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essentially mini-PATRIOT Acts -- in the wake of 9-11. Illinois’ law has been applied only once before, to convict a man for ‘inflammatory’ rap lyrics he’d written. That conviction was thrown out on appeal. In 2010, a New York appeals court also threw out a state terrorism conviction in a gang crimes case. Civil libertarians of all political stripes had opposed the law’s use in the case as an undue expansion of prosecutorial power.
But that hasn’t stopped states from testing the waters with these vague and constitutionally compromised statues: Keystone XL pipeline opponents are currently battling state terrorism charges in Oklahoma -- for dropping glitter inside a building during a peaceful banner drop.
Chicago has a long tradition of criminalizing protest and manufacturing crime where none exists to dirty up political dissent -- dating back to the cops’ infamous 1960s-era Red Squad spying and disruption. Alvarez, police chief Garry McCarthy and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel continue to refuse to disclose the scope of police spying in the run-up to the NATO meeting, which included collaboration with state and federal agencies. That spying has continued, raising concerns that cities like Chicago are seeing a full-bore reinstatement of COINTELPRO-style Red Squads.
Alvarez has a long track record of defending police abuse, brutality, and torture -- including refusing to re-examine dozens of wrongful convictions of police torture victims during the tenure of her former boss, ex-Chicago mayor Richard Daley, who was States’ Attorney in the 1980s. A week before the NATO 3 verdict, a special prosecutor cut a plea deal with Daley nephew R.J. Vanecko, who will serve 60 days in jail for punching and killing a youth 10 years earlier. Alvarez' office had dodged the case for a decade. Yet Alvarez plans to ask for lengthy prison time for the NATO 3, who harmed no-one -- but who could serve up to 30 years in prison.
Chicago’s top cop, Garry McCarthy, is no stranger to police spying or police violence, either. He was a high-ranking NYPD cop during the 2004 Republican National Convention, where tens of thousands of protesters were corralled, abused and criminalized. He allowed a secret NYPD police spy ring to surveil Muslims in Newark, NJ when he ran that police department. And he joined Alvarez and Emanuel in defending the political demonization of the NATO 3 and in inflaming the specter of dangerous ‘anarchists’ in the run-up to the NATO meeting. The best his department could do to back up that bogus fear-mongering was to set up the NATO 3.
Despite Judge Wilson’s severe evidentiary restrictions, the NATO 3 defense team was able to expose the larger scope of police spying during NATO preparations. Civil libertarians say that’s critical in undermining police entrapment in terrorism cases, and defense attorneys have called for Alvarez to be held accountable for overcharging the defendants. The Tribune -- which has steadfastly defended Alvarez, McCarthy and Emanuel in this case, just as they’ve defended the excesses of McCarthy’s police department and the corporate welfare schemes of Mayor Emanuel -- instead demands that a judge who will ask its editorial board to support his re-election show the same kind of punitive extremism that McCarthy, Alvarez and Emanuel have embraced.
The Chicago Tribune -- the historic voice of the elite -- knows which side they’re on. A broad sector of the public -- from political activists and civil rights attorneys to nuns and priests -- rejects that jackboot loyalty.
The Chicago Tribune’s War on Dissent: Activists respond
The Chicago Tribune threw down the gauntlet this week in the war on dissent -- and came in solidly on the side of the billy club and the black-masked police provocateur. In its February 10 op ed piece, the paper’s apparatchiks undertake what all good instruments of the jack-boot state do -- they reinvented history.
It is simply factually dead wrong for the Tribune to assert that “city officials went to great lengths to facilitate [protesters’] right to assemble” during the May 2012 NATO protests. In fact, protesters had to battle for months for the right to protest -- including against Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s infamous “sit down and shut up” ordinance. And hundreds of protesters who were kettled and assaulted by police on May 20, 2012 would flatly dispute the Tribune’s characterization of that calculated police violence as ‘turning the other cheek.’
Activists also learned more during the NATO 3 trial about what many had suspected -- that Emanuel and police superintendent Garry McCarthy have stewarded the full-bore reinstatement of the city’s infamous Red Squad. Under Emanuel’s and McCarthy’s watch, police squandered untold public dollars to spy on constitutionally protected activity and position undercover cops as agent provocateurs to entrap protesters in ‘crimes’ wholly incited and manufactured by those undercover cops. And that spying has not ended. One of those officers involved in surveilling and infiltrating NATO protest efforts joined a volunteer health care project as a volunteer street medic -- and was still spying on activists a year later.
It also bears noting that among the ‘masked agitators, dressed in black’ in the run-up to the NATO meeting were the two undercover officers at the heart of the NATO 3 entrapment: Nadia Chikko and Mehmet Uygun. One would have to be asleep at the switch -- or an apologist for state repression -- to assume there was not the same sort of police endeavor underway during the protests themselves.
But Judge Thaddeus Wilson adamantly insisted that issues related to First Amendment concerns would not be aired in this trial -- in effect, guaranteeing that the police overreach and abuse at the heart of this manufactured case would never be disclosed to the jury and the public.
The Tribune has never asked Emanuel, McCarthy or States Attorney Anita Alvarez how much the investigation, incarceration and trial of the NATO 3 has cost the taxpayers. More broadly, the Tribune has never asked the City of Chicago for an honest accounting of what it cost taxpayers to police the NATO summit in real dollars. That’s a remarkable lapse by a newspaper known for its persistent drumbeat to account for -- and cut where possible -- public dollars for vital front-line public services that range from public health to public education.
The Tribune’s shrill call to lock up the NATO 3 and throw away the key mirrors a longstanding tradition of the paper’s editorial board. The Tribune invoked the same cry for blood more than 125 years ago in the Haymarket 8 case, when its editors at one point offered to pay jurors for a guilty verdict against those defendants. Four were executed on November 11, 1886.
Today, the Tribune has embraced that same unprincipled extremism -- by endorsing police policies that create crimes where none exist and derail the fundamental right to dissent unmolested by police agent provocateurs and law enforcement spies. Totalitarianism is informed by a state strategy to dirty up and derail public opposition to government policy. Anita Alvarez, Rahm Emanuel and Garry McCarthy have been happy to embrace this sort of despotism. And the Tribune has cosigned it.
SIGNED: Members of Anti-War Committee - Chicago, CANG8 - Coalition Against NATO/G8 War & Poverty Agenda, Chicago Action Medical, Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, Chicago Committee to Defend the Bill of Rights, Civilian Soldier Alliance. Committee to Stop FBI Repression, Defending Dissent Foundation, Food Not Bombs, Gay Liberation Network, International Socialist Organization, IVAW - Iraq Veterans Against The War, Mental Health Movement/Chicago, Multikulti, NATO Independent Media Center, Neighbors For Peace, Occupy Chicago, Occupy El Barrio, Occupy Rogers Park, Overpass Light Brigade/Chicago, Radicals Against Discrimination, UNAC -- United National Antiwar Coalition, USPCN -- United States Palestinian Community Network, Uptown People's Law Center, Veterans For Peace/Chicago, VVAW - Vietnam Veterans Against The War, World Can’t Wait
Individual signatories:
Hatem Abudayyeh, USPCN -- United States Palestinian Community Network
Bill Ayers, Distinguished Professor of Education & Senior University Scholar (retired), University of Illinois at Chicago
Babur Balos, Occupy Chicago/Rogers Park, Overpass Light Brigade/Chicago
Brian Bean, Occupy Chicago Direct Action Committee, Summit Working Group, CANG8
Jay Becker, World Can’t Wait Chicago
Father Bob Bossie, SCJ: The Priests of the Sacred Heart
Jerry Boyle, human rights attorney
Tom Burke, Committee to Stop FBI Repression
James Cox, Radicals Against Discrimination
Sister Kathleen Desautels, SP, NATO Mobilization Peace Guide
Mike N. Durschmid, Rising Tide Chicago, NATO-Green Bloc Alliance, Organic Consumers Association
Vince Emanuele, IVAW - Iraq Veterans Against The War
Frank T. Fitzgerald, Ph.D., Professor of Sociology, College of St. Rose
Hannah Frisch, Civilian Soldier Alliance
Chris Geovanis, NATO Independent Media Center
Matt Ginsberg-Jaeckle, Mental Health Movement/Chicago
Donald Goldhamer, Chicago Committee to Defend the Bill of Rights
Eldon Grossman, Veterans For Peace
Dylan Hayworth-Weste, Food Not Bombs/Pilsen
Pat Hunt, CANG8 -- Coalition Against NATO/G8 War & Poverty Agenda
Joe Iosbaker, CANG8
Mike Kalas, Multikulti
Terry Keenan, Occupy Chicago
Dale Lehman, Neighbors for Peace, CANG8
Marilyn Levin, UNAC -- United National Antiwar Coalition
Joe Lombardo, UNAC
Gregory Malandrucco, Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression
Andy Manos, NATO protest organizer
Kait McIntyre, Anti-War Committee - Chicago
Matthew McLoughlin, Occupy Chicago
David Meyers, NATO protest music organizer for Barefoot Summit
Alan Mills, Legal Director, Uptown People's Law Center
Jason Page, Multikulti
Sister Dorothy Pagosa
Ray Parrish, Vietnam veteran, veterans’ rights activist
Rachael Perrotta, NATO Protest Press Team Coordinator
Micah Philbrook, Occupy Chicago Press Committee
Rob Poe, Occupy El Barrio
Daniel Romero, Seminarian, Chicago Theological Seminary
Barry Romo, Vietnam Veterans Against The War
Dick Reilly, CAM -- Chicago Action Medical
Zoe Sigman, NATO protester
Arny Stieber, on behalf of the Chicago Chapter of Veterans For Peace, ChicagoVFP.org
Jess Sundin, Committee to Stop FBI Repression
Debra Sweet, World Can’t Wait
Andy Thayer, co-founder, GLN -- Gay Liberation Network, CANG8
Danielle Villarreal, NATO protest logistics coordinator
Sue Udry, Defending Dissent Foundation
Rachel Unterman, NATO protest press liaison
Natalie Wahlberg, labor organizer, NATO protest spokesperson
Chris Geovanis is a Chicago media activist, advocacy journalist and member of the HammerHard MediaWorks collective. Reach her @heavyseas, via her Facebook page or at chrisgeovanis(at)gmail.com -- where you can email to add your name to this letter, which is being updated daily here.Pokémon Go is a streamlined, socially focused version of the hit RPGs
When it was first announced last fall, Pokémon Go seemed like a fan's dream: Finally, here was a way for players to become real-life Pokémon trainers.
A major reason for these changes is the location element. Pokémon Go uses your smartphone's geolocation functionality to chart where you are in the actual world. The wild Pokémon that appear on the in-game map, and subsequently the city streets or hometown park on your phone's screen, are tied to the geographical features around you.
As we've already seen in gameplay footage from Nintendo's E3 2016 livestream, that means Pokémon Go has some marked differences from the series' Game Boy roots. The player doesn't start off the game with a partner Pokémon, and gyms are dispersed around the world; players themselves can be recruited to and manage them. Pokémon battles are instead a fight between a Pokémon and players' index fingers as they swipe a Poké Ball across a screen, not a match between two skilled monsters.
"We're not trying to recreate the video game experience," J.C. Smith, The Pokémon Company's senior director of consumer marketing, told Polygon. "What we wanted to do with the mobile game from both sides — from Niantic as well as Pokémon — was, we wanted to make a new experience that was native to mobile."
In a way, that makes Pokémon Go a good first Pokémon title for newcomers, Niantic CEO John Hanke said.
"We're trying to make the game accessible to a person who doesn't yet know how much they want to commit to the game, who just wants to explore," he explained. That includes not just the Pokémon newbie, but those on the opposite side — a diehard who's played all of the RPGs but isn't sure if an augmented reality game that requires them to get up off the couch is really their speed.
"You do not need to collect all of them"
"At the same time, we think that there's an opportunity to build depth," Hanke added. "There's an emergent complexity that doesn't hit you over the head at first blush, [from] trying to power up your Pokémon and evolve and ultimately start competing for gyms."
Still, strengthening your core team and trying to build your own gym as opposed to defeating their leaders is a departure from the standard Pokémon games. There's another major departure, too.
"You do not need to collect all of them," Hanke replied when we asked if "gotta catch ‘em all" was Pokémon Go's modus operandi, as it is in the RPGs. "You don't have to collect them all to compete for gyms and progress."
Part of that is because of the more limited way that Pokémon are discovered. Since the game relies on your physical location, that means that people in more rural, isolated areas could be stuck seeing the same monsters over and over and over again. Although they can still encounter PokéStops, which are various landmarks that house special items, certain legendaries are tied to special international locations, meaning those who don't get to travel much may never complete their Pokédexes.
Hanke understands the concerns of those without the means to do the necessary exploration to find every single Pokémon. (In the context of Pokémon Go, that means the original 150.) As someone who grew up in a small town himself, he understands the 30-mile drives just to find a Wal-Mart. Unfortunately, there's no promise that people in areas like that will be able to find a diverse set of monsters.
Pokémon Go is a social experience first and foremost
The expectation is that only the most hardcore Pokémon Go players will spring for that worldwide trek, however. That's why the development team is pushing the power-up and gym-capturing angles. But more than that, the hope is that hometown players will look to the game for its social features.
"One of the aspects in Ingress that people enjoy more than the other aspects of the game is cooperative play," Hanke said. He and Smith envision players meeting up to search for Pokémon together as an after-dinner or post-drinks activity.
The Pokémon Go Plus is more accessible than a smartwatch The $35 Pokémon Go Plus peripheral is meant to encourage and support that type of gameplay. The stand-alone device will be sold through the app and other retailers and allow players to continue playing the game, even when they have their phones away. It can be worn as a bracelet — like a Fitbit or Jawbone step counter — or on one's lapel for an even more conspicuous look. "It could be that you're out walking in the park with friends and meeting friends somewhere, and may not want to interrupt the conversation and break the social dynamic that's going on [to check Pokémon Go]," Smith explained. "With a few clicks of the button, you can harvest items and catch Pokémon and continue to build up progress in the game. In all of those scenarios, it would be really awesome to have a device not to completely replace interacting with the phone, but supplement it."
As for the perhaps steep price point — almost the cost of a full-priced Nintendo 3DS game — for the free-to-play title's battery-powered peripheral, Smith mentioned that it's more accessible than a hundred-dollar smartwatch which has a more limited user base.
With the addition of Pokémon Go Plus, the mobile game becomes an even more streamlined, perhaps rudimentary Pokémon experience. That's okay, Hanke and Smith said. The excitement they hope players feel when they discover their first Pokémon in the outdoors is the real crux of Pokémon Go, not the satisfaction of completing the Pokédex or collecting all the badges. Fans who have long dreamed of seeing a Pokémon in the real world can look forward to that experience when the game hits iOS and Android this July.MONTREAL — On our daily political panel on CJAD, we recently debated the question of which is worse: A city with a corrupt system for procuring municipal contracts (Montreal), or a city cursed with a crackhead mayor (Toronto).
Already, the Charbonneau Commission is going a long way to take the sting out of that infamous Maclean’s cover story depicting Montreal as the most corrupt city in the most corrupt province. Quebec’s joint police task force, the fearsome UPAC, has proved it won’t hesitate to arrest mayors.
The creation of the Charbonneau Commission was the result of political pressure brought to bear by a scandalized population watching brilliant investigative journalism — particularly on Radio Canada’s investigative television program Enquete. This encouraged management at La Presse and The Gazette to join the hunt, commissioning some razor-sharp investigative reporting.
“Investigative journalism is expensive and the targets sue,” observes Jean Pelletier, journalistic editor and chief at Radio Canada. “But we are committed to it.” Enquete continues to give sleepless nights to politicians, contractors and corrupt civil servants across Quebec. They play no favourites, going after Liberals and Pequistes with equal determination. This week, the head of one of the province’s most powerful labour unions, the FTQ, was forced to resign in the wake of an Enquete investigation.
Enquete‘s Alain Gravel is conscious of the danger. In most of North America, investigative journalism has gone out of style. Not so in Quebec, where journalists have been known to put their lives on the line to dig out the rot. Reporter Michel Auger’s work on biker gangs put him in harm’s way. He survived six bullets — not meant to scare him, but to kill him. A generation earlier, Le Devoir crime reporter Jean-Pierre Charbonneau survived a mafia shooting in his paper’s newsroom.
Meanwhile, organized crime experts are saluting the work done in Montreal — while bemoaning the lack of attention criminal oligarchs receive in Ontario and in places like the docks in Vancouver harbour, where biker gangs rule.
In most of North America, investigative journalism has gone out of style. Not so in Quebec, where journalists have been known to put their lives on the line to dig out the rot.
But what little we know tells us that high-level corruption is not confined to Montreal. A team from Radio Canada approached their counterparts in Toronto, offering to perform a joint investigation into contract allocations in Toronto. On a preliminary scouting trip the RadCan investigative team discovered the system for asphalt contracting in Toronto was every bit as black and corrupt as it is in Montreal. But there was little appetite to commit the resources to do the necessary digging.
The city once called ‘Toronto the Good’ is now considered by international mafia experts to be the North American capital of the ‘Ndrangheta. Retired RCMP organized crime expert Paul Soave calls it the biggest and most sinister criminal operation in the world. In Toronto they are largely ignored by politicians and police, says Julian Sher, senior producer at CBC’s the fifth estate and author of several books on organized crime.
To their credit, CBC National News did a report on collusion and corruption in the tendering of construction contracts in Toronto last fall. But there has been little follow-up.
Radio-Canada also discovered little enthusiasm for investigating corruption in the booming Alberta economy. A Radio-Canada team went to Lamont, Alberta, just outside Edmonton, and discovered corruption in housing construction. They found and followed a disheartened Quebec contractor from Laval named Gilles Filiatrault, a born-again Christian looking for a clean start in the Western Canadian construction industry boom. Instead, the team found this Quebec builder running into the same system of kickbacks and graft he fled in Quebec. As a result of Enquete’s long-distance reporting, the former town manager at the centre of the allegations was charged with fraud and forgery.
Consider all of that and then consider the fact that the mayor of Toronto admitted to smoking crack cocaine — the kind of drug you source from shady characters, all quite capable of using extrortion to achieve their ends.
Organized crime experts across the nation warn us that most politicians are naïve. They accept cash and favours, leaving themselves vulnerable to extortion and blackmail.
Montreal’s new mayor has promised to appoint a crime-busting figure — our own Eliot Ness — to sink the mafia. We await the appointment.
Anne Lagace-Dowson is an-award winning broadcast journalist and political analyst. Anne appears every weekday morning at 9.05 a.m. for a political panel discussion on the Montreal talk radio station CJAD.
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.Germany plans to deploy Bundeswehr troops in a joint Franco-German mission to support an OSCE-brokered ceasefire in eastern Ukraine, government sources said, with Social Democrats calling for a mandate from the Bundestag and the Left Party condemning the move “for historical reasons”. EURACTIV Germany reports.
“We are certain, we will be able to offer the OSCE a joint Franco-German effort to help the OSCE fulfil its ambitions,” said German Foreign Office spokesman, Martin Schäfer, on Monday (6 October) in Berlin.
This could happen in the next “hours or days”, he said.
Meanwhile, the German government contradicted expectations that the operation could begin this week.
Numerous legal, military and political questions are still unanswered, Schäfer indicated. Most likely, a mandate will be needed from the Bundestag, said the spokesman for Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
The German Defense Ministry recently announced considerations to initiate a drone operation over the Russia-Ukraine border and a training centre for Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq.
On Sunday (5 October), French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian also announced a joint German-French surveillance mission in eastern Ukraine “within the coming days”.
Plans for a Franco-German operation go back to the NATO Summit four weeks ago, a German Defense Ministry spokesman commented. A joint fact-finding mission led by the two countries already took place in eastern Ukraine between 16 and 20 September, said the spokesman.
>> Read: NATO summit pledges ‘tangible’ support to Ukraine
But it did not result in a political decision, he indicated, nor have the allies determined how many soldiers are necessary to cover drones deployed in the region.
In addition, Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen has not revealed whether a Bundestag mandate will be needed for a German drone operation.
But the Social Democratic Party (SPD) is insisting on Bundestag approval.
“If this results in further German contributions, the Bundestag will be quick to reach the necessary decisions,” the SPD’s vice faction leader Rolf Mützenich told Reuters.
In the Minsk agreement, from 19 September, the OSCE was given a central role in monitoring the ceasefire between Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, which has frequently been broken. Germany recently applied to head up the OSCE for the year 2016.
Meanwhile, Left Party faction leader Gregor Gysi criticised the recent plans for a joint mission.
Germany should not participate in the important OSCE operation because the German government has never been neutral with regard to the Ukraine conflict, Gysi told the broadcaster ntv.
Historical reasons should also prevent a deployment of German troops to Ukraine, the Left Party politician said.Preface - (Please read the text, don't just look at the poorly made picture)
My Idea
(Schematic name courtesy of 'Combat Me Bro')
Making Schematics
I propose that in the ship, there is some kind of machine that can be found after you reach a certain point in the game (The player might find it abandoned in some ruins after a storyline quest?). When you use this machine (That I am temporarily calling a 'SchematicMatic'), you are taken to a screen like this:
(This is a very quick mockup)
Building from Schematics
Earlier Tier Schematics
As I'm sure you can imagine, the schematic machine will be a late in game kind of item. However as seen in the demo for starbound it can get quite frustrating to build a base on every planet you visit, since you will be going to a lot of them. So I propose that a very basic level of the schematic machine can be found early on. This low level version does not allow you to create or take out schematics. It starts off with a basic base schematic, and more can be found in chest and things. Basically this low level schematic machine will allow you to beam down bases to planets you or anyone has not been to, provided you have the materials.
Sharing schematics
Dealing with griefers
Final Note
I know this is not the only blueprint suggestion, but I'm trying to incorporate all blueprint ideas I can. If you have any other ideas that are to do with blueprints, please tell me and I will add them to the section below. I'm hoping that this can become a mega thread for all blueprint related ideas.
Similar Ideas
Variations Suggested by OthersWE MADE OUR GOAL!!! This is HUGE. Thank you, thank you, thank you. We made this goal in less than two weeks - BECAUSE OF YOU! You are truly amazing, and you are the ones making this film happen.
But it's certainly not the end!
$60,000 was the bare bones, minimum amount needed to make this project. With each added dollar, the project only gets better and better. This is your film. These are your stories. Let's bring the film from bare bones to phenomenal.
We are setting our first "stretch goal" at $100,000.
We would love more funds to assist in the following:
Research, research, and more research
Traveling expenses to follow up on all research!
Graphic Art
Marketing
Principal Photography
Contract Work
Promotion
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We want to have the opportunity to speak with experts to bring you a factual story. With your continued help and support, we will make this a huge success! Thank you, thank you, and thanks again for making this happen!
***Please note: If you would like to donate anonymously, just send a message when you contribute to let us know***
Follow us on Twitter, and make sure to "like" our Facebook page!
Billion Dollar Bully is an investigative documentary about Yelp that examines the claims by business owners of extortion, review manipulation and review fabrication. In this documentary you will meet business owners from across a broad spectrum, whose commonality is their allegations of Yelp's questionable business dealings.
For years, Yelp has been accused of unethical business practices, all of which Yelp vehemently denies and chalks up as conspiracy theories.
Business owners and consumers deserve to see arguments for and against Yelp's business tactics. After so much debate in the media, this documentary is long overdue.
However, your help is needed to turn this documentary into the quality production that it deserves!
With 50% of our project filmed, we need to raise money to finish production and take this through post production. Your contributions will go towards:
Videography
Editing
Color correction
Music composition
Graphics
Insurance
Legal fees
We expect this film to be widely viewed, and we want it to look stellar!The White House has come up with a new theory as to why Donald Trump apparently ignored Angela Merkel’s request for a handshake.
“I don’t think he heard the question,” Press Secretary Sean Spicer told German publication Der Spiegel.
The rest of the world did hear the German Chancellor asking the US President at their first meeting as to whether he wanted to shake hands, however, and they watched as he did not respond and instead stared back at the cameras, looking resolute.
We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view. From 15p €0.18 $0.18 $0.27 a day, more exclusives, analysis and extras.
It was only when the reporters were ordered to file out of the Oval Office that Mr Trump was seen to turn towards her, say something and put a hand on her arm.
The visit between the two leaders began in a friendlier fashion in Washington DC on Friday morning as they shook hands at the entrance to the White House.
But later, as the pair sat on two chairs side by side in the Oval Office, his apparent rebuff of the Chancellor was an awkward moment and was highly blasted by the German media.
The gaffe was seen as another thorn in the side from Mr Trump following his negative comments about the country’s stance on immigration and trade deals throughout the election campaign.
In a joint press conference after the photo opp last week, the two leaders shared little common ground.
Mr Trump re-iterated that other countries needed to spend their “fair share” on Nato while Ms Merkel remained stony faced.
Germany’s largest-selling daily, Bild, reported that Mr Trump did not once look Ms Merkel in the eye once.
The press focus on the lack of a handshake dominated reports of the meeting, in stark contrast to Mr Trump's other meetings with world leaders.
When Mr Trump met UK Prime Minister Theresa May, he was seen to grasp her hand as they walked towards the press conference together. With Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau there were plenty of smiles and eye contact despite little common ground. When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to the capital, Mr Trump insisted the US would stand up for its ally and friend.
Mr Trump insisted that negative news reports about his meeting with Ms Merkel were inaccurate.
"Despite what you have heard from the FAKE NEWS, I had a GREAT meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel," he wrote on Twitter.
"Nevertheless, Germany owes vast sums of money to NATO & the United States must be paid more for the powerful, and very expensive, defense it provides to Germany!"
We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view.
At The Independent, no one tells us what to write. That’s why, in an era of political lies and Brexit bias, more readers are turning to an independent source. Subscribe from just 15p a day for extra exclusives, events and ebooks – all with no ads.
Subscribe nowLast month, I put down a written Parliamentary Question to the Secretary of State for Transport, asking for the remit and cost of the consultants involved in the High Speed Two project. You can read my question and the answer in Hansard here and the text is below.
As you can see, these costs have already run to over £25 million…
Steve Baker: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport which consultants are being or have been used on the High Speed 2 project; and what the (a) remit and (b) cost to the public purse was of their services in each case. Justine Greening: The following table provides information on the consultants used by both HS2 Ltd and the Department for Transport since the inception of HS2 Ltd in 2009 to present. It also gives information on their remit and associated costs. Company Remit Costs (£) ALOGIT Technical services 23,184.00 DbyD: Consultation Institute Consultation 23,760.00 Arup Engineering and technical services 7,155,687.35 Atkins Economic services 2,053,812.96 Bircham Dyson Bell Legal services 117,013.52 Bombardier: Min Headway Eval Engineering and technical services 24,000.00 Booz and Company Environmental and economic services 3,550,744.07 Campbell Associates Environmental services 37,473.26 CB Richard Ellis Property services 280,606.59 CCH Wolters Kluwer (UK) LTD Taxation services 504.00 Davis Langdon Cost and risk services 26,569.60 DG Consultant Transport services 17,500.00 Senior Ecologist—ELM Environment Environmental services 10,027.74 Energy Strategy Engineering services 2,160.00 Ernst & Young LLP Financial services 410,888.90 Eversheds LLP Legal services 233,499.89 Hay Group Management Limited HR services 53,987.36 Transport Studies Unit Transport services 48,135.60 Landmark Chambers Legal services 13,800.00 Mott Macdonald Engineering services 4,412,654.42 MSG Engineering services 154,904.91 MVA Economic services 3,276,661.48 Network Rail Infrastructure Ltd Environmental/transport services 7,632.51 Oliver Wyman Consulting Limited Strategy consultancy 107,497.73 Paul Jenkins Associates Ltd Engineering services 22,696.18 Rand Europe Economic services 19,986.80 Reg Harman Consultancy Environmental services 783.30 Rowsell Wright Procurement services 257,976.00 URS/Scott Wilson Economic services 14,652.00 Stoneywood Consultants Organisation/procurement services 59,001.59 Systra Operational services 82,500.00 Temple Ltd Environmental services 3,209,557.60 Thornton Springer Taxation/payroll advice 1,842.00 UKPNS Traction Environmental services 111,430.95
That seems good money for a project that would never attract voluntary support and for those who, far from inheriting the mantle of the Victorian railway pioneers who risked private capital, rely on the taxpayer. It is a metaphor for the transformation of our society from one based on free enterprise to one dependent on state power and the essentially arbitrary decisions of politicians and officials.
Tags: Bureaucracy, Corporatism, economics, High Speed Rail, HS2, Liberty, Parliament, Rail, TransportOver the past few years, polyamory has become a more widely known term and practice. And perhaps inevitably, certain misconceptions and misunderstandings about what "polyamory" means have become widespread as well. It would be unfortunately difficult to say which among these misunderstandings is the most common, or the most hurtful to polyamorous folks. But there's one in particular that I'd like to discuss: the idea that "polyamory" means "committed couple who have casual partners on the side."
There has been much talk about "open marriage" and "open relationships" in recent years, with some even paradoxically dubbing non-monogamy "the new monogamy." In this open-marriage conception of non-monogamous relationships, there is still a central, committed (often legally married) couple, who allow one another to engage in purely sexual (or at least quite casual) outside relationships. Generally, any discussion about the benefits of such practice revolves around how it strengthens and/or reinvigorates the central couple in question. I want to be perfectly clear that I don't see anything wrong with strictly sexual non-monogamy so long as it's genuinely fulfilling and consensual for all involved, including the outside partners. But for those of us living in polyamorous families, it can be incredibly frustrating when people use those concepts of open marriage to make assumptions about the structure of our relationships.
Because we live in such a monogamy-centered society, it makes sense that many people can only conceive of non-monogamy in what ultimately still amounts to monogamous terms. There is a common misconception that a polyamorous relationship is really no different from an open-relationship agreement: one committed couple, with some lighthearted fun on the side. But the word "polyamory," by definition, means loving more than one. Many of us have deeply committed relationships with more than one partner, with no hierarchy among them and no core "couple" at the heart of it all. To me, this notion that there must be one more important relationship, one true love, feels a lot like people looking at same-sex couples and thinking that one person must be the "man" in the relationship and the other must be the "woman." After all, both of these misunderstandings result from people trying to graft their normative conceptions of love and relationships onto people who are partnering in non-normative ways. It seems that it is somewhat easy for many people to acknowledge that humans are capable of loving one person and still enjoying sex with others (assuming, of course, that the terms of their relationship make such behavior acceptable). But it is much harder for people to think outside the fairy-tale notion of "the one" and imagine that it might be possible to actually romantically love more than one person simultaneously.
The unfortunate result of this is that, for those of us in more than one serious and meaningful relationship, the world around us insists on viewing one of those relationships as less valid than the other, especially when one relationship happens to predate others. I have been with my husband for 17 years, legally married for 11. But I am also deeply in love with and committed to my boyfriend of two and a half years, and it hurts that people make assumptions about that relationship simply being something frivolous and recreational outside my marriage.
Another side effect of this misunderstanding is that people often wonder why we poly people need to talk openly about "what happens behind closed doors." I have heard many times that there should be no reason to disclose one's polyamorous relationships with parents, children, or the neighbors. That might seem logical if what we're talking about is strictly extramarital sexual partners. But my life with my partners isn't reducible to "what happens behind closed doors" any more than any serious, long-term relationship is. We share a home and a life; we are a family. Openly, publicly acknowledging my boyfriend as my partner is not just saying that we have sex. It's saying that, like my husband, he is my partner in every sense of the word. He loves me and supports me and respects me. He sees me at my worst and still wants to spend his life with me anyway. It would be unimaginable to me to hide the nature of our relationship, to pretend that he is merely a friend or roommate, to not have him by my side at weddings and funerals and family holiday gatherings. But this is exactly what people are expecting of me when they ask why I feel the need to be so "open" about my "private business."
Not all polyamorous people have multiple equally committed relationships, and many do designate a more central (typically live-in) relationship as "primary." But my partners and I are hardly unusual among polyamorous folks. Many share homes in configurations like ours, |
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said of the industry’s position on the new talks. “There is an opportunity for expansion.”
The industry now has almost as many lobby groups representing its views on NAFTA as the transport sector, which includes automakers. That sector had 52 lobbying groups discussing the trade pact with government officials between April and June. Agriculture still dominates the NAFTA lobbying effort with 86 arrangements with lobbying groups.
While the auto and farm lobbies are seeking to preserve cross-border supply chains and to retain access to markets in Mexico and Canada, the tech sector wants a revamped NAFTA to help it grow future business.
President Donald Trump has blamed NAFTA for the loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs and threatened to withdraw from the pact unless it can be reworked in the United States’ favor.
Tech firms want a ban on any future government requirements that providers of services, such as cloud computing store data in a particular country. They also seek a commitment by NAFTA members to join a broader international pact to eliminate all tariffs on a broad range of information technology goods, including computers, smartphones, semiconductors and medical devices. Today, the United States and Canada already subscribe to the broader tech agreement but Mexico does not.
While tech goods are already face no tariffs under NAFTA and industry representatives said there are no data flow restrictions in the region hampering trade, U.S. firms want an updated NAFTA to help them access other markets by serving as a tech template for future trade pacts.
Tech industry associations have sent letters to the Trump administration asking negotiators to prioritize free flows of data and low tariffs as well as global cybersecurity standards, and have met with staff at the U.S. Trade Representative.
“We’re fairly confident the issues we identified will be addressed in the negotiations,” said Ed Brzytwa, director of global policy at the Information Technology Industry Council.
It remains unclear, however, how prominently tech concerns will feature at NAFTA talks given Trump’s focus on manufacturing.
The CRP, a nonprofit group that advocates for government transparency, includes media and publishing firms in the technology sector, but the overwhelming majority of the sector’s disclosures on NAFTA came from hardware, software and digital services firms.
The CRP’s database incorporates disclosures to both the Senate and the House of Representatives and includes both in-house lobbyists and external lobbying firms.
Cisco Systems, a networking hardware company, had as many as 10 lobbyists working on NAFTA issues. On a lobby disclosure form reviewed by Reuters, Cisco Systems listed NAFTA and government procurement as the trade issues handled by its lobbyists.
Microsoft, which counts cloud computing and software as core businesses, had as many as 13 lobbyists working on NAFTA, according to the CRP database.
FILE PHOTO: The logo of Cisco is seen at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, February 27, 2017. REUTERS/Eric Gaillard/File Photo
The disclosure forms filed by Microsoft do not make clear whether all 13 lobbied on NAFTA, which is listed along with several other trade-related issues and cloud computing.
Amazon, a major cloud services provider and internet retailer, also cited NAFTA as well as “customs procedures” in its lobbying disclosure. The Trump administration has proposed easing customs barriers for online purchases.
Cisco Systems and Amazon declined to comment for this story while Microsoft representatives did not respond to a request for comment.To celebrate the release of the new Street Angel hardcover, we invite Jim Rugg into the inkstud octagon for another round of 10 Questions! Cheers!
1. Nicholas Cage or Keanu Reeves?
Nicholas Cage, based on quantity, Raising Arizona, Con Air, Bad Lt., Face/Off…Keanu can’t compete with the volume or the best of Cage.
2. Do you ever drink and draw?(..this is Comics Tavern) If not, are there any other vices(food/drink/drugs/sex/other) you partake in while making art??
Not really. I’m pretty boring. I listen to podcasts while I ink and color my work. Sometimes, if it’s nearing the end of a long day (i.e. after 9), I’ll have a drink as I’m wrapping things up. I’m getting old, if I drink anything now, I usually just want to take a nap afterwards.
3. What was the last good movie you’ve seen?
I recently saw Under the Skin and Jodorowsky’s Dune. They were both a lot of fun. Under the Skin looked nice and the sound was good. It reminded me of Charles Burns’ work and I enjoyed its pace. Jodorowsky’s Dune was a great story about making art and collaboration, and featured an incredible team of talent like Moebius, Giger, Foss. I would recommend both of those.
4. Your much anticipated issue of Adventure Time comes out this month. Are there any other mainstream IP’s(intellectual properties) you’d love to work on, and why?(comics/movies/TV/literature/etc.)
I like the Punisher and Hulk, mostly for nostalgic reasons I suppose. I don’t think there are any IP’s I’m dying to work on. I like Jason from Friday the 13th, Walter from The Big Lebowski, Josie and the Pussycats, and some pro-wrestlers. I made an unauthorized Rambo comic (Rambo 3.5) a few years ago, so if I decide there’s something I really want to do, I’ll probably just do it.
5. F, Marry, or Kill. They used to play this game a lot on Howard Stern, so since I have no original ideas we’re going to play The Comics Tavern version. You must assign one of those actions to the 3 choices given, and I would like to hear your reasons.
Baroness(GI Joe…)
Kitty Pryde
Tank Girl
I’m going to refrain from answering this question. Sexism, gender inequality, sexual harassment, and misogyny are major problems in the comics industry and I don’t want to contribute to it. I’m sure you don’t mean any harm with this question, but I don’t want to alienate anyone when it comes to comics.
How about – draw, read, ignore? I would read Tank Girl, draw Baroness, and ignore Kitty Pryde. When I started reading comics, I LOVED X-Men, but it was after Kitty Pryde had left the team. She might have been on Excalibur then. I’m not sure. But I never really connected with her character.
Jim, I really liked the way you rephrased the question, and answered it without lowering yourself to my uncouth, scumbag level. – AY 😉
6. Describe an encounter with a fan, or fellow comics professional that really pissed you off.
I’m your most boring interview ever…but I just can’t think of an incident. Like 10 years ago, I was at an outdoor festival and some guy put his bag of take-out food on a comic on my table while he looked at a table next to mine. As if that weren’t appalling enough, when he walked away, it had dripped sauce onto one of my comics. But it happened near the end of what had been my best show ever, so I wasn’t too mad since I was having a great weekend!
I just thought of one. I was at a show a few years ago, and a guy was pitching a comic to a publisher near me. The conversation turned to how the guy found artists to work with and he boastfully talked about how easy it was to take advantage of comic book artists. That’s probably the closest I’ve come to violence at a show.
7. Do you have a favorite weird comic in your collection, something most collectors would never have even seen before?
This I can do. I’ll just list some stuff:
Jason Karnes’ Fukitor comics – these are x-rated horror comics that are completely produced, written, drawn, printed, and distributed by one guy. They are beautiful. They were originally printed on newsprint and just felt like some underground grandchild of EC.
Drippy Bones Books (publisher) – Galactic Breakdown by Keenan Marshall Keller is about this steroid abuser that gets abducted by aliens to be an intergalactic fighter. It’s printed by a company that prints restaurant menus and it looks like it could be printed with plastic inks. The coloring is great. Cartoonshow by Derek M. Ballard. He draws really well, like a cross between Jack Kirby, cartoons, and pornography. Bald Eagles’ latest comic, Bittersweet Romance is also a Drippy Bones Book. Bald Eagles draws a lot, like a million little marks everywhere. And Bittersweet Romance reprints his comic book pages with the margins visible so all of his doodles and drawings are visible.
Iron Man #39 – drawn by Herb Trimpe, allegedly in 24 hours.
Chris Pitzer recently gifted me a copy of Magazineland, USA – this was a free comic book that a printer released to try to attract more business. It’s drawn by Joe Kubert and his first or second year of Kubert school students. It features comic book characters from a number of large publishers (Marvel, DC, Harvey) working on the presses and explaining how comics are made.
Real Deal – this is a self-published series from the 90s. The line work is reminiscent of Gary Panter but the stories are straight out of gangsta rap from the late 80s/early 90s. The first issue is a tabloid sized, newsprint edition and the subsequent issues are magazine sized. It’s a cool series. I started looking for it at San Diego Comic-Con a few years ago and it took me almost a year to assemble the whole series.
My tastes tend towards the weird, so my collection is full of work that most collectors have never seen (and probably have no interest in seeing).
8. Describe your worst dating experience.
In college, I worked for a white-water rafting company. I would take dates rafting sometimes and flipped a raft over once. The poor girl survived, but it was not a good experience.
9. Where do you see the comics industry in 10 years, and what changes (if any) would you like to see?
Ten years? In ten years, assuming we’re not dead and assuming there is still an “industry”, I would expect everything to be completely different than it is now. I mean, if you look back on the previous decade of rapid, radical change, and assume the rate of change will continue to accelerate in an exponential, rather than linear progression, it’s hard to imagine the state of anything in ten years. The iPhone was only introduced seven years ago. So we should see a few more changes of that scale in the next ten years, and it makes predicting anything hard to do.
If people are still producing print objects, I think it will be mostly artisan-al, along the lines of the current state of book arts and zines.
The disposable and wasteful nature of print will soon render it politically and commercially nonviable. Amazon’s war on book retailers will likely decimate that segment of the market, which will significantly change distribution. Distribution has a profound effect on content so that will be interesting.
Of the big two, I think Disney is much better suited to exploit their superhero license than Warner Bros. So that gulf may grow. Who knows, maybe Warner Bros. even sells or licenses their character to Disney within the next ten years.
Plus, artificial intelligence is ominously close, right? Hopefully that new life-form will create a comic book or two before it decides humans are harmful and eradicates us.
Changes I would like to see include:
– Better understanding of the business side of publishing. It’s possible to make a good living in comics without compromising the work. I know people who do this. I hope to know many, many more in ten years.
– Better academic support for comics. This change is underway; I would like to see it continue to develop. This includes everything from critical writing to institutional support like residencies, museums and gallery shows, library and school events, historical writing, and archives. Like I said, all of this stuff is happening, which is awesome. I would like to see it continue.
– I would like to see alternative distribution models continue to flourish, for these new models to integrate easily and directly between creator and reader, and to monetize these new models efficiently. Distribution is vital to an art form. I would like to see it continue to develop forever.
– Comics have grown a lot in terms of diversity of content, readers, and creators. I would like to see that continue.
10. Greedy two part final question here! Any plans for future Street Angel/Afrodisiac comics, and/or T.V./movie adaptations? Besides your Adventure Time issue, and the new Street Angel Hardcover coming out next month from AdHouse, what else should fans expect to see from you the rest of 2014, and beyond?
The Adventure Time story will conclude soon (possibly by the time I finish this interview). I think that will be collected later this year in one volume.
Street Angel Hardcover is out this summer, so I’m doing shows to promote that, including:
June 20-22 – Charlotte, NC – Heroes Con
July 24-27 – San Diego, CA – Comic-Con
September 13-14 – Bethesda, MD – SPX
October 4-5 – San Francisco, CA – APE
I have a couple other shows I’m finalizing and will also be doing a few store appearances to promote the book.
After that, I’m not sure what my next project will be. I may begin working on my next art show or I may begin producing my next graphic novel or doing some zines, mini-comics, etc.
I continue to produce BoingBoing’s Tell Me Something I Don’t Know podcast, where Jasen Lex and I talk to artists, writers, cartoonists, musicians, filmmakers, etc. about their work and the business/reality behind what they do.
The best thing to do to keep up with my work is to follow me Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook…I’m “jimrugg” at all of those things. You can also keep up with me at jimrugg.com.
Thanks for answering my sometimes jerky questions, Mr. Rugg. I really enjoyed your answers!
*special thank you to Jon Vinson for coming up with Q#7
*Pictures borrowed from Facebook & Google images. Thanks!
Return to Jim Rugg’s Comics Brewmaster page…645X363 - No Companion - Full Sharing - Additional videos are suggested - Policy/Regulation/Blogs
The Supreme Court on Monday deemed “straw” purchases of guns illegal, delivering a huge win to advocates of stricter gun controls.
In a 5-4 decision, the court concluded that one legal gun owner may not acquire a firearm on behalf of another — a practice known as "straw" purchasing.
The case, known as Abramski v. United States, centered on a former police officer who sought to buy a Glock 19 handgun for his uncle. Though both men were allowed to own guns, Bruce Abramski claimed on forms that he was the “actual transferee/buyer” of the weapon and was later convicted of making false statements.
Abramski argued that federal gun law — intended to keep guns out of the wrong hands — did not apply to his transaction.
The court, though split down ideological lines, disagreed.
“No piece of information is more important under federal firearms law than the identity of a gun’s purchaser — the person who acquires a gun as a result of a transaction with a licensed dealer,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote for the majority.
Justices Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor joined in the decision.
Justice Antonin Scalia wrote the dissent, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.
Scalia contended gun laws now on the books don’t support the majority’s finding.
“The Court makes it a federal crime for one lawful gun owner to buy a gun for another lawful gun owner,” he wrote. “Whether or not that is a sensible result, the statutes Congress enacted do not support it — especially when, as is appropriate, we resolve ambiguity in those statutes in favor of the accused.”
The ruling follows the court’s 2008 decision, in the case District of Columbia v. Heller, protecting an individual's right to possess guns for self-defense. In that case, Kennedy, a frequent swing vote, sided in with the court’s conservative wing.
The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, which backs stronger limits on firearms, hailed the ruling as a victory over the “corporate gun lobby.”
“This is a very big and very positive decision that will save lives by keeping guns out of the hands of dangerous people. Once again the Supreme Court rejected efforts by the corporate gun lobby to undermine federal gun laws, reaffirming that sensible laws can have a big impact while being consistent with the Second Amendment,” said Dan Gross, the president of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.On The Reproduction of German Imperialism at the Beyond Europe Camp
‘’If one more person wearing an antideutsche t-shirt initiates a conversation with me in German I’m going to punch them in the face’’ – Unnamed Camp Participant number #27
‘’I wish there had been more non-Germans here’’ – The only thing said by an Ums Ganze member I will ever agree with
The ‘Beyond Europe Camp’ was a weeklong camp in the North East of Greece, attended by Libertarian, Anti-Authoritarian and Anarchist groups and individuals. It was created with the intent of sharing skills and experiences between various different European Groups, and assisting the local people in their struggle against the ecological destructive open pit gold mine there.
The camp was neither a resounding success nor an abject failure. I do not believe that we concretely assisted in their struggle against the mine, but the locals who participate in the struggle seemed to appreciate our presence and willingness to put our bodies on the line for their struggle. In terms of the workshops some were mediocre at best, but some were fantastic, and I met some great people. But the elephant in the room throughout the whole camp, and number one point of discussion among those I spoke with, was the completely uncritical attitude the camps German participants (Who form the majority of the camps participants) had to their relative position in European Society, and their continual reproduction of German Imperialism, especially within the Greek context, and especially among so called ‘’Anti-Germans’’.
While most of the rest of Europe are also participants in the Imperialist exploitation of Greece, it cannot be ignored that Germany holds a special place as the number one instigator and beneficiary of the exploitation of Greece. The handing over of Greek regional airports to German Companies, something directly insisted on by the German state in the latest round of Greek Austerity, on a 40 year ‘concession’ nearly directly mirrors the infrastructure ‘concessions’ of the 19th Cen (Such as the British seizure of Hong Kong on a 99 year lease). Those who used to take ports now take airports.
The German Radical Left is aware of this, at least in the abstract sense, that they are big baddies, and they should engage in pointless guilt about it, while romanticising the Greek struggle. But if the attitude of many of Germans at the Beyond Europe Camp is at all representative of the Radical Left, they have not taken this abstract knowledge to attempt any form of concert transformation of their behaviour.
The most explicit and disgusting example of the reproduction of Imperialist Attitudes in the Camp came from the so called ‘German Time’. After the Mountain Walk to see the Gold Mine near the beginning of the camp had to leave late because people were late, many within the camp would start to refer to the times of events as being at ‘’10:30 German Time’’. ‘German Time’, was meant to contrast with the previously ‘Greek Time’, and to emphasise that people should be on time. Because you know, haha, the Greek are lazy and bad workers and so always late while the Germans are hard workers who are always on time because they know the value of good work.
Hilarious, really.
You can of course make jokes about the stereotypes that oppress and separate people. But to do this you have to in some way deconstruct the dominant discourse, and just repeating a reactionary attitude with a wink at the end is really insufficient for such. And of course such stereotypes should not just be offensive to the Greeks, for the stereotype that Germans are hard workers who take their jobs very seriously means nothing more than being a good slave to capital, something which International capital is very much trying to ‘break into’ the Greek people.
Another example that reaches into parody is a complaint made by a German comrade when they were informed that there were going to be TV Cameras at the demonstration. They said that there had been a lengthy debate in Germany about this for years, and they had reached the conclusion that they should not have TV Cameras at the demonstration, and so they were shocked that the organisers could have permitted such. The fact that we were not in Germany, we were in Greece, and that this was a camp of people from many different European Nations and not a German Summer Holiday Camp, seemed to have slipped their minds. It also showed a complete lack of awareness that this was not a struggle of which we were not protagonists. Rather it was one we had been invited to participate in and that by accepting such an invitation we were accepting that these people would have different political practises to our own and that we had not right to dictate to them.
I would also prefer if there were not the TV Cameras of mainstream bourgeoisie media at the demonstration, and that there were only the Cameras of Comrades, who know not to publish faces without permission, not to livestream etc. (Such practises have the added benefit of moving money into the movement, as if the mainstream media wishes to report on the issue they must pay Comrades for their photos and such.) But I also respect the local’s right to gain their struggle as much media attention as possible, and if the presence of the cameras disturbed me so badly I could simply refuse to attend the demonstration. We also acknowledge that local political practises come of out differing materiel realities, and that Greek systems of surveillance are far less sophisticated than the ones in Britain and Germany, and so a different level of caution is appropriate.
These two examples are ones that are particularly egregious and notable, but there were very many low level examples of such throughout the camp. From initiating conversations in German, to when spoken to in English replying in German, to when we are having a conversation in English (A language we are both completely fluent in) attempting to switch into German after hearing I have a German name. Regardless of whether not these people were able to speak German or not, we were at a camp that was supposed to be one that was uniting people from across Europe, with the agreed common language of English, and continually attempting to switch into German when you were perfectly capable of speaking English is not appropriate. (Of course for those who were only confident in speaking German, the dynamics are decidedly different, but we should not pretend that the number of these people at the camp was a large one.)
Another tension within the camp came out of the presence of the so called ‘antideutsche’ at the camp. The antideutsche are a phenomenon that is decidedly alien to those who have not lived in German, or have had it explained in great length to them. To those who do not know antideutsche is an ideological position within the German Radical Left, which due to a reaction against Anti-Semitism with the German Left (Something that was an immense problem for the German Left) and fears of a ‘Fourth Reich’ after the reunification of Germany, decided that in order to cull the fascist threat they must support Israel and America, and oppose the struggle of the people of Palestine in order to ensure that Germany does not regress into Fascism.
It should be noted from the start that for an ideology that seeks to call itself ‘Anti-German’ that it is an inherently German centric ideology that centres German experience while ignoring everything else. Anti-Germanists know that Israel and America are not nice states, and that the ‘bad thing’ of supporting them is justified by the fact that if good things happened instead (The end of the genocide of the people of Palestine, the weakening of US Imperialism) this may lead to the US and Israel being too weak to combat an emergence of German fascism. In other terms Anti-Germanism is nothing more than reacting to the guilt of one genocide (The Holocaust) by supporting another (That of Palestine by Israel). Nothing about Anti-Germanism is Anti-German, these so called Radicals have the same foreign policy as their Government, and their refusal to struggle for Palestine lets their arms companies profit off the murder of Arabs by Israel, or in other terms, German Imperalism. If anything is going to lead to a remergence of German Fascism it will be their uncritical support of Western Imperialism.
Within any other European country the idea that Zionists and supporters of the USA would be tolerated within the Radical Left is absurd, but those who oppose the antideutsche seem to be willing to do so, where the divide seems to be nothing much more than ‘Something you argue about when you’re drunk’, as oppose to something that should be a fundamental unreachable divide. If those German organisations who participate in the ‘Beyond Europe’ formation really wish to create a pan-European network of Autonomous Radicals then they need to deal with both their own Chauvinism and the ‘antideutsche’ problem in their ranks.
Long Live Palestine!
Long Live Anti-Imperialist Struggle!
Death to America!
Death to Israel!
Death to the West!Owner Carla DeLellis plans a run of commemorative shows to celebrate the storied history of Johnny D’s Uptown Restaurant and Music Club, which was opened by her parents in 1969.
SOMERVILLE — The music is ending at Johnny D’s Uptown Restaurant and Music Club, a beloved fixture in the heart of Davis Square for 46 years.
Owner Carla DeLellis said Sunday she plans to close the venue, which has been home to a diverse array of live music from national and local acts, probably in late January or early February next year.
“It’s time for a change,” DeLellis said simply, noting that it is primarily a personal decision, not a financial one.
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DeLellis, who owns the building, plans to turn the 309-capacity, 3,900-square-foot place into a multistory mixed-use building, with commercial space at street level and three stories of residential space above it. No firm plans have been made as to what will occupy the commercial space, and DeLellis did not rule out the possibility that it could include a smaller club.
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News of Johnny D’s pending closure comes while another venerable local nightclub, T.T. the Bear’s Place, prepares to close on Saturday, after more than 40 years in Cambridge.
Johnny D’s was opened by DeLellis’s parents, John and Tina in 1969, first as a bar, then as a country music club, and finally — just as the rest of Davis Square experienced a revitalization — in its current iteration as a club and restaurant. Starting as children, DeLellis and her brother David worked alongside John and Tina until their parents’ deaths. David DeLellis died in 1998.
The list of acts who have played the club is studded with those who went on to much bigger halls and great fame, as well as niche artists for whom Johnny D’s was always just the right size, including Alison Krauss, Ben Harper, the Dixie Chicks, Jeff Buckley, Gillian Welch, Bettye LaVette, Sleepy LaBeef, and Guster. Recent bookings have included Shelby Lynne, Lee Ann Womack, and Booker T. Jones.
Harrison Hill for The Boston Globe Bass player David Mercure and his wife played at Johnny D's during their well-known Sunday jazz brunch.
The spectrum of sounds — from zydeco to bluegrass, country, pop, rock, funk, and world music — was what made Johnny D’s stand apart. It was a home for roots music of all varieties and often the only place where certain genres could be heard in the area.
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“I wanted to have a little bit of everything,” said Dana Westover, a Johnny D’s booking agent and audio engineer for 26 years, whom DeLellis credits with helping to expand the club’s musical profile. “We tried to get the best music we could fit in a 300-capacity space, and it was good because you could go pretty much the whole gamut. We didn’t do a lot of the real hard, loud stuff. We left that to the clubs in Cambridge. It was always more of a listening room.”
Ken Irwin, a cofounder of formerly Cambridge-based Rounder Records, hailed the club’s range.
“They covered it all and with quality and integrity,” Irwin said. “And they were always great to the artists and had respect for them. It was just a place that people liked to play.”
Kevin Lillis was attending a weekly blues jam at the club on Sunday when DeLellis broke the news to him. He estimated that he had been coming to the club for 20 years and, as a bass player, had occasionally played on its stage. “I will be sad,” said Lillis, of Stoneham. “It’s really been quite a fixture. There have been so many good shows.”
Sitting in her office downstairs as the club’s award-winning Sunday jazz brunch bustled overhead, DeLellis, 53, choked up as she discussed the decision to close the venue that has, in many ways, been her home for more than 40 years and that she has helped operate for 30, since graduating from Boston College.
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“The hardest part of this decision is taking away people’s home-away-from-home,” DeLellis said, thinking of longtime patrons. She despaired of where certain acts will find a home. “Who is going to pick up those shows?” she wondered.
While DeLellis said the business has always fluctuated, and there has been increased competition over the years, Johnny D’s is in the black.
“It’s not that the money is bad, it’s that my other options are better, and it’s very hard work,” said DeLellis, who not only wants security and stability for her four children — two college-aged and two middle-schoolers — but to spend more time with them, which her typical 18-hour-a-day, six-day-a-week schedule at Johnny D’s simply has not allowed.
Harrison Hill for The Boston Globe “The hardest part of this decision is taking away people’s home away from home,” owner Carla DeLellis said.
Marie Akoury, general manager at Johnny D’s for the last eight years, has seen DeLellis’s dedication. “She works day and night. I get e-mails from her at 2:30 in the morning, and then at 7 in the morning she’s up again,” said Akoury. “She’s a young 50s; she needs to enjoy her life.”
DeLellis has been thinking lately of her family’s legacy. “My mom passed — it was seven years in April — and I wrote an ode to mom and put it on Facebook,” said DeLellis, who says she hopes she has done her parents and brother proud as the last family member to run Johnny D’s. (She plans to include “Uptown” in the name of the apartments as a tip of the hat to the club.)
It’s not that it hasn’t been wonderful, said DeLellis, looking around at posters of acts that have played at the club — “I wouldn’t trade my life for anything” — but she has tired of the grind.
Before the club closes for construction in early 2016, she plans a run of commemorative shows to highlight its storied history.
“I want this to be a celebration of local music as well as national,” she said. She hopes to stage several benefits and free shows, and to include many artists who have played there.
DeLellis informed the staff of nearly 50 of her decision on Sunday afternoon and had drafted a thank you note to patrons and musicians that she planned to post on the club’s Facebook page. The note, which she shared, read, in part, “If you are reading this, it has often been your home too, a place for you to enjoy yourself, to let the music take you to places of revelry, or inspiration.... A place to share laughs or sorrows over a good meal. A place to make you feel a refuge from the storm of life.”
Said Akoury, “A lot of places tell you it’s family, but this place is really a family.”
Sarah Rodman can be reached at srodman@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @GlobeRodmanCOLORADO SPRINGS — Gov. John Hickenlooper dived into an intensifying debate over the imperiled Colorado River on Tuesday with a call for radically increased water conservation and an assertion that some new dams will be needed.
“We have lessons around the world that we can do more with less,” Hickenlooper said at a Colorado College conference, referring to Australian cities where residents cut average per capita consumption to 36 gallons a day and to Israel’s highly efficient use of water in agriculture.
Denver’s done better than most U.S. cities, with residents reducing use by 20 percent since 2002 to 160 gallons a day, but “we can make dramatic additional efforts,” Hickenlooper said.
“Our self-discipline in the amount of water we use is going to be the foundation of everything we will do,” he said.
Yet further drawdown of the over-subscribed Colorado River is continuing as state officials support two major projects that would divert more river water across the Continental Divide to sustain Front Range urban communities.
The Colorado River provides water for 30 million people in seven states and Mexico. However, the latest federal data show that current withdrawals exceed the annual supply. Climate change, drought and population growth in the West are worsening the situation as users try to share the river and still support farming, hydropower, tourism and ecosystems.
Beyond conservation, “we’re going to need some more dams, ways to manage water,” Hickenlooper said.
Two rival pipeline projects would divert an additional 100,000 acre-feet or more of water from the upper Colorado River basin in Wyoming to the Front Range.
A state-backed task force is exploring the idea. State planners calculate that Colorado could be entitled to as much as 900,000 acre-feet of unallocated river water under the 1922 interstate compact that governs use of the river.
Hickenlooper declined in an interview to rule out a Wyoming diversion, saying that “we have to let that process run its course.”
Hickenlooper and a team of state planners participated in the “State of the Rockies” forum at Colorado College that was launched by U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. Students issued a report that included recommendations to recognize limits, change laws to favor cooperation and refine “adaptive management” to deal with climate change.
Two recent graduates paddled kayaks the length of the river until they found it too depleted and had to slog on foot through mud.
“As a paddler, I’m against (proposed diversions from Wyoming),” said student Will Stauffer-Norris, 23. “That would take 25 percent of the Green River. It would mean less water in the Colorado River system. The chances of putting increased flows in the delta, so the river could reach the sea, would be reduced.”
A coalition of 25 environment advocacy groups submitted a petition this week urging U.S. and Mexican leaders to ensure that some water reaches the depleted delta where river water once flowed into the Gulf of California.
” ‘The frog does not drink up the pond in which he lives.’ Colorado has to find a balance so that rivers can live alongside our human culture,” Save the Colorado coordinator Gary Wockner said.
“The next year or two will be pivotal. Every water project on the table is proposing to drain more water out of our river.”
Bruce Finley: 303-954-1700, twitter.com/finleybruce or bfinley@denverpost.comIf passion is infectious then Sean Murray is patient zero. Prior to our interview, the Cork-born developer confessed his team worked overnight making last-minute changes to a No Man’s Sky demo for the media. Any doubts I had about this claim fell away after making eye-contact with some of his colleagues, who were polite and capable but appeared held together by energy drinks.
Murray is media-savvy insofar as he reads interviews and knows what resonates best is people who are just themselves. Certainly the sheepish manner in which he discusses No Man’s Sky--often as though he is making a cheeky confession to the police--has helped frame his project as a galactic endeavour by a modest team with enormous ideas.
But since it was first announced at the 2013 VGX Awards, No Man’s Sky has proven to be an enigma, perhaps even a frustrating one considering the lack of hard facts. For those who need a more factual analysis, do take a look at this new explanation of how the game actually plays. For those who are still interested in the people and passions putting this dauntless project together, our interview with Murray is posted beneath the video below.
GameSpot: So, name one of your favourite games...
Murray: Okay, impossible question, but I'll say I've got a real soft spot for Quake and Mario 64.
Perfect, so the through-line in Mario 64 is “save the princess, and perhaps get all 120 stars.” One of my favourite games is Streets of Rage 2, and the through-line in that is “kill Mr X.”
Yep.
So here's the thing: I don't know what the through-line in No Man's Sky is. I don't know what I'm doing.
Hmmn. What do you think the through-line is in Stranded Deep, or for Salt, or The Long Dark, or Starbound, or Terraria, or Survival Mode in Minecraft?
Okay, so in Minecraft I would say it's build things until you are bored with building them.
That's the interesting thing. Minecraft started out as a survival game, and has become way more popular as a creative game.
If you go to the Steam top ten, at least three of the games I mentioned will be in there, whether it's DayZ or Starbound or whatever. They're not largely reported on, but most of them are multi-million sellers--but quiet ones. Stranded Deep is such a small oddity, but it's one of the most popular games on Steam.
If you discover one planet every second, it would take 500 billion years to find all of them. By that point our sun would have burnt out. Sean Murray, Hello Games
So the short answer to your question is, the |
Rolls Royce, which was reportedly being driven by a 14-year-old boy, hit a pole near Santa Barbara. He had directed several silent films in the United States during the 1920s, including The Last Laugh and Sunrise, but is best known today for Nosferatu. The movie, originally an unauthorized copy of Bram Stoker's Dracula, focuses on the vampire Count Orlok — a grotesque and nightmarish creature that sleeps in a coffin and terrifies the local townspeople. With its striking imagery and iconic images of Orlok's silhouette creeping through bedrooms, Murnau's 90-year-old movie is still held up as a classic of the horror genre, referenced almost as often in modern media as the book it's technically based on.U.S. stocks fell for a second session on Monday, with the Nasdaq especially hard hit as investors shed Facebook, Google and other high flyers.
"The Nasdaq seems to be getting hit disproportionately hard. I presume some of that is due to weakness in biotech," said Matthew Kaufler, portfolio manager at Federated Investors.
The Nasdaq dropped 50.40 points, or 1.2 percent, to 4,226.39, with the index knocked by heavy losses among some if its recent outperformers, including Facebook, Tesla Motors and Netflix.
"These are all stocks that have had enormous gains over the last year; those are high-valuation stocks, and when you talk about a risk-off trade where people are withdrawing capital from riskier areas, that where people pull from first, stocks that have had significant run ups," Kaufler said.
"Tesla is a stock we would never look at because of its multiple. We're a value shop, we would pay for growth, but not that much," Kim Forrest, senior equity analyst at Fort Pitt Capital, said of the electric-car maker's valuation.
An article in the Wall Street Journal about advertisers not knowing if click throughs generate leads "could be pushing Google down," Forrest added. Shares of the search engine were off 1.7 percent.
The internet "can be a place that is ripe for fraud," so if a substantial portion of people on Facebook are fake, for instance, advertisers "would not be happy," Forrest added of the social-networking site, down 2.7 percent.Between October 31,2015 and Sep 5, 2016 we wrote 80 blogs on changes in Rails 5.
Producing a blog every 4 days consistently over 310 days takes persistence and time - lots of it.
We needed to go through all the commits and then pick the ones which are worth writing about and then write about it. Going into this I knew it would be a hard task. Ruby on Rails is now a well crafted machine. In order to fully undertand what’s going on in the code base we need to spend sufficient time on it.
However I was surprised by the thing that turned to be the hardest - telling story of the code change.
Every commit has a story. There is a reason for it. The commit itself might be minor but that code change in itself does not tell the full story.
For example take this commit. This commit is so simple that you might think it is not worth writing about. However in order to fully understand what it does we need to tell the full story which was captured in this blog.
Or take the case of Rails 5 officially supports MariaDB. The blog captures the full story and not just the code that changed.
Now you might say that I have cherry picked blog posts that favor my case. So let’s pick a blog which is simple.
You might wonder what could go wrong with a blog like this. As it turns out, plenty. That’s because writing a blog also requires defining the boundary of the blog. Deciding what to include and what to leave out is hard. One gets a feel for it only after writing it. And after having typed the words on screen, pruning is hard.
A good written article is simple writing. The problem with article which are simple to readers is that - well it is simple. So it feels to readers that writing it must be simple. Nothing can be further from the truth. It takes a lot of hard work to produce anything simple. It’s true in writing. And it’s true in producing software.
Coming back to the “Skipping Mailer” blog, it took quite a bit of back and forth to bring the blog to its essence. So yes the final output is quite short but that does not mean that it took short amount of time to produce it.
Tell a story even if you have 10 seconds
John Lasseter was working as an animator at Disney in 1984. He was just fired from Disney for promoting computer animations at Disney. Lasseter joins Lucasfilm. Lucasfilm renamed itselfs to Pixar Graphics Group and sold itself to Steve Jobs for $5 million.
Lasseter was tasked with producing a short film that would show the power of what computer animations could do so that Pixar Graphics Group can get some projects like producing TV commercials with cartoon characters and earn some money. Lasseter needed to produce a short film for the upcoming computer graphics animation conference.
His initial idea was to have a short movie having a plotless character. He presented this idea to a conference in Brussels. There Belgian animator Raoul Servais commented in slightly harsh tone that
No matter how short it is, it should have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Don’t forget the story.
Lasseter complained that it’s a pretty short movie and there might not be time to present a story.
Raoul Servais replied
You can tell a story in ten seconds.
Lasseter started developing a character. He came up with the idea of Luxo Jr.
Here is final production of Luxo Jr.
Luxo Jr. was a major hit at the conference. Crowd was on its feet in applause even before the two minutes film was over. Remember this is 1986 and Computer Animation was not much advanced at that time and this was the first movie ever made with the use of just computer graphics.
Lasseter later said that when audience was watching the movie they forgot that they were watching a computer animated film because the story took over them. He learned the lesson that technology should enable better story telling and technology in itself divorced from story telling would not advance the cause of Pixar.
Later John Lasseter went on to produce hits like Toy Story, A bug’s life, Toy Story 2, Cars, Cars 2, Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo and many more.
So you see even a great John Lasseter had to be reminded to tell a story.
Actual content over bullet points
Jeff Bezos is so focused on knowing the full story that he banned usage of power point in internal meetings and discussions. As per him it is easy to hide behind bullet points in a power point presentation.
He insisted on writing the full story in word document and distribute it to meeting attendees. The meetings starts with everyone head down reading the document.
He is also known for saying that if we are building a feature then we first need to know how it would be presented to the consumers when it is unveiled. We need to know the story we are going to tell them. Without the story we won’t have full picture of what we are going to build.
Learning to tell story is a journey
I’m glad that during the last 310 days 16 people contributed to the blog posts. The process of writing the posts at times was frustrating for a bunch of them. They had done the work of digging into the code and had posted their findings. Continuously getting feedback to edit the blog to build a nice coherent story where each paragraph is an extension of the previous paragraph is a downer. Some were dismayed at why we are spending so much energy on a technical blog.
However in the end we all are happy that we underwent this exercise. We could see the initial draft of the blog and the final version and we all could see the difference.
By no means we have mastered the art of storytelling. It’s a long journey. However we believe we are on the right path. Hopefully in coming months and years we at BigBinary would be able to bring to you more stories from changes in Rails and other places.Several hookah establishments in Ottawa have decided to take legal action against the city's ban on waterpipes, arguing the ban infringes on their cultural rights.
City council voted to ban smoking waterpipes in public places in August 2016. Although the bylaw came into effect on Dec. 1, 2016, it wasn't enforced until Monday.
Lawyer Lawrence Greenspon is representing about half of the Ottawa establishments that offer waterpipes. (CBC News) Ottawa lawyer Lawrence Greenspon is bringing forth the legal challenge on behalf of a number of restaurants, bars and shisha lounges. Their owners say it's an important cultural practice in many Arab and Middle Eastern communities, and that banning it is an infringement on their culture.
"We've brought an application to the Superior Court under section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and also section 27, which are sections that deal with freedoms and discrimination and — in section 27 particularly — multiculturalism," Greenspon said.
Last Friday, Greenspon issued the notice of application with the court outlining the basis of the challenge and said the next step would be the exchange of affidavits. He is representing about half of the more than 20 establishments in the city that currently offer waterpipes.
City to 'vigorously defend the challenge'
In a memo to city council and the Ottawa Board of Health, city lawyer Rick O'Connor said his department will work with public health officials and members of the bylaw and regulatory services branch to "vigorously defend the challenge." He also noted that similar challenges in Toronto and Vancouver have been unsuccessful.
However, Greenspon said Ottawa's challenge is different.
"They did not advance what we are saying here," he said.
"In Vancouver they challenged it on the basis of religion … and I don't think there's any tie between hookah and shisha smoking and Islam. And in Toronto, it was challenged simply as a matter of whether or not the city has jurisdiction to pass a bylaw like this at all and that wasn't successful."
The city, meanwhile, claims that incorrect references were made to the the city's bylaws in the notice of application.
"It is our preliminary assessment that the applicants actually intended to challenge the water pipes in public places and workplaces bylaw 2016-303, and not the smoke-free bylaws 2001-148 and 2001-149," wrote O'Connor.
"The smoke-free bylaws were enacted in 2001 and withstood judicial scrutiny by both the Superior Court of Justice and the Ontario Court of Appeal during the early 2000s, when they were challenged by the Pub & Bar Coalition of Ontario."
The city said the applicants will be required to amend their application to properly reflect their intended legal challenge.
Ban's burden on businesses
Julia Moussa, who owns the Bay Rock restaurant in South Keys, is considering taking legal action to defend what she believes is her right to express her culture.
"It's something that's associated with our culture and the way we socialize," she said.
Moussa, who began her hookah business three years ago, said she has retained a lawyer and is in close communication with other businesses which, like hers, are struggling to continue in spite of the ban.
Bay Rock restaurant owner Julia Moussa said the city's ban on waterpipes forced the hookah establishment to quickly transform its business plan and find a new location. (Facebook) "It's not a piece of cake," said Moussa. "The time that was given to us in order to either close our business or move or transform … was not reasonable at all."
Moussa said she initially based the location of her establishment on the fact that it would primarily be a hookah cafe. However the ban has forced her to hastily change her business plans, apply for a liquor licence and find a new space.
"We [now] have a larger location. We have a full kitchen and we are relying on the alcohol, the food and entertainment," she said.
The city said no bylaw charges have been issued to date.
Greenspon's application also seeks an injunction on the enforcement of the bylaw, pending a determination of the legal challenge. O'Connor said once staff have reviewed the application, they'll determine whether or not they'll respond to that request.Black Tea Party Leader Demands Apology from Maxine Waters
Contact: 323-556-2623
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 23, 2011 /Standard Newswire/ -- South Central L.A. Tea Party Founder and President, Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson is demanding an apology from Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), for her remarks that the "tea party can go straight to hell." Rep. Waters made her comments last Saturday at a forum in Inglewood, Calif., while vowing to push Congress to focus on creating more jobs. "I'm not afraid of anybody," said Waters. "This is a tough game. You can't be intimidated. You can't be frightened. And as far as I'm concerned the 'tea party' can go straight to hell." According to reports, Waters comments were met with cheers from the audience, which included SEIU members. Newly released figures indicate that California's unemployment rate last month went up to 12%, from 11.8%. California now has second-highest rate of unemployment in the nation, trailing only Nevada at 12.9 %.
"Scapegoating the tea party for the wasteful liberal social policies which are destroying the U.S. economy is wicked and irresponsible," said Rev. Peterson. "On behalf of millions of patriotic Americans we demand that Waters apologize! The tea party is the solution, not the problem. I'm sure Maxine Waters would like her attacks on the tea party to distract from her failures and serious ethics issues."
The House ethics committee is investigating Congresswoman Waters for allegations that she improperly tried to obtain a federal bailout for a bank where her husband owns stock. Last week, the committee announced that it has named Washington Lawyer Billy Martin as an outside counsel to investigate the embattled California lawmaker. Waters, a senior member of the Financial Services Committee, has denied wrongdoing.
Rev. Peterson said, "Maxine Waters helped cripple the U.S. economy by pushing home loans to people who couldn't afford them." He added, "Waters rant damning the tea party is an attempt to fire up her base and shore up support since the committee will not dismiss her case."
The South Central L.A. Tea Party (SCLATP) motto is "Power to the People!" It is open to patriotic American men and women of all races. SCLATP was formed in 2011by Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, who is the Founder and President of BOND Action, a 501 (c) (4) nonprofit organization dedicated to "educating, motivating, and rallying Americans to greater involvement in the moral, cultural and political issues that threaten our great country." The SCLATP recently held a successful rally to expose NAACP lies about the Tea Party, click here to watch report. For information visit www.bondaction.org.Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
I previously discussed the question of error bars in oceanic heat content measurements in “Decimals of Precision“. There’s a new study of changes in oceanic heat content, by Levitus et al., called “World Ocean Heat Content And Thermosteric Sea Level Change (0-2000), 1955-2010” (paywalled here). [UPDATE: Available here, h/t Leif Svalgaard] It’s highlighted over at Roger Pielke Senior’s excellent blog, where he shows this graph of the results:
Figure 1. From Levitus 2012. Upper graphs show changes in ocean heat content, in units of 1022 joules. Lower graphs show data coverage.
Now, there’s some oddities in this graph. For one, the data starts at year 1957.5, presumably because each year’s value is actually a centered five-year average … which makes me nervous already, very nervous. Why not show the actual annual data? What are the averages hiding?
But what was of most interest to me are the error bars. To get the heat content figures, they are actually measuring the ocean temperature. Then they are converting that change in temperature into a change in heat content. So to understand the underlying measurements, I’ve converted the graph of the 0-2000 metre ocean heat content shown in Figure 1 back into units of temperature. Figure 2 shows that result.
Figure 2. Graph of ocean heat anomaly 0.-2000 metres from Figure 1, with the units converted to degrees Celsius. Note that the total change over the entire period is 0.09°C, which agrees with the total change reported in their paper.
Here’s the problem I have with this graph. It claims that we know the temperature of the top two kilometres (1.2 miles) of the ocean in 1955-60 with an error of plus or minus one and a half hundredths of a degree C …
It also claims that we currently know the temperature of the top 2 kilometers of the global ocean, which is some 673,423,330,000,000,000 tonnes (673 quadrillion tonnes) of water, with an error of plus or minus two thousandths of a degree C …
I’m sorry, but I’m not buying that. I don’t know how they are calculating their error bars, but that is just not possible. Ask any industrial process engineer. If you want to measure something as small as an Olympic-size swimming pool full of water to the nearest two thousandths of a degree C, you need a fistful of thermometers, one or two would be wildly inadequate for the job. And the top two kilometres of the global ocean is unimaginably huge, with as much volume as 260,700,000,000,000 Olympic-size swimming pools …
So I don’t know where they got their error numbers … but I’m going on record to say that they have greatly underestimated the errors in their calculations.
w.
PS—One final oddity. If the ocean heating is driven by increasing CO2 and increasing surface temperatures as the authors claim, why didn’t the oceans warm in the slightest from about 1978 to 1990, while CO2 was rising and the surface temperature was increasing?
PPS—Bonus question. Suppose we have an Olympic-sized swimming pool, and one perfectly accurate thermometer mounted in one location in the pool. Suppose we take one measurement per day. How long will we have to take daily measurements before we know the temperature of the entire pool full of water to the nearest two thousandths of a degree C?
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RedditIt looks like the lefty speech fascists have a new trick: Flag right-of-center YouTube videos as “potentially objectionable” to keep eyes off them.
The latest victim is Christina Hoff Sommers, an author and scholar known for her books and speeches critical of “establishment” feminism. Trolls are marking her “factual feminist” videos — debunking myths like the “wage gap” and challenging the notion that video games are sexist — as “objectionable.”
Also labeled “potentially objectionable” are videos from Prager University, a project of right-of-center writer Dennis Prager — including a five-minute lecture on the history of Israel by Harvard prof Alan Dershowitz.
Once a video is flagged, its owner can no longer receive ad revenue — and an on-screen disclaimer misrepresents the educational video as possibly nasty stuff. YouTube actually has a reward system for anyone who reports “inappropriate content” — an extra incentive for the trolls.
Sommers is all too familiar with lefty bullying: Like all too many unorthodox thinkers, she’s faced numerous campus protests and even speech cancellations because the left would rather censor than argue.
If YouTube doesn’t want to keep enabling these petty fascists, it better rethink its “potentially objectionable” system.Chuck Palahniuk, writer of the original Fight Club novel and its comic book sequel with Cameron Stewart and Dark Horse Comics, Fight Club 2 isn’t stopping there.
Talking to ex-Bleeding Cooler Chris Thompson‘s Orbital In Conversation Podcast above, Palahniuk looked at the ways he and Stewart have experimented with the medium, to look like a page has been destroyed in printing, to portray blood washing away the printed ink of the panel, placing real objects on top of pills and more of the kind of thing you can read about here. We can also look forward to David Mack’s work seeping into to the inside pages as well.
But he also talked about his decision to call the comic Fight Club 2.
We need some kind of a nomenclature for keeping track if these things, Why not call it Fight Club 2, the next one Fight Club 3, but they would each have a subtitle, The Tranquility Gambit, the next one The Cheater’s Gambit. They would have this numbering system but the real title would be the sub-title.
And regarding the content,
“It has some of the most atrocious stuff, beyond Mad Magazine, beyond South Park, atrocious stuff, I’m already up on issue 6…”
That’s really called working ahead… Dark Horse declined to comment, but I have no doubt that they will happily cooperate with Palahniuk on what has been their breakout hit of the year in comic book stores. But, as with Frank Miller talking about his WW2-set Sin City comic, it’s probably a while away from announcement yet.
About Rich Johnston Chief writer and founder of Bleeding Cool. Father of two. Comic book clairvoyant. Political cartoonist.
(Last Updated )
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None foundHours after B.C. announced its tax on foreign buyers this past summer, prominent developers e-mailed Premier Christy Clark and her government saying the policy amounted to a betrayal of Metro Vancouver's international citizens and could hurt a market already showing signs of cooling.
Correspondence obtained through a Globe and Mail Freedom of Information request also shows the government received hundreds of e-mails from the public after the July 25 announcement. Many people praised the move and urged politicians to do more to limit foreign speculation across British Columbia, while others pleaded for Victoria to exempt existing deals that were caught up in the tax.
Neil Chrystal, president of leading real estate developer Polygon Homes, e-mailed the finance minister's chief of staff criticizing the government for the decision.
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For subscribers: Foreign buyers a'scapegoat' for high Vancouver prices, CMHC head says
For subscribers: The economic dangers of cooling Canada's housing market
Read more: The dark side of Canada's housing boom
"While I was at first appreciative of the consultation meeting we had last week I feel that our industry has been somewhat blind-sided by the announcement of this new tax, given how extreme it is," Mr. Chrystal wrote. "I actually find it hard to believe that something so drastic wasn't discussed further with our industry and that our meeting was a bit of a waste of time, given that the policy was likely already determined."
The government has said most cabinet members were kept in the dark as a handful of bureaucrats in the Ministry of Finance worked feverishly to craft the rules of the tax. Bob Rennie, the B.C. Liberal Party's chief fundraiser and the local real estate industry's best-known marketer, said he had no advance knowledge of the tax, but that he anticipated the government would enact such a policy to quiet public outrage as home ownership became more unaffordable.
In his e-mail, Mr. Chrystal said it was outrageous that the new policy would not exempt deals begun before the tax was announced but were not scheduled to close until after it went into effect.
"The tax of 15 per cent is excessive and a sure fire way to halt sales to foreign buyers in a market that was already [showing] signs of fatigue," he wrote, which recent government data have since confirmed.
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In the seven weeks leading up to the start of the tax, foreign buyers accounted for 13.2 per cent of Metro Vancouver's total sales, but these buyers made up just 3 per cent across that region in October, according to the B.C. government's data based on land title registrations. Over that period, the average price of single-family detached homes began to drop in Metro Vancouver from the peak last January at $1.83-million.
Experts cannot say whether this downturn in foreign owners will remain a long-term trend, but immediately after the Premier announced the tax on the morning of July 25, industry insiders were warning it could badly hurt one of the province's most important economic drivers.
John Stovell, chair of the Urban Development Institute, who was copied on Mr. Chrystal's e-mail, responded to the government, saying that his trade association for real estate developers agreed with Mr. Chrystal's arguments.
"This is ill advised in the extreme and your government's failure to exempt pre-sales is a betrayal to our non residents willing to participate in good faith in our economy in what has been both … legal and arguably encouraged through other government policy," Mr. Stovell wrote.
A month before the tax was announced, Anne McMullin, president and CEO of UDI, e-mailed the Premier warning that any taxes aimed at curbing demand would not make Metro Vancouver more affordable without the stimulation of more supply. And, she added, increasing taxes might severely undermine the value of people's homes "perhaps even destabilizing our industry, which represents 25 per cent of British Columbia's economy," she wrote.
A day after the tax was announced, she wrote again expressing the UDI's disappointment with the policy and strongly urged the Premier to allow pre-sale contracts in place as of Aug. 2 to be exempted from paying the levy.
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Meanwhile, many members of the public heaped praise on the government for moving ahead with the tax and urged them to go further.
"Nice start on reducing foreign ownership of B.C. residential property – but more is needed!" one respondent wrote, adding that a 500-per-cent tax on any vacant property would be a good next step.
Others wrote angry e-mails that asked the Premier to step in and allow deals involving foreign buyers still pending to be exempted from the levy.
A person living outside the Lower Mainland asked the government to tackle the growing unaffordability of housing in their community.
"Vancouver is a lost cause. It has been sold out to the highest bidders," the person wrote. "The Real Estate Housing CRISIS is THE most important issue of all and my vote at the upcoming elections will be focused on candidates and parties who present the most effective actions to address this problem."NEW DELHI (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama ended a landmark day in India on Monday with a pledge of $4 billion in investments and loans, seeking to release what he called the “untapped potential” of a business and strategic partnership between the world’s largest democracies.
Earlier in the day, at the invitation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Obama was the first U.S. president to attend India’s annual Republic Day parade, a show of military might that has been associated with Cold War anti-Americanism.
It rained as troops, tanks and cultural floats filed through the heart of New Delhi, but excitement nevertheless ran high over Obama’s visit, which began on Sunday with a clutch of deals to unlock billions of dollars in nuclear trade and to deepen defense ties.
Both sides hope to build enough momentum to forge a relationship that will help balance China’s rise by catapulting democratic India into the league of major world powers.
The leaders talked on first name terms, recorded a radio program together and spent hours speaking at different events, but despite the bonhomie, Obama and Modi reminded business leaders, including the head of PepsiCo, PEP.N that trade ties were still fragile.
India accounts for only 2 percent of U.S. imports and one percent of its exports, Obama said. While annual bilateral trade had reached $100 billion, that is less than a fifth of U.S. trade with China.
“We are moving in the right direction... That said, we also know that the U.S.-India relationship is defined by so much untapped potential,” Obama told the Indian and U.S. business leaders. “Everyone here will agree, we’ve got to do better.”
Modi said U.S. investment in India had doubled in the past four months and vowed to do more to slash the country’s notorious red tape and make it one of the world’s easiest places for business.
Obama said that U.S. Export-Import Bank would finance $1 billion in exports of ‘Made-in-America’ products. The U.S. Overseas Private Investment Corporation will lend $1 billion to small- and medium-sized enterprises in rural areas of India.
Regarding renewable energy, a key focus for Modi, $2 billion will be committed by the U.S. Trade and Development Agency for renewable energy, Obama said.
Most significant was an agreement on issues that, despite a groundbreaking 2006 pact, had stopped U.S. companies from setting up nuclear reactors in India and had become one of the major irritants in bilateral relations.
“Mobama breaks N-deadlock,” ran the front-page headline of the Mail Today newspaper, which carried a photograph of Modi and Obama hugging each other warmly.
GLOBAL REACH
Obama and Modi sat behind a rain-spotted screen as the parade unfolded along Rajpath, an elegant lawn-bordered boulevard dating from the British colonial era that connects the presidential palace to India Gate.
India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi (L) and U.S. President Barack Obama watch India's Republic Day parade from behind rain streaked bullet proof glass as they stand in the rain together in New Delhi January 26, 2015. REUTERS/Jim Bourg
Helicopters showered petals on the crowds, and then tanks, missiles, stiffly saluting soldiers, brass bands and dancers filed past the guests.
Obama’s presence at the parade signals Modi’s willingness to end India’s traditional reluctance to get too close to any big power. Instead, he is seeking close ties with them all, even as he pushes back against China and take sides on other global issues.
Modi has injected a new vitality into the economy and foreign relations since his May elections.
Obama’s second visit to India is the latest upturn in a roller-coaster relationship with Washington that a year ago was scarred by protectionism and a fiery diplomatic spat.
The United States views India as a vast market and potential counterweight to China’s assertiveness, but has been frustrated with the pace of New Delhi’s economic reforms.
“There are still too many barriers, hoops to jump through, bureaucratic restrictions that make it hard to start a business, or to export, to import, to close a deal, deliver on a deal,” Obama told a forum of CEOs from both countries in New Delhi.
In a joint statement that made a veiled reference to China’s territorial claims, Modi and Obama stated their commitment to freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.
India could even play a role in battling Islamic State, the White House said on Monday, underlining the confidence that New Delhi is increasingly prepared to engage with global security.
Slideshow (5 Images)
“The leaders agreed to exchange information on individuals returning from these conflict zones and to continue to cooperate in protecting and responding to the needs of civilians caught up in these conflicts,” the two sides said in a joint statement.
They also agreed to a 10-year framework for defense ties and struck deals on cooperation that included joint production of drone aircraft and equipment for Lockheed Martin Corp’s (LMT.N) C-130 military transport plane.We recently featured a video of Luzan Matyas completing an indoor replica of the Frankenjura 9a Action Directe at his local wall in Romania. The replica attracted questions regarding Luzan's motivation and the finer details of his creation, so we got in touch with the man himself to find out more...
An earlier version of the replica © Luzan Matyas
When did you first decide that Action Directe was the route for you, and why?
I promised myself 6 years ago that one day I would try Action Directe to finally answer the question:Will I ever have the chance of climbing it or not?
In 2014 I knew that I was strong enough to UNDERSTAND its difficulty and it turned out that I was moving well on the route, and that if I invested enough energy then there would be a chance of doing it in the future for sure.
I believe everyone has a climbing style at which he/she excels. I am better on pockets than on any other styleand I also love this style.
Action Directe is a classic, an amazing looking classic, everyone knows it. This was enough to get the process started.
© Luzan Matyas Luzan on his first working attempt of Action Directe 9a
Have you spent much time on the route itself?
I've been on the route 3 times up until now, so about 2 weeks in total.
Why did you choose to make a replica, rather than simply training specifically on pockets, for example, or trying to make more time to get on the route?
Training on a replica is the most specific training. I will say it: it's the best training.
But if the replica is set correctly then I shouldn't be able to send it fast. It demands lot of work, just as one would work the real route and you require physical training, you are training for the replica.
This training is, like you said, bouldering on pockets, specific campussing on one and two fingers with and without a weight vest on various holds, targeting strength or power-endurance depending on the workout program. I am going to release another video about these aspects sometime in the future.
What is your response to someone claiming you are taking a "shortcut" to the real thing, having "only" redpointed 8b so far?
My hardest redpoint is one single soft 8b.
It might seem like I am jumping from 8b to 9a, but in reality it's not like this at all. I could climb routes step by step, 8b+, 8c, 8c+, but instead I am progressing only on Action Directe.I train and naturally, as has happened so far, I fall nearer and nearer to the top which eventually "forces" me to climb through these grades anyway. The difference is that there are no intermediate steps. It is very simple and not revolutionary at all.
© Luzan Matyas The famous Action Direct jump
How much time have you dedicated to building the latest replica, and what did the process involve? (did you take photos/imprints of the holds and angles etc?)
I needed three visits to build the replica.I did take photos but never took imprints. There are pockets which cannot be imprinted without the risk of damaging them.
So what I did was: the moment I came home from Action Directe I immediately went to the workshop and started cutting/shaping/forging/carving every hold from wood, finishing them off with a self-formulated clearcoat (Im a chemical engineer in this domain) to obtain an almost exact dynamic and static friction coefficient. It was imperative to do this as soon as possible, while I still could feel and imagine the holds.
I can now recreate every hand-and foothold from wood that is on Action Directe without using my datasheets and sketches. I feel them. All of them!
When will you go for an attempt of the route itself? How has progress been so far?
I will go back in the spring as soon as the sun is shining.
Until now my best effort was doing it in 2 parts, I kept falling at the pinch which is the entry-hold into the crux.
Do you expect it to feel much different to your replica?
No. The replica is something that if you work on for long enough, eventually it will be right.
Even after my second visit the replica already felt the same as the real thing. So from that point on I could make SLIGHT adjustments to ANY hold targeting certain weaknesses.
When I finally knew that I had successfully rebuilt the route in the gym it was a huge relief. I knew that from that point on I had the tools to train, I just needed to invest everything I had.
I guess it could be said that having successfully climbed the replica will give you confidence that you could do the rock route - do you think it has mental as well as physical advantages, or could it place more pressure on you to do the climb itself?
From a mental aspect it does put pressure on me, it makes me expect things from myself, which usually turns out in disappointment. That's why I try not to expect anything from myself regardless of my replica-performance.
Physically it is an excellent training tool, also engaging muscle memory and so care must be taken because if you overdo it prior to visiting the real route it will weaken the body equally specifically, so rest is crucial.
© Luzan Matyas Luzan working on his single digit strength
What will you do once you tick Action Directe - do you have other objectives?
Wallstreet, Hubble, Demencia Senil and some projects here in Romania.
Do you think making replica climbs indoors will become more popular?
This is the question I've been waiting for!
By far the greatest advantage of the replica is that it spares the rock from deteriorations. The first time I touched the holds on the route I was quite shocked at how glassy the pockets and the footholds were. I became ambitious, motivated and realised that I had a chance to do it, but I also knew that it would take a huge amount of work and perseverance and it did make me think of the impact this would generate on the rock. I am referring to brushing, chalk, rubber etc.
The sequence of Action Directe used by Luzan to aid his replica © Luzan Matyas
I have had about 200 sessions in the last 16 months at the gym working the replica, hangboarding and campus boarding. Imagine that you climbed three quarters of the year on Action Directe working it then think of the possible negative impact you would generate on the holds - and all this without taking into consideration that there are many other climbers who try it almost daily or are determined to do it.
Even if I lived 20km away from the route, I would still build a replica and in the case of historical routes such as Action Directe this should be encouraged.
Tell us your top tip for keeping motivation high for training!
Have a goal. A big one. One which will take time. It needs a bit of courage but when you find the right one, the motivation will follow.
I do what I like, and I get a lot of power from this feeling.
Watch the video below:After President Trump condemned "many sides" for the violence in Charlottesville on Aug. 12, Republican and Democratic politicians criticized him for not calling out white supremacy for several days. (Bastien Inzaurralde,Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)
THE MORNING PLUM:
On Monday, President Trump will again address the deadly violence sparked by a rally of white supremacists and neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, a White House aide tells CNN. |
://www.newshounds.us/2011/02/18/bill_oreilly_laura_ingraham_continue_to_lie_about_planned_parenthood.php PolitiFact's Lie of the Year: 'A government takeover of health care' http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2010/dec/16/lie-year-government-takeover-health-care/ Glenn Beck says Muslim Brotherhood wants to declare war on Israel: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/feb/15/glenn-beck/glenn-beck-says-muslim-brotherhood-wants-declare-w/ Karl Rove says that “American troops have never been under the formal control of another nation” http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/mar/29/karl-rove/karl-rove-says-american-troops-have-never-been-und/ 'Fox and Friends' host says Gov. Rick Scott's approval numbers are up http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2011/apr/15/brian-kilmeade/fox-and-friends-host-says-gov-rick-scotts-approval/ Laura Ingraham says Massachusetts health plan is "wildly unpopular" http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/may/16/laura-ingraham/laura-ingraham-says-massachusetts-health-plan-wild/ Sarah Palin says Obama has accumulated more debt than previous 43 presidents combined http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/jun/01/sarah-palin/sarah-palin-says-obama-has-accumulated-more-debt-p/ Palin claims loss of oil production in Gulf of Mexico will cost $8 billion a day in imports http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/jun/03/sarah-palin/palin-claims-loss-gulf-oil-production-gulf-will-co/ Sarah Palin said Democrats are planning "the largest tax increase in U.S. history" http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/aug/04/sarah-palin/sarah-palin-said-democrats-planning-largest-tax/ Palin claims Gulf of Mexico drilling moratorium will cause projected 150,000 barrel a day production drop http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/jun/03/sarah-palin/palin-claims-gulf-oil-drilling-moratorium-responsi/ Glenn Beck says First Lady Michelle Obama has 43 on her staff while Nancy Reagan had just 3 http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/mar/04/glenn-beck/glenn-beck-says-first-lady-michelle-obama-has-43-h/ Glenn Beck paints beleaguered Wilmington, Ohio, as real life Bedford Falls http://www.politifact.com/ohio/statements/2010/dec/03/glenn-beck/glenn-beck-paints-beleaguered-wilmington-ohio-real/ Bill O'Reilly Lies to Bill Maher on Fox News Misreporting Cost of Obama Trip to India http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yn7_8QL2weQ Fox not fact checking sources and posting stories from satirical site TheOnion.com http://www.thewrap.com/tv/article/fox-news-site-posts-satiricial-onion-obama-story-amid-real-news-22840 Nothing politically oriented, but yet another example of reporting false news without fact checking http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z80kwrtCefY&feature=player_embedded Yet another "story" turning out to be fake that Fox reports as truth http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/offbeat/2010/10/05/moos.jetpack.makes.news.cnn Busted for fake reports of being attacked at Wisonsin protests. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uM20dEc_Y_Y&feature=feedf Claims they were used by Gadafi as human shoelds, turns out they never left their hotel room. http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/world/2011/03/21/tsr.robertson.libya.fox.claims.cnn?hpt=C2 FOX Anchor Lies About Bush's Linking of Al Qaeda and Iraq http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=9be_1218211615 Megyn Kelly spins poll http://www.newscorpse.com/ncWP/?p=2306 Another non political lie: Wallace Inflates Fox News Sunday Ratings http://www.newshounds.us/2011/03/27/wallace_inflates_fox_news_sunday_ratings.php Blatantly twisting Weiner's words on health care waivers http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSaXTF9aKzA Top Fox exec admits lying on air about Obama http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zg4qWPkOpfY&feature=player_embedded Fox News Chief, Roger Ailes, Urged Employee to Lie, Records Show http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/25/nyregion/25roger-ailes.html?_r=1&hpw Remember the big stink last eyar about the Foxgate climate change emails? "Disinformers defend Foxgate email saying unequivocal warming of the climate should always be disputed" http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2010/12/16/207207/wattsupwiththat-foxgate-email-unequivocal-warming-of-the-climate/ Five separate lies (not previously listed by myself here) within 4 minutes of video out of the mouth of various Fox news talking heads. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFTLleDR--Q Three other lies exposed in one video that havent been listed here yet. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lJIWl6Nf30 Fox & Friends Newest Lie: ACORN Getting Federal Funds http://www.newshounds.us/2011/07/10/fox_friends_newest_lie_acorn_getting_federal_funds.php Strike this one from the offical count because it's before August '10, but had to toss it in here. Take your pick here of news sources detailing the Acorn pimp video scandal stuff that was selectively edited, and who the creator went to jail for, and which Fox never fact checked http://bit.ly/pGCXuf Also strike this one from my official count here because its old, but still begs to be mentioned. Fox argued in court it's their constitutional right to report liesif they so choose over the whole debacle with the Monsanto milk drug scandal http://blogs.e-rockford.com/applesauce/2009/10/24/six-years-ago-fox-news-successfully-argued-in-court-that-it-had-a-constitutional-right-to-report-lies/ Theres many more i didn't post because they went beyond the August '10 start point. There's a whole lot more though. I don't understand why anyone would put any integrity into a network where its president (Ailes) would urge an employee to lie in a partisan attempt to protect Giuliani's campaign, and now recently we see all this nonsense coming out about the hacking scandals. PS. Watch this film http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/outfoxed/
RAW Paste Data
Note these are just ones that I myself could find. If you can find more 100% proven lies (after Aug 1 '10) post here I'll edit the list. Selective editing to make union proestors look violent. http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/03/fox-buses-in-footage-from-sacramento-to-make-union-protesters-look-violent-video.php?ref=fpblg Ron Paul CPAC lie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwo0Iyrh1Zk&feature=player_embedded O'Reilly and Ingraham lying about Planned Parenthood http://www.newshounds.us/2011/02/18/bill_oreilly_laura_ingraham_continue_to_lie_about_planned_parenthood.php PolitiFact's Lie of the Year: 'A government takeover of health care' http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2010/dec/16/lie-year-government-takeover-health-care/ Glenn Beck says Muslim Brotherhood wants to declare war on Israel: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/feb/15/glenn-beck/glenn-beck-says-muslim-brotherhood-wants-declare-w/ Karl Rove says that “American troops have never been under the formal control of another nation” http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/mar/29/karl-rove/karl-rove-says-american-troops-have-never-been-und/ 'Fox and Friends' host says Gov. Rick Scott's approval numbers are up http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2011/apr/15/brian-kilmeade/fox-and-friends-host-says-gov-rick-scotts-approval/ Laura Ingraham says Massachusetts health plan is "wildly unpopular" http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/may/16/laura-ingraham/laura-ingraham-says-massachusetts-health-plan-wild/ Sarah Palin says Obama has accumulated more debt than previous 43 presidents combined http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/jun/01/sarah-palin/sarah-palin-says-obama-has-accumulated-more-debt-p/ Palin claims loss of oil production in Gulf of Mexico will cost $8 billion a day in imports http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/jun/03/sarah-palin/palin-claims-loss-gulf-oil-production-gulf-will-co/ Sarah Palin said Democrats are planning "the largest tax increase in U.S. history" http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/aug/04/sarah-palin/sarah-palin-said-democrats-planning-largest-tax/ Palin claims Gulf of Mexico drilling moratorium will cause projected 150,000 barrel a day production drop http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/jun/03/sarah-palin/palin-claims-gulf-oil-drilling-moratorium-responsi/ Glenn Beck says First Lady Michelle Obama has 43 on her staff while Nancy Reagan had just 3 http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/mar/04/glenn-beck/glenn-beck-says-first-lady-michelle-obama-has-43-h/ Glenn Beck paints beleaguered Wilmington, Ohio, as real life Bedford Falls http://www.politifact.com/ohio/statements/2010/dec/03/glenn-beck/glenn-beck-paints-beleaguered-wilmington-ohio-real/ Bill O'Reilly Lies to Bill Maher on Fox News Misreporting Cost of Obama Trip to India http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yn7_8QL2weQ Fox not fact checking sources and posting stories from satirical site TheOnion.com http://www.thewrap.com/tv/article/fox-news-site-posts-satiricial-onion-obama-story-amid-real-news-22840 Nothing politically oriented, but yet another example of reporting false news without fact checking http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z80kwrtCefY&feature=player_embedded Yet another "story" turning out to be fake that Fox reports as truth http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/offbeat/2010/10/05/moos.jetpack.makes.news.cnn Busted for fake reports of being attacked at Wisonsin protests. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uM20dEc_Y_Y&feature=feedf Claims they were used by Gadafi as human shoelds, turns out they never left their hotel room. http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/world/2011/03/21/tsr.robertson.libya.fox.claims.cnn?hpt=C2 FOX Anchor Lies About Bush's Linking of Al Qaeda and Iraq http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=9be_1218211615 Megyn Kelly spins poll http://www.newscorpse.com/ncWP/?p=2306 Another non political lie: Wallace Inflates Fox News Sunday Ratings http://www.newshounds.us/2011/03/27/wallace_inflates_fox_news_sunday_ratings.php Blatantly twisting Weiner's words on health care waivers http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSaXTF9aKzA Top Fox exec admits lying on air about Obama http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zg4qWPkOpfY&feature=player_embedded Fox News Chief, Roger Ailes, Urged Employee to Lie, Records Show http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/25/nyregion/25roger-ailes.html?_r=1&hpw Remember the big stink last eyar about the Foxgate climate change emails? "Disinformers defend Foxgate email saying unequivocal warming of the climate should always be disputed" http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2010/12/16/207207/wattsupwiththat-foxgate-email-unequivocal-warming-of-the-climate/ Five separate lies (not previously listed by myself here) within 4 minutes of video out of the mouth of various Fox news talking heads. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFTLleDR--Q Three other lies exposed in one video that havent been listed here yet. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lJIWl6Nf30 Fox & Friends Newest Lie: ACORN Getting Federal Funds http://www.newshounds.us/2011/07/10/fox_friends_newest_lie_acorn_getting_federal_funds.php Strike this one from the offical count because it's before August '10, but had to toss it in here. Take your pick here of news sources detailing the Acorn pimp video scandal stuff that was selectively edited, and who the creator went to jail for, and which Fox never fact checked http://bit.ly/pGCXuf Also strike this one from my official count here because its old, but still begs to be mentioned. Fox argued in court it's their constitutional right to report liesif they so choose over the whole debacle with the Monsanto milk drug scandal http://blogs.e-rockford.com/applesauce/2009/10/24/six-years-ago-fox-news-successfully-argued-in-court-that-it-had-a-constitutional-right-to-report-lies/ Theres many more i didn't post because they went beyond the August '10 start point. There's a whole lot more though. I don't understand why anyone would put any integrity into a network where its president (Ailes) would urge an employee to lie in a partisan attempt to protect Giuliani's campaign, and now recently we see all this nonsense coming out about the hacking scandals. PS. Watch this film http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/outfoxed/Attorneys for a Texas man who was kept in prison for more than three decades after his murder conviction was overturned have asked a court to free him so he can get on with his life, saying he's suffered enough from the mishandling of his case and that key trial evidence has gone missing.
Attorney Jeffrey Newberry wrote in a recent court petition that the state clearly violated Jerry Hartfield's right to a speedy trial by waiting decades to retry him for the 1976 death of Eunice Lowe, who was beaten to death at the Bay City bus station where she worked as a ticket agent.
"The most serious prejudice a defendant can suffer in being denied a right to a speedy trial is to have his defense possibly impaired," Newberry wrote. He urged State District Judge Craig Estlinbaum to free Hartsfield "with prejudice," meaning the state couldn't retry him on the same charges.
Hartfield, 57, was convicted in 1977 of killing Lowe and sentenced to death, but that conviction was overturned three years later. After prosecutors unsuccessfully appealed that ruling, then-Gov. Mark White commuted Hartfield's sentence to life in prison in 1983.
Hartfield, who is described in court documents as an illiterate 5th grade dropout with an IQ of 51, didn't challenge his continued detention until 2006, when a fellow prisoner pointed out that once his conviction was overturned, there was no sentence to commute. Appeals courts agreed and ordered Hartfield freed or retried. Hartfield is scheduled to stand trial again in April for Lowe's slaying.
In a court filing, Matagorda County District Attorney Steven Reis rejected the assertion that Hartfield should go free. While acknowledging that the state "may be partially responsible" for the delay in retrying Hartfield, Reis argued that prosecutors didn't act in bad faith and that Hartfield bears some responsibility.
Hartfield "failed to proffer any evidence that he wanted a speedy trial during this period," Reis wrote. No evidence supports a finding that Hartfield "actually wanted a new and speedy trial," that he did anything before 2007 to assert that his right to a speedy trial had been violated, or that the state deliberately acted to delay a retrial, Reis contends.
Newberry contends that the state was solely responsible for the retrial delay.
"Had the state carried out the (appeals court) mandate, Hartfield would not have needed to file the documents that he began filing," he wrote. "Mr. Hartfield has affirmatively demonstrated that his ability to present a defense has been prejudiced by the delay."
Newberry also says authorities haven't been able to find some evidence used to convict Hartfield, including a pickaxe used in the attack or Lowe's car, which was stolen and later recovered. Furthermore, a Texas Ranger who was a key witness for the prosecution at Hartfield's 1977 trial has since died, he wrote.
Estlinbaum asked both sides to address some legal questions before he rules on the matter.
At the time of the killing, Hartfield, who grew up in Altus, Okla., was working construction at nuclear power plant near the bus station where Lowe worked. He was arrested within days of the killing in Wichita, Kan., and was convicted and sentenced to death in 1977.
Hartfield disputes a confession police said he gave them that was among the key evidence used to convict him. Prosecutors also had an unused bus ticket found at the crime scene that had his fingerprints on it and testimony from witnesses who said he had talked about needing $3,000. Reis said Hartfield led authorities to Lowe's car in Houston and that his fingerprint was on a piece of broken Dr Pepper bottle found beside Lowe's body.Minutes after two bombs exploded near the finish line of the Boston Marathon at 2:50 p.m., reports started rolling in. We began this post soon after, with chronological updates continuing through the evening. Some photos might be graphic.
This photo, showing the immediate aftermath, is from Twitter user @theoriginalwak.
A Boston Globe staffer says dozens have been injured. The media hotel is on lockdown.
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Photo from Twitter user @Boston_to_a_T:
CBS Boston has live video of the finish line area. And here's the Boston EMS live feed.
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Some of CBS Boston's coverage of the aftermath:
(Video removed by request of CBS. View it here.)
Another photo, from a Globe Staffer on the scene:
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Via Jackie Bruno of NECN:
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Via @brm90:
Via Matt Norlander, a screengrab from CBS's broadcast apparently showing an explosion.
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Via Matt Perrault, smoke rising over the Boston skyline:
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From Globe photographer David Ryan:
Via the police scanner, the marathon is canceled. Anyone still on the course should stay away from Boylston Street or Copley Square.
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Video of an explosion near the finish line:
Ground-level video of the explosion, with audio. You can see and hear the second explosion at the 10-second mark:
Cell phone video, at a distance, of the second explosion:
The marathon was being run in honor of the victims of the Newtown massacre. Some families were apparently watching from near the finish line:
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For those looking for information on specific runners, the marathon has a chip-based tracking system. You can consult it here.
Around 3:55, the bomb squad set off a controlled explosion opposite the library.
The marathon organizers have released a brief statement:
There were two bombs that exploded near the finish line in today's Boston Marathon. We are working with law enforcement to understand what exactly has happened.
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An Associated Press photo of Boston police, fire, and EMS services swarming the scene:
Boston Police in the immediate aftermath, from Globe photographer John Tlumacki:
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From Boston PD's public information chief:
Raw video of the immediate response, from the Boston Globe.
The New York Times has a graphic showing the locations of the two explosions, about a block apart on Boylston St.
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An official tells the AP that additional devices were located, in addition to the two that exploded. It's not known if this includes the one detonated by the bomb squad.
Possibly related, at 4:27 the scanner reported a confirmed explosion at the JFK library, with no injuries reported.
If you're running, or looking for a runner, the meeting area has been changed:
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Tonight's Senators-Bruins game is reportedly off:
Intense video of the first explosion, from Steve Silva, Boston.com producer:
Boston PD commissioner Ed Davis confirms there was a third incident at the JFK Library, several miles from Copley Square. There were no injuries. (A library spokesperson says it was a fire in the mechanical room.)
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An official tells the AP that cell phone service in downtown Boston has been shut off or limited to prevent detonations of any undiscovered devices. (Update: this was apparently a false report.)
From Getty, a bomb squad member investigates an item near Kenmore Square:
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From the AP, a spectator tries to find a friend after the marathon was canceled:
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Via Eric Twardzik, a photo taken around 5:30 of a man being handcuffed on the Boston Common. Twardzik says he's wearing a white baseball cap:
In a 6:00 press conference, the police commissioner says the fire at the JFK library appears to be unrelated to the marathon blasts.
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The Post has been reporting that a potential suspect is under guard at a Boston hospital, citing "federal officials." Police Commissioner Davis seemed to dismiss that, saying BPD had no one in custody. NBC News now reports on a "possible suspect" who was injured in the blast. It's worth noting that neither the Post nor NBC had claimed anyone was arrested.
The latest casualty figures:
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MBTA Green, Red, and Orange Line service has resumed, though riders can expect delays.
President Obama's statement on the bombings:
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The Globe has a graphic showing the blast sites on the marathon route.
A stunning Globe photo of marathoners being stopped at Massachusetts and Commonwealth, about a half-mile from the finish:
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Here's a list of Bostonians offering up a place to stay for the night. It's a long list.
This post is no longer being updated. Check the front page for further developments.Jose Canseco hit 462 home runs in his 17-year career. However, the most memorable homer he was a part of wasn’t one he crushed into the upper deck. It was one that he "allowed."
On this date in 1993, 23 years ago, Carlos Martinez of the Indians hit a fly ball to right field where Canseco roamed. It wasn’t hit particularly hard, but it carried, and carried, and carried all the way to the wall. Upon reaching the warning track, Canseco stutter-stepped, reached up with his glove and watched the ball clank off of his head and over the wall for a home run.
Article continues below...
It’s a home run that will never be forgotten by baseball pundits or casual fans, or Canseco himself. He remembers the blooper so clearly that he acknowledged it with a tweet on Thursday.
23 years ago today I bounced a homer off my head. — Jose Canseco (@JoseCanseco) May 26, 2016
Here’s another look at it in GIF form, so you can watch it over and over again on an endless loop.
Little did Canseco know, everyone, himself included, would still be talking about the play 23 years later.
"I’ve never had a night like that defensively," he continued. "I’ve had it all happen to me now."
At the very least, it’s good to see the slugger still sharing a laugh with fans and followers more than two decades later. After all, what else can he do? This play isn’t going anywhere.Hiking capital gains taxes in hopes of curbing speculation in the red-hot Toronto housing market is a “terrible idea,” according to a Bay Street money manager.
Ontario Finance Minister Charles Sousa sent a letter to his federal counterpart – Bill Morneau – on March 17 urging Ottawa to tax the sale of non-principal residences more across the country. Ryan Lewenza argues such a move would go well beyond what is necessary and could also be the beginning of a dangerously slippery slope.
“Real estate is very local, we are having specific problems here in Toronto,” the senior vice-president and portfolio manager at Turner Investments, Raymond James, told BNN on Tuesday. “[Sousa’s] proposal is to correct a local Toronto imbalance basically through a federal rule.”
“I would be against any increase in the capital gains inclusion… if you do it to real estate well then the next budget they’re going to do it on equities -- so now we are going across all assets,” Lewenza said. “Let’s not start monkeying around with increasing the capital gains inclusion rate, that has huge ramifications for investments whether it be real estate or stocks or bonds.”
The next federal budget will be released on Wednesday and there is widespread concern among the investment community that Ottawa may increase the current capital gains inclusion rate beyond 50 per cent. While half of any investment profits in non-registered accounts are considered part of an individual’s taxable income right now, a recent BNN poll of top Canadian money managers found most of them believe raising the inclusion rate would harm the country’s global competitiveness while increasing the government sales tax would be a less economically damaging way of raising more revenue.
Lewenza is not opposed to more government regulation designed to cool the dramatic rise in Toronto home values, where prices have risen in some cases more than 30 per cent over the past year. However, he believes “we have to be more concentrated in our solutions to our problems.”
“I would first want to look at the foreign resident tax,” he said, referring to the 15 per cent levy imposed last August by the British Columbia government on anyone buying a home in Greater Vancouver who is not a Canadian citizen or permanent resident. “We think people overestimate the level of foreign purchases but we still do think it is a factor, so let’s start there.”
Likewise, a top executive from Canada’s largest homebuilder isn’t convinced Ontario’s finance minister has the right strategy for taming home prices.
“Speculators have moved into the low-rise new housing market and it’s an issue that concerns us greatly,” said Mattamy Homes Chief Operating Officer Brian Johnston in an interview with BNN. “I really question [Ontario’s call for raising the capital gains tax on property sales] though. It looks like you’re using a sledgehammer to kill a fly.”
Lack of data is a significant part of the problem. While a recent informal and anecdotal survey of local real estate agents suggested foreign buyers make up only five per cent of Toronto home buyers, formal statistics do not exist. The federal government allocated $500,000 to Statistics Canada one year ago specifically to provide some level of verifiable analysis but no progress has been made, or at least publicly discussed, leading one veteran Bay Street executive to call the ongoing lack of data a “disgrace.”
Despite the lack of data on foreign homebuyers in Toronto, or for speculators for that matter, Sousa has recently shifted his position on whether the province would consider imposing a B.C.-style measure in hopes of spawning a sales slowdown similar to what has been happening in Vancouver since last August.
“A year ago I was thinking, ‘Let market forces prevail,” Sousa told reporters last week. “But now I’m concerned about… the ability of people to enter the marketplace. [There are] bidding wars everywhere you go, it appears, and I’m sensitive to that.”
Lewenza notes Ontario could make a similar move to what it wants from Ottawa on its own, simply by altering the current provincial land transfer tax law so those buying or selling homes that are not their principal residence pay higher taxes. Yet Lewenza also acknowledges the strategy Sousa is currently following carries minimal political risk for him or his boss, Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne.
“Maybe [he is] passing the buck? ‘We’ll let you guys make the decision and if it goes wrong it is on you, it is not on me’,” Lewenza said, adding he has been “unimpressed” with Sousa’s handling of the Toronto housing file.
“I would want to hear [Sousa’s] rationale for this idea,” he said, “but maybe it is a bit of a passing the buck.”320 miles north of the Arctic Circle, a weather station in America’s northernmost city of Utqiaġvik (formerly Barrow), Alaska, has been quietly collecting temperature data since the 1920s.
Early this month, while preparing a report on U.S. climate, experts at the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) noticed something odd: They were missing data from Utqiaġvik for all of 2017, and some of 2016.
It turns out the temperatures recorded at Utqiaġvik over that time were warmer than had ever seen before. So much so, in fact, that an automated computer system set up to police data and remove irregularities had flagged it as unreal and excluded it from the report.
Here’s how Deke Arndt, chief of NOAA’s Climate Monitoring Branch, explained the event:
In an ironic exclamation point to swift regional climate change in and near the Arctic, the average temperature observed at the weather station at Utqiaġvik has now changed so rapidly that it triggered an algorithm designed to detect artificial changes in a station’s instrumentation or environment and disqualified itself from the NCEI Alaskan temperature analysis, leaving northern Alaska analyzed a little cooler than it really was.
In his ensuing in-depth breakdown of how something like this could happen, Arndt noted that, over time, things like a weather station’s precise location, temperature recording equipment and basic procedures can change, leading to variations in its data.
To account for that, the NCEI has developed an algorithm that helps filter out the noise and alert scientists if something ― a broken sensor, say ― needs to be checked out.
Boston Globe via Getty Images An aerial view of the arctic ice from above Barrow, Alaska, is seen in this undated Getty file photo. The ice has retreated drastically in recent years as winter temperatures have soared.
Since 1979, the first year sea ice began being monitored by satellite, Utqiaġvik’s average temperatures from January through September have climbed 1.9 degrees Fahrenheit ― a change nearly twice as large as that seen in the lower 48 states.
And in October, November and December, the temperatures have positively skyrocketed, with differences of 7.8, 6.9 and 4.7 degrees Fahrenheit respectively, Arndt said.
Those warmer temperatures mean the amount of Arctic sea ice in the area has drastically decreased, leading to yet more warming. And as that vicious cycle of warmer temperatures to less ice, to even warmer temperatures and even less ice, has repeated, the Utqiaġvik weather station did what it was supposed to do: It sent up a huge red flag that something must be broken.
It turns out it wasn’t the station that was broken. It was the climate.
What happened in Utqiaġvik is a frightening peek at the future of the rest of the world. In a 2010 profile of the remote village and its rapidly shifting landscape, The Smithsonian concluded it was “ground zero for climate change.”
“As a relatively isolated station, experiencing profound and unique change, Utqiaġvik was destined to get flagged,” Arndt wrote. “And it happened this month. Having built confidence that a disruption to the station was afoot, the PHA test retroactively flagged the last 16 months and removed them from the monthly analysis.Business cards are sadly often overlooked, resulting in dull and boring cards that are easily forgotten. At MOO we know business cards can give you the opportunity to stand out from the crowd, be unique, and say something about yourself and your brand.
But business cards needn’t be dull or boring – in this post we will take a look at the opposite end of the scale. OK – your mind might not actually explode, but we’ve collected some of the most fascinating, creative and truly unique business cards that stretch the limits of design and imagination, grabbing your attention like a dropkick to the head.
These designs may not be ‘right‘ for many brands, or indeed always work in the real world due to time or cost constraints, but they should help inspire you, and encourage you to think a little more creatively!
For more business card inspiration, check out this roundup of 20 unique business cards that you can download for free.
1. 3D Business Cards – If you work in 3D design, what better way to show off your work than with 3d glasses in your business card!
2. Jack Sparrow – Even pirates need a business card…
3. Dept Of Energy – Unique, although perhaps not for the wallet!
4. Multi Purpose
5. Hungry? – Edible business cards.View the lyrics
Oh oh oh oh oh
Oh oh oh oh oh
You're beautiful, beautiful
You should know it
(You're beautiful, beautiful
You should know it)
I think it's time, think it's time that you show it
You're beautiful, beautiful
Oh oh
Baby, what you doin', where you at? Where you at?
Why work it so shy?
Holdin' back, holdin' back
We're not the only ones doing it like that,
Get it like that, so DJ bring that, bring that, bring that,
Bring that back
'Cause all around the world
People want to be loved, yeah
'Cause all around the world,
They're no different than us
All around the world
People want to be loved, oh oh oh
All around the world,
They're no different then us, oh oh oh
All around the world
You're crazy girl, crazy girl you should know it
You're crazy girl, crazy girl (don't control it)
Light it up, light it up
So explosive
You're crazy girl, ye-yeah
Baby, what you doin', where you at? Where you at?
Why you acting so shy?
Holdin' back, holdin' back
We're not the only ones doing it like that,
Get it like that, so DJ bring that, bring that, bring that,
Bring that back
All around the world
People want to be loved, yeah
All around the world,
They're no different than us (You know, you know, you know)
All around the world
People want to be loved, oh oh oh
All around the world,
They're no different then us, oh oh oh
All around the world!
Once again,
Dynamic duo is back at it!
JB, Luda!!
I love everything about you,
You're imperfectly perfect!
Everyone's itching for beauty
But just scratching the surface.
Lost time is never found,
Can the DJ please reverse it?
In life we pay for change
Make every second worth it
Anything could work if you work it
When people say you don't deserve it then don't give in
Cause hate may win some battles,
But love wins in the end
You shine just like the sun
While the moon and the stars reflect your light
Beauty revolves around you, it's only right that
All around the world
People want to be loved, yeah
All around the world,
They're no different than us
All around the world
People want to be loved, oh oh oh
All around the world,
They're no different then us, oh oh oh
All around the world!
People want to be loved
All around the world
They're no different then us
(All around the world)
Writer(s): BIEBER JUSTIN, ATWEH NASRI Lyrics powered by www.musixmatch.comThe organizers of the competition cs_summit have given the fifth invite to their championship - Gambit eSports will not have to pass through the qualifications to the tournament. So the 5 participants of the April competition have already become known.
Let’s remind that previously the invites have been received by SK Gaming, Team EnVyUs, Cloud9 and OpTic Gaming, however, there is still no information about the qualifiers to cs_summit. Probably the organizers will give 6 invites and will leave only 2 slots for the teams from the qualifiers as they have done at the Dota 2 events.
The LAN-finals will be carried from April 19 to April 23 in Los Angeles, USA. The gaming house of the studio Beyond the Summit will hold the 8 best teams, which will fight for $100,000 of the prize pool.My dream is to become a top tennis players and show other people with disabilities that anything is possible if you really want it.
It has always been my dream to become a top tennis player and show other young kids that no matter what life throws at you, anything can be achieved.
I was born with a small disability where I am missing half of my left arm. From a very young age I was fitted with a prosthetic arm and became involved with tennis. Tennis stole my heart and I began travelling and playing junior tournaments before I decided that I would like to attend Saint Mary's College (of California) in America on a tennis scholarship. This was a great experience playing against some of the top teams in the country and I feel that it's really given me a good feel for how tough it is going to be out there as a tennis professional.
I finished college in May and travelled to Germany where I will be based for |
Religious Right,” says Judis. But they are “willing to support an antiabortion Republican” if that’s not the main selling point. Most important, while “not unbendingly opposed to government,” “they are worried about overspending and taxes” and hence willing to back the GOP.
Like most analysts, Judis starts with the unstated belief that if Republicans are winning, they must be reaching moderate voters with their policy stances. But that assumption is unwarranted. First, Judis passes quickly over an absolutely critical aspect of Republicans’ advantage — turnout. If everyone votes, the median voter is the typical American citizen. But not everyone votes, and turnout in midterm elections is particularly low (historically so in 2014). In the past, that did not matter as much as it does today. The midterm electorate has always been smaller, but it has not always been so disproportionately Republican. High-turnout voters, such as the aged, have increasingly sided with the GOP, while the young and minority voters in Teixeira and Judis’s “emerging Democratic majority” have the lowest turnout rates, especially in midterm years. This, in fact, is one explanation for Republicans’ big statehouse edge. Though not widely noted, governors are overwhelmingly elected in non-presidential-election years, when turnout is much lower, even across different groups. Only nine states hold gubernatorial elections alongside the presidential election.
And it’s not just turnout that drives a wedge between citizens’ preferences and election results. In the House, gerrymandering and the electorally inefficient distribution of Democratic voters (with high concentrations in urban areas) give the GOP a sizable structural advantage. In 2012, a high-turnout year, Mitt Romney received a majority of votes in 226 congressional districts versus Obama’s 209. In the Senate, the lean of low-population states toward the Republicans has a similar effect. The 54 Republicans in the Senate won their seats with fewer total votes across the last three elections than the 46 Democrats (who also represent a larger total population). This is another reason why the fortunes of the GOP are so different between congressional contests and the presidential race.
It’s also the beginning of an explanation for why individual Republicans have the motive and opportunity to move so far right. In many congressional districts and red states, GOP politicians need to worry first and foremost about primary challenges. For these Republicans, the district median voter is less important than the Republican median voter.
What makes the GOP shift so remarkable, and so harmful to the workings of American democracy, is that it has proved so sustainable.
Still, this doesn’t explain why even extremely conservative Republicans don’t face challenges from moderates within the party (in contrast, Democrats are routinely challenged by other Democrats to their right). And it certainly doesn’t mean that the Republican Party faces no electoral risks from its members’ continuing rightward lurch. Parties are collective organizations that balance what’s good for their individual members with what’s good for the growth and survival of the whole. In theory, when individual Republicans adopt stances way to the right of the typical voter, the party brand is tarnished and candidates in contested races lose, especially at the presidential level. What makes the GOP shift so remarkable, and so harmful to the workings of American democracy, is that it has proved so sustainable.
To understand why, we must first figure out where the motive for heading right is coming from.
The Race to the Base
Conventional images of the two parties see them as symmetrical reflections of each other. But when it comes to the activist core of the parties, there is no comparison. The Republican base is larger, more intense, better organized and fueled by distinctive partisan media outlets that make those on the other side look like pale imitations. Strong liberals are often motivated primarily by one issue — the environment, say, or abortion, or minority rights. Strong conservatives tend to describe themselves as part of a broad effort to protect a way of life. Even during the George W. Bush presidency, liberals wanted Democratic Party leaders to take moderate positions and expressed a strong desire for compromise. Conservatives consistently indicate they want Republicans to take more conservative positions and never, ever compromise with opponents.
Not surprisingly, self-described conservatives also show up when it counts. Whatever the form of participation — voting, working for candidates, contributing to campaigns — the GOP base does more of it than any other group. At the same time, the ideological distance between the party’s most active voters and the rest of the party’s electorate is greater on the GOP side than the Democratic side. Democratic activists are moderate as well as liberal (and occasionally even conservative). Republican activists are much more consistently conservative, even compared with other elements of the GOP electoral coalition.
Nonetheless, the imbalance in prevalence and intensity between self-identified liberals and self-identified conservatives hasn’t changed much in 35 years — even as the role of the Republican base in American politics has changed dramatically. Something has happened that has given that base a greater weight and a greater focus on “Washington” as the central threat to American society.
Here, we need to turn our attention from the GOP’s most committed voters to the organized forces that have jet-propelled the GOP’s rightward trip. Even the most informed and active voters take their cues from organizations and elite figures they trust. (Indeed, there’s strong evidence that such voters are most likely to process information through an ideological lens.) The far right has built precisely the kind of organizations needed to turn diffuse and generalized support into focused activity on behalf of increasingly extreme candidates.
Those organized forces have two key elements: polarizing right-wing media and efforts by business and the very wealthy to backstop and bankroll GOP politics. Pundits like to point to surface similarities between partisan journalists on the left and right, but the differences in scale and organization are profound. The conservative side is massive; describing its counterpart on the left as modest would be an act of true generosity.
At the heart of the conservative outrage industry, of course, is Fox News. Fox’s role as an ideological platform is unparalleled in modern American history. Its leading hosts reach audiences that dwarf their competitors’. The network plays a dominant role for its audience that is unique. And Fox is also distinguished by extraordinarily tight connections to the Republican Party — linkages, again, that have no parallel among Democrats.
What’s most remarkable is that Fox is just the beginning. The other citadel of the conservative media empire is talk radio, and if cable news looks like a lopsided teeter-totter, talk radio is that teeter-totter with a 16-ton weight attached to the right-hand side. Conservative on-air minutes outnumber liberal ones by a ratio of at least 10 to 1, and all of the major nationally syndicated shows are conservative. Just the top three have a combined weekly audience of more than 30 million. Moreover, the number of talk radio stations has tripled in the last 15 years.
The impact of all this is difficult to calculate. After all, Republicans were moving right even before Fox came on the scene, and much of Fox’s audience consists of people who already have strong political views. Even so, a recent, innovative study by scholars at Emory and Stanford finds that Fox News exposure added 1.6 points to George W. Bush’s vote in the 2000 election — more than enough to cost Al Gore the presidency. And this excludes the impact of talk radio and Fox’s further expansion since 2000. Arguably, however, the bigger impact of conservative media is to increase and focus intensity within the Republican base, sending compelling messages that build audience trust while insulating that audience from contrary information.
Flanking conservative media is a vastly expanded political infrastructure advancing a right-wing economic agenda and rewarding politicians who maintain fealty to the cause. Some analysts have stressed divisions between Establishment and tea party wings. But while differing over tactics and a handful of issues, the two large networks dominating GOP finances — the Chamber of Commerce and the Karl Rove – led network, on the one hand, and the Koch brothers network, on the other — overlap and agree far more than they conflict. These networks have coordinated their efforts in recent general elections and now provide organizational and financial support on a scale that makes them virtual political parties in their own right. The Koch network alone has announced plans to raise nearly $1 billion for the 2016 elections.
In short, the Republican base generates an exceptionally strong gravitational pull, and that pull takes politicians much farther from the electoral center than do the comparatively weak forces on the left of the Democratic Party.
Shark Attacks and Voters
Republicans, then, have a strong motive to move right. And we have seen that they have greater opportunity to do so because of uneven turnout and favorable apportionment. Still, as Judis suggests, Republicans are winning over many centrist voters, including many who express positions on specific policy issues that are relatively moderate. How have Republicans managed to escape the iron law of the median voter theorem: move to the center or lose?
Part of the explanation is that electoral accountability is far from perfect. As the political scientists Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels have documented, politicians are often punished for things they do not control, such as weather and momentary economic shifts. Misplaced accountability is a vital issue in electoral democracies. Where voters systematically make major mistakes, accountability vanishes. And without accountability, politicians don’t have to worry so much about being responsive to voters.
Call it the “shark attack” problem. In July 1916, a series of shark attacks on the Jersey shore left four people dead and prompted a media frenzy. (Sixty years later, the events would become the basis for the movie Jaws.) Four months afterward, Woodrow Wilson ran for re-election. On the Jersey shore, his vote was down three points.
Political scientists have found many examples of the shark attack problem:
Voters are often only dimly aware of the policy positions and legislative actions of politicians, and politicians can do many things to diminish what awareness they have. (UCLA’s Kathleen Bawn and her colleagues call this “the electoral blind spot.”)
Voters often have a hard time distinguishing more moderate candidates from more extreme ones. The mainstream media’s horse-race orientation and strong incentive to maintain an appearance of neutrality often make journalists unwilling to describe one party or candidate as more extreme than the other.
Voters make decisions on the basis of factors (such as the very recent performance of the economy) that are unrelated to the policy stances of politicians.
Voters may be increasingly willing to support the candidate perceived to be on “their” team rather than the one whose policy positions are closer to their own.
Given the intensity of the base, extremism may generate compensating support (in money, endorsements, or enthusiasm) that offsets any potential lost ground among moderates.
All these factors suggest that we shouldn’t assume — in the style of evolutionary biology — that Republicans are winning because they are a better fit with voters’ beliefs. But Judis is right about one thing: Voters are a lot more fed up with government. And here we come to another depressing fact about accountability in America’s distinctive political system: The anti-government party has a huge advantage.
Cracking the Code of American Politics
The shark story seems absurd, random and of limited relevance. But imagine what would happen if political actors could actually make shark attacks happen. And imagine if they could also have those attacks attributed to their opponents. Sounds preposterous, right? But our political institutions make something like this possible.
In a parliamentary system, legislative majorities govern and those majorities are accountable for the results. Voters know who is governing and how to reward and punish. Our political system instead combines increasingly well-organized, parliamentary-style parties with a division of governmental powers. That dispersal of authority simultaneously makes governing difficult and accountability murky. It also creates opportunities for a party that is willing to cripple the governing process to gain power. And over the past generation, a radicalizing GOP has done precisely that, making American politics ever more dysfunctional while largely avoiding accountability for its actions.
Indeed, the most distinctive and damaging feature of Republicans’ right turn is that they have steadily ramped up the scale, intensity and sophistication of their attacks on government and the party most closely associated with it.
Indeed, the most distinctive and damaging feature of Republicans’ right turn is that they have steadily ramped up the scale, intensity and sophistication of their attacks on government and the party most closely associated with it. The legal scholar Mark Tushnet calls these tactics “constitutional hardball.” From between-census redistricting to open attempts at Democratic vote suppression, from repeated budget shutdowns to hostage-taking over the debt ceiling, from the routine use of the filibuster to block legislation and nominations to open attempts to cripple executive bodies already authorized by law, the GOP has become, in the apt words of Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein, “an insurgent outlier in American politics” — a party willing to tear down governance to gain larger majorities in government.
Appropriately for a party increasingly geared not to governing but to making governance impossible, the two leaders of this transformation were not in the White House but in Congress: Newt Gingrich and Mitch McConnell. Gingrich liked to describe himself as a “transformative figure” — and he was. His political genius was to sense that if voter anxieties and anger could be directed at government and the majority party that ostensibly ran it, power would come. Achieving this goal required simultaneously ratcheting up dysfunction and disgust while more sharply distinguishing the GOP as the anti-government party.
Gingrich and his allies adopted a posture of pure confrontation. The goal was to drag the Democrats into the mud, and if some mud got on the Republicans, well, they were the minority and, besides, they were not the party of Washington. In 1988, in a speech to the Heritage Foundation, Gingrich described a “civil war” with liberals that had to be fought “with a scale and a duration and a savagery that is only true of civil wars.” He meant it.
