sit in seventh place in the East at 17-22.
None of the four teams appear to have many minutes to offer at either guard position, however.The German authorities are concerned about the radicalization of the country's Chechen diaspora population, according to local media reports.
Around 500 Germans are thought to be fighting in Syria with the Islamic State (IS) group. According to Hans-Georg Maassen, the head of Germany's Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, many of the Germans in Syria have an immigrant background.
Social-media accounts belonging to Russian-speaking militants in Syria have revealed that a number of Chechens from diaspora communities in Germany and Austria are fighting in Syria, including with the IS group, as well as with Chechen-led factions.
At least one of Germany's Chechen diaspora, a Russian-speaking militant who goes by the name Adam al-Almani ("the German") is fighting with Islamic State in Kobani as part of the Chechen-led Al-Aqsa Brigade.
Among the ethnic Chechen militants known to have come to Syria via Austria are Abu Abdullakh al-Shishani (real name Khamzat Achishvili). Originally from Georgia's Pankisi Gorge, Achishvili spent most of his life in Austria before going to Syria. In Syria, Achishvili reportedly married the daughter of Chechnya's Federal Migration Service, Seda Dudurkayeva, before his death last summer.
However, German news reports say the authorities are particularly concerned about Chechens from the diaspora in Germany fighting with the Junud al-Sham faction in Latakia. That faction is led by an ethnic Chechen from the Pankisi Gorge in Georgia, Muslim Abu Walid al-Shishani (Murad Margoshvili). Muslim al-Shishani is a veteran jihadi who fought in the second Russo-Chechen war alongside prominent Arab foreign fighters Ibn al-Khattab and Abu al-Walid.
German news reports, based on the December 7 edition of the "Frankfurter Allgemeine" newspaper, say that an ethnic Chechen from Bavaria had been killed fighting alongside Junud al-Sham, but did not say when or give the man's name.
The reports quoted an anonymous source in the German domestic security agency as saying that Muslim al-Shishani is an "idol for the Islamist scene in Germany."
The reports also claimed that around a quarter of the approximately 40 cases brought against German nationals for support of jihadist groups in Syria are related to support for Junud al-Sham. A 31-year-old German man arrested in the Cologne area in November was suspected of helping recruit Germans to fight with militant groups in Syria, including the Islamic State group and Junud al-Sham.
Until recently, German-speaking supporters of Muslim al-Shishani and Junud al-Sham published propaganda material about the group in German. These supporters also produced a German-language version of a biographical video that told the story of Muslim al-Shishani's past life as a militant in the North Caucasus, where he was affiliated to the Caucasus Emirate.
In September, the U.S. State Department designated Junud al-Sham leader Muslim al-Shishani a foreign terrorist fighter.
The State Department announced that Muslim al-Shishani is "a well-known Chechen leader in Syria who built a terrorist training base in Syria near the Turkish border, where newly arrived foreign fighters received combat training. He is also the leader of Junud al-Sham, a militant group that fights alongside other extremist groups in Syria."
It is likely that the designation was at least in part a result of the influence of Muslim al-Shishani and his group in Germany and Austria.
Muslim al-Shishani has also served time in prison in Ingushetia in the North Caucasus on charges of involvement in an illegal armed group. He was arrested in 2003, sentenced in 2004, and released in 2006.
-- Joanna ParaszczukThis image shows two views of the trailing hemisphere of Jupiter's ice-covered satellite, Europa. The left image shows the approximate natural color appearance of Europa. The image on the right is a false-color composite version combining violet, green and infrared images to enhance color differences in the predominantly water-ice crust of Europa.
NASA is asking the scientific community to help it devise a relatively low-budget mission to Jupiter's moon Europa, perhaps the solar system's best bet to host alien life.
The space agency announced Monday (April 28) that it has issued a Request for Information (RFI), officially seeking ideas from outside researchers for a mission to study Europa and its subsurface ocean for less than $1 billion (excluding the launch vehicle).
"This is an opportunity to hear from those creative teams that have ideas on how we can achieve the most science at minimum cost," John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for the NASA Science Mission Directorate at the agency's headquarters in Washington, said in a statement. [Photos of Europa, Jupiter's Icy Moon]
"Europa is one of the most interesting sites in our solar system in the search for life beyond Earth," Grunsfeld added. "The drive to explore Europa has stimulated not only scientific interest but also the ingenuity of engineers and scientists with innovative concepts."
The deadline to submit ideas under the RFI is May 30, officials said.
At 1,900 miles (3,100 kilometers) wide, Europa is only slightly smaller than Earth's moon. The Jovian satellite harbors a large ocean of liquid water beneath its icy shell, providing a potential habitat for life as we know it.
Further, astronomers announced in December that they had detected a plume of water vapor erupting from Europa's south polar region, suggesting that a mission to the moon may be able to collect samples from the ocean without even touching down.
NASA researchers have developed a number of Europa concept missions over the years, including one called the Europa Clipper that would perform multiple flybys of the moon. None of these are officially on the books, however. (The Europa Clipper may be the frontrunner at the moment, but its estimated $2 billion price tag would have to come down considerably for it to get off the ground, space agency officials have said.)
But the space agency has gotten some money to help develop technologies needed for a Europa mission. Congress appropriated $80 million for this purpose last year, and the White House allocated $15 million more in its federal budget request for fiscal year 2015.
NASA officials have said that they hope to launch a Europa mission in the mid-2020s. If that happens, the mission would follow closely on the heels of Europe's JUpiter ICy moons Explorer mission, or JUICE, which is currently scheduled to blast off in 2022 to study the Jovian satellites Callisto and Ganymede in addition to Europa.
Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.Gomtuu was an intelligent lifeform that lived in space for several millenia up through the 24th century. It survived a near-extinction of its race and may have been the last of its kind. It seemed to have been "born" far from Federation space, possibly in another galaxy. Upon its discovery by the United Federation of Planets and the Romulan Star Empire, it was dubbed "Tin Man" and the "Star Creature", respectively.
Construction Edit
Viewed from the exterior, Gomtuu was a massive, dark-colored starship shaped like a sunflower seed shell. Its interior cavity consisted of a series of chambers and corridors with gravity and atmosphere to support carbon-based lifeforms as a crew, with which Gomtuu lived symbiotically. Its amorphous interior was also capable of growing furniture and equipment from its walls and floors. It could project images from its exterior to the occupants.
Like a traditional starship, Gomtuu possessed a warp drive, transporter capability, and was fully equipped to defend itself with a protective force field. However, much of its technology was beyond that known to Federation science. It was telepathic over an extremely large distance.
History Edit
Gomtuu was manned by a crew until an explosion in space generated radiation that penetrated Gomtuu's "hull" and killed the crew. Gomtuu wandered the galaxy for millennia after the traumatic experience, vainly searching for more of its kind. Alone and without a purpose, it eventually decided to commit suicide by orbiting Beta Stromgren, a star for which supernova was imminent.
In 2366, "Tin Man" was detected when Starfleet sent the Vega Nine probe to monitor the supernova. At the same time, the Romulans also discovered Gomtuu and a race was on to get to it first. As the alien did not respond to traditional communication methods, the Federation sent Tam Elbrun, a highly telepathic Betazoid, to make first contact.
The Federation established contact first through Elbrun, who telepathically warned Gomtuu of the Romulans. Gomtuu then demonstrated its defensive capabilities, destroying the Romulan Warbird and heavily damaging the USS Enterprise-D utilizing an energy wave. Later, with Elbrun and Data on board, Gomtuu came about and fired a second energy wave which propelled the Enterprise-D and a second Warbird 3.8 billion kilometers through space.
Gomtuu then teleported Data back onto the bridge of the Enterprise (through the Enterprise's shields) and disappeared with Elbrun to parts unknown. Elbrun provided Gomtuu with an alternative to suicide, and Gomtuu provided Elbrun with tranquility. (TNG: "Tin Man")
Background information Edit
According to the script for the episode, [1] the pronunciation for Gomtuu was "GOM-too".
According to Michael Okuda, in the TNG Season 3 DVD special feature "Departmental Briefing Year Three - Creating the "Tin Man"", the design of Gomtuu was based on Richard D. James' vision of a vessel with a "very organic look." The studio model, built by Greg Jein, would be "partly based on [the look of] a peach pit." The Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion adds that "the model was another Rick Sternbach creation... It was designed in homage to the thermal pods in Buckaroo Banzai."
The interior was based on an idea proposed by Richard James, where the set was coated with spray foam, which gave the organic look he was looking for. According to the Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion, "Rob Legato created the organic chair that seems to form out of Tin Man's very structure by reversing a time-lapse sequence of a melting wax chair."
The sounds from Tin Man's interior were a combination of whale sounds and a recording of sound designer Jim Wolvington digesting pizza, recorded through a stethoscope. The explosion (pictured above) was a scene reused from the final V'ger scene in Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
External link EditFORT BENNING, Ga. — The US Army made a bold leap this week, completely phasing out the Ranger School at Fort Benning, and replacing it with a multiplayer role-playing game (MPRPG), completed entirely online, called “Ranger Games.”
Col. Dustin Dorne, the Ranger Training Brigade commander, insisted that the program will still teach leadership and patrolling, while also increasing the school’s reach and lower the price per student, like many existing Army classes that have already gone digital.
“Every single task from the former Ranger School schedule has been made into a digital feature,” said Dorne in a recent interview. “To complete these missions, students will develop their stats of strength, endurance, and intelligence in a multiplayer teamwork environment. Levels and attributes will hopefully carry over to future Army expansion packs, like Sniper School and Air Assault.”
Ranger Instructors (RIs) have become non-player characters. Originally, real-world RIs were going to be actual players sitting at computers, but during test runs the RIs either behaved like robots, or created extra problems to troll the student players.
“Automating the instructors has made our course more consistent than ever,” claimed Dorne.
Metrics on Ranger Games already show a reduced risk of injury and death, despite a few cases of carpal tunnel syndrome. “In the past, coming to Ranger School during the summer meant heat casualties, and training during winter caused hypothermia, both of which really wreck soldiers, but not anymore,” commented Dorne.
“To keep it realistic and tough, we didn’t just throw those concepts out the window, though. In-game, Rangers can work on building their elemental resistances, along with items they can use for heat and cold damage reduction. Fair warning: Heat Cat 5 and Snivel Gear are extremely rare items, and usually can’t be equipped.”
Ranger Games is now carried out at Fort Benning in a holding bay full of cots and computers. During patrols, students are still not allowed to eat or sleep unless they are also doing so in the game. While in the field, a student may consume a real MRE or a bowl of Ramen noodles at his work station.
“Fort Benning is just the first. We’re opening sites like this at every major Army base, connected across the globe.” added Dorne.
For a change of pace, rifle ranges and airborne jumps are first-person mini-games. A negligent discharge or jump refusal, however, will still result in being dropped from the training.
“It’s the hardest thing I ever did,” said Spc. Andrew Kim, who was chosen as the last class’s honor graduate. “Half of my friends got washed out or recycled. A lot of the guys that seemed like shitbags actually did really good, though. I guess you never know.”A Momentous Gerrymandering Decision, for Republicans and Democrats
Republican Vinroot, Democrat Jackson working to solve redistricting issue that U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Monday
By Greg Lacour
State Senator Jeff Jackson speaks with a voter outside a polling place in Charlotte on Election Day. Logan Cyrus
They’re two Charlotteans, both former or current public officials. One is 76 and Republican. The other is a Democrat less than half his age. Over the past few years, former Charlotte Mayor Richard Vinroot and N.C. Senator Jeff Jackson, separately and for somewhat different reasons, have argued the essential case against gerrymandering, the drawing of electoral district lines by people in power to maintain that power. Both believe it hurts democracy. Both believe the lines should be drawn by an independent group of people who wouldn’t benefit from the drawing.
True to form, they had different reactions Monday to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that a lower court was correct in determining that North Carolina’s legislative district lines are unconstitutionally gerrymandered by race.
“This is the one we’ve been expecting and hoping for for 18 months,” said Jackson.
“My immediate reaction is that this is not as significant as what may come,” said Vinroot.
But they did agree on the basic facts on the ground: Once again, the highest court in the land has determined that in 2011, the North Carolina General Assembly drew district lines specifically to weaken the influence black voters. (Weirdly, that finding was mentioned in a mere footnote in the actual ruling, which devoted three pages to punting the issue of the remedy—including new legislative elections this fall—back to the federal District Court.)
The legislature can redraw the lines to make legislative districts more racially equitable without threatening the Republican supermajority that’s dominated it since 2013. But the Supreme Court “is finally acknowledging,” Jackson said, “how bad the gerrymandering situation is in North Carolina.”
Vinroot has joined forces with another Charlotte Republican, former Governor Jim Martin, to lobby the General Assembly to work toward establishment of a nonpartisan redistricting commission that would take the power to gerrymander out of legislators’ hands. Vinroot’s hesitancy Monday to rejoice over the Supreme Court ruling is born of his focus on what he sees as an even more important case: a challenge to the constitutionality of new Congressional district lines the legislature adopted last year. (All these various redistrictings and legal challenges to them get incredibly confusing, I know.)
The key difference with this suit is that it asks a federal court to declare the lines unconstitutional as a political gerrymander, not a racial one. In other words, rule that the redrawing of district lines to secure political power is unconstitutional regardless of whether it discriminates against minorities. The case is pending in U.S. District Court; if the Supreme Court eventually rules in the plaintiffs’ favor, it could establish a precedent that would all but end the practice of gerrymandering in the United States. “That’s the mother lode,” Jackson said.
“I frankly will be very surprised if the Supreme Court does that,” Vinroot said. “These are complex questions, and I don’t think anyone can predict what’s going to happen with any of these cases.”
And yet Jackson says he can see signs that the season is turning. On Saturday, he attended a town hall meeting at Gethsemane Baptist Church of Lake Norman in Davidson, a church not even in his senatorial district. He was the only elected official there. About 30 seconds in, before he could even broach the subject, a woman raised her hand and asked him to talk about gerrymandering. “I thought, ‘Well, I guess we’re taking questions now,’” Jackson said, “which was a perfect segue to what I wanted to talk about for the next 15 minutes anyway.”
A few years ago, few voters thought about gerrymandering as an important issue, Jackson says. Now they do, and some are pressuring their representatives in the legislature to put a stop to it. “And that’s important, because gerrymandering is fundamentally indefensible. So when constituents press them on it, they basically have to agree,” he said. “But they’re counting on people not knowing about it.”The summers seemed brighter, the weather warmer, the days more leisurely. The First World War—”the war to end all wars”—was over and the 1920s began as a decade of great prosperity.
But by 1925 the years of plenty ceased. The gap between rich and poor widened with unemployment rife and beggars—many old soldiers—a common sight on the cities’ streets.
In 1926, a General Strike almost brought the government down when the General Council of the Trades Union Congress called a strike in support of one million mine workers who had been locked out of the mines by owners who wanted them to work more hours for less pay—a drop of 13% in miners’ wages.
Where farming had once thrived, now one in four farms were sold during the 1920s to pay increasing financial obligations—over 600,000 farmers went bankrupt.
Families were of a smaller size compared to those in Victorian families while children were educated until the age of fourteen. There was more freedom for middle class and upper class women. Those over the age of 30 were given the vote in 1918, which was finally extended to all women over the age of 21 in 1928.
In 1928, photographer Clifton R. Adams was commissioned by the National Geographic to document life in England. Adams’ beautiful Autochromes—a process of producing color images by using potato starch—present images that capture the last of an England that was slowly heading towards an irreversible change.
Via Retronaut.How did innovative Winnipeg social housing, designed by one of Canada’s most talked about architecture firms, become a haven for drink and drugs?
In photographs, Centre Village doesn’t look like the generic image of social housing. A playful cluster of stucco buildings surround a serene inner courtyard. Bold, orange-framed windows punctuate the white walls. Located as it is on a street in Winnipeg, Canada – and sandwiched on either side by that city’s typical modest, gable-roof houses – Centre Village has an almost surreal quality.
In person, however, the image quickly changes. The window blinds, for example, are closed on the windows that face into the courtyard. Litter is scattered across the ground. Speak to residents, and a new picture emerges: of apartments poorly suited to family life, and a building structure that seems to act as a magnet for drinking and drug-taking at all hours.
In May last year, I travelled with my colleague, Andrea Lacalamita, to this bustling city in the Canadian prairies. We arrived expecting to make a documentary about the positive social impacts of this award-winning housing project, designed by one of Canada’s most celebrated young architecture firms.
Instead, we found a building project badly affected by crime, with families living in cramped and unsuitable conditions. We also discovered that it was no longer a co |
you’ll need (10) 10lb bags of ice or (5) 20lb bags of ice. We usually tend to purchase one or two more bags than we think we need just in case – and it usually gets used.
Have a fantastic time at your party and please, drink responsibly.
Travel Ideas infographic from HomeAway
We’d love to hear your wedding bar plans! Please leave us a comment below.
xoxo, WonderstruckOn this day, 35 years ago, Guy Lafleur took the first big step in establishing a legendary career. It was March 29 1975, towards the end of his breakout season, that Lafleur became the third Montreal Canadiens player (and eleventh NHL player) to score 50 goals in a season. Among Habs, Maurice Rocket Richard had set the standard thirty years before in 1945 with his famous 50 in 50 and Boom Boom Geoffrion equalled that total in 1961.
Lafleur’s goal came in the first period of a Saturday night game at the Forum in which the Habs defeated the expansion Kansas City Scouts 4-1. Taking a pass from his centreman Pete Mahovlich, Lafleur fired a wrist shot past goaltender Denis Herron while teammate Steve Shutt was tied up with a defenseman in front. As the puck went into the net, the fans erupted and gave Lafleur a standing ovation and threw debris on the ice which delayed the game for a few minutes. Television cameras showed a smiling Lafleur exchanging a handshake with Peter Mahovlich near the Canadiens bench while a big starry number 50 flashed on the television screen, similar to the big 500 had been shown when Jean Béliveau attained that career milestone, four years earlier. Watching the game on television, the Rocket called the Forum between periods to congratulate Lafl eur and wish him well in breaking the record.
When asked by reporters after the game how he felt after scoring the goal, Lafleur expressed relief: "That's it. I said to myself. I got it. It's in," he told the media. In the papers, many people such as The Rocket, Larry Robinson and even goaltender Denis Herron said that Lafleur really deserved all the accolades for his feat because he had worked so hard in achieving it.
By this point and peak in his young career, the 23-year-old right winger finally became the spectacular superstar everybody was expecting he would become since he was drafted first overall in 1971. The 50-goal mark was an exclamation mark to a great season. Lafleur had already made team history three weeks before in a March 7 game at the Forum against the Washington Capitals by becoming the first Canadiens player to record 100 points in a season. That game had been Lafleur’s first game back after missing ten games due to a broken finger and he registered four points (2 goals, 2 assists) to reach the 100 point plateau (his linemate Mahovlich reached the mark two games later). Again, Lafleur received a thundrous ovation from the Forum crowd. A bit earlier that season, on January 26, Lafleur registered a 4 goal night in the Forum against the Pittsburgh Penguins and his former teammate, Michel Plasse.
Here is a short video montage of Lafleur’s 49th goal which he scored on a tremendous rush, one game earlier on March 26 in Pittsburgh against goalie Gary Inness (a 6-4 Penguins win), It is followed by the clip of the 50th goal against Kansas City. Unfortunately, I didn’t find the original play by play call of these goals.
Lafleur's record-breaking 51st goal came the very next evening in Boston against goalie Gilles Gilbert (see picture below). It was a third period game tying goal (the game ended 2-2). "Yvon Lambert made a terrific play on it," Lafleur told The Gazette. "He gave me the puck and I had a wide open net. I just made it fast."
Lafleur would score two more by the end of the season to raise his team records to 53 goals and 119 points in 70 games. Mahovlich finished with 117 points in 80 games and established team records for assists (82) and points by a centerman, both of which he still holds today. Lafleur and Mahovlich placed fourth and fifth in league scoring respectively.
Lafleur would go on the become the greatest and most exciting player of the latter half of the seventies, racking up six straight 50 goal and 100 points campaigns, an NHL record at the time, that included improvements to his team goals and points records.
It was almost one year to the day, on March 27, 1976, when Lafleur again scored his fiftieth at the Forum against the Scouts and Denis Herron (Herron would be victim of a third Lafleur 50th in 1979). That season, Lafleur raised his Canadiens goals and points record to 56 and 125 respectively and won the first of his three consecutive scoring championships, and of course, the first of four consecutive Stanley Cups. Lafleur was the first Hab to win the scoring championship since Geoffrion in 1961. The following year, he set a new points record with 136 while Steve Shutt registered a new high of 60 goals, a feat Lafleur would match in 77-78. Lafleur won the Hart Trophy as the NHL's most valuable player both years.
Here is a short video montage of Lafleur fiftieth goals in 1977 (vs Buffalo) and 1978 (vs Washington) along with his sixtieth goal (vs Detroit) that same year. Again, I could not find the original play by play of these highlights.
During the 74-75 campaign, Guy Lafleur became the idol of a new generation of Canadiens fans (myself included as I was nine years old at the time). It was estimated at the time, that in one particular hockey season, Lafleur had become the subject of 600 articles. Superstardom had definitely arrived. Lafleur started to make various TV appearances and he was featured on the cover of various publications including the 75-76 Canadiens yearbook with Rocket Richard and Boom Boon Geoffrion and many others, such as the December 1975 cover of the french Hockey Mag shown below.
In 1976, the first of several books on Lafleur was published, written by journalist Yvon Pedneault (shown below also). This galvanization towards a new hero even shows up in a movie of the time. I leave you with a little clip from the 1975 movie The mystery of the Million Dollar Hockey Puck which features Canadiens and Lafleur highlights from 74-75. The clip pretty much sums up the excitement of Lafleur, pulling fans from their seats, as he had began the habit of doing that season.
For a look back into the pages of the Montreal Gazette and the time of this Lafleur milestone, click this link.There has been a lot going on since the release of Talisman in December, so I wanted to take some time to update you on a few things we're working on.
Ascendancy
We're planning to release the
We're currently in the final stages of creating/polishing content and internally testing the Labyrinth. We will probably run a short test on our Alpha servers (with existing testers at this stage - please don't message us about it. We'll let you know in the news if we're seeking more testers).
We will start announcing more Ascendancy classes in a few days. There's one each for the Marauder, Ranger and Templar coming up this week. We also have some new skills and other bits and pieces to announce in the coming weeks.
Trade System
As I write this, I can see Jonathan working on trade improvements. They'll be deployed in several stages this year. The first stage, substantially improved APIs, is expected around the release of Ascendancy in March. Other stages later this year include things like cross-instance trading and some other heavily-requested trade features (not an Auction House).
Company Expansion
A few weeks ago, I wrote in the news that we had expanded to 60 staff. Assuming that a few people accept pending job offers, we'll be at 69 staff within a couple of weeks. This expansion of the company significantly improves our resources in many areas.
Performance
We will soon have two full-time programmers working on client and server performance. One is a dedicated graphics engine programmer. In addition, we have engaged an external company to help with some improvements to our graphics engine.
Custom Uniques
We have added an additional full-time developer to the custom unique design process. This will be enough capacity that we can have very fast turnaround on discussion of these unique items.
We're also working on plenty of other things that we're excited to share in the future, of course :) Hi guys!There has been a lot going on since the release of Talisman in December, so I wanted to take some time to update you on a few things we're working on.We're planning to release the Ascendancy expansion (2.2.0) in early March. The Talisman challenge leagues end on the 3rd (US time), and the deployment of Ascendancy will likely occur in time for the weekend.We're currently in the final stages of creating/polishing content and internally testing the Labyrinth. We will probably run a short test on our Alpha servers (with existing testers at this stage - please don't message us about it. We'll let you know in the news if we're seeking more testers).We will start announcing more Ascendancy classes in a few days. There's one each for the Marauder, Ranger and Templar coming up this week. We also have some new skills and other bits and pieces to announce in the coming weeks.As I write this, I can see Jonathan working on trade improvements. They'll be deployed in several stages this year. The first stage, substantially improved APIs, is expected around the release of Ascendancy in March. Other stages later this year include things like cross-instance trading and some other heavily-requested trade features (not an Auction House).A few weeks ago, I wrote in the news that we had expanded to 60 staff. Assuming that a few people accept pending job offers, we'll be at 69 staff within a couple of weeks. This expansion of the company significantly improves our resources in many areas.We will soon have two full-time programmers working on client and server performance. One is a dedicated graphics engine programmer. In addition, we have engaged an external company to help with some improvements to our graphics engine.We have added an additional full-time developer to the custom unique design process. This will be enough capacity that we can have very fast turnaround on discussion of these unique items.We're also working on plenty of other things that we're excited to share in the future, of course :) YouTube |
Lead Developer. Follow us on: Twitter Facebook | Contact Support if you need help! Last edited by Chris on Jan 27, 2016, 1:51:23 AMThreats received by several Victorian schools leading to evacuation a hoax, police say
Updated
Threatening phone calls which led to a number of schools in Victoria's east evacuating students on Friday were a hoax, police say.
Schools in Craigieburn, Berwick, Morwell, Lakes Entrance, Sale and Cowes on Phillip Island were evacuated following the calls.
Victoria Police said they were aware schools in a number of other states and countries had also received similar phone calls in the past 24 hours.
But police later said they were "satisfied that there are no imminent threats to schools".
"Victoria Police can confirm it is treating the threatening phone calls received by a number of Victorian schools today as a hoax," they said in a statement.
A police investigation into the origin of the calls is ongoing, but police said they were not terrorism-related.
'Terrifying' beginning to school year
Hundreds of students at Sale Primary were relocated to another school and were collected by parents.
It was the second day back at school for many of the students.
The kids start school, I reassure parents I've got a safe school for them and here we are evacuating. Henry Grossek, Berwick Lodge Primary School principal
A Victorian Education Department spokesman said the incident was taken seriously.
"The safety and wellbeing of our students is always our number one priority," he said.
"All schools have emergency management plans which include evacuation plans, and the affected schools have enacted their plans this morning."
Amanda Renda, whose son attends Craigieburn Primary School, said the incident added stress to the start of the school year.
"The kids were fine, they didn't know what was going on," she said.
"They were happy which is reassuring. It's just not a good thing to go through as a parent - it's quite terrifying."
The principal of Berwick Lodge Primary School, Henry Grossek, told 774 ABC Melbourne they got a call from unidentified male at about 11:24am.
"The prep children - it was their first day at school, it was a really ripper of a day," he said.
"The kids start school, I reassure parents I've got a safe school for them and here we are evacuating.
"They come to pick the children up at 12:45pm on the first day... we decided the police would organise the streets to be blocked so that all the parents would be channelled into a car park not on our school [grounds].
"All the prep parents then would pick their children up there at 12:45 which they did."
In New South Wales, police confirmed officers had been called to schools at Woolooware, Sutherland, Penrith, Mona Vale, Richmond and Lake Illawarra.
Officers said those schools had either been evacuated or were in lockdown.
Topics: police, sale-3850, vic, berwick-3806, morwell-3840, lakes-entrance-3909
First postedBERLIN — Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany on Sunday called for the swift start of negotiations on the Greece bailout package, reiterating her insistence that there will be no reduction in Greek debt but saying that other relief measures can be discussed once Greece has been stabilized.
“There are 11 million people in Greece,” Ms. Merkel told the ARD public service broadcaster in an interview, and, while banks are set to reopen Monday, “there is no normal life,” she said.
That is why, she said, “we should start negotiating quickly.”
Ms. Merkel’s remarks, made before going on her annual summer vacation, followed weeks of tensions between Greece and Germany over the terms of a bailout to prevent the collapse of Greece’s banks and preserve its membership in the eurozone.
The German government has held a hard line in the European talks, and its finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, shocked many last week by suggesting that Greece might be better off if it left the eurozone, at least temporarily.Wisconsin dropped "from second in the country to 41st" among states where more than half the students took the ACT exam.
For years, Wisconsin leaders have expressed pride in how the state’s high school students perform on the ACT exam, which assesses students’ academic readiness for college.
From 2008 through 2014, with Minnesota ranking first, Wisconsin has battled, usually with Iowa, for second or third.
That is, among states where more than half of the students take the ACT.
So, it was a surprise on Jan. 14, 2016 when the Wisconsin Democratic Party issued a news release declaring that Wisconsin’s ACT rank had plunged to near the bottom.
"Newly released information from the (Wisconsin) Department of Instruction shows a dramatic decline in student ACT results in the past year," the news release stated, blaming Republican Gov. Scott Walker.
"Test scores dropped Wisconsin from second in the country to 41st in the nation among states where more than half the students took the exam."
Such a free-fall should have produced blaring headlines.
But there was not even a mention of a 41st ranking in stories by Wisconsin’s leading news organizations about the scores, which had been announced a day earlier by the Department of Public Instruction.
It turns out the Democratic Party came up with 41st on its own -- by mixing apples and oranges.
Scores announced
What made headlines from the announcement by the Department of Public Instruction were scores by younger students on a different test, the Badger Exam.
More than half of Wisconsin's public school students in grades three through eight -- 51.2 percent -- were proficient or advanced in English language arts in 2014-’15, and 43.7 percent did as well in math.
Meanwhile, the department’s release of the ACT scores got lesser billing in the news reports.
That release stressed that the 2014-’15 school year marked the first time in Wisconsin that all juniors (11th grade) in public high schools had the opportunity to take the test. That’s because testing fees were paid by the state.
In other words, the more than 64,000 juniors comprised a unique group in terms of Wisconsin students who have taken the ACT over the years.
Traditionally, when state rankings on the ACT are done, the scores are for graduating seniors -- and include students from private as well as public high schools.
Now to the scores.
The ACT -- which tests in English, reading, writing, math and science -- is scored on a scale of 1 to 36.
Wisconsin’s composite score for the public school 11th-graders for 2014-’15 was 20, according to the department’s news release.
But the way to think about that score is a baseline. There won’t be a score to compare it to until the next set of public school 11th-graders takes the test.
Meanwhile, the composite for the more than 46,000 graduating seniors -- the group whose scores are traditionally used to rank the states -- was higher: 22.2.
The department made a point to state that comparisons between the two scores -- given that they are for two different groups of students -- are "invalid and flawed."
But that’s what the Democratic Party did in its news release.
The party took the 20 score for Wisconsin’s juniors and plugged it into the ACT database that compares state scores for graduating seniors.
That database clearly shows that Wisconsin’s score for the traditional group, the graduating seniors in 2014-’15, was 22.2 (the same score as the previous year).
The new score put Wisconsin, once again, second among states where more than half of the graduating seniors took the ACT -- behind Minnesota, which had a score of 22.7.
Among all states, Wisconsin’s 22.2 ranked 18th.
But the Democratic Party, using the 20 score for the group of juniors, said that score meant Wisconsin tied with Kentucky for 41st place.
A spokesman for the ACT told us the party’s claim "cannot be supported" because it is "not an apples to apples comparison."
And when we shared that with Brandon Weathersby, spokesman for the Democratic Party, he acknowledged the party had "flubbed" the data.
Our rating
The state Democratic Party said Wisconsin dropped "from second in the country to 41st" among states where more than half the students took the ACT college preparation exam.
The party admits it erred, by comparing scores of two different groups of students. In fact, Wisconsin ranked second in the 2014-’15 ACT testing among states where more than half the students took the exam, not 41st.
For a statement that is false and ridiculous, our rating is Pants on Fire.Greetings! Karthas here and today I’d like to talk about a question I get asked by every single new player at my table: which class should I choose? Its a valid question and an important one at that. So today I will go through each of the classes and give a quick overview, and list the things the class is good at, and what they are not so good at. Ultimately the most important thing is to pick a class you will enjoy. Don’t worry about being the best, every class has strengths and weaknesses. A well rounded party will ensure everyone’s weakness is covered by another’s strength.
For those who just want a general overview of each original class, check out the list below. Please note that I am only going over the classes from the Player’s Handbook as I believe this gives new players plenty to choose from. If you have any advice or questions, leave a comment below! And if you are looking for some pre-made D&D characters, be sure to subscribe to our site to gain access to our Dropbox folder where we are always adding more characters!
Barbarian
The Barbarian is your hulk class. They charge headlong into danger without a care in the world. They carry big weapons with them to smash their opponents. Thematically the Barbarian is a wildman, or woman, who jumps into the fray without thinking about the repercussions of doing so. In-game the Barbarian focuses on melee attacks and utilizes a feature called Rage. When the Barbarian is Raging they get a bunch of cool benefits that help them destroy their enemies.
Paths
The Barbarian has 2 different archetypes to choose from: Path of the Berserker & Path of the Totem Warrior. Go Berserker if you just want to specialize in smashing things to pieces, go Totem Warrior if you want some cool utility abilities while Raging.
Play a Barbarian if you:
Love smashing things
Enjoy throwing caution to the wind
Want to deal a lot of damage or soak up a lot of damage
Don’t play a Barbarian if you:
Want to use magic
Are cautious
Hate carrying big weapons
Bard
The Bard is the performer. Bard’s use music as a means of weaving magical spells. Thematically Bards carry instruments, are cunning, charismatic, and great story tellers. They excel at supporting their allies through a feature called Bardic Inspiration as well as their utility spells. In-game Bards are the jack of all trades. They get a lot of points for skills, have a wide array of spells to choose from, and can wade into battle should they choose.
Colleges
They have 2 archetypes to choose from: College of Lore & College of Valor. The College of Lore focuses on expanding the use of Bardic Inspiration and increasing your magical prowess. Valor Bards get some abilities that allow them to do better in melee combat like attacking twice, as well as using shields.
Play a Bard if you:
Like being the jack of all trades
Want a mix of magic & melee (leaning more toward magic)
Enjoy supporting your teammates
Don’t play a Bard if you:
Want to focus on melee combat
Enjoy being the “quiet type”
Want to specialize in one area
Cleric
The Cleric is the life of the party (get it!). But seriously, most people assume the Cleric is just a heal bot. In 5e this is not the case. Thematically clerics can be many different things, but the common thread among them is that they draw their power from a divine source. They are the warrior priests who carry out their god’s bidding. In-game clerics are quite versatile. Though they are still some of the best healers, they are able to focus on other things like melee combat, ranged spells, and skills.
Domains
Clerics have a feature called Domains that they pick from. The Domains are essentially a theme that grants you most of the traits that will define your class. The Domains they can choose from are Knowledge (skills, utility, & spell-casting), Life (melee & healing), Light (spell-casting), Nature (melee & elements), Tempest (melee, lighting & thunder), Trickery (stealth), and War (melee).
Play a Cleric if you:
Enjoy being one of the most essential players in the party (can’t let the healer die)
Like to have the option to use magic or melee weapons
Want to have some nice support spells
Don’t play a Cleric if you:
Like being a loner
Don’t like helping others
Don’t want to answer to a higher power
Druid
The Druid is your typical “one with nature” class. They have a very cool ability called Wildshape which allows them to turn into an animal. At first glance you think “cool I could turn into a bear”, but then you realize”I could turn into a T-Rex!” So yes, Druids are cool. In addition to turning into animals they can cast some pretty powerful spells. Thematically the Druid is, again, your nature guy who is quiet but carries a big stick. They care about the trees, animals, and everything else in between. In-game Druids can fill any role necessary. They can heal, deal damage, or take a lot of hits.
Circles
They have 2 archetypes to choose from: Circle of the Land & Circle of the Moon. Circle of the land focuses on expanding your spell casting abilities by giving you access to more spells and making them more potent. Circle of the Moon focuses on your Wildshape by letting you turn into bigger animals.
Play a Druid if you:
Like being versatile
Want to turn into animals
Like being the “one with nature” guy
Don’t play a Druid if you:
Want to collect and wear cool gear
Like using metal armor
Don’t care about nature
Fighter
The Fighter is probably the simplest concept in D&D, the guy who specializes in fighting. Now this isn’t a bad thing, on the contrary Fighters are pretty solid characters, and their archetypes make them really versatile. Thematically the Fighter is your standard soldier/warrior who excels at fighting guys. Typically they were a soldier or something at one point. In-game, Fighters can fill many roles, they can be a take a lot of punishment, deal good damage (melee & range), and they can even be stealthy.
Archetypes
The Fighter has 3 archetypes to choose from: Champion, Battle Master, & Eldritch Knight. Champion has a lot of passive abilities that just make you better at swinging your weapon, very simple. The Battle Master gives you maneuvers which allow you to perform special moves when you attack like moving an enemy or giving an ally advantage. The Eldritch Knight allows you to wield magic, albeit at a very slow rate. But these spells give you some utility and allow you to wield a spell in one hand, and a weapon in the other.
Play a Fighter if you:
Enjoy using weapons
Want to be versatile
Like being the soldier/warrior character
Don’t play a Fighter if you:
Want cast powerful spells. Eldritch Knights can use magic, but it is very limited
Like healing people
Are a pacifist
Monk
The Monk is exactly what you picture. They move quick, and punch things. They are a fun class with some really cool abilities. Thematically the Monk is a spiritual character who has devoted their life to achieving discipline and focus. They are often wise and disciplined in their pursuits. In-game the monk can fill the role of scout, damage dealer, and even an assassin at times. They utilize a feature called Ki points to gain special abilities. These abilities allow them to do some cool things like attack multiple times, or dash out of combat.
Ways
The Monk has 3 Archetypes to choose from: Way of the Open Hand, Way of Shadow, and Way of the Four Elements. Way of the Open Hand enhances your Ki abilities making you really good at punching things. Way of the Shadow allows you to basically become a Ninja and move through the shadows (you can even teleport!). The Way of the Four Elements allows you to become the Avatar and enhance your abilities with the four elements.
Play a Monk if you:
Like to be a quick dexterous fighter
Enjoy the idea of punching bad guys
Love to role play the disciplined character
Don’t play a Monk if you:
Want to wear heavy armor
Like to cast spells
Want to be able to take a lot of damage
Paladin
The Paladin is the righteous crusader. They can wield magic, fight on the front lines, and can buff and heal their allies. They can do a lot, but this means they won’t be the best at either. The Paladin is an interesting class to play as they have something called an Oath. The Oath is a set of guidelines that they must follow, if they break their Oath, they can lose their powers. This makes them a lot of fun to role-play. Additionally they have their iconic smites, which allows them to imbue their weapon with magic, dealing damage on a hit.
Thematically the Paladin seeks out evil and protects those who cannot protect themselves. They are bound by their Oath and are always on the move. In-game Paladins do great in melee range as they can wear heavy armor and they have an awesome ability called auras which buff allies by simply standing next to the Paladin. And they can do some healing!
Oaths
Paladins have 3 archetypes to choose from: Oath of Devotion, Oath of the Ancients, Oath of Vengeance. Oath of Devotion is your standard White Knight valuing honor, justice, and integrity. They get some abilities that increase their smiting abilities. Oath of the Ancients is the Green Knight. They seek to kindle and protect light in dark places. They get one of the cooler buffs to their aura and a pretty cool ability at level 20. Oath of Vengeance is your Dark Knight. They do the dirty work that nobody else wants to do. They get really cool abilities that allow them to hone in on a single enemy and become a nuisance to them.
Play a Paladin if you:
Love being up close and personal with the enemy
Want to bring some support to your party
Love a good class to role-play
Don’t play a Paladin if you:
Don’t want a set of rules to follow
Are a loner (except for maybe Vengeance Paladins)
Want to be a full spellcaster
Ranger
The Ranger is the guy to stalks the wilds hunting down monsters and keeping those in the cities safe. They have a small pool of nature spells to pull from but mainly focus on weapon attacks. The most popular weapon choices for a Ranger are the bow & dual wielding. Thematically the Ranger is quiet and keeps to himself. They are loners, save for their animal companions. They live in the wilds protecting civilization from evils that don’t even know they exist. No matter where your campaign takes place, chances are the Ranger will be able to help out the party with some of their abilities. In-game the Ranger can fill a few roles. They can be a damage machine, be the scout, and depending on if they get an animal companion, can provide some extra muscle for the party.
Archetypes
The Ranger has 2 archetypes to choose from: Hunter or Beast Master. The Hunter pretty much just gets better at killing things. The Beast Master gets an animal companion that can eventually attack in tandem with the Ranger, giving yourself some nice options in combat. Not to mention the utility of having an animal to help out with things.
Play a Ranger if you:
Want to be like Aragorn
Like to be a loner
Want to have an animal companion
Don’t play a Ranger if you:
Want to be a spellcaster
Don’t want to focus on damage
Hate the idea of scouting
Rogue
The Rogue is your standard sneaky guy who uses daggers, but they are very important. The Rogue can dish out some damage if you play them right and they make great scouts and thieves. Thematically the Rogue is your thief/assassin. They move through the shadows unseen striking their enemies. They can be loners or not, but they can be difficult to trust at times. In-game the Rogue does great whenever they can sneak up on an enemy. They can also get out of sticky situations well. Rogues are also really good at a lot of non-combat related things. Like picking locks, disarming traps, and spotting danger and they get a lot of points for skills.
Archetypes
The Rogue can choose from 3 archetypes: Thief, Assassin, & Arcane Trickster. The Thief is great at getting into the fight and hopping out before they get hurt. They get some cool abilities that make them great…thieves. The Assassin is great at killing people silently. They also get some cool abilities that make them great at disguising themselves. The Arcane Trickster is basically a thief who is able to use magic to make them a better thief. They can do some really cool things with Mage Hand, like pick pocketing people with it!
Play a Rogue if you:
Like sneaking
Enjoy being self reliant
Like to steal stuff
Don’t play a Rogue if you:
Want to be able to take a lot of damage
Like to use big weapons
Want to use magic
Sorcerer
It can be difficult to understand the difference between these last 3 classes, so let me make it easy for you. A Sorcerer gains their arcane power from within, a Warlock gains their arcane power from an outside being, a Wizard gains their arcane power through study. As I go through these three know that in-game they will all fill the spell-caster role. But they all have some things that set them apart from each other.
The Sorcerer is the character who was born with an innate affinity for magic. Thematically the Sorcerer is the driven magi who still struggles to understand the depth of their powers. At times these powers can be difficult to control or even understand for the Sorcerer. In-game the Sorcerer is an interesting spell caster because they have a special ability called Meta Magic. Meta Magic allows a Sorcerer to alter their spells using Sorcerer points to give them additional effects. For example they can duplicate a spell so that it hits 2 enemies, or they can quicken a spell so that it only costs a bonus action to cast it.
Archetypes
The Sorcerer has 2 archetypes: Draconic Bloodline & Wild Magic. Draconic Bloodline gives the Sorcerer some more health and gives them some cool features like growing wings and resistance to a certain element. Wild Magic plays up the “unstable” magic aspect. You get some abilities like being able to alter a die roll or even give yourself advantage, but you can also cause unwanted side effects from your spells.
Play a Sorcerer if you:
Like molding your spells
Want to be a caster that can take more damage
Like random outcomes
Don’t play a Sorcerer if you:
Want to be in full control of your magic
Don’t want to manage Sorcerer points
Want a bit more freedom in changing out spells
Warlock
The Warlock is someone who has pledged them self to a great being. Thematically the Warlock is your Dark Wizard. They carry out the requests of their Patrons who in turn grant them other worldly powers. Warlocks can be difficult to trust as their motives are not always their own, because power comes with a price. In-game the Warlock is an interesting caster. They can pick something called a pact which gives them some interesting abilities. The Pact of the Blade allows the Warlock to summon a magical weapon to their hand, Pact of the Chain allows them to summon a familiar and even attack with it, while the Pact of the Tome enhances the Warlocks spells. Like the Sorcerer though, the Warlock does not get as many spells as the Wizard.
Patrons
The Warlock has 3 archetypes to choose from in the form of a Patron. Each Patron grants the Warlock access to an expanded list of spells: The Archfey, The Fiend, or the Great Old One. The Archfey deals with illusion and mystical spells. They get Misty Escape as a class ability, and can attempt to charm any creature at higher levels. The Fiend gives the Warlock fiery and damaging spells. The Fiend is great if you want to have a melee Warlock as they gain health on a kill. And they get a really cool ability called Hurl Through Hell! The Great Old One gives the Warlock psychic spells. Additionally you get some abilities that allow you to gain telepathy and eventually even charm any incapacitated creature!