Fatefully, Gingrich also went to war with moderate Republicans. (His faction liked to joke that only two groups were against them: Democrats and Republicans.) He led a rebellion against the first Bush administration’s efforts to reach across the aisle, hobbling the president’s 1992 re-election campaign before it had even started. Once the elder Bush was out of the White House, it became even easier to pursue a strategy of uncompromising opposition and scandal-mongering. Obstruction and vituperation became a twofer. With a Democratic president, the Republican assault not only weakened an opponent but promoted the sentiment that politics and governance were distasteful. Association with “Washington” became increasingly toxic, and the Democrats were the party of Washington.
The second phase of Republicans’ anti-Washington strategy was engineered primarily by Mitch McConnell. Personally devoid of mass appeal, McConnell nonetheless has a rare understanding of the American voter. Early on in his leadership, he recognized that American political institutions create a unique challenge for voters. The complexity and opacity of the process — in which each policy initiative faces a grueling journey through multiple institutions that can easily turn into a death march — make it difficult to know how to attribute responsibility. Even reasonably attentive voters face a bewildering task of sorting out blame and credit.
McConnell fully embraced this opportunity after 2008. He organized the GOP caucus in a parliamentary fashion and worked to prevent individual party members from accepting compromise: “If [Obama] was for it,” “moderate” Senator George Voinovich explained, “we had to be against it.” Without Republican willingness to “play,” the imprimatur of bipartisanship was unavailable. Republicans could make the Democrats’ policy initiatives look partisan to voters and produce a pattern of gridlock and dysfunction that soured voters on government — and the party of government. American institutions, McConnell knew, gave Republicans a lot of capacity to impede governance without a lot of accountability.
On occasions, Republicans have overplayed their hand, as they did with the government shutdowns of 1995, the impeachment of Clinton in 1998, and the debt-ceiling debacle of 2011. But the GOP has escaped blame for the general decline of effective government. What voters get is a sense that the system is a mess and Washington can do little about pressing problems. If voters place blame anywhere, it is as likely as not to fall on the pro- rather than the anti-government party and on the president, who is viewed as the country’s leader even if he has no capacity to pass laws or effectively promote bipartisanship when the GOP refuses to reciprocate.
Thus Judis is right to note that many moderately inclined Americans are now open to an anti-government message, fueled by their completely understandable distaste for contemporary Washington. This is not, however, because these voters have become more conservative. It reflects the GOP’s success in simultaneously activating and exploiting voter disgust. The deeper message of 2014 is that a radical GOP first drove government into the ditch, generating historically low approval ratings for Congress and then reaped the benefits.
In short, Republicans have found a serious flaw in the code of American democracy. What they have learned is that our distinctive political system — abetted by often-feckless news media — gives an extreme anti-government party with a willingness to cripple governance an enormous edge. Republicans have increasingly united two potent forms of anti-statism: ideological and tactical. And they have found that the whole is much greater than the sum of the parts.
Disrupting the Doomsday Machine
By now, reform-minded commentators have offered every manner of political fix for our present political dysfunction. Some are silly — getting members of Congress to hang out after hours isn’t going to bring back a relatively moderate GOP. Others are sensible. Reducing the role of the filibuster would increase accountability, reduce gridlock and make government more effective. Many reforms that would increase turnout (especially in midterm years) would also reduce the rewards of extremism. But these reforms are unlikely to be enacted as long as Republicans are in a position to stop them.
These are Herculean challenges, but not insurmountable ones. The key is to start heading in the right direction now.
That’s why we believe that the vicious cycle of dysfunction, distrust, and extremism will require a long-term effort directed not just at formal rules but also at informal features of American politics. Republicans benefit from the decline of norms of moderation and fair play and from a deep public cynicism about government. To reverse the vicious cycle, Republicans have to be called out when they go too far, and voters need to be dissuaded from their anti-government skepticism and animus. These are Herculean challenges, but not insurmountable ones. The key is to start heading in the right direction now.
Despite the evidence of increasing Republican extremism, elite discourse — in journalism, academia and foundations — resists the notion that Republicans are primarily responsible for polarization and deadlock. To argue that one party is more to blame than another for political dysfunction is seen as evidence of bias, not to mention bad manners. Foundations will fund nonpartisan vote drives; they will not fund efforts to shame right-wing Republicans for crippling governance. Academics worry about seeming biased when the truly biased perspective is the one that treats the parties as equally extreme. And while Fox News takes an avowedly partisan line, most of the media world retreats into self-defeating denials of the truth that stares them in the face.
Consider what happened in 2013 when Mann and Ornstein, who had probably been the most quoted observers of Congress during the previous two decades, issued their well-documented critique, It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided with the New Politics of Extremism. The book emphasized the responsibility of the GOP for government dysfunction. After it came out, the authors were not quoted in the press or invited to the public affairs shows on which they had regularly appeared. As Mann explained, “I can no longer be a source in a news story in The Wall Street Journal or the Times or the Post because people now think I’ve made the case for the Democrats and therefore I’ll have to be balanced with a Republican.”
Balance is one thing when you are talking about ideological differences; it is dangerous when you are talking about basic facts of American political life. In too many crucial venues, the mainstream media’s desire to maintain the appearance of neutrality trumps the real need for truth-telling. The inevitable complexity of the governing process further increases the temptation to offer narratives that do not help more casual observers of our politics to determine accountability. This isn’t just bad journalism; it’s a green light for extremism.
Nowhere is this more true than with regard to the extreme anti-government tactics that have become such a central part of the GOP strategic repertoire. American political leaders in the past refrained from playing constitutional hardball not because it was legally impossible but because it was normatively suspect. Those norms were costly to breach; violators were subject to both public and private censure. Today, however, the price of hardball is effectively zero. For Republicans, indeed, it is often less than zero because the GOP gains so much from political dysfunction. Raising the price of these tactics requires opinion leaders to call out violations again. Journalists should treat partisan realities in the same way they should treat scientific disputes — by attending to the evidence.
Equally important, those who recognize the dangerous implications of extremism are going to have to make a concerted case for effective governance. Currently, Democrats are caught in a spiral of silence. No one defends government and government looks increasingly indefensible. Public life and government are seen as hopelessly gridlocked and corrupt, so they become more hopelessly gridlocked and corrupt. Even politicians who know that government has a vital role to play in making our society stronger have little incentive to make what is now an unpopular and unfamiliar case. Consider the almost complete silence of Democrats about the Affordable Care Act — a law that despite its limitations has unquestionably delivered considerable benefits to the majority of Americans. A 2014 study found that spending on anti-Obamacare ads since 2010 outpaced money spent for ads defending the law 15 to 1. No wonder public opinion remains doubtful even as actual results of the law look more positive.
As difficult as it surely will be, there is no substitute for restoring some measure of public and elite respect for government’s enormous role in making society richer, healthier, fairer, better educatedan and safer. To do that requires encouraging public officials to refine and express that case and rewarding them when they do so. And it requires designing policies not to hide the role of government, but to make it both visible and popular. A tax cut that almost nobody sees, and which those who do see fail to recognize as public largesse, will make some Americans richer. It will not make them more trusting of government.
We are under no illusion about how easily or quickly our lopsided politics can be righted. But put yourself in the shoes of an early 1970s conservative and ask how likely the great right migration seemed then, when Richard Nixon was proposing a guaranteed income and national health insurance and backing environmental regulations and the largest expansion of Social Security in its history. Reversals of powerfully rooted trends that threaten our democracy take time, effort and persistence. Yet above all they require a clear recognition of what has gone wrong.Sponsored Link
Free Golf Solitaire
Free Golf Solitaire is a simple solitaire variant which anybody can enjoy. All you need to do is find and click a card whose value is 1 higher or lower than the card at the top of the waste pile. Gameplay will be familiar to anybody who has played Tripeaks or Golf Solitaire previously. Gameplay may be simple however the real fun and challenge of this game stems from the huge number of card layouts. Can you beat all 30 levels (holes)? You must defeat a level to unlock the next one so you must beat them all if you want to see them all. There is also 3 difficulty settings for every level which modify the gameplay slightly to make it easier or harder to play. When you play a level on a higher difficulty setting it will be harder to beat but you will get a higher score if you are successful. If you get a good score remember to post it in the comments below. One last thing, don’t let the timer run out. You have 3 minutes to beat each level - take any longer and it’s game over. This is my all time favorite online solitaire game and I hope you enjoy it too! If you do enjoy this should also try playing this new version of the game: Golf Solitaire. It sticks to one simple card layout but challenges you to keep playing extra rounds for more points. Also you can play on any device tablet, mobile or desktop.
Play Free Golf SolitairePeople keep saying this: Florida has no state income tax, so Ryan Callahan could be willing to take less to play for the Tampa Bay Lightning than he was asking from the New York Rangers. He was asking, it should be noted something around $6 or $6.5 million a year for 6 years. Lightning fans in their more rational moments want Callahan to sign for closer to $5M for 4 or 5 years.
Earlier today, Tampa Bay Times columnist Joe Smith alluded to the idea in his report on talks between the Lightning and Callahan. But it doesn't actually pass the smell test.
Let's do a little thought experiment here. Let's examine exactly how much of a difference Florida's no state income tax might reasonably make on a professional hockey player's salary demands.
The State of New York's tax rates are a bit complicated. They have a progressive tax bracket system that charges a different rate at different levels of income, and you go through them step by step.
In other words, a married taxpayer filing jointly would pay:
4 percent on the first $16,450 of taxable income.
4.5 percent on taxable income between $16,451 and $22,600.
5.25 percent on taxable income between $22,601 and $26,750.
5.9 percent on taxable income between $26,751 and $41,150.
6.45 percent on taxable income between $41,151 and $154,350
6.65 percent on taxable income between $154,351 and $308,750
6.85 percent on taxable income between $308,751 and $20,058,550.
8.82 percent on taxable income of more than $20,058,550.
How much would a professional hockey player making $6 Million a year pay in New York State taxes? That depends on his deductions, exemptions, and a whole host of other things that affect what your actual taxable income really is. It also bears noting that living in Florida doesn't remove any tax owed to any other state he works in, and he works and earns money in several states and one foreign country. He may also own a home in New York state, since he grew up in Buffalo. (Pro athletes have very complicated tax situations.)
But we're trying to figure out what the maximum amount Callahan might save by moving to a no-tax state. We'll assume that he is either financially idiotic or that he just doesn't want to bother, so he takes no deductions other than the standard deduction and that he has nothing else he's going to declare on his taxes. He just has salary and he pays every cent owed without complaining.
On a $6 Million a year salary here's what he'd pay under New York's tax structure, claiming only a standard deduction for himself and his wife (married, filing jointly):
Tax Bracket Calculation Marginal Tax
0. $0.00+ $16,450.00 × 4% $658.00 1. $16,450.00+ $6,150.00 × 4.5% $276.75 2. $22,600.00+ $4,150.00 × 5.25% $217.88 3. $26,750.00+ $14,400.00 × 5.9% $849.60 4. $41,150.00+ $113,200.00 × 6.45% $7,301.40 5. $154,350.00+ $154,400.00 × 6.65% $10,267.60 6. $308,750.00+ $5,676,250.00 × 6.85% $388,823.13
This is a total of $408,394.35. That is the maximum amount that he could possibly save by working in a no-tax state rather than in New York. In reality, a pro athlete's taxes are far more complicated and his taxable income would likely be much lower, meaning the amount he'd save by moving to a no-tax state would be less.
So living and working in Florida could be expected to save Ryan Callahan something less than $400,000.00 in state income taxes, quite possibly much less, depending on how his money's invested and what exemptions he has. The assumption that he'd be willing to then discount his salary demands by that same amount is just that, an assumption.
But the most that the state tax scenario might possibly affect his salary demands (unless he doesn't have a calculator, basic math skills, and the ability to Google New York State income tax rates) is less than half a million dollars. In other words, from $6M a year to $5.6M a year. That's not a huge difference and definitely not enough by itself to bring his salary demands down to a reasonable number like $5M. It's much more reasonable to estimate that at something closer to $5.7M or $5.75M.
In reality, of course, the situation is far more complicated than this scenario is. But there is simply no mathematical way for Florida's lack of state income tax to make up for the difference between what Callahan was reportedly demanding when negotiating with the New York Rangers and what people are positing is a reasonable salary for Steve Yzerman to offer him.Best Answer: Are you asking for a comparison of the two?
Lojban is a language based on the principles of logic, which has a goal to have a completely regular and unambiguous syntax. It also gives people a great amount of freedom in how they express themselves, for instance by not forcing them to specify such things as number, gender or tense (for instance, the sentence "mi viska do" can mean "I see you(singular) right now", "We will see you(singular) in the future", "I have seen you(plural) in the past", "It is always true that we can see you(plural)", and so forth).
Another goal of Lojban is cultural neutrality (for instance, while Esperanto's vocabulary is based primarily on European languages (making it much easier for the average European to learn than the average Chinese person), Lojban's vocabulary is based on the six most widely used languages in the world, so that people from completely different background can have an equally difficult time learning the language), and it's designed to be easy to pronounce (whether or not that goal has been met is a matter of some debate).
Klingon's goals are slightly less lofty. While Lojban has its roots in a language that was created for scientific study (Loglan), Klingon was originally constructed for the purpose of translating a few lines from some of the earlier Star Trek films.
Now, while Lojban is designed to be easy to pronounce, Klingon is designed to sound alien, and as such many people find it very DIFFICULT to pronounce.
Klingon also does not share Lojban's goal of being syntactically unambiguous, or to provide speakers with the same amount of freedom that Lojban does; Klingon is meant to come off as a natural language, not a perfect one.
Now, if the question is "Which is best?" or "Which do you prefer?", I can't really give you an answer.
Lojban is incredibly well-designed, having been painstakingly crafted over decades to meet certain criteria. However, it is alo very difficult to use in conversation; it can be difficult just constructing a correct sentence, and once you've done that there's still a large risk it doesn't say what you want it to say.
Klingon is a lot more crude, but it's still a lot of fun to use, and while it's difficult to hold long, philosophical debates in the language, I'd argue that it's considerably easier to discuss everyday matters in Klingon than in Lojban; while it's very different from Earth languages in its composition, it's still similar enough to feel natural once you get used to it.
In the end, I have found that both are a lot of fun to study, in part due to the various challenges that they pose; their alien nature - by accident or design - force one to rethink one's way of expressing oneself. Just take a simple thing like the fact that Klingon deos not have a word for "Hello!" (forcing you to rethink the way you start conversations), or the fact that Lojban allows you to play with so many different linguistic nuances (or to abstain from using the ones present in your own native language)... It makes every conversation an intriguing puzzle!
They also both have intriguing communities that are dedicated to exploring these languages, or to just play around with them. With Lojbanists, you can have a long discussion about what an opera house really is in Lojbanic terms (perhaps zgidracydi'u (music:ish-drama:ish-building(s))?), or whether space and time should be spoken of in Newtonian terms or in causal ones à la relativity theory. Among Klingonists, many discussions center around how one's "human bias" colors one's expressions, with questions such as "Can a day be happy?" and "When does the present tense need to be explicitly stated?".
Source(s): If you want to know more about constructed languages and the people who speak them, I can really recommend the book "In the Land of Invented Languages" by Arika Okrent. It discusses both Klingon and Lojban at some length, as well as many other interesting languages and fascinating people.
tesseraktik · 8 years agoClassic-style adventure games have seen a resurgence over the past several years, but at the turn of the millennium things weren’t all that rosy for the genre. Adventure games had ruled the early and mid ’90s, but as console hardware improved and twitchier games like first-person shooters began to rise, our old friend the PC adventure game looked like it was going the way of the Dodo. That made the release of Funcom’s The Longest Journey in 2000 pretty awkward. The game received massive critical acclaim, but sadly there just wasn’t a whole lot of mainstream interest in adventure games at that time.
With adventure games finding a renewed interest and mobile devices becoming a dominant presence in recent years, the iPad seemed like a perfect home for The Longest Journey and a way to get it in front of the kind of audience it was dying for back in 2000. An iPad port was announced in 2011, but nothing ever seemed to materialize in the years since. That is, until this morning when The Longest Journey Remastered popped up out of nowhere in the New Zealand App Store, and was spotted by our eagle-eyed forum community. Here’s a look at the trailer for the original PC version of the game.
You can count me among those who missed out on The Longest Journey back when it was first released, and like so many other games I’ve missed over the years, I’m very happy to be able to finally experience it on my iOS device at some point soon. At the moment, The Longest Journey Remastered only appears to be available in Australia and New Zealand, so unfortunately this may be a soft-launch type situation. If you happen to find it in your own country’s App Store, let us know in the comments below, and we’ll monitor the situation to see when the rest of the world will be able to experience this classic adventure.
New Zealand App Store Link: The Longest Journey Remastered, $8.99 (Universal)Doctor Strange hit theaters just a few days ago, catapulting fans deep into the weird far reaches of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s brand-new territory for the long-running series; where superheroes like Iron Man and Thor already have fantastical abilities, they’re grounded in a reality that Strange and his mystical cohort can bend and even break at will. The walls between entire dimensions can come down when Strange is in the room, making him easily one of the most powerful beings Marvel has shown us on-screen.
That power raises the stakes for what to expect from Marvel’s outings going forward, especially as its heroes barrel toward Avengers: Infinity War. But with that comes an even hazier sense of what it means to be a hero in this universe. Marvel’s superheroes have gotten more and more morally compromised, and Strange is the most compromised yet. Watched in a certain light, Doctor Strange might actually be the closest Marvel has come to making a supervillain-centric movie.
Stephen Strange is brilliant, arrogant, and incredibly dangerous
Spoilers ahead.
Doctor Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) certainly believes he’s on the side of the angels. He wields black magic for the greater good of Earth, and defends his corner of the multiverse from extra-dimensional threats. He’s brilliant but flawed, and his debut film centers on how he learns to use his gifts for the good of humanity, not just for himself. But he’s also arrogant, dismissive of authority, and fully willing to use power he doesn’t understand. This is crucial: he has no problem using an Infinity Stone to alter the flow of time and achieve his goals, regardless of the outcome. In essence, he’s the MCU’s Tony Stark, but with phenomenal cosmic powers. That doesn’t make him evil, but it certainly makes him incredibly dangerous.
Doctor Strange, intentionally or not, complicates the question of what “doing good” even means in the MCU. In the film, the audience learns early on from characters like the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton), Wong (Benedict Wong), and Karl Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor) that sorcerers draw power from other dimensions to keep Earth safe. We also learn that there can be dire consequences to drawing on that power, and that some forms of magic are dangerous and corruptive. But later, when it’s revealed that the Ancient One prolongs her life with the same dark magic used by the movie’s villain, Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelsen), Mordo denounces her as a fraud. Her willingness to jettison her own strict rules on the mystic arts would force anyone to question whether those rules are actually necessary. The Ancient One may act selflessly in order to help others, but it’s easy to see the hypocrisy in her actions, and how they can be a slippery slope toward real evil.
With all this in mind, Mordo, one of Doctor Strange’s archenemies in the comics, becomes a plausible hero. He makes it clear why, from one well-established perspective, Strange has already gone bad. Mordo understands that achieving great power takes patience and discipline. Strange, in his arrogance, disregards his teachers and learns magic he doesn’t fully comprehend. Mordo understands that using mystical objects like the Eye of Agamotto can have catastrophic consequences. Strange uses it anyway, without even bothering to read the warnings. Strange could easily |
That is, the input dictionary and the output dictionary have the same key set, but their values are of quite a different nature. This is a problem, because we want to apply our MapReduce job iteratively, and it’s the reason that at the end of the pagerank function we have to go through and laboriously update our current estimate for the PageRank vector. This is not a good thing – it’s ugly, and it means that part of the job is not automatically parallelizable.
One way of solving this problem would be to pass through the entire MapReduce job a lot of extra information about page description. Doing that has some overhead, though, both conceptually and computationally. What we’ll see in later posts is that by choosing the way we represent data a bit more carefully, we can have our cake and eat it too. I’ll leave that for later posts, because it’s a fairly minor point, and I don’t want to distract from the big picture, which is the focus of this post.
Second, you’ll notice that in the pagerank function, we dyamically define the pr_reducer function, using the pr_reducer_inter function. As you can see from the code, the only difference between the two is that pr_reducer effectively has some of pr_reducer_inter ‘s slots filled in, most notably, the value ip for the inner product, produced by the first MapReduce job. The reason we need to do this is because the map_reduce function we’ve defined expects the reducer function to just have two arguments, an intermediate key, and a list of intermediate values.
There are other ways we could achieve the same effect, of course. Most obviously, we could modify the map_reduce function so that extra parameters can be passed to the mapper and reducer. There shouldn’t be too many extra parameters, of course, because those parameters will need to be communicated to all computers in the cluster, but a small set would be perfectly acceptable. I went with the dynamic definition of pr_reducer simply because it seemed fun and elegant.
Exercises
The dynamic definition of pr_reducer is very convenient in our code. Can you think of any problems that might arise in using such dynamic definitions on a cluster? Can you think of any ways you might avoid those problems, retaining the ability to use dynamically defined mappers and reducers?
Third, and finally, the way we compute the error estimate is not obviously parallelized. It’s easy to see how you could parallelize it using MapReduce, but, as above, the particular data representation we’re using makes this inconvenient. This will also be easily fixed when we move to our new data representation, in a later post.
A MapReduce programming heuristic
We’ve now seen two examples of using MapReduce to solve programming problems. The first, in an earlier post, showed how to use MapReduce to count word occurrences in a collection of files. The second is the example of this post, namely, to compute PageRank.
As a general rule, when you take a programming task, even one that’s very familiar, it may be challenging to figure out how to implement the algorithm using MapReduce. Not only do you need to find a way of fitting it into the MapReduce framework, you need to make sure the resulting algorithm is well adapted to take advantage of the framework. Think of how we dealt with dangling pages in the PageRank example – we could easily have modelled a dangling page as being connected to every other page, but the overhead in MapReduce would be enormous. We needed to take another approach to get the advantages of MapReduce.
With that said, it’s worth stepping back and distilling out a heuristic for attacking problems using MapReduce. The heuristic is already implicit in earlier discussion, but I’ve found it has helped my thinking to make the heuristic really explicit.
Think back to the wordcount example. There are some interesting patterns in that example, patterns that we’ll see are also repeated in other examples of MapReduce:
There is a large set of questions we want to answer: for each word w in our set of documents, how many times does w appear? The intermediate keys are simply labels for those questions, i.e., there is one intermediate key for each question we want answered. Naturally enough, we use the word itself as the label. What the map phase does is takes a piece of input data (a file), and then identifies all the questions to which the input data might be relevant, i.e., all the words whose count might be affected by that document. For each such question it outputs the corresponding intermediate key (the word), and whatever information seems relevant to that particular question (in this case, a count). What the reduce phase recieves as input for a particular intermediate key (i.e., question), is simply all the information relevant to that question, which it can process to produce the answer to the question.
The same pattern is followed in the computation of PageRank using MapReduce. We have a large set of questions we’d like answered: what are the values for Mp_j? We label those questions using j, and so the j are the intermediate keys. What the map phase does is takes a piece of input data (a particular page and its description), and identifies all other pages it is linked to, and therefore might contribute probability to, outputting the corresponding intermediate key (the page linked to), and the relevant information (in this case, the amount of probability that needs to be sent to the linked page). The reducer for any given page k thus receives all information relevant to computing the updated probability distribution.
This same pattern is also followed in the little MapReduce job we described for computing the inner product. There, it’s just a single question that we’re interested in: what’s the value of the inner product between and the vector of dangling pages? There is thus just a single intermediate key, for which we use the placeholder 1 – we could use anything. The mappers output all the information that’s relevant to that question, meaning they output nothing if a page isn’t dangling, and they output p_j if it is dangling. The reducer combines all this information to get the answer.
I should stress that this is just a heuristic for writing MapReduce programs. There are potentially other ways of using PageRank in algorithms. Furthermore, if you’re having trouble in fitting your programming problem into the MapReduce approach, you’d be advised to consider things like changing the set of questions you’re considering, or otherwise changing the way you represent the data in the problem. It may also be that there’s no good way of solving your problem using MapReduce; MapReduce is a hammer, but not every programming problem is a nail. With these caveats in mind, the heuristic I’ve described can be a useful way of thinking about how to approach putting familiar problems into a form where they can be tackled using MapReduce.
About this post: This is one in a series of posts about the Google Technology Stack – PageRank, MapReduce, and so on. The posts are summarized here, and there is FriendFeed room for the series here. Subscribe to my blog to follow future posts in the series.In late 2013, the cryptocurrency Bitcoin hit a record high price of over $1100 per coin. The exact value varied from one exchange to the next, but anyone who had been hoarding coins since the early days instantly became a theoretical millionaire. With the new year came new challenges, and now an analysis of currencies in 2014 shows that Bitcoin performed the worst out of all of them.
The price of a single coin is hovering around $325, much less than the peak in 2013 and more than 50% down this calendar year. Even the Russian Ruble and Ukrainian Hryvnia are down less than Bitcoin, and those countries are engaged in a bitter military conflict that shows no signs of abating.
Because Bitcoin is completely anonymous, it is used in murkier parts of the web to launder money and purchase illegal merchandise. Certainly the continued crackdown on drug trafficking services like Silk Road 2.0 have reduced demand for Bitcoin. There really aren’t many things you can do with Bitcoin outside of deep web transactions. A handful of businesses accept them in the real world, and a few more online, but there’s no standard way to take these payments. Everyone has different policies.
Enforcement actions played a role, sure, but let’s not forget the catastrophic failure of Mt. Gox in early 2014. This one site was handling the majority of Bitcoin transactions before it suspended trading in February, then announced that it had lost hundreds of thousands of Bitcoins belonging to users. Seeing how easily Bitcoins could vanish without a trace worried investors and started a price slide that has lasted all year.
Like all intangible digital items, Bitcoin only has value because people agree that it does — it’s a free market ideal. You’ll probably notice less boasting about Bitcoin online these days. A lot of people lost money betting on the cryptocurrency’s continued rise, but now you have to wonder if the steady increase in price was simply due to speculation rather than actual use.I completely agree with Rolling Stone magazine's reviewer John Swenson when he said, "The Allman Brothers Band live on because live performance is what they're about. The call of the road and the thrill of collective improvisation are the animating forces behind this rock institution, ever since 1971's live At Fillmore East confirmed their reputation and provided their commercial breakthrough."
Writer Marc Greilsamer states, "Old-timers might cry blasphemy, but the band's resurgence in the early 1990s came remarkably close to recapturing the glory of their seemingly insurmountable peak in the late 1960s and early 1970s. With five years in the band under his belt, slide guitarist Warren Haynes had truly come into his own, magically interacting with Dickey Betts and serving up scorching leads that might have made even Duane look twice."
Swenson goes on to say, "2nd Set, the sequel to the 1992 concert disc An Evening With..., documents the miraculous revivification the Allman Brothers have undergone since reconvening in 1989. They've survived the losses of guitarist Duane Allman and bassist Berry Oakley more than 20 years ago, not to mention a few lost years in between. In fact, they've managed to retain and refine their musical identity. The continuity is provided by the seemingly indestructible core of Gregg Allman and Dickey Betts. These men have endured the ravages of rock & roll and emerged strengthened, with the kind of world-wary depth and wisdom that informed most of the great blues musicians."
Both reviewers were dead on. Take a look at the tracks below and then listen for yourself. You will not be disappointed.The State Department inspector general’s report on Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email system while secretary of state had members in both parties spinning the facts to score partisan points this election season:
Sen. Ron Johnson, the Republican chairman of the homeland security committee, said “you have to assume that our enemies and our adversaries had access to every email that ever went over her private server.” But there’s no evidence so far that any attempts to hack into Clinton’s server were successful.
Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff said former Secretary of State Colin Powell, a Republican, “did not respond … to the IG” when asked “to provide whatever emails he retained or to work with the private provider of those emails to provide them.” Schiff gets his facts wrong. The IG made no such request, and the IG report noted that Powell told the State Department in 2015 that he did not retain any emails.
Johnson, whose committee has been investigating the security of Clinton’s email system, and Schiff, who is a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, appeared on the Sunday talk shows three days after the IG report was publicly released on May 26.
That report was critical of Clinton’s “exclusive reliance on a personal email account to conduct Department business,” saying it had been department policy since 2005 that “normal day-to-day operations” must be conducted on government servers. Clinton was secretary of state from January 2009 to February 2013.
Was Clinton’s Email System Hacked?
On CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Johnson — a Wisconsin Republican who heads the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs — called Clinton’s email arrangement “reckless and dangerous.”
The State Department has said that many of her emails contained classified information — including some emails that were higher than “top secret” — although none was marked classified at the time the emails were sent and received. Some personal emails sent to Powell and aides to former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also contained information that retroactively has been classified as “confidential” or “secret.”
Johnson, May 29: [Y]ou have to assume that our enemies and our adversaries had access to every email that ever went over her private server. Did it affect their actions … as it related to, for example, Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Crimea or Eastern Ukraine? What about the negotiations with Iran? What about Assad?
The IG report discussed the potential security risk of Clinton’s server, but it did not report any security breaches and neither has any other investigative body so far — contrary to Johnson’s assumption.
The senator’s office told us he did not say Clinton’s emails were hacked. Fair enough. But what evidence is there that Clinton’s server may have been successfully hacked and that “every email that ever went over her private server” has been stolen?
The IG report said hackers attempted to access Clinton’s server on Jan. 9, 2011, but Clinton’s technical support adviser shut down the server to deny access. The report also said that Clinton received two phishing email messages on May 13, 2011, that contained suspicious links. The campaign has said the phishing attempts were unsuccessful.
In the past, Johnson has expressed concerns that hackers may have accessed Clinton’s emails.
Johnson sent a letter dated Oct. 5, 2015, to SECNAP Network Security Corp., which Johnson said provided a “threat-monitoring” device for Clinton’s network. In that letter, Johnson said that there were attempts to hack into Clinton’s server “originating in countries such as China, the Republic of Korea, and Germany,” based on emails that the committee obtained as part of its examination of Clinton’s email arrangement.
Johnson wrote about an example of a cyberattack on Clinton’s server that originated from China, but he said it was “detected and prevented.”
In citing that incident, Johnson asked the security company for more information because “questions remain about whether the private server was vulnerable to cyberattacks” prior to installation of the device. Questions still remain; Johnson’s office told us that SECNAP said it could not respond to the senator’s questions because it has a nondisclosure agreement with its client, presumably the Clintons.
However, the New York Times in March reported that security logs from Clinton’s email server were turned over to the FBI, and they showed no evidence of foreign hacking.
We may not know whether Clinton’s server was compromised until the FBI investigation is completed. In April, FBI Director Jim Comey declined to say when the investigation would be completed, but said he would not set an arbitrary deadline, such as completing it by the July nominating convention.
Update, July 6: Comey announced on July 5 that he would not recommend charges against Clinton or her staff. At a press conference, Comey said the FBI “did not find direct evidence that Secretary Clinton’s personal email domain … was successfully hacked. But, given the nature of the system and of the actors potentially involved, we assess that we would be unlikely to see such direct evidence.”
Comey added that “it is possible that hostile actors gained access” to Clinton’s email account, because, among other factors, she sent and received “work-related emails in the territory of sophisticated adversaries.”
The Powell Comparison
On “Fox News Sunday,” Rep. Adam Schiff defended Clinton’s decision to set up a private email system, repeatedly trying to draw comparisons to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, a Republican who served under President George W. Bush.
Clinton and Powell were the only two secretaries of state who used personal email accounts “on an exclusive basis for day-to-day operations,” according to the IG report. Unlike Clinton, Powell didn’t use a private server. As the report notes, Powell said on “Meet the Press” on Sept. 6, 2015, that he used a commercial email account. He didn’t say which provider, but Powell was a board member of America Online, or AOL, prior to becoming secretary of state.
Host Chris Wallace several times sought to prevent Schiff from discussing Powell. At one point, Schiff criticized Wallace after the host noted that Powell agreed to be interviewed by the IG, but Clinton did not. Schiff accused Wallace of failing to mention that Powell “still has not responded to the IG” on some key matters.
Schiff, May 29: [Y]ou did not bring up the fact that when Secretary Powell was asked to provide whatever emails he retained or to work with the private provider of those emails to provide them, he did not respond and still has not responded to the IG. You did not bring that up.
Schiff twists the facts. First, the IG made no such request. The IG report, however, said that Powell’s representative told the State Department in 2015 that he did not retain any work-related emails. So Powell was “asked to provide whatever e-mails he retained,” and he responded.
The IG report cited an April 2, 2015, letter written by State Department Deputy Assistant Secretary for Global Information Services Margaret Grafeld that said, “In March 2015, former Secretary Powell’s representative advised that while former Secretary Powell used a personal email account during his tenure as Secretary of State, he did not retain those emails or make printed copies.”
Schiff is right that Powell was asked “to work with the private provider of those emails to provide them,” but not by the inspector general.
Schiff is actually referring to an Oct. 21, 2015, letter sent by Patrick Kennedy, the State Department’s under secretary for management, to Powell’s principal assistant, Peggy Cifrino, as noted in the IG report. The Office of Inspector General is an independent office within the State Department, and Kennedy is not under the IG’s authority.
In Kennedy’s letter, the State Department encouraged Cifrino to contact the email provider Powell used as secretary of state to see if any work-related emails could be recovered. Powell was secretary of state from 2001 to 2005, and the email account had been closed for years. The State Department did not specifically direct Powell’s office to respond, saying only to forward work-related emails to the department “if you do recover any such emails.”
“You previously advised, with respect to official emails sent on Secretary Powell’s private account during his time in office, that the account he used has been closed for a number of years,” Kennedy wrote to Cifrino. “Based on advice we have received from the National Archives and Records Administration, the Department would nevertheless encourage you — if you have not already done so — to check with the internet service or email provider for the former account to see if it is still possible to retrieve any official emails from Secretary Powell’s tenure at the Department. If you do recover any such emails, we would appreciate your forwarding them to the Department.”
The IG report noted that Powell’s office as of May had not responded to the State Department’s request — not that Powell “still has not responded to the IG,” as Schiff said.
Clinton and her allies frequently compare Clinton’s use of personal email to Powell’s use. But the IG report was pointed in drawing key differences between Clinton and past secretaries. It said the rules governing personal email and the use of nongovernment systems were “considerably more detailed and more sophisticated” during Clinton’s time in office.
“Secretary Clinton’s cybersecurity practices accordingly must be evaluated in light of these more comprehensive directives,” the report said.
https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/68f76d46-cae6-4457-ac3a-e48a10a42f73
https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/a8cfea3b-d51f-4fd3-8e8a-087aea3a13d0WASHINGTON -- The Transportation Security Administration announced a new procedure Thursday that will result in different levels of screening for some frequent flyers who agree to share travel data with the agency.
Some frequent flyers from American Airlines and Delta Airlines will soon be invited to "opt in" to the system that could speed them through TSA lines at some major airports. If a traveler meets certain criteria, that traveler may be coded for expedited airport security, which could include not having to remove their shoes or take their laptops out of bags.
This screening is part of a push by TSA Administrator John Pistole to put more resources into identifying which of the 628 million annual air passengers may pose a real risk.
"The idea is to be a risk based intelligence driven organization that can recognize that most people traveling pose no threat to civil aviation," Pistole told CBS News.
The procedures will begin at Atlanta, Miami, Dallas and Detroit airports in the next couple of months for selected flyers and also for U.S. citizens who are part of the U.S. Customs and
Border Protection's "Trusted Traveler" program, which includes background checks.
Passengers can't sign in to the system. Frequent flyers will be invited in. If successful, TSA hopes to expand the program to other airlines and airports.The origins of the ring road can be traced back to a time when the Trans-Canada highway was first being planned and constructed through Calgary, and the history of these two roads are intertwined. Both the northern and southern potions of the ring road have played a part in the story of the highway in the Calgary area.
In the mid- to late-1940s the Government of Canada instructed each Province to select a route for the Trans-Canada highway through their territory. By 1949, in conjunction with BC and Saskatchewan, Alberta decided on a general route that would travel through Calgary, as opposed to a more northern route through Edmonton or a more southern route through the Crowsnest Pass. Although the highway would ultimately travel through the city via 16th avenue north and Bowness, other alignments were studied before a final route was decided upon.
Early in the process the City of Calgary had proposed a route for the highway that would have seen the road cross the Bow River at the Shaganappi Trail and head southwest through what is now Edworthy park (road ‘A’ shown in the map above). This river crossing was also part of the city’s ring road plans at the time, but was rejected by the Province for the Trans-Canada alignment, preferring a crossing at Shouldice instead.
The Northwest Bypass
In 1964, despite having agreed to the location of the Trans-Canada highway on 16th avenue only 14 years earlier, the City wanted to look at alternative routes. 16th avenue had seen a steady increase in traffic since becoming the Trans-Canada route, and alternatives, including a new route north of the city, were sought to relieve the congestion.
An alternative routing to the north was both welcomed (by those who wanted to reduce the congestion on 16th avenue) and criticised (by business owners fearing a loss of customers who would be diverted away from their stores along 16th avenue). However, in the 1960s, as it is today, the City of Calgary was the destination for a significant portion of the Highway 1 traffic. Because most travellers were stopping in Calgary anyway, a bypass route was considered of little value for the cost. Despite this, regular calls for a northwest bypass to be built were made from the 1960s until the ring road was started in the 1990s.
Also in 1964, City commissioners highlighted the possibility of locating the Trans-Canada along 82nd avenue SE. This would form a southern route for the highway which would utilise the newly constructed Glenmore Trail causeway and tie into Sarcee Trail as an alternative path back to the Trans-Canada. Though the negative impacts of this route would prove unpopular with City Council at the time, the southern route would continue to play a role in a potential realignment of the Trans-Canada Highway.
Southern Routes
The suggestion of a southern bypass acting as an alternative to the Trans-Canada Highway officially appears as early as 1957, and was hinted at in 1955 by the Province. As part of the 1957 Major Thoroughfare Plan by the City of Calgary a Trans-Canada Highway alternative route, called the No.1 “B” Highway, is detailed as originating just east of Lake Chestermere, heading southwest to Glenmore Trail, then south to Anderson Road before heading west and north around the west end of the reservoir. This route would have run west from Highway 8, headed in a north westerly direction to join with Highway 1 at the Highway 563/Old Banff Coach Road interchange west of the City.
In 1966 the Province of Alberta, in conjunction with municipal districts across the province, began planning for future primary and secondary provincial roads. In the Calgary area this included the Secondary Road Study produced in cooperation with the M.D. of Rocky View and the County of Wheatland which looked at an alternative highway into Calgary from the east, this time towards the south part of the city. Highway 901, also called at the time the Gleichen Freeway, was planned to branch off of the Trans-Canada Highway near Gleichen, Alberta, and head west to become Highway 22x near Calgary. In order to be a true Trans-Canada alternative, traffic could then head north via the proposed southwest ring road alignment and connect to Highway 1 where it meets the Sarcee Trail near Bowness.
The designation of the route as Highway 901 is indicitive of the plan for this road to become a Trans-Canada alternative: Secondary roads in Alberta are given a 900-series number when they are planned as a potential re-alignment of an existing highway. In this case, the 1 at the end of 901 would indicate Highway 1 as the affected highway. Though the road would later cease to be considered as a new alignment of Highway 1, the 901 designation remained.
By 1970 this freeway, though still intended to become an alternative highway route, was not being identified as a full realignment of the Trans-Canada Highway. In the Province’s Calgary Area Study it is noted that the planned extensions of freeways “encourage the use of alternate routes by traffic which would otherwise tend to congest freeways through central Calgary, such as Highway 1…”
The Origins of the Southwest Ring Road?
The concept of a southern alignment of the Trans-Canada highway may have originated even earlier than the 1966 study however. The Tsuut’ina have stated that they were first approached in 1947 about locating the southwest ring road through their reserve. Though there is little detail about what this communication contained, it is interesting to note when it was said to have been made. Calgary did not begin planning for a ring road or bypass road network until the early 1950s, though 1947 would be consistent with the time when the Province was studying potential routes for the Trans-Canada. Given the timing and the manner in which Highway 22x aligns with the Trans-Canada Highway at Gleichen, the possibility exists that the earliest plans for the southwest ring road were not created as part of a ring road system at all, but rather it may have first been considered as a potential location for the Trans-Canada Highway. Though possible, this has not been confirmed at this time.
Moving a Highway
In 1989 the issue of moving the Highway 1 to the south of the city via Highway 22x and the southwest ring road was again raised by Alberta Transportation. Though preliminary in nature, the plans prompted the Province to conduct early discussions with the Siksika Nation about routing the highway through their reserve west of Gleichen.
Work on an upgraded Highway 901 began in 1994, and when finished it provided a 2-lane, lower capacity alternative entrance to Calgary from the southeast.
Stoney Trail and the Trans-Canada
In 2009 the northeast ring road (or northeast Stoney Trail) was opened to traffic, which completed the north section of the road. Connected to the Trans-Canada highway on both the east and west ends of Calgary, the ring road was touted by some as a free-flow alternative to Highway 1, despite some concerns that the road was located too far to the north to act as a convenient bypass. Once open, the 50+ year old concept of a northern bypass had been realised.
Also in 2009 the Alberta Government proposed long-range plans for the realignment of the Trans-Canada Highway east of Calgary. The plans detailed not only an alteration of the existing highway, which would be moved away from Strathmore and continue to utilise 16th avenue in Calgary, but also the realignment and extension of Highway 22x as an equally high-capacity southern freeway into the city.
This plan (shown above) would see Highway 22x moved north from the Highway 901 alignment near Gleichen, which would avoid the Siksika reserve and continue east where it would become Stoney Trail once it entered Calgary. A completed southwest ring road would provide a free-flow route to reconnect to the Trans-Canada highway at the west end of Calgary. These plans were based on a 100-year time frame, and there are no current public plans to implement these designs.
Options Still Open
With recent Provincial studies stating “in the long-term there will be at least two freeway routes entering the Calgary region, both Highways 1 and 22X” it seems unlikely that the Trans-Canada Highway will be re-routed away from 16th avenue. However the desire is there to support an alternative freeway access to, and around, the city. If a high-capacity southwest ring road is implemented and Highway 22x is extended and upgraded towards Gleichen, it will likely form an attractive bypass for those seeking to avoid the congestion of an inner-city route.
AdvertisementsOral-B aftermarket replacement
toothbrush heads – REVIEW
After a brief heart attack after seeing prices for OEM replacement heads ($19.96 for 3), I looked for the aftermarket replacement heads on AliExpress.
And of course, I found replacements for less than $2 for 4 pieces.
A reasonable person would understand that a piece of plastic with a spring inside, and some bristles attached to it is not worth $6 a piece. Nonetheless, I was a little skeptical as I have used a different kind of the aftermarket ones previously, which were much smaller than the ones I found now, and the small rubber nozzles felt off within a weeks use.
These do not have any rubber nozzles on the bristles, and the bristles are steady.
I would rate the softness as 2/5: they work fine on the teeth, but they did hurt my gums a bit at the beginning. Both the top round piece and the bottom trapeze bristles move from side to side when you turn the brush on.
These replacement heads fit properly, and do not shake off or buzz when in use.
God bless you, AliExpress!
Here is a general link to the ones that are available on AliExpress, you can pick whichever quantity of them that you need: http://ali.ski/32RUk. They are cheap so you may as well get a whole bunch, because the more you get the cheaper they are. I picked up 16 pieces the last time and after a year I still have a few left.
Product link: http://ali.ski/32RUk
P.S.: If you still use a regular toothbrush, you should totally get an electric one.
Here is one of the best-selling ones on AliExpress right now:
AZDENT electric toothbrush
Price: $10.50
Purchase link: link: http://ali.ski/ukvxZj
P.P.S.: I have ordered a lightbox on Sunday, so the product pictures in my reviews would no longer look like they were taken inside a horse's ass. So hang tight for about a month, it's on the way. Much love!In 2012 we launched Oss clothing. Our business model, from the traditional sense, was horrible. We didn't believe in the bottom line, we didn't invest in marketing, we invested in people. Those with a dream, those with the will and desire to make their dreams a reality, those people who reminded us of us, dream chasers. The prerequisite wasn't anything besides a tremendous amount of belief and perseverance. If you listen to any success story ever told what is usually missing are the failures, the lessons, the days when the person wanted to quit but kept on going. In the end, the response we got from the community was tremendous.
For the last 4 years, oss for the most part was dormant. Swamped with other projects we lost focus. That isn't to say we ever stopped believing in the company and the people, we just took a detour! In 2016 we refocused and got back to our roots.
Yesterday was the first day of pans and a momentous day for OSS Athlete Ryan Walsh. Ryan won his first major being crowned the 2016 pan American adult purple belt champion. In 2012 Ryan went through his first training camp only to lose his first match at the same tournament. That was also the first time we met Ryan and knew he was a special person. We often hear the saying your time will come, for Ryan he went almost a year as a purple belt with out winning a single tournament and heard that far to often. Yesterday his time came, CONGRATS RYAN!!
Kaniela Kahuanui also went on the first day and after many matches ended up taking home third. Just competing yesterday was a huge victory for him, two weeks prior he suffered a serious back injury that left him sidelined for over a week. When asked if he was going to compete at pans, he said he didn't know, he was using his down time studying and remained focus on what he could do. GREAT JOB KANIELA!
OSS Athlete Paulo Martins, who moved to America to chase his dream continued his success. After a very long day Paulo also took home gold. In the absolute he went onto the semi finals before opening for his friend! AWESOME JOB PAULO.
Lastly, fighting in the adult division for the first time OSS athlete Gutheirry Barbosa took home gold. Gutheirry is very young but knows even at this age Jiu Jitsu is what he wants to do!
Congrats to everyone who competed, keep chasing your dreams. Stories don't often turn out the way we think but that's a good thing. It's never the goal that matters but who become during the process. In 2012 Ryan finished last, yesterday he was first. Same Dream, different Ryan. 2016 is just beginning, lets go!!!The drone from Lily is waterproof and can track its user’s movements automatically from the air.
People who order innovative new drones from start-ups without track records have good reason to be nervous.
Last month, a British start-up that raised $3.4 million on Kickstarter to build Zano, a handheld drone, collapsed after shipping only about 600 of the about 15,000 drones ordered. The start-up, Torquing Group, blamed a variety of unforeseen technical problems for the calamity.
Now another young start-up, Lily, is running into a problem of its own. The company says it will delay delivery of its drone, which people have paid $499 to $799 to preorder. Instead of shipping the product starting in February as promised, customers will receive it in the summer, the company said.
In announcing the delay on Thursday, Lily, a San Francisco start-up, tried to reassure customers by revealing a significant round of funding from a group of private investors. The company said it had raised $15 million in a funding round led by Spark Capital, a venture capital firm that invested in Twitter and other start-ups. SV Angel, the Stanford-StartX Fund, the musician Steve Aoki and the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Joe Montana also invested in Lily.
Bijan Sabet, a general partner at Spark Capital, said that Lily’s founders had created a unique product through a combination of design, technology and vision. “I admire their passion and commitment in delivering an amazing experience for their customers,” Mr. Sabet said.
The drone market is becoming crowded, but Lily received attention this year when it released a video showing the capabilities of its product. The drone is waterproof and can track its user’s movements automatically from the air, filming high-definition aerial video of them as they kayak or ski. The drone can automatically return to a user without having to be manually piloted, landing in the palm of their hand. The drone stops spinning its rotors the moment it senses it’s being held.
There are important differences between Lily and Zano. While Lily accepted preorders for its product, the company is not crowdfunded the way Torquing Group was. Lily said it had funded its operation as a company through private investors and had not tapped into the proceeds it received from the preorder of its product. Any customer who preordered the drone can get a refund, Lily said.
“We have no plans to use a single cent of that money until your Lily Camera goes into final production,” the company’s founders, Antoine Balaresque and Henry Bradlow, wrote in a blog post expected to be published on Thursday.
In that same post, the men said the delay was caused by problems with the flight software that powers the drone. Following its initial preorder campaign, it made several technical changes to the drone that require additional time for testing. They said the company had produced 200 drones and was beginning to test them under the harsh conditions in which customers were likely to use the product.
“We’ve hit some challenges there, but rest assured, it’s nothing our team can’t handle,” the co-founders wrote. “We just need more time.”
What MadAboutDrones thinks: Are we surprised? Not really!Krita 3.3.0 – first release candidate
Published 9/21/2017
Less than a month after Krita 3.2.1, we’re getting ready to release Krita 3.3.0. We’re bumping the version because there are some important changes for Windows users in this version!
Alvin Wong has implemented support for the Windows 8 event API, which means that Krita now supports the n-trig pen in the Surface line of laptops (and similar laptops from Dell, HP and Acer) natively. This is still very new, so you have to enable this in the tablet settings:
And he also refactored Krita’s hardware-accelerated display functionality to optionally use Angle on Windows instead of native OpenGL. That means that many problems with Intel display chips and broken driver versions are worked around because Krita now indirectly uses Direct3D.
There are more changes in this release, of course:
Some visual glitches when using hi-dpi screens are fixed (remember: on Windows and Linux, you need to enable this in the settings dialog).
If you create a new image from clipboard, the image will have a title
Favorite blending modes and favorite brush presets are now loaded correctly on startup
GMIC the plugin has |
memo that same day telling the National Archives that every new employee was required to attend a 45-minute training session on ethics in the White House. That training includes guidance on travel, the Hatch Act, personal and professional email, disclosure issues, conflicts of interest and gifts.
Still, questions about how the administration preserves materials for historians’ use have gone on for much of Trump's tenure in the White House.
"This administration has been so careless in observing the requirements of the Presidential Records Act," said Anne Weismann of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, referring to the 1978 law governing collection of White House documents.
The nonpartisan watchdog group is suing the Trump administration over its adherence to the records law, citing the use by White House officials of encrypted smartphone apps to communicate, such as Confide and Signal, which are designed to delete data.
"It is an end run around the entire law," Weismann said.
Weeks into the administration, Democratic Sens. Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Tom Carper of Delaware expressed concerns to David Ferriero, the archivist of the United States.
“Both the Presidential Records Act and the Federal Records Act require covered officials to preserve work-related communications,” they wrote in March. “White House staff and federal officials should not feel pressured to avoid communicating in the manner that best facilitates the fulfillment of their professional responsibilities.”
Ferriero, who was appointed by President Barack Obama in 2009, responded by outlining a series of guidelines that have been shared with White House officials to ensure that all presidential communications are being preserved — including reminding officials that secure smartphone apps are expressly prohibited for conducting official business and that all tweets, including those that may be deleted, must be retained.
The National Archives and Records Administration "has advised the White House that it should capture and preserve all tweets that the president posts in the course of his official duties, including those that are subsequently deleted, as presidential records, and NARA has been informed by White House officials that they are, in fact, doing so,” Ferriero wrote.I’ve been tooling around with this idea about how Viacom and Spike have potentially one of the best possible combat sports feuds in a long time between their fingers, but will no doubt never pull the trigger, to mix some metaphors. Now, with Rampage Jackson supposedly boxing Roy Jones Jr. at the end of the year in some sort of PPV extravaganza, it seems like as good of a time as any to discuss this fictional scenario that will likely never come to be.
The idea is simple, and it manifested itself when Spike announced they had scooped up the broadcasting rights to Glory. Now, with Bellator and TNA, they kind of had this weird, combat sport market cornered into a trifecta of possible awesomeness. With the signing of Rampage Jackson they have all of the parts necessary to build a monolithic monster of a feud with King Mo, as long as Rampage Jackson and King Mo decided they wanted to go through with this kooky idea floating around in my brain.
This is how it will go down (fiction warning):
It starts with the age-old wrestling run in: either Mo or Rampage will be working the mic in the TNA ring, when one interrupts the other with a steel chair to the back. Let’s say it’s Mo who nails Rampage, because Rampage has better mic skills right now. So Page is working the mic, humping one of the announcers or whatever he wants to do, when King Mo slides into the ring and knocks him out like I described above. Maybe Page would even blade and make it awesome but I doubt it. So then Mo throws down the steel chair and challenges Page to a fight, and not this fake wrestling stuff either: “I want a match in Bellator!” Mo screams.
The next week Rampage walks out in the TNA ring, and he agrees that it’s time for a fight: “Hey, Mo: I don’t want to beat your chair-swinging ass just once… No, no, no. I want to kick your ass three times, so you can see who’s really king.” Mo is blown away, and Rampage continues: “Match number one will be in the Bellator cage.” The camera lands on Mo getting more and more pissed, then back to Rampage. “Match number two… Match number two, bitch, will take place right here in the squared circle of the TNA ring.” The crowd roars. “And the third match, not like we’ll need it after I kick your ass twice, but I’ll let you and the people out there know anyway; the third match will be a kickboxing match, Glory style, so that way you can’t do your little wrestle**** game if you actually do win one.” The camera stays on Mo, his crown gleaming in the lights of TNA. He brings the mic to his lips “I’m not afraid of a has-been like you. Let’s do it.” The crowd goes wild, Twitter blows up, and headlines are made.
The usual fight promotion song and dance graces our airwaves for a month or so until King Mo and Rampage meet on Spike in a deep Bellator card with at least a title fight or two, thus guaranteeing massive ratings. Naturally, the fight will play out however it plays out. King Mo or Rampage will win the fight, and for the sake of the article, let’s say Mo wins the Bellator fight (because that’s what would probably happen). No matter what this alone is a huge fight, and will get big ratings for Spike but just wait. This will naturally set up the TNA match a month or two later, in which Rampage will get his revenge and defeat King Mo in the TNA ring on Spike. The TNA fight can even still put over both dudes, but Page should win cleanly. WIth this, the war would be tied a battle apiece at 1-1. The finals would be a stand up fight in Glory on Spike, and the ratings would be massive, garnering a huge amount of ratings from the casual fans and crossover fans alike.
Who knows who would win the final kickboxing match, but very few kicks would likely be thrown, that’s for sure. We would probably get 3 x 3 minute rounds of an entertaining close to a trilogy of fights the likes no one has ever seen before. Unless you look at Ken Shamrock vs. Steve Blackman. If Page wants to stand up and bang — let him. I bet Mo would be happy to oblige and it would make for a feud no one has ever seen. MMA, wrestling and kickboxing. Putting over Bellator, TNA and Glory with a cool crossover storyline rarely seen outside of comic books.
But most importantly: we wouldn’t be seeing Rampage possibly lose to Roy Jones Jr. in what is ultimately a meaningless fight.
Or I could be nuts.Sean Davis has become the third Steelers player to be fined during the postseason, as Chris Adamski of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported that Pittsburgh's rookie safety has been fined $24,000 for Sunday's hit on receiver Chris Conely in the divisional round of the AFC playoffs.
While the penalty following the hit helped set up Kansas City's second touchdown, Davis more than made up for the penalty by breaking up Alex Smith's two-point conversion pass that would have tied the game with 2:43 remaining. The Steelers held onto defeat the Chiefs, 18-16.
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The team's 2016 Rookie of the Year, Davis joins receiver Eli Rogers (blindside block) and Bud Dupree (roughing the passer) as Steelers players that have received fines this postseason entering Sunday's AFC Championship Game against the Patriots.For a long time I lacked a proper tool to quickly share a few files for a short time. The tools I was able to find either required some setup, installing client counterparts or sending my files to a third-party host. So I felt the need to write something new.
The HTTP protocol seemed an obvious choice. Relatively simple, efficient, with some client software installed almost everywhere. So I took HTTP::Server::Simple (I think) and wrote the first version of publish.pl script. I added a few features to that script but it never felt good enough…
So back in 2011 I decided to reboot the project. This time I decided to use C and libevent, and that’s how pshs came into being. With some development occuring in the last three years, lately I started adding new features aiming to turn it into something really awesome.
So what pshs is? It’s a simple, zero-configuration command-line HTTP server to share files. You pass a list of files and it lets you share them.
But what really makes pshs special are the features:
it shares only the files specified on the command-line — no need for extra configuration, moving files to separate directories etc. It simply returns 404 for any path not specified on the command-line, whether it exists or not. Full, working Range support. You can resume interrupted downloads and seek freely. Confirmed that playing a movie remotely works just fine. Unless told otherwise, it chooses a random port to use. You don’t have to decide on one, you have use pshs alongside regular HTTP servers and other services, and you can freely run multiple instances of pshs if you need to. TODO: perform port search until free port is found on the interface having external IP. Netlink and UPnP support provide the best means to obtain the external IP. If you have one on local interface, pshs will find and print it. If you don’t, it will try to enable port forwarding using UPnP and obtain the external IP from a UPnP-compliant router. QRCode printing (idea copied from systemd). Want to text a link to your files? Just scan the code! MIME-type guessing. Well, it’s not that special but makes sure your images show up as imagines in a web browser rather than opaque files that can only be saved. Zero-configuration SSL/TLS support — the keys and a self-signed certificate with correct public IP are generated at startup. While this is far from perfect (think of all the browsers complaining about self-signed certificates), it at least gives you the possibility of using encryption. It also prints the certificate fingerprint if you’d like to verify the authenticity.
I have also a few nice ideas in TODO, yet unsure which of them will be actually implemented:
HTTP digest authentication support — in case you wanted some real security on the files you share. Download progress reporting — to let you know if and for how long do you need to keep the server up. Sadly, this does not look easy given the current libevent design. ncurses UI — to provide visual means for progress reporting :). Additional possibilities include keeping server URL on screen, a status line, and possibly scrolling logs. GTK+ UI with a tray icon and notification daemon support — to provide better desktop integration for sharing files from your favorite file manager. Recursive directory sharing — currently you have to list all files explicitly. This may include better directory indexes since currently pshs creates only one index of all files.
Which of those features would you find useful? What other features you’d like to see in pshs?Russell D. Moore, the president of Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, on Tuesday encouraged pastors to minister to LGBT people, which he said would be like Jesus meeting with tax collectors in the Bible.
Speaking at the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission Summit in Nashville, Moore was asked what pastors could do to demonstrate love to the gay community.
Moore said that the first thing that pastors needed to do was “develop friendship with people with whom he may completely disagree.”
“And even if there is nobody else in that congregation willing to do that, he needs to be the sort of person to do that, to not be afraid to do that,” he explained. “Now, if he does that, what’s going to happen is, you’re going to have the exact same thing that happened with Jesus.”
“You’re going to have people that say, ‘Look at this guy, he eats with tax collectors and sinners.’ We don’t think much about that because we don’t think much about tax collectors and sinners seems really abstract. But it was something very specific in that day.”
In biblical times, tax collectors — or publicans — were thought of as extortionists and traitors. The Romans recruited Jews to collect taxes from their own people, which were used to fund their continued repression. But the tax collectors were also known pocketing far more than their fair share.
During his Tuesday talk, Moore also said that pastors needed to stop treating homosexuality like it was outside the cultural mainstream.
“Think about how it would be if we never addressed that sort of thing when it comes to heterosexual temptation, never addressed it at all,” he said. “What would happen? You would have your typical 13-year-old boy saying, ‘I’m a polyamorist, and I’m attracted to all sorts of women. And so that means that there is something really, really wrong with me.'”
“We have to do the same thing here. Which is to say, you’re not defined by your temptations, you’re not predestined by your temptations. And you’re not necessarily sinning by your temptations.”
Watch the video below from The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission Summit, broadcast April 22, 2014.Meditation has surged in popularity in recent years, from a fringe interest to a mainstream trend championed by therapists, scientists, and celebrities. As part of this shift, misconceptions and dismissals have given way to the emerging recognition of meditation as a science. There are, however, those who would challenge this view. As both a scientist and a meditator, I feel a duty to respond.
In doing so, I must first acknowledge the huge number of activities commonly referred to as meditation. Many of those activities are not in any sense scientific. However, I will argue that some meditation practices, including the method I describe in The Mind Illuminated and other practices within the Buddhist tradition, do qualify as science. I will confine my discussion to those practices.
We can define science as the systematic study of the natural world through observation and experiment, yielding an organized body of knowledge on a particular subject. The human mind is undeniably a suitable subject for scientific study, and one purpose of meditation is careful observation of one’s own mind. This observation reveals consistent patterns that meditators share with one another and with teachers who direct their practice. Master meditators weigh these observations against their own experience and knowledge passed down from previous generations of meditation masters, thereby generating models of the mind. Over thousands of years, meditators have tested, refined, and reworked their models of the mind based on new insights as later generations developed new meditative techniques. Thus, over time, an organized body of knowledge has accumulated describing the nature and behavior of the mind at a very fine level of resolution. This is one sense in which certain forms of meditation qualify as science.
However, meditation is not simply passive observation, nor could it be, since the very act of observation is itself an activity of mind. Rather the meditator intentionally employs attention, awareness, and other mental faculties in a variety of ways to better understand the functional behavior of the mind. (The effect of observation on the thing observed is not different than what occurs in quantum physics.) Precisely how these mental faculties are used in the investigation of the mind is subject to modification that can increase or decrease the efficacy of this endeavor. Thus meditation is also technology.
Credit: The Mind Illuminated
In the history of meditation practices that qualify as scientific, meditation masters have used models of the mind generated by meditation to modify meditation techniques for increased efficacy. Such modifications can be viewed as hypotheses, and their implementation as experiments. When these modifications are subsequently preserved because they are effective, the experimental results have passed the tests of replicability and falsifiability required by the scientific method. The picture of meditation as science is complete. The hypotheses generated in response to observation and analysis have been tested, validated, and incorporated into the expanding body of knowledge. Such meditation practices are justifiably described as an evolving science, and the laboratory in which this science is carried out is the mind.
Some would argue that the results must be objective in a sense that precludes any element of subjectivity. This requirement is ultimately indefensible and would exclude much of the important work being done today in psychology and social sciences. On the other hand, we are increasingly able to verify brain changes in subject populations employing particular meditation techniques. Thus there is an emerging ability of third-person science to corroborate the models created through the first-person mind science of meditation.
When discussing meditation as a science and technology, it’s important to acknowledge the ultimate goal is a profound cognitive shift to a more accurate perception of one’s self and one’s relationship to the world. This cognitive shift, is traditionally known as “liberation,” “enlightenment,” or “awakening” (the latter being my preferred term), which in turn, produces a dramatic and persistent increase in well-being. Therefore, both knowledge acquisition and its consequence also serve as outcome measures by which to evaluate efficacy.
We are fortunate to live in a time when the investigation of the mind through meditative science comes face-to-face with the investigation of the brain through material science. The conjunction of these different but complementary approaches provides us with an incredible opportunity. What is the mind other than the brain as experienced from the inside? And what is the brain other than the mind experienced from the outside? We have succeeded in identifying the neural correlates of many behavioral and experiential phenomena and can expect the rapid acceleration of this process. (NB: this is not a description reflecting materialistic reductionism but is equally compatible with philosophical positions of idealistic reductionism and non-dualism!)
The knowledge of the mind that meditation provides can be of enormous value in guiding the future research of neuroscientists. On the other hand, this continued unfolding of our knowledge of the physical brain can allow us to understand more clearly the most amazing and powerful experiences of adept meditators, including awakening. This cognitive transformation, characterized by wisdom, compassion, and freedom from most forms of suffering, might ultimately become available to millions, completely transforming human society and helping us solve the enormous threats our species and our planet now face.About Lisa Bettany Lisa Bettany is cofounder of Camera+ and MagiCam and has been named one of the top 10 most influential photographers on the web. She is passionate about sharing knowledge and inspiring others to pursue their photographic dreams. WWW Twitter Facebook Instagram Email
In the past eight years, each new advancement in iPhone camera technology has made dramatic improvements to image quality. The new 12-megapixel iPhone 6s iSight camera is no exception. With 50% more megapixels than the last four iPhone 8-megapixel models, the iPhone 6s boasts a number of key improvements including: improved auto-focus, local tone-mapping, noise reduction, and colour separation, with that fancy “deep trench isolation” technology Apple is raving about.
In this follow-up post to my previous iPhone comparisons, I present a 9 iPhone comparison from all iPhone versions taken with Camera+ including: the original iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3Gs, iPhone 4, iPhone 4s, iPhone 5, iPhone 5s, iPhone 6, and the new iPhone 6s, in a variety of real-life situations to test each iPhone camera’s capabilities.
Macro
The first comparison is a macro of pencil crayons to examine the increase in detail with the new 12MP iPhone 6s. The original iPhone and 3G are fixed focus so they are unable to focus on closely placed objects resulting in blurry, pixelated images. Autofocus was added to the iPhone 3Gs which improves the quality of the image slightly. There is a noticeable improvement in the details and sharpness of the image with the 5MP iPhone 4 and the 8MP iPhone 4s, but we only begin to see the details in the pencil crayon tips with the iPhone 5 and 5s due to addition of the five-element lens which increased the sharpness of images. The iPhone 6 is a brighter image thanks to the local tone-mapping algorithm added to this version, but the clear winner is the iPhone 6s. The addition of detection autofocus and deep trench isolation gives this iPhone camera faster, more accurate focusing and clearer, less noisy images. The detail and colour separation in the iPhone 6s image is dramatic.
Backlit
Next, a backlit photo of a boat in a marina demonstrates the improvements the iPhone camera has made in dealing with high contrast lighting situations and noise reduction. The iPhone 3G stands out amongst the older phones its warm tones and high contrast. The detail and contrast on the boat is getting better with the 5, 5s, 6, but makes a marked improvement on the 6s. The boat is noticeably sharper and you can see more details in the mountains and clouds behind it. This image quality is very impressive.
Backlit Macro
Besides wanting an excuse to eat gummy bears, I thought I would add a backlit macro to this comparison. The results were incredible. I was surprised with the impressive quality of the iPhone 4 and 4s. For those of you who can’t afford an upgrade or have better things to do with $1,298.08 (the cost of my iPhone 6S), this is good news. Your old phone is still pretty good. Obviously, the quality gets better and better with the 5 series and even better with the iPhone 6. The iPhone 6s really shines in this challenge. The image is balanced with the bright sun behind the delicious bears and the details are very sharp. The colour separation is also bang on with the iPhone 6s shot. Yay deep trench isolation! Never thought I’d utter those words.
Daylight
In the first of these two daylight shots, the noticeable differences are white balance, contrast, colour and sharpness of the images. The original iPhone and iPhone 3G were low contrast and very blue in tone. The iPhone 3Gs is kind of an anomaly with it’s warm tone and rich colour saturation. We see a shift from a warm tone to a more accurate white balance with the iPhone 4s. An increase in the details in the last 4 phones is apparent looking at the rivets and the red cross on the side of the Boeing Vertol CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter.
In the second shot of the fishing boat in partially cloud conditions we see a similar increase in details. The sharpness in the lettering is quite noticeable. The sun popped out for the iPhone 6 shot which is why it’s warmer and has more shadows. The iPhone 6s image is very balanced and detailed. Also, I nearly fell off a dock taking this shot and some of my iPhones still smell a little fishy.
Portrait
One of the major complaints with the iPhone 6 was a pixelated “blotchiness” with skin tones in particular. In this version, Apple altered their local tone-mapping and noise reduction algorithm for better exposure and contrast, but it caused pixelation and a decrease in sharpness. It looks like Apple tried to fix this problem with iPhone 6s using deep trench isolation which causes a greater separation in the photo diodes to maintain accurate colours and reduce noise.
The iPhone 6s image looks more vibrant, sharper and skin tones look more true to life. The sharpness is apparent around my eye, but I’m still noticing the pixelation problem, especially with the highlights on my cheeks in the tight crop. I’m not going to lie… it is extremely creepy to see this many close-ups of my eye ball.
Sunset
In the sunset photo comparison, we see improvements in contrast, details and colour accuracy over time. As with last year’s comparison, I found that the iPhone 5s has more contrast and vibrancy than the iPhone 6 image. This is likely due to Apple altering the tone-mapping algorithm. With the iPhone 6s we see a return to the more highly saturated and contrasted style of the 5s. There is definitely more detail in the clouds, but they are still quite pixelated due to the noise reduction software Apple is using. It’s a tough balance between reducing noise and increasing pixelation. Something Adobe has been trying master for years. As a photographer, I would love to be able to tweak the strength of this noise reduction algorithm with a slider or manual setting.
Low-light
We’ve seen the biggest improvements in low light conditions over the years. The original iPhone, 3G, 3Gs and 4 all had an aperture of f/2.8. Apple added a backside illuminated sensor to the iPhone 4 which improved the quality over previous versions. We see some more improvement with a wider aperture of f/2.4 in the iPhone 4s and the 5 which had an additional low-light boost from ISO 800 to 3200. An advanced noise reduction algorithm was added to the iPhone 6 and you can notice the decrease in the overall graininess of the image and an increase in sharpness. The deep trench isolation technology used for colour separation in the iPhone 6s also improves its low light capabilities by ensuring that the light captured by one pixel doesn’t interfere with surrounding pixels. The iPhone 6 image is actually brighter than the iPhone 6s image and looks very good, but the 6s has more contrast, detail and less noise. I’d have to do more tests to really explore low light improvements between the iPhone 6 and 6s. One day wasn’t enough to thoroughly compare the two, although playing with it over the last few days, I’m definitely noticing improvements.
Low-light Sunrise
To test another low light condition, this year I’m adding a sunrise comparison. The older iPhones show little details in the clouds and water. There is also an increase in the details of the shadows of the iPhone 6s from the earlier iPhones.
Summary
Each year I do this comparison, and each year I am impressed at how much the iPhone camera technology has improved. The iPhone has made it easier to capture and share our memories. Each new phone gives us a better tool to capture better quality images and create incredible photographs.
The improved sensor, software updates and new A9 processor on the iPhone 6s has made this camera the best yet. There is an apparent increase in the speed of auto focus and improvements to colour accuracy, details and sharpness, especially in low light.
PS I’m still waiting for an adjustable aperture ;)Benedict Cumberbatch and his fiancée Sophie Hunter have confirmed they are expecting their first child.
Just two months after announcing their engagement, the 38-year-old actor and his 36-year-old theatre director partner are looking forward to becoming parents for the first time.
A spokesperson for Benedict confirmed to MailOnline: 'I am delighted to confirm that Benedict Cumberbatch and Sophie Hunter are expecting their first child. They are both over the moon.'
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Baby news: Benedict Cumberbatch’s fiancée Sophie Hunter, seen here on Saturday at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, is pregnant with their first child
The New York Post's Page Six were the first to report that the Imitation Game star was 'delighted and excited about becoming a dad'.
A source told the site: 'Sophie is a few months along, and both she and Benedict are very excited about it. They are also quietly planning to marry in early spring.'
Sources told the column that the couple - who got engaged in early November - are now planning wed in the next few months, sooner than previously expected.
Keeping covered up: The actress wore a long and flowing silk Just Cavalli dress and kept her clutch in front of her stomach as the pair were photographed
Sophie was last seen publicly on Saturday with her husband-to-be at the Palm Springs International Film Festival.
Walking hand-in-hand with Benedict, the actress wore a long and flowing silk Just Cavalli dress and kept her clutch in front of her stomach as they posed for photographs.
At the film festival the English actor was asked about his marriage plans by the press but said he was too busy.
Change of plan: Sources told the column that the couple are now planning wed in the next few months, sooner than previously expected - they announced their engagement in November
He told Popsugar when asked about heading down the aisle: 'One thing at a time. I'm playing Sherlock now - just about to start - so my main focus is going to be on that.'
Marriage is clearly very important to the heart throb and last year he told Elle Japan:
'It's a wonderful thing to get married young and become a father. I used to think that I'd get married by my mid-thirties and have children.
Traditional courtship: The actor announced rather modesty in the forthcoming marriages section of the Times of London that he was engaged
'But now I think I can wait. I'm no longer in a hurry to get married.'
He once said that talking about his life away from work ‘always came back to haunt me in strange ways. I have been judged for my relationships or for not being a father in the weirdest ways.’
He told Event magazine in 2013: 'I was happy as an only child, but I’ve always wanted to be part of a bigger family. I would love to have children.
‘Everyone wants to know when I’m going to settle down and who is going to be Mrs Cumberbatch. I can’t wait to do an interview like this and just talk about my child.
Working hard: On Tuesday, Benedict was pictured arriving at the Colston Hall, Bristol to film the latest instalment of the massively popular Sherlock TV programme
'My stepsister – my mother’s daughter from her first marriage – had a kid when I was about 11. I thought, “Wow, this is incredible, they come in much smaller sizes!”... I was always the one at parties who looked after the younger children. I really enjoyed it.'
In 2010, he told the Telegraph: 'I am very broody. I have been broody for the last five years because I have two godchildren.
'I know you pick up an amazing amount of stamina the minute you become a dad, but I would like to be a young dad. I would love to have the ability to juggle a career and have a young child.'
Happy times: While the actor is revered for his role in the acclaimed show, fatherhood is likely to be his most exciting project yet
The star has always been rather quiet when it comes to his love life but chose to announce his betrothal to Sophie with a £324 advertisement in The Times newspaper.
The traditional heart throb flew to Edinburgh to ask her mother's permission for her daughter's hand in marriage before getting down on one knee.
The piece read: 'Mr BT. Cumberbatch and Miss S.I. Hunter: The engagement is announced between Benedict, son of Wanda and Timothy Cumberbatch of London, and Sophie, daughter of Katharine Hunter of Edinburgh and Charles Hunter of London.'
Benedict and Oxford-educated Sophie, who first met in 2009, had gone to great lengths to avoid being seen together in public since they started dating last year ahead of their engagement announcement.
They can't get enough of him: The popular actor was shielded by an umbrella as she made his way back to his car surrounded by a throng of people
They were first seen publicly together in June 2014 at the French Open but they first met when starring opposite each other in Burlesque Fairytales in 2009.
But since becoming engaged, they have walked down the red carpet together at events such as The London Evening Standard awards and The Imitation Game premiere.
Sophie was also Benedict's date at the wedding of the actor’s old school pal, James Rhodes, but it is believed she has wanted to remain anonymous since the beginning of their relationship.
Supporting role: Sophie took pride of place on Benedict's arm at the New York premiere of his latest movie, The Imitation Game on November 17
A ratings hit: The star plays Alan Turing in the wartime biopic alongside Keira Knightley (left) - who is also pregnant with her first child
Cumberbatch previously spent 10 years with The Thick Of It star Olivia Poulet, who met while studying at Manchester University, before splitting in 2010.
Since then, the Sherlock star has been linked with several high-profile women, including Star Trek co-star Alice Eve and Lord Of The Rings actress Liv Tyler.
More recently, Cumberbatch has dated furniture designer Anna Jones in 2012, before apparently rekindling an old friendship with Russian model and actress Katia Elizarova in 2013.TAIPEI, Taiwan — Taiwanese news coverage is the best money can buy, says National Taiwan University journalism lecturer Chang Chin-hua.
It’s just too bad for the island’s democratic credentials that she was speaking literally.
Chang and other experts say Chinese government departments have been shaping news coverage here by paying Taiwanese media outlets to run stories that paint China in a sympathetic light. A media watchdog report released last week backs up those claims.
According to The Foundation for the Advancement of Media Excellence (FAME), the island’s five largest daily newspapers printed hundreds of stories that were directly paid for by the Chinese government in the run-up to January’s presidential election.
Ties between Taipei and Beijing have warmed considerably since nationalist President Ma Ying-jeou swept into power in 2008. However, the two sides are technically still at war following their split in 1949. China says it will use force if necessary to bring the island back into the fold.
“China is trying to propagate a united front in Taiwan by promoting the Taiwan-China relationship, while downplaying their human rights problems and lack of freedoms,” said Chang, whose graduate program is widely viewed as the top journalism school in the country.
“This cannot be tolerated. It goes against professionalism and journalism ethics. It cheats the readers, who don’t know what to believe. It destroys the very function of news and readership trust. And it’s also a national security problem,” she said.
More from GlobalPost: Taiwan's nuclear nightmare?
The FAME report says that Chinese government agencies began placing advertorials in Taiwanese print media in 2008, but the number of “embedded” stories — which are published under the guise of objective journalism — more than doubled last year.
Citing national security concerns, Taiwan does not permit Chinese nationals to invest in the island’s media. However, critics claim that Beijing skirts these rules by pumping money through offshore dummy companies, and through Taiwanese businessmen with close ties to mainland authorities.
Tsai Eng-meng, chairman of the food manufacturer Want Want Group, has been singled out by media monitors as one such case. Earlier this month, Tsai came in second on Forbes’ richest Taiwanese list, with a fortune of $6.2 billion USD. He added $1 billion to his net wealth in 2011.
Tsai, who runs many food, real estate, hotel and health businesses in China, recently started purchasing media outlets in Taiwan that champion closer ties between the two sides. He echoes the Beijing line that the Tiananmen massacre in 1989 was overblown by Western media. To date, he has acquired three dailies, including the leading China Times, a TV station and a cable network and has plans to secure to a second cable operator.
Since Tsai purchased The China Times in 2008, a raft of senior journalists and editors have resigned over what they say is the increasing “Sinozation” of the paper.
“The owners influence their writers. If you analyze editorials in these papers then obviously there is a lot more pro-China talk and a lot less about China’s problems. It’s in the [news] pages as well, although it’s more subtle. But it’s there,” Chang said.
More from GlobalPost: Linsanity turned insanity
Freedom House, a US democracy advocate, has noticed the changes too.
In its global press freedom survey, Taiwan fell to 47th place in 2011 from 23rd in 2008. Back then, this diplomatically isolated island about 130 miles off China’s southern coast, was ranked as having the freest press in Asia. Freedom house said it was Asia’s eighth freest media environment in 2011.
"A growing trend of marketing disguised as news reports" took a heavy toll not only on the ranking but media credibility and morale in journalistic circles, the report said. It added: “growing commercial links across the Taiwan Strait raised concerns that media owners and some journalists were whitewashing news about China to protect their financial interests.”
However, some media analysts lay the blame at the doorstep of an industry that has gradually become more fractured along party and societal lines, saying the much-lauded glitter of the country’s free press has been overrated for years.
“Taiwan’s media is a slaughterhouse. They create stories and never apologize for the fallout. Some of them are so prone to distortion that they're more like entertainment businesses,” said George Tsai, vice president of Taiwan Democracy Foundation, an NGO that promotes democratic values in Asia.
Still, China’s forays into Taiwanese media mirrors an aggressive global expansion of what it calls “soft power” — the promotion of the Middle Kingdom through media and the arts.
At last year’s National Congress in Beijing, China announced that the exportation of soft power would become a national interest. Since then, it has spent billions of dollars combatting what it views as unfair bias by Western outlets, with much of that money going towards beefing up its state-run media apparatus in Asia, South America and Africa.
“We are really worried about China’s media push through the rest of developing Asia as well. Obviously a one-party state such as theirs cannot tolerate different points of view,” said Chang.
“They want to use their money to propagate their message. The ‘Free World’ doesn’t seem to understand how serious this could be.”
More from GlobalPost: Burma ready for business?Those in the U.S. military are supposed to have some protection from financial problems, such as auto repossession, while serving. But many financial institutions, including some that claim to have service members’ best interests at heart, have gotten around federal restrictions by using binding arbitration clauses in sales contracts that deny customers, including members of the armed forces, the right to fight their case in the court system and force them into hearings that are stacked in favor of lenders.
In general, federal law requires that lenders must get a court order before repossessing a car owned by an active duty service member. However, sales contracts often contain arbitration clauses in the fine print. They can specify that the lender may choose the arbitrator and the site of the hearing, often on the other side of the country from the service member’s base. Arbitrators’ decisions are usually final and hidden from public view.
John Odom Jr., a retired Air Force lawyer now practicing law in Louisiana, told The New York Times about legal protections for service members that “mandatory arbitration threatens to take these laws and basically tear them up” unless something is done by Congress. But lawmakers have yet to embrace legislation that would allow service members to opt out of arbitration because the financial |
another brisk, pragmatic, funny, no-nonsense Republican Midwesterner with little tolerance for debt, delinquency, dumbness or dereliction of duty. She also reminded me of a great American virtue: getting on with it.
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And it dawned on me that Palin, with her vile near-accusations of treason against Barack Obama, her cloying doggone hymns to small-town U.S.A., her with-us-or-against-us refrain, is really an impostor.
She’s the representative of a kind of last-gasp Republicanism, of an exhausted party, whose proud fiscal conservatism and patriotism have given away to scurrilous fear-mongering and ideological confusion.
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It’s a party in need of a break from power after the Bush years in order to re-learn what Presley represents: the can-do, down-to-earth, honest, industrious, spend-what-you-earn civility of the heartland. That civility has been usurped into Palin’s trash talk.
Presley’s busy, in a tough economic climate, balancing a $61 million budget, trying to preserve jobs, getting a new $500 million convention center rolling, seeking a better balance between development and the environment.
I asked her about the election. “This is an exciting moment,” she said. “An African-American at the top of the Democratic ticket. As Americans we should be proud of that. A woman running for vice president. We can be proud of that, too.”
I asked her if she was a closet liberal. She laughed.
She said her oldest son, Nick, went to Stanford, and she expected him to come back from California “with a tattoo and a piercing.” But, no. He’s now working at the family’s Country Jubilee Theater.
It was one of the first to open on the strip. I’m 53, and I reckon the night I saw the show I lowered the audience’s average age to about 78. Fall is “empty-nester” season — oceans of gray hair.
The audience roared when a hillbilly idiot said something dumb and was rebuked by his father: “Next thing, you’ll believe in global warming!”
So go the culture wars in Branson.
This is red-state central, dear to evangelicals. But Presley has few illusions. Obama has been surging in bellwether Missouri with its long and almost perfect record of voting for the winner. He is now neck and neck with John McCain in the state polls.
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Americans still vote their pocketbooks — always have, always will.
“I can see how the drift is going, but we’ll move on,” the mayor said.
A speech four years ago brought Obama to the national stage: “There is not a liberal America and a conservative America. There is the United States of America. There is not a black America and a white America and Latino America and Asian America. There’s the United States of America.”
I found that spirit in Branson, the last place I expected. And it gave me hope, in these sobering days, for a nation aching to unite behind a new start and uplifting endeavor.Authorities in Maryland said Friday that a bicycle left as a memorial where a retired U.S. Navy SEAL was struck and killed by a vehicle last year has been stolen.
Montgomery County police said the all-white “Ghost Bike” draped with an American flag had been in Bethesda and is believed to have been stolen sometime between May 26 and May 30.
Fox 5 DC reported that a metal award that was in a zip-lock bag at the memorial site is also missing.
The bicycle was placed on the 6100 block of Massachusetts Avenue where Timothy Holden was struck by a 22-year-old motorist last August. Holden, an avid cyclist, was a highly-decorated Navy SEAL. The 64-year-old man was on his way to meet his daughter when he was hit.
Peter Klosky, a family friend, bought and painted the bicycle after Holden’s death and was heartbroken after hearing that it had been stolen.
“Puzzled by the disrespect,” Klosky told Fox 5 DC. “Tim was a great guy. He was a great dad. He was a great husband. He was a great Navy SEAL. The message is that symbols are important and we deserve to be able to have a memorial by the side of the road. Tim Holden's death shouldn't just be completely forgotten. The message is that bicyclists are people too.”
Fox 5 DC reported that Holden’s Ghost Bike wasn’t the only one stolen in Montgomery County.
Holden was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery. He’s survived by his wife, five daughters and three grandchildren.
Police urge anyone with information about the theft of the bicycle to call police at 240-773-6710 or leave an anonymous tip at 240-773-TIPS.
Click for more from Fox 5 DC.New studies pinpoint even more health benefits to exercise, especially brisk walking.
Walking is the most popular — and simplest — physical activity. (Photo11: Philip Wartena for USA TODAY) Story Highlights Recent research highlights the health benefits of regular exercise such as walking
Many people would benefit from picking up the pace of their walks
You should walk fast enough that you can talk but not sing
Regular exercise, such as brisk walking, may be one of the best prescriptions for improving your health, recent research confirms.
One study showed that taking a 15-minute moderate-paced (3 mph) walk about 30 minutes after a meal helped control blood sugar in people who are at risk for developing type 2 diabetes. Other research found that exercise may be as effective as medication in preventing early death in people who have had heart attacks or strokes.
About 25% of all breast cancer cases in women of all ages could be avoided by maintaining a healthy body weight and doing regular physical activity, research shows.
These studies add to a large volume of research on the benefits of regular physical activity. Exercise has been shown to lower the risk of early death, help control weight and reduce the risk of heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, depression, some types of cancer and a host of other conditions.
STORY: How to pick the best shoes for exercise
STORY: Is exercise the best medicine? Studies show benefit
STORY: Worried about diabetes? Walk after every meal
"Walking is really powerful medicine," says Miriam Nelson, a professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University in Boston and co-author of Strong Women Stay Young. "Exercise targets so many different aspects of health."
Almost nothing is easier and cheaper than walking, but many people need to pick up the pace and put some spring into their step, she says. And they need to walk whenever they can: Walk to do errands, walk the dog, go out and enjoy a local park.
It's probably the most convenient physical activity that you can work into your life, says exercise physiologist Richard Cotton, a spokesman for the American College of Sports Medicine in Indianapolis. "It just requires shoes. You can walk wherever you are, even if it's just walking in place in your house or taking the stairs more."
Walking is the most popular form of physical activity among adults in the USA and the most frequently reported activity among adults who meet the federal physical-activity guidelines, the government says.
The physical-activity guidelines recommend getting at least 2½ hours a week of moderate-intensity aerobic activity, such as brisk walking, or one hour and 15 minutes a week of vigorous-intensity aerobic activity, such as jogging. Plus, the guidelines recommend that adults do muscle-strengthening activities, such as push-ups, sit-ups or lifting weights.
So how fast is a brisk walk?
It depends on the person. For some people, a 3 mph pace would be a brisk walk, but for others, that would be a moderate pace, says Nelson, who co-chaired the committee that created the government's physical-activity guidelines. "Brisk means that you get warm while walking, and you can sense that your heart rate is slightly elevated."
Adds Cotton: "You should be able to converse but not sing. You should feel like if you moved any faster, you'd be breathless."
You can time yourself on your loop around the neighborhood, mall or walking trail and push yourself to walk it a bit faster over time, he says. "I carry my smartphone, and I use the MapMyWalk app to track the time and measure the distance."
Mark Fenton, an adjunct associate professor at Tufts University and co-author of Pedometer Walking, offers these suggestions for increasing your walking speed:
• Start with good posture. Stand tall, shoulders back, no sway in your lower back, head up and eyes on the horizon. "This opens your chest for easier breathing and removes tension from the shoulders and neck. It also brings hips into a better position for a powerful stride," he says.
• Focus on quicker steps. "Don't force a longer stride. Let that come naturally. But consciously picking up the step rate will help you boost the speed and intensity of the workout."
• Keep your arms bent at a 90-degree angle at the elbow, like a runner, for a compact, quick arm swing, he says. "It helps you take quicker steps, and there's evidence that a vigorous arm swing increases your caloric expenditure."
• Push vigorously off your toes at the end of every step. "That lengthens your stride, works the calf muscles more and propels the leg forward into the next step."
When it comes to increasing the amount you walk, one way to motivate yourself is to get a pedometer or activity tracker and start tracking your steps and other movement, Fenton says. Wear the pedometer or tracker from the time you get up until you hop into bed. Do that for a few days and figure out your average daily steps. This is your baseline level of activity.
Increase your walking time gradually, adding 10% to 20% to your daily average each week, he says. So if the first week you averaged about 4,000 steps a day, the next week shoot for 4,800 steps a day. Keep boosting by 20% each week, with a goal of eventually getting to 10,000 steps a day (roughly 5 miles of walking, depending on your stride length), Fenton says.
Or, if you don't want to count steps, you can keep track of the number of minutes you exercise each day with the goal of getting at least 30 minutes of conscious physical activity every day, he says.
Fenton offers these tips for walking:
• Schedule your walk just as you would an appointment, so you don't skip it. Even if you can do only five, 10 or 20 minutes, that's better than doing nothing at all.
• Plan your walk for the time of day that you're most likely to make it a permanent habit. There is some evidence that mornings are a little better, because it can't get pushed out of the schedule as easily, but later in the day is fine, too, he says.
• Choose comfortable footwear. Shoes shouldn't scrunch your toes or let your heel slip in and out when you take a step. Replace shoes often — at least every three to five months or 300 to 500 miles, whichever comes first. Err low if you're heavy or tough on shoes.
• If you're just getting started, don't try to do too much too soon, or you may get sore and become frustrated. Start with as little as 10 minutes, but try to move continuously for that whole time. Don't worry about speed at first. Just focus on making your walk a daily habit.
• Keep a record. It can be as simple as writing the number of minutes you walk on a daily calendar, so you can appreciate your progress. "I'm old-school and keep a written exercise diary. I still think it's most effective, because I write in it at bedtime and feel great guilt if I've done nothing," Fenton says.
• Add four minutes of stretching to your daily habit. Stretch at the end of your walk or after warming up.
• Don't ignore or exercise through pain. Always see a doctor if pain is not relieved by several days of rest, ice, massage and elevation. Back off from activities such as walking hills or knee-bending exercises if they cause pain.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1b2Xw7HA group of scientists surveyed the glacier today from the air, aboard a surveillance plane from the Icelandic Coastguard. After the flight, Magnus Tumi Gudmundsson, professor of geophysics at University of Iceland, was interviewed at RUV.
„The most likely scenario is that an eruption has not begun. This morning we saw a large increase in seismic activity and tremors, so it was perfectly rational to assume that an eruption had begun. A subglacial eruption melts the ice and causes floods. We surveyed the glacier for three hours today. I can of course not assert that nothing has happened, but it is clear that there are no signs of abnormal melting or other signs that normally appear during a subglacial eruption. It is therefore likely that the magma has not reached the surface yet - regardless of what will happen later in this process, because this is a fairly large event and those who delay to give timely warnings can carry a large responsibility. Therefore, it was considered proper to be careful today but when more information comes in, the most likely conclusion is that an eruption has not begun, whatever happens later in this event,“ said Magnus this evening on RUV television newscast.
Only time can tell
„The most current information I have is that the latest GPS deformation measurement shows that the dyke intrusion is getting wider and getting longer. That means that magma is still moving. Whether that results in an eruption or not, only time can tell. If we look at the Krafla eruptions, which are the most similar eruptions, we had a lot of dyke intrusions there at the beginning, but much smaller volcanic activity. We don´t know if this activity will show a similar pattern, but we have to be prepared. This run-up is positive in a way, because we have had time to prepare. There are no tourists in the area, so it´s positive that the process has not been more rapid. And of course, we all hope that this will end without an eruption and the ensuing damage.“
The dyke intrusion has been forming over the last few days. It is now believed to be around 25 km. long, and about 0,2 - 0,3 cubic kilometers of magma is thought to have entered the intrusion from a magma chamber beneath the Bardarbunga caldera. The intrusion has been propagating towards the north: it´s lenght seems to have increased by several kilometers just today.
At this stage measurements taken are based on a small event. The Jökulsárgljúfur canyon has been closed and evacuation of tourists in that area and around Dettifoss waterfall has started. The situation at this stage does not call for evacuation of habitants in Kelduhverfi, Öxarfjördur and Núpasveit. People in those areas are encouraged to watch news closely and have their mobiles switched on at all times.
This story, by the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service (RUV), was updated on 23 August 2014, at 20.20 GMT.
Updates in English will be posted at: ruv.is/volcano. Follow us on Twitter @ruvfrettirAmanita muscaria var. muscaria
Mushroom Every so often I get an email asking me if the thing in the attached photo is a mushroom or a toadstool. I want to say: What the fuck does that even mean? But I don't. I just click "delete" and move on with my life. "Mushroom" isn't a scientific term. I once had a very good teacher who defined poetry as "any text someone asks you to consider as poetry." I'm inclined to do more or less the same with "mushrooms." They are fungi, but they are definitely not all fungi (a category that would include, for example, ring worm and the bluish mold that appears on your bread)—so where you want to draw the "mushroom" line within the fungi is up to you. That said, one good way of understanding mushrooms, I think, is to consider them as spore factories. Most of the time, the fungal organism in question spends its time as vegetative mycelium, looking nothing like the "mushroom" thing we're talking about. But when the reproductive urge takes hold (that's called "personification"), the fungus produces a spore factory—a structure to make babies and send them out into the world. Perhaps the organism designs a stem or a pseudostem, preparing to lift the spore-producing shop floor high enough so that the spores will easily catch air currents. Perhaps a cup is created, or a cap, to hold the floor. Asci or basidia, the actual spore-producing machines, are erected all across the floor. Some organisms increase the factory capacity immensely by increasing the floor size with gills, false gills, or tubes. Sometimes the factory adds safety features: veils are erected to cover and protect the machinery until the spores are ready. As soon as the spores are released, the factory shuts down. The "mushroom" wilts, decays, and eventually disappears. But the organism itself continues, perhaps in the same place, if the mycelium has not run out of nutrients—or somewhere else, when spores land in just the right places, germinate, and develop into mycelia. Pictured to the left is probably the most iconic "mushroom" in the world, Amanita muscaria var. muscaria. The Mario Kart mushroom. The old-farm-woman-bending-over-in-her-polka-dotted-dress mushroom. The hookah-smoking-caterpillar-Lewis-Carroll mushroom. Amanita muscaria is one of the more complex and elaborate (and beautiful!) spore factories; it features a long stem, a universal veil to protect the construction of the factory, a partial veil to protect the spore-producing machinery, and the perfect timing required to raise the cap up and expand it to break the veils and release spores.Gazprom has warned that Ukraine might not have enough gas to feed EU transit customers in the coming winter.
The deputy chairman of the Russian firm, Vitaly Markelov, told press in an emailed statement on Thursday (14 November) that Ukraine should have stored 21.5 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas in its underground vats, but that it is likely to have just 14 bcm by the time winter bites.
“It’s a catastrophe … in these conditions, the winter transit of Russian gas won’t be possible because storage won’t be enough to compensate for Ukrainian consumer drawdowns," he said.
Referring to the danger of a 2009-type crisis, which saw power cuts in some eastern EU states, he added: "Everyone knows the risk … it's a serious situation."
The EU gets about 25 percent of its total gas imports from Russia via Ukraine.
But Russia-Ukraine gas relations are in jeopardy on two fronts.
On one hand, Ukraine has been complaining for three years that Gazprom is charging it too much.
On the other hand, Moscow has indicated it will drop the price only if Kiev ditches plans to sign a strategic EU treaty and joins a Russian Customs Union instead.
The two problems are intimately linked.
Ukraine's high price - about $400 per thousand cubic metres (tcm), almost twice what EU customers pay Russia - was fixed in a 2009 contract by the then Ukrainian PM Yulia Tymoshenko.
The contract includes a "take or pay" clause, meaning that Ukraine has to buy a fixed amount or pay for the shortfall anyway.
Ukraine has jailed Tymoshenko for signing the deal, in a move which might well scupper the EU treaty.
At the same time, Ukraine stopped buying from Gazprom last week, amid Russian complaints that it is owed almost $1 billion for 2013.
For its part, the European Commission is being kept in the dark.
An EU official told EUobserver on Thursday that it has no more information than what it reads in Russian and Ukrainian media.
Ukraine's EU embassy and its state-owned gas distributor, Naftogaz, declined to comment.
But Alexander Morozov, HSBC bank's chief economist on Russia and Ukraine, indicated the fate of EU winter supplies rests in the hands of one man: Ukrainian tycoon Dmitry Firtash.
Firtash - who has self-confessed ties to the Russian mafia and who is described by EU diplomats in Kiev as a Kremlin stooge - bought 5 bcm of Russian gas at a discounted price of around $250/tcm.
Morozov said Ukraine is now hoping to fill any EU transit shortfall by buying 3 bcm from Firtash's firm, Ostchem.
He also warned the plan might not work, however.
"There is a dispute on who has the right to Ostchem's gas," he told this website on Thursday from Moscow.
"Reports indicate that Ostchem got the discount on condition that Gazprom can buy back the gas if European demand is higher than expected. But it is unclear how this arrangement would work if he has sold the gas to Naftogaz," the analyst said.
Morozov noted that secrecy on details of the 2009 Russia-Ukraine contract and political factors make the situation unpredictable.
"The mood [in the Kremlin] changes every day," he noted.
"I think there will be more clarity after the EU summit in Vilnius, when we know which way Ukraine is going," he said, referring to an EU meeting with former Soviet countries in Lithuania on 27 November, at which Kiev might ink the EU treaty.
He added that his "best guess" is "there won't be a problem" on EU gas because "neither Russia or Ukraine is interested in this kind of development."
His "guess" was borne out by Gazprom's financial statement on this year's quarter two earnings.
It said on Thursday that its gas deliveries to Europe went up 15.6 percent in 2013 so far.
"Gazprom’s European gas export data reaffirms good prospects for the entire year," it noted, describing itself as "the only reliable external supplier able to increase supplies to European markets."For Immediate Release, September 29, 2017 Contact: Lori Ann Burd, (971) 717-6405, laburd@biologicaldiversity.org Court: EPA Must Reveal Information on Pesticides' Harms to Endangered Species Agency Rebuked for Withholding Documents on Enlist Duo's Threats to Whooping Cranes, Other Imperiled Wildlife WASHINGTON— Responding to a lawsuit filed by the Center for Biological Diversity, a federal judge has ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency failed to justify withholding more than 140 documents on the harm to protected wildlife from the highly toxic pesticide Enlist Duo. The case involved the EPA’s controversial decision to approve use of Enlist Duo in 16 states even though the agency found the herbicide likely puts dozens of endangered and threatened species at risk. Thursday’s ruling indicated the EPA must be much more forthcoming in revealing the science that underpins its decisions on pesticides’ harms to endangered plants and animals. Calling the EPA’s reasons for withholding the documents on Enlist Duo “jumbled and disorganized,” the judge wrote that the agency inspired “little confidence” that it has “adequately kept track of each withheld document or fully considered, let alone explained, the basis for withholdings.” “When the EPA claims a dangerous pesticide is safe, the agency needs to make its reasoning clear to the public,” said Lori Ann Burd, environmental health director at the Center. “We’ve got a right to know how the EPA concludes that highly toxic concoctions like Enlist Duo are safe for people and wildlife when research shows otherwise.” Enlist Duo’s maker, Dow Chemical, pushed the EPA to approve the pesticide to combat the superweed epidemic fueled by overuse of glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup. During research on Enlist Duo, a Center scientist discovered that Dow's patent applications regarding the pesticide’s two components — 2,4-D and glyphosate — showed synergy, or heightened toxicity, between the two ingredients in 99 out of 99 experimental conditions. Yet after reviewing four Enlist Duo studies provided by Dow to the EPA the agency concluded there is no synergy between glyphosate and 2,4-D. When the Center requested but failed to receive records of the EPA’s analysis, it was forced to sue the agency for failing to comply with the Freedom of Information Act. In her ruling Judge Beryl Howell of the District Court for the District of Columbia ordered the agency to better justify why it is shielding the documents from public view or turn over the documents to the Center and the public within 30 days. The judge rebuked the EPA for withholding what appear to be scientific, factual records as privileged and for failing to provide documents revealing the agency’s communications with industry and states. The EPA has now expanded approval of Enlist Duo’s use to 34 states.Free agent Zack Cozart has signed a three-year deal with the Los Angeles Angels. The deal keeps him in an Angels uniform through the 2020 season. Jon Heyman reports that the deal is worth $38 million over the three years.
The #Angels have agreed to terms on a three-year contract with INF Zack Cozart. — Angels PR (@LAAngelsPR) December 15, 2017
Angels agree to deal with cozart. 38M for 3 years @Ken_Rosenthal reported. That makes two great shortstops for them. Big winter in Anaheim. — Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) December 15, 2017
Zack Cozart signs with the Los Angeles Angels
Cozart, 31, played in 122 games for the Cincinnati Reds last season. He hit.297/.385/.548 with 24 home runs and 63 RBI in 136 games. Cozart has played solid defense throughout his career and finished 2017 with a.975 fielding percentage and a 4.9 WAR; however, he was not a huge threat on the base paths, ending the year with three stolen bases. Overall, Cozart had a great season last year as he was able to make his first all-star appearance in 2017.
Cozart has played seven seasons in the majors, all of them with Cincinnati. He has hit.254/.305/.411 in his career with 82 home runs, 280 RBI, and 21 stolen bases.
The Reds are currently in a rebuild and decided to not extend Cozart a $17.4 million qualifying offer. Instead, they are looking to test the market for shortstops in free agency. Cincinnati did not extend a QO to Cozart in order to avoid their payroll going over $100 million before the off-season begins. While it’s understandable for the Reds to be concerned about their payroll, Cozart has been a huge help in the Queen City. The Reds have been sellers at the trade deadline for some time and have seen a lot of turnover. It would be nice to sign a player such as Cozart who the Reds can rely on as they continue to rebuild.
The 31-year-old shortstop has made two playoff appearances in his career, the first coming in the 2012 NLDS against the San Francisco Giants, and the other coming in the 2013 wild-card game against the Pittsburgh Pirates. Cozart hit.238/.333/.238 against the Giants in 2012, but only managed to get a walk in the 2013 wild-card game against the Pirates.
It is believed that Cozart will play third base for the Angels, transitioning from his normal position of shortstop.
Main Photo:
Embed from Getty ImagesThe stuff of science fiction is about to be U.S. law after Congress approved the Space Act on Monday, paving the way for private companies to own any natural resources they manage to mine from asteroids.
With potentially trillions of dollars at stake, futurists said the bill is a bold statement of American leadership, keeping the burgeoning private spaceflight industry free of heavy government regulations and extending what’s been dubbed the “learning period” of freewheeling experimentation that companies have relied on to test their plans without fear of crippling lawsuits.
The legislation also extends the U.S. commitment to the International Space Station and clears the way for government astronauts to fly on private spacecraft, giving NASA a future alternative to hitching a ride on Russian rockets at $70 million a flight.
“This bill encourages the private sector to launch rockets, take risks and shoot for the stars,” said Rep. Lamar Smith, Texas Republican and chairman of the Science Committee.
The bill passed the House on a voice vote after clearing the Senate last week on a unanimous vote. It now goes to President Obama, who had suggested tweaks earlier in the process, but has not threatened a veto of the bipartisan bill.
Analysts dubbed the legislation an early attempt at setting some of the rules for commercial space, but it’s filled with aspirational language that envisions the heavens teeming with human activities. One section even directs the U.S. government to develop a plan to handle “orbital traffic management” for all of the space traffic that’s expected.
A few critics said they were troubled by the bill’s grant of liability immunity to spaceflight companies, putting responsibility on passengers.
Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, Texas Democrat, said she didn’t see how the bill could on the one hand deem the industry is so developed that it is now allowed to carry government astronauts but not developed enough to allow the Federal Aviation Administration to impose rules.
“When an inevitable accident with a significant loss of life occurs … the American public will look back at what we’re doing today and wonder how we could be so short-sighted,” she said.
The bill also gives space lawyers plenty to argue over — including whether the U.S. is allowed to recognize private companies’ rights to mine material from asteroids for their own gain.
“A United States citizen engaged in commercial recovery of an asteroid resource or a space resource under this chapter shall be entitled to any asteroid resource or space resource obtained, including to possess, own, transport, use, and sell the asteroid resource or space resource obtained in accordance with applicable law, including the international obligations of the United States,” the legislation states.
Some analysts said that contradicts the Outer Space Treaty, which the U.S. ratified in 1967, and which declares no country can appropriate part of outer space.
But others say that only prevents governments from owning outer space, and companies willing to risk their money — and, potentially, their lives — to mine asteroids will prevail on their claims.
“This will be inevitably the subject of international discussions,” said Henry R. Hertzfeld, a research professor of space policy at George Washington University.
He said he does not believe the bill is a violation of treaties, and said the Space Act generally reflects in law something that has already been U.S. government policy for years.
Two companies — Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries — have already announced intentions to mine asteroids.
John S. Lewis, who is now Deep Space Industries’ chief scientist, predicted in a 1996 book that the value of the minerals circling in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter is “equivalent to about 100 billion dollars for every person on Earth today.”
And even if asteroids aren’t mined for Earth, he said they could supply minerals needed to build space structures if colonization of the solar system becomes a reality. Comets, meanwhile, could provide water — made up of hydrogen and oxygen — needed to produce fuel.
Planetary Resources said it was ecstatic with Monday’s vote, and compared it to the Homestead Act of 1862 that helped open the American frontier to exploration for gold and timber, saying the Space Act will create a new economy.
“This off-planet economy will forever change our lives for the better here on Earth,” said Chris Lewicki, the company’s president and chief engineer.
The bill was sponsored by Rep. Kevin McCarthy, California Republican and House majority leader, who said it will usher in a “new era of innovation and adventure.” His district includes the Mojave Air and Space Port, which is the chief civilian spacecraft testing facility in the U.S.
“This bill will unite law with innovation — allowing the next generation of pioneers to experiment, learn and succeed without being constrained by premature regulatory action,” he said.
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.Paul Gauguin’s famous painting in 1897 asks: “Whence do we come? What are we? Whither are we going?” Mark Bryan would add, “Why do we screw everything up?”
Mark Bryan’s paintings react to what is currently going on in the world politically and socially, but portrays his stories with a sense of humor and exaggeration, as any proper satirist would. His paintings are colorful and laced with symbolism, often containing subtle and multiple meanings. He often loads his paintings with frivolous and stupid ideas committed by the human race.
Bread and Circus originates from the Roman satirist Juvenal. The idea was that as long as the common people were supplied with plenty of bread and entertainment, then there would not be too much trouble for the ruling class. They could go about their business as they pleased without much scrutiny or interference. Juvenal’s stance was that since life in Rome had become so corrupt and decadent that the only valid form of art was satire.[Chris] has been playing with the Amazon Echo. It’s sort of like having Siri or Google Now available as part of your home, but with built-in support for certain other home automation appliances like those from Belkin WeMo and Philips. The problem was [Chris] didn’t want to be limited to only those brands. He had other home automation gear that he felt should work with Amazon Echo, but didn’t. That’s when he came up with the clever idea to just emulate one of the supported platforms.
The WeMo devices use UPnP to perform certain functions over the network. [Chris] wanted to see how these communications actually worked, so he fired up his laptop and put his WiFi adapter into monitor mode. Then he used Wireshark to start collecting packets. He found that the device detection function starts out with the Echo searching for WeMo devices using UPnP. The device then responds to the Echo with the device’s URL using HTTP over UDP. The Echo then requests the device’s description using that HTTP URL. The description is then returned as an HTTP response.
The actual “on/off” functionality of the WeMo devices is simpler since the Echo already knows about the device. The Echo simply connects to the WeMo over the HTTP interface and issues a “SetBinaryState” command. The WeMo then obliges and returns a confirmation via HTTP.
[Steve] was able to use this information to set up his own WeMo “virtual cloud”. Each virtual device would have its own IP address. They would also need to have a listener for UDP broadcasts as well as an HTTP listener running on the WeMo port 49153. Each virtual device would also need to be able to respond to the UPnP discovery requests and the “on/off” commands.
[Chris] used a Linux server, creating a new virtual Ethernet interface for each virtual WeMo switch. A single Python script runs the WeMo emulation, listening for the UPnP broadcast and sending a different response for each virtual device. Part of the response includes the device’s “friendly name”, which is what the Echo listens for when the user says voice commands. Since the virtual WeMo devices are free, this allows [Chris] to make multiple phrases for each device. So rather than be limited to “television”, he can also make a separate device for “TV” that performs the same function. [Chris] is also no longer limited to only specific brands of home automation gear.
There’s still a long way to go in hacking this device. There’s a lot of hardware under the hood to work with. Has anyone else gotten their hands (and bench tools) on one of these?John Kelly John Francis KellyMORE White House chief of staffpraised Mexico and Central American countries for their roles in drug interdiction on Thursday, while also making an argument for increased border security.
Responding to a question from The Hill, Kelly talked about the role Mexico plays in fighting trafficking across the border.
"Places like Mexico, Central America suffer more from our drug demand, and do more in many ways to stop that drug flow than we do in our own country," he said.
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Kelly, the former secretary of Homeland Security (DHS) and head of the U.S. Southern Command, is widely considered an expert on transnational crime in the Americas.
At DHS and the White House, Kelly's been central in advancing the Trump administration's policy on immigration and border security.
President Trump's push on border security started at his presidential announcement speech in June 2015, where he portrayed Mexico as lawless, an image he's fostered to argue for the need for increased border security.
But Kelly praised the Mexican government for its role in border security, saying the United States doesn't pull its weight on fighting demand within the United States for the drugs.
"We have great relationships with the Mexicans on the border. They're in the counter-drug fight with the United States. In fact, in my view, suffer more from the drug — our drug demand — which we don't seem to address," said Kelly.
Still, when comparing the northern and southern borders, Kelly warned the dangers of transnational crime were much more prevalent to the south.
"[We] don’t have nearly the issues on the northern border with Canada. Great partnerships there," he said. "But the problem with our southern border is the drug flow and the illegal immigration flow rides on a network that right now comes up through into the Western Hemisphere from abroad, up through Mexico — Central America and Mexico — and into the United States."
Kelly added that, despite the cooperation from Mexico, he favored increasing the size of the existing border wall.
"We definitely need more wall or physical barrier. We have about 600 miles of that border now secured by some type of physical barrier," he said.The authors wrote in their Op-Ed that Mr. Trump’s white working-class supporters were “clearly voting against a party leadership that pays them lip service while ignoring their concerns” — a revulsion that will not disappear even if Mr. Trump does.
Proponents of a new conservative agenda have critics in both parties. Democrats dismiss their ideas as repackaging a familiar right |
cycle of the Gregorian calendar has 7005146097000000000♠146097 days and hence exactly 7004208710000000000♠20871 weeks.
"Greater" astronomical years [ edit ]
Equinoctial cycle [ edit ]
The Great Year, or equinoctial cycle, corresponds to a complete revolution of the equinoxes around the ecliptic. Its length is about 25,700 years.
Galactic year [ edit ]
The Galactic year is the time it takes Earth's solar system to revolve once around the galactic center. It comprises roughly 230 million Earth years.[17]
Seasonal year [ edit ]
A seasonal year is the time between successive recurrences of a seasonal event such as the flooding of a river, the migration of a species of bird, the flowering of a species of plant, the first frost, or the first scheduled game of a certain sport. All of these events can have wide variations of more than a month from year to year.
Symbols [ edit ]
In the International System of Quantities the symbol for the year as a unit of time is a, taken from the Latin word annus.[18]
In English, the abbreviations "y" or "yr" are more commonly used in non-scientific literature, but also specifically in geology and paleontology, where "kyr, myr, byr" (thousands, millions, and billions of years, respectively) and similar abbreviations are used to denote intervals of time remote from the present.[18][19][20]
Symbol [ edit ]
NIST SP811[21] and ISO 80000-3:2006[22] support the symbol a as the unit of time for a year. In English, the abbreviations y and yr are also used.[18][19][20]
The Unified Code for Units of Measure[23] disambiguates the varying symbologies of ISO 1000, ISO 2955 and ANSI X3.50[24] by using:
a t = 7002365242190000000♠ 365.242 19 days for the mean tropical year; a j = 365.25 days for the mean Julian year; a g = 7002365242500000000♠ 365.2425 days for the mean Gregorian year;
where:
a, without a qualifier = 1 a j ; and, ar for are, is a unit of area.
The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) and the International Union of Geological Sciences have jointly recommended defining the annus, with symbol a, as the length of the tropical year in the year 2000:
a = 7007315569254450000♠ 31 556 925.445 seconds (approximately 7002365242192650000♠ 365.242 192 65 ephemeris days)
This differs from the above definition of 365.25 days by about 20 parts per million. The joint document says that definitions such as the Julian year "bear an inherent, pre-programmed obsolescence because of the variability of Earth’s orbital movement", but then proposes using the length of the tropical year as of 2000 AD (specified down to the millisecond), which suffers from the same problem.[25][26] (The tropical year oscillates with time by more than a minute.)
The notation has proved controversial as it conflicts with an earlier convention among geoscientists to use a specifically for years ago, and y or yr for a one-year time period.[26]
SI prefix multipliers [ edit ]
For the following, there are alternative forms which elide the consecutive vowels, such as kilannus, megannus, etc. The exponents and exponential notations are typically used for calculating and in displaying calculations, and for conserving space, as in tables of data.
Abbreviations yr and ya [ edit ]
In astronomy, geology, and paleontology, the abbreviation yr for years and ya for years ago are sometimes used, combined with prefixes for thousand, million, or billion.[19][29] They are not SI units, using y to abbreviate the English "year", but following ambiguous international recommendations, use either the standard English first letters as prefixes (t, m, and b) or metric prefixes (k, M, and G) or variations on metric prefixes (k, m, g). In archaeology, dealing with more recent periods, normally expressed dates, e.g. "22,000 years ago" may be used as a more accessible equivalent of a Before Present ("BP") date.
These abbreviations include:
Use of mya and bya is deprecated in modern geophysics, the recommended usage being Ma and Ga for dates Before Present, but "m.y." for the duration of epochs.[19][20] This ad hoc distinction between "absolute" time and time intervals is somewhat controversial amongst members of the Geological Society of America.[31]
Note that on graphs, using ya units on the horizontal axis time flows from right to left, which may seem counter-intuitive. If the ya units are on the vertical axis, time flows from top to bottom which is probably easier to understand than conventional notation.[clarification needed]
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Further reading [ edit ]You hear them before you see them, the loud bursts of buzzing growing close like an angry swarm of bees heading your way — bzzzz.
And then they come into view, a pack of 20, 30, 40 young men on dirt bikes and four wheelers whizzing by, winding through curious onlookers and cars on the streets of the near-eastside, with complete indifference to traffic laws and, seemingly, their own safety.
The riders lift up their front wheels, leaning back as far as they can, cruising on rear rubber while peeking their heads out to the side to see what's coming. Wheelies, after all, reign supreme for the Mt. Pleasant Wheelie Kings.
"That feeling of being on a bike is just no fear," says 30-year-old James, known as "Smoke," a main figure in Cleveland's growing dirt bike subculture and leader of the MPWK group. "I couldn't even explain it to you unless you felt it yourself. You're on top of the world — people riding up alongside you, people got their cameras out, everybody on the street yelling, 'Throw it up.' It's just the power of the stunt. It's an unbelievable feeling. I'd think it's like flying, that flying feeling."
The MPWK crew and the rest of Cleveland's dirt bike riders prefer riding motocross-style bikes and fourwheelers over standard street motorcycles because they're better for stunts and not as expensive.
"It's a smaller machine and it's more fun," says Smoke, who mainly rides a blue YZ 125. You get a pretty good bike for $1,200, maybe $1,500, he said, but prices can fluctuate hundreds of dollars for the same type of bike depending on who's selling and who's buying.
And a lot of people are buying.
Cleveland Bike Life from Vanice Alexander on Vimeo.
Sightings of urban dirt bikers have blossomed in recent years — similar booms have occurred in Miami, Atlanta, Baltimore and other cities — and with social media displaying their tricks and stunts far and wide, more and more people have and will get a taste of the rush of "Cleveland bike life," as they call it.
With an increase in riders —Smoke guesses there are roughly 250 guys in Cleveland riding dirt bikes — comes an evolving cat-and-mouse game with Cleveland police, who are in charge of thwarting the illegal biking: Most of the bikes aren't exactly street-legal and neither is how they're being ridden. Police could shore up the city's budget with fines if they handed out as many tickets as are probably warranted, but the cops can't always get to them.
"They get really tired of chasing people around here," says one rider at an auto garage in a neighborhood off Union Avenue, where a group of 25 guys gathered one recent Sunday afternoon to tune up their bikes and hang out before a big group ride through city streets. "And even if they do chase you, all you gotta do is turn around. They see you stop on a dime — drrrrr —and whip that bitch around, they're like, 'All right, fuck it.'"
How the cops respond to the bikers depends on the day, ranging anywhere on the response spectrum from complete passivity to blasting pepper spray out the window as they ride past, to, according to the riders, ramming them off their bikes with their bumpers. Last week, MPWK's "T.J." was rushed to the hospital after police in an unmarked SUV pulled out and chased him (against department policy) and caused him to hit a car, according to the crew, who said the cops kept on driving as the biker lay splayed motionless on the ground. Things like that piss them off, naturally, but by no means does that have them considering stopping.
"You aren't gonna stop this. This urban dirt bike culture is here, it's evolving," says Smoke, who's in the tow truck business. "In the last two or three years, Cleveland's been getting into it. A few years ago, you couldn't find five people riding, now you can find 40. It's getting big and it's here to stay."
When it comes to police, there's strength in numbers for the riders, they explained. The more of them in the group, the less likely somebody's going to be pinched. But if they can single you out, separate you from the group somehow or catch you alone, chances get bumped up.
"The bikes don't really get tickets," he says. "They're mostly non-registered bikes. When you start getting tickets, that's because you made your bike street-legal and then you can get the red light tickets and all that. It's no license plate, so you don't really get tickets as far as that. But if your bike was to get impounded or something like that, they would charge you with tickets then: reckless operation and so on. Sometimes guys' bikes get impounded and they can't charge the person or whatever because they just caught the bike, so they just charge the bike with the tickets. So when you go to get your bike out of the impound, you got a certain amount of tickets on it when it was towed."
But the perception that the crew of mostly black bike riders is a roving band of criminals hellbent on terrorizing the city bothers them too. For outsiders, it's easy to ascribe motives and stereotypes that simply aren't true.
"I want people to know it's not always what they think," Smoke says. Some people on dirt bikes and quads are shitheads, sure, and he can't vouch for everybody who chooses to ride (not everybody who rides with them is affiliated with MPWK, and not everybody who rides in Cleveland is with this larger group). But simply riding with these guys doesn't implicitly make you a criminal or bad person, depending on how one views traffic laws and a few people taking an occasional hit off a joint.
"It's a brotherhood, not a gang; it's just having fun," he says, differentiating his crew from actual gangs and established motorcycle clubs with formal organizational structures and dues-paying members.
It's not hard to see what Smoke's talking about and why it pisses him off. Take, for instance, a panicky June 2013 WKYC news segment about the "growing problem" of "dirt bikers menacing the city streets." It's sensationalized local TV news fodder tailor-made for the cloistered suburban crowd when they were talking about MPWK.
"A group of dirt-bike bullies are terrorizing a local neighborhood," read concerned anchor Kris Pickel from the news desk. "They're being called dangerous, and in one case, violent."
Pickel kicks it to reporter Lynna Lai for a live shot in a Cleveland police parking lot.
"Good evening, Kris. Yes, Cleveland police first started seeing dirt bikes on city streets about four or five years ago, but now the problem has exploded," Lai reports, as she walks between parked police cars. "Why? Because dirt bikes are cheap, they're often stolen, they're tough to trace, and now they're becoming a dangerous trend."
A video package rolls, showing laughing children at a playground with a Lai voiceover: "They're the sights and sounds of summertime in Cleveland's Glenville neighborhood, but sometimes the sweet sounds are shattered by a loud and growing problem." They cut to a cell phone video showing how loud dirt bikes can be as they ride through a neighborhood.
It cuts to then-Cleveland police captain, now commander, Dennis Hill, standing outside the Fifth District police station: "We're concerned about the safety, obviously, of the rider, and anybody the rider might encounter: other motorists, pedestrians. It's also a quality of life issue."
The reporter then goes on to imply riders are in gangs because two dirt bike riders were murdered. "Last month, two members of a Cleveland bike group were shot and killed while riding through East 173rd and Throckley. Police call it a targeted murder. So far, no arrests.
"Meanwhile, stopping these dirt bikers would be easy," she says, "if police could catch them first."
"Our policy does not allow us to pursue," Hill says.
"You know they know that too" Lai chimes in to Hill.
"It is unfortunate that they know that," Hill responds, "but we'll live to see them another day."
End of segment.
"That was us," says Smoke. "When you don't understand something, that's when you try to label it."
In all its vague and accusatory tones, the report did get something sort of correct: Many, but not all, of bikes were stolen at some point in the bike's existence. The paperwork — the bike's title registered with the Ohio BMV — isn't often included when they are bought and sold. It's tough to know which ones were parted with on legal and mutually agreed upon terms and which ones weren't.
Smoke says he's been working hard to change that, especially the perception earned in the early years when some in the MPWK crew developed a reputation for straight up stealing bikes.
"My crew, we don't steal no bikes," he says. "Now, there's been guys on hot bikes, but I've been working hard to get them legit bikes."NOTE: Photos are now available of the wreckage from the Malaysian airliner crash. Notice the extensive debris and the large section of fuselage. You are observing remains of an airliner that was hit with a missile at 33,000 feet and fell to impact land. Remember, no such debris was present at the site where the airliner is alleged to have hit the Pentagon and at the alleged crash site in Pennsylvania of the 4th 9/11 hijacked airliner. Give that some thought. No doubt but that the 9/11 Commission will conclude that only Malaysian airliners leave debris.
The unilateral US sanctions announced by Obama on July 16 blocking Russian weapons and energy companies access to US bank loans demonstrate Washington’s impotence. The rest of the world, including America’s two largest business organizations, turned their backs on Obama. The US Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers placed ads in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post protesting US sanctions. NAM said that the manufacturer’s association is “disappointed that the US is extending sanctions in increasingly unilateral ways that will undermine US commercial engagement.” Bloomberg reported that “meeting in Brussels, leaders of the European Union refused to match the US measures.”
In attempting to isolate Russia, the White House Fool has isolated Washington.
The sanctions will have no effect on the Russian companies. The Russian companies can get more bank loans than they need from China, or from France and Germany.
The three traits that define Washington–arrogance, hubris, and corruption–make Washington a slow learner. Arrogant people wallowing in hubris are incapable of learning. When they encounter resistance they respond with bribes, threats, and coercion. Diplomacy requires learning ability, but Washington left diplomacy years ago and relies on force.
Consequently, with its sanctions Washington is undermining its own power and influence. Sanctions are encouraging countries to withdraw from the dollar payments system that is the foundation of US power. Christian Noyer, Governor of the Bank of France and a member of the European Central Bank’s Governing Council, said that Washington’s sanctions are driving companies and countries out of the dollar payments system. The huge sum extorted from the French bank, BNP Paribas, for doing business with countries disapproved by Washington makes clear the increased legal risks that arise from using the dollar when Washington makes the rules.
Washington’s attack on the French bank was the occasion for many to remember the numerous past sanctions and to contemplate future sanctions, such as those that loom for Germany’s Commerzbank. A movement to diversify the currencies used in international trade is inevitable. Noyer pointed out that trade between Europe and China does not need to use the dollar and can be fully paid in Euros or Renminbi.
The phenomenon of US rules expanding to all US dollar-denominated transactions around the world is accelerating the movement away from the dollar payment system. Some countries have already arranged bilateral agreements with trading partners to make their trade payments in their own currencies. The BRICS are establishing new payment methods independently of the dollar and are setting up their own International Monetary Fund to finance trade imbalances.
The US dollar’s exchange value depends on its role in the international payments system. As this role shrivels, so will demand for dollars and the dollar’s exchange value. Inflation will enter the US economy via import prices, and already hard-pressed Americans will experience more compression of their living standards.
In the 21st century distrust has been growing of Washington. Washington’s lies, such as Iraq’s “weapons of mass destruction,” “Assad’s use of chemical weapons,” and “Iranian nukes” are recognized as lies by other governments. The lies were used by Washington to destroy countries and to threaten others with destruction, keeping the world in constant turmoil. Washington delivers no benefit that offsets the turmoil that Washington inflicts on everyone else. Washington’s friendship requires complying with Washington’s demands, and governments are concluding that Washington’s friendship is not worth the high cost.
The NSA spy scandal and Washington’s refusal to apologize and desist has deepened the distrust of Washington by its own allies. World polls show that other countries regard the US as the greatest threat to peace. The American people themselves have no confidence in their government. Polls show that a large majority of Americans believe that politicians, the presstitute media, and private interest groups such as Wall Street and the military/security complex rig the system to serve themselves at the expense of the American people.
Washington’s empire is beginning to crack, a circumstance that will bring desperate action from Washington. Today (July 17) I heard a BBC news report on National Public Radio about a Malaysian airliner being shot down in Ukraine. The reporting might have been honest, but it sounded like a frame-up of Russia and the Ukrainian “separatists.” As the BBC solicited more biased opinions, the broadcast ended with a report from social media that separatists had brought down the airliner with a Russian weapon system.
No one on the program wondered what the separatists had to gain by shooting down an airliner. Instead, the discussion was whether once Russian responsibility was established, would this force the EU to endorse tougher US sanctions against Russia. The BBC was following Washington’s script and heading the story where Washington wanted it to go.
The appearance of a Washington operation is present. All the warmongers were ready on cue. US Vice President Joe Biden declared that the airliner was “blown out of the sky.” It was “not an accident.” Why would a person without an agenda be so declarative prior to having any information? Clearly, Biden was not implying that it was Kiev that blew the airliner out of the sky. Biden was at work in advance of the evidence blaming Russia. Indeed, the way Washington operates, it will pile on blame until it needs no evidence.
Senator John McCain jumped on the supposition that there were US citizens aboard to call for punitive actions against Russia before the passenger list and the cause of the airliner’s fate are known.
The “investigation” is being conducted by Washington’s puppet regime in Kiev. I think we already know what the conclusion will be.
The probability is high that we are going to have more fabricated evidence, such as the fabricated evidence presented by US Secretary of State Colin Powell to the UN “proving” the existence of the non-existent Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction.” Washington has succeeded with so many lies, deceptions and crimes that it believes that it can always succeed again.
At this time as I write, we have no reliable information about the airliner, but the Roman question always pertains: “Who benefits?” There is no conceivable motive for separatists to shoot down an airliner, but Washington did have a motive–to frame-up Russia–and possibly a second motive. Among the reports or rumors there is one that says Putin’s presidential plane flew a similar route to that of the Malaysian airliner within 37 minutes of one another. This report has led to speculation that Washington decided to rid itself of Putin and mistook the Malaysian airliner for Putin’s jet. RT reports that the two airplanes are similar in appearance. http://rt.com/news/173672-malaysia-plane-crash-putin/
Before you say Washington is too sophisticated to mistake one airliner for another, keep in mind that when Washington shot down an Iranian airliner over Iranian air space, the US Navy claimed that it thought the 290 civilians that it murdered were in an Iranian fighter jet, a F-14 Tomcat fighter, a US-made fighter that was a mainstay of the US Navy. If the US Navy cannot tell its own workhorse fighter aircraft from an Iranian airliner, clearly the US can confuse two airliners that the RT report shows appear very similar.
During the entire BBC frame-up of Russia, no one mentioned the Iranian passenger airliner that the US “blew out of the sky.” No one put sanctions on Washington.
Whatever the outcome of the Malaysian airliner incident, it demonstrates a danger in Putin’s soft policy toward Washington’s ongoing hard intervention in Ukraine. Putin’s decision to respond with diplomacy instead of with military means to Washington’s provocations in Ukraine gave Putin a winning hand, as evidenced by the opposition to Obama’s sanctions by the EU and US business interests. However, by not bringing a quick forceable end to the Washington-sponsored conflict in Ukraine, Putin has left the door open for the devious machinations in which Washington specializes.
If Putin had accepted the requests of the former Russian territories in eastern and southern Ukraine to rejoin Mother Russia, the Ukrainian imbroglio would have come to an end months ago, and Russia would not be running risks of being framed-up.
Putin did not get the full benefit of refusing to send troops into the former Russian territories, because Washington’s official position is that Russian troops are operating in Ukraine. When facts do not support Washington’s agenda, Washington disposes of the facts. The US media blames Putin as the perpetrator of violence in Ukraine. It is Washington’s accusation, not any known facts, that is the basis for the sanctions.
As there is no act too dastardly for Washington to undertake, Putin and Russia could become victims of a devious machination.
Russia seems hypnotized by the West and motivated to be included as a part of the West. This desire for acceptance plays into Washington’s hands. Russia does not need the West, but Europe needs Russia. One option for Russia is to tend to Russian interests and wait for Europe to come courting.
The Russian government should not forget that Washington’s attitude toward Russia is formed by the Wolfowitz Doctrine which states:
“Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power.”
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts’ latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West and How America Was Lost.Firefighters continue to battle hot spots from a fire near a Halifax business park and officials said Tuesday afternoon they weren't prepared to declare it extinguished just yet.
Fire crews resumed battling the blaze near Bayers Lake early Tuesday morning after it broke out on Monday.
The fire is about six hectares in size and officials with the Department of Natural Resources said someone most likely started it by accident.
Feeling the forest for hidden fires
Dave Steeves of Natural Resources said they had 11 people in the woods this morning. Halifax Fire sent seven people out.
"Their objectives today were to re-enforce the initial attack lines that we established last night. We do have a hose line around the perimeter of the fire, so the fire is not growing," he said.
"We're hoping the weather is going to work in our favour and give us a chance to make some significant ground today."
Fire crews were on hands and knees feeling the forest floor to find any hot spots. Steeves said the time-consuming work is tiring and won't likely be complete for a few days.
"When it comes to any type of wild-lands situation, fire can hide in some pretty dark places: under rocks, under roots," he said. "Right now we're in our mop-up phase."
Crews took a supper break late in the afternoon and planned to be on site until dark.
Halifax Fire tweeted that DNR would have crews on scene until there was a significant amount of rain.
The fire bordered on power lines that are some of the main lines carrying electricity across the province. Nova Scotia Power said clear-cutting around the power lines helped starve the fire of material to burn, helping to contain it.
No-burn order in place
The dry, hot weather has Mainland Nova Scotia under a no-burn order, while Cape Breton has restrictions on when people can start fires. Brush burning and campfires are allowed there only between seven at night and eight in the morning.
There is a high risk of wildfires in most of the province.Jon Lester issues injury update on the baseball that had the misfortune of hitting Jake Arrieta
If you consider yourself a baseball fan and somehow managed to miss Wednesday night's postseason showdown, you've by now surely caught the highlights of the Cubs' first postseason win since 2003. Jake Arrieta was (surprise) on point, tossing an 11-K shutout and stealing a base in the 4-0 Cubbies win.
That stolen base of his came after he was plunked in the hip by Pirates reliever Tony Watson. The benches cleared, Arrieta eventually took his base and Sean Rodriguez took his frustration out on a dugout Gatorade cooler.
Well now that the NL Wild Card Game presented by Budweiser is over and the dust has settled on that little dustup, Jon Lester -- who is slated to start Game 1 of the NLDS against the Cardinals on Friday -- took to Twitter to offer an injury update in wake of the HBP that sparked it. Don't worry, Arrieta is fine. The ball that hit him, though? Not so much:
Update: the ball that hit @JArrieta34 suffered a deep contusion to the left stitch and is out for the rest of the season. #LetsGo #NVRQT - Jon Lester (@JLester34) October 8, 2015
While there's no immediate timetable for its return, the ball is expected to be ready to report to 2016 Spring Training.Many of the progressive wish list issues Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) advocate for as they campaign were achieved in Oregon in the last year.
Oregon's new governor, Kate Brown (D), was in Washington, D.C., last February for a conference of secretaries of state when then-Gov. John Kitzhaber (D) summoned her home. She met him in his office, expecting the governor to tell her he was resigning because of a growing controversy over his fiancee’s role in his administration.
But Kitzhaber had changed his mind about stepping down, and instead asked Brown why she came back from the conference early. She issued a statement at the time calling the interaction "a bizarre and unprecedented situation."
Kitzhaber had yet another change of heart, succumbing to calls for his resignation the day after Brown issued her statement. She had just five days to prepare before being sworn in as his replacement on Feb. 18, 2015.
Since taking office, Democratic majorities in both chambers of the legislature have sent Brown bills addressing such progressive measures as expanding voting rights, access to birth control and background checks for gun purchases, as well as enacting paid sick leave and making community college nearly free for thousands of students.
Brown has tried to balance "fighting for working families and making sure we open the doors of opportunity to every single Oregonian" and treading cautiously because she is acutely aware that voters did not actually elect her into office.