Play a Warlock if you:
Like to play the Dark Wizard
Want a fun class to role-play
Want a caster that can be good at melee combat
Don’t play a Warlock if you:
Don’t want to answer to a higher power
Want to be a goody two-shoes
Accept the price for your power
Wizard
The iconic wizard class is your standard magic guy. Thematically the Wizard is someone who has spent many years studying arcane mysteries. They are scholars who seek knowledge and understanding. In-game Wizards are the most versatile arcane spell caster. They have a Spellbook which they actually write their spells down in. If you happen to come across a scroll or something that would typically be able to only cast once, a Wizard can actually write it down in their Spellbook! It allows the player to take spells that they think will help them in upcoming session.
Schools
The Wizard gets to choose from multiple different schools, similar to the Cleric’s Domains. These Schools give them some special effects for certain spell types. The schools are: Abjuration (shielding things), Conjuration (summoning things), Divination (discernment things), Enchantment (enhancing things), Evocation (elemental things), Illusion (tricky things), Necromancy (dead things), and Transmutation (altering things).
Play a Wizard if:
You like managing spells and have the right spell for the right situation
Don’t plan on being in melee combat
Want to specialize in a particular magic type
Don’t play a Wizard if:
You don’t want to manage spells
Want to be able to take some damage
Want to use Weapons
Final Thoughts
Well that wraps it up on the classes. If you didn’t find a class that worked for you, check out the Unearthed Arcana that Wizards of the Coast releases. Sometimes they include a new class, but keep in mind these classes aren’t official so you’ll need to talk to your DM to see if they allow it. Or you can check out the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide which has some new official classes and archetypes for some classes.
Thanks for stopping by, hopefully this guide has been helpful! Be sure to subscribe if you haven’t!
What is your favorite class? Tell me in the comments below!
Email Address First Name Birthday Leave this field empty if you're human:
Like this: Like Loading...This is another feature that we have missed in the last two weeks due to the minor changes we’re having so far. But we are back indeed with a lovely song from the King, Amr Diab….and I’m taking you aaaaaaalllll the way back to 1992!
You might possibly think that this song sounds dated now but I don’t. This is because this song holds soooo much memories for all of us 80’s babies that it would never sound old. The melody, the production, Am |
Truck Yeah The trucks are good!
Tired of finally getting a potential mate to come home with you, only to be shut down when they realize you live in a crappy van? Sucks, doesn't it. You need a Mercedes-Benz Marco Polo; it's got the vagabondy swagger of a classic top-popper, with a three-pointed star to on the grille to prove you live on wheels by choice.
This V-Class based camper van is making its debut at the upcoming Caravan Salon in Düsseldorf, Germany in a few weeks.
It's not nearly as full-on flashy as the Sprinter-based Airstream Autobahn, and won't be quite as rough-road ready as the Sprinter 4x4 but it is a lot smaller than those and should be significantly more "user-friendly" for folks who don't want to spend their vacations in a cargo van.
Advertisement
The Marco Polo packs a fridge, gas burner, plus fresh and waste water storage. Everything is powered; including the pop-top and the rear bench seat which can be converted into a single or double bed with the push of a button. So do not let those batteries die in the middle of nowhere.
As for engines, Mercedes says:
The Marco Polo 200 CDI develops 100 kW (136 hp) and a maximum torque of 330 Nm (243 lb-ft). The Marco Polo 220 CDI generates 120 kW (163 hp) and 380 Nm (280 lb-ft). With fuel consumption of just 6.0 l per 100 km and CO2 emissions of 158 grams per kilometre, the Marco Polo 220 CDI occupies an absolute leading position in the segment. The top engine variant with 140 kW (190 hp) and a powerful maximum torque of 440 Nm (324 lb-ft) consumes just 6.1 l per 100 km. In the acceleration phases, an additional 10 kW and 40 Nm are available ("over-torque"). As a result, the flagship model briefly develops 150 kW and maximum torque of a full 480 Nm (354 lb-ft).
Advertisement
I love that the Germans care enough about emissions particulates to include them in their press release. Wish the US would get more on-board with that stuff.
Supposedly the Mercedes V-Class may be heading to America in 2015, in which case I don't see why we couldn't order or build a Marco Polo east of the Atlantic if and when that happens. Mercedes will start taking orders from European customers on July 29th.
Advertisement
Images: Mercedes-BenzCamila Alves Stunning in Latest Baby Bump Photos
, Brazilian supermodel and girlfriend of, is expecting their first child. The couple announced on January 15, 2008 that Alves was pregnant and due to give birth in late June or early July.
We've got photos taken of the stunning model yesterday, June 18, while she was shopping at Kitson Accessories Boutique on Robertson Blvd. in Los Angeles.
McConaughey is currently filming The Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. His next project will be Tropic Thunder. Surfer Dude is set for release in 2008. The flick is billed as "a wave twisting tale of a soul searching surfer experiencing an existential crisis". Don't expect any of these to be award worthy but you can bet he'll be bare chested and looking buff.
Check out a collection of recent photos of Camila shopping, the couple leaving the Viper Room in West Hollywood and some red carpet poses from McConaughey's movie premiere Fools Gold.
Photos: WENNJudge Nap: Hillary Clinton Perjury Probe a 'Slam Dunk Case in the Ordinary World'
GOP Rep. Marino: The Clintons Are 'Pathological Liars'
Dr. Drew Pinsky dropped a bombshell on a California radio show this week, saying he's "gravely concerned" about Hillary Clinton's health.
The famous TV doctor was actually asked to be on KABC's "McIntyre in the Morning" show to debunk questions about the 68-year-old Clinton's health.
But instead, Pinsky said he's become concerned about Clinton's health and the medical care she has received after reviewing the records that have been made public.
He said that his colleague, Dr. Robert Huizenga, expressed similar worries.
"Both of us concluded that if we were providing the care she was receiving, we would be ashamed to show up in a doctors’ lounge," Dr. Drew concluded. "We would be laughed out. She’s receiving sort of 1950s-level care by our evaluation."
Pinsky said Clinton has received unconventional treatments over the years, calling the medical decisions "bizarre" and speculating that it could be causing uncommon side effects.
He said Clinton had two episodes of deep venus thrombosis, or blood clots in her legs, and suffers from hypothyroidism. He said the drug she was given for hypothyroidism was "very unconventional" and used in the 60s.
Pinsky then said Clinton was put on an anticoagulant that "really isn't used anymore," adding that a person of Clinton's stature would be expected to receive a newer drug.
After Clinton fell and hit her head in 2012, she suffered a "transverse sinus thrombosis," which he called an "exceedingly rare clot" that he has only come across once in his career.
He said in his estimation, the earlier treatments she received may have led to problems with her "coagulation system."
“So the very medicine doctors are using may be causing this problem and they’re using an old fashioned medicine to treat it – what is going on with her health care? Maybe they have reasons, but at a distance, it looks bizarre."
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich reacted on Fox and Friends this morning, saying he's "always dubious" when it comes to a doctor analyzing a person that isn't their patient.
"Next you’re gonna get a left-wing psychiatrist explaining Donald Trump in negative terms," he said.
Judge Nap: 'Clinton Foundation Case Easier for FBI to Prove Than Emails'
Rand Paul: Hillary Clinton Should Be in Prison
The Clinton campaign pushed back a few days ago on the questions about her health, dismissing them as right-wing conspiracy theories.
In campaign speeches, Donald Trump has repeatedly argued that Clinton does not have the "stamina" to be president.
Clinton's doctor, Lisa Bardack, released a statement reiterating the candidate's "excellent health."
"I have recently been made aware of allegedly ‘leaked’ medical documents regarding Secretary Clinton with my name on them. These documents are false, were not written by me and are not based on any medical facts," she wrote.
"To reiterate what I said in my previous statement, Secretary Clinton is in excellent health and fit to serve as President of the United States."
Hear more from Dr. Drew below.
Judge Jeanine: 'Bill & Hillary Clinton Are the Bonnie & Clyde of American Politics'
Meghan McCain: Trump's Mistakes Are Offensive, Hillary's Are Lethal
Why Did Clinton Campaign Cut This Line About Sexual Assault from Website?Another high-tech and high-stakes copyright battle is brewing—this time between video game console manufacturers such as Microsoft and Sony and the hackers who like to tinker with the devices' inner workings, allowing them to perform new and socially responsible functions, but also perhaps to play pirated media and games.
Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's Playstation 3 pack an exceptional amount of graphics and computing power at a relatively low price. As tech-savvy consumers and scientists realized this, they began to circumvent the "walled garden" the companies created, using the consoles as cheap computers or number-crunching machines.
University professors, amateur hobbyists, and big-time scientists realized the potential of the Playstation 3's computing power. The United States Air Force networked 1,700 PS3's to form one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world. A researcher at the University of Massachusetts used a grid of eight PS3s to simulate gravitational waves. Thousands of amateur game makers began to create "homebrewed" software that could be played on modified Playstation or Xbox systems. Thousands of pirates modified their systems to play "backup" copies of commercial games.
Nearly all of those nonprescribed uses of video game consoles are illegal, according to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, an expansive law criminalizing digital piracy and the development or modification of devices to allow machines to play pirated media (the USAF has a special agreement with Sony).
A new push by amateur hackers and digital rights activist groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, or EFF, could make "jailbreaking" video game consoles legal under a similar exemption afforded consumers who jailbreak iPhones (a process that allows users to turn their phones into wireless hotspots, install unlicensed software, and achieve a level of customization Apple doesn't provide). The copyright office is taking public input on the subject until Friday, and will likely make a decision soon after.
Andrew Huang, who wrote about modifying an Xbox while studying electrical engineering at MIT and later turned it into a book, argues that jailbreaking allows users to "gain full administrative access" to a video game console to "innovate and take advantage of the device's full potential."
His book includes more than 250 pages detailing how to reverse engineer and modify an Xbox to run homebrewed software developed by amateurs, add USB ports, exploit security holes, and run alternative operating systems such as Linux.
The EFF argues the exemption is needed to allow consumers to "use lawfully obtained software of their own choosing," even if it isn't licensed by Microsoft or Sony.
Unsurprisingly, Microsoft and Sony are pushing back hard. In a statement to the U.S. Copyright Office, Sony said jailbreaking "will enable--indeed, may often be intended to facilitate--the unauthorized copying and commercial piracy of a large number of valuable copyrighted works."
It hasn't always been this way. When the Playstation 3 was released in 2006, Sony touted it as an inexpensive computer replacement, and even included a feature that allowed users to run the Linux operating system.
Phil Harrison, then a vice president at Sony, said at the time that the company hoped "that the PS3 will be the place where our users play, watch films, browse the Web … the Playstation 3 is a computer. We do not need the PC."
In 2010, hackers found a vulnerability in the company's sanctioned Linux environment that allowed users to play pirated games. It appears that hack soured Sony on the idea of the Playstation-as-computer. It shut down the Linux environment, locking users out from playing homemade games and researchers from modifying the PS3 in the process. In its statement to the copyright office, Sony had a message for homebrew gamers and researchers: Go elsewhere.
Homebrewers "have other options" and "are not doing anything that is qualitatively different from developing games for the PC," they argue. As for research, the company argues that the "console is not intended to be a general-purpose computing platform and it is not necessarily well-suited for research applications."
The EFF and hackers argue that modifying their consoles for purposes other than piracy is a "fair use" of the technology. In a letter to the copyright office, Huang takes a "once you buy it, it's yours" approach. He and the EFF argue that hackers often dream up new and unintended features and uses the manufacturers never thought of, and that manufacturers sometimes embrace.
Microsoft's Xbox Kinect camera was designed to be for motion gaming only. Soon after its release in late 2010, hackers reverse engineered the $99, high-tech camera. It's now widely used in medicine, education, and robotics.
At first, Microsoft cried foul, telling CNET that "Microsoft does not condone the modification of its products." The company soon backed off and encouraged alternative uses of the camera.
A Microsoft spokesman puts the company firmly against the proposed Digital Millennium Copyright Act video game exemption.
"Kinect inspired game developers, entertainment brands, hobbyists, academics, and commercial partners to develop exciting new ways to use Kinect in areas we hadn't planned on when we created it. We support this innovation," says a Microsoft spokesman. "By contrast, the overwhelming goal of 'hacking' the Xbox 360 console is to remove security features in order to play illegally pirated game discs. The health of the video game business depends on customers paying for genuine products."
Huang says that's a fundamentally different approach that may have stifled innovation in the Xbox. With the Kinect, it took a more lax security approach and has reaped the benefits. With Xbox, it's still stifling creativity, Huang says.
"It's much easier to pirate games than it is to say, boot Linux on the Xbox or run other non-sanctioned but also non-infringing software on the box," Huang writes in an E-mail. "One may argue that because they made the barriers so high for people to do legitimate activities on the [Xbox], they have constrained innovation and thus the only thing left are illegitimate activities."
jkoebler@usnews.comMedia playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Director General of the BRC Stephen Robertson says the figures are "very poor indeed"
The British Retail Consortium (BRC) has recorded its worst fall in sales since records began in 1996, a further sign of difficult times on the High Street.
The BRC said total sales in March were down 1.9% on a year ago, although the early timing of Easter last year had an effect on the figures.
But the BRC said shoppers did not want to spend "unless they really had to".
Footwear was the only growth sector, as food and drink, clothing, homeware, electrical, and others all fell.
'Ongoing weakness'
Meanwhile, like-for-like sales were down 3.5%, in their worst showing in nearly six years.
Internet sales, which have been defying the general downward trend, showed their slowest growth since records began in 2008.
Internet sales were 7.5% higher than a year ago, much weaker than the 10.4% in February.
Clothes and book sales suffered their largest declines since 2009 and 2005 respectively.
Falling disposable incomes and the fear of worse to come means people don't want to spend Stephen Robertson, BRC director general
"We have seen an emergence of new, lower spending patterns since the middle of January, which are currently continuing to trend downwards," said Helen Dickinson, head of retail at survey partner KPMG.
"Many retailers will not be able to sustain this ongoing weakness in demand beyond the short-term and are hoping for some good news around the extended bank holiday period and a feel-good factor driven by the royal wedding."
The poor sales figures came despite the fact that more consumers visited the High Street, separate figures suggested.
Research group Springboard said that footfall in town centres and High Streets across the UK rose by 7.8% in March compared with the previous month, and fell by 1.3% against a year earlier - the smallest annual decline in four years.
"Whilst it is early days, this starts to tell a positive story about how consumers are returning to their local High Streets," said Steve Booth, Springboard's chief executive.
'Low wage growth'
There has been a string of gloomy outlooks recently from the likes of Next, Mothercare, HMV, Currys and PC World parent Dixons Retail.
The BRC pointed out that "uncomfortably high inflation and low wage growth have produced the first year-on-year fall in disposable incomes for 30 years".
"Falling disposable incomes and the fear of worse to come means people don't want to spend," added BRC director general Stephen Robertson.
"There's only so much discounts and promotions can do to overcome that."by
Many in media and academic circles seem to pride themselves on having advanced beyond the “Clash of Civilizations” rhetoric that defined the aftermath of September 11th (2001). However, upon analysis is clear that the primary development has been the transformation of these frameworks into euphemistic forms: consider, for instance, the supposed conflict between the liberals and the Islamists; this dichotomy is ill-formed on several levels:
First, the categories are not mutually exclusive: one can simultaneously be an Islamist and a liberal. And while there are certainly conflicts vis a vis liberalism across the Middle East and North Africa, the tension is not between liberalism and Islam—instead, it is a tensioninternal to liberalism itself, in simultaneously promoting free markets, secularism, pluralism, and democracy—ideologies which are neither intrinsically compatible norinevitable. Insofar as these values are unpopular in the MENA region, it is often because they conflict with socio-cultural norms which transcend any particular religion (or religion altogether). Of course, left out of this discussion is any suggestion that liberalism may not be the ideal social model, or that the people of the MENA region have a right, perhaps a duty, to derive alternative models from their own history, culture, values, and frames of reference.
In a similar manner, the supposed dichotomy of “moderates v. extremists” is ill-formed. Typically when this distinction is deployed it is unclear what “moderate” means. The most natural definition of a moderate would be someone who rejects extreme methodologies (such as violence) in order to advance their ideological views. But by that standard, many hardcore salafi groups would be moderates, as would the Muslim Brotherhood—while the (ever-elusive) liberal-secular components of the Free Syrian Army would be extremists, as they are attempting to instantiate their political ideal through force. However, as many news reports convey a desire to arm the “moderate” factions of the rebels, it seems as though a rejection of extreme methods cannot be what is meant by the term.
Instead, a “moderate” is typically one who espouses pro-West or liberal sentiments—regardless of how extreme they may be in terms of methodologies or ideological fervorrelative to their adversaries. Conversely, anyone who resists Western values, interests, or modes of governance is de facto an “extremist.”
The dichotomy between “Islam” and “the West” presents Islam as a monolith. Insofar as commentators now acknowledge diversity within Islam, the talk primarily circles around the supposed clash between Sunnis and Shiites. However, this portrayal is also problematic. For one, it assumes that Sunnis and Shiites are a homogenous forces, rather than extremely diverse populations with a number of conflicting ideologies, interests, and alliances. Moreover, this framing obscures Islamic sects who do not neatly fall into the “Sunni/ Shia” divide, such as Sufis and the Druze. Finally, this caricature overlooks the significant (if dwindling) populations of other MENA religions, such as Christians, Assyrians, and Zoroastrians. And then there is the large (and growing) Jewish population, most of whom reside in Israel—a significant source of tension with both Sunnis and Shiites (and also between them). However, in the Jewish case, as with others (such as the Kurds), ethnic alliances are actually more significant than religious or other identities.
While terms like “Islamist,” “Moderate,” “Sharia Law,” “Muslim,” etc. are frequently bandied about in popular discourse, their referents are typically opaque (at best), rendering the conversations which rely upon these terms more-or-less vacuous. Not only do reductive binaries (e.g. “liberals v. islamists,” “moderates v. extremists,” “West v. Islam,” “Sunnis v. Shiites”) fail to address the critical dynamics at work in the region—they actually obscure said dynamics even as they polarize discussants. While these conceptions are convenient insofar as they reinforce ethnocentric narratives and can be easily fit into the small segments of news-themed entertainment between advertisements—greater nuance is required should one wish to understand the real struggles underway across the Middle East and North Africa.
Theological Struggles
Throughout the Islamic world (which transcends the Middle East and North Africa: Islam is the world’s 2nd largest and fastest-growing religion; most the world’s Muslims are non-Arabs who live outside the MENA region), and across Islamic sectarian alignment, there are a number of debates underway about the role of religion relative to the state.
What (if any) political authority should religious authorities wield? Should the sharia be understood as a singular code of rules or a set of guiding principles from which codes are derived? Should it be instantiated uniformly in all Muslim societies or is it a living corpus which should inform and be informed by the particular historical social, and cultural contexts of believers? How much of “traditional” Islamic culture is merely reflective of Arab culture and history which need not be intrinsic to Islam? How can the two be authentically separated? What sorts of cultural and social models are most-compatible with Islamic values and mandates? How can Islamic values change or inform how political and financial institutions are (re)structured? What are the implications of these discussions for non-Muslims? How can believers engage as Muslims with pluralistic societies or societies in which they are minorities (often more feared and distrusted than other minority groups)?
As Islam serves as the cultural and historical center of gravity for the MENA region, even for non-Muslim intellectuals such as Michel Aflaq and Edward Said, the (ever-evolving) answers to these theological questions will certainly inform and be informed by the ideological and geopolitical struggles simultaneously underway.
Ideological Struggles
The people of the Middle East and North Africa are also sorting through and (re)prioritizing the identity frames of tribalism, nationalism, sectarianism, and cosmopolitanism/globalization. There is a tension on how to best translate the rich cultural heritage of the MENA region into contemporary societies, drawing from this legacy to find new solutions for contemporary problems. Accordingly, there are technical questions as to what the most effective means of ordering social and economic institutions are in particular contexts. There is an ongoing struggle to confront and transcend the legacies of violence and exploitation resulting from imperialism, colonialism, and (ongoing) foreign meddling—and the divisions, fear, and mistrust left in the wake of authoritarian regimes, indigenous civil wars and long-standing historical grievances. And although there is overwhelming agreement, from men and women alike, that Western gender norms are unappealing, there are profound questions which remain about the role of women in contemporary MENA societies.
Geopolitical Struggles
Layered on top of these ideological and theological dilemmas is a set of major geopolitical struggles—primarily between the Muslim Brotherhood, the “Club of Kings,” the Axis of Resistance, and al-Qaeda. Until recently, the energy has with the Muslim Brotherhood, who has made enormous gains throughout the region over the course of the Arab Spring, and who comprise the primary opposition blocs in the monarchic states. However, as the Brotherhood and its affiliates have generally failed to deliver on the economic and political justice they have been long-promoting, there is a widespread (if premature) belief that their momentum may soon be reversed (indicated, perhaps most strongly be recent developments in Egypt, orchestrated and funded largely by Saudi Arabia and the UAE). While it may be that a regional backlash is coming against the Brotherhood, the results of such a shift would be unpredictable. The notion (reliant on reductive binaries) that the Brothers will be replaced primarily by liberal and/or secular candidates, is as ethnocentric and condescending as it is unrealistic. Instead, the fastest-growing ideological alternative seems to be al-Qaeda’s ideological brethren Ansar al-Sharia.Steve Bannon called Hillary Clinton a 'f*****g bull d**e' during one of his rages about her.
According to new book about Bannon, he constantly insulted the Democratic Presidential candidate during Donald Trump's election campaign.
According to 'Devil's Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump and the Storming of the Presidency', out now on Penguin Press, he attacked Megyn Kelly, Jared Kushner and the media as well.
During other outbursts Bannon, Trump's chief strategist and now one of his most senior White house officials, said Clinton was a 'joke', a 'total phony' and an 'apple-polisher who couldn't pass the DC bar exam'.
Author Joshua Green reveals: 'Clinton, Bannon would insist, was "a resume", "a total phony", "terrible on the stage", "a grinder but not smart", "a joke who hides behind a complacent media", "an apple-polisher who couldn’t pass the DC bar exam", "thinks it’s her turn" but "has never accomplished anything in her life" - and for good measure, was ‘a "f****** bull d**e".'
Prince of darkness: Bannon unloaded behind the scenes on Trump's rival Hillary Clinton, calling her a 'bull d**e' and a series of less homophobic terms too
Plenty to say: Bannon called Megyn Kelly 'the devil' as he warned about what she might do to the late Roger Ailes - who he later told: 'Go f*** yourself.'
Bannon unloaded on Clinton in front of Trump 'with the passion of a cornerman firing up a boxer for one last grueling round in the ring'.
But Bannon's anger was not just confined to Clinton.
All of this won the favor of Trump who liked him for his outsider style and his 'distinctive vocabulary'.
The book has already revealed how Bannon has a portrait of himself as the French emperor Napoleon - and how Chris Christie blew his place in Trump's inner circle when he arranged for Obama to phone his, not Trump's cellphone on election night, to the disgust of the germophobic election winner.
Here are the best examples of Bannon's acid tongue from the book and other accounts.
BANNON ON HIS ENEMIES IN BOTH PARTIES (WARNING, IT'S A LONG LIST)
Insult: Bannon is a long-term enemy of Paul Ryan, whose virility he questioned
On House Speaker Paul Ryan: 'A limp-d*** m**********r who was born in a petri dish at the Heritage Foundation', referring to the conservative think tank. At the time Bannon feared Ryan could use the Republican convention to steal the nomination from Trump
On Megyn Kelly, the NBC host: 'Pure evil', 'She's the devil, and she will turn on you'.
To former Fox News chief executive Roger Ailes: 'Go f*** yourself'.
On why press secretary Sean Spicer was doing fewer briefings (in a text to a reporter): 'Sean got fatter'.
On how Clinton perceived Trump supporters: 'Hobbits, grundoons'.
On prominent white nationalist Richard Spencer, who was videoed doing a Nazi salute to Trump: A 'freak' and a 'goober'.
On what conservatives should do to the GOP: 'Bitch-slap the Republican Party'
In an email sent in 2014 he said: 'Let the grassroots turn on the hate because that's the ONLY thing that will make them do their duty'.
On the media: 'The media should be embarrassed and humiliated and keep its mouth shut and just listen for a while...The media here is the opposition party'.
On Jared Kushner, the President's son-in-law and one of his advisers: 'A cuck'.
The term is short for 'cuckservative', a blending of 'cuckold', meaning fool, and 'conservative'.
Equal opportunity insults: Bannon has accused Sean Spicer of getting too fat for television and called Jared Kushner a 'cuck' and a 'globalist' - thought to have anti-Semitic undertones
Bannon has also called him a 'globalist', which is thought to have anti-Semitic undertones and refer to him being Jewish.
On Islam: 'Islam is not a religion of peace. Islam is a religion of submission. Islam means submission'.
On President Carter: 'I wasn't really that political but then you see a guy like Carter how f****d up things can get'.
On visiting Iran during his naval service during the early 1980s: 'It was like the fifth century; completely primeval'.
On Occupy Wall St protesters: 'You want to go home and shower because you've just spent an hour and fifteen minutes with the greasiest, dirtiest people you will ever see'.
On progressive women: 'A bunch of d**es'.
On feminists: 'There are some unintended consequences of the women's liberation movement.
'That, in fact, the women that would lead this country would be pro-family, they would have husbands, they would love their children.
'They wouldn't be a bunch of d**es that came from the Seven Sisters schools up in New England. That drives the left insane and that's why they hate these women'.
On Black Lives Matter protests: 'What if the people getting shot by the cops did things to deserve it? There are, after all, in this world, some people who are naturally aggressive and violent'.
AND HE'S NOT ALWAYS ALL BAD NEWS - BANNON ON HIS FRIENDS
On Trump's chief of staff Reince Priebus: 'Reince is doing a great job. I couldn't ask any more from a partner'.
On his father Marty: 'He's the backbone of the country, the everyman who plays by the rules, the hardworking dad that delays his own gratification for the family'.
On Trump's base: 'The monster power (of) rootless white males'.
Breaking the news to Trump he was going to be President: 'Hey, look, we're going to win this thing'
To Jeff Sessions on endorsing Trump: 'It's do or die. This is it, this is the moment'.
Devil's Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump and the Storming of the Presidency, is available on Amazon.Brauchler (below at 11 minutes):
There is something that sticks out to me that I find completely unusual, and that is, at no time during the pendency of this case have the ever reached out to me.
In fact, I had people call them throughout the pendency of this case, and they continued to hide behind an attorney.
And while I get there are legal reasons for them to maybe not talk, but as a parent myself, and I'd ask anybody listening to this, if your son or daughter was facing the potential of a death penalty, what could stop you from calling the DA and saying, 'Please, God, don't kill my son or my daughter.'
Instead, they went to The Post and did an op-ed piece coincidentally timed with three days after the juror summonses went out. And then mom published a book of thoughts -- or whatever they were -- calling into question, of course, our motives, and saying a bunch of things about mental illness coincidentally timed with the middle of jury selection, right before opening statements.
I mean, again, they are not at fault for what happened here, but I can't, as a parent, envision taking the path that they took.
Silverman: Bob and Arlene [the murderer's parents] were in the courtroom. I imagine they were following the instructions of the public defenders, their son's attorneys....I am excited to be sitting here writing a new post for The Agatine Eyelet. I just got through a very intense finals week at school and unfortunately the blog hasn’t gotten much of my attention. I’m in a fashion design program and among other things, I’m learning how to sew. Sewing is one of those skills that’s harder than it looks and it’s been a challenge for me but I’m finally getting to the point where I can do a few things. I’d like to share something with my readers that I made recently that combines a few of my interests: Motorcycles, sewing, and of course, Aldens.
A few months ago I bought my first motorcycle – A gorgeous Harley Sportster 1200 C. I had been riding a Vespa for the last couple of years and decided it was time to upgrade to a motorcycle. One thing that I hadn’t considered, but quickly became apparent, was the toe-shifting on the new bike. My shoes were getting scuffed up! I ride the bike as a daily way to get around and I want to be able to wear whatever shoes I feel like, so I had to come up with a solution. I asked around at a few shops but couldn’t find anything that would satisfy my needs. Hence, the birth of the Jason Foote Snap-on German Felt Toe-shifter Cordovan Shoe Protector (Patent Pending).
I had some beautiful fabric swatches of thick wool felt that my wife brought back from a trip to Germany that were just sitting around. Wool felt is durable and thick enough to cushion. It seemed perfect for the job so I sewed up a first sample of a simple envelope that would slip over the metal shifter peg. It worked great for protecting my shoes but after using it a few times I learned that it was going to slip off unless I fastened it somehow. I got some sew-in snaps and revised the design to wrap all the way around the lever, and made a second version. So far it seems like the design is going to work for my needs other than a few minor tweaks. I’m laughing at myself right now thinking about how silly this might sound to some biker from the Midwest or wherever, but I’m happy that I could come up with a solution. It’s a pretty cool feeling to make something myself, and even cooler that I can share it with you.As dogs cross the finish line in the grueling 1,150-mile (1,850-kilometer) Iditarod this week, they’ll probably be feted with extra treats. But we owe sled dogs a really great tummy scratch, too, for their role in human history. Ancient dog bones uncovered in the Arctic are showing that humans have had a close and complex relationship with dogs for thousands of years, from eating them to burying them lovingly with ornaments—and, of course, using them to haul things around. (Discover 5 surprising facts about the Iditarod.)
"Dogs have been critical to human habitation in the Far North," says Robert Losey of the University of Alberta, who specializes in the archaeology of human-animal relationships. Losey has excavated canine burials in Siberia that go back some 8,000 years. These dogs were not only interred in cemeteries, but also buried with jewelry and sometimes even alongside people. (Read about new clues on how and when wolves became dogs.)
Watch: Ancient dog burials in Siberia suggest that humans loved and cared for dogs even in prehistoric times. Courtesy University of Alberta.
Fast-forward several thousand years, and dogs in the North meet a different fate. At the 2,000-year-old site of Ust'-Polui in the Siberian Arctic, Losey notes that man's best friend was often dinner. The remains of more than 100 dogs have been recovered from Ust'-Polui—roughly four times as many as archaeologists usually see in Arctic sites—and of those remains, more than half belong to young dogs that were butchered and eaten.
View Images This 2,000-year-old knife handle from the Siberian Arctic site of Ust'-Polui may feature the world's oldest depiction of a sled dog wearing a harness. Photograph by Robert Losey
Putting Dogs to Work
Ust'-Polui also happens to be the site of the earliest known depiction of a sled dog, so Losey is particularly intrigued by what the dogs that weren't being eaten there were up to.
Dogs that pulled or carried people and cargo have been, until very recently, crucial to life in the Arctic, yet archaeologists know surprisingly little about sled dog history. "Think about how dogs could have affected human migration and the speed at which it could be done. It's very different when you have sled dogs than when you're just moving on foot or by boat," says Losey. "There are implications for a wide range of human history here." (What makes a great sled dog?)
While archaeologists have also recovered the remains of sleds at Ust'-Polui, there's no smoking gun in the form of dog remains still fitted with a sledding harness. So instead Losey and his colleagues are studying the dogs' bones for signs of stress, such as changes in bone shape or strength, that may show if any of the Ust'-Polui dogs carried or pulled heavy loads.
Is There a "Sled-Dog Signature?"
To identify exactly what a sled dog's bones would look like, Losey is analyzing the remains of sled dogs from historic Inuit communities, early 20th century sled dogs (including dogs from Robert E. Peary’s 1896-1897 expedition to Greenland), modern pet dogs, and modern wolves.
So far, the archaeologist is seeing that the limbs of modern sled dogs reflect signs of hauling: their bones are fairly short and very robust. "These are incredibly strong animals," says Losely. "In a sense, they look like a cross between a human weight-lifter and a long-distance runner.”
View Images Kristin Knight Pace and Piper at home in Healy, Alaska. Pace is a rookie in the 2016 Iditarod and Yukon Quest finisher. She operates Hey Moose Kennel with her husband Andy. Photograph by Katie Orlinsky
Losey is now comparing his analysis of modern sled dog bone structure to the dogs found at Ust'-Polui, most of which resemble modern Siberian Huskies in size and skull shape, and is confident that some of his ancient samples will show the "sled-dog-signature."
"Truthfully, I feel that the tradition of dogsledding is probably very, very old—much older than Ust'Polui, but it's just not obvious in the archaeological record," says Losey. "Very early use of dogs in pulling sleds was probably opportunistic, here and there, with smaller sleds and less weight being pulled. We may only see the classic "sled-dog" skeletal signature when dogsledding approaches modern practices, when it gets really intensive."
While Losey continues to look for evidence on dogsledding in ancient times, he keeps his work at the office. "I have a black lab who doesn't pull sleds," he concedes, "though she can pull on the leash pretty hard."We had started fighting when I had come back to Sweet Apple Acres to apologize and make amends with the pony I love more than my own life. I had realized how stupid it had been of me to treat her that way the moment I had finished my shouting and cursing, and since then I had been thinking of any possible way to beg her forgiveness and her tender love - of course, being the idiot I am, I didn't find any. I concluded that there was only one thing left to do: knock at her door and talk to her.
And so, after two long weeks of mourning and bitter regret, I had done it. Well, I had actually stopped and got to the ground far from the main house because I had spotted something orange among the trees. Believing it was either Applejack or her brother, I had decided to land a few feet away. And, unluckily, I had discovered it was Big Mac.
It's always been pretty hard to talk with him, he hated being the centre of attention and often didn't |
say? Yeah, see–you probably didn’t know very much about it either. Adam Wagner was the designer of the Leica H and there isn’t a whole lot of information about it. The Leica H was a camera that was designed to compete with the half frame camera market. For the uninitiated, Olympus came out with a camera around 1959 that was called the Olympus Pen. It turned into an entire lineup of cameras due to its success. The Olympus Pen was a half frame camera, meaning that it took a roll of 35mm film and doubled its effectiveness in picture taking. Each image would only take up half a frame of 35mm film and by default had a vertical shutter to cater to the design. It was a camera designed for families and folks who took lots of portraits.
Olympus would later bring back the camera lineup digitally with the Olympus Pen EP-1 and its successors with the most recent variant: Olympus Pen F. Leica had been rumored to be in the Micro Four Thirds world to produce a camera for many years, but it never really happened. Leica, however, is still a company that maintains a close relationship with Panasonic. Thus, they still are a part of the Four Thirds circle. When it comes to actual cameras though, they tend to march to their own drumbeat these days. That spirit is perhaps part of what influenced the decisions made with Adam Wagner’s creation.
There are different sides of the story depending on who you ask, but the biggest and most accepted reason as to why the Leica H was never made is because Leica’s factories were so busy making the M series cameras and lenses. They didn’t have the capability to expand and the M series was tried and true to bringing in lots of money for the company. It’s a tough decision: do you innovate or do you keep paying the bills and ensuring that your employees can pay the bills?
Asking the Experts about the Leica H
My research initially began with Leica. I’ve had a great relationship with the company since founding the Phoblographer. The teams that I talked to though, couldn’t provide me with any information. However, Leica put me in touch with the folks who could.
I was introduced to Stephen Clowery, who heads up the Leica Historical Society of America. I asked about the camera, but even he couldn’t tell me about it. Instead, he introduced me to Jim Lager–a man who Stephen calls the Leica Historian extraordinaire. But Jim had no real luck finding out anything about the camera. “Apparently it was owned by Leitz and buried somewhere in the Museum contents.” explains Jim to us in an email. “When I photographed the Museum items in 1988 the Leica H was not there.” He continued to state whatever information he knew about the camera:
“The Leica H is mentioned in Emil Keller’s book titled A Source of Today’s 35mm Photography Part II The Leica Years. Also in the Leica Collectors Guide by Laney on pages 82 and 140-141. In Lars Netopil’s book titled Prototype Leica a version of the Leica H is illustrated. The H was an auto exposure 18×24 format camera with fixed lens. The designer was Adam Wagner who was upset with Leitz when they did not manufacture his creation. He decided to leave the Company after 32 years. Lars Netopil states that the camera was presented in 1959 and by the mid 1960’s could have been produced. Leitz did not have the production capacity at that time. We can only wonder how the H would have done in comparison with the Pen F system. Today we have digital gear.”
Lars Netopil, who Jim cites, is one of the better known experts on the camera and even Bellamy Hunt, the Japan Camera Hunter concedes to this. This article is the compilation of two years ago research on the Leica H, and during that time, I figured that Bellamy would have been one of the people that would have sold one–I obviously didn’t know any better. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case due to the extreme rarity of the camera. According to Bellamy, it’s such a rare camera that he’s never even seen one in person. “It was meant to be a compact half frame to compete with the hot (at the time) half frame market which the Japanese were dominating.” states Bellamy. “But it never went into production for reasons unknown.” Bellamy continued to state that Leica was famous for making some pretty poor management decisions in the past.
“I believe the other one resides at the Leica museum, though I am unsure on that. It would have been a very interesting direction for Leica to go in and could have changed Leica a lot from the company that we know today.” Indeed, I agree with this statement. Perhaps a Minolta version would have also been made available eventually or Leica and Minolta may have collaborated on creating a camera.
So with this said, it made sense for my to go to the source itself and fortunately Mr. Netopil responded. He sent me a brochure which states that the Leica H was finished by Adam and his team in 1965. There are renditions of the Leica H online that don’t have the rangefinder or any of the branding on it. But the images provided by Lars help to give photographers a look at what the camera was supposed to launch as.
Could the Leica H Have Done Well?
The Leica H seems like a camera that could have genuinely been a hit with so many people. Of course, it probably wouldn’t have done as well as the Leica M cameras in the long run or it could have also done fantastically to the point where Leica would try to avoid cannibalization in a similar way that they ended production of the Leica CL.
“I believe it would be, simply because there is nothing else on the market.” states Bellamy when asked about whether or not it would have been successful on the market. “If it could tick the boxes as far as AF, ease of use, lens performance and ISO selector then it would be a sure fire winner. Leica has made some stunning compacts in the past, there is no reason why they couldn’t do it again.” To curry this statement, Bellamy has been working on developing his own autofocus point and shoot film camera; and is still looking for investors.
It indeed makes me wonder though: if Leica had put auto exposure metering in the camera, then Olympus and others would have eventually done it as well.
From photos, everything about the Leica H says high end, luxury and simplicity. The camera has very clean lines, curves, and even had a collapsible lens that could make the camera smaller. Unlike the Olympus Pen series, it isn’t an SLR per se. Instead, as Jim stated, it had a fixed lens. So essentially, Leica created a fixed lens Olympus Pen with some extra polish, portability, a rangefinder and class. As a vintage camera collector, what about that doesn’t sound fantastic? Of course, the auto exposure meter would surely wear out over time but if it were tweaked or repaired, it would work just flawlessly.
According to Collectiblend, the Leica H could fetch anywhere from $50,000-$130,000 today. But to be honest, I’m sure that that isn’t totally accurate. There were only three ever made and only two are in existence right now.
So let’s think about this, if the Leica H were actually made, it surely wouldn’t have been simply a camera that was thrown away. The Leica H would have mass appeal in some ways today as a compact rangefinder camera with patina and that would attract street photographers. Its auto exposure design would mean that eventually Leica would have made a Leica H with manual controls. Street photographers and others would use it with black and white film probably just for fun. Japan, China and America would have loved the customized Leica a la carte versions. But it eventually could have spawned a version with interchangeable lenses and perhaps lots of folks who wanted to adapt those lenses onto their cameras today.
Of course, that’s all second hand sales. Leica has always excelled in doing things that no one else did. So with Olympus already into it, it would be tougher to really crack the market as autofocus wasn’t too far behind in the world. But with a camera like this and the fact that Leica more or less invented autofocus, consumer would have had a total winner.
But unfortunately, we’ll never have known any better.
All images “Photo (c) Lars Netopil Classic Cameras, Wetzlar“ Used with permission.BOSTON (CBS) — With a physique that resembles Aquaman more than He-Man, Loui Eriksson does not strike an intimidating figure like Cam Neely, Terry O’Reilly or even Milan Lucic.
That’s a burden the Bruins forward has had to carry ever since he was acquired as part of the package Boston received from Dallas in the Tyler Seguin trade. He’s aware of his shortcomings in the face of some expectations from the Bruins’ fan base, and maybe even some members of their brass.
“I know I heard from friends like they’re comparing, I’m not a ‘Bruins player.’ But I think I am. Because I can play in all three zones and I can play in all situations and I feel good in that way,” he said after the first on-ice day of training camp Friday at TD Garden. “I’m not maybe the biggest hitter out there. But I’m trying to use my stick instead and taking pucks from other guys. So I feel good about my game and I think I’ve been having a great summer. I feel good in my shape and everything, so I’m looking forward to everything.”
Eriksson was responding to a question about his comfort level in Boston. That topic is sure to come up a lot this season because he is entering the last year of a six-year contract that pays him $4.25 million per season. He’ll be an unrestricted free agent next summer if he doesn’t re-sign.
To win over the Bruins, Eriksson might consider running some guys over or bashing some guy’s head into the glass. Don’t expect the gentlemanly Eriksson to do either of those things any time soon.
“Maybe if I see someone, I’ll try to do it,” he said with a chuckle. “But that’s never been my game. That’s how I’ve been playing even since I came here over and played in Dallas. So I’m not going to change much of that. I’m just going to bring my type of play of game and try to help the team as best as I can.”
Despite speculation, general manager Don Sweeney’s changes in an effort to get the Bruins back in the playoffs after they missed the postseason for the first time in eight years last season didn’t include trading Eriksson.
Now that he’s back, Eriksson, who led all Bruins forwards in ice time at 18:28 last season, figures to play a top-six role this season. Mostly he played on the third line with departed center Carl Soderberg last season. But on the first day of camp, Eriksson was separate from most of Boston’s other top forwards and he practiced on a line with AHLer Alexander Khokhlachev and 2015 first-round draft pick Jake DeBrusk.
As long as he’s with the Bruins and their depth chart looks the way it does, Eriksson will have to find a spot in the top six. Last season he was second on the team with 47 points. He never really found chemistry during his brief time skating on the wing next to either center David Krejci or Patrice Bergeron. Eriksson’s two-way game, though, should make him a fit for the line that’s anchored by Bergeron and Brad Marchand.
Bergeron and Marchand don’t need much physicality added to their line, as proven by Seguin and Reilly Smith’s success there in recent years. Marchand appreciates what Eriksson does, even if the Swede doesn’t get the job done in a manner Bruins observers crave.
“I think that’s more the Swedish style, you know. Those pretty boys,” Marchand said. “But Loui, yeah, he’s very deceiving. You kind of see him, he’s not the thickest guy. But he’s really strong, deceivingly strong, and very talented. And I think you can see that Loui is getting a lot more comfortable on the ice. Even off the ice with the guys this year, he’s a lot more comfortable speaking with everyone and opening up a bit more.”
At least twice during practice Friday, Eriksson laid out a guy to win a puck battle. The will is there and the battles get won, whether he’s using his leverage to drop an opponent or just using his natural slickness. The Bruins never saw the real Eriksson in 2013-14, as he battled through two concussions and had 10 goals in 67 games. Last season he took a quantum leap forward and now he deserves appreciation for the high-caliber player he is.
With his health and confidence back at the levels they were at when he was dropping 70 points a season with Dallas, Eriksson might be ready to cash in when this season is through. Along the way, the Bruins could reap the rewards.
Matt Kalman covers the Bruins for CBSBoston.com and also contributes to NHL.com and several other media outlets. Follow him on Twitter @TheBruinsBlog.Get the biggest politics stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
The Government’s austerity policies will push a further 800,000 children into poverty, a report warns today.
The Oxfam document says George Osborne’s cuts and tax rises are “massively increasing” inequality in the UK.
It warns that by 2020 there will an additional 800,000 children - up from 2.3million at present - and 1.9m more adults living below the breadline.