On Friday, Brown celebrated her "whirlwind" year by attending another conference in Washington, this time with the National Governor’s Association. In an interview with The Huffington Post this week, Brown acknowledged that she has had political advantages her fellow Democratic governors could only dream of, as Republicans control most state governments. (Oregon was the only state where Democrats increased their majorities in both chambers of the legislature in the 2014 midterms.)
"I had the wonderful blessing of having strong progressive majorities in both houses, and that makes a huge difference," she said.
Immediately after being sworn in, Brown drew national attention to her state with groundbreaking pieces of legislation. She signed the first-in-the-nation automatic registration bill in March, meaning state agencies now register eligible voters automatically when they obtain or renew a driver’s license or state identification card, unless they opt out. More than 4,300 Oregonians have been registered to vote since the system took effect on Jan. 1.
Brown had championed the proposal as secretary of state, arguing that shifting the burden of registration from individuals to the state would make the system more cost-effective, secure and accessible. Republicans, in contrast, argue that the system makes voting too easy and may violate voters’ privacy.
"How many people introduce a bill as secretary of state and sign it as governor?" she asked. "Why wouldn’t we want to make it easier for people to register?"
Anthony Pidgeon via Getty Images
Many non-Oregonians grew jealous of the state's residents when Brown signed two bills addressing access to birth control pills into law over the summer. The first requires health insurers to cover and supply a year’s worth of birth control. The second allows women to get birth control prescriptions from a pharmacist, rather than from a doctor.
"By making it affordable for women to take home enough birth control to last up to a year, policies like these eliminate the need for routine trips to a pharmacy and can help prevent gaps in birth control use," therefore reducing the prevalence of unintended pregnancy, the Center for Reproductive Rights noted in a report published this month about expanding contraceptive access.
Brown called birth control access "a fundamental right for women."
"For women who are traveling, for students, it just makes so much sense," Brown said. "It’s so straightforward for me, it’s not even an issue."
The governor also advanced gun safety in Oregon in May by requiring background checks for most private gun transactions. Weeks later, she signed legislation making it easier for state and local law enforcement to confiscate firearms from convicted domestic abusers and people under restraining orders. A bill passed the Oregon House on Monday that would increase the amount of time authorities have to complete background checks before gun dealers are allowed to finalize their sales.
The progressive successes didn’t stop there. The legislature sent Brown bills mandating that businesses provide employees with paid sick leave and establishing a unique state-run program for private-sector employees to save for retirement. She also signed so-called "Ban the Box" legislation making it illegal for businesses to inquire about or consider an applicant’s conviction history on job applications, and legislation limiting community college tuition to $50 per term for students starting classes within six months of high school.
Oregon Democrats have plenty to celebrate already, but Brown is pushing ahead with more legislation addressing progressive causes.
She has asked the legislature for funding to help communities that have suffered hard times in the last several months: the rural area around the federal wildlife refugee that militant protesters occupied for six weeks, and the small Umpqua Community College, where an October shooting left 10 people dead and nine wounded.
Michael Lloyd/Getty Images Brown attended a candlelight vigil for the victims of a shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon.
Brown's ongoing fight to raise Oregon's minimum wage -- which currently stands at $9.25 -- could really lead her to make her mark on the state. Since January, she has been pushing legislation that would address the desires of progressives who support a $15 minimum and businesses that fear such a bump would force them to cut jobs.
Brown is set to sign a bill that would divide the state into three regions, with Portland getting a minimum wage of $14.75, midsize counties getting a wage of $13.25 and so-called "frontier" areas requiring a wage of $12.50, all by 2022. The latest bill "fits the needs of all of Oregon" and is "better than a one-size-fits-all," policy, she said, echoing Clinton, who has argued that a $15 minimum wage floor may not be feasible or appropriate outside of urban areas.
Polling indicates that Brown is popular among voters, but still faces hurdles to winning the gubernatorial race in November and earning another two years in office. Two Democrats -- albeit relatively unknown members of the party -- and two Republicans also have entered the race.
Also on HuffPost:Rahinah Ibrahim’s nine-year journey to clear her name with the U.S. government may be nearing an end.
In 2005, Dr. Ibrahim, then a doctoral student at Stanford, was detained at the San Francisco airport ticket counter while checking in for a flight to a conference in Hawaii. She was handcuffed and held in a cell for several hours. When she was finally released, she was told she’d been mistakenly placed on the no-fly list.
But that was just the beginning of her trouble. After continuing on to her native Malaysia, Dr. Ibrahim tried to return to the U.S., only to find that her student visa had been revoked for unspecified reasons relating to terrorism. (Apparently, Dr. Ibrahim was a member of a professional organization with a name similar to that of a terrorist group.)
In January 2006, she sued the government for erroneously including her on the no-fly list. After years of pre-trial motions, Dr. Ibrahim’s case was heard in December by a federal judge, William H. Alsup, in San Francisco. But because she remains unable to get a new visa, Dr. Ibrahim, now a faculty dean and professor of architecture and design in Malaysia, was not allowed to attend.
Last month, Judge Alsup ruled in Dr. Ibrahim’s favor, but in keeping with the government’s repeated demands of secrecy throughout the case, he initially released only a 3-page summary of his opinion, which ordered the government to remove Dr. Ibrahim’s name from the no-fly list, prove that it has done so, and tell her the reason it revoked her visa.
This week, Judge Alsup released his full 38-page opinion, which contained partial redactions, but which clarified what had happened to Dr. Ibrahim in 2005.
“At long last, the government has conceded that plaintiff poses no threat to air safety or national security and should never have been placed on the no-fly list,” Judge Alsup concluded. “She got there by human error within the FBI.”
The “human error” was committed by an FBI agent who, after interviewing Dr. Ibrahim in late 2004, checked the wrong boxes on a form, accidentally nominating her to the no-fly list. Apparently the agent was unaware of his own error until he was deposed in the case in September.
Judge Alsup described the mistake as “a bureaucratic analogy to a surgeon amputating the wrong digit.”
Regarding Dr. Ibrahim’s visa, the judge wrote that she “is entitled to try to solve one hurdle at a time,” and reiterated that “even the government concludes [Dr. Ibrahim] poses no threat to the United States. Everyone else in this case knows it.”
But the government refused to go down without a fight. In a fitting conclusion to his order, Judge Alsup wrote, “As a matter of remedy, she should be told that [redacted].”Every administration tries to reshape American policy to reflect its ideals. But the discrepancy between outgoing president Barack Obama and president-elect Donald Trump is especially stark.
From health insurance access to abortion rights, Trump and his cabinet nominees proffer the opposite of the progressive stance that has defined the last eight years in this country.
And with a Republican-controlled House and Senate, it’s possible that our new chief executive could make real headway rolling back Obama’s agenda. Next year at this time, America could look very different different than it does today. Here are some issues that could be in the crosshairs.
US supreme court
A year from now, the US supreme court will probably look like … it has since Samuel Alito replaced Sandra Day O’Connor in 2006. Antonin Scalia’s vacant seat will be filled by a justice very comparable to Scalia, and on most politically important issues Anthony Kennedy will be the swing vote. This means a court that is generally conservative but liberal on a few key issues.
This is a tragic missed opportunity for the Democratic party, who lost its chance to have a Democratic-majority court for the first time since early in the Nixon administration. But Donald Trump will not immediately be able to transform the court upon taking office.
Still, with three justices who are approaching or have already passed their 80th birthday, the possibility of a second Trump appointment is very real right now. And since the oldest justices on the court are the liberals Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer and the moderate conservative Kennedy, a second Trump nomination would be mean a major lurch to the right that would just start with the destruction of Roe v Wade. Electing Trump might mean a holding pattern for the supreme court, or it may mean a majority dedicated to rolling back civil rights and liberties entrenched on the bench for decades.
Scott Lemieux
Healthcare access
While Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell declared that his party would begin its repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) on day one, the extent to which we will soon see departures from the status quo of healthcare access may hinge |
millions who will suffer in the event of a government shutdown and showy bravado over the need for greater fiscal stewardship, while conveniently failing to rein in two of the biggest drains on our budget namely, the military and surveillance industrial complexes.
Indeed, the one area not impacted in the least by a government shutdown will be the police/surveillance state and its various militarized agencies, spying programs and personnel. Take a look at the programs and policies that will not be affected by a government shutdown, and you’ll get a clearer sense of the government’s priorities priorities which have, as I point out in my new book, A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, little to do with serving taxpayers and everything to do with maintaining power and control, while being sold to the public under the guise of national security.
Domestic surveillance. On any given day, whether you’re walking through a store, driving your car, checking email, or talking to friends and family on the phone, you can be sure that some government agency, whether the NSA or some other entity, is listening in and tracking your behavior. Police have been outfitted with a litany of surveillance gear, from license plate readers and cell phone tracking devices to biometric data recorders. Coupled with the nation’s growing network of real-time surveillance cameras and facial recognition software, soon there really will be nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.
NSA domestic programs. Government shutdown or not, the National Security Agency (NSA), with its $10.8 billion black ops annual budget, will continue to spy on every person in the United States who uses a computer or phone using programs such as PRISM and XKEYSCORE. By cracking the security of all major smartphones, including iPhone, Android, and Blackberry devices, NSA agents harvest such information as contacts, text messages, and location data. And then there are the NSA agents who will continue to use and abuse their surveillance powers for personal means, to spy on girlfriends, lovers and first dates.
Global spying. The NSA’s massive surveillance network will continue to span the globe and target every single person on the planet who uses a phone or a computer. The NSA’s Echelon program intercepts and analyzes virtually every phone call, fax and email message sent anywhere in the world. In addition to carrying out domestic surveillance on peaceful political groups, Echelon has also been a keystone to the government’s attempts at political and corporate espionage.
Roving TSA searches. If there is any absolute maxim by which the federal government seems to operate, it is that the American taxpayer always gets ripped off. Indeed, one of the greatest culprits when it comes to swindling taxpayers has been the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), with its questionable deployment of and complete mismanagement of millions of dollars’ worth of airport full-body, X-ray scanners, punitive patdowns by TSA agents and thefts of travelers’ valuables. Considered essential to national security, TSA programs will continue, not only in airports but at transportation hubs around the country.
Militarized police state. Thanks to federal grant programs, police forces will continue to be transformed from peace officers into heavily armed extensions of the military, complete with jackboots, helmets, shields, batons, pepper-spray, stun guns, assault rifles, body armor, miniature tanks and weaponized drones. Having been given the green light to probe, poke, pinch, taser, search, seize, strip and generally manhandle anyone they see fit in almost any circumstance, all with the general blessing of the courts, America’s law enforcement officials will continue to keep the masses corralled, under control, and treated like suspects and enemies rather than citizens.
Domestic drones. The domestic use of drones will continue unabated. As mandated by Congress, there will be 30,000 drones crisscrossing the skies of America by 2020. These machines will be able to record all activities, using video feeds, heat sensors and radar. A recent Inspector General report revealed that the Dept. of Justice has already spent nearly $4 million on drones domestically, largely for use by the FBI, with grants for another $1.26 million so police departments and nonprofits can acquire their own drones.
Thus, when it comes right down to it, whether or not the shutdown takes place, it will remain business as usual in terms of the government’s unceasing pursuit of greater powers and control. These issues are the backbone of an increasingly aggressive authoritarian government.
So where do we go from here? If public opposition, outright challenges, and a government shutdown don’t stop or even slow down the police state, what’s to be done?
Do what you must to survive. Go to work, take care of your family, pay off your debts. But when you’re not doing those things, which allow you to get by day-to-day, consider the future.
Pay attention to the political structure that is being created in the shadows, the economic system that is chaining us down with debt, and the feudal, fascist society borne out of the marriage of government and big business. Avoid the propaganda mills posing as news sources. Express your outrage, loudly and tirelessly, to the government’s incursions on our freedoms. Yet act locally taking issue with any and every encroachment on your rights, no matter how minor, whether it’s a ban on goat cheese or installations of red light cameras at intersections and on school buses because reclaiming our rights from the ground up, starting locally and trickling up, remains our only hope.
Resistance may seem futile, it will be hard, and there will inevitably be a price to pay for resisting the emerging tyranny, but to the extent that you are able, RESIST.
Read more by John W. WhiteheadA Room in Paris (The Philco Television Playhouse (August 7, 1955), and a few months later, the Popular Library paperback featured this cover by Mitchell Hooks. Peggy Mann's first novel, Doubleday, 1955) was adapted for(August 7, 1955), and a few months later, the Popular Library paperback featured this cover by Mitchell Hooks.
Mitchell Hooks (1923[1] - March 2013)[2] was an American artist and illustrator known for his artwork for paperback books and magazines.
Biography [ edit ]
Born in Detroit, Michigan, Hooks served with the U.S. military, including occupation duty in Germany, then began his freelance illustration career in New York City.[3] He painted paperback covers for Avon, Bantam Books, Dell Books, Fawcett Publications and others, and illustrated for magazines including Cosmopolitan, The Saturday Evening Post, The Ladies' Home Journal, Redbook, McCall's, and Woman's Day.[3] He illustrated romance novels,[4] science fiction and crime fiction, such as Ross Macdonald's Lew Archer, Peter Corris's Cliff Hardy and B.B. Johnston's Superspade series.[5]
Hooks illustrated the 36-page booklet How to Respect and Display Our Flag for the U.S. Marine Corps.[6] He also designed film posters, including the first James Bond movie, Dr. No — for which he painted "the iconic image of Sean Connery as Bond"[7] — and The Face of Fu Manchu.
In later years he also illustrated hardcover books for The Franklin Library, Reader's Digest Books and Coronado Publishers, and did advertising art.[3]
Hooks was 89 when he died.[2]
Awards [ edit ]
In 1999, he was inducted into the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame.[8]
References [ edit ]
Further reading [ edit ]
"The Paperback Art of Mitchell Hooks", Illustration Magazine 10Fruit and vegetables are easily incorporated into breakfast, lunch, dinner and a snack, making your recommended 10-a-day a doddle. We’ve curated this meal plan from AJ’s archive to show you how...
Breakfast: Rye and vanilla malt overnight oats
Although peaches are used here, any seasonal fruit will work, depending on when you’re making it: pears, extra apple, plums, bananas, figs, stewed quince, diced mango … take your pick.
Makes 2 bowls
For the overnight oats
80g rolled oats
50g rye flakes
1 lemon
200ml almond milk (or milk of your choosing)
1 apple
In the morning
1 tsp barley malt or maple syrup
2 ripe peaches
A dollop of Greek yoghurt
A handful of almonds, toasted and roughly chopped
1 The night before you want to eat this for breakfast, combine the oats and rye flakes in a bowl with the zest of half the lemon and the milk. Grate the apple into a little bowl and squeeze over a tiny bit of lemon juice, toss to stop browning, then add to the oats. Cover and put in the fridge overnight to soak.
2 In the morning, sweeten the oats mixture with a drizzle of barley malt or maple syrup, then mix well.
3 Divide between two bowls and slice the peaches over the top. Finish with a dollop of Greek yoghurt and some chopped almonds.
Lunch: Fennel, green olive and herb freekeh
Here, freekeh (green wheat harvested before it is ripe) is tossed with roasted fennel, leeks and courgettes, in a vibrant dressing made with fat green olives, almonds and chopped green herbs.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest You could swap the fennel and leeks for almost any roasted vegetable: broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, beetroot... Photograph: issy croker for the Guardian
Serves 4
200g freekeh
2 fennel bulbs, trimmed and thinly sliced, leafy tops reserved to garnish
2 leeks, washed and thinly sliced
2 courgettes, sliced
4 garlic cloves, peeled
1 tbsp coriander seeds
Salt and black pepper
Extra virgin olive oil
A splash of herb-infused vinegar or white wine vinegar
A small bunch each of mint, coriander and flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
150g green olives, rinsed then pitted
6 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
100g almonds, toasted and chopped
1 fresh red chilli, deseeded and roughly chopped
2 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice, plus more to taste
1 bunch of fresh parsley or basil
1 tbsp pul biber (crushed red pepper flakes) or ½ tsp red chilli flakes
1 Soak the freekeh in cold water for 20 minutes. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4.
2 Put the fennel, leeks, courgette and garlic on a baking tray in one layer if you can – use 2 trays if you have to. Sprinkle over the coriander seeds and a generous amount of salt and black pepper, then drizzle with olive oil. Roast for 20-30 minutes – removing the trays from the oven and carefully shaking them every now and then – until the vegetables are cooked through and crisp around the edges.
3 Sprinkle the vinegar over the vegetables as soon as they come out of the oven, then set aside to cool. When cooled, scatter the finely chopped herbs over the top.
4 Drain the soaked freekeh and add to a saucepan with 750ml cold water and ½ tsp salt. Put on a medium heat, cover and bring to a boil, then lower the heat to simmer it gently for about 12 minutes. Cook until tender, but not so long that the grains become mushy. Drain off any extra water, and set aside to cool.
5 Coarsely chop the olives and put them in a bowl along with the olive oil, almonds, chopped fresh chilli, and lemon juice. Roughly chop the parsley/basil; add it to the bowl. Stir well and set aside until ready to serve the salad.
6 Combine the roasted vegetables, freekeh, pul biber and olive mixture in a bowl and mix well. Taste and adjust with salt, lemon juice or olive oil, if needed. Garnish with the reserved fennel tops.
Dinner: Massaman curry
When we shoot the pictures for Anna’s column, she cooks with fellow food stylist Emily Ezekiel. This is Emily’s recipe, so deeply layered with flavour that it is one of Anna’s “favourites of all time”. You could replace the green beans and broccoli with many a green vegetable here, and also leftovers. On Boxing Day, for example, Cook threw in the leftover roast potatoes at stage 6, followed by residual cooked brussels sprouts and carrots several minutes before serving.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest This is endlessly versatile, as all staple recipes should be. Photograph: Issy Croker for the Guardian
Serves 4
1 portion massaman curry paste (see below)
500g new potatoes
300g green beans
2 x 400ml tins of coconut milk
300g purple sprouting broccoli
100g unsalted peanuts
200g firm tofu
2 tbsp tamarind paste
For the paste
3 shallots, peeled and chopped
5 garlic cloves, peeled
2 sticks of lemongrass, bashed and roughly chopped
5cm piece of ginger, peeled
½ tsp cloves
1 tsp coriander seeds
2 tbsp cumin seeds
1 small cinnamon stick
5 dried red chillies
2 tbsp groundnut oil
1 tbsp runny honey
To serve
Cooked brown rice
1 First make your curry paste. Toast the shallots, garlic, lemongrass and ginger in a dry pan for 5 minutes. Set aside. Now dry-toast the spices in the pan for another 5 minutes.
Rachel Roddy’s recipe for minestrone soup with regional variations | A kitchen in Rome Read more
2 Put the shallot mixture into a blender with the chillies and pulse until you have a fine paste. Add the spices and pulse again. Finally, add the oil and the honey and blitz to an even, finely textured paste. Any leftover paste can be frozen for later use.
3 Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/gas mark 6. Get a large roasting tray and add the potatoes along with about 2 tbsp massaman paste, toss well, then roast in the hot oven for 40 minutes, or until almost cooked. Throw in the green beans, toss well and put the tray back into the oven for a further 15 minutes.
4 Put a large frying pan over a medium heat. Add the remaining massaman paste to the pan and cook for about 10 minutes, or until the paste has turned dark and smells a little smoky. Add the coconut milk and tamarind paste, then fill one empty can with boiling water from the kettle; add this to the pan and bring to the boil. If you would like your curry to have more of a soupy consistency, add a little more water until it reaches your liking.
5 Add the roasted potatoes, the beans and the purple sprouting broccoli, then cook for 10 minutes to bring everything together.
6 Put the peanuts on to a baking tray and toast in the oven for about 5 minutes until golden. Slice the tofu into 1cm slices and griddle on both sides until charred and warmed through, then add to the large pan.
7 Serve the curry on top of warm brown rice and finish with a sprinkling of the peanuts.
Snack: Beetroot and caraway soda bread
Beetroot – alongside its happy bedfellow of the spice family, caraway – is sneaked into this ultra-easy bread. Soda is a brilliant method for making a fuss-free loaf: there’s no waiting for rising and there’s very little that can go wrong. The beetroot is best bought fresh and roasted yourself, because it has a more intense flavour than the pre-cooked stuff.
Makes 1 x 750g loaf
300g cooked beetroot, chopped
1 tsp fennel seeds
1 tsp caraway seeds
100ml buttermilk (or plain yoghurt let down with a splash of milk)
200g white spelt flour
200g wholemeal spelt flour
50g pumpkin seeds, plus more for sprinkling
1 tsp salt
2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
Black pepper
1 Preheat the oven to 220C/425F/gas mark 7. Put the beetroot (see the note below if you’re roasting your own), spices and buttermilk in a food processor and puree until smooth.
2 Put the flours, pumpkin seeds, salt, bicarbonate of soda and pepper into a large bowl and mix well.
3 Pour the beetroot mixture into the flours and mix with a fork until well combined, then use your hands to bring the lot into a rough ball. Don’t knead it though, or it will make the finished loaf tough.
4 Scatter some flour over a baking sheet and put your ball of dough on top. Dust with a little more flour and a few more pumpkin seeds.
5 Cut a deep cross in the bread, then bake for 40 minutes, or until golden and risen. Remove from the oven and tap the bottom of the loaf. If you get a hollow sound, it’s perfect, so pop it on a wire rack to cool. This is delicious warm with salted or almond butter.
If you are roasting the beetroot yourself:
Wash the beetroot well and trim the stalks. Put the whole beetroot in a foil parcel, wrapped really tightly so the steam doesn’t escape. Cook for around 60 minutes (depending on the size of your beetroot), or until they are tender. Once cooked, allow to cool in the foil parcel: this will make it really easy to remove the skins. When cool enough to handle, slip the skins off and discard. Extra roasted beetroot can be used in salads or alongside dips such as hummus.
Anna Jones is a chef, writer and author of A Modern Way to Eat and A Modern Way to Cook (Fourth Estate); annajones.co.uk; @we_are_food(Note: The following post strays from the usual geopolitical concerns of GeoCurrents into the realm of environmental politics. It also deviates from the norm in being a polemical review of a particular book. Regular posts will resume shortly.)
As with so many other hot-button debates, the climate change controversy leaves me repelled by the clamoring extremists on both sides. Global-warming denialists, as some are aptly called, regard the scientific establishment with such contempt that they abandon the realm of reason. In comment after comment posted on on-line articles and blogs, self-styled skeptics insist that carbon dioxide is such a scant component of the atmosphere that it could not possibly play any climatic role, while castigating mainstream climatologists as malevolent conspirators dedicated to destroying civilization. Yet on the equally aptly named alarmist side of the divide, reasonable concerns often yield to dismal fantasies of the type so elegantly described by Pascal Bruckner in The Fanaticism of the Apocalypse, upheld by exaggeration to the point of absurdity. More alarmingly, climate activism seems to be veering in an unabashedly authoritarian direction. In such a heated atmosphere, evenhanded positions are at the risk of being flooded out by a rising sea of mutual invective and misinformation.
This essay addresses only one side of this spectrum, that of the doomsayers who think we must forsake democracy and throttle our freedoms if we are to avoid a planetary catastrophe. Although it may seem paradoxical, my focus on the green extreme stems precisely from my conviction that anthropogenic climate change is a huge problem that demands determined action. Yet a sizable contingent of eco-radicals, I am convinced, consistently discredit this cause. By insisting that devastating climate change is only a few years away, they will probably undermine the movement’s public support, given the vastly more likely chance that warming will be gradual and punctuated. By engaging in mendacious reporting and misleading argumentation, they provide ample ammunition for their conspiracy-minded opponents. And by championing illiberal politics, they betray the public good that they ostensibly champion. It is a sad day indeed when an icon of liberalism such as Robert Kennedy Jr. can plausibly be deemed an “aspiring tyrant” for wanting to punish global-warming deniers.
A few off-hand comments by the flighty scion of an illustrious political family, however, are hardly enough to substantiate my admittedly harsh charges. But more damning examples of eco-authoritarianism are not difficult to find. For the present essay, I will limit my attention to one crucial text, Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway’s 2014 The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the Future. Idiosyncratic though this book may be, its significance is undeniable. Its authors are widely noted experts in the politics and intellectual history of the climate change controversy, have previously co-written a seminal work, Merchants of Doubt. They teach, respectively, at Harvard University and the Cal Tech, and the book in question was published by Columbia University Press, one of the world’s most esteemed academic presses. Such widely respected public figures as Elizabeth Kolbert and Timothy E. Wirth provide effusive endorsements on the back cover. Kolbert goes so far at to claim that the book should be “required reading for anyone who works—or hopes to—in Washington.” Wirth tells us that unless we heed Oreskes and Conway’s warnings, we will have no chance of avoiding their “dire predictions.” The noted science-fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson chimes in as well, telling us that the book’s prognostications are “all too plausible.”
Before delving into Oreskes and Conway’s dismal predictions and authoritarian proposals, a few words about the structure and contents of their unusual book are in order. As the authors explain in their first two sentences, The Collapse of Western Civilization aims to “blend the two genres” of science fiction and history in order to “understand the present.” In actuality, virtually nothing that is recognizable as either science fiction or history is found between its covers. Instead, one encounters a brief text (52 pages*) that purports to be a straightforward account of the planetary catastrophes of the 21st century, written by a fictional historian living in the Second People’s Republic of China three hundred years after the final collapse of “Western Civilization” in 2093. This imagined author informs us that that Western Civilization was destroyed by its obsession with free markets and devotion to a “carbon-combustion complex,” which is contrasted with the authoritarian system of China that allowed it to survive and eventually help restabilize the global climate.
As the book claims to outline the “not only predictable but predicted” (p. 1) consequences of a fossil-fuel-based energy system, I will begin by examining the author’s actual foretelling. As it turns out, most of it is hyperbolic, going far behind even the most extreme warnings provided by climatologists. Consider, for example, Oreskes and Conway’s most grimly amusing nightmare: the mass die-off of dogs and cats in the early 2020s. Lest one conclude that I am exaggerating here, a direct quotation should suffice:
[B]ut in 2023, the infamous “year of perpetual summer,” lived up to its name, taking 500,000 lives worldwide and costing nearly $500 billion in losses due to fires, crop failures, and the deaths of livestock and companion animals. The loss of pet cats and dogs garnered particular attention among wealthy Westerners, but what was anomalous in 2023 soon became the new normal (p. 8-9).
Within a mere nine years, global warning could produce temperature spikes so elevated as to generate massive cat mortality? The idea is so ludicrous that I hardly know where to begin. Domestic cats, as anyone who has spent any time around them surely understands, are heat-seeking creatures; native to the Middle East and North Africa, they thrive in the world’s hottest environments. Yet Oreskes and Conway expect us to believe that within a few decades “normal” temperatures across much of “the West” will exceed the tolerance threshold of the house cat? If they really think that such a scenario is plausible, one must wonder why they delay the collapse until the late 21st century and excluded China from destruction, as it would seem that we will all be cooked well before then. (One might also wonder why wealthy Westerners would not allow their beloved companions to remain within their air-conditioned homes during the death-dealing heat waves of the 2020s, but that is a different matter altogether.)
The great cat catastrophe of 2023 is by no means the only instance of risible fear-mongering found in the book. It would seem that there is no limit to the horrors that global warming will spawn, including a resurgence of bubonic plague (p. 30) and the creation of “viral and retroviral agents never before seen” (p. 25). Even typhus is predicted to make a major comeback owing to “explosive increases in insect populations” (p. 25); although it is reasonable to imagine some insect species proliferating in a warmer world, I have a difficult time seeing a massive revival of body lice generating a typhus epidemic that could easily be forestalled by antibiotics. Or consider the authors’ overall depiction of the global scene in the late 21st century:
[S]urvivors in northern regions of Europe, Asia, and North America, as well as inland and high-altitude regions of South America, were able to begin to regroup and rebuild. The human populations of Australia and Africa, of course, were wiped out (p.33).
Why yes, of course; how could anyone be expected to survive global warming on continents as hot as Australia and Africa? The only problem with this assertion is the inconvenient fact that vast areas of both landmasses are not particularly warm. In Melbourne, Australia the average January (summer) high temperature is 78° F (26° C), only slightly above that of July in Paris. Hobart, a city of more than 200,000 inhabitants, posts summer temperatures virtually identical to those of Stockholm. ** Nor is Africa climatically extreme; most of South Africa is temperate, and the mountains of Algeria and Morocco are cooler still. Throughout eastern and southern Africa, high elevations ensure equable conditions. Contrary to Oreskes and Conway’s warnings, inland Africa is generally less vulnerable to climate change than most parts of inland South America, owing mainly to its higher elevation. Currently, the average high temperature in the warmest month in Asunción, Paraguay is a whopping 10 degrees Celsius (19 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than that of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The same gap, moreover, is found in regard to the highest temperatures ever recorded in both locations.
Such temperature contrasts, however, are not the main issue. Rather, it is the fact that even the most extreme scientific predictions of possible global warming over the next century do not posit conditions that would preclude human life over vast expanses of the world. People can live quite well in hot climes, and can even do so without air conditioning. Perhaps Chicago will eventually become as warm as Dallas, which currently has an average July high temperature of 96° F (35.6° C), and perhaps Dallas could become as hot as Las Vegas, with its average July high of 104° F (40° C). But even with such a development, neither town would reach the current conditions of Kuwait City, with its average July high of 116° F (46.7° C) and sultry average July low of 87° F (30.7° C).
But perhaps Oreskes and Conway do not foresee all Australians and Africans perishing directly from heat, but rather as dying off from droughts, massive storms, and other climatic disasters—along with new heat-spawned viral diseases and sundry other mega-misfortunes. For the North American agricultural heartland, they seem to mainly fear devastating dry spells. Imagining conditions in the 2050s, they write:
As the Great North American Desert surged north and east, consuming the High Plains and destroying some of the world’s most productive farmland, the U.S. Government declared martial law to prevent food riots and looting (p. 25).
It is true that many climate models indicate increasingly aridity over the Great Plains and the Corn Belt, which would certainly harm U.S. food production. But at the global scale, such thinking does not pan out, as a warmer world will almost certainly be a wetter world, enhancing agricultural potential in many dry areas—even if more precipitation does come in the form of torrential downpours. If some parts of Africa will lose their food-production potential, others may see it enhanced. Much of East Africa is shown in some models as acquiring a less drought-prone climate, as can be seen in the map posted here. And as is currently the case, most of Africa will remain immune from hurricanes and tornados, the increased intensity of which, moreover, is not assured. (The equatorial belt will always be cyclone-free, as the twisting Coriolis effect diminishes to nothing at latitude zero.) It must also be acknowledged that higher levels of carbon dioxide are to an uncertain extent associated with enhanced vegetative growth. Some evidence even indicates that elevated CO 2 allows plants to better withstand aridity, as their gas-exchanging leaf pores (stomata) do not need to open as widely under such conditions, reducing transpiration and hence water loss. The mere mention of any such possible positive consequences of climate change, however, is widely regarded as intolerable heresy, and hence would never appear in a book like The Collapse of Western Civilization. I hesitate here as well, as I do not want to imply that the gains of climate change could somehow cancel the losses. In the end, however, honest disclosure of the existing evidence is an obligation of all serious scholars.
Regardless of whether climate change will undercut food production, Oreskes and Conway’s own prescription for dealing with the crisis would only intensify the problem. They strongly support, for example, biodiesel and other forms of biologically derived fuel, viewing “liquid biofuels for aviation” as nothing less than “crucial” (pp. 21, 24). Channeling biological production into the energy system, however, either diminishes the human food stream, raising the price and reducing the availability of staples, or detracts from natural ecosystems, diminishing the scope of non-human life. As Will Boisvert has devastatingly demonstrated, there is nothing at all green about biofuels.
Oreskes and Conway’s support of biofuels is linked to their dismissal of natural gas. They reserve particular contempt for the idea that gas could act as an environmentally beneficial “bridge to renewables.” Most of their arguments against gas are familiar, focused on such issues as the “fugitive emissions” that occur when carbon dioxide and methane “escape from wellheads into the atmosphere.” (p. 23). Such leakage is a genuine problem, but most experts think that it can be solved by technical means. Some of their other objections, however, are novel, such as the idea that natural gas will replace near-zero-emission nuclear energy and hydropower, especially in countries such as Canada (p. 23). Why such a substitution would occur is not specified, even though the possibility that it would is extraordinarily low. The costs of hydropower in particular are almost completely upfront; once a dam has been constructed and the turbines installed, the resulting power is cheap and hence not vulnerable to replacement by natural gas. The only reason why Canada might be tempted to dismantle its hydroelectric and nuclear facilities would be political pressure from environmental activists. Would Oreskes and Conway be among those urging the end these extremely low-carbon sources of power? One cannot tell from the book in question, but in other writings (here and here) Oreskes rebuffs nuclear power, due mainly to “difficulties inherent to the technology and its management.” It would thus appear that this particular objection to natural gas is self-cancelling.
Oreskes and Conway’s focus on the supposed sins of Western Civilization also demands further scrutiny. It is not merely the energy-hungry United States that they portray as essentially doomed, but also many of the world’s most environmentally oriented countries, which happen to be located in the European heartland of the West. The ultimate problem, they imply, is not the environmental policies of particular states, but rather the deeper cultural predilections of the Western world. Such “cultural practices” center around an “ideological fixation on ‘free’ markets” (p. ix) but also include such features as “excessively stringent standards for accepting [truth] claims.”
Such arguments are difficult to take seriously. Can one really claim that Germany suffers from an “ideological fixation on ‘free’ markets,” considering its fat subsidies for renewable energy as well as the recent collapse of the Free Democrats, the country’s only political party that embraces classical economic liberalism? Could France possibly be regarded as possessing such an obsession? One of the stumbling blocks here is the authors’ failure to define what they mean by “Western Civilization.” Although they never specify its geographical contours or seriously delve into its cultural content, they do give it oddly precise temporal boundaries: 1540-2093. How the initiation date of 1540 was selected is anyone’s guess. If anything civilizationally momentous occurred in this year, it has evidently escaped our historical accounts. Ironically, however, 1540 does occupy an intriguing position in climate history. According to the historical geographer Jan Buisman:
[T]he year 1540 was one with an even more severe summer than 2003. All over Europe, the heat wave lasted, off and on, for seven months, with parched fields and dried up rivers, such as the Rhine. People in Paris, France could walk on the riverbed of the Seine without getting their feet wet.
Dating the emergence of “Western Civilization” may be a relatively trivial matter, but the same cannot be said about Oreskes and Conway’s dismissal of “excessively stringent standards for accepting [truth] claims.” Here we encounter one of the book’s deeper paradoxes. The climate movement relies on its defense of science, leveling the charge of “science denialism” against its opponents whenever possible, yet here we find Oreskes and Conway attacking the very epistemological foundations of the entire endeavor. Nor is this their only instance of rejecting the standard practices of science. “Statistical significance,” they claim, is an outmoded concept that will someday be regarded as “archaic” (p. 61). In several passages, they lather contempt on “physical scientists,” those benighted practitioners, “overwhelmingly male,” who:
[E]mphasized study of the world’s physical constituents and processes … to the neglect of biological and social realms and focused on reductionist methodologies that impeded understanding of the crucial interactions between physical, biological, and social realms (p. 60).
Oreskes and Conway embrace “interaction” to such as extent that they even regard “environment” as another concept that will eventually be dismissed as archaic, as it supposedly entails “separating humans from the rest of the world” (p. 55). In actuality, most people use the term “environment” precisely to highlight connections among humans and the rest of nature. But according to the authors, it was not until the coming of “radical thinkers such as Paul Ehrlich and Dennis and Donella Meadows” in the late 20th century that anyone “recognized that humans are part of the environment and dependent upon it” (p. 56). Such claims are preposterous, as the history of Western thought thoroughly demonstrates. To appreciate the historical depth of such recognition, I would recommend Clarence Glacken’s magisterial, Traces on the Rhodian Shore: Nature and Culture in Western Thought from Ancient Times to the End of the Eighteenth Century.
Although many of the key scientific questions of the day do indeed demand, as Oreskes and Conway write, an “understanding of the crucial interactions between physical, biological, and social realms,” it is equally imperative to recognize that most do not. Most of the issues addressed by chemists, physicists, and geologists have nothing to do with the social realm, and must be examined through a “reductionistic” lens if they are to be approached scientifically. To insist instead that they must be framed in a socio-biological context is to reject the methods of science at a fundamental level. Such a tactic risks reviving the intellectual atmosphere that led the Soviet Union to the disaster of ideologically contaminated research known as Lysenkoism. In the final analysis, the denial of science encountered in The Collapse of Western Civilization thus runs much deeper than that found among even the most determined climate-change skeptics, as it pivots on much more basic epistemological and methodological issues.
Not just science by also logic suffers at the hands of the author. They argue, for example, that it is a logical fallacy to contend that natural gas could serve as a “bridge to renewables,” due to the fact that analyses of the effects of natural-gas combustion on the atmosphere have been “incomplete” (p. 53-54). In actuality, this is an empirical issue, not one of logic per se.
The most troubling aspect of Oreskes and Conway’s book, however, is not its scare-tactics, its sloppy depictions of climatic patterns, or its attack on scientific standards. What is truly frightening is its embrace of authoritarian politics, coupled with its denigration of liberty and democracy. This is a tricky issue, however, as the authors’ pseudo-science-fictional narrative strategy provides an easy out, making it appear as if the authors actually value liberty and reject despotism. Oreskes contends in the interview that comes at the end of the book that the preservation of any freedoms that we still enjoy demands immediate and thoroughgoing action, as “delay increases the risk that authoritarian forms of government will come out ahead in the end” (p. 70). It is rather, the authors contend, supporters of the status quo who are undermining freedom by their failure to embrace the alarmist position. As they write:
And so the development that neo-liberals most dreaded—centralized government and loss of personal choice—was rendered essential by the very policies that they had put in place (p. 49).
This tactic, however, is disingenuous. No evidence is provided, for example, to indicate that autocratic governments respond more effectively to environmental crises than democratic ones. Rather, this thesis is merely assumed, despite the large body of evidence that points in the opposite direction. It is, moreover, an unfortunate fact that global carbon-dioxide emissions will continue to rise for some time regardless of any minuscule effect that the publication The Collapse of Western Civilization and similar books may have on public opinion. India, for example, has recently announced that it will prioritize economic development over climatic stabilization. The governments of many other countries concur, all but guaranteeing increasing emissions. As result, Oreskes and Conway may claim that they do not personally embrace authoritarianism, but their larger arguments hold that it is nonetheless necessary if civilization is to survive in any form. Finally, given their own predictions of shattering disruptions across the world, China’s geographical position ensures that |
NG: You describe yourselves as a “multinational group”. Does it affect the way you work or communicate at all? How does a multinational company differ from a local company?
RQ: One of the biggest issues for us is time zones. We have staff all over the world, mainly in Europe, Asia, and North America, so finding the right time to hold a meeting with everyone is quite a challenge.
NG: This brings to mind another question some have. Are you considering translating these games to languages other than English?
RQ: We are considering it, but it’s a bit too early to tell if we’ll actually do so just yet.
NG: It seems that a lot of gaming companies have opened their own stores. When is your own store going to be open for business?
RQ: Once we have a proper fulfillment set-up, I suppose. I think it’s something we have to put more thought into before we start making any plans, so it might still be a while still. We also want to try to offer unique products that are not just physical copies of our games.
NG: What can you tell us about the company that we can’t find out elsewhere?
RQ: Around Anime Expo 2014, we had a rough patch where we were facing some dire straits as a company. I’m pretty sure no one knew that. [Laughs] I also left a senior position in IT to make this company because I’d like to see creators be rewarded for their great works. I want to see more appreciation for visual novels as an entertainment medium overseas and in the West, and it’s been very rewarding to see that slowly happening, partly as a result of what we have been doing here at Sekai Project.
NG: To cap this interview, is there anything else you want to share? Something you want to tell those who read this article and/or your fans?
RQ: Thank you so much to everyone for supporting us this far. We’re ironing out various bumps we’ve come across, and we’re learning from our mistakes, and without you, our company simply wouldn’t exist.
NG: Thanks for your time. You’ve made this a pleasure. Good luck with your current projects.
Related reading: too much to list. How about you look through our tag for Sekai Project?ORION: Dino Beatdown Trailer Dives into Details
ORION: Dino Beatdown comes out this Friday on Steam for $9.99, and while we have been excited for the overall premise of jet packs and dinosaurs, there was still much we didn’t know about the classes and weapon systems. Today, Spiral Game Studios released a trailer (see above) that aims to answer all of those questions.
First off, there will be three classes: Assault, Recon, and Support. Assault does the most damage and has the jet pack we’ve seen in other trailers. The Recon class has a stealth pack and a weapon set geared for longer range. Lastly, Support can heal himself and other players in his party, as well as repair things.
We also learn that there are three types of depots, which serve as respawn points and can deploy weapon upgrades and vehicles. You must find and secure various control points, all while fighting off the dinosaur horde.
The developers detailed that patches and updates for the game will be completely free to those who own the game, which will come as welcome news to gamers who have felt nickel-and-dimed by some companies’ DLC strategies as of late. This trailer makes it that much more difficult to wait until Friday for this release. With this game and Primal Carnage on the horizon, dinosaur lovers are in gaming heaven right now.UKIP MEP Paul Nuttall has caused outrage in the European Parliament today by comparing outgoing Council President Herman Van Rompuy to Saddam Hussein’s information minister ‘Comical Ali’.
Addressing the Conference of Presidents, a powerful committee of group leaders in the European Parliament who usually meet in private, Mr Nuttall made the comparison as the President of the European Council addressed MEPs for the final time before his term of office ends.
“You’ve come here to talk about the European Council, Ukraine, energy, the economy. It all seems very business as usual to me but I’ve also listened to you for the past five years now and I’d like to give you a critique on what I’ve heard.
“Much of the time you’ve reminded me of that other great statesmen of our time, Comical Ali. You remember him, Saddam Hussein’s information minister. The man who told the world’s press that there were no Americans in Iraq yet tanks were rolling into Baghdad behind him.”
He was interrupted by the European Parliament President Martin Schulz who told him his words were “unacceptable”.
“You cannot compare the President of the European Council to the propaganda minister of a brutal dictatorship,” he said, before threatening to “impose penalties” on the North West Euro MP.
Mr Nuttall was taking the seat of UKIP leader Nigel Farage who, in his first speech to Mr Van Rompuy, caused uproar and was fined ten days pay – the maximum which could be imposed – for calling the Belgian a ‘damp rag’.
He continued, attacking the EU’s record over the last five years which saw riots on the streets in several Mediterranean states.
“So what have you really achieved in your five years as president of this council? You helped destroy democracy in Greece and in Italy by helping to remove two democratically elected Prime Ministers, replacing them with two europhile puppets whose strings were pulled from Brussels.
“You’ve also achieved a massive growth in youth unemployment which is now averaging 50 percent in Greece, Spain and Italy. This is literally over one million young Europeans who are living their lives in despair, unable to find a job and some who are fleeing the continent altogether. The Spanish are going to Argentina, Portuguese to Brazil and even Angola! And it seems everyone else is coming to Britain.”
His words on immigration will not be well received by Downing Street who have faced a tough few weeks debating proposed changes to the EU rules on freedom of movement. Most recently German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she would sooner see the UK leave the EU than change one of the ‘fundamental freedoms’.
“Last year we had a massive 247,000 people net come to Britain, the majority from within the EU. This uncontrolled mass influx of people has driven down wages and, in some cases, put people out of work. Yet you Mr Van Rompuy still rule out allowing us to control our own borders.”
But his speech was not popular with the majority of MEPs attending the meeting today. Labour MEP Richard Corbett tweeted that Mr Nuttall’s comments were ‘Pitiful and petty’.
#UKIP now attempting again to get media attention by insults as @paulnuttallukip compares @euHvr with Saddam dictatorship. Pitiful&petty. — Richard Corbett (@RCorbettMEP) November 4, 2014
Mr Corbett lost his seat in the 2009 European Elections to Andrew Brons of the BNP and spent the five years before his return to the socialist group in the Brussels parliament in a highly paid position advising the same Mr Van Rompuy he defended on the social media site.As the secretary of labor, Tom Perez spends a lot of his time explaining workers’ rights. Yet when he talks one-on-one with workers of all kinds, he’s noticed that many of them still aren’t aware of the legal protections they have.
Whether it’s the right to overtime pay when they toil more than 40 hours in a week or the right to take unpaid time off after having a child, “they don’t know what they don’t know,” as Perez put it to The Huffington Post.
The White House is hoping to change that. On Friday, the Obama administration unveiled a new government website, worker.gov, that’s meant to help people understand their rights under the hodgepodge of U.S. workplace laws that are enforced by a range of agencies.
Unlike the typical federal website ― which tries, and often fails, to put complicated statutes into plain English (and Spanish) ― the new site begins with the worker. If you visit the site, you’ll be asked to identify your job and perhaps your problem on the job. The site will then tell you how different laws apply to your situation and how regulators might be able to help if a law is being broken.
In other words, you won’t have to know that a certain law exists to learn about its protections.
“If you’re a low-wage worker, you shouldn’t have to know what the Fair Labor Standards Act is,” said Perez, referring to the law that guarantees a minimum wage. “You should be able to go to one stop, type in what you do for a living, and it’ll give you a primer on what your rights are and where you can file a complaint.”
Perez concedes that a new website won’t move the needle much when it comes to improving wages and working conditions in the U.S. But he sees it as part of a broader White House effort to boost employees’ bargaining power in piecemeal ways ― given the lack of cooperation from a Republican-controlled Congress.
President Barack Obama was criticized by many labor leaders for sitting back early in his presidency. But over the past few years, he has let loose a flurry of executive actions related to the workplace. These include directives to expand overtime protections to millions of salaried workers, finalize safety regulations that were decades in the making, and force federal contractors to pay higher wages and offer better benefits to low-wage workers. Republicans opposed all those maneuvers, but weren’t able to stop them because they were carried out through executive power.
The White House has also tried to augment its more ambitious moves with smaller improvements. For instance, the administration was unable to get a bill through Congress guaranteeing paid family leave for workers, so the Labor Department doled out grants to states and cities to explore the costs of local paid-leave programs. The grants are modest ― the District of Columbia received one for $96,000 ― but they can help spur actual legislation. D.C.’s city council and mayor are now haggling over the details of a paid-leave proposal, and a new law could arrive as soon as next year.
Perez argues that this adds up to more than just nibbling around the edges ― although he acknowledges there’s no substitute for passing federal laws the president can sign.
“There are a lot of singles and doubles being hit,” Perez said. “I think we’re making progress in very real ways.”
A year ago, the administration hosted a summit titled “Worker Voice,” bringing together labor unions, nonprofits and corporate executives to discuss stagnant wages and other problems facing workers in the modern economy. Since then, it has hosted similar regional summits in places like Minneapolis, Los Angeles, New York and D.C.
According to the White House, feedback from those events went into the creation of the Worker.gov site, which was developed with the help of the Presidential Innovation Fellows program. The site draws material from the Justice Department, the Labor Department, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the National Labor Relations Board. Officials said they expect some kinks and want feedback from users. (HuffPost, like everyone else, recalls the disastrous Healthcare.gov rollout, and we haven’t played around with Worker.gov enough to vouch for its usability.)
Perez said hopes for the new site are straightforward: If you’ve had wages withheld unfairly, if you’ve been hurt or discriminated against on the job, or if your right to unionize has been trampled on, Worker.gov will show you where you can find help.
The current version of the site, which is still in beta testing, focuses on a few particular types of workers: office employees, day laborers, and workers in restaurants and nail salons. But the White House plans to expand the site to include jobs of all kinds.Mason County Sheriffs Office Authorities said an intruder was fatally shot after he was found taking a shower inside this Washington state home on Saturday.
A Washington state homeowner is facing a second-degree murder charge after he fatally shot an intruder he found showering in his home, authorities said.
The Belfair homeowner’s arrest, which came as a surprise to many on social media, followed the property owner allegedly confronting the intruder, exchanging words with him around 8 a.m. Saturday, and then leaving the property to get a gun, the Mason County Sheriff’s office said.
When he returned, deputies said he shot the man in the shower without warning, multiple times, before calling 911 to report what he had done.
Lt. Travis Adams described the man’s use of deadly force as unwarranted.
Lots of reactions to the arrest. There is more to the story that can not be released yet. You may reserve your judgement until facts are out — Mason County Sheriff (@MasonCoSheriff) April 1, 2017
“Certainly he had an opportunity to call law enforcement at that time,” he told local KOMO News, commenting on the moments before the shooter retrieved his gun. “And we’ve contacted our local prosecutor, explained the circumstances to him, and he agrees that second-degree murder was an appropriate charge in this case.”
Authorities said that the homeowner also owned the second property directly next door, where he retrieved the gun.
Lt. Adams told iFiber One News Radio that the shooter’s name will be released once he is formally charged on Monday. And the sheriff’s office reported on Twitter that he was cooperating with authorities at the scene.
The Mason County coroner identified the deceased 31-year-old victim as Nathaniel Joseph Rosa who had been visiting his mother who lives in northern Mason County, the Kitsap Sun reported.The Stone is a forum for contemporary philosophers and other thinkers on issues both timely and timeless.
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Back in 2007, Viacom filed a copyright infringement lawsuit. It alleged that the defendants had created a website that was hosting copyrighted Viacom videos, including everything from the “The Colbert Report” to “SpongeBob SquarePants.” But that was not all. Viacom made a series of allegations about the defendants’ mental states. It alleged that they specifically “intended” to host these illegal videos, that they were doing so “knowingly” and with “brazen disregard” for the law.
So far, all of this may seem perfectly straightforward. But here is the surprising part. The defendants in the suit were not individual human beings. They were YouTube and its parent company, Google. In other words, the entities that were alleged to have all of these intentions and attitudes were actually corporations.
Corporations play a fundamental role in society, and we need to make sense of them in terms of the complex structure that they actually have.
Cases like this one have long puzzled philosophers. In everyday speech, it seems perfectly correct to say that a corporation can “intend,” “know,” “believe,” “want” or “decide.” Yet, when we begin thinking the matter over from a more theoretical standpoint, it may seem that there is something deeply puzzling here. What could people possibly mean when they talk about corporations in this way?
One possible approach would be to try to dismiss this whole issue as merely a misleading figure of speech. Sure, people sometimes describe a corporation using words like “decides” or “knows,” but they don’t necessarily mean this literally. Maybe all they really mean to say is that it is able to take in certain information and then use that information to adjust its plans and policies.
Then again, maybe the way people talk about corporations is getting at something more fundamental. One of our most basic psychological capacities is our ability to think about things as having mental states, such as intentions and beliefs. Researchers refer to this capacity as “theory of mind.” Our capacity for theory of mind appears to be such a fundamental aspect of our way of understanding the world that we apply it even to completely inanimate entities.
Think about it: Has it ever crossed your mind that your computer is out to get you? Or that the big snowstorm somehow knew you needed to make it home especially quickly this time? You might recognize on some level that these entities don’t have minds, but all the same, some part of you might be drawn to thinking of them in this way. Is it such a big leap, then, to suppose that people might think of corporations as having intentions?
This is a disturbing thought. Corporations play an absolutely fundamental role in contemporary society, and if we are going to react to them appropriately, we need to make sense of them in terms of the complex structure that they actually have. It is deeply worrisome to think that our approach to understanding corporations might be shaped in part by a mode of thought that would be more appropriate for understanding the minds of individual human beings.
To put this idea to the test, I teamed up with the cognitive neuroscientists Adrianna Jenkins, David Dodell-Feder and Rebecca Saxe, and together we ran a study. Participants came into the lab and were given a task that involved reasoning about corporations in much the same way that people often do in ordinary life. This time, however, they were lying in an fMRI scanner that made it possible to look at the patterns of activation within their brains. The key question was whether people thinking about corporations would show the distinctive sort of neural response associated with thinking of something as having mental states.
While lying in the scanner, participants read a series of sentences. Some of the sentences just described the mental states of individual human beings. For example, one of the sentences was:
George thought it really might be possible to make a killing in asparagus sales.
Then other sentences described corporations and other large organizations. For example, another sentence was:
United Food Corp. thought that stocks would continue to go up.
This design made it possible to compare what was happening in people’s brains as they considered sentences of each of these types.
For the sentences about individual human beings, the results were exactly what one would expect. We found activation in the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), the right temporoparietal junction (RTPJ), and the precuneus (PC). These are the regions that pretty much always show activation when people are thinking about other people’s minds. In fact, this collection of regions has come to be known as the “theory of mind network.”
Related More From The Stone Read previous contributions to this series.
For the sentences about corporations, though, we found a result that really caught us by surprise. The pattern of activation for these sentences was completely indistinguishable from the one for sentences about individual human beings. We found activation in all regions of the theory of mind network. Not only that, we found activation to the same degree: There were no significant differences in any of these regions between the sentences about corporations and the sentences about human beings.
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In other words, if we pick out the brain regions that show activation when you are thinking about another human being’s mind, we find activation in those exact same brain regions when you are thinking about Google. This result provides some evidence that people sometimes make sense of corporations by applying their capacity for theory of mind.
But now one might raise another objection. Perhaps the sentences we are examining are not really about corporations themselves; perhaps they are actually about the individual human beings who control the corporations. For example, when people say “Google intends,” it might be that they are just using a convenient shorthand for something like “The individual human beings who control Google intend…” If this view is on the right track, it could be that people are simply applying theory of mind to a bunch of individual human beings, not to the corporation itself.
To address this objection, we ran a quick follow-up study. In this study, we gave people a series of brief vignettes about corporations and other organizations. Then we asked in each case whether the organization itself had a certain mental state and also whether the individual human beings in the organization had that mental state. Strikingly, people were often happy to say that the organization itself had a certain mental state even when they thought that there wasn’t a single human being within the organization who had that state.
For example, people are happy to say that NASA knows how to build a space shuttle even if there is not a single individual human being within NASA who knows how to build a space shuttle. In a case like this, people are not thinking about the individual NASA employees; they are thinking about NASA itself, the whole organization, and they are describing it by saying that it “knows” certain things. Or, to take another example, consider an organization that arrives at decisions by aggregating the preferences of its members according to some complicated rule. People are happy to say that such an organization could decide to pursue a policy even if there were no individual members who decided on that policy or showed any desire at all for it to be implemented. Here again, people seem to be talking about the organization as a whole, and they are describing the organization by saying that it “decided.”
Putting the results of our two experiments together, we acquire evidence for a larger conclusion. It seems that a certain kind of psychological process does involve theory of mind (from our first experiment) and is directed at the corporations themselves (from the follow-up experiment). Of course, we should not jump to any strong conclusions based just on two studies — more research is necessary — but we now have some serious evidence that indicates that people apply theory of mind to corporations.
In saying this, I certainly don’t mean to imply that people hold a belief that corporations have minds. Suppose that instead of conducting a neuroimaging study, we had simply asked people, “Do you think that Google has a mind?” Most likely, they would have given us a quizzical stare and failed to understand what we were even asking. If they did take the question seriously, they might have said something like, “Obviously not. Google is a gigantic multinational institution. It could not possibly think or feel anything at all.”
Still, our results suggest that things are more complex than they might at first appear. Even if people believe on some level that corporations do not have minds, they seem to be using the same sort of psychological process for thinking about corporations that they use for thinking about the minds of human beings.
This is a finding that should give us pause. When we are thinking things over at a more intuitive level, it may seem obvious to us that corporations should be severely punished for their misdeeds or that they should be given legal rights, such as the right to free speech. But before we accept these conclusions, we should take a moment to think about why it is that they seem so compelling.
One possibility is that we have firmly in our minds a clear conception of what a corporation is. Then perhaps we are concluding that this very thing, a certain kind of bureaucratic institution, is deserving of severe punishment or of legal rights. If so, great; we have nothing to fear from the experimental findings. But it is also possible that our thinking may be taking a somewhat different turn. Despite all of our awareness of how corporations really work, it may be that our conclusions about how they should be treated are shaped in part by a psychological process that understands them as having thoughts, goals and intentions, even when we specifically believe that they do not.
Joshua Knobe is a professor of cognitive science and philosophy at Yale University and a co-editor of “Experimental Philosophy.
Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and on Twitter, and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter.We first met Tom Holland's new cinematic version of Spider-Man in Captain America: Civil War when he swung into battle and politely introduced himself, "Hey everyone!" In his first solo outing under the creative hand of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (courtesy of the Sony Studios property sharing deal) he will be a high-school student and protoge of Tony Stark. In fact, there will even be a dance!
So far we've mostly seen happy-go-lucky imagery in most marketing materials and news concerning the film, but today Tom Holland proved that he is, in fact, a complete badass. Holland personally shared a photo via his own Instagram account, showing the webslinger in the darkness of a menacing alleyway. In other words, don't you dare walk down this alley alone:
Thank you to @georgejcottle and his amazing team for making me look like a badass. #spidermanhomecoming #stunts A photo posted by ✌️ (@tomholland2013) on Sep 1, 2016 at 1:51pm PDT
The photo could easily be from a scene in Spider-Man: Homecoming as the caption does imply he was doing some stunt work. But my gosh, this is a totally different side to the young hero we first met. We're also wondering where Daredevil is...Proving that you don't need Google's billions or the BBC weather centre's resources, the four Spanish students managed to send a camera-operated weather balloon into the stratosphere.
Taking atmospheric readings and photographs 20 miles above the ground, the Meteotek team of IES La Bisbal school in Catalonia completed their incredible experiment at the end of February this year.
Building the electronic sensor components from scratch, Gerard Marull Paretas, Sergi Saballs Vila, Marta Gasull Morcillo and Jaume Puigmiquel Casamort managed to send their heavy duty £43 latex balloon to the edge of space and take readings of its ascent.
Created by the four students under the guidance of teacher Jordi Fanals Oriol, the budding scientists, all aged 18-19, followed the progress of their balloon using high tech sensors communicating with Google Earth.
Team leader Gerard Marull, 18, said: "We were overwhelmed at our results, especially the photographs, to send our handmade craft to the edge of space is incredible."
Completing their landmark experiment on February, the Meteotek team had to account for a wide variety of variables and rely on a lot of luck.
"The balloon we chose was inflated with helium to just over two metres and weighed just 1500 grams," said Gerard. "It was able to carry the sensor equipment and digital Nikon camera which weighed 1.5kg.
"However, when we launched at 9.10am on that morning the critical point for the experiment was to see if the balloon would make it past 10,000m, or 30,000ft, which is the altitude that commercial airliners fly at."
Due to the changing atmospheric pressures, the helium weather balloon carrying the meteorological equipment was expected to inflate to a maximum of nine and a half metres as it travelled upwards at 270 metres-per-minute.
"We took readings as the balloon rose and mapped its progress using Google Earth and the onboard radio receiver," said Gerard.
"At over 100,000ft the balloon lost its inflation and the equipment was returned to the earth.
"We travelled 10km to find the sensors and photographic card, which was still emitting its signal, even though it had been exposed to the most extreme conditions."
The pupils' incredible school science project has already caught the attention of the University of Wyoming in the US.A Brooklyn musician is recovering from a brutal street attack in which he was beaten with a hammer so viciously that he lost an eye. Police are still looking for the attacker. Brynn Gingras reports. (Published Tuesday, July 16, 2013)
A Brooklyn man has a long road to recovery after a man bludgeoned him with a hammer in an attack so vicious he lost an eye.
Dru Barnes, a musician, was walking home to Fort Greene from a friend's house in Bedford-Stuyvesant last week when he got lost, he said. Police believe the attacker followed him for a block before he struck, hitting Barnes in the eye.
The friend Barnes had just been visiting rushed to his hospital bedside.
"I arrive two hours later at the trauma unit, and there is Dru on a gurney. It was horrific, it was like a horror movie," Gerrit Vooren told NBC 4 New York.
At the hospital bed, Vooren recorded Barnes' recollection of the attack.
"I'm not sure what the motive was," Barnes says in the video, groggy from pain medication.
Police don't know, either. Authorities don't think it was a hate crime or a robbery. They have some surveillance video, witness reports and the hammer, but no identity of the attacker.
On Wednesday, they released a sketch of the possible suspect (below).
"This guy's on the loose, this can happen again. Clearly, he's deranged," said Vooren.
Barnes says he's relying on his Buddhist faith to get him through the multiple surgeries that are ahead.
His friends have set up a Facebook page to help pay for the costs.
More than money though, they want information to help catch the perpetrator and prevent it from happening to someone else.
Anyone who recognizes the suspect in the sketch is asked to contact Crime Stoppers at 800-577-TIPS.Next time you think about parking in front of a fire hydrant, keep this BMW in mind.
The owner took a gamble, perhaps thinking, "What are the chances they'll actually need to use the hydrant, right?"
Well, Wednesday night, an eight-alarm fire broke out across the street from where the car was parked and the Boston Fire Department did not hesitate to bust through the car windows to weave their hoses from the hydrant straight towards the flames.
Keeping the hose in a straight line helps maintain the water pressure.
The bad parking job triggered an uproar online as many were disgusted at the driver's poor choice to block the fire hydrant.
"Some jackass parked his BMW in front of a fire hydrant in the city of Boston," one person tweeted. "The firefighters showed him how they felt."
Another tweeting, "This is why you MUST NOT park your #BMW in front of a fire hydrant."
The Boston Fire department did not take the situation lightly, either.
"The general reaction is that some people find humor in it," Boston Fire Department spokesman Steve MacDonald told The Boston Globe. "But it's really a serious situation. That water supply is the lifeblood of the engine company. The engine carries 750 gallons - and that could be gone in just two minutes. With that number of alarms, every hydrant is important."
Because of the way the BMW was parked blocking the hose from being able to be straightened for optimum pressure flow, MacDonald said it slowed the volume of water towards the flames which eventually left about 30 people displaced.
"It's similar to those who park in a handicapped spot," he explained. "It's just something you don't do."
In Boston, it is illegal to park within 10 feet of a fire hydrant, with most states across the country enforcing 10 to 15 feet as well. The driver was ticketed and the car had been moved by this morning.
Seven families were displaced in the inferno of the wooden building which was believed to be triggered by strong winds.Fox News host Jesse Watters has come under fire for making a seemingly lewd comment about Ivanka Trump.
Watters, who joined The Five last week from the now dissolved O'Reilly Factor, was remarking on the First Daughter's speech at a women in economics summit in Berlin on Tuesday when he smirked: 'I really like the way she is speaking in to that microphone'.
Viewers erupted on social media, accusing the 38-year-old host of being'sexist' and 'rude'.
He refused to apologize for the outrage on Wednesday and insists he meant no offense and that he was merely complimenting her voice which he likened to that of a'smooth jazz radio DJ'.
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Fox News host Jesse Watters was slammed for joking that he'really liked' the way Ivanka Trump spoke in to a microphone at a women in economics summit
The show's hosts were reviewing footage of Ivanka's appearance at the summit with German Chancellor Angela Merkel when Watters made the remark.
The First Daughter was booed by the audience as she spoke about her father's commitment to empowering women in the workplace.
She soldiered on through their jeering, telling the crowd of her 'personal experience' of her father's fairness on the issue.
Prompted for his view by co-host Kimberly Guilfoyle, Watters said the audience treated Ivanka unfairly with its reaction.
'It's funny you know the left says they really respect women and when given an opportunity to respect a woman like that they boo and hiss.
'I always thought the Europeans were supposed to be so sophisticated and well-mannered and now they're treating her like this, like it's a soccer match.
'I don't understand what's going on. I think Ivanka is supposed to be the moderating voice for her father so I think people in Europe should support that.
'I don't know why, also, saying her father respects families is controversial.
'He's probably hired a ton of fathers, mothers and children so I really don't get what's going on here but I really liked how she was speaking in to that microphone,' he said.
Watters was co-hosting The Five when he made the comment on Tuesday night
Watters, above with the First Daughter in the White House last week, insisted he was only complimenting her voice
His co-hosts swept past it but viewers picked up on the comment immediately and some even called for him to be fired over it.
They also pointed to the hypocrisy of chastising the summit audience for being disrespectful to Ivanka by booing her while appearing to degrade her with the remark.
'It's funny you know the left says they really respect women and when given an opportunity to respect a woman like that they boo and hiss.'
'This is how Jesse Watters is helping Fox News foster a "workplace culture of trust & respect." The guy should be fired.'
'Hey Trump, where's your voice on empowering women when Jesse Watters speaks vile if Ivanka. Seriously, this has to stop it's not ok!!' another remarked.
'Vile Fox News. Have you learned nothing or standing behind your vile culture? Say goodbye to Sky deal,' another mused.
Watters, who is married with twin daughters, swiftly issued a statement to explain the remark away.
Ivanka was appearing at a women in economics summit in Berlin, Germany, on Tuesday when she addressed the audience
Watters immediately faced backlash from viewers who deemed the comment 'vile'
He insisted he meant no impropriety and that he was merely complimenting the First Daughter's tone.
'During the break we were commenting on Ivanka’s voice and how it was low and steady and resonates like a smooth jazz radio DJ. This was in no way a joke about anything else,' he told DailyMail.com in a statement.
The host later uploaded the same statement to Twitter.
Watters, who previously interviewed the president and has mingled with Ivanka in the White House, was announced as the newest addition to The Five earlier this month as the dust settled after O'Reilly's ousting.
Until then he had a man on the street segment on The O'Reilly Factor titled Watters' World.
He defended the remark, claiming he was complimenting Ivanka's'smooth jazz radio DJ' voice
Watters started at Fox News on The O'Reilly Factor. He was given a spot on The Five earlier this month after his mentor was ousted from the network
The host interviewed Donald Trump earlier this year for a segment on the now axed O'Reilly Factor show
Watters (pictured with his wife Noelle) insisted he had done no wrong
He faced backlash last year over one segment last year that was filmed in Manhattan's Chinatown and saw him interview Asian pedestrians for their views on Donald Trump.
It was admonished as racist and cruel, with New York Mayor Bill de Blasio labeling it 'vile'.
Watters expressed regret over the footage which prompted protests in New York City.
O'Reilly had his contract terminated last week by Rupert Murdoch and his two sons, James and Lachlan w
It came amid growing accusations he sexually harassed colleagues over the course of his 20-year cable TV career.
He denies the accusations.
O'Reilly launched the first episode of a new podcast series on his personal website over the weekend.The effect of Nigel Wright’s testimony at the Mike Duffy trial is hitting the Conservative Prairie bedrock hard, according to experts in Alberta and Saskatchewan.
Former solicitor general of Alberta Jonathan Denis told CTV’s Power Play on Tuesday that much of the current negativity surrounding the Conservatives in his province stems from the ongoing Duffy trial in Ottawa, where Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s former right hand man Wright has been on the stand for nearly a week.
“There is a lot of negativity unfortunately around the Conservative Party these days. And a lot of that is just coming from the Nigel Wright testimony, the Mike Duffy trial. That seems to be a never-ending negative news story,” said Denis.
In neighbouring Saskatchewan, University of Regina political science professor Tom McIntosh says he is seeing a similar effect, even amidst a dead-of-summer election campaign.
“There’s still a lot of people still on vacation, but certainly it’s still a huge topic of conversation. One of our senators, Senator (David) Tkachuk, is in the centre of some of those conversations going around with Duffy,” said McIntosh.
“That’s also sort of dampened Conservative enthusiasm.”
Denis and McIntosh’s comments come as local polling shows a tight race between the Conservatives and NDP in Saskatchewan. While they agree the Duffy trial has not been good for Conservative numbers in Alberta and Saskatchewan, they added that the redrawn federal riding boundaries may also have an effect on the outcome of the Oct. 19 election.
“There are a couple of ridings in Calgary, and I’d say about four or five in Edmonton, that I think are up for grabs,” said Denis. “At the same time, I do see the rural areas and the donut around Calgary and Edmonton as … largely staying Conservative.”
And with more new urban ridings in Regina and Saskatoon, McIntosh said there will likely be changes coming to those areas that will benefit the New Democrats.
“Where the NDP still has strength in Saskatchewan is in the urban centers, and so by creating ridings that are strictly urban, it’s essentially concentrating that vote,” said McIntosh.
Many federal ridings were affected by the riding redistribution plans for the 2015 election. See how your riding is affected here.Trump supporter Ed Martin on Wednesday tried to lay doubts about Roy Moore’s accusers by noting that, unlike other prominent lawmakers accused of sexual misconduct, Moore had so far admitted no wrongdoing.
Martin began his argument by claiming that he had no reason to not believe Moore’s accusers — before seguing to saying that Moore deserved the benefit of the doubt because he issued a blanket denial about all of his accusers.
“I also know Roy Moore a little bit, he has said he didn’t do it,” he said. “Franken confessed to it. Conyers confessed to it.”
CNN’s Poppy Harlow interjected to say that, in fact, Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) had not confessed to any of the allegations brought against him. Martin then apologized and said that Conyers should thus get the benefit of the doubt.
“But other people who said they didn’t do it, like the president and Roy Moore, they have to have a certain sort of credibility,” he went on. “And their credibility goes up with the public when they see that — people call Roy Moore a child molester on TV… that’s not fair!”
Democrat Krish Vignarajah, who is running to be governor in Maryland, slammed Martin’s standard that men should |
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Don't compare the Replay to a Raspberry Pi. Pi based machines run at half the speed, and can't run as many emulators--like N64, or Playstation--without lots of stuttering. Additionally, they run freeware, limited front-ends. Our front-end has been designed from the ground up for ease-of-use and powerful customization.
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Don't see your country listed? Just message us with your country, city, and postal code and we'll try to add it the the list. Unfortunately, we cannot ship to Canada at this time.Police are searching for an unidentified man who crossed the subway tracks at a 6 train stop on the Upper East Side and struck a stranger in the face, leaving the victim bleeding on the brain and with wounds to his head.
The assault occurred around 4AM at the 77th Street subway station, when the attacker got into a stare down with the stranger. He then jumped from the northbound end of the station and crossed over the tracks to reach his victim.
The victim was rushed to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital and has since been released.
The alleged attacker has been described to be a black man about 30-40 years old, 200 pounds, and roughly six feet tall.
Anyone with information on the attacker is asked to call Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS (8477).After using a few very good applications written in Go (Syncthing, Docker and Hugo are some examples) I wanted to get to learn a bit more about the language.
I'm very interested in programming languages theory and how it could give developers the tools they need to write software in the best possible way and with as many guarantees as possible on the correctness of the resulting applications.
To get an idea of where programming languages theory is headed have a look at the post Graydon Hoare (the creator of Rust and now one of Swift's developers) published discussing possible new research directions for programming languages.
I obviously wasn't expecting Go to address any of these issues but I find it very interesting that its designers deliberately ignored lots of what I would consider basics features in the name of simplicity.
The lack of generics is often mentioned in discussions regarding Go.
I would have liked Go to have algebraic data types and immutability by default. I would gladly give nil away to get these features.
On the positive side, Go has good libraries, good tooling, a common style and a syntax that is extremely easy to pick up. It's fast enough and it has good support for concurrency via goroutines. It also produces executables that are very easy to deploy anywhere.
Given this description, it seems to me that Go is an evolution of C and Python and I decided to give it a try rewriting a project originally written in Python I am working on.
That project is very simple, small and self contained. It interacts with Twitter (a good library is a huge plus), and it analyzes my interactions with the people I follow.
The goal is to find out if I'm following people I am not interacting with much.
I somehow ended up following too many people and I needed to find a way to bring my following to a more manageable number.
That is admittedly something too simple to draw conclusions, but I think it was still good enough to get a feeling of the language and I had a good impression.
Picking up the language has been very easy, the library I used is good. With respect to Python I have a type system, albeit limited, and I get an executable I can easily deploy with no additional dependencies.
Given this experience I believe I'll consider Go again for projects of a similar size and scope or for simple command line applications.
For that use case, I believe it's a much better fit than Python while it's simplicity could make me be more productive than if I were using other languages.
Originally posted on mariosangiorgio.github.ioAvoid the white exudate (left) by brining salmon (right) prior to cooking
Salmon is a wonderful fish that can be prepared at nearly any temperature between raw (as in sushi) and fully cooked. In between these extremes lies a range of temperatures that with the advent of sous vide have become accessible for more and more (try for instance salmon confit: 18 min @ 42°C). Beyond temperature salmon can be combined with salt, sugar, acids, liquorice or even smoke. And the more adventurous even leave it to ferment for a couple of days to yield a gravlax (which used to be fermented, but today normally is only cured) or – for the strong hearted – rakfisk (which is still produced by fermentation). But exotic preparations aside. A problem encountered when heating salmon is the liquid that oozes out as the muscle is heated, and solidifies once it hits a hot surface. I say problem, but should stress that it is perfectly fine to eat the white exudate – it looks like egg white and is composed mainly of protein. But since the exudate is not particularly beautiful, for a nice plated dish one would preferably choose a way of preparing salmon that eliminates the formation of exudate.
Immersing salmon for 10 min in 10% solution of salt in water prior to cooking does wonders
The solution to this problem is quite simple: Brine the salmon in a 10% brine 10 min before cooking it. The brine is made by dissolving 50 g salt in 450 g water. A possible explanation I’ve found for why this works is that the protein myosin, which is present in muscles and the culprit of the white exudate, is partly dissolved in the brine. Upon heating a gel is formed, effectively trapping any further myosin inside the meat so it cannot ooze out, even when the meat is heated. I learnt this from sous vide pioneer Bruno Goussalt who told he had learnt it from a Norwegian chef when he lived and worked for 3 years in Stavanger. Bruno could not remember the name of the Norwegian chef any more, but perhaps some of my readers can help me? Who was the first to discover this effect of brining on salmon?
Salmon (left unbrinded, right brined) before and after beeing baked. Red arrows show where exudate is formed and gels as it hits the hot surface of the baking dish
Filed under: experimentsOn 11 June 2014 17:56, Andrew Edwards via Digitalmars-d-announce <digita lmars-d- announce@ puremagic.com> wrote: > On 6/11/14, 11:24 AM, Iain Buclaw via Digitalmars-d-announce wrote: >> >> On 11 June 2014 14:19, Andrew Edwards via Digitalmars-d-announce <digita lmars-d- announce@ puremagic.com> wrote: >>> >>> On 6/11/14, 2:23 AM, deadalnix wrote: >>>> >>>> >>>> I'll be there to test and bug report! Thank for being the release lieutenant. >>> >>> >>> >>> In my world a lieutenant is absolutely useless. Given the tutelage and >>> guidance of solid staff non-commissioned officer, some day they will >>> become >>> productive members of the community. If they don't find such a mentor >>> however, they will become loose cannons: destroying all in their path. >>> >>> I tend to see life from a different perspective. Officers, in general, >>> are >>> quite useless. They are the "good idea fairies" who give little, if any, >>> consideration to the ramifications of their ideas/proposals and will stop >>> at >>> nothing to see them come to fruition: regardless of consequences. Worse >>> still, they are absolutely incapable of implementing the ideas/proposals >>> they generate. >>> >>> I prefer a "Chief and Indian" analogy. The Chief knows what needs to get >>> done and, though she may not know have the tasks required to get the job >>> done, leverages the strengths of the Indians to do so. The Indians >>> provide >>> the skills and know-how, and actually does the work. >>> >>> This community needs far more Chiefs and Indians (arguably more Indians >>> than >>> Chiefs): and way less lieutenants. >>> >>> Oh, wow! That was a pretty long way around to say thank you for your continued support. >> >> >> >> Nice analogy (and outlook!) >> >> Now, as 'Chief' of GDC talking to 'Chief' or D releases, I must say that the release timings are abysmal. At least 2 months overdue. I have only just managed to catch up to 2.065, and that's not due out till the weekend. >> >> Things used to be so much easier when releases were less than 2 months apart. >> > > You are absolutely correct... I was asked to delay the April and, after that, my personal life took precedence. I am aiming is to get back on track with a two month release cycle. The maintenance releases will remain on a six month cycle though. FYI, I have actually collected some stats about DMD vs GDC supported D2 versions and their dates. It's quite interesting, and ends with a guestimation of the 2.067 release date, followed by how long till 2.066 will be merge down into GDC. :-) Maybe this should be posted somewhere, Andrei? http:// gdcproj ect.org/ data/gdc-dmd- v2release.svgBy Darren Proulx
It may have happened to you, one day you may have passed by a public space with distinguished, clean and polished design and landscaping but it is empty except for a handful of people. On other days it may be full of energy and people but only when there is programming like a festival or concert. While programming is a great way to give back to your citizens, cities should focus on making plazas great destinations at all times.
When a place is designed correctly you will know, there will be people in it. Project for Public Spaces offers a great rule of thumb for inviting people into a space, the Power of 10. Design public spaces to offer at least 10 activities for people to attract different to the space for different reasons at different times of the day. This can include things like water features for people to interact with. People are also a natural invitation for other people, most people like to be around other people even if it is to just sit quietly and people watch. When you design public spaces around accommodating large events like the new Art Gallery in Vancouver and Churchill Square in Edmonton, when there is no programming to invite people the space feels out of scale, empty and uninviting. With public spaces, scale plays a big role in their success, smaller spaces feel more vibrant and full with less people.
Cities do a great job activating public spaces with water features and meandering paths.
Most cities do a good job at introducing the water features, seating, greenery, nice views and paths. However the most critical element that will tie them all together often remains elusive. Commerce. Commerce in the form of food and beverages is often best since everyone needs to eat and drink which invites them to stay in the space while they consume it, especially if there is a patio or movable chairs. Patios, where people can eat and drink, naturally attract people, which will in turn attract more people. However other commerce such as retail will also do the trick, but not as well.
This was first identified by Jane Jacobs in The Life and Death of Great American Cities. Jacobs’ astute observations led her to conclude that parks should be immediately surrounded by buildings of fine grain retail shops that open up towards the park. While Jacobs at the time may not have had the hard data to back this up, but this has since recently been confirmed. A City Observatory study found that surrounding a park or plaza with fine grain retail businesses will indeed increase the number of people using the space. “As we showed with our recent Storefront Index (which measures the number and concentration of customer-facing retail and service businesses in cities), the difference between an under-utilized park and an activated one is substantially explained by the presence and density of adjacent storefronts.”
Since stores tend to attract people, the benefits of storefronts include improving safety, having people around adds eyes on the street which deters crime and makes other feel a space is inviting and safe. Commerce around and in parks also create jobs and support the local economy. Having a cafe on public land is also a new revenue source for governments on what would have otherwise been a sunken cost.
Think about your favourite cafe. Do you use it as a meeting point, have you ever gotten the inspiration for a great idea, have you laughed or met new people. Our private establishments can bring a wealth of social benefits and done well they can extend this to our public spaces.
The following are examples of great public spaces around the world that have integrated commerce effectively to produce vibrancy.
Copenhagen’s Numerous Public Spaces
Copenhagen is renowned internationally as one of the leaders in creating great public spaces, and sure enough in every space you will find either a cafe or a perimeter of ground floor retail. For more information on Copenhagen’s place making continue to this article.
Copenhagen’s Isreals Plad is well activated besides the numerous different types of seating, children’s playgrounds, sports courts and of course two enclosed markets off in the distance. Copenhagen’s Sankt Hans Torv plaza is wrapped by ground floor commerce including a restaurant and patio which invites people and activates the space well. This cafe patio achor’s and activates Copenhagen’s Super Kilen. Copenhagen’s Stoget is a walking only street, but it is well activated by the numerous shops and restaurants flanking the street.
Director’s Park – Portland
Portland’s Director’s Park is one of the best examples of a well designed public space. The space is activated with many activities that include a wonderful splash park, movable chairs, games but most critically the space is surrounded by buildings with ground floor retail. In addition to the ground floor retail surrounding the plaza, there is also a cafe that anchors and spills out into the space.
Portland’s Director’s Park is one of the best examples of a well designed public space. In addition to the many activities that include a wonderful splash park, movable chairs, the space is surrounded by buildings with ground floor retail. In addition to the ground floor retail surrounding the plaza, there is also a cafe that anchors and spills out into the space.
Portland Pioneer square
Portland’s Pioneer Square utilizes a cafe (seen off in the distance) to help anchor this vibrant space.
Madison Square Park – New York City
The Shake Shack in New York city compliments Madison Square Park in New York City nicely. The activities from the Shake Shack spread out into the park as people enjoy their spoils.
The Shake Shack activates the Madison Square Park in New York City The activity from the Shake Shack spreads out into Madison Square Park as people enjoy their spoils.
Memorial Park – Calgary
Calgary’s memorial park is another great example of a public space done well. It does a good job creating ten activities with a splash park, movable tables and chairs. However it is the Boxwood Cafe that anchors one corner of the space which serves to really tie it together and draw people into the space.
Calgary’s memorial park is another great example of a public space done well. The Boxwood Cafe anchors one corner of the space which serves to draw people into the space. Calgary’s Memorial Park does a good job achieving the 10 activities, with a splash park, movable tables and chairs.
Plaza Del Teatro Vs Plaza Santa Domingo – Quito
One of my favourite examples are these almost identical plazas from Quito (the capital of Ecuador). On the one hand you have a space that was consistently empty. In another nearby plaza musicians were commonly playing which resulted in people gathering around to listen. However when you look at the rest of the plaza it is wrapped by fine grain retail and restaurants.
Quito’s Plaza Del Teatro is often very full, exciting and engaging. Aside from seating, there are little activities except for the fine grain commerce that wrap the plaza. Quito’s Plaza Del Teatro is often very full, exciting and engaging. Aside from seating, there are little activities except for the fine grain commerce that wrap the plaza. Quito’s Plaza Del Teatro is often very full, exciting and engaging. Aside from seating, there are little activities except for the fine grain commerce that wrap the plaza.
Streets are public spaces that naturally do this well, their problem is often the reverse they have the people attracting commerce but often also the loud noises and little space that cities mistakenly sacrificed for the sake of moving cars through quickly which contributes little to the local economy.
While it may take considerable effort, planning and capital to install a permanent cafe, quicker, faster and cost effective solutions already exist. Changing the bylaws and permitting food carts and trucks can add the commerce element for little expense on the city’s behalf, yet the results will be immensely rewarding.
AdvertisementsWhat is SunVolt?
SunVolt is a portable charging platform which will efficiently convert the sun’s rays into powerful charging current for your mobile electronic devices. On a clear day, a SunVolt Solar Power Station can charge multiple devices with the same speed as if they were plugged in and charged from the wall. A custom designed carrying case which is light, stylish, and functional, enables the system to be highly portable. In mere seconds, users can easily set up the panel, plug in their devices, and start the charging process. When charging is complete, the panel quickly and safely stores for future use.
What are the key features of SunVolt?
Size (and Technology) Count: SunVolt panels are based on the powerful and very efficient Monocrystalline photovoltaic technology. The panel size is carefully designed for a perfect compromise between size and performance. SunVolt will be available in both 10 and 15 watt sizes.
Portable Power that Really is Portable: A custom designed carrying case is essential to the portability and ease of use of the power station. The case is constructed of high quality materials and is packed with many unique features.
Materials that Make Sense: We start with the quality of the materials. The case’s outer shell is made of high quality, 1680 densely stitched Ballistic Nylon, which provides a durable and water resistant surface to the pack. The outer case is designed with padded and rigid inserts to both protect and cushion the panel itself along with other inside contents which you might be carrying. As a solar charger, the case will probably be spending the bulk of its time outdoors and, therefore, has been carefully designed to withstand the elements.
Aim and Charge. It's that Easy. The panel is held in place by a hinged, rigid inner shell which can easily fold out and be placed in one of several angle adjuster slots to optimize the panel’s position based on the placement of the sun during the time of use.
Keep your Gadgets Cool. A generous and easily accessible front pocket is used to store the charging cables as well as your devices. The pocket is large enough to store multiple smartphones or most tablet sized computers. Interior pockets are sewn inside the front pocket for better organization and storage.
Anti-Slip Pads
Stablity is Important: Four Neoprene non-slip pads are attached to the back of the SunVolt case exterior to help prevent slippage while in use.
Carrying Options are a Good Thing: A durable twill weaved handle and sturdy steel loops used for an optional shoulder strap provide two different alternatives for carrying convenience. Note the quality of the loops and the rugged double stitching. This case is built to last!
Maximize the Sun's Energy: A specially engineered power regulation circuit ensures that the SunVolt performs very efficiently, converting the sun’s rays to useable charging power.
Two (or Three) is Better than One: Multiple charging outputs are available for the simultaneous charging of multiple devices. The 10W version will have two available charging ports and the 15W will have three. The SunVolt will ship with a pair of USB charging ports (which will work with any USB charging cable) as well as several MicroUSB and miniUSB plugs (as detailed in "What is included with the Power Station" below). A web site will also be available to purchase additional plugs for harder to find devices for $5.95 extra.
A Great Product Deserves a Great Warranty: A lifetime warranty will cover SunVolt. This product is built to last and will be covered for life against manufacturer defects.
Where can I use SunVolt?
As an Emergency Power Source. It’s been in the news a lot recently. Power grids worldwide are being stretched to their limits leaving very little margin for error. Seemingly relatively minor heat waves or thunderstorms are known to wipe out huge power grids for days at a time. SunVolt would be indispensable during these times to help keep your mobile phone and other critical technology charged until power can be restored.
The swimming pool. A whole day at the pool with the kids can be a great way to spend the day, but your gadgets might not have enough gas to make it through. Throw SunVolt into the pool bag, and you can relax knowing outlet-like charging speeds are available even when wall outlets are not!
RV / Camping Trips. The most obvious use of the SunVolt would be when camping in remote locations where plug-in power is simply not an option. SunVolt is light enough to travel with you, yet powerful enough to keep all your gadgets charged. Camping and SunVolt go together like peas and carrots!
Sailing/Boating. Nothing is more relaxing than spending a day on the water. However, boating can prove challenging when it comes to keeping your technology charged for the day. The SunVolt is the perfect complement. The anti-slip strips help keep the charging base steady in bumpy conditions and the open water often provides ideal solar charging conditions.
Beaches. A day at the beach is always great fun, but like camping, charging sources are often completely unavailable. With SunVolt’s convenient carrying case, the panel can be unzipped and set up in seconds to let the charging current flow! Of course the weather resistant case is designed to withstand the sandy conditions and the front pocket will safely protect your devices to boot!
All day use of tablets. Tablet computer dependency is the norm today, and often we need to use them for time durations that exceed the internal battery’s capability. Even without a wall outlet in sight, SunVolt can provide your tablet with the constant power it needs, allowing you to use it the whole day
Rural Locations such as mountain cabins, ranches and horse farms can provide a great break from the modern day rat race. Bring your SunVolt along to tap into the sun’s power for a true “off the grid” experience!
Tailgating. SunVolt will keep the tunes rocking during your next Tailgate. The dual charging ports can easily charge an external speaker as well as your favorite music player and keep the party going all day long!
What is included with each SunVolt Power Station Charging Kit?
The following is included with every SunVolt Power Station Kit:
--> One (1) 10W or 15W Monocrystalline solar panel.
--> One (1) Custom designed carrying case tailored to the selected solar panel size
--> One (1) Power Regulation Circuit. Regulation circuit will be detachable in order to utilize future charging options (See next section below.) Note the solar panel and circuit will be preinstalled in the SunVolt prior to shipping.
--> Multiple Charging Ports. Two (2) charging ports are included with the SunVolt 10W and three (3) with the SunVolt 15W.
--> Charging Tips for Popular Devices. The following charging tips are included as part of the standard SunVolt Power Station Kit:
Standard Female USB (Type A Receptacle). Plugs that resemble the USB port of your PC. Can be used to charge any device that charges from the USB port of a computer. Two of these connectors will be shipped with SunVolt 10W and three with SunVolt 15W.
MicroUSB (Type Micro-B Plug). Standard MicroUSB charging tips that have emerged as the defacto standard for most modern day gadgets. Two of these connectors will ship with the SunVolt 10W and three with the SunVolt 15W
Standard MiniUSB (Type Mini-B Plug). Standard MiniUSB charging tips which were the previous defacto standard before being replaced by MicroUSB. One of these will ship with the SunVolt 10W and two with the SunVolt 15W
--> Instruction Card. A detailed set of instructions will be included with the system.
What are some planned future options?
Even though we are in the process of releasing our first SunVolt charging system, we are still keeping our eyes on the future. We have carefully designed SunVolt in a modular fashion so that new options can be easily added at a later date.
Never Have a Dead Battery Again! Our charging circuit will be connected via a detachable cable which can easily be swapped out in the future for different charging modules. One such module on our product roadmap is a trickle charger for 12v vehicle batteries commonly used by autos, boats, motorcycles, riding mowers, etc.
Charge Day or Night. Powerful battery packs can be used in conjunction with the SunVolt Power Station for storing excess capacity. You can use high capacity lithium polymer batteries with the SunVolt to not only charge your devices, but also store any excess energy for use later when conditions change (like when the sun goes down or clouds roll in). Simply plug the SunVolt into the charging input port of the battery pack and your gadget into the DC output and not a drop of the sun’s energy will go to waste. This could be a good option for users' devices that may need a boost of power during non-daylight hours.
SunVolt Manufacturing Plan
All the pictures on the project page and in the video are of our fully functioning SunVolt production prototypes. Over the past several months, we have worked closely with our trusted manufacturing and design partner (in Taiwan) to polish every detail of the power station to get it to its current production-ready state. At this point the panel, circuit, and carrying case (the three core components of the system) are finished, fully functional and ready for mass production. All the factory needs is for me to say "go" (and send them a sizeable payment, of course)!
This is where you come in. With your help on launching the first production run, the SunVolt will soon become a reality. The last step is to send payment to the factory to buy the materials in bulk (in order to get economies of scale) and finalize the tooling for the production run. The tooling will take 2-3 days to complete and the end-to-end production of the turnkey system will require approximately 21 additional days. All in all, including overseas transit, we should be able to take delivery in late October, well in advance of the 2012 holiday season.Alright, time to schedule another meetup! Overall, the most requests have come in for a "Dave & Busters-esque" scenario, so...
Let's just meet up at Dave & Busters. The closest (and most Metro accessible one) is in Kensington, MD. It's not as far as most probably think - hit up the White Flint Metro stop, and take a short walk over. Google Map'd below for your convenience, too.
http://maps.google.co... (http://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=White+Flint+Station+%4039.048146,-77.112842&geocode=&dirflg=&daddr=11301+Rockville+Pike++Kensington+,+MD+20895&f=d&sll=39.049585,-77.11132&sspn=0.019297,0.039825&ie=UTF8&z=17)
Let's meet up on the 20th, around 8PM. I'll throw more details about specifically where/how to meet as the date gets closer, which you'll all most likely get emailed to you (if you're using the default Meetup.com settings). You'll also get reminders about the event as it gets closer. Place should be good for everyone - food, beer, games, etc.
On one final note, Dave & Busters has a policy about under-21's; if you're in that age range, you just need to be there with someone who's 25 or older. Not sure the best way to go about dealing with this - it's a problem that's gonna come up in a lot of meetup scenarios on a Saturday night, but this one seems deal-able. If you're under 21, please let me know so I can gauge how big of an issue this is, as well as how to best solve it.
Come on out, have fun, and meet other Redditors.Seeking to counter President Obama’s speaking skills with a great orator of their own, Republicans have tapped Sen. Marco Rubio to deliver the official GOP response to Mr. Obama’s State of the Union address next week — in both English and Spanish.
“Marco Rubio embodies the optimism that lies at the heart of the Republican vision for America,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican.
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The move is symbolic for many reasons — not least of which is Mr. Rubio’s prominent stance in favor of legalizing illegal immigrants, which is an issue that has deeply divided the GOP.
Mr. Rubio is in his third year in the Senate, and is mentioned as a likely 2016 contender for the Republican presidential nomination. In delivering the GOP’s response he follows in the footsteps of other contenders such as Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal in 2009, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell in 2010 and Rep. Paul D. Ryan in 2011.
In the past, Republicans have had one lawmaker give a response in English and another give the response in Spanish, but Mr. Rubio’s fluency will let him give both addresses.
In announcing the move, Mr. Rubio’s office released a statement in both English and Spanish.
“I’m honored to have this opportunity to discuss how limited government and free enterprise have helped make my family’s dreams come true in America,” Mr. Rubio said.Share. One company's trash... One company's trash...
For those of us who have cast away the shame of scouring through bags of trash – colloquially known as dumpster diving – there are potential treasures aplenty.
And if you’re a gamer, Gamestop dumpsters can be a gold mine.
Video games, working controllers, strategy guides, store displays: all can be found strewn among the debris, ready to be snatched up by anybody willing to dive into a (moderately dirty) refuse bin.
But how do these gaming treasures end up in dumpsters to begin with? The answer is simple - if you’ve seen the inside of a Gamestop, you know that shelf real estate is an incredibly hot commodity. Stores are packed wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling with games and gaming accessories. With Gamestop dealing in trade-ins as an enormous part of their business, those trade-ins are handled one of three ways: They’re sold as-is, they’re refurbished, or they’re tossed in the trash.
Exit Theatre Mode
Video courtesy of TKsJohnsFilms
Gamestop’s 2012 Annual Report (released in March 2013), notes that the company runs a refurbishment center in Grapevine, TX that specializes in repairing games, consoles, and mobile devices. In fact, Gamestop boasts that in 2012 more than 12 million games and almost one million consoles were restored. The report for 2013 isn’t expected to show a decrease in those statistics either, if their annual trend continues as it has since the inception of their refurbishment center.
Despite those figures, Gamestop still throws away perfectly useful games and accessories. For the most part, as anybody in retail can tell you, the longer an item sits on a shelf unsold, the less valuable it becomes. It is these items, the ones you pass over time after time when you visit Gamestop, that end up in the trash. But as the adage (and Macklemore hit) goes, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure,” which is why some dumpster divers have amassed Smaug-like hordes of fantastic video game loot.
But like most things that have a reward, there is also an inherent risk.
Dive at Your Own Risk
Certain states and cities have regulations that exist to prevent “diving” in certain areas, making the risk of arrest a strong deterrent. To be more explicit - dumpster diving may not be legal in your town. Even when it is legal, there may still be laws which you have to abide by. For instance, if you have to access private property—which includes scaling a fence—you’re breaking the law and can be cited as such. Additionally, if you circumvent a lock or leave trash strewn about, you’re most likely breaking a law or city ordinance.
There’s also, you know, the whole ‘blindly scouring through dark bags and boxes with no easy way to determine what’s inside’ thing. While the possibility of stumbling across a dirty needle or sticking your hand into a ripe diaper is diminished at a place like Gamestop, there’s always a chance. We are talking about digging through garbage, after all. Potentially dangerous items like broken glass are also a distinct possibility.
But to those who take the risk, finding themselves knee-deep in a Gamestop dumpster may just land them a treasure or two. Or 20.
YouTube directors John H. and Richard G. fill their channels, “TksJohnFilms” and “OKChief420,” respectively, with videos of their excursions to local Gamestop stores. Many of their videos are wildly enthusiastic, like when John H. found unused Playstation Network and Microsoft Points cards or when Richard G. found an entire Xbox 360 Kiosk, television and all. Others are depressing; for instance, when Gamestop destroyed hundreds of dollars of gaming hardware and game discs before tossing them in the trash. John H., surprised by the findings, recorded them while sounding frustrated and annoyed at the unnecessary destruction. “It had the potential to be mega-haul number four, but it doesn’t even come close,” he says, a defeated tone to his voice.
When asked why he goes into dumpsters, John H. says the main reason is “to save perfectly fine video games, accessories, and even consoles being [placed] in a landfill where they would never be used again.” And while that's a great way to view it, it's not altogether altruistic.
Exit Theatre Mode
Video courtesy of okchief420
Dumpster diving, especially from Gamestop, is not without profit for the many who find usable hardware. Many divers have no issues placing their items up on eBay or Craigslist. “Making a little extra cash for something that [I] got for free!” is part of the allure, John told me. He estimates that he made more than $1,000.00 in 2013 from items he’s sold. And that’s only checking the dumpsters twice a month.
Potential Treasures
It isn’t just older Nintendo 64 or Sega Genesis carts turning up in Gamestop's trash. Multiple Xbox 360, Playstation 3 games, and some older console hardware routinely make an appearance. While you probably won’t find an Xbox One game in there yet, you may be able to find a headset, controller, or even a handheld console among the debris.
Gamestop, aware of this growing trend, has issued a policy called “Field Destroy,” a directive that sees employees destroying the items prior to having them tossed in the trash. Games are scratched or broken, controllers have their cords cut, and strategy guides are ripped to pieces in an attempt to ensure people like John H. can’t take advantage. After all, each of the games and accessories that are thrown out are still accepted by Gamestop for store credit. So in order to prevent someone from getting “something for nothing,” the items are destroyed.
But why waste the product?
With organizations like Operation Supply Drop and Children’s Miracle Hospitals in need of donations, it would make more sense to simply send their unwanted products to them and not worry about dumpster divers at all. The question of whether used items would be accepted was answered by Kate Richardson of Maine Medical Center, |
, or to, your self?
W.S. — I think it’s very difficult to avoid issues around nominative determinism because in the realm of the emotions, contiguity is always causal; you’d have to be a very strange person if you didn’t respond in some way to having my name, if only to disavow its effects. And particularly since I read philosophy at university, it’s always been kind of an issue to some extent and when I started publishing many people said it was a nom de plume, other people said that I’d been invented Martin Amis because he had John Self in Money, so, yeah, I’ve thought about it and I am fairly egotistic, as many people are, so I’ve got plenty of opportunities to think to myself, “Oh, you’re just like that ‘cause that’s your name!”
M.D. — To me, you don’t seem egotistical so much as pitilessly clinical about anatomizing the self, and not just your self but the self as an object of knowledge, which I guess is the philosopher in you.
W.S. — I think one of the advantages that writers of my generation have is that there’s a really epistemic break in our understanding of what writers are. My suspicion is that writers of my generation do not receive the same kind of reverence as even the half-generation before us—you know, the Rushdies, the Amises, Thomas Pynchon, DeLillo. The thing about those guys is that they were in a paper world and people perceived their quiddity—not just people who read them but the wider culture—as being to do with writing. And the advent of the Web means that writers now are viewed in the same form as the codex itself; we’re viewed as frayed and subject to breaking up into different forms of mediatization and I think that means that writers of my generation don’t tend to suffer from the delusion of posterity, which afflicted the generation immediately before us. For writers now in their mid-‘60s, there’s a point in their careers at which they’re on syllabuses, and they think that they’ve made it, and you see it happen to them—you see the delusion of posterity, and it normally takes the form of narcissism, and I think that’s just a kind of occupational disease of that generation of writers, although there were those of course who were in some ways immune from it, like Ballard. But on the whole I think younger writers, now, we know we’re kind of fucked.
M.D. — Are you saying you’re utterly disinvested in self-mythologization?
W.S. — Yeah, pretty much; it doesn’t interest me, and since the culture that supported it is undergoing radical change, it’s difficult to see whether there’s any space to squeeze oneself into the pantheon; the pantheon is now encapsulated in time, it’s full up, the club isn’t taking any more members, and I think that’s kind of liberating, actually.
M.D. — How is it liberating?
W.S. — Well, it just sort of frees you to accept the real terms of one’s existence, which is that literary immortality isn’t the same as psychic immortality, whatever people pretend; your books aren’t gonna give you a cuddle when you’re dying.
M.D. — If posterity doesn’t matter, what matters? What confers meaning on the act of writing, writing you obviously put great care into, and are clearly invested in, presumably because you want to reach out to a reader who reads deeply? What if not the sense that it may live on after your consciousness, the you you call you, is gone?
W.S. — It’s a form of praxis, for me. The act of writing is the way I understand the world; I mix my labor with it. It exists now, for me. Not even the idea of people reading me is of particular importance to me, I’m afraid. It’s not really about that. Obviously, I like to be read and I love it when people get something from my work but I have to say it’s not really what animates me.
M.D. — What does animate you?
W.S. — Just trying to create something that I think is just, that does justice to the conundrum that every writer wrestles with, which is how can I use unwieldy language to express these very, very evanescent intimations and apprehensions about the world?
M.D. — So it’s all just an attempt to shake off a Wittgensteinian migraine, so to speak? You’ve read philosophy, so you’re far better briefed on this than I am, but aren’t you talking about the linguistic, epistemic, and ontological conundrum of stepping outside language, into unmediated communication—effing the ineffable, so to speak?
W.S. — Yes, or at any rate, so skillfully applying language as if it were some sort of papier-mâché that by molding it around the shape of the world you can create a simulacrum that reflects this fundamental paradox that all we know is phenomenology and yet phenomenology seems completely irrelevant to the thing in itself.
I increasingly think that even things like perceiving the individual subject as having a unique location in spacetime is a kind of delusion or at any rate it’s part of the virtuality of consciousness because in fact consciousness is eager to be transcendent, it seems; it’s constantly essaying forms of transcendence or relaying apprehensions of transcendence. If you were to say to your consciousness, “Now, hang on a minute, consciousness; you know you are tied to a body, you are in one space and time,” a lot of our intimations would suggest that a much apter image for who we are, in a way, is that we’re a kind of energy field rather than something that’s imprisoned in a small bone globe.
You look at the great writers of the 20th century who really ran up against this problem, Joyce and Beckett, Beckett threw his hands up and said I’ve reached the limits of language, so I’m going to deconstruct human phenomenology by fraying and distressing language, so you have one approach, which is to take stuff away, and then you have the Joycean one of superfluity, of overplenitude, throw in the bathroom sink, try to convey this strange conundrum through a kind of superabdundance of the itemized. It’s like Stalin, you know: “Quantity has a quality of its own.” If I can just get enough quantity in, then I can somehow express this ineffable inexpressibility of language.
I think my approach lies somewhere between the two and I’m kind of getting there, which is to somehow convey the idea that language is a two-way mirror between phenomenology and the thing in itself and to make it finally wrought enough that that sensation we have of a kind of semi-permeable membrane between psyche and world is rendered on the page.
M.D. — You’ve set yourself a tough task because you so clearly love language. It would be one thing if you wanted to pare it down to this Giacometti-like anorexic figure, like Beckett does, where every line, although beautifully shaped, proclaims its profound distrust and exhaustion and dispiritedness with language. By contrast, you have a clear love of language, specifically of vocabulary; a ludic delight in words. Isn’t your own logophilia going to be a high hurdle to clear in addressing the philosophical conundrum you’ve just articulated?
W.S. — No, because I am actually powerfully ambivalent towards language. The formal properties of declarative sentences really upset me a lot.
M.D. — What do you mean by that?
W.S. — Michael Hoffman has a brilliant essay on Kafka in which he says, you know, in Prague German, it isn’t the big words that matter, it’s the little ones, and actually there aren’t many of them in Kafka because of the unforgiving nature of German syntax itself. It’s the little words that bother me a lot and the way in which they articulate and provide the tensioning for sentences. I can reach a point in writing a book and usually do nowadays where, not necessarily conjunctions, it can be adverbial forms, it can even be prepositions, start to appall me. When I was finishing Shark, the word “that” started to really bother me; I started to feel nauseated by the word “that.”
M.D. — It sounds like the literary equivalent of excoriation disorder, that pathological condition caused by obsessive, neurotic scratching or picking at your skin. Something that’s normally invisible to us, once we notice it, is magnified by our maddening consciousness of it into a neurotic fixation.
W.S. — Yeah, it’s like a kind of linguistic psoriasis, and I want to pick away at it. But I understand that if I pick at the “that” too heavily, the whole dermis of language is going to start to tear and disintegrate, so even in my pathological fugue I’m still consciously struggling back to some form of health by concentrating on “that.” I remember when I was writing Walking to Hollywood, it was the word “even”; in fact, I—even—wrote a passage in the book about my hatred for the word “even.” The last month or so it’s been the word “valorize”; I’m absolutely fucking stricken with “valorize”! So there is an ambivalence there, a Beckettian mistrust of language’s claims to do anything, very much.
•Tensorflow I Love You, But You're Bringing Me Down
Tensorflow’s meteoric rise to the top of the deep learning world is, while unsurprising, pretty damn impressive. With almost 60k stars on Github (the only reasonable measure of software popularity), Tensorflow is far out in front of nearest competitor Caffe, with its paltry 18k. The framework has a lot going for it: Python, great tools like Tensorboard, Python, Google’s knowledge of distributed systems, Python, and popularity that all but guarantees future relevance.
But while Tensorflow is a wonderful framework, the decisions (or lack thereof) being made by the Tensorflow product team are making it increasingly difficult for external developers to adopt. In my eyes, Tensorflow’s public face has grown without proper direction, and is threatening to alienate developers and allow competing frameworks to take over.
Fragmented high level library support
My main gripe strikes me as a weird and totally avoidable issue: there are too damn many Google supported libraries for Tensorflow. Good software engineers know that reinventing the wheel is a bad thing, and so when the prospect of writing yet another training and batching loop rears its ugly head, we look to high level libraries to ease the pain. Apparently, Google employees were aware this would happen, and in a mad scramble to curry organizational favor managed to release no less than five(!) Google developed high level libraries. There’s tf.learn (which is of course different than 3rd party tool TFLearn), tf.slim, DeepMind’s Sonnet, something called prettytensor, and Keras, who if this were a high school drama would be rapidly trying to distance herself from her less cool friend Theano.
I appreciate the work that has gone into these tools, and certainly it’s a benefit to have options. However, these are first party, Google supported tools. There’s no clear preferred library, even internally, and while the champions for each library claim they are nothing alike, it’s difficult for an external developer or researcher to pick an option. When “new” == “risky” for most companies, developers want a toolkit they can commit to deploying internally that will still be considered “best practice” in a few months. By offering a whole slew of somewhat supported options, Google is hindering adaptation of the Tensorflow framework in general. Avoiding writing boilerplate code each new experiment is a must have for most devs, but having to learn a new “hot” framework because previous ones are no longer feature competitive severely limits research output, and is an unreasonable problem to have when all are controlled by the same company.
Build-mania
One of the best things a software product can have is a strong community. For most of us, learning a new library means reading examples on blogs and Github, and consulting forums or documentation for help on specifics. Unfortunately for the average developer, Google’s desire to build features and exciting new pieces of the ecosystem has left those resources in the dust. Every week it seems a new Tensorflow product is announced – XLA, TFDBG, a graph operation to turn on your toaster, etc. No doubt these features are beneficial, but it also means that any resource about Tensorflow is immediately out of date. Documentation tends to be the most up to date, but often provides no context or example usage. Example code is often stale, sometimes presenting old functions or workflows that aren’t used anymore. Stack overflow questions tend to be only half-useful, since at least some of the answer is probably outdated.
This problem should fade as time stabilizes the APIs and features, but to me it seems that this should have been planned for ahead of time. Tensorflow has been out for almost 2 years now (an eternity in deep learning time), but the Python API didn’t stabilize until March 2017. The other language bindings are still not stable. For a language touting its production-ready capabilities, you’d expect the C++ API to not be shifting under your feet.
Everything is a tensor
This one is hard to complain about, because I totally understand why the architecture was built this way. In fact, Derek Murray explicitly states that Google considers this a feature and not a bug in his Tensorflow dev summit talk. Hear me out anyway though – making everything a Tensor makes irrelevant a ton of knowledge about how to work with data in Python and negates many of the great tools that Python has built around it.
In Tensorflow, more and more of the tools built around the project operate as graph operations or nodes themselves. This means that the whole pipeline, from data loading to transformation to training, is all one giant GraphDef. This is highly efficient for Google: by making everything a graph operation, Google can optimize each little piece for whatever hardware the operation will run on (including exotic architectures like TPUs). However, it steepens the learning curve significantly. In this brave new tensor-fied world, I need to learn not only how the deep learning operations work (which are mostly math and therefore language agnostic), but also how the data loading operations work, and the checkpointing operations, and the distributed training operations, and et cetera. Many of the tools that Python relies on such as the Python debugger are no longer useful, and IDEs designed to visualize Python data have no clue how to interact with these new strange language constructs. Developers outside of Google don’t want to essentially have to learn a new language to use Tensorflow, and Google lock-in throws up a serious hurdle for organizations looking to de-risk new technology integration.
A cry for help
Tensorflow is trying to be everything to everyone, but does not present a developer friendly product to the greater deep learning community. Google is known for creating complex but effective internal tools, and taking these tools public is great for the developers at large. However, when you’re on a team at a company with minimal deep learning experience trying to build out production level systems, it’s almost impossible to learn how to do things correctly. Unlike the Google employees who use the framework on a day to day basis, there’s nobody for most of us to chat with when we have questions. To the Tensorflow team: we want to use your product, but at the end of the day it comes down to whatever lets us ship products most effectively. Please don’t make us go back to writing Lua.Beginner Workout For Woman Looking To Start At The Gym!
In this post we would like to share a beginner workout that we have built for woman looking to get into shape.
This workout if for woman who have never been to the gym before and are unsure on what to start with.
The workout is a Monday-Friday workout routine that consists of two split sessions.
Session 1 will consist of exercises that will only be done on Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays.
While Session 2 will consist of exercises that will only be done on Tuesday, and Thursdays.
Keep in mind that your core training will be on the session 1 training days.
See workout sessions below:
Session 1
Monday/Wednesday/Friday – Back/Shoulders/Biceps
Exercise #1: One arm dumbbell rows with 5-10lb weight 12 repetitions.
Exercise #2: Dumbbell bicep curls with 10-15lb weight 12 repetitions.
Exercise #3: Lateral raises with dumbbell 10-15lb weight 12 repetitions.
Exercise #4: Front dumbbell shoulder raises 10-15lb weight 12 repetitions.
Core training:
Cables crunches: 3 sets of 15-20 repetitions.
Leg raises: 3 sets of 15 repetitions.
Oblique crunches: 3 sets of 16 repetitions.
Session 2
Tuesday/Thursday – Legs/Chest/Triceps
Exercise #1: Barbell Squats 4 sets of 12 repetitions with comfortable weight.
Exercise #2: Dumbbell flat bench press 4 sets of 12-16 repetitions with comfortable weight.
Exercise #3: Dumbbell fly’s on flat bench 3 sets of 12 repetitions. (10lb weight)
Exercise #4: Triceps rope pushdowns (Universal Gym Set) 3 sets of 12-16 repetitions.
Also check out this “Incredible Female Fitness Motivation Video!”
Check out a Printable Script on the next page…Civil rights leaders said the hastily planned presidential visit, to be followed by a $2,000-a-person fund-raiser in Atlanta, is interfering with birthday plans. They also said coupling a visit to honor Dr. King with a political fund-raiser was in poor taste.
''It's the epitome of insult,'' said the Rev. Timothy McDonald, an organizer of the birthday celebrations. ''He's really coming here for the fund-raiser. The King wreath was an afterthought.''
Because of all the tight security, access to a historic black church near the memorial site will be limited. The church will be the site of a civil rights symposium, and initially, the Secret Service told organizers they would have to cut it short. But after discussions and threats by black leaders to lock themselves in the church, the Secret Service agreed to keep the church open.
Every president since Ronald Reagan has come to Atlanta, the birthplace of Dr. King, to lay a wreath at his grave. When President Clinton came in 1996, he received a standing ovation. But this presidential visit will be different. It seems to have lifted the lid on long-simmering anger many blacks feel toward Mr. Bush. Some Bush policies, including tax cuts mainly benefiting those with higher incomes and cutting back on welfare-type programs, have alienated black voters, analysts say.
''Certainly there's a great deal of hostility among African-Americans,'' said William Boone, a professor at Clark Atlanta University. ''But this event is a very symbolic event in the black community.'' Dr. Boone added that in the minds of some, Mr. Bush is ''trying to co-opt it for his political benefit.''
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Several civil rights leaders said they felt ambushed by the president's visit because they did not know about it until Saturday, when they read about it in the newspaper. The official holiday is Monday.
''I feel disrespected by the administration and the Secret Service,'' said the Rev. James Orange, a 61-year-old colleague of Dr. King.
Mr. Orange went on: ''On Dr. King's birthday last year, his administration initiated plans to gut affirmative action. Here we are a year later, and the same person who tried to turn back the clock on me wants to use Dr. King's birthday because it's an election year.''
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Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, said that Mr. Bush had invited himself, but it is often the case that the White House calls a group and says the president would like to participate in an event.
''My understanding is that we contacted the King Center and specifically asked if it would in any way be disruptive if the president came to honor Dr. King and participate in a wreath-laying ceremony,'' Mr. McClellan said. ''And the King Center indicated that it would not.''
The King Center is the official guardian of Dr. King's legacy, and a spokesman at the center said the president's visit was welcome.
''We don't have any problems with this,'' said the spokesman, Robert Vickers. He called the security arrangements a ''minor inconvenience.''
Those on the streets may disagree. This morning, a stream of civil rights activists marched through Dr. King's old neighborhood, singing spirituals while Buddhist monks banged on drums.
Ghoshu Utsumi, a monk who regularly visits Dr. King's tomb, said: ''Dr. King's message is against war and violence. This is the richest country in the world, and there are homeless people everywhere. It is sad that $87 billion is going to war. It is very, very sad.''Amazon EC2 grows 62% in 2 years
February 26, 2014
I estimated Amazon data center size about two years ago using a unique probing technique that I came up with. Since then, I have been tracking their growth (US East data center monthly, but less frequently for all data centers). Now is the time to give you all an update.
Physical server
I will not cover the technique again here, since you can refer to the original post. But I want to stress that this is measuring the number of physical server racks in their data centers, hence deducing the number of physical servers. There are other approaches, such as Netcraft that measures the web facing virtual servers. However, Netcraft only measures the number of virtual servers (and only a subset of it, those that are web facing), where a virtual server could be a tiny Micro instance, a very small slice of a physical server. If you want to know how big EC2 is physically, this is the definitive research.
The following figure shows the growth of the US East data center.
Number of server racks in EC2 US East data center
The growth in US East data center slowed down in late 2012 and 2013, but the growth has picked up quite a bit recently. It only added 1,362 racks between Mar. 12, 2012 and Dec. 29th, 2013, whereas, it has been adding on average 1,000 racks per year between 2007 and 2013. Then, all of a sudden, it adds 431 racks in the last month and half. However, other EC2 data centers have enjoyed tremendous growth in the two years period. The following table shows how many racks I can observe today, and at the end of last year vs. two years ago by each data center.
data center # of server racks on 3/12/2012 # of server racks on 12/29/2013 % growth 3/12/2012 to 12/29/2013 # of server racks on 2/18/2014 % growth 3/12/2012 to 2/18/2014 US East (Virginia) 5,030 6,382 26.9% 6,813 35.4% US West (Oregon) 41 619 1410% 904 2205% US West (N. California) 630 847 34.4% 950 50.8% EU West (Ireland) 814 1,340 64.6% 1,556 191.2% AP Northeast (Japan) 314 589 87.6% 719 229% AP Southeast (Singapore) 246 371 50.8% 432 75.6% SA East (Sao Paulo) 25 83 232% 122 488% Total 7,100 10,231 44.1% 11,496 61.9%
There are a few observations:
1. The overall growth rate shows no sign of slowing down. From Jan. 2007 to Mar. 2012, EC2 grows from almost 0 server to 7,100 racks of servers, roughly 1,420 racks per year. From Mar. 2012 to Feb. 2014, EC2 grows from 7,100 racks to 11,496 racks, which is 2,198 racks per year.
2. Most of the growth is not from the US East data center. The Oregon data center grows the most at 2205%, followed by Sao Paulo at 488%.
3. There is a huge spike within the last 1.5 months. The number of racks increased from 10,231 to 11,496, adding 1,265 racks of servers.
The overall growth in the last two years is 62%, which is quite impressive. However, others have estimated that AWS revenue have been growing at a faster rate of more than 50% per year. The discrepancy could be due to the fact that AWS revenue includes many other AWS services including some new ones they have introduced in recent years, and EC2 is just a smaller component of it.
Virtual server growth
Another way to look at EC2’s growth is to look at how many virtual servers are running. Since a customer is paying for a virtual server, looking at the virtual server trend is also a good predictor of EC2 revenue.
As part of our probing technique, we enumerate all virtual servers, regardless whether it hosts a web server or not. If a virtual server is running, the EC2 DNS server will have an entry translating its external IP address to its internal IP address. By counting the number of DNS entries, we arrive at an upper bound of the number of virtual servers running (it is an upper bound because when a virtual server is terminated, the DNS entry is not deleted right away).
The following figure shows the number of running virtual servers (active DNS entries) in the US East Data center in orange. AWS also publishes the number of IP addresses that are available periodically, and we have been tracking that over time. The blue points shows how many IP addresses that are available to assign to virtual servers. AWS has been constantly adding more IP address allocation ahead of the expected growth.
The green dots show the total available IP addresses across all data center. It is an upper bound on the maximum number of virtual servers EC2 can run. On Dec. 29th, 2013, our data shows there are up to 2.97 Million virtual machines that are active. You can put in an assumption of the average price AWS charges for an instance to roughly estimate EC2 revenue.
Density
From our data, we can also derive the density — the average number of virtual servers running on a physical server. On Mar. 12, 2012, there are 120 virtual servers running on each server rack. However, on Dec. 29th, 2013, this density has increased to 245 virtual servers per rack. Either the Micro instance is gaining popularity, or AWS has been doing a better job of consolidating their load to increase the profit margin.
Parting comment
I have not been blogging much in the last two years. You may be wondering what I have been doing. Well, I have been working on a startup, today we finally come out of stealth mode, and we are officially launching at the Launch Festival. It is an iPhone app, called Jamo, that brings dance games from Wii and Xbox to the iPhone. If this research has been helpful to you, please help me by downloading the App, and give us a 5* rating. You can read more about the App in a previous post.
AdvertisementsJen: I’m here with Mimi Soltysik who has recently been nominated as the presidential candidate of the SPUSA. Mimi, would you say a few words before we get started.
Mimi: Yes, I would. First, I want to thank The Socialist for the chance to participate in this interview. Again, I wanted to express my gratitude to the folks at the convention for nominating Angela, for vice president, and myself. Also, I want to thank everybody for the questions they submitted for this interview. Thanks and solidarity with all.
“Would you consider yourself leaning more towards left libertarianism or more towards Marxist-Leninism?” — Noah Toth from Marlborough, Connecticut
Mimi: I’m generally not really the biggest fan of binding myself to one specific label. Perhaps where I might feel the most comfortable is a bit more with anarchism/libertarian socialism, but there’s so much to learn from, and there are so many things that you can throw into the mix to guide you on your way. I also think in addition to Marx, or Kropotkin, or Subcomandante Marcos, or bell hooks, or Emma Goldman; I learn just as much if not more from the people that I do this kind of work with, like the LA local folks or the Ventura local folks, that we see all the time. So, I’m not necessarily comfortable saying, “I am this one thing.” You know? Sure, I’m a Marxist, but sure, I’m also a Jen McClellanist.
“What do you think socialists, your campaign, and the SPUSA can do to educate, energize, and include working class people who currently see no point in political participation?” — Travis Dicken from Ligonier, Pennsylvania
Mimi: One of the first things that we do, and this is one of the things we talk a lot about locally; is treating people with respect, compassion [and] kindness. [We don’t treat them as] an audience and we’re somehow righteously qualified to be delivering a sermon to the people. [I’d] rather approach the people with love and with a willingness to listen and to share stories, to share laughter and to actually care about the relationships with the people. I think frequently there can be sort of a trap where we feel like we know the answer and we’re in this position where we need to be teaching all the time, and as a result we feel like the people need to be listening. I think that’s often a failure. I myself have been on the receiving ends of those sorts of situations where I have felt like, “This feels condescending to me and I want to leave.” People are already dealing with an intimidation about being involved with this sort of thing, or a fear, or whatever it might be. Why would we want to make it harder by obnoxiously preaching?
“Which social issues are your campaign going to prioritize in addressing?” — Emily Marshall from Moorpark, California
Mimi: I don’t think we’re going to soften the message about the need to destroy capitalism. Any approach we take with this campaign is not going to be a reform-based message. The goal here is ultimately revolution. There are more than enough folks working on reform-based stuff. At the top is a no-holds-barred approach to destroying capitalism, knowing that inherent to capitalism [are] all these forms of oppression: racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, etc. Also inherent to capitalism is climate change. So by moving forward in a direct, revolutionary way, we’re attacking those other issues that are inherent to capitalism.
“What would the shift from a capitalist economy to a socialist economy look like under your presidency?” — Emily Marshall from Moorpark, California
Mimi: The first thing I want to say is there really would be no Soltysik presidency, because, in this system as is, I legitimately feel that I would have to resign after winning this hypothetical election. [There] would be no way for me to make it to that point without… thoroughly compromising my ideas and my beliefs. The people are going to direct the transition. The idea of democratic socialism says we all have direct participation in the institutions that directly affect our lives, so we’re all going to do this together.
Jen: So it would be a bottom-up democratization of the work force?
Mimi: Absolutely.
“What would you want to say to someone who is on the fence about how well a socialist economy would work in this country?” — Emily Marshall from Moorpark, California
Mimi: I would say so many folks are feeling the extraordinary pain of capitalism. In my experience, when you take the time to dialogue with someone and you discuss that pain, they’re generally able to pinpoint the causes of that pain…[A]s you’re having this discussion, folks become aware that there’s a root and that it’s capitalism…[W]hen you discuss what socialism means, often times the response is, “Why aren’t we doing this already?,”… “This makes so much sense,” and at times, “How can I get involved? What can I do to help?”
Jen: What’s an example of a pain?
Mimi: I can’t feed my family. I can’t feed myself. I can’t make rent. There’s no work for me. My stomach is empty. Those basic things. I don’t have a place to stay. I’m crushed by my student loan debt. I’m being exploited by my boss. We all feel there’s an incredibly stifling quality to hierarchy and to patriarchy. When we talk about those things out loud and express our feelings to one another and share those feelings, that can be a really liberating and empowering sort of feeling.
“What are your stands on international policy for the crisis in the Middle East, and what would you do if elected POTUS to help end the suffering over there?” — George Pacatte from Valencia, California
Mimi: Again, I’d state my position about me being president. (There really would be no Soltysik/Walker presidency.”) My feeling is one of the best ways to relieve the suffering in the Middle East is to stop being the fucking cause of it.
“Would you consider getting ballot access in Indiana? (As it stands, the only third party with strong ballot access in Indiana is the Libertarian Party.)” — Walter Thomas Beck from Avon, Indiana
Mimi: Ballot access is not one of the primary goals of this campaign. I don’t think we’re measuring success versus ballot access [or] versus total of votes. Success here is based on how we can help to connect people using this campaign. How can we help them build working relationships that sustain? How can we point people, when they’re interested, toward community work that’s happening where they live? Now having said that, I fully understand that for many folks ballot access is important to them and I certainly don’t mean to sound disrespectful…[A]s a matter of fact, if that’s what they want to work on, if that’s what’s important to them, by all means we want to support that work and we’ll do all we can to support that work. But that also means being very considerate about the capacity we might have in any given area…When we look at the ballot requirements for a state, I think it’s very important to weigh the value of beating the hell out of ourselves to get ballot status in a state. If those thresholds, if those requirements are maybe higher then we can reasonably expect to gain, maybe there might be a better use of our efforts. You know? So I think that would be a collaborative effort between folks in Indiana and the campaign.
“Do you feel worker cooperatives/collectives are central to a socialist economy?” — Bill Rogers from Dallas, Texas
Mimi: I certainly think that worker ownership is central to a socialist economy. Worker control, worker’s democratic participation, of course these things are incredibly important to a socialist economy. I don’t think there is a socialist economy without those things. There are many co-ops in the US and as we make this transition from capitalism to socialism, we’ll see more collectives and co-ops.
“Is Bernie Sanders a real representative of true socialist values?” — Stewart Alexander from Murrieta, California
Mimi: I can’t really say how Bernie Sanders sees himself and I can’t really speak for him. As a bystander, what I see [is] a candidate who’s running on the Democratic Party ticket. To me, [Sanders] sounds more like a progressive democrat/social democrat. I don’t see him putting forth a socialist proposal. I’m not seeing him talk about workers owning the means of production. I don’t see imperialism as a part of any socialist platform, period. So I think that there are some very fundamental differences.
“While some socialists attempt to help the poor and exploited, they often don’t spend enough time on LGBTQ issues, considering how large of a portion of the poor they make up. How will the campaign approach issues such as these?” — Ryan Davis from Orange County, California
Mimi: Dialogue. Listening. Standing in solidarity. Support. Not being afraid to get involved. The fact that there’s not enough time spent on LGBTQ issues is incredibly sad. I honestly don’t know how you can proceed with a socialist campaign and not have LGBTQ issues as one of the key focuses of your campaign.
“Currently the United States has nearly 5000 nuclear warheads. What steps should we be taking towards nuclear disarmament and to ending proliferation of weapons of this magnitude of destruction?” — Michael Anderson from Alma, Michigan
Mimi: Complete disarmament now! Doing so in a way that’s environmentally responsible, but having said that, complete disarmament now! There’s no question about this. We bear such tremendous responsibility for nuclear proliferation therefore we bear responsibility for disarmament.
“What is your take on the conservative right’s grip on rural communities across the country, and how do you see radical left politics playing a role in that?” — Nicholas James Lentz from Negaunee, Michigan
Mimi: I know that sometimes our comrades that are in rural areas can feel isolated and left out of strategic planning, and I think that’s terribly unfortunate. How we might be able to address the issue…is by doing a much better job of being inclusive with comrades regardless of where they live in the country…When you have that ability to dialogue, share ideas, strategically plan with folks, that’s terribly empowering. As a result of that empowerment, the strength that those comrades in those rural areas can bring to their communities can have a tremendous effect. And it’s completely reasonable to expect that that effect will yield a loosening of conservative grip over rural communities. I know we have a |
[18], [39] but not under ad libitum and constant food availability conditions [18]. In the latter circumstance, the participant may immediately respond to a small increase in hunger by eating prior to detection of the increase on a visual analogue scale. The mechanism of protein appetite cues is yet to be determined, but potentially involves the detection of reductions in intestinal and/or circulating free amino acid levels [40]–[42] and associated hormonal signals [43], [44].
Over the 4-day study periods, for every 1 kJ decrease in protein intake below the 15% level, non-protein intake increased by 4.5 kJ; whereas for every 1 kJ increase in protein intake above the target, participants decreased non-protein intake by 1 kJ. These results suggest an asymmetry in protein leveraging in humans, as inferred from earlier human studies and described experimentally in other animal models [2], [15], [45]. A general asymmetry of appetite is accepted [46]. This asymmetry may reflect the fact that the evolutionary costs of eating too little protein exceed those of eating too much [45], although excess protein consumption has also been shown to have associated costs in some animals [47] and perhaps in humans [48]. Nevertheless, reduced energy intake on high percent protein diets has been reported previously in studies in which macronutrient composition was not disguised [2], [7], [18]–[21]. Typically such studies have used higher protein (commonly 30%) dietary regimens, in overweight and obese individuals indicating a need for future protein leverage testing in such individuals. Alternatively the failure to adjust total energy intake on the 25% protein regimen in lean humans in the current study may have arisen from the constant availability and high level of variety of the study foods. We therefore suggest that high levels of food availability and variety may enable over-consumption on lower percent protein diets, promoting the chances that protein requirements will be met but also attenuating reductions in energy intake on higher percent protein diets that would otherwise arise via protein-dependent feedbacks. If we had incorporated higher fat levels into the study foods, the effect of protein leverage on energy intake by snacking may well have been substantially greater, given that fat has twice the energy density of carbohydrate and appears to provide significantly less suppression of appetite than carbohydrate [49].
As a result of failure to decrease intake on the 25% protein treatment, habitual protein intakes were exceeded on this treatment, unlike in the lower-protein treatments. As well as engendering possible health costs [48], physiological adaptation to higher protein intakes would be predicted to lead to an increase in the protein intake target [50], [51]. Having a higher protein target will, in turn, increase the susceptibility to overeat on a low percent protein diet since more total energy has to be ingested to achieve a higher target level. This has been proposed as a possible reason why oceanic populations appear more susceptible to overeating on a low percent protein western diet than populations that went through the agricultural revolution and have adapted to a lower percent protein in the diet [2], [15]. These populations may also be quite ‘thrifty’, with efficient storage but limited thermogenic capacities, further increasing the risk of obesity through overconsumption [27].
In the present study, we used carbohydrate as the diluent for protein in the diet, raising the possibility that the effects we observed were due to carbohydrate rather than protein. Rodents regulate intake of both protein and carbohydrate when provided with complementary foods, but when forced to trade-off overeating one macronutrient against undereating the other relative to this target mixture, protein dominates [11], [52]. If the same applies for humans, regulatory feedbacks for carbohydrate would have mitigated the response to dietary protein, with higher levels of carbohydrate in the 10% protein diet impeding increased consumption, and lower levels of carbohydrate on the 25% protein offsetting negative feedbacks from protein. Hence, although carbohydrate may have dampened the protein leverage response, it seems unlikely that it provides an explanation for the observed changes in energy intake that were maximal when subjects were consuming foods with high percent carbohydrate content. Neither is there evidence that other differences among the diets, whether associated with the foods themselves, or ‘self-dosed’ as a result of subjects eating more of the 10% protein diet, could have caused the increased consumption. For example, there was no association between total energy intake and the intakes of fibre, salt and sugar (separate from total carbohydrate). Future studies should systematically explore the interactions between protein, fat and carbohydrate, as well as other factors such as energy density, protein quality, glycemic index and fibre content.
It follows from our results that any change in the nutritional environment that encourages dilution of dietary protein with fat and/or carbohydrate will promote increased total energy intake and thus increase the risk that obesity might develop. Many sources of such encouragement exist in the modern westernised environment. Some are economic - fat and carbohydrate are cheaper than protein [15]; others reflect an increasing reliance on processed foods which are often higher in fat and refined carbohydrate than unprocessed foods, and yet other influences include our evolutionary heritage, which has left us with a predilection for foods with a high fat and sugar content [16], [17]. To make matters worse, it appears that the beneficial side of protein leverage – reduced intake on high percent protein diets – may be diminished in westernised countries in which the variety and availability of foods, especially snack foods, is greater than it has ever been in our evolutionary history.This book provided delicious snack reading as I worked through Wheelock's Latin! I had the book for decades and think I've flipped through it casually a number of times over the years. But this time I went through it carefully, parsing every single phrase and checking words and forms in Wiktionary when the English translation alone didn't illuminate exactly what was going on in the Latin. Now starting on Ehrlich's sequel, Veni, vidi, vici, and really looking forward to it. Highly recommended, es
This book provided delicious snack reading as I worked through Wheelock's Latin! I had the book for decades and think I've flipped through it casually a number of times over the years. But this time I went through it carefully, parsing every single phrase and checking words and forms in Wiktionary when the English translation alone didn't illuminate exactly what was going on in the Latin. Now starting on Ehrlich's sequel, Veni, vidi, vici, and really looking forward to it. Highly recommended, especially if you have or have ever had any interest at all in Latin, or in raising your learnèd English to a new level!My twenty-something niece, who was raised in a moderately religious household (but managed to turn out surprisingly well anyway in my opinion) still found much to take offense with in my science fiction short story The End-- and Clifford Dunburton. Namely, the title character is described as maybe the smartest man in the world-- and this man ridicules religion during the course of the tale. I guess I should have anticipated her reaction, but I didn't. Anyway, she basically demanded I explain myself, and so I did, with the email text below: I don't share exactly the same beliefs that my story character does (my story characters are rarely wholly accurate mirrors of my own views). But I'm also not very pleased with religions in general, due to their bloody history of hate mongering, atrocities, and mass murder and torture both past and present, with no end in sight for the future. Sure, there might be some good here and there done by religious groups, or by individuals for religious reasons. But it seems to be outweighed by the casualty numbers among what tends to be overwhelmingly innocent bystanders (the bulk of them women and children). So in general I do not support organized religion. The Founding Fathers had good reasons to separate church from state in the creation of America. For prior to that the church often controlled the state in various places around the world, and did many of the awful things listed before (look up the Inquisition sometime for just one example). The main way a church liked to perpetrate its crimes was to outlaw all competing religions in the territory it controlled, so that it'd then have a 'legal' excuse to kill or torture or hound basically whomsoever it liked-- including some of its own followers at times (when they didn't act slavishly enough to powerful leaders). That's why in America we Constitutionally prohibit our government from preferring one religion over another (however, as American politicians have become more corrupt over decades, they've increasingly tried to ignore their oaths to uphold the Constitution, as well as ignore that ban and all the history behind it, and go around it to promote Christianity). Some of the very earliest European settlers in America were Christians fleeing the state dominance of and persecution from a different Christian sect in Europe. Inquisition
8 Atrocities Committed in the Name of Religion
Christian Missionary Atrocities Spread The Faith
HOLY HORROR--ATROCITIES IN THE NAME OF GOD.