The report comes as Labour branded Education Secretary Michael Gove an “absolute disgrace” for suggesting people using food banks had only themselves to blame.
In a major study on poverty in Europe, Oxfam said the UK Government’s economic policies had “hit the poorest the hardest”.
“Austerity programmes implemented across Europe – based on shortsighted, regressive taxes and deep spending cuts, particularly to public services, such as education, health and social security – have dismantled the mechanisms that reduce inequality and enable equitable growth," the report, A Cautionary Tale, said.
“The poorest have been hit hardest, as the burden of responsibility for the excesses of past decades is passed to those most vulnerable and least to blame.”
It said that women had been especially badly hit because of the cuts to public sector jobs.
“In the UK, for example, 1.1m public sector jobs are planned to be cut over the period 2010-18. Of these, it is expected that twice as many women as men will lose their jobs, as women account for 64% of the UK public sector workforce,” the report said.
And it warned that across Europe the number of people in poverty could rise from 25m to 146m by 2025 - a third of the European Union population.
Oxfam’s Max Lawson said: “Austerity is making an already bad economic situation far worse in the UK and across large parts of Europe.
"Cuts to social security and public services are combining with falling incomes and rising unemployment to create a deeply damaging situation in which millions are already struggling to make ends meet.
“The unprecedented rise in the number of Britons needing emergency aid from food banks is just one example among many of how poverty is on the march in the UK.”
Ed Miliband yesterday turned on the Tories after Mr Gove said some families were only using food banks because they could not manage their finances.
The Labour leader challenged David Cameron at Prime Minister’s Questions to say if he agreed with the Cabinet minister.
“Here is the reality - you want to give maximum support to millionaires so you give them a tax cut. But it’s a different story for those who go to food banks," said Miliband.
“And we know what this Government thinks of people who go to food banks because the Children’s Secretary said that people who go to food banks only have themselves to blame.
“It just shows how out of touch this Conservative Party is. Now we would all like to hear - do you agree with your Children’s Secretary?”
He added: “The Prime Minister neither defended the Children’s Secretary’s comments, nor distanced himself from them. Let me just tell you, the Children’s Secretary is an absolute disgrace.”
Pointing at the Government frontbench, he added: “Let’s see any of them try to live on £150 a week and then we will see what happens.
“We have one million young people out of work, unemployment up in half the country, millions of people worse off while millionaires get a tax cut.
"For the few, not the many, you are a two-nation Prime Minister.”
Speaking later, the Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin backed Mr Gove’s insulting claim, saying it would sometimes “absolutely be the case” that families had to use food banks because of their own financial mismanagement.
Mr Gove’s wife, the journalist Sarah Vine, revealed yesterday how her husband and her children had spent the summer packing the family fridge with “giant multi-packs of crisps; fizzy drinks; luxury coleslaw and an insane amount of sugary cereal.”
Citizens Advice Chief Executive Gillian Guy said: “It is appalling to suggest the rise of food banks is due to poor financial management.
“It’s a smack in the face to families who are working hard but can’t make ends meet, leaving them with no other option but to turn to food banks to feed their families.
“These comments are completely misjudged.”Advertisement
Anjem Choudary was at the heart of an international web of extremism.
His network of radical connections read like a Who’s Who of modern Islamic terrorism.
Choudary’s associates have been connected to at least 15 major terrorist plots and experts believe 500 jihadist disciples are fighting for Islamic State in Syria.
The former law student’s links led from street-level jihadi recruitment cells to the murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby. Al-Muhajiroun, the Al Qaeda-inspired group he helped set up in the UK in the 1990s, also radicalised the July 7 bombers and reached into Paris and Syria.
Spreading poison: Choudary inspired violent fanatics both in this country and overseas
Anjem Choudary, 49, has been at the centre of radical Islamic organisations for many years
Choudary's radical sermons have become a magnet for easily-influenced young men
Choudary, who previously called for adulterers to be stoned to death and branded UK troops 'cowards', has always hidden behind free speech rules whenever challenged by the authorities.
Many radicals tried for serious terror offences were influenced by his lectures and speeches.
Until now, Choudary – who had called for Muslims to attack the UK and adulterers to be stoned to death and branded UK troops cowards – has always hidden behind free speech rules whenever challenged by the authorities.
But while he ran rings around the police, security services and the Government, he brainwashed hundreds of young men who subscribed to his warped vision of Islam.
His best-known acolytes were Muslim converts Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale, who attacked Fusilier Rigby with a meat cleaver outside a barracks in Woolwich, south-east London. The murder of the soldier at the age of 25 after surviving the dusty killing fields of Afghanistan, shocked the nation.
Adebolajo was a supporter of Choudary's al-Muhajiroun group and was pictured standing behind the hate preacher in 2007.
After the incident, Choudary said Adebolajo was 'a practising Muslim and a family man' who he was 'proud of'.
But he denied encouraging the killer to carry out the attack, insisting he was 'channeling the energy of the youth through demonstrations and processions'.
Another high profile disciple was Siddhartha Dhar – branded the ‘new Jihadi John’ after being named the prime suspect in a gruesome IS execution video last January.
Dhar had been arrested with Choudary and Mizanur Rahman in September 2014. But Scotland Yard was humiliated when the extremist – now known as Abu Rumaysah – skipped bail and slipped out of Britain.
He took his pregnant wife and four young children to Syria where he posed for pictures with a newborn in one hand and an assault rifle in the other.
Choudary’s former bodyguard, Mohammed Reza Haque, is also suspected of executing prisoners in an IS video released in January.
YOUTUBE AND TWITTER IN THE DOCK Internet giants Twitter and YouTube stubbornly refused to remove Anjem Choudary’s twisted online posts and videos that inspired Britons to carry out terror attacks. Counter terrorism police have made repeated efforts to get his sickening Twitter posts and Islamic State recruitment videos taken down after he signed an oath of allegiance to the caliphate pledging support for the terrorism group two years ago. Provocative post: Buckingham Palace as a mosque But social media firms have resisted requests despite police demonstrating that his rants clearly promote terrorism and have encouraged scores of his followers to plot atrocities around the world. Choudary currently has more than 32,000 followers on Twitter. His account – on which he posted his call for Buckingham Palace to become a mosque – can still be viewed online, despite requests for its removal last August and in March this year. Experts estimate that hundreds of his followers have gone to fight with Islamic State in Syria, having been radicalised by Choudary. Yet at his trial at the Old Bailey it emerged that police have no power to force social media corporations to remove material from the internet. The court heard Twitter and YouTube refused many requests to take down posts by Choudary and his disciple, Mohammed Mizanur Rahman. But Facebook agreed to delete their profiles.
And another associate, Abdul Waheed Majeed, 41, became the first British suicide bomber in Syria, driving an armoured dumper truck laden with explosives into the gates of Aleppo prison in January 2014.
Choudary's own conversion to fundamentalist Islam is thought to have happened around the time he left university.
The son of a Pakistani market trader from Welling, south east London, Choudary studied law at Southampton University after dropping out of a medical course.
Fellow students recalled him drinking cider, enjoying casual sex, smoking cannabis and even taking LSD, despite insisting he was a Muslim.
The only sign of activism came in his upset over Salman Rushdie's book The Satanic Verses, which some Muslims believed to be blasphemous.
Choudary developed his views under the influence of hate preacher Omar Bakri Mohammed
But after moving back to London when his studies ended, Choudary met Islamist firebrand Omar Bakri Muhammad at a mosque in Woolwich and quickly fell under his spell.
Bakri, a Syrian who came to Britain in the 1980s, had set up a sharia court in the UK and Choudary became his 'naqib' or assistant.
Bakri, who celebrated the 9/11 attacks as a 'Towering Day in History', formed the group al-Muhajiroun, meaning 'the foreigners', in the 1990s and Choudary was soon a key lieutenant.
The government repeatedly tried to ban the organisation, leading them to adopt a number of different names, including Al Ghurabaa, Islam4UK, Muslims Against Crusades, Need4Khilafah and the Shariah Project. There are still however referred to by their original name.
Choudary became heir apparent of Al-Muhajiroun in 2005 when his spiritual guide Omar Bakri Mohammed fled Britain in the wake of the July 7 terror attacks.
He organised a string of stunts to offend the British public and gain media attention, including a group burning a giant poppy and screamed insults during a two-minute silence in London on Armistice Day in November 2010.
But alongside the attempts to inflame public outrage, followers of Al-Muhajiroun were caught plotting much more sinister acts before the group was finally banned in 2010.
Choudary is known to have associated with Michael Adebolajo (left), the killer of Lee Rigby
In May this year, delivery driver Junead Ahmed Khan was jailed for life for a plot to murder US troops posted to British military bases in July 2015.
Khan, whose older brother was one of the key members of Anjem Choudary’s circle, wanted to cause a car crash and coax soldiers from their vehicles before hacking them to death with a hunting knife.
Brustholm Ziamani was radicalised in just a few weeks by Al-Muhajiroun before he was arrested on his way to behead a British soldier in a copycat Lee Rigby-style terror attack. He was jailed for 19 years after being stopped by chance in East London armed with a hammer and a 12inch knife as he searched for a soldier to attack on August 19, 2014.
Mohammad Sidique Khan, the leader of the group behind the 7/7 London bombings, which killed 52 people, was linked to Al-Muhajiroun. The other bombers, Shehzad Tanweer, Germaine Lindsay and Hasib Hussain were also members of the group. Khan used Al-Muhajiroun safe houses before the bombing.
The pair were filmed together at a demonstration outside a police station in London in 2007
VILE PREACHER'S MOST OFFENSIVE COMMENTS On the Lee Rigby killer Michael Adebolajo - 'He is a practising Muslim, a family man and I'm very proud of him' On September 11 and 7/7 attacks - 'I didn't condone the September 11 and July 7 bombings, what I did is say that they had juristic justification. There are people that justify [them] on the divine text.' On the Charlie Hebdo shootings - 'I think that this magazine went out of their way to insult the Prophet and they put their very nasty cartoons on their front pages in the past. It obviously angers many Muslims. 'I think it's completely ridiculous, the idea that I should say I don't condone the attack.' On his plans to see Buckingham Palace made into a mosque: 'This is an image of how Buckingham Palace will look one day, inshallah.' He also called Mr Cameron, Mr Obama and the leaders of Pakistan and Egypt the'shaitan', or devil, and said he wanted them to be killed. On his plans for Britain - 'We initiate the jihad against the kuffar [disbelievers] to make the name of Allah in the highest. 'Next time when your child is at school and the teacher asks, "What is your ambition?", they should say, "To dominate the whole world by Islam, including Britain, that is my ambition"'. When ISIS executioner Jihadi John was beheading hostages and posting the videos online, Choudary quoted a saying of the Prophet - 'Whoever comes to dispute with him, strike his neck.' On the monarchy - 'I once gave a talk and I said Queen Elizabeth used to have one bath a year. I gave this talk in a church and there was a woman there at the front, an elderly lady, and she kind of shrieked at me. She said: "that's a lie, she had two baths a year." 'Two baths a year okay, fair enough, twice as much, still doesn't make it a lot, does it, a year? Doesn't make it that clean.' The night before his conviction, Choudary told Sky News he was merely exercising his right to freedom of speech: 'If you cannot say when you believe in something and you cannot share that view, then you don't really have freedom to express yourself in this country.' Choudary described ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as 'the Caliph of all Muslims and the Prince of the Believers,' adding: 'I think in many respects it's the kind of society I'd love to live in with my family.'
Abdelhamid Abaaoud, ringleader of the Paris atrocities last November, and Omar Ismael Mostelfai, one of the suicide bombers at the Bataclan nightclub, are said to have been involved in the group.
In another case, four Al-Muhajiroun supporters from London and Cardiff, began planning a Christmas car bomb attack on the London Stock Exchange in 2010. And a boy of 14 who idolised Choudary was jailed for life after orchestrating a plot to kill police in Melbourne, Australia, from his bedroom in Lancashire.
The boy, who cannot be named because of his age, used Twitter to get in touch with Sevedet Besim, 18, an Australian planning a suicide attack during a Remembrance Day parade.
But in a rhetorical trick later copied by Choudary, Bakri insisted a 'covenant of security' existed which meant Muslims should not attack the UK if authorities did not restrict their freedom to practice their religion.
But, in 2004, a group of followers was arrested in Crawley, West Sussex, and accused of planning a massive bomb attack in central London.
They re-recreated a picture of Buckingham Palace as a mosque and threatened to protest as the bodies of servicemen were repatriated from Afghanistan to Wootton Bassett, where local people had taken to lining the street as a mark of respect.
Choudary was also recorded telling his followers to claim benefits, which he dubbed the 'jihad seeker's allowance'.
But amid Choudary obvious attempts to inflame public opinion, followers of Muhajiroun were caught plotting far more sinister acts.
In December 2012, three young converts began a vigilante group called 'Muslim Patrol' and roamed east London at night threatening, intimidating and even assaulting members of the public who they perceived to be behaving in an un-Islamic manner.
Three Muhajiroun followers also firebombed the home of the publisher of a controversial novel about the Prophet Mohammed in September 2008.
Choudary's associates frequently end up in Syria, Siddhartha Dhar (pictured, left, at a protest in 2010) was photographed clutching a gun in the war-torn country in 2014
Mohammed Reza Haque (left), formerly Chourdary's bodyguard, is believed to be this man (right ) who has since appeared in ISIS execution videos
HYPOCRITE WHO SPENT LIFE ATTACKING BRITAIN, YET CLAIMED HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS IN BENEFITS Hate preacher Choudary spent his life attacking Britian, yet raked in more than £25,000-a-year in benefits. He also received £15,600 a year in housing benefit to keep him in a £320,000 house in Leytonstone, East London. In 2013 he was secretly recorded urging his followers to also sponge off UK taxpayers by claiming their 'Jihadseeker's allowance'. He told a crowd of around 30 fanatics: 'People will say, 'Ah, but you are not working'. But the normal situation is for you to take money from the kuffar (non-Muslim). 'So we take Jihadseeker's Allowance. You need to get support.' He was once asked how he justified living on benefits, to which he replied: 'They give us the money but we attack their system. If I’m given wealth, I will take it.' In another video a grinning Choudary was recorded telling his disciples it was justifiable to take money from non-believers. He said: 'The normal situation is to take money from the kuffar. You work, give us the money, Allahu Akhbar (God is great). 'Hopefully there's no one from the DSS listening to this.' When challenged on his speech, he said his rant had been'misconstrued' and his Jihad seeker's Allowance comment had been a mere joke. His spiritual guide Omar Bakri Mohammed also raked in £300 a week in state benefits while he was living the UK. He was also given a £31,000 Ford Galaxy under the Motability scheme.
Four Muhajiroun supporters from London and Cardiff, led by Mohammed Chowdhury, began planning a Christmas car bomb attack on the London Stock Exchange in 2010.
The Syrian civil war, which provided a vacuum into which ISIS moved in, further stoked up radicalism among the group.
Mohammed Reza Haque, thought of as Choudary's bodyguard, disappeared from Britain in 2014.
A photograph taken in Syria showed him in a balaclava and camouflage clothing, brandishing an AK-47 assault rifle and he has since been suspected as being a tall figure in ISIS's horrific execution films.
Siddhartha Dhar, who once ran Choudary's media operation, was also seen posing in a military style coat and boots, brandishing an assault rifle and holding his new born baby in Syria, labelling the picture 'Generation Khilafah'.
In December 2014, two other close associates were discovered in the back of a lorry at Dover as they tried to leave the country.
Choudary tweeted a photo with Abu Izzadeen, a hate preacher later caught in Hungary
Simon Keeler and Anthony Small - a former British boxing champion – were later cleared of attempting to travel to Syria by a jury after they gave a variety of reasons for their need to leave the country without their passports.
After Choudary's high-profile calls for law and an Islamic Britain, it has been the rise of ISIS which has led to his undoing.
In October 2014, Choudary said in an interview that ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was 'the Caliph of all Muslims and the Prince of the Believers.'
He was arrested two weeks later along with eight members of his inner circle and now faces jail for inviting support for the terror group.
HATE PREACHER AT CENTRE OF A NETWORK OF EXTREMIST GROUPS LINKED TO AT LEAST 15 MAJOR TERRORIST PLOTS AND SEEN 300 SUPPORTERS TRAVEL TO SYRIA Hate preacher Anjem Choudary was at the heart of an international network of extremist groups, with his Al-Muhajiroun associates being linked to at least 15 major terrorist plots. Experts have also estimated that he radicalised 300 jihadists fighting for ISIS in Syria. Among the most-high profile were Siddatha Dhar - branded the 'new Jihadi John' - and the murderers of soldier Lee Rigby, Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale. Both Adebolajo and Adebowale were linked to the group. Adebowale went to a demonstration outside the US embassy in London in September 2012 that was attended by former members, and Adebolajo was pictured feet from Choudary at a protest in 2007. Dhar was arrested with Choudary and Mizanur Rahman on September 25 2014 but he skipped bail and took his pregnant wife and four young children to Syria where he posed for pictures with a newborn in one hand and an assault rifle in the other. One of Choudary's key lieutenants, Siddhartha Dhar, (pictured together in Brick Lane) who ran Choudary’s media operation, replaced Jihadi John as ISIS executioner Choudary's former bodyguard, Mohammed Reza Haque, is also suspected of executing prisoners in an ISIS video released in January. Another associate, Abdul Waheed Majeed, 41, became the first British suicide bomber in Syria driving an armoured dumper truck laden with explosives into the gates of Aleppo prison in January 2014. Al-Muhajiroun was banned in the UK in 2010, and a study suggested in the preceding 12 years, 18 per cent of Islamic extremists convicted of terror offences in the UK had current or former links with it. In May this year, delivery driver Junead Khan, 25, from Luton, was jailed for life for plotting to murder an American serviceman near a base in East Anglia, inspired by the horrifying killing of Fusilier Rigby. He and his uncle, Shazib Khan, were both found guilty of preparing to go to Syria to join Islamic State. The court heard that they had both been radicalised by al-Muhajiroun. Brusthom Ziamani, 20, was jailed for 22 years in March 2015 for plotting to behead a British soldier inspired by the murder of Fusilier Rigby. He had been kicked out of home in Camberwell, south east London, and initially turned to his local mosque for support before he fell in with al-Muhajiroun supporters who gave him money, clothes and a place to stay. In a separate case two months later, Kazi Islam, 20, was jailed for eight years for trying to groom a man with learning difficulties to carry out a Lee Rigby copycat killing. Islam tried to persuade Harry Thomas, 19, to buy the ingredients for a pipe bomb and to attack one or more soldiers with a kitchen knife or meat cleaver. The practising Muslim said he first became interested in issues surrounding Afghanistan and Iraq because he wanted to find out why Fusilier Rigby had been attacked outside his barracks in Woolwich, south east London, in May 2013. He attended meetings and talks held by al-Muhajiroun, viewed Jihadist propaganda online and downloaded a document entitled How To Make Semtex.
From the man who inspired him to the killers who listened to his sermons: Who's who in Choudary's radical circle?
OMAR BAKRI MOHAMMED For years, one of the most high profile hate preachers in the UK, Syrian-born Bakri was the inspiration for Choudary and his generation of radicals. He became known for his controversial pronouncements, and described the 9/11 hijackers as the 'Magnificent 19' and the London 7/7 bombers as the 'fantastic four'. Bakri set up al-Muhajiroun ('the emigrants') in the UK but left the UK for Lebanon in 2005 and was barred from returning by the Home Office.
MIZANUR RAHMAN Choudary's younger sidekick Rahman was born in Britain to parents from Bangladesh and has lived in London all his life. Like Choudary, he was inspired by Omar Bakri Mohammed, who he saw speaking at Turnpike Lane Mosque. He learned Arabic while in prison after he was jailed for six years for inciting murder during protests against Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in central London in 2006 but was released three years later.
ABU IZZADEEN / TREVOR BROOKS Izzadeen, whose original name is Trevor Brooks, had preached alongside Choudary |
the main colas of Casey Jones get huge.
Flowering Time 55-60 Days Seed Breeder Devil’s Harvest Seed Sex Regular, Feminized Yield Indoors: 350 – 500 g/m2
Outdoors: 2+ kilo plant
High Yield Casey Jones Seeds🌱
VIEW REGULAR ► VIEW FEMINIZED ►
Northern Lights x Big Bud
Northern Lights x Big Bud is a maximum yielding hybrid of two famous heavy yielding cannabis strains, This is a nearly pure-indica hybrid that grows like a sativa, despite it’s short 55 day flowering time.
🌿 This strain is a little stretchy, but can be easily controlled indoors. Northern Lights x Big Bud plants are heavy feeding strains that require a lot of nutrients to support it’s vigorous growth. Grown preferably indoors, it develops a very thick stem and lush dark green leaves. Resistant to drought. Can be grown outdoors in a dry climate.
⚖️ At the top of it’s class in high yielding strains, Northern Lights x Big Bud can produce a whopping 600 grams of bud per meter squared. The experienced grower will be able to milk a rewarding harvest of resin-covered dank off of this strain.
🍧 A very skunky strain with tones of grapefruit. The buds of Northern Lights x Big Bud have a very strong odor. Pungent, cheesy flavor and a mellow high. More of a production strain than a candy strain to be honest.
👍 Fast finishing, easy to grow strain. Healthy green plants that respond positively to pruning and low-stress training. Northern Lights x Big Bud exhibits some sativa growth qualities, while budding out like an indica.
Flowering Time 55 Days Seed Breeder World of Seeds Seed Sex Regular, Feminized Yield Indoors: 500-600 g/m2
High Yield Northern Lights x Big Bud Seeds🌱
VIEW FEMINIZED ►
Industrial Plant
Industrial Plant dates back to the 1970’s when this strain was created by crossing a high production East Indian Afghan with a Thai sativa. This resulting hybrid, dubbed Industrial Plant for it’s high bud production capabilities responds well to indoor growing, stacking up fat colas under HID lights.
🌿 Short statured, powerful growing plants that make big heavy flowers. Industrial Plant flowers in a speedy 6-7 weeks, being a perfect choice for quick indoor grows. Outdoors, this strain’s flowers hold up well in most environments.
⚖️ High yields cranked at 625 g/m are possible when growing Industrial Plant. The plant tends to focus it’s energy towards it’s center, however growers can maximize this strain’s harvest by employing SoG and SCROG techniques.
🍧 Buds reek of fresh pine with hints of citrus and black pepper. The flavor of Industrial Plant is similar to Skunk, with a powerful balanced indica and sativa high.
👍 Easy to grow strain for the indoors that can also be done well outdoors. The Thai genetics surely help this strain’s mold resistance. Industrial Plant is a not-so-popular production strain that deserves a comeback.
Flowering Time 6-7 Weeks Seed Breeder Dinafem Seed Sex Feminized Yield Indoors: 625 g/m2
Outdoors: 1+ kg/plant
High Yield Industrial Plant Seeds🌱
VIEW FEMINIZED ►
Super Silver Haze (SSH)
Shanti SSH
The proclaimed “King of Sativa’s” during the 90’s, Super Silver Haze (SSH) rose to fame winning three consecutive High Times Cannabis Cups in 1997, 1998 & 1999. Known for it’s uplifting effect and silvery-green THC coated nuggets, Super Silver Haze produces very high yields of big buds.
🌿 Bred by the famed Neville Schoenmaker and Shantibaba, this sativa-dominant hybrid (80:20 sativa/indica) consists of Original Haze, Northern Lights #5 and Skunk #1 genetics. Through the years Super Silver Haze has been stabilized true breeding (IBL), and has become a building block for many of the most popular cannabis hybrids on the market today.
⚖️ Super Silver Haze performs great in all grow set-ups including hydroponics, outdoor and indoor cultivation methods. The slightly long 10-11 week flowering time may turn off some growers, but rest assured the heavy harvests are well worth the wait! Bud colas get huge during late flower cycle. Humongous plants. A slightly finicky strain to grow, be careful of over-fertilization as well as under-fertilization… too much nitrogen will burn her up during vegetative growth.
🍧 Skunky, spicy and citrusy, Super Silver Haze tastes sweet to the tongue and provides a psychoactive energetic effect. Not as mind-racing as an Asian sativa, Super Silver Haze is ideal for users who desire an uplifting high without the paranoia.
👍 Milk rewarding high yields from this plant with the right care and techniques. Super Silver Haze is a great all-around sativa-dominant strain, with a huge track record of awards.
Flowering Time 8-10 Weeks Seed Breeder Mr Nice, Greenhouse Seed Sex Regular, Feminized Yield Indoors: 450-550 g/m2
Outdoors: 2+ kilo plant
High Yield Super Silver Haze Seeds🌱
VIEW REGULAR ► VIEW FEMINIZED ►
Critical Mass
A refined strain from similar lineage as Big Bud (Afghan and Skunk #1), Critical Mass has become the new mass production plant for growers who demand a very high yield of potent cannabis.
🌿 Grows fat “donkey dlck” colas that may need to be staked up due to their heavy weight. Critical Mass is a stout commercial strain for the indoor cash crop grower. Not very mold resistant, better to grow indoors.
⚖️ One of the heaviest yielding strains on the market, producing 675-750 g/m2 of high quality cannabis in just 45-55 days of flowering
🍧 The buds of Critical Mass smell of skunk and lemon, with a slight sour undertone. The effect is strong in the body, while also being thought provoking.
👍 Easy to grow, easy to clone strain. Critical Mass is a knockout stone, being is very strong it may be too on the narcotic, couch lock side for some. Great indoor high yield variety.
Flowering Time 45-55 Days Seed Breeder Mr Nice Seed Sex Regular, Feminized Yield Indoors: 675-750 g/m2
Outdoors: 500-600 g/plant
High Yield Critical Mass Seeds🌱
VIEW REGULAR ► VIEW FEMINIZED ►
Big Bud
The original insane cash cropper, Big Bud touts some of the highest yields for an indica dominant hybrid of it’s type. Huge buds that gain almost too much heaviness during flowering – the branches often require staking to keep them from falling over by their own ridiculous weight.
🌿 Gaining popularity and respect since the 1980’s for it’s vigorous growth and massive yield production, Big Bud was created from Afghani, Skunk #1, and Northern lights genetics, and has been preserved to this day by the Sensi Seeds company. Big Bud won first prize in 1989 at the second-ever High Times Cannabis Cup, under the mostly indica category.
⚖️ A classic indica dom, Big Bud plants do not get too tall, and grow in a fat bushy structure similar to other dank indica strains. Flowering time is super fast – 58 – 70 days ’til harvest for the different phenotypes. Big Bud can be grown easily indoors or outdoors, however outdoor growers should be careful of bud mold (botrytis) close to harvest. Big Bud likes the heat and dry weather. Treat this strain right and get a humongous top cola.
🍧 Big Bud has sweet and hashy flavors, although not the sweetest tasting pot out there. Drowsiness, red eyes, munchies are common of this herb’s mellow stone. Big Bud’s effects are the typical couch-lock indica, plus the cured buds are truly BIG.
👍 The Big Bud strain is considered a true breeding IBL (in-bred line), meaning that breeders can use the seeds to create their own generation of Big Bud, or create high-yielding hybrids. Ken’s Grand Daddy Purp is a prime example of using this high yield strain in order to pump up the normally low yields of a purple strain.
Flowering Time 8-9 Weeks Seed Breeder Sensi Seeds Seed Sex Regular, Feminized Yield Indoors: 600-900 g/m2
High Yield Big Bud Seeds🌱
VIEW REGULAR ► VIEW FEMINIZED ►
Chronic
Chronic is Serious Seeds Co.’s most commercial strain available. While not the most flavor-centered strain out there, Chronic makes up for it with a splendor of monster flowers, finishing up hard and resiny with sugar leaf. A mutt breed of Northern Lights, Skunk x Northern Lights and AK-47.
🌿 Plants of Chronic grow stout and beefy with many lateral limbs forming up large, firm flowers, plus one large main top cola. Preferred growth is indoor, however is moderately mold resistant when grown outdoors or in a greenhouse.
⚖️ Yields are high at 450-650 g/m2, however it should be noted that this strains needs to fully complete it’s 8-9 week flowering in order for the buds to keep weight during drying.
🍧 While the subtle sweet flavor of Chronic is nothing to write home about, the effect of these buds is strong and vaporizers very body-centered. Chronic has a relaxing, drowsy effect that really pushes you into the couch.
👍 Great strain for beginner indoor growers. Chronic makes dank frosty nuggets that have good bag appeal.
Flowering Time 8-9 Weeks Seed Breeder Serious Seeds Seed Sex Regular, Feminized Yield Indoors: 450-650 g/m2
Ouutdoors: 600 g/plant
High Yield Chronic Seeds🌱
VIEW REGULAR ► VIEW FEMINIZED ►
Pineapple Express
Pineapple Express is a sweet pungent sativa dominant variety of cannabis made famous by a stoner film. It’s a Skunk and Big Bud cross that produces superior bud for a high yield strain. Flowers in about 58 days.
🌿 Grows into a medium height common to other 60/40 sativa dominant strains. Pineapple Express grows deep green foliage, and is a heavy feeder of nutrients. Responds well to LST, topping and supercropping and may need to be staked up to support it’s weak branches.
⚖️ Yields are over 450 g/m2 when growing Pineapple Express. This strain isn’t the most high yielding variety, but it makes up for that with it’s potent aromatic compact flowers. Moderately mold resistant.
🍧 Fruity and musty, aromas range from skunky to pineapple. Pineapple Express is known for it’s strong creeper head high and body buzz.
👍 Easy to grow for beginners, Pineapple Express is a beautiful strain for growing in indoor and most outdoor climates, too.
Flowering Time 53-62 Days Seed Breeder G13 Labs Seed Sex Feminized Yield Indoors: 450+ g/m2
Outdoors: 550+ g/plant
High Yield Pineapple Express Seeds🌱
VIEW FEMINIZED ►
Pure Power Plant (PPP)
If fat cola bud plants are what you’re looking for, look no further. Pure Power Plant, or Power Plant, gets absurdly large dominant colas on easily managed sativa dominant plants. Potency + high yield = champion.
🌿 A hybrid of South African landrace strains, Pure Power Plant is a stable inbred hybrid (IBL) developed by Dutch Passion in the 1990’s. Winning numerous awards such as two first place HighLife Cups (2008, 2009), it’s a surprise that Pure Power Plant isn’t as popular with the current cannabis scene today.
⚖️ Grown terrifically indoors and outdoors, Pure Power Plant has been a staple of many cash croppers for years. Massive plants. The speedy 8-9 week flowering time opens up the door for all growers to try this plant. Large calyxes and a low leaf-to-bud ratio on this African beauty. Pure Power Plant appreciates a heavy nutrient regime during flowering to build her large resiny flowers.
🍧 Pure Power Plant smells of sweet orange and spice, and the big buds add to this strains bag appeal. Tasting of musky sandal wood with a dash of fruitiness, there is no sacrifice in quality with this XXL high yield strain. A sativa dominant strain (70:30 sativa/indica) with balanced indica qualities, Pure Power Plant is suitable for both daytime and nighttime tokers, although a heavy toke session may put you down on the couch.
👍 A mold resistant strain, Pure Power Plant is a great choice for guerrilla growers planting in humid climates, as well as all growers. Keep her clean close to harvest and see these strong dominant colas form up fat.
Flowering Time 8-9 Weeks Seed Breeder Dutch Passion, Nirvana Seed Sex Feminized Yield Indoors: 500-600 g/m2
Outdoors: High
High Yield Power Plant Seeds🌱
VIEW REGULAR ► VIEW FEMINIZED ►
White Widow x Big Bud
One of the most popular indoor cash crop plants, White Widow x Big Bud is a pure production goddess. Big sparkling buds covered in frost make growing for yield and quality both possible. 7-8 weeks flowering time.
🌿 Cracking Big Bud seeds, you will notice a few different phenotypes, some of which have more of the Big Bud genes than the others. The short and compact fast-flowering pheno is the best keeper for indoor cash croppers.
⚖️ The enormous yield of White Widow x Big Bud is purely dependent on how well you can work her. This heavy-feeding strain loves to be pumped up with maximum light and a healthy diet of nutrients. Fat big plants. Indoors is really where White Widow x Big Bud thrives, as her monstrous fat buds are prone to bud rot and mold during the end of the flowering cycle. Be sure to provide lots of airflow and keep the grow area dry.
🍧 Expect a knock-out stone from this one, White Widow x Big Bud will set you red-eyed on the couch with it’s soothing narcotic effects. Munchies will come no doubt. For those who love dank indicas and want to max out their yields. A-grade pot that retains the minty skunky sweet widow flavor.
👍 This easy-to-grow indoor plant is perfect for beginner growers too, who wish to reap a good harvest from their efforts. Lots and lots of high quality indica dominant buds drenched in resin.
Flowering Time 7-8 Weeks Seed Breeder Female Seed Sex Feminized Yield Indoors: 600-900 g/m2
High Yield White Widow x Big Bud Seeds🌱
VIEW FEMINIZED ►
Outdoor Highest Yielding Strains
Landrace Thai Sativa (Thai Stick)
Thai is a monumental landrace cannabis sativa strain known for it’s goliath size, super long flowering time, frighteningly high THC content, and of course the ‘Thai sticks’ exported from South-East Asia.
🌿 The Thai sativa plant grows vigorously, shooting up in height quick. These big plants typically outgrow the modern hybrid strain, reaching insane heights of over 12 feet easily… although taming them to produce well can be quite the challenge, especially for growers outside the tropics. Massive 13 fingered leaves are common, and when grown in higher latitudes, hermaphrodites can be problematic.
⚖️ So why grow this crazy strain? Thai sativa plants, when finished correctly can present a harvest full of monster leg-sized colas on multiple-kilo XXL yielding plants. Outdoors, these huge strains can flower all the way until January! For the skilled cultivator, landrace Thai sativa is the ultimate rewarding challenge.
🍧 Cured buds of Thai sativa strains range from smooth and sweet to exotically spicy. A specific spice smell, similar to anise, seems to be present in all phenotypes of the strain. Red tinted buds and large calyxes with a low leaf-to-bud ratio are some examples of superb phenos.
👍 A true breeding strain, many high quality modern hybrids have gotten their magical qualities from a Thai sativa parent. Plan out a longterm grow area for your Thai strain to yield big. For growers in the tropics, this is not as complicated, as it’s already in it’s natural environment where the plant can flower for an extended time. Northern climate growers should start early and consider light deprivation techniques to induce early flowering. Finishing in a greenhouse during winter with additional lighting can help tame this strain into producing mystical quality cannabis buds.
Flowering Time 14+ Weeks Seed Breeder Seedsman, WOS Seed Sex Regular, Feminized Yield Outdoors: 2+ kilo plant
High Yield Thai Sativa Seeds🌱
VIEW REGULAR ► VIEW FEMINIZED ►
Green Crack
Green Crack is a popular Skunk #1 x Afghani hybrid strain that took the Cannabis Collective scene by storm. Green Crack produces a high over 20% THC content and flowers in a brief 55 days.
🌿 A strong outdoor grower, as well as indoors. Green Crack plants are vigorous, their sativa dominance contributes to the plans slightly stretchy growth. Fast growing plants immediately after germination.
⚖️ Yields of up to 525 gr/m2 with Green Crack indoors; Outdoors these plants can grow huge, provided a long vegetative cycle can yield as high as 3kg/plant. A good mold resistant strain.
🍧 Buds have a fruity palate of ripe fruits with aromas of citrus fruit, mango, pineapple, cedar wood and incense. Green Crack hits hard and heady.
👍 Green Crack gives good yields and is easy to grow for anyone regardless of climate. Consistently high quality strain.
Flowering Time 55 Days Seed Breeder Humboldt Seed Sex Feminized Yield Indoors: 350-525 g/m2
Outdoors: 1-3 kg/plant
High Yield Green Crack Seeds🌱
VIEW FEMINIZED ►
Blue Dream
Blue Dream flooded the West Coast scene once growers found out how big and how much this awesome strain can yield. A cross between a Blueberry and a Haze strain, Blue Dream hybrid plants can grow into gargantuan monsters producing top-shelf quality A grade pot.
🌿 The high yields are up to the grower’s ingenuity. For as big as you can plan to get them, Blue Dream will stack up the sweet buds on tree-sized huge cannabis plants. Many people like to pump Blue Dream plants up hard in vegetative growth, using additional lighting and a well prepared nutrient regime. Set into flowering, Blue Dream finishes up relatively quick for a sativa dom – being ready to harvest in 10 weeks time.
⚖️ A high yield production plant with a noticeably sweet berry flavor, Blue Dream is a cash croppers dream strain. This 60:40 sativa/indica hybrid boasts a respectable 17-24% THC content. Quality and yield made this strain a legend. Whether you’re growing indoors or outdoors, Blue Dream will be an all-star in the garden.
🍧 Sticky silver-coated nuggets scream pure dankness, pleasing even the most stubborn of connoisseurs. The tastes and aroma of Blue Dream is a smooth and sweet blueberry tone, very light on the lungs. Effects are balanced – sativa-like speedy high and potency with an indica body kick to it.
👍 Easy to grow and easy to get rid of, Blue Dream ranks in as one of the all-time best high yield strains. Mass yield potential outdoors and indoors. A cultivator’s ‘dream’.
Flowering Time 10 Weeks Seed Breeder Humboldt Seed Sex Feminized Yield Indoors: 400-600 g/m2
Outdoors: 2+ kilo plant
High Yield Blue Dream Seeds🌱
VIEW REGULAR ► VIEW FEMINIZED ►
Texada Timewarp
Sonnyboy420
Texada Timewarp has been the BC Vancouver and Gulf Island’s prime outdoor cash cropper for over 30 years. This back-crossed stabilized strain can grow over 2.5 meters tall and yield more than a kilo per plant. A true old-school sativa/indica hybrid.
🌿 Specifically bred to handle the outdoors, Texada Timewarp is a very mold resistant strain, able to flower properly in wet and cold conditions. Texada Timewarp finishes around the last week of September in the northern hemisphere. Flowering time ~45 days.
⚖️ Outdoor growers will appreciate the fast-flowering qualities of Texada Timewarp – a refreshing change to other watered down quick-flowering genetics in many popular hybrids. Goldwarp (Texada Timewarp x Guerrilla Gold 5) is one of the most successful crosses with local outdoor growers.
🍧 The savory green nuggets often get hues of purple when exposed to cold climates. Big plants. Although not the most dense buds out there, the calyxes of Texada Timewarp are huge and will please sativa connisuers who like something energetic and unique. Sweet musky grape flavor.
👍 Perfect for the beginner outdoor cultivator, Texada Timewarp can handle the rough weather while still churning out quality buds with a high yield FAST.
Flowering Time 6-7 Weeks Seed Breeder BC Bud Co. Seed Sex Regular Yield Indoors: 500 g/m2
Outdoors: 1+ kilo plant
High Yield Texada Timewarp Seeds🌱
VIEW REGULAR ►
Super Skunk
DerekT
Super Skunk is a next-level indica hybrid made from backcrossing the legendary Skunk#1 with a old-school landrace Afghani plant. Through this, the yields have been pumped up while still retaining the stink-through-the-bag qualities that everyone loves about Skunk.
🌿 Super Skunk released in 1990, won the mostly-indica High Times Cannabis Cup immediately that year. Super Skunk is ideal for growers and smokers who want high yields of dense, cheesy dank indica buds with a sweet taste. The moderately high THC content (tested above 19%) add to the appeal of this cash cropper strain.
⚖️ Short flowering, finishing it’s cycle in a mere 45 – 50 days. Super Skunk performs well in all cultivation set-ups including hydroponics, indoor, and outdoor grows. Easy to grow, although beware of mold issues in late flowering due to her heavy dense indica nuggets.
🍧 Skunk strains get their name from the extreme pungent odor the buds exude. For those who get off on the stanky stank, Super Skunk is the high-yield choice for you.
👍 This 80% indica hybrid can morph into a goliath when cultivated accordingly. Super Skunk loves lots of light and nutrients for it bulky stock and buds. A heavy feeding large plant. Super Skunk harvests light green chronic herb reminiscent of classic “Cali Homegrown”.
Flowering Time 7-8 Weeks Seed Breeder Sensi Seeds Seed Sex Regular, Feminized Yield Indoors: 500-700 g/m
Outdoors: 2+ kilo plant
High Yield Super Skunk Seeds🌱
VIEW REGULAR ► VIEW FEMINIZED ►
Chocolope (D-Line)
Chocolope, originally named D-Line is a nearly all-sativa hybrid (95:5 sativa/indica) consisting of landrace Thai (Chocolate Thai) and Cannalope genetics. Chocolope plants grow vigorously, dominantly taking over the cultivation area. Flowering time ~69 days.
🌿 Chocolate Thai is a legend of the 1980’s, being one of the first popular high THC Asian sativas going around the cannabis community. Combined with the Cannalope Haze, the resulting hybrid Chocolope has the quintessential South-East Asian sativa qualities: long flowering, LARGE plants whose buds have a creeper high (+20 minutes onset).
⚖️ Outdoors, indoors and hydro. All cultivators have had great success growing Chocolope as proven by the numerous awards she has earned: 1st place Hydro Highlife Cup 2008, 2nd place Sativa HT Cannabis Cup 2010, 2nd place Coffeeshop HT Cannabis Cup 2007, 2nd place Hydro Highlife Cup 2007 2nd place Outdoor Spannabis 2011… and the list goes on.
🍧 More tweaked toward a bold chocolate type flavor Chocolope has unique fruit and minty spice traits with an extremely smooth smoke. Perfect for big bong hits, the smoke of Chocolope is easy on the lungs, but beware of the potent racy high that will follow. Smells like grapefruit and anise seed with a powdery high-THC coating.
👍 This 500-600g/m2 high-yield strain grows into a beast grown both outdoors and indoors. Chocolope’s Thai genetics give this strain a trippy high.
Flowering Time 10 Weeks Seed Breeder DNA Genetics Seed Sex Feminized Yield Indoors: 500-600 g/m2
Outdoors: 2+ kg/plant
High Yield Chocolope Seeds🌱
VIEW FEMINIZED ►
Colombian Gold
The legendary old-school sativa Colombian Gold exploded in the United States during the 1960’s. Hailing from the Santa Marta mountains of Colombia, this cannabis strain grows BIG… yielding large amounts of sweet, potent sativa buds.
🌿 An interesting fact about Colombian Gold is the “gold” in her name comes from a technique locals used with the plants before harvest. Right before the buds were prime and ready, cultivators would ring the bark, causing the plant to “die on the hoof” and resulting in a gold-like color scheme.
⚖️ Colombian Gold has a moderately long 10 – 11 week flowering time as the massive plant morphs into a budded beast. Yields indoor from 350g indoor to 450-600g outdoor. Buds are covered in crystal.
🍧 This tasty sativa has some indica introduced in it’s genetics. About 75:25 sativa/indica. A smooth and tangy flavor plus sweet lemon skunk aroma makes for high quality nuggets.
👍 Through continuous inbreeding, Colombian Gold has been stabilized into a true breeding strain that has been used to create lots of the modern hybrids we love today. Breeders appreciate the high vigor and yield that this strain provides, as well as the 19%+ THC content.
Flowering Time 11-13 Weeks Seed Breeder WoS Seed Sex Regular, Feminized Yield Indoors: 350-500 g/m2
Outdoors: 1+ kilo plant
High Yield Colombian Gold Seeds🌱
VIEW REGULAR ► VIEW FEMINIZED ►
Mango Haze
Mango Haze is balanced hybrid (50:50 sativa/indica) plant with a high 23% THC content and the potential to grow BIG. This cannabis strain exhibits a distinct mango aroma and flavor, which makes it a great choice for the cash cropper who wants fruity buds.
🌿 Mango Haze was created from the same genetic pool as Super Silver Haze, consisting of 25% Northern Lights #5, 25% Skunk #1 and 50% Original Haze. The phenotypes exhibit a variety of flowering times, from 8 to 11 weeks until harvest.