Religious Atrocities History (Christianity Main Emphasis) Aside from the Inquisition, a great many wars have been essentially wars between religions-- sometimes even between factions of the same religion(!) Religion is also responsible for massive tolls of death and suffering from a wholly different perspective: holding back scientific progress, when it felt that such progress threatened the religion's authority in some way. In other words, humanity would likely have far more scientific knowledge and better technology than it does today, if organized religion had never existed-- and so might have already eliminated poverty and sickness by now. Because we'd be at minimum more technologically advanced by centuries over what we are today. That makes for literally billions of people who've needlessly died and suffered in past centuries, and/or the next 100-200 years. You yourself will almost certainly end up being yet another person who dies or suffers unnecessarily-- where in an alternate timeline without religion, you might not even be familiar with the terms death and suffering, as they'd be so rare by this point. If I care about you and the rest of the family, how could I possibly like organized religion in the face of all this? They've robbed us all of our best destinies. Around 1584 Italian monk Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake because he made the statement below and would not take it back: "Countless suns exist; countless earths revolve around these suns in a manner similar to the way the planets revolve around our sun. Living beings inhabit these worlds." The (today) much more famous and celebrated Galileo came perilously close to the same fate himself, merely for insisting that the Earth orbited the Sun rather than the other way around. After he finally took it back under threat, he spent the rest of his life as a prisoner of the church. Galileo Galilei The church basically used terrorism to suppress scientific experimentation and innovation for many centuries-- except where it helped along torture and mass killings. That's part of the reason today's militaries are so darn good at killing people; military tech has always been nurtured by those in power. Still being young though, I realize you may not know much about the history of religion, or even care. That's how most young people are. I was too at your age. But over time many people decide this stuff is more important than they originally thought. You do realize don't you that someone can be religious, but just be against organized religion, right? The question of whether God exists or not can be a separate issue from which particular religion you subscribe to; some religions (especially those which preceded the monotheist religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in history) held forth that there were multiple Gods rather than merely one. You're also equating my phrase about religion's slowing of progress with your own personal mental state, when I'm speaking of organized religion itself, the institution. The one responsible for the torturing and executions and holding back of scientific progress over the centuries, mostly long before even your great grandparents were born. How you could hold yourself responsible for that mystifies me-- but perhaps you didn't know about the church's history, and that gap caused you to make the conceptual leap. As for spending your time defending organized religion, you might want to more closely examine both its present and its past before committing yourself to that course. You can be religious without being a pawn of organized religion or corrupt evangelists. Lots of people live that way, and so are less troubled when they hear of the latest crimes by the organized religion set, since they are not themselves participants in or defenders of such groups or their leaders. List of Christian evangelist scandals a - j m o o n e y h a m. c o m - o r i g i n a lThis is very, very, very big news.
Yet Naomi Wolf published in the U.K. Guardian on the eve of the decision as if Obama had not issed the waiver rules - as if indefinite military detentions of U.S. citizens was about to become mandatory, thanks to Obama.
Lawfare Here’s what Obama has done: First, he has read his authority to waive the provision very broadly. He has both made clear that officials have the authority to waive it at any time with respect to individual detainees and has prospectively waived it himself with respect to several whole categories of suspects. Some of these categories are quite broad–including, for example, any situation in which transferring someone to military custody might impair efforts to secure his cooperation or garner his confession. Offhand, it’s actually a little hard for me to imagine too many cases that wouldn’t fit comfortably within at least one of the preemptive waivers the president has already issued. I suspect that isn’t an accident. Second, Obama has set up a process for determining whether transfer to the military is required that will all-but-guarantee that it never is.
Here’s how it works: Section 1022 only covers a narrow range of people to begin with, so if there’s probable cause to believe that someone arrested is covered and not subject to any of the blanket waivers, the attorney general–in consultation with other senior national security officials–then has to determine whether there is clear and convincing evidence that the person is covered by 1022. If there isn’t clear and convincing evidence, there’s no transfer.
If the officials discover that one of the waivers applies after all, there’s no transfer. And if they feel like issuing a new waiver just to make sure, there’s no transfer.
If, for some reason, there is a transfer, the FBI has to make sure that it doesn’t interfere with any ongoing interrogation or compromise any investigation, and if there’s any chance of either, the transfer has to wait. And the procedures are clear that an “interrogation” here is not limited to a single session but, rather, “extends until the interrogating agency or agencies determine that all necessary intelligence gathering efforts have been exhausted.” The procedures further make clear that the agency with custody of a suspect–presumably the bureau–shall operate normally in accordance with standard procedures until a transfer is required and can be effectuated without harm. They also reiterate that the FBI remains the lead agency with respect to investigating terrorist threats inside the United States.
Has Naomi Wolf published any retraction? This is big news. No.
For the first two days after the Obama waiver of the NDAA, the top google hit, in a crowd of rightwing blogs screeching against the decision was a Huffpost piece that managed to mangle the headline (and the story) to make it seem that what Obama waived was merely that American citizens would nowno longer be subject to indefinite military detention!
But U.S. citizens were already excluded under Section 1022 by the time he signed the bill.
Yet judging by the comments, many Democrats and Independents incorrectly believe that the NDAA actually still applied to American citizens, and that all he did in the waiver was waive NDAA's threat to U.S. citizens' civil rights.
Considering that Obama's signing of NDAA led to a hysterical exodus of low-info Democratic and Independent support that probably measurably lowered his approval ratings, and could threaten his re-election - for not somehow magically line-item vetoing the Cheney-esque provision in the annual military funding bill - it is very disturbing that the media has played down what amounts to a very clever legal “3,450-word line-item veto” that he has achieved.
Obama made good on a promise he made in November when he threatened to veto:
Washington Post By Peter Finn, Published: November 18
White House threatens to veto defense bill over detainee rules The White House on Thursday threatened to veto the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act because a series of the bill’s provisions would mandate military custody for some terrorism suspects and prevent the administration from transferring detainees out of the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba."
WASHINGTON -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has promised that the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2012 will not come up for a vote until the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) changes provisions dictating treatment of detainees, including one that mandate military custody of terrorism suspects.
As early as October, Harry Reid had threatened to block it, on Obama’s behalf, if the offending language were not removed:In the end, the final bill was modified in December.
The annual NDAA supplies the funds to the DOD to feed, house, arm and fly home the troops. There was no possible way that Obama could have vetoed the entire bill. He would have faced chaos on military bases in the US as well as in Iraq and Afghanistan. That would have been dangerously irresponsible, yet in the furore over the signing of NDAA, that is exactly what was demanded of him.
Presidents do not have a line item veto, so he signed it with a signing statement expressing his misgivings.
But - while presidents do not have a line item veto, when signing bills - the 2012 NDAA did contain clever “get-out-of jail” language (inserted by sympathetic Democrats?) that allows him to effectively veto the bill after the fact.
Verdict Section 1022 of the NDAA specifically authorized the President to “waive the military custody requirement of Section 1022 at any time when doing so serves U.S. national security interests." Taking advantage of section 1022’s national security waiver provision, the new directive sets out a number of broad and flexible categories of suspects who are supposed to remain in the civilian justice system.
“would be inconsistent with the fundamental American principle that our military does not patrol our streets”.
“We have spent ten years since September 11, 2001, breaking down the walls between intelligence, military, and law enforcement professionals; Congress should not now rebuild those walls and unnecessarily make the job of preventing terrorist attacks more difficult.”
“Broadly speaking, the detention provisions in this bill micromanage the work of our experienced counterterrorism professionals, including our military commanders, intelligence professionals, seasoned counterterrorism prosecutors, or other operatives in the field.”
Verdict The directive establishes an interagency review process that defaults back to the civilian justice system in almost any conceivable case. Only if a range of government actors concur—including the Attorney General, Secretary of State, and Secretary of Homeland Security—will a suspect be transferred from civilian to military custody. And even if the interagency process recommends the transfer, the head of the FBI can still veto it if he or she determines that the transfer will disrupt ongoing intelligence collection or compromise national security investigations.
Verdict “Among the protected categories are: 1. Foreign nationals or residents whose placement in military custody “will impede counterterrorism cooperation,” including the sharing of intelligence.
This category alone could arguably cover a wide swathe of cases, given that foreign governments are generally not pleased to see their nationals placed in indefinite US military detention, and that the sharing of intelligence often takes the form of trading favors. 2. Lawful permanent residents arrested within the US or arrested by a federal agency on the basis of conduct occurring in the US. While this exemption grants lawful permanent residents a degree of protection, it is worth noting that US residents picked up abroad by the US military based on conduct that took place on US soil, or those picked up abroad by the US military based on conduct occurring abroad, would not be protected by it. This is still much preferable to the rule set out in the NDAA, which makes an empty gesture in the direction of protecting lawful permanent residents from mandatory military detention, allowing such detention only “to the extent permitted by the Constitution of the United States.” Indeed, the wording of the NDAA makes one wonder if, by implication, non-lawful residents can be held by the military even when the Constitution does not permit it. 3. Non-citizens whose transfer to military custody “could interfere” with efforts to secure that person’s cooperation or obtain his or her confession. (This is another extremely broad category, particularly given the open-ended reference to possible—as opposed to likely or definite—interference.) “Although such transfers are still conceivable given some toxic confluence of politics and events, the review process set out in the directive effectively reverses the presumption of military custody contained in the new law.”
The WH, in objecting to the NDAA provisions, said theyIndefinitely detaining suspects in military detention does not make America safer. It is against our national security.Obama points out that this administration’s competent professionals got Bin Laden and competently tried the underwear bomber in court.Normal civil law enforcement will return to being the default. Most terrorists will now face civil trials in court with a lawyer to represent them, and will face normal criminal prosecutions in civilian custody.With this end run around the warmongers in congress who inserted this language into the NDAA, Obama has ended the era of Cheney torture dungeons.You might want to alert the hordes of low-info voters that won't vote because Obama is as bad as Bush because “NDAA”.It's Like An 'Electric-Fence Sensation,' Says Scientist Who Let An Eel Shock His Arm
Enlarge this image toggle caption Ken Catania Ken Catania
Electric eels sometimes leap out of the water to increase the power of their jolt — and one scientist has been trying to understand this behavior more fully by letting a small eel repeatedly shock his arm.
Enlarge this image toggle caption Ken Catania Ken Catania
Ken Catania, a Vanderbilt University neurobiologist who has been studying electric eels in his lab, recently noticed something strange whenever he tried to fish them out with a net that had a metal rim and handle. The eels would leap out of the water to attack it.
"Electric eels, in my experience, had never done something like that where they come out of the water, and they did it in a very directed way," he recalls.
What's more, he had electrodes in the water so he could listen to their electrical output through a speaker. "So I knew that when they were attacking the net in this way, they were simultaneously giving off a high voltage discharge," Catania says. "That clue led me to think, 'Well, maybe this is sort of a defensive behavior.' "
He knew that these eels tend to interpret electrical conductors as living things. Maybe the net seemed like a predator coming down from above, and leaping out of the water somehow intensified the eel's ability to shock.
He started to explore this possibility by threatening the eels with a metal plate rigged to a device that could register the jolt.
"As the eel came up out of the water, the voltage that I recorded increased in proportion to height," Catania says. "The higher they got, the higher the voltage and that suggested why they might be doing this."
Catania wanted to see what kind of electric circuit would be created when the eel touched a living animal. So he let a small eel, about a foot long, zap his own arm as he held onto a device he designed to measure the strength of the electric current.
"I was not worried about injury, and of course if you work around electric eels a lot, occasionally you're going to get shocked anyway," he says, "so I kind of knew what I was in for. Sort of like an electric-fence sensation a few times."
In the journal Current Biology, he says this small eel delivered a current that peaked at around 50 milliamps. But electric eels can grow to 5 feet or longer.
"It does allow us now to think about and make some pretty reasonable estimates about, 'Given an eel of size X and water resistance of a known resistance, how much power would one of these eels be able to divert to a human being that was standing in the water?' " Catania explains.
If a big one pounced, the shock would be intense, he says, "much more powerful than a law enforcement Taser and coming at a pulse rate that is higher than the pulse rate given off by a law enforcement Taser."
One video online appears to show a fisherman being shocked in this way by an eel that emerges out of the water and wiggles up his chest, Catania says, and there is also an old story from famed naturalist Alexander von Humboldt back in the 1800s that described electric eels leaping up to attack horses.
For years, no one knew what to make of that historical anecdote, says James Albert, a biologist at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette who studies tropical fishes.
"But now, there's some evidence for it, for the first time," Albert says. "This apparently is a natural behavior of the animal in the wild."
Exactly how and why electric eels evolved to jump up in this way remains somewhat a mystery.
During dry seasons, eels do get stuck in shallow pools of water, Albert says, and one could imagine that predators such as crocodiles or large cats might try to attack. But it seems like one shock would quickly deter them.
"I don't know what would go after an electric eel in the wild. Anything that tried it once or twice would soon learn that wasn't a very desirable target," Albert says.
He notes that it actually isn't uncommon for fish to leap out of the water to escape underwater predators, but this kind of attack is unusual.
Although the electric eel has been a curiosity for centuries, much about its life remains completely unknown. "We don't even know how many species there are," says Albert. "We don't know that much about where they live, how they live. It's a hard fish to study."
That is one reason why he is so intrigued by Catania's work. He also admires the scientist's willingness to offer up his own arm.
"There's this history in science of scientists willing to take one for the team, so to speak," Albert says. "The people who first worked on electricity, they used their own bodies to show that if you zapped yourself, you could make a muscle contract, you can make your finger twitch, that sort of thing."
Bruce Carlson, a biologist who studies electric fish at Washington University in St. Louis, says that Catania's studies over the past few years have revealed a surprising degree of sophistication in the eel's electrical behavior.
"Really, I think the community was kind of naïve and just thought that, 'Well, it's really simple, the eel generates up to 600 or 700 volts of electricity and so it just shocks whatever is near it, and it's as simple as that, and there's really nothing to study here,' " Carlson says. "Ken kind of has a knack for observing behavior carefully and seeing things that other people haven't thought of before and then designing really elegant studies to dissect those behaviors in more detail."
He says the eel's leaping behavior is so robust, predictable and effective at delivering current to the perceived threat "that I have to think it's a specialized adaptation that's evolved in response to predation. We just don't know what that predation is at this point."Pressure Cooker Seitan – A hearty seitan roast topped with a red wine mushroom sauce, done quickly in a pressure cooker! Perfect for your next holiday meal.
Jump to Recipe
Can I get a drumroll, please? (Drumroll) It’s here! The last giveaway of the year. This time, you all have a chance at winning a T-Fal Clipso Pressure Cooker and the useful Zabada Kitchen Handy! If that doesn’t get you excited, I’m not sure what will. And if you’ve been out of the loop because of holiday craziness, make sure to check out the THREE other giveaways that I’m hosting right now! 1: #vyatreatyoself, 2: YumUniverse cookbook giveaway, and 3: Massel Bouillon Prize Pack.
Now, let me say a little bit about my experience with this pressure cooker. I actually bought a different model from Fagor almost a year ago and have used it once. So, I’m not experienced with these AT ALL. But, was I excited to get another pressure cooker? Hell yeah! Once the Clipso showed up on my doorstep I excitedly opened it and was impressed with the quality of construction. This thing is heavy-duty. Not to mention, the awesome one-handed, latching system that really is a push of a button and that lid is locked on. I flipped through the instructions to make sure I had the basics down as far as cleaning and operating went. Then I started plotting what I was going to make in it.
I was chatting with my good friend Joni about all of the pressure cooker possibilities and how my mind was pretty stuck on grains and beans or maybe winter vegetables and squash. Then she suggested pressure cooker seitan. Say what? That’s brilliant! I went on to look at some tips from The Blissful Chef and Vegan Epicurean on times, and used my Stuffed Seitan Roast recipe with some minor changes. Naturally, I wanted to make it a wow-worthy dish for the holidays, so I thought that a simple and fancy red wine mushroom sauce would be perfect to top it off.
Honestly, I love making seitan because it is so damn easy. The only problem with big roasts is that they can take up to an hour or so to fully cook, and then you may have a slightly drier end result. After making this roast in the pressure cooker in just about 30 minutes, I’m SOLD. Unless I’m making sausages or something smaller, I can see this being the only way I make it from now on. The pressure cooker seitan turned out flavorful with a great texture and an even cooking throughout, maybe just a little softer in the center but I liked that about it.
I can’t wait to try out different seitan flavors and applications in my pressure cooker, now! I must mention that there was quite a bit of cooking broth mixture left over in the pressure cooker so I saved it in a container to add to soup bases for more flavor. Wins all over the place!
Check out the pressure cooker seitan recipe below and definitely keep it in mind for your upcoming Christmas dinners. Like I said, a beautiful seitan roast in 30 minutes! Plus, roasting some fingerling potatoes and making the wine sauce while the roast is cooking, works for reducing time spent in the kitchen and it’s all ready at the same time.
One Year Ago: Chunky Monkey Baked Oatmeal // Two Years Ago: Quinoa Pasta with Creamy Garlic Sauce
Print Pressure Cooker Seitan with Red Wine Mushroom Sauce A hearty seitan roast topped with a red wine mushroom sauce, done quickly in a pressure cooker! Servings 4 Author Jackie of Vegan Yack Attack Ingredients Seitan Roast 1 1/2 cups vital wheat gluten
1/3 cup tapioca flour
3 tablespoons nutritional yeast
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 cup vegan beef broth or vegetable broth
2 tablespoons liquid aminos tamari, or coconut aminos
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon vegan Worcestershire sauce Simmering Broth 3 cups vegan beef broth or vegetable broth
2 cups water
1/4 cup liquid aminos tamari or coconut aminos
2 tablespoons vegan Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon onion powder Red Wine Mushroom Sauce 1 tablespoon vegan butter or coconut oil
1 clove of garlic minced
8 oz. baby bella mushrooms sliced thinly
2/3 cup vegan red wine I used a table wine
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary sprigs
1/4 teaspoon sea salt or to taste
Pinch of freshly cracked black pepper Instructions Seitan Roast Whisk together the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Then whisk together the wet ingredients in a smaller bowl, and pour it into the dry mix. Fold together with a spoon, then knead by hand for 2-3 minutes. Form the seitan into a round shape and cup it in your hands, pulling the dough slightly at the top and rolling it under. This will make the seitan smooth on the outside, as depicted in the photos above. Form the roast into a slightly oblong shape and roll it tightly, a couple of times in cheesecloth. Tie the ends with baker's twine or cotton string. Place the roast into the pressure cooker, then pour in the ingredients for the simmering broth and stir around a little bit to mix it up. Place the lid on the pressure cooker and lock it into place (make sure that all of the holes are not blocked so that pressure can be let out. Bring your stop top heat to high-medium and once full pressure has been reached (the red tab will go up), adjust the heat to medium-low. Cook for 25 minutes and once the timer goes off, let the steam out at full blast then run the pressure cooker under cool water to lower the temperature and remaining pressure. Carefully, remove the roast from the broth and remove the cheesecloth. Slice it and serve hot. Red Wine Mushroom Sauce Warm the vegan butter in a pan over medium heat, once hot, saute the garlic in it for 2 minutes. Next, add the wine, mushrooms and rosemary to the pan and bring to a boil. Lower to a simmer and cook, uncovered, until the mushrooms have greatly reduced in size and the wine has thickened slightly. Season with salt and pepper, then pour over the seitan roast.
Full Disclosure: These products were sent to me to review and giveaway, I was not compensated. All opinions are honest and my own!Danny Drinkwater played 35 times as Leicester won the Premier League in 2015-16
Leicester City midfielder Danny Drinkwater has asked to leave the club amid interest from Chelsea.
The Premier League champions have had two bids turned down for the England player, who last summer signed a contract extension to 2021.
Leicester have previously stated they do not wish to lose Drinkwater, 27, who was an integral part of the Foxes' title-winning squad in 2016.
However, Chelsea boss Antonio Conte wants a replacement for Nemanja Matic.
Drinkwater played in 35 of Leicester's 38 league games in their title-winning season and formed an impressive midfield partnership with N'Golo Kante, who joined Chelsea last July.
He has yet to play this season because of a thigh injury.
The playmaker, who joined Leicester in 2012 from Manchester United, has won three England caps since making his international debut in March 2016.
Analysis
BBC Radio Leicester commentator Ian Stringer
My understanding is that Leicester don't need to sell and certainly don't want to, so if Drinkwater is to move, Mr Abramovich is going to have to sign a big cheque.
Drinkwater will be a loss to Leicester. He's strong and rugged but his range of passing is most impressive. And while he'll have to get past Cesc Fabregas and Tiemoue Bakayoko to partner his old chum Kante, that isn't something which will faze him. He's sure of himself, focused and disciplined.
This is phase two of the dismantling of Leicester's class of 2015/16 and, sadly, it was always going to happen.NEW DELHI--A gauge of manufacturing activity in India resumed expanding in January as new-order growth picked up, a survey showed, suggesting pressure on the sector from a demonetization program aimed at clamping down on corruption might have been temporary.
The seasonally adjusted India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index rose to 50.4 from 49.6 in December, survey figures released by IHS Markit and Nikkei showed Wednesday.
A figure above 50 indicates expansion, while a reading below that level signals contraction.
"The Indian manufacturing economy recovered from the one-off downturn that hit the sector in December following the withdrawal of high-value bank notes," said Pollyanna De Lima, an economist at IHS Markit.
The higher reading could help allay concerns that Asia's third-largest economy was slipping into a prolonged slowdown after the government's program, rolled out in November, to withdraw 86% of bank notes in circulation triggered a severe cash shortage.
"January saw only modest increases in order books, production and buying levels, but the quick rebound will be welcome news to policymakers," Ms. De Lima said.
Write to Anant Vijay Kala at anant.kala@wsj.comPolice corruption book pulled from shelves
Updated
A book that claims police corruption in Victoria has been ignored for years is being withdrawn from sale in that state.
The publisher of Snouts In The Trough says the Victorian Office of Public Prosecutions is demanding the book be withdrawn because it breaches suppression orders, some of which are up to five years old.
The author, Andrew Fraser, has never been shy of controversy.
Following his release from jail for drug trafficking to feed his cocaine addiction, the former criminal lawyer threw himself into telling his story and that of the state of law enforcement in Victoria.
Snouts In The Trough is the story of Malcolm Rosenes, a former drug squad detective who in 2003 was himself convicted of drug dealing and served three years in jail.
In it, Mr Fraser alleges police involved in serious corruption remain in the force and that the state government, the police Ethical Standards Department and the Office of Police Integrity (OPI) have long known about it in the form of a debrief from Mr Rosenes.
"It's some thousands of pages, two or 3,000, so I've read nearly all of it and that was given to Ethical Standards, which then went to the OPI and therefore is in the government domain and that was in 2001," Mr Fraser said.
He says "absolutely nothing" has been done with the information.
The book also claims corrupt police habitually planted false evidence to get convictions, stole and sold the drugs they were meant to be taking off the streets and even murdered.
Mr Rosenes was the officer who led the investigation against Mr Fraser in 1999.
"He was the detective sergeant at the drug squad that had the search warrant executed on my house, and to say that his behaviour left a little to be desired is an understatement," Mr Fraser said.
The book came about when Mr Fraser's business partner was approached by Mr Rosenes, who wanted to tell the story of his jail experience and get Mr Fraser to write it - the end result is very different.
It tells how a young policeman slides into corruption, |
I will challenge Bellator, live on pay-per-view, ten fights - nine-fight challenge, one super fight."
Abdel-Aziz didn't offer a date or location, but said the 'winner take all' aspect of the bout was that the organization who was proven to be superior - something Abdel-Aziz didn't establish - would keep all gate receipts and pay-per-view revenue. He also said any fighter who wished to crossover from Bellator to WSOF, win or lose, would be able to make the move as far as they were concerned.
The fight card as Abdel-Aziz proposes is as follows:
Notably, champions and top talents from both organizations are missing. Bellator's Patricio Freire is absent as is WSOF's welterweight champion Steve Carl, among many others. Abdel-Aziz said the card was designed to serve a purpose, but also to maximize entertainment value.
As for whether Bellator would be interested in the proposition, Abdel-Aziz doesn't know. As he sees it, though, Bellator should be receptive to the idea because they and their fighters could benefit from the exposure.
"I think Bellator has some great fighters, but they don't get enough exposure. When was the last time you saw a Bellator guy doing an interview or on your show? They only come on your show when they have problems with Bellator, but we're willing to give them some exposure, win live on pay-per-view, winner take all."
"I don't think they will, but we will, 100 percent," he said matter of factly.
Abdel-Aziz further argued that if the two largest MMA organizations outside of the UFC put their efforts together, it'd be beneficial for everyone: the fighters, the fans and the sport itself. He claims while attempts to do event vs. event have failed in the past, there's no reason to not try again.
"A lot of people wanted to see UFC vs. PRIDE. It never happened. Strikeforce vs. UFC. It never happened. But why not get the fans excited and give them something they want?"
"It's great for everybody if we want to grow the sport," he continued. "If we can put on a megashow like that and entertain the fan, why not?"
WSOF, though, is partly playing by Bellator's playbook. In 2010, Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney tried to goad Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker into letting his organization's lightweight champion Gilbert Melendez face Bellator's then-lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez. The effort eventually fizzled without any serious talks ever taking place to create the bout.
Still, at the root of WSOF's efforts appear to be a strong dislike of Bellator, some of their alleged business practices. Abdel-Aziz wouldn't go on the record about what issues he had with the Viacom-owned organization, but claimed they were unfair and underhanded.
"I like Bellator, but I don't like certain people in Bellator," he elaborated. "They recently did something very disgusting and very dirty. They tried to take something that's not theirs." Abdel-Aziz suggested he'd reveal what that was at a later date and suggested Spike TV, Bellator's television outlet, might not even know about it.
He also noted the saga with Bellator lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez is a cause for people, especially fighters, to give WSOF a second look. Abdel-Aziz underscored his point by listing Alvarez on the side of the proposed WSOF vs. Bellator card with a label of 'hostage' under his name.
"One of the things we will never do is keep as guy who doesn't want to be in World Series of Fighting. For example, if you go to war and you get caught in a crossfire, you can't be torturing and shooting people because they're prisoners of war. You have to go by the rules. I believe Eddie Alvarez is a hostage.
"It put a lot of questions in fighters' mind. 'Do I really want to sign with this promotion?' It really made a lot of people scared," he said.
Perhaps most importantly, this is about market share and their place in the MMA world. Abdel-Aziz argues WSOF is the actual number two even if Bellator has claimed that label in the popular impression of the MMA community. An event like this, he suggests, can shape perception back to the reality he believes actually exists.
"I want people to stop saying we're not number two because I believe we are number two. Look at our fight card. They have great fighters, but you can't bring in Brazilian and Russian fighters to try to market them in America. I think we have a lot more Americans."
MMA Fighting attempted to contact Bellator to obtain a comment via email, but has not received a response at the time of this writing.
'I'm not trying to get attention. This is real," Abdel-Aziz insisted about his and his organization's challenge. "I really mean it and the winners are the fans and the fighters."0
“Unusual behavior?” I guess that’s one way to describe it. The big screen adaptation of E.L. James‘ bestseller Fifty Shades of Grey just got its MPAA rating and while the R-rating itself isn’t all that surprising, the MPAA’s reason for it is. There’s issues like “strong sexual content” and “language,” but then there’s also this little bit about “unusual behavior.”
In case you’ve completely missed out on all the hype surrounding the book and the movie, Fifty Shades of Grey follows Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson), a college student who writes a school newspaper piece about the hot, young and insanely successful entrepreneur, Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan). The two strike up a relationship and Anastasia comes to learn that Christian’s bedroom – or playroom – habits include some “unusual behavior.” Hit the jump for more.
First, here’s the rating description via Box Office Mojo:
“strong sexual content including dialogue, some unusual behavior and graphic nudity, and for language.”
The whole “unusual behavior” thing is pretty amusing because we all know what the MPAA is referring to. It’s almost as if they’re afraid to say it.
As for the R-rating, it’s not surprising, but does put the movie in a tough position. On the one hand, the book did stem from Twilight fan fiction, so the R-rating basically knocks out that whole demographic. Moviegoers under the age of 17 can go see it with an adult, but if that adult has to be a parent, that might be a bit awkward.
On the other hand, Fifty Shades of Grey is basically porn, or “mommy porn” as many have dubbed it. Whatever you want to call it, that R-rating doesn’t allow for it. Screenwriter Kelly Marcel did call her work an NC-17 script and producer Dana Brunetti told us he was interested in releasing two cuts of the film, an R-rated version and an NC-17 one, but there’s no confirmation on whether or not that’s actually happening, and it’s too bad because that could be one heck of a business opportunity.
Perhaps releasing an NC-17 and R-rated cut simultaneously wouldn’t be the smartest move, but if Focus hits it big with the February 13th release of the R-rated theatrical cut, the company could have diehard fans scrambling to see the film all over again by releasing an NC-17 version later on.Let the journey begin! Vesper and Elawen are found walking back towards their home. Elawen explains to the young pup about their territory, and upon entering the forest, are greeted by someone...
After a BUNCH of writing and art direction, I welcome you to book 1, chapter 1 of this tale. The comic's foundations are now pretty strong which will help the process go along more smoothly. Let it be known a novel is in the works... I only have a few weeks before I'm finally (somewhat) free to work on this as much as possible. Until then, enjoy, and thanks for your patience!
Writer/editor support: SoggerG (yoskater13)
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Support this comic on, gain goodies, receive the HQ version, and get invited to the discord chat for behind the scenes content!You are here!In a bid to encourage better behaviour on the most popular stretches of the nation’s towpaths, we're calling for the reintroduction of old-fashioned manners to preserve the peace.
Built at the time of the Industrial Revolution for horses to tow boats laden with goods, towpaths are now more popular than ever. Walkers, cyclists, boaters, anglers and runners all share the often narrow waterside paths.
During 2015, 385 million visits were made to our towpaths prompting us to call on visitors to help protect the special atmosphere which has made these spaces so popular.
Courteous and friendly
We're introducing special zones for people to embrace good old-fashioned manners across the busiest stretches of towpaths as a means to remind people to be courteous and friendly towards one another.
Within these polite zones, messages have been sprayed onto the towpath to encourage people to ‘smile and say hi as you go by’ and to remember that they are entering ‘a hat tipping zone’, a nod to times past when people tipped their hats or doffed their caps as a sign of respect or merely as a greeting.
Visitors will also be able to soak up wise words from Canal Laureate Luke Kennard who has penned a poem to help tackle towpath troubles.
Relax and unwind
Dick Vincent, Canal & River Trust’s national towpath ranger, explains: “For many people our towpaths are among their most precious green spaces, antidotes to the pace and stress of the modern world and places to relax and unwind. They are ‘super slow ways’, providing a slice of peace and calm through the centres of our busiest cities.
“Today they are more popular than ever, with more investment in improvements and better signage, but with that success there are also problems. As we move away from towpaths of old, we also seem to be moving further away from remembering our manners – we want to remind our visitors that old fashioned manners still have a place on our modern towpaths.
“Whether cycling, running, walking, mooring your boat or fishing, please help by being considerate of others, slowing down and remembering we are all there to enjoy the space. If you’re in a rush, the towpath is not the best place for you so please choose a different route.”
In 2015, we secured more than £10m of funding to improve our towpaths, and we're planning a further £10m investment in the next 12 months.tl;dr: Go crypto/tls servers can't understand a sad SSLv2-flavored compatibility trick IE6 and JDK 5/6 do, I updated a patch, don't use it.
While doing large scale TLS measurement with a Go crypto/tls server for CloudFlare, I started seeing this error score pretty high in my charts:
tls: unsupported SSLv2 handshake received
Since that measurement focuses on legacy clients, I was not happy. Googling led pretty quickly to issue #3930, which offers plenty of background and discussion.
To make it short, we are dealing with 14 years old software (IE 6) speaking a 20 years old protocol (SSLv2), to be compatible with servers that don't support the 19 years old SSLv3. One of those days.
The long story: SSLv2 leaves no space for forward-compatibility, so if a client wants a chance to work with a SSLv2-only server, the first packet it sends MUST be a valid SSLv2 ClientHello. Even if it is willing to talk SSLv3 or TLS 1.0 after that.
And that's exactly what IE6 does. SSL Labs calls this client trait "SSL 2 handshake compatibility". It's not only IE6, JDK 5/6 calls this "SSLv2Hello" and enable it by default, for example.
RFC 6101 (the historic SSLv3 spec) Appendix E documents this compatibility measure and details how to construct such a SSLv2 ClientHello, in which clients will then specify a max version of 3.0 or higher. IE6 for example will happily advertise TLS 1.0 (version number 3.1, because everything is terrible) over SSLv2 handshakes.
(The spec even includes an encrypted block padding-based rollback canary to let v2+v3 servers know securely that the client can speak v3, not just v2, even if a MitM tried to downgrade. Not that we care, since no one actually implements v2 anymore.)
Anyway, Go doesn't support SSLv2, and neither does any other server, since it's ridiculously broken and there are no clients incapable of at least SSLv3. However, if it could parse SSLv2 ClientHello packets and detect SSLv3 or TLS 1.0 support inside them, the rest of the code would work just fine. AGL isn't enthusiastic about adding such support, so not to make crypto/tls look like a production ready stack—something he responsibly says about anything he wrote—and I don't blame him.
Still, there's a patch by user erwan.legrand linked to the ticket, ported to 1.4 by user @elimisteve. Instead of erroring out it parses the SSLv2 ClientHello, converts it to a modern one, and keeps the original data around for the Finished hash. When I applied it, after clearing a couple merge conflicts, it blew up my CPUs with ridiculous load, but it sort of worked (even if only with TLS 1.0 turned on).
I ported it to 1.5.2, fixed what profiling showed to be a spinning loop (maybe introduced by one of the rebases), added proper error handling, relaxed it to work with SSLv3, optimized it and polished it a bit.
The result below (in git am format) ran smoothly at pretty high loads, but FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT'S SACRED DON'T USE IT IN PRODUCTION.
0001-crypto-tls-support-SSLv2-compatibility-handshakes.patch
Update 2016-02-06: I published a new version fixing an easy to trigger crash (and a silly upload mistake causing a syntax error).
This is how legacy persists on the Internet: a protocol design overlooks giving clients a way to negotiate down from future versions, clients keep talking the old protocol first to be compatible and servers 20 years later have to implement part of the original protocol they don't support anymore just to work with the clients operating in compatibility mode.
For more occasional protocol sadness follow me on Twitter.Home > Archive > 2009 > June > 7 Netbooks are great XP machines Sunday, June 07, 2009 by Dave Winer. Just tweeted: "Microsoft's problem, they employ billions of dollars worth of engineers who produce stuff no one wants." I pointed to this article. Short version of this post: Microsoft -- Let the netbook guys put whatever they want to in the box, and sell them XP Home for a reasonable price and stop trying to tell us we have to use Vista because people don't want to. Longer version. Netbooks are great Windows machines. I remember seeing a $600 pricetag on an Asus last year and thinking "Geez that's cheap!" so I bought one. Now it seems expensive. Same computer now is $280. That's even cheaper. So cool. And it runs Windows XP Home so I can run my software on it. Now I'm totally uninterested in buying an iPhone-like laptop, which Apple almost surely will want to sell me. You'd think that would be great news for Microsoft! You'd think they'd be running ads on TV saying "Holy Shit People Like Our Stuff Now Man That's So Fucking Cool." But you'd be wrong. Because. Because. Well. You tell me why they're not super excited about this. Steve? Ray? As a user, I'm happy as can be. I love this new stuff. And I'll tell you what. It's found money for them, whatever they get, because I wasn't ever going to buy a Microsoft product. I'm amazed that I like XP. But only because it runs on these coool new netbook computers. And the netbook market is incredibly competitive. They keep dropping the prices and they want to add features, but Microsoft won't let them. If they add more features, they say, they have to put Vista on the computer. People don't want Vista. And Microsoft must be worried they don't want Windows 7 either. That's their problem, not mine. Their job is to create software people want. I recorded a brief podcast about this, but if you've read this post you don't need to listen to it. You've already heard what I have to say. XP is cool. Sell it and be proud. Create products people want, and all is good. Create products people don't want, go back to the drawing board or find another line of work.
View the forum thread.
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Dave Winer, 54, pioneered the development of weblogs, syndication (RSS), podcasting, outlining, and web content management software; former contributing editor at Wired Magazine, research fellow at Harvard Law School, entrepreneur, and investor in web media companies. A native New Yorker, he received a Master's in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin, a Bachelor's in Mathematics from Tulane University and currently lives in Berkeley, California. "The protoblogger." - NY Times. "The father of modern-day content distribution." - PC World. One of BusinessWeek's 25 Most Influential People on the Web. "Helped popularize blogging, podcasting and RSS." - Time. "The father of blogging and RSS." - BBC. "RSS was born in 1997 out of the confluence of Dave Winer's 'Really Simple Syndication' technology, used to push out blog updates, and Netscape's 'Rich Site Summary', which allowed users to create custom Netscape home pages with regularly updated data flows." - Tim O'Reilly. http://twitter.com/davewiner
Dave WinerPosted by: John Admin
The WB’s Harry Potter Shop is helping us realize our dreams to go to Hogwarts…almost.
A personalized Hogwarts acceptance letter is now on sale in the shop featuring the official Hogwarts crest and signed by Professor Minerva McGonagall, Deputy Headmistress.
Fans also have the chance to choose between American and British wording in their letters. For example, the American letter will say, “We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts
School of Witchcraft and Wizardry,” while the British letter says, “We are pleased to inform you that you have a place at Hogwarts
School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.”
The 5×7 version of the letter is available for $24.95, and the 8×10 is $34.95. More information on personalizing your Hogwarts letter can be found here.Image copyright EPA Image caption James Carragher is in jail for sex offences against children at the home
Five child sex abuse victims have launched a High Court bid for compensation over abuse at a Catholic school in East Yorkshire.
More than 200 men claim they were abused at St William's residential school in Market Weighton between 1970 and 1991, run by the De La Salle order.
The order has apologised "unreservedly" to those affected by the abuse and for the actions of its former principal.
James Carragher is in jail for sex offences against children at the home.
If the compensation claim succeeds, the eventual payout could run into millions of pounds.
The school, which closed in 1992, provided residential care and education for boys aged 10 to 16 with emotional and behavioural problems.
It was run by the De La Salle brothers on behalf of Middlesbrough Diocese.
The order said it "deeply regrets what happened at St William's".
Image caption Nigel Feeley was abused at St William's by James Carragher
'Like giving candy to a baby'
Nigel Feeley was sent to St William's in 1972, when he was 13 years old. In 2004, James Carragher was found guilty of sexually abusing him at the home.
Mr Feeley said Carragher "had a gold card to sexually abuse children".
"It was like giving candy to a baby."
A former worker at the home told Inside Out in an anonymous interview that "brothers came and visited [the home] quite regularly and they would take children out".
He said: "it was a perfect opportunity for abuse".
Solicitor David Greenwood, acting for those claiming compensation, said St William's was "the biggest single home where boys were abused" that he had seen.
BBC Inside Out Yorkshire and Lincolnshire discovered that the Catholic Church had several opportunities to investigate the abuse but failure to act meant boys continued to be abused for decades.
There have been three criminal investigations into abuse at the home.
James Carragher, of Cearns Road, Merseyside, who was principal from 1976-1990, is serving his third prison sentence for physically and sexually abusing boys there.
Image caption St William's Children's Home was run by the De La Salle Brothers, a Christian order of lay teachers
He was jailed for nine years in January after being found guilty of 21 indecent assaults and three serious sex offences. He was cleared of a further 30 charges.
Former chaplain Anthony McCallen, formerly of Whernside Crescent, Ingleby Barwick, Stockton-on-Tees, was jailed for 15 years after being convicted of 11 charges including a serious sexual offence. He was acquitted of eight other charges at the same trial.
Court documents seen by the BBC state that on 6 April 1970 an incident was investigated by a "sub-committee of managers" at the home.
The investigation concluded: "Brother James [Carragher] is a conscientious and useful member of the staff and having expressed his regret, no further action should be taken."
'Total condemnation'
Allegations of abuse continued into the 1980s. The BBC has seen written testimony from a boy at the home describing how Carragher hit him on the head "with his fist", "dragged" him onto the landing and "kicked" and "pulled" him down the stairs.
Documents show Carragher was subjected to an internal disciplinary hearing following the assault and was given a warning.
According to a letter sent to Humberside County Council in 1992, complaints at the home were deal with by the principal, meaning that for 14 years allegations were dealt with by the man - Carragher - who was carrying out the abuse.
A spokesman for the De La Salle Order said: "We repeat our total condemnation of the serious criminal behaviour of James Carragher, a former member of the De La Salle Brothers, during his time on the staff at St William's.
"We condemn, without reservation, any action or behaviour which harms young people.
"We deeply regret what happened at St William's and the harm that was done there through the behaviour of James Carragher. We unreservedly apologise to all who have been affected by his behaviour. Our hearts go out to all victims of abuse and their families."
A spokesman for the Diocese said: "Abusive behaviour has absolutely no place in the Catholic Church, or anywhere in society, and is against everything we stand for."
The compensation case is expected to last three weeks at the High Court in Leeds.
Watch a full report on BBC Inside Out - BBC One on Monday 31 October at 19:30 GMT in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire.Family and neighbours of Abdul Karim Tunda on Saturday welcomed Delhi Police’s arrest of one of India’s ‘most wanted’ terrorists, saying that he should be hanged to death for the crimes that he has committed.
His detention ushered much awaited relief for his relatives and neighbours and they sought stringent punishment for him.
Reacting to the arrest, Tunda’s brother Abdul Malik who resides at Hapur said that the Police had frequently visited his residence to inquire about his whereabouts from family members.
“The court will decide whether the responsible figures and authorities of the country are correct or not,” Abdul Malik said.
Malik added that he last saw his brother in 1991.
He also said that Tunda’s family stayed in Hapur for approximately one and a half years between 1994 and 1995.
Reportedly, a Pakistani passport was recovered from Tunda, who is a native of Ghaziabad city on the outskirts of national capital.
Meanwhile, Tunda’s sister-in-law didn’t mince her words, saying that he should be punished with death sentence since he had been the root cause for all the harassment endured by the entire family.
“Earlier, many times it was said that he had been arrested but it was never the case. But this time it is good news that he has been arrested. He should be hanged to death. We were facing lot of trouble because of him,” Tahira said.
Devinder Sharma, a neighbour of Abdul Karim Tunda, rejoiced over his arrest and said that maximum punishment should be awarded to him, as prescribed in the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
“There should be a strict investigation against him. He was a shame and had even ruined the reputation of this locality. It’s a very proud moment for the country that he got arrested a day after the India’s Independence Day,” Devinder Sharma said.
The hunt for Tunda had faded away in 2000, after news trickled in to Indian intelligence agencies that he had died.
However, his case was reopened in August 2005 when an alleged LeT chief coordinator and operative was arrested by the Special Cell of the Delhi Police, who disclosed that Tunda was still alive.
Earlier in the day, while addressing media, Special Commissioner of the Delhi Police Special Cell SN Srivastava said that Tunda has been sent to three days police custody and added that the police had got information about his whereabouts from central intelligence agencies.
“Tunda has also worked with most wanted terrorist Azam Chima, Zaki Ur Raheman Lakhvi, Hafiz Saeed and Bada Sahib, and was also associated with Dawood Ibrahim, Iindia’s most wanted terrorist,” he said. Srivastava also informed that the top LeT terrorist had planned to carry out a blast in Delhi ahead of the Commonwealth Games in 2010, but could not succeed, as his aides were arrested.
Tunda was born in Delhi and later shifted to Pilakhuan, a village in Uttar Pradesh’s Ghaziabad District. Tunda turned into a Jehadi militant at the age of 40. He is said to have had a role in the 1993 Bombay blasts as well as in bomb explosion incidents in Ludhiana, Hyderabad, Sonepat, Panipat and Surat.
The Delhi Police has named Tunda as an accused in 21 terror cases and claims that his role was also to provoke Muslim youth and to train them to make IED. He is known to be an expert in the making of bombs with the help of Uria nitric acid, and other chemicals.
Delhi Police is also claiming that he was in touch with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). In 2008, India had sent a list of most wanted terrorists to Pakistan which included the name of Tunda. Tunda, 65, was arrested by the Special Cell of the Delhi Police from the India-Nepal Border late on Friday night.I lie awake in my hotel room in Kyoto, nearly 6,000m from home, my stomach in knots. My mind is racing with thoughts of my wedding tomorrow. What if I can’t go through with it? I take a deep breath and tell myself I don’t have anything to worry about. I can’t be stood up at the altar, because the person I’m marrying is myself.
The solo wedding is a growing trend in Japan: young single women getting dressed up as brides and staging a bridal photoshoot. “You are single and you don’t know if you would be able to get married and have a wedding ceremony in the near future,” suggests the Cerca Travel website, which offers this experience, “but you would like to have some pictures of yourself in a wedding gown or in a gorgeous bridal kimono now, when you are young and beautiful.”
Like many of the women who use the service, I am a self-proclaimed spinster. I’m 42, and while all my friends are married or in long-term relationships, I sort of forgot to do it myself. In my late 20s, I thought I was dating the man I would marry but, while he was working abroad, he broke up with me abruptly and with no warning. It was nearly 13 years before I had another relationship.
I look in the mirror and can’t help catching my breath. I barely recognise the radiant, elegant woman in the mirror
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Photograph: Yuhino Suzuki
I used to think I was single because I lived in New York City during my 20s and 30s, where single women outnumber single men. Or because I travel so much for my work as a photographer, and men don’t want to wait around for a woman who is off globetrotting. But I have many friends in New York in the same industry as me who have managed to meet, date and marry a man. Meanwhile, I enjoy sleeping on whichever side of the bed I choose (though I barely move an inch at night), eating cereal for dinner most nights and doing whatever I want, whenever I want. Sure, I enjoy the company of a man once in a while, but I’d rather just borrow a friend’s beau to help me put up shelves than be in a full-time relationship for those kinds of perks.
I’ve watched many friends get married, but I never thought I’d have a wedding of my own. Now here I am in Kyoto, awaiting my big day.
***
Yukiko Inoue has been running Cerca Travel for 10 years. She is a 48-year-old divorcee whose main business is to arrange packages for Japanese women who want to travel alone in Europe and feel safe. Two years ago, her colleague, 37-year-old Natsumi Akai, expressed interest in having her photos taken professionally in a wedding dress and the solo wedding was born. Since then, 130 Japanese women have paid Cerca ¥380,000 (£2,500) for a two-day package, including a dress fitting, hair, makeup and a photo shoot – in short, everything except the actual ceremony.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Photograph: Yuhino Suzuki
On the first day of my solo wedding package, I am met by Natsumi Akai at the Ayumi Bridal dress shop. Natsumi is tall, slim and strikingly beautiful. She tells me she has had many relationships and was once engaged, but called it off because she realised that if she were to get married, she would have to quit her job, and she didn’t want to do that. For her, the solo wedding was all about the dress.
“For Japanese women, the wedding dress is a symbol of beauty and being beautiful,” Natsumi explains. “In the story books I read as a child, there was always a princess in foreign countries. For me, getting married and wearing a wedding dress are totally different things. I wanted to wear the dress without getting married.”
I, on the other hand, have never fantasied about wearing a wedding dress, and feel slightly nervous as Natsumi leads me into a private fitting room lined with poufy white gowns. But trying one on, I am shocked. I look in the mirror at the tightly bound bodice and I can’t help catching my breath. I barely recognise the radiant, elegant woman I see in the mirror. Sensing my amazement, Natsumi smiles. “Kawai! You’re a princess!”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Photograph: Yuhino Suzuki
Suddenly, I understand the appeal. “In Japan, we don’t often have the opportunity to dress up,” Natsumi explains. “We wear casual wear. That’s why we dream about wearing the wedding dress – it’s a once-in-a-lifetime event.” She looks at me. “Do you want to wear a kimono? It’s the same concept. It’s a little foreign, you’re playing a role.”
In the end, I try on eight dresses, each one a little bit more over the top. I end up choosing the first one I tried, strapless and snug around the bosom and waist, shooting out below the hips with multiple layers of tulle.
Leap year brides: the women who popped the question on February 29 Read more
That evening, as I fight my way through a rain shower, I think about whether my fiercely independent nature means I will never meet my soul mate. I duck into a ramen shop and eat a bowl of steaming soup, in a packed restaurant where everyone is dining alone.
***
In the morning, I wake up for my big day, only to look in the mirror and see that my eye is red and oozy with conjunctivitis. Hardly ready for my closeup. In the hotel lobby I meet Natsumi, who graciously pretends not to notice, and we take a taxi to a fashionable part of town where we will meet wedding stylist Mayumi Hayashi and leading wedding photographer Yuhino Suzuki.
I rarely dress up – in fact, putting a brush through my hair is a big occasion, so why I requested finger waves is beyond me. Mayumi is up for the challenge, though, and places my hair in curlers to set before beginning to apply my makeup, expertly covering up my weeping eye. I have visions of looking like a 1930s beauty queen, but the reality is matronly. I put on my dress and look in the mirror. I look like the Queen Mum.
I pose for the customary wedding shots: bride gazing downwards chastely, bride looking virginal and blushing innocently
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Photograph: Yuhino Suzuki
If it feels strange to be getting ready with no one to greet me at the other end, the photoshoot itself is surreal. We make our way to the Shugakuin Kirara Sanso Japanese garden, where I am photographed getting out of the car, walking in the garden and standing beneath the blossom. I pose for the customary wedding shots: bride looking away dreamily, bride gazing downwards chastely, bride looking virginal and blushing innocently. No shots with the groom, sadly. Cerca Travel used to offer an “image partner” for the shoots: an age-appropriate man to stand in as the groom. But not one client requested this service, so they stopped offering it. I personally would have liked to have had a fake husband in my photos, if only for the kitsch factor: here’s me with my fantasy Japanese husband.
There is no actual solo wedding ceremony, which is a shame, because I had imagined promising to love myself for richer, for poorer. But Natsumi says it is a life-changing experience. You need courage to apply for a solo wedding, and clients are often surprised by the self-confidence they gain from the experience. “In real weddings, the main character is the same, the woman, but the goal is different,” she says. “A solo wedding is a jumping-off point; a celebration of yourself. Many women have already given up on meeting someone or getting married, and this makes them realise marriage isn’t the only goal in life.”
***
On my return home, I am surprised to find that I love showing off my wedding album – I was recently in a posh pub and happened to meet Oscar-winning actor Marion Cotillard, so I showed her my wedding pictures. “It’s like Cindy Sherman, only sadder,” she said. “More depressing. These photos are very sad.” I enjoy hearing people’s reactions: most think it’s funny, weird or peculiar.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Photograph: Yuhino Suzuki
Natsumi takes her wedding album everywhere, too. “I don’t need to show it to anyone, I just like to know I have it,” she says. “When I get angry or irritated, I can look at it. That was when I was at my best. Many women keep their solo wedding a secret. I want it to become something that is not shameful. There is not a large culture of therapy in Japan, and the solo wedding is therapeutic.”
Upon my return from marrying myself in Japan, I started dating someone I had known for many years. I wondered if my experience had changed something, that my luck with men would now change. Sadly, this relationship also ended abruptly. But I’ve decided I’m happiest on my own. Perhaps I’ll find someone one day – but I don’t need to have a big wedding. I already have my photo album. I can just use Photoshop to add the groom.So in the previous posts of this series, (Missed 'em? Scroll down to the bottom of this post.) we learned why we should campus, the basics of how to do it, and when to use the plyometric approach to campusing. Still, that doesn't tell you much about how to actually implement it, now does it?
There are a few rules I follow, and questions I ask, when programming for campusing:
Campusing, when appropriate, is always part of a power phase.
The campus board can be used for exercises during other phases, but campusing itself is a powerful activity by definition.
The campus board can be used for exercises during other phases, but campusing itself is a powerful activity by definition. If bouldering and campusing in the same session, boulder first.
Bouldering is much more demanding technically, so it should always come first in your workout. If you are doing other exercises, such as various powerful lifts, those should always be programmed after. These bouldering sessions are usually very short to save energy for campusing. If you are already very sound technically, and pulling strength and explosive power are your true limiters, then this rule may not completely apply to you... but that is a very small percentage of the climbers I've observed.
Bouldering is much more demanding technically, so it should always come first in your workout. If you are doing other exercises, such as various powerful lifts, those should always be programmed after. These bouldering sessions are usually very short to save energy for campusing. If you are already very sound technically, and pulling strength and explosive power are your true limiters, then this rule may not completely apply to you... but that is a very small percentage of the climbers I've observed. Campusing may not be necessary.
I always first look to determine if the climber stands to gain more from improving their technical abilities, including in more powerful techniques. If so, then campusing won't be the best use of their time. I generally don't advocate campusing until an athlete is climbing mid-5.12 and V5/6, and has a good grasp on how to climb dynamically. Campusing will NOT help you learn to climb dynamically.
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my Dick, Tick, ICPMFOI***, Captain, Spinal Menengitis, Fluffy
::encore::
Piss Up A Rope, Dr. Rock, Touch my Tooter
* first time played live
***Dedicated to Johnny Cash
Deaner's Tour Diaries:
asheville
played an old r+b club that has recently been reopened called "the orange peel". funnily enough, the place actually did kinda smell like orange peels when we walked in. we did a photo shoot for newsweek before the gig and just chilled in this cool hippy mountain town. it has been years since i made this mistake (and i have made it 3 other times), but before the show someone gave me a basket of cookies and i hadn't eaten all day. i ate like 6 of them and hung around waiting to play before i started feeling pretty strange, and in a bad way. of course they were pot cookies and until dave dreiwitz picked up the letter that had come with the cookies i didn't even notice. within about ten minutes i felt like someone had filled my body with liquid cement and i played our whole set in a deep, hot, miserable stoned haze that i didn't enjoy at all. what a way to start a tour.
09-13 -2003 The Tabernacle Atlanta, GA
Ice Castles, Golden Eel, Baby Bitch, Piss Up A Rope, Take Me Away, Wavin' my Dick in the Wind, Voodoo Lady, Exactly Where I'm At, Mutilated Lips, Happy Coloured Marbles, Roses R Free, The Argus, Bananas & Blow, Touch my Tooter, U Fucked Up, Licking the Palm 4 Guava->Mushroom Festival, Johnny on the Spot, Tried and True, Help Me Scrape the Mucus Off my Brain, Big Jilm*, Buckingham Green, Captain, Spinal Menengitis, Sorry Charlie, Deaner, the Mollusk**, Ocean Man, Someday***
::encore::
Ohio->Tender Situation, Booze me Up and Get me High, Fat Lenny
::encore 2::
Poopship Destroyer *Acoustic
**With Gener monologue before all verses, extra monologue before "There are 3 things..."
***played for Coco Deaner's Tour Diaries:
atlanta
just an awesome venue, used to be a church back in the day. we really kicked some fucking ass in atlanta. most of my night was spent trying to get anyone to order the de la hoya fight and tape it for me, but of course it didn't work out because most of the nerds that like ween are too lame to know anything about sports at all. it was like trying to score methadone at a mary kay convention. anyway, we had a great gig here---one of our better atlanta shows in my opinion. after the show i found out that de la hoya lost on a controversial decision and it pissed me off that much more.
09-14- 2003 New Daisy Theater Memphis, TN
Strap on that jjammy pac, capt. fantasy, dont get 2 close, the grobe, golden eel, HIV, flutes of chi, take me away, never squeal, dr rock, even if you don't, roses are free, daisies, spinal, frank, sorry charlie, mollusk, tried and true, joppa road (not finished), voodoo lady, buckingham green, tear 4 eddie, piss up a rope, pandy fackler (w/ Deaner on drums). Deaner's Tour Diaries:
memphis
ole memphis, home to jonny "it's not my dog" dubbya. aaron had no voice for this show unfortunately and could barely even talk let alone sing. we tried to take it easy on him and we ended up playing a lot more jams than the sing songy music but he ended up tearing his voice to pieces anyway. the comedian doug stanhope was doing a show after ours so he came onstage before us to plug his gig. we didn't think much of it at the time but he gave us cds of his stand-up routine which turned out to be some of the funniest shit i've heard in awhile. the new "man-show" sorta does suck though. we played exactly 2 hours and stopped without playing an encore and as usual people were bitching at us afterwards. i thought 2 hours was a pretty noble effort for aaron given the circumstances but now the problem was even worse---he couldn't even speak to have a conversation and we were only 3 shows into the tour. overall, memphis really sucks balls, graceland or not. the best thing it has going for it is that jonny lives there.
09-16- 2003 Diamond Ballroom Oklahoma City, OK
HIV, Spinal Meningitis, Piss Up A Rope, Dont Get 2 Close (2 My Fantasy), Waving My Dick In The Wind, Mr Richard Smoker, Awesome Sound, Albino Sunburned Girl, Mutilated Lips, Frank, Sorry Charlie, Mollusk, Pumpin For The Man, Tried And True, Nan, Help My Pony, Johnny On The Spot, Cant Put My Finger On It, Reggaejunkiejew, Zoloft, Stroker Ace, Pandy Fackler, Enabler, Blarney Stone
::encore::
Buenas Tardes Deaner's Tour Diaries:
oklahoma city
this place was the fucking shit. an old roadhouse bar with pictures of country music stars all over the walls. hank williams sr. once played here and this place had the vibe for sure. again, we did a lot of different tunes to make it as easy as possible on aaron which meant a lot of me singing, a lot of older tunes, and a lot of long solos. the gig turned out to be great actually.
09-17- 2003 Dave's On Dickson Fayetteville, AR
She Wanted to Leave, Golden Eel, The Stallion Pt. 3, Take Me Away, Waving My Dick in the Wind,,Mister Would You Please Help My Pony, Voodoo Lady, Exactly Where I'm At, Mutilated Lips, Roses are Free, Bananas and Blow, Big Jilm, Reggaejunkiejew, The Mollusk, Zoloft, Buckingham Green, She Fucks Me, Ocean Man, Someday, Poopship Destroyer
::encore::
LMLYP Deaner's Tour Diaries:
fayetteville
got drunk with a capital d and couldn't even see straight. it started in my hotel room when i put down about 12 coronas before 5pm and went from there. i don't remember much about this show at all. we went out with some girls after the concert and the chick that i was talking to all night turned out to be a total psychopath. at some point some other girl who was at the show came up to me to sign her ticket stub and this girl looks at me after the other girl walks away and says "is that your girlfriend?" i said no, i never saw her before and she gets all pissed off and slams her drink down and says "well if you'd rather go be with that whore then i won't waste any more of your time mister rock star." i was laughing so hard staring at this neurotic psychopath that i spit my beer out. i didn't have the heart to tell her that i was married with a baby because she may have just pulled a fatal attraction on me and slit my throat. fuckin hos, unbelievable. i pity the poor fuckin guy that marries that chick someday.
09-18- 2003 Granada Dallas, TX
buckingham green, she wanted to leave, piss up a rope, take me away, dick smoker, touch my tooter, voodoo lady, happy colored marbles, bananas and blow, awesome sound, the mollusk, i don't want it, roses are free, spinal meningitis, johnny on the spot, stroker ace, zoloft, ocean man, frank, booze me up, fat lenny, dr rock, baby bitch, someday,???, blarney stone
::encore::
HIV, finger, buenos tardes amigo Deaner's Tour Diaries:
dallas
one of my favorite gigs of the tour so far, we finally escaped deep ellum and played in a really cool converted theater. just a great over the top set. reminded me instantly why i love playing texas. we hung out with our friends all night after the gig and got torn up. austin is approaching and we are anxious about our return to stubb's.
09-20- 2003 Stubbs Austin, TX
Ice Castles, Golden Eel, Baby Bitch, Piss Up A Rope, Happy Colored Marbles, Take Me Away, Dick in the Wind, Even if your don't, Voodoo Lady, Albino Sunburned Girl, Bananas and Blow, Roses, Awesome Sound, The Argus, The Mollusk, Touch my Tooter, You Fucked Up, Jonny on the Spot, Dr. Rock, Zoloft, Buckingham Green, Spinal Meningitis, Captain, Tried & True, She Fucks Me, Ocean Man, Pandy Fackler, Someday
::encore::
HIV song, Booze me up, Fat Lenny Deaner's Tour Diaries:
austin
lots of anticipation for this gig---actually it was 2 gigs. i felt like it was gonna take a magic trick to live up to our expectations. lots of music around austin on this weekend, it's sort of an honor to be playing there on such a heavy weekend of music. we had a night off in town and my friend kwanzaa and i had a nice dinner across the street from stubb's and listened to the mediocre white sounds of string cheese incident wafting through the air like a nasty fart. our show at stubb's was pretty solid and we finally pulled out a bunch of the newer tunes and intentionally avoided playing l.m.l.y.p. if nothing else. we finished on a really high note with one of our better renditions of fat lenny and then went out for a night of texas debauchery that ended in my hotel room with a bunch of friends around 9 am. the next day we played the ACL festival opening for REM at dusk. I don't think we went over that well with the massive crowd (maybe like 30,000 people) but i thought we brought it pretty hard. the second i finished playing and took off my guitar i spotted gibby haynes, (one of my heroes) and we ended up hanging out til 3 or 4 am at a bunch of bars. the funniest part of the night was the fact that you couldn't park a car at the festival so we flagged down a van on the service road behind the stage which turned out to be filled with spanish speaking mexican dudes delivering food to REM from some local restaurant. gibby's girlfriend speaks fluent spanish and we ended up getting a ride back into the city from these mexicans, but we had to sit in the back of an econoline van on crates of seafood on ice. the van smelled like a rancid pussy and the whole ride was spent listening to gibby's girl arguing in spanish with the driver over where he would take us for 20 bucks and being shoulder to shoulder with gibby haynes and 5 mexicans. it was something i'll never forget. he's starting a new band and they're gonna open for ween on our upcoming american tourdates in the new year.
09-21- 2003 Austin City Music Fest, Capital Metro Stage, Zilker Park Austin, TX
Buckingham Green, The Stallion Part 3, Spinal Meningitis (Got Me Down), Take Me Away, Waving My Dick In The Wind, Voodoo Lady, Mutilated Lips, Roses Are Free, The Mollusk, Touch My Tooter, Dr Rock, Johnny On The Spot, Zoloft, You Fucked Up.
09-23- 2003 Marquee Theater Tempe, AZ
Dancing In The Show Tonight, Take Me Away, The Grobe, Don't Get 2 Close (2 My Fantasy), Mister Richard Smoker, Waving My Dick In The Wind, Voodoo Lady, Happy Colored Marbles, The Argus, Bananas and Blow, Buckingham Green, Dr. Rock, Stroker Ace, Zoloft, Exactly Where I'm At, Roses Are Free, The Mollusk, Fat Lenny, Never Squeal, Ocean Man, You Fucked Up, Pandy Fackler, Booze Me Up and Get Me High, The Enabler, Touch My Tooter, The Rainbow
::encore::
Spinal Meningitis (Got Me Down), Piss Up A Rope, Buenas Tardes Amigo
09-24- 2003 The Wiltern Los Angeles, CA
She Wanted 2 Leave, Spinal Meningitis, Happy Colored Marbles, Piss Up A Rope, Take Me Away, You Fucked Up, Even If U Don't, Wavin' My Dick In the Wind, VooDoo Lady, Argus, Bananas & Blow, Roses Are Free, I Don't Want It, Tried & True (acoustic), Mollusk (acoustic), Johnny On The Spot, Never Squeal (Glenn solo), Touch my Tooter, Oceanman, Dr. Rock, Zoloft, Buckingham Green, Captain, Baby Bitch, If you Could Save Yourself
::encore::
Exactly where I'm at,
Mutilated Lips,
Fluffy
Deaner's Tour Diaries:
los angeles
this venue was just so nice---reminded me a lot of the beacon theater in nyc. well this was my "birthday" show and we played maybe the most mellow setlist of the tour (intentionally). I really enjoyed this gig thoroughly, it was the most tunes from quebec that we pulled out in a single show---we closed with fluffy. after the gig my friend shelby threw a party for me down the street from the club, and i think the entire crowd tried to squeeze into this little bar. she had someone construct a pinata in my likeness and she also hired a mariachi band that played for me out in the street. i drank every color of shot imaginable and vomitted them all back up in one glorious moment in the bathroom. overall tho, there were too many people in this place and i bailed after a couple of hours and did drugs with claypool on our bus all night instead.
09-26- 2003 Greek Theater
Berkeley, CA
Ice Castles>Golden Eel, Baby Bitch, Spinal Meningitis, Piss Up A Rope, Happy Colored Marbles, Take Me Away, Don't Get 2 Close 2 My Fantasy, Waving My Dick In The Wind, VooDoo Lady, Back 2 Basom, Bananas & Blow, Roses R Free, Zoloft, Tooter, Dr.Rock, You Fucked Up, Buckingham Green, Argus, Frank, MolluskOcean Man, Pandy Fackler>Keyboard jam w/Bernie Worell(P-Funk), Fat Lenny, Booze Me Up, Buenas Tardes
::encore::
Exactly Where I'm @, Mutilated Lips, Chant>Finger Deaner's Tour Diaries:
berkeley
first we got to enjoy a rare night off, which i spent (on my birthday) eating filet mignon and penne bolognese at original joe's down in the tenderloin. is san francisco truly the last city this filthy and crime laden or is it just the tenderloin? one way or another, that's where i eat everytime we're in the bay area. the next day we played the greek theater in berkeley and it was everything i was ever told that it would be. the only drag about the whole thing was the attendance which still has me sort of baffled. we had pretty much all sellout shows until we hit the greek, which holds something like 8,500 people. less than 2,300 people showed up in what's usually one of our biggest tour stops. how the hell we did twice as many people in portland, vancouver, and denver i'll never understand. there's no way we can draw 8,500 people in any city, but seeing as how the bay area has always been such a great place for ween coupled with the fact that we were at the nicest venue for a concert, no one showed up and it looked really empty from the stage. this probably means that next time we come back we'll be at the same places we been playing for the last 10 years, but truthfully, i don't care all that much when it comes time to start playing. the most memorable part of the whole set was late in the show when we were doing pandy fackler and i look over and there's this black dude sitting down at glenn's keyboard rig----i suddenly realize, "holy shit, that's bernie worrell" and i just about crapped my pants. i mean, if you knew how many times i've seen p-funk and every splinter group that has been spawned from funkadelic you'd be amazed. i mean, here is one of my heroes sitting in with ween at the berkeley greek. after he walked off stage i couldn't play a damn note, i was so nervous about him standing there. what's even cooler is that for like 5 minutes Ween had 2 black guys in the band, that's some pretty good stuff! overall this was a wicked good show in arguably the greatest venue in the world. the sound onstage is just incredible and the staff were extremely nice and courteous to us. we watched "bullit" on the bus after the gig, the definitive san francisco movie and i ate 3 gyros and 3 pieces of baklava and then i puked again and passed out.
09-27- 2003 Catalyst
Santa Cruz, CA
Take Me Away, Don't Get 2 Close, Mr Richard Smoker, Wavin' my Dick in the Wind, Voodoo Lady, Bananas 'n' Blow, Happy Colored Marbles, Piss Up A Rope, Dr. Rock, Puertoricanpower, Stroker Ace, Roses Are Free, Summer Wind, The Argus, All Of My Love *, Fat Lenny, Pandy Fackler, Buckingham Green, HIV song, Spinal Meningitis, Reggaejunkiejew, The Enabler, BigJilm, Poopship Destroyer
::encore::
Ohio>Tender Situation, The Mollusk
#Deaner singing a Sinatra love song backed w/Glenn notes
while Gener's amp head was replaced.
*Led Zeppelin cover (from In Thru The Outdoor)
Deaner's Tour Diaries:
santa cruz
possibly the best show of the tour, maybe one of my favorites ever actually. in los angeles and berkeley we played pretty dynamic musical sets and we were ready to play loud and cheap and the catalyst was the perfect setting. a long and narrow club with a punk rock vibe, we just fucking shredded and played the brownest set in years. we been rehearsing "all of my love" and we finally gotten it to a place where it was passable, although i can't figure out the jimmy page b-bender tasters he plays with the hipshot. we just came raging out of the gates in santa cruz and the crowd was right there with us, it took like 1 song for the mosh pit to get going. we pulled out the most gnarly tunes we have for this one and played our asses off. this was definitely one of the sleeper gigs of the tour. there was so much crazy shit going on that it's all kind of hard to remember, except i think we also did "summer wind" by frank sinatra and "reggaejunkiejew" by ween. aaron summed it up best when he said "this is the place where the hippies and the punks meet and fuck each other up the ass with tea tree oil." before the show i went to some massage parlor because my whole body is in agony, but the hippie girl that gave me the massage smelled like sour milk really bad and her stomach was grumbling through the whole massage and i couldn't stop laughing thinking about the kale and tofu burrito she had probably just eaten before working on me. i think she even laid a nasty fart at one point. also, this bag lady walked into our dressing room and just sat there drinking all our booze before we realized that she wasn't an employee or someone's friend or mom. later on she was sitting on our bus doing the same thing before kirk threatened to kick her ass. all 'n all it was a really crazy fucking night.
09-29- 2003 Crystal Ballroom Portland, OR
Buckingham Green, The Stallion pt. 3, Happy Colored Marbles, The Grobe, Take Me Away, Don't Get 2 Close 2 My Fantasy, Springtheme, Voodoo Lady, Bananas and Blow, I Don't Want It, Roses Are Free, Push the L'il Daisies, She's Your Baby, The Mollusk, Reggaejunkiejew, Zoloft, Ocean Man, Wavin My Dick in the Wind, You Fucked Up, Goin' Gets Tough, Johnny on the Spot, Fat Lenny, Spinal Meningitis, Piss Up a Rope, Fluffy
::encore::
LMLYP Deaner's Tour Diaries:
portland 2 nights
we started with the night off, which is always nice. we went out with some friends and had some drinks and played pool, harmless fun....we ended up going to a barbecue at midnight and i was so hungry that i started picking at the hors d'ouerves that had probably been sitting out since that afternoon. next thing i know i'm in the garden puking my guts out and had to haul ass back to the hotel. i spent the rest of the night on the toilet with a trash can in my hands. diarreha and vomit simultaneously, food poisoning all the way. we had an in-store appearance scheduled for the next morning but i was still awake throwing up so we had to cancel it. by showtime my stomach had settled but i was sore all over and wiped out. the first show was cool and all but we had some major sound issues that were worked out by the second night, which was way more inspired and rowdy in my opinion. i have no recollection of what we played, but i always dig these 2 night stands cuz we get to play a lot more tunes. this place has that crazy dance floor that is mounted on some sort of ball bearing setup. the floor actually moves up and down and you can see it from the stage. overall, i dig this place even though we've played there like 4 or 5 times now.
09-30- 2003 Crystal Ballroom Portland, OR
captain fantasy, take me away, touch my tooter, Mr. Richard Smoker, Dr. Rock, Ice Castles, golden eel, Baby Bitch, HIV song, Spinal Menningitis, happy coloured marbles, buckingham green, argus, awesome sound, Don't sweat it, All of my love#, you fucked up, puerto rican power, Black Jack tease>pandy fackler, Deez nutz, Freedom of 76, voodoo lady, exactly where I'm at, mutilated lips, Big Jilm, Booze me up and get me high, Blarney Stone
::encore::
Roses are Free, Buenas Tardes Amigo #led zeppelin cover
10-01- 2003 Moore Theater Seattle, WA
Buckingham Green, The Stallion prt. 3, Marble Tulip Juicy Tree, Happy Colored Marbles, The Grobe, Nan, Take Me Away, Springtheme, Voodoo Lady, I Don't Want It, Roses Are Free, The Argus, The Mollusk, She Fucks Me, Zoloft, Birthday Boy (acoustic), Sarah (Gener, solo acoustic), Don't Laugh I love You (Deaner on bass), Ocean Man (aborted and restarted), Waving My Dick In The Wind, You Fucked Up, I'll Be Your Johnny On The Spot, Pandy Fackler, Fat Lenny, I Can't Put My Finger On It, Bannanas And Blow, Spinal Menengitis, Booze Me Up And Get Me High> Poop Ship Destroyer Deaner's Tour Diaries:
seattle
i thought we had a night off after portland so i stayed up all night only to find out at like 6am that we had a gig in seattle that day. so i kept drinking. i was so fucked up that i spent the last hour before the show in my underwear walking around the club and trying to figure out how to climb onto the roof somehow. we kicked ass and played a big brown set. we were gonna play for 4 hours and go for our all-time marathon set length record but they pulled the plug on us just as we were getting ready to go back onstage for an encore, which was basically gonna be a whole 'nother set. my judgement was a little sketchy, but i thought the show was great.who knows tho, maybe it sucked. i ate tuna. let's see what else.... i forget what we did afterwards exactly but i think we went to a bar. i can't believe anyone reads these tour diaries. all we do is basically get drunk and play every night. some nights are better than others.
10-03- 2003 Orpheum Theater Vancouver, BC
Dancing In the Show 2nite, Take Me Away, The Grobe, Don't Get 2 Close, Richard Smoker, Waving My Dick In The Wind, Voodoo Lady, Happy Colored Marbles, Bananas And Blow, Buckingham Green, The Argus, Doctor Rock, Stroker Ace, Zoloft, Exactly Where I'm At, Roses Are Free, The Mollusk, Fat Lenny, Johnny On The Spot, Ocean Man, You Fucked Up, Pandy Fackler, Booze Me Up, All Of My Love, Touch My Tooter, ICPMFOI, If You Could Save Yourself
::encore 1::
Spinal Meningitis, Piss Up A Rope, She Fucks Me
::encore 2::
Buenos Tardes Amigo Deaner's Tour Diaries:
vancouver
we played in this place where the vancouver symphony orchestra performs. one of the nicest looking places we ever played. also the worst sounding place we ever played. it was one giant bass-heavy reverb tank and i was so frustrated i almost smashed my gear. playing quietly didn't help, playing loud didn't help. it was totally sold out and the crowd was there to rock. it felt like having sex with a half hard penis. weird thing about this gig, they'll let you smoke weed in vancouver, there are coffee shops everywhere like amsterdam but cigarettes are totally off limits. security was letting people smoke weed in plain sight, but they were ejecting anyone who lit a cigarette. overall, i was really frustrated by this show, this town is one of the biggest towns for ween and the show fell short of what i expected almost entirely because of the sound. another strange observation about vancouver, i can't pinpoint it exactly, but everytime we go there i see a lot of violence. i see fights at the gigs, fights in the streets, fights in the bars---this time was no different. we hung out afterwards for a little while at a bar but i never feel like celebrating a sub-par show.
10-06- 2003 Red's Edmonton, Alberta West Edmonton Mall
: :soundcheck::
Back to Basom ::show::
The HIV Song, Spinal Meningitis (Got Me Down), Piss Up A Rope, Take Me Away, Mister Richard Smoker, Waving My Dick In The Wind, Even If You Don't, Mister, Would You Please Help My Pony?, Voodoo Lady (with Kiss), Exactlty Where I'm At, Happy Colored Marbles, Bananas and Blow, Roses Are Free, Push Th' Little Daisies, Zoloft, Buckingham Green, A Tear For Eddie, The Argus, The Mollusk, Frank, Booze Me Up And Get Me High, You Fucked Up, Doctor Rock, Pandy Fackler, The Blarney Stone
::encore::
Poopship Destroyer, L.M.L.Y.P. (tease, Deaner left the stage just before the first verse) Deaner's Tour Diaries:
edmonton
we played in a club called red's in the biggest mall in north america. the mall had a waterpark and a driving range and a sea-world show and shit. our first time in edmonton and it was sold out--like over 2,000 people. the crowd was divided into two parts, legal age drinkers on one side and underage kids on the other side. the bars in canada serve raw ham and cow blood to the candian patrons to get them psyched for the concert. aaron busted out his alter-ego "hollywood gene ween" for this show, which is sort of a cross between david lee roth and dean martin. for the first 5 songs i watched the red sox/oakland game from the stage on the tv across the room back by the bar, for the rest of the show we showed edmonton how we do it in new jersey. drunk.
10-07- 2003 MacEwan Ballroom, University of Calgary Calgary, Alberta
She Wanted To Leave, Ice Castles, The Golden Eel, Now I'm Freaking Out, The HIV Song, Happy Colored Marbles, Voodoo Lady (with Kiss), Albino Sunburnt Girl, Exactly Where I'm At, Mutilated Lips, Take Me Away, Captain Fantasy, Even If You Don't, Summer Wind, Mister Richard Smoker, All Of My Love, Roses Are Free, What Deaner Was Talking About, Push Th' Little Daisies, She's Your Baby, Springtheme, The Mollusk, Buckingham Green, Spinal Meningitis (Got Me Down), Captain, Ocean Man, I'll Be Your Johnny On The Spot, The Going Gets Tough From The Getgo, Buenas Tardes Amigo
::encore::
Touch My Tooter, Doctor Rock, You Fucked Up Deaner's Tour Diaries:
calgary
we played the university of alberta in some big square box that sounded acoustically great for some reason. i thought this was a really amazing gig and we closed it down with one of the better versions of "fluffy" that i can remember. after the gig we drove all night towards missoula montana and we crossed the border at like 7am at sweetgrass montana. the fucking u.s. customs pigs had the bus driver drag us all out of our bunks and into a brightly lit office where they busted our balls and then searched the bus. fucking pigs man, they're all the same. while they're harassing us the one pig says to his friend "hey jack, have you tried the new special at chili's yet? you get your choice of a few entrees and deserts and it's quite a bargain." aaron muttered "fucking pigs man" and i almost pissed myself laughing. at the time it was somehow the funniest thing i've ever heard in my life. reminded me of that scene in reservoir dogs where tim roth is in the bathroom and the 3 pigs are having the conversation where the cop says "buddy, i'm gonna shoot you in the face!"
10-08- 2003 MT University Theater Missoula, MT
Birthday Boy, Chocolate Town, Mutilated Lips, Tried and True, Buckingham Green, Stallion Part 3, Happy Colored Marbles, The Grobe, Take me Away, Transdermal Celebration, Springtheme, Voodoo Lady, Bananas and Blow, Exactly Where I'm at, Roses are Free, Big Jilm, The Mollusk, Raggae Junkie Jew, Zoloft, Ocean Man, Waving my Dick in the Wind, You Fucked up, Goin Gets Tough, Johny on the Spot, Captain, Spinal Meningitis, Baby Bitch, Fluffy
::encore::
Dr. Rock, Touch my Tooter, If you Could Save Yourself... Deaner's Tour Diaries:
missoula
i don't remember much about this one either except that it was a good gig. some kids printed up counterfeit tickets and it caused a bit of a stir. i thought it was pretty punk rock and was honored in a way. we have been hearing about this town for awhile and finally made it there. unfortunately i didn't get to see any of it except for the hotel bar where i watched the yankees with some homeless guy who had a plate in his head.
10-10- 2003 Twist & Shout Records Denver, CO In store performance
(All Acoustic)
Don't Shit Where You Eat, Chocolate Town, Tried and True, Pandy Fackler, Don't Get Too Close, Pony, Birthday Boy, Joppa Road
10-10- 2003 Fillmore Denver, CO
She wanted to leave, Spinal Meningitis, Marble Tulip Juicy Tree, Piss up a rope, Happy colored marbles, Take me away, You fucked up, Even if you don't, Waving my dick, Voo Doo Lady, Argus, Bananas and blow, Roses are free, What Deaner Was Talking About, Stay forever, Freedom of '76, Mollusk, Johnny on the spot (someone threw a Vodka bottle - and deaner said that he was going to fuck his girlfriend,), Never squeal, Touch my tooter, Oceanman, All of my love, Dr rock, Puerto Rican Power, Fat Lenny, Zoloft, Buckingham Green, Captain, Baby bitch, Ifyou could save yourself
::encore::
Exactly Where I'm At, Blarney stone, Fluffy Deaner's Tour Diaries:
denver
first time ever at the fillmore, capacity was over 3,500 people and we sold the place out. last show of the tour and we played one of the best shows of the trip, and one of the more memorable shows of all-time for ween. it was just right in every way and it was the best stage sound i've heard in my life, anywhere. people were just amped from the first note and we played our asses off and ended the tour on a very high note. of course some asshole tried to ruin it by throwing a large vodka bottle at the band. if this happens again we're gonna walk off the stage so do me a favor, and if you ever see anyone do this at a ween gig, grab them and either kick their ass yourself, or come get one of our crew guys and point the person out. i'll gladly take a five minute intermission to get my shots in on your cowardly ass. get your heads out of your asses people, ween will tolerate just about anything but bottle throwing. earlier in the afternoon we played an acoustic set in a record store like 5 minutes after we woke up. it was a great store and the show went very well. overall, the tour was exhausting and we probably raged a little too hard during our downtime. the tour definitely took it's toll physically and mentally on everyone and now we get to fly home for 2 weeks off before we're back out doing it over again.
10-28- 2003 Calvin theater Northampton, MA
Buckingham Green, Stallion Part 3, Happy colored marbles, Spinal Meningitis, The Grobe, Take Me away, Transdermal Celebration, Springtheme, Voodoo Lady, Bananas n Blow, I dont want it, Roses are Free, Exactly Where I'm at, Mutilated Lips, Mollusk, Reggaejunkiejew, Zoloft (gener and sock puppet on vocals), Ocean Man, Waving my dick, You fucked Up, Goin gets tough from the getgo, Help Me Scrape the mucus*, Homo Rainbow*, Tried and True*, If you could save yourself*
::encore::
Touch my Tooter, Dr Rock, All of my Love, Stroker Ace, Buenos Tardes
*Gener and deaner, 2 acoustics...
10-29- 2003 Avalon Boston, MA
Ice Castles, The Golden Eel, Baby Bitch, Piss Up A Rope, Take Me Away, Waving My Dick In The Wind, Nan, Voodoo Lady, Exactly Where I'm At, Mutilated Lips, Happy Colored Marbles, Roses Are Free, The Argus, Bananas and Blow, Touch My Tooter, You Fucked Up, I'll Be Your Johnny On The Spot, Tried And True, Help Me Scrape The Mucus Off My Brain, Birthday Boy, Buckingham Green, Captain, Spinal Meningitis, Sorry Charlie, Zoloft, What Deaner Was Talkin' About, Pork Roll Egg And Cheese, Booze Me Up And Get Me High, Ocean Man, Someday ::encore:: Ohio, All Of My Love, Dr.Rock
10-31- 2003 Memorial Auditorium Burlington, VT
Captain Fantasy, Take me away, Touch my tooter, Mr. Richard Smoker, Dr. Rock, Ice Castles, Golden Eel, Demon sweat, Baby bitch, HIV song, Spinal meningitis, Happy colored marbles, Buckingham Green, The Argus, Awesome sound, Don't sweat it, "scary" jam (mostly Glenn on keys), All of my love, You fucked up, "scary" jam, Puerto Rican Power, Pandy Fackler, Freedom of '76, Voodoo lady, Piss up a rope, Booze me up and get me high, Fat Lenny, Ocean man, Fancy pants, Blarney Stone
::encore::
Put the coke on my dick, LMLYP
11-01- 2003 Roseland New York City, NY
i ce castles, golden eel, baby bitch, piss up a rope, fancy pants, take me away, wavin my dick, voodoo lady, exactly where I'm at, mutilated lips, happy colored marbles, roses are free, the argus, bananas & blow, touch my tooter, you fucked up, jonny |
the Buccaneers and the tone is generally skeptical.
The Bucs haven’t officially announced their full staff of assistants yet, but it has been widely reported that Schiano has hired at least six coaches that were on Rutgers’ staff with him last year. It also was reported that he has hired P.J. Fleck, who had just left Rutgers to become offensive coordinator at Northern Illinois. So we’ll say Schiano is bringing seven assistants that were with him at Rutgers last season. Schiano also has officially hired defensive coordinator Bill Sheridan, who recently had been hired for the same job at Ohio State.
That’s really not all that unusual. I just took a look back to 2010 when Pete Carroll left Southern California to take over the Seattle Seahawks. He brought eight members of his Southern California staff and hired wide receivers coach Kippy Brown away from Tennessee. So roughly half of Carroll’s first staff, and we’re including strength and conditioning coaches, came from the college ranks.
Butch Davis, who was hired as a special assistant to Schiano, talked about how it was important for Schiano to bring some coaches he had worked with before. That sort of includes Davis. Schiano was his defensive coordinator at the University of Miami.
I don’t think it’s a bad thing to bring in a bunch of coaches from the college ranks. These are guys Schiano knows he can work with and has enjoyed success with.
In some ways, that’s better than what predecessor Raheem Morris did when he got the job in 2009. He hired offensive coordinator Jeff Jagodzinski and defensive coordinator Jim Bates from outside. He had never worked with either, although he knew Bates through Bates’ son. But Morris was going mostly on reputations, not first-hand experience.
Jagodzinski was fired before the first training camp ended and Bates was fired 10 games into the first season.Photo by Rocky Kistner
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and Canada’s Environmental Defence (ED) released the report “One Trillion Litres of Toxic Waste and Growing: Alberta’s Tailings Ponds” showing how decades of inaction by the province have led to an environmental and economic catastrophe of enormous proportions. Tar sands mining operations have generated over 250 billion gallons of toxic tailings – a poisonous brew of water, sand, silt, heavy metals and other petrochemical waste products – which they store in toxic lakes that cover an area greater than Manhattan and Boston combined. In addition to the releasing the tar sands tailings report, NRDC, ED and Daniel T’seleie of the K’ahsho Got’ine Dene First Nation have also requested the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) – the NAFTA environmental tribunal – to investigate whether the Canadian government is failing to enforce its Fisheries Act by allowing tar sands tailings to leak into Alberta water bodies.
Cleaning these toxic lakes will be an expensive undertaking. According to some industry estimates cleaning the tar sands tailings will cost as much as $44.5 billion and reclaiming the land will cost another $6.8 billion. To put this liability in context, these costs exceed the $41.3 billion royalties the province of Alberta has received from its tar sands operations since 1969. Alberta has an opportunity to end this state of affairs and protect its future - but doing so will require the province to take action to 1) stop the further increase in tailings waste, 2) ensure that tailings are being treated at a faster rate than they are produced and 3) ensure that tar sands mining companies are bonded for the full liabilities of tailings cleanup. After decades of inaction, the time has come for Alberta to take the necessary steps to ensure that its citizens do not bear the ruinous environmental and economic legacy of the tar sands industry's tailings ponds.
Tailings ponds include a significant number of toxic chemicals,including half of the World Health Organization’s “ten chemicals of major public concern.” Unfortunately, a significant body of research has found that these toxins are not being fully contained by the tailings ponds. Research by the Canadian federal government has determined that toxic tailings are seeping into groundwater and the Athabasca River. An Environmental Defence analysis of industry data calculated that the ponds are leaking 11 million litres per day – equivalent to nearly 70,000 barrels - but noted that this data is likely conservative. Environment Canada scientists have highlighted research showing that a single pond can leak 6.5 million litres per day. Moreover a National Academy of Sciences study found that likely carcinogenic chemicals called Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) are evaporating from the ponds and being deposited in Alberta’s water systems at a rate that could be as high as from tailings seepage. The ponds also emit carbon dioxide and methane, and industry estimates that 10 per cent of tar sands greenhouse gas emissions come from tailings ponds.
As NRDC and Environment Defence Canada’s report details, studies show that leaks from these ponds are harming the health of communities that rely on local rivers, fish, and wildlife, such as First Nations living in Fort Chipewyan, located around 200 kilometers downstream from tar sands development sites. In addition to their significant health impacts, tailings ponds can be deadly to wildlife that confuse them with natural lakes and pose a constant threat of a catastrophic spill in the event of a dam breach.
Every year, the toxic materials in tailings ponds increases. Because it takes hundreds of years for the particles in the ponds to settle to the bottom naturally, it is exceedingly difficult to clean them up. So the tailings ponds simply continue to expand. Today, Alberta's liquid tailings now make up more than 1.18 trillion liters of toxic waste - and continue to grow daily.
Despite the growing threats posed by tailing ponds, the tar sands industry does not have any proven solutions to reclaiming them, and the Alberta government’s regulations around tailings ponds have not held companies responsible for the ponds’ clean-up. While the government of Alberta has acknowledged that tailings ponds have threatened the surrounding environment for nearly fifty years, the government has failed to implement effective regulations to address the growing environmental impact and economic liability of tar sands tailing ponds. Tar sands mining companies have responded to this lax regulatory regime by consistently failing to meet the tailings pond commitments promised in their project original applications. As this timeline shows, the growing problem of tar sands tailings was been fueled by a combination of lax regulations and a lack of enforcement.
The government’s new requirements for industry, introduced in 2015 as the Tailings Management Framework (TMF), are not strong enough to protect communities and ecosystems. In July 2016 the Alberta Energy Regulator released Directive 085 to enforce the TMF required tar sands companies to submit plans that reduce tar sands tailings volumes as soon as possible and begin to increase reclamation efforts. However, a Pembina analysis of the plans the tar sands industry submitted would allow for tailings to increase for another two decades - with some operators proposing to take 70 years to reclaim landscapes after completing their operations.
To effectively protect communities and wildlife, Alberta should reassess Directive 085 and require that companies have demonstrably effective reclamation technologies and enforceable plans to rapidly reduce tailings pond volumes. The laxity of the existing Directive is all the more concerning in light of the fact that Canadians, rather than industry, could be obliged to pay most of the ever-growing costs of cleaning up Alberta’s tailings ponds.
"Ninety-six percent of Albertans believe that companies working in the oil sands should be held financially liable for their operations' environmental impacts."
In order to protect communities in Alberta, the government should strengthen Directive 085 and ensure that regulations are stringent, binding, and effective. NRDC and Environmental Defense Canada are calling on the Alberta government to take these immediate steps to ensure that the province isn't left with a toxic environmental legacy and a crippling financial burden:When we talk about where Carmelo Anthony or LeBron James or where the biggest potential free agents (or trade pieces) could go the usual suspects start with Chicago and Houston, then move on to New York, the Los Angeles Lakers and on down the list.
Dallas wants to be in that mix.
But they don’t seem to be foremost on free agents’ minds and Dirk Nowitzki knows that. He admitted to Bryan Gutierrez of ESPNDallas.com that he doesn’t expect to see Anthony in Dallas.
“Not really,” Nowitzki said. “Somebody in his camp brought up the Mavericks first. It’s not like we brought him up. If we’re actually on his radar then it’s great. Then, we obviously have to look at it. Like I’ve said, he’s obviously one of the most explosive scorers that we have in this league. If a player like that has your team on the radar, [president of basketball operations] Donnie [Nelson] and [owner] Mark [Cuban] obviously have to look at it. Do I think it’s realistic? No. You’ve got to explore all of your options.”
Dallas may have a long-shot of landing someone, this was a 49-win team last year and still has Nowitzki, plus Monta Ellis.
But their biggest problem in attracting top flight free agents is location. No, not Texas, but rather the Western Conference. Anthony and LeBron are only leaving their current spots if they think where they go gives them a better shot to win a title (I don’t think LeBron leaves at all, but that’s another post). Both of them are in the East, where the flawed Heat were still the best of the conference. The East should be improved next season but it is still a far easier path to the Finals than the West with the Spurs, Thunder, Clippers, Warriors, Trail Blazers, Grizzlies and so on.
Mark Cuban is still big game hunting. At some point he will land one. But this summer it seems a tough sell.Sen. Marco Rubio raised $9.6 million in the third quarter of 2016, which ended Sept. 30.
The donations, according to the campaign, include nearly $9 million for his re-election campaign and about $600,000 toward the “Rubio Victory Committee.”
“I’m extremely encouraged to see an outpouring of donations from all over the state and I look forward to continuing to work hard to earn votes across Florida as we approach the election,” Rubio said in a statement thanking voters for their “overwhelming support.”
Campaign finance records weren’t available on the Federal Election Commission’s website. Records show Rubio raised more than $5.4 million from April 1 until Aug. 10. He ended the most recent reporting period — which ran from July 1 through Aug. 10 — with more than $4.6 million cash-on-hand.
Rubio faces Rep. Patrick Murphy in the Nov. 8 general election. The Murphy campaign announced Monday it raised $3.3 million in the third quarter.× Phoenix police sees Black Lives Matter as a ‘partner’
PHOENIX, Az. — The Phoenix Black Lives Matter group hosted a forum, featuring a panel which included top city and community leaders.
An overflow crowd filled Phillips Memorial CME Church Monday night.
“The Phoenix Police Department doesn’t see Black Lives Matter as a terrorist organization. We view Black Lives Matter as a partner who holds us accountable,” Assistant Police Chief Mike Kurtenbach told the diverse crowd.
“We stand with you to find solutions,” he said.
The discussion hit on transparency, diversity, and training in Phoenix and other police departments.
“If you want to improve policing, become an officer! We’re hiring,” Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton told the crowd.
“We want our police department to be as diverse as our community,” he added.
Stanton said Phoenix will hire 400 officers over the next two years.
Stanton was joined by Dr. Matthew Whitaker, Amanda Blackhorse, Clottee Hammons, Richard Crews, Stephen Benedetto, and Vice Mayor Kate Gallego.
The Phoenix Black Lives Matter group is separate from the one that has led protests through Phoenix city streets two Fridays in a row.
Last Friday, activists gathered at 24th Street and Camelback, protesting what they call racially-biased policing. The Rev. Jarrett Maupin organized the event. He is pushing back against police brutality and pushing for a 12-point reform plan.
On June 8, a downtown Phoenix rally organized by Maupin ended with police deploying their pepper spray at a crowd of hundreds. Police ended up arresting three people for allegedly throwing rocks at officers.
“This isn’t about division; this isn’t about thinking differently and being on opposite sides of the street. This is about coming together,” said Kurtenbach.At E3 2016, Sony opened their press conference with the first look at an all-new God of War game. The game will see an older, potentially wiser Kratos delving into a new setting, specifically one rooted deeply in Norse mythology, while mentoring his young son. The plot mostly remains a mystery at this time but fans have drawn comparisons between the new God of War and Naughty Dog’s Last of Us with an older protagonist going on an adventure with a child, guiding them through a cruel and unforgiving world.
Sony has been treating us with trailers and other tidbits for the last year but we’re still waiting to know when we can officially play the game. Right now, Sony has an “early 2018” release window but many are expecting the date to be announced this weekend at PlayStation Experience but… we may know the date already.
Thanks to a leak on the PlayStation Store (we have verified that the leak is authentic and saw it ourselves), God of War is listed to release on March 22nd, 2018 which is coincidentally the same day the original God of War released in 2005. Sure, it could be a placeholder but with a reveal imminent it wouldn’t be surprising if Sony was updating their store and maybe forgot to hide the date from the public. It’s also worth noting that the God of War series has almost always launched in March.
The only thing that strikes us as odd about this release date is that March 22nd, 2018 is a Thursday and games typically launch on Tuesday or Friday. Sony may be skipping traditional practices in order to have the game release on the 13th anniversary of the series but we’ll likely hear more this weekend.
It’s also worth noting that the leaked release date has appeared on other PSN storefronts such as Chile. PlayStation Experience begins on December 8th.
[ResetERA]shifted
(Eds: Updating with related series)
Farrukhabad/Lucknow (UP), Sep 4 (PTI) Forty-nine infants died in a month in the Farrukhabad district hospital, most of them from "perinatal asphyxia", a condition in which a newborn has trouble breathing, officials said today.
In a virtual replay of the tragedy in Gorakhpur, where 30 children died in two days in a state-run hospital last month, many of the parents in Farrukhabad told officials there was a delay in providing the infants with oxygen and medicines.
The hospital recorded 49 deaths -- 30 in neo-natal ICU and 19 during delivery -- between July 20 and August 21, a government spokesperson said in Lucknow.
The state government today removed Farrukhabad District Magistrate Ravindra Kumar as well as Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Umakant Pandey and Chief Medical Superintendent (CMS) Akhilesh Agarwal.
Principal secretary (health) Prashant Trivedi, however, said the deaths had "nothing to do with oxygen supply".
"Oxygen is not an issue in the entire episode. I think, of late, we are giving undue sensitivity to oxygen. It has become more of a buzzword," he told reporters at a hurriedly convened press briefing in the state headquarters.
An FIR against the CMO and the CMS was registered last night in Farrukhabad, about 180km from the state capital.
However, the state government said no action would be initiated against them on the basis of the FIR.
"The way things have been presented is not what happened. No action, therefore, is being initiated on the basis of the FIR registered against the CMO and the CMS," Trivedi said.
The Director General Medical Health would give a detailed report on the deaths, he added.
To a question on the removal of CMO Pandey and CMS Agarwal, Trivedi said, "They have been removed for the simple reason that the DM is the head of the administration in a district and they should have co-ordinated with the DM".
If there were any issues, those should had been brought to the notice of the administration, he said.
"What happened actually - medically or technically - will be clear in a probe," he added.
He also said that no official could elicit the views of a person over the telephone.
"This is not the right way to conduct a magisterial probe," Trivedi said, commenting on the city magistrate contacting on the phone the parents and relatives of the infants who had died.
Principal secretary (Information) Awanish Awasthi, who was also present, said, "No death took place due to lack of oxygen. The matter should not be blown out of proportion."
He said the DG Health would send a specialised team to investigate the deaths.
"There seems to be some co-ordinational issue among the officers. All the three officers -- DM, CMO and CMS -- have been removed. Everything will be brought forth," he said.
Referring to the FIR, he said, "It very clearly seems to have been lodged when the DM did not get the report from the health department".
The FIR was lodged against the CMO, CMS and other doctors but only the posts were mentioned and no one was named in the FIR.
It was lodged by the city magistrate last night under IPC sections 176 (legal provisions regarding inquiry by magistrate into cause of death), 188 (disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant) and 304 (culpable homicide). A high-level team will be sent to Farrukhabad to probe the deaths and its technical aspects will also be taken care of, the official spokesperson said. He said 468 deliveries took place in the womens wing of the hospital during the period. Of these, 19 were stillbirths. City Magistrate Jaynendra Kumar Jain and SDM Ajit Kumar Singh said a probe found that most deaths were caused by breathing problems. They also said in the report that the CMO and the CMS did not cooperate with the investigation. "During the period, 30 children died mostly due to perinatal asphyxia (a condition in which a child does not breathe normally just before, during, or after birth). During the probe, the parents said there was a delay in providing oxygen and medicine because of which the children died due to lack of supply of oxygen," the report stated. The report did not mention the 19 other deaths.
Awasthi said, "...19 were stillborn children while 30 others died due to various causes, including perinatal asphyxia. This may be caused by the umbilical cord going around the neck of the child...Our medical team will look into it." Chief Minister Yogi Adityanaths office took prompt notice of the matter after local news channels reported the deaths and directed the district magistrate to conduct a probe, the officials said. The deaths in the Farrukhabad hospital come after at least 30 children died in a state-run hospital in Gorakhpur on August 10-11 amid allegations of oxygen shortage, a charge denied by the state government. Meanwhile, doctors of Uttar Pradeshs Provincial Medical Services (PMS) today threatened to proceed on mass leave to protest the registration of the FIR against members of the fraternity.
They said they would not report for duty on Tuesday and Wednesday and would resign if the FIR was not withdrawn by September 7. PMS members held a meeting in Farrukhabad and demanded that the FIR be withdrawn.
"The committee comprising the city magistrate and the SDM did not have technical knowledge. The probe report is wrong and it should be withdrawn," UP PMS district unit secretary Dr Yogendra Singh said.
He said the probe committee was a non-technical one and its "fairness and competence" should be probed.
"We have decided to proceed on mass leave on September 5 and 6. If our demands are not met, all the doctors of the district will resign on September 7," he said. UP PMS Association president Dr Ashok Yadav told PTI in Lucknow, "The report on the basis of which the FIR was filed was prepared by non-technical people. A committee of experts should have been set up. This is an attempt to incite doctors, who are working in adverse conditions." He said the government should recall those officers who did not have the knowledge needed for such probes.
"They should be properly trained. We are monitoring the situation there and will decide our future course of action," he said. PTI ABN NAV SMI BDSUser Info: Iamvegito Iamvegito 4 years ago #1
She dreamed of the bustling streets of Los Angeles and the leafy towns of Pennsylvania. She dreamed of working two jobs, not three. She dreamed of sleeping, really sleeping, for six or seven hours at a stretch.
But dreams rarely pay the rent. So Ms. Fernandes worked three jobs, at three Dunkin’ Donuts stores in northern New Jersey, shuttling from Newark to Linden to Harrison and back. She often slept in her car — two hours here, three hours there — and usually kept the engine running, ready in an instant to start all over again.
The last day of her life was no different. She got off work at 6 a.m. on Monday, Aug. 25, and climbed into her 2001 Kia Sportage, officials from the Elizabeth Police Department said. She was dreaming again, this time about taking a break to celebrate a milestone with friends. But first, she told her boyfriend, Mr. Carter, during a brief cellphone conversation, she was going to take a nap.
She pulled into the parking lot of a Wawa convenience store, reclined in the driver’s seat and closed her eyes. The store’s surveillance camera videotaped her arrival at 6:27 a.m....
In a statement, Michelle King, a spokeswoman for Dunkin’ Brands, said that Ms. Fernandes’s managers described her as a “model” employee. (Ms. King said she could not say how much Ms. Fernandes earned or describe the specific hours she worked, saying that only the three franchisees that directly employed Ms. Fernandes had that information. Ms. King declined to provide contact information for those franchisees.)...
Her landlady, Amelia Resende, said Ms. Fernandes fell behind on her rent a couple of times this year, struggling to come up with $550 a month for the basement apartment in Newark that she rarely slept in. Mr. Carter said that she was hoping to move to Pennsylvania, where he lives. "It is no good hammering your sword into a plowshare if you must forge it again on the morrow. " http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/29/nyregion/3-jobs-plenty-of-dreams-and-the-fatal-consequences-of-one-dangerous-decision.html
User Info: Nitro378 Nitro378 4 years ago #2 Owen Jones 2015 --- Warren/Sanders 2016
Number of 30-day suspensions received for talking about Zionism: 3 Just another worn out cog, a thousand more ready to slave away where that one came from.
User Info: JuliusSaci JuliusSaci 4 years ago #3 Iamvegito posted...
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/29/nyregion/3-jobs-plenty-of-dreams-and-the-fatal-consequences-of-one-dangerous-decision.html
She dreamed of the bustling streets of Los Angeles and the leafy towns of Pennsylvania. She dreamed of working two jobs, not three. She dreamed of sleeping, really sleeping, for six or seven hours at a stretch.
But dreams rarely pay the rent. So Ms. Fernandes worked three jobs, at three Dunkin’ Donuts stores in northern New Jersey, shuttling from Newark to Linden to Harrison and back. She often slept in her car — two hours here, three hours there — and usually kept the engine running, ready in an instant to start all over again.
The last day of her life was no different. She got off work at 6 a.m. on Monday, Aug. 25, and climbed into her 2001 Kia Sportage, officials from the Elizabeth Police Department said. She was dreaming again, this time about taking a break to celebrate a milestone with friends. But first, she told her boyfriend, Mr. Carter, during a brief cellphone conversation, she was going to take a nap.
She pulled into the parking lot of a Wawa convenience store, reclined in the driver’s seat and closed her eyes. The store’s surveillance camera videotaped her arrival at 6:27 a.m....
In a statement, Michelle King, a spokeswoman for Dunkin’ Brands, said that Ms. Fernandes’s managers described her as a “model” employee. (Ms. King said she could not say how much Ms. Fernandes earned or describe the specific hours she worked, saying that only the three franchisees that directly employed Ms. Fernandes had that information. Ms. King declined to provide contact information for those franchisees.)...
Her landlady, Amelia Resende, said Ms. Fernandes fell behind on her rent a couple of times this year, struggling to come up with $550 a month for the basement apartment in Newark that she rarely slept in. Mr. Carter said that she was hoping to move to Pennsylvania, where he lives.
This only exists in a world where the economy is heavily burdened by the government. Companies are forced to cut down on wages because of all the taxes. Veni, Vidi, Vici This only exists in a world where the economy is heavily burdened by the government. Companies are forced to cut down on wages because of all the taxes.
User Info: Caer_Death Caer_Death 4 years ago #4 Ms. Resende said that Ms. Fernandes slept in her running S.U.V. so often that she started keeping a container full of fuel in the back. Mr. Carter warned that this wasn’t safe, but Ms. Fernandes brushed aside his concerns. She couldn’t run the risk of waking up to an empty tank.
Emergency responders found the gas can open and overturned in the cargo hold and the S.U.V. filled with fumes, in what police said appeared to have been an accident.
Libertarians want to see accidents like this happen. </straight face> "Any sufficiently advanced troll is indistinguishable from a genuine kook." Libertarians want to see accidents like this happen.
User Info: Caer_Death Caer_Death 4 years ago #5 JuliusSaci posted...
This only exists in a world where the economy is heavily burdened by the government. Companies are forced to cut down on wages because of all the taxes.
If the government offered more tax breaks for her employer(s), this accident never would've occurred. </straight face> "Any sufficiently advanced troll is indistinguishable from a genuine kook." If the government offered more tax breaks for her employer(), this accident never would've occurred.
User Info: JuliusSaci JuliusSaci 4 years ago #6 Caer_Death posted...
JuliusSaci posted...
This only exists in a world where the economy is heavily burdened by the government. Companies are forced to cut down on wages because of all the taxes.
If the government offered more tax breaks for her employer(s), this accident never would've occurred. </straight face>
she wouldn't need to work 3 jobs to maintain her subsistence. Veni, Vidi, Vici she wouldn't need to work 3 jobs to maintain her subsistence.
User Info: Nitro378 Nitro378 4 years ago #7 Owen Jones 2015 --- Warren/Sanders 2016
Number of 30-day suspensions received for talking about Zionism: 3 and conservascum wonder why they face 'intolerance'
User Info: JuliusSaci JuliusSaci 4 years ago #8 Nitro378 posted...
and conservascum wonder why they face 'intolerance'
conservatives =/= than libertarians. In fact, I find the company of centre-left liberals more tolerable than that of traditional conservatives. Liberals are in general nice people, they just have a horrible understanding of the economy. Veni, Vidi, Vici conservatives =/= than libertarians. In fact, I find the company of centre-left liberals more tolerable than that of traditional conservatives. Liberals are in general nice people, they just have a horrible understanding of the economy.
User Info: Starks Starks 4 years ago #9 Iamvegito posted...
So Ms. Fernandes worked three jobs, at three Dunkin’ Donuts stores
Are people so unskilled that they can't rise above 3 minimum wage jobs within the same company?
This person clearly had zero drive and zero imagination. ~ The Autonomous Republic of OT ~
http://a.pomf.se/sbmfhe.webm Are people so unskilled that they can't rise above 3 minimum wage jobs within the same company?This person clearly had zero drive and zero imagination.Expand Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers a speech in the Palais des Nations at the United Nations in Geneva, January 18, 2017. © 2017 Denis Balibouse/Reuters
(Geneva) – The Chinese government should end its efforts to weaken United Nations mechanisms that promote human rights, Human Rights Watch said in a new report today. UN agencies should vigorously resist China’s attempts to restrict access to the UN for human rights groups and activists who work on China.
“China engages with the UN on human rights but often with the goal of aggressively silencing criticism and eroding access for activists who work on China,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. “China is not the only country that acts terribly at the UN, but its Security Council membership, global influence, and fierce crackdown on civil society at home make it a model of bad faith that challenges the integrity of the UN rights system.”
The 96-page report, “The Costs of International Advocacy: China’s Interference in United Nations Human Rights Mechanisms,” details China’s efforts to harass independent activists, primarily those from China. Chinese officials have photographed and filmed activists on UN premises in violation of UN rules, and restricted travel by mainland activists to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. China has also used its membership on the Economic and Social Council’s Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) to block NGOs critical of China from being granted UN accreditation, and it has sought – and succeeded in – blacklisting accredited activists from participating in UN events.
The Costs of International Advocacy China’s Interference in United Nations Human Rights Mechanisms Download the full report
Download the full report Download the appendices
Download the appendices 下載建議 - (Download the recommendations in Chinese)
The report is based largely on interviews with 55 people who have direct knowledge of China’s interactions with UN human rights mechanisms, including 20 UN officials and experts, 15 foreign diplomats, and 20 civil society representatives.
Chinese officials have at times harassed and intimidated UN staff, experts on treaty bodies, and independent experts focusing on specific human rights issues. One expert told Human Rights Watch that, “the whole UN machinery tries to make space for civil society while [China’s] machinery works the other way, trying to shrink space for NGOs.” China sharply limits the visits of UN experts to China, pressures the UN to exclude from committees potentially critical experts, and rarely provides substantive answers to queries by UN human rights bodies.
In a particularly egregious example, authorities in China in 2013 detained activist Cao Shunli after she urged Beijing to consult with Chinese civil society in drafting its report for its UN human rights review, and tried to travel to Geneva to participate in human rights training sessions. After Cao became gravely ill in detention and died, the Chinese delegation in Geneva in March 2014 took the extraordinary step of challenging and blocking a ruling by the Human Rights Council president allowing a moment of silence called for by NGOs.
“China is slated for its next Universal Periodic Review in 2018, but Cao Shunli’s death has sent an enduring, chilling message to Chinese activists: participate at your own risk,” Roth said.
Senior UN officials, including Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, regularly assert the UN’s commitment to and reliance on independent civil society for information and analysis. At times, UN officials have pushed back against improper Chinese pressure or ignored Chinese efforts to influence their work.
But in other circumstances, such as when it comes to maintaining access to the UN for critics of the Chinese government, including the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, and Dolkun Isa, a well-known ethnic Uyghur activist, UN officials have capitulated to Chinese pressure, presumably to avoid confrontation with China.
Such acquiescence at times has led to soft-pedaling of UN concerns about China’s rights record, Human Rights Watch said. In January 2017, when Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Geneva to give a speech at the UN’s Palais des Nations, UN officials took the highly unusual steps of sending home early many of the approximately 3,000 staff and barring nongovernmental organizations from attending the speech.
“The UN system offers one of the few remaining channels for activists from China to share their views and press for improvements in Beijing’s abysmal rights record,” Roth said. “Unless the UN and concerned governments put a stop to China’s efforts to manipulate or weaken UN human rights mechanisms, the UN’s credibility, and indeed its ability to defend rights in China and around the globe, are at risk.”Brianna Grady with her father Brian in front of Holy Child Jesus Catholic Academy on 86th Avenue in Richmond Hill. Brianna was one of 21 students taken to a local hospital after a mishap during a science experiment. View Full Caption DNAinfo.com/Ewa Kern-Jedrychowska
QUEENS — Twenty-one students were taken to local hospitals after an incident during a science experiment at a Richmond Hill Catholic school, officials said.
Children were treated for eye irritation and inhalation after one of the students accidentally mixed two substances that were not supposed to be combined inside a classroom at Holy Child Jesus Catholic Academy, at 111-02 86th Ave., near 111th Street, about 9:37 a.m., an FDNY spokesman said.
The sixth grade students worked on a science project, when one of them mixed hydrochloric acid and aluminum, which filled the classroom with fumes, students and parents said.
The teacher quickly took the children out of the classroom and called 911, said Stefanie Gutierrez, press secretary for the Diocese of Brooklyn.
"All of the kids [that were in the classroom] were taken to local hospitals and they are OK," Gutierrez added. "They were taken as a precaution and some of them have already been released."
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Brianna Grady, who was one of the students taken to the hospital, said that the experience was "a little bit scary."
"Some kids had difficulty breathing," she said.
Brianna's father, Brian Grady, said he was upset because he found out about the incident while watching the news.
Gutierrez said that she had no details as to how the mishap happened.
The school serves students from kindergarten to eighth grade, according to the school's website.Kvyat and Alonso were running less than a second apart between laps 13 and 22, with the Russian on the soft compound and Alonso using the hard tyre.
And Kvyat, who would wind up 13th to Alonso's 16th at the end of the race, says he had to do "miracles" to keep the Spaniard at bay.
"When Fernando was behind us, I had to be on the edge of a penalty all the time," Kvyat said.
"We almost had the big one [crash] together, it was maybe this close at some point, but I always managed to stay ahead. I had to do miracles to stay ahead, to be honest, but I managed to stay ahead."
Kvyat's 13th place was the top result achieved by Toro Rosso after a trying Suzuka weekend, as teammate Carlos Sainz ended up 17th.
"This is how things are at the moment and we did the best job with the car we had - and we have to accept that our straightline speed is too slow to fight for position.
"Was absolutely nothing left on the table - every car finished, no safety car, nothing, so we started where we finished.
"This is how it is at the moment, unfortunately. It's frustrating but at least we left McLaren behind us, one of the Renaults... not ideal but it is what it is."
Additional reporting by Jonathan NobleA lone gunman killed six people and injured seven more during a shooting rampage Friday night in Isla Vista that Sheriff Bill Brown called “the work of a madman.” The suspect was killed after firing on responding deputies, but it’s not clear if the fatal wound to his head was self-inflicted or the result of return fire.
The seven injured victims are being treated at Santa Barbara Cottage hospital — some for gunshot wounds, others for trauma sustained when the suspect crashed his car as he was pursued — and one recently underwent surgery for life-threatening injuries.
Initial reports suggested that two suspects were involved in the shooting, but Brown said during a 2:30 a.m. press conference Saturday morning that the gunman acted alone. Brown said the man was armed with a semi-automatic handgun and that investigators are working to determine if other weapons were involved.
The names of the victims and the suspect have not been released. Brown, however, confirmed that written and video material left by 22-year-old Elliot Rodger of Calabasas in the hours and days leading up to the shooting is being reviewed as evidence in the massacre. “It appears to be connected,” he said.
In a YouTube video titled “Elliot Rodger’s Retribution” and posted the day before the shooting, Rodger — a Santa Barbara City College Student and Isla Vista resident, according to his social media accounts — laments his life of “loneliness, rejection, and unfulfilled desires.” He blames women for throwing themselves at “obnoxious brutes” but rejecting him, “the supreme gentlemen.”
Paul Wellman
In graphic and unsettling detail, he describes how he plans to launch an assault on the streets of Isla Vista the next day and become a God who “exacts my retribution on all those who deserve it.” (The video appears below. Please be advised: it is extremely disturbing.) Photographs taken by The Santa Barbara Independent of the suspect’s crashed vehicle on Del Playa Drive show a license plate number that matches the one on the car featured on Rodger’s Facebook page.
At the press conference, |
on x86 systems. Memory allocations on x86 systems are generally done in multiples of 4096 bytes, and correspondingly, many disk operations (such as reading to or from the pagefile, or reading in executable programs), which interact intimately with the memory system, are equally done in multiples of 4096 bytes.
4096 byte sectors don't solve the analog problem—signals are getting weaker, and noise is getting stronger, and only reduced densities or some breakthrough in recording technology are going to change that—but it helps substantially with the error-correcting problem. Due to the way error correcting codes work, larger sectors require relatively less error correcting data to protect against the same size errors. A 4096 byte sector is equivalent to eight 512 byte sectors. With 40 bytes per sector for finding sector starts and 40 bytes for error correcting, protecting against 50 error bits, 4096 bytes requires (8 x 512 + 8 x 40 + 8 x 40) = 4736 bytes; 4096 of data, 640 of overhead. The total protection is against 400 error bits (50 bits per sector, eight sectors), though they have to be spread evenly among all the sectors.
With 4096 byte sectors, only one spacer start is needed, and to achieve a good level of protection, only 100 bytes of error checking data are required, for a total of (1 x 4096 + 1 x 40 + 1 x 100) = 4236 bytes; 4096 of data, 140 of overhead. 100 bytes per sector can correct up to 1000 consecutive error bits; for the forseeable future, this should be "good enough" to achieve the specified error rates. With an overhead of just 140 bytes per sector, about 96% of the disk's capacity to be used.
In one fell swoop, this change provides greater robustness against the problems caused by increasing areal density, and more efficient encoding of the data on disk. That's good news, except for that whole "legacy" thing. The 512 byte sector assumption is built in to a lot of software.
A 512-byte leaden albatross
As far back as 1998, IBM started indicating to the hard disk manufacturing community that sectors would have to be enlarged to allow for robust error correction. In 2000, IDEMA, the International Disk Drive Equipment and Materials Association, put together a task force to establish a large sector standard, the Long Data Block Committee. After initially considering, but ultimately rejecting, a 1024-byte interim format, in March 2006, they finalized their specification and committed to 4096 byte sectors. Phoenix produced preliminary BIOS support for the specification in 2005, and Microsoft, for its part, ensured that Windows Vista would support the new sector size. Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008 R2 all support the new sector size. MacOS X supports it, and Linux kernels since September 2009 also support it.
The big obvious name missing from this list is Windows XP (and its server counterpart, Windows Server 2003). Windows XP (along with old Linux kernels) has, somewhere within its code, a fixed assumption of 512 byte sectors. Try to use it with hard disks with 4096 byte sectors and failure will ensue. Cognizant of this problem, the hard disk vendors responded with, well, a long period of inaction. Little was done to publicize the issue, no effort was made to force the issue by releasing large sector disks; the industry just sat on its hands doing nothing.
However, this situation clearly couldn't go on forever.Posted September 8, 2011 by monkeywithamonocle
(Or: Whoa whoa whoa…chill…just hear me out.)
If you take every Disney villain and invite them to a shit-pie pot luck dinner in the Mos Isley space port and multiply that party from hell by 666,666,666 you might get just a fraction of the evil that is the Westboro Baptist Church [WBC].
Now if you’re “too progressive” to own a TV and proudly only listen to podcasts of This American Life (can you hear my eyes rolling?) and have no idea what I am talking about because you just stumbled upon this page while looking for Pokemon posts: check out the clip below.
Not even Team Rocket is that crazy!
The WBC is so extreme on all fronts they make the X-games and 90’s deodorant commercials look like a bowl of lightly salted ice cubes. Their ideals are so out of whack that they don’t line up with any classically real or even stereotypical viewpoints. No normal person can even mistakenly agree with them.
So then why are we so lucky to have them? Two words:
The Watchmen.
If you are a comic book geek or even just a Zack Snyder fan (in which case go kill yourself) you already know what I’m going to say and can now kick yourself for not seeing it sooner.
For everyone else, here is a crash course in Alan Moore’s manifesto comic book:
In Watchmen the world is about to tear itself apart. The cold war is heating up rapidly and nuclear war is imminent. To solve said crisis the presumed villain of the story cooks up a plan to create a fictional enemy and attack the earth thus eliminating all of the squandering and petty bullshit of the world as it unites against this horrible yet make-believe threat.
So what does this have to do with the WBC? Well actually everything.
If the WBC and their leader Fred Phelps weren’t absolutely batshit crazy (this includes allegations of child abuse within their compound) they might be secret geniuses. They claimed to have picketed over 40,000 events sporting signs saying “God Hates Fags” and other fun off-the-cuff offensive slurs.
But…
As their infamy grew people started to take notice and, in the words of Ira Glass, “then a funny thing happened,” people decided as a whole not to take their shit any more and a huge backlash of counter protesting swept the nation in a peaceful attempt to get the WBC to shut the hell up.
It seems for every one story of the WBC changing the words of Santa Claus Is coming to Town to Santa Claus Will Take You To Hell there are two more stories of counter protests for charities and just good natured fun.
In the mix of hate and absolute stupidity there came a new hope (Star Wars!) and good blossomed like a rose from a big pile of dog shit.
My favorite example, the one that got me thinking, was when in Nashville TN, thousands of people lined up to counter protest the WBC and to honor Marine Sgt. Kevin Balduf who had died over seas. They lined the streets and surrounded the funeral precession waving American flags because there were three WBC members there who then left after ten minutes. Do you think Kevin Balduf’s funeral would have gotten the attention it deserved if the WBC wasn’t holding up bright colored signs with the most insane attention grabbing slogans or would perhaps another soldier’s funeral just fade away into the background?
There have even been uplifting counter protests at events where the WBC didn’t even show up.
If the squeaky wheel gets the grease then the WBC seems to make sure all of America is scrambling as one towards a giant can of WD40. Everyone knows they’re crazy but can we bring ourselves to admit that they are actually doing more good than harm? Causing a stir so great that everyone as a whole puts down their ill will towards each other and universally laughs and guffaws about just how idiotic such malice can be?
What with the hurricanes, earthquakes, debt ceilings, and trouble in the middle east (they almost have it this time!) it’s kind of nice to step back and high five your neighbor that you may normally disagree with and say, “Well shit, at least we’re not all like those freaks over at the West Borrow Baptist Church.”
Because seriously, those guys are the worst, am I right? *high five*
Have you been thoroughly controversed? No? Then check out monkeywithamonocle’s other posts Weird Al’s Polka Music Maps The Decline Of Pop Music and What Your First Pokemon Says About You. Or the cartoon shorts: Batman: World’s Greatest Detective and Star Wars: Sins of the Father.
Post your incredibly inferior opposing viewpoints and/or your well thought out and finely crafted appreciation below and “LIKE” the post above; OR contact the primate himself at monkeywithamonocle@gmail.com and follow him on twitter @hungryzooOur very own Hamma will be helping out on the PlanetSide 2 Ultimate Squad Showdown stream so be sure to tune in! Hossin will be officially revealed during SOE Live and will also appear on PTS this week. Be sure to tune in on Twitch and keep an eye on PlanetSide Universe.
SOE today announced that SOE Live has sold out of advance passes! They also posted an official stream schedule. The event is kicking off this Thursday from Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas, NV! This year is chock full of goodness on PlanetSide 2, EverQuest Next and more. We have posted the updated Stream Schedule below, all times Pacific.
Latest Comments
2013-07-29 02:30 PM
Hamma What to Expect from SOE Live http://www.planetside-universe.com/n...-live-3053.htm
SOE today announced that SOE Live has sold out of advance passes! They also posted an official stream schedule. The event is kicking off this Thursday from Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas, NV! This year is chock full of goodness on PlanetSide 2, EverQuest Next and more. We have posted the updated Stream Schedule below, all times Pacific.
Thursday, August 1
7PM: Welcome Reception/EQ & EQII Keynotes: http://www.twitch.tv/soe
Friday August 2 9:30AM: Welcome to SOE Live Tournaments: http://www.twitch.tv/soe
10:00AM: PlanetSide 2 Ultimate Squad Showdown: http://www.twitch.tv/planetside2
12PM: Worldwide Debut of EverQuest Next: http://www.twitch.tv/everquestnext
4PM: DC Universe Online Keynote: http://www.twitch.tv/dcuniverseonline
6PM: PlanetSide 2 Keynote: http://www.twitch.tv/planetside2 Saturday August 3
10:30AM: SOE Live Tournaments Day 2 Kickoff: http://www.twitch.tv/soe
11:00AM: EQ & EQ II Tournaments: http://www.twitch.tv/everquestnext
2:00PM: DCUO Legends PvP Tournament: http://www.twitch.tv/dcuniverseonline
6:00PM: SOE Live Tournaments Wrap Up: http://www.twitch.tv/soe Our very own Hamma will be helping out on the PlanetSide 2 Ultimate Squad Showdown stream so be sure to tune in! Hossin will be officially revealed during SOE Live and will also appear on PTS this week. Be sure to tune in on Twitch and keep an eye on PlanetSide Universe.
2013-07-29 02:32 PM
Calista Re: What to Expect from SOE Live Wow that's a pretty light streaming schedule. I was hoping for much more than that but I guess it will be better than nothing.
2013-07-29 02:52 PM
Dragonskin Re: What to Expect from SOE Live Think I am more excited for the Everquest Next debut than Planetside 2's Hossin reveal. Should be fun to watch all of it when I have the time.
2013-07-29 03:09 PM
CzuukWaterson Re: What to Expect from SOE Live I'm looking for the info on the tatooing of Luperza.
2013-07-29 03:10 PM
Hamma Re: What to Expect from SOE Live Calista Originally Posted by Wow that's a pretty light streaming schedule. I was hoping for much more than that but I guess it will be better than nothing.
2013-07-29 04:25 PM
Malorn Re: What to Expect from SOE Live You can expect a lot of fun and meeting lots of hardcore fans
2013-07-30 11:37 AM
Assist Re: What to Expect from SOE Live Dragonskin Originally Posted by Think I am more excited for the Everquest Next debut than Planetside 2's Hossin reveal. Should be fun to watch all of it when I have the time.
2013-07-30 01:44 PM
Calista Re: What to Expect from SOE Live Dragonskin Originally Posted by Think I am more excited for the Everquest Next debut than Planetside 2's Hossin reveal. Should be fun to watch all of it when I have the time.
2013-07-30 07:54 PM
Hamma Re: What to Expect from SOE Live I've updated the news post with more detail and a bit more of a stream schedule.
2013-07-30 08:24 PM
Dreadnaut Re: What to Expect from SOE Live Malorn Originally Posted by You can expect a lot of fun and meeting lots of hardcore fans
I'll be there Wed afternoon to hoist up some suds.
2013-07-30 08:49 PM
Hamma Re: What to Expect from SOE Live Also, I'll be on the PlanetSide 2 Tourney streams
2013-07-30 09:23 PM
Calista Re: What to Expect from SOE Live Hamma Originally Posted by Also, I'll be on the PlanetSide 2 Tourney streams
It's interesting this year that SOE Live is in August. To me it's a pivotal time for the game (at least PC wise). School is starting up here at least in the states in a couple weeks and you have Hossin after that and then in November a big shift when consoles and new titles all around are released. MMO's are all about momentum and PS2 has been kinda static over the past few months but now is the make or break time as I see it. Matt said MLG would be in full swing sometime early next year but now is the time to build momentum if you ask me and I hope they can.
2013-08-01 11:18 AM
Calista Re: What to Expect from SOE Live Looking forward to tonight's keynote!
2013-08-01 11:42 AM
Canaris Re: What to Expect from SOE Live Malorn Originally Posted by You can expect a lot of fun and meeting lots of hardcore fans
Good luck to all the PS2 & PSU crew going, I'd have loved to have gone but work figured out they had nothing to do with SOE so cancled my "business trip" phooey
raise a glass for your absent comrades if you remember
2013-08-01 11:52 AMRouting Data from Docker to Prometheus Server via Fluentd Last modified: July 19, 2016
See the video of the full integration here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyu-GeAM-xk&feature=youtu.be
Possibly the best way to build an economy of scale around your framework, whatever it is, is to build up your library of integrations – or integrators – and see what and who your new partners can bring into the mix.
In this blog, we’ll trace the steps to connect Fluentd to a Docker container to route stdout commands (our data) to Prometheus. (Prometheus could be similarly configured on Google Cloud Platform, CoreOS or even Kubernetes). Later, we’ll also query Prometheus for that data.
When Treasure Data joined The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), not only did it reinforce its commitment to drive Fluentd towards mainstream use as a logging framework, it also renewed its existing commitment to using Fluentd as an integration point between cloud native software like Kubernetes, Prometheus and Docker.
Originally started at Soundcloud around 2013 by an engineer taking a break from Google, Prometheus was a result of frustration that other monitoring tools (and time-series database integrations) weren’t quite up to snuff.
While monitoring is essential to any IT organization; once these orgs were creating microservice-style applications and distributing them across literally thousands of bare-metal or virtualized server instances (or even more containers), other tools were found to be insufficient to handle, among other things, the incrementalism and scalability of this approach. Thus, even Ganglia (then in use at Facebook) and Nagios (in use at the time at Google) were coming up short.
Soundcloud, a Berlin, Germany – based audio streaming service, was also having their own issues with StatsD and Graphite monitoring tools when Google’s Matt Proud joined to build up the Prometheus project. Added by Google to the Kubernetes project in May of 2015 (after its coming out party that prior January), Matt Proud started the Prometheus project ‘to apply empirical rigor to large-scale industrial experimentation’, among other things.
So what is Prometheus?
Prometheus is an open-source monitoring system and time-series database. Written in Go language, Prometheus is a natural member of the ecosystem around CNCF, (and is officially being incubated there), due in parts to its design toward scalability and extensibility: Prometheus is not just for monitoring Kubernetes applications; it also works for those in Mesos, Docker, OpenStack and other things.
Primarily a monitoring tool, Prometheus includes a time-series database and a query system. However it was designed to be extended with a larger datastore as needed. Given that it supports a range of other datastores to this end (including Cassandra, Riak, Google Big Table and AWS DynamoDB, among others), it’s no surprise that current Prometheus integrations include Kubernetes, CoreOS (via a Kubernetes stack called Tectonic), Docker and a range of other tools, VMs and container technologies. Digital Ocean, Boxever, KPMG, Outbrain, Ericsson, ShowMax and the Financial Times are all using Prometheus.
So what does an integration look like? Let’s dig in:
So, why would you want to do it this way?
It’s already possible to monitor a Docker service directly using Prometheus. So why add Fluentd in the middle? Well, what if you later decide to scale, and you want to monitor aggregate metrics from multiple containers? Or what if you want to route your Docker data to multiple destinations (and not just Prometheus)?
Configuring the Fluentd input plugin for Docker
The first thing you’ll want to do is get Fluentd installed on your host.
Once that’s done, and Fluentd is running (and can be stopped and started it’s time to install the plugin.
Add this line to your application’s Gemfile:
View the code on Gist.
And then execute:
View the code on Gist.
Or install it yourself as:
View the code on Gist.
NOTE! you’ll need to be running Ruby >= v.2.0 for this plugin to install properly. We recommend using RVM to get the proper Ruby version installed.
Setting up Prometheus on a Docker Host
Once you have a Docker host up and running, you should install the precompiled Prometheus image using wget as follows:
View the code on Gist.
And then start Prometheus server up:
View the code on Gist.
Incidentally, you should be running Prometheus against the prometheus.yml that got installed when you installed fluent-plugin-prometheus. It looks like this:
View the code on Gist.
You can easily test if your Prometheus server is up and running, by opening the urls exposed by Prometheus from a browser on another host.
http://your_Prometheus_IP:9090/metrics
This should show a page containing a lot of text-only results containing different performance metrics for Prometheus service.
You can also try:
http://your_Prometheus_IP:9090/graph
Pay attention to this, as we’ll use this later to query our Prometheus server given our directives.
Routing the data to a Prometheus instance
This is a matter of configuring your fluentd.conf or td-agent.conf with the appropriate directives to route the data correctly to Prometheus.
For our example today, you’ll want to edit it to do the following:
Get all stdout commands entered within the Docker container. Route these – and send them – to your Prometheus server. Increment your docker_command_log metric as more commands are entered into your container.
First, open your td-agent.conf in a text editor:
View the code on Gist.
Now, let’s look at the directives
View the code on Gist.
These settings ensure that, as we are collecting console commands from our Docker container, we’re routing them to our Prometheus server, as a metric. The metric will be incremented as more Docker container commands are logged.
Once done, restart your Fluentd instance to take your new settings into account.
View the code on Gist.
Next, start your Docker container, from which you will be logging console commands:
View the code on Gist.
Finally, from within your Docker container, start entering commands. You can verify that Fluentd is picking up the commands by tailing td-agent.log in a separate window to verify the commands are working:
View the code on Gist.
Querying your Prometheus Instance
Last, from our browser, we’ll query our Prometheus instance for the data we sent it from our Docker container.
http://your_Prometheus_IP:9090/graph
You should see a web UI like the one shown here:
Enter the string docker_command_log in the expression editor, and click enter.
If everything is working, the expression editor should auto-complete your docker_command_log expression.