⚖️ Indoor cultivators limited to space can flower Mango Haze almost immediately after germination, and still produce a 1 – 1.5 meter plant. Some people like to trim the lower branches to concentrate on heavy dominant cola production. Outdoor growers can take advantage of Mango Haze’s massive size capabilities and really milk a high yield of fruity pot, finishing around October.
🍧 Renowned for it’s creative, cerebral and motivating high. Mango Haze, although possessing a fair amount of indica genetics, does not drag users down on couchlock. Perfect for all day smokers. The tropical fruit flavors of Mango Haze set this high yield strain out from the rest.
👍 Mango Haze cured buds have the foxtail nugget look with amber hairs and crystal-clear white high THC trichomes. Multiple pound plants outdoors. Indoors, 550 grams plus.
Flowering Time 8-11 Weeks Seed Breeder Mr Nice Seed Sex Regular Yield Indoors: 550+ g/m2
Outdoors: 2+ kilo plants
High Yield Mango Haze Seeds🌱
VIEW REGULAR ►
Panama Red
The original Panama Red was smuggled in huge lots to California during the late 1960’s from Panama. The “red” was no joke, buds were tinted red in color and had a truly psychedelic high.
🌿 Panama Red, or other sativa strains from Central America grow big and yield large in most environments. While the buds may not be as dank and resin-soaked as an indica dominant strain, the powdery THC coated buds burn well and hold up good in all climates.
⚖️ The long flowering time (11 – 13 weeks) is a challenge for some growers, who will find it difficult to produce the same quality buds indoors. Finishing around late-October in the northern hemisphere, these massive sativa plants often yield over a pound each in natural lighting. Panama Red is a true outdoor strain, and it’s jungle inbreeding makes it very mold resistant.
🍧 Panama Red is a trippy smoke that leads to the giggles, a happy-go-lucky sativa for the adventurous stoners. The THC level is not huge by today’s standards (16% max), although the presence of THCV likely attributes to the high energy psychedelic effects produced by Panama Red.
👍 Obtaining the true Panama Red genetics nowadays is not so easy. If you want the real deal old-school kind, you may have to go there yourself and do some hunting. Only a few major seed companies offer a Panama strain in seed form now – the hybrids below.
Flowering Time 11-13 Weeks Seed Breeder ACE, Cannabiogen Seed Sex Regular, Feminized Yield Indoors: 350–500 g/m2
Outdoors: High
High Yield Panama Strain Seeds🌱
VIEW REGULAR ► VIEW FEMINIZED ►
Golden Tiger
Here’s a challenge. Try finishing Golden Tiger plants. Not that easy, unless you live in a tropical/sub-tropical climate that can keep her satisfied for the long 13 – 14 week flowering cycle. Greenhouse and indoor cultivators can pull it off though, with the right care and practices.
🌿 A highland Thai strain and ACE’s Malawi combine to create this deadly pure sativa hybrid. 100% sativa. Extremely high levels of THC (up to 25%) and THCV make for one of the most psychedelic, frighteningly potent highs out there.
⚖️ High yields will come after an excruciatingly long wait that’s well worth it. Golden tiger is very resistant to molds and mildews, mites, white fly, heat and can be grown outdoors in any area that allows for her long flowering cycle. Turns into a massive long-limbed beaster with buds that slowly fill in girth. Perfect for the south.
🍧 Sweet musky flavor similar to other South-East Asian sativa strains. Growing Golden Tiger is only worth it if you’re going to be able to finish her long extended flowering cycle. This strain and other pure sativas are often harvested too early, thus giving a false impression of a weak strain (while the real finished buds are BIG).
👍 Perfect for the sativa lover, the superb high is what makes growing Golden Tiger worth it. Increased heart-rate, paranoia, and other effects similar to psychedelic mushrooms is what you’ll get. For people who really want to get HIGH. Monstrous-sized plants.
Flowering Time 13-14 Weeks Seed Breeder ACE Seed Sex Regular, Feminized Yield Indoors: 350–500 g/m2
Outdoors: 2+ kg/plant
High Yield Golden Tiger Seeds🌱
VIEW REGULAR ► VIEW FEMINIZED ►
*Disclaimer: Know your laws. Read federal and local/county laws before buying seeds online. We do not promote or undertake in illegal activities.Parkway High School (La.) coach David Feaster spoke very candidly about Alabama Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban during an interview on 104.5 ESPN on Wednesday, and he’s now paid a price for that honesty.
Feaster, who said in the interview that Saban was not welcome to recruit on his campus because of the way Alabama handled the recruitment of a Parkway player back in 2014, has been relieved of his coaching duties. The Shreveport Times reports that Feaster is still employed by the school but will no longer be coaching the football team. According to the Times, school officials did not appreciate Feaster acting as a spokesman for the whole school:
The current Parkway administration didn’t take kindly to the attention and felt Fester was “undermining” school officials and potentially hurting other Panthers athletes who could be recruited by Alabama. The incident was the “third or fourth” for Feaster and ultimately his undoing.
If you live and work in SEC country, crossing Nick Saban is never a great idea.Arcade gaming's most famous all-time record has a new owner: Robbie Lakeman, who on Thursday eclipsed the world high score for Donkey Kong by 3,200 points.
Robbie Lakeman (pictured) took down Hank Chien, who burst on the scene four years ago to wrest Donkey Kong's all-time high score away from rivals Steve Wiebe and Billy Mitchell, made famous in a 2008 documentary. Lakeman needed about four hours to reach 1,141,800; then he called and personally informed Chien he'd been knocked off.
Chien had taken the world record in February 2010, later surrendered it to Mitchell, who was then surpassed by Wiebe. Chien retook first place in February 2011 and better his score two more times, leading some to believe his scores were so high they could never be beaten.
But they were. You can watch his three hour, 50 minute assault on Chien's record here. Donkey Kong Blog has even more detail on what is now a four-way rivalry in a 33-year-old game.Don Ryan/AP
Washington will get a bigger role in helping develop a plan for congestion-relief tolls on Portland area freeways, Oregon transportation officials promised Monday.
The officials said Washington will get three voting members on the 15-20 person advisory committee developing the plan. Previously, Washington was given just one voting slot, for Clark County.
“All along we’ve wanted to ensure that there is a very broad, regional discussion about implementing value pricing on I-5 and I-205,” said Travis Brouwer, assistant director of the Oregon Department of Transportation.
“Value pricing” is the way Oregon officials describe tolls aimed at reducing congestion.
The increased representation for Washington comes as the issue has gained increasing visibility among officials on the northern side of the Columbia River.
Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Wash., has been pursuing legislation to block the tolls, saying she fears they would be unfair to her constituents who commute into Oregon.
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., on Friday weighed in with a more moderate approach. She called for greater representation on the advisory committee, a plan that Brown readily accepted. Under Murray’s proposal, the Washington State Department of Transportation will get a voting slot on the committee, instead of just an observer position. Additionally, the City of Vancouver will get a full membership.
“We felt it was important to accommodate Sen. Murray’s request and give a greater voice to those in southwest Washington,” said Brouwer, adding that he expected the advisory committee to have around 20 members.
Herrera Beutler’s spokeswoman, Angeline Riesterer, said in an email that the added representation is “not even close to a solution.”
She added that “Jaime won’t be satisfied until we get acceptable answers on exactly who Oregon plans to toll, for how long, and what they’re planning to pay for. Putting a few Washingtonians on a committee where they can be easily steamrolled by an 80 percent Oregon majority does nothing to relieve Jamie’s concerns.”
The $5.3 billion transportation bill approved by the Oregon Legislature this year called for congestion pricing plans to be developed in conjunction with freeway improvement projects for the Rose Quarter section of Interstate 5 and the Oregon City-West Linn area of Interstate 205.Source: FBI Vaults
NEVER-SEEN PHOTOGRAPHS from the 11 September, 2001 attack on the Pentagon released by the FBI this week show the massive devastation that faced first responders.
Twenty-seven pictures from that day depict the crushed walls, blazing fires and eviscerated interiors of the seat of the US Department of Defense.
The American Airlines jet that struck the Pentagon was one of four airliners hijacked by Al-Qaeda teams and used as weapons in the deadliest terror attack ever on US soil.
Source: FBI Vaults
When the Pentagon was hit, two other airliners had already been flown into New York’s World Trade Center; the fourth plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania after passengers rose up against the hijackers.
Source: FBI Vaults
American Airlines Flight 77 out of Dulles International Airport slammed into the Pentagon’s western wall, killing all 64 people on the plane, including the five hijackers, and 125 on the ground.
One poignant shot shows an American flag tangled in concrete-and-rebar wreckage being cleared by a tractor.
Source: FBI Vaults
Another shows rescuers crouched as a blaze consumes part of west side of the building.
In another, helmeted and gas-masked rescuers watch as a dog sniffs the rubble in the search for survivors and bodies.
In all, nearly 3,000 people died in the attacks, most of them at the World Trade Center.
Source: FBI Vaults
© – AFP 2017Episode 67
August 25, 2015, Maddox
Self-Defeating Thoughts 3383 Cheating 2164 Too Long Shorts -1180
Cheating can be a problem, but the biggest cheating you can do is to yourself with self-defeating thoughts. Buy tickets to my new life-coaching seminar. Also, too long of a shorts. I'm also teaching a seminar on indefinite articles.
Special thanks |
president and CEO of Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice, said El-Sayed’s work on environmental policy has been the most meaningful he’s seen from the administration in more than two decades.
“He’s been a great champion for issues that I hold dear,” Williams said.
El-Sayed has made strides in shaping environmental policy, elevating programs and coming up with solutions to long-standing problems in Detroit, he said.
“I anticipate a super-strong environmental agenda,” he said. “At a minimum, just having him as a candidate will afford an opportunity for these ideas to be seen and understood.”
El-Sayed earned degrees in political science and biology from the University of Michigan and delivered the senior commencement address alongside President Bill Clinton.
Later, he was selected to study as a Rhodes scholar at England’s Oxford University, where he earned a doctorate. He then earned a medical degree at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons and a doctorate in public health.
Before returning to Detroit, he served as a professor in the Department of Epidemiology at Columbia University.
“I am a doctor, educator and a public servant,” he said. “... and it’s who I will be as an elected official if I am so chosen by the people of this great state.”
Connie Kelly, who taught El-Sayed’s eighth grade math class at Bloomfield Hills Middle School, said he remains as driven now as he was then.
“He has, without question, the dedication and the intelligence to do absolutely anything he wants to do. But the most important thing in my mind is that he cares very deeply about people,” said Kelly of West Bloomfield.
El-Sayed said his parents came to the United States because they believed in the American ideals. So does he.
“I am focused on building a strong campaign that unites rather than divides, inspires rather than scares, and I think we can do that,” he said.
State records show several other other major-party but low-profile candidates have filed for the race since 2015, when Snyder began his second term. They are Republicans Jim Hines, a Saginaw-area obstetrician, Mark McFarlin of Pinconning, and Evan Sebastian Space of Grand Rapids as well as Democrats William Cobbs of Farmington Hills and Kentiel White of Southgate.
Michigan Lt. Gov. Brian Calley and Attorney General Bill Schuette are considered likely front-runners for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, should they enter the 2018 race.
cferretti@detroitnews.com
Read or Share this story: http://detne.ws/2k7ZgXRWho is to blame for the breakdown of the peace talks? Last week US State Department envoy Martin Indyk did the unpardonable, and called out Israel’s settlement program for the failure: “rampant settlement activity – especially in the midst of negotiations – doesn’t just undermine Palestinian trust in the purpose of the negotiations; it can undermine Israel’s Jewish future.”
Now pro-Israel voices are trying to massage Indyk’s statements away, by faulting Indyk, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and Secretary of State John Kerry too.
The Forward has a good piece up by Nathan Guttman that describes Indyk’s long history of devotion to Israel then conveys criticism of him for his untoward comments at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Indyk’s prepared remarks were “detailed, impassioned and painstakingly evenhanded,” wrote Robert Satloff, the institute’s executive director in a later analysis of the speech. But in his off-the-cuff remarks afterward, Satloff said, “the brunt of criticism fell on the architects of Israeli settlement activity.” [Dennis] Ross, who has been in Indyk’s shoes himself many times in the past, said that Indyk had “explained away” Abbas’ role in “shutting down” the talks by highlighting the role of Israel’s settlements in leading Abbas to withdraw. Ross parted ways with Indyk on this. “I would stress the shutting down” by Abbas, Ross said.
Satloff puts the onus on Abbas in his own piece about the crisis at the Washington Institute:
Lost in the heavy focus on settlement activity — including the media stir it caused abroad — was important news Indyk revealed about the recent diplomacy, especially the fact that U.S. negotiators believed they may have had sufficient compromises from Israel to reach a breakthrough agreement, but Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas refused to even respond to American proposals when he came to Washington to meet with President Obama in mid-March.
Satloff also blames– John Kerry:
Of course, it may be too much to have expected Indyk to offer any mea culpas on behalf of his boss, Secretary Kerry. But details of such errors are already beginning to emerge. Earlier in the Weinberg Conference, for example, Israeli peace negotiator Michael Herzog revealed that Kerry had reached inconsistent understandings with each side on how to extend negotiations — including on the fourth tranche of prisoner releases — and thereby contributed to the delay in that process.
But Satloff acknowledges there is a crisis. And what is the answer? Satloff notes what Kerry himself has hinted he will do: state the terms of a resolution and then walk away. But that’s not wise, Satloff says. Israel would get blamed:
In the current situation, there is intense speculation as to Secretary Kerry’s next step. On the one hand, he could choose from variations on the “James Baker option”: endorse the focus on settlement activity as the principal, though not sole, reason for the breakdown in diplomacy, announce some version of the U.S. ideas sufficient for Israeli-Palestinian agreement, and invite the parties to call him whenever they have the “urgency” (to use Indyk’s term) to make the compromises needed for breakthrough. This would have the effect, if not the intent, of heaping the lion’s share of blame on Israel and effectively freeing Palestinians from responsibility for their actions (and inaction) in the process. While this type of policy may be alluring to some, it has the seeds of many future policy headaches, such as feeding international condemnation of Israel that the United States would have to work to counteract; feeding Israel’s sense of abandonment at a critical moment in the Iran nuclear negotiations; and feeding a potent mix of defiance and irresponsibility among Palestinians that might end with a much worse political configuration in Ramallah. Alternatively, Kerry has a range of options to keep the United States — and him personally — engaged in peacemaking, though perhaps in a different format. This includes taking active steps with the parties to ensure the sustainability of their security cooperation; proposing unilateral steps each could take that might reshuffle the political situation in a way that makes formal negotiations more likely to succeed; coordinating with both sides to prevent a spiral of negative unilateral steps that would make a return to diplomacy more difficult
That’s conflict management. Occupation and checkpoints and no rights for Palestinians, forever, and no intifada either. The Palestinians in two prisons.
Back at the Forward, Nathan Guttman helpfully traces Indyk’s long history as an Israel supporter.
This 35-year record began at the heart of the pro-Israel establishment in Washington. Steve Rosen, a former senior official with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the powerful Washington lobby, had mentored Indyk at the Australian National University, and then invited him to move to Washington and run the lobby’s regular publication, Near East Report. Shortly after, Rosen recommended Indyk as the first director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a pro-Israel think tank founded by AIPAC supporters. “This is a guy who had read every book ever published with the word ‘Israel’ in its title,” Rosen said of his protégé. Indyk, he noted, had both exceptional analytical capabilities, and “great diplomatic skills.” These same skills impressed Bill Clinton when Indyk was among those who briefed him on Israel in the early stages of his 1992 presidential campaign. This led eventually to Clinton choosing the young analyst as his chief Middle East adviser upon taking office.
Yes, the Israel lobbyist was brought into the Clinton camp in 1992, as Clinton was raising a lot of pro-Israel money, and Clinton ran to the right of Bush on settlements, and unseated the incumbent. Guttman says that Indyk’s lack of protocol in the last week reflects the fact that he’s a blunt Australian.
Update: Elliott Abrams also blames Kerry and Indyk and Obama. “Martin’s Myths,” at the Weekly Standard, castigates Indyk’s
failure to cast any blame on the third side of the triangle: the United States, or more precisely Kerry and Indyk himself. Blaming his boss, and his boss’s boss, President Obama, was more than could legitimately have been expected from Indyk, but a wee bit of introspection was not. Historians will not have to be consulted decades from now to analyze the manifold errors in Obama administration handling of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict..
Jeffrey Goldberg has also chimed in. The lobby water-carrier is careful to blame Abbas.
This week, perhaps in reaction to the reaction to [Nahum] Barnea’s article [in which American officials fingered Israeli settlements], American officials I spoke to were careful to apportion blame in a way that was slightly more evenhanded (to borrow a loaded term from the annals of American peacemaking). There is no doubt that the underlying message is the same: The Netanyahu government’s settlement program, in the officials’ view, is the original sin committed in the nine-month process (the original sin of the Middle East conflict is located elsewhere). But officials I spoke to said that they are peeved — a word one of them actually used — at Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for, in essence, checking out of the peace process as early as February.
Also note the transformation of the word “evenhanded.” As Goldberg indicates, it used to be that no one wanted to be caught dead being evenhanded. That was like being an Arabist, it suggested you were too interested in Palestinian grievances. The landscape is shifting.The tabloids will have a fresh angle on a nearly decade-long triangle next week.
Brad Pitt has, once again, dredged up the ghost of his marriage to Jennifer Aniston (since concluded) in a print interview (with Esquire). He describes an epiphany he had "about a decade ago" to live more purposefully and stop wasting time:
Advertisement:
For a long time I thought I did too much damage – drug damage. I was a bit of a drifter. A guy who felt he grew up in something of a vacuum and wanted to see things, wanted to be inspired. I followed that other thing. I spent years f–king off. But then I got burnt out and felt that I was wasting my opportunity. It was a conscious change. This was about a decade ago. It was an epiphany – a decision not to squander my opportunities. It was a feeling of get up. Because otherwise, what’s the point?
Pitt and Aniston separated eight and a half years ago, in January 2005, at which point he began a relationship with his current partner Angelina Jolie, with whom he is now raising six children.
Pitt most memorably commented on the boredom he felt, oh, about a decade ago, in a 2011 interview with Parade:
I spent the ’90s trying to hide out, trying to duck the full celebrity cacophony. It wigged me out a bit. I started to get sick of myself sitting on a couch, holding a joint, hiding out. It started feeling pathetic. It became very clear to me that I was so intent on trying to find a movie about an interesting life, but I wasn’t living an interesting life myself. I think that my marriage [to actress Jennifer Aniston] had something to do with it. Trying to pretend the marriage was something that it wasn’t.
At the time, Pitt felt compelled to publicly apologize to Aniston for implying she was boring, and in his new interview, he makes it clear that he was just boring around the... people... he knew... at that point in his life. After all, marriage can't possibly have been that bad! In 2004, months before he split with Aniston and while they were still married, Pitt told Vanity Fair: "I'm happier than I've ever been."
But one can always get happier. In the new Esquire interview, Pitt revised the line. "I have a handful of close friends and I have my family and I haven’t known life to be any happier. I’m making things. I just haven’t known life to be any happier."
Pitt's new movie, "World War Z," comes out June 21.This article is over 3 years old
Dutch airline says decision was made ‘out of precaution’ after UK restricted Sharm el-Sheikh passengers to carry-on baggage
KLM implements hand luggage only policy on flight out of Cairo
The Dutch airline KLM has told passengers departing Cairo they can only take hand luggage.
Security officials in the Egyptian capital, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Associated Press that flight KL554 left for Amsterdam on Friday morning with only 115 passengers out of the 247 who were booked.
Airlines to return British holidaymakers from Egypt without luggage Read more
They said the remaining passengers refused to leave without taking check-in bags. A statement on KLM’s website said the measure was “based on national and international information and out of precaution”.
KLM spokeswoman Gedi Schrijver would not elaborate on the Dutch carrier’s decision. “The airport in Cairo is good, because we can fly there without restrictions, but loading baggage in the hold via Cairo airport we have decided not to do that based on the information,” she said.
It follows a similar announcement from Britain, whose tourists can take only carry-on luggage when leaving Sharm el-Sheikh.
The organised return from the Egyptian resort follows reports that a bomb may have been smuggled into the cargo hold of the Russian Metrojet plane that disintegrated above the Sinai desert last Saturday.
KLM has no direct flights to the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, from where the Russian plane took off last Saturday.Lord Browne's resignation was a "tragedy" BP said.
Lord Browne said he had stepped down to save BP from embarrassment after a newspaper won a court battle to print details of his private life.
He also apologised that statements he had made in legal documents about a four-year relationship with Jeff Chevalier had been "untruthful".
Lord Browne had planned to step down from the company in July.
He will be replaced by his nominated successor Tony Hayward.
I deny categorically any allegations of improper conduct relating to BP
Lord Browne
Profile: Lord Browne
As a result of the decision, Lord Browne will lose at least £3.5m of his retirement package - and possibly a further £12m, BP said in a statement.
BP said it had accepted Lord Browne's resignation with "deepest regret".
'Private life'
"In my 41 years with BP I have kept my private life separate from my business life. I have always regarded my sexuality as a personal matter, to be kept private," Lord Browne said in a statement.
"It is a matter of deep disappointment that a newspaper group has now decided that allegations about my personal life should be made public."
He confirmed that he did have a relationship with Mr Chevalier who had now decided to tell his story to Associated Newspapers - owners of the Mail on Sunday.
However, he added: "These allegations are full of misleading and erroneous claims. In particular, I deny categorically any allegations of improper conduct relating to BP."
Lord Browne has been hoist on the petard of how he tried to block Mr Chevalier's interview
Robert Peston
BBC Business Editor
Read Robert Peston's blog
Lord Browne went to the House of Lords to try to win permission to appeal against earlier rulings which followed private hearings in the High Court and the Court of Appeal that would allow some details to be published.
The outgoing boss said that he had initially lied to the court about the circumstances in which he had met Mr Chevalier, because of "embarrassment and shock" at the revelations.
High Court judge, Lord Justice Eady said that he was not allowed to make allowances for the "white lie" told by Lord Browne.
Under fire
BBC Business Editor Robert Peston called the resignation a "sad end to what was, until recently, a distinguished career".
He added that there probably were bigger blows to Lord Browne's reputation, such as an explosion at the Texas refinery that killed BP workers and led to stinging criticism of the firm.
Lord Browne had been at the helm of the company for more than a decade, however in recent months he had come under fire over the company's safety culture and his huge retirement package.
It is a tragedy that he should be compelled by his sense of honour to resign in these painful circumstances
Peter Sutherland
BP Chairman
He had been due to leave BP with a £5.3m pay-off in July and a £21.7m pension, as well as millions of pounds in shares due under the incentive plan - a move many investors opposed.
Because of his decision to leave the firm early he will forfeit a significant chunk of those earnings.
BP chairman Peter Sutherland said that a review into allegations that company assets and resources had been abused were "unfounded or insubstantive".
"It is a tragedy that he should be compelled by his sense of honour to resign in these painful circumstances," he added.
The Mail on Sunday said that it was Lord Browne who had "made his private life a public issue" by lying in court.
"We would like to reiterate that the story we originally sought to publish was a business story involving issues of great importance to shareholders and employers of BP," the paper said.
Shares in BP barely moved on news of Lord Browne's resignation.
Analysts said that this was largely because the outgoing boss was already on his way out and that his successor was ready to step straight into the top job.Gage Skidmore / Flickr
Darrell Issa’s control of the House Oversight Committee began with a bold claim. He declared Barack Obama “one of the most corrupt presidents in modern times,” and pledged to uncover the assumed misconduct and corruption of the administration.
Two years later, and we’re still waiting for evidence.
The Obama administration hasn’t been perfect, and it’s disappointed liberals on a wide variety of issues, ranging from national security to the environment. But in its four years, and to its credit, the Obama White House has been remarkably scandal-free. There have been controversies—the tax problems that plagued the administration in its first year, for example—but absolutely nothing on the scale of Whitewater or Valerie Plame.
But rather than reevaluate their belief in the administration’s corruption, conservatives have opted—instead—to obsess over anything that could prove wrongdoing on the part of Obama or his officials. It’s not at all hard to find right-wing writers, pundits, and activists who insist on Obama’s guilt. Aside from the usual suspects—Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, the collected personalities of Fox News—there’s Tom Fitton of JudicialWatch, who presents the Obama administration as a hyper-secretive den of criminality, and John Hinderaker who has a whole section of his widely-read blog devoted to administration “scandals.”
This basic belief in Obama’s corruption is key to understanding the GOP’s obsession with the attacks in Benghazi and its earlier preoccupation with “Fast and Furious,” despite the absence of evidence for wrongdoing.
Right-wing media has stoked huge demand for scandal among conservative consumers, but there isn’t a supply. And so, Republicans have had to create them, latching onto mistakes and ambiguities, and magnifying them into epic examples of administration misconduct. With Fast and Furious, a poorly-executed anti-gun trafficking operation became a massive conspiracy to confiscate American firearms, and with Benghazi, it’s a broad cover-up of gross mismanagement. And depending on the political circumstances of the next four years, I wouldn’t be surprised if some Republicans tried to spin these “scandals” into grounds for impeachment. Already, Mike Huckabee is predicting impeachment over Benghazi and I expect to see more of the same other prominent Republicans.
There is one question raised by all of this: Aren’t there responsible Republicans who see this behavior as damaging to the party’s brand? Absolutely, they just have little influence over actual GOP politicians and the voters they represent. For the Republicans who indulge this, there’s not much to lose.
Politicians like Texas Senator Ted Cruz can hold hearings, rail against the administration and earn the adulation of conservative activists without having to worry about actual substance. Likewise, for Republicans like South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham—who has an uneasy relationship with the GOP base—these demand-side scandals allow him to satisfy critics without sacrificing anything. A few hours yelling about Benghazi is enough to earn him goodwill with hard right activists in his state.
Which is why it’s unlikely that any of this will die down. There’s simply too much to gain for all segments of the Republican Party, from politicians and activists to pundits and other media figures. Satisfying conservative demand for Democratic scandals is lucrative business, and it will continue for as long as Barack Obama—or any Democrat—is president.The Avenger Josh Brolin Turned To For Advice On Playing Thanos By Dirk Libbey Random Article Blend
Josh Brolin and Avengers movies, so the Hail, Caesar actor went to his friend to try and get an idea of what he was getting himself into. Brolin tells I just said, what do I have to look forward to? And he said, 'Man, the first time I did... Hulk, was really embarrassing because I'm out there and I'm like on cinder blocks and shit trying to act out this stuff for other people. And then I saw the movie, and... I'm so blown away that I couldn't actually wait to get back there and to do all that stuff again that I found embarrassing in the beginning.' He says, 'You're going to have a blast'
So, the end result is fun, but the work, maybe a little less so. One can imagine that the motion capture aspect has to be a little weird, especially on a big team-up movie like
Josh Brolin isn’t coming into
Josh Brolin admits to being nervous but seems to have full faith in the Russo Brothers and the team at Marvel Studios to make it all work when the time finally comes for him to show up and really be Thanos. He’s also excited to finally get the chance. We’re excited as well. With every passing entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, we get closer and closer to Marvel’s endgame. An all-hands on deck, knock down, drag out battle between earth’s mightiest heroes and Thanos the mad titan. While Josh Brolin has been making the occasional cameo, usually during the credits of other films, he’ll be taking center stage before we know it. It’s going to be a big deal when that time for Thanos to shine finally comes. The man behind the purple-skinned alien is looking forward to doing more, and in preparation for the motion capture heavy work, he went to another member of the MCU with experience to get a better idea of what he was in for: the Incredible Hulk, Mark Ruffalo.Josh Brolin and Mark Ruffalo have been friends for some time, and Ruffalo now has extensive experience, playing the Hulk in a pair ofmovies, so theactor went to his friend to try and get an idea of what he was getting himself into. Brolin tells Comic Book Resources that Ruffalo’s advice was to enjoy himself, it’s going to be fun, mostly.So, the end result is fun, but the work, maybe a little less so. One can imagine that the motion capture aspect has to be a little weird, especially on a big team-up movie like The Avengers. Everybody else around you is wearing a superhero costume, while you’re covered in technical gear designed to record your movements so they can make you look like the Incredible Hulk somewhere down the line. When that time comes, however, it’s apparently all worth it, according to Mark Ruffalo, and he expects that Josh Brolin will feel the same way.Josh Brolin isn’t coming into Avengers: Infinity War completely blind. He has had his few cameos, along with a larger supporting role in Guardians of the Galaxy, but even that role had him stationary, in a throne the entire time. We have yet to see Thanos really move, much less get in a fight, which we certainly expect to be seeing. There's a lot that will be new for Brolin coming up.Josh Brolin admits to being nervous but seems to have full faith in the Russo Brothers and the team at Marvel Studios to make it all work when the time finally comes for him to show up and really be Thanos. He’s also excited to finally get the chance. We’re excited as well. WATCH: The Avengers: Infinity War Gag Reel - Blu-ray Bonus Feature Blended From Around The Web Facebook
Back to top1
Arachinon
Arachinon is a race of demons who gained a love in both for the mortal lands and the mortal beings that walked them. These few creatures decide to flush out their demonic blood by absorbing the natural energy of the lands. As a result of infusing energy from the world with their demonic energy cause these demons to change in abnormal ways that surprised themselves and have baffled scholars.
As a result of drawing energy directly from elemental energy cause these creatures to be form by five elements: Fire, Earth, Water, Wind, and Metal. Some have the appear of a stone or metal staute, some have fire for hair or molten rock for skin, some have talons or a feather appeal, and others have waves for hair or appear blend with large bodies of water.
Arachinon Trait's
Your Arachinon character has the following traits.
Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity score increases by 2.
Age. Arachinons reach adulthood at the age of 65 years they live up to 400 years; however, metal Arachinons max age are unknown most died not by old age but instead on the battlefield the oldest metal Arachinon that was record was about 3000 years old.
Alignment. Most arachinon are chaotic by nature, but there are some who choose a different path.
Darkvision. Your abyssal heritage, you have superior vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 30 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only see shades of red.
Sleep HA!. You do not need to sleep due to your demonic blood. To regain abilities, health, or spells you do not need to sleep but instead do not do any strenuous work for eight hours. However, if that eight hours are interrupt any abilities, health, or spells that you can gain with a ‘long rest’ is not gain until you done a total of eight hours of no strenuous work.
Ancient’s Magick. You have proficiency in the Arcane skill.
Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and Primordial.
Subraces. There are five types of Arachinon each of them reflecting the elemental power that their demonic heritage originated from: Fire, Earth, Water, Wind, and Metal. Choose one of these subraces.
Fire Arachinon
These arachinones tend to have wild personalities, be prideful warroirs and are always eager for a challenging fight as well as a good mug of ale. They are loyal to their friends, greatly respect their families and would lay down their lives for the greater good of their clan.
Ability Score Increase. Your Strength score increases by 1.
Size. Fire Arachinon are between 5’6” feet and 6’9” feet tall and weigh between 250 and 345 pounds. Your a medium creature.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Inferno Descent. Your vulnerable to cold damage, but resistance to fire damage.
Burning Aura. During once per short rest you can expand as many hit dice you have able to use so that you can release flames from your body causing all creatures within 15 feet of you to make a Dexterity save. On a failed save they take full damage and are knocked prone. On a successful save they only take half damage and are not knock prone.
DC Save = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Constitution modifier
Earth Arachinon
Don't let their rigid apperence fool they're not as harsh as they look. They are the kindest of the five races. Being one with nature their eyes have open to the beauty that is life. They will help others in a heartbeat without the thought of payment.
Ability Score Increase. Your Constitution score increases by 1.
Size. Earth Arachinon are between 5’6” feet and 6’9” feet tall and weigh between 250 and 345 pounds. Your a medium creature.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Terra Shell. Your vulnerable to acid damage, but immune to poison conditions.
Stone's Endurance. You can focus yourself to occasionally shrug off injury. When you take damage, you can use your reaction to roll a d12. Add your Constitution modifier to the number rolled, and reduce the damage by that total. After you use this trait, you can't use it again until you finish a short or long rest.A planned talk at the University of California-Berkeley by polarizing Breitbart News editor Milo Yiannopoulos was canceled Wednesday evening after protesters threw smoke bombs and flares at the student union building where he was scheduled to speak.
"Violent left-wing protesters stormed the building and forced me to be evacuated by police and by my security detail," Yiannopoulos told Fox News' Tucker Carlson in a phone interview from an undisclosed location.
There were no immediate reports of any serious injuries or arrests.
Yiannopoulos, 32, is a vocal supporter of President Donald Trump and a self-proclaimed internet troll whose comments have been criticized as racist, misogynist, anti-Muslim and white supremacist.
The decision to cancel was made two hours before the start of the event because a crowd of more than 1,500 people had gathered outside the venue, the university said in a statement.
"We condemn in the strongest possible terms the violence and unlawful behavior that was on display, and deeply regret that those tactics will now overshadow the efforts to engage in legitimate and lawful protest against the performer's presence and perspectives," the statement read, in part.
Hundreds of peaceful demonstrators carrying signs that read "Hate Speech Is Not Free Speech" had been protesting for hours before the event.
In the evening, a small group dressed in black and in hooded sweatshirts used metal barricades to break windows, threw smoke bombs and flares, used a diesel generator to start a large bonfire outside the building.
"This was a group of agitators who were masked up, throwing rocks, commercial grade fireworks and Molotov cocktails at officers," said UC Berkeley Police Chief Margo Bennet.
The demonstrators were met by tight security in the form of law enforcement armed in riot gear. A shelter in place order was in effect and the Cal campus was placed on lockdown.
"I think tonight is odious and a horrible spectacle and very humiliating for American higher education," Yiannopolous told Carlson, "but I would like to think that it will have a silver lining."
UC Berkeley was to have been Yiannopoulos' last stop on his tour aimed at defying what he calls an epidemic of political correctness on college campuses. The visit had been sponsored by the college's Republican club.
Pieter Sittler, a spokesman for the Berkeley College Republicans, said the club doesn't support everything Yiannopoulos says but "he gives a voice to repressed conservative thought on American college campuses." He uses "levity and humor" that should not be taken literally, Sittler said. The group said its "constitutional right to free speech was silenced by criminals and thugs."
"The event has been cancelled," Yiannopoulos posted on his Facebook page. "I'll let you know more when the facts become clear. One thing we do know for sure: the Left is absolutely terrified of free speech and will do literally anything to shut it down."
A Trump supporter giving an interview outside the cancelled event was pepper sprayed by someone in the crowd. A video of the incident circulated on Twitter Wednesday night.
Yiannopoulos also posted on Facebook saying, “Don't give up. They cannot win. They will not win.”
#miloatcal protestors are heading back to campus via Center street. If on campus, stay indoors and away from windows — UC Police, Berkeley (@UCPD_Cal) February 2, 2017
The UC Berkeley Police posted on Twitter to tell people to “stay indoors and away from windows” if on campus.
University officials had previously rejected calls to cancel the event, while stressing that it did not invite Yiannopoulos and does not endorse his ideas.
Yiannopoulos' talks have sparked protests, shouting matches and occasional violence at stops around the country. A man was shot and wounded at protests outside his Jan. 21 talk at the University of Washington.
Rowdy protests at UC Davis Jan. 13 prompted campus Republicans to cancel his appearance at the last minute. His final stop was supposed to be UCLA on Thursday but the invitation was rescinded.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.Speaking notes
Kevin Milligan
Talk with data librarians: ACCOLEDS
Vancouver BC
November 27, 2014
“The future of data in the social sciences”
Slides here
—-
Introduction
Two news stories this week perfectly capture the tension I want to emphasize in my time with you here this morning.
Economist Ross Finnie and his team at University of Ottawa released an amazing new study on the earnings paths of UofO graduates; tracked for multiple cohorts for over a decade after graduation. “Ross Finnie has put together the best new data source in Canadian PSE in a decade.” Said Alex Usher, education analyst.
Data breach from CRA. The personal tax information of thousands of Canadians—including some very famous ones—was emailed to CBC in violation of these taxpayers’ privacy.
We are now in an era in which large administrative datasets allow us unimaginable insights into some of the most important questions that social scientists want to know about our society. In turn, these insights are vitally important for the design of public policy; to effectively spend our tax dollars where they are most needed.
But, these datasets can be dangerous. Citizens fear that the private information they trusted will not be handled carefully or will be misused by government officials or researchers. They fear the ‘big brother database.’
Fears of data breaches like this one put all of our research with administrative data at risk. The media—and the public—does a very poor job of discriminating between cases where big administrative data are being used with appropriate care and cases where they are not. With every case like the CRA leak, it gets harder to maintain public support for the research use of administrative data.
I’m here today to argue that you, as data librarians, and we as social scientist data users, must stake out leadership roles in this debate. There are lots of people willing to stoke the fire of fear about data use. But we, as people who work with data every working day, we know better than anyone the great value to society that can be unlocked through data analysis. There is no one better placed to make this case to the public than us. We should; and we must.
Here’s the plan for my talk with you today. Three items on the agenda:
First, I’ll let you know a bit more about me, so that you can understand my approach to the questions of data.
Second, I’ll identify four big trends in the data world that I think are driving the transformation we’re seeing in the data world away from surveys and toward admin datasets.
Finally, I want to lay out a plan of action.
I’m aiming to get through all this smartly, so that we will have some time for discussion as well.
Where am I coming from?
I’m a data user. I did my graduate work in Toronto in economics, focusing on empirical questions of taxation and labour economics. I interacted a lot with UofT data librarian Laine Ruus, who I know was a strong and cherished leader in your community of data librarians. I worked with lots of PUMFs as I got going with my thesis, from the FAMEX to the SHS to the SCF to the Census.
But, my formative time at “Toronto” was actually spent in Ottawa. I spent two entire summers (and a great deal of time over the winters) working on big administrative datasets in Ottawa. One was housed at the Department of Finance; an internal version of the LAD based on personal T1 taxfiler data. The other project was at Statistics Canada working on something called the Longitudinal Worker File, as well as really raw T4-based earnings records going back to 1971.
From these projects, I got a fantastic education about the features of administrative data.
The great value of what can be learned. We had huge sample sizes, with the actual relevant data for the questions we were asking. No guessing, no imputation. We could answer questions decisively.
The great challenges of working with such large datasets. Waiting two days for a big SAS merge to run only to find I mis-specified something in my program or forgot to end a command line with the necessary semi-colon. Figuring out why there was missing data for one person in one year, but three observations for that person in another.
I also learned a lot about the work culture of the people who work at Statistics Canada, and how deeply they value the trust that Canadians place in them when they respond to surveys or give permission to merge admin files.
After my graduate work, I moved on to a job in what’s now the Vancouver School of Economics at UBC, working with a tremendous set of colleagues and graduate students who use data every day. It was my pleasure to work with UBC’s data librarian Mary Luebbe for a decade, and I’m enjoying now working with Darrel Bailie.
I was one of the first users at the RDC at UBC, and for 7 years, I have served as the director of the BCIRDC.
Ok….Let’s talk about the data.
Surveys are dying; admin datasets are rising
I’m going to identify four big trends that I think are shaping the changes underway in the data world. Then talk about the implications.
Response rates are sinking.
The trend in response rates for surveys since the 1990s is sharply down. In the chart, you can see the response rates from the main household expenditure surveys in Canada, the US, the UK, and Australia.
Social scientists who’ve looked at these trends have suggested different answers.
Some cite the ‘Bowling Alone’ phenomenon that arose in our awareness in the 1990s. Data suggest that people seem much less socially engaged then they were in previous generations.
Of late, people don’t answer their phones and the kids these days don’t even have |
ically, working as a lawmaker should have severely limited Reid’s earning potential. In the early 1980s, members of Congress received a salary of about $70,000 per year. Though pay has generally risen -- and Reid receives more than most lawmakers because of his leadership position -- he has never earned more than $200,000 per year in salary.
Yet, his estimated net worth peaked at around $10 million just a few years ago, and he has remained consistently wealthier than when he entered Congress. (Reid reported that his net worth in 2012 was somewhere between $2.8 million and $6.3 million. His 2013 financial disclosures will be released later this year.) As of 2012, real estate composed about one-third of his portfolio. The rest was made up of government bonds; stakes in energy, electronics, pharmaceutical, and chemical companies; and other investments. He also possesses significant mining claims potentially worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
How did Reid manage to grow his net worth so significantly while raising a large family, on a public official’s salary, and incurring the expenses associated with maintaining two residences on opposite sides of the country? Reid has lived frugally -- before buying a house in recent years, he kept just a trailer in his hometown of Searchlight -- and he has made undeniably savvy investments. More significantly, however, is his willingness to enter political and ethical gray areas to make money.
Reid has walked a fine line over the years, occasionally breaking rules or engaging in brazenly unseemly behavior during his pursuit of wealth. Further, he has also used his position to save money in ways that the general public can’t -- a practice that creates public relations issues and raises questions about the senator’s ethics. As for any illegal behavior or obvious wrongdoing, Jon Ralston told RCP, “There’s been some smoke but there’s never any fire on that.”
There may be quite a bit of smoke.
In 1998, Reid invested $400,000 in an undeveloped residential property located on the outskirts of Las Vegas. Reid’s partner in the deal was attorney Jay Brown, whom Ralston describes as a “master manipulator.” Reid transferred his share of the property to a company Brown controlled in 2001. By transferring the land to Brown’s firm, Reid avoided legal liability and some taxes. But Reid didn’t note the transfer -- or that he had any stake in the company -- in his financial disclosure forms, despite rules requiring such transfers to be reported. By 2004, Brown’s company sold the land, which had been rezoned for a shopping center, and Reid received $1.1 million. He reported the sale as if he had always had control of the property.
When the Associated Press asked Reid about the deal during a 2006 interview, he hung up on the reporter. A spokesman later said that “there were several legal steps associated with the investment during those years that did not alter Senator Reid's actual ownership interest in the land.” However, there was no physical proof that Reid had any stake in Brown’s company. (Reid’s office said that this is “simply not true” and pointed to testimony before the Clark County Commission about Reid’s involvement with the property. Jentleson also said that Nevada law did not require Reid to disclose the change of personal ownership.) The story may have caused Reid public embarrassment -- he amended his ethics reports to include the full history of the property -- but he walked away from the deal some $700,000 richer.
(Sen. Reid’s office asserted that the land deal did not qualify as “smoke” or “problematic,” saying that the story “didn't actually show any wrongdoing. Senator Reid is not the first person in America to have made a profitable land sale and I suspect he won't be the last but the last time I checked there's nothing wrong with selling land.")
That isn’t the only problematic land deal Reid was involved with at the time. In 2002, he put $10,000 into a pension fund controlled by another friend, Clair Haycock. The payment gave Reid a sizable parcel of land in Bullhead City, Ariz. According to the Los Angeles Times, Reid purchased the land for one-tenth of its estimated value -- and one-fortieth of what it had sold for a decade earlier. (Reid’s office said, “The Bullhead property is a money pit and has continued to lose value since Reid has owned it -- he's tried (and failed) to give it away for free!” The office pointed to articles showing that the property had declined in value.)
Two actions created suspicion afterward. First, Reid sponsored an $18 million earmark for a bridge that would connect Laughlin, Nev., and Bullhead City. (Reid’s office responds that readers “deserve the context of knowing it was actually a bipartisan, bicameral coalition supporting the New Laughlin Bridge.”) This bridge would likely increase property values in the area. (Reid’s office pointed to past articles showing “plenty of experts think the opposite and have said so on record.”)
Reid also introduced legislation that would benefit Haycock’s lubricant company. (Reid’s office: “It wasn't just Reid, it was a bipartisan coalition,” pointing to two articles describing the legislation and those who supported it. Further, he pointed out that the Haycock family has denied any relationship between the sale and the legislation.) Reid aides denied that his support for the earmark or lubricant dealer bill was related to the land purchase. As of 2012, Reid listed the property as worth between $250,000 and $500,000 on his financial disclosure form.