You should also see the metric in the graph populated with the number of commands you’d entered to the Docker container.
Entering more commands in your container and refreshing the browser should increment this number.
Next Steps
You can learn more about Prometheus here: www.prometheus.io
Would you like to build the easiest possible logging infrastructure you can? Get Fluentd!
There are more than two hundred input, output, and other plugins here. Here you can see them sorted in descending order by popularity here: fluentd.org/plugins/all
If you are interested in seeing the plug-ins by category, go here: fluentd.org/plugins
Last but not least, get Treasure Data (you can sign up for a 14 day trial at treasuredata.com ). You can always ask us if you need any help!
A great big shoutout goes to Muga Nishizawa and Sri Ramana for getting me unstuck at various times while preparing this tutorial. Thanks guys!
If you are interested in deploying Fluentd + Kubernetes/Docker at scale, check out our Fluentd Enterprise offering.(BERLIN) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel will next week address MPs from both houses of Britain's parliament and hold talks with Prime Minister David Cameron, her spokesman said Friday.
Merkel is due to make the speech to parliament Thursday, Steffen Seibert said, describing the rare move for a foreign leader as an "honour".
"She will hold a speech in front of both houses of the British parliament, in the Royal Gallery of the Palace of Westminster," he told reporters.
Seibert declined to detail the scope of Merkel's speech but described Berlin and London as important partners "not only bilaterally but also in Europe. That will naturally be a topic."
"We want an active, strong Britain in the EU. That will also be a topic," Seibert said.
Cameron has pledged to renegotiate Britain's relationship with the EU and then hold an in-out referendum in 2017, provided he is re-elected next year.
After addressing lower House of Commons and upper House of Lords Thursday, Merkel will travel to Downing Street for lunch with Cameron followed by a joint press conference, and will then be received by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace, Seibert added.
US President Barack Obama and former French president Nicolas Sarkozy are among the foreign leaders to have addressed members of both houses of the British parliament.
Former German president Richard von Weizsaecker also did so in 1986.MIAMI – Goran Dragic’s career with his national team may not be over just yet.
After speaking with a coach from his Slovenian team on Monday, the Miami Heat point guard told the Palm Beach Post he would consider playing in the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, if the team qualifies.
“He was just (asking) if I would play in the Olympics,” said Dragic, who will turn 34 in 2020. “Of course, I told him I’m done playing now, but you never know what’s going to happen in three years.
“So, it’s kind of open.”
Dragic added he would not play in the qualifying.
“They said we know it’s impossible to play in the qualifying because of the system and the NBA,” he said.
Slovenia has never qualified for the Olympics in basketball.
“That’s why it would be special,” Dragic said.
A total of 12 teams will participate in the Olympics through several qualifying tournaments.
Dragic said in April he would be retiring from international play following the EuroBasket last summer and reiterated that claim following the tournament in which he was the MVP.
But after leading Slovenia to an improbable championship pressure is mounting for him to play again.
Slovenia gained its independence from Yugoslavia in 1991 and it’s first Summer Olympics was 1992. In EuroBasket, the highest it ever placed prior to winning this year was fifth in 2013. Slovenia has played in the FIBA Basketball World Cup three times, never placing higher than seventh.
Dragic averaged team-highs of 22.6 points and 5.0 assists, along with 4.4 rebounds, in the EuroBasket. He scored 35 points and had seven rebounds and three assists in Slovenia’s 93-85 victory over Serbia in the Gold Medal game on Sept. 17.
The team was feted by a crowd of approximately 20,000 who welcomed them in the center of Slovenia’s capital Ljubljana, Dragic’s hometown. Dragic was serenaded with chants of “MVP, MVP, MVP.” The championship game was the most-watched event on television in the country. Dragic was told 94 percent of the country tuned in.
“He’s a champion,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “I love the fact that Goran put himself out there, made himself vulnerable and really felt all the emotions, the angst, the joy, the frustration, the sleepless nights of getting ready for important game.
“You only experience those things at that level when you really care and you really want to drive a team to win. He was able to do something really remarkable, it really was.”
The performance sent Dragic’s popularity soaring in the country of just more than two million. He received one of Slovenia’s highest civilian honors and some suggested he run for president in his homeland. Although he was not on the ballot for the election, which was held Sunday, he was told he received several write-in votes.
Dragic said he has no interest in a career in politics. Slovenia is the homeland of first lady Melania Trump.
“I want to work with children after basketball,” he said.
[Miami Heat to honor Goran Dragic for EuroBasket MVP award before Saturday’s home opener]
[Want more Heat news sent directly to your Facebook feed? Make sure to like our Heat Facebook page]This election cycle, a huge percentage of voters are voting against who they hate/distrust the most. People dislike Hillary Clinton and think she’s a criminal who is above the law and disdains average voters. People worry that Donald Trump has bad judgment and makes stupid decisions.
In an odd way, this made the Vice Presidential debate more important. Most years, you’re deciding between the two main candidates, but what if you dislike and distrust both? The deciding factor can be the Vice President.
For the fence-sitters, Mike Pence made the decision easy: Even-tempered and reasonable, factual and clear-headed, informed and sympathetic, Mike Pence sounded like he could be president. He was reassuring. Tim Kaine made Hillary’s job harder, not easier. He was rude, disrespectful, lied and was just generally a jerk. He looked juvenile and defensive.
Some talking heads are arguing that Pence’s competence outshines Donald Trump’s and reveals Trump’s weaknesses. In fact, that’s the narrative the lefty media is building right now. They can try, but that argument falls flat. Trump’s decision to hire to his weaknesses with Mike Pence shows leadership ability. It’s the first big choice a candidate makes. His decision to pick Mike Pence shows excellent judgment. If his choice of Veep indicates his decision-making as president, Trump is the good manager he claims to be.
Hillary Clinton’s decision to pick a toady like Kaine also demonstrates her judgment. He’s as likable as her–nasty, aggressive and hostile. So two unlikable Democrats. Swell.
There has been some talk that Trump isn’t so interested in policy and that his Vice President will be given power that few other Vice Presidents have ever enjoyed. If true, that also bodes well. Pence is adept policy-wise and worked for twelve years in Congress. As he reminded Tim Kaine twice, he’ll be happy to work with the opposition on the Hill.
Tonight was an obvious win for Pence but also for Trump. Trump made a good choice picking Pence. Pence illuminated the conservative values that voters hope Trump stands for but has not adequately articulated.
For jittery voters, Pence could make the difference.The Command LIVE project has officially taken off. The first release, Old Grudges Never Die, is out on our site and on Steam. You can purchase it here.
We are really proud of this first episode and of the project as a whole. Developers WarfareSim and Bart Gauvin, an experienced designer from the community, have worked hard to bring this project to life and this is only the start. It’s the first time a detailed simulation takes on real life events to create such detailed fictional, but true-to-life scenarios.
Old Grudges Never Die, in particular,features a highly detailed geopolitical what if scenario, set in the present day Syrian Civil War.
Two playable factions, Turkey and Russia, have been engrossed in this conflict, where every false step could further destabilize the entire region. With dozens of actors involved, the slightest incident could ignite a war.
Take command and avoid escalating the conflict to an all out war, or be ready to face the consequences!
Grab Command: Live – Old Grudges Never Die now and play history as it happens. Live!
The game is an expansion for Command: Modern Air / Naval Operations and require the base game to be played.
Command: Live – Old Grudges Never Die is also available on Steam! Liked the game? Leave a review!With The Alloy of Law, Brandon Sanderson surprised readers with a spinoff of his Mistborn books, set after the action of the trilogy, in a period corresponding to late 19th-century America. The trilogy’s heroes are now figures of myth and legend, even objects of religious veneration. They are succeeded by wonderful new characters, chief among them Waxillium Ladrian, known as Wax, hereditary Lord of House Ladrian but also, until recently, a lawman in the ungoverned frontier region known as the Roughs. There he worked with his eccentric but effective buddy, Wayne. They are “twinborn,” meaning they are able to use both Allomantic and Feruchemical magic.
Shadows of Self shows Mistborn’s society evolving as technology and magic mix, the economy grows, democracy contends with corruption, and religion becomes a growing cultural force, with four faiths competing for converts. This bustling, optimistic, but still shaky society now faces its first instance of terrorism, crimes intended to stir up labor strife and religious conflict. Wax and Wayne, assisted by the lovely, brilliant Marasi, must unravel the conspiracy before civil strife stops Scadrial’s progress in its tracks.
Shadows of Self is available October 6th in the US from Tor Books, and October 9th in the UK from Gollancz. Read chapter five below, or head back to the beginning with our excerpt of the prologue!
Chapter Five
Wayne tugged on his lucky hat. It was a coachman’s hat—something like a wide-brimmed bowler, only one that didn’t have three ounces of fancy shoved up its backside. He nodded to himself in his mirror, then wiped his nose. Sniffles. He’d started storing up health the day before, just after finding all those corpses.
He already had a nice cushion of healing he could draw upon, tucked away in his metalmind bracers. He hadn’t needed much lately, and always spent days when he had a hangover as sickly as he could manage, since he was going to have an awful time of it anyway. But the way things smelled, with all those important folk dead, warned him. He’d soon need some healing. Best to expand that cushion as he could.
He went light at it today, though. Because it was today, a day when he was going to need some luck. He was tempted to call it the worst day of his life, but that would certainly be an exaggeration. The worst day of his life would be the one when he died.
Might die today though, he thought, looping on his belt and slipping his dueling canes into their straps, then wiping his nose again. Can’t be certain yet. Every man had to die. He’d always found it odd that so many died when they were old, as logic said that was the point in their lives when they’d had the most practice not dying.
He wandered out of his room in Wax’s mansion, idly noticing the scent of morning bread coming from the kitchens. He appreciated the room, though he really only stayed because of the free food. Well, that and because of Wax. The man needed company to keep him from going more strange.
Wayne wandered down a carpeted corridor that smelled of polished wood and servants who had too much time. The mansion was nice, but really, a man shouldn’t live in a place that was so big; it just reminded him how small he was. Give Wayne nice, cramped quarters, and he’d be happier. That way he’d feel like a king, with so much stuff it crowded him.
He hesitated outside the door to Wax’s study. What was that sitting on the stand beside the doorway? A new candelabra, pure gold, with a white lace doily underneath. Exactly what Wayne needed.
He fished in his pocket. Rich people didn’t make sense at all. That candelabra was probably worth a fortune, and Wax just left it lying around. Wayne fished in his other pocket, looking for something good to trade, and came out with a pocket watch.
Ah, that, he thought, shaking it and hearing the pieces rattle inside. How long since this thing actually told time? He picked up the candelabra, pocketed the doily underneath, then put the candelabra back in place with the pocket watch hanging from it. Seemed like a fair trade.
Been needing a new handkerchief, he thought, blowing his nose into it, then pushed open the door and wandered in.
Wax stood before an easel, looking at the large artist’s sketch pad he had filled with intricate plans. “Up all night, were you?” Wayne asked with a yawn. “Rusts, man, you make it hard to loaf about properly.”
“I don’t see what my insomnia has to do with your laziness, Wayne.”
“Makes me look bad, ’sall,” Wayne said, looking over Wax’s shoulder. “Proper loafing requires company. One man lying about is being idle; two men lying about is a lunch break.”
Wax shook his head, walking over to look at some broadsheets. Wayne leaned in, inspecting Wax’s paper. It held long lists of ideas, some connected by arrows, with a sketch of the way the bodies had fallen in both the ballroom and the saferoom.
“What’s all this, then?” Wayne asked, picking up a pencil and drawing a little stick figure with a gun shooting at all the dead bodies. His hand trembled as he drew the stick gun, but otherwise it was a right good stick figure.
“Proof to me that a Steelrunner is involved,” Wax said. “Look at the pattern of deaths in the ballroom. Four of the most powerful people in the room were killed with the same gun, and they were the only ones up there killed by that weapon—but it’s the same one that killed the guards outside the saferoom. I’d bet those four above were shot first, dead in an eyeblink, so fast that it sounded like a single long shot. Thing is, judging by the wounds, each shot came from a different location.”
Wayne didn’t know a lot about guns, seeing as how he couldn’t try to use one without his arm doing an impersonation of a carriage on a bumpy road, but Wax was probably right. Wayne moved down to start sketching some stick figures of topless women in the center of the picture, but Wax stepped over and plucked the pencil from his fingers.
“What’s that?” Wayne asked, tapping the center of the sketch pad, where Wax had drawn a bunch of straight lines.
“The pattern the killer used baffles me,” Wax said. “The four people in the party he shot, they all fell while in random conversations— look how they were lying. Everyone else who died was part of the larger shoot-out, but these four, they died while the party was still going on. But why did he shoot them from different directions? See, best I can guess, he fired first here, killing Lady Lentin. Her dropped drink was stomped on many times over the next few minutes. But then the killer used his speed to move quickly over here and fire in another direction. Then he moved again, and again. Why four shots from different places?”
“Who was standing where he shot?”
“The people he killed, obviously.”
“No, I mean, who was standing near him when he fired his gun. Not who did he shoot, but who was he near when he shot?”
“Ahh…” Wax said.
“Yep. Looks to me like he was trying to set them all off,” Wayne said, sniffling. “Get everyone in the room shootin’ at each other. See? It’s like how, to start a bar fight, you throw a bottle at some fellow and then turn to the person next to you and cry out, ‘Hey, why’d you throw that bottle at that nice fellow? Rusts, he looks big. And now he’s comin’ for you, and—’ ”
“I understand the concept,” Wax said dryly. He tapped the drawing pad. “You might have something.”
“It’s not catching.”
Wax smiled, writing some notes on the side of the pad. “So the killer wanted to sow chaos.… He started a firefight by bouncing around the room |
that?
Dr. Thompson: Well, because in language acquisition boys––the average boy is behind the average girl in language acquisition and the average boy is much more physically restless at age five than the average girl is. So, the average boy is–– he is up against in the school which involves a lot of sitting and listening.
Brett McKay: So holding them back would kind of put them, I guess, on uneven plane filled with girls?
Dr. Thompson: Yeah.
Brett McKay: And Dr. Thompson, as I read your book I was struck that many adult men have the same emotional problems that the teenage boys you write about in your book. What can these men do to overcome these problems that they have?
Dr. Thompson: Yes, well, you know many, many men find that they got a course in their emotional life by falling in love with a young woman in their 20s and, and that’s great. I think that young men has to go back to their fathers rather than just stay angry and away from them. Go back and ask them the questions you wish you’d the answers to when you’re 14 and 15. I mean men have to talk with each other. You know, then I’m a member of a men’s group for nine years, that’s kind of thing a psychologist is likely to do, but is not all mental health professionals, it is mostly educators actually, and you know men can train themselves to be open. The men in this group were all in their 50s and we started this and we’re–– a lot of these have various problem and problematic, but we trained each other to be open to each other and that’s what I like to see.
Brett McKay: And this book Raising Cain, your book was written a few years ago, have you seen any progress since the publication of the book?
Dr. Thompson: Well, I’ve to believe that I’m on––talking about the emotional lives of boys, I’ve to hope that it’s having an impact but I sure don’t see in the media.
Brett McKay: Well, Dr. Thompson thank you for your time, it’s been a pleasure.
Dr. Thompson: Nice talking with you Brett, thanks.
Brett McKay: Our guest today was Dr. Michael Thompson. Dr. Thompson is the author of the book Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Lives of Boys and you can pickup Dr. Thompson’s book at amazon.com or any other major book-seller.
Brett McKay: Well, that wraps up another edition of The Art of Manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice make sure to check out The Art of Manliness website at artofmanliness.com and until next time stay manly.June 20, 2016 12:57 IST
Did we miss the DeepState's Brazil Model in action in India in 2004 and 2009, asks Rajeev Srinivasan.
IMAGE: Brazil's then President Dilma Rousseff with Prime Minister Narendra Modi before the BRICS summit in Fortaleza, Brazil, July 15, 2014.
Rajeev Srinivasan suggests that Roussef was subjected to forced regime change in Brazil. And so it happened, he says -- Roussef was suspended pending impeachment, and was replaced by Michel Temer. Photograph: Nacho Doce/Reuters
A short while ago I speculated (external link) that BRICS was dead, and that it was not accidental. I further suggested that the #DeepState was behind this, and predicted that it wouldn't be long before Dilma Roussef was subjected to forced regime change in Brazil. And so it happened -- Roussef was suspended pending impeachment, and was replaced by Michel Temer.
Michel Temer proceeded to create a cabinet that consisted entirely of white males (in a heavily multi-ethnic nation). Perhaps more interestingly, WikiLeaks claims in two tweets (here and here) (external links) that he was an informant to the American embassy while being a high official. Thus, there's at least circumstantial evidence that #DeepState could have been involved in the bloodless coup that got rid of Roussef whom it wasn't too happy with.
I felt vindicated in my suggestion that Brazil would be a dry run for the eviction of Narendra Modi from power that #DeepState may be plotting even as we speak ('atrocity literature', 'rights of Scheduled Castes', 'oppression of Christians', 'womens' rights', even antibiotic resistance are all used as weapons against India).
But on thinking about this further, I am beginning to wonder if I had the sequence wrong: Instead of Dilma Roussef's overthrow being a dry run for the ouster of Modi, perhaps it was the exact opposite. Maybe the overthrow of Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2004 was the template for the ouster of Dilma Roussef in 2016.
There are enough parallels: Jaswant Singh alleged publicly that there was a high-level American mole in the UPA government -- that sounds just like Temer being an asset in the Brazilian government. In all probability, Jaswant Singh will take his accusation to the grave with him: Presumably he was terrified into not revealing the name (we can speculate, of course).
But more than that, do cast your mind back to 2004: The BJP government was popular, and seemed to be a shoo-in in the general elections. But, to everyone's surprise, the Congress came to power in the general election.
It sounded too good to be true, and it probably was too good to be true. My new conjecture is that, in fact, the election was stolen, using electronic voting machine fraud.
I have said for a long time that I suspected the 2009 elections were stolen: See my Rediff columns here and here.
In the aftermath of 26/11 and its stunning demonstration of the Congress' incompetence and indifference to national interests, it was astonishing that they won the general election.
At the time, I put forth my thesis that clever EVM fraud had been the main reason. Remote hacking of EVMs via mobile phones was demonstrated (external link) by a team of computer scientists, one of whom got jailed for his pains.
Now there is more circumstantial evidence. Just look at the BJP's vote share in the last few general elections (image, left). The dotted line is the trend line, and based on it 2004 and 2009 certainly look anomalous: A dramatic downturn in the middle of a steady uptick.
What's more, there is the latest poll (external link) by Ananda Bazaar Patrika (no friend of the BJP) and IMRB that suggested that if elections were held today, the NDA coalition would increase its seats from 339 to 342, and its vote share would go from 39% to 46%.
If you assume the BJP would correspondingly go up by 7%, it would rise from 31% to 38%, thus making the trend line go even further north.
If you were to extrapolate from these facts, it appears as though the BJP has been steadily gaining vote share over some years, but for some strange reason, voters didn't like them in 2004 and 2009. That is an odd result.
Why would an electorate that is apparently increasingly happy with the BJP punish them in 2004 and 2009 alone?
By Occam's Razor, the simplest and thus most likely answer is that the electorate didn't defeat the BJP, but malicious foes did.
I have been using the term 'Constitutional coup' to denote what happened in the 'cash for votes' scam, where the Manmohan government survived a confidence vote. But it seems quite likely that 2004 and 2009 were also Constitutional coups that thwarted the will of the people.
EVMs are viewed with suspicion in many parts of the world, and rightfully so. Germans ruled them unconstitutional; California banned them. As someone who worked on US department of defence orange book security, and in Unix internals, I can tell you that most software systems are of dubious integrity, with huge exploitable holes.
I hear there are now some provably correct operating system kernels for which in fact correctness proofs have been generated. But that is a long way from the unvetted, unverified, obscure code in the real-time kernels of the EVMs.
Incidentally, the chief election commissioner in 2009 was a handpicked friend of the Congress and the Nehru dynasty. His confidential report after the 1975 Emergency had said that he should not ever be entrusted with any job of any importance. Intriguing that he was chosen to be CEC. The fact that the Election Commission steadfastly stonewalled all efforts to get the source code of the EVMs, and instead kept on reassuring everyone that they were safe, is itself suspicious.
Why weren't EVMs hacked in 2014 or later? That might be the question uppermost in your mind. Well, enough noise was made by various people including Subramanian Swamy that the courts started taking an active interest in them, and beginning to demand Voter Verified Paper Audit Trails (VVPAT), which have printed receipts.
Besides, after the loot of 10 long years from 2004 to 2014, the writing on the wall was evident even to the Congress, and it would have taken too many EVMs being hacked -- thus increasing the likelihood of someone spilling the beans -- to do the trick again.
How many EVMs do you need to hack, anyway? Or do you need to hack any at all? There was a startling, and never explained observation by Monu Nalapat. He apparently found on the EC website the final results in some constituencies before counting began. That could mean that instead of counting the votes from the individual EVMs and tallying them on a server, the opposite was happening: The server was fed pre-determined data, and it wasn't actually collecting anything from the individual EVMs. That would be diabolically clever, but it simply wouldn't work if there were printed receipts.
IMAGE: Atal Bihari Vajpayee greets his successor Dr Manmohan Singh.
In any case, there would have been no need to hack every EVM, just a few in well-chosen constituencies, maybe as few as 1% of the total. Thus, only a few key conspirators needed to be in on the scam.
An experiment shows that you can follow a simple rule -- illegally divert every third vote to your candidate of choice -- and lo, your candidate, who would have failed in reality, wins by a modest margin: And the entire scam is undetectable. And the Trojan Horse malware can be programmed to self-destruct after use.
Besides, you can do this remotely by triggering the Trojan Horse with your cellphone: Most of this was demonstrated by an Election Commission EVM acquired by stealth.
And who had the means, and the motive, to do all this hanky-panky? Of course, it's the Congress, aided and abetted by good old #DeepState. It seems plausible they stole the elections in both 2004 and 2009.
The #DeepState has long arms and great reach. It is possible that it colluded with the Congress to steal the elections in 2004 and 2009, and thus put India at least 10 years behind in its quest to become a globally important power while the UPA looted it wholesale.The city of Hamtramck, an enclave of Detroit, made history this week when it became what is likely the first city in America to elect a Muslim-majority city council.
Historically Polish, the city of about 22,000 voted three Muslim Council candidates onto the six-member panel, one of whom was an incumbent Muslim council member not up for reelection this year. This means that the freshly formed council now has a two-thirds Muslim majority. The mayor, Karen Majewski, is Polish.
According to Bill Meyer, a Hamtramck community leader who isn’t Muslim, the incumbent Muslim councilmen have accomplished a lot for the city.
"[They’ve] helped bring stability, security and sobriety while lessening the amount of drugs and crime in the city,” he told the Detroit Free Press.
The election was also a landslide, he added. "The election was far from close, with the three Muslim winners each gaining over 1,000 votes, while the other three candidates garnered less than 700 votes each."
Many believe it’s the first time an American city has elected a Muslim majority city council, though the city itself has been under a similar spotlight before. In 2004, Hamtramck garnered heavy attention when the city council allowed a mosque to broadcast its call to prayer from loudspeakers. Opponents claimed it was an intrusion of Islam into their lives.
At that point, only one city council member was Muslim.
But Hamtramck’s Muslim population has been steadily growing, thanks to heightened immigration. Today it is estimated that half of Hamtramck is Muslim. According to University of Michigan-Dearborn professor Sally Howell, Hamtramck might have become the first city to have a Muslim majority in 2013.
“The growth is taking place in these Muslim communities, and they are transforming the city scape,” Howell told Washington Post. “It’s become much more visible in the last 15 years.”
In the early 20th century, Polish immigrants flocked to Hamtramck because of a Dodge Brothers plant built in 1914. By the 1970s, Polish-Catholics made up 90 percent of the city. But Asian and Arab immigrants began to settle there as the Poles moved to the suburbs. Most of them come from Bangladesh and Yemen.
The latest US Census surveys found that Hamtramck is now 24 percent Arab, mostly Yemeni, 19 percent African American, 15 percent Bangladeshi, 12 percent Polish, and 6 percent Yugoslavian. Out of the four new Muslim council members, three are Bangladeshi and one is Yemeni.
Getting to a Muslim majority wasn’t easy. In the past, Muslim candidates have been harassed, accused of terrorism, and some Bangladeshi voters were asked to show proof of citizenship by poll workers.
One of the winners Tuesday is Saad Almasmari, a 28-year-old student who received the highest percentage of votes – 22 percent. He moved to the US in 2009 and two years later, he became a US citizen.
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At the end of the day for Hamtramck, he said, it’s not about religious unity.
“Although we are Muslims, it doesn’t have anything to do with serving the community,” Almasmari said. “It’s not about religion. It’s not about Muslim unity. We are planning to work for everyone.”Portland Police
The police identified the suspect as Jeremy Joseph Christian, 35, of North Portland.
Christian was arrested on two counts of aggravated murder, two counts of second-degree intimidation, and being a felon in possession of a restricted weapon.
He will appear in court on Monday and may face further charges. Federal officials said Saturday that they are also looking into possible hate crime charges.
Police also noted Saturday that aggravated murder is a capital offense in the state of Oregon.
Thursday night before the deadly stabbing, the suspect allegedly confronted a black woman at a light rail station, according to KGW. After Christian threw a Gatorade bottle, KGW reported, the woman sprayed him with mace.
KOIN posted an alleged video of Christian, apparently taken after the Gatorade incident on a light-rail train. In the footage, a man is seen making racist and threatening remarks.
“He was pretty upset, squinting his eyes, venting to his friend on the phone about some girl that just pepper-sprayed him,” the woman who said she captured the video told KOIN.Yesterday, we ran a snippet from the new launch issue of Justice League 3001, featuring the future cloned versions of Batman and Superman discussing the fact that their friend Guy Gardner had just had his body transformed into that of a woman.
It is worth pointing out that this Superman is a but of a boorish idiot. So the conversation went as you might expect with boorish idiots, unable to see a distinction between biological gender and mental gender, even a thousand years into the future.
Some, however, were perturbed to see such opinions coming from any Superman’s mouth, and made their concern vocal on Twitter, including writer MJ Feuerborn
In JL3000, clone!Guy Gardener ends up in a different body. The discussion immediately starts w/ objectifying this 1/2 pic.twitter.com/VVmALoPdu1 — MJ Feuerborn (@MJFeuerborn) June 24, 2015
body w/ Supes declaring that w/ a “tush” like that Guy HAS to be a woman. Transgender folks’ bodies are frequently ‘gender-checked’ by 2/3 — MJ Feuerborn (@MJFeuerborn) June 24, 2015
ignorant cis people deeming ‘parts’ the determining factor in gender, declaring ownership of that person’s body and identity in doing so 3/4 — MJ Feuerborn (@MJFeuerborn) June 24, 2015
ignorant cis people deeming ‘parts’ the determining factor in gender, declaring ownership of that person’s body and identity in doing so 3/4 — MJ Feuerborn (@MJFeuerborn) June 24, 2015
ie ‘u have a penis thus u’re a man no matter what u, ur doc, etc, say’, ‘ur body is too sexy (thus consumable) to not be a woman’s’ etc. 4/4 — MJ Feuerborn (@MJFeuerborn) June 24, 2015
OK NEXT ONE. We start out w/ some intentional misgendering & aggressive self-chosen ignorance from Supes. While 1/2 pic.twitter.com/xiXCSNGNKf — MJ Feuerborn (@MJFeuerborn) June 24, 2015
Bats does appear to defend Guy’s identity he’s doing so only for Guy (“that’s Guy in there”) & not addressing Supes’ overall transphobic 2/3 — MJ Feuerborn (@MJFeuerborn) June 24, 2015
bullshit & ends up giving up pretty quick. In fact it’s when the topic of ‘biological sex’ vs gender is broached that he taps out, 3/4 — MJ Feuerborn (@MJFeuerborn) June 24, 2015
& the convo moves on to a humor beat. Or was the whole convo intended to be humor? Bc it’s not funny. These are the kinds of aggressive 4/5 — MJ Feuerborn (@MJFeuerborn) June 24, 2015
convos transgender folks face EVERY DAY. Using ‘feminine hygiene products’ does not make someone a woman. That disregards every trans 5/6 — MJ Feuerborn (@MJFeuerborn) June 24, 2015
man who does not have access to, cannot afford, or does not wish to partake in body-altering procedures. That disregards every trans 6/7 — MJ Feuerborn (@MJFeuerborn) June 24, 2015
woman who will not need to use them, but is still a woman. This disregards transgender people entirely bc it’s not about them, despite 7/8 — MJ Feuerborn (@MJFeuerborn) June 24, 2015
being very VERY much about them. Like most cissexist language employed for laughs, it tears trans people down & adds to the persistently 8/9 — MJ Feuerborn (@MJFeuerborn) June 24, 2015
ignorant mainstream perception of them, which in turn creates the hatred that fills your twitter timelines w/ the faces of murdered 9/10 — MJ Feuerborn (@MJFeuerborn) June 24, 2015
transgender people or transgender folks who have hurt or killed themselves bc THIS IS THE WORLD YOU’VE CREATED FOR THEM. And you’ve 10/11 — MJ Feuerborn (@MJFeuerborn) June 24, 2015
apparently done SUCH A GOOD JOB at it that far in the future our supposed heroes are still spouting the same vile bullshit. Congrats. 11/12 — MJ Feuerborn (@MJFeuerborn) June 24, 2015
But thanks for saving me money and opening a slot in my pull list, I guess. Ugh. 12/12 — MJ Feuerborn (@MJFeuerborn) June 24, 2015
While artist Cindi B had similar concerns.
God dammit, @JMDeMatteis. And I’ve really enjoyed JL3000, which just makes this worse. https://t.co/9HNNTLZCOJ — Cyndi B (@spintheiryarns) June 24, 2015
@richjohnston @JMDeMatteis But “Superman 3001 is an entertaining asshole” is not the same as “making a trans character a joke.” — Cyndi B (@spintheiryarns) June 24, 2015
At which point one of the book’s writers, JM DeMatteis joined in.
@JMDeMatteis @richjohnston If that’s the point, sadly you don’t seem to have conveyed it /quite/ as well as intended https://t.co/lCJVivS7ip — Cyndi B (@spintheiryarns) June 24, 2015
@JMDeMatteis @richjohnston @spintheiryarns and doesn’t represent 31st century attitudes either if I read the character properly. — Dave Robinson (@dcrwrites) June 24, 2015
@JMDeMatteis @richjohnston I’m not sure what you think trans men /are/, if not a man unwillingly stuck in a body that is wrong for him — Cyndi B (@spintheiryarns) June 24, 2015
@spintheiryarns @richjohnston I meant that Guy wasn’t a man who spent his life believing he was a woman and then changed. — J.M. DeMatteis (@JMDeMatteis) June 24, 2015
@spintheiryarns @richjohnston But what you say is very interesting and could actually help in interpreting the character from here on. — J.M. DeMatteis (@JMDeMatteis) June 24, 2015
@JMDeMatteis @richjohnston I know. You’d be describing a trans /woman/ there, which is the exact opposite of the scenario in question — Cyndi B (@spintheiryarns) June 24, 2015
@spintheiryarns @richjohnston Forgive me (and I mean that sincerely) if I don’t have the language mastered. — J.M. DeMatteis (@JMDeMatteis) June 24, 2015
@spintheiryarns @richjohnston Give it a few issues (we work ahead) and I’ll try to incorporate some of these thoughts. — J.M. DeMatteis (@JMDeMatteis) June 24, 2015
@JMDeMatteis @richjohnston thank you!!! and i hope you are listening to what trans people are telling you about it as well. done now :) — Cyndi B (@spintheiryarns) June 24, 2015
All’s well that ends well? And an audience, taking the opportunity to interact with creators, and vice versa. Coming to an accord and actually having an effect on the published comics….
Comic books. The new interactive medium.
About Rich Johnston Chief writer and founder of Bleeding Cool. Father of two. Comic book clairvoyant. Political cartoonist.
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None foundWarren Montag interviewed by George Souvlis.
George Souvlis: Would you like to present yourself by focusing on the formative experiences (academic and political) that strongly influenced you?
Warren Montag: My political and intellectual formation was governed, fittingly I suppose, by a logic of the encounter: that is, I was extraordinarily lucky. If I had not been in the right place at the right time and in proximity to the right people, I would not have thought or written as I have. In the mid to late seventies in Los Angeles (to which I returned after receiving my B.A. from UC Berkeley), I met both Geoff Goshgarian and Mike Davis and we soon formed a kind of collective with a few others (in particular I remember Samira Haj, now a historian at CUNY, I believe). We also organized a study group in which we read the three volumes of Capital, as well as Mandel’s Late Capitalism and other works.
Through Mike (who had recently returned from Britain where he had been close to the International Marxist Group [IMG]), I was introduced to the Trotskyism of the Fourth International (or more accurately its dominant tendency), that is, of Mandel, Krivine, Bensaid, Tariq Ali and others. This variant of Trotskyism, which had virtually no presence in the US at that time was very much a codification of the political experiences of 1968 internationally, combining a notion of the direct democracy of workers’ councils, consistent opposition to the bureaucratic regimes of the USSR and its satellites, and intransigent support for anti-colonial and anti-imperialist movements around the world. I saw it as an open Marxism that sought to understand the strategies of other movements and traditions, from the forms of armed struggle in Latin America, to the Chinese Cultural Revolution and Solidarnosc in Poland, each of which, even in their ultimate, in certain cases catastrophic, failure, provided lessons and illuminated problems that couldn’t have been posed apart from them. It did so without the automatic denunciation based on theoretical or programmatic differences so typical of Trotskyist groups. The often heated debates over questions like armed struggle and revolutionary strategy in Latin America were fascinating to me precisely because neither side offered abstract condemnations of reality for failing to correspond to a theoretical model, but represented genuine attempts to think strategically about how best to advance a given movement in a specific conjuncture.
Through my participation in various multi-tendency revolutionary socialist organizations, all of whom maintained friendly relations with both the Fourth International and the International Socialist tradition in the years that followed, I came into contact with a number of figures who I now recognize as extraordinary: Mandel, of course, Michael Lowy, Tariq Ali, Livio Maitan, Michel Pablo (Michaelis Raptis, an exemplary supporter of the Algerian liberation struggle); from Mexico, Adolfo Gilly, and human rights activist Rosario Ibarra, Peruvian peasant leader Hugo Blanco, as well as Alex Callinicos from the International Socialist tradition,. I was a founding member of the US group Solidarity where I learned a great deal from those who organized Labor Notes and Teamsters for a Democratic Union. From the mid-seventies to the early nineties I participated in a number of movements: the anti-apartheid movement, Central American solidarity, Palestine solidarity; I worked with the Justice for Janitors campaign and the Hotel and Restaurant Workers union to organize community support and was active in opposition to the Gulf War.
Paradoxically, nearly all the people I was close to politically from the mid-seventies to the early nineties, whether academics or not, were strongly anti-Althusserian, often from very different perspectives, but convinced that Althusser represented either a Stalinist or reformist perspective dressed up in fashionable structuralist jargon. Indeed, my initial theoretical orientation was a kind of mixture of Debord’s Society of the Spectacle and Lukacs’ History of Class Consciousness, which made me pre-disposed to reject Althusser from what I thought, wrongly, was a Hegelian perspective. But, prodded by Geoff Goshgarian, with whom I began to read Althusser’s works carefully, I discovered that most of his critics had very little to say about his actual texts and focused instead on what they assumed he meant by “humanism” or “historicism.” To this day, I remember the experience of reading “Contradiction and Overdetermination” for the first time and encountering that strange combination of lucidity and density that is the hallmark of Althusser’s best work. I knew immediately that the vast majority of his critics weren’t engaging with what he wrote but had constructed an imaginary Althusser that told us a lot about them and very little about him.
My “training” had little to do with academic institutions and was much more a matter of reading with others or on my own, outside of any institutional setting. The first things I wrote were consciously or unconsciously addressed to Althusser, Balibar, Macherey, Michel Pêcheux as if they my interlocutors even before I met them. This is what made possible one of the most fortuitous encounters I have experienced to become something that endured. In the summer of 1983, I arrived in Paris very interested in developing Althusser’s suggestion that there is an essential link between ideology and the unconscious and therefore between Marxism and psychoanalysis. I had written to the two people most concerned with this question at the time: Michel Pêcheux, whose Language, Semantics and Ideology had a big influence on me and Elisabeth Roudinesco who had written some interesting theoretical texts before she turned to historiography. Pêcheux at that moment was preparing a talk for a conference in the US and realized that he needed a translator. I had earlier convinced Roudinesco to meet with me, at which time I had agreed to do some research for her in the US. She asked if there were others I wanted to meet, and when I mentioned that I had written to Pêcheux but hadn’t gotten a response, she immediately called him. After scolding him for not responding to my letter, she handed me the phone. The ensuing conversation resembled an oral exam in which Pêcheux fired a series of questions at me about specific philosophers and their works: Althusser, Lacan, Bachelard, Canguilhem (but also Jean-Claude Milner’s L’amour de la langue which I had just read) and of course Spinoza (if I recall correctly, something about the appendix to part I of the Ethics). The fact that I passed this exam was signaled by the phrase, uttered as a kind of coda: on a fait ses devoirs. I then spent the next week translating his text (“Discourse: Structure or Event”) at the kitchen table of his apartment. The next year, Roudinesco introduced me to Macherey. Soon after I met Balibar, Lecourt, Negri and others. By the late eighties, Balibar and Macherey were friends and mentors.
GS: The topic of your first published study, The Unthinkable Swift, is the political thought of Jonathan Swift. Why did you decide to study his thought? You argue that his writings were overdetermined by the historical conjuncture that extends from 1688, the “Glorious Revolution”, to 1714, the emergence of the modern British state. To what extent does this reflect a dialectical relation between base and ideological super-structure? Which part of his thought goes beyond the specific time period and retain a kind of relative autonomy in relation to the balance of forces?
WM: Swift (1667-1745) was a priest in the Church of Ireland (a tributary of the Church of England) whose two major works, A Tale of a Tub and Gulliver’s Travels, were for me a kind of laboratory in which I could test and in certain cases modify the materialist practice of reading developed in Althusser’s introduction to Reading Capital and Macherey’s Pour une théorie de la production littéraire (both of which I had read “to the letter” with Goshgarian). The fact that both of Swift’s works were not only satires (which complicated the idea of a symptomatic reading), but satires whose norms were themselves constantly called into question by the operation of an irony that left no moral or political position intact, posed particular challenges for this theory. In A Tale of a Tub, for example, Swift simultaneously attacked both the enemies of the Church (atheists, dissenters and Roman Catholics) and the origins and institutions of the Church itself, as if the satire exceeded its target to bring about a general destruction that left nothing standing and Swift no ground to stand on. Rather than stop the analysis at this point there in the manner of 1980s American deconstruction which was driven by the need to de-politicize and de-historicize literary works, I approached Swift with a preliminary question: what are the contradictions proper to the attempt to abolish all contradictions, not in some a priori way, but in a particular conjuncture realized in and through the literary, philosophical and political materials at hand. I answered this question by reading the text word by word and following the semantic chains that led outside the text to other works to which it remained tied. If I wrote the book today, it would undoubtedly look very different: I would move from the inside to the outside. Rather than begin as I did with a long analysis of English and Irish history and the place of the Anglican church in it, I would follow the trail of words and phrases to these histories. Critics didn’t like my historical overview, not because they disagreed with it (few were concerned enough with this history to agree or disagree with my account), but because they couldn’t see its relevance. I would say that this reaction is the objective effect of my procedure, for which I am clearly responsible, which ended up affirming a kind of base and superstructure model. Had I done it differently, readers might have more easily seen the extent to which speaking and writing from within the Church understood as a condensation of social forces (to use Poulantzas’s phrase), whose starkly ideological and disciplinary functions preceded their own doctrinal justification shaped the materialism that Swift’s satire produces.
I wouldn’t say that Swift’s work has a universal or transhistorical value or meaning that would remain unchanged in the face of the constantly changing world around it. Nor would it be accurate to see it as a kind of Rorschach blot on which each age projects its own meanings. Instead, a work like Gulliver’s Travels has functioned as something like a found object, detached by the movement of history from its original context and re-presented in a way that is neither reducible to nor independent of its initial form. Instead of asking what reality it reflects, as if it were “epiphenomenal”, real only to the extent that it refers to the more primary reality it reflects, we might ask what effects it has produced as a singular thing, entering into relations with a succession of other singular things which cause it to be read (a way of talking about one of its effects) in different ways.
GS: In the introduction that you wrote for the collection of Pierre Macherey’s writings, In a Materialist Way, you argue that in his first book A Theory of Literary Production, far from advancing a formalist analysis, Macherey endorses a close reading of the literary work that leads to the wider historical context. Could you elaborate more on this method? What does it imply in epistemological terms in the analysis of a literary text? Could we apply the same to a text of political theory? How does Macherey’s manner of reading help us avoid a sterile reductionism?
WM: However ironic it may seem, especially for English language readers who remain fixated on the anti-Hegelianism of Althusser, Balibar and Macherey, circa 1965 (despite the evidence to the contrary from both before and after that time), there is something irreducibly Hegelian about Althusser’s reading of Marx (even of Marx’s residual “Hegelianism,” the specific tendency in Hegel to which Marx as one of histories “fatherless children” turned in order to theorize the specific form of capitalist accumulation and exploitation). This is equally, if not more, true of Balibar and Macherey and their reading of philosophical and literary texts. We could summarize this inheritance from Hegel as the notion that these texts are intelligible, that is, become the objects of an adequate knowledge, only on the basis of contradictions that may be understood as their immanent cause. But contradiction, a word that Macherey systematically avoided using in Literary Production, cannot be understood in a formal sense (Hegel himself vehemently rejected the idea of a “formal dialectic” as the imposition of a single form indifferently on any content) as having a single invariant structure. Macherey had proposed replacing “contradiction” with “conflict” or “disorder,” which may be understood as recasting of its concept. In the case of literary texts, the idea of form or genre requires the division of the text into a disorderly and chaotic surface and a hidden order or deep structure (in the linguistic sense) that reveals that this surface disorder is simply a concealed order. Macherey, in opposition, insisted that “the work has no interior, no exterior; or rather, its interior is like an exterior, shattered and on display. Thus it is open to the searching gaze, peeled, disemboweled.” In this way, the text is only surface, without a hidden dimension on the basis of which its discrepant and contradictory elements could be reconciled. Here we can detect the presence of Spinoza, specifically chapter 7 of the TTP, and his critique of the existing practices of Biblical interpretation. In the absence of depth, the faults, lacunae, and inconsistencies of the Scripture harden into irreducibility and must be explained causally rather than explained away.
This in turn allows us to understand the paradoxes of the current counter-offensive against Althusser and Macherey that opposes a “surface” reading to a “symptomatic reading” (understood as an operation of revealing hidden elements which necessarily devalues the surface in favor of what it conceals). “Hidden,” like “depth,” is defined very broadly: even “lacunae,” gaps, and absences can be defined as hidden even if they are nowhere present inside or outside the text. In fact, what is clearly visible, at the surface of the arguments for surface reading, is the drive to restore order to the text by defining the textual surface as “structure” or “form.” In this way, order precedes disorder, as the essential precedes and defines the inessential. That which is inconsistent with the structure is not hidden in the text, but denied by the method itself |
in the lie—that the structure of the mall commands the world and that the world is falling apart. Our job is to hold tight to these contradictions, to refuse to resolve them but instead to harness their dialectical heat. The result will not be dream-interpretation, but dream-criticism. Wander the halls and map the fault-lines that cleave them. Notice the roof. Notice the moment your ally and your enemy switch faces. In every inconsistency, there is a message. And beneath the pond scum that floats in every broken fountain’s basin, there shimmer uncountable, useless dimes.Along with concerns about surrendering the road to motor vehicles, one of the main reasons for opposition to the physical separation of cycling from motor traffic is a fear of being ‘held up’.
This is the worry, from people who cycle already, that their journeys will be slowed down, by being blocked on narrow cycle infrastructure by people who can’t cycle as fast as them. I’ve attempted to dispel this notion – at least with regard to Dutch cycle infrastructure. Separation from motor traffic should not mean that you are impeded.
But with the tube strikes over the last couple of days, it’s quite clear that physical separation of cycling would provide considerable benefits. The pictures of Superhighway 7 in particular that appeared yesterday show the uselessness of ‘cycle routes’ that become clogged by motor vehicles.
Danny Williams also took a picture of Superhighway 7 yesterday –
Here is cycle super highway 7 in action this afternoon. It’s so good you can only use it by dismounting pic.twitter.com/TJfm5tLJck — cyclistsinthecity (@citycyclists) February 6, 2014
Contrast this with the videos that have emerged of people cycling along the segregated sections of Superhighway 2 over the last few days. The segregation is far from brilliant (indeed in places it is worryingly bad), but cycling has flowed smoothly and easily past static motor traffic.
I suspect this uselessness of the original Superhighways was built in from the start. There’s a very revealing interview with TfL by Andreas of London Cyclist, dating back from when the Superhighways were launched, in 2010. TfL provide this justification for not segregating the Superhighways –
Segregation however, is not something that is being considered for the cycle superhighways. TfL said the routes are simply not being used frequently enough to warrant separation of traffic. It is only during peak hours that you will see many cyclists in the lanes. TfL claim that segregating the lanes would create many problems for loading vehicles. They also claim that cyclists don’t want to be treated differently to other vehicles.
The implication of this is essentially that cycling was not considered enough of an important mode of transport in its own right to necessitate space being set aside for it – ‘routes not being used frequently enough’. TfL believed that the space properly-designed Superhighways would have taken up needed to be used instead for motor vehicles. Indeed, despite much progress in the last couple of years, this is probably the prevailing attitude within the organisation.
But I think we’ve seen over the last few days how wrong-headed this approach is proving to be. Despite the chaos on the transport network, with very little tube network running, desperately overcrowded buses, and clogged roads, cycling remains a non-option, principally because cycling through traffic – even traffic that is mostly stationary – is just deeply unattractive for most people.
I noticed that David Arditti left a comment below that London Cyclist article, in July 2010, which sums up the problem.
The big thing that tends not to be understood in the UK about segregated cycle lanes, Dutch-style, is that their main purpose is not safety, per se, as cycling is inherently quite safe anyway, it is the prioritisation of space for cycle traffic. It is, in other words, to give the bike a competitive advantage in the struggle for space on the roads, which makes bike journeys quicker and more efficient, as well as more pleasant. There is no other effective method of preventing parking, loading, queuing, bus and taxi stopping in cycle space, and general obstruction by motor vehicles, other than physical segregation. This is why it is used so extensively on the continent. It is not that the continentals have some malign control agenda to push cyclists off the general roads. Arguments that segregation slows down fast commuter cyclists are incorrect. It only has this effect if badly done, with insufficient capacity or other design faults. Fast commuter cyclists benefit equally with slower cyclists from the advantages that proper continental-style cycle tracks create. [my emphasis]
It’s hard to put it better than that. Space for cycling is needed for competitive advantage; to ensure that it isn’t impeded by congestion, and that journeys by bike are painless and pleasant.
This applies in the Netherlands too, where long queues of vehicles can easily be bypassed on cycle tracks – so easily you forget there’s actually ‘congestion’ on the road network.
If we’re serious about shifting people from private cars to cycling, then we need to insulate cycling from the negative consequences of driving – and that includes gridlock.We talked to the study’s lead author John Capra, Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences and Biomedical Informatics at Vanderbilt University, to find out why depression, certain skin conditions, and blood clotting can all be linked to our ancient ancestors:The most important finding of our study is that Neanderthal DNA influences a broad range of traits relevant to disease risk in modern humans. When we started this study, we expected that, if we found any effects of Neanderthal DNA they would be on bodily systems that are involved in interactions with the environment. Several of our findings fit in well with this prediction. For example, we found that having Neanderthal DNA at one location in the genome significantly increased risk for blood hypercoagulation. Coagulation is one of most immediate immune responses to injury and potential infection, allowing wounds to heal quickly.We also found that Neanderthal DNA significantly influenced risk for a skin disease called actinic keratosis that results in scaly skin lesions after long-term sun exposure, and we identified an association between Neanderthal DNA and a certain type of malnutrition.In addition to these results, we also found several surprising associations between Neanderthal DNA and psychiatric and neurological phenotypes like depression and nicotine.Many genetic variants, regardless of evolutionary origin and temporal context, are beneficial in some respects but detrimental in others. For example, consider the APOE4 allele, which increases the risk of Alzheimer’s, but may decrease the risk of other diseases in carriers. So this phenomenon is by no means limited to Neanderthal DNA – our genomes keep around lots of mildly detrimental genetic variations. There are also many regions of the human genome where no one has any Neanderthal DNA, suggesting that many bits of Neanderthal DNA were removed from modern human genomes very quickly because they were very detrimental.Tobacco was found solely in the Western hemisphere until Europeans brought it back from expeditions to the Americas. While nicotine is present in plants other than tobacco, it is found in such small quantities as to be barely detectable. This is a great example of how the effects and interpretation of DNA variants are dependent on the environment. It is possible that this variant had an influence on a related trait that exhibited itself 50,000 years ago, but it is also possible that this is just an unfortunate effect that has become relevant in a modern environment.In short: probably not. The longer answer is that depression is an incredibly complex disease and we don't fully understand the genetic and environmental drivers of depression today in modern populations. Thus, like nicotine addiction, depression might not even make sense as a "disease" 50,000 years ago. So it is possible that these variants had different effects on Neanderthals in their genetic and environmental background than they did on modern humans.Furthermore, we found that some Neanderthal DNA increases the risk of depression in modern humans while a roughly similar number of specific Neanderthal DNA regions actually decrease the risk. This means that if I know what Neanderthal DNA you have, I can do a better job of predicting your risk for depression than if I don’t.Previous work over the past several years using ancient DNA from fossils has demonstrated that anatomically modern humans interbred with older human forms, like Neanderthals, as they moved out of Africa 50–60,000 years ago. As a result of this, a small fraction (under two percent) of the genomes of most modern non-Africans is made up of DNA derived from Neanderthals. This raises several fascinating questions like: What effect does the Neanderthal DNA that remains in modern humans have on our biology? What do the effects of Neanderthal DNA tell us about the role of interbreeding in our species' history and evolution?We realized that we had a great opportunity to answer these questions using large databases of anonymized versions of patient electronic health records linked to their genetic information. This way, we were able to investigate the effects of Neanderthal DNA in more than 28,000 adults from around the US.There is still much to learn about the effects of interbreeding on different populations in recent human history. There are several next steps: 1) Expanding the study to bigger cohorts that contain groups of more diverse (not just European) ancestry. 2) Deriving more complex and detailed traits from the electronic health records. 3) Determining how Neanderthal DNA exerts its effects at the molecular level. 4) Developing better models for how selection has acted on Neanderthal DNA after interbreeding.Featured image courtesy of Jaroslav A. PolákA family of evacuee who have been using their vehicle for shelter rest after a series of earthquakes in Mashiki town, Kumamoto prefecture, southern Japan, in this photo taken by Kyodo April 19, 2016. Mandatory credit Kyodo/via
By Elaine Lies
TOKYO (Reuters) - Survivors of a series of Japanese quakes measuring up to 7.3 struggled on Tuesday with shortages of food and water as the death toll rose to 44 and rescuers dug through mud and rubble for the missing, but hopes dimmed of finding them alive.
Japanese stocks bounced back from Monday's slide, with electronics manufacturer Sony Corp climbing 6.7 percent after saying its image sensor plant in Kumamoto, shut after the quake, makes components mainly for digital cameras.
Flights resumed to the damaged airport in the southwestern area of Kumamoto, which suffered the worst of the damage, but aftershocks continued to rattle the region and survivors spent another night huddled in cars and evacuation centers, afraid to return to their damaged homes.
"It's really tough," one woman told TV Asahi, her two-month-old baby sleeping in blankets on the floor, at her side.
"There's no milk and only the diapers we brought with us. Once they run out, there's nothing."
About 30,000 rescuers dug through mud and splintered houses, and Japanese media reported that one of those missing was pulled out without signs of life on Tuesday, four days after the worst quake struck in the early hours of Saturday.
Eight remain missing and more than 1,000 were injured.
More than 94,000 people remained in evacuation centers, cut off from the world by destroyed roads, but television footage showed relief goods being unloaded from planes at the main airport and water services gradually being restored.
"These quakes have produced massive damage, and police, firemen and military personnel are making every effort to restore things," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a news conference, warning of further aftershocks.
A 5.8-magnitude quake hit the area late on Monday. Of more than 600 quakes hitting Kyushu since Thursday, more than 87 have registered at least a four on Japan's intensity scale, strong enough to shake buildings.
The Kumamoto region is an important manufacturing hub and home to Japan's only operating nuclear station, which has been declared safe.
The benchmark Nikkei rose 3.7 percent to 16,869.29 in mid-morning trade, with major exporters rebounding sharply after tumbling on Monday, hit by a stronger yen and worries that the earthquakes could disrupt their supply chains.
A 9-magnitude quake and tsunami in northern Japan in March 2011 caused the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl in 1986, shutting down the nuclear industry for safety checks and sending radiation spewing across the countryside.
Nearly 20,000 people were killed in the 2011 tsunami.
(Additional reporting by Kaori Kaneko; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)WASHINGTON — President Trump plans to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital but not to move the American Embassy there for now, people briefed on the deliberations said on Friday, a halfway gesture intended to fulfill a campaign pledge while not derailing his peace initiative.
Mr. Trump is expected to announce the decision in a speech next Wednesday, these people said, though they cautioned that the president had not yet formally signed off on it and that the details of the plan could shift.
Those details, experts warned, are fiendishly complicated. The diplomatic status of Jerusalem is one of the world’s most contested issues, with Israel and the Palestinians claiming it as their capital. Its holy sites are sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims, and any change in its status would have vast repercussions across the Middle East and other Islamic-majority countries worldwide.
Mr. Trump promised to move the American Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv as one of his first acts as president — a pledge that was popular with his evangelical supporters as well as with powerful Jewish donors, like the casino mogul Sheldon Adelson.Call it déjà vu, as this series takes place one year after the Flyers staged one of the great comebacks in playoff history by beating the Bruins after losing the first three games and falling behind 3-0 in Game 7. The one change is that the Flyers have the home-ice advantage – though Philadelphia split its four home games in the opening round and the Bruins won two of three road games.It wasn't nearly enough to atone for last spring's failures, but the Bruins did dominate the season series, winning three games and losing once in overtime. Boston won both of its visits to the Wells Fargo Center, including a 2-1 victory in the teams' last meeting on March 27.Both teams had to go seven games in the opening round, though the Flyers had an easier time in their deciding game – they beat Buffalo 5-2 in a game that was largely over by the end of the second period. Philadelphia also finished its series on Tuesday, giving the Flyers an extra day of rest before starting the series at home. Boston couldn't put Montreal away in six games and blew 2-0 and 3-2 leads in Game 7 before Nathan Horton's goal 5:43 into overtime finally won the series – marking only the ninth time in 33 tries that the B's have beaten Montreal and the first time in franchise history they've won a series after losing the first two games.Considering that both teams lost the opener in the previous round, maybe not as much as you'd think. The Flyers will have the advantage of an extra day off, as well as getting to start the series in their own building. The Bruins will be eager to get the jump on the Flyers, if only to erase any memories of last year.Each team had a "first" in the opening round. Boston became the first team to win a seven-game series without scoring a power-play goal – but don't expect the Bruins to win this series unless the power play starts contributing. The Flyers became the first team since 1988 to win a playoff series in which it started three goaltenders. Expect Brian Boucher to get the first call against the Bruins –but don't be surprised if coach Peter Laviolette again has a quick hook. None of the three (Boucher, Michael Leighton and rookie Sergei Bobrovsky ) are as good as Boston's Tim Thomas, who figures to get the call in every game.Both the Bruins and Flyers had a size advantage on their first-round opponent; that won't happen in this round. Philadelphia got a boost from the return of All-Star defenseman Chris Pronger, who played in Games 6 and 7 after coming back from a broken right hand. The Bruins ended one hex by rallying from a 2-0 series deficit to beat Montreal; you can be sure coach Claude Julien will use last year's historic loss to the Flyers as a rallying point in this round.SPOKANE, Wash. – Former Spokane NAACP President Rachel Dolezal is making headlines yet again.
In an article from The Guardian, she said she is jobless and feeding her family with food stamps. She said she had applied for over 100 jobs but no one will hire her. She’s even changed her name on legal documents.
Back in 2015, Dolezal was criticized for passing herself off as a black woman. Dolezal later acknowledged she is "Caucasian biologically," but said she identifies as a black woman. In June 2015, KREM 2 News' Taylor Viydo spoke with the parents of Dolezal who shared photos of her as a child and said Dolezal was biologically white -- not black.
She told the paper that she still feels like she didn’t do anything wrong.
“If I thought it was wrong, I would admit it. That’s easy to do, especially in America. Every politician, they’re like, ‘I’m sorry’ and then they just move on and everybody’s like, ‘Oh, they apologized and it’s all good’. Five minutes later, nobody remembers it. I’m not going to stoop and apologize and grovel and feel bad about it. I would just be going back to when I was little, and had to be what everybody else told me I should be – to make them happy,” Dolezal told the Guardian.
The article also details how her relationship with her parents is basically non-existent and quotes her book “In Full Color: Finding My Place in a Black and White World” that is due out March 28.The head of Amnesty International Turkey has been arrested by the authorities over suspected links with exiled cleric, Fethullah Gulen, whom Ankara blames for a failed 2016 coup, the group said. It added that Taner Kilic was “swept up in the post-coup purge.”
Kilic, the chair of Amnesty International Turkey, “was detained from his house in [the city of] Izmir at 6:30 this morning [Tuesday] before being taken to his office. Both properties were searched. He is currently in police custody in Yesilyurt district of Izmir,” Amnesty International said in a statement.
Breaking: Chair of Amnesty Turkey & 22 other lawyers detained in post-coup purge #Turkey. They have to be released. https://t.co/GZJ9IBTDn3pic.twitter.com/ypgv5hGw2V — AmnestyInternational (@amnesty) June 6, 2017
According to the group, Kilic’s detention “does not seem to be connected to any of Amnesty International’s work, nor to be specifically targeting the organization.”
“The detention order refers to an investigation into suspected members of the ‘Fethullah Gulen Terrorist Organization’. It is currently unclear why Taner Kilic is suspected of having these links,” the group said, adding that Kilic was “swept up in [Turkey’s] post-coup purge.”
Amnesty called upon Turkish authorities to “immediately release” and “drop all charges against” their employee and other 22 lawyers who were detained alongside Kilic. The group said that there was “absence of credible and admissible evidence of their involvement in internationally recognized crimes.”
“The fact that Turkey’s post-coup purge has now dragged the chair of Amnesty International Turkey into its web is further proof of just how far it has gone and just how arbitrary it has become,” Salil Shetty, Amnesty’s secretary-general, said.
Chair of @Amnesty Turkey office among 23 lawyers detained today in post-coup purge. We demand their urgent release! https://t.co/t6QN9pPMgqpic.twitter.com/QJplCGloRM — Salil Shetty (@SalilShetty) June 6, 2017
Shetty added that Kilic “has a long and distinguished record of defending exactly the kind of freedoms that the Turkish authorities are now intent on trampling.”
Kilic is not the first to be accused over alleged links with Fethullah Gulen, once an Erdogan ally, who is now living in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania.
Gulen leads the popular Islamic transnational religious and social movement called Gulen movement or Hizmet, believed to be funding numerous businesses, think tanks, private schools, and publishing houses around the world.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused the cleric and his group of masterminding the failed coup in Turkey on July 15, 2016. Ankara has repeatedly demanded his extradition to investigate his alleged participation in the coup attempt. However, the 74-year-old has denied any involvement.
More than 100,000 public sector workers were fired from their jobs, including teachers, journalists, security personnel and army officers, according to Amnesty data from March.OTTAWA – Ottawa Fury FC announced on Thursday the club’s first addition from its MLS partner, the Montreal Impact, as goalkeeper David Paulmin joined the side for the new USL season. The signing is pending league and federation approval.
Fury FC Head Coach and GM Paul Dalglish was part of the Impact's training camp in Florida last week to evaluate the prospects to add to his squad and he expects to add a few more players from Montreal shortly.
"David is a young goalkeeper with a lot of potential," said Dalglish. "It's a great opportunity for him to grow and learn alongside [Fury FC Goalkeepers Coach] Bruce Grobbelaar and our two other goalkeepers. We're delighted to bring the first player in from our partnership with Montreal and we are looking forward to bring a few more."Remembering Peter Yates' Marvelous Coming-Of-Age Bike Film, 'Breaking Away'
Enlarge this image toggle caption 20th Century Fox/AP 20th Century Fox/AP
Peter Yates, who died Sunday, directed quite a few movies, including Bullitt, with Steve McQueen. He also directed what may legitimately be my favorite movie of all time: the thrilling, moving, sweet 1979 coming-of-age drama and enchanting bicycle-race thriller Breaking Away.
Breaking Away stars Dennis Christopher, Daniel Stern, Jackie Earle Haley, and a very young and studly Dennis Quaid as four friends who are "townies" in Bloomington, Indiana -- home of the giant Indiana University and its Little 500 bike race (which is real). It's remarkable how you can love a film for many years without really staring at the title; it's never really consciously occurred to me, but of course, it refers here to both bicycle racing and the end of youth.
At times, Breaking Away is a sweet, smart, enormously warm comedy, getting a boost from awe-inspiring performances by Paul Dooley and Barbara Barrie (perhaps the two best actors ever to play parents) as the mom and dad of Dave (played by Christopher), the only one who's a real, serious cyclist. Dave dreams of being on an elite racing team like the Italians, which ultimately morphs into a simple dream of being Italian, a development his parents meet with some combination of curiosity (his mother) and horror (his father). It's one thing to race, after all, but it's another to decide to rename the cat "Fellini."
It's also a very thoughtful story about social class. The guys are the sons of "cutters" -- the men who cut limestone from the local quarries. And they consider themselves cutters, too: separate from and always suspicious of the college students (except sometimes the pretty girls), they have chips of varying weights on their shoulders, which they get from some combination of jealousy, resentment, pride, loyalty and boredom. And far from setting up the four friends as put-upon have-nots surrounded by haves, Steve Tesich's script is smart enough to ask the question of whether these boys have earned any resentment, any puffing out of their chests originating with the conviction that they stand in solidarity with their fathers. There's more to being a cutter, after all, than being mad at rich kids.
But the way the movie handles cycling, which isn't one of cinema's more heavily covered sports, introduces another entire dimension and transforms Breaking Away from a nice character piece to a literally breathtaking story -- as in, "at times, one stops breathing."
Watch this clip, which isn't even a climactic sequence in the story; it's just Dave training, out on the highway, where he encounters a friendly truck driver.
A little exciting, no?
Through one development and another and another, the guys wind up fielding a team for the Little 500, despite the fact that only Dave really knows anything about racing. And while the ending comes down to a climactic sporting event, like all great sports movies, that event is not about itself, but about what's at stake for the combatants. Admirably, there are no miracles in that race; people do not magically become superstars who yesterday were incompetent, and no one who couldn't ride a bike yesterday is the fastest man on the course today. It is much more about rising to the occasion to the best of your ability than it is about superhuman feats that emerge from nowhere.
And yet.
And yet, every time I see that closing sequence, despite the fact that I have seen it many, many times, I lean forward in my seat. I put my hand over my mouth. And yes, I stop breathing. That's Peter Yates at work, putting together that sequence so deftly that it no longer requires the element of surprise, despite being enormously suspenseful. It's not just storytelling; it's beauty, as much here as in any picturesque epic.
Breaking Away is available on Netflix streaming, for those who enjoy that sort of thing, and it's very, very much worth seeing. Thanks to Peter Yates for the bike race, the serenade, and "Ciao, papa."WASHINGTON - Any NASA mission that sends a crew of astronauts to visit an asteroid will be fraught with challenges and risks, but the first step for any such endeavor is to understand exactly which near-Earth objects may warrant a human visitation.
Asteroid specialists, space scientists, astronauts, and NASA mission tackled that question and others during a recent workshop called "Target NEO: Providing a Resilient NEO Accessibility Program for Human Exploration Beyond Low Earth Orbit."
Finding an appropriate target asteroid for astronauts, the experts found, is the most urgent task for any space rock mission. While more than 7,000 near-Earth objects are known, the numbers and physical makeup of space rocks that are accessible by piloted flight is highly uncertain.
"Right now we only have a few targets in our catalog. We need a lot more to provide us with maximum mission flexibility," former NASA astronaut Tom Jones said. "It’s time to get on with this search." [Photos: Asteroids in Deep Space]
Doing so will reduce the risk for missions and crew, researchers said.
NASA's current goal of sending astronauts on an asteroid-bound mission by 2025 is one of the core ideas in the space exploration vision laid out by President Barack Obama last year. It represents a major shift from NASA's earlier plan, which was aimed at returning astronauts to the moon.
"By 2025 we expect new spacecraft designed for long journeys to allow us to begin the first-ever crew missions beyond the moon into deep space," Obama said during an April 2010 speech at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. "So we’ll start by sending astronauts to an asteroid for the first time in history. By the mid-2030s, I believe we can send humans to orbit Mars and return them safely to earth, and a landing on Mars will follow."
The NEO workshop on Feb. 22 was organized by the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs and Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. of Boulder, Colo.
Jones, a planetary scientist, views asteroids as "natural steppingstones" in space exploration, providing a sustainable, flexible direction to pursue in the next couple of decades. [Video: Rock & Roll Asteroids]
Asteroids are targets that will reduce the risk of all deep space exploration, Jones said. They can deliver continuing value to scientific discovery, planetary defense objectives and the utilization of space resources, as well as hone operational expertise for trekking on to Mars, he added.
Only a few near-Earth objects would fit NASA's proposed guidelines for a manned mission to an asteroid. (Image: © Emily Lakdawalla/Ted Stryk)
For asteroids, size does matter
Ground telescopes and space-based infrared surveys have been essential to cataloguing candidate asteroids for human visit, but one fact has become clear to space rock scientists: When it comes to a crewed expedition, asteroid size does matter.
There’s a proliferation of diminutive space rocks across the solar system, and have a crew of astronauts travel for months to one while inside a spacecraft that’s larger than the target asteroid would seem to defeat the purpose, researchers said. [5 Reasons to Care About Asteroids]
Also, some objects that are less than 50 meters across may ultimately turn out to be human-made space debris – the cast off of past robot expeditions, said Al Harris, a consultant to NASA and an authority on asteroids.
“You certainly don’t want to go to something painted in titanium paint with writing on it,” Harris said. What’s more, there’s an abundance of NEOs that are “super-fast rotators” – topsy-turvy mini-worlds that, he said, would assuredly make astronaut surveying tough to do.
The need-to-know about NEOs
There is some debate on just how much scientists need to know about an asteroid before a manned mission can launch toward the target space rock. Are spin rate, size and shape, and composition — things which can be gleaned in advance by a robotic probe— must-haves before human arrival?
What's certain is that sending a crewed expedition to an asteroid will be no cakewalk, said Andy Thomas, a veteran NASA astronaut who serves as an Astronaut Office liaison for organizations planning deep space exploration.
"Long outbound and inbound trip times are going to be very challenging," Thomas said. Toss in cramped quarters, radiation issues and lack of real-time communications, he added.
To be successful, "we really need a quantum improvement in the life support systems. Right now, space station technology will not do it … The station requires too much continuous up mass," Thomas added.
The ability to station-keep with an asteroid without placing crew and spacecraft in harm's way also will be worrisome, Thomas said. "It’ll be a labor-intensive activity once you’re there."
Acceptable risk? Time will tell
Thomas addressed the matter of the public and Congress buying in to a NEO undertaking.
"These missions are going to be very, very risky. They are going to be as much risk as the Apollo missions were," Thomas said. "To try and sell it to the public purely on the basis of the scientific return … would probably not work."
Planetary defense – learning how to fend off a menacing asteroid that has Earth’s name on it – might be seen as a compelling reason, he suggested, but the question of sending people versus sending robots on a less-expensive mission would need to be addressed.
Thomas called upon the workshop participants to establish a "very cogent and clear story" of why it’s necessary to send humans to an NEO. Without that, sustained funding can’t be expected, he said.
This NASA concept image shows the International Space Station's Tranquility module (Node 3) at the center of two exploration spacecraft that could be sent to visit a nearby asteroid. (Image: © NASA/Brian Wilcox [ Full Story ])
Asteroid trek on a shoestring?
Getting the ball rolling for an NEO investigation – as well as a planetary defense program and manned asteroid mission – has been a money-starved, slow-going bureaucratic affair, said Richard Binzel, professor of planetary science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
"It’s so simple, really," Binzel told SPACE.com. "The first step for human interplanetary flight is to set the destination. A survey mission is one of the most essential and least expensive components of the whole endeavor. How can NASA planners not 'get it'?"
Binzel said that the case for asteroid surveys has been made over and over for two decades.
"Yet current efforts barely get along on a shoestring. Now, despite national advisory council recommendations, congressional mandates and the newly recognized needs for both exploration and planetary defense, there is no new funding and thus no administrator who wants to get stuck with the bill," Binzel said. "This issue is sorely in need of an adult sense of responsibility."
Exploring asteroids on paper
Former NASA astronaut Ed Lu, now a high-tech consultant in Silicon Valley, agrees with Binzel.
"Unfortunately, the history of NASA and our great plans over the last 20 years is that we lose interest and they go away," Lu said. What remains true about NEOs, he said, is the adage: "Find them early … find them early and find them early."
"But if a human NEO mission is to move forward, the three most important things are, 'Get started now… get started now and get started now,'" Lu added. "The longer you wait on this, the greater the chances it’s all going to turn into one more set of paper studies."
Not only do we need to start now, Lu told SPACE.com, "but we need to make quick progress. That means a series of fast visible milestones, rather than a long wait until the first success."
Watershed event
A reality check on human space exploration was offered by Scott Pace, director of the Space Policy Institute. He said NASA historically cancels most of its space transportation and human spaceflight programs.
"In the last 20 years NASA has spent at least $21 billion, 7 percent of its budget, on canceled space transportation programs," Pace said.
Pace posed two questions for future deeps space missions: Can humans "live off the land" in space and function independently off Earth for long periods? Also, are there economically useful activities in space that can sustain human communities there?
"We don’t know which of these outcomes represents our long-term future," Pace said. "Advocates and skeptics may believe one outcome or another is most likely, but no one actually knows. Determining the actual future of humans in space would be a watershed event for the United States and humanity."
Leonard David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. He is past editor-in-chief of the National Space Society's Ad Astra and Space World magazines and has written for SPACE.com since 1999.American farmers have purposefully poured out more than 43 million gallons’ worth of milk due to an excessively abundant supply of the dairy product in the county.
The farmers dumped the milk in fields and manure lagoons or used it as animal feed, in the first eight months of 2016, according to the Wall Street Journal, which cited data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The massive amount of milk—enough to fill 66 Olympic swimming pools—is the most wasted in at least the last 16 years, according to the newspaper.
Read More: Why Millions of Gallons of Milk Are Being Thrown Out
The U.S. has been dealing with an enormous milk and cheese glut. It prompted the USDA on Tuesday to offer to buy $20 million of cheddar cheese to reduce a private cheese surplus that has “reached record levels,” the department said in a news release.
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The excess follows a shortage in the country two years ago which led dairy producers to expand their operations.
Market prices for milk have plunged 36% on average since prices hit records in 2014, according to the WSJ.
[WSJ]
Contact us at editors@time.com.Minnesota Wild goaltender Devan Dubnyk has answered a lot of questions about how he turned his career around this season.
How exactly did he go from being out of the NHL at the end of last season to one of the League’s hottest goalies in February, helping turn the Wild's season around since a mid-January trade from the Arizona Coyotes with a 11-2-1 run?
For the most part, the answers have focused on Arizona giving him a chance as a free agent to start the season, and Coyotes goalie coach Sean Burke restoring his confidence. There were also some small tweaks and a better understanding about managing depth in his crease from Burke, but for the most part Dubnyk said he hasn't made any radical style alterations since transitioning his game to the NHL under then-Edmonton Oilers goalie coach Frederic Chabot.
Devan Dubnyk Goalie - MIN RECORD: 20-7-3
GAA: 2.27 | SVP:.924
There was, however, one significant change this summer.
Dubnyk adjusted how he works on tracking the puck, a change which puts him on the cutting edge of a new tool some believe will be the biggest thing for goaltending since the butterfly.
The technique is called Head Trajectory and Dubnyk discovered it while working with former NHL goalie and current MSG Network analyst Stephen Valiquette for one week at Andy O'Brien's NHL fitness camp in Vail, Colo., before the opening of training camps.
"It's all to do with your head. It's like closing on pucks," Dubnyk told NHL.com. "You discover you have to move a whole lot less than you used to feel you need to. It's such small movements forward and just closing off the angle of the puck, and when you start to realize that and you realize how big you are when you put yourself in the right position -- and that's a big part of it -- you start to feel comfortable and then you can be patient on your feet. You can sit there and let plays happen in front of you and not be going down early, and everything kind of comes with it once you realize how big you are."
Actually, making saves is just one part of Head Trajectory, which at its simplest is about how you track pucks with your head rather than just following it with your eyes. The concept applies to every part of goaltending, from how a goalie moves around the ice following the play, to how he recovers and moves after a save.
Valiquette learned Head Trajectory from its developer, Lyle Mast, who founded OR (Optimum Reaction) Sports, and consults with numerous goalies and coaches at all levels, including the Tri-City Americans in the Western Hockey League. Mast has worked on its development since 2008 with Los Angeles Kings goaltending coach Bill Ranford, who uses a core portion of it with the Kings goaltenders.
The beauty of Head |
the loggers were driving the animals out of the forest and explained that they targeted the same trees that the community relies on for fruits and berries
The Awa are nomadic hunter-gatherers and we wanted to film a hunt to illustrate how, as the loggers and farmers encroach on their land, it is increasingly difficult for them to live their traditional lifestyle. Indeed, they only live in a village because game is now so scarce. During the first day we had spent with them, the Awa had worn ragged T-shirts and shorts or skirts. But walking into the village it became abundantly clear that when it comes to hunting, some traditions remain strong. The Awa hunters were completely naked except for a piece of string decorated with bright bird feathers tied to the end of their penises. They looked at me in my sweaty shirt and jeans and laughed. One motioned towards my groin and gestured as if he were tying a knot. The others laughed even harder. Clearly, they thought I should dress more appropriately. I looked over to the director, Steve. He had a mischievous grin on his face. It was clear that he thought I should too. THE CHINESE ARE COMING Justin Rowlatt undertook a global journey to explore the effects of China's policy of "going out" into the world to secure the energy and raw materials it needs Watch clips from the programme
Angolan railway's Chinese upgrade Karaoke fans sing Angola's praises An invitation to dine in the Amazon Brazil's Chinese bikini problem Hard times for blue-collar America Chicken farmers ruffle feathers "The whole idea of this programme is that you get involved," he reminded me, with a laugh. Now I appreciate that it is the director's job to make the most compelling film he can, but full nudity was, I thought, going a bit far. After all, a reporter must keep his dignity. "I am not wearing one of those and that's the end of it," I said. I turned, perhaps a trifle petulantly, and stomped off into the forest behind one of the hunters. To be fair, Steve seemed resigned to my decision. Fighting for survival We filmed a wonderful sequence of the Awa hunters and their families setting up a little camp in the forest. They built a small fire and then roasted a tortoise and a porcupine that they had caught on it. The Awa live almost entirely on what they can find in the forest The hunters told me how the loggers were driving the animals out of the forest and explained that they targeted the same trees that the community relies on for fruits and berries. "This is our land and if they cut our trees we cannot survive," they told me, beating their chests in emphasis. After a couple of hours Steve said we had got enough and told David, the cameraman, to stop filming. We then began the trek back to the village. By the time we reached the little river that runs through the Awa territory we were all, hunters and BBC crew alike, drenched with sweat. The hunters indicated that they were about to take a dip. Now there is nothing I love more than swimming in the open air and I was hot and uncomfortable and minded to join our hosts. I checked the coast was clear. David was not even carrying the video camera and Steve was nowhere to be seen. I quickly stripped off and dived in too. The Awa seemed delighted that at last I was surrendering to the spirit of the hunt
The Awa seemed delighted that at last I was surrendering to the spirit of the hunt. Then I noticed one of the young hunters on the bank brandishing a piece of string. I guessed what was coming next. He dived into the water beside me, string in hand. The other hunters were doubled up with glee. I had a choice: fight him off or surrender to the joke. I tried - rather ineffectually - to push him away, but he was insistent. They had invited us into their village and let us film, I reasoned, and they clearly thought the young man's antics were hilarious. What is more, string is the Awa's traditional hunting wear. As the man, erm, "dressed" me, I looked over to the river bank. Steve had, as if by magic, materialised, and David was pointing the still camera he carried with him at me. I remembered it also shot video. "You won't use that in the film will you?" I asked plaintively from the water. "Don't worry," said Steve with a smirk, "it is a very wide shot. You look very small in frame." He and David collapsed with laughter. So much for the dignity of the reporter. How to listen to: From Our Own Correspondent BBC Radio 4: Saturdays, 1130. Second weekly edition on Thursdays, 1100 (some weeks only) BBC World Service: See programme schedules Download the podcast Listen on iPlayer Story by story at the programme website
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StumbleUpon What are these? E-mail this to a friend Printable versionOne in six Irish people "has never used the internet", according to a new wide-ranging study by the European Commission.
One in six Irish people "has never used the internet", according to a new wide-ranging study by the European Commission.
One in six of us has never used internet before
The figures put Ireland firmly behind Britain (6pc) in the European league of internet virgins but ahead of countries such as Italy (32pc), Poland (28pc) and Greece (33pc) when it comes to the number of citizens using the web.
Meanwhile, the European Commission says that 65pc of Ireland's population now uses the internet every single day, while 28pc of us now regularly use "cloud" services such as Dropbox or Google Drive.
The new figures come after a survey from Ipsos MRBI revealed that 60pc of Irish adults now have Facebook accounts, with three-quarters logging in to the service every day. Almost 28pc of us have Twitter accounts, while 24pc of Irish people now use the job networking service LinkedIn.
And most of us are now starting to use the internet to replace activities such as mobile phone texting, which is down nearly 20pc over the last year. The Ipsos/MRBI figures show that 38pc of Irish people have a Viber account, while 35pc of us now use Whatsapp.
Younger people are driving the change in communications here, with just one in five adults now using the picture messaging service Snapchat.
However, whereas just half of Whatsapp users use it every day, almost two-thirds of Snapchat account holders use that service daily.
And 150,000 of us now use the online dating service Tinder.
Meanwhile, the European Commission says Irish people are embracing cloud storage (21pc) to a larger extent than the EU average, while the numbers of those paying for cloud services are similar in Ireland (12pc) to the average across the EU (11pc).
The Government has promised to invest up to €500m of taxpayers' money into subsidised fibre broadband for rural parts of the country in a bid to improve internet access here.
Irish IndependentFactoring energy efficiency into a home's value
Under the SAVE (Sensible Accounting to Value Energy) Act, estimated energy-consumption expenses for a house would be included as a mandatory new underwriting factor.
Titled the SAVE (Sensible Accounting to Value Energy) Act, the bill is jointly sponsored by Sens. Michael Bennet, a Democrat from Colorado, and Johnny Isakson, a Republican from Georgia. Here's how it would work: Along with the traditional principal, interest, taxes and insurance (PITI) calculations, estimated energy-consumption expenses for the house would be included as a mandatory new underwriting factor.
A new bipartisan effort on Capitol Hill could change all this dramatically and for the first time put energy costs and savings squarely into standard mortgage underwriting equations. A bill introduced Oct. 20 would force the three mortgage giants to take account of energy costs in every loan they insure, guarantee or buy. It would also require them to instruct appraisers to adjust their property valuations upward when accurate data on energy efficiency savings are available.
Hardly ever. That's because the big three mortgage players — Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Administration, which together account for more than 90% of all loan volume — typically don't consider energy costs in underwriting. Yet utility bills can be larger annual cash drains than property taxes or insurance — key factors in standard underwriting — and can seriously affect a family's ability to afford a house.
Reporting from Washington — When you apply for a mortgage to buy a house, how often does the lender ask detailed questions about monthly energy costs or tell the appraiser to factor in the energy-efficiency features of the house when coming up with a value?
For most houses that have not undergone independent energy audits, loan officers would be required to pull data either from previous utility bills — in the case of refinancings — or from a Department of Energy survey database to arrive at an estimated cost. This would then be factored into the debt-to-income ratios that lenders already use to determine whether a borrower can afford the monthly costs of the mortgage. Allowable ratios probably would be adjusted to account for the new energy/utilities component.
For houses with significant energy-efficiency improvements already built in and documented with a professional audit such as a home energy rating system study, lenders would instruct appraisers to calculate the net present value of monthly energy savings — i.e., what that stream of future savings is worth today in terms of market price — and adjust the final appraised value accordingly. This higher valuation, in turn, could be used to justify a higher mortgage amount.
For example, Kateri Callahan, president of the Alliance to Save Energy, a nonprofit advocacy group and a major supporter of the new legislation, estimates that a typical new home that is 30% more energy efficient than a similar-sized average house will save about $20,000 in utility expenses over the life of a mortgage. Under the Bennet-Isakson bill, appraisers would be required to add those savings to the current market valuation of the house. In this instance, Callahan says, the increase in value would be about $10,000.
Dozens of housing, energy and environmental groups have endorsed the new legislation including appraisers, large home builders, the U.S. Green Building Council, the Natural Resources Defense Council, green-designated real estate brokers, the Institute for Market Transformation and the National Assn. of State Energy Officials, among others.
Business groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are backing the legislation because they see it as an employment generator that requires no federal budget outlays and no new taxes or programs. A joint study by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy and the Institute for Market Transformation estimated that 83,000 new jobs in the construction, renovation and manufacturing industries could be created by the legislation if the new underwriting rules were phased in over a period of years.
But you might ask: In a fractious, polarized Congress, could this bill actually make it through this session? The co-sponsors are optimistic and supporting groups say there is substantial bipartisan support — a rarity — for the idea in both the House and Senate.
In the meantime, for homeowners who think that their energy-efficiency and cost-saving improvements should be worth something, there is no rule barring you from asking a qualified appraiser or a lender to assess the added market value of those features. You can get your house rated and documented and pretty much insist they do precisely that.One of the women who was asked to leave the Dyke March, Eleanor Shoshany Anderson, couldn’t understand why she was kicked out of an event that billed itself as intersectional. “The Dyke March is supposed to be intersectional,” she said. “I don’t know why my identity is excluded from that. I felt that, as a Jew, I am not welcome here.”
She isn’t. Because though intersectionality cloaks itself in the garb of humanism, it takes a Manichaean view of life in which there can only be oppressors and oppressed. To be a Jewish dyke, let alone one who deigns to support Israel, is a categorical impossibility, oppressor and oppressed in the same person.
That’s why the march organizers and their sympathizers are now trying to smear Ms. Grauer as some sort of right-wing provocateur. Their evidence: She works at an organization called A Wider Bridge, which connects the L.G.B.T.Q. Jewish community in America with the L.G.B.T.Q. community in Israel. The organizers are also making the spurious claim that the Jewish star is necessarily a symbol of Zionist oppression — a breathtaking claim to anyone who has ever seen a picture of a Jew forced to wear a yellow one under the Nazis.
No, the truth is that it was no more and no less than anti-Semitism. Just read Ms. Shoshany Anderson’s account of her experience, which she posted on Facebook after being kicked out of the march.
“I wanted to be in public as a gay Jew of Persian and German heritage. Nothing more, nothing less. So I made a shirt that said ‘Proud Jewish Dyke’ and hoisted a big Jewish Pride flag — a rainbow flag with a Star of David in the center, the centuries-old symbol of the Jewish people,” she wrote. “During the picnic in the park, organizers in their official t-shirts began whispering and pointing at me and soon, a delegation came over, announcing they’d been sent by the organizers. They told me my choices were to roll up my Jewish Pride flag or leave. The Star of David makes it look too much like the Israeli flag, they said, and it triggers people and makes them feel unsafe. This was their complaint.”
She tried to explain that the star is the “ubiquitous symbol of Judaism,” and that she simply wanted “to be Jewish in public.” Then, she “tried using their language,” explaining “this is my intersection. I’m supposed to be able to celebrate it here.”
It didn’t work. Ms. Shoshany Anderson left sobbing. “I was thrown out of Dyke March for being Jewish,” she said. Just so.
For progressive American Jews, intersectionality forces a choice: Which side of your identity do you keep, and which side do you discard and revile? Do you side with the oppressed or with the oppressor?
That kind of choice would have been familiar to previous generations of left-wing Jews, particularly those in Europe, who felt the tug between their ethnic heritage and their “internationalist” ideological sympathies. But this is the United States. Here, progressives are supposed to be comfortable with the idea of hyphenated identities and overlapping ethnic, sexual and political affinities. Since when did a politics that celebrates choice — and choices — devolve into a requirement of being forced to choose?Google Calendar users now have the ability to add reminders from their desktop browsers that will follow them around to other Google services, thanks to a feature the company introduced Tuesday.
People can now set reminders in other services like Google Now, Keep and Inbox, and have them show up in their calendar, informing them of what they have to do during the day. Reminders are meant to help people take care of what they need to do, and will follow users around at the top of their calendar until completed.
It's a good feature for marking down something like, "pick up groceries," and then having that reminder follow users across many of the Google services that they use, from their computers to their smartphones and tablets.
[ Further reading: Microsoft Teams cheat sheet ]
The feature was first added to the Google Calendar mobile apps last year and is now making an appearance on the desktop.
Uniting that capability across platforms may help draw more people into using the system, which competes with a whole bunch of other offerings, including Microsoft-owned Wunderlist and Outlook, and Apple's Reminders app on the Mac and iOS.
The move is especially useful for Google's competitive chances against Microsoft Outlook, which has built-in support for reminders, alongside users' calendar and email information.CLOSE The guys at PackersNews.com give their predictions for Saturday night's game between the Minnesota Vikings and the Green Bay Packers. USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin
Green Bay Packers offensive tackle Justin McCray (64) blocks Minnesota Vikings defensive end Everson Griffen (97) during the third quarter of their game against the Minnesota Vikings Sunday, October 5, 2017 at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, Minn. The Minnesota Vikings beat the Green Bay Packers 23-10. MARK HOFFMAN/MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL (Photo: Mark Hoffman, Mark Hoffman)
In 2013, the Green Bay Packers and Minnesota Vikings had two of the NFL’s worst defenses.
The Packers finished that season well into the bottom third of the league in points allowed (No. 24), defensive passer rating (No. 30) and yards allowed (No. 25).
The Vikings were even worse, probably the worst in the league: No. 32 in points, No. 30 in passer rating and No. 31 in yards.
Since then, though, these defenses have taken decidedly different paths.
The Vikings have been one of the league’s best the last three years and this season probably rate with Jacksonville atop the NFL.
The Packers, on the other hand, have continued to mostly flounder despite general manager Ted Thompson spending his top draft pick on a defensive player (and six picks in the first two rounds total) every year since then. They’ve at best made it to the middle of the league in the major defensive categories, and for the last two years they’ve been as bad as anybody on that side of the ball.
So what happened? Why do the Vikings come into Lambeau Field on Saturday with a top defense and the NFC North title in hand, while the Packers continue to struggle just getting a couple stops a game?
The answer isn’t complicated.
First, Rick Spielman, the Vikings’ general manager, has simply blown away Ted Thompson when it comes to drafting defensive players over the past seven or eight years.
Second, the Vikings hired a top defensive mind as their head coach.
What sets Minnesota apart is its sheer quantity of good defensive players. After consulting three NFL scouts, the consensus was the Vikings have seven defenders who are either Pro Bowlers or only a notch below: Everson Griffen, Harrison Smith, Xavier Rhodes, Anthony Barr, Eric Kendricks, Linval Joseph and Danielle Hunter.
If you’re looking for Packers who belong on that list, you have Mike Daniels and the ascending Kenny Clark. That’s it, based on this season.
So how did the Vikings accumulate that talent? Spielman drafted six of the seven and signed the other (Joseph) as an unrestricted free agent.
Smith (No. 29 overall in 2012), Rhodes (No. 25 in ’13) and Barr (No. 9 in ’14) were first-round picks. Thompson had a shot at only one of them, Smith. The Packers’ GM picked one slot before the Vikings in ’12 and selected Nick Perry instead of the safety who has since been voted to two Pro Bowls.
But the other four Vikings standouts were on the board when Thompson picked.
Griffen, who would have been an outside linebacker in the Packers’ 3-4 defense, was a fourth-rounder (No. 100 overall) in ’10. That year Thompson picked defensive lineman Mike Neal in the second round (No. 56) and traded up for safety Morgan Burnett (No. 71) in the third.
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RELATED:Packers vs. Vikings: Predictions, 5 Things to Watch
Kendricks was a second-rounder (No. 45) in ’15. Thompson drafted Damarious Randall at No. 30, so he could have either picked Kendricks there or traded back, gained an extra pick, and still gotten him.
And Hunter was a third-rounder (No. 88 overall), also in ’15. Thompson drafted Quinten Rollins at No. 60 that year.
The defensive talent gap between these teams is stunning, and give all the credit to Spielman. He has hit on pick after pick over the last several years, whereas Thompson has hit only twice since 2010, on Daniels (fourth round) in 2012 and Clark (first round ’16).
Signing Joseph in ’14 also was a great use of free agency. The New York Giants thought they had enough talent on their defensive line to let Joseph walk, and Spielman ponied up $6.25 million a year for five years. It worked out so well the GM extended Joseph’s deal last August, adding four years and $50 million in new money, including $11.15 fully guaranteed.
Teams have wasted a lot of money in free agency over the years. But Joseph is proof there are good signings to be had.
Spielman also committed to that side of the ball by hiring Mike Zimmer as coach in ’14 after the defense had bottomed out in ’13. That meant the Vikings would have one of the league’s best defensive minds as long as he’s coach.
Zimmer has been running NFL defenses since 2000, and in those 18 seasons (which includes this one) he has ranked in the top 10 in points allowed in almost half those years (eight) and in yards exactly half (nine).
By comparison, Packers coordinator Dom Capers has run an NFL defense for 24 seasons, or six years more than Zimmer. He has the same number of top-10 finishes in points (eight) as Zimmer and two fewer in yards (seven).
It’s more than fair to say that Thompson’s defensive drafting since winning the Super Bowl in the 2010 season is a big black mark on his record. He’s as draft-oriented a GM as there is in the league, so that’s on him.
Spielman has had some drafting advantages – Thompson has picked no higher than No. 21 overall since 2010, whereas Spielman has picked in the top 12 four times in that span. But that doesn’t account for the huge difference in defensive talent. Spielman simply has picked much better players that were available to both teams.
But for all the Vikings have done for building a first-rate defense, it bears pointing out that you can't say the same for the position that matters above all, quarterback.
While Thompson replaced Brett Favre with another sure-fire Pro Football Hall of Famer in Aaron Rodgers, the Vikings have utterly failed at manning the game’s most important position. If you don’t get that right, there’s a really good chance the rest won’t matter.
Ever since Daunte Culpepper's career nosedived in 2005 with Randy Moss' departure and later a severe knee injury, the Vikings have come up short at quarterback because of mistakes of commission and omission.
Spielman drafted Christian Ponder at No. 12 overall in 2011; passed on Russell Wilson with the third pick of the third round in 2012 in favor of cornerback Josh Robinson; traded up for Teddy Bridgewater at No. 32 in ’14 with Jimmy Garoppolo still on the board; and traded first- and fourth-round picks for broken-down Sam Bradford last year.
Spielman made a nice move signing Case Keenum as a backup last offseason, and Keenum has rewarded him (9-3 record as a starter, 98.9 rating). But he’s not the answer, either. If the Vikings don’t win the Super Bowl this season – and I’m betting strongly against them – it’ll be because of their quarterback.
Still, kudos to Spielman. He caught the Packers this year, and he did it the old-fashioned way, via the draft. That’s supposed to be Thompson’s thing.Xiaomi showed off the first pictures of its new Redmi 5 and Redmi 5 Plus earlier this week, and now the smartphones have been revealed in full. Redmi is Xiaomi's brand that attempts to deliver solid products at extremely low prices; the new devices follow the Redmi 4 and Redmi Note 4, which became the two most popular phones in India this year.
As was apparent from the pictures, the Redmi 5 and 5 Plus bring a very 2017-style 18:9 design to the Redmi line, with rounded corners and thin bezels on the top and bottom of the screen. Around the back there's a fingerprint sensor and a single camera, and the phone's body is made from aluminium. It comes in blue, pink, gold, and black.
Here are the rest of the specs:
Qualcomm Snapdragon 450 processor for Redmi 5, Snapdragon 625 for Redmi 5 Plus
5.7-inch 18:9 “HD+” LCD for Redmi 5, 5.99-inch 18:9 “Full HD+” for Redmi 5 Plus
2 or 3GB of RAM for Redmi 5, 3 or 4GB for Redmi 5 Plus
3300mAh battery for Redmi 5, 4000mAh for Redmi 5 Plus
16 or 32GB of storage for Redmi 5, 32GB or 64GB for Redmi 5 Plus
Unspecified camera sensor with 1.25-micron pixels
Selfie light
Micro USB charging
The Redmi 5 starts at 799 yuan (about $120) for the 2GB RAM and 16GB storage model, with 899 yuan (~$135) getting you 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage. The 5 Plus starts at 999 yuan (~$150) for the 3GB/32GB model, with a 4GB/64GB variant selling for 1299 yuan (~$180).
These are definitely inexpensive phones by global standards, then, with the 5 Plus sounding like particularly good value. The Snapdragon 625 is a solid processor with great power efficiency, especially when paired with such a large battery, and an 18:9 full-HD display is impressive at this price point. The phones have only been announced for China so far and will be available on December 12th.If there’s one adjective that’s discussed pretty much ad-nauseam when it comes to women, it’s femininity. Judging by how often it’s discussed, it’s easily the most sought-after quality after beauty. To most men, feminity is like the proverbial oasis in a dry desert. Feminity is what the Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León would’ve been looking for if he hadn’t been looking for the fountain of youth.
But whereas beauty is easily understood and needs no further explanation (you’re either attracted to the woman or not), feminity is more opaque and complicated.
As an Eastern European guy, I always considered American (or foreign-born Americanized) women to be somehow “different,” and, as a result, mostly dated Eastern European and Latin American women (my Eastern European and Latin American friends in New York did the same thing).
While I couldn’t verbalize it at that time, one of the reasons I went for non-Americanized women over Americanized women was because the former were more feminine than the latter.
So, what exactly is femininity? A feminine woman implicitly understands the existence of polarity when it comes to her own self-actualization and when dealing with other people (both men and women). She intrinsically knows that men and women are different and that gender is a biological—not a societal—construct.
Sometimes guys are talking about feminity, but what they are actually referring to is “girlyness.” Thus, if a woman isn’t especially girly, then they don’t consider her to be feminine. Conversely, if a woman is tough and “ball-busting,” she’s considered masculine.
But that’s a wrong way of looking at it. There are plenty of women who are tough and ball-busting, but are still extremely feminine.
For instance, Eastern European women are, for the most part, very feminine, but not all of them are girly girls who uncontrollably giggle at everything you say. I’ve met plenty of women who are tough and goal-oriented, but they still behave according to the implicit rules of gender relations, making them very feminine.
Vulnerability
Feminity is also about being secure and not ashamed of being the “weaker” sex. It’s being secure and comfortable with the desire to submit to a stronger man. It’s a form of vulnerability. If a woman isn’t comfortable with all that; if she believes that men and women are equal in all ways—including biologically and psychologically—if she believes that there’s no such thing as gender and gender roles, then there’s no more feminity and masculinity.
Long ago, when I lived in San Francisco Bay Area, I went out with an American girl who worked in the tech industry. It was our first date. She was smart, interesting and very ambitious. We had a lot of fun. I definitely liked her.
But the most memorable part wasn’t the actual date, but what happened right after. As we were leaving the restaurant, I opened the restaurant’s door to let her out. It’s something that I do out of courtesy for both women and men.
I immediately felt something was off. While she didn’t say anything, I could tell she felt uncomfortable not having to open the door herself. It was as though I intruded on her personal space and invaded her comfort zone.
Now, I’m not one of those super chivalrous guys who always opens doors for women. I don’t run around and go out of my way to do it. I do it every now and then. But I feel there’s something wrong when you open the door for a woman and she immediately becomes uncomfortable as though you’ve just deprived all her hard-won freedoms.
A feminine woman has no problems letting the man take the lead, whether it’s opening the door or letting him seduce her—in fact, she expects nothing less. I don’t know any Latin American or Eastern European women who would suddenly freeze and become uncomfortable when a man is trying to be chivalrous.
Polarity
Feminine women naturally communicate differently with men than women who are raised in a culture that lacks clearly defined gender roles. American dating is about having endless, politically-correct conversations that span all kinds of (widely regurgitated) topics. These conversations more resemble televised debates than intimate flirting. The reason that happens is because there’s no gender polarity.
The more feminine the woman, the stronger her desire for polarity, and, consequently, the more she desires a masculine guy. The stronger the polarity, the less you need to employ “fillers” of useless conversation to pass the time and fish for attraction. Of course, there’s a catch: it requires the man to be authentic with his desires and masculinity and not be fake by trying to be someone that he’s clearly not.
Moreover, a feminine woman is actually comfortable being a feminine woman. She views feminity as a valuable asset that’s duly part of who she’s, an asset that’s meant to be celebrated and leveraged instead of a liability that should be downplayed and even compensated for. She’s glad that she was born a woman and not a man.
I feel that feminity is one of the greatest gifts that a woman can bestow to the world. When I began traveling, I started to experience amazing connections and “chemistry” with women, connections that I’ve almost never experienced during my life in America. It’s as though my dating life went from being black and white to an unlimited palette of bright and exciting colors.
But the world is rapidly changing. Cultures are becoming increasingly genderless. In places where traditional relationships are the norm, women are being shamed for their feminine behavior instead of appreciated and celebrated for it. And I’m afraid that without feminity, amazing things like “chemistry” between two human beings will soon be relegated to the dustbin of history.
Interested in building your own passive, location-independent business? Want to avoid needless trial and error? Want to start off on the right foot under proper guidance?
Check out the Maverick Mentorship program. It has helped 100s of guys just like yourself to build their own business. Click here to learn moreAltcoin News The ICO platform search: Coinprism
As our search narrows, leaders emerge…
When we last left off, we had established that in our search for the perfect ICO platform we’ve encountered our fair share of dead ends and dubious options. While we are confident we can launch this project off of our back porch if need be it stands to reason we’d want to give our baby every possible advantage we can find. So while we are okay with most of the options that are out there one in particular has us feeling as if we’ve hit pay dirt.
Running off of the “Open Assets” protocol, Coinprism utilizes colored coins to create extremely useful digital tokens and tools. While other choices may have fully fleshed out markets and platforms to interact with Coinprism still edges out the competition in our eyes for a number of reasons:
Low cost – the price of creating a new token is the same price as sending a standard Bitcoin transaction (about 0.40 USD)
Ease of use – the creation tool is about as complicated as sending a transaction to yourself
Reliability – the entire platform runs on and is secured by the actual Bitcoin blockchain
Scalability – reissuing tokens of the same name or sending rewards to token holders is again, as simple and cost effective as sending a single transaction
Functionality – colored coins will fit into Coinprism’s wallet right alongside BTC, so you won’t need to switch back and forth (this comes in handy when doling out rewards to token holders)
Another factor to consider is the quality and engagement one gets when contacting their customer service department. The rep that was helping me, Flavien, was one of the most helpful I’ve encountered in this space. Capable of not only answering all my questions but of anticipating what my next question would be and clarifying without the need for endless back and forth. Say what you want about the wonders of automation, a little quality human capital still goes a long way and Flavien did wonders for Coinprism’s image.
So while we still have not completely settled on Coinprism as our final choice, they are clearly the front runners for the time being.
We also have plans to research a number of other options, not the least of which is the new upstart positioning itself to brush aside NXT – NeXT Horizons (you can expect an article covering that fascinating development in the near future). Given Jeff Garzik’s recent accusations an NXT platform without the proposed problems the current version of NXT has would make for a potentially attractive offering.
For now Coinprism, with it’s open and friendly architecture has managed to tug on our heart strings in just the right way. So while I remain open to the idea that there is perhaps something better out there I am having a hard time imagining what qualities it could possibly have that would do so. Coinprism is essentially free and does everything you could hope for (except perhaps provide an open marketplace to exchange their colored tokens but a little birdy told me that, that is soon to change).
So if like us you are searching for the perfect platform from which to launch your audacious dreams I highly reccomend taking a peak at Coin Prism because if you can find anything better… please contact me immediately and I will give it a test drive.
Until then stay tuned for my coverage of NeXT Horizon and as always let us know what you think in the comments.
Featured Image: CanStockPhotoA group of former Major League Baseball players, including David Ortiz, announced on Wednesday the formation of a new private equity firm to invest in baseball-specific companies.
Hall of Famers Nolan Ryan and Barry Larkin, along with Ortiz, Torii Hunter and Vernon Wells are the principal financial backers of the firm, called Dugout Ventures.
The firm is the latest in a trend of athletes investing in companies. Carmelo Anthony founded Melo7 Tech Partners in 2013, and Kobe Bryant announced a $100 million venture capital firm in August.
The newly retired David Ortiz is part of a group of former MLB players who have formed a new private equity firm to invest in baseball-specific companies. Maddie Meyer/Getty Images
Dugout Ventures has already had its hand in two baseball-related brands. The company financed protection company EvoShield before it was sold to Amer Sports in October and also invested in bat company Marucci.
"Like Warren Buffett says, 'it's not what you know, but how realistic you are about what you don't know," Ortiz said in a statement. "We know baseball. But we plan on finding the best people in the business to help us on what we don't know."
In addition to the retired players' money, Dugout Ventures is inviting investors to finance up to $50 million in a fund of the company's investments.
Players aren't the only ones investing in sports; teams are as well. The Los Angeles Dodgers, for example, have two "accelerator" programs designed to boost young companies through financial backing.Sen. Cory Booker Cory Anthony BookerWoman to undecided Biden: 'Just say yes' to 2020 bid Poll shows Biden leads Democrats vying for 2020 nomination Why not an 'Organic' Green New Deal? MORE (D-N.J.) will introduce a bill to remove Confederate statues from the Capitol following the violence at a white nationalist rally in Virginia.
"I will be introducing a bill to remove Confederate statues from the US Capitol building," he said on Twitter late Wednesday night.
Booker, one of three African-Americans currently serving in the Senate, added that removing the roughly 12 Confederate statues would be "just one step. We have much work to do."
I will be introducing a bill to remove Confederate statues from the US Capitol building. This is just one step. We have much work to do. — Cory Booker (@CoryBooker) August 16, 2017
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A white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., over the weekend began as a protest against the Charlottesville City Council’s decision to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.
But since the rally turned violent and led to the death of one counterprotester, other localities have moved to take down Confederate statues — and some lawmakers think the Capitol should consider following suit.
Booker didn't lay out a timeline for when he would introduce the legislation, which would need 60 votes to pass the upper chamber. The Senate is scheduled to return to Washington in early September.
Currently only states have the power to replace statues in the National Statuary Hall Collection.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer Charles (Chuck) Ellis SchumerBrady gun control group gets rebranding Brennan fires back at'selfish' Trump over Harry Reid criticism Trump rips Harry Reid for 'failed career' after ex-Dem leader slams him in interview MORE (D-N.Y.) threw his support behind Booker's forthcoming legislation, saying Democrats should "work towards the goal" of the bill while also continuing to "denounce and resist President Trump for his reprehensible actions.”
" |
layer, the movie layer, show through.
Seth’s tutorial ended there. I was left with the task of figuring out how to do the same thing using multiple layers and masks.
I discovered that by alternating the cairoaffineblending transition, masks and the alphaxor transition, it is possible to have several layers of movies show through each other from bottom to top, as you can see below. However, you do need an extra mask layer, what we you could call a master mask, a mask that is the sum of all the other masks combined. You alphaxor the master mask with the top, background layer.
You then alphaxor all the combined lower layers with the top two levels and all the movies show thorugh-
And here’s the proof it works:
Making it Prettier
To make you video look better, you may want to resize your clips so you don’t get black areas from videos that use a panorama “letterbox” format showing through your masks. To resize your videos, right click on the clip you want to modify, and choose Add Effect > Crop and transform > Crop, scale and position. Adjust the sliders until you get the size and positioning you need.
You’ll also have to fiddle with the clips’ audio tracks, or you’ll have this horrible cacophony of mixed sound tracks coming out of your loudspeakers. Not nice.
Another enhancement would be to use animated masks, masks that move around or zoom in or out. Be careful though: Kdenlive can get overwhelmed and will probably become sluggish and unresponsive if you overdo it.
Pros
When you google for masking and creating “windows” in films in Kdenlive, your first result is a tutorial that requires you to create a mask and then copy it to specific directory so that Kdenlive can pick it up as a Luma transition, that is, you are required to play with the underlying configuration of Kdenlive to get what you want. This, I think, is not an elegant solution. Don’t get me wrong: the author did a terrific job figuring out how to hack this problem back in 2011. Fortunately, Kdenlive has moved on and copying files to system directories using sudo is not necessary any more.
With the technique described above, you can create a random number of masks (or at least as many as Kdenlive can handle before crashing) with the tools provided from within Kdenlive.
Cons
One of the problems with this solution is that the “camera” doesn’t follow the “action”. If the players move out of shot, you are left looking at an empty rectangle. You could, of course jiggle the clips around using the Pan and Zoom effect, which is a keyframeable. This means you can set a keyframe, move down the timeline, move the clip somewhere else (framing another character in the window, for example), set that point in the timeline as another keyframe, and Kdenlive will interpolate all the intermediate frames making the panning nice and smooth. However, this is a chore and extremely easy to get wrong.
It would be much more interesting if there were a plugin for an effect that would allow you to select certain things to be followed around. Interestingly, the technology to “follow” a pattern (mostly used for faces) exists within Kdenlive. Check out the Auto Mask, Face Detection and Face Blur effects. They all work in a similar way: by latching on to certain signature shapes within the film and moving a mask with a filter around with them. A similar effect could be used to move the whole clip around to automatically follow, say, a character. I, for one, am putting this on my personal Kdenlive wishlist.
Another problem is that with multiple tracks, masks and transitions, Kdenlive starts to get sluggish quickly. It is impractical to live-preview the project, because replay is choppy, and there is a high chance Kdenlive will crash while editing or rendering. The advice here is to save often!
But the biggest problem I have with this solution is that it is far from intuitive, and it is made even less intuitive by the fact that, as with many other complex GNU/Linux-based applications, the documentation is not up to par.
The cairoaffineblend transition is not even listed in the wiki’s Transitions page and the alphaxor page contains no explanation to speak of, and, of course, no examples. It just redirects the reader to a page belonging to another project that, again, contains no explanation.
I get it: documenting is a boring and an unthankful job, that everybody disparages when it s done wrong, but nobody seems to notice when it is done right. Unfortunately, if an application for an end user is unusable due to the lack of documentation, it is not going to gain any traction within the field it is aimed at.
Conclusion
The more recent version of Kdenlive is a very capable piece of software, marred by the lack of documentation. This is something the developers should address before the app becomes even more complex.
Another thing to remember is that Kdenlive can also be unstable when juggling multiple clips, effects and transitions — as do most MLT-based editors for some reason, so press [Ctrl] + [S] for quick saves often!
Having said that, the new Kdenlive is very feature-rich indeed and I was pleasantly surprised that it allowed me to solve the challenge with the default tools that come with the app, without having to tinker with special settings, edit configuration files, or patching the source code.
I don’t know whether Kdenlive is in the same league as similar, enterprise-grade proprietary editors, mainly because my experience with the latter is limited (if you, dear reader, have more insight on the matter, please share in the comments), but I do know that the latest versions Kdenlive have pushed the limits of what you are able to achieve way back with regards to earlier releases.
Next up: The 3 Window Challenge using Natron!
The third instalment is ready: Video editing with Blender: Everything and the kitchen sink.
Cover Image: Facade by Michael Gaida for Pixabay.comDES MOINES, Iowa — Scott Walker’s message to conservatives here on Saturday: “Go big and go bold.”
The Wisconsin governor, a Republican who is thinking about running for president in 2016, used a 20-minute speech before activists at the Iowa Freedom Summit to portray himself as an ordinary guy who has a record of getting conservative results in a purple state.
Discussing the liberal protests and the unsuccessful recall effort against him in 2012, Walker said his victory “sends a powerful message to Republicans in Washington and around the country — if you’re not afraid to go big and go bold, you can actually get results. And if you get the job done, the voters will actually stand up with you.”
“Maybe that’s why I won the race for governor three times in the last four years,” Walker boasted. “Three times in a state that hasn’t gone Republican for president since I was in high school more than 30 years ago. How about that?”
Walker, wearing a tie and dress shirt with his sleeves rolled up, talked about the number of threats made against his wife and children during the protests from the public sector unions. One threat “that bothered me the most,” Walker told the audience, was a person who said they would “gut my wife like a deer.”
“Another time a protester sent a threat directly to my wife that said if she didn’t do something to stop me, I would be the first Wisconsin governor ever assassinated,” Walker said to audible gasps in the crowd.
Walker talked up what he considers his accomplishments in Wisconsin. “A lot people know about the protests and the recall, but they don’t know about the comprehensive, common sense agenda that we’ve enacted in our state,” he told the crowd.
Walker pointed out how Wisconsin defunded Planned Parenthood, revoked regulations on small businesses, enacted lawsuit reform, pushed through concealed carry legislation and implemented voter ID laws.
During his remarks, Walker focused much on his biography, telling the crowd that he knows how to get discounts on clothes at Kohls and how he flipped burgers at McDonalds to help pay for college.
“Like many of you here, I grew up in a small town,” he said. “My dad was a preacher at a local church. My mom was a part time secretary who raised my bother and I.”
Walker has said he won’t make a decision about a presidential campaign until after the budget process in Wisconsin, which means an announcement probably won’t come until sometime early this summer.
But in the meantime, Walker’s inner circle is busy working to put in place the necessary infrastructure in the probable case he pulls the trigger.
Walker, in his speech, stressed his ties to Iowa, telling the audience he went to school in the state until the third grade, when his dad took a job in Wisconsin.
He also hinted that this won’t be his last trip to the early nominating state.
“I’m pleased to be here in Iowa today,” he said. “I’m going to come back many more times in the future.”
Follow Alex on TwitterMedia playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Eyewitness Bevan Lambess told TVNZ's reporter Sarah Batley how he watched as "the whole basket started to go up in flames"
Eleven people have died in a hot-air balloon crash near the town of Carterton in New Zealand.
Police and witnesses say the balloon struck power lines and burst into flames, before plunging to the ground.
The incident occurred in the Wairarapa region, about 80km (50 miles) north-east of the capital Wellington - an area that is popular with balloonists.
Five couples from the Wellington area were on board, plus the pilot. Nobody survived.
Image caption Some of the bereaved visited the site of New Zealand's worst air disaster since 1979
The crash happened on farmland at Clareville, near Carterton, on New Zealand's North Island.
"We are deeply sorry to learn of this tragic accident and our hearts go out to those who are now mourning the loss of life," Transport Minister Gerry Brownlee said according to Associated Press news agency.
An investigation by New Zealand's Transport Accident Investigation Commission is under way.
'10m of flames'
Eyewitness Bevan Lambess, who was driving by, told Reuters news agency: "The wicker basket was on fire and I saw something holding it down - it looked like ropes but I got closer and it was actually the top (electric) power line that was holding the basket down.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Superintendent Mike Rusbatch from Wellington Police called the crash "a tragedy"
"It probably still would have been 15m in the air. I slowed down and then the whole basket started to go up in flames."
A police commander, Mike Rusbatch, said two people appeared to have jumped from the basket of the balloon as it came down.
Another witness, David McKinley, told the state broadcaster TVNZ he noticed part of the basket was on fire when it passed over his garden.
"It was just above the trees when I first saw it. It looked like he tried to raise it a bit higher. All of a sudden there was just 10m of flames.
"It was like a rocket coming down," he said.
The incident occurred in bright, clear conditions with little wind.
The only victim publicly identified so far is the pilot and balloon owner, Lance Hopping, reported AP.
He was considered an experienced and safety-conscious pilot who acted as safety officer for the Balloons over Wairarapa annual event - with organiser Jonathan Hooker quoted as saying he had more than 10,000 hours of commercial ballooning experience.
The incident is New Zealand's worst air disaster since 1979, when an Air New Zealand sightseeing flight crashed into Mt Erebus in Antarctica, killing all 257 passengers on board.(Reuters) - U.S. health regulators on Wednesday approved Amgen Inc’s Corlanor to treat patients with chronic heart failure, giving the world’s largest biotechnology company its first cardiovascular product.
An Amgen sign is seen at the company's office in South San Francisco, California, October 21, 2013. REUTERS/Robert Galbraith
The Food and Drug Administration approved the use of Corlanor (ivabradine) on top of current standard of care beta blockers for patients whose symptoms of heart failure are stable and who have a normal heartbeat and a resting heart rate of at least 70 beats per minute.
Chronic heart failure is a common and debilitating condition in which the heart is unable to pump enough blood throughout the body.
“We see in the realm of a million patients in the U.S. who would be in this class and might have a heart rate in the range,” Amgen’s research chief, Sean Harper, said in an interview.
Amgen acquired U.S. commercial rights to Corlanor from French drugmaker Servier, which sells the medicine in Europe.
RBC Capital Markets analyst Michael Yee said that long term Corlanor could become a $500 million a year drug for Amgen.
Amgen shares rose 1.3 percent in extended trading following the FDA announcement.
In a large clinical trial comparing Corlanor with a placebo, the drug significantly reduced the risk of rehospitalization, a common and costly event associated with chronic heart failure.
Corlanor decreases the heart rate by blocking a function of the heart’s natural pacemaker cells. Heart failure patients tend to have an increased heart rate that can prove harmful over time as the muscle works to compensate for diminished pumping ability.
“Heart failure is a leading cause of death and disability in adults,” Norman Stockbridge, director of the FDA’s Division of Cardiovascular and Renal Products, said in a statement. “Corlanor... represents the first approved product in this drug class.”
The FDA decision came after a delay following a request for additional clinical data from Amgen.
The most common side effects observed in clinical trial subjects were excessive slowing of the heart rate, high blood pressure, atrial fibrillation, and temporary vision disturbance. Corlanor will be dispensed with a patient medication guide with safety information and instructions for its use, the FDA said.
While Corlanor marks Amgen’s entry into cardiovascular medicine, the company is awaiting an approval decision on a much more high profile heart drug with multibillion-dollar sales potential. An FDA decision is expected by late August on Amgen’s injectable cholesterol fighter Repatha (evolocumab) from a promising new class of drugs called PCSK9 inhibitors.Fabrice Coffrini, AFP | Campaigners for a universal basic income pose with eight million five-cent coins in a bank vault in Basel, Switzerland.
In a global first, Switzerland holds a referendum on Sunday on a radical proposal to provide the entire population with an unconditional, basic income designed to fight poverty, inequality and provide "a dignified" existence to all.
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Driven by a popular initiative that collected the requisite 100,000 signatures, the universal basic income (UBI) aims to revamp Switzerland's welfare state by streamlining it into a single monthly payment to each resident.
Unlike unemployment benefits, the payment would be guaranteed and with no strings attached, leaving people free to choose between continuing to work (and thereby earn more money) or opt for a life of leisure.
The idea is controversial, to say the least. The Swiss government and nearly all the country's political parties have urged voters to reject the initiative advice 72 percent are inclined to follow, according to the latest poll.
But supporters of the initiative have already begun mobilising, raising enough money to showcase the idea by paying 2,500 Swiss francs (2,250 euros) a month for a year to a person chosen in a draw.
The winner, Carole, hailed her luck in a YouTube video, saying she planned to go back to school.
"It is an enormous relief to know I can study and have my income taken care of," she said.
UBI supporters would like all Swiss citizens to have the same support, as well as foreigners who have been legal residents for at least five years.
'Marxist dream'?
Critics have slammed the initiative as "a Marxist dream", warning of sky-high costs and people quitting their jobs in droves.
"If you pay people to do nothing, they will do nothing," Charles Wyplosz, economics professor at the Geneva Graduate Institute, told AFP.
Proponents reject that, arguing people naturally want to be productive, and a basic income would simply provide them with more flexibility to choose the activities they find most valuable.
"For centuries this has been considered a utopia, but today it has not only become possible, but indispensible," Ralph Kundig, one of the lead campaigners, told AFP.
Sunday's vote will be on principle only, with the details of the amounts to be paid and financing to be determined later, if the initiative passes.
Discussions have centred around 2,500 francs a month per adult, and 625 francs per child.
That may sound like a lot, but it is barely enough to get by in one of the world's priciest nations leaving plenty of incentive to work, campaigners say.
Those with jobs would also receive the basic income, but would see their salaries deducted by the same amount, in a move campaigners say would smooth out inequalities.
Authorities have estimated an additional 25 billion francs would be needed annually to cover the costs, requiring deep spending cuts or significant tax hikes.
Supporters of the initiative however suggest the UBI could replace a range of other expensive social assistance programmes and could be easily financed through slight increases in sales tax or through a small fee on electronic transactions.
'Different kind of life'
Pascale Eberle, a 55-year-old nurse, said she planned to vote in favour.
"We have to think about our children and grandchildren, and give them the chance at a different kind of life," she told AFP.
The idea of a basic income has been bouncing around in more radical circles for centuries, but it has recently gained more mainstream traction.
Concrete projects to introduce some variation of the UBI, albeit at a lower level than what is being discussed in Switzerland, are under way at local and regional levels in a range of countries.
Finland is planning to trial a universal basic income involving less money than proposed by Switzerland and with conditions attached in 2017. The Dutch city of Utrecht is also planning a similar experiment.
International Labour Organization chief Guy Ryder said he expected interest in the issue to swell, as technological advances make more and more jobs obsolete, and a growing number of people remain stuck in poverty despite holding a job.
"We are going to have to find ways of distributing national income which are not directly related to the work that we do," he said.
Last month, campaigners rolled out a massive, 8,115-square-metre (87,350-square-foot) poster in Geneva asking: "What would you do if your income were taken care of?"
Since then, people have been covering billboards across Switzerland with their answers, including: "Study quantum physics," and "Make a feature film".
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)The Pentagon plans to add the Defense Clandestine Service to the nation’s Intelligence Community (IC). This is being billed as an advance in national security but it shapes up as a costly bureaucratic turf war that could leave the nation less secure.
The current IC boasts 17 member agencies:
Air Force Intelligence
Army Intelligence
Central Intelligence Agency
Coast Guard Intelligence
Defense Intelligence Agency
Department of Energy
Department of Homeland Security
Department of State
Department of the Treasury
Drug Enforcement Administration
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Marine Corps Intelligence
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
National Reconnaissance Office
National Security Agency
Navy Intelligence
Office of the Director of National Intelligence
The Pentagon now aims to transform the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) into a network that rivals the Central Intelligence Agency in size but “rivals” has a broader meaning. An intelligence “community” does not mean that all members get along. The British Guardian noted the “turf wars” between the CIA and DIA, and such wars are not a new development.
All bureaucracies guard their territory and seek to expand it, but such expansion carries no guarantee of enhanced performance. In The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, Lawrence Wright noted the ferocity of the conflict between the CIA and FBI. They and all other U.S. spy agencies were unable to prevent a terrorist group based in caves in Afghanistan from taking down the World Trade Center. Neither was the Intelligence Community effective in the recent attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya.
The great need is for better counterintelligence. FBI counterintelligence specialist Robert Hanssen spied effectively for the USSR. So did CIA counterintelligence officer Aldrich Ames. Naval Intelligence was unable to keep John Walker from handing reams of classified material to the Soviets. More recently, Army Intelligence was unable to prevent Lt. Nidal Hasan, an acknowledged jihadist, from killing 13 at Fort Hood, more than perished in the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993.
A new spy agency is not a remedy for such deadly lapses and carries no guarantee of enhanced security. On the other hand, the bigger-is-better approach will certainly increase government spending, an irresponsible act in a nation marching toward a fiscal cliff.Falling in—and falling out—with Hemingway.
As a young man of a certain kind, I read a lot of Hemingway growing up. My sixteen-year-old self, full of angst and emo aches, found a kindred spirit in Jake Barnes, even if Jake’s brooding was much deeper, darker, and more significant than my own. The northern Michigan of the Nick Adams stories bore a passing resemblance to the Tahoe Basin, where I grew up, and my earliest attempts at creative work were pale imitations of “The End of Something” and “The Three-Day Blow.” The Old Man and the Sea bored me to video games the first time I tried it, but that didn’t stop me from extolling Santiago’s badassness at the dinner table.
This was pre-9/11 America, in a suburban, white-collar community far removed from battle or turmoil. My parents were both children of World War II veterans, and both had protested the Vietnam War; as a result, my brother and I had been raised with a healthy respect for the military, mixed with a healthy skepticism toward the application of military force. While my Hemingway obsession did confuse my mom a bit, she later told me she figured at least it wasn’t drugs, or French philosophy.
I started calling him Hem or Ernie in conversation, as if we were old friends. His pithy quotes, laden with macho pseudo-philosophy, infiltrated my AIM away messages and school assignments. “A man can be destroyed but not defeated.” “Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.” “The only thing that could spoil a day was people.” Et cetera. Having taken careful note of how his early career as a journalist shaped his prose, I joined the school paper and began saying things like “Fuck adjectives” and “Sit down at the computer and bleed” and “This article about the powderpuff game needs to be truer.”
My favorite Hemingway biography carried the title A Life Without Consequences. At the time, that seemed like a thing to aspire to.
*
It’s embarrassing to admit now, but For Whom the Bell Tolls had a lot to do with my joining the Army ROTC program in college. I wrote my history thesis on the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, the American volunteers who fought Franco and fascism in Spain over our government’s objections. The dark, awful romance of it all was like a siren song—the fact that they’d been dismissed as “premature antifascists,” like it was a bad thing, became a common rant of mine during beer-pong games. We were in the Bush era now: my worldview was being shaped by politicians who’d spent their youths doing everything they could to avoid military service, but who couldn’t be more eager to send me and my peers into combat. For freedom, they said. But it felt like something else to me. At the beer-pong table, I began to replace my talk of premature antifascists with a rant about chicken hawks.
One weekend in early 2003, my roommate traveled to DC to protest the looming invasion of Iraq. I went to Fort Jackson, South Carolina, for a ROTC field-training exercise held in a swamp. Hemingway’s books stayed with me during all of this, though I referred to him as Papa now, because I’d learned the power of reverence. I held deep misgivings about the Iraq invasion. Preemptive war (even ironically reactionary preemptive war) seemed counter to our republic’s spirit, somehow, or at least to its idealized spirit. The Abraham Lincoln Brigade had reacted to a coup, to defend an idea. Whatever Iraq was going to be, it was never going to be that.
Was Iraq inevitable? Of course not. But as angry debates about yellowcake and weapons of mass destruction filled our television screens, it sure looked that way. I could leave ROTC—my parents offered to find a way to pay back the scholarship money, if that’s what I wanted to do. I told them I wasn’t even thinking like that, but I was, I was thinking like that a lot. Even so, history was happening, and I knew that the Hemingways of the world—and the Robert Jordans, the Jake Barneses, the Nick Adamses—didn’t jeer at history. They weren’t interested in something as small and self-involved as moral purity, not when it came time to act. They participated in history, or at least they tried.
I was proud of my thesis on the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Before I turned in the final version, I added an epigraph from For Whom the Bell Tolls: “Today is only one day in all the days that will ever be. But what will happen in all the other days that ever come can depend on what you do today.”
I wanted to believe that. More specifically, I wanted to live a life in service of that. The others did, too. So we went.
Like many of those young men who’d read a lot of Hemingway growing up, I turned on him. I broadened my reading horizons, for one, and discovered he owed more to Crane, Stein, Tolstoy, and others than he’d liked to betray. The spare style so associated with him was less an invention than it was a repurposing—obvious to even a fledgling literary scholar, perhaps, but not to young men swept up in mythos.
Moreover, I was encountering a number of other Hemingway disciples. My complex, I saw, wasn’t special. Worse, it didn’t even signify intelligence. Some of the other professed devotees were actually quite stupid: they’d read The Sun Also Rises as a book about partying and Men Without Women as a book about men without women.
There were more corporeal and immediate reasons for my Hemingway reevaluation, too. I was an Army officer now, in charge of a scout platoon of thirty soldiers preparing to deploy to Iraq. I was finding that the leadership approaches of Hemingway’s protagonists—what with their seriousness and self-seriousness, their righteousness and self-righteousness—didn’t work in my new world. I needed to be open with my men, genuine, even funny sometimes. And the circumstances of how Hemingway had become a war hero, wounded by mortars delivering cigarettes and chocolates to the infantry at the front, suddenly tugged at the soul. The authenticity of the man who’d advised “Write what you know” fell into question. Which wouldn’t have mattered so much if authenticity hadn’t been at the core of the Hemingway myth.
He’d been a pretender, I thought, something James Jones—another young man of a certain kind who’d turned on his influence—had in mind when he wrote, “You know what really ruined Hemingway? It was the 2nd war, when all the boys found out what war was really like.”
When we arrived in Iraq and got shot at the first time, the Papa doctrine was, for me, completely undermined. It didn’t feel like I’d gone through a great crucible of manhood, let alone “the best subject of all,” as Hemingway had once referred to war in a peacocking letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald. It just felt like my friends and I had been shot at. It wasn’t good.
We were there for fifteen long, strange months, part of the fabled surge that “won” the war. Looking back on that time and place, the thing I’m most proud of is a very un-Hemingway thing, I think, and certainly an unmanly man-at-war thing: none of my soldiers ever shot their weapons. We took fire, we dodged real and fake roadside bombs, we saw silhouettes running around with rocket launchers, which turned out to be kids playing with plastic toys given to them by insurgents. Only one of my men was wounded—in a freakish, noncombat incident—and he’s living a full life now. We were gentle far more often than we were forceful.
We weren’t ideal counterinsurgents and occupiers, if such a thing can exist, but we were damn fine ones. We tried to find justness, perhaps even justice, amid rampant unjustness and corruption. We tried to channel hope and idealism into something real and meaningful, into something sustainable. We blundered, then we learned. We opened schools. We detained insurgents. We brought down the violence numbers and raised up the local economy and left thinking that lasting peace in our part of Babylon was no longer a mirage.
We did our absolute best. It wasn’t enough.
A couple years ago, I reread my old college thesis. Parts of it, in their naked idealism and romanticism, made me cringe, but it was a solid effort from a twenty-two-year-old kid in love with language, even if he didn’t know what to do with it. I read the epigraph last. The line about the days and the todays and the other days. I sighed at it, then read it again. Then I put down the thesis and went to the bookshelf and pulled down the thick paperback. “You fuck,” I told the book. I opened it and, to my surprise, read for many hours. Ernie could still weave a hell of a yarn.
“Men respond as powerfully to fictions as they do to realities … in many cases they help to create the very fictions to which they respond,” Walter Lippmann once wrote. I’ve thought about this a lot as I’ve made my own transition from war to writing about it. Is it possible to take on the subject without mystifying it, without romanticizing it? It was a formative time, but a formative time much like any other.
Meanwhile, we’ve made our peace, Hem and me. He’s just a writer to me now, and his work matters more than the myth ever did. Of course he’s spawned a legion of imitators and posers. He put in the work. Besides, his pithy macho quips can—sometimes—hold up. Writing what you know, for example. That’s inspired many a reckless idiot to pursue the reckless and the idiotic, but direct experience is only one way of many to know something. And Hemingway’s obsession with finding the “true” bits—it took me time and perspective to figure out he meant more than transcribing reality, but tapping into the emotional wells of human existence and perspective. (That’s not “truth,” exactly, but macho pseudo-philosophies require some malleability.)
Granted, he made his share of overwrought decrees. Like this business about sitting down at the typewriter and bleeding. What the hell does that even mean? No one likes an emo, Papa.
Last year, my wife and I adopted a dog, a goofy, sweet-natured retriever mix who loves existence for what it is. We discussed a few possible names, inspired by the books in our apartment. Only one felt right, though. Ernie’s my friend again, and a daily inspiration. Now he makes me throw the ball for him instead of brooding with me over the enduring nature of armed conflict. He plays easily, his tongue hangs out the side of his mouth, and he tends to keep away from the moody husky in charge of the dog park. He’s too busy having fun to deal with alpha-male bullshit.
His namesake—the man and the myth—would take offense at all that, I hope.
Matt Gallagher is a former U.S. Army captain and Iraq war veteran. His debut novel Youngblood is out this week.March 6, 2017 | Written by PETA
A version of this article first appeared on peta2.com.
Not everyone grows up within walking distance of a health-food store. And some of us grew up outside driving distance to a store with fresh veggies or fruit, too. Areas like these are known as “food deserts”: The closest thing that some people have to a grocery store is a liquor store.
Areas where healthy, fresh food is hard to find usually disproportionately affect African-American communities and low-income neighborhoods. People living in these areas are locked into the system of food injustice, because having to resort to processed meats and snacks puts them at higher risk of suffering from diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and strokes.
Who Profits From This?
We talk a lot about the power of your dollar as a consumer, because voting with your purchasing choices works: The more that people demand vegan foods, the more that companies will meet that demand with a tasty supply. Food deserts and fast-food restaurants are forced onto poor people, who have less purchasing power. Who profits? The meat and dairy industries and, once people get sick, Big Pharma.
Why Does This Matter to Animals?
While humans are getting sick from eating animal flesh and processed foods, billions of animals are forced to live on filthy factory farms, before being violently killed, chopped up, and sold as food. The bottom line is that eating meat is completely unnecessary, and it harms both humans and animals.
© iStock.com/pidjoe
Everyone can be vegan—even in a neighborhood that makes it tough. Here are seven ways to thrive in a food desert:
1. Get familiar with staples. Many convenience stores and corner markets sell things like pasta, pasta sauce, and sometimes even frozen veggies. If you live near a dollar store, you might be surprised by just how much you can find there on a budget. Beans, rice, tortillas, salsas, and more can be found at nearly every dollar store. Here’s a list of delicious vegan recipes you can make for under $3.
2. Look up programs that offer healthy food aid. There are several programs that help provide access to fresh foods. For example, people enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) can use their electronic benefit transfer cards to buy healthy foods at participating markets.
3. Visit your closest co-op or farmer’s market. Keep an eye out for places that sell fresh foods in your neighborhood, like co-ops or a local farmer’s market. A co-op is an organized food distribution outlet where the members get to pick what is sold. These are great places to buy fresh fruits and veggies. This might mean having to leave your neighborhood, but it’ll be worth it. If you have a smartphone, apps like HappyCow can help you find nearby vegan-friendly establishments.
4. Start an urban garden at home.Starting a garden indoors with limited space is easier than ever, thanks to the internet. Many channels on YouTube demonstrate how to plant and sustain a thriving urban garden in planters, on window ledges, on balconies, and so on. For example, there are specific instructions online for planting an herb garden using the pockets of a plastic shoe holder that hangs on the back of a door!
5. Buy beans and whole grains in bulk.When you spotbeans and whole-grain items, grab them. They’re full of nutrients like protein and fiber, without the cholesterol and saturated fat found in meat. They’re affordable, too, and awesome in chili, tacos, and more.
6. Visit your local store and ask for more nutritious food options. Ask the manager to stock healthier vegan foods—like fresh fruits and veggies, healthy pasta sauces, and even vegan meats from brands such as Gardein. You might be surprised by what you can get your local store to carry if you just ask.