While some of Reid’s most lucrative deals involved land, he also benefited from investments in stocks. Near the end of the 2005, he invested between $50,000 and $100,000 in the Dow Jones U.S. Energy Sector Fund, which held shares in several major oil companies. According to National Review, the fund closed at $29.15 on the day Reid purchased. Nearly three years later, in August 2008, Reid sold some of his shares, which closed that day at $41.82. Two months later, Reid-supported legislation that would cost oil companies billions in taxes and regulatory fees passed. The Energy Sector Fund’s shares plummeted to $24.41 each.
(Reid’s office responded: “Senator Reid's stocks are held in a blind trust over which he has no control,” adding, that “ethics experts have long recommend broad-based funds over individual stock ownership.”)
While six-figure investments and million-dollar land deals most greatly impact Reid’s wealth, he also manages to save money through some of the perks that come with being the most powerful politician in Nevada (and the U.S. Senate, for that matter).
In 2004 and 2005, for example, he received ringside seats to three boxing matches from the Nevada Athletic Commission. Arizona Sen. John McCain attended one of the fights with Reid and paid $1,400 to reimburse the commission. Reid did not. However, after receiving criticism for accepting the tickets while considering legislation involving the commission, a Reid spokesman said that the senator would no longer be accepting “these kinds of credentials in the future.”
For years, Reid also took part in the bipartisan tradition of riding on corporate jets at a discounted rate. Between 2001 and 2005, he took 35 trips on corporate planes. Ethics rules required him to reimburse the firms -- such as MGM Grand and U.S. Tobacco -- the cost of a first-class plane ticket, which is significantly less than a private jet rental rate. Two years after the Jack Abramoff scandal, the Senate enacted new rules requiring senators to pay prohibitively expensive charter rates to ride on a corporate jet. (The senator’s office pointed out that the new ethics legislation was introduced by Reid: “It was the first bill he introduced as majority leader.”)
While in Washington, Reid stays in a one-bedroom condo he owns at the Ritz-Carlton. Each year, residents contribute money to a holiday bonus fund for Ritz staff. Between 2002 and 2005, Reid spent campaign cash -- not his own money -- to contribute a cumulative total of $3,300 to the holiday fund. His office said that his lawyers had approved the transfers and that a clerical error had prevented them from being properly disclosed. (The explanation was suspect, as several ethics experts said the expenditures clearly violated campaign finance regulations.) Reid reimbursed the campaign and admitted no intentional wrongdoing. (Reid's office points out the FEC investigated the matter and dismissed the complaint.)
“There is kind of a pattern. He’ll do something pretty bold. There’ll be a lot of publicity about it, and he’ll step back. But then it happens again,” observed Sebelius. “It’s not as if somebody has made a mistake, learned from it … and it never happens again. This keeps happening.”
Friday: The second and final part of RealClearPolitics’ look at Sen. Harry Reid examines how he has used his influence to benefit family, friends, and the state of Nevada.Artists use a particular phrase frequently: I have no inspiration to do it.
As an aspiring writer, I use this sentence way too often. The fact is I don’t need to.
Seeking inspiration is just another way of pushing off something you once whole-heartedly enjoyed. You still do enjoy it but lesser and you consider it work rather than a passion.
It’s a process.
One day, you get up and decide that you are going to write (partial towards this, sorry) everyday. That you are going to spend some time on it each day so that you will improve and also because it will calm you down. You follow the routine for the first week because you are actually excited as to how this will pan out and you are enjoying it so bloody much! But, the next week some work comes up and you skip a day or two and convince yourself that it was unavoidable and hence, it’s okay.
Subsequent week, it becomes lesser, maybe 4 days now. You are still okay because at least you are writing for 4 days. The pattern continues for a couple of weeks and then it reduces again.
Now, you are up to twice a week or probably once. You make excuses and promise yourself that you will, that you absolutely will do it from tomorrow but as they say, tomorrow never comes.
You look at the pieces you have prepared and feel proud that you, YOU have made them. Again, you decide that tomorrow is the day. You are determined. That determination lasts for a day and you are back in your covers before you know it.
Once a week becomes once in ten days, two weeks, so on and so forth.
Then one fine day, your friend asks you that why aren’t you writing and to that you repeat the infamous dialogue every artist uses:
“I don’t have inspiration to do it.”
Let me make this clear, inspiration will not come to you. It is not fucking external. You have to create your so-called “inspiration.”
It will not come knocking at your door and tell you to write/sing/paint/dance/make music/etcetera about it. You and only you will have to look for it and usually you will find it within yourself.
You need to remember how it was earlier. How you used to look at a particular object or mould a situation into your piece and somehow take its elements and produce something beautiful.
Honestly, I am sitting in front of a wall which has a tree printed on it and if I want, I could write something wonderful and metaphorical about it. Thing is I won’t because of the goddamn “no inspiration” part.
It really is within you. You cannot wait for inspiration to go forth. Who knows when that’ll happen. Might not happen ever. You cannot sit idle for the rest of your life in anticipation and the truth is it won’t happen unless you want it to.
You have to kick that “I’m waiting for something to happen so that I can collaborate it in in my piece” and start working.
At the end of the day, you will feel productive and for a little while, content. Realise this right now because you will regret it later on and blame it on time when it’s on you and no one else.
Create the inspiration. See the first thing in front of you, or the first thing that comes into your mind and do something about it instead of pushing it off to tomorrow or leaving it as a thought at 3:00am.
It might not be your best but it will open your mind to new ideas. Taking the first step is all you have to do.
My scenario is somewhat similar. Today, I am writing after 12 days, probably the longest I have gone without writing in few months and I felt horrible about it. I sat down today and decided that I will not get up till I finish a piece, come what may.
I am doing that and it feels good. You will too.
The first step is all that you have to take. Rest will follow.
First step being creating inspiration within yourself.
AdvertisementsBy Patrick Temple-West
WASHINGTON, Feb 10 (Reuters) - The Obama administration on Monday again delayed a contentious healthcare law requirement that requires all but the smallest employers to provide coverage to full-time workers, this time by giving medium-sized businesses another year to comply.
The so-called employer mandate, which has been opposed by businesses, was supposed to take effect in January. The administration granted a one-year delay in July.
The latest change in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, triggered another wave of Republican calls to postpone a mandate for individuals that requires most Americans to enroll in coverage by March 31 or pay a penalty in their 2014 income taxes.
“Much like the individual mandate, the business mandate is bad for middle-class families and it will harm economic growth. But the answer to this problem is not random unilateral changes, stoking uncertainty,” House Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor said in a statement.
“It’s time to stop creating more chaos and delay Obamacare for all Americans.”
Analysts said the change could help vulnerable Democrats in November’s midterm elections battle for control of Congress by delaying a potential crescendo of complaints from small-business leaders, a theme Republicans also picked up on.
“It is clear Democrats don’t think they can survive politically if Obamacare is allowed to fully go into effect,” said Dave Camp, Republican chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee.
In a final version of the regulation released by the Treasury Department, the administration said firms with 50 to 99 full-time employees that are not already offering coverage would not face a tax penalty for failing to offer health insurance until 2016.
Firms with fewer than 50 full-time workers are not required to provide coverage under Obamacare but could qualify for federal subsidies through new health insurance marketplaces.
The latest change also allows larger companies to begin offering health coverage to only 70 percent of their full-time workforce next year and 95 percent in 2016. Officials described it as a gesture to help employers cope with a new definition of full-time employment that begins with an average of 30 hours a week.
It also allows employers to determine whether an employee is full-time by averaging work hours over a period of up to 12 months.
President Barack Obama’s signature domestic policy aims to extend health coverage to millions of uninsured Americans by allowing individuals and smaller employers to purchase subsidized private health insurance in new marketplaces set up in all 50 states.
The rules finalize draft proposals issued in December 2012 and took into consideration comments from businesses and congressional members, the Treasury Department said.
The regulations clarify that government volunteers, such as firefighters and emergency responders, are not considered full-time employees — an uncertainty that worried state and local governments.
Teachers and other education employees will not be treated as part-time for the year even though their schools are closed or their work hours are limited in the summer, the rules said.
Additional safe harbors in the rules aim to make it easier for businesses to determine whether the coverage they offer is affordable to employees.Let’s take a quick 48-year stroll through the Great Barrier Reef’s wonderful history of endangerment, destruction and doom.
The great Great Barrier Reef panic began during a long-forgotten Queensland election campaign and has barely let up since. Our journey towards ever-predicted doom begins in 1969:
The Great Barrier Reef was mentioned frequently throughout last month's Queensland election campaign. The ALP Opposition worked strenuously to convince voters that the reef was in danger.
1970
Ron and I swam over several miles of reef. Everywhere was the same. The coral was dead and, although it had not been dead for long, it looked deserted. Already the marine inhabitants were leaving the ruins of their once-beautiful home.
1971
The great Clive James, in his recent brilliant Australian piece:
A more illustrative starting point for the theme of the permanently imminent climatic apocalypse might be taken as August 3, 1971, when The Sydney Morning Herald announced that the Great Barrier Reef would be dead in six months. After six months the reef had not died, but it has been going to die almost as soon as that ever since, making it a strangely durable emblem for all those who have wedded themselves to the notion of climate catastrophe.
Read on.
1972
Three or four major threats to the Reef have occurred in the past decade.
1974
The Government would create a marine park on the Great Barrier Reef to protect it from oil drilling, the Prime Minister, Mr Whitlam, said in a statement issued in Canberra yesterday.
1978
Unfortunately, threats to the reef, like oil drilling and foreign fishing, exist right now.
1979
The Barrier Reef is receiving inadequate protection from a variety of undesirable activities. Foreign fishermen and professional aquarium fish collectors are two management problems.
1979
Oil poses a twofold threat to the Great Barrier Reef.
1980
Human activities might inadvertently be creating a scenario for the gradual destruction of the Great Barrier Reef, a Senate committee was warned yesterday.
1981
It is our responsibility, to ourselves and to the rest of the world, to see that it exists today and tomorrow, as it has for eons. I do not think any of us want the day to come when we have to say to our children, ‘Once upon a time there was a Great Barrier Reef.'
media_camera The Great Barrier Reef has been dying for Cate Blanchett’s entire life
1984
Marine life in the Great Barrier Reef is being threatened by chemicals carried south by wind from the northern hemisphere, according to two Latrobe University researchers.
1988
The Great Barrier Reef is in danger of being destroyed by crown of thorns starfish.
1989
The Great Barrier Reef faces a new threat from an increase in nutrients in the ocean.
1993
The Great Barrier Reef was vulnerable to an oil disaster like the one off Scotland's Shetland Islands, the Australian Democrats warned yesterday.
1994
The Great Barrier Reef, the world's largest coral reef ecosystem, is also under threat.
1995
A group of big-name marine scientists will launch a public campaign next week to raise money for research into what they say are urgent threats to Australia's Great Barrier Reef.
2003
2016
The Great Barrier Reef ‘dies at 25 million years old after succumbing to coral bleaching’, scientists declare
2017
The Great Barrier Reef is dying.
2017
Great Barrier Reef is damaged beyond repair and can no longer be saved, say scientists
Which brings us bang up to date. I’m no Nostradamus, but I confidently predict future Great Barrier Reef death stories until everyone presently reading this is dead themselves.The most honest answer, if asked which comic creators to watch out for in any given year ahead of time, is always “probably the ones you haven’t even heard of yet.” If there’s one unique thing about comics, it’s the speed at which previously unheard of talents can break through and find mass audiences, after all.
Read more 5 Comics to Look Out for in 2015
Barring that, there are a number of amazing creators in the industry these days — including the five that follow, all of whom are primed to go from having a good 2014 to dominating 2015. Without a crystal ball, it’s impossible to predict what lies ahead over the next twelve months, but if you’re just looking for some good comics? Here are the people you should be looking out for.
Al Ewing
The British writer of Marvel’s Loki: Agent of Asgard and Captain America and the Mighty Avengers — and co-writer of Titan’s Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor — has been building a fanbase throughout 2014 with work that effortlessly mixes humor, pop culture commentary and straight-forward adventure fiction. 2015 likely brings him his biggest audience yet, with the three-part time-travel story Avengers: Ultron Forever, released just ahead of the Avengers: Age of Ultron movie. With the entire history of Marvel’s biggest franchise to play with, this might be the year Ewing becomes one of the biggest names in superhero comics.
Becky Cloonan
You could be forgiven for thinking that Cloonan is all over comics right now. She’s one of the writers on the critical favorite Gotham Academy young adult series from DC, the cover artist for Vertigo crime series The Kitchen, and next year will see the debut of Southern Cross, her creator-owned Image Comics series with artist Andy Belanger, described as a science fiction thriller. As a creator, she’s been around for some time with earlier projects including Demo, American Virgin and the sadly short-lived East Coast Rising, creating a nice back catalog of material for those who’re about to be bowled over by her work in 2015 (Hint: start with the digital short Wolves, from 2011).
Noelle Stevenson
It’s doubtlessly Lumberjanes that most people will recognize Stevenson’s name from, and with good reason; her work on the all-ages series about a girl scout troop and the things that go bump in the night around them has been charming from the very start. By this time next year, it’s Nimona — Stevenson’s award-winning sci-fi webcomic that’s been compared to The Venture Bros. and the work of Kate Beaton, which completed its run this year — that’ll be getting everyone talking; Harper Collins is set to publish a print version in 2015, hopefully vaunting Stevenson into the mainstream and giving as many people as possible the chance to discover what feels like nothing as much as the comedy version of Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples’ Saga. (Yes, it’s that good.)
G. Willow Wilson
Another “overnight sensation” that’s been years in the making, it took the (well deserved) success of Ms. Marvel to bring Wilson to attention, landing her both an exclusive deal with Marvel Entertainment and a gig writing the X-Men title. Like Cloonan, Wilson has an impressive back catalog both in comics — Air and Mystic are both worth seeking out — and prose (Alif the Unseen remains one of the best YA books in recent memory), but what’s most exciting about Wilson’s ascension is seeing where she’ll go next. Her work is smart, funny and, above all, kind, giving her a special voice that’s not heard enough in mainstream comics. It’ll be fascinating to watch if her brand of humanist genre spreads elsewhere in the Marvel Universe.
Tom King
Surprisingly, it took King — a former CIA counter-terrorism officer — a couple of years to move from the critically-acclaimed superhero novel A Once Crowded Sky to superhero comics, but Grayson, the series he co-writes with Tim Seeley for DC, was worth the wait. As playful with the medium’s formal demands as it is with its characters and situations, Grayson shows that King has the writerly chops to back up his clear affection for the material he’s dealing with. If the executives at DC are smart, 2015 will see King move onto other series at the publisher — including, perhaps, some with more super-powered potential than the spy setting of Grayson. Let’s see what this man can do with a man of steel or two. (If not, he’ll end up getting poached by Marvel, as happened with Tom Taylor, another of DC’s secret weapons for a couple of years on the Injustice and Earth 2 series before relaunching Marvel’s Iron Man this fall.)Clashes erupted in Tel Aviv's Rabin Square on Sunday as thousands of people gathered to protest police brutality toward Israeli Jews of Ethiopian descent.
Dozens of people were injured, many of them police officers. Police made 43 arrests. Later, police stated that 56 police officers were lightly wounded in the protest, and one was moderately wounded.
Police fired stun grenades and tear gas while some protesters tried to break into the Tel Aviv City Hall, located at the square. Other protesters hurled rocks, planks and plastic and glass bottles at police.
The protest began near the Kaplan Interchange, where protesters blocked major arteries and junctions, including the Ayalon South freeway and Hashalom Interchange, as well as surrounding streets. Protesters also marched along Derech Begin towards the train station but were blocked by police.
Later on, the protest moved to Rabin Square as police gradually opened the blocked roads.
(Tomer Appelbaum)
(Tomer Appelbaum)
Keep updated: Sign up to our newsletter Email * Please enter a valid email address Sign up Please wait… Thank you for signing up. We've got more newsletters we think you'll find interesting. Click here Oops. Something went wrong. Please try again later. Try again Thank you, The email address you have provided is already registered. Close
(Tomer Appelbaum)
(Tomer Appelbaum)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for calm on Sunday evening, saying that all complaints must be investigated "but there is no place for such violence and lawlessness."
Police Commissioner Yohanan Danino said on Sunday evening that the police will bring to justice anyone who hurt civilians and policemen, adding that the rally "was not a legitimate protest in a democratic state" and blaming a handful of agitators for harming the Israeli Ethiopians' struggle. He added that "most of the claims made by Ethiopian Israelis are not police-related at all. There is a deeper problem here of their assimilation. I do take responsibility and I think we have a problem with some of the cases mentioned, and we will handle it."
Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitz said that "some of the complaints against the police were justified. There were events that need to be examined, and the police also has to check itself. All government and municipal offices need to provide a comprehensive solution."
On Monday, Netanyahu will host a meeting attended by Ethiopian Israeli community leaders as well as Demas Fekadeh, the soldier who was filmed being beaten by police officers. The meeting will also include representatives from the Public Security Ministry, the Welfare Ministry, the Absorption Ministry, the Interior Ministry, municipal offices and police command.
'We're not Baltimore'
Speaking ahead of the demonstration, organizers rejected comparisons with recent events in Baltimore but said the protests will continue until their messages sink in and the government takes action to foster equality. “The fact that we’re black doesn’t mean that we’re Baltimore,” one of the organizers, Inbal Bogale, told Haaretz. “In Jerusalem we didn’t ‘do a Baltimore’ as people are saying, that’s not what it was about,” she said, referring to protests in the capital on Thursday night that turned violent. “The police documented every moment of the demonstration and I want to see the documentation, whether we really started the violence as the police claim. We marched in the streets and they fired stun grenades at us.”
Bogale said Sunday’s protest was expected to be loud but nonviolent. “We cannot use violence when we’re demonstrating against it.” Another organizer, who did not want his name used, said that over the weekend a disagreement arose among the organizers after several human-rights organizations expressed an interest in joining the protest. He said there was a fear of diluting the message and losing focus on the main objectives of the protest.
Around 20 young members of Israel’s Ethiopian community initiated the protests, but refused to take the credit and saying that they don’t want to be labeled as leaders. “There are no politicians here and no distinguished members of the community, as they like to say,” said Misganaw Fanta, one of the organizers. “We’re part of a community that has experienced and is experiencing these things, that’s hurting and wants to cry out, to go out to the streets together and to protest against the way we are treated."
Police prepare for a rally by Ethiopian Israelis in central Tel Aviv, May 3, 2015
“There’s no single leader behind the demonstration, it’s an entire community that is coming out to demonstrate,” added Bogale. She and Fanta say the trigger for the protest was the video that was made public last week, showing police officers beating an Ethiopian-Israeli man, a young man serving in the Israel Defense Forces and in uniform, but it was preceded by years of frustration. “It’s a pressure cooker that exploded. There are hundreds of young Ethiopians the police open case files against for no reason, and that ruins their lives. They’re good guys who want to get ahead, to study, to contribute to the state, but they can’t be combat soldiers, they don’t study, they’re called criminals,” explained Fanta.
Bogale said the promise by national police commissioner Yohanan Danino to reexamine such case files exposes the community’s lack of trust in the police. “From our perspective, the video with the soldier was the last straw” and Danino’s statement after Thursday’s demonstration in Jerusalem “shows that he has no confidence in his officers,” Bogale said, adding that the measure was insufficient.
Fanta said that removing the police officer who beat up the soldier in the video would not satisfy the community. “You have to recognize that they committed a crime and should be punished, not only dismissed.”
Ethiopian Israelis protesting in Tel Aviv, May 3, 2015.
Some of the organizers have known each other for a long time and tried to help the family of a young Ethiopian Israeli man, Yosef Salamseh, in their quest for answers surrounding his death. Officers used a stun gun on Salamseh while arresting him on suspicion of breaking and entering. He committed suicide a few months later. “We saw what happened to the Salamseh family, they went to half the country and nobody gave them answers. We insist that the family receive answers, we’re going out to battle so that cases like Yosef’s are not repeated.”
“In general I have nothing against policemen, but there’s the handful that has to be taken care of, and that’s our goal,” explained Fanta, and Bogale added that the goal is “to reach a situation where they won’t discriminate based on skin color, where racism doesn’t become routine. The policemen have to undergo training so that they won’t judge a person by his color.”
A large majority of those attending the demonstration last week in Jerusalem were young people, many of whom were born in Israel but continue to suffer from discrimination. “As opposed to Baltimore,” said Fanta, “we’re focusing on the goal of bringing equality and justice, and preventing them from embittering the youth. The youth are our future and when the police open files for no reason, in effect the government pushes them into crime, where they’ll find their place.”
A wider struggle
In addition to the struggle against police violence, the organizers want to air a variety of issues that contribute to the community’s absorption and integration difficulties, such as the poverty-stricken neighborhoods, for example.
Protesters block the Ayalon Freeway, May 3, 2015.
“We don’t want favors, we want to be like everyone else.” A few hours before the demonstration, and after they had received the appropriate permits, they make sure to explain that the protests will not end until the goal is achieved. “We’re peace-loving. We’re part of this nation, Jews who want justice, to take to the streets and cry out for change. We have enough enemies outside the country and don’t need enemies from within, but the handful who are against us must be held responsible. We’re calling on everyone to behave with restraint and without violence, because that’s not the way. Violence will not necessarily achieve better results. We’re disappointed by the results of the demonstration on Wednesday, apparently it still hasn’t penetrated and therefore we’ll continue to demonstrate.”
Despite the call to avoid violence, Meni Yasu, another organizer, said he’s afraid of violence, especially because the police don’t exercise restraint either. “We’re trying to achieve important goals, and the demonstration could spin out of control. The young people, the new generation that is leading the protest, has a bellyful about all these years and wants to let off steam, the police are not known for restraint and things could get out of control.”
Therefore, said Yasu, the government should come out with a declaration as to what they will do in order to help, “and not silence us with another investigative committee, because we know how that will end.” He said that the local authorities must be the first to act. “We see in certain cities that there’s a wide-scale concentration of racism, and if the local councils address the problem in depth, in the areas of education and employment, it will be easier and simpler to address it on the national level.”GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson has knocked Donald Trump Donald John TrumpHouse committee believes it has evidence Trump requested putting ally in charge of Cohen probe: report Vietnamese airline takes steps to open flights to US on sidelines of Trump-Kim summit Manafort's attorneys say he should get less than 10 years in prison MORE off of the top spot in Iowa for the first time since July, according to a new poll.
The Quinnipiac University Poll has Carson at 28 percent support, with Trump following at 20 percent of likely Republican caucus-goers. Last month, a Quinnipiac poll showed Trump on top by a 6 percent margin.
ADVERTISEMENT
Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, has a significant edge over the real estate magnate among women —one-third backed Carson, compared to just 13 percent for Trump. He also has double the support from evangelical Christians than Trump does, substantially more support with Tea Party voters, and a sky-high favorability of 84 percent, the best in the GOP candidates.
“It’s Ben Carson’s turn in the spotlight,” Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll, said in a statement released with the poll.
“As they’ve been pondering for six months, many in the political world still are trying to understand Carson’s appeal and how someone who seems to be operating outside the traditional news media/political environment is doing so well among the most conservative GOP voters.”
Following Carson and Trump, Sen. Marco Rubio Marco Antonio RubioHillicon Valley: Senators urge Trump to bar Huawei products from electric grid | Ex-security officials condemn Trump emergency declaration | New malicious cyber tool found | Facebook faces questions on treatment of moderators Key senators say administration should ban Huawei tech in US electric grid Trump unleashing digital juggernaut ahead of 2020 MORE (Fla.) is in third with 13 percent, followed by Sen. Ted Cruz Rafael (Ted) Edward CruzTrump unleashing digital juggernaut ahead of 2020 Inviting Kim Jong Un to Washington Trump endorses Cornyn for reelection as O'Rourke mulls challenge MORE (Texas) with 10 percent. Sen. Rand Paul Randal (Rand) Howard PaulThe Hill's Morning Report — Emergency declaration to test GOP loyalty to Trump The Hill's 12:30 Report: Trump escalates fight with NY Times The 10 GOP senators who may break with Trump on emergency MORE (Ky.) finishes fifth with 6 percent, with former businesswoman Carly Fiorina and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush tied with 5 percent.
The rest of the field polled under 3 percent, including 2008 Iowa caucus winner and former Gov. Mike Huckabee (Ark.), and 2012 Iowa caucus winner and former Sen. Rick Santorum (Pa.).
Trump has led nationally — as well as in Iowa and New Hampshire — for more than three months, even after a late-August Monmouth University poll in Iowa showed Carson tied with Trump, a Fox News national poll taken in early October had Trump only 1 point ahead of Carson, and a late-September NBC/Wall Street Journal poll showed Trump ahead by 1 point nationally.
In Thursday's poll, Trump has the highest percentage of those who say they would definitely not support him, with 30 percent — up 5 percentage points from last month's poll — while Bush follows with 21 percent.
The likely caucus-goers view Carson as sympathetic, as 84 percent believe he shares their values and 89 percent believe he cares about their problems.
Trump bests the field as the candidate the respondents believe can best handle the economy, taxes and illegal immigration. Carson receives the highest mark for social issues, while Rubio and Trump are essentially tied on foreign policy. Bush leads on whose experience will lend itself best to the presidency.
Quinnipiac polled 574 people between Oct. 14 and Oct. 20 with a margin of error of 4.1 percent.
Read more from The Hill:
Trump nears 100 days on topHere’s your very first look at a new beer heading to bottles and kegs from Stone Brewing Co. This is Pataskala Red IPA and Stone descries it as a “massively dry-hopped deep crimson IPA.” This beer was first brewed in Sept. 2015 to support music and arts education in Pataskala, OH (hometown of Stone co-founder Greg Koch). Pataskala will use a German malt variety by BESTMALZ called Red X and it is dry-hopped with Mosaic, Cascade and Amarillo hops. This is a 12oz bottle (keg packaging below) and the beer hits 7%-AbV.
About Bil Cord Founder, owner, author, graphic designer, CEO, CFO, webmaster, president, mechanic and janitor for mybeerbuzz.com. Producer and Co-host of the WILK Friday BeerBuzz live weekly craft beer radio show. Small craft-brewer of the craft beer news sites and one-man-band with way too many instruments to play.IT’S ONE of the fundamental lessons of any introductory economics course: lower interest rates, when all else remains equal, leads to higher levels of investment. But today, after several years of near-zero interest rates and only modest increases in investment to show for it, some economists are claiming just the opposite.
On October 26th, an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal by Michael Spence and Kevin Warsh, both of Stanford University, argued that the Federal Reserve’s $3 trillion bond-buying programme, which was designed to push down long-term rates and boost corporate borrowing, has actually caused business investment to fall. The authors write that the Fed’s unconventional policies to expand the money supply, known as quantitative easing (QE), have made short-term financial assets like stocks and bonds more appealing as their capital value increases, thereby diverting capital from more productive longer-term investments in the “real economy”. The result has been low investment growth, weak productivity, and stagnant wages.
Get our daily newsletter Upgrade your inbox and |
everyone the truth about everything - we’d never get anything done. That being said:
2. There are the people that, by default, prefer you to know what they’re thinking, and there are the people who, by default, prefer you not to know. Nobody’s good and nobody’s bad but it’s safer to keep to your half of the world.
3. To complicate things, there are people that think “Good Will Hunting” is a good movie, and there are people that cringe while watching it. There are honest people and dishonest people on both sides. And if you are an honest person that hated Good Will Hunting, you need to minimize your contact with dishonest people that loved it, and I don’t even want to get into why this gets nearly impossible to accomplish. Let’s just say that there has never been an easier lie to tell than “I hated Good Will Hunting,” and there has never been a lie more incentivized than “I thought it was fine.”
4. There’s no such thing as love. There’s infatuation, there’s obsession, there’s addiction, there’s ritualistic, compulsive repetition, there’s horniness, but there is no such thing as love.
5. I hate being alone. I hate waking up alone. I hate waking up with strangers. I hate my empty rented house on my dangerous winding street full of rednecks that can’t wait for an earthquake to kill me because I had a party once. I hate not having feelings. I hate having too many. I hate not being able to express them, I hate the way I express them, I hate people’s reactions to my expression of them. I hate people trying to cheer me up, I hate people casting me adrift, I hate being alone.
6. I hated being in a relationship. Every day in a relationship is a lie.
7. I hate Good Will Hunting. It’s a terrible film. It’s a crime. If you like it, I think you’re stupid. Remember the “apples” scene? Do you remember it? Really think about that scene. Are you smiling? Then I hate you. But thank you for being honest. I would hate you more for lying. Thank you for letting me hate you.
8. I love you.
9. I love my show.No. 4
13 USD
No. 4 is the result of blending the finest available ingredients. The scent of this luxury shaving cream soap, is characterized by a blend of smoky vetiver, spicy black pepper, warm frankincense, and cool peppermint scents. This fragrant shaving soap produces an extremely rich lather that will soften the hairs and moisturize your skin for the closest of shaves. Our concentrated formula is gentle on your skin, lathers quickly, and will leave you feeling like a kept man.
This soft shaving cream soap is a combination of stearic acid, coconut oil, castor oil, glycerin, shea butter, bentonite clay, and silk making it extremely easy to load with any type of brush or water type. This soap will build a luxurious, dense, thick lather with little effort, and the proprietary blend of butters, oils, and two types of lye will give you a soft and smooth post shave feel.
How to use:
Step one: Wash your beard/hair with warm to hot water to soften the hair. Step two: Apply liberal amount of shaving cream soap to your shave brush or hand. Step three: After you develop a rich and creamy lather, apply the shaving cream soap to your beard/hair making sure to coat the entire area with the silky lather. Step four: Shave. Step five: Repeat steps one through four as necessary.Aristocracy Deceives Public about the Deep State
The «deep state» is the aristocracy and its agents. Wikispooks defines it as follows:
The deep state (loosely synonymous with the shadow government or permanent government) is in contrast to the public structures which appear to be directing individual nation states. The deep state is an intensely secretive, informal, fluid network of deep politicians who conspire to amplify their influence over national governments through a variety of deep state milieux. The term «deep state» derives from the Turkish »derin devlet», which emerged after the 1996 Susurluk incident so dramatically unmasked the Turkish deep state.
Their article is so honest that it continues from there, directly to:
Official Narrative
The official narrative of deep states used to be that they simply do not exist. This position was modified in the last few years to the claim that they don't exist here. In 2013 the New York Times defined the deep state as «a hard-to-perceive level of government or super-control that exists regardless of elections and that may thwart popular movements or radical change. Some have said that Egypt is being manipulated by its deep state». [1] Since the Times (like the rest of the commercially-controlled media) is more or less a under the control of the deep state, such a mention is very interesting.
However, one of the deep state’s many agents, Marc Ambinder, came out with a book in 2013, Deep State: Inside the Government Secrecy Industry, much praised by others of the deep state's agents, such as Martha Raddatz, Jeremy Scahill, and Peter Bergen; and it pretends that the ‘deep state’ is only within the official government, not above it and controlling it — not what has been called by some «the money power,» and by others «the aristocracy» (or the «oligarchy» as it was termed — though even that, only indirectly — by the only people who have scientifically established that it exists in America and controls this country: to acknowledge publicly that the U.S. is controlled by an «aristocracy» is prohibited in scholarly publications; it’s too ‘radical’ a truth to allow in print; it is samizdat).
On its third page, Ambinder’s piece of propaganda make clear what he means by ‘deep state’:
This book is about government secrets — how they are created, why they get leaked, and what the government is currently hiding. We will delve into the key elements of the American secrecy apparatus, based on research and unprecedented access to lawmakers, intelligence agency heads, White House officials, and program managers. …
That piece of trash failed even to discuss George W. Bush’s lies in which Bush stated during 2002 and 2003 that he possessed conclusive proof that Saddam Hussein was reconstituting his WMD (weapons of mass destruction) program — what America’s aristocratically controlled ‘news’ media attributed instead to ‘failures of intelligence’ by the Bush Administration — which had supposedly caused the Bush regime to invade Iraq in 2003. That was supposedly an enormous ‘failure of intelligence’, but Ambinder’s book ignored it entirely — and yet there are still suckers who buy that and the aristocracy’s other propaganda (and so who misunderstand even such a basic concept as «the deep state» or «the aristocracy»).
One of the biggest indicators that one is reading propaganda from the deep state is that the government’s lies are not being called »lies» (unless the deep state is losing control over the government, which rarely happens). Instead, they are called by such phrases as ‘failures of intelligence’. But what about when the people who control the government misrepresent what their ‘intelligence’ actually shows and doesn’t show? Lying is attributed, in the ‘news’ media, only to the aristocracy’s enemies. After all: the aristocracy’s enemies can be acknowledged to exist, even if the existence of an aristocracy isn’t being acknowledged.
Another mouthpiece of the deep state is (like virtually all magazines) The Nation magazine, which headlined on 17 February 2017, «What Is the Deep State? Even if we assume the concept is valid, surely it’s not useful to think of the competing interests it represents as monolithic.» Their propagandist, Greg Grandin, asked «What is the ‘deep state’?» and he ignored what wikispooks said, and he asserted, instead, «The problem with the phrase ‘deep state’ is that it is used to suggest that dishonorable individuals are subverting the virtuous state for their private ambitions.» Aside from propagandist Grandin’s having merely assumed there ‘the virtuous state’, which might not even exist at all, in this country, or perhaps in any other, he was trying to, as he said, get «beyond the binds of conspiracy theory,» as if any hierarchical social structure, corporate or otherwise, doesn’t necessarily and routinely function by means of conspiracies — some of which are nothing more than entirely acceptable competitive strategies, often entirely legal. He wants to get beyond accepting that reality? Why would anyone wish to read such absurd, anti-factual, writings as that? Why would anyone hire such deceptive writers as that? Perhaps the answer to the latter question (which raises the problem here to being one about the aristocracy, since this is about the ‘news’ media, which in every aristocratically controlled country are controlled by its aristocracy) is that only writers such as that will pump their propaganda, and will hide such realities as are here being discussed (and, via links, documented).
Nothing that’s alleged here is denying that there are divisions within the aristocracy (or «deep state»). Nothing is alleging that the aristocracy are «monolithic.» It’s instead asserting that, to the extent the aristocracy are united around a particular objective, that given objective will likely become instituted, both legally and otherwise, by the government — and that, otherwise, it simply won’t be instituted at all. This is what the only scientific analysis that has ever been done of whether or not the U.S. is controlled by an aristocracy found definitely to be the case in the U.S.
(And, of course, that’s also the reason why this momentous study was ignored by America’s ‘news’ media, except for the first news-report on it, mine at the obscure site Common Dreams, which had 414 reader-comments within just its first four months, and then the UPI’s report on it, which, like mine, was widely distributed to the major ‘news’ media and rejected by them all — UPI’s report was published only by UPI itself, and elicited only two reader-comments there. Then came the New Yorker’s pooh-poohing the study, by alleging «the politicians all know this, and we know it, too. The only debate is about how far this process has gone, and whether we should refer to it as oligarchy or as something else.» Their propagandist ignored the researchers’ having noted, in their paper, that though their findings were extremely inconsistent with America’s being a democracy, the problem was almost certainly being understated in their findings: «The failure of theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy is all the more striking because it goes against the likely effects of the limitations of our data,» and, especially, «our ‘affluent’ proxy is admittedly imperfect,» and so, «interest groups and economic elites actually wield more policy influence than our estimates indicate.»
In fact, their «elite» had consisted not of the top 0.1% as compared to the bottom 50%, but instead of the top 10% as compared to the bottom 50%, and all empirical evidence shows that the more narrowly one defines «the aristocracy,» the more lopsidedly dominant is the ‘elite’s relative impact upon public policies. Then, a month after the press-release on their study was issued, the co-authors were so disappointed with the paltry coverage of it that had occurred in America’s ‘news’ media, so that they submitted, to the Washington Post, a reply to their study’s academic critics, «Critics argued with our analysis of U.S. political inequality. Here are 5 ways they’re wrong.» It was promptly published online-only, as obscurely as possible, so that there are also — as of the present date — only two reader-comments to that public exposure. This is typical news-suppression in America: essentially total suppression of samizdat information — not merely suppression of the officially top-secret information, such as propagandists like Ambinder focus upon. It’s deeper than the state: it is the deep state, including far more than just the official government.)
Another matter that America’s press has covered-up is the extreme extent to which the only scientific analysis of whether America is a democracy or instead an aristocracy, had found it to be an aristocracy; so, here in closing will be directly quoted the least-obscurantist statement of this fact, in the study itself:
The picture changes markedly when all three independent variables are included in the multivariate Model 4 and are tested against each other. The estimated impact of average citizens’ preferences drops precipitously, to a non-significant, near-zero level. Clearly the median citizen or «median voter» at the heart of theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy does not do well when put up against economic elites and organized interest groups. The chief predictions of pure theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy can be decisively rejected. Not only do ordinary citizens not have uniquely substantial power over policy decisions; they have little or no independent influence on policy at all.
By contrast, economic elites are estimated to have a quite substantial, highly significant, independent impact on policy.
They weren’t allowed to say «aristocracy», nor even directly to say «oligarchy», but they were allowed to say this. So: now, you’ve seen it. But the secret is still a secret; what’s samizdat, stays samizdat (so long as the government isn’t overthrown and replaced — and maybe even after the existing regime does become replaced).About This Game
Features:
12 classic american cars
4 locations with plenty of race modes
advanced mechanic tuning options
lowrider contest in 3 categories: hop, dance and freestyle
dozens of car parts modifications
. Buy your ride and keep it in a good condition to compete with other pretenders. Earn respect to race with better drivers and advance in the underground community to ultimately become the next racing king of the neighborhood.Earn cash in night racers and spend the money to tune up your car in the garage to achieve the best performance. Change engine parts, switch gearboxes and other stuff to make your wheels spin as fast as possible. If you're a good tuner, you'll soon manage to pimp your ride - change tires and rims, lower the suspension and install hydraulics suspension system. Buy better cars and parts to advance your underground racing career.Different game modesGame features 2 main modes: racing and lowrider competitions. Meet other street racers and challenge them for duels on different racing locations. Make bets to earn money or even take over opponent’s car! Once you installed hydraulics suspension system you'll be able to enter lowrider competitions and compete in 3 different modes: jump, dance and freestyle.They described her as "reckless", "disrespectful", "dogmatic" and "unprofessional". They said she showed "no empathy" towards her client. Why? Psychotherapist Lesley Pilkington had tried to turn a gay person straight.
In a landmark ruling this week, Pilkington, 60, was found guilty of "treating" a patient for his homosexuality. A hearing of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy – the largest professional body for therapists – concluded that the treatment she gave constituted "professional malpractice".
The unanimous verdict came with heavy sanctions. Pilkington's accreditation to the organisation was suspended. She was ordered to complete extensive training and professional development. If she does not file a report in six to 12 months, satisfying the board that she has complied, she will have her membership fully revoked: she will be struck off.
The report concluded: "Mrs Pilkington had allowed her personal preconceived views about gay lifestyle and sexual orientation to affect her professional relationship in a way that was prejudicial."
The client Pilkington tried to cure was me. I am an out, happily gay man. I was undercover, investigating therapists who practise this so-called conversion therapy (also known as reparative therapy) – who try to "pray away the gay". I asked her to make me straight. Her attempts to do so flout the advice of every major mental-health body in Britain.
But despite the decades of abuse that gay patients have received from therapists and psychiatrists – despite the electro-convulsive therapy used until the 1980s, despite the chemical castrations, the aversion therapy (where pain is inflicted to dissuade same-sex fantasies) and despite the recent rise in fundamentalist talking therapy – no one has ever been held to account.
The details of this case, and another I am pursuing, explain why not only gay clients but mental-health patients in general do not come forward to complain. Psychiatrists and psychotherapists routinely avoid accountability – and the government is helping them do so.
My investigation began in April 2009. I heard that a conference was taking place in London for therapists and psychiatrists who wanted to learn how to convert their patients to heterosexuality. Homosexuality was removed from psychiatry's glossary of mental illnesses in 1973. How then could anyone treat something healthy? I went along to find out, posing as someone looking to be "cured". Two people agreed to treat me. The first was a psychiatrist – we'll come to him later. The second was Lesley Pilkington.
A few weeks later I was in her grand Hertfordshire home with a Dictaphone taped to my stomach. She set about trying to find the childhood "wounds" that she believes led to my homosexuality. But she found none. "There was no sexual abuse?" she pressed.
"No."
"I think there is something there... you've allowed things to be done to you." She then prayed: "Father, we give you permission to bring to the surface some of the things that have happened over the years." I asked who could have committed this abuse – a member of my family? "Yes, very likely," she replied.
Was homosexuality a mental illness, an addiction or an anti-religious phenomenon? "It's all of that," said Pilkington. During the sessions, she recited prayers for me to say whenever I thought about a man sexually. She gave me how-to-be-heterosexual tips such as taking up rugby, abstaining from masturbation and distancing myself from gay friends.
When the results of my investigation were published last year in the Independent, it sparked widespread outrage. Not least because Pilkington claimed that she had had referrals to "treat" gay clients from the NHS GP surgery to which she is attached. As a result of the investigation, the British Medical Association passed a motion condemning conversion therapy and calling on the NHS to investigate instances where it may have unwittingly paid for it.
Just before its publication, in January 2010, I made a formal complaint about Pilkington to the BACP. But by last autumn, little had happened. Three dates for a hearing were made and then cancelled. The BACP, which has 32,000 members, explained that they couldn't find people for the adjudication panel. Why? "The legal advice we've been given is that the panel members can't be very religious but nor can they be overtly pro-gay," said Fay Reaney from the professional conduct department. So in a complaint about racism would they therefore not allow someone on the panel who is strongly opposed to racism? "This is the advice we've been given," she replied.
A new date – 20 January – was confirmed. Four days before the hearing Pilkington gave an interview to the Sunday Telegraph, contrary to BACP guidelines that neither party speak publicly about the case. I had not named her in my original article. She then went on the radio to talk about it. In response to Pilkington's disclosures – 48 hours before the hearing was due to take place – the BACP adjourned it and issued us both with confidentiality agreements.
The signed agreements would have prevented either side from ever talking about the case. My barrister, Sarah Bourke, advised me not to sign. But I couldn't decide. I didn't want to jeopardise the case but was it worth pursuing if it could never be discussed publicly? The BACP wouldn't tell me what would happen if I refused to sign.
Meanwhile, Pilkington's representatives – the Christian Legal Centre – were making intriguing claims. On the day the hearing would have taken place, they stated that it had been postponed because one of the expert witnesses she had cited in her defence had been subject to "menacing phone calls, threats and intimidation". I was the only person named in her lawyers' statement. Although she submitted testimony from several witnesses, I never knew their names and the BACP did not call any of them.
But the Daily Mail ran a story regardless: "Trial of therapist who tried to 'cure' gay man is halted after 'expert defence witness is intimidated'," screamed the headline. Countless Christian websites repeated the claims. Hate mail poured in. Pilkington continued to give interviews and gave a talk at another conversion-therapy conference in London. With the agreements unsigned, the BACP decided to go ahead regardless. What was the point of adjourning the case for four months? The BACP would not explain.
Finally, the date was set. During the hearing, Pilkington said she still "feels there's a need" for my homosexuality to be treated. The panel asked her if it was good practice to say to someone who had stated they had not been sexually abused: "You've let things be done to you." She replied: "It didn't come across like that."
Was it, the panel asked, her belief that homosexuality was wrong, sinful or unnatural? "Oh yes," she replied. "There's no question about that... but there's a way out."
Pilkington revealed that she was trying to convert another gay client to heterosexuality. But that now she's "clearer" about it – she uses a contract adapted from a US-based conversion-therapy organisation. Equally startling, however, was what the panel asked me: on what basis did I assert that the BACP was publicly opposed to conversion therapy? I read aloud the letter the BACP had written to the Guardian in 2009 describing such therapy as "absurd" and stating that it "makes people with gay thoughts suffer extra pain". The panel was unaware of the letter and the BACP's position on the subject. After lunch the chair announced that they would disregard the statement as they "don't know who authorised it".
As the hearing progressed, I discovered the strain all complainants go through. I was cross-examined at length by Pilkington's barrister and by the panel. How would someone with mental-health problems cope with that? And it isn't just the emotional challenges that could deter a complainant. Without being well educated and having free legal help to interpret the BACP's jargon-dense literature and legal letters, I would have found the process incomprehensible and intimidating.
The BACP's ruling in the Pilkington case will, however, help to reassure the victims of conversion therapy. Since my first article was published dozens of people have contacted me describing their experiences. Young people whose parents had forced them into residential gay "cure" centres in the US deep south. Middle-aged men and women who wasted decades trying to be straight. Several people who had attempted suicide. One young man showed me the self-harm scars on his arms. I thought about him every day.
But although this case will serve as a precedent, it does not solve the wider problem. Even if Pilkington had been struck off completely she would still be able to carry on practising. Anyone can claim to be a therapist in Britain because there is no state regulation of the profession. "Psychotherapist" and "counsellor" are not protected titles. The BACP is a self-regulating, independent body. No one has to be a member. Thus you can't stop a bad therapist seeing clients any more than you can a fortune-teller.
The previous government had planned to regulate counsellors and psychotherapists by bringing them under the Health Professions Council, in line with other health workers, such as chiropodists, hearing aid dispensers and art therapists. This would have provided a central body offering standardised codes of conduct. But, contrary to the advice of mental-health charities such as Mind, the coalition has decided not to do this. Instead, the HPC will introduce a voluntary register for therapists.
But there is another unsettling thread to this story: that of the psychiatrist. His name is Dr Paul Miller. After meeting him at the London conference, he agreed to "treat" me for my homosexuality via Skype – as he lives in Belfast. He claims to have "resolved" his own conflicted sexuality and is now married with children.
Miller told me that homosexuality "represents a pathology". He added: "The men you were having sex with or falling in love with are just as wounded as you." He concluded that because my father is a physicist, and I was always more creative, that prevented a "gender-affirming process" which in turn led to my sexualising men.
His advice was for me to have massages with male masseurs and to stand in front of the mirror naked, touching myself, thus somehow affirming my masculinity/heterosexuality. He told me to visualise a red light when aroused: "I want you to move that red from your genitals up into your chest," he said.
I complained to the General Medical Council (the Royal College of Psychiatrists has no remit for disciplinary procedures). The RCPsych has stated: "There is no sound scientific evidence that sexual orientation can be changed." Yet the GMC let Miller off without even a warning – in fact, without even a hearing.
After receiving my complaint they appointed a consultant psychiatrist – whose identity was redacted – to write a report about the taped evidence I submitted. The crux of the report was that conventional therapeutic practices used by many psychotherapists have "as much or little scientific evidence" as conversion/reparative therapy. And yet reparative therapy is based on the work of self-proclaimed psychologist Elizabeth Moberly, who is not trained – her degree was in theology – and whose theories were not based on clinical research. The professional guideline document Good Psychiatric Practice, to which all psychiatrists are bound, states: "A psychiatrist must provide care that does not discriminate and is sensitive to issues of sexual orientation." The GMC report relating to my experience concludes: "I do not consider that Dr Miller's actions were inconsistent with Good Psychiatric Practice." I will appeal.
Reaction to the report has been unrestrained. The psychiatrist and author Dr Max Pemberton told me: "The GMC's decision is scandalous. Conversion therapy has been shown consistently to be dangerous and damaging. It is a disgrace that a qualified doctor is engaging in such practice, and an even greater disgrace that the GMC do not appear to feel that this warrants their attention."
A 2002 study by US clinical psychologists Ariel Shidlo and Michael Shroeder found that 55% of patients experienced psychological harm from conversion therapy, the results of which included depression and suicide attempts.
Furthermore, as Michael King, professor of psychiatry at UCL, points out: "There is an error in the GMC's logic: homosexuality is not a diagnosis. To therefore offer any kind of treatment can be damaging." He added: "Self-regulation is a problem. Professions are inward looking. People don't like to criticise each other."
But until the government steps in, self-regulation will continue to protect psychiatrists and therapists. Dissatisfied patients, meanwhile, will be deterred from complaining.
Dr Miller is still practising in his clinic in Belfast. Lesley Pilkington can carry on charging patients and praying for God to "bring to the surface" their non-existent traumas. No one can stop them.On the March 26th episode of The O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly told American Constitution Society president Caroline Fredrickson that she was "going to lose" her argument that the individual mandate was a constitutionally-sound tax and "does not require people to buy health insurance."
At the end of the segment, O'Reilly vowed to replay the interview and "apologize for being an idiot" if the Supreme Court ruled in favor of upholding the mandate.
Well, today, SCOTUS did just that.
Will O'Reilly uphold his end of the bargain? Tune in tonight to find out.
UPDATE: Laura Ingraham filled in for O'Reilly on last night's show (hmm), but he did phone in to say he thought the SCOTUS ruling was "outrageous." No apology was made.
[Hypervocal, video via Media Matters via Crooks and Liars]On July 23, MAMAMOO’s Solar, Wheein, and Moonbyul tried to prank their maknae Hwasa on her birthday, but it didn’t go quite as expected!
The members went on Naver’s V app to share their birthday party for Hwasa with fans live, and at the beginning of the show, Solar and Wheein try to stay quiet as they excitedly explain their plans for the party. Meanwhile, Moonbyul is talking on the phone with Hwasa to try to get her to come without knowing about the surprise party.
“She’s probably caught on to us,” says Solar, “but the important thing is that we’re trying to celebrate her birthday!”
The members then decide that they should make it a hidden camera prank instead of just a surprise party. Solar suggests that they hide the camera and accuse Hwasa of being late when she arrives, and Wheein and Solar giggle in excitement.
But when Hwasa does arrive and Solar starts scolding her for being late, she struggles a bit to seem believable because she’s also trying to secretly film the scene. Hwasa notices almost right away, and the girls laugh as they give up and just start singing “Happy Birthday” while bringing out the cake.
After they celebrate, Hwasa jokes, “I made a wish [on the candles]. I wished that Solar’s acting skills would improve,” and they all dissolve into laughter. Solar laughs and tries to defend herself by saying she was filming and acting at the same time, but Wheein says she was being too obvious. Hwasa points out, “I could see the chat room on your phone!”
After they give Hwasa some gifts, Solar thanks MAMAMOO’s fans for all the birthday messages and gifts they’ve sent in, before they wrap up with another rendition of “Happy Birthday.”
Watch the full show here!User Info: MagnaX7 MagnaX7 3 years ago #1
(Courtesy of /r/jontron)
EDIT: GIORGIO ARMANI! My dad knows him.(Courtesy of /r/jontron)EDIT: GIORGIO ARMANI!
User Info: RenzAllen7 RenzAllen7 3 years ago #2 MagnaX7 posted...
My dad knows him.
(Courtesy of /r/jontron)
OH you're that kinda guy huh?¿ Official B8R8er
I will r8 ur b8s 4 free~ gimme a kiss for goodluck. OH you're that kinda guy huh?¿
User Info: Nin3DSFan Nin3DSFan 3 years ago #3
Is that Giorgio's sister or something? http://tinyurl.com/nine32015 -- Countdown to Nintendo's E3 Digital Event I have no idea who Gerogia Armani is.Is that Giorgio's sister or something?
User Info: MagnaX7 MagnaX7 (Topic Creator) 3 years ago #4 Nin3DSFan posted...
I have no idea who Gerogia Armani is.
Is that Giorgio's sister or something?
I misspelled title. I misspelled title.
User Info: CosmicTornado CosmicTornado 3 years ago #5 SSB4 DLC Support: Isaac (GS), K. Rool, Quote (Cave Story)
Games I await: Zelda U, Xenoblade Chronicles X, Star Fox Zero, Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam, LoZ: TH Who?
User Info: MagnaX7 MagnaX7 (Topic Creator) 3 years ago #6 Giorgio Armani I meant.
User Info: CosmicTornado CosmicTornado 3 years ago #7 MagnaX7 posted...
Giorgio Armani I meant.
Who? SSB4 DLC Support: Isaac (GS), K. Rool, Quote (Cave Story)
Games I await: Zelda U, Xenoblade Chronicles X, Star Fox Zero, Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam, LoZ: TH Who?2017 is upon us and planning for this year's Dive in Earth Day event is already underway. This year's Dive in Earth Day is going to be on April 29th, 2017. Last year’s Dive in Earth Day 2016 was amazing. A great time was had by all and many great prizes were won during our Dive in Earth Day Raffle. This year’s raffle prizes are starting to look pretty sweet.
The biggest winner each year however is the ocean. We removed almost enough trash and debris to fill a 20-yard dumpster. Over 150 bags of garbage were collected just off of the beach alone. That is just about one garbage truck if you want to put it in perspective. This is all because of those who dedicated their valuable time to help this great cause.
Plans for 2017's event are in full swing and this year’s event is going to blow last year out of the water. This will be our 13th year hosting this amazing event. We hope to see many of you at this year’s event.
What is Dive in Earth Day?
Dive in Earth Day is an international Earth Day celebration that promotes the active conservation of coral reefs, oceans, and aquatic ecosystems, and raises public awareness of the importance of marine conservation. The vast majority of Earth Day events take place on land, so in order to ensure that the 70% of the planet covered by water is not forgotten, the Coral Reef Alliance (CORAL), Project AWARE Foundation, and other partners launched Dive in in April 2000.
Dive in activities take place during the month of April, in celebration of Earth Day (April 22nd).
The Dream Divers are once again coordinating Dive in Earth Day, with the help of our sponsors and partner organizations. Activities are organized locally by Aquatic Dreams Scuba Center, community groups, nonprofit organizations, teachers, scientists and other marine enthusiasts.
What kinds of activities take place?
Any marine-related conservation activity will do, whether It’s cleaning trash from a beach, installing a mooring buoy, or doing a presentation for your local club or school. Other examples include underwater clean-ups, fish and coral surveys, children's snorkeling trips, or just diving. As long as it helps the aquatic environment and takes place during the April Earth Day celebrations, It’s a Dive in activity! Many of the Dive in activities focus on coral reefs, of which 32% may die in the next 30 years if destruction continues at the current rate.
Why should we organize a Dive in Activity?
Because the world's oceans and coral reefs need your help. Our oceans are facing great environmental pressures from pollution, over-fishing, habitat destruction and other human impacts. Among all marine habitats, coral reef ecosystems are the most threatened. 11% of the world's coral reefs have already been lost, and another 32% will be lost in the next 30 years if human threats are not reduced. We can't afford this loss. Reefs cover less than one percent of the world's oceans, and yet, they provide home and habitat to 25% of all marine species.
By organizing a Dive in activity, you will be part of a global effort to raise awareness about the need to protect the world's coral reefs, oceans and underwater ecosystems. Your activity will also help at the local level by improving the quality of the marine environment near you. Dive in is a great way to get your local community involved in active conservation, and It’s a great way for businesses to show clients that you care. I';s easy,
I';s fun and it works.
Who participates in Dive in Earth Day?
Anyone, anywhere! It’s easy, It’s fun and it makes a difference.
Dive in activities are organized by divers, marine parks, businesses, community groups, non-profit organizations, teachers, students, fishermen, government officials, scientists and individual community members. If you care about coral reefs and oceans, you are a perfect candidate!
Since 2000, Dive in events have taken place in more than 89 countries and territories around the world.
Do I need to be a diver to Dive in?
No! There are many opportunities for non-divers to participate whether on land or with a snorkel and mask. For example:
Help with a beach project or put on a mask to help with a shallow-water clean up Become a Regional Representative and help spread the word about Dive in in your community Share your love of the ocean by heading out with friends to a marine park Table a booth at an Earth Day event with our downloadable materials Involve kids and students in Dive In Organize an art contest Visit an aquarium Simply teach your kids, friends and family about the importance of marine life
Who is Responsible for Dive in?
We all are! Dive in Earth Day is a collaborative effort, bringing together non-governmental organizations, scientists, dive shops, schools and ocean lovers from around the world to help protect our planets marine resources.
Dive in Earth Day was launched in 2000 to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Earth Day. The Coral Reef Alliance (CORAL) coordinated the past events in partnership with Project AWARE Foundation and with the support of Air Pacific, Earth Day Network, International Coral Reef Action Network (ICRAN), and West Marine.
Come join the California Dream Divers for the 12th annual Dive in Earth Day. The festivities will include, raffle prizes, lunch, great memories, new friends and not to mention the best of all, a cleaner ocean.
Where: Del Monte Beach; Monterey, California
When: Saturday April 29th; 8:00 A.M.
What: We will be having shoreline clean-up for non-divers, education for children and adults alike to learn what is going on with our shorelines and oceans at this time.
If you choose to purchase more raffle tickets, they will be sold at $1.00 per ticket. Only certified divers will be allowed to participate in the raffle for the diving equipment. MUST BE PRESENT TO WIN!!!!
All divers must show proof of certification and sign a liability release.
Everyone and all level of divers are welcome and needed.
There will be marine education for kids along with shoreline clean up.
Suggested items to bring with you
Blanket
Towels
Chairs
Sun block
Dry Clothes
Work Gloves
For questions or |
it an in-memory client database and derive View Models last second on the client side instead of doing so upfront on the server.
Let's break this design down in more detail, and show some code for each part.
How is the data handled?
we are going to create a client side in-memory database for the application data
we are going to bring the real domain data, the Model to the frontend and not the multiple View Models that the UI needs
we are going to keep that Model data which is really a user-specific slice of the database (usually paginated) in that in-memory database
we are going to put that client-side in-memory database inside a centralized service that we will call a Store
we are going to ensure that the centralized service owns the data, by either ensuring its encapsulation or exposing it as immutable
this centralized service will have reactive properties, we can subscribe to it to get notified when the Model data changes
How are View Models produced?
This is how the view layer will be structured in this store design:
each component that needs to produce a View Model of the data will subscribe to get new versions of the in-memory database data
each component, will upon reception of the Model data produce its own View Model, last second at the level of the component itself
this will ensure that all View Models are always in sync with the centralized data Model
The transformation from Model to View Model is done last second on the View Root itself, and not on the server
The transformation from view to view Model is done via a function called a Selector - the input of a Selector is the Model, and the output is the View Model
How is the data modified?
This is how we can modify the data in this store design while keeping all views in sync:
the data can only be modified inside the centralized service by the Store itself
if a component wants to trigger modifications of the data, it sends a message to the centralized service, under the form of a command payload which is known as an Action object
The emitter of the action does not know which parts of the application will be affected by the action, there is no tight coupling between the multiple View components involved
The Action contains all the information necessary to trigger a sequence of operations that will result in modification of the Model data
A new version of the application Model state is produced by taking the previous state and the action and applying it a pure function called a Reducer
The Reducer function can be split into multiple smaller functions, each one modifying a part of the state
When the new state Model is available, it gets broadcasted to all interested components, which will then transform it into their View model
the new state model is frozen before getting broadcasted so that the subscribers cannot modify it
What data is kept inside the Store?
The store contains not only the Model data, it also contains any UI specific global state that only exists on the client-side, such as: the currently selected thread ID the data of the current user
Facebook originally used a solution where multiple stores were used that could wait for each other to get notified and contained one subset of the data.
The design above only uses one centralized store (this design was made popular by Redux) so it's already an evolution towards the solution used by Facebook. But the essence of the solution is the same.
So let's break this design down step by step and see how each design element looks like.
Installing a store solution
Let's start by installing ngrx store in our application:
npm install --save @ngrx/store @ngrx/core
This will allow us to define a client-side in-memory database for our application. The first thing that we want to define is, what type of data will the store keep.
Defining the shape of the Application State
After installing the store, its a good idea to define a custom type called ApplicationState :
As we can see, the contents of our in-memory database can be divided into two parts: some state is purely related to the UI, and we define it as a custom type named UiState :
This state consists of the user currently logged-in in our chat application, the currently selected thread on the thread list and the current error message displayed if any.
As we can see this state is completely different than the data of the threads, that is defined in the StoreData custom type:
Notice that the data is not organized in arrays, but in maps. For these maps, the key is a number that corresponds to the Id field of the element stored in the map. For example, this is what the participant's data would look like:
On a first look, this way of storing the data might look like repetition, because we are repeating the Id twice: once in the key of the map and the other in the object itself.
This way of storing the data is optimized to make the data as shallow as possible and avoid deep nesting and is optimized for "find by Id" queries. This way of storing the data closely resembles a database table in a SQL database, where the primary key is the Id field of the object.
These data types define what the data contained inside the store will look like, but what about the initial value of the data?
Defining the initial value of the store state
Besides defining the structure of the in-memory data, we can also define the initial state of each data type in the following way:
This will be the initial value of the in-memory data, while we don't load the store with backend data. In the case of the chat application, we are going to load the store with the content of an initial request to the backend.
How to populate the in-memory database?
At this point what we want to do is to get the data via a plain HTTP request from the backend and save it inside the store.
The way that we interact with the store is via sending it a command for modifying its internal data in a certain pre-defined way. That command object is called an Action. The action will trigger a modification of the store state in a synchronous and immediate way.
What about asynchronous actions? That will also be covered in part 2. Right now we already have the data ready to be loaded in the store, so how do we load it?
We start by defining an Action :
The action contains both a type and a payload. The payload is in this case a transfer object data structure that corresponds to the data that was fetched from the backend in an initial backend request:
If we have a backend service that allows us to return the data from the backend, here is how we dispatch it to the store:
As we can see, we are sending a command object with all the data needed to the store centralized service. But we don't know what other parts of the application will be affected by this change and how.
But what will the store do with this action, how will it save the data?
How does the store process each action?
Remember, the goal of the action is to modify the state inside the in-memory database in a certain way.
Each time that the store receives a new action, it will take the current state plus the action and use both these inputs to produce a new version of the application state.
This new state is produced via a reducer function. The reducer function is a pure function (meaning it has no side effects) with a signature similar to this one:
This function is called a reducer because it shares an identical signature to the reduce functional programming operation, and it's simply a way of producing a new store state in response to the dispatching of an action.
So what does this function look like?
Reducer functions
Remember, reducer functions are only a small piece of the puzzle of the design that we are trying to implement. What we are doing here is bringing the Model data to the frontend and keeping it in memory, and the reducer is a way to modify that data in a maintainable way.
There are many ways to write reducer functions, one common way is to split it up into smaller functions, one affecting each type of state that is stored in the store. For example, this could be a valid store reducer function, that would delegate the creation of new state to smaller functions:
The output of this object is as expected an instance of ApplicationState, that builds its uiState and storeData properties by delegating their calculation to smaller functions.
Let's have a look at what one of these smaller reducer functions would look like:
The reducer function usually has a switch statement, that can be on the action type. Inside it, we are going to add processing logic which is specific of a given action type: in this case we are loading all the data into the store by saving in the corresponding maps per Id.
In order to save the data that we received from the backend per Id, we are using the Lodash keyBy utility function.
This function would take the data from the backend and initialize the in-memory database. But how do the multiple View layer components consume this data?
How to consume the data inside the in-memory database?
If a given component in the application wants to be notified whenever new data is available, the simplest way is to have the store centralized service injected via the constructor.
The store is seen by the View layer as an observable of application state. Let's review the implementation of a component that consumes the store data in reactive style:
So what is going on in this ThreadSection component? Let's break this down:
this is a top-level component that gets a service injected via its constructor
this type of component is also known as a smart component because it's aware of the service layer of the application and how to use it
the only service that this smart component gets injected is the store service itself, no other service needs to be injected into the View layer
the goal of the component is to take the store and define a series of data streams that are derived from the application state
all the member variables are observables, that were derived from the store itself using the select operator
All observable member variables like threadSummaries$ emit View Models, and not Model data
emit View Models, and not Model data this component does not access the application data directly, it does not have direct references to the application data
the component interacts with the remainder of the application by dispatching store actions, so the store acts essentially as a View layer facade service that ensures that the ThreadSection component stays decoupled from the rest of the application
component stays decoupled from the rest of the application the streams of data that were configured as members variables are passed to the template and consumed using the async pipe
As you can see, the store is handled as an observable of application state and is used to derive streams of View Models. View Models are being derived from the Model data in the store at the very last second before injecting the data into the view layer.
How to produce View Models from the application state?
The store Model data (saved under the storeData property inside ApplicationState ) is transformed into a View Model by applying a Selector function.
The Selector function takes as input the application state and returns from it a specific View Model. For example this functions returns the unread messages counter:
As we can see, the function is simply taking the application state, retrieving the current user and going through all threads in the in-memory database.
It's then summing all the threads that have unread messages for the current participant, and it's producing a total number of unread messages.
Presentational components
The ThreadSection component is also a good example of a container component: it sets up a series of data streams and passes the actual data to a tree of local components using the async pipe.
One of the components of the local tree of components is the thread-list component, let's have a look at it:
As we can see, this component is built in a very different way as a smart component. This type of component is known as a presentational component, let's break down here how this component works:
The main design goal of this component is to display some data
the data is received synchronously via an @Input()
the component can emit events to its parent component using Output()
the component is more reusable because it can be used in other places of the application to display different lists of threads
the component only knows that it receives a list of threads and how to display it, it does not know how to retrieve the data from the backend
And so these are the essential elements of the centralized store design, and how they fit together in the overall design goal.
Let's remember that its all about creating an in-memory client side database which is a user-specific slice of the database, and use that data to derive View Models from it on the client.
This elegantly solves the Facebook counter problem:
the multiple views of the data are always in sync by design
the ownership of the shared data is moved to a centralized service
the user experience is improved because we don't have to refresh the application constantly
And with this, we have covered the essential parts of the centralized store pattern.
Conclusions
Much more than a set of libraries, the Ngrx ecosystem is really a set of application design patterns: Stores, Actions, Reducers, Selectors those are all means to implement those patterns.
To better understand those concepts and know how they all fit together we propose to start by learning the centralized store pattern itself first, and then drill down from there into the specific implementation details.
All the store related concepts like Actions, Reducers, etc. are simpler to get into if we approach them as means to implement an overall application design.
The centralized store design is very effective at solving many problems that are hard to impossible to solve otherwise, and it does so by introducing some architectural trade-offs.
To see a sample application of the store pattern in action using ngrx store and many other libraries of the Ngrx ecosystem, have a look at the latest Ngrx sample application.
Stores and backend design
Stores are not only about the client though, using an in-memory database that stores real Domain data also opens up the possibility of building more reusable backends, that emit Model data instead of View models.
A store is a great combination for GraphQL backends for example, where we can define with each request what exact Model data we need - the endpoint does not return a pre-defined data structure, unlike traditional REST endpoints.
That would mean that we could build only one single backend for our system, used by both the UI and also third-party services, which is currently not the most common situation.
Usually we end up building a UI-specific backend and a separate REST backend for third-party integrations.
By moving the mapping from Model to View Model from the server to the client and giving query language capabilities to our backend we could now instead build one single reusable backend used by both the UI and third parties.Two travel bags containing 376,000 speed pills were seized from this interprovincial passenger bus in Lampang after another three bags with 740,000 pills seized from another tour bus in neighbouring Lamphun province on Friday night. (Photo by Aswin Wongnorkaew)
More than 1.1 million speed pills have been seized from two Bangkok-bound passenger buses in two separate searches in Lampang and Lamphun.
Three bus employees have been detained, but one claimed he acted alone to smuggle the drugs in the two buses belonging to the same company, according to police.
In one operation, police stopped a Sombat Tour Co bus operating on the Chiang Mai-Bangkok route at a checkpoint on the Super Highway in Hang Chat district of Lampang at around 9.30pm on Friday. The search found 376,000 methamphetamine pills in two travel bags in the luggage compartment.
Officials detained driver Somchet Inkhong, 43, of Nakhon Sawan, and assistant Natthapol Kaewkhong, 25, of Chai Nat, for questioning. Three employees from the two tour buses, on which 1.1 million speed pills were found in five bags, were detained for questioning, but one confessed that he acted alone. The search followed the discovery of 740,000 speed pills on another inter-provincial passenger bus at a police checkpoint in Mae Tha district of Lamphun just two hours earlier.
A combined team of police and soldiers found the drugs in three travel bags in the luggage compartment of the bus, also owned by Sombat Tour Co. Police said that Putthipong Kusolpayungkit, a bus worker who lives in Mae La district in Mae Hong Son, confessed that he took five travel bags onto the two buses for delivery to an agent in Bangkok. He claimed he acted alone without the knowledge of the drivers and the other staff of the two buses.
Police took Mr Putthipong and the other bus workers in for questioning.
The seizures came after Maj Sophon Pakkasem, deputy commander of a military unit in Chiang Mai, received information from an informant that a drug gang would smuggle a large amount of speed pills from the North to Bangkok by tour bus.CLEVELAND, OH - OCTOBER 30: Josh McCown #13 of the Cleveland Browns throws a pass during the second quarter against the New York Jets at FirstEnergy Stadium on October 30, 2016 in Cleveland, Ohio. (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)
With training camp on the horizon come late July, the New York Jets will officially start an open competition at quarterback. Unfortunately, that means Josh McCown has a shot to be their Week 1 starter which would be a dire mistake.
As of right now, things are calm when it comes to the New York Jets. Players and coaches are on a break until the end of July as to when training camp will officially begin. Until then, all fans can do is wait to see how all these young players will develop and progress this Summer.
There is, however, one situation that could end up once again being a terrible mistake for the Jets. Their quarterback situation is once again a huge question mark since at this point in time, they have Josh McCown, Bryce Petty, and Christian Hackenberg all competing for the starting position.
It’s expected that the best quarterback that proves himself throughout training camp and preseason football will emerge as the clear-cut starter under center. The only problem is, the Jets are handling this quarterback situation wrong from the start.
In the grand scheme of things, it would have made more sense for the Jets to have just Petty and Hackenberg compete with McCown solidified as a backup since that’s what he’s best at with the Jets.
They’re not going to win many football games with McCown under center but at least if Petty or Hackenberg get to start, the Jets will get a great glimpse of what either player can do.
If one plays poorly, they can demote him and start the other to see what they can do. It’s important to finally get a good idea if Petty or Hackenberg has the potential to be a future franchise quarterback. McCown isn’t part of the long-term plans and it would be a waste of time for him to start and have both young quarterbacks on the bench.
It’s time to let them develop the real way through regular season action. That would be the only way to determine if they’re worth keeping around after this season or if it’ll be back to the drawing board at quarterback and drafting yet another in the 2018 NFL Draft.
The Jets won’t know what they have with Petty or Hackenberg unless they see what they can do in games that actually matter. McCown was brought in to mentor and be a positive locker room presence, but he shouldn’t be in a position to start since the whole point of rebuilding is trying to see which young players are worth building around upon.
If the Jets fear that Petty or Hackenberg is that bad, then it’s time to move on. But the truth of the matter is Petty has a very small sample size to work with and Hackenberg has yet to take a single snap in a regular season game. They’re both pretty unknown as far as their overall progression but it’s time the Jets stop with this trend of starting a veteran quarterback over younger options when they need to fully evaluate both players with a larger sample size. It’s not going to happen if McCown starts in the most importation position on the team this upcoming season.The treatment of Ben Affleck’s artsy kid brother – now basking in praise for Manchester by the Sea – stands in striking contrast to other cases. Why?
Casey Affleck seems poised for grade-A movie stardom. After decades toiling in the shadows of his big brother Ben and childhood friend Matt Damon, he is tipped to sweep this season’s best actor awards for his role in the drama Manchester by the Sea.
Critics have acclaimed his depiction of a heartbroken divorcee as a tour de force. “Casey Affleck joins the ranks of giants,” gushed Time Out.
If Hollywood likes one thing more than a comeback it’s a breakthrough, and for a celebrity-driven industry, Affleck’s is especially gratifying: The Boston scrapper with under-appreciated talent and an artist’s soul, too long languishing on the fringe, finally taking his place in the spotlight.
Affleck, normally press shy, has worked the awards circuit with aplomb. In his acceptance speech to the New York Film Critics Circle this week – a possible prelude to a Golden Globe this weekend and then an Oscar – he read out stinging reviews the event’s host, David Edelstein, had made about his previous performances. (Sample: “Affleck, though likable, doesn’t have a lot of variety and resorts to chewing gum to give his character through-lines.”)
How, Affleck asked, does one survive such scathing and often accurate criticism? “Truth is, there’s never really been anything so horrible said about me that I haven’t either thought of or said to myself.” It was funny, poignant and self-deprecating and the critics lapped it up. Batman’s kid brother was finally getting his due.
There is, however, a snag in the humble artist’s narrative. Two female colleagues who worked with Affleck on I’m Still Here, a 2010 mockumentary which he directed, sued him for sexual misconduct. Cinematographer Magdalena Gorka and producer Amanda White alleged that behind the scenes Affleck verbally and sexually harassed them: bragging about sexual exploits, propositioning and grabbing White, sliding into Gorka’s bed uninvited and creating a hostile climate by, among other things, instructing a crew member to display his penis. Each woman sought $2m.
Affleck denied wrongdoing and settled both claims in 2010. Details of the deal remain secret, but Gorka’s and White’s complaints remain online, on the public record, for all to see.
Here was a potential monkey wrench in the PR campaign for Manchester by the Sea, sabotaging not just Affleck but Amazon Studios, which hopes for awards glory to crown its emergence as a Hollywood player.
Nate Parker, after all, had been poised for his own breakthrough with Birth of a Nation only to be shunned, and the film’s award buzz silenced, after revelations that he had been accused (and later acquitted) of rape in 1999. He has denied it was rape, claiming it was consensual sex.
[Ben Affleck and Matt Damon] joked that Casey finally needs a Golden Globe. Maybe that protects Casey from real scrutiny Member of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association
Hollywood liberals also shuddered at Donald Trump’s “grab them by the pussy” leaked tape and did not protest NBC’s sacking of Billy Bush, who was implicated in Trump’s comments. They cheered Roger Ailes’s tumble from Fox News amid sexual harassment complaints.
Old injustices have surfaced: Tippi Hedren revealed in a memoir fresh details about Alfred Hitchcock’s predatory behaviour while filming The Birds. Bernardo Bertolucci admitted he conspired with Marlon Brando to film a rape scene in Last Tango in Paris without revealing all details in advance to the then 19-year-old actor Maria Schneider. More accusations, some decades old, have piled up around Bill Cosby; he has denied assaulting any of the women accusing him. The drip-drip of revelations has prompted indignation and calls for Hollywood to do better.
In this climate Affleck could have shared the fate of the ancient mariner, metaphorically weighed down by the albatross. Instead, he soared. In magazine interviews, TV chat shows, round-table media talks and film festivals he basked in acclaim and affection – a striking contrast with the interrogations Parker faced.
Some media outlets such as Buzzfeed, Mashable, the Daily Beast and New York Times did stories on the allegations but without any apparent effect on the awards buzz.
“People love him in Manchester and he might win some stuff,” said a member of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), which runs the Golden Globes. “People really do like him, no one wants him to be an abuser or anything like it.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Nate Parker’s film The Birth of a Nation was overshadowed by negative press surrounding a 1999 rape accusation, of which he was acquitted. Photograph: Fred Prouser/Reuters
Affleck, after all, is a gifted actor who carved a circuitous path through indies (Gerry, To Die For) and bit parts in big films (Ocean’s Eleven) and won a best supporting actor nomination in 2007 for The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford before derailing his career with the bold but misconceived I’m Still Here.
The member, who requested anonymity, said the sexual harassment allegations did not surface during HFPA interviews with Affleck, possibly to avoid offending Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, who championed the younger Affleck in their own meetings with the group. “They both joked that Casey finally needs a Golden Globe. Very much the united front... and maybe that really protects Casey from real scrutiny. Reminds me a bit of Woody Allen – the liberal press loves him too much to want to really look for the truth.”
Woody Allen. Two of Hollywood’s most problematic words, after Roman Polanski. The former accused of child abuse, the latter convicted, and both still revered for cinematic achievements. Allen has repeatedly denied the allegations for years.
It is perhaps harsh to include Affleck in such company. His alleged offences during filming of I’m Still Here, which chronicled Joaquin Phoenix’s faux meltdown, were not criminal. The gravest accusation is that while hosting the crew in his apartment he crept into the bed where Gorka slept.
“He had his arm around her, was caressing her back, his face was within inches of hers and his breath reeked of alcohol,” said the cinematographer’s complaint. She said he responded angrily when ordered out, then left. Gorka and White also alleged Affleck violated their contracts.
Since the cases were settled privately there is no way to weigh the evidence. Neither Affleck nor the alleged victims responded to interview requests for this article. Nor did Affleck’s estranged actor wife, Summer Phoenix (sister of Joaquin), nor half a dozen other crew members who worked on the mockumentary, save one, a woman, who said she witnessed no harassment.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Casey Affleck and Manchester by the Sea co-star Michelle Williams at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards. Photograph: StarPix/REX/Shutterstock
In the few times he has been asked, Affleck has denied wrongdoing. “It was settled to the satisfaction of all. I was hurt and upset – I am sure we all were – but I am over it,” he told the New York Times. He hinted to Variety that he was the victim. “I guess people think if you’re well-known, it’s perfectly fine to say anything you want. I don’t know why that is. But it shouldn’t be, because everybody has families and lives.”
If Affleck does indeed spend the next few weeks clutching trophies on podiums, observers can choose from two narratives. Here is a gifted actor unspoiled by proximity to fame who kept plugging away and stamped his authority in Kenneth Lonergan’s brooding masterpiece. Or here is a man who abused his power to humiliate female colleagues and then hid behind heavy hitting PR bruisers and the industry clout of big brother Ben and mate Matt.
This being Oscar season there is a race angle too. Did Parker, who is black, sink because he lacked Affleck’s protective bubble? Or was it because he was accused of a graver offence, and the revelation that his alleged victim took her own life?
Jeffrey Wells, a veteran Hollywood columnist and blogger, thinks there should be a separation of church (cinema) and state (film-makers’ private lives). The media had no business dredging up the Affleck allegations, he said. “It’s not decent to try make a thing about this given the two women involved took the money and went away, so to speak. I mean, its over.”
If the older Affleck and Damon helped dampen the story, well, kudos, said Wells. “Maybe that’s a factor. If it is, that’s good, because [the allegations] are not even close to approaching the Woody Allen allegations, or Polanski. It seems to boil down to asshole, boorish behaviour. So what?”2015-10-26 04:33, edited 2015-10-26 04:47 by Tsunemori-PASS
I've been away from the game for many months now (I'll start playing again in a week or two) and was not aware of the death of IceHouse, not too much of a loss though since I was constantly being votebanned off the server and having to then get unbanned. Despite it being frustrating it was always preferable to playing on international servers, even in southern Asia where you can often expect to be getting 150ms. And their servers are hardly any better anyway and mostly consist of 64-player nade fests on Metro.
Personally I'd prefer to see a 32-player rush and 32-player conquest small server with good rotations. I strongly dislike the idea of a 64-player conquest large server since the playerbase is so low I'd prefer to have 2x 32-player servers that both offer a different game mode and/or maps. Conquest small on 32-player is almost as good as 64-player conquest large anyway.
Anyway Goose, it's unlikely you're going to achieve much with a forum/Reddit thread. Simply because very few players check the forums on any decent regularity. What I'd suggest is creating a platoon based around this. Getting people to join that platoon is going to give them more of a sense of purpose and community. It will allow them to see how many other people are interested in keeping this game alive and pursuing a common goal. A platoon where you propose there what you are proposing here. I believe that you'd get more attention that way.
The truth is that this game (in Australia) probably would have reached this point of teetering on the brink of death a year ago if it hadn't been for a few communities/clans that sprung into existence in 2014 like MON, rAGE, ICG, RBL. Admittedly I think RBL existed long before 2014 but they were one of the communities that stuck around and continued to generate interest among their members.
Having been a member of MON and rAGE, I can tell you that when I was playing 4+ hours a day every day for months it was solely because of the people I was playing with. I'd still have played even if it was just myself but I'd have put in considerably less time. Not to mention the sheer amount of servers we were instrumental in populating was incredible. If we wanted to play Damavand Peak rush (I always did) we'd get 10+ of us to jump onto an empty one and in half and hour it would be fully populated. Even the MON server would often go unpopulated until we decided to go ahead and begin populating it by ourselves first. The rest of the playerbase will often jump on board once they think the server is going to get some decent numbers.
If you want to keep this game alive in Australia and avoid a divided community. if you want to be able to put your idea into action then you need to create a community like the ones above. A community where players get to know each other well and are eager to play every night not just because they love Battlefield 3 but because they love gaming with each other.KISSIMMEE, Fla. -- Atlanta Braves pitcher Tommy Hanson has been diagnosed with a mild concussion after wrecking on his way to spring training.
Manager Fredi Gonzalez said Tuesday that Hanson will miss the first two days of spring training, then gradually work his way back into a normal routine. If there are no setbacks, he should be back at full strength within a week.
Hanson blew out a tire Monday near the Braves' Disney World complex and may have bumped his head on either the windshield or the steering wheel. The right-hander was diagnosed with a Grade 1 concussion but apparently has no other injuries.
Hanson is expected to be one of the team's top starters in 2012. He was 11-7 with a 3.60 ERA last season despite a shoulder injury.Law enforcement works to destroy explosive stockpile.
HOLLISTER, Calif. - Crews are still on scene Tuesday at a home in Hollister that prompted a hazmat evacuation Monday night. Officers with the FBI also were on scene Tuesday morning along with members of the Monterey County Sheriff's Office and the San Benito County District Attorney's Office.
Late Tuesday afternoon, law enforcement went to a field at the Hollister Airport with 100 pounds of explosives removed from the home on the 2300 block of Glenview Drive. Bomb squad began detonating it just before 6 p.m. Tuesday.
The homeowner said he has been in the military collectibles business for about 20 years, both selling and buying. He had two warehouses full of such items that he recently consolidated at his home.
Environmental Health Services says the homeowner has a permit to do business and sell these types of items, but they didn't realize he had this much at his residence. They have had to regulate him in the past.
Police originally responded to the home Monday evening for a possible burglary. When officers responded to take the report, that's when they noticed the hazardous materials inside.
Hollister Police said the home has been burglarized in the past, and military guns were taken but those were later tracked down and returned to the homeowner. Police say some guns are now missing because of this latest burglary.
Officers with the Monterey County Bomb Squad described the man as a hoarder, and said the house was so packed that they've had to go in one-by-one to remove everything. The house was full of explosives and weaponry, and was so crowded there was little space left for crews to move around in.
The homeowner has been cooperating with authorities.Lamborghini has stated that all five of its customer Huracan GT3s that took part in last month’s Rolex 24 at Daytona complied with IMSA’s technical regulations and respected the sanctioning body’s Balance of Performance process.
The Italian manufacturer and its GT Daytona customer teams were penalized on Monday for what IMSA has deemed to be a performance advantage in the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season-opener, which saw the V10-powered GT3 machines noticeably quicker than the competition in the race.
It has resulted in all Huracan GT3s behind given a post-race penalty of five minutes, as well as Lamborghini losing all championship points from the opening round, as well as facing a $25,000 fine.
According to the manufacturer, all five cars passed pre and post-race technical inspection, with Lamborghini having worked with IMSA to achieve the car’s BoP with dyno testing prior to the Roar Before the Rolex 24, as well as providing data.
Giorgio Sanna, Head of Lamborghini Motorsport, has called for IMSA to comply closer to the FIA’s BoP process, which has been recognized as the worldwide standard for GT3 cars.
“Lamborghini Squadra Corse has always collaborated with IMSA with maximum transparency, in order to achieve a right BoP,” Sanna said in a statement.
“We are and will be available for IMSA technicians to achieve the performance required by IMSA. However, we hope more FIA components and technical parameters will be used in the future to ensure a right BoP.”
It’s understood the issue at Daytona stemmed from the type of air restrictor used on the cars, which allegedly gave the Huracan GT3s a performance advantage in the race. The cars had passed pre and post-race tech with its allocated air restrictor.
Six Huracan GT3s are expected to take part in next month’s Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring, with IMSA yet to declare the car’s BoP.On Saturday, Women’s March Jakarta brought hundreds of people out to the streets of the capital to demonstrate for equality and against gender-based violence like sexual harassment. Despite the enormous challenges facing women in Indonesia being well-documented and studied, there were saw quite a few comments from people wondering why such a demonstration was even necessary.
Well, here’s infuriating example number one million and one for why the Women’s March was necessary and why so many people in Indonesia desperately need a wake-up call.
A man was detained by the Jatinegara Police yesterday after he was accused of sexual harassing a young woman, identified as IK, by caressing her thigh on a TransJakarta bus. An onboard TransJakarta officer backed up IK’s account and said the alleged perpetrator had admitted to it.
However, after questioning the alleged perpetrator, police decided that his actions did not qualify as sexual harassment.
“So, it actually does not qualify as [sexual harassment], the person just touched her as they were sitting side by side. The woman was holding her bag, as was the perpetrator. And then he happened to touch her thigh. Also, she was wearing long pants, and he happened to touch her thigh since they were sitting next to each other,” Bambang Edi, head of criminal investigations for the Jatinegara Police, said on Monday as quoted by Vivanews.
Bambang said that sexual harassment might have taken place, if IK had been wearing a miniskirt.
“If he had grabbed her breasts or genitals, or if he had shown his genitalia then that would be harassment. That’s not what happened. He just touched her thigh and she was wearing trousers. Unless she’s wearing a skirt, and he opened her thighs and grabbed her, that would be harassment,” he said.
Fitri, the onboard Transjakarta officer who IK reported the harassment too, said the suspect admitted to touching IK’s thigh. According to her, the suspect admitted to frequently sexually harassing women on the TransJakarta.
However, officer Bambang said that if the perpetrator had done anything it was “just for fun” and only involved poking at her knee with his little finger.
Nonetheless, the police said that the suspect has not yet been released and that they would follow the standard procedure in these cases of detaining the suspect for 24 hours while investigating further before making a final decision.
So essentially the police are fine with people creepily rubbing up against or touching strangers’ thigh, as long as they’re wearing pants? Let’s hope nobody puts that logic to the test, particularly on the people who think there’s no need for a Women’s March in Jakarta.Two years ago, engineering firm Putz |
all licensees for "Dealer in Firearms Other Than Destructive Devices (Including Gunsmiths)" and "Pawnbroker in Firearms Other Than Destructive Devices". We did not include any importer or manufacturer licensees in our data set. The Starbucks locations data was provided by opendata.socrata.com.
This Is Dumb and We Hate You
You are certainly entitled to your opinion, just as we are entitled to compare the number of guns dealers to other things - and you may in fact be right. Just be sure to tell us how wrong we are on social media.In the days ahead we can confidently expect a burst of fervour around the 70th anniversary of the D-day landings. But this will sit oddly with two other tendencies of the moment: first world war mania and the wave of Europhobia. By contrast with the comforting power of the D-day myth, we still do not know what to do with 1914. We are even less clear about our current position in the world, awash as we are with anti-Europeanism.
History is as much a matter of forgetting as remembering. In the current moment, it has become too easy to see the two world wars as wars of Britishers against Europe. The inconvenient truth about D-day for today's little Englanders is that fighting and winning the second world war was a horribly cosmopolitan business. Yugoslavs, Greeks, Poles, Czechs, Danes, Norwegians, Dutch, Belgians and French mixed and mingled, along with cohorts from all over the empire. Added to which the entire country was overrun by Yanks. For this multinational alliance, securing the UK's independence was not a goal in itself. It was a launching pad for a wider campaign to liberate the continent and to build a better Europe.
And lest we forget, this had also been the basic rationale for Britain's even more costly European engagement in the first world war. Amid the contention about the July crisis in 1914 and the mists of emotion concerning the Somme and the trenches, one can lose sight of the fact that Britain's war aims in the first world war were an admittedly self-interested blend of grand strategy and international liberalism: restoring Belgium, building a law-bound system for Europe which could square the security of France, Italy, Russia and a host of newly independent states in central and eastern Europe with the existence of a large and unified Germany.