7. Public transportation can open new worlds. Live near a bus line? Take a day trip to find the closest Target or Walmart, or look for a health-food store near a local college campus. (Many accept SNAP.) Research ideas for nutritious meals that you can make at home, and stock up for the month.
Systemic oppression is nuanced and reinforced in many different ways, including through inequitable food systems. You can be a force for positive change in your community by demanding better conditions for humans and animals. If you have to eat fast food once in a while for its cost efficiency, please visit our helpful guide to ordering vegan at fast-food chains.
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By submitting this form, you are agreeing to our collection, storage, use, and disclosure of your personal info in accordance with our privacy policy as well as to receiving e-mails from us.St. John's Deputy Mayor Ron Ellsworth is still refusing to answer questions, two days after a media report revealed that he loaned embattled Exit Realty on the Rock owner Anne Squires $50,000 in 2013.
At St. John's City Hall on Thursday, Ellsworth was nowhere to be found, and questions brought to Ward 3 councillor Bruce Tilley were redirected back to the deputy mayor.
"Let me tell you, you get a hold of the deputy mayor," said Tilley.
Ron Ellsworth is still mum on alleged high-interest loan to Anne Squires. Here's what one councillor had to say<a href="https://t.co/OjNvbWcGdH">https://t.co/OjNvbWcGdH</a> —@CBCNL
Reached Thursday by phone, Ellsworth would only say "no comment" to all of CBC's questions.
NTV reported that Ellsworth loaned Squires $50,000 in January 2013, in an agreement in which Squires agreed to pay a "cost of borrowing [of] $10,000" within a period of less than two months.
If Squires could not make the deadline, the agreement said, the "payout increases by an additional $5,000 monthly."
A CBC analysis of the figures revealed that Squires would have to pay $60,000 in interest over a one-year period on the loan, the equivalent of a yearly interest rate of 120 per cent.Leica has revealed that the presentation of the Leica Oscar Barnack Award 2016 will take place in Berlin, Germany, on |
but Wizards would also make the effort to get potentially useful commons “printed” online (provided they came after the start of the Modern legal divide). The truth is that despite having a large paper following, Pauper’s metagame is driven by Magic Online and that ruleset that has undergone additional rigor. Trying to figure out if High Tide is healthy (HAH!) is not a good use of time. Additionally as we just saw the ability to monitor the online metagame closely should result in a healthier format overall.
Standard Pauper lost the support of a filter on Magic Online. The reasoning at the time is that even with the filter option very few people used it to play the format. While Standard Pauper has staunch supporters it never managed to have the same popularity as its Eternal counterpart. While I have not played Standard Pauper in a long time I have my own opinions as to why. Simply put the smaller cardpool made it harder for anything but midrange decks to emerge as a dominant strategy. The push toward more expensive removal and fewer build around commons forced the cardpool toward the middle of the game.
That being said, the recent changes in design philosophy (the two-block paradigm, two year Standard) could make it so that Standard Pauper remains unsolved for longer periods of time. The interblock synergy could also give rise to more cohesive decks that operate outside a Jund paradigm.
Do you think a Pauper version of the Vintage Super League would be viable? If so, who gets invited, and what deck do you bring? —jabradley, via Reddit
Absolutely! I think Pauper is a fun format and now that Drake is banned it could make for excellent viewing. But I’m a die hard, so I think it’s more important to hear what the general Magic playing population think. Would you watch a Pauper series in the vein of the Vintage Super League?
How much do you think has the incidental lifegain from taplands affected the format. Prima facie, one would think that it hurts aggro while giving midrange/control decks more room to breathe, but still stompy, burn affinity and MU Delver reign supreme. Is 1-2 lifes per game just too little to matter or do you think they are actually helping put linear aggro decks on check (ie. aggro would be take a much bigger share without them)? —BrocoLee, via Reddit
Initially the gainlands kept decks like Burn, which were great at dealing 20-23 points of damage, from making any major gains in the metagame. Thermo-Alchemist changed everything as the Eldritch Moon common made it possible for Burn to deal upwards of 28 damage with ease. In turn more decks turned to Radiant Fountain which helped to knock Burn down a peg. The fall of Drake means a rise in removal and Chainer's Edict which could mean bad times are ahead for Thermo-Alchemist.
Feel free to use this post. People may think that we are analyzing the pauper metagame with insufficient data, because we only get the lists of 5-0 decks in Leagues and not even all of them. I have two questions about this topic: Do you think that we don't get enough data to analyze the format properly? Do you think that it would be positive to the format to create a place (Reddit post, facebook page, etc.) where people could upload their 4-1 decks? —TheGatoring, via Reddit
Pauper is not getting the whole picture. Unlike other formats which have large regular paper tournaments to help shape a metagame, Pauper largely relies on the distributed 5-0 decks to make inferences. What this means is that it is very hard to see week-to-week fluctuations in the metagame. However the 5-0 data is wonderful for helping us to understand broader trends. It gives us the opportunity to understand the texture of the metagame without knowing every nook and cranny.
That being said I would love to see more data made available for Pauper and I am hoping that getting Paper tournament results will do just that.
Last question!
What do you think we should do, as a community, to help pauper getting the relevance it deserves? I think that creating more pauper content and help people who creates good pauper content to get to more viewers/readers is a good way to start. But I want to know what do you think about it and see if you come up with some more ideas that the average pauper player could achieve. Edit: You can use this post. —TheGatoring, via Reddit
First I want to talk about the phrase “relevance it deserves”. Pauper gets a ton of recognition and support. Take a step back and think about it - we have online support and Masters sets are designed with Pauper in mind. The format just prompted the second ever out of cycle ban. I love Pauper and want to see it get more attention but make no mistake - the format is getting a ton of love and it shows.
So what can the community do? I think more content is good. We’ve seen a proliferation of Pauper content in the past year and I hope to see these content providers flourish. Now that Peregrine Drake has been banned it would be interesting to see if other content creators drift back towards the format during downtimes in Standard.
Speaking of, I would absolutely love to see the Magic Online team provide some incentive for Pauper events during the weeks between the full spoiling of a set and its release into the digital environment. Doing this would help to highlight the format without detracting from other formats that should top billing.
I want to thank everyone who asked me questions on Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit. I’m sorry I couldn’t get to everyone but I hope do another one of these columns in the future.
I can’t wait to come back next week to talk about what we can expect now that Drake is gone!Thin privilege is being able to see a baseball game.
I went to a game over the weekend - the seats were clearly designed for an unrealistic maximum weight. The only way I could fit was to sit at the edge of the seat and sort of slide back, forcing my hips underneath the armrests. It was extremely uncomfortable. On one side of me was a little kid who didn’t seem bothered. On the other side was a girl who was NOT pleased that I was taking up a small portion of *her* seat and loudly discussing how sweaty I was (it was 85+ degrees) with her friends. One of them sympathized that it must be gross, having me pressed up against her.
I got up to get some food (omg a fat person eating alert!) and when I came back, I discovered that one of the vendors had given the girl a piece of cardboard to put in between herself and the armrest. With this cardboard in place, I discovered that I could not fit in the seat. It was impossible. I asked her to remove the cardboard. She said no. I got a security guard. He looked at the situation and said he couldn’t do anything, the cardboard was on her side of the seat only, so she was entitled to have it there if she wished.
I left in tears.One first impression left by President Obama’s much-anticipated speech re-casting U.S. counterterrorism policy is that of the contrast between Bush’s swagger and Obama’s anguish over the difficult trade-offs that perpetual war poses to a free society. It could scarcely be starker. While Bush frequently seemed to take action without considering the underlying questions, Obama appears somewhat unsure of exactly what actions to take. That is not a bad thing: at least he is asking the right questions. In fact, by suggesting that, after a decade and seven thousand American and countless foreign lives lost, and a trillion dollars spent, it might be time to start downsizing the “war on terror,” he is leading the national debate beyond where even most Democrats have dared to go.
The two Presidents seem to have fundamentally different starting points about how much can be achieved by the exercise of U.S. force. Bush seemed to think it possible that America could expunge evil around the globe—he declared war on what he called the “Axis of Evil,” and announced, shortly after September 11, 2001, “Our war on terror begins with Al Qaeda but does not end there.” Obama, in contrast, conceded that the elimination of evil in general, and terrorism in particular, was beyond the scope of any politician or nation. As he defined it, the struggle against evil was part of the human condition, not an enemy suitable for armed warfare.
“Neither I, nor any President, can promise the total defeat of terror,” Obama said. “We will never erase the evil that lies in the hearts of some human beings, nor stamp out every danger to our open society.” As Obama expressed it, “We must be humble in our expectations.”
Obama agonized over other limitations, too. Bush’s lawyers propounded the astonishingly radical theory that, as Commander-in-Chief, a President couldn’t be limited by domestic or international law. His lawyers dubbed it “the New Paradigm” and reasoned that if national security was at stake, no other legal constraints could stand in the President’s way. The Geneva Conventions became optional, cast aside as “quaint.” Obama embraced both constitutional and international legal limits, at least in principle, even as he struggled to define them in practice. In fact, his speech was a paean to the theory of “just war,” which requires a balance between means and ends, demanding proportionality whenever the state resorts to the use of force. It’s a sophisticated and nuanced moral theory, on which the law of conflict rests. Obama has openly grappled with the most difficult questions posed by the most serious thinkers in this area.
Obama’s public acknowledgement of his armed drone program, and willingness to subject it to tighter scrutiny and oversight, won’t satisfy his most persistent critics. Indeed, shortly after the speech, Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, released a statement criticizing what he called the program’s “insufficient transparency,” adding, “We continue to disagree fundamentally with the idea that due process requirements can be satisfied without any form of judicial oversight by regular federal courts.”
Yet here, too, Obama’s evident pain over the program, whose civilian deaths he said would “haunt” him and his command “as long as we live,” seemed a telling change from the secrecy and winking smugness of the past. So was Obama’s admission that just because the United States has the technical prowess to incinerate its enemies halfway around the world doesn’t automatically mean that there is a moral basis for doing so. “As our fight enters a new phase, America’s legitimate claim of self-defense cannot be the end of the discussion,” Obama said. “To say a military tactic is legal, or even effective, is not to say it is wise or moral in every instance. For the same human progress that gives us the technology to strike half a world away also demands the discipline to constrain that power—or risk abusing it.”
He went on to acknowledge that drones have their limits, and that “force alone cannot make us safe.” Instead, he called for a “conversation about a comprehensive strategy” to “reduce the wellsprings” of radicalism, one that uses not just hard power but soft power, such as foreign aid, education, and support for transitions to democracy in the Arab world and peace in the Middle East:
Our systematic effort to dismantle terrorist organizations must continue… But this war, like all wars, must end. That’s what history advises. That’s what our democracy demands.
Obama’s reiteration of his early vow to close down the military prison in Guantánamo Bay, where a hundred and sixty-six terror suspects are being held, the vast majority languishing without having faced specific charges or trials, also left some exceedingly tough questions unanswered. Obama said he would lift the moratorium he had imposed on transfers of prisoners to Yemen, because of security in that country. Some fifty-six Yemenis form the core of a group of eighty-six prisoners who have been cleared for release. Once that group is moved out, however, and others are put on trial, there will still be a hard core of suspects whom the government is willing neither to charge nor release. Obama touched on this group glancingly, saying,
Even after we take these steps, one issue will remain: how to deal with those Guantánamo detainees who we know have participated in dangerous plots or attacks, but who cannot be prosecuted—for example because the evidence against them has been compromised or is inadmissible in a court of law. But once we commit to a process of closing Guantánamo, I am confident that this legacy problem can be resolved, consistent with our commitment to the rule of law.
What kind of solution for indefinite detention can be arrived at, however, Obama left for later. It won’t be easy. As Joseph Margulies, clinical professor at Northwestern University Law School and lead counsel in the first Guantánamo case in the Supreme Court, noted, “The devil is in the details.”
Obama’s speech has, at least, put the right questions on the table. Even Margulies, who has been critical of Obama for not doing more to close Guantánamo in the past, admitted he was “excited” by the speech. He said, “All the high-flying rhetoric about values and ‘who we are,’ and national identity is great.” But, he said, “Unless he follows up on it, it’ll all be for naught.” Much of the burden of moving forward, however, is not in Obama’s hands. Within minutes of his speech, conservatives on Capitol Hill had already begun jumping on him for having a “pre-9/11 mindset”—as if, somehow, the 9/11 mindset should last forever.
Photograph by Win McNamee/Getty.Guinness representatives on Friday measured Jyoti Amge at 24.7 inches (62.8 centimeters) tall, 2.76 inches (seven centimeters) shorter than the 22-year-old American who had held the title since September.
It is not Amge's first Guinness record. Until Friday she was considered the world's shortest teenager, but in turning 18 qualified for the new title.
Guinness says in a statement Amge has grown less than 0.4 inch (1 centimetre) in the last two years and will grow no more due to a form of dwarfism called achondroplasia.
A teary-eyed Amge, dressed in one of her finest saris, called the honour an "extra birthday present" and said she felt grateful for being small, as it had brought her recognition. After receiving a plaque, she and her guests cut a birthday cake.Chris Ramsey has admitted he is unsure whether QPR will be able to hang onto Alex McCarthy.
Crystal Palace want to sign the goalkeeper and are expected to return with another bid, having had an offer of £3m rejected by Rangers.
A bid of £3.5m would trigger a release clause in McCarthy’s contract and hand him the chance of a return to the Premier League.
“I don’t really know where it (Palace’s interest) is going to go until we get back to England,” said Ramsey, whose side will today complete a pre-season trip to Italy that has been marred by late changes of opposition and venue.
The Rangers head coach added: “Obviously Alex is a very good keeper and we see him as part of our future plans. But finances and economics sometimes dictate what happens.”
McCarthy, 25, has made just four first-team appearances since joining QPR from Reading a year ago.
He is regarded as an excellent prospect but has so far been unable to dislodge Rob Green as first-choice keeper.
Green, 35, has a year remaining on his contract at Loftus Road and speculation that he would be targeted by other clubs, including Chelsea, has come to nothing.
Rangers have been aware of Palace’s interest in McCarthy for some time and identified several keepers as potential signings should he leave.
They included England Under-21 international Jonathan Bond before he was recently signed by Reading from Watford.
“I think Alex, by his own admission, would look at Rob’s form last season and feel if he could reach those heights he’d be very happy,” said Ramsey.
“I think he knows it’s a difficult job ahead with regard to choosing a number one goalkeeper at the club. Rob has done nothing wrong and performed admirably for us last season.
“I think competition between keepers is good, but obviously Alex has his own situation to look at.
“At the moment I’m considering them both in contention to start the season and we’ll have to wait and see over the next few weeks what happens.”
See also: No Newcastle approach for Austin - Les
Crystal Palace target QPR keeper McCarthy
QPR dismiss Albion approach for Caulker
McCarthy bid rejected but Palace still keen
Rangers target Dutch midfielder Chery
Austin may be made new offer - Ferdinand
McCarthy on the verge of Palace move
No approaches for Fer, Ramsey insists
QPR consider new Austin contract offer
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Find us on FacebookWhen humans eventually leave Earth looking for other habitats, it could be the private space corporations you have to thank for the opportunity and not your government representative writes Justin Ware.
Around 60 years ago when the original ‘space race’ took place, almost all progress was made via the intent and political posturings of government bodies.
The first moon landing during the Apollo 11 expedition ensured NASA, the independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government, became the most prominent of the space race participants.
However there were others.
The USSR’s space program had its moment in the sun, but ceased to exist upon the collapse of the union.
Today, NASA is not the exploration giant it once was and the Russian Aviation and Space Agency has done little of note for some time.
The third major cog in the wheel is China, however the Chinese government’s space program is only in its infancy.
While we don’t hold NASA to the same reverence we once did, its ambition is still invaluable to exploration beyond earth’s borders. NASA’s Cassini satellite is undertaking its ‘Grand Finale’ as we speak. It also recently announced that it was working on unique nuclear fission reactors for a small Martian colony.
There’s a lot to look forward to, however NASA’s importance in space exploration looks to have been superseded by private organisations, especially when you consider the constraints put on it including budget cuts under the Trump administration.
NASA will have around $560 million dollars less to play with in 2018, which means it is private companies who are now leading the way.
Blue Origin and SpaceX are emerging as the leading innovators, with both undertaking significant projects and research.
Blue Origin was founded in September 2000 by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. Bezos put it this way: ‘The vision for Blue [Origin] is pretty simple. We want to see millions of people living and working in space.’
Blue Origin achieved history in 2016 when it re-launched a previously used rocket, something that had never been done before. SpaceX mirrored Origin’s feat the following year.
“The government was never able to [build reusable rockets], but now, two private companies within the space of the same year have done that,” said Chris Lewicki, CEO and President of Planetary Resources – a company that is aiming to mine asteroids.
“If you can recover those engines and they’re fine, you can save an awful lot of money,” said Carissa Christensen, CEO of aerospace consultancy Bryce Space and Technology.
“You start to realize some cost savings, which allows you to start noticeably dropping the price of your missions. And if you can get the price down to 30 or 35 million [dollars] per mission, nobody else can come close to that.”
Furthermore, Blue Origin is close to completing its new space engine – the BE-4. The engine has been in development since 2011, and is touted as a reusable rocket engine possessing exceptional longevity.
The company has also contracted Boeing to design and build the DARPA XS-1 – a reusable spacecraft that can reach hypersonic speeds. With Bezos at the helm, there’s little surprise Blue Origin is turning heads in the new kind of space race.
Musk ups the ante with back-to-back launches
Elon Musk has ambitious plans for Mars
Then there’s SpaceX, Elon Musk’s ‘just for fun’ company. SpaceX was launched in 2002 as a result of Musk’s vision for colonising Mars.
In an effort to not be outdone by Blue Origin’s latest BE-4 developments, SpaceX executed back-to-back rocket launches in 48 hours in the past week – and came close to completing a third launch on July 2.
The first expedition launched the BulgariaSat-1 satellite into orbit, making it the first communications satellite in Bulgaria’s history. The second launch successfully delivered 10 satellites for global mobile and communications leader, Iridium.
SpaceX has also cut the average cost of a launch by half, and is planning to send an unmanned probe to Mars by 2020 – with a manned mission in 2024 to follow.
Earlier this year, Musk announced that SpaceX had been contracted by two individuals to be sent on a free trajectory return trip around the Moon. This event would be the first instance of lunar/space tourism, which would be a truly ground-breaking achievement. The launch is tentatively scheduled for 2018, with SpaceX preparing the two pilots for the expedition.
What does this mean for NASA?
While these developments show that Blue Origin and SpaceX are on an unprecedented roll, they also point to NASA’s decreased influence in the industry.
Relations are amicable enough, but Blue Origin and SpaceX are direct competitors, and NASA’s willingness to outsource contracts to both could set a precedent for its budget to be cut further.
Unlike Blue Origin and SpaceX, NASA is completely dependent on federal cooperation and does not possess the relative freedom and growing cash balance of its counterparts.
It may not warrant a ‘Houston, we have a problem’ just yet – but as we enter unprecedented territory, it will be intriguing to see how the newer, more agile competitors affect NASA’s position moving forward.The MBTA’s Commuter Rail Fails More than Any Other System in America
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The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority often touts its unique status in United States transportation as the oldest subway in the country. Well, now it has another unique national distinction: It leads the country in system failures.
A new report from the National Transit Database found the Commuter Rail suffered 219 major mechanical failures in 2014, a figure four times higher than the national average. The MBTA topped New Jersey Transit’s 213 major mechanical failures for the top spot. With 129,019 daily passengers served, the MBTA Commuter Rail is the sixth busiest regional rail system in the United States.
The MBTA’s light rail system didn’t fare much better in the report. The Green Line suffered 983 major mechanical system failures in 2014, second only to the San Francisco Muni’s 1,539. The Green Line and Mattapan High Speed Line combine to form the busiest light rail system in the United States.
The latest report confirms what many already know: The MBTA has serious maintenance problems, to the tune of $7.3 billion. Gov. Charlie Baker created a new fiscal and management control board in the aftermath of the terrible winter of 2015 to oversee reform of the agency’s systemic problems, including its maintenance and repair backlog.
“The ages and conditions of the MBTA’s fleets are well documented,” said MBTA spokesperson Joe Pesaturo in an email.
The MBTA’s subway system suffered 472 major mechanical failures in 2014, far behind what was reported by the much larger systems in New York City and Washington, D.C. Strangely, Atlanta’s system had more than double the MBTA’s failures, even though it’s just ten miles longer and much newer.
“The MBTA’s Red Line continues to operate the oldest heavy rail cars in the nation. MBTA machinists and repairers will continue to work very hard to keep the aging fleets operating while the schedule for building and delivering hundreds of new Orange and Red Line cars advances. Dozens of new trolleys for the Green Line are also on their way,” said Pesaturo in an email, where he also touted the many ongoing repairs to existing trolleys.
The MBTA recently added 40 new locomotives on the Commuter Rail to replace older trains still in service.
The MBTA’s system failure problem is not limited to dry land—the ferry system had the second highest number of major mechanical failures in 2014, trailing only Washington State’s elaborate ferry system, which services 61,745 people to the T’s 4,439.In the ultra-macho, predominantly male world of pro wrestling, Mariah Moreno certainly stands outeven at only 5'9" and 140 pounds.
Moreno is, perhaps, the only out transgender pro wrestler in the world, although now she is just making her name"Amanda, The Bloodthirsty Vixen"competing in small regional, domestic promotions, often in front of sparse crowds.
She's nowhere near the worldwide fame that comes to all associated with World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) or Total Nonstop Action (TNA) Wrestling, the top two promotions in the United States. But the girl's got a dream, that's for sureand she thinks big.
"I've always been a fan," of pro wrestling, said Moreno, 27, who has had a particular fondness for the now-defunct Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling (GLOW).
"While in high school, I caught wrestling on TV, and quickly became addicted. I had to watch it; I couldn't get enough of it. And still can't, to this day."
Moreno lives in Long Beach, Calif., and has competed for such promotions as East Coast Lucha Libre and Legion Championship Wrestling. She has been a wrestling manager for three years and actually wrestling for a year.
"I was nervous just a bit [when I started in wrestling], but really no different than anything else that I do in life. When I start a new job, or go to school, or go to the market … yeah, I'm being more physical with these people [as a wrestler], but it's work; it's a job," she said.
Amanda wrestles against men and women, and she said, "it's been amazing, really a lot of fun, with a lot of friendly people."
Being transgender has not been a problem for Moreno. Or for the wrestlers she works with and against. But some promoters have told her, 'Thanks, but no thanks.' And that doesn't bother Moreno.
"That's absolutely fine and understandable since those are family-oriented companies with a high percent of minors in the crowd," Moreno said. "There's a secret behind the name, A-man-duh," she says, stressing each syllable.
"I've had a couple of companies in southern California that will not hire me because I'm transgenderthat's because they are family-oriented companies with a lot of kids in the crowd. It bothers me, but I totally understand because, well, I'm something out of the ordinary; I'm not something you're going to see when you go to the normal grocery story, for instance."
Still, she added, "I've had an exciting career so far."
Moreno wrestles almost every weekend, and works as a caregiver to the elder in her day job. She previously spent two years working at a tanning salon.
"I would love to pursue a full-time career in pro wrestlingwith WWE, TNA, or in Mexico or Japan," Moreno said. "My character is very mysterious; not many people know much about me. My character also is hardcore; I've done some crazy stunts in the past, some crazy dives, [through] tables, barbed wire and more.
"I'm pretty wild in the ring; I'm kind of crazy and out there."
Being an out trans also has never been an issue.
"I was born male and, at age 15, I decided to start living my life as a female," said Moreno, who had breast-augmentation surgery about five years ago. "I plan on going forward with [full transition] surgery within the next five to seven years.
"I've actually felt this way since the age of 5. I was very open and vocal about how I felt at a very, very young age. In kindergarten, for instance, when the teacher asked to divide the students, boys on one side and girls on the other, I strongly felt I was female, so I went over to the girls' side. And I caused a scene when the teacher asked me to go to the boys' side [of the room], so much that my grandmother, who was my guardian, had to be called in."
At 10, "that's when I really started to feel like I was not in the right body," Moreno said.
At 15, Moreno started dressing like a female, "and it worked for me."
It worked despite issues from other students. "Yeah, I've had my share of brutal kids, but I think I ultimately gained their respect because I wasn't one to be picked on," Moreno said. "I lived my life the way I wanted to live it, and I think everyone in school knew that. I've always been vocal about who and what I am. And I wasn't going to let anyone shut me up or scare me, not at all."
Does Moreno consider herself a role model for the LGBT community?
"I'm not sure about [being] a role model, but I do feel like I am opening doors, and I hope the world is noticing that transgenders are as actual humans, and people who can get physical in the ring; we're not just these fragile individuals," Moreno said. "I hope to be a role model to other transgenders in the future."
Moreno is single and said she is attracted to men.
"The wrestlers have been great; I've never had a [personal] problem with another wrestler, and hope I never do," Moreno said. "They have been very respectful to my lifestyle."
For more about "Amanda," go to www.santinobros.com.Hi Martin,
I really appologize for the delay in responding to this thread. This issue is caused by a driver bug check during second boot while installing Windows 8.1. I request you to check if all the updates are installed on the computer via Windows Update before you start with the Windows 8.1 installation. It would be great if you can provide more information regarding this issue:
1) What is the make and model of the computer?
2) Do you have any external devices (except the mouse and the keyboard) connected to the computer?
3) Are you using any third party security program installed on the computer?
You may try the following methods and check if that helps.
Method 1: Disconnect all the unnecessary external devices connected to the computer (except the mouse and the keyboard)
Please disconnect all the unnecessary external devices connected to the computer (except the mouse and the keyboard) and then check if you still face this issue while installing Windows 8.1. This is to check if the issue is caused by any external devices connected to the computer.
You may also try installing all the driver updates for all the devices installed on the computer and check if that resolves the issue. You may try the next methods and let’s know the result.
Method 2: Update the Device Drivers on the Computer.
Step 1: Check the Windows updates for any latest driver updates.
Check in Windows updates if any driver updates are available. If so, install the same and check if it helps.
a) Press “Windows Logo” + “W” keys from the keyboard.
b) Type “Updates” in the search bar and click on “Install optional updates ” from the left pane.
c) From the “Windows Update” window, click on “Check for Updates ” on the top left corner, to receive a fresh list of updates and then install all the updates listed there.
For any issues while installing Windows Updates, you may also refer to this link:
Troubleshoot problems with installing updates
If no driver updates are available via Windows Update, then you may install them for all the devices on the computer from the Computer Manufacturer’s website.
Step 2: Update Driver Software from the Manufacturer’s website:
Go to the computer manufacturer’s website and search for the latest Windows 8 drivers available for all the devices on the computer and then install them by following the instructions given in the website.The new guidelines have the aim of ensuring that taxpayers are no longer the first in line to take on the burden of banking failures following a European sovereign debt crisis driven by multi-trillion government bailouts and guarantees for the financial sector since 2008.
Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the chairman of the Eurogroup of finance ministers, hailed the agreement as a major step towards a “banking union” and away from state funded aid to recapitalise or bailout troubled banks across Europe.
“For the first time, we agreed on a significant bail-in to shield taxpayers, to break the vicious circle of sovereigns and banks, and to induce banks to behave more responsibly,” he said early on Thursday morning.
“This is a clear signal to the markets and citizens, and another major step forward towards a banking union. If a bank gets in trouble we will now, throughout Europe, have one set of rules on who pays the bill. The financial sector itself will now to a very, very large extent become responsible for dealing with its own problems.”
In March, he said that the heavy losses inflicted on depositors in Cyprus would be the template for future baking crises across Europe.
Greg Clark, the financial secretary to the Treasury, declared that Britain was happy with the new rules after securing concessions allowing governments flexibility on how to tailor bank “resolution” to national circumstances and existing British arrangements on banking levies.
“Tonight’s agreement on the Bank Resolution and Recovery Directive is a major step forward. Our priority all along has been to agree resolution tools that work in practice and I am pleased to say that the rules of the game have now changed – gone are the days when European taxpayers will be forced to bail-out a failing bank,” he said.
“The agreement represents a big success for the UK.”
Negotiations, which have already lasted a year, are not yet completed and now face talks with the European Parliament, a process that will drag on until the end of the year.
Under the deal, after 2018 bank shareholders will be first in line for assuming the losses of a failed bank before bondholders and certain large depositors. Insured deposits under £85,000 (€100,000) are exempt and, with specific exemptions, uninsured deposits of individuals and small companies are given preferred status in the bail-in pecking order for taking losses.
Britain and other countries pushed for flexibility allowing for a mandatory minimum bail-in level of 8pc of a failed bank’s total liabilities before resolution funds, paid for by levies, can be drawn upon. Britain also secured wriggle room to shield certain creditors, such as bonds held by other financial institutions, in defined circumstances to avoid financial instability and systemic crisis.
Following the minimum bail-in trigger, governments are allowed to use resolution funds, usually funded by banking levies or state money, capped at 5pc of a bank’s debts, to recapitalise it, shielding other creditors in financial institutions such pension funds.
France and Germany clashed over the conditions and circumstances allowing the eurozone’s €500bn bailout fund, the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), to be used to rescue banks. “The talks were lengthy, quite difficult and intense,” admitted Wolfgang Schaeuble, the German finance minister.
Under the deal all unsecured bondholders must be hit for losses before a bank can eligible to receive capital injections directly from the ESM, with no retrospective use of the fund before 2018.
Heralding battles ahead over the use of the ESM, Pierre Moscovici, the French finance minister, claimed he had “got what we wanted” against German opposition, a statement that might cause domestic trouble for Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, during a summer general election campaign.
“It would not have been coherent on the one hand to put in place a direct mechanism for recapitalisation and on the other to exclude the ESM from the game of flexibility,” he said.Netflix’s new hit series GLOW premiered on Friday, with Alison Brie in the starring role. But turns out, she almost didn’t get the gig.
Brie stars as Ruth, an out-of-work actress who joins a new women’s wrestling league. Set in the 80s, the show is actually based on the real-life GLOW (Gorgeous Ladies Of Wrestling) that had a short run back in the day.
When Brie originally read the script, she knew she wanted the role immediately. She said,
“I can’t explain it but there are roles that I click in with, and I want them immediately. There have certainly been things I’ve auditioned for where I read it and I kinda go like, I don’t know if I’m even right for this. But it would be fun to do this job if I got it. And there are other things I read and just go, I know this woman, and I am her. I feel like Trudy was one of those. And I felt that about this and thought, I will do anything. Let’s go after this.”
And that’s pretty much what she did. The casting director was looking for a fresh face and someone who wasn’t conventionally attractive. Considering her most famous role was as the cutesy freshman in Community, Alison didn’t exactly fit the description.
“I was brought in many times and I wore no makeup, and wore workout clothes, and tied my hair back, and really didn’t hold back my desire to be a part of the show. I think sometimes you go into auditions and you’re playing it very cool. If you seem like you don’t care at all then it’ll be more likely that you’ll get the part. I was not that way at all. Every time I went up I was just like, ‘Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. I love this group very much.’
I think they started to see Ruth’s desperation in me. And the audition process really did go on long enough that I think I was transforming into the character before their eyes and before my own eyes. But it was a really satisfying feeling, I will say, to prove yourself and then get a job. It’s the most satisfying thing.”
And Alison is amazing in the role. For the show, Brie and the cast trained for months to do their own stunts and wrestling moves.
GLOW is now streaming on Netflix.Papa John is having a bad day.
The net worth of John Schnatter, founder and CEO of pizza chain Papa John’s, fell $70 million in less than 24 hours after the company released its third-quarter financial report on Tuesday afternoon. The business beat estimates on earnings and revenue, but it lowered guidance on same-store sales for the coming period.
Investors |
my favorite shichibukai along with Mihawk,then Doflamingo, Crocodile, Hancock, Jimbei and last Moria
I like characters like him that are surrounded by so much mistery, i think he is on the good side but turned to the bad side for reasons commanded by Dragon Luffy´s father so in the end he is not really on the bad side, or maybe not..... also for me his powers are underrated or maybe its just cause he is a calm guy if he was like before the tyrant he would wreack havock with that power
my shichibukai favorito junto con Mihawk, luego Doflamingo, Crocodile, Hancock, Jimbei y por ultimo Moria
me gustan los personajes como el que estan rodeados de tanto misterio, no creo q sea malo solo q se unio al lado malo por razones dadas por Dragon el papa de Luffy asi q al final es por una buena causa, aunque quien sabe parace q ya no es el mismo, ademas creo q su poder es uno de los mejores si fuera un tirano como antes causaria estragos con esos poderesWhen Justin Trudeau's government came to power, one of the first things it did was boost Canada's 2016 immigration target. It doubled the country's intake of refugees, while increasing by 18 per cent the number of overseas family members Canadians can sponsor. At the same time, however, Ottawa lowered the number of skilled immigrants – the so-called economic class – from 181,000 to 161,000.
But if the government follows the advice of its hand-picked Advisory Council on Economic Growth, in the years to come it will be doing the exact opposite.
The council's first three recommendations, released Thursday, call on Ottawa to begin making big changes to Canada's social and economic status quo. For example, a plan to aggressively court foreign investment calls into question foreign-ownership restrictions in areas from telecom to the oil sands. The Liberal Party of former prime minister Pierre Trudeau was deeply concerned about foreigners owning too much of our economy; his son's growth council is saying that one of the things holding this country back is that foreigners aren't taking a big enough stake in our economy.
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And the council's call for the creation of an infrastructure bank, designed to lure hundreds of billions of dollars of private investment into what would otherwise be public-infrastructure projects means, by definition, privatization or partly privatization. It means private ownership of highways, ports, water systems, public transit. The government has already engaged Credit Suisse to study the benefits of privatizing airports; that would mean reversing the policy of former Liberal PM Jean Chrétien, who won political points by killing a privatization plan.
But the council's immigration recommendation may be the one that gets the most attention. The big number – a call for 450,000 immigrants a year – will get the headlines. More important are the types of newcomers, and the demographic arithmetic behind the numbers.
Since the time of Brian Mulroney, who significantly increased immigration (Canada was accepting fewer than 100,000 newcomers a year in the early 1980s), immigration numbers have been largely stable. During the Chrétien-Martin years, immigration averaged about 223,000 a year. During the Harper government, the annual average was slightly more than 250,000. The growth council wants to nearly double that.
But simply doubling immigration won't have an impact on the things the council is interested in: real, per-capita economic growth and increasing the standard of living for average Canadians.
The reason is the baby-boom generation, which is now moving into retirement and tipping Canada's demographics in an unprecedented direction. The country is aging, and the ratio of retirees to workers is inexorably increasing. That's not a disaster, but it is a recipe for slower economic growth.
Bringing in more immigrants can boost overall economic growth, simply by making the population larger. It will expand the pie – but it will also increase the number of forks in the pie, and at the same pace. The goal of economic policy is not about baking a bigger pie, by whatever means. It's about expanding the pie in a way that ups the size of each individual slice.
The problem with an aging baby-boomer generation is not that Canada needs more people. The number of people isn't the issue; the proportion in the workforce is. Immigration can only have the desired impact on economic growth if the majority of newcomers are young workers, rather than dependents or retirees. And because the baby-boomer generation is so massive, even if immigration rises to 450,000 a year, and even if all the extra newcomers are economic-class migrants, that will barely move the needle in terms of slowing the aging of the Canadian population.
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In other words, the economic benefits of a jump in immigration shouldn't be overplayed. Still, every little bit helps. That's why the growth council wants Ottawa to ease the path to citizenship for Canada's more than 300,000 foreign students. They're younger than the average Canadian, they're more educated – and they're already here.
But the Trudeau government's 2016 immigration shift – more family reunification, more refugees, fewer economic immigrants – is marching in the opposite direction. There are humanitarian reasons to take in more refugees. There are social reasons to help new Canadians sponsor grandparents and relatives, not to mention powerful political incentives. But if it were looking at the problem solely through the lens of economic growth, as the council was asked to do, Ottawa would be charting a very different course.In 1565, Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent dominated the Mediterranean, with intentions of not only taking Sicily, Sardinia, Majorca, and southern Spain, but Rome itself.
The only thing standing in his way was the small rocky island of Malta just south of Sicily, defended by the Knights of Malta.
In March of 1565, Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent sent Algerian Admiral Dragut to Malta with 200 ships and 40,000 Muslim soldiers, including 6,500 elite Janissary troops.
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Dragut stated:
"Unless you have smoked out this nest of vipers, you can do no good anywhere."
Queen Elizabeth I of England is said to have remarked:
"If the Turks should prevail against the Isle of Malta, it is uncertain what further peril might follow to the rest of Christendom."
The Knights of Malta were led by a 70 year old Frenchmen, Jean Parisot de la Valette.
Pleas for reinforcements went out across Europe, but defense seemed futile.
La Valette addressed his men:
"A formidable army composed of audacious barbarians is descending on this island. These persons, my brothers, are the enemies of Jesus Christ..."
La Valette continued:
"Today it is a question of the defense of our faith -- as to whether the Gospels are to be superseded by the Koran. God on this occasion demands of us our lives, already vowed to his service. Happy will be those who first consummate this sacrifice."
The Turks attacked again and again, even reducing one of their fortresses to rubble, but the Knights kept fighting, resolved to save Western Civilization.
Finally, Dragut was killed and the Muslims sailed away on SEPTEMBER 11, 1565.
Get the book What Every American Needs to Know About the Qur'an-A History of Islam and the United States
Another major event was in 1683.
Sultan Mehmed IV sent over 138,000 Muslim Ottoman Turks to surround Vienna, Austria, led by General Mustafa Pasha.
For two months they had starved the 11,000 Hapsburg-Austrian defenders.
Sultan Mehmed IV sent the message to Austrian King, Leopold I:
"Await us in your residence...so we can decapitate you."
Polish King Jan Sobieski gathered 81,000 Polish, Austrian and German troops and on SEPTEMBER 11, 1683, led a surprise attack.
In one of the largest charges in history, 38,350 cavalry and dragoons, with many wearing wings which made a thunderous sound, caused the Turks to flee in confusion.
Upon entering the abandoned Turkish tents, Sobieski found bags of beans - coffee beans - revealing how Turks could fight day and night.
The beans came from Ethiopia, the one African country which stayed Christian, and the Muslims called them infidels or "kafir," from which the word "coffee" was derived.
The legend is that Pope Clement VIII was petitioned to declare coffee "the drink of the devil" due to its association with Muslims, but the Pontiff tasted it and stated:
"This devil's drink is so good, we should cheat the devil by baptizing it."
Shortly after the victory of Vienna, Polish General Kulczycki opened Vienna's first coffeehouses and coffee quickly spread across Europe.
The Pope and European leaders hailed Jan Sobieski as the "Savior of Western Civilization."
The humiliated Muslim army beheaded General Mustafa Pasha and sent his head back to Sultan Mehmed IV in a velvet bag.
Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953) wrote in The Great Heresies (1938):
"Less than 100 years before the American War of Independence a Mohammedan army was threatening to overrun and destroy Christian civilization...
Vienna was almost taken and only saved by the Christian army under the command of the King of Poland on a date that ought to be among the most famous in history - SEPTEMBER 11, 1683."
Get the book What Every American Needs to Know about the Qur'an-A History of Islam and the United States
Muslim Ottoman Turks dominated Belgrade, Serbia, since 1521. In 1691, Austria helped free Belgrade, but Muslim Ottoman Turks recaptured it and razed the city's buildings to the ground.
The Serbian Orthodox Patriarch led thousands to flee to the Austrian Hapsburg Empire in the first "Great Serbian Migration."
Habsburg Prince Eugene of Savoy led the Holy League to counter-attack.
Losing 500 men, they killed 30,000 Turks in one of the Ottoman Empire's worsts defeats in history - the Battle of Zenta, SEPTEMBER 11, 1697.
President Theodore Roosevelt wrote in his 1916 book, Fear God and Take Your Own Part:
"From the hammer of Charles Martel to the sword of Jan Sobieski, Christianity owed its safety in Europe to the fact it...could and would fight as well as the Mohammedan aggressor."
On SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, Islamic terrorists hijacked passenger jets. Two were flown into New York's World Trade Center, one into the Pentagon and one crashed in Pennsylvania.
President Bush stated:
"Freedom itself was attacked this morning by a faceless coward, and freedom will be defended."
That evening, President Bush stated:
"Thousands of lives were suddenly ended by evil, despicable acts of terror. Pictures of planes flying into buildings, fires burning, huge structures collapsing have filled us with disbelief, terrible sadness and a quiet, unyielding anger."
President Bush continued:
"America was targeted...because we're the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world... I ask for your prayers for all those who grieve...
I pray they will be comforted by a power greater than any of us spoken through the ages in Psalm 23:
'Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil for you are with me.'"
On September 13, 2001, President Bush stated:
"In the face of all this evil, we remain strong and united, 'One Nation Under God.'"Originally posted at TomDispatch.
On July 24th, highlighting the first Turkish air strikes against the Islamic State and news of an agreement to let the U.S. Air Force use two Turkish air bases against that movement, the New York Times reported that unnamed “American officials welcomed the [Turkish] decision… calling it a ‘game changer.’” And they weren’t wrong. Almost immediately, the game changed. Turkish President Recep Erdogan promptly sent planes hurtling off not against Islamic State militants but the PKK, that country’s Kurdish rebels with whom his government had previously had a tenuous ceasefire. In the process, he created a whole new set of problems for Washington, including making life more difficult for Kurdish rebel troops in Syria connected to the PKK that the Obama administration was backing in the fight against the Islamic State. Erdogan’s acts also ensured that chaos and conflict would spread to new areas of the Middle East. So game-changer indeed!
The question is: Why does Washington do it time after time? Why has just about every militarized move made in the region been quite so hapless and clueless since the initial invasion of Iraq? If such actions didn’t involve lives (and deaths) and one of the grimmer Islamic extremist movements on the planet, much of this would qualify as theater of the absurd or a comedy of errors. Take the so-called New Syrian Forces. That’s the moniker the Obama administration gave the thousands of “moderate” Syrian fighters it wanted to train and equip to take on the Islamic State (but not the Assad regime) at a cost of $500 million. In other words, Washington was determined to have its own fighting force of non-extreme Syrians with their distinctly Syrian boots on the ground in that chaotic war zone, even if they were American-supplied. What could possibly go wrong?
So the vetting and training commenced. Many months later, in the fashion of an elephant delivering a mouse, having thoroughly investigated thousands of applicants for their moderateness, the Pentagon finally produced “Division 30,” a fully vetted, fully trained first unit of, depending on what account you read, 54 or possibly 60 Syrian fighters. The cost of those few men has been estimated, per fighter, in the millions of dollars (and another 100 are now in the process of being trained). The U.S. military then deposited that tiny unit in Syria where its two leaders were promptly kidnapped by the al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front, which then attacked the group killing at least one of its members, capturing others, wounding a number, and sending the rest into flight. (Some of them, it seems, have never shown up again.) And here’s the truly bizarre part: according to the New York Times, that attack by an al-Qaeda-linked group the U.S. has denounced and bombed in the past took American officials – who seem to have expected the Front to embrace its force – “by surprise and amounted to a significant intelligence failure.” The real question, of course, is why anyone in the Pentagon or elsewhere in official Washington should have expected any other response from a hostile force which had already taken on CIA-trained Syrians.
The U.S. remains the greatest military power on the planet, but what does that even mean, given the last nearly 14 years of woeful performance, mishaps, defeats, disappointments, and endless war? Honestly, does the U.S. high command really have a thing to teach the rest of us, based on this sorry record? It’s a question raised by TomDispatch regular and former Air Force Academy instructor William Astore. He considers just what America’s future commanders are being taught in the country’s three elite military academies and wonders what a crew that has taken no responsibility for years of disaster in conflict after conflict has to offer anyone and why they are generally held in such high regard in this country. ~ Tom
Seventy Years of Military Mediocrity
The Shared Failings of America’s Military Academies and Senior Officers
By William J. Astore
Thomas Jefferson Hall, West Point’s library and learning center, prominently features two quotations for cadets to mull over. In the first, Jefferson writes George Washington in 1788: “The power of making war often prevents it, and in our case would give efficacy to our desire of peace.” In the second, Jefferson writes Thomas Leiper in 1815: “I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us that the less we use our power, the greater it will be.”
Two centuries ago, Jefferson’s points were plain and clear, and they remain so today: while this country desired peace, it had to be prepared to wage war; and yet the more it avoided resorting to raw military power, the more it would prosper.
Have America’s military officers and politicians learned these lessons? Obviously not. In the twenty-first century, the U.S. unquestionably ranks number one on this planet in its preparations for waging war – we got that message loud and clear – but we’re also number one in using that power aggressively around the globe, weakening our nation in the process, just as Jefferson warned.
Of course, the world today is a more complex and crowded place than in Jefferson’s time and this country, long a regional, even an isolationist power, is now an imperial and global superpower that quite literally garrisons the planet. That said, Jefferson’s lessons should still be salutary ones, especially when you consider that the U.S. military has not had a convincing victory in a major “hot” war since 1945.
There are undoubtedly many reasons for this, but I want to focus on two: what cadets at America’s military academies really learn and the self-serving behavior of America’s most senior military officers, many of whom are academy graduates. Familiar as they may be with those words of Jefferson, they have consistently ignored or misapplied them, facilitating our current state of endless war and national decline.
America’s Military Academies: High Ideals, Cynical Graduates
America’s military academies are supposed to educate and inspire leaders of strong character and impeccable integrity. They’re supposed to be showcases for America’s youth, shining symbols of national service. Ultimately, they’re supposed to forge strong military leaders who will win America’s wars (assuming those wars can’t be avoided, as Jefferson might have added). So how’s their main mission going?
I taught at the Air Force Academy for six years, and I’ve talked to former cadets as well as fellow officers who taught at Arm’s West Point and the Navy’s Annapolis. Here are a few reflections on the flaws of these institutions:
1. In reality, the unstated primary mission of the three military academies is to turn raw cadets into career officers dedicated and devoted to their particular branch of service. On the other hand, service to the American people is, at best, an abstract concept. More afterthought than thought, it is certainly mentioned but hardly a value consistently instilled.
Careerism and parochialism are hardly unique to military academies. Still, as one former cadet wrote me, it’s surprising to encounter them so openly in institutions dedicated to “service before self.” More than a few of his peers, he added, were motivated primarily by a desire for “a stable, well-paying career.” While a perfectly respectable personal goal, to be sure, it’s a less than desirable one at academies theoretically dedicated to selfless, even sacrificial service.
2. The academic curriculum is structured to prepare cadets for the technical demands of their first jobs, meaning that it’s heavily weighted toward STEM (science/technology/engineering/math). Despite the presence of a Cadet Honor Code, the humanities and questions of ethics play too small a role in the intellectual and moral development of the students.
3. Cadets quickly learn that excelling within the system is the surest path to coveted opportunities – increasingly scarce pilot slots, Special Ops schools, or the like – after graduation. Educationally speaking, they are driven by the idea of advancement within the conformist norms defined by their particular academy and branch of service. A system that rewards energetic displays of conformity also tends to generate mediocrity as well as cynicism. As one former cadet put it to me, “There is something deeper and more perverse here as well: The ‘golden boys’ [in the eyes of Academy officialdom] got the coveted slots but were generally hated by their cynical peers. Cynicism seems to define the Academy experience.”
A former colleague of mine had this comment: “The [military] academies don’t make great people and they don’t always make good people better. I have seen them turn off a few really good people, however.”
4. Because the academies are considered prestige institutions as well as symbols of rectitude and their reputations are always at stake, few risks are taken. Misconduct, when it occurs, is frequently hushed up “for the good of the Academy.” Scandals involving cheating, sexual assaults, and religious discrimination have often been made worse by not being dealt with openly and honestly. Cadets know this, which is another reason many emerge from their education as cynics when it comes to the high ideals the academies are supposed to instill.
5. As schools, they are remarkably insular, insider outfits often run by academy graduates whose goals tend to be narrow and sometimes even bizarrely parochial. For example, I knew of one superintendent (a three-star general) at the Air Force Academy whose number one goal was a winning football program. In that sense, he certainly reflected American society: think of the civilian college presidents who desire just that for their institutions. But military academies are supposed to be about creating leaders, not winning football trophies – and the two bear remarkably little relationship to each other no matter how many times the Duke of Wellington is (mis)quoted about the Battle of Waterloo being won on the playing fields of Eton.
6. Finally, there’s a strong emphasis at all the academies on simply keeping cadets busy. To the point where – especially in their first year – they’re often sleep-deprived and staggering into class. Theoretically, this is meant to be a test both of their commitment to military life and their ability to handle pressure. Whether they learn anything meaningful while dazed or sleeping in class is not discussed. Whether this is a smart way to develop creative and strong-minded leaders is also not up for consideration.
As one former cadet put it: busywork and demanding rituals that sometime cross the line and become hazing are embraced in military education as a “rite of passage.” The idea “that we [cadets] suffered through something and prevailed is an immensely powerful psychological ‘badge’ which leads to pride (or arrogance) and confidence (or hubris).”
Add up the indoctrination and the training, the busywork in classrooms and the desire to excel in big-time collegiate sports, and what you tend to graduate is a certain number of hyper-motivated true believers and a mass of go-along cynics – young men and women who have learned to subsume their doubts and misgivings, even as they trim their sails in the direction of the prevailing winds.
While the cadets are encouraged to over-identify with their particular academy and service branch, they’re also encouraged to self-identify as “warriors,” as, that is, an elite apart from and superior to the civilians they’re supposed to serve. That this country was founded on civilian control of the military may be given lip service, but in the age of the ascendant national security state, the deeper sentiments embedded in an academy education are ever more distant from a populace that plays next to no part in America’s wars.
That the classic civilian-military nexus, which was supposed to serve and promote democracy, has turned out to have a few glitches in our time should surprise no one. After all, President Dwight Eisenhower warned us about what was coming back in 1961. As Ike noticed, the way it was working – the way it still works today – is that senior officers in the military too often become tools of the armaments industry (his “military-industrial complex”) even as they identify far too closely with the parochial interests of their particular service branch. Add to this the distinctly twenty-first-century emphasis on being warriors, not citizen-soldiers, and you have the definition of a system of self-perpetuating and self-serving militarism rather than military service.
To the extent that the military academies not only fail to curb this behavior but essentially encourage it, they are failing our democracy.
America’s Senior Officers: Lots of Ribbon Candy, No Sweetness of Victory
In my first article for TomDispatch back in 2007, I wrote about America’s senior military leaders, men like the celebrated David Petraeus. No matter how impressive, even kingly, they looked in their uniforms festooned with ribbons, badges, and medals of all sorts, colors, and sizes, their performance on the battlefield didn’t exactly bring to mind rainstorms of ribbon candy. So why, I wondered then, and wonder still, are America’s senior military officers so generally lauded and applauded? What have they done to deserve those chests full of honors and the endless praise in Washington and elsewhere in this country?
By giving our commanders so many pats on the back (and thanking the troops so effusively and repeatedly), it’s possible that we’ve prevented the development of an American-style stab-in-the-back theory – that hoary yet dangerous myth that a military only loses wars when the troops are betrayed by the homefront. In the process, however, we’ve written them what is essentially a blank check. We’ve given them authority without accountability. They wage “our” wars (remarkably unsuccessfully), but never have to take the blame for defeats. Unlike President Harry Truman, famous for keeping a sign on his desk that read “the buck stops here,” the buck never stops with them.
Think about two of America’s most celebrated generals of the twenty-first century, Petraeus and Stanley McChrystal and how they fell publicly from grace. Both were West Point grads, both were celebrated as “heroes,” despite the fact that their military “surges” in Iraq and Afghanistan proved fragile and reversible. They fell only because Petraeus was caught with his pants down (in an extramarital affair with a fawning biographer), while McChrystal ran afoul of the president by tolerating an atmosphere that undermined his civilian chain of command.
And here, perhaps, is the strangest thing of all: even as America’s wars continue to go poorly by any reasonable measure, no prominent high-ranking officer has yet stepped forward either to take responsibility or in protest. You have to look to the lower ranks, to lieutenant colonels and captains and specialists (and, in the case of Chelsea Manning, to lowly privates), for straight talk and the courage to buck the system. Name one prominent general or admiral, fed up with the lamentable results of America’s wars, who has either taken responsibility for them or resigned for cause. Yup – I can’t either. (This is not to suggest that the military lacks senior officers of integrity. Recall the way General Eric Shinseki broke ranks with the Bush administration in testimony before Congress about the size of a post-invasion force needed to secure Iraq, or General Antonio Taguba’s integrity in overseeing a thorough investigation of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib. Their good deeds did not go unpunished.)
Authority without accountability means no one is responsible. And if no one is responsible, the system can keep chugging along, course largely unaltered, no matter what happens. This is exactly what it’s been doing for years now in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.
Can we connect this behavior to the faults of the service academies? Careerism. Parochialism. Technocratic tendencies. Elitism. A focus on image rather than on substance. Lots of busywork and far too much praise for our ascetic warrior-heroes, results be damned. A tendency to close ranks rather than take responsibility. Buck-passing, not bucking the system. The urge to get those golden slots on graduation and the desire for golden parachutes into a lucrative world of corporate boards and consultancies after “retirement,” not to speak of those glowing appearances as military experts on major TV and cable networks.
By failing to hold military boots to the fire, we’ve largely avoided unpleasantness between the military and its civilian leadership, not to speak of the American public. But – and here’s the rub – 70 years of mediocrity since World War II and 14 years of failure since 9/11 should have resulted in anti-war protests, Congressional hearings, and public controversy. It should have created public discord, as it did during the Vietnam War, when dissent was a sign of a healthy democracy and an engaged citizenry. Nowadays, in place of protest, we hear the praise, the applause, the thank-yous followed by yet another bombastic rendition of “God Bless America.” Let’s face it. Our military has failed us, but haven’t we failed it, too?
Listening Again to Jefferson
America’s military academies are supposed to be educating and developing leaders of character. If they’re not doing that, why have them? America’s senior military leaders are supposed to be winning wars, not losing them. (Please feel free to name one recent victory by the U.S. military that hasn’t been of the Pyrrhic variety.) So why do we idolize them? And why do we fail to hold them accountable?
These are more than rhetorical questions. They cut to the heart of an American culture that celebrates its military cadets as its finest young citizens, a culture that lauds its generals even as they fail to accept responsibility for wars that end not in victory but – well, come to think of it, they just never end.
The way forward: I don’t have to point the way because Thomas Jefferson already did. Just read his quotations in the West Point library: we need to become a peace-loving nation again; we need to act as if war were our last resort, not our first impulse; we need to recognize that war is corrosive to democracy and that the more military power is exercised the weaker we grow as a democratic society.
Jefferson’s wisdom, enshrined at West Point, shouldn’t be entombed there. We need a new generation of cadets – and a few renegade generals of my generation as well – who want to serve us by not going to war, who know that a military is a burden to democracy even when victorious, and especially when it’s not. Otherwise, we’re in trouble in ways we haven’t yet begun to imagine.
William J. Astore, a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF), is a TomDispatch regular. The co-author of Hindenburg: Icon of German Militarism, he writes for and edits the blog The Contrary Perspective.
Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook. Check out the newest Dispatch Book, Nick Turse’s Tomorrow’s Battlefield: U.S. Proxy Wars and Secret Ops in Africa, and Tom Engelhardt’s latest book, Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World.
Copyright 2015 William J. Astore
Read more by Tom EngelhardtCHARLESTON, SC - SEPTEMBER 30: U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) speaks to students at the College of Charleston during a town hall meeting on September 30, 2014 in Charleston, South Carolina. Paul has been speaking at a series of GOP events in the state, including the Universtity of South Carolina in Columbia. (Photo by Richard Ellis/Getty Images) Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., speaks to students at the College of Charleston during a town hall meeting on Sept. 30, 2014 in Charleston, S.C. (credit: Richard Ellis/Getty Images)
— Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is questioning President Barack Obama’s decision to send 3,000 U.S. military personnel to West Africa to help combat Ebola, worrying that troops might contract the virus.
Speaking to “The Laura Ingraham Show” Wednesday about the first case of Ebola inside the U.S., the potential 2016 presidential contender stated it has to be a concern about having thousands of soldiers on the same ship who could have been in contact with the deadly virus.
“You also have to be concerned about 3,000 soldiers getting back on a ship. Where is disease most transmittable? When you’re in a very close confines on a ship, we all know about cruises and how they get these diarrhea viruses that are transmitted very easily,” Paul told Ingraham. “Can you imagine if a whole ship full of our soldiers catch Ebola?’
Paul said he felt “political correctness” is getting in the way of government officials making sound decisions to deal with the Ebola threat.
Jimmy Carter: ‘I Could Have Wiped Iran Off the Map’
“I really think that it is being dominated by political correctness and I think because of political correctness we’re not really making sound, rational, scientific decisions on this,” Paul noted.
Paul warned about the “transmissibility” of the virus.
“We should not underestimate the transmissibility of this,” Paul said. “My suspicion is that it’s a lot more transmissible than that if people who are taking every precaution are getting it. There are people getting it who simply helped people get in or out of a taxicab.”
The senator from Kentucky added: “It’s a big mistake to underestimate the potential for problems worldwide.”
Since the summer months, U.S. health officials have been preparing for the possibility that an individual traveler could unknowingly arrive with the infection. Health authorities have advised hospitals on how to prevent the virus from spreading within their facilities.
People boarding planes in the outbreak zone are checked for fever, but that does not guarantee that an infected person won’t get through.
George W. on Jeb Bush: ‘I Think He Wants to be President’
Liberia is one of the three hardest-hit countries in the epidemic, along with Sierra Leone and Guinea.
Ebola is believed to have sickened more than 6,500 people in West Africa, and more than 3,000 deaths have been linked to the disease, according to the World Health Organization. But even those tolls are probably underestimates, partially because there are not enough labs to test people for Ebola.
Two mobile Ebola labs staffed by American naval researchers arrived this weekend and will be operational this week, according to the U.S. Embassy in Monrovia. The labs will reduce the amount of time it takes to learn if a patient has Ebola from several days to a few hours.
The U.S. military also delivered equipment to build a field hospital, originally designed to treat troops in combat zones. The 25-bed clinic will be staffed by American health workers and will treat doctors and nurses who have become infected. The U.S. is planning to build 17 other clinics in Liberia and will help train more health workers to staff them.
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(TM and © Copyright 2014 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2014 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)That actor we know as "Iron Man" finally speaks about his upcoming projects, specifically the most anticipated third sequel of a murder mystery classic. Robert Downey Jr. talks about "Sherlock Holmes 3" release date, spoilers and updated news.
The 49-year-old actor has been a mainstay in Hollywood films as a child actor. First appearing with his father and namesake in the film "Pound", Jr. has been in numerous movies since the 1970s. Apart from his work, Robert Downey Jr. has also been the target of tabloids as the actor struggled with alcohol and substance abuse during the late 1990s.
Bouncing back from his personal challenges, Robert Downey Jr. was able to regain his audiences and even increase his fan base. Beginning with an Academy Award for Best Actor in his portayal of Charlie Chaplin in the movie "Chaplin" and in Calista Flockhart's television series, "Ally McBeal", which won him a Golden Globe.
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Since then, Robert Downey Jr. made his name even bigger in his films as "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang", "A Scanner Darkly", "Tropic Thunder", "Iron Man" franchise, and of course, the "Sherlock" franchise.
Claiming bigger fame is his role as Tony Stark in the Marvel "Iron Man" franchise, Robert Downey Jr. has proven himself one of the most resilient actors in Hollywood.
Updated news on the upcoming Robert Downey Jr. "Sherlock Holmes 3" release date reveals that the project is officially in the works. During the promotion of his new film "The Judge", Robert Downey Jr. talks about the upcoming "Sherlock Holmes 3", he says: "Yes, we have a 'Sherlock 3' in development. We want it to be the best of the series, so that's a pretty tall order."
Robert Downey Jr. also comments on "Sherlock Holmes" television counterpart, Benedict Cumberbatch, saying that the English actor portrays a very good "Sherlock".
According to reports online, Robert Downey Jr.'s "Sherlock Holmes 3" release date is set for a vague 2017, as the production has yet to begin.Looking for news you can trust?
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Last weekend, an independent commission revealed a plan for closing New York City’s infamous Rikers Island jail complex. The proposal, developed at the City Council’s urging by a team of criminal justice experts, policymakers, and advocates, calls for shifting inmates to smaller facilities across the five boroughs and redeveloping the island’s 400 acres into new public utilities.
Closing the complex has the support of Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who blasted New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio in March for his lack of “political will” on the issue. Less than three weeks later, de Blasio declared his support for the new plan. But ultimately, to end the use of the city’s “expensive penal colony,” as the commission put it, the city will have to meet a daunting goal—cutting its jail population in half over 10 years, from nearly 10,000 to 5,000 people.
To accomplish this, the commission put forward an array of proposals, from eliminating short jail sentences to raising the age of “criminal justice responsibility” in the state from 16 to 18. But one measure stands out as having the most potential for reducing the number of people New York City incarcerates: bail reform.
“We know that many of these individuals are not threats to public safety. What they are is poor.”
Of the almost 10,000 people held in city jails each day, three |
FDNY confirmed on Thursday a carriage horse near Columbus Circle ran away and collided with a car.
The accident occurred at the corner of Ninth Avenue and West 57th Street.
The New York Post reports the horse named Oreo became frightened by a car noise when it suddenly broke free and ran away with a couple in the carriage.
The horse crashed into a wall and the couple fell out, but Oreo kept on galloping until it ran into a town car. The driver and couple were taken to a hospital. A stable manager tells The Post the horse is "doing fine."
A woman who witnessed the accident told NBC New York, "Apparently it struck a car here, and then it separated [from the carriage].The horse continued up Broadway, just galloping." She added that there were two people in the carriage at the time of the accident. One man was taken away in a stretcher but did not appear to be seriously hurt.
Andrew Katz took this photo form the scene:
The horse-drawn carriage industry has drawn heavy criticism from animal advocates who demand New York City follow in the footsteps of other global cities including London, Paris, and Toronto by banning the controversial tourist attraction.
As shocking as runaway horses in the middle of the city may be, unfortunately, such instances have happened before.
In the past few years, several carriage horses have collapsed and died while working, triggering activists to take a stand. After a white equine collapsed in Midtown in 2011, the ASPCA released the following statement:
We at the ASPCA express our sadness and concern at this tragic incident. The life of a carriage horse on New York City streets is extremely difficult and life threatening, and the ASPCA has long believed that carriage horses were never meant to live and work in today’s urban setting.
Despite the increased momentum calling for a ban, Mayor Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Quinn have continued to voice support for the industry citing its economic benefits.
But in July, a carriage driver drew ire from the LGBT community, including Quinn, after a disturbing video surfaced showing the driver spewing a homophobic, racist rant.
The video prompted Quinn to condemn the driver's tirade, deeming it "reprehensible and unacceptable." However, Quinn was sure to also express her support for the industry it was economically vital for the city to be "allowing an industry that generates vital jobs and tourism for our city to continue."Having spent some time reading Supreme Court summations, I think historians looking back on what will be left of the smoking ruins of the western democractic after it auto-asphyxiates itself to death will probably read the utterances that emanated from the supreme court with complete bemusement. Maybe it will be made into a comedy show. I say probably, because no doubt this whole debacle will either go down with the total ignominy it deserves, or will somehow become part of some politically legitimizing narrative, at which point politically disinterested analysis will become impossible. The narrative of progress seems to lend credence to the second possibility, with everything, and anything that happens becoming a case of logical narrative leading to the current political paradigm. Criticizing any of it for being incoherent, retarded and plain wrong has a destabilizing effect.
Moldbug made a point of reviewing history as a means to undermine the present, with the American Revolution, The American Civil War, The Vietnam War, decolonization and World War 2 coming under flack. There are many more legitimizing narratives that make up the progression of our current system, and all of them are bunk. The Reformation and its influence on the thinking of the likes of Locke and Hobbes for example is devastating, given that it seems clear the states and power structures were behind the violence, and not “religion.” But we can do this all day and have zero effect, because it has to be acknowledged with crystal clarity that accuracy is not a defining process in the selection and propagation of ideas, instead simple, pure, power is. This is how so much illogical trash is so dominant, and why patently stupid ideas thrive. If this offends your sensibility, then maybe political theory is not for you.
This all brings us to the current political landscape. Without raw, simple power, you have zero chance of installing your conception of how things should be organised and run. It is as simple as this. Can you, and do you have the means to, compel others to do as you wish, and to cut off their ability to propagate their ideas? Of course, in a democracy this is not acceptable, because we have a market place of ideas, and all are equal in the institutions of the state, except this is not true. There is an area inside of which the current political paradigm accepts as legitimate, and that which is not is merely caste from existence without discussion. The left within the system being comprised of the actual governing elements understands this only too well, and to maintain this they engage in a great deal of behaviour that is clearly outside of the formal remit of the Republican structure to maintain this fraud. The obvious conservative complaint that this is not fair, or it is unconstitutional is pathetic, and an acknowledgement that they are merely underlings. But this is the bind, if the conservative then rejects this state of affairs and seeks to then engage in the same behaviour, they become an enemy and will come into the view of power. Of course, imagining a conservative that understood that extra-republican structures are vital to winning in a republic, and vital to maintaining a republic, is like imagining a tall and short man – a logical fallacy. They no longer believe in a republic. Maybe there are signs of life here. Probably not. But we can hope.
The only positive I can then see in the Trump election debacle is that maybe some people (it doesn’t have to be many) start to think seriously and in depth about the very structure of governance and the nature of power. For anything to be achieved, serious extra-republican structures would need to be devised and used to control the republic externally as a means to taking over the republic institutions themselves. They won’t remove themselves.
This line of thinking then requires a further consideration in that do you really think re-instituting a constitution as a ruling document would be logical, given the previous one led to this? Steel-manning it, and placing it on a technological footing for example, doesn’t negate the usage of extra-republican actors, or the creative interpretation of its wording, neither does having another division of balancing institutions whom will merely go to war incessantly with each other, as has occurred with every such configuration.
And given that it is clear the media primes the population to vote how they wish it to do, do you really think allowing them “freedom” is the best idea imaginable?
AdvertisementsThis election, the CBC is hosting a third-party online tool called Vote Compass, which attempts to align the users' personal views with the platforms of each political party.
While it's billed as a simple tool to increase voter engagement, one political scientist believes the tool, and CBC's promotion of it, can affect people's voting behaviours in a subversive and unexpected way.
Tim Abray is a doctoral candidate in Political Studies at Queen's University. He has a background in journalism, and researches cognitive psychology. Tim's argument has two parts, the first being that voters base their decisions on far more than just a party's platform.
We make judgements based on the way people dress, the way people behave, the way they talk, they way they choose to trim their beard or not. There's an absolutely enormous list. - Tim Abray, Queen's University
To Tim, the fact that CBC hosts and promotes the tool implies the CBC believes that compatibility with a party's platform is the most important factor in voting.
Tim argues that using the Vote Compass tool can short-circuit a person's natural vote-making decision process. For example, if a person felt intuitively that they should vote for the Green Party, but the tool tells them they align with the Conservatives, the person may second-guess their natural, democratically acceptable gut feelings.
We've survived for thousands and thousands of years on our gut instincts, and I think we need to give them a little bit more respect. Sometimes our snap judgements are quite accurate. And sometimes we can be talked out of those and do things against our better judgement. - Tim Abray, Queen's University.
Tim says the subtle effects of the Vote Compass tool are magnified by the support of the CBC. Since the CBC attempts to be as accurate, balanced and objective as possible, people may trust the results of the Vote Compass more than would be advisable.
Clifton van der Linden is the founder of Vox Pop Labs which created the tool. He says the tool does not attempt to show someone how to vote, but simply allows people to learn more about the platforms of the parties, and where the user falls on the political spectrum.
Vote Compass is not about telling you how to vote. Vote Compass is about understanding how your views align with the political parties on a range of issues. The issues included may not be the most important issue to a particular voter... what Vote Compass is doing is just giving you more information about where the parties stand. - Clifton van der Linden, Founder of Vox Pop Labs
Click the blue button above to hear the complete interviews with both Tim Abray and Clifton van der Linden.Image caption Shona Robison said it was time the issue was brought out into the open
Scotland's health secretary has said she is very concerned by claims of sexual harassment at the Scottish Parliament.
Shona Robison was responding to reports that women at all levels in Holyrood have experienced harassment.
Human rights lawyer Aamer Anwar told the Sunday Herald newspaper that a "number of women" had approached him about the issue.
Ms Robison called on those affected to contact parliamentary authorities.
Speaking on the BBC's Sunday Politics Scotland programme, Shona Robison said it was time the issue was addressed.
She said: "I'm very concerned by the reports that I've read.
"There is clearly a focus at the moment about sexual harassment in a number of institutions and I would find it hard to imagine that the Scottish Parliament is immune from that."
Image copyright PA Image caption Aamer Anwar said he had been approached by a number of women
She added: "And what I would say to anybody is that it is really important that these issues are brought out and people obviously should report it to the parliamentary authorities, to the police possibly, and also - if it's a party issue - to the political party.
"We need to bring these things out to the open. Whether it's the Scottish Parliament, whether it's Westminster, whether it's the BBC, it's really important that things, that have perhaps been brushed under the carpet for too long in regards to sexual harassment, these things need to be brought out because clearly it's totally unacceptable that anybody should be faced with that type of behaviour."
Aamer Anwar told the Sunday Herald that he had spoken to several individuals at Holyrood who had been subject to sexual harassment.
Propositioning young women
He said: "It's a catalogue of sexual harassment, stalking, social media abuse, sexual innuendos, verbal sexual abuse, touching, sexual assaults, requests for sex, cover-up, isolation and bullying."
His comments come after some MPs at Westminster were accused of intimidating or propositioning young women inappropriately.
On Sunday, Theresa May called for new grievance procedures.
In a letter to Commons Speaker John Bercow, the prime minister said the current House of Commons disciplinary regime lacked "teeth" and needed to be reformed.
It followed claims about the conduct of international trade minister, Mark Garnier, after he admitted asking his secretary to buy sex toys for him.
Image caption Mary Scanlon said she had previously turned a "deaf ear" when she was subject to abusive comments
Mr Anwar said women at Holyrood had also come up against problems of inappropriate behaviour.
He added: "I have spoken to several individuals who have been subject to sexual harassment.
"This is not just a problem for one party. It is a problem for all parties."
'Women are targeted'
Ms Robison said that while she had not personally been a victim of sexual harassment, it was commonplace for women in political life to face abuse.
She said: "On social media we do all get a level of abuse that as women wouldn't be directed at men, about how we look, what we wear.
"Obviously that isn't as serious as sexual harassment in your day-to-day job, but I think it's part of an issue as a society we have where women are targeted in different ways."
Image copyright Scottish Parliament Image caption A spokesman for the Scottish Parliament said the allegations were being taken "very seriously"
The former Conservative MSP, Mary Scanlon, who spent more then 16 years at Holyrood, said she had experienced the issue in the past.
She said: "Throughout my life, and including being an MSP, comments are made and you don't want to be difficult, you don't want to be too precious, you don't want to be too politically correct, and I think I probably turned a deaf ear and a blind eye to things that maybe, mildly, or just a wee bit more, upset me. And I just thought that's part in parcel of the job."
In response to the revelations at Holyrood, a spokesman for the Scottish Parliament said any allegation of sexual harassment would be taken "very seriously".
He added: "The parliament has robust procedures in place to investigate and deal with any reports of sexual harassment in the workplace.
"If any individuals were to witness or experience such behaviour, we would encourage them to report it."New York Debates Whether Housing Counts As Health Care
toggle caption Natalie Fertig/WNYC
Standing outside her sixth-floor apartment in the Bronx, Lissette Encarnacion says she sometimes forgets the place belongs to her.
"I'm thinking I'm at somebody else's [house]," she says. "I'm ringing my own doorbell."
Encarnacion used to have a career in banking, and lived in a real home with her son and husband. Then one night everything changed, she says, when her husband came home drunk and angry, and threw her off a balcony.
"He came home, pulled me from the hair, and just started beating the hell out of me," she says. She was seven months pregnant with her second child, a boy.
Encarnacion suffered traumatic brain injury and was never the same. She and her sons moved in with her sister, but Encarnacion often wandered off.
Eventually she became homeless, she tells NPR affiliate WNYC, and remained that way for a decade. She suffered from epileptic seizures, and was frequently picked up by paramedics and taken to emergency rooms.
Then two years ago, she moved into The Brook, an apartment complex that provides supportive housing to its residents — more than half of whom are formerly homeless.
You know, we as a society are paying for somebody to be on the streets.
Now Encarnacion lives in a studio apartment, which she has decorated with stuffed animals and Christmas lights. And though the place is small, she likes to think of it as her "penthouse" apartment.
Brenda Rosen, the director of Common Ground, the organization that manages the building, says The Brook offers a full range of services to keep its residents healthy: social workers, security, a doctor and even an event planner.
And while these services don't come without a cost — an apartment at The Brook runs at about $24,000 a year — Rosen says they are cheaper than the estimated $56,000 per year that the city spends on the emergency room visits and stays at shelters and jails, where many people with severe mental illness end up.
"You know, we as a society are paying for somebody to be on the streets," says Rosen.
Few people would dispute that Lissette Encarnacion is better off in her studio apartment than she was when she was living under the bridge. And it's far cheaper if she has a doctor downstairs than if she has to show up regularly in the ER.
The question is, who pays for this kind of housing?
New York now has about 47,000 supportive housing units, and the state intends to invest $260 million Medicaid dollars over the next two years. But the federal government won't match it.
At the crux of this debate is the question of whether housing qualifies as health care.
Medicaid is supposed to be health insurance, and not every problem somebody has is a health care problem.
This past December, the outgoing New York State commissioner of health argued in an article in The New England Journal of Medicine that housing is health care. Providing housing to the chronically homeless saves health care money, he argues, so Medicaid should help pay capital costs.
New York State Medicaid Director Jason Helgerson went further, arguing that federal Medicaid money already pays for housing, through long stays in nursing homes and hospitals.
But Bruce Vladeck, who formerly administered Medicaid and Medicare in the Clinton administration, says federal Medicaid dollars can't and shouldn't be used to pay for housing — it's not cost-effective.
"Medicaid is supposed to be health insurance, and not every problem somebody has is a health care problem," says Vladeck.
Instead, Vladeck argues that housing programs should be paid by housing agencies.
"As a society, both in the private sector and the public sector, we are really cheap and niggling and resentful about paying for social services, and we are much more generous when it comes to paying for health services," he says.
At the moment there is not enough housing money to go around for all the people who need it — people like Encarnacion, who are done living on the streets but still need support. For her, The Brook offers a place in between.
"I stuck it out, and it's good," she says. "And God's been real good to me. And the people that work here have been very good to me — and patient, because I am not easy. I am not easy."
To hear and read more about The Brook and other innovative initiatives in health care reform in New York, check out WNYC's series Prescription for the Bronx.0 SHARES Facebook Twitter Google Whatsapp Pinterest Print Mail Flipboard
Here’s a clip of Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) literally fleeing down the stairs to escape from ABC News’ Tom Llamas’ question about whether he believes Roy Moore’s accusers.
As he runs down the stairs, Brooks goes with repeating this: “I believe the Democrats will do great damage to our country.”
Watch here via ABC News:
Asked whether he believes Roy Moore over his accusers, Rep. Mo Brooks tells @TomLlamasABC, "I believe the Democrats will do great damage to our country." https://t.co/6GyWp8aqrX pic.twitter.com/L2OepQOkhR — ABC News (@ABC) November 14, 2017
“I believe the Democrats will do great damage to our country” puff-puff runs the Alabama congressman.
Asked again by ABC News’ Tom Llamas Brooks repeats, “I believe that the Democrats will do great damage to our country on a myriad of issues.”
So this Roy Moore situation is going well for Republicans.
Meanwhile, Republican Senators who are following McConnell’s lead to attack Roy Moore over the sexual harassment and assault accusations can’t explain why they think Roy Moore shouldn’t be in the Senate after being accused by 5 women, but Donald Trump should be in the White House after being accused by 16 women and caught on tape bragging about sexual assault.
Several Republican hypocrites in the Senate are also fleeing, but they’ve added a pivot to Bill Clinton for spice.
Mo Brooks believes Democrats will do “great damage” to our country. That’s how he justifies supporting Roy Moore, accused of assaulting a 14-year-old girl among other five women who’ve accused the Republican Judge — as if Donald Trump were not already actually doing great harm to our country.
Image: Image: Screen cap of Rep. Mo Brooks fleeing down the stairs to avoid reporter courtesy of ABC News.
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:EXCLUSIVE: As early as May, the Obama administration had strong and specific information about the location of American James Foley and other hostages held in Syria, a source close to the discussions told Fox News, but the rescue mission was not approved until early July.
The gap raises new and compelling questions about whether the operation to save the American and British hostages was unnecessarily delayed for at least five weeks because the administration wanted the intelligence to develop further.
“We had a lot of really good information on where they were being held, very specific information,” said the source, who agreed to discuss the details on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. The source added that the Islamic State captors felt so secure in their stronghold of Raqqa, Syria, that the hostages were moved between only a handful of locations. By late spring, the American and British hostages had been held for at least three weeks in one facility.
Other sources backed up the account provided to Fox News. The timeline seems to conflict with administration claims that the White House signed off on the operation as soon as the intelligence allowed.
“The U.S. government had what we believed was sufficient intelligence, and when the opportunity presented itself, the president authorized the Department of Defense to move aggressively to recover our citizens," Lisa Monaco, the White House counterterrorism adviser, said in August, after journalist and hostage James Foley was executed and the video was posted by ISIS. “Unfortunately, that mission was ultimately not successful because the hostages were not present.”
A similar statement, which did not dispute the strength of the hostage location information, was provided to Fox News on Monday by National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan. "U.S. forces conducted this operation as soon as the President and his national security team were confident the mission could be carried out successfully and consistent with our policies for undertaking such operations," the statement said.
“The intelligence is never bullet-proof,” a former military official said. “When they [the rescue team] finally did go, the general view was that the intelligence was drying up. … These guys were ready to go, on a lower threshold [for the intelligence than the White House] … We want the American people to know we are there for them, and ready to go 24 hours a day.”
In an interview with Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren broadcast in mid-September, after ISIS posted the execution video of Foley, his parents said they also believed information was available about the hostage’s location long before the July rescue attempt.
"It was too late. I really feel that -- well, we were hinted that they knew where they were for, jeez, at different times they knew just where they were. But it was a dangerous mission,” Diane Foley explained.
“Like all Americans, we felt our government would succeed at whatever it decided to do, and were certainly dismayed that the effort was unsuccessful,” John Foley added.
Details have also emerged about the shadowy network of prisons used to hold the hostages who were held in close proximity to one another. Fox News has learned that after leaving a prison in the basement of the Aleppo Children’s hospital in the fall of 2013, the hostages were moved to a nearby industrial area -- before ISIS moved them again in early 2014 to their stronghold of Raqqa where over the next five months they were held in a handful of locations.
Fox News is withholding some details of their captivity as well as the names of hostages -- who have not been publicly identified by ISIS -- at the request of the families and the U.S. government.The very thought of seeing a spider on my carpet, or climbing up my wall, or lurking in my bath tub sends shivers down my spine. It’s fair to say I don’t like spiders – but I know they can be very beneficial so I don’t want to kill them!
Which is why this article is so great. It reveals nine fantastic natural ways to repel spiders and keep them out of your home without harming them and without harming your family with the use of chemical sprays.
Let’s be completely honest. Nobody REALLY likes spiders. Even if they are completely harmless little things, nobody really wants spiders hanging around inside their house. But, how do you repel them naturally without hurting them, and without exposing your family to any potentially harmful chemicals?
Read on for the answers you are looking for!
Mint Them Out
Did you know that spiders HATE peppermint? Most people don’t! An easy way to keep spiders from invading your space is to fill a spray bottle with peppermint essential oil and water, and then spray it around your home. Plus, your home will smell great!!
Clean It Up
The cheapest and most organic way to repel spiders naturally is probably not the easiest! Keeping your home neat, tidy and free of dust or webs is the best way to keep spiders from moving in. Regular vacuuming, dusting, and de-cluttering will keep any insects from making themselves at home!
Use Vinegar
White vinegar has about five trillion uses around the house (look it up!), and repelling spiders is one of them! Repelling spiders with vinegar is much like repelling them with peppermint oil, in that you fill a spray bottle with vinegar and water, and spray all the cracks and crevices around your home.
Enlist The Help Of A Furry Friend
Cats are a great spider deterrent! Four legged furry friends can be great hunters and will definitely not let a spider crawl across the floor without going on the prowl and taking care of business!
Don’t Let Them In
A great way to keep spiders out of your home is to never let them in in the first place! Make sure the exterior of your home is free from leaves, grass clippings, wood piles, or any other notorious spider hangouts. You can also check all door openings and windowsills to make sure there isn’t room for spiders to get in that way,and apply caulk when needed.
Citrus Does The Trick
It’s common knowledge that spiders hate all things citrus. Rubbing citrus peels on areas where spiders are known to frequent, like baseboards, windowsills and bookshelves, is a great way to keep them from coming around. Even using lemon scented furniture polish can drive spiders away!
Let Cedar Do The Work
Cedar can be a great deterrent for spiders. You can use cedar mulch outside around the perimeter of your home to try to keep spiders from ever getting inside. If you have access to a cedar chest or cedar hangers to use in your closet, that is a good choice as well. Using cedar blocks or shavings inside closets, cupboards or drawers can make them think twice about hanging out in there too!
Chestnuts
Yes, you read that right, chestnuts! They have been known to drive away spiders, so placing a few in your windowsills or along your baseboards can keep spiders from hanging out there. Many people also believe that the same thing can be done with an osage orange (also known as a hedgeapple) You can keep chestnuts and hedgeapples in the house for a long time before they go bad, so it’s worth giving it a shot!
Tobacco
It sounds weird, but spiders hate tobacco just about as much as they hate lemons and chestnuts! You can sprinkle small pieces of tobacco where spiders are troublesome, or you can soak tobacco in water and then spray the mixture all around. However, tobacco is pretty expensive these days, so you can likely find a more affordable fix for keeping spiders at bay!
source:
www.naturallivingideas.comRest of the text:
Antinatalism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antinatalism) is a philosophy with a centuries-long history that is against the birth of new foetuses in the human society for ethical and philosophical reasons.
Antinatalists believe that the existence in life will necessarily cause a person to live negative experiences, and use two philosophical positions to support the idea that the birth of new humans is a bad thing:
1. The philosophy of Hedonism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonism) that says that the meaning of life is happiness.
2. The position that since the meaning of life is happiness, we shall not make other people unhappy.
Having in mind the above positions, and knowing that the existence in life necessarily causes a person to live experiences that are not satisfactory, antinatalists say that we ought to avoid procreation because by procreating we force our children to live negative experiences.
In this analysis, which has an anarchocommunist viewpoint, we will try to laconically express the position that the proletarian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proletariat) has an ethical responsibility to avoid procreation, for two reasons: firstly, because by procreating the children will be tortured in capitalism, and secondly because in that way new workers are created for the capitalists as well as and new soldiers for the militarists. Our aim is to attempt to answer the question: does antinatalism help the revolution? Is it, in essence, a revolutionary philosophy?
We begin with the axiom that the perfect and most satisfactory society is that built upon the ideals of anarchocommunism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchist_communism), a society that is in agreement with the basic propositions of Kropotkin. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kropotkin)
Since our society today is not anarchocommunist, the proletarian lives a life full of negative experiences: debt, hunger, imprisonment, and fighting the wars of the elite.
When the proletarian procreates, their children will almost certainly will become proletarians themselves and will have the same negative experiences as their parents. Therefore with the act of procreation the proletarian forces their children to live a life without satisfaction and full of sorrow. This, however, based on the positions of antinatalism, is something unethical. It is not right to force others to feel sadness.
Moreover, the proletarian if they are a conscious revolutionary has an ethical obligation to not assist the current capitalist system to preserve itself. The existence of new proletarians helps the self-preservation of capitalism, since they become new consumers, new workers, and new soldiers. In short, the birth of new children by proletarians is an act that further promotes capitalism.
In accordance with the above positions, therefore, the proletarian should not create new children, because in that way they force them to live a life in sadness and at the same time they surrender the children to the capitalists who are known to have no mercy and will use them for the continuing preservation of their unjust system (capitalism could not exist without a lot of proletarians).
Therefore we provided a possible answer to the question about the revolutionary properties of antinatalism, supporting the view that antinatalism is a revolutionary philosophy because it refuses to supply new proletarians to the capitalist machine, and we see that a possible act of resistance by the proletariat against the capitalist barbarism is the refusal to bring new proletarians in life.
Addendum:
It is not against the antinatalist philosophy to adopt children that already exist.
If we accept that unborn foetuses can feel suffering and pain, which is a source of unhappiness, then it would be difficult to accept abortion from an antinatalist perpective, since antinatalism is built upon the view that we should not force others to feel unhappiness. Contraception would probably be a great solution for sexually active antinatalists.
We do not claim that we have a complete or "correct" answer to the issue of the desirability of child-bearing by proletarians. We simply provide an answer to this issue from a viewpoint that mixes antinatalism with anarchocommunism (but is also compatible with the broad manifestations of class struggle).
[Translation from Greek] Original at http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=999931Jose Mourinho (left) and Benni McCarthy (right) won the Portuguese league twice and the Champions League while at Porto
Jose Mourinho is the "perfect man" to help Manchester United compete with Pep Guardiola's Manchester City next season, according to former Porto striker Benni McCarthy.
The BBC has learned ex-Chelsea boss Mourinho is in talks to replace Louis van Gaal as United manager this summer.
McCarthy, 38, played under Mourinho during the Portuguese's time at Porto.
"Mourinho is one of those people who knows how to beat Guardiola's tactics," he told BBC Sport.
"When he was at Real Madrid, he beat him a couple of times. At Inter Milan, he also had success against him.
"At the moment, I can't see anyone taking on Pep and his tactics at Manchester City.
"But Mourinho at United, he would have the resources, the players and the financial backing to beat Guardiola."
Former Barcelona coach Guardiola, now in charge of Bayern Munich, will succeed Manuel Pellegrini as City manager in the summer.
'Mourinho is not damaged goods'
Jose Mourinho and Pep Guardiola have faced each other 16 times as managers, drawing five of them
Mourinho's second spell as Chelsea boss ended in December, when he was sacked after losing nine of the season's first 16 league games.
His departure came just seven months after he had won his third Premier League title with the Blues, the first two of which came during his first spell at the club, from 2004-2007.
But McCarthy, who won consecutive Portuguese titles as well as the Champions League at Porto, said suggestions his former boss is "damaged goods" are "majorly unfair".
The South African added: "Everywhere he has gone, he has been successful.
Media playback is not supported on this device 'You're getting sacked' - Van Gaal to reporter
"The fans, the media, the people don't know what went on behind closed doors at Chelsea and what caused the problems they had when he was in charge. I certainly don't think that experience makes him a bad manager.
"The problems he has had of late seem to be due to personality clashes. When you want more from your players and they think they can't give you more, it results in a clash and players don't play to the best of their ability."
McCarthy said Mourinho's man-management skills were "unbelievable".
He added: "Manchester United have a lot of young players who want to achieve things and make names for themselves. He would come in and be the perfect man for the job.
"If the players give him 100% effort and show a willingness to succeed, he could definitely get Manchester United back to being one of those powerhouses in Europe, where teams fear to go."
'Mourinho ready for a long-term job'
Sections of the United support have called for Mourinho to become their new manager
Mourinho has never spent more than three years in a single spell as manager of a club.
But McCarthy feels he is ready for a long-term challenge and thinks United would be the perfect job for him.
"During my time at Porto, he had time to settle in and instil his philosophy," said McCarthy. "Nobody interfered much in what he was doing. He had full support and I think that is why he was so successful.
"Manchester United is that kind of club. It is a very well-run club and a family club. Because of that, I think he will be able to make those players play to their ability and put the club back where they belong.
Media playback is not supported on this device Is Jose Mourinho the right man for Man Utd?
"I definitely think he wants that opportunity to have a long-term spell at a club, where he can build a foundation and fix things properly. When he gets that, people will see the real Mourinho we all know."
Van Gaal has responded angrily to speculation about his future and accused the media of inventing stories.
But both he and predecessor David Moyes, who was sacked just 10 months after succeeding Sir Alex Ferguson, have struggled to match expectations at Old Trafford.
Under Ferguson, United won the Champions League twice as well as 13 Premier League titles, five FA Cups and four League Cups.
McCarthy said Mourinho wants the challenge of "following in Ferguson's footsteps" so he is not just known as "someone for a short-term fix".
"He is not quite up there yet with Ferguson, but, in terms of what he has won, he is only one of a handful of people who can take the Manchester United job and rebuild it," said McCarthy.
"It is the people's club and he would have the right resources to once again make them one of the most fierce teams in Europe. He would come in, change things around and get one up on Chelsea."Although childhood emotional abuse is rarely addressed by clinicians, new research suggests psychological abuse among children may lead to more problems than sexual or physical abuse.
The finding that childhood emotional abuse and neglect is rarely addressed in prevention programs or in treatment victims is sobering.
“Given the prevalence of childhood psychological abuse and the severity of harm to young victims, it should be at the forefront of mental health and social service training,” said study lead author Joseph Spinazzola, Ph.D.
The study appears in a special online issue of the journal Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy.
Researchers used a national data set of childhood traumatic stress to analyze data from 5,616 youths with lifetime histories of one or more of three types of abuse.
Abuse classifications included psychological maltreatment (emotional abuse or emotional neglect), physical abuse, and sexual abuse.
A majority of cases (62 percent) had a history of psychological maltreatment, and nearly a quarter (24 percent) of all the events were exclusively psychological maltreatment.
Researchers defined psychological maltreatment as care-giver inflicted bullying, terrorizing, coercive control, severe insults, debasement, threats, overwhelming demands, shunning, and/or isolation.
Investigators discovered children who had been psychologically abused suffered from anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, symptoms of post-traumatic stress, and suicidality.
An important discovery was that the residual trauma after psychological abuse occurred at the same rate, or in some cases, at a greater rate than children who were physically or sexually abused.
Conditions such as depression, general anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, attachment problems, and substance abuse occurred more often after psychological maltreatment, than physical or sexual abuse.
When psychological maltreatment accompanied physical or sexual abuse negative outcomes far exceeded what was found than when children were sexually and physically abused and not psychologically abused.
Moreover, sexual and physical abuse had to occur at the same time to have the same effect as psychological abuse alone on behavioral issues at school, attachment problems and self-injurious behaviors.
“Child protective service case workers may have a harder time recognizing and substantiating emotional neglect and abuse because there are no physical wounds,” said Spinazzola.
“Also, psychological abuse isn’t considered a serious social taboo like physical and sexual child abuse. We need public awareness initiatives to help people understand just how harmful psychological maltreatment is for children and adolescents.”
Nearly three million U.S. children experience some form of maltreatment annually, predominantly by a parent, family member, or other adult caregiver, according to the Children’s Bureau, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The American Academy of Pediatrics in 2012 identified psychological maltreatment as “the |
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Cluster cluster ; int numSlices = 6 ; float radius = 180 ; float gridWidth ; float gridHeight ; boolean isPaused = false ; boolean showTexture = false ; boolean showLines = false ; int axisMode = 1 ; float speedMod = 1 ; boolean darkStroke = true ; float texWidth ; float texHeight ; float uv0, uv1 ; float satMod = 0 ; void setup ( ) { size ( 940, 540, P3D ) ; colorMode ( HSB ) ; background ( 0 ) ; textureMode ( NORMALIZED ) ; angleStep = radians ( 360 / numSlices ) ; calculateGrid ( ) ; cluster = new Cluster ( ) ; } void draw ( ) { background ( 0 ) ; if ( showLines ) stroke ( 0 ) ; else noStroke ( ) ; cluster. update ( ) ; if ( showTexture ) image ( cluster. tex, width / 2 - cluster. pg. width / 2, height / 2 - cluster. pg. height / 2 ) ; else drawHexGrid ( ) ; } void randomize ( ) { axisMode = floor ( random ( 0, 3 ) ) ; int r = floor ( random ( 0, 3 ) ) ; switch ( r ) { case 0 : radius = 90 ; break ; case 1 : radius = 120 ; break ; case 2 : radius = 180 ; break ; default : break ; } calculateGrid ( ) ; cluster. createParts ( ) ; } void drawHexGrid ( ) { int xCount = width / gridWidth + 1 ; int yCount = height / gridHeight + 1 ; float xOffset ; for ( int x = 0 ; x < xCount ; x ++ ) { for ( int y = 0 ; y < yCount ; y ++ ) { if ( y % 2 == 0 ) xOffset = 0 ; else xOffset = gridWidth / 2 ; pushMatrix ( ) ; translate ( x* gridWidth + xOffset, y* gridHeight, 0 ) ; rotateZ ( angleStep / 2 ) ; switch ( axisMode ) { case 0 : drawHex1 ( ) ; break ; case 1 : drawHex2 ( ) ; break ; case 2 : drawHex3 ( ) ; break ; default : break ; } popMatrix ( ) ; } } } void drawHex1 ( ) { beginShape ( TRIANGLE_FAN ) ; texture ( cluster. tex ) ; vertex ( 0, 0, 0, 0.5, 1 ) ; for ( int i = 0 ; i < 6 ; i ++ ) { float x1 = cos ( angleStep* i ) * radius ; float y1 = sin ( angleStep* i ) * radius ; float x2 = cos ( angleStep* ( i + 1 ) ) * radius ; float y2 = sin ( angleStep* ( i + 1 ) ) * radius ; if ( i % 2 == 0 ) { vertex ( x1, y1, 0, uv0, 0 ) ; vertex ( x2, y2, 0, uv1, 0 ) ; } else { vertex ( x1, y1, 0, uv1, 0 ) ; vertex ( x2, y2, 0, uv0, 0 ) ; } } endShape ( ) ; } void drawHex2 ( ) { beginShape ( TRIANGLE_FAN ) ; texture ( cluster. tex ) ; vertex ( 0, 0, 0, 0.5, 1 ) ; for ( int i = 0 ; i < numSlices ; i ++ ) { float x1 = cos ( angleStep* i ) * radius ; float y1 = sin ( angleStep* i ) * radius ; float x3 = cos ( angleStep* ( i + 1 ) ) * radius ; float y3 = sin ( angleStep* ( i + 1 ) ) * radius ; float x2 = ( x1 + x3 ) / 2 ; float y2 = ( y1 + y3 ) / 2 ; vertex ( x1, y1, 0, uv0, 0 ) ; vertex ( x2, y2, 0, uv1, 0 ) ; vertex ( x3, y3, 0, uv0, 0 ) ; } endShape ( ) ; } void drawHex3 ( ) { beginShape ( TRIANGLE_FAN ) ; texture ( cluster. tex ) ; vertex ( 0, 0, 0, 0.5, 1 ) ; for ( int i = 0 ; i < numSlices ; i ++ ) { float x1 = cos ( angleStep* i ) * radius ; float y1 = sin ( angleStep* i ) * radius ; float x5 = cos ( angleStep* ( i + 1 ) ) * radius ; float y5 = sin ( angleStep* ( i + 1 ) ) * radius ; float x3 = ( x1 + x5 ) / 2 ; float y3 = ( y1 + y5 ) / 2 ; float x2 = ( x1 + x3 ) / 2 ; float y2 = ( y1 + y3 ) / 2 ; float x4 = ( x3 + x5 ) / 2 ; float y4 = ( y3 + y5 ) / 2 ; vertex ( x1, y1, 0, uv0, 0 ) ; vertex ( x2, y2, 0, uv1, 0 ) ; vertex ( x3, y3, 0, uv0, 0 ) ; vertex ( x4, y4, 0, uv1, 0 ) ; vertex ( x5, y5, 0, uv0, 0 ) ; } endShape ( ) ; } void calculateGrid ( ) { float angle = radians ( 360 / numSlices / 2 ) ; float b = radius * cos ( angle ) ; gridWidth = b * 2 ; float a = sqrt ( radius* radius - b* b ) ; gridHeight = radius + a ; texHeight = b ; texWidth = a* 2 ; switch ( axisMode ) { case 0 : uv0 = 0 ; uv1 = 1 ; break ; case 1 : uv0 = 0.25 ; uv1 = 0.75 ; break ; case 2 : uv0 = 0.375 ; uv1 = 0.625 ; break ; default : break ; } } void cycleAxisMode ( ) { axisMode ++ ; if ( axisMode > 2 ) axisMode = 0 ; calculateGrid ( ) ; } void cycleZoom ( ) { switch ( radius ) { case 90 : radius = 180 ; break ; case 120 : radius = 90 ; break ; case 180 : radius = 120 ; break ; default : radius = 120 ; break ; } calculateGrid ( ) ; } void mousePressed ( ) { randomize ( ) ; } void keyPressed ( ) { if ( key =='' ) isPaused =! isPaused ; if ( key =='s' ) save ( ) ; if ( key == 't' ) showTexture =! showTexture ; if ( key == 'g' ) showLines =! showLines ; if ( key == 'c' ) cluster. randomizeColor ( ) ; if ( key == 'a' ) cycleAxisMode ( ) ; if ( key == 'z' ) cycleZoom ( ) ; if ( key == 'r' ) cluster. createParts ( ) ; if ( key == '=' ) speedMod * = 1.2 ; if ( key == '-' ) speedMod * = 0.8 ; if ( key == 'l' ) darkStroke =! darkStroke ; } class Cluster { PGraphics pg ; PImage tex ; int numParts = 40 ; Part [ ] allParts ; Cluster ( ) { pg = createGraphics ( texWidth, texHeight ) ; pg. colorMode ( HSB ) ; pg. noSmooth ( ) ; createParts ( ) ; update ( ) ; } void update ( ) { pg. beginDraw ( ) ; updateParts ( ) ; pg. endDraw ( ) ; tex = pg. get ( ) ; } void createParts ( ) { allParts = new Part [ numParts ] ; for ( int i = 0 ; i < numParts ; i ++ ) { allParts [ i ] = new Part ( pg ) ; } } void updateParts ( ) { pg. ellipseMode ( CORNER ) ; pg. background ( 0 ) ; pg. strokeWeight ( 0.5 ) ; for ( int i = 0 ; i < numParts ; i ++ ) { allParts [ i ]. update ( ) ; } } void randomizeColor ( ) { for ( int i = 0 ; i < numParts ; i ++ ) { allParts [ i ]. randomizeColor ( ) ; } } } class Part { PGraphics pg ; int age ; int numVectors = 10 ; PVector [ ] v ; float x, y ; float rot, rotSpeed ; float scale, scaleOsc, scaleOscSpeed ; float hue, sat, bright ; float hueSpeed ; float satOsc, satOscSpeed ; float brightOsc, brightOscSpeed ; Part ( PGraphics _pg ) { pg = _pg ; v = new PVector [ numVectors ] ; init ( ) ; scaleOsc = random ( 100 ) ; move ( ) ; } void init ( ) { age = 0 ; x = random ( 0, pg. width ) ; y = random ( 0, pg. height ) ; rot = random ( radians ( 360 ) ) ; rotSpeed = random ( 0.002, 0.005 ) ; if ( random ( ) > 0.5 ) rotSpeed * = - 1 ; scale = 0 ; scaleOsc = 0 ; scaleOscSpeed = random ( 0.002, 0.004 ) ; randomizeColor ( ) ; for ( int i = 0 ; i < numVectors ; i ++ ) { v [ i ] = new PVector ( random ( - pg. width, pg. width ), random ( - pg. height, pg. height ) ) ; } } void randomizeColor ( ) { hue = random ( 255 ) ; hueSpeed = random ( 0.01, 0.2 ) ; satOsc = random ( 100 ) ; satOscSpeed = random ( 0.001, 0.003 ) ; sat = sin ( satOsc ) ; sat = map ( sat, - 1, 1, 0, 255 ) ; brightOsc = random ( 100 ) ; brightOscSpeed = random ( 0.001, 0.003 ) ; bright = sin ( brightOsc ) ; bright = map ( bright, - 1, 1, 0, 255 ) ; } void update ( ) { if (! isPaused ) move ( ) ; render ( ) ; } void move ( ) { age ++ ; rot + = rotSpeed * speedMod ; scaleOsc + = scaleOscSpeed * speedMod ; scale = sin ( scaleOsc ) ; if ( age > 100 && abs ( scale ) < 0.01 ) init ( ) ; hue + = hueSpeed ; satOsc + = satOscSpeed ; brightOsc + = brightOscSpeed ; sat = sin ( satOsc ) ; sat = map ( sat, - 1, 1, 0, 255 ) ; bright = sin ( brightOsc ) ; bright = map ( bright, - 1, 1, 0, 255 ) ; } void render ( ) { if ( darkStroke ) pg. stroke ( 0 ) ; else pg. stroke ( 255 ) ; pg. pushMatrix ( ) ; pg. fill ( hue % 255, sat, bright, 255 ) ; pg. translate ( x, y ) ; pg. rotate ( rot ) ; pg. scale ( scale, scale ) ; pg. beginShape ( ) ; pg. vertex ( v [ 0 ]. x, v [ 0 ]. y ) ; pg. bezierVertex ( v [ 1 ]. x, v [ 1 ]. y, v [ 2 ]. x, v [ 2 ]. y, v [ 3 ]. x, v [ 3 ]. y ) ; pg. bezierVertex ( v [ 4 ]. x, v [ 4 ]. y, v [ 5 ]. x, v [ 5 ]. y, v [ 6 ]. x, v [ 6 ]. y ) ; pg. bezierVertex ( v [ 7 ]. x, v [ 7 ]. y, v [ 8 ]. x, v [ 8 ]. y, v [ 9 ]. x, v [ 9 ]. y ) ; pg. vertex ( v [ 0 ]. x, v [ 0 ]. y ) ; pg. endShape ( ) ; pg. popMatrix ( ) ; } }It has been a wacky first week of baseball. One part heartbreaking, two parts breathtaking, eight parts endlessly fascinating, the sport never ceases to amaze. Some storylines (I can’t even avoid that pun if I tried) with serious fantasy implications emerged last week — namely, the historically great start to Trevor Story‘s career and the earth-shattering injury that ended Kyle Schwarber’s season.
I’m here, like everyone else, to discuss the former. I’m sure you’ve read your fair share of takes. This fruit is hanging so low, I almost stepped on it. I hope this doesn’t exhaust you, and I hope this doesn’t bore you. Because Story is more than just a statistically anomalous home run-hitting machine. He has a ceiling, and he has a floor, and I want to find out where — or, perhaps more abstractly, who — exactly they might be.
So let’s just beat this proverbial horse to proverbial death. Trevor Story is a real, totally human dude doing unreal, totally inhuman things. How did we get here?, you ask yourself. Why didn’t you draft him?. Why are you such an idiot?????
Relax. You’re not an idiot. I can’t tell you where Story was being drafted prior to the season starting because NFBC ADP continues to update, and the data show that someone recently drafted Story as early as 59th overall. But I’m pretty sure it was well outside the top-15 shortstops — perhaps near the back end of the top-25. Part of the reason is because Story was not really a blue chip prospect. Of greater concern, though, was Jose Reyes‘ legal troubles and their nebulous impact on Story’s playing time. So if you didn’t draft Story, it’s really not your fault. It was a shady situation to begin with.
If you didn’t pay attention to Story, however — if you didn’t give him the time of day whatsoever — well, that might be your fault, just a little bit. Story hit 20 home runs and stole 22 bases in 575 plate appearance split almost equally between Double-A and Triple-A last year. The power is legitimate, and the speed is legitimate.
Any minor-leaguer who strikes out thrice as often as he walks, however, inherently carries sizable risk. And, alas, that is exactly what Story did during his flashy 2015 campaign. Like clockwork, Story continues these trends, as evidenced by his 25% strikeout rate (as of Saturday afternoon) and nonexistent walk rate through 20 PAs.
Have you heard this cautionary tale? A young phenom hits a 30-30-.300 season. The counting categories outshine Story’s. The performance occurred entirely at Triple-A — in other words, entirely against verifiably more difficult competition. And the plate discipline, despite disconcerting contact issues, carried with it a very robust 18.6% walk rate. In other words, this young phenom is a decidedly better prospect than Story.
Said prospect grabbed his cup of coffee from September 2014 and filled it to the brim. He hit 20 home runs in the first half of 2015 and seemed to be every bit the juggernaut he appeared to be in the minors.
If you’re lucky, Trevor Story’s ascent won’t be followed by Joc Pederson’s descent. But it’s hard to imagine any scenario where it won’t. If Pederson played shortstop, that would paint an entirely different story — alas, Story can fall to Pederson’s depths and likely still be plenty valuable, even in the shallowest formats.
Story reminds me of Ian Desmond: power, speed, many whiffs and few walks. It’s a loose, inexact comp, but I think it’s a reasonable ceiling for Story this season. Desmond was a consensus top-3 shortstop in 2013 and 2014 following his breakout. But there’s a fine line between Desmond’s highly valuable 2013, built upon below-average (but not terrible) plate discipline, and his easily discardable 2014, built upon actually terrible plate discipline.
Obviously, it’s hard to say now what you’ll get. If you’re looking to sell high, understand that Story’s ceiling is much higher than scouts gave him credit for a couple of years ago. Ian Desmond circa 2013 is nothing to sneeze at, so if you’re trading him for, I don’t know, the red-hot Jean Segura, you’re making a tragic mistake.
If you’re looking to buy, understand that Story’s floor is much lower than his historic feat lets on. He’s simply a volatile commodity, and there’s really no knowing who we’ll get for the remaining 156 games of the season.
If you can pull off a heist, by all means, pull off a heist. Rarely can one say this with absolute certainty, but I’m saying it: Story will never be more valuable than he is now. Owners will trade you their first- and second-born children for him. Just know he is more than a fluke. How much more than a fluke, however — only time will tell.
For his sixth homer and currently most recent homer, Story turned on a fastball that basically should have sawed him off. The ball went 400 feet when, for 95% of the league, it should have gone 40 or -2. In other words: there’s bona fide talent there, and that kind of plate coverage can float an entire career. But, like Pederson and Desmond, Story’s prodigious feat will carry him only as far as his contact skills allow.Portugal may not be as decorated as South American or European giants like Brazil or Germany but they have had some of the best players the game has ever seen come through.
In Europe’s top 5 leagues, there are hundreds of Portuguese players in different clubs and yet, the players in the local Portuguese leagues are no pushovers either. This guarantees that almost every decade, there are several top Portuguese players being talked about.
Most of these players become international icons as many brands make them ambassadors. They are made the faces of businesses and even recognised in rather unnatural climes like Bingo gaming sites. Here is a list of sites with bingo games in the UK today that offer Portuguese football related content.
This piece today however, will zoom in more on the very best Portuguese players. These players have contributed to football in a big way.
Paulo Futre
This highly creative left-footed winger is a legend that played for a host of clubs but the most notable years of his career were spent at Atletico Madrid. By the end of his career spanning between 1983 and 1998, he had made 320 appearances and scored 79 goals at club level and played 41 times in Portugal colours. His explosive pace and trickery drew comparisons with Diego Maradona and was thus a delight to watch.
Rui Costa
Rui Costa’s was a gracious midfielder known for his vision, technique and passing. He is one of the best Portuguese midfielders ever. His intelligence and elegance pours cold water on the abilities of similar present day players like Andre Pirlo. Pele regards him as one of the top 125 football greatest living footballers. No endorsement is bigger. In a career that ran from 1990 to 2008, he played 498 times and scored 66 times. He played 94 times in the national colours.
Luís Figo
He is without doubts one of the most decorated footballers in the world at large and one that still brings smiles to the faces of Portuguese football fans till date. The winger, known for his dribbling, feints and pace, played for Sporting CP, Barcelona, Real Madrid and Inter Milan. He also holds the record number of appearances for the Portuguese national team after making 127 appearances. His career began in 1989 and ended 577 appearances and 93 goals later, in 2009.
Eusébio
The Black Panther would have remained top of every list focusing on the greatest Portuguese players if Cristiano Ronaldo didn’t burst onto the scene. His speed, ferocious right-footed shots, technique and athleticism helped him score 423 goals in 431 total senior appearances. He scored a further 41 goals for Portugal in 64 appearances. Many football scholars believe he would be rated higher than Pele if he was able to help Portugal bring back the World Cup. He passed away in 2014 and at the time, Alfredo Di Stéfano said "For me Eusébio will always be the best player of all time"
Cristiano Ronaldo
The only reason why Cristiano Ronaldo isn’t by far and away the best footballer in the world in the last decade is the fact that a certain Lionel Messi burst onto the scene around the same time. Even the most ardent Lionel Messi fans admire the Forward’s tenacity, athleticism, incredible goal sense and incomparable dedication to football.
Ronaldo has scored over 340 career goals in 450 appearances as at the time of writing. He has scored 55 goals for Portugal in 124 appearances. At just 31, with at least 4 years of top level football to go, there is every chance he will continue to break all records set by some others on this list. Figo’s all-time Portuguese national team appearance record will definitely be broken this year for starters.FILTERS
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Minimum wins: 5AAW 03/17/17 Homecoming Results & Live Review
Credit: Our own AAW analyst Derek Walker
Quick Results:
OI4K (Dave and Jake Crist) defeated Best Friends (Chuck Taylor and Trent) in 12:22 with a spiked tombstone piledriver
Abyss defeated Homicide in 7:47 with the Black Hole Slam
Drew Galloway defeated Zema Ion in 11:06 with a spinning Future Shock DDT. Great match that got a standing ovation at the end.
AR Fox defeated Shane Strickland in 13:38 with a 450 Splash. Strickland received please Come Back chants.
Penta el 0M defeated ACH in about 12 minutes with a low blow followed by a package piledriver. New Heritage Champion!
(Intermission)
Scarlet & Graves (Wentz and Xavier) defeated Besties in the World (Vega and Fitchett) in 10:19 with a Pedigree and Swanton Bomb combo
OI4K defeated Scarlet & Graves in 0:38 with a spike tombstone piledriver. New Tag Team Champions!
Rey Fenix defeated Trevor Lee in 11:29 with a turn-around Destroyer
Zack Sabre Jr. defeated Kyle O’Reilly in 16:32 with Hurrah! in a fantastic match
Sami Callihan defeated Low-Ki in???? after Abyss interfered, tossed powder into Low-Ki’s eyes and hit a chokeslam
***John Morrison, Big Mike Elgin, Rey Fenix, Jack Evans, Matt Riddle, Shane Strickland and Penta el 0M vs. AR Fox announced for Joe’s Live in Rosemont on April 8***
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Live Review
The Berwyn Eagles Club was sold out in advance of Friday night’s “Homecoming” live event, which featured ten matches, including three for championships. A crowd of three hundred fans lent their lungs and their best chants, their yeas and their boos and their f*ck yous to the action, though that number is approximate. There were more people in standing room only tonight than any other Berwyn show I have attended, fans lining the bar-side wall two, even three deep at some points. This was a packed show in more ways than the one. But, of course, if you have a more firm headcount, like, if counting people at wrestling shows is your jam, then let me know.
Ohio is 4 Killers first challenged the Best Friends of Chuck Taylor/DUSTIN and Trent/Greg in a semi-final match in AAW’s mini-tournament for its Tag Team Championships. The Killers are very popular in AAW, but in Berwyn, especially, though the crowd did warm for the Friends after a devastating moonsault from Chuckie T. The Crist Brothers mostly resorted to heel tactics during their control segments, walking through a number of classic tropes like pulling the tights and using heel manager JT Davidson for assistance. There was a hot back and forth sequence where everybody hit a cutter on another guy in the match, but in the end, the Killers picked up the win and advance to the finals with a spike tombstone piledriver.
Davidson wasn’t done, as he next managed Abyss in his match with an aging Homicide, whom I enjoy from time to time, but when you’re pushing forty, how gangster are you really? His shtick has reached its shelf life, but thankfully, his effort is still there, as this was a decent go with the monstrous Abyss. The competitors took advantage of the no-disqualification stipulation and battled around ringside before a chair was introduced. Then, Homicide hit a fork to the groin and a cutter onto thumbtacks. Meaning, he landed back-first onto the tacks too. Smart man. Abyss won with a Black Hole Slam in an OK match. Both Abyss and Davidson have great heat with the Berwyn fans.
Drew Galloway vs. Zema Ion/Xiima Zion/DJZ or whatever you want |
Kite!" is an excellent example of that.
GROSS: Well, let me reintroduce you here. If you're just joining us, my guest is Giles Martin, and he's the producer of the new 50th anniversary edition of The Beatles' groundbreaking album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." And this edition includes the original mono version, the new stereo remix that Giles Martin oversaw and then lots of, like, outtakes and rehearsal sessions and stuff. So we're going to take a short break. We'll be right back. This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE BEATLES SONG, "STRAWBERRY FIELDS FORVER")
GROSS: This is FRESH AIR, and if you're just joining us, my guest is Giles Martin, and he is the producer of the new 50th anniversary box set of The Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band."
MARTIN: And I just have to say that I'm definitely not the producer of The Beatles. The producer was definitely - it was definitely my father. All I've done is...
GROSS: Right. Your father produced - your father, George Martin, produced the original version.
MARTIN: Yeah, all I've done is - we've remixed - we've remixed the album. And I always feel nervous about, you know, talking about it because you think I wasn't even born when this came out. And all I'm trying to do is serve them, in a way, if that makes sense.
GROSS: So I'm - one of the things that made this album such a kind of cultural turning point musically is that it was a psychedelic album. I mean, there were things going on in the album that seemed almost designed for people to listen to while smoking marijuana or taking LSD. There's, like, weird effects that people thought of as, like, really trippy. Do you want to talk at all about the - I know you weren't (laughter) this was 1967.
MARTIN: I wasn't around.
GROSS: You weren't around yet.
MARTIN: Yeah. But, you know, what? We took loads of that when we mixed it. No, we didn't.
(LAUGHTER)
MARTIN: Yeah. We relived, you know...
GROSS: Get in the spirit.
MARTIN: We got in the suits and we took LSD, and we - you know, it was - you know what? I think that there's a lot written about that. I think it just blew people's minds. I think it blew some sober as well as, you know - I don't think the album was designed for drugs, and it wasn't really designed on drugs either, you know. I don't - I just don't think it was. They were certainly - they're certainly fairly lucid in the studio when they're recording it. So I think they were experimenting with everything. And music was one of those experimentations.
And I think that it's - I think with the album, funny enough, I think that you take the songs in isolation, and they're not that weird. And they really aren't that weird. It's just the fact they're next to each other, and I think that's what makes it a great album is the fact that you go from "Within You Without You" to "When I'm Sixty-Four" to "Lovely Rita." I mean, they're three incredibly different songs, almost by different bands. It's almost a schizophrenic record.
GROSS: So we've been talking about how, you know, people who in 1967 were listening to "Sgt. Pepper" are often thought of it as, like, really trippy because of all of the unusual processing and sound effects and overdubbing that was done on it and distortions. And so you could look at it as like, wow, a psychedelic or you could see it as really borrowing heavily from the experimental music of the era.
So I wanted to talk with you about the end of "A Day In The Life" where all of this is like very evident. So it ends with a kind of dissonant piano chord that very slowly dissolves which we'll talk about a little later. But before that, there's this kind of weird mix of sound. And so before we hear it, I want you to explain what's happening before that piano chord.
MARTIN: "A Day In The Life" is an extraordinary song. You know, it's almost, you know - it's psychedelic in its thought process, and it goes that sort of, you know, almost - its two mindsets as John and Paul where by, you know, John had this beautiful haunting melody and then they had nothing to put in the middle. And Paul said I've got a, you know, I've got this other song, they just, you know, stuck in the middle. And they had to join the two together.
And when they recorded it, they left a big hole. They just left a hole where they - where nothing happened at all. And it was Paul that came up to my father and said, you know - he was - you know, being influenced by all - you know, John Cage and all sorts of people and just said, you know, we should do an orchestral orgasm.
GROSS: (Laughter).
MARTIN: And my father said I'm sorry? He said we should do an orchestral orgasm, you know, this big sort of, you know, orchestral thing. It just, you know, blows your mind and explodes other speakers. And so they got a symphony orchestra. They said they were going to get a symphony orchestra. My dad - it's amazing, I think, of the time. He actually said I think, you know - we don't want to go over budget here, chaps. And so they got a 60-piece.
And so Ringo said, well, why don't we record them twice? And in fact what they did is they recorded them four times. So we have a four-track tape which fought with four orchestras on it which we can then combine for this new mix. And it's just extraordinary. I mean, it's - I can't think of another album that just has a symphony orchestra on as an effect, you know? It's like, you know, what's a good sound here? Oh, the sound of a symphony orchestra would be a good idea.
And so what you hear at the end of the song is this crescendo from a low E which is the sustained notes at the end of the verse into a high E which is the final climax. And then they had to think, OK, how do we finish this?
GROSS: Wait, wait. So they're - so everybody in the orchestra is sliding up an octave?
MARTIN: Everyone in the orchestra - my father that's telling from the orchestra to - not to unlearn everything they'd learn - the way orchestras work is they have to work as one body. You know, the - they are sort of - there's a brain, which you could argue is the first volas of the conductor and then all of the limbs the orchestra will have to work in complete knots of harmony, and, you know, teach to use the correct word.
And my father told me if you're playing the same note as the person next to you, you're playing the wrong note. But there's markers I need you to reach this E at this stage, you know. And so they - it's a long list, as we call it. And that's what the orchestra played. And because it was a Beatles session and because of the first time we had the, you know, a symphony orchestra, and they - actually the Beatles came in and they invited I think Marion Faith and Mick Jagger and a whole lot of people were there. And it was really, you know, wreathed of marijuana smoke.
And the Beatles made the orchestra wear sort of clown costumes and animal heads and just - there's the video of it. And this is what they did. It was like a - it was like a happening. You know, that's what they had in those days. It was a happening in studio one. And it's kind of an extraordinary sound. It's a sound that - I don't - it's a sound that's never really been repeated. It's like - it's incredibly intense. And then they had to - once they'd come with this climax, they had to finish something. And they had - didn't actually record the piano chord for quite a while later. They knew they needed to resolve, but they couldn't decide what to do.
GROSS: So I'm going to play the new stereo remix that you've done of the end of "A Day In The Life."
(SOUNDBITE OF THE BEATLES SONG, "A DAY IN THE LIFE")
GROSS: My guest is Giles Martin who produced the new 50th anniversary box set of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." We'll hear outtakes from the ending of "A Day In The Life" and hear more of the story behind it after a break. I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross back with Giles Martin who produced the new 50th anniversary box set of the groundbreaking Beatles album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" which includes the original mono mix and Giles Martin's new stereo remix. The box also includes many outtakes from the session.
Giles is the son of George Martin who produced the original "Sgt. Pepper" album. When we left off, we were listening to the new stereo remix of the track "A Day In The Life." The end was intended to sound like an orchestral orgasm and finishes with a crashing sustained piano chord that very slowly decays.
Now the new 50th anniversary box set also has rehearsal sessions of what went on to create that chord at the end. So would you describe the piano chord that ends the track? And how many pianos are there?
MARTIN: Well, they needed a big ending, and the piano chord was the way to go forward. And what they did is Paul and John and Mal Evans, their roadie, played three pianos. They played three pianos I think three times. So it's a four-track tape. And then they played pianos and a sort of very distorted low end sort of Wurlitzer, an electric organ, on the fourth track to create this massive sort of sustain.
And it's very tricky. You have to - because what - because they wanted the longest piano chord ever, what they would do is every time they recorded it, they would turn up the mic pre as it were - the input gain - so the piano chord as it died away, they'd make it louder in the studios. And that's what it is. It's - they wanted the biggest chord ever, and they kind of got it.
GROSS: OK. So what's really great is on the 50th anniversary album of "Sgt. Pepper," you have like a rehearsal track - I assume it's a rehearsal track - that's like an outtake of this. And we hear them putting together the piano - the piano chord. So...
MARTIN: Yeah. No, this isn't the rehearsal track actually.
GROSS: This is what they actually used?
MARTIN: This is them using it. Yeah. This is how they - they're just trying to go for it. You know, you can hear them talking to each other. And this is - once they decided to do it, this is the process of them recording it.
GROSS: OK. So here's that.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: One, two, three.
(SOUNDBITE OF PIANO CHORD)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: I don't think...
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #3: Take six.
(SOUNDBITE OF PIANO CHORDS)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: All right, don't - sort of - just play it like quiet. And, you know, you'll know where the four comes in. One, two, three.
(SOUNDBITE OF PIANO CHORD)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Once again. Still not quite together.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #3: Seven.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: All right. One, two, three.
(SOUNDBITE OF PIANO CHORD)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #3: Take eight.
(SOUNDBITE OF PIANO CHORD)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Try that again. Just let it ring.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #3: Take nine.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: That's it. Yeah.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #3: Off and on.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: One, two, three.
(SOUNDBITE OF PIANO CHORD)
GROSS: So that's like the raw material of the end - of "A Day In The Life." Now, there's another track that is an outtake of this, and it's kind of the Beatles doing a vocal harmony version of an ending chord that isn't nearly as dramatic. So explain what's going on with this and then we'll hear it.
MARTIN: Well, the reassuring thing about the Beatles is even they had bad ideas. And even the making of this album, they had bad - I think, that, you know, anyone aspiring to be an artist out there, never be scared of a bad idea, just be scared of sticking with it I think is the answer. And so their original idea - not - this is before the piano - their original idea was to create a sort of om, a sort of choir hum at the end.
And I think - I don't know who's in the studios with them. You can hear other people chatting and they're giving directions. But this is their original plan for the end of "A Day In The Life" and the end of the most famous album of all time.
GROSS: So let's hear it.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #4: Ready?
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #5: Stop freaking out, missus.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #4: One, two, three, four.
UNIDENTIFIED CHOIR: Om.
(LAUGHTER)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #6: That's all right.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #5: Take 10.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #4: One, two, three, four.
UNIDENTIFIED CHOIR: Om.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #4: Off you go. One, two, three, four.
UNIDENTIFIED CHOIR: Om.
GROSS: OK. So that's an outtake that's on the new 50th anniversary edition of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." So why did they reject this?
MARTIN: I just think it doesn't - you know, I think your listeners can tell it doesn't have much impact. You know, they needed a big ending and that wasn't it. And, in fact, you can hear at the end of - at the very end of that I put the the four-track - they recorded on four-tracks.
They did it properly. I mean, the thing about the Beatles, they'd stick to their guns, and they wouldn't give up on an idea. And they finished it, and then they realized that it just didn't work.
GROSS: Interesting. It's great to be let into the process (laughter).
MARTIN: Well, I think it is. I think what - I think the beauty of listening to the process is that you realize that - and there's a lot of talk about this album being, you know, the sort of album's, you know, delivered by unicorns and sent from the gods and plucked from the skies and, you know, delivered by a drug haze. But really it - the beauty of it is it's just four human beings making noise in the studios. They just happened to make a very good noise with very good songs.
GROSS: Let's take a short break here, and then we'll talk some more. If you're just joining us, my guest is Giles Martin. And he is the producer of the new 50th anniversary box set of the Beatles' 1967 groundbreaking album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." He's also the son of George Martin, who is the producer of the original album and produced several of the Beatles recordings. So we'll be right back. This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE BEATLES SONG "LUCY IN THE SKY WITH DIAMONDS - TAKE 1")
GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. And if you're just joining us, my guest is Giles Martin, and he's the producer of the new 50th anniversary box set of The Beatles 1967 album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." And it includes the original mono version, the original stereo version, a new stereo remix and lots of outtakes and, like, original tracks from before they were layered from the recording.
So I want to talk to you about one of my favorite things on this box set. And there's so many tracks on it, it's hard to choose, but there is just like a - what can I call it? - an acoustic take of "Strawberry Fields." And the final version of it has a lot of like - there's processing on John Lennon's voice. There's, you know, a lot of, you know, added instruments on it.
And this is just like very stripped down. There's no processing on his voice. And whereas the actual release version sounds kind of like psychedelic, trippy, the original version sounds very - just kind of wistful and alienated (laughter).
MARTIN: Well, it's kind of - yeah, it's kind of sweet, the original version. And I think that's lots to do with the process of, you know, John - my father always used to say, well, you know, John never liked the sound of his own voice. That's the thing is, you know - and to demand them to make changes. You know, he was just a natural, beautiful singer. He had a...
GROSS: Yeah. And you can so hear that on this.
MARTIN: The other thing about the original "Strawberry Fields" is, of course, they had to slow it down. And that gives you a more sort of a demonic edge, you know, your slowed down voice. And so what you hear is John slowed down. In fact, on this album, there's very few occurrences of a natural voice.
They played around with tempos, you know, on "When I'm Sixty-Four," Paul's voice is sped up, you know, and same with "Lovely Rita," you know, they - "Penny Lane" his voice is sped up. And on "Strawberry Fields," John's is slowed down.
It's - they're all over the shop just trying to change things. But you're right, on the demo or on the first take of "Strawberry Fields," you hear the song for what it is which is an incredibly complex but beautiful personal sort of diary to his time in Liverpool.
GROSS: What was Strawberry Fields? I mean, it was a actual place, right?
MARTIN: Yeah. Strawberry Fields are still there. It's a park in Liverpool near John's home. And he would, you know, I think that the funny thing about them is that very few bands are as identified by their place as much as the Beatles are. You know? I don't know whether it's because they are not as successful, but I think it's more the fact that the Beatles never really - they took Liverpool with them wherever they went. They were very proud of where they're from, and they still are. And this was despite the turmoil of going around the world, and, you know, picking up influences from everywhere, you know, the way that they were going to root themselves in this new sort of psychedelic, as you say, album was to start with the homeplace which is Strawberry Fields and then Paul counter with "Penny Lane."
And you can kind of hear in this very early take. You can hear that it's - you know, my dad always said he always remembers the day that John came in. And he sat - my dad sat on a stool and John sat in a stool and played them the song on the studio floor. And that was always one of his favorite memories.
GROSS: OK. So let's hear the original track of "Strawberry Fields" without any processing or speeding up or slowing down, without extra instruments. Here's John Lennon singing.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "STRAWBERRY FIELDS FOREVER")
THE BEATLES: (Singing) Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see. It's getting hard to be someone, but it all works out. It doesn't matter much to me. No one I think is in my tree. I mean, it must be high or low. That is you know you can't tune it. But it's all right. That is I think it's not too bad. Let me take you down 'cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields. Nothing is real. And nothing to get hung about. Strawberry Fields forever. Always know sometimes...
GROSS: So that's a track from the new 50th anniversary box set of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." And that's a version of "Strawberry Fields" without processing, without extra instruments. And my guess is Giles Martin who oversaw the production of this new box set. And his father was the producer on the original album "Sgt. Pepper's."
So, you know, I hear that, and I wonder like what exactly was it that John Lennon didn't like about his voice? His voice is just so sweet and so - I don't know kind of captivating. Do you know why he didn't like his own voice?
MARTIN: Well, I don't think it was just his voice. He didn't like, you know, my father always told me that the sounds that John had in his head were never the sounds that got on record. And, you know, after the Beatles split up, you know, they all - it was like smashing some of the toffee hammer. They all clustered in different sections of the corners of the world. And John did a few interviews, and he sort of criticized my father when it came to, you know, "Let It Be." He said, you know, I don't want any of your production - a rude word - on this album. You know, I don't want you ruining it with our production.
And my dad was sort of deeply offended because he was actually very close to John to begin with, and there was, you know - everyone changed. And he went back, and he hadn't spoke to John in a long time, and he went back. John phoned him up, and he went to go and see him at the Dakota Building in New York, which John lived in 1980 just a month before he died, I think. And my dad said listen, John, you said some terrible things about me. And he goes, hey, George, I was high. And my father said it was like - my father didn't really accept that as an excuse. But then he said, you know, do you know what I'd like to do George? He goes I'd like to go and record everything again. My dad went really? He goes what about "Strawberry Fields?" He goes especially "Strawberry Fields."
And he never really was content with, you know, not the sound of his voice, but never really thought, you know, what was in his head. And I think this what, you know - this is why they pushed so hard for, you know, sonic perfection or interesting sounds is because their goals were so high. And so with his voice, he had, you know - he was one of the best singers in the world, but it was never good enough. And so he always wanted something else. He wanted some sort of change done to his voice.
GROSS: I want to play one of the - I don't know what to call if this is an outtake or just like the track that was layered over, but this is "Good Morning." And you really got to hear them as a band without other instruments on this because it's a kind of naked track. And Ringo's drumming is really so good on this. And it - you can - it really showcases his drumming.
MARTIN: Ringo's a great drummer. I spoke to him a couple of weeks ago, and we talked about this. And he just said, you know, I love this because you can hear, you know - people can hear my drums. And he said that it's not that I turned the drums up. It's just that we'd have to be so careful nowadays of the needle jumping out of the groove or breaking someone's speakers 50 years ago.
We can be more courageous with dynamics. But, yeah, he was an amazing - he was, you know - every amazing band has to have a great drummer, and this particular track's interesting because it's actually Ringo and Paul playing drums together. You know, the hit sort of kick-drummer you can hear, the sort of flappy kick-drum sound is Paul hitting a kick-drum.
GROSS: Oh, I didn't realize that.
MARTIN: And that's what you can hear on this. Yeah. So that's the - that's what the take is. This is actually the take that was used, and it's just them playing, you know, playing live and recording it before they did - you know, they overdubbed the brass, the saxes and bass I think, so - and backing vocals. Then the animal sounds at the end - I mean, the funny thing about the animal sounds on "Good Morning" is John demanded that each animal could eat the next animal in line. That was his...
(LAUGHTER)
MARTIN: That was his request. Yeah, so this is - and I think this is true for the whole album. This just shows you that it's kind of - it's - you have to start off with raw emotion, you know, as a starting point for something that touches you. And then you can embellish it with other artful and interesting colors. But it's the raw impact that is always - you always go back to as a listener.
GROSS: So let's hear that kind of naked version of "Good Morning" before all the other things were layered on top of it. This is from the 50th anniversary box set edition of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GOOD MORNING GOOD MORNING")
THE BEATLES: (Singing) Somebody needs to know the time, glad that I'm here. Watching the skirts, you start to flirt. Now you're in gear. Go to a show, you hope she goes. I've got nothing to say but it's OK.
GROSS: So that's from the 50th anniversary edition of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." And my guest is the producer who oversaw this project, Giles Martin. And he's the son of George Martin, who produced the original album back in 1967. So we're going to take a short break. We'll be right back. This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE BEATLES SONG, "WITHIN YOU WITHOUT YOU")
GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my interview with Giles Martin, who produced the new 50th anniversary box set of The Beatles album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." His father, George Martin, produced the original 1967 album. The new box includes outtakes and Giles' new stereo remix of the album.
So how closely did you work with Paul and Ringo on this 50th anniversary project?
MARTIN: Well, you know, once we decided we were going to do - and in fact it was a strange time because when we initiated it, we were all speaking anyway because actually my father was very sick. And he sadly passed away last year in March, and I knew I was going to do this project. And I came back in the studios, and the first voice I heard was his. You know, Yoko actually said to me when we were doing "Love" that John, you know - she goes, it's funny, John's just a voice now. And that kind of touched me a little bit with my - hearing my father in the studio. And so we talked about what we were going to do. You know, they're - you know, I answer to them. Obviously, it's their record. It's their music, and they - it's very humbling that they have so much confidence in me, you know, with what I've done and they like what I do.
So really in the studio is - what happens is I go off and I have a great engineer called Sam Okell, and we work together. We - I talk about it. I think about it for a while, our approach, and then we do it, and then I'll go and sit with Paul or Ringo and play it to them. It's as simple as that. And it really is. It's just a sort of very, very small unit, and we try and do the best we can. And, you know, if they're not happy, then no one gets to hear it. I have this sort of eiderdown, this blanket, around me, which is them where they encourage me to push boundaries and go crazy because they can always say no. And that's kind of reassuring in a funny way.
GROSS: You know, you have distance on the album in the sense that people who grew up with that album tended to play it, like, over and over and over and to be listening to you - what's the secret message in this track? What are they doing with the calliope? Like, how did they make that chord? And you get so used to hearing it as it was originally done that the thought of hearing it differently is, you know, originally very off-putting in some ways to a lot of people because, like, no, this is how it's supposed to be, the way I heard it. And you have distance on that. Like, you didn't grow up hearing it over and over again. You didn't grow up with it, so you can just hear it as music and, you know, make decisions about how to improve the mix or, like, you know, historically, what's most interesting.
MARTIN: With something like this, I had the advantage of not - you know, I could - and this again, upsetting people, I couldn't have probably named you the running order of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" before I started working on it because I almost distanced myself deliberately so I can approach it in a new way. And then I also listen to other people as well. I listen to, you know, the real fans, and there's some - you know, there's some experts I know. And I invited them into the studios and see whether they're going to fire bomb my house after they listen to it, you know.
GROSS: (Laughter).
MARTIN: And the most amazing thing is - I mean, and also there's professionals. Like, Bob Clearmountain, who's a very famous mix engineer. He's a good friend of mine. And a while back, I went to his studios. I was in LA, and I played him some of the mixes and he goes, you know, I feel like I've taken weed and listened to the album for the first time. And he was crying. And I suddenly realized, OK, well, you know, this is - well, I'm going in the right direction. Here's someone who's mixed, you know, David Bowie and Roxy Music and Bruce Springsteen. And he's impressed. So you have to be careful at the same time. My job with them and what they want me to do is try and push boundaries in the same way that they did. And that's my responsibility. And you sort of have to - you have to take that and run with it.
GROSS: So a question about your father - my understanding is you started working in the recording studio when your father started losing his hearing, and he wanted you to help him. How much hearing loss did he have? And what was it like for him - as somebody who worked in sound all of his life, what was it like for him when he started losing his hearing?
MARTIN: Well, his sound loss was gradual but consistent. So, you know, he was pretty profoundly deaf when he died. And for him, I think it was more the loss of conversation, the loss of not being able to hear his grandchildren more than music. He'd heard enough music in his life. He used to say, if you turn me upside down, notes will fall out.
GROSS: (Laughter).
MARTIN: But he - you know, I think, in a funny way - you know, he never - I was good at music - I know I sound so arrogant. I was like kind of OK at music as a kid. I was kind of a little bit better than my friends at school maybe. Not Mozart but I wasn't bad. And he would say, you know, I - you could tell. I started busking on the streets of London when I was 15. He could tell I had music in me and I had the bug. And he was like, you know, you are not going to do music. There's no way you're going to do music.
And then he started losing his hearing. He thought, oh (laughter), you know - what do I have? I've got this precocious son that could be my ears. And that's the way we worked together. I mean, from quite a young age, I was in studios with him listening. And we had a sort of strange, you know - he thought we were telepathic. Before he died, he thought we are telepathic, which I'm not sure we were. But we did have a complete understanding of each other, and I knew what he wanted to hear.
It was tough, my dad, because he was so good - you know, certainly better than I was. And yet his one thing he had that was great, he started losing. But what he lost more than anything else - because my father was incredibly intelligent - you know; you spoke to him. He was very witty. He was charming. And people thought, if you go deaf, people think you're dumb, you know. People think you're...
GROSS: Right.
MARTIN:...Not engaging, you know. And that's - and I think that, more than anything else - he'd made great music. It was just he missed out on conversation.
GROSS: Did your father teach you how to listen or what to listen for?
MARTIN: Yeah. I think - he didn't sit down and say - now listen, Giles, this is what you be listening for. But he would explain frequencies to me the same way he did for The Beatles. He was fascinated by the colors of sounds. You know, we do listen to it - sound in colors. I mean, I can - I think people are surprised. People I work with actually, engineers, are surprised that I can go, you know, we need to remove, like, 2 dB at 450 Hz. Or, you know - see, you can hear frequencies. I suppose that's a specialty that he would teach me.
But I think that - I learned how to listen because I knew what frequencies he couldn't hear. And I'd have to fill in. And then it became more and more. And so it was like a gradual imbibing process. Listen, I don't know. And you know - and I think the other is is you have to question what you do all the time, you know. You know, I do this. And, you know, I have to make the final decision, but I could always be wrong. And you just hope to God you're right because you're not quite sure, you know. This has been, like - it's been like choosing colors really. You think - you hope you've chosen the right color and you'll see it the same way the rest of the world sees it.
GROSS: Giles Martin, it's been a pleasure talking with you. Thank you so much, and congratulations on the anniversary box set.
MARTIN: Terry, thank you so much for having me. I'm honored to be on the show. Thank you very much.
GROSS: Giles Martin produced the "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" 50th anniversary box set. He spoke to us from the Abbey Road Studios in London. Tomorrow on FRESH AIR, we continue our Beatles celebration and go into our archive to listen back to interviews with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr. I hope you'll join us.
Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Amy Salit, Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Baldonado, Sam Briger, Lauren Krenzel, Heidi Saman, Therese Madden, Mooj Zadie and Thea Chaloner honor. I'm Terry Gross.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM MY FRIENDS")
THE BEATLES: (Singing) What would you think if I sang out of tune, would you stand up and walk out on me? Lend me your ears, and I'll sing you a song. And I'll try not to sing out of key. Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends. I get high with a little help from my friends, going to try with a little help from my friends. What do I do when my love is away? Does it worry it you to be alone? How do I feel by the end of the day? Are you sad because you're on your own? No, I get by with a little help from my friends, get high with a little help from my friends, going to try with a little help from my friends...
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s the camera out to an almost top-down perspective. You can then select a character and issue a command.
In the version I played, I used the controller's back button to freeze time and then the direction pad to cycle through the characters in my group. Moving the thumbstick let me push a targeting reticule around on the ground to place where I wanted a specific character to move, or who I wanted them to attack. Laidlaw told me that the latest build of the game drops a chess-like piece which looks like the character, on the ground where you have them moving, to make it easier to remember who you have doing what when in tactical view.
I was able to hold the right trigger to restart time, allowing me to move the action forward in spurts so I could micro-manage the battle from above if I wanted to. I was also able to flip back and forth easily between tactical view and the game's standard third-person perspective. That's how Laidlaw plays the game.
"My personal play style is to start a battle, then use the tactical camera to set things up and then let AI-control the team while I control my character," he said. "Some people play through battles entirely top down."
I found that my play style was much like Laidlaw's.
When I came upon an encounter I would immediately freeze time. Sometimes this resulted in spectacular frozen moments.
During my battle with the dragon, my jump to tactical view froze a massive fireball in mid air. As I figured out how to place my units, I realized that I was placing one of the characters directly in the path of the fireball, so I pathed her around the danger and to a safer location.
Once I set up my basic commands, I tended to use the right trigger to move everyone to their positions in spurts. This afforded me the ability to rethink my commands or react to enemy movements. When the character I wanted to control in battle got into the fray, I usually jumped back to the standard third-person perspective and played through the encounter that way.
The game also allows players to quickly jump between any one of the group instantly by tapping up or down on the direction pad. I didn't use this that much in battle, but it was nice to, for instance, jump between the tank fighter I had placed in the thick of combat, to the archer I had placed up on the stairs.
Combat was frenzied, colorful and rewarding. Each character I controlled was loaded up with abilities, so many that I could use both the face buttons to use attack and hold a trigger to get to a second batch of abilities.
The characters were all minutely detailed and, it turned out, very customized.
Laidlaw said that everyone, both the main character and your followers, can have their armor customized. The game also features crafting, driven in part by killing the many wild creatures you see around the world.
All my friends are dead
Dragon Age: Inquisition, due out on PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Windows PC, Xbox 360 and Xbox One on Oct. 7 in North America, arrives at an opportune time for works of high fantasy.
"Globally we've seen fantasy go through a renaissance," Laidlaw said. "Television and movies have the production values to deliver those experiences correctly. People to to see Lord of the Rings and go, ‘That's really cool, I get that.'
And it helps that HBO's A Game of Thrones has become such a massive hit.
"It's certainly become a genre that is more accepted and respected," he said. "Game of Thrones says that the stakes should be high and they do a very good job of doing that.
"We try to give you that same sense of drama, you understand the repercussions of your decisions."
And as with Game of Thrones, Laidlaw points out, Dragon Age isn't too shy about killing off characters.
I see that later in my play-through of the demo when I come to a cut-scene that has a surprising, bloody ending. Moments later, my group is nearly cut down.
Even in the short time I spent playing the game I had already built up some attachment to the group, and the consequences, their deaths, was upsetting.
Laidlaw was quick to point out that what I witnessed, how my play-through of this early section of the game ended, wasn't a moment everyone will see.
"That sequence is the direct result of the choices you make," he said. "That may not appear to everyone in their play-through."Former head of Honeywell’s defense and space business unit will be responsible for serving various U.S. federal government agencies in the defense, environmental, infrastructure, security, and intelligence markets at Parsons.
PASADENA, CA (November 22, 2016) – Parsons, one of the world’s leading engineering-based infrastructure, industrial, and federal contracting firms, today announced the appointment of Carey A. Smith as President of its Federal business unit. In this role, she will be responsible for serving a variety of U.S. federal government agency customers in the defense, environmental, infrastructure, security, and intelligence services markets.
Ms. Smith joins Parsons from Honeywell where she was President of Defense and Space, a business unit ranked #15 among worldwide defense companies with an annual revenue of $4.7 billion in 2015 as reported in Defense News. With this appointment, Ms. Smith becomes the highest-ranking female business unit executive in Parsons, joining a corporate team with a long history of having female executives and board members in its top ranks. She was named one of the Top 100 Diverse Corporate Leaders in STEM (2014) and to the list of Top 100 Women in STEM (2012).
Thomas L. Roell, who has been serving as interim president of Parsons’ Federal business unit since August, will resume his role as Vice Chairman, Chief Risk Advisor.
“We are thrilled to welcome Carey to the Parsons team, where she will take charge of one of our most important business units,” said Chuck Harrington, Parsons’ Chairman and CEO. “Carey is a respected leader in our industry, and her diverse experience makes her the right choice to contribute to our continued success. Carey will lead our Federal business unit as it brings people, processes, and technology together to provide innovative solutions to our expanding base of U.S. federal government customers. I also want to thank Tom for his outstanding performance as interim head of our Federal business unit.”
At Honeywell, Ms. Smith led the defense and space group to strong double-digit backlog growth, international expansion, acquisitions, performance execution, and very high competitive and re-compete win rates. She was responsible for a diverse customer base, including the U.S. Departments of Defense and Energy, FAA, NASA, restricted entities, international defense ministries, and defense original equipment manufacturers.
At Honeywell, she previously served as President of Honeywell Technology Solutions Incorporated and as Vice President of Honeywell Aerospace Customer and Product Support. Prior to joining Honeywell, she held a variety of positions with Lockheed Martin Corporation. She started her career with IBM Federal Systems.
Ms. Smith holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Ohio Northern University and a master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Syracuse University. She is a certified Program Management professional and a certified Green Belt, and she has published more than ten papers, one of which was recognized by Time Life Books. She is a member of the Professional Services Council Executive Committee and Board of Directors as well as the Defense Industry Initiative. She is based in Parsons’ Washington, D.C., office.Suspended Games
The following games were suspended and completed at a later date, with some of them resuming in the visiting team's city. The columns "V" and "H" represent the number of runs scored by the visitors and home team at the time of the suspension and the column "Out" is the number of outs recorded before the suspension. Since there are six outs per inning, an entry of 48 outs means eight innings were completed at the time of the halt in play. A league indicator of "IL" means that was an Interleague contest.
The notes column shows a numeric code indicating the reason for the suspension. The codes are explained at the bottom of the list. Some causes were fairly common. Before lights were installed at the Cub's Wrigley Field, darkness caused games to be suspended. Curfews also were a typical cause. For a time the AL did not permit any inning to start after 1 AM, and there were blue laws in Pennsylvania that prevented Sunday games in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh from going beyond 7 PM.
Upheld Protests result in suspended games at the point of the protest. We show those for which we have sufficient details. There is a list of upheld protests on the site.
Click on the date for a link to a boxscore and play by play account when available. However, some of those do not indicate that the game was suspended, which will be added on the next major update of the site.
Please send any missing suspended games to the webmaster at "webmaster --Atsign-- retrosheet.org".
Latest additions and changes:
(on 5/16/2018): 5/15/2018 (scheduled completion 6/18)
(on 8/22/2015): 5/27/1945
(on 8/20/2015): 4/14/2014
(on 7/18/2015): 7/17/2105
(on 6/28/2015): 6/27/2105
(on 4/26/2015): 4/24/2015
GameDate DH Vis Hom Lg V H Out Resumed Notes 08/30/1913 NY1 PHI NL 6 8 49 10/02/1913 6, resumed in New York 07/06/1919 2 PIT CIN NL 0 2 36 07/27/1919 5 07/05/1920 2 PHI NY1 NL 0 6 36 09/04/1920 6 05/28/1921 CIN PIT NL 3 2 45 06/30/1921 6 07/02/1934 SLN CHN NL 1 5 41 07/31/1934 6 06/05/1943 PHI SLN NL 0 1 45 07/29/1943 2,6 06/13/1943 2 PHI NY1 NL 3 3 54 08/06/1943 6 07/18/1943 2 BRO BSN NL 4 4 34 09/13/1943 1 07/18/1943 2 STL PIT NL 6 5 42 09/01/1943 1 05/16/1944 PHI SLN NL 6 4 42 06/28/1944 5 05/21/1944 2 PHI PIT NL 9 4 48 07/05/1944 1 07/02/1944 2 BSN PIT NL 5 5 48 08/14/1944 1 07/09/1944 2 BRO PIT NL 7 9 48 08/21/1944 1 07/16/1944 2 NY1 PHI NL 6 3 48 09/15/1944 1 08/01/1944 PIT BSN NL 12 8 48 09/25/1944 5 05/27/1945 2 NY1 PIT NL 5 10 46 05/28/1945 1 06/03/1945 2 PHI PIT NL 11 9 36 07/13/1945 1 06/17/1945 2 BRO BSN NL 1 4 43 08/04/1945 1 07/20/1945 BRO CHN NL 10 4 48 09/15/1945 5 08/17/1947 2 BRO PHI NL 5 4 39 09/25/1947 1, 6? Details 08/25/1948 BRO PIT NL 11 9 53 09/21/1948 6, resumed in Brooklyn 07/07/1949 BOS WAS AL 8 3 36 08/20/1949 5 05/14/1950 2 NY1 PHI NL 7 9 48 07/05/1950 1 06/24/1950 PIT BRO NL 12 19 46 08/01/1950 1 06/17/1951 2 NY1 PIT NL 6 6 46 07/25/1951 1 07/22/1951 2 CHN PHI NL 1 0 42 08/21/1951 1 08/02/1951 BSN SLN NL 7 3 52 09/14/1951 5 04/20/1952 2 CHA SLA AL 10 2 42 05/26/1952 4 04/27/1952 2 SLA CHA AL 1 3 30 07/03/1952 4 09/06/1952 2 BSN PHI NL 3 1 46 09/07/1952 1 07/05/1953 2 PHI PIT NL 0 7 37 08/11/1953 1 07/19/1953 2 SLN PIT NL 4 6 31 07/20/1953 1 05/16/1954 2 SLN PHI NL 3 6 36 05/17/1954 1 08/15/1954 2 PIT PHI NL 6 6 48 09/23/1954 1 09/22/1954 CIN MLN NL 1 3 50 09/24/1954 6 04/24/1955 2 PIT PHI NL 0 2 46 06/28/1955 1 05/01/1955 2 CHN PHI NL 4 2 48 05/02/1955 1 05/29/1955 2 PHI PIT NL 3 8 41 07/08/1955 1 06/05/1955 2 MLN PHI AL 2 4 45 06/06/1955 1 07/17/1955 2 CHN PHI NL 4 5 33 07/18/1955 1 07/17/1955 2 SLN PIT NL 1 0 45 08/30/1955 1 05/13/1956 2 PHI PIT NL 6 2 44 07/03/1956 1 07/01/1956 2 NY1 PIT NL 7 6 48 08/10/1956 1 09/23/1956 BRO PIT NL 8 3 50 09/24/1956 1 04/21/1957 2 BAL WS1 AL 1 2 30 05/27/1957 3 04/28/1957 2 NY1 PHI NL 8 7 40 08/16/1957 1 06/16/1957 2 CHN PIT NL 4 4 39 07/16/1957 1 07/21/1957 2 SLN PIT NL 11 2 49 08/27/1957 1 06/01/1958 2 CIN PHI NL 11 11 49 08/11/1958 1 06/22/1958 2 SFN PHI NL 1 1 36 07/23/1958 1 06/29/1958 2 SLN PHI NL 4 3 46 07/29/1958 1 07/27/1958 2 LAN PHI NL 1 2 35 09/09/1958 1 07/27/1958 2 SFN PIT NL 3 3 46 09/09/1958 1 08/03/1958 2 SLN PIT NL 0 2 29 09/16/1958 1 05/03/1959 2 SLN PIT NL 2 1 42 06/02/1959 1 05/10/1959 2 PHI PIT NL 4 6 47 07/21/1959 1 07/12/1959 2 SLN PIT NL 4 5 49 08/19/1959 1 06/21/1960 2 CHN PHI NL 5 7 48 06/22/1960 1 09/04/1961 2 DET BAL AL 1 4 48 09/05/1961 1 06/05/1962 2 LAN PIT NL 7 3 48 06/06/1962 1 07/03/1962 2 MIL SLN NL 5 5 48 07/04/1962 1 06/04/1966 2 KC1 BAL AL 5 5 67 06/05/1966 1 06/08/1966 2 WAS BAL AL 5 4 36 06/09/1966 1 08/11/1966 2 HOU CHN NL 8 5 42 08/26/1966 5,resumed in Houston 09/16/1966 KC1 WS2 AL 0 0 17 09/18/1966 3 06/30/1967 2 CLE BAL AL 0 1 30 07/01/1967 1 07/08/1967 2 NYA BAL AL 0 0 36 07/09/1967 1 06/13/1968 2 CAL BOS AL 1 1 33 08/04/1968 5 08/06/1968 2 CLE DET AL 2 5 48 08/07/1968 1 06/15/1969 2 CHN CIN NL 5 4 42 09/02/1969 5 07/19/1969 MIN SEA AL 7 7 96 07/20/1969 1 09/04/1970 PHI PIT NL 1 4 36 09/05/1970 2,3 05/16/1971 2 SDN CHN NL 3 6 36 08/04/1971 4 06/20/1971 2 DET CLE AL 6 7 42 09/28/1971 3 06/28/1971 DET BAL AL 4 4 78 06/29/1971 1 08/01/1971 SLN PHI NL 6 3 67 09/07/1971 6 08/31/1971 2 MON CHN NL 8 1 36 09/01/1971 4 09/14/1971 2 WAS CLE AL 5 5 96 09/20/1971 1,resumed in Washington 05/12/1972 MIL MIN AL 3 3 126 05/13/1972 1 08/10/1972 CHA OAK AL 3 3 102 08/11/1972 1 04/21/1973 PIT CHN NL 8 10 36 07/26/1973 4 05/26/1973 CLE CHA AL 2 2 96 05/28/1973 1 06/27/1973 2 MON CHN NL 3 3 72 06/28/1973 4 07/03/1973 2 MIL BAL AL 4 1 42 07/04/1973 1 09/13/1974 2 CLE BAL AL 6 8 48 09/14/1974 1 05/14/1975 MIL TEX AL 2 2 84 05/15/1975 1 05/15/1975 ATL MON NL 4 1 21 07/20/1975 6 05/30/1975 LAN CHN NL 3 1 45 05/31/1975 4 06/11/1975 2 CAL DET AL 3 5 48 06/12/1975 1 06/12/1975 2 CHN ATL NL 2 6 48 08/09/1975 1 06/14/1975 CIN CHN NL 11 3 48 06/15/1975 4 07/12/1975 MIN NYA AL 6 6 81 07/19/1975 1,resumed in Bloomington 04/21/1976 MON CHN NL 11 3 36 04/22/1976 4 05/26/1976 2 KCA TEX AL 4 4 54 05/27/1976 1 07/13/1977 CHN NYN NL 2 1 34 09/16/1977 3 04/23/1978 2 SLN PIT NL 4 5 36 06/26/1978 5 06/06/1978 SDN MON NL 0 2 34 06/07/1978 3 07/20/1978 SFN CHN NL 9 8 44 07/28/1978 4,resumed in San Francisco 07/31/1978 MIL BAL AL 5 5 54 08/02/1978 1 08/02/1978 BOS NYA AL 5 5 84 08/03/1978 1 05/10/1979 CIN CHN NL 7 7 54 07/23/1979 5 05/17/1979 MON SLN NL 2 2 60 06/25/1979 5 06/17/1979 ATL NYN NL 1 1 48 08/27/1979 2,5 08/21/1979 HOU NYN NL 0 5 50 08/22/1979 6 05/28/1980 MON CHN NL 3 3 60 08/08/1980 4 07/21/1980 SFN CHN NL 0 0 72 07/22/1980 4 08/11/1980 PHI CHN NL 5 5 78 08/12/1980 4 08/28/1980 MIN TOR AL 5 5 84 08/29/1980 5 09/17/1980 TOR NYA AL 5 3 56 09/18/1980 2 05/04/1981 BOS KCA AL 5 5 60 05/05/1981 1 06/09/1981 SFN CHN NL 1 2 45 06/10/1981 2 09/03/1981 SEA BOS AL 7 7 114 09/04/1981 1 04/13/1982 SEA CAL AL 3 3 102 04/14/1982 1 06/09/1982 2 CLE DET AL 3 3 84 09/24/1982 1 07/10/1982 2 CIN CHN NL 5 5 54 07/11/1982 4 08/09/1982 2 PIT PHI NL 9 6 47 08/10/1982 2,1 08/17/1982 LAN CHN NL 1 1 102 08/18/1982 4 04/29/1983 SFN SLN NL 5 5 78 04/30/1983 3 07/24/1983 KCA NYA AL 5 4 50 08/18/1983 6 07/29/1983 KCA DET AL 1 10 48 07/30/1983 1 05/08/1984 MIL CHA AL 3 3 102 05/09/1984 1 05/05/1985 SDN CHN NL 2 4 36 07/08/1985 4 04/20/1986 PIT CHN NL 8 8 78 08/11/1986 4 06/16/1986 SLN PIT NL 4 1 32 06/18/1986 2 07/01/1986 MON CHN NL 0 0 42 07/02/1986 4 07/13/1986 CIN MON NL 3 2 32 07/24/1986 2, resumed in Cincinnati 08/06/1986 2 NYN CHN NL 6 4 42 08/07/1986 4 09/02/1986 HOU CHN NL 4 4 84 09/03/1986 4 06/20/1987 DET BAL AL 4 9 48 06/21/1987 1 07/09/1987 LAN CHN NL 5 12 32 07/10/1987 4 07/10/1987 LAN CHN NL 4 4 53 07/11/1987 4 04/28/1989 BOS TEX AL 6 6 59 04/29/1989 1 05/11/1990 CLE TEX AL 4 4 33 05/12/1990 2 05/10/1994 CAL TEX AL 5 5 48 05/11/1994 1 06/24/1994 NYA CLE AL 9 5 42 06/25/1994 1 07/27/1994 BOS NYA AL 3 3 46 07/28/1994 2 05/04/1995 ATL FLO NL 3 3 48 09/07/1995 2 05/09/1995 DET MIL AL 2 2 53 05/10/1995 2 05/02/1996 CLE SEA AL 6 3 40 05/03/1996 7 05/03/1996 TOR BOS AL 1 6 36 05/04/1996 1 05/10/1996 SDN CIN NL 3 5 37 05/11/1996 1 04/05/1997 CHN ATL NL 5 8 39 04/06/1997 2,1 04/06/1998 CLE OAK AL 6 5 48 04/08/1998 1 06/13/1999 SDN HOU NL 1 4 45 07/23/1999 8 04/12/2000 LAN SFN NL 3 2 33 04/13/2000 2 06/15/2001 KCA MIL IL 0 0 6 06/16/2001 3 07/18/2001 ARI SDN NL 1 0 12 07/19/2001 3 07/30/2004 HOU CIN NL 2 2 32 07/31/2004 2 10/02/2004 CLE MIN AL 5 5 66 10/03/2004 5 04/10/2007 MIL FLO NL 2 2 60 04/11/2007 2 05/01/2007 CHN PIT NL 6 5 39 05/02/2007 2 06/28/2007 NYA BAL AL 8 6 44 07/27/2007 2 04/28/2008 BAL CHA AL 3 3 66 08/25/2008 2, resumed in Baltimore 07/23/2008 TOR BAL AL 2 1 32 07/24/2008 2 10/27/2008 TBA PHI IL 2 2 33 10/29/2008 2, World Series Game 5 05/05/2009 HOU WAS NL 10 10 64 07/09/2009 2, resumed in Houston 04/16/2010 TBA BOS AL 1 1 51 04/17/2010 2 05/25/2010 NYA MIN AL 0 0 30 05/26/2010 2 04/08/2011 LAN SDN NL 2 2 48 04/09/2011 2 09/30/2011 DET NYA AL 1 1 9 10/01/2011 2,9, ALDS Game 1 04/16/2013 PHI CIN NL 0 0 51 04/17/2013 2 05/24/2013 ATL NYN NL 5 5 48 05/25/2013 2 04/14/2014 PIT CIN NL 7 7 36 04/15/2014 2 05/22/2014 SFN COL NL 2 2 35 09/01/2014 2 08/19/2014 SFN CHN NL 0 2 27 08/21/2014 2,6 08/31/2014 CLE KCA AL 4 2 57 09/22/2014 2, resumed in Cleveland 09/05/2014 PIT CHN NL 3 3 37 09/06/2014 2 04/24/2015 KCA CHA AL 2 2 48 04/26/2015 2 06/27/2015 CIN NYN NL 1 1 36 06/28/2015 2 07/17/2015 LAN WAS NL 2 3 30 07/18/2015 3 09/11/2015 STL CIN NL 2 2 42 09/12/2015 2 07/23/2016 DET CHA AL 3 3 48 07/24/2016 2 05/15/2018 NYA WAS IL 3 3 33 06/18/2018 2 Reasons for the suspension 1 - Curfew 2 - Weather 3 - Lights or other equipment failure 4 - Darkness 5 - Pre-determined stopping time 6 - Protest upheld, game resumed 7 - Earthquake 8 - Medical emergency 9 - Postseason provision adopted in 2009A way to bypass a minority of ignorant US voters on international climate policy?
The climate talks at Durban look like they may finally yield some positive movement on a Green Climate Fund, that would work the same way as the Clean Development Mechanism that has been so successful in growing renewable energy in the MENA region in Morocco and Egypt, but funded differently. The policy as theory has been developed and pushed at Copenhagen and then at Cancun, but it had not got any traction till these talks in Durban.
The implications for the MENA region renewable spurt are immense. Previously the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) spurred renewable energy in nations like Egypt. (Previous: Desertec Plans Get Boosts from MENA and EU Renewable Policies but later: Possible End of Kyoto at Durban Threatens MENA Renewables)
But there is some uncertainty and risk that the CDM will become a dried up vestige of earlier good intentions. It was funded by the emissions offsets that Europe’s polluter industries had to pay to obey the EU’s cap and trade laws that developed out of the signing of the Kyoto Accord.
But the Kyoto Accord is due to expire in 2012, unless international negotiators can get the entire US Republican congress to suddenly embrace the necessity to preempt climate change with a sharp run-up in renewable energy funding.
Since that is not gonna happen, China won’t agree either, so the whole world is stuck. The US, China and India (same position as China) are the three big obstacles. But it looks as if the US may be able to bypass Republican opposition, according to Todd Stern, the US climate negotiator, who is stuck in the unenviable position of pretending that he has any control at all over the minority filibuster in the US Senate that prevents votes from being taken on Democratic priorities such as preventing catastrophic climate change.
The problem for the world: the US constitution
Here’s why there is really no way to change US climate policy. The US constitution requires two Senators for very state, whether that state has fewer than a million voters, as about 12 (mostly vast desolate wastelands of fossil fuel extraction) do, or over 35 million like California, which is humming with urban PhDs innovating clean tech. Well, not all 35 million, but they are mostly urban and educated, with plentiful access to information.
In the empty states, the right wing noise machine, as it is known in the US, really can control 99% of what goes out on the airwaves, as anyone who has driven through them can testify.
As a result, the sparse voters in the 12 empty fossil states like Wyoming, North Dakota and Alaska have up to 68 times the voting voice of the much better informed voters with real media choice in the advanced clean tech states like California. The disproportionate power of the “barefoot and ignorant” rural voter is baked into the system.
If US representation was proportional to population nationwide, US policy would represent the will of the American people, and the US would sign the climate agreement we need, just like Europe did. We are not stupid. But since it is not, the world is really out of luck on climate. Essentially, fossil industries are able to control the US government.
(Related: Dear Global Clean Energy Sector, Please Truth-Bomb the US Voter)
In addition, whenever the Senate has 40% Republicans or more, they very undemocratically make use of technicality to prevent votes on Democratic policies, because the Senate rules say that votes can only be taken when 60% agree to take a vote. They vote no, or “filibuster” that vote, and have done so since the Clinton administration. This is why Republican opposition has been able to beat Democratic will for climate action, even when Democrats held the House, and had a “majority” (more than 50) in the Senate. (Bills must pass both houses).
But at Durban, a breakthrough would bypass Republicans in the US, if the money were to come, not from a US cap and trade system (that cannot pass their opposition) but from a carbon tax on international shipping. Apparently shipping interests are not one of the industries under the control of the Koch brothers, who essentially control US policy.
“Since the US was the last major hold out on the GCF, it looks like we’re in good shape to celebrate,” said Andrew Light, a technical expert who has worked on the fund for three years.
Let’s hope.
Read more on Republicans:
Canada Muzzles Climate Science Cheney/Bush-Style
Utility-Scale Solar Projects Become a Casualty of Republicans
Ormat Gets DOE “Solyndra” Loan Before Tea Party Shuts Program Down
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commentsBenedicte Guichard | Tue Jul 26 2016 CET | Live pay-per-view
Since the emergence of live video streaming, the role of traditional television has been turned upside down – and from sporting events right through to SVOD subscription services like Netflix, there have been some incredible developments in recent times. Perhaps the most striking thing about video streaming’s latest advancements are the development of VR video content and apps, and what it means for the future of live events.
Big brands take the lead in producing VR content and apps
Once upon a time the notion of people plugging into virtual reality from the comfort of their homes seemed like a far-fetched futuristic wonder, but the likes of GoPro are making it into a fully-fledged consumer reality. VR has fast become a hot topic in 2016 with big-hitters like Google and Facebook planning to release their own virtual offerings into the market, but it does seem that GoPro is leading the way regarding innovation. Now, we all know how impressive a GoPro head cam is, and the stunning footage that you can catch with one, and the company has used it to their advantage by releasing VR technology of their own.
Not only does GoPro VR harness the capabilities of their six-camera Omni array, but it also possible to access spherical footage on third party platforms like Facebook. Not only this, but GoPro has also given content creators to the power to use a GoPro controlled platform to upload, play, and share videos – all that is required is a smartphone and the app.
So what does this mean for the world of live video streaming?
Well, big things possibly, according to co-founder of Button, Mike Dudas:
“NBA will be the biggest sports winner in a VR world. Live courtside viewing is personal, virtually inaccessible to the average person and unbeatable.”
The intuitive nature of VR and the content opportunities that is presents means that watching a live sporting event will be more immersive than ever before, with a wider variety of angles, unique coverage, the utilisation of |
protein influenza endonuclease, which is essential for viral propagation and thus the target of new drugs. "It is kind of difficult talking about a target when you have no idea what it looks like," he explained.
From there, he used the computer to screen half a million chemical compounds to determine which ones shared characteristics of known inhibitors to endonuclease. This resulted in a ranked list of 237 that showed promise as new drug candidates.
"I took these top 237 and actually biologically tested them for activity and found out which ones of these are actually effective in stopping the flu," Chen said.
Going forward, he aims to further develop the promising compounds for more drug-like characteristics, such as high potency but low toxicity. "You don't want your drug killing people rather than the flu," he noted.
Eventually, these modified compounds may be ready for pre-clinical and clinical drug trials, a task the high-school student aims to handoff to a drug development company. Chen is currently applying to colleges and hopes to start at a "top university" next fall.
First, however, he looks forward to a trip to the Galapagos Islands with the National Geographic Society, which he was awarded on Monday. "I think it will be amazing," he said. "I actually want to ride a giant tortoise."
John Roach is a contributing writer for NBC News. To learn more about him, visit his website.Yes, someone asked about hockey at the White House press briefing
CLOSE The reporter wanted to know who President Trump was rooting for. USA TODAY Sports
During Thursday's White House briefing, a reporter asked whether President Trump was rooting for the Washington Capitals or the New York Rangers.
"Respectfully, that really isn't a question that's come up," Trump spokesman Sean Spicer replied.
Given the timing — the U.S. military dropped one of the largest conventional bombs in its inventory on an Islamic State compound earlier on Thursday — and the fact that the briefing was on the shorter side, the reporter's question wasn't well received on Twitter.
So - Sean Spicer gives an abbreviated press conference and one of the few questions he answered are from FOOL who asked about Rangers/Caps. — Darryn M. Briggs (@darryn_briggs) April 13, 2017
someone asked Spicer in briefing whether the president is rooting for the Caps or Rangers. Seriously. — Waffleboardsave (@waffleboardsave) April 13, 2017
That Canadian reporter should be enough to ban their nation's reporters from WH Press briefing room. What a moron. "Caps or Rangers"? — DDR (@AtBatedBreath) April 13, 2017
US just dropped a 21k pound bomb on Afghanistan+a reporter at the WH press briefing just asked if Trump was rooting for the Rangers or Caps — Cole Stangler (@ColeStangler) April 13, 2017
US just dropped largest non-nuke bomb for first time in combat and White House press corps is asking if Trump will root for Rangers or Caps. — Jacqueline Klimas (@jacqklimas) April 13, 2017
The U.S. just dropped a bomb on Afghanistan and somebody at this press briefing asked if Trump will be rooting for the Caps or the Rangers. — Alexander Abnos (@AnAbnos) April 13, 2017
A bomb is dropped on Afghanistan and the press gallery asks if the president is going to cheer for the Rangers or the Caps. Christ Almighty. — Blake Berglund (@blakeberglund) April 13, 2017
I'm sorry but did i just hear them asking spicer if he's rooting for the rangers or the caps? — AJ (@austin_casillas) April 13, 2017
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2pbvl7sSebastian Vettel and Ferrari are believed to be at loggerheads over the German's new contract, according to Finnish newspaper Ilta Sanomat.
Vettel is out of contract at the end of this season, but Ferrari have put a lucrative three-year deal on the table for the four-time World Champion.
However, Ilta Sanomat claim they have sources that believe Vettel is holding out for a new one-year deal instead in order to keep his options for 2019, when Lewis Hamilton's contract with Mercedes expires.
Vettel was quizzed about his future ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix, with certain sections of the press suggesting he is delaying his decision.
The German insisted, though, there was no issue between himself and Ferrari, and that contract talks would wait until the summer break.
Ferrari boss Sergio Marchionne has all-but confirmed that they will announce their driver line-up for 2018 at their home grand prix in Monza in early September.TL;DR I struggled for a long time trying to understand React. This is what I wish someone had told me.
Note: This blog post used to have a different title that was disrespectful and ableist. Additionally, it was written in 2014, and the React ecosystem has changed since then. The title and content have been updated.
What is React?
How does React compare to Angular, Ember, Backbone, et al? How do you handle data? How do you contact the server? What the heck is JSX? What is a "component"?
Stop.
Stop it right now.
React is MAINLY THE VIEW LAYER.
React is mentioned in the same breath as other Javascript frameworks, but "React vs Angular" doesn't make sense because they aren't directly comparable. Angular is a complete framework (including a view layer), React is not. This is why React is confusing to understand, it's emerging in an ecosystem of complete frameworks, but it's mostly the view.
React gives you a template language and some function hooks to essentially render HTML. That's all React outputs, HTML. Your bundles of HTML / Javascript, called "components," can have their own internal state (such as which tab is selected in a tab view), but in the end you just barf out HTML.
You can't build a fully functional dynamic application with React alone. We'll learn more about why below.
The Good
After working with React for a while, I've seen some important benefits surface.
1. Easily reason about how views render
Your user logs in and you have to update the header. You might do this:
<header> <div class="name"> Not Logged In </div> </header>
$.post('/login', credentials, function( user ) { // Modify the DOM $('header.name').text( user.name ); });
This is "imperative" programming. You're telling the browser how to update in a series of steps. In a complex application, I can tell you from experience, this code doesn't scale. How do you debug the output? How do you know who updated the header? Who else has access to the header HTML? Who holds the source of truth for the name being visible? This DOM manipulation is just as bad as a GOTO statement for reasoning about your program.
Here's how you might do it in React:
render: function() { const name = this.state.name; return <header> { name? name : <span>Not Logged In</span> } </header>; }
Yes, JSX looks weird at first, but humor me. We can tell instantly how this component will render. If you know the state, you know the rendered output. You don't have to trace program flow.
This is "declarative" programming. You declare that you want a header with a name or a message. You don't tell the computer how to do it, like in the jQuery example. In jQuery, you mutate the DOM over multiple steps and can't reason about how it got that way.
2. JSX means clean, well organized view code
The weird mix of HTML / Javascript soup above might make you cringe. We've been conditioned to not put raw Javascript in the DOM (like onClick handlers) since we were wee developers. You'll have to trust me, though; working with JSX components is really nice.
The most common React misconception is that JSX violates separation of concerns. We're mixing logic and views, right?
Hang on. "Logic" isn't a concern. You're thinking of "business logic:" rules about updating your data. None of that lives in React. View logic, like whether or not you show the name in the header, is obviously part of the view concern. We used to separate HTML templates from Javascript, even though they're both part of the view concern. After working with React, you'll learn there's no need for that pattern, and you'll stop fearing "logic" in your templates (yes, Mustache.js got it wrong!).
3. You can render React on the server
Server side rendering is one of the most important optimizations you can make to speed up a Javascript application. Browsers are designed from the ground up to show users rendered HTML as fast as possible.
True "single page applications" are only appropriate for a subset of the web, like email clients where you typically leave them open for weeks and do very few actual page loads.
Angular and others encourage you to do things like render your page with PhantomJS and serve that to search engine crawlers based on user agent, or pay cash money for that as a service. Yuck!
Server rendering with React isn't free, but once implemented, it's a breath of fresh air. I've done this for my web app ShaderFrog, and even on a nano EC2 instance, it loads quite fast.
4. React will trick you into loving functional programming.
React works well with functional, pure, immutable patterns. It's is a gateway drug to functional programming. Try Elm after React when you're ready for your next FP step!
The "Bad"
Don't forget that React is mostly the view.
1. You DON'T GET any of the following:
An event system (other than vanilla DOM events)
Any AJAX capabilities whatsoever
Any form of a data layer
Promises
Any application framework
React on its own not enough for most real world use cases. This "bad" is actually a "good" in disguise. React has one job and does it well. But it certainly can be intimidating for beginners to dive in and work with data flow!
2. Welcome to Webpack and a new ecosystem
Webpack is a groundbreaking tool, but it's confusing. You're going to have to get to know it!
As Front End developers, we aren't used to applying static analysis, code compilation, and software engineering principles to our code. It's intimidating, but this "bad" is also a good. It's worth it in the end!
3. Flux and data flow are complex patterns for beginners
In the original React documentation, React and Flux were mentioned in the same breath, without much concern for a newcomer audience. It's gotten a lot better now, but since most people have graduated from Flux to Redux or other state management, understanding this data flow can still be difficult.
"Flux" in 10 seconds: Your view "dispatch"es an "action" (kind of like an event), like when a user types a name in a text field, that action tells your data store to update data, then the store triggers an event, and the view responds to that store's event by re-rendering with the latest data. Read more at "Flux for Beginners."
The main downside of Flux and other data patterns is that there's lots of them! There are many different "Flux" implementations.
As of 2017, Redux is the most popular state management library. If you want to learn it, I can't recommend the free Egghead.io online video course highly enough. It's by the Redux creator Dan Abramov and is one of the best tutorials I've been through.
Should I Use React?
Short answer: yes.
Long answer: probably, yes, for most things.
Here's why you should use React:
Works great for teams, strongly enforcing UI and workflow patterns
UI code is readable and maintainable
Componentized UI is the future of web development, and you need to start doing it now.
Here's why you should think twice before you switch:
React will slow you down at the start. Understanding how props, state, and component communication works is not straightforward, and the docs are a maze of information. This is countered by a speed up when your whole team is on board.
at the start. Understanding how props, state, and component communication works is not straightforward, and the docs are a maze of information. This is countered by a speed up when your whole team is on board. React does not support any browser below IE8.
If your application / website doesn't have very much dynamic page updating, you may be implementing a lot of code for a small benefit.
There's no one way to implement complex UI components (lightboxes, date pickers, etc). Finding the best libraries and patterns for your codebase will take some time.
That's It!
To learn more about Flux, check out the follow-up post, Flux For Beginners.
Make sure you don't walk away missing the point of JSX!
You're going to need to know Webpack. Try Webpack: When To Use and Why.
I hope this helped you understand React better. If it did, consider following me on Twitter or buying me a coffee :).By Julien Musolino
Professor of Psychology, Rutgers University
Francis Bacon, one of the fathers of the scientific revolution, warned us in the early 17th century that without the methods and instruments of science, the human mind isn’t perfectly calibrated to deliver truths about the objective world. The mind is full of superstition, imposture, and distorting biases–what Bacon called “Idols of the Mind”—which must be corrected if we want to truly understand the world and avoid fooling ourselves. Three centuries later, the celebrated physicist and Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman elevated Bacon’s insight to the status of a principle.
Science vs. Gut Feelings
The first principle, Feynman explained, “is that you must not fool yourself–and you are the easiest person to fool.”
Today, these important lessons are too often forgotten in our increasingly anti-scientific culture. Time and again, we are told that if a conclusion about the workings of nature feels right–or wrong–then it must be so. In my previous post on evolution vs. creationism, I wrote about people’s “gut feeling” that human beings cannot possibly have evolved from more modest life forms.
A few years ago, actress Jenny McCarthy was given a national platform to broadcast the thoroughly discredited idea that vaccination causes autism. McCarthy explained that her views were informed by a “little voice” and her “mommy instinct”. Conservative pundits routinely remind their listeners that local low winter temperatures demonstrate that global warming must be a liberal hoax. Some, like Illinois Congressman John Shimkus, have even gone so far as to claim that we shouldn’t worry about global warming because the Bible says that “the Earth will end only when God declares it’s time to be over”. Sadly, the list goes on.
Two Juries
Albert Einstein famously reminded us that:
All our science, measured against reality, is primitive and child-like. And yet, it is the most precious thing we have.
This precious gift can be illustrated using a simple thought experiment (Einstein himself was very fond of such experiments). Imagine that you live in a bucolic small town, somewhere in America’s heartland. You turn on the evening news one day and learn of a heinous murder that was committed in your neighborhood. To make things worse, you are accused of the murder and face the death penalty if found guilty. Critically, however, you did not commit the murder.
You are now given a choice between two juries. Members of the Shimkus Jury would rely on their interpretation of the scripture of their choice, their “gut feelings”, “little voices”, and “good citizen instincts” in order to determine your guilt or innocence. By contrast, members of the Feynman Jury would rely on the best scientific evidence available, try to control for their biases, question their uninformed assumptions, and passionately care about what’s actually true as opposed to what merely “feels” true. On the assumption that you are not suicidal, which jury would you pick? If, like other sane people, you picked the Feynman Jury, then ask yourself why.
Could it be that you know–everyone knows–that science is the best path to objective truth?
Julien Musolino (Rutgers University) Dr. Musolino is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology and the Center for Cognitive Science at Rutgers University. He received his Ph.D. in 1998 from the U. of Maryland and held appointments at the UPenn and Indiana before moving to Rutgers in 2007. Dr. Musolino specializes in the psychology of language and he is the director of the Psycholinguistics Laboratory at Rutgers. More broadly, he has a deep interest in science, its history, and the public understanding of science. He is the author of the popular science book The Soul Fallacy in which he argues that the notion of soul that most people in America believe in corresponds to a set of scientific hypotheses and that modern science gives us reason to believe that human beings do not have souls. You can read more on his website.The minute I saw the two large packages in my mail box, I knew that my Snacks Santa went above and beyond. Everything was packed meticulously and you could tell that my Santa took the time to gather everything that fit my request which was for snacks that were local and unique to the area.
Here's what was in the packages:
Maple Syrup from Michigan (2 different containers - Yum!)
Raw Michigan Honey
Towne Club Michigan Cherry Pop
Sparkling Wild Berry Juice
Biggby Best Coffee
Leelanau French Vanilla Coffee
Steenstra's Almond Cookies
Better Made Garlic Dill Pickle Potato Chips
Great Lakes Buffalo Wing Potato Chips
Downey's BBQ Potato Chips
Rojo Sriracha Tortilla Chips
Cheddar & Smoked Bacon Spread
Dearborn Cherry Flavored Smoked Turkey
Traverse Bay Dried Cherries
Michigan Blueberry and CHerry/Raspberry Preserves
Cherry BBQ Sauce
Detroit Mexicantown and Greektown seasonings.
BBQ Rub, Garlic Seasoning, and Salt Seasonings
Thanks to my Santa for taking the time to do this. I will definitely enjoy everything!In a newly published study, researchers at Rice University demonstrated that two walls are better than one when turning carbon nanotubes into materials like strong, conductive fibers or transistors.
Rice materials scientist Enrique Barrera and his colleagues used atomic-level models of double-walled nanotubes to see how they might be tuned for applications that require particular properties. They knew from others’ work that double-walled nanotubes are stronger and stiffer than their single-walled cousins. But they found it may someday be possible to tune double-walled tubes for specific electronic properties by controlling their configuration, chiral angles and the distance between the walls.
The research reported in Nanotechnology was chosen as the journal’s “publisher’s pick” this month. The journal also published an interview with the study’s lead author, Rice graduate student Matías Soto.
Carbon nanotubes, grown by various methods, come in two basic varieties: single-walled and multiwalled (those with two or more walls). But double-walled tubes hold a special place in the hierarchy because, the researchers wrote, they behave somewhat like single-walled tubes but are stronger and better able to survive extreme conditions.
The Rice team found there’s even more to them when they started looking at how the inner and outer walls match up using tubes with zigzag chirality. Because the electrical properties of single-walled tubes depend on their chirality – the angles of their hexagonal arrangement of atoms – the researchers thought it would be interesting to learn more about those properties in double-walled tubes.
“We saw that the interwall interaction could affect the electronic properties of double-walled carbon nanotubes and decided to study this effect in a more systematic way using computational simulations,” Soto said.
It turned out that both the distance between the walls — as small as a fraction of a nanometer — and the individual chirality of the tubes impact the double-walls’ electrical properties. In addition, the researchers found the diameter of the tube — especially the inner one, with its more pronounced curvature — has a small but significant impact on the structure’s semiconducting properties.
Breaking it down further, they determined that semiconducting nanotubes wrapped around metallic, highly conductive nanotubes could be the best candidates for tuning the band gap, the property that defines the value of a semiconductor.
“The most interesting thing we found was that when you combine a metallic with a semiconductor, the band gap depends on the distance between them,” Soto said.
It’s not yet possible to do so, but the ability to adjust the distance between walls may lead to nanotube transistors, he said.
Other nanotube configurations may be best for turning into macroscopic carbon nanotube conducting wires, particularly with metallic-metallic nanotubes, the researchers found.
Co-authors of the paper are Rice graduate students Travis Boyer and postdoctoral researchers Santoshkumar Biradar and Liehui Ge; Robert Vajtai, a senior faculty fellow at Rice; Alex Elías-Zúñiga, a professor at Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico; and Pulickel Ajayan, Rice’s Benjamin M. and Mary Greenwood Anderson Professor in Engineering and a professor of materials science and nanoengineering and of chemistry. Barrera is a professor of materials science and nanoengineering.
The Department of Energy’s Research Partnership to Secure Energy for America, the Mexican government’s CONACyT program and the state of Nuevo León funded the research. The researchers utilized the National Science Foundation-supported DAVinCI supercomputer administered by Rice’s Ken Kennedy Institute for Information Technology.
Publication: M. Soto, et al., “Effect of interwall interaction on the electronic structure of double-walled carbon nanotubes,” 2015, Nanotechnology, 26, 165201;
doi:10.1088/0957-4484/26/16/165201
Image: Matías SotoSettlers Torch Olive Orchard In Hebron Saed Bannoura IMEMC - March 13, 2010
A group of fundamentalist Jewish settlers burnt on Thursday at night an olive orchard in Safa village, north west of Hebron, in the southern part of the West Bank.
Dozens of settlers torched the grove while the Israeli army did not attempt to intervene or stop them.
The residents called the local civil defense and firefighters but the army prevented them from reaching the grove.
Soldiers also attacked an international peace activist and confiscated his camera for taking pictures of the assault and the soldiers.
The land in question is 25 Dunams (6.17 Acres) planted with Olives and some evergreens.
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[ Contatto/Contact ] | [ Home Page ] | [Tutte le notizie/All news ]What if you’re a gamer at heart and want a tablet? The latest iPads have been powerful tablets with some great games. But Nvidia has been trying to go one step further with its Shield Tablet, a device specifically made for gamers. The company is updating its Shield Tablet K1 with a new cheaper price tag.
At $199, Nvidia’s tablet is a lot cheaper than the latest iPad mini, which starts $399. Compared to other $199 Android tablets, the Shield Tablet is supposed to pack quite a wallop. It comes with a powerful Nvidia system-on-a-chip.
The company hasn’t updated the chip though. It comes with last year’s Tegra K1, but it is still faster than any other Android tablet out there. It comes with 16GB of storage, a mini-HDMI port and a microSD slot. At 13.7oz (390g), it’s a bit heavier than your average tablet.
The tablet features an 8-inch 1080p display, two front-facing speakers. You can also buy Nvidia’s version of the smart cover — it can also acts as a kickstand. And of course, you can pair it with an (optional) Shield controller to turn in into a gaming console. It’s a good device to play games using Grid, Nvidia’s streaming Netflix for games.
Previously, the Shield Tablet K1 was available in two variants — a 16GB version and a 32GB version with LTE. It’s unclear whether the 32GB model will stick around. The 16GB model used to cost $299. The company had to recall some of them due to fire hazard issues with the battery — let’s hope Nvidia fixed the battery.
The Shield Tablet is also a great way to showcase Nvidia’s work when it comes to mobile chipsets. As a reminder, Nvidia announced an updated mobile chip at CES in January 2015. The Tegra X1 features a 265-core Maxwell GPU, an 8-core 64-bit ARM CPU and can handle 60fps 4K UHD video playback in either H.265 or VP9 coding.
It’s supposed to be a lot faster than the K1. The company is already using the X1 in its Nvidia Shield for TV.
Given that Nvidia rebranded the Nvidia Shield Tablet to the Nvidia Shield Tablet K1, an X1 update might not be too far.President-elect Donald Trump's pick for National Security Advisor, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn met with the leader of an extreme Austrian political party founded by former Nazis, the New York Times reported Monday.
Gen. Flynn met with Heinz-Christian Strache, the leader of the Freedom Party, several weeks ago at the Trump Tower in New York City.
The Freedom Party was founded by former Nazis in the 1950s. It's candidate, Norbert Hofer, came close to winning the presidency in early December, and was narrowly defeated by independent candidate Alexander Van der Bellen. The Freedom Party currently leads all Austrian political parties in national polling.
It is unknown what Gen. Flynn and Strache spoke about during their meeting.
Strache disclosed that the meeting took place in a Facebook post Monday. He also revealed that the Freedom Party had signed a cooperation agreement with Russia’s ruling party in the same post.
Strache used the news of the meeting and the cooperation agreement to show Austrians that the Freedom Party has international standing and is a legitimate contender for political power, boasting that “the Freedom Party continues to gain international influence.”
Daniel Serwer, a professor at Johns Hopkins University specializing in foreign policy, told the Huffington Post that the Freedom Party "is not just any opposition party: It is one with Nazi sympathies.”I would like to start with thanking you all who have been cheering for us in the qualifier. It means a lot to us to see that we have such nice and dedicated fans and we always do our best to perform as good as possible to make you guys proud!
So, back to the qualifier where we started off with a wonderful score of 0-2! 😀 When you are playing this kind of qualifier it’s definitely not a score you want to start out with since it puts pressure on you in multiple ways. It’s never good to have the feeling that you “need” to win the next game because it could result in you trying to do too much in the game to win it or just be scared to make a mistake. I’m very happy we managed to leave those feelings behind and turn it around by winning the next 3 games finishing the day with 3-2. We did lose a couple of games that definitely was winnable for us but we tried to not think too much about it and just focus on the next games and try to not make the same mistakes twice.
The first game in the grand finals vs. Escape gaming was the most crazy one. I made the decision to go for an Aghs on Venge which I’ve actually never done before but it turned out to be a very good choice. Since they had Void together with all their damage from Invoker and Timber I knew that I would have to sacrifice myself every fight to save someone from the Chrono, so by getting the aghs I made sure I could still stay in the fights even after I died. The game looked quite grim for us since they got more and more of our base so when we managed to kill Qojqva without a buyback we saw an opportunity to go for the push and end the game!
After the first game I decided to reboot my computer because my computer froze for a second during one of the team fights. It turned out to be a big mistake though because there was some updates queued so in the end it took like 30 minutes for the computer to fully restart. Since we didn’t know how long it was gonna take, we just waited for it to restart and the admins didn’t say much about it. We constantly gave updates of what happened but then out of the blue the admins wrote “Penalty level 3 given to Alliance”. We were quite surprised because they didn’t give us any heads up at all so when we saw that we got a penalty we instantly switched to an old computer we had at the bootcamp. I understand they can’t wait forever but I think it was very poorly handled by the admins. If they would have written “Alliance you will receive a level 1 penalty in 5 minutes” or something like that we would have switched straight away because you never want to get a draft penalty (a level 3 penalty means that you only have 20 seconds bonus time instead of 130 so it’s quite a big difference) and on top of that we got the level 3 penalty out of the blue after not even receiving a level 1 or 2 penalty. I guess it might be in the rules about how long break you could have but a heads up by the admins would have been nice as well ^^.
In the second game, Escape Gaming went for a crazy push strat that we weren’t able to fend off so they got a rax very early. Khezu went for a shadow blade to be able to pick off s4’s Ember so he couldn’t really split push and delay the game in that way either and fighting them head on with all their heals was impossible so the game was pretty hard. We lost the game quite fast.
Third game was a battle against the clock for us. Compared to the second game where Escape Gaming wanted to push us, it was now the other way around. The problem for us was that they had a Tinker to defend their base with and also a Medusa for the late game. I can really see their lineup work – if they manage to defend the base and get strong enough on the Medusa it would be really hard for us to finish the game but even though we didn’t get any rax until quite late we stayed somewhat equal in farm. EGM even managed to get a aghs + refresher up on Shadow Shaman which made it a bit easier for us to break the base. I think the game was very even though – if they would be able to kill one of us with the Tinker’s aghs (which they almost did a couple of fights) they would probably be able to chase us down with the Night Stalker and take control of the map but we managed to survive their burst and heal up with Jugger’s healing ward and the heals from Dazzle.
Last game was also quite even but for me the one I felt we had the most control over. The one thing I was concerned about was if the game would come to the point where Necrophos would have aghs and be able to kill someone without the ability to buy back. Since they had Lone Druid they could easily go and take our whole base if they would get a pick off like that but luckily for us the game never reached that point! 🙂 We were able to shut down Khezu on Slardar in the early game because of Lich so even though Qojqva farmed a lot on Lone Druid we farmed a lot on all of our 3 cores as well. Loda played somewhat of a play maker this game on Void so Bulldog and S4 both had more farm than him but at the same time he got enough farm to be a threat in the fights.
After we won the series and qualified for TI I was both happy and relieved. It’s so stressful to play these qualifiers so I was happy that it was over and that we can continue and focus on TI instead! We are playing in an online tournament called “Global Grand Master” the upcoming two weeks. It’s a double elimination bracket and I think it’s nice for us to play some officials to stay in shape.
Cheers,
AkkeFernando Alonso says the plans laid out by Formula One's Strategy Group last week are proof F1 has been going in the wrong direction for the last few years.
In an attempt to halt the decline in viewing figures both on TV and at the track, the Strategy Group put forward proposals for a shakeup in the regulations from 2017 onwards. The main aim is to increase the speed of the cars by as much as five or six seconds, while re-introducing refueling to spice up races. Refueling was banned in 2010 while lap times have been getting slower since their peak in 2004.
Alonso said all F1 needs in 2017 is more testing and the sport will be back to where it was in the late 2000s.
"If the tests come back we will have similar rules to seven or eight years ago, which means the last four or five years we have been going in the wrong direction," he said.
Asked if he really felt F1 had taken the wrong direction, he added: "I think the grandstands tell us."
Alonso believes the return of refueling will open up strategies and add an element of randomness.
"Probably it will open some kind of strategy imagination that could help you in some of the races if you can choose whatever fuel you can start on or do the first stint with. Things like that helped in the past. I remember in 2003 getting some pole positions with half of the fuel of the others and then in the race you see what happened. The first ten laps you are leading the group and it may rain or have a safety car, many things can happen that will change the weekend.
"If not, if you gave me a piece of paper and a pen, I will put you the grid order for here, Canada and Austria. I will miss one or two positions, but this is what probably the fans are not welcoming now."
Asked when he last felt he was pushed to the limit physically and mentally, Alonso added: "I think 2005. In 2005 the cars were eight seconds quicker. In Malaysia this year the engineers made a calculation that the winner this year compared to the winner in 2006 was six laps slower - so he would have been lapped six times. When you are six or seven minutes in a race, or eight seconds per lap quicker than this year's car that is very demanding physically and mentally and everything was pushed to the limit. This was maybe ten years ago."
Alonso believes tyre competition would also help add an element of randomness while providing quicker lap times.
"Of course tyre competition will help Formula One just because everyone will push to the limits. I only experienced competition for some years with Michelin and Bridgestone and with a single tyre for Bridgestone, so that change was quite big from 2006 to 2007. In 2006 the tyres were amazing for both companies because they push each other to the limits of a superfast tyre that was able to do even the whole race distance in 2005 and then in 2007 with only Bridgestone the tyres were a completely different thing.
"For sure Bridgestone at that time made a step backwards and relaxed a little bit. You could still push because they had some experience and technology from the competition, so I think that would be good for F1. Also with strategy, if you have a tyre that is good in qualifying and bad in the race and vice-a-versa. Some circuits suit some companies more than others, so you can mix a little the results and people will welcome that."
When asked if he would like to sit on the Strategy Group, Alonso answered: "No! I'm too radical. You need some common sense there, eh?"A Tesla Model X at the Paris auto show last month. (REUTERS/Benoit Tessier)
Tesla, the upstart all-electric automaker that once landed Consumer Reports' best-ever performance rating, has now achieved a far less impressive feat, with a ranking from the reviewer that labels it one the least reliable car companies in America.
The Consumer Reports' ranking, released Monday, places Tesla at no. 25 of 29 for reliability, with reviewers saying the automaker's new Model X SUV "has been plagued with malfunctions," including with the "falcon-wing doors" that have become its signature.
The rough review, based on annual surveys of the magazine's subscribers, marks only the latest hurdle for America's youngest major automaker, which has energized the country's scrawny electric-car industry but has also struggled with repeated production and delivery delays.
Tesla's sedan, the Model S, was recommended by reviewers after its reliability scores improved from what Consumer Reports last year called a "worse-than-average overall problem rate."
[Elon Musk admits the Tesla Model X was overly ambitious — but still ‘the best car ever’]
But the Model X, which first rolled out to drivers last year and now starts at $74,000, was panned by drivers frustrated by problems with doors, locks, latches, power equipment, in-car electronics and the climate system. It ranked last for reliability among a dozen luxury mid-sized SUVs.
"It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that there’s been mechanical problems with the Tesla Model X," Jake Fisher, director of automotive testing for Consumer Reports, said in an interview.
"They’ve taken this very basic platform with the Model X and added so many overly complicated features: the front doors are power automated, the middle-row seats are on power sliders," Fisher said. "All those things add up in a way |
arms.
As graduation from Grade 8 loomed, Jennifer expected to be named valedictorian and to collect a handful of medals for her academic achievements. But she received none, and she wasn’t named valedictorian. She was stunned. What was the point in trying if no one acknowledged your efforts? And yet, instead of expressing her devastation, she told anyone who asked that she was perfectly fine—something she called her “happy mask.”
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A close observer might have noticed that Jennifer seemed off, but I never did. I was a year behind her at Mary Ward Catholic Secondary in north Scarborough. As far as Catholic schools go, it was something of an anomaly: it had the usual high academic standards and strict dress code, mixed with a decidedly bohemian vibe. It was easy to find your tribe. Bright kids and arty misfits hung out together, across subjects, grades and social groups. If you played three instruments, took advanced classes, competed on the ski team and starred in the school’s annual International Night—a showcase of various cultures around the world—you were cool. Outsiders were embraced, geekiness celebrated (anime club meetings were constantly packed) and precocious ambition supported (our most famous alumnus, Craig Kielburger, pretty much ran his charity, Free the Children, from the halls of Mary Ward).
It was the perfect community for a student like Jennifer. A social butterfly with an easy, high-pitched laugh, she mixed with guys, girls, Asians, Caucasians, jocks, nerds, people deep into the arts. Outside of school, Jennifer swam and practised the martial art of wushu.
At five foot seven, she was taller than most of the other Asian girls at the school, and pretty but plain. She rarely wore makeup; she had small, round wire-frame glasses that were neither stylish nor expensive; and she kept her hair straight and unstyled.
Jennifer and I both played the flute, though she was in the senior stage band and I was in junior. We would interact in the band room, had dozens of mutual acquaintances and were friends on Facebook. In conversation, she always seemed focused on the moment—if you had her attention, you had it completely.
I discovered later that Jennifer’s friendly, confident persona was a façade, beneath which she was tormented by feelings of inadequacy, self-doubt and shame. When she failed to win first place at skating competitions, she tried to hide her devastation from her parents, not wanting to add worry to their disappointment. Her mother, Bich, noticed something was amiss and would comfort her daughter at night, when Hann was asleep, saying, “You know all we want from you is just your best—just do what you can.”
She had been a top student in elementary school, but midway through Grade 9, she was averaging 70 per cent in all subjects with the exception of music, where she excelled. Using old report cards, scissors, glue and a photocopier, she created a new, forged report card with straight As. Since universities didn’t consider marks from Grade 9 and 10 for admission, she told herself it wasn’t a big deal.
Hann was the classic tiger dad, and Bich his reluctant accomplice. They picked Jennifer up from school at the end of the day, monitored her extracurricular activities and forbade her from attending dances, which Hann considered unproductive. Parties were off limits and boyfriends verboten until after university. When Jennifer was permitted to attend a sleepover at a friend’s house, Bich and Hann dropped her off late at night and picked her up early the following morning. By age 22, she had never gone to a club, been drunk, visited a friend’s cottage or gone on vacation without her family.
Presumably, their overprotectiveness was born of love and concern. To Jennifer and her friends, however, it was tyranny. “They were absolutely controlling,” said one former classmate, who asked not to be named. “They treated her like shit for such a long time.”
The more I learned about Jennifer’s strict upbringing, the more I could relate to her. I grew up with immigrant parents who also came to Canada from Asia (in their case Hong Kong) with almost nothing, and a father who demanded a lot from me. My dad expected me to be at the top of my class, especially in math and science, to always be obedient, and to be exemplary in every other way. He wanted a child who was like a trophy—something he could brag about. I suspected the achievements of his siblings and their children made him feel insecure, and he wanted my accomplishments to match theirs. I felt like a hamster on a wheel, sprinting to meet some sort of expectation, solely determined by him, that was always just out of reach. Hugs were a rarity in my house, and birthday parties and gifts from Santa ceased around age 9. I was talented at math and figure skating, though my father almost never complimented me, even when I excelled. He played down my educational achievements, just like his parents had done with him—the prevailing theory in our culture being that flattery spoils ambition.
Jennifer met Daniel Wong in Grade 11. He was a year older, goofy and gregarious, with a big laugh, a wide smile and a little paunch around his waistline. He played trumpet in the school band and in a marching band outside of school. Their relationship was platonic until a band trip to Europe in 2003. After a performance in a concert hall filled with smokers, Jennifer suffered an asthma attack. She started panicking, was led outside to the tour bus and almost blacked out. Daniel calmed her down, coaching her breathing. “He pretty much saved my life,” she later said. “It meant everything.” That summer, they started dating.
Of Jennifer’s friends, I knew Daniel best. We met in my Grade 9 year at Mary Ward, and he would come over to my house nearly every day after school to watch TV and play Halo on my Xbox. He would often stick around and eat dinner with my family. Dan spoke to my parents in Cantonese, and my dad would regularly buy him Zesty Cheese Doritos—his favourite. When Daniel was in his final year at Mary Ward, we drifted apart, and midway through the year, he transferred to Cardinal Carter Academy, an arts school in North York. He was falling behind at Mary Ward, and, unbeknownst to me, he had been charged with trafficking after cops found half a pound of weed in his car.
Jennifer’s parents assumed their daughter was an A student; in truth, she earned mostly Bs—respectable for most kids but unacceptable in her strict household. So Jennifer continued to doctor her report cards throughout high school. She received early acceptance to Ryerson, but then failed calculus in her final year and wasn’t able to graduate. The university withdrew its offer. Desperate to keep her parents from digging into her high school records, she lied and said she’d be starting at Ryerson in the fall. She said her plan was to do two years of science, then transfer over to U of T’s pharmacology program, which was her father’s hope. Hann was delighted and bought her a laptop. Jennifer collected used biology and physics textbooks and bought school supplies. In September, she pretended to attend frosh week. When it came to tuition, she doctored papers stating she was receiving an OSAP loan and convinced her dad she’d won a $3,000 scholarship.
She would pack up her book bag and take public transit downtown. Her parents assumed she was headed to class. Instead, Jennifer would go to public libraries, where she would research on the Web what she figured were relevant scientific topics and fill her books with copious notes. She’d spend her free time at cafés or visiting Daniel at York University, where he was taking classes. She picked up a few day shifts as a server at East Side Mario’s in Markham, taught piano lessons and later tended bar at a Boston Pizza where Daniel worked as a kitchen manager. At home, Hann often asked Jennifer about her studies, but Bich told him not to interfere. “Let her be herself,” she’d say.
In order to keep the charade from unravelling, Jennifer lied to her friends, too. She even amplified her dad’s meddling ways, telling one friend, falsely, that her father had hired a private investigator to follow her.
After Jennifer had pretended to be enrolled at Ryerson for two years, Hann asked her if she was still planning to switch to U of T. She said yes, she’d been accepted into the pharmacology program. Her parents were thrilled. She suggested moving in with her friend Topaz downtown for three nights a week. Bich sympathized with Jennifer’s long commute each day and convinced Hann that it was a good idea.
Jennifer never stayed with Topaz. Monday through Wednesday, she stayed with Daniel and his family at their home in Ajax, a large house on a quiet, tree-lined street. Jennifer lied to Daniel’s parents as well, telling them her parents were okay with the arrangement and brushing off their repeated requests to meet Hann and Bich over dim sum.
After two more years, it was theoretically time to graduate from U of T. Jennifer and Daniel hired someone they found online to create a fake transcript, full of As. When it came to the ceremony, Jennifer told her parents that the extra-large class size meant there weren’t enough seats—graduating students were allowed only one guest each, and she didn’t want one of her parents to feel left out, so she gave her ticket to a friend.
Jennifer developed a mental strategy to deal with her lies. “I tried looking at myself in the third person, and I didn’t like who I saw,” she later said, “but rationalizations in my head said I had to keep going—otherwise I would lose everything that ever meant anything to me.”
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Eventually, Jennifer’s fictional academic career began to collapse. While supposedly studying at U of T, she had told her parents about an exciting new development: she was volunteering at the blood-testing lab at SickKids. The gig sometimes required late-night shifts on Fridays and weekends. Perhaps, she suggested, she should spend more of the week at Topaz’s. But Hann noticed something odd: Jennifer had no uniform or key card from SickKids. So the next day, he insisted that they drop her off at the hospital. As soon as the car stopped, she sprinted inside, and Hann instructed Bich to follow her. Realizing she was being tailed by her mom, Jennifer hid in the waiting area of the ER for a few hours until they left. Early the next morning, they called Topaz, who groggily told the truth: Jennifer wasn’t there. When Jennifer finally came home, Hann confronted her. She confessed that she didn’t volunteer at SickKids, had never been in U of T’s pharmacology program and had indeed been staying at Daniel’s—though she neglected to tell them that she’d never graduated high school and that her time at Ryerson was also complete fiction.
Bich wept. Hann was apoplectic. He told Jennifer to get out and never come back, but Bich convinced him to let their daughter stay. They took away her cellphone and laptop for two weeks, after which she was only permitted to use them in her parents’ presence and had to endure surprise checks of her messages. They forbade her from seeing Daniel. They ordered her to quit all of her jobs except for teaching piano and began tracking the odometer on the car.
Jennifer was madly in love with Daniel, and lonely, too. For two weeks, she was housebound, her mother by her side nearly constantly—though Bich told Jennifer where her dad had hidden her phone, so she could periodically check her messages. In February 2009, she wrote on her Facebook page: “Living in my house is like living under house arrest.” She also posted a note: “No one person knows everything about me, and no two people put together knows everything about me…I like being a mystery.” Over the spring and summer, she snuck calls with Daniel on her cellphone at night, whispering in the dark.
Eventually, she was allowed some measure of freedom, and she enrolled in a calculus course to get her final high school credit. Still, in defiance of her parents’ orders, she visited Daniel in between piano lessons. One night, she arranged her blankets to look like she was asleep, then snuck out to Daniel’s house. But she forgot that she had her mother’s wallet. In the morning, Bich went into the room to get it and discovered Jennifer was gone. Bich and Hann ordered Jennifer to come home immediately. They demanded that she apply to college—she could still be a pharmacy lab technician or nurse—and told her that she had to cut off all contact with Daniel.
Jennifer resisted, but Daniel had grown weary of their secret romance. She was 24 and still sneaking around, terrified of her parents’ tirades but not willing to leave home. He told her to figure out her life, and he broke off their relationship. Jennifer was heartbroken. Shortly thereafter, she learned that Daniel was seeing a girl named Christine. In an attempt to win back his attention and discredit Christine, she concocted a bizarre tale. She told him a man had knocked on her door and flashed what looked like a police badge. When she opened the door, a group of men rushed in, overpowered her and gang-raped her in the foyer of her house. Then a few days later, she said, she received a bullet in an envelope in her mailbox. Both instances, she alleged, were warnings from Christine to leave Daniel alone.
In the spring of 2010, Jennifer reconnected with Andrew Montemayor, a friend from elementary school. According to Jennifer’s later evidence in court, he had boasted about robbing people at knifepoint in the park near his home (a claim he denies). When Jennifer told him about her torturous relationship with her dad, Montemayor confessed that he’d once considered killing his own father. The notion intrigued Jennifer, who began imagining how much better her life would be without her father around. Montemayor introduced Jennifer to his roommate, Ricardo Duncan, a goth kid with black nail polish. Over bubble tea in between her piano lessons, according to Jennifer, they hatched a plan for Duncan to murder her father in a parking lot at his work, a tool and die company called Kobay Enstel, near Finch and McCowan. She says she gave Duncan $1,500, earnings from her piano classes, and they agreed to connect later by phone to arrange the date and time of the hit. But Duncan stopped answering her calls, and by early July, Jennifer realized she had been ripped off. (Duncan says she called him in early July, hysterical, requesting that he come and kill her parents. He said he felt offended and said no, and that the only money she gave him was $200 for a night out, which he promptly returned.)
According to the police, it was at this point that Daniel and Jennifer, who were back in contact and exchanging daily flirty texts, devised an even more sinister plan: they’d hire a hit on Bich and Hann, collect the estate—Jennifer’s portion totalling about $500,000—and live together, unencumbered by her meddling parents. Daniel gave Jennifer a spare iPhone and SIM card, and connected her with an acquaintance named Lenford Crawford, whom he called Homeboy. Jennifer asked what the going rate was for a contract killing. Crawford said it was $20,000, but for a friend of Daniel’s it could be done for $10,000. Jennifer was careful to use her iPhone for crime-related conversations and her Samsung phone for everything else. On Halloween night, Crawford visited the Pans’ neighbourhood—probably to scout the site. Kids in costume streaming up and down the street provided the perfect cover.
On the afternoon of November 2, the plan took an unexpected turn. Daniel texted Jennifer, saying that he felt as strongly about Christine as she did about him. Suddenly everything was thrown into question. She texted Daniel: “So you feel for her what I feel for you, then call it off with Homeboy.” Daniel responded, “I thought you wanted this for you?” Jennifer replied to Daniel, “I do, but I have nowhere to go.” Daniel wrote back: “Call it off with Homeboy? You said you wanted this with or without me.” Jennifer: “I want it for me.” The next day, Daniel texted, “I did everything and lined it all up for you.” It seemed Daniel wanted out of the arrangement. But within hours, they’d reverted to their old ways, texting and flirting. Later that day, Crawford texted Jennifer, “I need the time of completion, think about it.” Jennifer wrote back, “Today is a no go. Dinner plans out so won’t be home in time.” Over the following week, there was a flurry of text and phone conversations between Jennifer, Daniel and Crawford. On the morning of November 8, Crawford texted Jennifer: “After work ok will be game time.”
That evening, Jennifer watched Gossip Girl and Jon and Kate Plus Eight in her bedroom while Hann read the Vietnamese news down the hall before heading to bed around 8:30 p.m. Bich was out line dancing with a friend and cousin. Felix, who was studying engineering at McMaster University, wasn’t home. At approximately 9:30 p.m., Bich came home from her line dancing class, changed into her pyjamas and soaked her feet in front of the TV on the main floor. At 9:35 p.m., a man named David Mylvaganam, a friend of Crawford’s, called Jennifer, and they spoke for nearly two minutes. Jennifer went downstairs to say good night to Bich and, as Jennifer later admitted, unlock the front door (a statement she eventually retracted). At 10:02 p.m., the light in the upstairs study switched on—allegedly a signal to the intruders—and a minute later, it switched off. At 10:05 p.m., Mylvaganam called again, and he and Jennifer spoke for three and a half minutes. Moments later, Crawford, Mylvaganam and a third man named Eric Carty walked through the front door, all three carrying guns. One pointed his gun at Bich while another ran upstairs, shoved a gun at Hann’s face and directed him out of bed, down the stairs and into the living room.
Upstairs, Carty confronted Jennifer outside her bedroom door. According to Jennifer, Carty tied her arms behind her using a shoelace. He directed her back inside, where she handed over approximately $2,500 in cash, then to her parents’ bedroom, where he located $1,100 in U.S. funds in her mother’s nightstand, and then finally to the kitchen to search for her mother’s wallet.
“How could they enter the house?” Bich asked Hann in Cantonese. “I don’t know, I was sleeping,” Hann replied. “Shut up! You talk too much!” one of the intruders yelled at Hann. “Where’s the fucking money?” Hann had just $60 in his wallet and said as much. “Liar!” one man replied, and pistol-whipped him on the back of the head. Bich began weeping, pleading with the men not to hurt their daughter. One of the intruders replied, “Rest assured, she is nice and will not be hurt.”
Carty led Jennifer back upstairs and tied her arms to the banister, while Mylvaganam and Crawford took Bich and Hann to the basement and covered their heads with blankets. They shot Hann twice, once in the shoulder and then in the face. He crumpled to the floor. They shot Bich three times in the head, killing her instantly, then fled through the front door.
Jennifer somehow managed to reach her phone, tucked into the waistband of her pants, and dial 911 (despite, as she later claimed, having her hands tied behind her back). “Help me, please! I need help!” she cried. “I don’t know where my parents are! … Please hurry!” At the 34-second mark of the call, the unexpected happens: Hann can be heard moaning in the background. He had awoken, covered in blood, with his dead wife’s body next to him, and crawled up the stairs to the main floor. Jennifer yelled down that she was calling 911. Hann stumbled outside, screaming wildly, and encountered his startled neighbour, who was about to leave for work, in the driveway next door. The neighbour called 911. Police and an ambulance arrived at the scene minutes later, and Hann was rushed to a nearby hospital, then airlifted to Sunnybrook.
York Regional Police interviewed Jennifer just before 3 a.m. She told them that the men had entered the house looking for money, tied her to the banister, and taken her parents to the basement and shot them. Two days later, the police brought her in again to give a second statement. At their request, she showed how she contorted her body to get her phone—a flip phone—out of her waistband to place a call while tied to a banister.
Holes began to emerge in Jennifer’s story. For instance, the keys to Hann’s Lexus were in plain view by the front door. If it were indeed a home invasion, why did the intruders not take the car? And why didn’t they have a crowbar to get in, or a backpack to carry the loot, or zip ties to restrain the residents? And most important: why would they shoot two witnesses but leave one unharmed? The police assigned a surveillance team to monitor Jennifer’s movements.
By November 12, Hann had woken up from his three-day induced coma. He had a broken bone near his eye, bullet fragments lodged in his face that doctors couldn’t remove and a shattered neck bone—the bullet had grazed the carotid artery. Remarkably, he remembered everything, including two troubling details: he recalled seeing his daughter chatting softly—“like a friend,” he said—with one of the intruders, and that her arms were not tied behind her back while she was being led around the house.
On November 22, the police brought Jennifer in for a third interview. This one developed a different tone: the detective, William Goetz, said that he knew she was involved in the crime. He knew that she had lied to him, and said it was in her best interest to fess up. Jennifer, hunched over and sobbing, asked repeatedly, “But what happens to me?”
Over nearly four hours, Jennifer spun out an absurd explanation. She said the attack had been an elaborate plan to commit suicide gone horribly wrong. She had given up on life but couldn’t manage to kill herself, so she hired Homeboy, whose real name she claimed not to know, to do it for her. In September, however, her relationship with her father had suddenly improved, and she decided to call off the hit. But somehow wires got crossed, and the men ended up killing her parents instead of her. Police arrested Jennifer on the spot. In the spring of 2011, relying on analysis of cellphone calls and texts, they nabbed Daniel, Mylvaganam, Carty and Crawford, and charged all five with first-degree murder, attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder.
The trial began on March 19, 2014, in Newmarket. It was expected to last six months but stretched for nearly 10. More than 50 witnesses testified and more than 200 exhibits were filed. Jennifer was on the stand for seven days, bobbing and weaving in a futile attempt to explain away the damning text messages with Crawford and Daniel and the calls with Mylvaganam, and desperately trying to convince the jury that while she had indeed ordered a hit on her father in August 2010, three months later she had wanted nothing of the sort.
Before the jury delivered the verdict, Jennifer appeared almost upbeat, playfully picking lint off her lawyer’s robes. When the guilty verdict was delivered, she showed no emotion, but once the press had left the courtroom, she wept, shaking uncontrollably. For the charge of first-degree murder, Jennifer received an automatic life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years; for the attempted murder of her father, she received another sentence of life, to be served concurrently. Daniel, Mylvaganam and Crawford each received the same sentence. Carty’s lawyer fell ill during the trial, and his trial was postponed to early 2016. The judge granted two non-communication orders, one banning communication among the five defendants until Carty’s trial is complete, and a second between Jennifer and her family, at the latter’s request, effectively preventing Jennifer from speaking to her father or brother ever again. Her lawyer addressed the order in court. “Jennifer is open to communicating with her family if they wanted to,” he said.
Hann and Felix both wrote victim impact statements. “When I lost my wife, I lost my daughter at the same time,” Hann wrote. “I don’t feel like I have a family anymore. […] Some say I should feel lucky to be alive but I feel like I am dead too.” He is now unable to work due to his injuries. He suffers anxiety attacks, insomnia and, when he can sleep, nightmares. He is in constant pain and has given up gardening, working on his cars and listening to music, since none of those activities bring him joy anymore. He can’t bear to be in his house, so he lives with relatives nearby. Felix moved to the East Coast to find work with a private technology company and escape the stigma of being a member of the Pan family. He suffers from depression and has become closed off. Hann is desperate to sell the family home, but no one will buy it. At the end of his statement, Hann addressed Jennifer. “I hope my daughter Jennifer thinks about what has happened to her family and can become a good honest person someday.”
This was a difficult story for me to write. It’s complicated to report on a murder when you were once friends with the people involved. Late last year, I drove up to the correctional facility in Lindsay a few times to see Daniel. In the harsh, white, empty halls of the massive building, even separated from me by a large pane of Plexiglas, he still seemed so familiar—a little pudgy, happy, cracking jokes. His favourite colour was always orange, but he tugged on his bright pumpkin jumpsuit and said he’d cooled on the colour lately, then broke into a big laugh. He asked how I was doing, and I told him my parents had recently separated, and how it had been tough on me. He said that if he ever got out, he would give my dad relationship advice. I asked him if he ever wonders whether, if even little things had gone just slightly differently, he wouldn’t be in prison. He shook his head and said thinking like that could drive a person mad. He said the best thing for him was to focus on reality: that he was in jail, and he had to make the best of it. Daniel said he’d bonded with the Cantonese speakers in his block and was helping them adjust to life inside. When I asked him about the case, he clammed up, citing limitations set by his lawyer. He intends to appeal, as do Jennifer, Mylvaganam and Crawford. Presuming they lose, they’ll be eligible for parole in 2035. Jennifer will be 49, Daniel 50.
A number of questions linger. Was Jennifer mentally ill? A chemical imbalance would certainly make the ordeal easier to understand. But her lawyers didn’t attempt to present her as unfit to stand trial. That leaves a harder conclusion: that Jennifer was in complete control of her faculties. That she wanted Bich and Hann dead and put a plan into action to make it happen. That the guilt of years of her snowballing lies and the shame when it all came out drove her to murder.
It’s not that simple, though. I believe that on some level, Jennifer loved her parents. “I needed my family to be around me. I wanted them to accept me; I didn’t want to live alone […] I didn’t want them to abandon me either,” she said on the stand. She was hysterical on the phone when she called 911 and teared up in the courthouse while describing the sound of her parents being shot. Yet how do you believe a liar? Jennifer lied in all three statements she gave to police. Under oath, she was repeatedly caught in tiny half-truths.
Some think her parents were to blame. “I think they pushed her to that point,” a friend of Jennifer’s told me. “I honestly don’t think Jennifer is evil. This is just two people she hated.” In February, I submitted separate formal requests to interview Jennifer and Daniel. They declined. The result is the purgatory of not knowing what my former schoolmates were thinking, feeling and hoping for. And it’s likely I never will.Keeping your dependencies up-to-date is more important than ever in modern projects. Everything is connected to the internet and needs to be secure. New vulnerabilities in libraries are found, exploited and patched within days. We use a lot of dependencies, and due to continuous delivery some of your dependencies will need updating every day. Solid dependency management is a primary requirement for good software.
In this blog post I will describe how to keep a Maven project up-to-date with the versions plugin. Using the versions plugin has a lot of benefits and configuring it takes less than an hour. So I suggest using it for all maven projects.
The maven goal that achieves this is:
[bash light=”true”]
mvn versions:display-dependency-updates
[/bash]
By default, it will generate a list on the command prompt of all your outdated dependencies. But it will contain false positives and to use it in a continuous integration environment, more configuration is required.
This example assumes a typical maven project, with a parent pom that configures all dependencies using the maven dependency management mechanism. The plugin configuration I used is:
[xml]
<plugin>
<groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
<artifactId>versions-maven-plugin</artifactId>
<inherited>false</inherited>
<configuration>
<outputFile>outdated-dependencies.txt</outputFile>
<rulesUri>file:///${session.executionRootDirectory}/maven-version-rules.xml</rulesUri>
</configuration>
</plugin>
[/xml]
Here the
<outputFile> 1 & lt ; outputFile & gt ;
contains the file where the results are written to.
<inherited>false</inherited> 1 & lt ; inherited & gt ; false & lt ; / inherited & gt ;
stops the plugin from running on your child projects. If all your dependencies are defined in the parent pom this will only clutter the results.
The most interesting setting is the
<rulesUri> 1 & lt ; rulesUri & gt ;
tag. This tag refers to a file where you can make rules defining what is considered an update.
Sometimes the versions plugin suggests a dependency update that you do not want. Most projects only use stable libraries, and avoid various Alpha, Beta, Release Candidate and Milestone versions. There are also several odd version numbers out there, which mess up the plugin. For example, commons-collections has a version number 20031027.000000, released in 2005. You probably want version 3.2.2, released in 2015. However, the plugin will suggest 20031027.000000, because 20031027 is bigger than 3.
Finally, sometimes you do not want to update a dependency because of an incompatible API or because it is not worth the effort to upgrade.
To accommodate this, you need comparison rules. These are described in an XML file and tell the plugin what versions to pick. You can find the description here: http://www.mojohaus.org/versions-maven-plugin/rule.html.
For our project I used the following file:
[xml]
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<ruleset xmlns="http://mojo.codehaus.org/versions-maven-plugin/rule/2.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" comparisonMethod="maven" xsi:schemaLocation="http://mojo.codehaus.org/versions-maven-plugin/rule/2.0.0 http://mojo.codehaus.org/versions-maven-plugin/xsd/rule-2.0.0.xsd">
<ignoreVersions>
<!– Ignore Alpha’s, Beta’s, release candidates and milestones –>
<ignoreVersion type="regex">(?i).*Alpha(?:-?\d+)?</ignoreVersion>
<ignoreVersion type="regex">(?i).*Beta(?:-?\d+)?</ignoreVersion>
<ignoreVersion type="regex">(?i).*-B(?:-?\d+)?</ignoreVersion>
<ignoreVersion type="regex">(?i).*RC(?:-?\d+)?</ignoreVersion>
<ignoreVersion type="regex">(?i).*CR(?:-?\d+)?</ignoreVersion>
<ignoreVersion type="regex">(?i).*M(?:-?\d+)?</ignoreVersion>
</ignoreVersions>
<rules>
<!– Obvious mismatches –>
<rule groupId="commons-collections" artifactId="commons-collections">
<ignoreVersions>
<ignoreVersion type="regex">^200.*$</ignoreVersion>
</ignoreVersions>
</rule>
<rule groupId="commons-logging" artifactId="commons-logging">
<ignoreVersions>
<ignoreVersion>99.0-does-not-exist</ignoreVersion>
</ignoreVersions>
</rule>
<rule groupId="org.hamcrest">
<ignoreVersions>
<ignoreVersion>1.4-atlassian-1</ignoreVersion>
</ignoreVersions>
</rule>
<!– Version 5 of hibernate requires javax.validation 1.1.0. This is a new api and a lot of effort to upgrade –>
<rule groupId="org.hibernate" artifactId="hibernate-validator" comparisonMethod="maven">
<ignoreVersions>
<ignoreVersion type="regex">^5.*$</ignoreVersion>
</ignoreVersions>
</rule>
<rule groupId="javax.validation" artifactId="validation-api">
<ignoreVersions>
<ignoreVersion type="regex">1.1.0.Final</ignoreVersion>
</ignoreVersions>
</rule>
</rules>
</ruleset>
[/xml]
As you can see, I commented the choices I made when selecting versions:
I threw out all non-stable releases. I solved some odd versioning in commons-collections and commons-logging. I ignored the Atlassian specific version of Hamcrest. I also disabled Hibernate 5, because 4 works fine for us and we do not want to use the new API.
Note that this file is a very good place to document these dependency decisions.
You can now setup Jenkins to run this regularly (we run it once every Sunday) and mail the generated file
outdated-dependencies.txt 1 outdated - dependencies. txt
. This will make it easy to keep your projects up-to-date. Feel free to use our rules file as a starting point for your project.It's been five years since the feds took aim at nasal decongestant. Under George Bush, a normal part of everyday civilized life became a criminal act, namely the over-the-counter purchase of Sudafed and many other products containing pseudoephedrine. You can get it now, but it is seriously rationed. You have to present your driver's license and no one without one may purchase it. The limits on quantities you are permitted to purchase fall far below the recommended dosage, and buyers rarely know when they are buying too much.
The rationing and criminalization of this product appeared as part of the Patriot Act. The replacement drug phenylephrine is far less effective on noses but more effective in Washington: the company that makes it, Boehringer Ingelheim, spent $1.6 million lobbying Washington in 2006 (the latest data) and the same amount the year before. The makers of the drug everyone actually wants are diffuse and spread all over China. Pseudoephedrine was targeted in the name of the drug war because apparently you can use it to make methamphetamine. Since the near ban, there are indications that production of the drug has gone up, mostly due to smuggling in Mexico. Even a quick google demonstrates that the gray market is thriving.
I've written with sympathy toward those who have been caught in the legal tangles; many buyers are not actually doing anything wrong. Anyone who attempts to buy it is treated like a criminal and one never knows for sure when one is buying more than the legal limit. In several cases I've highlighted, people have bought without the intent to manufacture drugs but were ensnared in any case. In other cases, people have been asked to buy for friends who may or may not have been plotting to make meth. Still other cases involve shady figures with criminal records and suspicious associations who are thereby discredited and hounded by police and judges.
In my view, every person who is ensnared deserves to be defended. Their rights are being violated. One lady in my own community faces 20 years in jail solely for buying 4 boxes in a 12-day period. News reports suggest that she is a bad person for many other reasons, and, for that reason, there has been little public sympathy for her — in the same way that people under alcohol prohibition were snagged on alcohol grounds even though the motivation for getting them was different (could be taxes or something else).
Something as serious as laws and jails should be used for punishment of those who infringe on person and property, not for self-medicating. If this lady is bad, she should be punished for things she did wrong, not for some trumped-up reason.
In any case, as with all stupid laws like this, the innocent are eventually harmed. It's strange how most people are willing to give the police and the courts the benefit of the doubt, and pretend as if the system somehow knows something that we do not know. Anyone hauled off to jail probably deserved what is coming to him, even if we don't know the specifics. People should do a better job at staying out of harm's way, of being beyond reproach. Don't play with fire and you won't get burned — this is how people tend to think of these cases.
They are blaming the victim. Somehow I suspect that the same sentiments were pervasive even in the worst totalitarian states. By the time people wake up to the reality that the law and the law enforcers are the problem, it is too late.
Just this morning the following email arrived:
In doing some internet research, I |
its peak at the end of last year.
You can read our guide to buying Bitcoins in the UK online.At the sex toy store I worked at, it wasn’t uncommon for men to walk in, look around at the vibrators, harnesses and dildos and ask, “What’s in this for me and my penis? How do we get off around here?”
The obvious answers are masturbation sleeves (see “Penis Envy“(Sep. 30, 2010)) and cockrings (see “Feeling Cocky” (Dec. 2, 2010)). But if you’re reading this column, you probably know that it’s much more fun to think outside the box. Like the young man who, on a regular day at the sex-toy-selling office, breezed through the doors like a fresh breath and said to me “I’m… er… finishing too quickly for my girlfriend. I want to buy a harness and dildo so I can have sex with her for as long as she wants. Which one should I get?” Yes! Fellas–it’s time to consider strapping it on.
Two little birdies may now be on your shoulder, squawking in your ear. One might be chirping, “Strapping on a dildo is ‘gay’!” Why, oh, why is this always the fear about everything sexually exploratory for men? A sex act, such as penetrating your partner with a dildo, does not make you gay. Said partner’s being a man might, but even then, “gay” is a label for you to affix to yourself if you so choose. Besides, being gay isn’t so bad. I myself enjoy it.
The other birdie may be louder, saying, “Why would you strap on a substitute when you’ve got a healthy full-timer already attached?” A dildo is no penis. And to your partner, a dildo is especially not your penis. The physical connection between your partner and your flesh-and-blood body isn’t so easily replaced by a silicone object that can be detached and thrown under the bed. Past column “Who’s Afraid of the Big, Bad, Vibrator?” (March 10, 2011) addresses these fears. Voice your concerns to your partner.
Then get over them. Because strapping it on is all about variety. Whoever said that “variety is the spice of life” obviously meant to say “sex life,” and we want that stuff to be five-alarm-chili kind of spicy.
Using a dildo offers your partner a variety of sensations unavailable from biology alone. Where will you find a penis that’s purple, ripples, vibrates and is forever erect? Maybe your partner wants to go impossibly large, or is experimenting with anal sex for the first time and needs to start small.
Age, illness or injury may have gotten the best of your second-in-command. Or maybe your partner just can’t get enough penile penetration. Chances are an orifice such as a mouth, anus or vagina will have more stamina for penetrative sex than your right-hand man, who requires hormonal balance, specific blood flow and physical and mental energy to… keep up. With a strap-on, you’ve got the opportunity to satisfy the insatiable. You could use the “real deal” for Round 1, a silicone stand-in for Round 2 and go back to the rested-and-rejuvenated “real deal” for a Round 3!
Strapping on a dildo gives you a whenever/wherever readiness and an all-night stamina that’s cheaper and safer than Bob Dole’s favorite little blue pill and more time-efficient than the meditated breathing of Tantric sex. Other bonuses include no pregnancy risk and not having to use those condoms you boys are always whining about because silicone dildos are easily disinfected with soap and water, boilable and dishwasher-safe. Now try doing those things with your penis. (Actually, please don’t.)
No matter what dildo you choose or your reasons for using one, strapping it on with a harness lets you use it hands-free with the good old hip-thrusting you know and love. Opt for a harness like the Terra Firma, with wide-set leg straps that’ll let George-of-Your-Jungle swing free, or tuck it in with the Spareparts Joque Harness’ jockstrap design. The Spandex Harness is a pair of biker shorts equipped with a dildo harnessing ring and the Menage-a-Trois harness is made specifically for double penetration with one ring to go over your physical penis and a second for a dildo of your choice.
The only question left for those birdies to chirp now is, “Which dildo should you get?” See column “Dil-dos and Don’ts” (Feb. 24, 2011) for answers.
Related PostsAlabama lawmakers are proposing a multitude of school prayer and religious expression bills this session. Legislators say the bills are an effort to push efforts to squash all vestiges of religion from the public square. Opponents called the bills election-year pandering and said the proposals are either unnecessary or unconstitutional.
"I think there is frustration on the constant restrictions that have been coming. I remember when I was in first and second grade you could have prayer in school. All of the sudden you couldn't do those things," said Joe Godfrey, executive director of the church-based Alabama Citizens Action Program.
Susan Watson, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama, sees it differently.
"I think it's an election year and legislators are doing everything they can to speak to their base. I think they are trying to garner votes," Watson said.
Rep. Steve Hurst, R-Munford, has proposed to set aside up to 15 minutes at the start of each school day to study the procedures of Congress, including having teachers give a verbatim reading of a congressional opening prayer.
Hurst said he thought of the idea after thinking about how Congress and the Alabama Legislature begin their days with prayer, but schools can't.
"If you are reading the prayer verbatim that was entered into the Congressional record, then how can this be unconstitutional?" Hurst said.
Hurst said he thought the time could be educational and that teachers might pick prayers that relate to the day's lesson. He said that might include the assassination of President John F. Kennedy or the lean times of the Great Depression. He said students could be excused if they didn't want to hear the prayer part of the lesson.
"Nobody has to pray," Hurst said.
Watson called the bill a "cunning" attempt to get prayer back in school, but said it was also "clearly unconstitutional."
"It's prayer dressed up like a civics lesson," Watson said.
The Alabama House of Representatives on Thursday approved a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow the display of the Ten Commandments in schools and other public buildings. The copy of the Ten Commandments would have to be mingled with other historic documents, according to the legislation.
"Sometimes we forget that separation of church and state was not to make sure we don't have any references, because the founding fathers clearly did that, it just means that there cannot be a state sponsored religion and you can't force a religion on anyone," Speaker of the House Mike Hubbard, R-Auburn, said.
"Now, will there be a challenge? Absolutely, there will be a challenge. Are there liberal judges out there who would love to say it's unconstitutional? Absolutely. But I believe it is the right thing to do," Hubbard said.
Rob Boston, director of communications for the Washington D.C.-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said the state was inviting lawsuits if it approved either bill.
"This is a matter that the Supreme Court dealt with some years ago. The court made it clear that public schools can't display the Ten Commandments," Boston said
The Alabama Senate earlier this session approved a "Merry Christmas" bill that would write into state law that teachers could offer traditional holiday greetings and schools could have holiday symbols, such as a Christmas tree or a menorah. The displays would have to either show the symbols of more than one religion or include a mixture of religious and secular symbols.
Another bill would put in state law that the students have the right to initiate prayer in school and express their religious views in their writings and artwork for class. Sponsor Rep. Mack Butler, R-Rainbow City, said teachers are scared about what is legal and what's not. He said putting it in state law would give them some guidance.
Watson said both bills are unnecessary, and students already have a right to prayer guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.
"Teachers and student can already say Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah," Watson said.“I am very afraid for the future of this place. Sooner or later we will have to leave, but we have nowhere to go.” — Buabasah a resident of Fuvemeh, a West African town being swallowed by the sea as reported by Matteo Fagotto.
*****
A new, must read, report out in Foreign Policy by Matteo Fagotto highlights a widespread ongoing disruption due to sea level rise to the vulnerable coastal region of West Africa. And, for years now, scientists at the IPCC have been warning that just such an event could occur.
The coastal zone of West Africa stretches for 4,000 miles from Mauritania to the Congo. It includes highly populated regions surrounding low elevation cities and towns in such African nations as Gabon, Nigeria, Senegal, Guinea, The Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, Cameroon, Liberia, and Ghana. Most industrial activity and food-growing is located near the coast of these nations — accounting for 56 percent of GDP for the region according to the World Bank. And coastal population concentrations in regions vulnerable to sea level rise are very high. In all about 31 percent of the 245 million people dwelling in West Africa live in this fragile land.
(Due to global warming and glacial melt spurred by fossil fuel burning, oceans are now rising at their fastest rates in 10,000 years. As a result, many coastal towns and cities around the world are under increasing threat of flooding. In West Africa, a recent report by Foreign Policy paints a picture of broadening inundation. Unfortunately, current rates of ocean rise are far slower than what human-caused climate change may set off over the coming decades. Image source: AVISO.)
Most of the coastline features a lagoonal geography that is very low-lying. Meanwhile, funds for coastal defenses like planting mangrove forests and pumping in sand to re-nourish beaches are difficult to procure. As a result, these large cities and population centers are highly vulnerable to impacts from human-forced climate change related to sea level rise.
The Great Flooding Begins
Ever since the early 1990s, scientific reports have highlighted the vulnerability of West Africa to inundation, flooding and loss of key industries, food growing and infrastructure due to glacial melt, thermal expansion of ocean waters set off by warming, and an increase in storm strength in the North Atlantic. All impacts that scientists feared would be coming due to a human-forced warming of the world. Now, just such an inundation and loss appears to be underway.
According to the recent report out in Foreign Policy, and according to other eyewitness accounts and news reports coming in from coastal West Africa during recent years, sea level rise and increasing erosion due to powerful storms continue to produce worsening impacts for the region. In one of the most glaring instances, the swelling surf is now in the process of destroying a Ghana fishing village (Fuvemeh) that recently housed 2,500 people. Homes, coconut plantations, and fishing wharfs have all been taken by the seas and swirling sands. But Fuvemeh is just one of thousands of like communities now confronting an onrush of waves that each year bites off as much as 80-120 feet of coastline.
House destroyed by waves in #Fuveme #Ghana. Community blames rising sea levels. Desperate for flood/sea defence pic.twitter.com/VKntPeWaOM — Katerina Vittozzi (@kvittozzi) February 16, 2016
(House destroyed by waves in Fuvemeh, Ghana. Sadly, sea level rise related impacts like this are now being seen all up and down West Africa’s 4,000 mile long coastline.)
Moreover, Foreigh Policy finds that megacities like Lagos (population 5.6 million) and large cities like Accra (population 1.6 million) are increasingly threatened by the encroaching waters. In Accra, the rainy season now causes an annual inundation of sections of the city — a new impact that resulted in 25 people losing their lives last year. Nouakchott, the capital of Mauritania and home to approximately 1 million people, now sees the loss of 80 feet of coastline along its Atlantic shore every year. Meanwhile, parts of Togo lost 118 feet of shore line last year alone. Along the coast from Gambia to Senegal and including communities like Cotonou and Lome, growing numbers of houses, hotels, restaurants, roads, and even water treatment plants are now little more than washed out husks and crumbling bits of infrastructure — lapped by a rising tide.
Heartbreak, Loss of Homes, Dislocation
As the waters rise, residents are forced to move inland. Younger, more mobile residents have often fled the region entirely. Others have rebuilt their homes further inland only to have them flooded again. Ocean productivity is on the decline in the region. Fish and other animals that supported coastal industries have migrated northward or succumbed to worsening ocean conditions. The combined losses have produced economic hardships as coastal cities see increasing gang activity, drug use, theft and violence.
Overall, the United Nations estimates that 5-10 percent of West Africa’s GDP will ultimately be lost due to impacts related to sea level rise. And the recent report by Foreign Policy points to growing evidence that the crisis is starting now. But the ever-more-human toll is nothing less than heart-wrenching.
West Africa Just One of Many Vulnerable Regions
Reports by Foreign Policy and others on the plight of coastal West Africa shines a light on sea level rise related hardships and losses throughout that region. However, numerous low-lying stretches of coastline are now facing similar problems. Bangladesh is currently seeing a wave of mass migration inland due to sea level rise related flooding. The Mi Cong Delta region is seeing its rice farms threatened by an influx of salt water. The Indus River Delta region in Pakistan is also experiencing mass migration away from coastlines. Coastal Pacific Islands are facing an existential threat due to sea level rise now. And the U.S. East Coast and Gulf Coasts are facing their own problems from worsening storm surge flooding and more widespread nuisance flooding due to sea level rise. So what we’re seeing in West Africa is part of a much larger overall global context.
Links:
West Africa is Being Swallowed by the Sea
West Africa Map
AVISO Sea Level Rise
IPCC: The Regional Impacts of Climate Change
Ghana’s Coastal Erosion — The Village Buried in Sand
Ghana Accra Floods
How The World’s Oceans Could be Running out of Fish
Drugs and Crime Mobilise International Support For West Africa Coast Initiative
Hat tip to Colorado Bob
Hat tip to Wili
AdvertisementsVideo: Kalib Starnes vs Dwayne Lewis fight highlights
Kalib Starnes picked up his fourth win of 2013 with a dominant performance against Dwayne Lewis to kick off the NBCSN portion of the WSOF 7 fight card.
Video: Kalib Starnes vs Dwayne Lewis fight highlights
Starnes punished Lewis with his jab and finished with a devastating elbow that crumbled Lewis to the canvas.
After the fight Starnes said, “I want to fight for the light heavyweight title. I’m here to fight for the light heavyweight title. Whoever has that, wherever they have it, I want to work my way up, and I want to fight for the title.
Check out highlights below.
Jesse Taylor vs. Elvis Mutapcic Fight Highlights
Nick Newell vs. Sabah Fadai Fight Highlights
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Over the years, RR has been one of the most prolific pollsters in the game, and despite the fact that it is an open secret that founder Scott Rasmussen's political proclivities are well to the right of center, their numbers on campaigns have been on the fairway more often than not.
This year, however, it is hard not to go to their webpage and sense an agenda. Apparently, other people in the blogosphere have noticed it, too. Greg Sargent, for example (emphasis mine):
Rasmussen Reports, which often skews its presentation of polling for conservative media pickup, has a funny new poll that’s clearly designed to suggest public opposition to Dems going it alone on health care....Take a look at the question wording: Suppose that Democrats agreed on a health care reform bill that is opposed by all Republicans in Congress. Should the Democrats pass that bill or should they change the bill to win support from a reasonable number of Republicans?
Indeed, as Sargent points out, the trick here employed by Rasmussen is to use the term "reasonable number" of Republicans. "Reasonable" is a very powerful word here, and carries with it the unspoken implication that a bill without ANY Republican support would be, somehow, unreasonable.
Now, polling on health care has been all over the map, as Nate over at 538 pointed out earlier this week in a piece which attempted to address the common flaws which led to biased results.
What is consistent about Rasmussen's coverage of the health care debate is their incessant desire to frame the debate in ways designed to denigrate both the Congress and President Obama. One of the most insipid examples of this was a survey earlier in the week in which Rasmussen reported that two-thirds of voters believed that they understood the health care reform proposal as well, or better, than President Obama.
Of course, there is objective evidence to prove that this poll is false. Indeed, in the recent poll conducted for AARP, just thirty-seven percent of Americans could correctly identify what is meant by a "public option". Nearly one-half of voters either thought it was a total nationalized healthcare program, or admitted that they had no idea.
Asking voters how well they understand a certain piece of legislation is not unlike asking them if they are patriotic, or if they are middle class. The default answer is always going to be "yes". Surely, Rasmussen must know this this, and just as clearly, they must have understood that the poll's results were essentially meaningless. They ran with it, anyway, apparently more enthused at the prospect of taking another quick shot at the President's knees than they were with actually divining public opinion on a sensitive issue like health care.
They are not limited to right-wing cheerleading on the health care issue. Check out the wording on this question about taxes and government services, offered up this week on the front page of their website:
Do you agree or disagree with the following statement... it’s always better to cut taxes than to increase government spending because taxpayers, not bureaucrats, are the best judges of how to spend their money?
Why stop there, Rasmussen? Why not add a parenthetical phrase about how tax cuts regrow hair, whiten teeth, and ensure that your favorite team will win the Super Bowl this year?
Once you've already loaded a question with biased wording (this question, when stripped down, is basically asking people whether they like themselves more, or bureaucrats), you might as well go big or go home.
Amazingly, with their word construction, people favored tax cuts 62-20. Legitimate pollsters, however, word the question very differently. Earlier in the year, both Pew and CBS asked the question simply, and without bias. The wording between the two varied slightly, but the basic construction was: "What do you think would benefit the economy more at this time: cutting taxes on individuals and businesses, or increasing spending on items like infrastructure and other programs?"
Not surprisingly, without the loaded wording, the question was considerably closer.
The danger for Rasmussen, of course, is that they risk damaging their legitimacy with everyone outside of the Fox News crowd.
There are partisans in the polling game, to be sure. But their data is not reduced to the mere act of cheerleading. For example, everyone knows that the guys over at PPP are Democrats, but no one could ever accusing them of using their role as surveyors of public opinion in order to cheerlead for the folks in blue. They run the numbers, and present them to the public, whether those numbers are favorable to Democrats or ugly (like this week's PPP numbers in Arkansas).
For such a prolific firm in the campaign game, it would seem counterproductive for Rasmussen to get pigeonholed as the "right-wing" pollsters. But a cursory glance at their front pages lately render it almost impossible to conclude anything else. It seems a rather sad course to chart for a firm that had been instrumental in examining the election cycles of the past.Kaitendoh releases today painted prototype photos for their “High School DxD BorN” Xenovia figure, previously seen unpainted at Wonfes 2015 [Winter] in February this year.
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Sculpted in a 1/7 scale by Akizou standing 25 cm tall (figure only and 30 cm including the sword), the figure is proposed in two variants; her regular edition, with Xenovia wearing white and light blue underwear, and the repaint version where the girl’s outfit is painted with a stripe pattern.
Both versions of Xenovia are listed for a price of ¥14000 each, with release date scheduled for September 2015, and will most likely be castoffable considering official photos released today by Kaitendoh. At this point, pre-order for the figures shouldn’t take too long to open and, in the meantime, here’s official photos revealed today.
“High School DxD BorN” Xenovia (Regular edition).
“High School DxD BorN” Xenovia (Repaint edition).
Kaitendoh has also announced another figure dedicated to characters of the popular “High School DxD” franchise, Toujou Koneko, which is currently listed as a 1/7 scale item as well and of which we only have a teaser photo for now, available below.
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Smallville started with a familiar story known throughout comic book geekdom. An alien baby crash lands on the planet Earth, where he’s found by an Earth couple unable to have a child. This child, little did they know, would become the super hero we all know as Superman. But before he can be the savior of the world he has to get through high school, lose his first love and defeating a 150 some odd villains in the 10 season span of this show. Fans have been by Clark Kent’s side for every step of his transition from awkward teen to the destined savior of earth, and now the time has come. After 10 years, we say goodbye to Clark Kent in today’s series finale of Smallville, and welcome in his place Superman. Smallville is the longest-running comic book based series in television history whose pilot episode debut had an estimated, with 8.4 million viewers and took the rated the highest viewed show for a pilot episode and the fan base has grown ever since. In an exclusive interview with MTV, Smallville’s executive producer Brian Peterson shared with fans that,
“What is important with us on this is Clark and Clark’s journey and everything hung off of that. So our main goal was sending Clark off, and making his transition this huge pivotal moment for the show and for him.”
So, with Clark’s journey in mind let’s take a look at some pivotal moments that shaped Clark Kent into the great Superman:
Season 1:
When Clark is hanging in the middle of the cornfield with an S on his chest, during the Pilot Episode, it foreshadowed what was to come for young Clark Kent. That “S” is iconic and unforgettable, plus the whole situation showed his weakness to kryptonite and marked one of the few friendly moments between Clark and Lex.
Season 2:
In Insurgence Clark demonstrates a more extended array of abilities when he leaps tall buildings in a single bound to save his mom from a hostage situation. This made us all hopeful for the day Clark would fly.
Season 4:
In Commencement our jaws were left hanging with the visually stunning image of Clark protecting a boy from a meteor explosion, while Smallville is hit with a meteor shower. This episode marks as one of the moments of embracing his commitment to saving mankind from disaster.
Season5:
Jonathan Kent walks out into the yard, clutching his chest as he dies of a heart attack in Clark and Martha’s arms, in the episode Reckoning. This is one of the game changing moments in the series, and Clark lost his adoptive father who was the one person who was near and dear to his heart. It can get no sadder, and no life altering than that.
Season 7:
In Descent Lex Luthor makes the choice to turn to the dark side and murders his father. Throughout the series Lionel Luthor was a real a**h**e, and it’s sad to see Lionel asking for redemption from the monster he created. This episode clearly defines the line between good vs. evil, and John Glover made this episode one of the darkest and most thrilling of the series.
Now let’s take a look at the highlights for today’s series finale, and discuss its effectiveness to wrap up the series. (Spoiler Alert)
Mama Clark tells Clark to not push away his past, but needs to embrace and use it as a way to build a better future.
The wedding scene in the episode has Louis Lane walking herself down the aisle and as she looks down the aisle she sees that Clark isn’t there. Her face breaks your heart, but Clark pieces it together as he comes up behind her, grabs her hand, and they both walk down the aisle. The vows they share are exquisitely written. ( I cried as Christina Yang would say: “Baby B***h tears” that whole scene.)
Holy S**t! Father/daughter moment gets disturbing as Tess is harvested for her heart, but she escapes and Lex instead gets his father’s heart WTF!
He can fly! He can FLY!!!
During the last 30 minutes of the show Tess, Lex Luthor’s sister, is stabbed by her brother mid embrace, but Lex finds out that during what seemed like a tender touch to the cheek was really Tess putting a toxin on his skin to make him forget all his painful memories, and of Clark Kent’s secret identity.
The suit is revealed and the past and future combine to create…. SUPERMAN! It’s about damn time.
7 year flash forward and Luthor is elected President!
The last scene with its soaring fanfare has viewers jumping out of their seat in excitement, and chills run down the spine as Clark Kent reveals his super suit in the iconic manner. His first flight up, and into outer space makes every geek shed a tear as we truly see this boy become a man. This finale not only left a large meteor of hope for the future of the Superman franchise, but also makes fans and viewers realize that this show made us have faith in justice, and that true good does exist. For now let’s take a moment and bask in compilation of ten years of hard work that went towards the unique reinterpretation of Superman’s years as youth, the growth of the characters with every season, visual progress, the shedding of weekly bad guys and growing towards different adventure arcs with a major villains, and keeping the integrity of the comic in the forefront of the show has kept fans coming back season after season. So, don’t shed too many tears cuz this is not an end, but only the beginning of newer and greater things to come.
Share your thoughts on today’s episode or your favorite moments in the series at the comment box below.
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Category: TVKiira Dosdall, a Connecticut native, played her college hockey at Colgate University where she remains the second-highest scoring Raiders defenseman of all time. In her senior season at Colgate in 2008-09 Dosdall was nominated for the Patty Kazmaier Award which is awarded to the top player in NCAA Division I women's ice hockey. It goes without saying that Dosdall has been turning heads and making waves in women's hockey for quite some time now. After her outstanding college career playing in the state she would later return to for the 2015-16 season to play professionally, Dosdall went overseas to play hockey at the highest level with the Vienna Sabres.
After Dosdall finished her NCAA career, she left for Austria to play for the Vienna Sabres, where she helped win four straight Austrian titles and three European League titles. Dosdall is the first player to be named to the EWHL All-Star team for four years in a row. Last season, she played with the Boston Blades of the CWHL. source: NWHL.co
While playing with and serving as the captain of the Vienna Sabres and collecting championships in Austria, Dosdall met and roomed with current Riveters teammate and close friend Janine Weber who was the first player to be signed both by the Riveters and in the NWHL. Their friendship has traveled across the Atlantic and it served as one of the early seeds for the outstanding team chemistry that the Riveters enjoy in their locker room. Dosdall was one of the earliest players signed by the Riveters in the offseason before the NWHL's inaugural season. The Colgate standout joined the Riveters on June 30th on the same day that alternate captain Morgan Fritz-Ward inked her deal.
A right-handed defender, Dosdall uses her 5'10" frame exceptionally well and her long reach makes her just as effective playing defense in the transition game as she is defending around her own net. Her size also makes her a nuisance for the opposition's forwards along the boards and around the Riveters' net where Dosdall's sound positioning and strength always seems to snuff out chances and disrupt developing plays. Early in the 2015-16 season Dosdall has been playing big minutes on the Riveters' blue line and she is frequently deployed during special teams play. The Riveters, who had been shorthanded on their blue line before the arrival of Sydney Kidd to the team, have had to ask a lot of Dosdall and thus far she has had a rock solid start to her NWHL career on New York's blue line. Nothing seems to phase or rattle the big defenseman and she has been one of the Riveters' early standouts this season.
Recently Kiira Dosdall of the New York Riveters was kind enough to agree to an interview with me. Let's get to know #26 on the New York Riveters' blue line a little bit better!
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Mike Murphy: How old were you the first time you stepped onto the ice in a pair of skates and picked up a hockey stick?
Kiira Dosdall:
I was 5. My parents say that the skating school coaches fit me for figure skates, and I cried until they let me wear the "black ones."
MM: With being born in Connecticut does going on the road to play the Connecticut Whale mean a little something extra to you?
Kiira Dosdall:
Absolutely. I grew up playing boys' hockey in Darien and Stamford, so it's incredibly special to go home and see so many girls with their teams in the stands. I remember getting chills when I stepped out on the ice for that first NWHL game in Connecticut and looked around at the players, the fans, and especially the young girls. I remember thinking, "Wow. This is so cool. 20 years ago, I was the only girl I knew in a 20 mile radius from here who played hockey."
MM: During your senior year at Colgate you scored 24 points in 36 games from the blue line and you are Colgate's all-time leading defenseman scorer. Has offense always been a big part of your game?
Kiira Dosdall:
It definitely depends on my role within the team.
MM: How did it feel to be nominated for the prestigious Patty Kazmaier award in your senior year at Colgate?
Kiira Dosdall:
The feeling was very similar to the feeling of signing a contract with the Riveters: humbling.
MM: What made you decide to join the Vienna Sabres after your college career?
Kiira Dosdall:
I always wanted to explore life in another country, so finding the opportunity to play hockey, teach and live in Austria was an easy decision to make!
MM: What does it mean to you to share your NWHL experience with longtime teammate and friend Janine Weber?
Kiira Dosdall:
Part of the reason Janine and I have become such good friends is because we follow our dreams and don't let certain expectations restrain us. It's becoming a common habit for us to just stop, take in the moment, and then laugh. We still can't believe we're living in NYC together playing pro hockey!
MM: In 2013-14 you played for the Boston Blades of the CWHL for a season after your time in Austria with the Vienna Sabres. What was that experience like?
Kiira Dosdall:
Any opportunity I have to play hockey at the highest level is a great one.
MM: After two years as the girls hockey coach at Brewster Academy you joined the education technology company Schoology in New York City. When did your passion for education start?
Kiira Dosdall:
I always wanted to be a teacher. Well, a teacher and a hockey player. When I moved to Austria, I had the opportunity to teach Kindergarten at the American International School, and my passion for education has developed ever since. Now, I work at Schoology, a company filled with passionate people who are transforming education. I am so proud to be a part of it!
MM: Thus far in the 2015-16 season you've been frequently paired with Gabie Figueroa. Do you feel like you and Gabie are developing some good chemistry as a defensive pair?
Kiira Dosdall:
Absolutely. Gabie is such a creative, strong player and the best teammate. I am always confident when stepping on the ice with Gabie!
MM: How would you describe your game?
Kiira Dosdall:
Tough and focused.
MM: Why number 26?
Kiira Dosdall:
Totally random. I like to switch it up.
MM: What made you decide on joining the New York Riveters?
Kiira Dosdall:
The greater NYC area is home for me. Plus, I'm a Rangers fan!
MM: Do you have any pregame rituals or superstitions? Any specific routine before you play in a game?
Kiira Dosdall:
Juggling the soccer ball with teammates (or trying to), and pre-game cooking with Janine.
MM: What does it mean to you to know that you have and will inspire young girls to try hockey for the first time?
Kiira Dosdall:
It's what makes this the greatest job on the planet. My passion for hockey fulfills me, but the impact of this league extends so far beyond me. That's really what makes it so special.
MM: What are your thoughts on life in Brooklyn so far?
Kiira Dosdall:
I love Brooklyn. I love my neighbors, the park, the escape from Manhattan, the restaurants, the night life, the easy commute, etc.!
MM: Is there anything you'd like to say to New York Riveters fans?
Kiira Dosdall:
I appreciate every single one of you and can't wait to see you at our games. You are as much of a part of this league's success as any of the players are. You rule!
MM: What did it mean to you and your teammates to get your first victory at home ice in front of your fans on Sunday night?
Kiira Dosdall:
We have a great team with a ton of character, and I don't think it could have been any better. To beat Boston in front of the fans who still believed in us after a tough loss a few weeks ago was emotional, to say the least.
MM: How would you describe what kind of captain fellow defenseman Ashley Johnston is?
Kiira Dosdall:
Stretch's confidence and poise make her a natural leader both on and off the ice. She believes in herself, and helps the rest of us believe in each other and ourselves. I think the confidence and camaraderie that we build under Stretch's leadership will only grow more powerful as the season continues.
-
A big thank you to Kiira Dosdall for agreeing to do this interview during her very busy schedule. You can get to know #26 of the New York Riveters even better by giving her a follow on twitter at @KDosdall. You can also support Kiira by picking up her jersey at the NWHL shop!
Kiira Dosdall and the Riveters next take to the ice on Saturday at 3PM against the Boston Pride for the Pride's home opener. Today, it was announced that the Riveters vs Pride game (their third meeting of the young NWHL season) will be aired on NESN. The Riveters will be looking for their second win in a row in what will surely be an intense game.
Thanks for reading. Let's go Riveters!About This Game You are the last known human in the universe, and all that's left of you is a disembodied head. Seeking clues to your fractured past, you must travel through a hostile world of machines using a special helmet that allows you to dock into and take control of any robotic host body. As you launch from one body to the next, you'll start to discover that things are not quite what they appear to be, and the fate of humanity has yet to be decided...
Fresh from Double Fine Productions, Headlander is a a retro-futuristic, side-scrolling, action-adventure game set in a world inspired by 70’s science fiction. It is a world of automation, a utopia gone wrong in which all of humanity have transferred their minds into robotic imposter bodies and are ruled by a deranged computer. Brought to you by Double Fine Productions (Psychonauts, Broken Age) and Adult Swim Games (Duck Game, Jazzpunk), Headlander is guaranteed to be the ultimate head trip.A demonstration to show new anti-poaching techniques developed by an animal reserve in South Africa took a disastrous turn when the rhino used in |
to regulate the prices and service conditions for such services offered by the telcos but forebear from regulating new entrants and resellers on the grounds that they did not have any market power. This would give the cable companies especially a very significant competitive advantage. Included in the regulatory rules were the so-called “winback rules” which prohibited a telco from initiating contact with a residential customer which it had lost to a competitor. These rules would supposedly prevent anti-competitive behaviour by the telcos before a market had “matured.”
Less than two months after the CRTC’s decision, the telcos appealed to the Cabinet. The Liberal government declined to take up the case. And so, following the Conservative assumption of power, Bernier inherited the CRTC policy issue.
Weeks after Bernier’s appointment, he had lunch with members of the Telecom Policy Review Panel as well as departmental officials to discuss among other matters the VOIP appeal. Departmental officials discouraged Bernier from entertaining it, saying it “would be too technical and difficult” to explain to other Cabinet ministers why they should take the extremely unusual and politically risky step of overturning a CRTC decision. Review panel members, however, said the central issue was not how complex the matter was but that VOIP was exactly the type of novel breakthrough technology that should not be regulated by anything other than market forces.
Over the objections of his officials, Bernier supported the appeal but only to the extent of persuading Cabinet, in May, 2006, to send the decision back to the CRTC for reconsideration. Just in case the CRTC did not “get” the message, in June, 2006, Bernier announced that Cabinet was prepared to employ for the first time the power to issue a policy direction to the CRTC. The CRTC appeared to ignore the Cabinet. Bernier viewed the CRTC’s lack of response as an arrogant and wilful dismissal of political policy direction. Convinced that this was evidence that the CRTC was out of control and “did not get it,” Bernier easily persuaded his Cabinet colleagues that a Liberal-appointed commission was not sympathetic to the “new” government’s policy direction in telecommunications.
Consequently, on Dec. 14, 2006, Cabinet issued an order directing the CRTC to implement the revised telecommunications policy objectives. Bernier had won again, ignoring or overriding the advice of his officials, and the CRTC had lost again. But he was not finished. He would encounter the most strenuous opposition, not just from some industry players, his own officials and the CRTC, but from the most senior levels of the government in both the Prime Minister’s Office and the Privy Council Office.
In April, 2006, in a decision closely linked to the VOIP decision, the CRTC had issued its decision setting out how and when it would forbear from regulating the incumbent telcos providing local retail exchange services. It effectively said the CRTC would only forebear from regulating the telcos under certain conditions. They would also be subject to restrictions on their ability to “winback” lost customers. The telcos immediately appealed.
Bernier took up this case, and waged the most controversial of his telecom battles. Departmental officials felt that he was going too far in his attempt to impose his vision on the CRTC. According to several sources, Bernier in turn complained that his own Cabinet memos were rewritten in ways that undercut his arguments. On several occasions he was told that Cabinet did not have the legal authority to pursue his plan. He overcame that argument by obtaining independent legal opinions from outside the department. When Bernier persisted, departmental officials, according to several sources, then sought external support, primarily from the Privy Council Office to defeat their minister.
As a key decision date approached, Ottawa witnessed a bureaucratic coincidence worthy of Yes Minister. On March 27, just nine days before the deadline, the CRTC announced that it would forbear from regulating TELUS’ local service offerings in Fort McMurray, Alta. Although he did not take part in the decision, Konrad von Finckenstein, the new chair, declared in the accompanying press release that the “decision reflects our commitment to act quickly to bring the benefits of competition to Canadians.”
Cabinet was meeting that same day to take its decision on Bernier’s requested order. For the relevant PCO and PMO officers, here was sufficient proof that the CRTC did indeed finally “get it.” Bernier went to the Cabinet meeting only to discover that his item, approval of the Cabinet order, had been lifted from the agenda. Bernier was not yet prepared to concede defeat. He ordered his political staff to contact senior Bell and TELUS officers to tell them that, unless they were able to give him some help quickly, the order was doomed and the decision would stand. Both companies immediately issued press releases critical of the CRTC’s decision. TELUS said that it was “extremely disappointed” because it said that “the conditions for deregulation they set out are unattainable in any practical sense and. their decision runs entirely contrary to the government’s direction.”
In another coincidence, Bernier had a pre-arranged meeting with Prime Minister Harper that afternoon. Armed with the two press releases, he persuaded the Prime Minister that the need for the order amending the CRTC decision was in fact as strong as ever. As a consequence, Harper instructed officials in both the PMO and the PCO that, unless they had substantive problems with the order, he was authorizing Bernier to announce that the government was varying the CRTC’s decision.
On April 4, one day before the legal deadline, Bernier made the announcement that the Cabinet had opted to rewrite fundamentally the CRTC’s original decision and invited the telcos to file for forbearance in a number of major urban markets. This order was undoubtedly the most comprehensive variance of a CRTC decision.
Three weeks after the Cabinet order, the new CRTC chair said, “the message is clear: the government wants to move quickly toward more reliance on market forces in telecom services, less regulation and smarter regulation. I welcome the clarity and I welcome the variation order.” Thus concluded the 12-month series of battles that had been fought following the appointment of Maxime Bernier as minister of industry, battles that the minister had clearly won.
Unfortunately, we will never know whether he would have been able to deliver on the other components of the action plan developed by the Telecom Policy Review Panel because, after little more than a year-and-a-half as industry minister, Bernier was “rewarded” for his performance by being promoted to minister of foreign affairs. But in the short time he was industry minister, he decidedly made a difference that other ministers, past and present, can only envy.
**********
Richard Schultz is James McGill Professor and Chair, Department of Political Science, McGill University. This article is adapted from Telecommunications Policy: What a Difference a Minister Can Make, in How Ottawa Spends: 2008-2009, just published by McGill-Queen’s University Press.This page seeks to crowd-source the result of the popular vote. The form below allows anybody to input results from a precinct caucus; whether you were there, knew somebody who was or saw it on CSPAN, all data is valuable. We also encourage you to provide a citation or documentation, whether its just some short text about your experience or a tweet, to provide some level of verifiability. Multiple reports from the same precinct are encouraged.
The 2016 Democratic Caucus was the closest in history; so close that we may never truly know who won. The official results give Hillary Clinton a razor then victory of 4 state delegate equivalents; 701-697. The true purpose of the Democratic Iowa Caucus is to elect precinct delegates which are extrapolated to state level delegates by the media; the popular vote is never known.
If you are a precinct level delegate, print out a county data entry form and take it to the convention on March 12.
If you attend a caucus, document the result!
This page has two purposes: (1) To ensure that elections are transparent and accurate; (2) Create a baseline by which pollsters can be ranked given the multiple caucus variables which cannot be accounted for in polling. For more information about the different types of delegates and how they are allocated, refer to our listing of all democratic delegate selection plans.
If you make a mistake, let me know.
Current Data275 of 1683 Precincts Reported
Adair
2NE 29
6 delegates 21
5 delegates 0
0 50
11 delegates
Adair
2NE 29
6 delegates 21
5 delegates 0
0 50
11 delegates
I was there. There was 1 Uncommitted and they changed to Sanders. If they didn't switch to Sanders, it would have been 7-4 for the delegates.
Adair
5GF 46
6 delegates 42
5 delegates 0
0 88
11 delegates
Adair
5GF 46
6 delegates 42
5 delegates 0
0 88
11 delegates
Observer.
Allamakee
Pct 7 - CN / LF / LS / LS City 52
7 delegates 55
7 delegates 4
0 111
14 delegates
Allamakee
Pct 7 - CN / LF / LS / LS City 52
7 delegates 55
7 delegates 4
0 111
14 delegates
https://twitter.com/sroberts1975/status/694366866291097600
Appanoose
Centerville Ward 1 32
7 delegates 22
4 delegates 0
0 54
11 delegates
Appanoose
Centerville Ward 1 32
7 delegates 22
4 delegates 0
0 54
11 delegates
Mike Cockrum
Appanoose
Centerville Ward 2 21
4 delegates 39
8 delegates 0
0 60
12 delegates
Appanoose
Centerville Ward 2 21
4 delegates 39
8 delegates 0
0 60
12 delegates
Black Hawk
CF W1 P2 789
8 delegates 207
2 delegates 0
0 996
10 delegates
Black Hawk
CF W1 P2 789
8 delegates 207
2 delegates 0
0 0
0
Black Hawk
CF W3 P2 94
4 delegates 130
5 delegates 0
0 224
9 delegates
Black Hawk
CF W3 P2 94
4 delegates 130
5 delegates 0
0 224
9 delegates
I was there https://www.reddit.com/r/SandersForPresident/comments/43s5we/my_caucus_results/ neth110mail@gmail.com
Black Hawk
CF W5 P1 123
5 delegates 133
5 delegates 0
0 256
10 delegates
Black Hawk
CF W5 P1 123
5 delegates 133
5 delegates 0
0 256
10 delegates
Black Hawk
WL 1-1 59
4 delegates 67
4 delegates 2
0 128
8 delegates
Black Hawk
WL 1-1 59
4 delegates 67
4 delegates 2
0 128
8 delegates
Black Hawk
WL 1-4 42
3 delegates 77
5 delegates 1
0 124
8 delegates
Black Hawk
WL 1-4 42
3 delegates 77
5 delegates 1
0 0
0
Black Hawk
WL 3-2 62
6 delegates 31
3 delegates 0
0 110
9 delegates
Black Hawk
WL 3-2 62
6 delegates 31
3 delegates 0
0 110
9 delegates
Travis Shephard - Precinct Captain and Volunteer for the Bernie Sanders Campaign in Precinct WL 3-2 Reddit Username: Entropy1701 Pawnzorsauce@yahoo.com
Black Hawk
WL 5-4 67
4 delegates 64
4 delegates 0
0 131
4 delegates
Black Hawk
WL 5-4 67
4 delegates 64
4 delegates 0
0 131
4 delegates
https://www.reddit.com/r/SandersForPresident/comments/43ryl1/iowa_47th_precinct_8483_bernie/czkm6bt
Black Hawk
WL 5-6 67
4 delegates 53
3 delegates 0
0 120
7 delegates
Black Hawk
WL 5-6 67
4 delegates 53
3 delegates 0
0 120
7 delegates
chuff411@gmail.com
Boone
Boone 1st Ward 27
3 delegates 59
6 delegates 0
0 86
9 delegates
Boone
Boone 1st Ward 27
0 59
0 0
0 86
0
Pragmatica27
Boone
Boone 1st Ward 27
3 delegates 59
6 delegates 0
0 86
9 delegates
Pragmatica27
Boone
Boone 4th Ward 75
5 delegates 107
8 delegates 0
0 184
13 delegates
Boone
Boone 4th Ward 75
5 delegates 107
8 delegates 0
0 184
13 delegates
https://www.reddit.com/r/SandersForPresident/comments/43s6vr/bernie_sanders_just_won_85_against_hillary_in_my/ http://imgur.com/X7cNB7M
Boone
Ogden 41
3 delegates 60
5 delegates 0
0 101
8 delegates
Boone
Ogden 41
3 delegates 60
5 delegates 0
0 0
0
Boone
Rural Precinct 1 34
2 delegates 54
2 delegates 0
0 88
4 delegates
Boone
Rural Precinct 1 34
2 delegates 54
2 delegates 0
0 88
0
tdbigdee@gmail.com I was at the caucus. Converting one of the Clinton caucusers would have led to an additional delegate for Sanders.