As far as the Churchillians were concerned, the continuities between 1914 and 1944 were direct. They bookended a "second thirty years war". In 1944, British troops returned to where they had fought in 1914-18 and 1940 alongside the French. Churchill's sense of entanglement with France was so acute that in June 1940 he agreed with his cabinet to propose a Franco-British union. On the American side too, the sense of D-day as the culmination of a generational crusade was palpable. The commanders of the GIs who were struggling ashore at Omaha and Utah beaches had first set foot in France in 1917 and 1918.
Of course, not everyone agreed with this legitimising assertion of continuity. One of the truly remarkable things about Churchill's war government in 1940 was that it included three first world war-era conscientious objectors. Like many others in 1914, they had refused the moral case for the first world war. They did not want to see Britain line up behind resentful and aggressive France and autocratic tsarism. There were powerful strands of Europhobic isolationism among the British left who opposed the Great War. But Nazi Germany was a different type of enemy. Even to British isolationists, the blitz had taught that there was no hiding place.
But behind these clashing views of 1914, D-day and present-day Europe, one suspects that a more parochial concern lurks. If Blackadder is the benchmark of the disillusioned view of the first world war, then the war had nothing to do with the French or the Germans. They barely figure in the legendary episode. The war was a drama of British class relations, Upstairs Downstairs played out in the mud of Flanders. The image of donkeys leading lions compels us because it makes heroes of the salt-of-the-earth Tommies, at the expense of the braying upper-class twits who supposedly led them to their deaths.
The second world war, on the other hand, retains its place in the popular imagination as the people's war. The crusade to liberate Europe in 1944 carried the Beveridge report and Keynes's promise of full employment on it banners. By contrast, what is Europe today? Well, as we lazily let it be said over and over again, it is a top-down project of the metropolitan elite, easy meat for the populists.
Three different images of the first world war, the second world war and the present day map on to three different regimes of inequality. And, put in these terms, the link becomes obvious to another rage of the moment – Thomas Piketty's map of inequality under capitalism, which derives some of its best data from Britain. It shows inequality peaking in the era of the Somme and Passchendaele. It declined from the outbreak of the second world war down to the 70s. Just as Britain joined Europe, neoliberalism triumphed. Indeed, Britain contributed mightily to turning Europe into a vehicle for neoliberal market reform with all its attendant social side-effects.
One should not overdramatise. The impending decision on Britain's future in Europe is fateful but it is not as momentous as that taken in August 1914. On the longest day, 70 years ago, as the invasion armada bobbed around in the Channel, the future of the world was at stake. But the juxtaposition nevertheless casts depressing light on our current condition. The tensions unleashed within British society by the era of total war between 1914 and 1945 set the stage for a dramatic shift towards greater equality and inclusion. Right now we are heading in another direction altogether.
When the political class has lost its nerve to the point where populists' fears about Romanian immigrants can seriously menace our position at the heart of Europe, we are further away from D-day than the 70th anniversary suggests. In the menagerie of political metaphor there are no more lions, but plenty of donkeys, and they seem thoroughly spooked by the vermin in the trenches.While the Toronto Maple Leafs have avoided making major changes to their crop of forwards this summer, fans will notice a few new faces in prominent places on the blue line come the fall.
One of those faces will be Roman Polak, who joined the Leafs via trade this off-season. The native of Ostrava, Czech Republic spent the previous eight seasons playing for the St. Louis Blues. Toronto acquired his services in exchange for long-time defender Carl Gunnarsson and a fourth-round pick in this year’s entry draft.
Polak has two years left on his existing contract from St. Louis, which carries an annual cap hit of $2.75 million. This is slightly less than the $2.95 million annual cap hit Gunnarsson represents for the next two seasons.
In terms of offensive production, Polak appears extremely limited. He’s never cracked the 25-point mark in his career, registering a career-high 21 points (4 goals, 17 assists) across 78 games during the 2009-2010 campaign. This isn’t really a problem for the Leafs, however, since Gunnarsson was never a heavy points producer either and the team is banking on big offensive performances from young defencemen Jake Gardiner and Morgan Rielly this season, which isn’t unrealistic.
Instead, Polak brings a certain physical presence to the team that the Leafs have sorely lacked over the years. It was hoped Mike Komisarek, Mark Fraser and Tim Gleason could’ve brought this toughness at different times, but a variety of factors – inconsistency, injuries, old age – always trumped expectations.
At 28 years old, Polak has plenty of gas left in his tank and he’s been fairly healthy over the span of his career. This is all the Leafs need from a bruiser who’ll probably skate on the team’s second or third defensive unit depending on the future contract status of Cody Franson.
Averaging 17:50 minutes of action per game last season, Polak shouldn’t expect to see anymore playing time in Toronto. However, he can expect to land in the penalty box at roughly the same rate or even higher since this’ll be his true role on the team: he’s the new muscle in town.When Antonin Scalia was nominated to the US supreme court by President Ronald Reagan in 1986, the first Italian-American to serve on the court was unanimously confirmed by the Senate. It may well be a year – or several – before the Senate confirms anybody to replace Scalia, who died on Saturday at the age of 79. But that vote will almost assuredly not be unanimous, regardless of who the eventual nominee is: the politics of US supreme court appointments have become as polarized as the rest of American politics.
And Scalia himself played a significant role in that very polarization.
Scalia’s legacy will be extensively celebrated by conservatives – Marco Rubio spoke for orthodox Republican opinion when he called Scalia one of the greatest justices in US supreme court history at Saturday’s Republican debate – and derided by liberals, many of whom wasted little time celebrating his demise and speculating how his absence on the court could affect future cases.
But what few political commentators note is that the foundation of his legal and political legacy does not so much stem from his majority opinions: landmark opinions, after all, tend to be written by either the chief justice or by the swing voters, like Justice Anthony Kennedy, and Scalia was neither. He certainly wrote numerous important opinions for the court (most notably the first opinion to find that the second amendment protected an individual right to bear arms in DC v Heller), but his reputation was largely based on his dissents and his remarks off the bench.
More than most US supreme court justices, Scalia often wrote to be quoted by a general audience – and that style was a mixed blessing for him. Scalia was capable of very fine legal writing but, particularly as he aged, his trademark blistering zingers were too often made to mask poorly crafted arguments. (In a 2013 interview, Scalia acknowledged his own concerns about his more recent opinions: “You always wonder whether you’re losing your grip and whether your current opinions are not as good as your old ones.”)
Scalia’s style of late reflected a justice who both strongly influenced the contemporary conservative movement and in turn was heavily influenced by it. At oral argument, he was capable of both devastating arguments and of sounding like a second-string conservative talkshow host. But, at his best, Scalia defended originalism and textualism with a style and wit that could be recognized even by those who fundamentally disagreed with him.
In his first decade on the court, Scalia even won some grudging admiration from liberals. Perhaps the high point of his intellectual influence across party lines was represented by his Tanner lectures at Princeton: they were published as a widely discussed book, complete with respectful response essays from prominent liberal scholars like Robert Dworkin and Laurence Tribe.
And it’s true that Scalia was not a strict Republican party-liner: there were some cases in which he was willing to make common cause with liberal justices out of principle. In one dissent, he (correctly) characterized the mandatory drug testing of border patrol officers as “a kind of immolation of privacy and human dignity in symbolic opposition to drug use”. He wrote a brilliant dissent, joined by Justice John Paul Stevens, upholding the habeas corpus rights of American citizens accused of terrorist activities. And in some fourth and sixth amendment cases, he regularly voted in a civil libertarian direction.
Still, these cases were the exception rather than the rule as his tenure wore on, and Scalia increasingly became a partisan lightning rod in court circles and in political circles beyond the court.
No discussion of Scalia’s legacy, for instance, can ignore the 2000 decision Bush v Gore, in which the court issued an essentially lawless decision awarding the presidency to the Republican candidate. Scalia did not write the opinion of the court, but he wrote the more nakedly partisan opinion that preceded it and has defended it aggressively in public ever since.
Bush v Gore is an extreme example but, despite Scalia’s self-presentation as America’s Last Honest Judge, Scalia had a way of ignoring his self-described legal principles if they conflicted with cherished policy goals. To take one particularly critical example, the joint dissent to the 2012 US supreme court opinion largely upholding the Affordable Care Act co-authored by Scalia was so flagrantly inconsistent with Scalia’s previous jurisprudence that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was able to quote his previous opinions at length in her concurrence.
More importantly to some is that, had Scalia’s dissents ultimately shaped America, women would not have reproductive rights, the federal government could not effectively regulate healthcare, LGBT people would not have the right to engage in sexual intercourse without fear of arrest – let alone alone the right to marry – and states could single them out for legal disabilities. Women could be excluded from state educational institutions, public schools could teach creationism in science classes and prisoners could be assaulted by prison guards. And, in large part because of Scalia, in America today, the Voting Rights Act has been gutted, the rights of employees and consumers have been curtailed, Brown v Board is more likely to be used to stop integration than to promote it and moneyed interests increasingly dominate elections.
But however one evaluates his legacy, Scalia’s untimely death creates a huge political issue that could well become a constitutional crisis. The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, has already made it clear that the Senate will not confirm anyone President Obama nominates to replace Scalia. That means, for at least a year, the US supreme court will almost certainly operate with eight members and, in cases of a 4-4 split, lower-court opinions will stand, leading to escalating uncertainty about the state of the law.
If the 2016 elections result in the White House and Senate being held by the same party, this logjam will probably be broken fairly quickly. Attempts by a Senate minority to serially filibuster nominees would almost certainly result in the filibuster being eliminated (as it already has been for all other federal judicial appointments). But if the 2016 elections result in Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders facing a Republican Senate – as currently seems likely – all bets are off.
There is no precedent for the Senate simply refusing to allow the president to fill a supreme court vacancy, but in the current partisan climate a new precedent may well be created. And whether political pressure will compel the Senate to approve some presidential nominee is unclear.
The politics of replacing Scalia are difficult precisely because the consequences are so important. Depending on the results of the 2016 presidential and senatorial elections, the next person allowed to vote on the US supreme court will be similar to either Elena Kagan or John Roberts – and the stakes for the reproductive freedom of women, climate change, voting rights, civil rights, the ability of the federal government to regulate the economy and civil liberties can hardly be overstated.
In a very real sense, the 2016 elections will ultimately result in the confirmation or repudiation of the jurisprudence for which Justice Scalia most prominently advocated. But he won’t be here to see it.In case you were wondering, Josh Levinson drinks his coffee “with one Splenda, and a splash of milk.” Yes, a splash. (Ed Note: We were.) Growing up, it was my understanding that drinking coffee was a rite of passage into adulthood; like that first kiss, or a pimple.
When I was finally allowed a cup of coffee, it meant I was old enough to be part of the conversation; which was mostly Italian hand gestures.
I got my first cup when I was 12. My first kiss came shortly after. I’ve been having romantic rendezvous with New Haven coffee shops since college. I admire them; the way they smell, the warmth, the style, the frothy sounds the machines make. The conversation. The game of musical chairs. The jazzy feel.
A cup of coffee can be the start of something good.
Or the end to something bad.
There is coffee all over this city; not like someone dumped coffee all over the city, but there’s a lot to choose from. There’s no bad coffee in New Haven, or a bad coffee shop unless of course you hate red cups. Each coffee shop fills a unique, coffee-sized hole in our hearts:
The Weekender: The Coffee Pedaler (East Rock AND Westville)
A variety of pour overs for the coffee connoisseur, bagels with Montreal seasoning (whatever that is) and Harney & Sons Fine Teas (damn, the hot cinnamon spice is amazing – although I’m pretty sure they’re still out). The tables are good for working. Also, they have great cold brew, now available in bottles for home consumption. Drink it in the shower and you are the ultimate morning multi-tasker.
Saturday morning: East Rock Coffee (East Rock, duh.)
If you love admiring cute little families and dogs, this is the place. It’s quaint inside, but there’s a fair amount of outdoor seating. It’s packed on Saturday mornings, but feel free to imagine how to outfit the space as a tiny home while you wait. I always do. The cold brew is good as well. Sometimes they even use their special brews like Kochere an Ethopian light roast. Be sure to get it early though because they’re often out by the afternoon.
First date: Koffee (Downtown)
The Central Perk of New Haven. Good for casual conversation, and Koffee Afterdark (after 5 PM), serving wine and craft beer. They have some board games, and there’s tiny red lights strung up all year long. Also, couches. And cupcakes. All day.
Sunday stroll: Blue State Coffee (Downtown)
A staple when walking through the Broadway section of downtown. If you prefer tea they have a really good ginger one. Both locations have a lot of tables and chairs, although they are usually taken. By grad students. Who will fight you to the death for them.
The basics: Willoughby’s (Downtown)
Your standard coffee shop. Two locations. Their coffee is a favorite for many, and they have a lot of beans to brew at home. I’ve never struggled for a seat. Apparently, sitting is very important to me.
Minimalist: Fuel (Wooster Square) *Best House Coffee*
Wooster Street is the new location with the same close proximity to the outdoor farmer’s market when it returns in the spring. It’s smaller than their previous locale, but the coffee is just as great. Seating is limited to three bar stools, so best to grab your coffee and go unless you are one of the three.
Like this: Like Loading...Gerry Sandusky is not that Jerry Sandusky. While it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this out given his many years in sports media, his being sports programming director at a major Baltimore radio station, his being the voice of the Baltimore Ravens, and, well, a painfully clear Twitter bio making that fact plain as day, that hasn't stopped the impulsive, ignorant underbelly of the internet from doing what they do best.
The *good* news is that the vast majority of his at tweet feed has now turned into people wishing him the best, admiring the grace with which he's handled an unfair situation, and condemning those too lazy intellectually to read a 140 character bio. Alas, even now, nearly a week removed from the other Sandusky's verdict, there's still plenty of reason to lose faith in humanity once again.
(Forewarning: much of what's sampled below and after the jump contains graphic language and obscenity. Reader discretion is advised):
@GerrySandusky You can go to hell after what you did to those boys — Buddha (@BuddhaSwagg) June 28, 2012
Not very Buddhist of him, I'll give him that. But as he does from time to time (which given the sheer volume flooding his timeline can't possibly reflect enough on the man's character), good guy Gerry Sandusksy jumps into explain the situation... To little avail:
@GerrySandusky well then I hope for your sake you don't turn out like your dad Jerry Sandusky — Buddha (@BuddhaSwagg) June 28, 2012
/Head slap.
Sadly, it gets worse.
@GerrySandusky Is this the Jerry Sandusky, child rapist extraordinaire? — Maverick (@BigBirmingham6) June 28, 2012
There are just too many things wrong with that inquiry to mention. I digress.
@GerrySandusky Looking to have a soap fight in the showers tonight Jerry. Help me out, I haven't felt your touch since Saturday. Horny. — Matt Brian (@HiMyNameIsLuebs) June 28, 2012
This individual has sadly made a D-grade humor game of harassing Sandusky having sent three or four others in the last couple days alone. Don't worry champ, I'm sure you "S#$* My Dad Says"-esque big pilot break is just another tone deaf child molestation joke away.
@GerrySandusky y'all are the same people damn homo — John countiss (@JohnCountiss56) June 28, 2012
This individual appears to be a high school football player. He also seems content on fulfilling every dumb jock stereotype known to man.
@GerrySandusky Homo homo homo — John countiss (@JohnCountiss56) June 28, 2012
Hate speech fever. Catch it!
@GerrySandusky well any who have fun in prison "Gerry" — Ryan Cavin (@BONE_Z1LLA) June 28, 2012
Even when Gerry tries to explain the situation logically, many of these folks are beyond reason or reproach. Shoot first, ask questions later. Or just don't ask questions and continue to embrace ignorance as bliss. You know, whatever.
@GerrySandusky what is wrong with you. Shame — CRH (@chorncast) June 28, 2012
Sweet cognitive dissonance... I don't even.
@GerrySandusky i cant believe you have the gull to be on twitter after the heinous crimes u comitted come on man — Randy Click (@LetsGoBuffaloo) June 28, 2012
I'm not saying anyone deserves Chan Gailey their coach as that would just be cruel, but...
@GerrySandusky HOW COULD YOU DO THAT TO ALL THEM KIDDS. — Dildo Malone (@InjunSteveO) June 27, 2012
Hard hitting questions from user, 'Dildo Malone'.
@GerrySandusky can't believe you're allowed near boy swimmers. When does your prison sentence start? — Truth (@YouAintGonna) June 27, 2012
As have many of us, Sandusky's been watching some of the Olympic qualifying. And while I guess there are some underaged prospective Olympians, um...
Which leads us to the crown jewel of all, a hate in her heart fueled lady with the username @JessicaPaden01:
@GerrySandusky you're a disgusting vile human being I hope you get butt raped in jail for what you did — paden (@JessicaPaden01) June 26, 2012
Gerry wants to reason with her, because, you would too if your name was Gerry Sandusky, but worry not, her lunatic fringe cohorts in myopia are down to expose the real truth:
@GerrySandusky @JessicaPaden01 Nice trick you tried to pull. We know the truth you sack of shit. — Adam Unfiltered (@Adam_Unfiltered) June 27, 2012
@GerrySandusky and you're a liar. I know what you did, we all do. one letter change isn't a very good disguise — paden (@JessicaPaden01) June 26, 2012
There's no getting past Jessica, you guys. But as mentioned the vast majority of folks dialoguing with him now are clearly on his side. That doesn't meant there aren't some gems amongst them yet:
@GerrySandusky u may not b that guy. But the ravens still suck. Go Pats — MacEwan™ (@mikemac26) June 28, 2012
Sports!
@GerrySandusky dude I hate to say this,but I think youre gonna have to delete your Twitter. hen sue the other Sandusky for ruining your name — Sam Gargaro (@Bruins5776) June 28, 2012
Decreed the full grown man in the Insane Clown Posse makeup.
Either way, Gerry Sandusky with a 'G' continues to handle an otherwise absurd situation with great aplomb. Here's hoping the tide of stupid wanes sooner rather than later.Republican senators are pulling their support of Alabama GOP candidate Roy Moore over allegations, first published in the Washington Post, that he pursued sexual encounters with four teenage girls decades ago, when he was in his 30s.
Friday evening, two GOP senators stated that they could no longer support Moore, weeks ahead of the special election in Alabama for Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s old seat:
I am pulling my endorsement and support for Roy Moore for U.S. Senate. — Steve Daines (@SteveDaines) November 10, 2017
Having read the detailed description of the incidents, as well as the response from Judge Moore and his campaign, I can no longer endorse his candidacy for the US Senate. — Mike Lee (@SenMikeLee) November 10, 2017
They didn’t say what Republican voters in Alabama should do instead. Because it’s too late for Moore to be removed from the ballot, the main options would be to stay home, write in another candidate, or vote for Moore’s opponent, Democrat Doug Jones.
Initially, GOP senators hedged their condemnation of Moore, saying some version of he should step aside or they would hold their endorsements, if the allegations were true.
The timing of Republican lawmakers’ decisions to cut ties with the controversial candidate seemed to coincide with an interview Moore gave on Sean Hannity’s radio program Friday afternoon. He addressed the accusations and called the Post story “completely false,” but admitted to knowing two of the women cited in the report and “didn’t dispute” that he had dated teens.Schools in rebel-held areas in Aleppo will be closed for at least a week after bloody air raids on civilian areas, carried out by the goverment of Bashar al-Assad, a monitor and activists said on Monday.
News of the closure comes as fighting between rebel and government forces on Syria's northern city has intensified in recent days.
MEE contributor Edward Dark, who is based in Aleppo, tweeted on Monday, "Basically, Aleppo city is being annihilated."
On Saturday, government forces and rebel fighters exchanged fire in the city's rebel-held Al-Maadi and Sheikh al-Lutfi neighbourhoods, killing at least 35 civilians.
Then on Sunday, a Syrian army airstrike on a school in the city's opposition-controlled east killed five children, three women teachers and a man.
Bloodstains and debris marked the entrances of the bombed-out school, and broken desks and glass were strewn across classroom floors.
People inspect the damage inside a classroom of the Saad Ansari school in the northern city of Aleppo on 12 April (AFP)
In response, the rebel education authority in Aleppo on Monday called on schools and teaching centres to suspend their classes until the end of the week, according to a statement distributed by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
It said the decision was made "out of concern for the safety of students and teachers, because the criminal regime is targeting gatherings, schools, and institutions".
An opposition activist at the Aleppo Media Centre confirmed to AFP that all 135 schools in rebel-held parts of the city were closed "until further notice" as well as markets.
"People are more afraid than usual and there are dozens of families who have fled to refugee camps in Turkey or are internally displaced in Aleppo," said the activist who spoke on condition of anonymity.
According to him and the UK-based Observatory, Syria's government has intensified its aerial campaign against opposition-controlled areas in the city.
"For two months, the army didn't make a single real breakthrough on the battlefield," said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman.
"So it's trying to compensate by intensifying bombardments of rebel areas," he said.
Dr Samer Attar, a professor of orthopaedic surgery at Northwestern University in Chicago, who has volunteered in field hospitals in Aleppo with the Syrian-American Medical Society, wrote in the Wall Street Journal on Sunday that, in the city, "hundreds of people dying in one weekend is the new normal."
"Mangled limbs, exposed organs, crushed skulls, dismembered children, bombed-out hospitals protected only by sandbags, underground emergency rooms where efforts to resuscitate dying patients take place on floors smeared with blood - all these scenarios are now routine for Syrian doctors and nurses," Attar wrote.
Once Syria's economic powerhouse, Aleppo has been divided into government control in the west and rebel control in the east since shortly after fighting began there in mid-2012.
Government forces frequently bomb rebel-held neighbourhoods in the east from the air. The rebels often retaliate with rocket and mortar fire into government-held neighbourhoods.
Both sides have been criticised by human rights groups for firing indiscriminately on civilians.
President Assad's government has suffered several setbacks in recent weeks, losing control over the northwestern city of Idlib, as well as a crossing along the border with Jordan and an ancient village in the south.
More than 215,000 people have been killed since the beginning of Syria's conflict in 2011.The Portland assimilation of "Grimm" is complete: The show shops local.
The NBC series filmed in Portland has made the metro area a focus of the show from its incarnation, using local landmarks as backdrops, writing city references into each episode and purchasing locally made products for on-screen use by the Grimms, Wesen, Portland police and citizens of the Rose City.
A number of Portland businesses have benefitted, putting their products and brand names in front of 4 million-plus viewers a week. The latest beneficiaries are four Portland custom bike builders whose bikes were included (and may be recognizable) in the bicycle-themed episode scheduled to air Friday night.
It's vastly different world than in movies, where brands often pay to get their products screen time.
Viewing party
Portland's
, one of the four bicycle builders whose bikes were used in the "Grimm" episode to be aired Friday night, will host a viewing party for the 8 p.m. program on NBC (Channel 8) at The Station, 2703 N.E. Alberta St., where some Circa Cycles will be on display.
Grimm prefers locally made items to prevent the chance of conflicting with a national brand advertised during commercial breaks, said Todd Ellis, property master for Grimm. A bigger brand, advertising to a national audience, wouldn't likely consider a locally made product to be a direct competitor.
Also, a national brand would have to grant the show permission to use an item on television. And then NBC's marketing staff would weigh in, Ellis said. It's just more trouble than it's worth - plus local businesses can lend the show a sense of place.
In Friday night's episode, viewers may notice that the labeling on some of the bicycles is not visible. Those bikes, made by brands that sell in shops across the country, were borrowed from Portland bike shops and had their labels covered.
But the labels for the four Portland builders - Circa Cycles, Breadwinner, Tonic Fabrication and Cycles J. Bryant - remained uncovered during filming of the episode about three months ago. Whether viewers can actually see the labels, after the episode's editing, is another matter.
With Grimm and any other series, it would be a dull television world if shows only had national products with their labels covered.
"It gives the show a much more realistic look than what would normally be very generic," said Ellis, an independent contractor who has been in the props business for 27 years and whose business is based in Ashland.
So Grimm's characters don't always drink beer, but when they do, viewers might have noticed they are holding bottles from Deschutes Brewery or Rogue Ales. Some backpacks have come from Dakine in Hood River, insulated bottles from Hydro Flask in Bend, bicycle helmets from Nutcase in Portland and knives from Benchmade Knife Co. in Oregon City.
Those axes and some of the knives used this season? Crafted by Bridgetown Forge in North Portland.
Other Grimm staff members seek out locally made furniture and artwork, Ellis said. The costume department is on a first-name basis with Nike.
Free product placement can pay unexpected dividends, said Maureen O'Connor, director of Portland State University's advertising program.
Research suggests that after consumers see a product on a TV show or movie, they're "much more aware when they see a website or collateral piece or pass by the store sometime," O'Connor said.
And exposure in Friday night's bike-themed episode can only help enhance Portland's bicycling reputation, as well as provide a potential boost for the four bike builders, said Jonathan Maus, editor and publisher of BikePortland.org.
The city is home to approximately 40 builders, most of them one-person shops with waiting lists of up two years, Maus said.
But a few are bigger.
Zen Bicycle Fabrication in North Portland has seven employees making small to medium production runs. Chris King Precision Components in industrial Northwest Portland employs 130 people and is best known for its headsets and hubs. But about a dozen Chris King employees build its Cielo brand bikes. And Sacha White, who founded Vanilla Bicycles 15 years ago, launched the separate Speedvagen line, employing a bike-building team, to more quickly deliver hand-built bicycles.
"You can only build so many bikes with just one person," Maus said.
The four builders whose bikes are used in the Grimm episode are small shops, largely dependent on word-of-mouth advertising. Or maybe the serendipity of having their frame label seen on a nationally televised program.
"This is how these guys survive - with the Web," Maus said. "You could see something that catches your eye on Grimm. You've got your iPad on the couch with you and all of a sudden you're on that person's website and you're looking."
--Allan Brettman
503-294-5900
@allanbrettmanAfter putting on another goal-scoring clinic on Independence Day, Atlanta United's Josef Martinez has earned himself a spot on the MLS Team of the Week. Martinez was directly involved in three of the team's four goals, netting two of them himself. The first came from a powerful header after latching on to a Greg Garza cross and the other from a combination with Miguel Almirón then dinking it off the inside of the post for the final dagger.
Other than the inaugural match against New York Red Bulls, Martinez has found the back of the net in every home appearance this season, and his most recent Fourth of July brace was worthy of another Golden Spike from the Atlanta supporters. The 23-year-old Venezuelan international now leads the team in goals with nine on the year in MLS. And considering Atlanta United still have the majority of their home matches still to play, the rest of the league have the right to be wary.
See the full MLS Team of the Week below:
Bench: Luis Robles, NY; Adolfo Machado, HOU; Victor Ulloa, DAL; Jimmy Medranda, SKC; Roland Lamah, DAL; Mauro Manotas, HOU; Jozy Altidore, TOR
Coach: Brian Schmetzer, SEA
NOTE: Team of the Week is voted on by the MLSsoccer.com editorial staff.by Larry Lee
LAC DU FLAMBEAU, Wis. (WSAU) -- An old trick for starting your car in the winter can be dangerous, and a Lac du Flambeau woman found out the hard way.
Vilas County Sheriff Joe Fath says the woman placed lit charcoal underneath her vehicle’s engine to warm the oil pan and engine block. This is a technique that used to be common many years ago before cars were made of more plastic and built lower to the ground.
The woman removed her battery and took it in the house to warm it up. Then at about 8:30 a.m. Tuesday, she placed the hot coals under the 2007 Dodge Grand Caravan minivan. The van caught fire in the mostly-plastic front bumper section.
Police believe there is over $1,000 worth of damage to the van.While the Philadelphia Flyers faithful may be salivating at the thought of blue-chip prospect Nolan Patrick leading their club into the future, a bona fide superstar is seeing visions of eventually joining in on the fun as well.
Calgary Flames winger Johnny Gaudreau, who grew up just outside of Philadelphia in Carneys Point, N.J., is apparently open to returning home to suit up for his boyhood club at some point in his career. The 23-year-old discussed the potential homecoming during an interview with a Philadelphia radio station on Friday.
“It would be sweet to play [in Philadelphia] some day,” Gaudreau said. “You never know in sports, but it’s a lot of support back here in South Jersey and the Philly area.”
Gaudreau – who signed a six-year, $40.5-million deal with Calgary in 2016 – hasn’t seen his American roots wilt since making the move to Canada.
“I’ve got a ton of family here, all my friends,” Gaudreau said. “All my friends come back here, all my good friends, and kids that I’ve played with my whole life are from South Jersey.”
The top-line winger has five years left on his deal with the Flames, with whom he’s embarked on two post-season runs while becoming one of the most electrifying offensive talents in the game. A move out of Alberta doesn’t seem likely any time soon, though the door seems to be cracked a little wider than some may have thought.
Key to consider, the forward’s current deal includes a modified no-trade clause in its final year, 2021-22:
It’s not the first time the quick-footed forward has left open the possibility of donning orange and black threads before his time in the NHL is up.
Said Gaudreau to the Philadelphia Inquirer before signing his hefty, new contract last year:
“Everyone wants to play for their hometown team eventually.”× “Hillary for Prison” float in western Iowa fire department parade draws criticism
ARCADIA, Iowa (AP) — A western Iowa parade drew complaints from some not amused by a makeshift jail cell holding a man wearing a Hillary Clinton mask.
The Carroll Daily Times Herald reports two men built the cell on a trailer, then towed |
of Star Trek television series or motion pictures, just as a trailer does not substitute for a feature-length film. The Axanar Motion Picture has not yet been made or released and its script is not yet released. Hence it cannot have any market impact. On the other hand, Defendants have successfully raised over a million dollars from Star Trek fans at Defendants’ prompting of funding the Axanar projects instead of “dumping hundreds or thousands of dollars a year on... cable channels” on which the Star Trek Copyrighted Works are shown. … He wanted to create “a whole new way that fans can get the content they want, by funding it themselves.” Klausner concluded that unrestricted and widespread conduct like that of Axanar would hurt the market for Star Trek: 18) The fact that Defendants distributed Prelude and the Vulcan Scene for free online and intend to likewise distribute their future works may likely increase the risk of market substitution as fans choose free content over paid features. HEY, BROTHER Judge Klausner’s ruling refers to the Star Trek episode, “Way to Eden.”
Trek References in Judge's OrderBarring a super-duper breakout performance in South Korea (April 20), China (May 12) and Japan (July 15), Power Rangers is not going to be a mega-hit that was hoped for after its big $40.3 million domestic opening weekend. That makes the notion of a sequel the very definition of a risky bet. While there is always a chance that a Power Rangers 2 could break out thanks to those who liked the first film and discovered it after theaters, it doesn't seem terribly likely. As such, barring a massive overseas gross, Power Rangers may be a one-and-done deal.
The film, which stars Dacre Montgomery, Naomi Scott, RJ Cyler, Ludi Lin, Becky G., Elizabeth Banks, Bryan Cranston and Bill Hader, fell 64% in weekend two and 56% in weekend three for a $75m 17-day total. The film will likely make around $90m in North America, for an over/under 2.25x multiplier. That's not good, as even the likes of X-Men (which was frontloaded in its day) earned $157m from a $54m debut weekend, or a 2.9x multiplier. And it hasn't gone nuts overseas either, with just $117m worldwide thus far with much of the world played out.
Watch On Forbes:
With a $110 million budget, Saban and Lionsgate will either find themselves rolling in Chinese grosses or having to make the hard choice of whether or not to make a sequel. The Dean Israelite-directed teen melodrama/sci-fi actioner is not a super flop but it's also not a mega-hit. So the decision as to whether or not to go forward with a second installment is entirely about whether there is reason to believe that a sequel can build upon the fans of both the franchise and this specific incarnation.
And as much as I like to talk about break-out sequels, the odds seem against that happening here. I liked the film more than I expected and wouldn't mind a continuation, but there are a few reasons to look upon the notion with trepidation.
First, again, the film was not (as of today) a blow-out hit. I can't speak to merchandising sales and other related factors, but the picture mostly played to those who were already excited for a big-budget Power Rangers movie and failed to expand beyond fans. Sure, a lot of folks were surprised at how good it was, and it was ironic to see the picture become the first big-scale superhero movie to include LGBT and autistic superheroes before Marvel and DC. But this wasn't a critically acclaimed wonder, earning an average Rotten Tomatoes score of 5.1/10 (47% fresh).
Let us remember that the vast majority of the so-called break-out sequels (Pitch Perfect 2, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me) were from critically acclaimed or well-reviewed originals. Me arguing for a Power Rangers sequel because I liked it carries about as much weight as you arguing for a John Carter 2 because you totally think it was an underappreciated gem. Even Transformers got good reviews the first time out.
Moreover, the vast majority of said films were incontestable hits the first time out. It's not like Shrek was some underappreciated cult hit that exploded the second time out. It legged it like a champ (a 6x multiplier) in 2001 and then broke super-duper big in 2004. And while The Twilight Saga scored with New Moon, Twilight still made $391 million worldwide on a $35m budget.
Oddly enough, the one big exception is none other than Batman Begins. Yes, the mother of all break-out sequels, which spawned a film that nearly tripled the worldwide gross of its predecessor, was not a blowout win. If you recall, Chris Nolan's somber and character-focused Batman origin story earned "just" $205 million domestic and "just" $374 million on a $150m budget.
That's not a disaster, but it's also not a blowout number in a year where Fox's Fantastic Four made $330 million global on a $100m budget and Warner's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory made $475m worldwide on a $150m budget. Even with white-hot buzz, The Dark Knight was not a foregone conclusion. Heck, in 2017, a result like that probably would have killed the franchise or resulted in Superman and Green Lantern being added to the sequel.
Yet, with the caveat that the post-theatrical market (DVDs, Blu-Rays, etc.) was a lot stronger in 2005 than it is in 2017, Batman Begins overcame a smaller-than-expected debut ($48 million Fri-Sun/$72m Wed-Sun) to leg it for the rest of the summer on the strength of strong buzz, solid word-of-mouth, and pre-release critical raves. Power Rangers got mixed-negative reviews and even with strong audience polling it still sank like a stone.
And even if the film was better received, there is no guarantee that a sequel would get a substantial upswing, as we saw with Star Trek into Darkness in 2013. Now obviously if the film pulls off Kong: Skull Island numbers in China then this is a different (and arguably even more complicated) conversation. But otherwise, Power Rangers is a film that doesn't seem terribly inclined to get a sequel. And barring my personal interest in another go-around, I'd advise against it.
A second chapter may capitalize on fan approval and post-theatrical interest, but it will also have to be quite a bit more expensive since it won't have the luxury of holding back its spectacle until the last 1//4 of the movie. It will have to make more, a lot more, here and abroad to justify its additional expense. Lionsgate has ironically done so well of late with the likes of La La Land, John Wick: Chapter 2 and Boo! A Madea Halloween that they really don't need to roll the dice on Power Rangers even though their limited exposure (around 25% of the cost including marketing) means the may make out nicely.
The film earned mixed-negative reviews and opened well by playing to the fans but failed to branch out beyond the pre-sold demographics. Even with the good buzz over its inclusive casting and character-driven approach, it still acted like a quick-kill blockbuster, with the obvious caveat that it's not exactly a blockbuster. It didn't go nuts overseas either. Aside from the fact that some folks liked it better than expected and we haven't seen its post-theatrical life yet, it meets none of the criteria for a possible breakout franchise.
My 13-year old self, who hated the old show, couldn't image enjoying a live-action Power Rangers movie to the point of wanting a sequel, but life works out in funny ways.Jack Saddleback was nominated Thursday as the University of Saskatchewan Students' Union president.
Saddleback, who previously served as the Vice President of Student Affairs, is the fourth Aboriginal and first transgender students' union president at the university. He said the significance of his election isn't lost on him.
"The fact that people don't think of me as just a trans man, don't think of me as just a First Nations man," he said. "They see all the skills that I have, they see the fact that I've put in work for a number of years and have been so invested in our university to make it a better place for all students."
Saddleback's platform
Saddleback ran on a fourpoint platform, which included working towards a mental health strategy on campus.
"I've had a huge passion for mental health for a number of years," he said.
Saddleback has sat on the Mental Health Commission of Canada's Youth Council for five years. He also served as one of the five faces of mental illness with the Canadian Alliance on Mental Illness and Mental Health in their national anti-stigma campaign.
He sees a need for more services on campus.
"Right now, the University of Saskatchewan does not have a mental health strategy. When we're looking at the mental health of, not only students, but staff and faculty, we have to ensure that we're looking at all our services, noticing, and acknowledging those gaps that are happening right now," he said.
"We need to ensure our campus community is looking after the mental health of individuals."
The other three points of Saddleback's platform included establishing a clear sexual assault policy on campus, student engagement on campus, and community engagement off campus.
Saddleback won the election with 2302 votes, or 47.66 per cent of the votes. He ran against Noah Kelleher who garnered 34.24 per cent of the votes.
Ata Merat was elected with a vote of confidence to serve as the vice president of operations and finance, and Gabe Senecal will serve as the vice president of academic affairs. Kehan Fu will fill Saddleback's former position as the vice president of student affairs.We sometimes don’t notice history as it’s unfolding right before us, so let’s stop and take note of what a historically momentous day Tuesday was. Twenty, 50 years from now, when historians or college professors are trying to describe to their readers and students what the difference was between the two political parties in our time, they will direct them to October 1, 2013. That one day says it all.
The Democratic Party was opening up its historic program to bring health care to all citizens, and the Republican Party was closing down the federal government, a fanatical minority manipulating the rules of our democracy and holding a gun to the country’s head, all because it wants to deny all citizens health care and is furious that it failed three times in that effort.
Tuesday perfectly expressed what these two parties have come to be about. The Democrats have many flaws, and money has corrupted them at certain times on certain issues almost as much as it has corrupted Republicans. And yes, sometimes some Democrats behave divisively, too. But at least they have had good moments, even great ones. The passage of Social Security. Medicare and Medicaid. Civil rights (and please, you cynical Everett Dirksen-invokers, give it a rest and go away; you would have long since drummed Dirksen out of your party today). Women’s rights. And most recently gay rights, including same-sex marriage; history will recall Barack Obama with admiration as the first sitting president willing to voice his support for that.
This is where you might expect me to say the evil Republicans were implacably opposed to every one of these great advances at every turn. But that isn’t the case. In 1935, majorities of Republicans backed Social Security—not by anywhere near the percentages Democrats did, but they supported it. Thirty years later, about half of Republicans in both houses of Congress backed Medicare and Medicaid. And yes, Dirksen and other Republicans were important allies for Lyndon Johnson on civil rights against the racist and reactionary Southern wing of his own party.
The GOP was wagging the tail of the dog of history in those days—while it wasn’t leading the fights, a respectable number of Republicans signed onto them. Still, wagging a tail is a far sight better than cutting one off with a rusty serrated knife. And that’s all the party of resentment does these days.
Universal health care has been discussed in the United States for a century. It never succeeded before because of the powerful business and vested interests that opposed it. In Harry Truman’s day, the American Medical Association assessed its members an extra $25 in dues to fight Truman’s universal health care plan, and the AMA won.
This time, opposition to universal health care isn’t chiefly financial. The AMA even endorsed Obamacare. It’s chiefly cultural, right-wing rage that Mitt Romney’s 47 percenters are getting something for nothing (which they aren’t, of course). Read the comments of some of the Tea Party House Republicans who are delighting in the shutdown, absolutely convinced they’re doing the right thing. “What was I elected for? To try to change the law on behalf of my constituents, to stand on my core principles and do my best to represent them ethically, honestly, based on the core principles we share,” Rep. John Culberson (R-TX) told the Times.
I believe him. He and the others aren’t doing this because some fat cat lobbyist is lining their pockets. They’re doing it because it’s a matter of those “core principles” they share. But what are the principles? Not faith in the free market—Obamacare is a free-market program (ask the insurance companies!). Not concern about spending—there are early, tentative signs that Obamacare is contributing to a reduction in overall health care spending. Don’t take it from me, take it from Forbes.
Culberson and his constituents of course wouldn’t put it this way, but I think the principles look a lot more like toxic hatred of government; belief that health care has to be “earned”; conviction that Obama and the Democrats want to create a society of freeloaders; fear that one way or another, it’s all going to come out of their hides.
This is what this feral opposition is about. It’s certainly not because Republicans and conservatives have specific criticisms of Obamacare and better ideas they want to implement. You will have noticed that the Republican Party has long since stopped bothering to pretend to have any health-care ideas of its own. How long has it been since you heard “repeal and replace”? They dropped that “replace” ages ago. They dropped it because it was a pretense the whole time. They have zero ideas about how to insure the uninsured. That’s because they don’t give a fig if the uninsured become insured. They’ve got theirs, and they want to be left alone.
Every society is locked in a battle between two visions. One says we have some degree of collective responsibility to each other; that you “earn” the “right” to something like health care not when you’re lucky enough to land a good, non-Walmart job but the day you are born; and that we’re all better off when...well, as my friends Nick Hanauer and Eric Liu say, when we’re all better off.
And there are those who have a vision, if one can call it that, that sees all the above as not just unfortunate but iniquitous. And today, in the age of Obama, sent over some psychic edge by the ascendance of a black president, their collective rage is transmitted to (and shared by) their representatives, who then believe that any means of resistance is justified.
It’s these two visions we saw manifested Tuesday, as some 3 million Americans tried to sign up for health coverage while the Republicans and their pathetic speaker peacocked around the Capitol trying to stop history. But you can’t do that, and there is no question years from now which vision history will judge more kindly.Lawmakers in both parties slammed President Trump’s decision on Wednesday to bar transgender Americans from serving in the military, while many of his allies on Capitol Hill remained largely perplexed or silent.
The president’s decision, announced in a series of tweets, is yet another move that confused and divided elements of his party at a time when it is already roiled by disagreements over the future of a proposed health-care overhaul and of embattled Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who has faced a barrage of criticism from Trump in recent days.
Rep. Thomas J. Rooney (R-Fla.), a former Army officer, said “it throws us off” when Trump issues surprise tweets that distract from other GOP priorities. “Based on what we’re doing in here this week, I don’t know what the connection is,” he said.
Capitol Hill’s most prominent Republican voice on national security matters, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.), also criticized Trump’s announcement, calling it “unclear” and “yet another example of why major policy announcements should not be made via Twitter.”
McCain added, “There is no reason to force service members who are able to fight, train, and deploy to leave the military — regardless of their gender identity.” He said there should be no change in policy until the Pentagon completes an ongoing review of the issue.
(Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)
[Analysis: Trump’s argument against transgender soldiers echoes one used against gays, women and blacks]
Other conservative senators offered criticism of the move. A spokeswoman for Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), an Army veteran and member of the Armed Services Committee, said that the senator believes “Americans who are qualified and can meet the standards to serve in the military should be afforded that opportunity,” though the military should not fund gender-reassignment surgery.
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), a Trump ally on most issues, said he wanted “more information and clarity” on Trump’s policy. “I don’t think we should be discriminating against anyone,” he said, adding that transgender people “deserve the best we can do for them.”
And Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), a senior member of an Appropriations subcommittee that sets Pentagon spending levels, said he expected Congress to call hearings exploring Trump’s policy change.
“You ought to treat everybody fairly and give everybody a chance to serve,” he told CNN.
Most Republicans on Capitol Hill, however, remained mum in the hours immediately after the announcement Wednesday.
A House Republican aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity to talk frankly about internal matters, said that while GOP leaders were aware of a White House review of the issue of transgender service members, they were not given heads-up about the announcement and that it was “way beyond what we expected.”
(Whitney Leaming/The Washington Post)
One Republican lawmaker who offered early support for the policy change on social media was Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-Mo.), who recently offered an amendment to the annual defense policy bill that would have blocked the Pentagon from offering gender transition therapies to active-duty service members.
“Pleased to hear that @realDonaldTrump shares my readiness and cost concerns, & will be changing this costly and damaging policy,” she said on Twitter.
But a GOP colleague, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (Fla.), who has a transgender son, weighed in against the policy: “No American, no matter their sexual orientation or gender identity, should be prohibited from honor + privilege of serving our nation.”
Trump’s announcement comes two weeks after the House rejected Hartzler’s amendment in a closely watched vote. Twenty-four Republicans joined all 190 Democrats voting to reject the measure.
But the issue has remained a pet cause for House conservatives who believe the federal government should not be funding gender reassignments. Conservatives have offered several amendments to a pending appropriations bill funding the military that would target transgender service members. But those amendments, which could come up for a vote Thursday, would not exclude them from serving entirely.
During the debate on the initial amendment, Rep. Duncan D. Hunter (R-Calif.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee who also served in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, argued for the therapy restriction but explicitly stopped short of calling for an overall ban.
“We’re not stopping transgender people from joining,” he said. “We’re saying taxpayers in this country right now are not going to foot the bill for it.”
The defense policy bill has yet to move through the Senate, though Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has indicated that could happen in the coming weeks. McCain, who is still determining how to treat an aggressive form of brain cancer, is poised to lead floor debate on the legislation.
Opponents of Trump’s policy could use the legislation to amend the bill to overturn it. A handful of Democrats, including Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.) and Cory Booker (N.J.), said they were preparing legislation to do so.
Gillibrand, who has used her perch on the Senate Armed Services Committee to push for greater protections for women in uniform, said Wednesday that she would pursue legislation to “overturn this discriminatory decision.”
The defense bill, always seen as one of the few must-pass bills of the year, is often used as a way to launch proxy battles in the decades-long culture wars that pit social conservatives against progressives. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle often introduce legislation to restrict or expand abortion protections at military medical installations, to enact stricter rules against sexual harassment or rape in the ranks, or in more recent years, to restrict or roll back protections for transgender troops.
The last time the annual defense bill was used to make a significant change in social policy was 2010, when lawmakers voted to roll back the Clinton-era “don’t ask, don’t tell” rule that banned gay men and lesbians from openly serving in uniform. But transgender service was left in flux, in part because its fate has been dictated by internal Pentagon medical policy, not law.
If Trump’s tweets signal a change in policy, then “this is a president hell-bent determined to wreak havoc in the ranks — the very thing he said he didn’t want to do he’s proposed doing,” said Aubrey Sarvis, a private attorney and gay rights advocate who used to lead Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, the group that pushed to end the gay troop ban. “If he seeks to do this as commander in chief by ordering his subordinates to act on this, the Defense Department is going to be faced with a barrage of lawsuits.”
“This is a wake up call and defining moment for the LGBT community. We have to rise up and oppose this president,” Sarvis added.
The seven openly gay members of Congress quickly denounced the change. Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.), who is also running for Colorado governor, said, “Trump makes our military weaker by arbitrarily kicking out high-performing soldiers based solely on gender identity.”
Other Democrats flooded social media and email inboxes with statements objecting to the change.
Rep. Adam Smith (Wash.), the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, called the policy change “an unwarranted and disgraceful attack on men and women who have been bravely serving their country.”
“These service members are defending the United States around the world as we speak, and they have long done so with distinction,” he said. “To prevent transgender people from joining the military and to push out those who have devoted their lives to this country would be ugly and discriminatory in the extreme.”
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) noted that Trump made his announcement on the 69th anniversary of President Harry Truman’s executive order desegregating the military, adding that the president “has chosen this day to unleash a vile and hateful agenda that will blindside thousands of patriotic Americans.”
“Transgender Americans are serving honorably in our military,” said Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.). “We stand with these patriots.”
Several Democratic military veterans also lambasted Trump’s decision. Rep. Ruben Gallego (Ariz.), a Marine veteran of the Iraq War, accused Trump of “using fear of Trans community to score political points.”
“Banning any qualified person from serving their country, because of who they are is both discriminatory and bad national security policy,” he tweeted.
And Rep. Anthony G. Brown (Md.), a retired Army Reserve colonel, called it “a dark day for our Armed Forces and our nation.”
“President Trump’s rationale harkens back to a more ignorant and intolerant time, where words like ‘disruption’ and ‘not a social experiment’ were used to keep women, African Americans and gays and lesbians from fully participating in our military services,” he said.
Read more at PowerPostBahamas shark station comes under attack - but the monster isn't Jaws, it's a foot-long woodlouse from 8,500ft down
When 'teeth marks' appeared in cables of an underwater camera system in the Bahamas and the camera cut out, the scientists in charge began to look around for a cuplrit.
Edd Brooks of the Bahamas Cape Eleuthera Institute took a closer look at the cables and found that the teeth marks looked like a huge crustacean had gnawed on them.
The truth was even stranger: they were under attack from a foot long undersea woodlouse.
'There’s nothing else with mandibles that sharp,' says Brooks. 'It was a Bathynomus attack.'
The beast normally lives 8,500ft under water. Called the Bathynomus Giganteus, it is a super-sized cousin of the humble woodlouse
Its legs are arranged in seven pairs, and its front two are able to manipulate and bring food to its four sets of jaws
Edd Brooks of the Bahamas Cape Eleuthera Institute took a closer look at the cables and found that the teeth marks looked like a huge crustacean had gnawed on them
The beast normally lives 8,500ft under water. Called the Bathynomus Giganteus, it is a super-sized cousin of the humble woodlouse.
Its legs are arranged in seven pairs, and its front two are able to manipulate and bring food to its four sets of jaws.
It is a scavenger that feeds on dead whales, fish and shrimp.
The species is abundant in the cold, deep waters of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and is a good example of deep-sea gigantism.
Many deep-sea crustaceans and invertebrates tend to be larger than their shallow-water counterparts.
It is not yet known whether this is due to the colder temperature, higher pressure or scarcer food resources.
The Bathonymus chewed through the cables of the Medusa undersea camera
The victim cut out after one of the giant undersea beasts chewed through its cables
Attacks on cameras are rare, but the species are relatively common in the Gulf of Mexico. Most specimens are around a foot long, but some can be up to two-and-a-half feet long.Aka: A developers view of the Windows 7 Engineering process
This post is by Larry Osterman. Larry is one of the most “experienced” developers on the Windows team and has been at Microsoft since the mid 1980’s. There are only three other folks who have worked at Microsoft longer on the entire Windows team! Personally, I remember knowing about Larry when I started at Microsoft back in 1989—I remember he worked on “multimedia” (back when we used to host the Microsoft CD-ROM Conference) and he was one of those people that stood up and received a “5 Year” award from Bill Gates at the first company meeting I went to—that seemed amazing back then! For Windows 7, Larry is a developer on the Devices and Media team which is where we work on audio, video, bluetooth, and all sorts of cool features for connecting up devices to Windows.
Larry wrote this post without any prodding and given his experience on so many Windows releases these thoughts seemed really worthwhile in terms of sharing with folks. This post goes into “how” we work as a team, which for anyone part of a software team might prove pretty interesting. While this is compared and contrasted with Vista, everyone knows that there is no perfect way to do things and this is just a little well-informed perspective.
So thank you Larry! --Steven
Thanks to Steven and Jon for letting me borrow their soapbox :-).
I wanted to discuss my experiences working on building Windows 7 (as opposed to the other technical stuff that you’ve read on this blog so far), and to contrast that with my experiences building Windows Vista. Please note that these are MY experiences. Others will have had different experiences; hopefully they will also share their stories here.
The experience of building Windows 7 is dramatically different from the experience of building Vista. The rough outlines of the product development process haven’t changed, but organizationally, the Windows 7 process is dramatically better.
For Windows Vista, I was a part of the WAVE (Windows Audio Video Excellence) group. The group was led by a general manager who was ultimately responsible for the deliverables. There was a test lead, a development lead and a program management lead who reported to the general manager. The process of building a feature roughly worked like this: the lead program managers decided (based on criteria which aren’t relevant to the post) which features would be built for Windows and which program managers would be responsible for which feature. The development leads decided which developers on the team would be responsible for the feature. The program manager for the feature wrote a functional specification (which described the feature and how it should work) in conjunction with development. Note that the testers weren’t necessarily involved in this part of the process. The developer(s) responsible for the feature wrote the design specification (which described how the feature was going to be implemented). The testers associated with the feature then wrote a test plan which described how to test the feature. The program manager or the developer also wrote the threat model for the feature.
The developer then went off to code the feature, the PM spent their time making sure that the feature was on track, and when the developer was done, the tester started writing test cases.
Once the feature was coded and checked into the source tree, it moved its way up to the “winmain” branch. Aside: The Windows source code has been arranged into “branches” – the root is “winmain”, which is the code base that would ultimately become Windows Vista. Each developer works in what are called “feature branches”, which merge changes into “aggregation branches”, the aggregation branches move into winmain.
After the feature was coded, the testers tested, the developers fixed bugs and the program managers managed the program :-). As the product moved further along, it got harder and harder to get bug fixes checked into winmain (every bug fix carries with it a chance that the fix will introduce a regression, so the risk associated with each bug fix needs to be measured and the tolerance for risk decreases incrementally). The team responsible for managing this process met in the “ship room” where they made decisions every single day about which changes went into the product and which ones were left out. There could be a huge amount of acrimony associated with that – often times there were debates that lasted for hours as the various teams responsible for quality discussed the merits associated with a particular fix.
All-in-all, this wasn’t too different from the way that features have been developed at Microsoft for decades (and is basically consistent with what I was taught back in my software engineering class back in college).
For Windows 7, management decided to alter the engineering structure of the Windows organization, especially in the WEX [Windows Experience] division where I work. Instead of being fairly hierarchical, Steven has 3 direct reports, each representing a particular discipline: Development, Test and Program Management. Under each of the discipline leads, there are 6 development/test/program management managers, one for each of the major groups in WEX. Those 2nd level managers in turn have a half a dozen or so leads, each one with between 5 and 15 direct reports. This reporting structure has been somewhat controversial, but so far IMHO it’s been remarkably successful.
The other major change is the introduction of the concept of a “triad”. A “triad” is a collection of representatives from each of the disciplines – Dev, Test and PM. Essentially all work is now organized by triads. If there’s ever a need for a group to concentrate on a particular area, a triad is spun off to manage that process. That means that all three disciplines provide input into the process. Every level of management is represented by a triad – there’s a triad at the top of each of the major groups in WEX, each of the second level leads forms a triad, etc. So in my group (Devices and Media) there’s a triad at the top (known as DKCW for the initials of the various managers). Within the sound team (where I work), there’s another triad (known as SNN for the initials of the various leads). There are also triads for security, performance, appcompat, etc.
Similar to Windows Vista, the leads of all three disciplines get together and decide a set of features that go in each release. They then created “feature crews” to implement each of the features. Typically a feature crew consists of one or two developers, a program manager and one or two testers.
This is where one of the big differences between Vista and Windows 7 occurs: In Windows 7, the feature crew is responsible for the entire feature. The crew together works on the design, the program manager(s) then writes down the functional specification, the developer(s) write the design specification and the tester(s) write the test specification. The feature crew collaborates together on the threat model and other random documents. Unlike Windows Vista where senior management continually gave “input” to the feature crew, for Windows 7, management has pretty much kept their hands off of the development process. When the feature crew decided that it was ready to start coding (and had signed off on the 3 main documents), the feature crew met with the second level triad (in my case with DKCW) to sanity check the feature – this part of the process is critical because the second level triad gets an opportunity to provide detailed feedback to the feature crew about the viability of their plans.
And then the crew finally gets to start coding. Sort-of. There are still additional reviews that need to be done before the crew can be considered “ready”. For instance, the feature’s threat model needs to be reviewed by one of the members of the security triad. There are other parts of the document that need to be reviewed by other triads as well.
A feature is not permitted to be checked into the winmain branch until it is complete. And I do mean complete: the feature has to be capable of being shipped before it hits winmain – the UI has to be finished, the feature has to be fully functional, etc. In addition, when a feature team takes a dependency on another Windows 7 feature, the feature teams for the two features MUST sign a service level agreement to ensure that each team knows about the inter-dependencies. This SLA is especially critical because it ensures that teams know about their dependants – that way when they change the design or have to cut parts of the feature, the dependent teams aren’t surprised (they may be disappointed but they’re not surprised). It also helps to ensure tighter integration between the components – because one team knows the other team, they can ensure that both teams are more closely in alignment.
Back in the Vista day, it was not uncommon for feature development to be spread over multiple milestones – stuff was checked into the tree that really didn’t work completely. During Win7, the feature crews were forced to produce coherent features that were functionally complete – we were told to operate under the assumption that each milestone was the last milestone in the product and not schedule work to be done later on. That meant that teams had to focus on ensuring that their features could actually be implemented within the milestone as opposed to pushing them out.
For the nuts and bolts, The Windows 7 development process is scheduled over several 3-month long milestones. Each milestone allowed for 6 weeks of development and 6 weeks of integration – essentially time to fine-tune the feature and ensure that most of the interoperability problems were shaken out.
Ok, that’s enough background (it’s bad when over half a post on Windows 7 is actually about Windows Vista, but a baseline needed to be established). As I said at the beginning, this post is intended to describe my experiences as a developer on Windows 7. During Windows 7, I worked on three separate feature crews. The first crew delivered two features, the second crew delivered about 8 different features all relatively minor and the third crew delivered three major features and a couple of minor features. I also worked as the development part of the WEX Devices and Media security team (which is where my series of post on Threat Modeling came from – I wrote them while I was working with the members of D&M on threat modeling). And I worked as the development part of an end-to-end scenario triad that was charged with ensuring that scenarios that the Sound team defined at the start of the Windows 7 planning process were actually delivered in a coherent and discoverable way.
In addition, because the test team was brought into the planning process very early on, the test team provided valuable input and we were able to ensure that we built features that were not only code complete but also test complete by the end of the milestone (something that didn’t always happen in Vista). And it ensured that the features we built were actually testable (it sounds stupid I know, but you’d be surprised at how hard it can be to test some features). As a concrete example, we realized during the planning process that some aspect of one of the features we were working on in M2 couldn’t be completed during the milestone. So before the milestone was completed, we ripped the feature out (to be more accurate, we changed the system so that the new code was no longer being built as a part of the product). During the next milestone, after the test team had finished writing their tests, we re-enabled the feature. But we remained true to the design philosophy – at the end of the milestone everything that was checked into the “main” branch was complete – it was code AND test complete, so that even if we had to ship Windows 7 without M3 there was no test work that was not complete. This is a massive change from Vista – in Vista, since the code was complete we’d have simply checked in the code and let the test team deal with the fallout. By integrating the test teams into the planning process at the beginning we were able to ensure that we never put the test organization into that bind. This in turn helped to ensure that the development process never spiraled out of control. Please note that features can and do stretch across multiple milestones. In fact one of the features on the Sound team is scheduled to be delivered across three milestones – the feature crews involved in that feature carefully scheduled the work to ensure that they would have something worth delivering whenever Windows 7 development was complete.
Each of the feature crews I’ve worked on so far has had dramatically different focuses – some of the features I worked on were focused on core audio infrastructure, some were focused almost entirely on UX (user experience) changes, and some features involved much higher level components. Because each of the milestones was separate, I was able |
gifts.
Even if McDonnell can somehow avoid jail time or a guilty verdict, his political career is pretty much toast. At one time, he was looked at as a rising star in the Republican Party, as he was being groomed for a potential run at the Presidency. He easily won election in 2009 as Governor of Virginia when he defeated Creigh Deeds by 18 points. This was after serving as the Attorney General of Virginia.
However, things started getting sour for McDonnell even before the corruption allegations as, in 2012, he advocated for a measure that would require women who were seeking an abortion to submit to a trans-vaginal ultrasound. Many critics saw this as a way for conservatives to shame women if they chose to have an abortion. The bill was changed prior to passage to require an abdominal ultrasound be done prior to an abortion being performed. Regardless, it was still seen as both intrusive and unnecessary and McDonnell started to see his approval ratings plummet.
By the middle of 2013, McDonnell and his family were plagued by allegations of improper spending at the Governor’s mansion. McDonnell paid the state back thousands of dollars to try to put it away, but by that time, the bigger scandal was starting to brew, as the word was out that McDonnell was using his position to straight up accept gifts and money in return for government favors.
Bye bye, Bob. It was nice knowing you. (Not really.)
If you’re ready to read more from the unbossed and unbought Politicus team, sign up for our newsletter here! Email address: Leave this field empty if you're human:The Vault is Slate’s history blog. Like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter @slatevault, and find us on Tumblr. Find out more about what this space is all about here.
In the 1890s in Hawaii, as American businessmen and politicians wrested political control from the native Hawaiian queen Liliʻuokalani and petitioned the American government for annexation, groups of native Hawaiians organized to protest the push for the islands to join with the United States. Below, two pages of a petition against annexation show how organized and widespread that movement eventually became.
The entire document, which you can see in the National Archives’ digital repository, is 556 pages long. The organizers, working for the groups Hui Hawaii Aloha Aina (Hawaiian Patriotic League) and Hui Hawaii Aloha Aina o Na Wahine (the Patriotic League’s female wing) got 21,269 native Hawaiians to sign. The number represented more than half of the native population, as counted by a census that year.
The petition is headed in Hawaiian and English, and there are separate pages for men and women. A column recording the ages of signatories attests to the intergenerational appeal of the effort.
Delegates representing the two organizations brought the completed petition to Washington, lobbying the Senate from December 1897 through February, 1898. The motion to annex needed a two-thirds majority to pass; only 46 senators were willing to vote for it.
This win was short-lived, however, as the Spanish-American War began around the same time that winter. The Hawaiian Islands gained strategic importance, and the pro-annexation forces saw a chance to use wartime urgency in their favor. Annexation passed as a joint resolution, which required only a majority vote, and became law on July 7, 1898. At that point, Hawaii became an organized incorporated territory of the United States; statehood followed in 1959.
A petition page signed by women.
National Archives.Making a table view cell swipeable is actually pretty simple. The gist of it is to create a UIScrollView inside the cell’s contentView and then populate it with one UIView for the buttons and one UIView for the content. The hardest part is really configuring the scroll view. Here’s an image showing the main values we’ll be touching on the UIScrollView:
Hopefully, if you’re looking for swipeable table view cells, you’ll find what you need in one of the above solutions. But then why am I writing about how to build it yourself? In my case, I needed some of the functionality of MGSwipeTableCell, but it turned out to do things in ways that didn’t work for me. If you’re also looking to build it from scratch, or just want to know how it works, read on!
I’ve been diving into iOS for the past month building an app for my startup. One of the things I want the app to do is to let the user swipe a cell in a table view to reveal more options (similar to how the Mail app reveals “More” and “Delete” options). In this article I will discuss a few way of doing this, including how to build it yourself.
This section will demonstrate how to actually make the cell display buttons when swiping on it. The code examples will be simplified to focus on the concept. At the end I will provide a full implementation.
Since we’ll want to have control over scroll behaviors, we need to specify that our class supports the UIScrollViewDelegate protocol. Do this by adding the protocol in angle brackets after the interface declaration:
Next up, we’ll set up the scroll view. This is done when the cell initializes. Depending on how you create your cells, the cell may initialize in either initWithCoder: or initWithStyle:reuseIdentifier:. I would recommend creating a common method for setting up your cell and calling it from both places.
There’s a few things happening here after we create the scroll view. First, we set its resizing mask. This means how the view will act when its super view changes size. We want the scroll view to fill the entire cell when it changes size at runtime (which is likely to happen with iPhone 5, 6 and 6 Plus all having different screen widths). Then we set the content size to be the same, but also add a left inset with the width of the buttons we intend to add. Setting scrollsToTop to be turned off means this scroll view doesn’t care about the status bar being tapped (which normally scrolls a view to the top). This’ll let our table view take care of that instead of breaking that behavior. We also turn off horizontal and vertical scroll indicators so that the little translucent black bar doesn’t appear when we scroll.
Nothing really surprising going on above, we’re just adding in the necessary parts for presenting the main area of the table cell (which is normally in the contentView).
This creates a view which contains the action buttons. The important things to note here is that the view has the same width as all the buttons together, and it’s inserted as the first view in the hierarchy (which will make it appear under everything else). Then we just add the buttons we want there. I didn’t add tap handlers to keep the example short.
If you run the app now, it should let you scroll to make the button appear. If you’re running this on an iPhone 6 or larger you may notice a glitch that we’ll fix later. Another thing missing is the snapping in place of the button being either visible or not visible when you stop scrolling. Let’s fix that now.
When your class gets notified that the user has stopped swiping (via the UIScrollViewDelegate protocol), you make the scroll view scroll back to either exactly where the buttons end (if they swiped past the buttons), or back to hide the buttons completely (if they didn’t swipe far enough).
That’s pretty much the basics of building a swipeable cell! We’ve got a few loose ends that we’ll tie up now, so keep reading.
The biggest problem with our code right now is handling of bigger screens (such as iPhone 6). We can fix that with this simple “hack” (please let me know if this can be done better!)
Whenever the cell area changes, fix the content size and reset the scroll offset.
That’ll avoid graphical glitches. Next up, we may want to prevent the cell from being scrollable in the other direction (which doesn’t have any buttons to show). That’s simple:
If the user scrolls the other way (right-to-left), reset the scroll offset.
Finally, you may want the buttons to stay in place under the cell instead of moving with the cell content. To make that happen, we will simply move the buttons container view to counteract the scrolling offset. We’ll do this by changing the scrollViewDidScroll: method above to the following:
Where to go from here
Now that we’ve gone through the basics there’s many things that can still be improved. Here’s a few:
Auto-hiding buttons when scrolling the table view
Auto-hiding buttons when swiping open another cell
Allowing buttons on both sides of the cell
Enabling button creation outside the class (e.g., in the view controller)
Dynamically calculating the buttons container size
Making opening/closing of the actions menu behave better
To fast-forward a bit, I’ve implemented the features above and made the code available on GitHub: https://github.com/blixt/SwipeableTableViewCell
Thank you for reading! Please reach out to me with any comments. The easiest way to reach me is on Twitter, where I’m known as @blixt.Louis van Gaal has insisted Memphis Depay is not struggling because of the pressure of wearing Manchester United's iconic No. 7 shirt and the comparisons with Old Trafford greats like Cristiano Ronaldo it brings.
Depay, who joined from PSV Eindhoven in the summer for £25 million, has lost his place and has only started one of United's last six games.
Watford Watford Manchester United Manchester United 1 2 FT Game Details GameCast
Lineups and Stats
The former Premier League champions' No. 7 shirt has been graced by George Best, Bryan Robson, Eric Cantona, David Beckham and Ronaldo, but in recent years Michael Owen, Antonio Valencia and Angel Di Maria have endured more mixed fortunes after they were granted the number.
But Van Gaal does not believe that is Depay's problem, saying in a news conference on Friday: "I don't think [that]. I do think the media is making that of it. But I am not superstitious and he is certainly not superstitious so I don't think that when he gets the question about Ronaldo that he will answer that. And then he doesn't know what the risk is to answer that question."
Depay was the top scorer in the Dutch league last season but has only mustered one Premier League goal this season and Van Gaal admitted he expected more from the 21-year-old.
"Of course, because otherwise he was still in the team," he added. "Otherwise I don't look for another solution and I look for another solution in my team and I have kept Jesse Lingard and Andreas Pereira for example for that option so and now he has to fight back and he does it, so I am satisfied."
Memphis Depay has not flourished in the United No. 7 shirt this season.
United go to Watford on Saturday without six injured or ill players but Van Gaal had some positive news about two of them.
The United manager said that Michael Carrick did not suffer ligament damage when he was injured playing for England against Spain. "Twisted ankle," he explained. "All simple."
Anthony Martial left Wembley on crutches after France's 2-0 defeat to England and Van Gaal said his injury was a bruised foot.
But Marouane Fellaini has his second calf injury of the season and could be out for rather longer.
"That is for me a big surprise because I thought Fellaini is recovered after the international break," Van Gaal said. "You cannot say he shall come back after two or three weeks."1) Arsenal bounce back like no other team
Mesut Özil puts irresistible swagger into fantasy Wenger-world | Barney Ronay Read more
Arsenal had melted down on their previous appearance at the Emirates Stadium, against Olympiakos in the Champions League, Arsène Wenger had been extremely prickly, home form had been poor and their recent record against Manchester United had been awful; two wins in 17 games. So, all the ingredients were in place for an Arsenal win. No team bounce back from the brink of crisis quite like this one and it was a result and performance to energise the club, and remind everyone that, yes, Arsenal have their deep-rooted flaws but they are also a very good side when everything clicks for them. Curtis Mayfield blared over the Tannoy at full-time. Arsenal move on up.
2) United fly out of the blocks to fire the contest. Err …
“Right lads. Let’s make sure we start quick, get in their faces and don’t give them any space to pass.” Louis van Gaal’s actual pre-match team-talk was presumably a little different because United did pretty much everything that a visiting team at the Emirates ought not to do at the outset. How Arsenal took advantage – and it truly seemed as though the game was over when Santi Cazorla had all the time he wanted to drive the move that led to Arsenal’s second goal, scored by Mesut Özil. It really was all over when Alexis Sánchez bludgeoned in the third inside 20 minutes. United’s torpor in the early running was astonishing. Were they really playing in a big game?
3) United are leaden in central midfield
Arsenal were fired up, with Francis Coquelin pressing hard and Cazorla influential but United’s midfield, which included Wayne Rooney in a central, attacking role in the first half, appeared to be wading through treacle. Pace without the ball is hardly a strong point of Bastian Schweinsteiger and Michael Carrick – or, increasingly, Rooney – but it was the speed with which they moved the ball, especially in the first half, that was ponderous. Van Gaal’s plan B was to thicken up the midfield with the half-time introduction of Marouane Fellaini and to move Rooney out left but there was never any caution cast to the wind. United merely chiselled out a bit of a foothold in a game that had already passed them by.
4) Alexis Sánchez lights up the Emirates
When Sánchez plays like this, he is a joy to watch. Arsenal’s player of the season last time out started the campaign a little slowly, in the wake of his Copa América-winning exploits with Chile over the summer, but the rhythm is now back. Emphatically so. After his hat-trick at Leicester City the previous weekend, he was perhaps the only Arsenal player to emerge with any credit from the defeat by Olympiakos and he had the bit between his teeth from the first whistle here. His goals were both beautiful – the first a celebration of technique; the second a vicious thump – and he bristled with menace and intensity throughout the game. Arsenal need their talisman to be at the top of his game. The only worry was that he appeared to be holding his groin when he was substituted.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Arsenal’s manager, Arsène Wenger, praised his team’s strong response to their Champions League defeat but Manchester United’s Louis van Gaal was understandably disappointed
5) Anthony Martial the only positive for United
Perhaps it was the sense of sloth from his team-mates that magnified his contribution but even in a dismal defeat there were flashes from Anthony Martial that gave Manchester United at least one straw to clutch. The 19-year-old striker’s first touch and acceleration serve to quicken the pulse and instil worry in his would-be defensive shacklers, while there was also evidence of his strength and awareness. He rolled Per Mertesacker, took a wonderful touch and was only denied by Petr Cech at the end of the first half. Martial has pace to burn, as evidenced when he got to the by-line before the jet-heeled Héctor Bellerín to cross on 27 minutes. He looked like United’s only attacking hope.A New York city councilman was among dozens of protesters arrested Tuesday for blocking traffic to promote amnesty for illegal aliens.
Because nothing says “Please give us what we want” quite like screwing up a whole bunch of people’s already irritating evening commute in a busy city.
A total of 34 people were arrested outside of Trump Tower throughout the afternoon Tuesday, where activists were protesting in support of former President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, an initiative that granted temporary amnesty to about 800,000 illegal aliens brought to the United States as children. President Donald Trump announced his administration would begin phasing out the program this week.
Later Tuesday evening, another 13 protesters were arrested, including New York City Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez, when protesters shut down the Brooklyn Bridge by literally sitting on their butts and refusing to move.
It’s not the first time Rodruiguez – who, according to the New York Post, is contending for the position of city council speaker – has begged for attention by getting himself arrested during a left-wing protest. A few years ago, he was arrested during an Occupy Wall Street rally after getting into a physical altercation with a female NYC cop.
Despite protesters causing unavoidable frustration for evening commuters trying to get home to their families, and creating serious and potentially deadly obstacles for emergency vehicles, New York City is still New York City. Authorities explained that those arrested Tuesday wouldn’t be fingerprinted unless they refused to cooperate with police – and no fingerprinting means those illegal aliens who were arrested for blocking traffic won’t have the incident reported to immigration officials.Skip to comments.
Operation Freep Palin- Counter the Attack (update @219- small, token gifts OK)
Vanity
Posted on by mnehring
Edited on by Admin Moderator. [history]
Several posters have mentioned this over the past week, but I want to bring it up again. Governor Sarah Palin is under attack from both the right (faux right) and the left, blaming her for McCain's loss.
We all know the truth- few of us could ever have supported McCain without her.
Freepers, it is time to counter the attacks and encourage Governor Palin. Let's overwhelm her with thank-you cards, letters, flowers, etc.
Here is what you can do:
Send thank-you cards or letters
Send flowers
In addition, whenever stories pop-up, be sure to respond if they offer comments section. Here is her official website...addresses to mail gifts and letters.
Juneau Office
Alaska State Capitol Building
Third Floor
P.O. Box 110001
Juneau, AK 99811-0001 Anchorage Office
550 West 7th Avenue, Suite 1700
Anchorage, AK 99501
TOPICS:
Activism/Chapters
Announcements
Front Page News
US: Alaska
KEYWORDS:
activism
conservatism
elections
freep
gop
palin
sarahpalin
thankstoddandsarah
thankyoutosarah
writeoursarah
Please refrain from calling any offices, also try to keep e-mails to a minimum. If at all possible, a real thank you note or card will have the most meaning. Also- of course, add FreeRepublic.com in your signature line.
To: mnehrling
Just sent a real Thank you card!! What a Great Feeling!
To: mnehrling
OH MY GOSH! I just finished writing her - and was looking for an address. I encouraged her to stay in Alaska with her wonderful family and enjoy them - and to forget about running for any office except the office she now has. She is one great gal and doesn’t deserve the abuse she’s had to take here. Grandma in Michigan
To: mnehrling
I just posted at her web site and thanked her.....
To: mnehrling
The left is very afraid of that lady, and will do anything (as we have already seen) to keep her out of the 2012 race.
by 5 posted onby Foolsgold ("We live in the greatest country in the world and I am going to change it" Barry O'boomarang 2008)
To: mnehrling
ping
To: mnehrling
Bookmark for later action.
by 7 posted onby Desron13 (If you constantly vote between the lesser of two evils then evil is your ultimate destination.)
To: mnehrling
Palin was wonderful. It was McPain that I couldn’t stand. And now with POO, the nation gets BO.
To: gramcam
She can run for Senator from Alaska, a fresh breath of air that is needed in the Senate.
Bookmark for later action. I'm in that category too. I'll write her at Christmas to thank her when she's less overwhelmed. I hope other Freepers will put her on their Christmas lists too.
by 10 posted onby MathDoc (Support The Affirmative Action President as enthusiastically as the media supported Bush!)
To: gramcam
I e-mailed her too, but wanted her to stick with us and lead us out of the wilderness. She is a leader, we need her. Her family knows the sacrafice and you don’t get too many like her very often.
by 11 posted onby SaintDismas (Starting to regret the handle I chose for this forum)
To: MathDoc
Planning to send her a thank you note. Several of them, over the next few months. The Sarah bashing has me madder than I’ve been in a very long time.
by 12 posted onby Proud 2BeTexan (I voted for Sarah, and am hoping to do so again!)
To: mnehrling
Cameron is on with O’reilly now. Man, he is not going to let up. BOR is trying to get Palin on Monday to counter the charges.
by 13 posted onby AuntB (The right to vote in America: Blacks 1870; Women 1920; Native Americans 1925)
To: Foolsgold
And many on the right!!!
To: mnehrling
Done. Sent an email.
by 15 posted onby Sister_T (Okay. We Lost. Dress our wounds. Rebuild. And, for goodness' sake, GET RID OF THE RINOS!)
To: mnehrling
bookmarked
by 16 posted onby WakeUpAndVote (Proud member of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy!)
To: mnehrling
Just dropped a Thank You note in the mail.
To: mnehrling
My simple solution is to drop my GOP registration and become an Independent until a real conservative option surfaces. These GOP “leaks” to the MSM about Sarah Palin are the final straw to me. Bye bye, GOP, it's been a great 19 years (I am 37 years old).
by 18 posted onby Carling (After the post-election GOP attacks against Gov. Palin, I am sad to say I am leaving the party..)
To: Carling
I would rather find out who these people are and push them out. This is OUR party, let’s not let a few bully us. The party has been letting that happen for a while, it is time to take it back.
To: mnehrling
Please add me to the official Palin Ping List! I'm all for her!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John RobinsonThe vagina is a place where gross things sometimes happen, which creates a conversational catch-22: If these things were less gross, we'd talk about them more often; the less we talk about them, the grosser everything tends to get.
If you've never had bacterial vaginosis or a yeast infection, I bet your stance towards both things is: No. I don't wanna talk about it. I'll cross that gross bridge when my vagina makes me. But then, the gross things happening, and you don't have a damn clue how to deal.
Advertisement
So. We are doing this. I'll start.
A true story about me is that I have been battling near-constant yeast infections since I was about 15 years old. I have my theories about why—it may have something to do with the fact that I spent 90 percent of my waking hours as an adolescent hanging out in a chlorinated pool—but I rest easy (enough) knowing I am not an isolated case. Many, many women experience recurring yeast infections.
And suffice it to say that over the past 13 years, I have learned a thing or two about how to recognize yeast, and how to show it who's boss. (Me, sort of. More on that later.)
Advertisement
But about a year ago, something else truly awful started happening. It stumped doctors for almost a year and ruined my sex life for about as long, so I want to (over)share my experience, should any other woman out there be suffering in the same way.
At first I thought it was bacterial vaginosis—it felt sort of like BV—but I wasn't getting the usual signs and symptoms. Most of the time, going about my daily life, I was okay. I didn't feel itchy, and nothing burned or stung, but I had this constant, hard-to-pin-down sense of discomfort, and I had to pee way more than usual.
This led me to the doctor for the first time, where I was tested for BV, a yeast infection, a UTI, and every STD imaginable. At this point I was at the beginning of a committed relationship, so I didn't mind: the tests were a good idea, anyway.
Advertisement
Everything came back negative, so I tried to blame my weird symptoms on my imagination. That worked for a while until I started bleeding during sex. Profusely. And the blood wasn't a result of impact, if you get my drift—it was coming from the skin inside my vagina, which was so raw that I wanted to cry if my boyfriend so much as came near it with a finger.
I went back to the doctor, who shuddered at the angry inflamed redness, but didn't know what to do. More doctors, more STD tests, some ultrasounds to see if I had cysts or anything else weird going on with my cervix/uterus/ovaries: nothing. This went on and on for another six months or so, and I had more than a few teary conversations with my boyfriend about how he should just "go on without me."
Then, one night, we were out for drinks with a friend of mine who's a midwife, and we were telling her all about my problems. (Let me pause to say: my boyfriend is a trooper.) It turned out that she had a friend—another midwife—with the same issues, who'd done all the research herself and learned about these bizarre little bacteria called ureaplasma.
Advertisement
I have never met this woman, but as far as I'm concerned, she deserves a Nobel prize.
Ureaplasma/mycoplasma are small bacteria that live inside of other cells' walls and are believed to cause symptoms such as increased or painful urination, pelvic pain, fertility problems, and recurring yeast infections. They are unfazed by most of the usual means of attack and thus require special antibiotic treatment; they can be quite resistant to even powerful antibiotics, and may require several rounds to cure. There still seems to be a lot of confusion in the medical world regarding the potential impact of these bacteria, but some doctors believe there's a connection between ureaplasma infection and infertility or miscarriage, and/or that there's a connection between ureaplasma infection and ailments of the urinary tract or bladder.
A fair number of American doctors seem to think ureaplasma/mycoplasma is all a hoax, but European and Eastern doctors are more likely to take it seriously. And there's one American company that believes it to be enough of a problem that they are developing a vaccine for prevention and treatment of ureaplasma/mycoplasma, which they believe to be an underdiagnosed cause of a wide range of infections.
Advertisement
It's believed that, as with other vaginal infections, the presence of ureaplasma/mycoplasma isn't necessarily harmful, but that its overgrowth is what can cause symptoms; in fact, some doctors say that most people will have an excess of ureaplasma at some point but just won't experience symptoms. Men and women alike can become infected through sexual contact or a variety of other means of exposure (they say you can't pick things up from toilet seats, but unsettling rumors, at least, circulate about this nefarious organism online).
After researching all of this, I called my doctor's office and asked if they could test me for it. They said yes. But once I went to my appointment, my doctor tried to brush me off, saying that, instead, she'd like to test for STDs again. I resisted the urge to strangle her and demanded the test. After a year, all it took was a simple test, a round of antibiotics for me and my boyfriend, and I was cured.
Now: just because you test positive for ureaplasma/mycoplasma doesn't mean that that's what's causing your symptoms. My experience is only one of many. Abundant anecdotal evidence suggests that for many women, antibiotics of any kind are ineffective, and there's a whole movement touting Chinese herbal supplements as the cure for ureaplasma/mycoplasma and a variety of other women's health issues.
Advertisement
But even though I don't have all the answers, I want more women to know about ureaplasma as a possibility, should you happen to be cursed, like me, with a vaginal infection that lasts for a year. I went to at least four doctors over the course of last year, and either none of them knew about it or none of them cared enough to investigate past the standard STD screening. And you can't consider all your options if you don't know what they are. Vaginas are mysterious, and having one often means aggressively advocating for your health, and you must educate yourself in order to do so.
So with that in mind, I'd like to offer some more (too much) information from my deep well of experience.
There is a very clear protocol that doctors follow when you show up complaining that your vagina itches, stings, and burns. First, they suggest that you probably have an STD. If you grew up in the South like I did, there's a lot of shame in this suggestion, as well as generally infused throughout the whole experience. Actually, allow me to rephrase: there's a lot of shaming infused throughout the whole experience, and let's take a moment to say every bit of this is undeserved.
Advertisement
Second, the doctors examine you and probably discover that you are oozing with some sort of bacterial or yeast overgrowth. Third, they insist that you still get tested for STDs, even if you were last tested a month ago or you are a virgin or whatever, because you are a modern woman, after all, and modern women are prone to these sorts of things. Fourth, they write you a prescription for Diflucan (or antibiotics) or tell you to buy some Monistat and send you on your way.
Unless you are very lucky, this approach will quickly fail. A normal, healthy vagina contains multitudes of organisms. It's an ecosystem; it's a system of checks and balances, and once you throw off that system, chaos is likely to ensue.
Think about the last time you took antibiotics. If your vaginal pH is anything like mine, you definitely got a yeast infection afterwards. Why? Because you killed off all the bacteria, and when the cat's away the yeast go fucking apeshit, as they say. Likewise, when you treat yeast with a fungicide resembling a nuclear bomb, you're likely to experience a bacterial overgrowth in the aftermath.
Advertisement
This is how I lived for many years. I treated a yeast infection, I got BV. I treated BV, I got a yeast infection. It became easy to tell the difference—yeast is chunky and white, while BV causes a watery discharge that sort of leaks out of you all day long. It was harder to spend much of my twenties not having sex.
Eventually you find your way to online forums, where desperate women implore other desperate women to share their remedies. This is where you learn to put things like apple cider vinegar, tea tree oil, whole garlic cloves, and boric acid in your vagina. These home remedies are much gentler than Diflucan or Monistat, which is important: if you have a minor imbalance, you want to gently urge the ecosystem back to normalcy, rather than eliminating the offending party in a full-on massacre that will only leave you vulnerable to another overgrowth in the future.
I have tried all of these natural remedies with varying degrees of success. After much trial and error, I've learned that, for me, the best solutions for both yeast and BV are boric acid suppositories or tampons soaked in tea tree oil (but dear sweet Jesus, diluted with jojoba or coconut oil: that was a lesson I only had to learn once). This product is also very nice, though I recommend refrigerating it so it doesn't get all melty.
Advertisement
But here's my favorite natural remedy. Afterwards, once you've attacked the yeast or offending bacteria, it's a really good idea to replenish with good bacteria. My preferred method for introduction of probiotics? Little yogurt ice cubes (unflavored, of course). Or, as they have now come to be known in my circle of friends, "vagina popsicles."
Yes. Vagina popsicles.
That concludes today's lesson. If you have something mysterious happening on the inside of your vagina, please: ask your doctor about ureaplasma. Make them give you the test even if they don't want to. Ask about natural remedies. And feel free to report back here.
Advertisement
Kate Jenkins is a Brooklyn-based freelance writer and editor. She is also the founder/editor-in-chief of print literary magazine The Intentional. She tweets @kateshannonjenk.Disclaimer: I do not own anything in this cluster fuck of a series, they belong to whoever the hell is the owner of the series. Blah, blah, blah, let's get to the AN then the story already.
I really should be working on my other two stories but… I've been reading way too many video game plot fics and this idea popped into my head and has been bugging me for the past few days. So here comes an on the spur of the moment story. A little experiment so to say.
I'll do 2 chapters and depending on what you guys think I'll either drop this story or continue.
Basically this is a self-insert fic that is probably going to go deep end into nightmare town in quality… Enjoy
Oh and levels after ten are going to slow down drastically.
Chapter 1- This is just complete and utter bullshit!
Darkness…
All I see is darkness…
Seriously what the hell!
It had started out as a fairly normal day. I had just graduated from High School a week earlier and was walking, ok more like running home from 7-11. So why was I walking instead of driving?
Why my piece of shit of a car decided to break down forcing me to walk all the way to the gas station, three miles away for the record! Just to buy some milk and Mountain Dew. That was when my day went straight to fucking nightmare town!
As I was waiting in the checkout line the guy in front of me pulls out a huge fucking claymore sword from out of nowhere and cuts the cashier's head right off then jumps over to the guy and starts eating his body like some kind of fucked up zombie flick.
So the moment I saw that I immediately dropped everything and promptly sprinted the fuck right out of there! Which lead to me dying when less than ten seconds later when that same guy reappeared in front of me and stabbed me! That asshole stabbed me!
Being stabbed by a sword surprisingly did not hurt, at first anyway. Perhaps it was the shock or adrenaline that delayed it but the pain came a split second later when he yanked the blade from my chest.
Here's a question for all of you guys out there, have you ever been kicked in the balls before? Think the pain from that… Only a hundred or so times worst. I blanked out a moment later when a saw a blur, which lead to where I am now…
Floating in darkness for what seemed like hours! Seriously if this is the afterlife it really sucks!
Not only did I die but I died a fucking virgin too! Is this because I spend all my time reading fanfiction, comics, playing video games, and reading manga?!
Congratulations you are dead.
Welcome to The Game please select a story mode to play
Warhammer 40k,Harry Potter, Bleach, Naruto, One Piece, Campione, DC, Marvel, Saint Seiya, Dragon Age, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Madoka Magica, Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, and Tenchi Muyo.
You will be able to import your characters to another story mode once you beat a mode.
A mechanical voice coming from every direction before my vision came back and I found myself staring at a gigantic TV screen with big bold letter 'THE GAME' along with the options stated above listed.
…I blink and move both of my hands to rub my eyes... Before blinking yet again and then slapping myself as hard as I could.
Ouch that hurt… Oh shit…
Oh shit! OH fucking shit!
Sweet Jesus and all that is evil in the universe I'm in a bad self-insert fanfiction written by a R.O.B.!
Ok stay calm… Freaking out will fix nothing. I bite down on my tongue as hard as I could the pain gave my mind something to focus on calming me down.
Now if all I learned from reading fanfiction is correct I'll be stuck here until I beat the game. Then I guess if I kept R.O.B. entertained he will either resurrect me, or allow me to keep my character and wander out in the universe.
I will probably have to play until the end of the series' story or I completely break the plot to the point that the universe implodes and I get a 'You are winner' screen.
All I can do is pray that the game is fair or makes me into some God Mode Sue character. Got to make the best of what I have. Remember the rules of what to do if you end up in a self-insert story… Crap what were they again!
Calm… Right where should I start…? I look at the options.
Warhammer 40k
Nope! No way in hell am I starting there with a level 1 character! As awesome as 40k is I do not want to end up as Chaos's bitch without any means to defend myself.
Harry Potter
Hell no if all those stories taught me anything |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.