Bremer
WAVERLY WARD I / E WASHINGTON TWP 67
4 delegates 71
4 delegates 0
0 138
8 delegates
Bremer
WAVERLY WARD I / E WASHINGTON TWP 67
4 delegates 71
4 delegates 0
0 138
0
I was there, I know Sanders won by less than half a dozen. He had something in the low seventies, and Clinton was in the high sixties. They both ended up with four delegates.
Buena Vista
SL02 32
6 delegates 18
3 delegates 0
0 51
9 delegates
Buena Vista
SL02 32
6 delegates 18
3 delegates 0
0 51
9 delegates
Buena Vista
SMLR 26
2 delegates 30
2 delegates 0
0 56
4 delegates
Buena Vista
SMLR 26
2 delegates 30
2 delegates 0
0 56
4 delegates
Cass
Grant- Lincoln Twp / Anita 35
3 delegates 31
3 delegates 0
0 66
6 delegates
Cass
Grant- Lincoln Twp / Anita 35
3 delegates 31
3 delegates 0
0 66
6 delegates
/occupy2016
Cedar
CASS / CENTER / IOWA / ROCHESTER 39
4 delegates 47
4 delegates 0
0 86
8 delegates
Cedar
CASS / CENTER / IOWA / ROCHESTER 39
4 delegates 47
4 delegates 0
0 86
8 delegates
Data was emailed to me from county chair My email: dmbarbour87@gmail.com
Cedar
DAYTON / FAIRFIELD 19
2 delegates 21
3 delegates 0
0 40
5 delegates
Cedar
DAYTON / FAIRFIELD 19
2 delegates 21
3 delegates 0
0 40
5 delegates
Data was emailed to me from county chair My email: dmbarbour87@gmail.com
Cedar
FARMINGTON / SUGAR CREEK 36
3 delegates 56
5 delegates 0
0 92
8 delegates
Cedar
FARMINGTON / SUGAR CREEK 36
3 delegates 56
5 delegates 0
0 92
8 delegates
Data was emailed to me from county chair My email: dmbarbour87@gmail.com
Cedar
FREMONT / RED OAK 13
1 delegates 22
3 delegates 0
0 35
4 delegates
Cedar
FREMONT / RED OAK 13
1 delegates 22
3 delegates 0
0 35
4 delegates
Data was emailed to me from county chair My email: dmbarbour87@gmail.com
Cedar
GOWER / SPRINGDALE 50
2 delegates 73
4 delegates 0
0 125
6 delegates
Cedar
GOWER / SPRINGDALE 50
2 delegates 73
4 delegates 0
0 125
6 delegates
Data was emailed to me from county chair My email: dmbarbour87@gmail.com
Cedar
INLAND 4
1 delegates 9
1 delegates 0
0 13
2 delegates
Cedar
INLAND 4
1 delegates 9
1 delegates 0
0 13
2 delegates
Data was emailed to me from county chair My email: dmbarbour87@gmail.com
Cedar
LINN / PIONEER 34
3 delegates 46
5 delegates 0
0 80
8 delegates
Cedar
LINN / PIONEER 34
3 delegates 46
5 delegates 0
0 80
8 delegates
Data was emailed to me from county chair My email: dmbarbour87@gmail.com
Cedar
MASSILLON / SPRINGFIELD 23
3 delegates 17
2 delegates 0
0 40
5 delegates
Cedar
MASSILLON / SPRINGFIELD 23
3 delegates 17
2 delegates 0
0 40
5 delegates
Data was emailed to me from county chair My email: dmbarbour87@gmail.com
Cedar
TIPTON 1 20
2 delegates 22
2 delegates 0
0 42
4 delegates
Cedar
TIPTON 1 20
2 delegates 22
2 delegates 0
0 42
4 delegates
Data was emailed to me from county chair My email: dmbarbour87@gmail.com
Cedar
TIPTON 2 26
2 delegates 22
2 delegates 0
0 48
4 delegates
Cedar
TIPTON 2 26
2 delegates 22
2 delegates 0
0 48
4 delegates
Data was emailed to me from county chair My email: dmbarbour87@gmail.com
Cedar
TIPTON 3 29
2 delegates 34
2 delegates 0
0 63
4 delegates
Cedar
TIPTON 3 29
2 delegates 34
2 delegates 0
0 63
4 delegates
Data was emailed to me from county chair My email: dmbarbour87@gmail.com
Cedar
WEST BRANCH 1 115
6 delegates 99
5 delegates 2
0 218
12 delegates
Cedar
WEST BRANCH 1 115
7 delegates 99
5 delegates 2
0 218
0
Dan Stevenson danstevenson77@gmail.com
Cedar
WEST BRANCH 1 115
6 delegates 99
6 delegates 0
0 218
12 delegates
Data was emailed to me from county chair My email: dmbarbour87@gmail.com
Cerro Gordo
Mason City W-1 P-1 38
6 delegates 38
6 delegates 0
0 77
12 delegates
Cerro Gordo
Mason City W-1 P-1 38
6 delegates 38
6 delegates 0
0 77
12 delegates
basmith@wesleyan.edu (Sanders Observer for Cerro Gordo Mason City W1P1-3) Ekublai
Cerro Gordo
Mason City W-1 P-2 55.67
8 delegates 53.33
7 delegates 0
0 109
15 delegates
Cerro Gordo
Mason City W-1 P-2 55
8 delegates 52
7 delegates 0
0 0
0
Cerro Gordo
Mason City W-1 P-2 56
8 delegates 54
7 delegates 0
0 110
15 delegates
Coin Flip 1 delegate to Hillary.
Cerro Gordo
Mason City W-1 P-2 56
8 delegates 54
7 delegates 0
0 110
15 delegates
Coin Flip 1 delegate to Hillary. basmith@wesleyan.edu (Sanders Observer for Cerro Gordo Mason City W1P1-3) Ekublai
Cerro Gordo
Mason City W-1 P-3 88
8 delegates 56
5 delegates 0
0 144
13 delegates
Cerro Gordo
Mason City W-1 P-3 88
8 delegates 56
5 delegates 0
0 144
13 delegates
basmith@wesleyan.edu (Sanders Observer for Cerro Gordo Mason City W1P1-3) Ekublai
Cerro Gordo
Mason City W-3 P-1 52
6 delegates 72
8 delegates 0
0 124
14 delegates
Cerro Gordo
Mason City W-3 P-1 52
6 delegates 72
8 delegates 0
0 124
14 delegates
khill473@gmail. Com
Cerro Gordo
Mason City W-4 P-1 29
5 delegates 41
7 delegates 0
0 70
12 delegates
Cerro Gordo
Mason City W-4 P-1 29
5 delegates 41
7 delegates 0
0 70
12 delegates
https://www.reddit.com/r/SandersForPresident/comments/43zh39/sanders_beats_clinton_4949_the_real_story_behind/czme2pl
Cerro Gordo
Mason City W-4 P-2 56
8 delegates 54
7 delegates 0
0 110
15 delegates
Cerro Gordo
Mason City W-4 P-2 56
8 delegates 54
7 delegates 0
0 110
15 delegates
Ekublai/basmoth@wesleyan.edu
Cerro Gordo
Mason City W-4 P-3 0
0 0
0 0
0 13
0
Cerro Gordo
Mason City W-4 P-3 0
0 0
0 0
0 13
0
Cherokee
#1 Aurelia 0
0 43
0 0
0 43
0
Cherokee
#1 Aurelia 0
0 43
0 0
0 0
0
Clay
Spencer Ward 5 35
6 delegates 34
6 delegates 0
0 69
12 delegates
Clay
Spencer Ward 5 35
6 delegates 34
6 delegates 0
0 69
12 delegates
quinnwhalen@gmail.com
Clayton
BOARDMAN-HIGHLAND 64
7 delegates 69
8 delegates 0
0 138
15 delegates
Clayton
BOARDMAN-HIGHLAND 64
7 delegates 69
8 delegates 0
0 138
0
I was there. My girlfriend was there to back me up. I volunteered to register voters at the door. I counted all the sign-in sheets and helped count. I also volunteered to be a county delegate.
Clinton
CLINTON 1-1 33
3 delegates 57
5 delegates 0
0 90
8 delegates
Clinton
CLINTON 1-1 33
3 delegates 57
5 delegates 0
0 90
8 delegates
Bigbonzobrian@gmail.com
Clinton
CLINTON 2-2 117
5 delegates 121
6 delegates 12
0 250
11 delegates
Clinton
CLINTON 2-2 117
5 delegates 121
6 delegates 12
0 0
11 delegates
https://twitter.com/Bertine83/status/694352738470268929
Crawford
DCAB 3
1 delegates 1
0 2
0 6
1 delegates
Crawford
DCAB 3
1 delegates 1
0 2
0 6
1 delegates
https://twitter.com/jodyavirgan/status/694381633160495104/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Dallas
WEST DES MOINES 221 162
4 delegates 104
2 delegates 0
0 266
6 delegates
Dallas
WEST DES MOINES 221 162
4 delegates 104
2 delegates 0
0 0
6 delegates
https://twitter.com/Yiots/status/694354175774228480
Dallas
WEST DES MOINES 222 102
2 delegates 76
2 delegates 0
0 178
4 delegates
Dallas
WEST DES MOINES 222 102
2 delegates 76
2 delegates 0
0 178
4 delegates
eric@stuckshut.com
Dallas
WEST DES MOINES 226 54
0 66
0 0
0 120
0
Dallas
WEST DES MOINES 226 54
0 66
0 0
0 0
0
https://twitter.com/dcg1114/status/694343831479668737
Dubuque
Concorn / Liberty / New Wine - Dubuque 35 26
2 delegates 41
3 delegates 0
0 68
5 delegates
Dubuque
Concorn / Liberty / New Wine - Dubuque 35 26
2 delegates 41
3 delegates 0
0 68
5 delegates
joshuadausener@gmail.com
Dubuque
Dubuque 10 101
0 109
0 0
0 210
0
Dubuque
Dubuque 10 101
0 109
0 0
0 0
0
https://twitter.com/chrisbjames/status/694349867938873344
Dubuque
Dubuque 11 60
4 delegates 81
5 delegates 0
0 141
9 delegates
Dubuque
Dubuque 11 60
4 delegates 81
5 delegates 0
0 141
9 delegates
u/sweet-tuba-riffs on Reddit if you need to contact me.
Dubuque
Dubuque 12 103
6 delegates 78
4 delegates 0
0 180
10 delegates
Dubuque
Dubuque 12 103
6 delegates 78
4 delegates 0
0 180
10 delegates
I was there and recorded these numbers for reporting. Hubs94@gmail.com
Dubuque
Dubuque 15 58
3 delegates 79
5 delegates 1
0 138
8 delegates
Dubuque
Dubuque 15 58
3 delegates 79
5 delegates 1
0 138
8 delegates
My precinct. Union labor temple. 1610 Garfield Ave.
Dubuque
Dubuque 16 40
2 delegates 84
3 delegates 0
0 124
5 delegates
Dubuque
Dubuque 16 40
2 delegates 84
3 delegates 0
0 124
5 delegates
I was there, but didn't write down the numbers, so the raw votes are more of an estimate. 20 people were in 16 that belonged in 17, but I didn't get a count of how many came from each group.
Dubuque
Dubuque 17 34
2 delegates 77
3 delegates 0
0 111
5 delegates
Dubuque
Dubuque 17 34
2 delegates 77
3 delegates 0
0 111
5 delegates
I was there, but didn't write down the raw numbers. There were 20 people that were supposed to be in the room that were in the wrong room by mistake. Their votes were added in, but I didn't get the numbers; the delegate count stayed the same.
Dubuque
Dubuque 18 85
3 delegates 148
4 delegates 0
0 233
7 delegates
Dubuque
Dubuque 18 85
3 delegates 148
4 delegates 0
0 233
7 delegates
https://twitter.com/elizabethschauf/status/694346375631364096 (First round: https://twitter.com/elizabethschauf/status/694336758679359489 - Sanders: 139 Hillary: 74 O'Malley: 14 Undecided: 8)
Dubuque
Dubuque 19 128
4 delegates 154
5 delegates 0
0 282
9 delegates
Dubuque
Dubuque 19 128
4 delegates 154
5 delegates 0
0 282
9 delegates
https://twitter.com/lammerheindel/status/694345009634476033
Dubuque
Dubuque 6 0
5 delegates 0
3 delegates 0
0 0
8 delegates
Dubuque
Dubuque 6 0
5 delegates 0
3 delegates 0
0 0
0
https://twitter.com/mollyknefel/status/694353140670423040
Dubuque
Dubuque 8 68
4 delegates 67
3 delegates 0
0 135
7 delegates
Dubuque
Dubuque 8 68
4 delegates 67
3 delegates 0
0 135
7 delegates
https://twitter.com/nwfisch/status/694333953868562432
Emmet
Estherville Ward 3 14
3 delegates 19
4 delegates 0
0 33
7 delegates
Emmet
Estherville Ward 3 14
3 delegates 19
4 delegates 0
0 33
7 delegates
Permanent Secretary / NA / dakotadaltonphillips@gmail.com
Fremont
Riverton 37
5 delegates 49
5 delegates 7
0 103
10 delegates
Fremont
Riverton 37
5 delegates 49
5 delegates 7
0 103
10 delegates
Was there. The Clinton supporters convinced all the O'Malley supporters to join them.
Grundy
PRECINCT 4 25
6 delegates 37
6 delegates 0
0 62
12 delegates
Grundy
PRECINCT 4 25
6 delegates 37
6 delegates 0
0 62
0
Grundy
PRECINCT 7 40
6 delegates 41
7 delegates 0
0 81
13 delegates
Grundy
PRECINCT 7 40
6 delegates 41
7 delegates 0
0 81
13 delegates
https://www.reddit.com/r/SandersForPresident/comments/43sbdk/attendee_survey_what_precinct_did_you_caucus_in/czkkbql
Hamilton
Precint 2 82
12 delegates 43
7 delegates 4
0 129
19 delegates
Hamilton
Precint 2 82
12 delegates 43
7 delegates 4
0 129
19 delegates
Jorgensen.christopher1@gmail.com
Hamilton
Precint 2 82
12 delegates 43
7 delegates 4
0 129
19 delegates
Jorgensen.christopher1@gmail.com
Hamilton
Precint 5 21
4 delegates 13
2 delegates 0
0 34
6 delegates
Hamilton
Precint 5 21
4 delegates 13
2 delegates 0
0 34
6 delegates
Hardin
Iowa Falls #1 58
0 45
0 0
0 103
0
Hardin
Iowa Falls #1 58
0 45
0 0
0 103
0
Jackson
Jackson 3 14
0 12
0 1
0 36
0
Jackson
Jackson 3 14
0 12
0 1
0 0
0
https://twitter.com/chad3814/status/694540879416156161
Jasper
Des Moines 27
4 delegates 47
7 delegates 0
0 74
11 delegates
Jasper
Des Moines 27
4 delegates 47
7 delegates 0
0 74
11 delegates
Joehahn14@gmail.com
Jasper
Newton 1-1 41
5 delegates 42
6 delegates 16
2 delegates 99
13 delegates
Jasper
Newton 1-1 41
5 delegates 42
6 delegates 16
2 delegates 99
13 delegates
Observer
Jefferson
Buchanan Township 16
1 delegates 33
1 delegates 0
0 49
2 delegates
Jefferson
Buchanan Township 16
1 delegates 33
1 delegates 0
0 49
2 delegates
davey.bar@gmail.com guesstimate on popular count as I didn't write it down. Clinton was only 2 above viable here.
Jefferson
Fairfield 1st Ward 80
2 delegates 255
6 delegates 0
0 325
8 delegates
Jefferson
Fairfield 1st Ward 80
2 delegates 255
6 delegates 0
0 325
8 delegates
davey.bar@gmail.com there was no 2nd count at ours as the caucus heads were so confused with what to do with the giant turnout. I'm guesstimating the popular vote counts as I didn't write it down...
Johnson
BIG GROVE TOWNSHIP 299
4 delegates 591
8 delegates 28
0 935
12 delegates
Johnson
BIG GROVE TOWNSHIP 299
4 delegates 591
8 delegates 28
0 935
12 delegates
Johnson
CLEAR CREEK / TIFFIN 89
2 delegates 145
4 delegates 0
0 234
6 delegates
Johnson
CLEAR CREEK / TIFFIN 89
2 delegates 145
4 delegates 0
0 0
0
https://twitter.com/JD_OLeary/status/694342601751658496
Johnson
CORALVILLE 01 130
2 delegates 255
5 delegates 0
0 385
7 delegates
Johnson
CORALVILLE 01 130
2 delegates 255
5 delegates 0
0 385
7 delegates
Was present in person
Johnson
CORALVILLE 01 130
2 delegates 255
5 delegates 0
0 385
7 delegates
I was there as the Sanders precinct captain and these are the numbers I reported to the Sanders campaign and we reported to the IDP. These numbers can be verified by Sen. Bob Dvorsky and our caucus chair Jennifer Patel. -Justin Comer justinkcomer@gmail.com
Johnson
CORALVILLE 02 207
4 delegates 195
3 delegates 0
0 402
7 delegates
Johnson
CORALVILLE 02 207
4 delegates 195
3 delegates 0
0 402
7 delegates
https://twitter.com/mitchgross/status/694345776227463168
Johnson
CORALVILLE 02 207
0 195
0 0
0 0
0
https://twitter.com/mitchgross/status/694345776227463168
Johnson
CORALVILLE 04 92
2 delegates 184
5 delegates 0
0 276
7 delegates
Johnson
CORALVILLE 04 92
2 delegates 184
5 delegates 0
0 0
0
https://www.reddit.com/r/SandersForPresident/comments/44kb74/iowa_wont_release_bernies_results_in_iowa_we_will/czqyim4
Johnson
CORALVILLE 05 147
0 174
0 0
0 321
0
Johnson
CORALVILLE 05 147
0 174
0 0
0 321
0
Johnson
CORALVILLE 06 244
4 delegates 168
3 delegates 0
0 412
7 delegates
Johnson
CORALVILLE 06 244
4 delegates 168
3 delegates 0
0 412
7 delegates
https://twitter.com/KateAspengren/status/694350928212721665
Johnson
HARDIN TOWNSHIP 29
0 29
1 delegates 0
0 58
1 delegates
Johnson
HARDIN TOWNSHIP 29
0 29
1 delegates 0
0 0
0
Sanders wins the coin flip. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONP9oKpyjQ4
Johnson
HARDIN TOWNSHIP 29
0 29
1 delegates 0
0 58
1 delegates
I was the Bernie precinct captain
Johnson
IC 10 / ELSW 144
0 88
0 0
0 232
0
Johnson
IC 10 / ELSW 144
0 88
0 0
0 0
0
https://twitter.com/kellyteese/status/694342180094103552
Johnson
IC 12 / EAST LUCAS SE 103
3 delegates 220
5 delegates 0
0 323
8 delegates
Johnson
IC 12 / EAST LUCAS SE 103
3 delegates |
Howard Levitt
“In not also prioritizing my mentorship role as the course director and your supervisor, I didn’t do enough to try to support you in this meeting, which I deeply regret.”
The school is creating an independent task force to look into the situation along with a review of their processes.
WATCH: Wilfrid Laurier TA says University censored her for showing clip on gender pronouns
Support for both sides
While many have spoken up in defence of Shepherd, there is support for both sides of the argument.
May Friedman, an associate professor at Ryerson University’s School of Social Work, said that when discussing sensitive topics like transgender issues or a person’s preferred pronoun, “we have to be mindful it can be personally hurtful to people.”
“I think there is academic freedom, and then that there is harmful and hurtful material. And I don’t think that has any place in the classroom.”
READ MORE: Andrew Scheer: Laurier university controversy highlights larger issue of ‘stifling’ free speech
She says that she would not hold Shepherd accountable, though, because T.A.s are generally not given a lot of training.
“I don’t think that this is something that this individual deserves to be demonized over, but I think that the whole conversation, at the same time, needs to be shut down.”
WATCH: Free speech activist rips Laurier university over censorship controversy
*with files from Maham AbediWATCH: Super Kind People Free Baby Moose from Fence
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The current article you are reading does not reflect the views of the current editors and contributors of the new Ecorazzi
When a Canadian homeowner saw two hooves sticking out of his fence he swiftly moved into action to save the baby moose. He was on a mission to free the petrified little fellow from the planks of wood that held him hostage.
Diligently chopping away at the planks, he was finally able to free the young moose. This is when the man got the treat of his life. Instead, of instantly running away, the moose remained near the fence, gazing with a look of wonderment at his hero. It was as if the moose wanted to say thank you, but could not find the right words. (That, or the little guy was sore from his ordeal, but we like to think the former.)
The man at first thought the moose may have been caught in the fence for a long period of time before being discovered and possibly hungry, but apparently he was told this was not the case. The moose only got caught a few minutes before his rescuer arrived on the scene.
We’re just thankful that the moose was found by kindhearted people who opted to save him rather than hurt him.
Photo Credit: ShutterstockMiley Cyrus is going to be a bride!
A source tells Life & Style Weekly that the 23-year-old is once again engaged to former fiancé Liam Hemsworth and that "they're already talking about the wedding."
RELATED: Miley Cyrus, Rihanna & More! See the Most Outrageous Red Carpet Looks of 2015
“Miley says she can’t wait to be Mrs. Hemsworth and wants to get married as soon as possible, maybe this spring," the pal shares. "She’s saying she wants the biggest wedding ever!”
The duo in 2012.
The lovebirds, who broke off their first engagement in September of 2013 after dating for four years, first sparked reconciliation rumors after they were spotted at the Falls Music Festival in Australia earlier this month.
But our sources reveal they've been talking and texting since October. In fact, Miley is so smitten with the actor, who turns 26 today, that she skipped a scheduled LA performance on Jan. 5 to stay with him Down Under.
RELATED: Jennifer Lawrence Admits She's Kissed Liam Hemsworth Off Camera
“She’s telling friends, ‘I’m so in love. I can’t believe I can feel this way again,’” another source shares.
To hear more about Miley and Liam’s engagement, pick up the new issue of Life & Style Weekly, on newsstands now!A senior adviser to Newt Gingrich told The Huffington Post Tuesday night the campaign likes the idea of Rick Santorum and Gingrich running on the same ticket for the presidency and vice presidency.
"Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum would make a powerful team against Barack Obama," the adviser said on the condition that his name not be used. "They have the capability to deny Gov. Romney the nomination."
The proposal comes after rumors of a Gingrich alliance with Texas Gov. Rick Perry surfaced earlier this week. It does not come off as a sign of confidence. Rather, it is an indication that the Gingrich campaign senses their candidate's position in the race slipping after the former House speaker's losses to Santorum in Mississippi and Alabama on Tuesday night.Scientists are making strides in growing food in space, and their efforts could be critical to eventually supporting a permanent human colony on Mars.
"We can grow plants on Mars just by compressing the atmosphere," SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk said Tuesday in a long-awaited speech detailing his vision for sending humans to Mars by 2025. The billionaire engineer said the Red Planet is "resource rich" with water ice and compounds necessary to support plants, such as nitrogen.
Experts say astronauts could pack enough packaged or freeze-dried food to get to Mars and back, although living on the planet for extended periods would get increasingly difficult without regular food-supply missions. Mars would require a six-month journey to the planet, an 18-month stay and a six-month trip back.
NASA has a stated goal for a manned Mars mission in the 2030s. The agency is studying the effects of long-duration space exploration on astronauts as well as learning how to best grow vegetables or other plants aboard a spacecraft or on Mars. The tests on plants, part of NASA's "Veggie" program, have been conducted in a pressurized space garden aboard the International Space Station as well as in terrestrial laboratories.
At present, red romaine lettuce is the only food grown in space that NASA has approved for astronaut consumption. The lettuce's antioxidant properties could reduce the consequences of humans getting radiation exposure in space. Researchers also are testing cabbage and peppers.
"For the astronauts to grow a portion of their food to augment their diet with fresh, nutritious food, I think would be a tremendous benefit and savings overall," said Trent Smith, Veggie project manager at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. He said the cost and weight to deliver food to Mars "is pretty significant" and indicated that plants could also grow aboard the spacecraft on the long journey to Mars.
In recent years, NASA has relied on private companies such as SpaceX, Orbital Sciences (: ORB) and others to resupply the Space Station with a cargo load of supplies, including freeze-dried food that has a long shelf life. These cargo deliveries have taken place roughly around every three months, but when astronauts go outside of low Earth orbit in long duration missions on Mars, it will not be practical to resupply missions every few months.
Musk this week estimated that a one-way trip to Mars for one person would cost about $10 billion and indicated there were ways to reduce that cost drastically by refilling the spaceship tanks in orbit. He also talked about the need to build a methane-based propellant production plant on Mars for the spaceships.
The methane could be created through the extraction of ice water on Mars and combining it with the planet's abundant carbon dioxide. Having the local propellant source and fresh food production could go a long way to creating a self-sustaining colony on the Red Planet located 33.9 million miles from Earth.
Moreover, chemical plants could use some of the compounds found on Mars to create plastics that might be used to build shelters, greenhouses, vehicles and high-tech potting systems for growing food.
"On Mars it will be easier to grow plants, and we can use a lot of advanced hydroponics and aeroponics systems that we currently have on Earth and grow plants in lava tubes or any other place where we can keep an atmosphere," said Robert Ferl, a professor of Horticultural Sciences at the University of Florida in Gainesville. Both hydroponic and aeroponic gardening can be done without any soil.
The surface gravity on Mars is about one-third of that on Earth, but that is not a major concern when it comes to growing plants. The same cannot be said for growing plants aboard the Space Station in microgravity, where it's a challenge getting the air and water mixture just right for the plant's roots.
Plants under zero gravity conditions can suffer from either flood or droughts since there's no natural convection and the water can stick around the roots or edges of the pot.
One way around the microgravity is to use a pillow-like technology developed by NASA. Seed and soil-like particles are put into the pillow chamber where they can be more efficiently controlled in zero gravity conditions to support plant growth.
Story continuesSuper healthy banana oatmeal muffins are naturally gluten free and so simple to make!
When they don’t have school, my kids are largely on their own for breakfast. If they drag through the morning because they didn’t eat a proper meal first thing, I can live with that.
But on school days, I’m all about a healthy and hearty breakfast. These super healthy banana oatmeal muffins are just the thing. Brain food to go (if need be)!
They freeze beautifully, and they’re ridiculously easy to make with suuuuuuper basic pantry ingredients. Did I mention how healthy they are yet?
I typically like to make the batter for these muffins in the blender, as it’s the only way to make a smooth batter. And a smooth batter leads to a smooth muffin.
But lately I’m having blender issues, and in case you’re blender-challenged as well, I wanted you to have options. So in the video at the top of this post, I’ve used a mini food processor to grind the oats into a flour and to blend the sugar and bananas.
The rest of the batter is made by hand. It’s not a perfect solution, but the muffins are still absolutely delicious, hearty and healthy as ever.
Other than a small handful of chocolate chips (which you could easily replace with much more virtuous chopped nuts of nearly any kind), these muffins are just.so.good.for.you. And because they’re packed with whole grains, they’re really satisfying.
These banana oatmeal muffins also have very little sugar. There’s just 1/2 cup of coconut palm sugar in all 12 muffins. There isn’t even much fat. Just that added by the sour cream or yogurt and the egg yolks—no butter or oil.
But these banana oatmeal muffins are still moist, tender and just flat out delicious. Like a hearty banana bread—but without any guilt.
P.S. If you’re interested, here are even more healthy gluten free muffins!About
bringing this idea to life...
After printing and selling 3,000 copies of BYoBB in my local area, and successfully executing an 8 week test on several key market radio stations, The results are that my music is in demand. Specifically my song title BYoBB which is the first release from Thug Royalty the debut album. I have dedicated a lot of time in completing this record, and i am happy with the response that i am getting from the public so I now would like to advance to the next phase of getting this music out to you, the listener. What I would like to do is, press copies of my records and get out as many as I can to the public.
I would like to supply the public with the kind of physical material that can start a buzz, and gain a following and a fan base for my work. I want to create hard copy material for my fans to receive. If I can share my music with you for you to bring home, it would make me very happy to know that my efforts to express artistic views are accepted and wanted.
This project will raise funds to manufacture:
copies of BYoBB the E.P;
copies of "Thug Royalty" the album;
and promotional mp3s' with exclusive material for D.J's and radio engineers only to have the access to share my music with their audiences all over the world.
Last but not least, we will also be able to create exclusive merchandising memorabilia such as stickers, cards, or wristbands to give away to you on our tour, at our shows, and during our upcoming events. These materials give away the access to the free downloads of our music to all of our fans that receive them. Each piece costs less than $1.00, and I would like to create 1,500 pieces to start off with.
Having these materials available for tours and, for music endeavors is exactly what I would need to complete this album, and it is enough to pack up and get on the tour bus, hitting the road to bring my music to your city.
This record has been digitally published and made available for your online entertainment. We have not yet officially told the world of it's existence, but how better can that be taken care of with the presence of a these tangible items in your hand?
If you are unable to make a pledge, you can always download "Thug Royalty" or BYoBB on i-tunes, amazon, and many other online retailer stores that are available. You can also find this music on internet radio, and that means that you can log on to your favorite internet radio station and stream Thug Royalty live.
My intentions on launching this project is to transform this record into a real life merchandise item that can be placed on the market for entertainment to all who enjoy real rap/hip-hop. With your contribution, you will witness an entity rise, a star find his fan base, and the establishment of a trademark that all music lovers will remember. When this project is complete we will have gotten our Kick Start at being able to supply the small demand for hip=hop's next big artist. Having manufactured some of the material that you can enjoy will provide me with the means of having the ideas which I have invested all of my time, energy, and dedication into, to now become an available reality, and that surely is worth being introduced to you by KIckstarter.com.
For further info please watch our video...Thank YouRHI scandal: £2.5m cost of suspected fraud in just one case BelfastTelegraph.co.uk Energy watchdog Ofgem is investigating a suspected fraud case worth up to £2.5m in the 'cash for ash' scandal, the Belfast Telegraph can reveal. https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/rhi-scandal-2-5m-cost-of-suspected-fraud-in-just-one-case-35395683.html https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/incoming/article35395860.ece/5baf6/AUTOCROP/h342/dgfd.jpg
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Energy watchdog Ofgem is investigating a suspected fraud case worth up to £2.5m in the 'cash for ash' scandal, the Belfast Telegraph can reveal.
The regulator has been probing three cases of potential fraud relating to the controversial Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) scheme since October.
With values ranging from £48,000 to £350,000, and even a staggering £2.5m in potentially fraudulent claims, the fallout from the flawed programme continues as Economy Minister Simon Hamilton is expected to finally reveal the majority of the names of RHI recipients today.
Estimates suggest it would take four biomass boilers being run for almost 24 hours a day for 20 years to be worth £2.5m.
Responding to a Freedom of Information request by this newspaper, Ofgem revealed the three ongoing investigations are centred around installations which appeared to operate in ways not eligible under the regulations of the botched scheme, which is expected to cost taxpayers as much as £490m over 20 years.
It is unclear if payments to those three claimants have been halted as investigations continue.
The watchdog said that, depending on the nature of the investigation, payments may be suspended, but added it could not comment on individual cases.
It said: "Ofgem has a zero tolerance approach to fraud. We have a dedicated counter fraud team who work to prevent, deter and detect fraud across the environmental or social programmes we administer on behalf of the Government."
The watchdog, which was paid £1.5m to run the project when it took over in 2014, also said it had rejected 20 applications.
In October the regulator told Stormont's Public Accounts Committee (PAC) just 12 RHI applicants had been turned down for the lucrative scheme, which was forking out £1.60 for every pound spent.
According to Ofgem, the rejections were based on a number of factors, including that the applicant couldn't prove non-single domestic premises status, or that woodchip drying took place on a commercial basis.
Other reasons applications failed included that the cost of buying or fitting the installation was publicly funded, or that the applicant couldn't satisfy eligibility criteria.
The 20 rejected applications, with at least one turned down as recently as this month, were located in mainly rural areas.
The regulator also revealed that seven applications were withdrawn from the scheme.
This figure was much lower than the number indicated at the October meeting with the PAC, when an Ofgem official said a total of 59 applicants or potential applicants did not participate in the scheme, either through rejection or withdrawal.
The watchdog said those who withdrew between 2013 and 2015 included companies which had moved from where its boilers were installed, and claimants who had decommissioned their boiler due to inefficiency, or replaced their boiler.
According to reports earlier this month, Ofgem suspended payments in relation to more than half the installations it had inspected.
The watchdog said it had examined 63, and halted payments on 33 for a number of reasons, including technical issues. Of those, money from four was recovered, and in five cases payments were resumed. In the remaining 24 instances, investigations were ongoing.
Last week the PSNI said it was considering a request to investigate as many as 14 suspected cases of fraud.
The RHI scheme was set up in 2012 while former First Minister Arlene Foster was Minister for Enterprise.
Initially, the scheme was designed to encourage the installation of pricey eco-friendly boilers with the incentive of a tariff to be paid per kilowatt of heat burned over 20 years.
The flaw came when the Northern Ireland programme failed to put a cap on payments as its equivalent in Britain had done, effectively making it possible for businesses to make money by simply burning fuel, whether it was needed or not.
In the first 34 months of the scheme, 923 applications were made.
But after flaws were identified in the summer of 2015 and officials indicated caps would be put in place, a huge spike of 881 applications were made under the existing tariff system before officials finally took control that November.
Belfast TelegraphThe news that forward Michael Kidd-Gilchrist will likely miss the entirety of the 2015-'16 season was deflating. Throughout the summer, the Hornets went out of their way to position themselves to return to the playoffs. Their aggressive wheeling-and-dealing turned into Nicolas Batum, Jeremy Lin, and Frank Kaminsky-- a rookie that most feel is NBA ready. Whether or not you agree their approach, the Hornets clearly sought to address weaknesses like their shooting.
Unfortunately, Kidd-Gilchrist's injury likely undercuts this team's ceiling for next season. There is no way to know this until real games are played. However, replacing Kidd-Gilchrist is going to be a challenge, primarily on defense. With Kidd-Gilchrist on the court, the team posted a 96.3 defensive rating. Without him, the Hornets posted a 104.1 defensive rating with him on the floor. For perspective, the Warriors had the best defensive rating last season with 101.3, and a 104.1 rating would have been 10th best. That's a substantial difference that could become significant.
Ultimately, the Hornets' situation is what it is: a team constructed to win now without its key piece, and still questions surrounding their rim protection. While the Hornets can't magically heal Kidd-Gilchrist's torn labrum, they have a couple of directions they could go this season.
Take a Season to Reassess
In a perfect world, this would be the way to go. The Hornets didn't show much patience with Noah Vonleh, and wanted a player that was ready to contribute immediately in Batum. Then came the Spencer Hawes and Jeremy Lin additions. And of course the team fell all over themselves to draft Kaminsky. Of course, Cody Zeller could still be considered a prospect as well.
Knowing that your playoff odds just got longer with Kidd-Gilchrist's injury, why not take a year to evaluate? Give Jeremy Lamb, Kaminsky and Zeller the opportunity to make as many mistakes as they want, and see how the other new additions fit in. Then, hit next summer with $50 million in cap space where they can decide to re-sign Al Jefferson, Marvin Williams, Batum, and others or bring in new guys. Besides, as good as Batum is defensively, expecting him to give Kidd-Gilchrist's impact might be a lot.
This strategy is risky because there is the potential to lose some of those guys, but showing that you have a plan, and that this team is thinking big picture can go along way. You also can't forget the long-running relationship between Rich Cho and Nic Batum; Jefferson's affection for Charlotte; and Williams' history playing in North Carolina. How much those things matter relative to their career goals is something we can't know for sure, but they could help.
Besides, bringing in a high pick could provide the Hornets with affordable, young talent that playoff teams need down the road.
Stay the Course
This feels like the most likely route for the Hornets to go. There has been no indication -- especially after their aggressive summer -- that this team would want to do anything else. NBA people are competitive by nature and want to win. Especially after the letdown that was the 2015 season, the Hornets seemed more motivated than ever to recapture their 2014 success. And after going all in with a couple of bold moves, it seems unlikely they would go any other way.
Choosing this approach would mean that the team still strives to win at all costs, and attempt to show that they can still be a competitive team. In fact, with the talent on this roster it's likely going to be difficult for them to be too terrible. Especially if they have fixed their shooting with Batum, Jeremy Lin, and, gulp, Spencer Hawes. If one of their frontcourt pieces magically emerges as a rim protector, and rebounder, they could be even more competitive. But that's still an "if" at this point.
You can't rule out things like Kemba Walker improving further, or Batum having a bounce back year. The Hornets could find the solution to their problems right under their own nose for all we know.
It also wouldn't be out of line with the Hornets' offseason thinking to attempt to bring in another player to avoid missing the postseason once again. Who that would be, I don't know, but the Hornets have been aggressive in recent years in improving this team, and have not been afraid to take risks.
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On Monday afternoon, the Hornets' outlook became much worse than before. Las Vegas set their over/under for the season at 33.5 which felt low given the disastrous nature of last season, but being under now feels like a real possibility. Losing a key player like Kidd-Gilchrist would be a deflating blow in any year, but especially after Cho and ownership pushed all of their chips into the middle this summer. It feels like everything changed for them in an instant.
You can't predict your starting small forward being lost for the season in the first preseason game, but that's unfortunately the nature of the best. What the Hornets can control is where they go from here. Do they pump the brakes a little bit and try to put themselves in an even better position for next year? Or do they bank on the guys they have already stepping into the void?
Realistically, we will have to wait and see how the team responds at the start of the season. The answer could be both. If things go well, maybe they try to finagle a trade for another piece (though the Hornets have a tough cap situation). If they don't, maybe the do slow down and think about the big picture. Going into the season thinking that you're going to concede the season from the get-go is not what team or fans alike would want. It's worth a look to see what they have without Kidd-Gilchrist, and to see what they could do to be better down the road.
No matter what, it's hard to feel as good about a possible playoff return next spring without Kidd-Gilchrist as we did before Monday's news.He came without ribbons. He came without tags. He came without packages, boxes, or bags.
Apologies are in order for this shameful attempt at humor. But bear with me for a moment while I try to convince you how this quote from “How the Grinch Stole Christmas!” seems weirdly apt to describe what Antonio Conte has done in England.
Didn’t he too come without a wisp of hoolaboola at Chelsea? While in one side of Manchester, the press was drooling over the arrival of Pep Guardiola, on the other side Jose Mourinho had taken reign at United. In the Merseyside, Klopp’s revolution was gathering pace. And finally in London, Pochettino’s young Spurs had their best season in a long time.
And hasn’t he now has ruined (if not stolen) the Christmas of his peers?
Don’t believe me.. Hear it from them!
Jose Mourinho got riled when Conte urged the crowd to appreciate his players towards the end of 4-0 drubbing of United. He whispered in Conte’s ears,
It’s just my opinion, but don’t do that at 4-0. You can at 1-0, but at 4-0 it’s humiliation.
Guardiola slipped this in between his “Congratulation Chelsea”,
You can’t expect to create.. when Chelsea have 9 players in the box.
And then Mourinho recently chimed in with another thinly veiled criticism,
“It will be hard to stop Chelsea. They score one goal and then defend a lot.” Yeah Jose, we scored four against you.
Something must be going right at the West London club. Here are the statistics behind the incredible run:
Most dribbles in Europe
Antonio Conte is known for his focus on fitness of his squad. It is indeed showing with Chelsea making a Europe best 14.6 dribbles per game. Barcelona come second with 14.3 dribbles per game. Lion’s share of the dribbles goes to Eden Hazard who makes 4.9 dribbles per game. He is only behind Adama Traore (in whole Europe) by a whisker who makes 5 dribbles per game.
12 wins in a row : a new club record
As soon as Conte switched to 3-4-3, his side have been on a different level. They are now chasing the Arsenal’s Premier League record of 14 wins in a row.
The record is held by Arsenal who won 13 consecutive league fixtures stretching from 10 February until the end of the season. Their run ended in the second game of the next season when they drew 2-2 with West Ham.
The 14-game streak equalled the all-time league record jointly held by Manchester United (Second Division, 1904–05), Bristol City (Second Division, 1905–06) and Preston North End (Second Division, 1950–51).
So Chelsea are only one win off of equaling the most consecutive wins in a single season.
2 goals conceded in 12 matches (one was an own goal)
It has only happened for the first time in 128 years of English top flight history that a team has won 12 straight games conceding only 2 goals. Thibaut Courtois has kept 10 clean sheets in 12 matches. He has also pulled some incredible saves at important points.
11 clean sheets in 18 matches
Chelsea have kept an astonishing 11 clean sheets in just 18 matches and an astonishing 10 in last 12 matches. They will break the record of most clean sheets kept in a season which is also held by Chelsea at the moment (21 in 2004-05).
Fewest fouls in Premier League
Conte’s Chelsea have also made just 169 fouls after 17 matches, fewest in the Premier League.
Clean sweep of monthly awards : first time in history of Premier League
A record that doesn’t and shouldn’t matter much, but bears repeating for the sake of completion. Conte was named Manager of the month for November. Diego Costa claimed player of the month and Pedro grabbed the goal of the month for his delightful strike against Tottenham.Homeland defense secretary John Kelly will print 15,000 additional H-2B visas for foreign blue-collar workers in 2017, according to a statement from the agency.
The 11.00 a.m. announcement said:
U.S. businesses in danger of suffering irreparable harm due to a lack of available temporary nonagricultural workers will be able to hire up to 15,000 additional temporary nonagricultural workers under the H-2B program … “Congress gave me the opportunity to provide temporary relief to American businesses in danger of suffering irreparable harm due to a lack of available temporary workers,” said DHS Secretary John Kelly. “As a demonstration of the Administration’s commitment to supporting American businesses, DHS is providing this one-time increase to the congressionally set annual cap.”
The decision was forced by GOP leaders in Congress, and is “a betrayal of [President Donald] Trump’s campaign promise to deliver blue-collar jobs to Americans,” said one opponent of the wage-cutting H-2B visa program.
“Kelly’s decision to increase H-2B foreign workers threatens to reverse the trend of reports emerging around the country of employers working harder and raising pay to successfully recruit more unemployed Americans for lower-skilled jobs,” said Roy Beck, president of NumbersUSA, which favors pro-American immigration reforms. He added:
Congress gave Kelly the authority to put around 70,000 more of those jobs out of the reach of Americans; at least Kelly limited the damage to keeping just 15,000 more Americans out of the labor market. Nonetheless, this is yet another example of the Administration and Congress failing to keep the Trump campaign promise of putting American workers first.”
The concession by Kelly marks a win for the GOP legislators and allied business groups who oppose President Donald Trump’s popular “Buy American, Hire American” policy.
The additional inflow of foreign workers will reduce marketplace pressure on employers to develop labor-saving technology and to streamline their business practices. The extra outsourcing visas will also reduce the pressure on companies to offer marketplace wages to recruit new employees, will reduce their incentive to train unemployed Americans from rural and urban areas, and reduce their incentive to lobby state legislators for more vocational training programs.
Nationwide, companies already employ at least 1.5 million wage-cutting foreign outsourcing workers, most of whom work in white-collar jobs sought by American graduates.
Kelly’s closed-door decision does not allow for a full regulatory process, which would normally allow the public to provide comments against an expansion of the cheap-labor program.
The “lack of comment period is due to lateness of the legislation (May), [the] requirement to consult with [the Department of] Labor and [the] requirement to follow the law on federal rule making in order to provide additional seasonal worker visas before we get deeper into the summer season,” spokesman David Lapan told Breitbart News on Friday.
The agency statement insisted the extra foreign workers were only for threatened businesses which are “in danger of suffering irreparable harm due to a lack of available temporary nonagricultural workers.” But DHS will only require a statement — not evidence — of “irreparable harm” from executives, saying “to qualify for the additional visas, petitioners must attest, under penalty of perjury, that their business is likely to suffer irreparable harm if it cannot employ H-2B nonimmigrant workers during fiscal year (FY) 2017.”
But DHS will only require a statement — not evidence — of “irreparable harm” from executives, saying “to qualify for the additional visas, petitioners must attest, under penalty of perjury, that their business is likely to suffer irreparable harm if it cannot employ H-2B nonimmigrant workers during fiscal year (FY) 2017.” Also, the statement does not define what level of “irreparable harm” qualifies a company to hire lower-wage foreign employees.
For example, companies suffer harm when they cannot use cheap seasonal H-2B workers to lower wages for full-time American employees, according to H-2B employers.
If wages for summer workers are forced up by market conditions, “this causes a ripple effect in all wages across the board,” Josh Denison, the hiring chief at Denison Landscaping in Oxon Hill, Md., complained to a reporter in the October 2015 issue of the industry magazine, Lawn & Landscaping. Denison continued:
If your $10.30 [an hour] basic domestic or H-2B laborer has an arbitrary wage increase, then you have to adjust wages across the board in a sliding scale to keep it fair and balanced. What happens to the $12 guy if the new guy is making more? And what happens to the $15 guy?
The program already delivers roughly 115,000 as foreign seasonal workers to Americans companies each year, mostly in the South and East. Many H-2B workers also work at winter resorts in Colorado.
The program allows companies to bring in 66,000 new workers each year — and also to keep workers who got visas in the prior two years. The rules allow companies to maintain a workforce of roughly 115,000 H-2B workers in the United States, according to an estimate by the Economic Policy Institute.
Equivalent U.S. workers have received few or no pay raises since 2007, according to the Center for Immigration Studies.
Just like the white-collar H-1B visa program, the H-2B program is unpopular with the public, but lobbyists constantly pressure legislators to increase the annual inflow of foreign workers.
Politicians know the program is very unpopular. In December 2015, House Speaker Paul Ryan inserted a difficult-to-read passage into the annual spending bill that greatly expanded the program. After the November 2016 election, however, House Speaker Paul Ryan reversed the expansion.
In May, however, Ryan and other legislators again expanded the H-2B program while hiding their plan from voters. They passed the buck to Kelly by adding language in the May budget supplemental which allows the DHS secretary to expand the H-2B program by up to 70,000 new workers each year. Lobbyists then pressured Kelly — and the legislators who control the DHS budget — to quickly expand the program via low-profile regulatory changes so that foreign workers can be hired and rushed into jobs later this summer, fall and winter.
The wage-cutting plan was covered by Breitbart but was largely ignored by the establishment media.
In May, Kelly initially said he would reluctantly approve some extra workers, but then quickly backtracked. “I know we already have large numbers [of contract workers] that come in and have been coming in over the years, but … in the current administration, this is all about American jobs versus people that come in and do the work,” Kelly told Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp in early June.
Then Kelly agreed to increase the visa numbers as he came under increased pressure from lobbyists and GOP and Democratic legislators, led by GOP Sen. Thom Tillis.
Spokesman Lapan complained about the pressure, saying Kelly “is concerned that Congress is passing the buck by not clearly legislating the H2B visa numbers, and expects that this one-time occurrence is an anomaly.”
Kellly’s approval of the extra H-2B visas will likely encourage the GOP legislators and companies to seek even more H-2B in future years.
Here is Kelly’s May statement to the appropriations committee:Humanitarian and development aid is about helping people suffering from both short-term and long-term problems. These problems can be natural (e.g., droughts, floods, and earthquakes) as well as man-made (e.g., poverty, war, and oppression). A recent example of a humanitarian crisis is the refugee situation in Europe, and the disorder in Syria and its surrounding region.
For people who want to actively help, there are many organizations that rely on and gladly take in volunteers. For those who want to use their core skills and competencies, there are organizations such as Doctors Without Borders and Engineers Without Borders. I joined the latter, but was surprised to learn there were no software-specific initiatives. This is where open source comes in.
In open source software, end users, decision makers, subject matter experts, and developers from around the world can work together to create great solutions. There are a lot of mature open source projects out there already in the field of humanitarian and development aid, for example: Ushahidi and Sahana in crisis management and information gathering, OpenMRS for medical records, Martus for secure information sharing in places with limited freedom of speech, and Mifos X, an open platform for financial inclusion for people in poor areas where financial services such as savings, payments, and loans are not offered.
Hackathons bring people together
Knowledge and awareness of these projects and the potential of open source software as a tool in humanitarian and development aid, however, is very limited. To address this issue on a local level, we arranged a hackathon called OpenHack and put people and organizations interested in software development and tech together with representatives and subject-matter experts from aid organizations. Hackathons like this one provide a great venue for creating and testing innovative ideas with quick feedback.
We had a great turnout, with 70 participants and 12 teams presenting their results in the end of the weekend. We had participants from both Denmark and Sweden who ranged from high school and university students to entrepreneurs and employees. Among the participants were also newly arrived refugees who shared their views and experiences.
Participants had the option to either work on their own ideas or on case challenges provided by on-site aid organizations and open source projects (Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), ActionAid, Doctors Without Borders, Red Cross, Ushahidi and Node-RED). SIDA requested help with ensuring its financial aid had reached its intended destination and with what effect. Doctors Without Borders requested ideas on how reduce unnecessary destruction of medicine in the supply chain from its origin to the final destination. Ushahidi requested help on how their crowd platform could be improved in regards to gather, map, and analyze information after a disaster.
One response to Doctors Without Borders' challenge showed how temperature sensors in the medicine supply chain can bring attention to cooling malfunctions, which is a common and very expensive real-world issue. The concept has been picked up by Doctors Without Borders and is being used as basis for discussion of how the idea can be developed further. Another proof-of-concept |
the end and work backwards.
A vehicle moving one mile per hour will cover 1.47 feet in one second.
If you wish to determine how far a vehicle will travel at a specific speed just multiply that speed by 1.47 feet. For example, if a vehicle is traveling 60 mph it will cover 88 feet in one second. Obviously, it will cover 176 feet in two seconds, etc.
If you are trying to determine how many seconds it would take a vehicle to cover a known distance at a specific speed just divide the distance by the speed and divide the result by 1.47 feet.
This will yield the number of seconds it would take the vehicle to cover a known distance at a known speed.
For example: A vehicle traveling 60 mph will cover 300 feet in 3.4 seconds—-300 divided by 60 divided by 1.47 = 3.4 seconds. If need be you can verify this calculation by multiplying 3.4 seconds times 88 feet (the distance traveled in one second at 60 mph) and the result brings you back to 300 feet.
If you are challenged on the validity of the 1.47 feet per second figure you can prove its validity in very simple terms.
There are 5280 feet in one mile so a vehicle traveling one mile per hour will cover 5280 feet. There are 60 minutes in one hour so a vehicle traveling one mile per hour will travel 1/60th of that distance in one minute, or 88 feet. There are 60 seconds in one minute so a vehicle traveling at one mile per hour will cover 1/60th of the distance it covered in one minute, or 1.47 feet.
You could also state that there are 3600 seconds in one hour and divide that number into 5280 feet and the result would be the same, 1.47 feet.
Once the court accepts and understands the source of these numbers you can apply them to your defense.
If you receive a VASCAR ticket you should obtain a description of the distance over which you were clocked, the time it took your vehicle to cover that distance and the speed you are charged with traveling.
If the citation or incident report claims you covered 300 feet in 4.2 seconds and you are being charged with speeding at 60 mph in a 50 mph zone you can readily verify the accuracy, or lack thereof in this case, of the speed you were claimed to be traveling.
At 60 mph you would have traveled 370 feet, not 300 feet. However, at 50 mph you would have traveled 309 feet in 4.2 seconds, indicating that you were driving within the speed limit.
Even if the calculations indicated the error was in the opposite direction, that your speed was underestimated, the speed-reading should not be allowed as evidence against you, thus eliminating the prosecutions principal evidence against you.
In other cases involving radar or pacing, time over distance calculations can prove serious inconsistencies in the officer’s testimony.
If the officer testifies that he clocked your vehicle for 5 seconds and you were going 80 mph, you can prove, by using time over distance calculations, that the officer could not have seen you for more than two seconds, because of a curve or sign, if you had been traveling 80 miles per hour.
For more advice on how to fight an unfair speeding ticket, consider joining the NMA.
Image Credit: JonOakleyFrom Policy Matters Ohio
State Rep. Barbara Sears yesterday introduced legislation, House Bill 394, that would drastically overhaul Ohio’s unemployment compensation (UC) system. The bill would dramatically reduce benefits and create new hurdles to get them in the first place.
A plan to restore solvency to the system is needed. However, House Bill 394 is an unbalanced plan that relies only on cuts to worker benefits and eligibility to improve the system’s finances. For workers, the plan cuts benefit weeks to some of the lowest levels in the nation. For employers, it appears that the plan actually cuts taxes, when experts have made clear that the biggest problem with the financing of Ohio’s system is an inadequate tax base (see Wayne Vroman, The Urban Institute, “Solvency Recommendations for Ohio,” July 10, 2008).
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Policy Matters Ohio will study the bill closely. However, it’s clear the legislation would push Ohio well outside the mainstream by creating new hurdles for unemployed workers before they can qualify for benefits. As it is, fewer Ohioans are receiving unemployment compensation than any year in more than 40 years. For decades, a smaller share of Ohio unemployed workers has received UC than jobless workers do nationally; in the year ended in June, 23 percent of Ohio’s unemployed received benefits, a share that ranked 36th in the nation.
Yet the bill would require workers to have wages in at least three quarters of the year (in addition to Ohio’s long-time standard of 20 weeks), something that no other state mandates. The bill greatly expands the definition of “just-cause” firing, meaning it will be difficult for many workers to show that they are entitled to benefits. The bill would keep workers from getting benefits if they violated the terms of their employee handbook, regardless of employee notice or whether those work rules are serious or silly.
The bill would repeal bipartisan legislation, approved unanimously by both houses of the Ohio General Assembly in 2007, that eliminated Ohio’s practice of deducting Social Security payments from any UC benefits a person might otherwise be eligible for. Just this week, the governor and legislators in Illinois agreed to wipe out such an offset there. Thus, Ohio would be the only state in the nation with this practice.
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One key feature of the bill would reduce the maximum number of weeks of benefits a claimant could receive from the current 26, creating a sliding scale of between 12 and 20 weeks depending on the unemployment rate. Today, it would mean a maximum of 12 weeks of benefits. Twelve weeks is the lowest number of weeks available in the nation, matched in just two other states. Policy Matters Ohio has calculated that over the past decade, according to the formula in the bill, the maximum number of weeks would have been just 15.5. The table below shows how many weeks of benefits would have been available for each six-month period over the past decade:
This means that many Ohioans would be cut off from unemployment benefits and hard-pressed to pay basic necessities. That would hurt the Ohio economy, which has benefited during hard times from the stimulus that UC benefits provide. During the recession in 2009, 247,778 Ohioans exhausted their 26 weeks of regular benefits. Unemployment keeps mortgages paid and food on the table in times of economic downturn, boosting spending and helping the economy. This bill jeopardizes that.
“Slashing worker benefits and lowering employer taxes is not a balanced solvency plan,” said Zach Schiller, Policy Matters Ohio research director. “This overhaul needs an overhaul if it is to meet the needs of the Ohio economy, as well as Ohio workers and employers.”
Download ReportIn 1972, Oxford passed an ordinance that allowed for the sale of beer in retail locations for the first time since all beer and alcohol sales were outlawed after World War II, but the beer could not be refrigerated. The ban included a prohibition on Sunday sales of all alcohol in the city limits. That law is no more as of August 20, 2013.
On Tuesday at approximately 6:09 p.m., Oxford Mayor Pat Patterson and the Board of Aldermen held their third reading and voted on an ordinance that would allow cold beer to be sold in the city limits and also allow beer to be sold on Sunday. The ordinance passed on a 6-1 vote, and just like that, the old law was swept away.
Oxford Chief of Police Joey East told HottyToddy.com on Monday that he has not seen any evidence that sales of cold beer in the city limits will cause any problems.
“I’ve called several departments that have recently gone to cold beer sales, and they have seen no increase in any type of alcohol related activity,” East said. “We’ve always been able to buy beer, so I don’t think that selling it cold is going to add that much into (alcohol related activity).”
In 30 days, off premise establishments (retail businesses) will be able to sell cold beer from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Sundays. However, bars and restaurants are still not allowed to sell alcoholic beverages on Sundays, except during seven designated home game weekends. –– Justin Taylor, senior journalism major, Meek School of Journalism and New Media
Email Justin Taylor at jdtaylo2@go.olemiss.edu"Individuals can be penalised, made to suffer (oh, how I miss my child) and even killed. But democracy is a destiny of humanity which can not be averted. It can be delayed but not defeated… I sleep in peace, even if only in the company of lice, behind bars."
- a letter attributed to imprisoned blogger Eskinder Nega, serving 18 years for journalism in Ethiopia
September 4, 2013
Dear Secretary of State John Kerry,
This month marks the second anniversary of Eskinder Nega’s imprisonment. When you visited Ethiopia in May, Eskinder Nega had already been imprisoned – and thus silenced - for over a year. It’s time for the United States to use its considerable influence to vigorously and directly advocate Nega’s freedom and, in the process, to promote free expression and independent journalism throughout Ethiopia.
Now is a crucial moment for the Secretary to speak out. Over the weekend, Ethiopian security forces in Addis Ababa brutally suppressed a demonstration calling for political reforms and the release of jailed journalists and dissidents.
Eskinder Nega is an internationally recognized Ethiopian reporter-turned-blogger. His award-winning journalism on political issues in Ethiopia – and his refusal to stop publishing or flee the country - has made him the target of persecution by the Ethiopian government for many years. Nega was arrested in September 2011 and then convicted under a new, extremely broad anti-terrorism law in Ethiopia. Nega’s so-called crime was writing articles and speaking publicly on topics such as the Arab Spring and Ethiopia’s poor record on press freedom. For that, he was sentenced to 18 years in prison.
In July, the New York Times published a letter from Eskinder Nega in prison, who explained that Ethiopia’s anti-terrorism law "has been used as a pretext to detain journalists who criticize the government." He elaborated on the actions that landed him in prison on charges of terrorism:
I’ve never conspired to overthrow the government; all I did was report on the Arab Spring and suggest that something similar might happen in Ethiopia if the authoritarian regime didn’t reform. The state’s main evidence against me was a YouTube video of me, saying this at a public meeting. I also dared to question the government’s ludicrous claim that jailed journalists were terrorists.
As Leslie Lefkow, deputy Africa director at Human Rights Watch, said, "The use of draconian laws and trumped-up charges to crack down on free speech and peaceful dissent makes a mockery of the rule of law."
EFF has joined other free speech advocates and human rights organizations around the world in calling for Nega’s release. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has joined the movement calling for Nega’s freedom. And Amnesty International has rightly declared Nega a prisoner of conscience and is petitioning for his release.
Journalists and human rights organizations around the world have condemned Nega’s sentence and called for his release. It’s time for the United States, and especially the State Department, to do the same.
We’re writing today to urge you to use your relationship with Ethiopia to campaign for Eskinder Nega’s freedom and the freedom of all peaceful bloggers in Ethiopia.
We appreciate the public statements that the State Department has made about Nega’s imprisonment, but that’s not enough. Nega has already spent two years in prison, and other bloggers in Ethiopia have also been silenced by similar unjust imprisonments.
A free and independent media is vital to democracy and justice. We are calling on you to speak out on behalf of Eskinder Nega and raise his case with your contacts within the Ethiopian government. We urge you to more strongly tie American economic and political support for Ethiopia to its record on press freedom. The Ethiopian government should understand that the imprisonment of Eskinder Nega has real and continuing consequences to the health of its global diplomatic and financial relationships with its partners.
The United States has deep ties with Ethiopia. Please use this access and influence to champion the rights of free expression and press freedom that are guaranteed by the Ethiopian constitution and international law.
Sincerely,
Electronic Frontier FoundationGarrett should resign over his bungled scheme that ignored warnings from Minter Ellison and which ultimately caused the deaths of four people and has increased rapidly the chances of tens of thousands of homes burning down. That, in a nutshell, is the line the mainstream media in this country has pursued for nearly a week […]
Garrett should resign over his bungled scheme that ignored warnings from Minter Ellison and which ultimately caused the deaths of four people and has increased rapidly the chances of tens of thousands of homes burning down.
That, in a nutshell, is the line the mainstream media in this country has pursued for nearly a week – with The Australian taking the lead role and the rest of the MSM herd dutifully following them down into what we now know is a cul-de-sac of complete and utter incompetence. There is simply no other way to put what has gone on here.
Let us be clear – the insulation scheme was only shut down after the Minter Ellison document became a pivotal issue, suggesting that Garrett not only failed to read a document back in April 2009 that seemingly highlighted every problem – both real and imagined (but more on that later) – that has come to pass in the scheme, but that if he had read the Minter Ellison document and acted upon it, if he had followed the advice of Minter Ellison, homes would not have burned, people would not have died, the scheme would not have failed. It was definitive proof, so the media narrative went, that Garrett was a poster boy for ministerial incompetence writ large.
It was this Minter Ellison document and the plague like, hysterical misreporting of its contents, that forced public opinion to run so strongly against Garrett (with his approval rating of 28%) and the government that they were forced to shut it down – just as all governments shut down medium sized programs when public opinion gets beyond rational; witness the politicians superannuation scheme in 2004 and the Howard fuel excise indexation in 2001.
If the Minter Ellison document was reported accurately, the program would still be operational.
This scheme was shut down and the jobs of at least 5000 people and the immediate living standards of another 12-15 thousand family members got sent down the toilet because journalists were incompetent. On their heads rests the economic consequences of these ostensibly low income, lowest skilled people getting sacked.
This Minter Ellison Risk Register was a report that, according to The Australian, “warned of an “extreme risk” of house fires, fraud and poor quality installations”. On top of these frightening risks, The Australian stated that, “ Peter Garrett was kept in the dark by his department about warnings it received that the home insulation scheme should be delayed for three months because of “extreme risks”.”
The only problem here is that this – and I mean all of this – is complete and utter bullshit.
But before we get to what the risk assessment actually says – because, let’s be frank, you won’t see that written anywhere in The Australian – what is worth mentioning first is the nature of the report for some context.
Garrett’s department commissioned one-stop consulting shop Minter Ellison for a risk assessment on the insulation program, a report it delivered to the department in April 2009. This report only cost the department $28,985. About now, some of you will be thinking “29K!! Outrageous!!” – but far from this being an expensive report, it’s actually very cheap in the broader scheme of government consulting work.
That cheap price reflects the very nature of the report’s contents (and goes to the heart of why top level public servants leave the PS for consulting work!). It wasn’t a comprehensive “The Final Word” style report – it was basically an appraisal of the risks that might pop up when it comes to rolling out the insulation program, a rough estimate on the costs that may be involved from those risks should they eventuate, and a short evaluation of the risk mitigation programs that the government had in place for each area as of April 2009.
In Question Time on Tuesday, it was revealed that the report took less than six days to produce – highlighting the serious but not definitive nature of the document. If Minter Ellison spent more than 50 hours on this report, I will eat my laptop. So the report isn’t comprehensive – nor is it meant to be – it’s simply a professional brainstorm done up into a nice report with some smart people in charge of the whiteboard and the pens.
That is what $29K buys in the world of the modern consultant.
What the MSM has been suggesting is that not only does the continuation of a multi-billion dollar program – the insulation rollout – pivot on the contents of a $29K report of programmatic risk, but that Peter Garret’s very tenure as Minister pivots on whether or not he actually read the thing.
That is pretty much one of the more ludicrous ideas you’ll ever come across – a multi billion dollar program and a Ministers tenure being determined by a report smaller than your average miscellaneous expenses budget – but none-the-less, this is The Australian and the herd of the mainstream media we’re talking about here. Who really gets surprised these days when you find that your already low expectations are still a little on the high side with this lot?
As the Senate committee into this demonstrated clearly (transcript available here soon),when this program was being developed by the Dept, they went out and collected a substantial array of information and policy advice to assist not only the Minister in the rollout of the program, but also to assist with the department’s own preparedness for implementing the policy. The department undertook internal research, they consulted widely with industry and other relevant government organisations like the ACCC and departments like DEEWR. They also engaged with third party specialists – one of which was Minter Ellison.
The department then collated and condensed this wide array of information from a wider array of sources into a set of advice briefs for the Minister. You see, that’s actually what government departments do. From the idiot commentary in the press you’d think that Departments should be abolished since the Minister apparently does everything – although as Bernard Keane regularly points out in Crikey, journalists failing Public Service Operations 101 is neither new nor irregular.
The Minter Ellison report was but one, small piece of info that went into this mix that made up the advice the Department provided to Garrett.
That gets us on to the actual Risk Register document itself. You can download it here, and use the explanatory cover email available here as a key to some of the abbreviations in the register. Remember, this document isn’t the be all and end all, it is but one piece of information the Department was using to identify areas of risk that needed to be managed. Also remember that the role of this report is to identify as many risks as possible.
When Minter Ellison talks about risk, they mean a professional definition of risk, not a literal definition of risk that you might find in a dictionary. That is something that’s important to keep in your though orbit as you go through the document.
The first thing to notice is that nowhere in this document does Minter Ellison warn of the dangers of workplace deaths or worker safety. The reason is obvious – existing generic workplace regulations were adequate enough to prevent deaths as long as employers abided by existing law. In the Risk Register, Minter Ellison did not identify any additional systemic risk of workplace deaths and safety becoming an issue.
Next up, you’ll notice that there are 19 specific and separate issues where risk factors are identified, the inherent nature of that risk is described, the risk mitigation strategies in the program as of April 2009 are rated on their strength and a rating is given on whether the risk is tolerable or not for each specific area.
As of April 2009, there were only 3 areas where the risk was not considered to be tolerable – as in, further strategies had to be developed in order to expect a successful outcome for that particular area of the program. These specific areas were:
Area 2. Procurement/Licensing. This specific area was about how licenses were going to be provided and as of April it had yet to be fully determined by the department. Similarly, business model planning was at the time being undertaken by KPMG over procurement issues.
Minter Ellison recommended for this specific area that delaying the program to September or starting a partial rollout with Sydney/Melbourne metro areas first was an option. The consequences of getting this wrong was that there would be delays when it came to getting insulation into ceilings – to the point where it may not occur at all. This option of delaying the program was based on what had occurred up to April 2009. Between April and July, the Department obviously developed procurement/licensing policy appropriately, since – and the pudding is in the eating – insulation was rolled out into ceilings with no major delays.
Area 3. Time. This was specifically about the internal mechanisms of the administration of the policy and how the time lines being so tight, there was a concern that the management and the actual policy administrators would be too green to deliver the policy out the door.
Between April and July of 2009, we know the Department mitigated these risks successfully as, again, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. The program pushed insulation out the door on the deadline date of July.
Area 7.Political. This was specifically about the government’s public relations and risks to their political standing and had absolutely nothing to do with the actual program of getting insulation into ceilings. It was all about government communications management with the press and other people that might want to have a whinge about something.
Every other area, including installation quality and compliance, fraud, legal, regulation, industry capacity, outcomes (actual), delivery, take-up, training mechanisms and product quality were all given a tolerable risk rating by Minter Ellison.
They were all given a risk approval by Minter Ellison.
Let me say that again, every one of those areas just mentioned were all given a risk tick.
What you have been reading from the press is ill-informed, pig-ignorant bullshit. Let’s go to a few examples.
Dennis Shanahan
Garrett led a department charged by cabinet with implementing a scheme for which it was not equipped, and which was warned there would be fraud, fires, waste and accidents if it did not delay the start of the scheme by at least three months.
No – that is a totally and utterly incorrect. Minter Ellison did not say that fraud, fire and waste would occur if the program was not delayed, they stated clearly (although obviously not clear enough for some!) that delaying the program was an option to guarantee procurement/licensing issues were fully developed and for internal administration to be effectively put in place. However, those issues were fully developed between April and July, such that we saw the program rollout on time.
Minter Ellison said the risk of fraud, fire and waste was acceptable, and didn’t mention “accidents” in the risk register at all! 5 arse-hats, go stand in the corner Dennis.
Courier Mail Editorial
This document, which is more than 10 months old, was drawn up by a major Australian law firm, Minter Ellison, and was comprehensive enough to foretell just about every disaster that has befallen Mr Garrett’s housing insulation program
That was its job – to predict every foreseeable risk. It also stated the risks were acceptable in 16 of 19 areas, and in those 3 that were not acceptable at the time, the department successfully met its deadline for rollout, demonstrating that the risk was mitigated.
Andrew Bolt
Garrett’s own department commissioned a report from Minter Ellison Consulting last year on whether its free-insulation scheme would work, and in April last year the report was sent to both Garrett and Rudd’s office, warning the scheme was in fact dangerous and could waste hundreds of millions of dollars.
Minter Ellison never anywhere in the report stated that the scheme was dangerous. We’d get you to wear the dunce cap but there’s only so many a single person can have on their head at a given time.
ABC Online:
Mr Garrett is under pressure to reveal when he was first briefed about the Minter Ellison safety risk assessment, which warned of shonky installation and house fires
The report did not warn of shonky installation and house fires, both of those areas got the risk assessment tick.
The Oz
The advice from top-tier law firm Minter Ellison outlined strategies to tackle serious risks in the program. It warned that the government’s timeline was too tight for the program to be delivered in a “properly controlled way” and said the Environment Department was ill-equipped to roll out such a massive program.
What it actually said – specifically on the issue of time, was: “time available to develop and deliver the program in a properly controlled way may be inadequate”
Compare that to the dross above: “It warned that the government’s timeline was too tight for the program to be delivered in a “properly controlled way”
Anyway, that’s enough of these fools – let’s now move on to looking at some actual numbers suggesting that far from the insulation program being the cause of a dramatic increase in hell, fire and brimstone breaking out in the nations ceilings, it actually reduced the rate of installation caused fires. Yes, you read that right. Follow me to the next post.
(Visited 459 times, 1 visits today)In continuation with my last post about the default I use towards the A site, I figured I would go over the one I use when I’m working the B site. Obviously, reading the defense is important when picking between the two. Once you know where the CTs are playing, where the like to hold, and where they like to push, you can select the default that works the best.
Here’s what the default looks like:
One man on the flank in kitchen, watching the stairs into B upper. One player on ladder, watching for the push. And then, finally, I have 3 players in B upper. These 3 can be placed however, and it greatly depends on the team I’m playing. If the other team is pushing lower routinely, it’s best, in my opinion, to place 2 players on B lower. This is also where I generally place the AWPer. You can have them peek upper, hold lower, whatever you prefer.
This position works best when you know that the CTs like to pushthrough Ivy or A main. If you go in and make noise in B upper, peaking the AWPer on spools, or smoking and spamming lower, the CTs are very likely to start pushing up into B upper from T spawn. This makes it trivial to snag 1 or 2 frags for the player holding in break room.
I like this hold a lot because it lets you call on the fly easily. If you get pushed from behind, you go out and through A main. If someone peeks ladder room, you kill them on the ladder and push out. Or, you can execute on B with some smokes and head out on site, potentially leaving some players in B upper to watch the flank.
Finally, here is my B execute:
The way this works is the upper smoke is thrown by a player upper, and the lower smoke is thrown by a lower player. The smoke between white train and bomb train is thrown like this. Once the smokes are thrown, the upper player can peek and clear the top of white train. After he clears it, the lower players can push in and take site. I usually leave a player in B upper to watch the flank, and I usually have my AWPer watch connector, or I make the AWPer watch behind. It all depends on your team makeup and where your players feel most comfortable playing.
AdvertisementsMy life is under reconstruction and it has been this way since the moment he died. When I buried Mike, I said farewell to the life I knew and loved. This isn't me being all dramatic - this is simply the truth. When his heart stopped, a part of me died. And, now for the last two years and some months, I have been working to recreate myself. When your spouse dies part of your identity dies with them and you must work to discover who you are without them. You must redefine who you are. You must reestablish yourself and your place in the world. Without Mike, I am a work in progress. I am for lack of a better term under reconstruction.
And, I am tired. I am beyond tired actually. In fact, I am exhausted. The work of recreating myself and reentering life is labour intensive. All the decisions and tedious details are overwhelming. Sometimes I feel nauseated just thinking about rebuilding my life. I have been shifting through the wreckage of our shared life for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of days and I am mentally drained. I have grown bored of the mundane thoughts that run through my head. I have some ideas about what to do, but nothing feels exactly right. I am sort of stuck and I am not actioning any of my plans with any enthusiasm.
I have begun the mental work of devising a plan, but I have not executed anything in earnest yet. I am stalling. Partly out of necessity; and, more so, because I am having a tantrum of sorts. I do not want to recreate a life because the one I shared with him was everything I wanted. I liked our life. And, I am not happy about being forced to live without the man I love. I am not excited about a future without Mike.
I have been forced to make due without him; and, because of this, I have yet to feel genuinely enthusiastic about anything in my life. This is a cruddy way to live. And, in truth, I am not even sure this is living. It is really just existing which is a complete waste of life - and this bothers me a lot. I do not want to merely endure life because he died, but I am afraid that is what I am doing. I want to live passionately again, but everything feels monotonous and tiresome without him. My life is hollow and lacklustre compared the life I share with him. So, what the hell can I do about this?
I try to feel less apathetic about my future. I continually seek a way out of this commonplace existence. But, again and again, I crave my old life. I miss the excitement of the life we shared, and at the same time I yearn for the ordinary moments we experienced together. I feel very detached from the run of the mill life in front of me. After two years and a handful of months, I have still not been able to figure out how to bond with a future that does not include him.Hockey Hearsay compiles stories from around the hockey world and runs weekdays, 12 months a year.
REPORT: PENS’ MALKIN SEEKS $10 MILLION RANGE ANNUALLY
The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review describes how Penguins majority co-owner Mario Lemieux and general manager Ray Shero met all day Tuesday, with co-owner Ron Burkle in on those discussions too.
During the meeting, Shero made a strong push for approval on an extension for head coach Dan Bylsma, who is set to enter the final season of his contract.
Shero wanted the coaching situation settled — at least Bylsma’s status — so he could start finalizing a long-term contract with center Evgeni Malkin before turning to potential new contracts for winger Pascal Dupuis and defenseman Kris Letang.
Shero also identified parameters of the commitment necessary to keep Malkin — about $10 million annually. Ownership has authorized Shero to keep Malkin at almost any cost.
Shero had a face-to-face meeting with J.P. Barry, Malkin’s agent, Monday. Barry described the meeting as productive.
OILERS’ HALL READY FOR BIGGER LEADERSHIP ROLE
The Edmonton Sun takes the position that if Shawn Horcoff does move on from the Oilers this summer, Taylor Hall would then become a strong candidate to take over Oilers captaincy. Hall has become the de facto leader of the next generation, which includes Jordan Eberle, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Magnus Paajarvi, Nail Yakupov and Justin Schultz.
“Whether they’re here or not, I’m still looking forward to being more of a leader next year and maturing as a player and a person,” Hall said. “I’m still pretty young and regardless of who’s here, I look forward to becoming an even better player, a more rounded player and a more rounded person. I think all of us young guys relish at being better at leading teams, being better in the last five minutes and doing those things that leaders do.”
Regardless, whatever moves MacTavish manages to pull off this off-season, the focus for Hall remains the same.
“That’s all stuff that MacT is going to address,” Hall said. “As far as I’m concerned, I’m going to come into camp in great shape. I know Ebs is, I know Nuge will, I know Schultzy will. We’re going to come to work and whatever Dallas wants us to do and whatever team MacT assembles, that’s what we’re going to go with.”
BLACKHAWKS WANT TO KEEP BICKELL
CSNChicago.com details how Blackhawks general manager Stan Bowman, keeping pending unrestricted free agent Bryan Bickell is a priority.
“We obviously want him to remain with us. We’re going to do our best to do that,” Bowman said. “I think Bryan likes it here. He’s made comments that way; he enjoys playing on our team. He’s found a nice role. Certainly the coaches have confidence in him. As a player, that’s something they all talk about; finding the right situation for a player is important. He serves a nice role for us and he’s respected by his teammates. There are a lot of positives for him and we want to bring him back.”
The Blackhawks likely won’t be the only team wanting to add Bickell’s size and punch. The Blackhawks hope they’re the ones paying him. His work is paying off for them right now.
“It’s been a process for Brian,” Bowman said. “I look back at his career; it’s taken time for him to realize his potential and I give him credit for sticking with it. We’ve worked hard with him. We spent a lot of time over the years developing him and having conversations with him on ways to improve. He’s done the hard work, we’ve worked with him and now we’re seeing that pay off. It’s certainly rewarding for everybody when he’s been able to contribute this way. He helps us in a lot of ways and there’s a lot to like.”
BLUES TELL TARASENKO TO RAMP UP CONDITIONING
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reflects on how when the Blues broke for the offseason, 21-year-old rookie Vladimir Tarasenko headed back to Russia with a message from the club.
“We’ve given him a clear mandate on what we expect when he gets back here, what we’re going to see from him on a conditioning level, the grind that he’s going to have to do,” Blues general manager Doug Armstrong said recently.
While training in Russia this summer, he’ll need to be prepare himself for the rigors of a full 82-game campaign.
“We have people in the organization who’s job responsibility it is to monitor that,” Armstrong said. “But we need him to take ownership of his conditioning and his training and his preparation, just as we need (Jaden) Schwartz to take control of it. At 21-22 (years old), they’re still learning the game on the ice. They have to become pros off the ice.
“That was the mandate of (Tarasenko) going back … we’re penciling him into important positions on our team and he’ll never have a chance to fill those if he’s not in shape.”
KINGS’ SUTTER SEEKS IMPROVEMENT FROM MUZZIN, TOFFOLI
LA Kings Insider asserts that similar to that of Tyler Toffoli, this off-season will be an important time in Jake Muzzin’s development.
“They’re going to have to take 100 days of being stronger athletes, the next 100 days. For them to help us next year, they’re going to have to be better athletes, very simple,” head coach Darryl Sutter said of Muzzin and Toffoli.
“They were boys that we could cover up a lot, and what do they take from it? Hopefully as we meet with them the next two or three days we’re going to find out. It’s not something I’m going to generalize. I know for certain though that you have to be physically and mentally as close to 100% as you can to play in the National Hockey League. You can play, but you’ve got to play and be able to help a good team. There’s not much line to draw there. When you have training camp on September 11 and [today] is June 11, count the days. Start getting ready. I started doing it on the plane ride home the other night. There was no de- what do you call it? Decompressing? No. That’s not the way it works.”
PREDS OFFER JOSI SECURITY OF LONG-TERM DEAL
Predators defenseman Roman Josi tells The Nashville Tennessean he committed to the Predators long-term, with his seven-year, $28 million contract extension, for his own precaution. He missed time with a wrist injury in 2010 and a pair of upper body injuries in 2011-12.
“I really like it in Nashville and enjoyed my time the last two years playing for Nashville,” Josi said. “It gives you a lot of security of course. I’ve had some injuries in the past, and you never know what’s going to happen, and a long-term deal gives me a lot of security.”
Josi said he is doing the same offseason program from a year ago — in Switzerland with New York Islanders captain Mark Streit and Montreal Canadiens defenseman Yannick Weber.
“I’m focusing on more muscles this year and keeping my nutrition habits,” he said.
WHAT THEY’RE TWEETING ABOUT
You are a good man @lkomarov – The most interesting man I have ever had the honor of sitting next to in a locker room. #buddy — Michael Kostka (@Kostka85) June 11, 2013
When I was a kid my dad would get mad at me for leaving the lights and tv on. Now that I have a place it’s my biggest pet peeve. #oldman — Jordan Eberle (@ebs_14) June 12, 2013GOP frontrunner Donald Trump says that, if elected, he would close the looph |
on to complete the entire affair. Head calls were so infrequent that I spent a lot of time that might otherwise have been neutral or painless in the eye-watering anxiety that I was going to piss my pants. We ran to chow, where we were faced with enormous steam vents that spewed out a sickening smell of rancid, super-heated grease. Still, we entered the mess hall with ravenous appetites, ate a huge tray of food in just a few minutes, and then ran back to our company area in formation, choking back the burning bile of a meal too big to be eaten so fast. God forbid that you would lose control and vomit.
If all had gone well in the preceding hours, Sergeant Wright would permit us to smoke one cigarette after eachbmeal. Jorgeson had shown me the wisdom of switching from Camels to Pall Malls—they were much longer, packed a pretty good jolt, and when we snapped open our brushed chrome Zippos, torched up, and inhaled the first few drags, we shared the overmastering pleasure that tobacco can bring if you use it seldom and judiciously. These were always the best moments of the day—brief respites from the tyrannical repression of recruit training. As we got close to the end of it all Jorgeson liked to play a little game. He used to say to me (with fragrant blue smoke curling out of his nostrils), “If someone said, ‘I’ll give you ten thousand dollars to do all of this again,’ what would you say?” “No way, Jack!” He would keep on upping it until he had John Beresford Tipton, the guy from “The Millionaire,” offering me a check for a million bucks. “Not for any money,” I’d say.
While they were all smoldering under various pressures, the recruits were also getting pretty “salty”—they were beginning to believe. They were beginning to think of themselves as Marines. If you could make it through this, the reasoning went, you wouldn’t crack in combat. So I remember that I had tears in my eyes when Sergeant Wright gave us the spiel about how a Marine would charge a machine-gun nest to save his buddies, dive on a hand grenade, do whatever it takes—and yet I was ashamed when Jorgeson caught me wiping them away. All of the recruits were teary except Jorgeson. He had these very clear cobalt-blue eyes. They were so remarkable that they caused you to notice Jorgeson in a crowd. There was unusual beauty in these eyes, and there was an extraordinary power in them. Apart from having a pleasant enough face, Jorgeson was small and unassuming except for these eyes. Anyhow, when he caught me getting sentimental he gave me this look that penetrated to the core of my being. It was the icy look of absolute contempt, and it caused me to doubt myself. I said, “Man! Can’t you get into it? For Christ’s sake!”
“I’m not like you,” he said. “But I am into it, more than you could ever know. I never told you this before, but I am Kal-El, born on the planet Krypton and rocketed to Earth as an infant, moments before my world exploded. Disguised as a mild-mannered Marine, I have resolved to use my powers for the good of mankind. Whenever danger appears on the scene, truth and justice will be served as I slip into the green U.S.M.C. utility uniform and become Earth’s greatest hero.”
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I got highly pissed and didn’t talk to him for a couple of days after this. Then, about two weeks before boot camp was over, when we were running out to the parade field for drill with our rifles at port arms, all assholes and elbows, I saw Hey Baby give Jorgeson a nasty shove with his M-14. Hey Baby was a large and fairly tough young man who liked to displace his aggressive impulses on Jorgeson, but he wasn’t as big or as tough as I.
Jorgeson nearly fell down as the other recruits scrambled out to the parade field, and Hey Baby gave a short, malicious laugh. I ran past Jorgeson and caught up to Hey Baby; he picked me up in his peripheral vision, but by then it was too late. I set my body so that I could put everything into it, and with one deft stroke I hammered him in the temple with the sharp edge of the steel butt plate of my M-14. It was not exactly a premeditated crime, although I had been laying to get him. My idea before this had simply been to lay my hands on him, but now I had blood in my eye. I was a skilled boxer, and I knew the temple was a vulnerable spot; the human skull is otherwise hard and durable, except at its base. There was a sickening crunch, and Hey Baby dropped into the ice plants along the side of the company street.
The entire platoon was out on the parade field when the house mouse screamed at the assistant D.I., who rushed back to the scene of the crime to find Hey Baby crumpled in a fetal position in the ice plants with blood all over the place. There was blood from the scalp wound as well as a froth of blood emitting from his nostrils and his mouth. Blood was leaking from his right ear. Did I see skull fragments and brain tissue? It seemed that I did. To tell you the truth, I wouldn’t have cared in the least if I had killed him, but like most criminals I was very much afraid of getting caught. It suddenly occurred to me that I could be headed for the brig for a long time. My heart was pounding out of my chest. Yet the larger part of me didn’t care. Jorgeson was my buddy, and I wasn’t going to stand still and let someone fuck him over.
The platoon waited at parade rest while Sergeant Wright came out of the duty hut and took command of the situation. An ambulance was called, and it came almost immediately. A number of corpsmen squatted down alongside the fallen man for what seemed an eternity. Eventually they took Hey Baby off with a fractured skull. It would be the last we ever saw of him. Three evenings later, in the squad bay, the assistant D.I. told us rather ominously that Hey Baby had recovered consciousness. That’s all he said. What did that mean? I was worried, because Hey Baby had seen me make my move, but, as it turned out, when he came to he had forgotten the incident and all events of the preceding two weeks. Retrograde amnesia. Lucky for me. I also knew that at least three other recruits had seen what I did, but none of them reported me. Every member of the platoon was called in and grilled by a team of hard-ass captains and a light colonel from the Criminal Investigation Detachment. It took a certain amount of balls to lie to them, yet none of my fellow-jarheads reported me. I was well liked and Hey Baby was not. Indeed, many felt that he got exactly what was coming to him.
* * *
The other day—Memorial Day, as it happened—I was cleaning some stuff out of the attic when I came upon my old dress-blue uniform. It’s a beautiful uniform, easily the most handsome worn by any of the U.S. armed forces. The rich color recalled Jorgeson’s eyes for me—not that the color matched, but in the sense that the color of each was so startling. The tunic does not have lapels, of course, but a high collar with red piping and the traditional golden eagle, globe, and anchor insignia on either side of the neck clasp. The tunic buttons are not brassy—although they are in fact made of brass—but are a delicate gold in color, like Florentine gold. On the sleeves of the tunic my staff sergeant’s chevrons are gold on red. High on the left breast is a rainbow display of fruit salad representing my various combat citations. Just below these are my marksmanship badges; I shot Expert in rifle as well as pistol.
I opened a sandalwood box and took my various medals out of the large plastic bag I had packed them in to prevent them from tarnishing. The Navy Cross and the two Silver Stars are the best; they are such pretty things they dazzle you. I found a couple of Thai sticks in the sandalwood box as well. I took a whiff of the box and smelled the smells of Saigon—the whores, the dope, the saffron, cloves, jasmine, and patchouli oil. I put the Thai sticks back, recalling the three-day hangover that particular batch of dope had given me more than twenty-three years before. Again I looked at my dress-blue tunic. My most distinctive badge, the crowning glory, and the one of which I am most proud, is the set of Airborne wings. I remember how it was, walking around Oceanside, California—the Airborne wings and the high-and-tight hair cut were recognized by all the Marines; they meant you were the creme de la creme, you were a recon Marine.
Recon was all Jorgeson’s idea. We had lost touch with each other after boot camp. I was sent to com school in San Diego, where I had to sit in a hot Class A wool uniform all day and learn the Morse code. I deliberately flunked out, and when I was given the perfunctory option for a second shot, I told the colonel, “Hell no, sir. I want to go 003-infantry. I want to be a ground-pounder. I didn’t join the service to sit at a desk all day.”
I was on a bus to Camp Pendleton three days later, and when I got there I ran into Jorgeson. I had been thinking of him a lot. He was a clerk in headquarters company. Much to my astonishment, he was fifteen pounds heavier, and had grown two inches, and he told me he was hitting the weight pile every night after running seven miles up and down the foothills of Pendleton in combat boots, carrying a rifle and a full field pack. After the usual what’s-been-happening? b.s., he got down to business and said, “They need people in Force Recon, what do you think? Headquarters is one boring motherfucker.”
I said, “Recon? Paratrooper? You got to be shittin’ me! When did you get so gung-ho, man?”
He said, “Hey, you were the one who bought the program. Don’t fade on me now, goddammit! Look, we pass the physical fitness test and then they send us to jump school at Benning. If we pass that, we’re in. And we’ll pass. Those doggies ain’t got jack. Semper fi, motherfucker! Let’s do it.”
There was no more talk of Neal Cassady, Edith Piaf, or the artist’s loft in SoHo. I said, “If Sergeant Wright could only see you now!”
We were just three days in country when we got dropped in somewhere up north near the DMZ. It was a routine reconnaissance patrol. It was not supposed to be any kind of big deal at all—just acclimation. The morning after our drop we approached a clear field. I recall that it gave me a funny feeling, but I was too new to fully trust my instincts. Everything was spooky; I was fresh meat, F.N.G.—a Fucking New Guy.
Before moving into the field, our team leader sent Hanes—a lance corporal, a short-timer, with only twelve days left before his rotation was over—across the field as a point man. This was a bad omen and everyone knew it. Hanes had two Purple Hearts. He followed the order with no hesitation and crossed the field without drawing fire. The team leader signaled for us to fan out and told me to circumvent the field and hump through the jungle to investigate a small mound of loose red dirt that I had missed completely but that he had picked up with his trained eye. I remember I kept saying, “Where?” He pointed to a heap of earth about thirty yards along the tree line and about ten feet back in the bushes. Most likely it was an anthill, but you never knew—it could have been an NVA tunnel. “Over there,” he hissed. “Goddamn it, do I have to draw pictures for you?”
I moved smartly in the direction of the mound while the rest of the team reconverged to discuss something. As I approached the mound I saw that it was in fact an anthill, and I looked back at the team and saw they were already halfway across the field, moving very fast.
Suddenly there were several loud hollow pops and the cry “Incoming!” Seconds later the first of a half-dozen mortar rounds landed in the loose earth surrounding the anthill. For a millisecond, everything went black. I was blown back and lifted up on a cushion of warm air. At first it was like the thrill of a carnival ride, but it was quickly followed by that stunned, jangly, electric feeling you get when you hit your crazy bone. Like that, but not confined to a small area like the elbow. I felt it shoot through my spine and into all four limbs. A thick plaster of sand and red clay plugged up my nostrils and ears. Grit was blown in between my teeth. If I hadn’t been wearing a pair of Ray-Ban aviator shades, I would certainly have been blinded permanently—as it was, my eyes were loaded with grit. (I later discovered that fine red earth was somehow blown in behind the crystal of my pressure-tested Rolex Submariner, underneath my fingernails and toenails, and deep into the pores of my skin.) When I was able to, I pulled out a canteen filled with lemon-lime Kool-Aid and tried to flood my eyes clean. This helped a little, but my eyes still felt like they were on fire. I rinsed them again and blinked furiously.
I rolled over on my stomach in the prone position and leveled my field-issue M-16. A company of screaming NVA soldiers ran into the field, firing as they came—I saw their green tracer rounds blanket the position where the team had quickly congregated to lay out a perimeter, but none of our own red tracers were going out. Several of the Marines had been killed outright by the mortar rounds. Jorgeson was all right, and I saw him cast a nervous glance in my direction. Then he turned to the enemy and began to fire his M-16. I clicked my rifle on to automatic and pulled the trigger, but the gun was loaded with dirt and it wouldn’t fire.
Apart from Jorgeson, the only other American putting out any fire was Second Lieutenant Milton, also a fairly new guy, a “cherry,” who was down on one knee firing his.45, an exercise in almost complete futility. I assumed that Milton’s 16 had jammed, like mine, and watched as AK-47 rounds, having penetrated his flak jacket and then his chest, ripped through the back of his field pack and buzzed into the jungle beyond like a deadly swarm of bees. A few seconds later, I heard the swoosh of an RPG rocket, a dud round that dinged the lieutenant’s left shoulder before it flew off in the bush behind him. It took off his whole arm, and for an instant I could see the white bone and ligaments of his shoulder, and then red flesh of muscle tissue, looking very much like fresh prime beef, well marbled and encased in a thin layer of yellowish-white adipose tissue that quickly became saturated with dark-red blood. What a lot of blood there was. Still, Milton continued to fire his.45. When he emptied his clip, I watched him remove a fresh one from his web gear and attempt to load the pistol with one hand. He seemed to fumble with the fresh clip for a long time, until at last he dropped it, along with his.45. The lieutenant’s head slowly sagged forward, but he stayed up on one knee with his remaining arm extended out to the enemy, palm upward in the soulful, heartrending gesture of Al Jolson doing a rendition of “Mammy.”
A hail of green tracer rounds buzzed past Jorgeson, but he coolly returned fire in short, controlled bursts. The light, tinny pops from his M-16 did not sound very reassuring, but I saw several NVA go down. AK-47 fire kicked up red dust all around Jorgeson’s feet. He was basically out in the open, and if ever a man was totally alone it was Jorgeson. He was dead meat and he had to know it. It was very strange that he wasn’t hit immediately.
Jorgeson zigged his way over to the body of a large black Marine who carried an M-60 machine gun. Most of the recon Marines carried grease guns or Swedish Ks; an M-60 was too heavy for traveling light and fast, but this Marine had been big and he had been paranoid. I had known him least of anyone in the squad. In three days he had said nothing to me, I suppose because I was F.N.G., and had spooked him. Indeed, now he was dead. That august seeker of truth, Schopenhauer, was correct: We are like lambs in a field, disporting themselves under the eye of the butcher, who chooses out first one and then another for his prey. So it is that in our good days we are all unconscious of the evil Fate may have presently in store for us—sickness, poverty, mutilation, loss of sight or reason.
It was difficult to judge how quickly time was moving. Although my senses had been stunned by the concussion of the mortar rounds, they were, however paradoxical this may seem, more acute than ever before. I watched Jorgeson pick up the machine gun and begin to spread an impressive field of fire back at the enemy. Thuk thuk thuk, thuk thuk thuk, thuk thuk thuk! I saw several more bodies fall, and began to think that things might turn out all right after all. The NVA dropped for cover, and many of them turned back and headed for the tree line. Jorgeson fired off a couple of bandoliers, and after he stopped to load another, he turned back and looked at me with those blue eyes and a smile like “How am I doing?” Then I heard the steel-cork pop of an M-79 launcher and saw a rocket grenade explode through Jorgeson’s upper abdomen, causing him to do something like a back flip. His M-60 machine gun flew straight up into the air. The barrel was glowing red like a hot poker, and continued to fire in a “cook off” until the entire bandolier had run through.
In the meantime I had pulled a cleaning rod out of my pack and worked it through the barrel of my M-16. When I next tried to shoot, the Tonka-toy son of a bitch remained jammed, and at last I frantically broke it down to find the source of the problem. I had a dirty bolt. Fucking dirt every where. With numbed fingers I removed the firing pin and worked it over with a toothbrush, dropping it in the red dirt, picking it up, cleaning it, and dropping it again. My fingers felt like Novocain, and while I could see far away, I was unable to see up close. I poured some more Kool-Aid over my eyes. It was impossible for me to get my weapon clean. Lucky for me, ultimately.
Suddenly NVA soldiers were running through the field shoving bayonets into the bodies of the downed Marines. It was not until an NVA trooper kicked Lieutenant Milton out of his tripod position that he finally fell to the ground. Then the soldiers started going through the dead Marines’ gear. I was still frantically struggling with my weapon when it began to dawn on me that the enemy had forgotten me in the excitement of the firefight. I wondered what had happened to Hanes and if he had gotten clear. I doubted it, and hopped on my survival radio to call in an air strike when finally a canny NVA trooper did remember me and headed in my direction most ricky-tick.
With a tight grip on the spoon, I pulled the pin on a fragmentation grenade and then unsheathed my K-bar. About this time Jorgeson let off a horrendous shriek—a gut shot is worse than anything. Or did Jorgeson scream to save my life? The NVA moving in my direction turned back to him, studied him for a moment, and then thrust a bayonet into his heart. As badly as my own eyes hurt, I was able to see Jorgeson’s eyes—a final flash of glorious azure before they faded into the unfocused and glazed gray of death. I repinned the grenade, got up on my knees, and scrambled away until finally I was on my feet with a useless and incomplete handful of M-16 parts, and I was running as fast and as hard as I have ever run in my life. A pair of Phantom F-4s came in very low with delayed action high-explosive rounds and napalm. I could feel the almost unbearable heat waves of the latter, volley after volley. I can still feel it and smell it to this day.
Concerning Lance Corporal Hanes: they found him later, fried to a crisp by the napalm, but it was nonetheless ascertained that he had been mutilated while alive. He was like the rest of us—eighteen, nineteen, twenty years old. What did we know of life? Before Vietnam, Hanes didn’t think he would ever die. I mean, yes, he knew that in theory he would die, but he felt like he was going to live forever. I know that I felt that way. Hanes was down to twelve days and a wake-up. When other Marines saw a short-timer get greased, it devastated their morale. However, when I saw them zip up the body bag on Hanes I became incensed. Why hadn’t Milton sent him back to the rear to burn shit or something when he got so short? Twelve days to go and then mutilated. Fucking Milton! Fucking second lieutenant!
Theogenes was the greatest of gladiators. He was a boxer who served under the patronage of a cruel nobleman, a prince who took great delight in bloody spectacles. Although this was several hundred years before the times of those most enlightened of men Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, and well after the Minoans of Crete, it still remains a high point in the history of Western civilization and culture. It was the approximate time of Homer, the greatest poet who ever lived. Then, as now, violence, suffering, and the cheapness of life were the rule.
The sort of boxing Theogenes practiced was not like modern-day boxing with those kindergarten Queensberry Rules. The two contestants were not permitted the freedom of a ring. Instead, they were strapped to flat stones, facing each other nose-to-nose. When the signal was given, they would begin hammering each other with fists encased in heavy leather thongs. It was a fight to the death. Fourteen hundred and twenty-five times Theogenes was strapped to the stone and fourteen hundred and twenty-five times he emerged a victor.
Perhaps it is Theogenes who is depicted in the famous Roman statue (based on the earlier Greek original) of “The Pugilist at Rest.” I keep a grainy black-and-white photograph of it in my room. The statue depicts a muscular athlete approaching his middle age. He has a thick beard and a full head of curly hair. In addition to the telltale broken nose and cauliflower ears of a boxer, the pugilist has the slanted, drooping brows that bespeak torn nerves. Also, the forehead is piled with scar tissue. As may be expected, the pugilist has the musculature of a fighter. His neck and trapezius muscles are well developed. His shoulders are enormous; his chest is thick and flat, without the bulging pectorals of the bodybuilder. His back, oblique, and abdominal muscles are highly pronounced, and he has that greatest asset of the modern boxer—sturdy legs. The arms are large, particularly the forearms, which are reinforced with the leather wrappings of the cestus. It is the body of a small heavyweight—lithe rather than bulky, but by no means lacking in power: a Jack Johnson or a Dempsey, say. If you see the authentic statue at the Terme Museum, in Rome, you will see that the seated boxer is really not much more than a light-heavyweight. People were small in those days. The important thing was that he was perfectly proportioned.
The pugilist is sitting on a rock with his forearms balanced on his thighs. That he is seated and not pacing implies that he has been through all this many times before. It appears that he is conserving his strength. His head is turned as if he were looking over his shoulder—as if someone had just whispered something to him. It is in this that the “art” of the sculpture is conveyed to the viewer. Could it be that someone has just summoned him to the arena? There is a slight look of befuddlement on his face, but there is no trace of fear. There is an air about him that suggests that he is eager to proceed and does not wish to cause anyone any trouble or to create a delay, even though his life will soon be on the line. Besides the deformities on his noble face, there is also the suggestion of weariness and philosophical resignation. All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. Exactly! He knew this more than two thousand years before Shakespeare penned the line. How did he come to be at this place in space and time? Would he rather be safely removed to the countryside—an obscure, stinking peasant shoving a plow behind a mule? Would that be better? Or does he revel in his role? Perhaps he once did, but surely not now. Is this the great Theogenes or merely a journeyman fighter, a former slave or criminal bought by one of the many contractors who for months trained the condemned for their brief moment in the arena? I wonder if Marcus Aurelius loved the “Pugilist” as I do, and came to study it and to meditate before it.
I cut and ran from that field in Southeast Asia. I’ve read that Davy Crockett, hero of the American frontier, was cowering under a bed when Santa Anna and his soldiers stormed into the Alamo. What is the truth? Jack Dempsey used to get so scared before his fights that he sometimes wet his pants. But look what he did to Willard and to Luis Firpo, the Wild Bull of the Pampas! It was something close to homicide. What is courage? What is cowardice? The magnificent Roberto Duran gave us “No mas,” but who had a greater fighting heart than Duran?
I got over that first scare and saw that I was something quite other than that which I had known myself to be. Hey Baby proved only my warm-up act. There was a reservoir of malice, poison, and vicious sadism in my soul, and it poured forth freely in the jungles and rice paddies of Vietnam. I pulled three tours. I wanted some payback for Jorgeson. I grieved for Lance Corporal Hanes. I grieved for myself and what I had lost. I committed unspeakable crimes and got medals for it.
It was only fair that I got a head injury myself. I never got a scratch in Vietnam, but I got tagged in a boxing smoker at Pendleton. Fought a bad-ass light-heavyweight from artillery. Nobody would fight this guy. He could box. He had all the moves. But mainly he was a puncher—it was said that he could punch with either hand. It was said that his hand speed was superb. I had finished off at least a half rack of Hamm’s before I went in with him and started getting hit with head shots I didn’t even see coming. They were right. His hand speed was superb.
I was twenty-seven years old, smoked two packs a day, was a borderline alcoholic. I shouldn’t have fought him—I knew that—but he had been making noise. A very long time before, I had been the middleweight champion of the 1st Marine Division. I had been a so-called war hero. I had been a recon Marine. But now I was a garrison Marine and in no kind of shape.
He put me down almost immediately, and when I got up I was terribly afraid. I was tight and I could not breathe. It felt like he was hitting me in the face with a ball-peen hammer. It felt like he was busting light bulbs in my face. Rather than one opponent, I saw three. I was convinced his gloves were loaded, and a wave of self-pity ran through me.
I began to move. He made a mistake by expending a lot of energy trying to put me away quickly. I had no intention of going down again, and I knew I wouldn’t. My buddies were watching, and I had to give them a good show. While I was afraid, I was also exhilarated; I had not felt this alive since Vietnam. I began to score with my left jab, and because of this I was able to withstand his bull charges and divert them. I thought he would throw his bolt, but in the beginning he was tireless. I must have hit him with four hundred left jabs. It got so that I could score at will, with either hand, but he would counter, trap me on the ropes, and pound. He was the better puncher and was truly hurting me, but I was scoring, and as the fight went on the momentum shifted and I took over. I staggered him again and again. The Marines at ringside were screaming for me to put him away, but however much I tried, I could not. Although I could barely stand by the end, I was sorry that the fight was over. Who had won? The referee raised my arm in victory, but I think it was pretty much a draw. Judging a prizefight is a very subjective thing.
About an hour after the bout, when the adrenaline had subsided, I realized I had a terrible headache. It kept getting worse, and I rushed out of the NCO Club, where I had gone with my buddies to get loaded.
I stumbled outside, struggling to breathe, and I headed away from the company area toward Sheepshit Hill, one of the many low brown foothills in the vicinity. Like a dog who wants to die alone, so it was with me. Everything got swirly, and I dropped in the bushes.
I was unconscious for nearly an hour, and for the next two weeks I walked around like I was drunk, with double vision. I had constant headaches and seemed to have grown old overnight. My health was gone.
I became a very timid individual. I became introspective. I wondered what had made me act the way I had acted. Why had I killed my fellow men in war, without any feeling, remorse, or regret? And when the war was over, why did I continue to drink and swagger around and get into fistfights? Why did I like to dish out pain, and why did I take positive delight in the suffering of others? Was I insane? Was it too much testosterone? Women don’t do things like that. The rapacious Will to Power lost its hold on me. Suddenly I began to feel sympathetic to the cares and sufferings of all living creatures. You lose your health and you start thinking this way.
Has man become any better since the times of Theogenes? The world is replete with badness. I’m not talking about that old routine where you drag out the Spanish Inquisition, the Holocaust, Joseph Stalin, the Khmer Rouge, etc. It happens in our own backyard. Twentieth-century America is one of the most materially prosperous nations in history. But take a walk through an American prison, a nursing home, the slums where the homeless live in cardboard boxes, a cancer ward. Go to a Vietnam vets’ meeting, or an A.A. meeting, or an Overeaters Anonymous meeting. How hollow and unreal a thing is life, how deceitful are its pleasures, what horrible aspects it possesses. Is the world not rather like a hell, as Schopenhauer, that clearheaded seer—who has helped me transform my suffering into an object of understanding—was so quick to point out? They called him a pessimist and dismissed him with a word, but it is peace and self-renewal that I have found in his pages.
About a year after my fight with the guy from artillery I started having seizures. I suffered from a form of left-temporal-lobe seizure which is sometimes called Dostoyevski’s epilepsy. It’s so rare as to be almost unknown. Freud, himself a neurologist, speculated that Dostoyevski was a hysterical epileptic, and that his fits were unrelated to brain damage—psychogenic in origin. Dostoyevski did not have his first attack until the age of twenty-five, when he was imprisoned in Siberia and received fifty lashes after complaining about the food. Freud figured that after Dostoyevski’s mock execution, the four years’ imprisonment in Siberia, the tormented childhood, the murder of his tyrannical father, etc. & etc.—he had all the ear marks of hysteria, of grave psychological trauma. And Dostoyevski had displayed the trademark features of the psychomotor epileptic long before his first attack. These days physicians insist there is no such thing as the “epileptic personality.” I think they say this because they do not want to add to the burden of the epileptic’s suffering with an extra stigma. Privately they do believe in these traits. Dostoyevski was nervous and depressed, a tormented hypochondriac, a compulsive writer obsessed with religious and philosophic themes. He was hyperloquacious, raving, etc. & etc. His gambling addiction is well known. By most accounts he was a sick soul.
The peculiar and most distinctive thing about his epilepsy was that in the split second before his fit—in the aura, which is in fact officially a part of the attack—Dostoyevski experienced a sense of felicity, of ecstatic well-being unlike anything an ordinary mortal could hope to imagine. It was the experience of satori. Not the nickel-and-dime satori of Abraham Maslow, but the Supreme. He said that he wouldn’t trade ten years of life for this feeling, and I, who have had it, too, would have to agree. I can’t explain it, I don’t understand it—it becomes slippery and elusive when it gets any distance on you—but I have felt this down to the core of my being. Yes, God exists! But then it slides away and I lose it. I become a doubter. Even Dostoyevski, the fervent Christian, makes an almost airtight case against the possibility of the existence of God in the Grand Inquisitor digression in The Brothers Karamazov. It is probably the greatest passage in all of world literature, and it tilts you to the court of the atheist. This is what happens when you approach Him with the intellect.
It is thought that St. Paul had a temporal-lobe fit on the road to Damascus. Paul warns us in First Corinthians that God will confound the intellectuals. It is known that Muhammad composed the Koran after attacks of epilepsy. Black Elk experienced fits before his grand “buffalo” vision. Joan of Arc is thought to have been a left-temporal-lobe epileptic. Each of these in a terrible flash of brain lightning was able to pierce the murky veil of illusion which is spread over all things. Just so did the scales fall from my eyes. It is called the “sacred disease.”
But what a price. I rarely leave the house anymore. To avoid falling injuries, I always wear my old boxer’s headgear, and I always carry my mouthpiece. Rather more often than the aura where “every common bush is afire with God,” I have the typical epileptic aura, which is that of terror and impending doom. If I can keep my head and think of it, and if there is time, I slip the mouthpiece in and thus avoid biting my tongue. I bit it in half once, and when they sewed it back together it swelled enormously, like a huge red-and-black sausage. I was unable to close my mouth for more than two weeks.
The fits are coming more and more. I’m loaded on Depakene, phenobarbital, Tegretol, Dilantin—the whole shit load. A nurse from the V.A. bought a pair of Staffordshire terriers for me and trained them to watch me as I sleep, in case I have a fit and smother facedown in my bedding. What delightful companions these dogs are! One of them, Gloria, is especially intrepid and clever. Inevitably, when I come to I find that the dogs have dragged me into the kitchen, away from blankets and pillows, rugs, and objects that might suffocate me; and that they have turned me on my back. There’s Gloria, barking in my face. Isn’t this incredible?
My sister brought a neurosurgeon over to my place around Christmas—not some V.A. butcher but a guy from the university hospital. He was a slick dude in a nine-hundred-dollar suit. He came down on me hard, like a used-car salesman. He wants to cauterize a small spot in a nerve bundle in my brain. “It’s not a lobotomy, it’s a cingulotomy,” he said.
Reckless, desperate, last-ditch psychosurgery is still pretty much unthinkable in the conservative medical establishment. That’s why he made a personal visit to my place. A house call. Drumming up some action to make himself a name. “See that bottle of Thorazine?” he said. “You can throw that poison away,” he said. “All that amitriptyline. That’s gar bage, you can |
thanVanSciver
'Didn't act like a superstar'
But Cooke was met with awe and long lineups at large comic book conventions, Goguen said.
"He didn't act like a superstar or big shot," she said.
"I've been really sad all day just thinking about the work that we're not going to see. He's not going to draw anything else. I'm sure he had projects that he was going to be doing — and that's really hard to process."
The family is requesting donations be made to the Canadian Cancer Society and Hero Initiative, a group that offers a financial safety net for comic creators.Police wearing riot gear try to disperse a crowd Monday, Aug. 11, 2014, in Ferguson, Missouri. Authorities in Ferguson used tear gas and rubber bullets to try to disperse a large crowd Monday night. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)
This post first appeared at The American Prospect.
Every once in a while, a dramatic news story can actually produce real reform. More often the momentum peters out once the story disappears from the news (remember how Sandy Hook meant we were going to get real gun control?), but it can happen. And now, after the aftermath of the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, turned to a chaotic nightmare of police oppression, we may have an opportunity to examine, and hopefully reverse, a troubling policy trend of recent years.
The focus has now largely turned from an old familiar story (cops kill unarmed black kid) to a relatively unfamiliar one, about the militarization of the police. The images of officers dressed up like RoboCop, driving around in armored assault vehicles, positioning snipers to aim rifles at protesters and firing tear gas and rubber bullets at Americans standing with their hands up saying “Don’t shoot!” has lots of Americans asking how things got this way. This issue offers the rarest of all things, an opportunity for bipartisan cooperation.
One member of Congress, Rep. Hank Johnson, has already said he’ll be introducing a bill to cut back on the 1033 program, under which the Department of Defense unloads surplus (and often brand-new) military equipment to local police departments at little or no cost. So for instance, a town might be able to acquire a Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle (MRAP), designed to protect soldiers against roadside bombs and worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, for two or three grand. Radley Balko found towns with as few as 3,900 residents that had acquired an MRAP.
In the past, all that firepower has usually been directed at individuals — the person suspected of selling drugs who’s sitting at his kitchen table when a SWAT team made up of local cops, fancying itself Seal Team Six taking down Osama bin Laden, comes barrelling through the wall. But in Ferguson, a militarized police force was unleashed on an entire community.
On Thursday, Rand Paul wrote an excellent op-ed in Time magazine on both the militarization of law enforcement and the unequal treatment of black Americans by the police. As I’ve suggested elsewhere, this would be a great opportunity for a liberal who, like Paul, has something of a national constituency — let’s say Elizabeth Warren — to join with him and push for a bill, whether it’s the Senate version of what Hank Johnson is proposing or a different way to accomplish a similar set of goals.
So could they actually come together? This is unlike Sandy Hook for one big reason: in that case, there were powerful interests standing in the way of change. It wasn’t just the power of the NRA that stopped any gun reform from happening, it was the fact that almost no elected official in the Republican party wanted it either. That’s not the case here — as much as cops might like these shiny toys that make them feel like warriors, there isn’t a core interest of the GOP at work.
On the other hand, there are limits to what the federal government can do. The militarization of the country’s police forces is something that has been growing for a couple of decades, fueled first by the War on Drugs and then by the insane idea that the police in every hamlet in every corner of the country needed to be able to wage battles against Al Qaeda strike teams. Congress could turn off the spigot that pours this equipment into these communities, but unless the federal government starts repossessing the equipment it already distributed (highly unlikely, to say the least), police departments all over the country will still be awash in military gear.
And that’s the biggest challenge: the problems the Ferguson case highlights are widely distributed, through thousands of police departments and millions of interaction between cops and citizens. The federal government can respond in a limited way to what we’ve all seen, but its actions will go only so far.
But I can’t imagine there’s a police chief anywhere in America who hasn’t looked at this situation and concluded that the Ferguson police completely bollixed it up. They also can’t help but notice what happened when the Ferguson police were told to stand down in favor of the Missouri state troopers, who didn’t bother with the riot gear or armored personnel carriers, but just went out and listened to people, and the result was so different. So maybe some of those police chiefs will examine their own policies, when it comes to both using that equipment and dealing with crowds of protesters. Ferguson surely won’t change everything. But it might be a start.The recent porn block in the UK has Andrews and Arnold saying that if you want internet censorship, you should “move to North Korea.”
UK Prime Minister David Cameron recently made a decision that by the end of 2014, UK ISPs will automatically have porn filters switched on to protect children. Every household will need to choose by then whether or not they want it removed.
However, UK ISP Andrews and Arnold says they have no plans use the filter at all. They added, “sorry, for a censored internet you will have to pick a different ISP or move to North Korea.”
Internet censorship has been a big deal across the pond in the US for quite a while, so much so that the public petitioned to eliminate censorship programs such as SOPA and PIPA, which would have taken down popular websites if major corporations thought they violated their copyrights. Apparently now the UK is facing the same battle for different reasons.
The porn block is not something Andrews and Arnold is giving in to, as they have stated that their customers should be free to decide on porn filters without their ISPs making the decision for them by default. They say it’s not their role to censor and track what you do with the internet. The UK ISP believes it is your responsibility to comply with the laws and regulations that apply to you.
A porn block, the UK ISP explains further, would give “restricted access to unpublished government mandated filter list… but still cannot guarantee kids don’t access porn.” In fact, they say that the porn block would only create an even bigger problem, as people would create underground means to access what they want anyway.
Internet censorship, even government mandated, really solves nothing. As hackers have no doubt proven, if it can be built, it can be broken. No laws or restrictions will prove otherwise.
What do you think of the UK porn block? Is UK ISP Andrews and Arnold right to not give in to forced censorship?Introduction
AMD's Radeon HD 7000 Series was launched 10 months ago, and it introduced a new shader architecture called "GCN". Back then, AMD told us that this is the way of the future and that the new shader architecture will bring many improvements that might not have been fully exploited yet. While there have been some driver performance improvements in the past, they have been relatively small and were application specific.Price reductions have also helped AMD keep their products competitive in the face of NVIDIA's offerings. The HD 7970 was launched at a $550 price point; it costs $390 today.AMD is now trying to pull off a left-right punch to make their products even more interesting to consumers.Starting now, the company offers a rich game bundle to anyone who purchases one of their graphics cards. Current customers will also see significant performance improvements with the new "Never Settle" AMD Catalyst 12.11 driver, which is available for download [url=/downloads/2176/AMD_Catalyst_12.11_Beta_3.html]here[url].Let's talk about the game bundle first.You see a matrix of available offers above. The highlights here are certainly Far Cry 3 and Hitman Absolution, which are some of the most highly anticipated AAA titles of this year. The 20% off Medal of Honor coupon might also come in handy if you decide to buy the game. If you don't plan on playing any of these games, you can still get rid of the coupons on eBay, which will help offset the cost of a new graphics card purchase.AMD's second announcement today is that the new Catalyst 12.11 "Never Settle" driver will come with general performance improvements for all Radeon HD 7000 cards by improving performance across the board with most games. Certain titles, like Sleeping Dogs and Battlefield 3 (and other titles based on that engine like Medal of Honor: Warfighter), got some extra love with even larger performance improvements.AMD's Never Settle Catalyst 12.11 driver will be available as a non-WHQL beta immediately. A WHQL version will follow later on in November.AMD also clarified that these performance improvements are only for the Radeon HD 7000 Series, which uses the GCN shader architecture. Older cards will not see any improvements.For this article, we have tested the HD 7750, HD 7770, HD 7850, HD 7870, HD 7950, HD 7970and the HD 7970 GHz Edition with our recently updated test suite. We also completed a test run with the HD 6970 to verify that there are no performance improvement for older cards.A Republican congressional candidate in Florida says she’s learned a lot on her travels — including the spaceship ride she took with aliens when she was a just a little girl.
Bettina Rodriguez Aguilera — a 59-year-old entrepreneur running to replace retiring Miami Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen — said she remained in contact with three aliens, one male and two females, since the extraterrestrial joyride when she was 7 years old, according to a resurfaced 2009 television interview.
“I went in,” Rodriguez Aguilera told America TeVe. “There were some round seats that were there, and some quartz rocks that controlled the ship – not like airplanes.”
Rodriguez Aguilera, a former councilwoman in Doral who announced her candidacy last August, said the aliens were reminiscent of the famous Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janiero. She also claimed that she learned several fun facts during her encounters with them, including that’s the world’s “energy center” is in Africa and that a popular limestone tourist attraction in Miami-Dade County called Coral Castle is actually an ancient Egyptian pyramid.
Rodriguez Aguilera declined to directly address the alleged encounters when contacted Friday by the Miami Herald, telling the newspaper that she has a “strong belief in God” and believes that there is more life out in cosmos.
“For years people, including Presidents like Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter and astronauts have publicly claimed to have seen unidentified flying objects and scientists like Stephen Hawking and institutions like the Vatican have stated that there are billions of galaxies in the universe and we are probably not alone,” she told the Herald.
“I personally am a Christian and have a strong belief in God, I join the majority of Americans who believe that there must be intelligent life in the billions of planets and galaxies in the universe.”
Rodriguez Aguilera said she’s raised about $10,000 during the most recent fundraising quarter, an underwhelming amount she attributed to a stoppage in her campaign due to Hurricane Irma. On her website, Rodirguez Aguilera describes herself as an “entrepreneur, educator and community leader” with more than three decades of experience in the private and public sectors.
Rodriguez Aguilera has trained people in more than 19 countries on “business and leadership,” according to her website, which makes no reference extraterrestrial travel claims.
Attorney Rick Yabor, a political commentator in south Florida, thinks her detailed account may be problematic at the polls — even in today’s political climate.
“She got into details that are not very mainstream,” Yabor told the Miami Herald. “Someone who’s running for Congress – you’ve got to raise a lot of money. A donor might have second thoughts … Miami politics are unusual. This one takes it to a new level.”The entire Makati City Hall shut down its operations on Tuesday as the second suspension order on Mayor Jejomar Erwin “Junjun” Binay was served and posted at the entrance of the City Hall Building by officers of the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG).
With the metal door at the City Hall entrance rolled down and hundreds of policemen barricading all entrances to the premises before offices opened at 8 a.m., it was impossible to enter the City Hall even for employees wanting to perform their daily job functions.
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Armed with truncheons and shields, about 700 police officers heavily guarded the entrance of the City Hall building as DILG National Capital Region (NCR) officer-in-charge Maria Lourdes Agustin posted the 12-page suspension order of Binay and 14 other city officials in relation to the investigation of the construction of the Makati Science High School.
Tensions rose as Binay supporters tried to push their way through police barricades shouting “Papasukin niyo kami” (Let us in!) and even throwing monobloc chairs at some of the policemen. But some employees of the city hall claimed that the police were the ones who started the scuffle and pushed the people away from the entrance.
Christine Ramirez, an employee of the Makati Action Center, presented a medical certificate from the Ospital ng Makati showing that she sustained bruises on both her arms after the policemen pushed her with their shields and denied her entrance to the City Hall.
“I just wanted to get inside the building because we have work today,” Ramirez said, noting that the police continued pushing her and the rest of the crown gathered near the entrance of the city hall.
Barangay Carmona Bantay Bayan officer Eric Enriquez, meanwhile, was allegedly hit with a truncheon at the back of his head and was injured.
The tensions were not the only problem at the city hall as numerous clients wanting to avail of the services in the city were furious after knowing that they would not be able to continue with their transactions.
Maria Victoria Manalo, a Makati resident who was supposed to file the necessary documents for a criminal case she has been facing, asked the guards at the Old City Hall building why they were not informed that there were no transactions at the local government unit office.
“We want to get a certification to protect ourselves because we have a meeting with the fiscal on the seventh floor. We did not know that the offices were closed,” she told the Philippine Daily Inquirer in an interview.
The lockdown was also met with rage by city government employees, who lamented that it was the 30th and worried that they would not receive their wages if they failed to come in work.
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Joey Salgado, Makati City spokesperson, said they would ensure that the city hall employees would receive their wages accordingly.
Binay said the closing of the City Hall offices was out of their control as hundreds of policemen would not allow their employees to get inside the building.
Policemen stationed at the City Hall grounds admitted that they were directed not to let anyone inside the building.
This was not the first heated incident on Tuesday. Detailed policemen personally had an altercation with Vice President Jejomar Binay and his group who circled the Old City Hall building to ask the ground commander, Senior Supt. Elmer Jamias, to remove the barricades around the city hall.
The Vice President was caught on camera pointing his finger at Jamias, telling him that what they were doing was illegal and a way to harass their family and the city government.
But Salgado explained that the Vice President only went down to confront Jamias to tell them that what they were doing was wrong.
“Chief Insp. Gideon Ines refused to let the Vice President in the area so some of the supporters got angry and there was a short scuffle,” Salgado added.
He also noted that the injured residents like Enriquez and Ramirez will file cases against Jamias and his policemen.
Asked about Jamias’ plan to file cases of assault upon person in authority and threat and oral defamation against the Vice President and some of his men for the incident on Monday night, Salgado said it is their right.
“But we would like to remind them that the Constitution here in the Philippines should still rule. It seems like their imposing Martial Law-like situation in the city,” the city spokesperson added noting that people should still have the right to assemble and express support to the mayor.
Binay’s camp added they have filed a petition asking for a temporary restraining order (TRO) to the Court of Appeals on Monday with them hoping that until a decision is reached, the police and the DILG will respect them.
(With a report from Krixia Subingsubing, trainee)
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MOST READBoth Microsoft and Sony are offering gamers a way to upgrade select titles they have purchased for the Xbox 360 and PS3 to the Xbox One and PS4 versions. That way, you purchase the current gen game on release, and then can upgrade to the next-gen version at a heavily discounted price when it becomes available.
Sony has now revealed exactly how that digital upgrade will work for the four games it supports as part of the program, and depending on how you buy, it may require PS3 discs be inserted into a PS4 for the games to function.
Sony’s digital upgrade program supports the following titles:
Assassin’s Creed IV Black Flag
Call of Duty: Ghosts
Watch Dogs
Battlefield 4
If you purchase digital copies of those games through PSN then the upgrade to the PS4 version is simple as everything is tied to your PSN account. Things get a little more complicated if you purchase the PS3 versions on disc, though.
Each physical copy will have a code included with the disc which you need to enter on the PlayStation Store. That code is then tied to your PSN account. Then, when you get a PS4 you can purchase one of the four games mentioned above through the PlayStation Store and the discount will be automatically applied to the price you pay.
Sony wants to ensure you don’t then sell on your copy of the PS3 game, so in order to play the PS4 version you must have the PS3 game inserted into the console. So Sony has implemented some kind of verification check on the PS3 discs to make sure the upgrade was legit and you own the PS3 game.
I can understand why Sony decided to do that as it stops a glut of used PS3 games appearing on the market. But they didn’t need to do this. The code included with the PS3 versions only work once, so it’s not like you can share the disc with your friends and get the same cheap PS4 game upgrades.About the Place
2 Bed / 1 Bath at 56 S 11th St - Unit: 1E in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. All Pets Allowed. Nearby subway stations include: Marcy Av (J, M). Amazing renovated loft on Wythe! Stylish finishes, exposed beams, and all the little details make this apartment a special find. All new stainless steel appliances including dishwaser, with remote control heat/AC units in each room. The building also has an amazing massive shared roof with panoramic city views! Great location one block from the East River Ferry stop and steps to chic Williamsbrg establishments like Marlow and Sons, Diner, Bembe, and more. We can help you find roommates on Nooklyn.
Amenities
High Ceilings
Hardwood floors
Exposed brick
Central A/C
Video Intercom
Stainless Steel Appliances
Dishwasher
Stone countertops
Elevator
Roof access
Skyline view
Interested RoommatesOne step at a time
I've reiterated often in this guide moving to ultralight backpacking doesn't have to be all-or-nothing. Instead of diving in at the deep end, seriously consider taking a step-by-step approach. Focus on one aspect of your gear at a time. This way you will be able to safely transition to lighter techniques, without going out with a full kit of untested gear.
You could pick any item in your pack as a starting point – stoves, clothes, hydration, first aid – but a more effective place to start is by addressing one of the "big three" items.
In part one, we looked at the three for three concept: getting your three core items – your backpack, your sleep system, and your shelter – all under 3kg in total. Start by changing to a lighter weight version of any one of these three items and you'll immediately be losing a considerable amount of weight.
However, rather than just randomly picking one as a starting point, let's give some thought to the implications and roll-on effects of choosing each one.
Where to begin?
Ultralight backpacks, as well as being lighter, are typically smaller. If you are transitioning from heavy to light gear, then you'll need to make sure all your old kit fits inside; if you have a lot of larger, heavier hear, it can take up a lot of space and put a strain on a lighter pack.
Probably the most attractive route is to swap your old, heavy tent for an ultralight shelter. This is, after all, where you will most likely see the greatest weight reduction. But if you're planning on switching from a hardcore, two-wall behemoth to a flighty little single-wall tarp, you need to be sure that the rest of your existing gear is up to the challenge of coping with the different conditions you'll experience, i.e. more exposure and condensation.
Perhaps the easiest and safest starting point is your sleep system, and making the move to a lighter sleeping bag, or even quilt. Sure, it's less exciting than all those sexy shelters, but it's a low risk place to start reducing weight. You can use a new quilt can in your existing tent, with no negative impact. Its smaller size and lower weight will make a noticeable difference compared to what you might normally use. And if you plump (ah, the puns keep coming) for a good quality fluffy down quilt, it will last for many years to come.
After you've got a new lightweight bag, you can more easily move on to the shelter. With that pair sorted, and perhaps with a smaller stove and pot, you'll easily be able to fit your new kit into one of those lovely ultralight backpacks.
Doctor Sleep
When you're shopping around for a new ultralight sleeping bag or quilt, you want to plan ahead for using it in a single-wall shelter. While condensation in tarps and'mids isn't the thing of nightmares traditional marketing would have you believe, you'll want to keep your sleeping bag dry, especially if its filled with down.
There are two ways to do this: buy a bag that uses at least water-resistant outer materials, and ideally waterproof-breathable materials in critical areas (feet/shoulder), or buy a waterproof/breathable bivy bag to put the sleeping bag inside. This will prevent the bag from getting very wet shoudl it brush against the sides of your shelter.
As for down vs. synthetic, the gap between these two is drawing closer every day. Modern synthetic materials are lite and warm. The upsides of down are greater compressibility and longer life. The upsides of synthetic are its continued warmth-giving when wet, and price.
Sleeping Recommendations:
Synthetic quilt:
As Tucas Sestrals Quilt - Smart design from an EU UL cottage
€170 - 475 g / 16.7 oz - should be good down to 0ºC
Down quilt:
GoLite Unisex Z30 - a classic introductory down quilt - but it sells out fast
$300 - 615g /1lb 6oz - good to 0ºC (but that's probably generous)
Sleeping bags (if you don't like quilts):
Western Mountaineering HighLite - it's a classic for a reason
$330 - 455 g / 16 oz - good to 2ºC / 35 º F
Remember to also get a decent sleeping pad, and if needed, a bivy bag. For a more detailed look at bags and pads and bivy bags, see part 4.
Pad and Bivy Recommendations:
NeoAir XLite - A light pad, warm enough for most three-season use, and widely available (EU)
$160 - 340g / 12 oz
Katabatic Gear Bristlecone Bivy - The ultimate UL bivy bag
$150 - 215g / 7.6oz
Alpkit Hunka - the budget UL bivy bag
£45 - 500g / 17.6 oz
Pack it in
For a starter UL backpack, I would recommend not getting the lightest you can possibly buy. Instead, look for one with enough volume to carry the rest of your existing gear, and try to find one with some kind of minimal internal frame (or stay) to add stability under heavier loads. Check out some of the options highlighted in part 2.
Pack recommendations:
Gossamer Gear Mariposa - Voluminous enough for plenty of gear, sturdy enough to carry a decent load, and it won't break the bank.
$235 - 800g / 28 oz
GoLite Jam - a true classic, and a great pack the the new ultralighter. Also now available in the EU
$110 - 840g / 29 oz for a 50l version. Larger 70l size also available.
Helter Shelter
If you're ready to take the leap into an ultralight shelter, you need to think about where you'll be hiking, and what you are ready to cope with. I would recommend starting with a shelter that offers at least some protection from rain and wind in all directions; i.e., not a simple rectangular tarp. If you want to ease yourself into ultralight, allow yourself the safety and comfort of a shelter that will do exactly that: shelter you. There are numerous examples in part 3, but below you'll find my recommendations for newbies.
Shelter recommendations:
Mountain Laurel Designs DuoMid - the classic do-it-all UL shelter; copied by many for a reason
$215 - 567g / 20 oz in Silnylon. Check out OookWorks for some nice inners.
GoLite SL3 - the best option for shared shelter, with an inner included.
$299 - 1967g / 69 oz (including inner, so share the weight and it's under 1kg/person). Now available again in EU, and in another form from Nigor.
Luxe SilHexpeak - a new Mid-plus-inner for the budget conscious ultralighter
€190 - 1255g / 44oz (including inner). Skip the inner and you get a cross between an SL3 and a TrailStar under 700g.
Easton 8" (Blue) Stakes - Much stronger than your average stake, and advisable for the extra tension needed in a Mid.
$11 for four - 12 g / 0.43 oz each - you can get away with the 4" stakes for the mid panels, and reduce weight more.Seattle Seahawks Coach Pete Carroll Seeks 9/11 Truth
February 1, 2014—USA Today is out with a story on Seattle Seahawks Head Coach Pete Carroll: “Pete Carroll Admired by ‘9/11 Truth’ Movement.” Does this mean we can consider Coach Carroll a “9/11 truth” seekers? What does this story say about the nation’s bent for conspiracies in general, whether 9/11 or “Deflate-gate”?
Let’s dig deeper by comparing Carroll’s statements to those of these five celebrity 9/11 truth seekers.
First, here’s Mark Ruffalo: “I’m baffled by the way all three buildings came down. My first reaction was that buildings don’t fall down like that. I’ve done quite a bit of my own research …The fact that the 9/11 investigation went from the moment the planes hit to the moment the buildings fell, and nothing before or after, I think, makes that investigation completely illegitimate. If you’re going to do a crime investigation, you have to find motive. We didn’t follow that. It was quickly pushed away, obviously. There was no evidence at the biggest crime scene. None of us know what happened but I’m totally and completely behind reopening that investigation. Where is the money? Follow the money, guys!”
Advertisements(California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation)
Derrick ‘Bo’ Taylor, 56
from Oxnard, Calif.
Derrick “Bo” Taylor wasn’t sure he would make it to the Route 91 Harvest festival in Las Vegas. His companion had given him tickets for his 56th birthday, but days before the first country singers took the stage, Taylor was 550 miles from his home in Southern California.
Taylor, a state correctional officer for 29 years, was overseeing a team of inmates helping battle a wildfire in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest, in the northern part of the state. Lightning started what was called the Berry Fire on Sept. 12. It burned nearly 1,000 acres before it was under control Sept. 28, just in time for Taylor to make his trip.
He was killed, along with his companion, Denise Cohen, three days later.
“He was a real gentleman,” said Leana Orsua, who was friends with both Cohen and Taylor.
Taylor and Cohen had met about three years ago. She lived in Carpinteria, he 30 miles down the California coast in Oxnard. Orsua said the couple’s romantic relationship had slowed in the past year, though they remained close friends.
They flew together to Las Vegas and checked into a hotel on the Strip, about two miles from the concert venue. They posed for a picture, standing arm in arm in front of a Budweiser sign.
On Wednesday, Taylor’s son Kyle, 31, said he was in Las Vegas waiting for the coroner to release his father’s body. He thought of his own sons, 2 and 4, and his brother’s three children, recalling how his father, strict with him, had softened once he became a grandfather of five.
“With my little ones, he was different,” Kyle said. “I’d tell them don’t make a mess and he’d tell me to just leave them alone.” Taylor made a competition out of everything, organizing races to the swing or chasing the 2-year-old around the sandbox. “He just liked to play.”
At work, Taylor was a respected lieutenant who was liked by his staff and inmates, who, once free, frequently approached him when they saw him in public and thanked him for his help. “’I got a job. I’m doing good,’” Kyle said he heard all too often.
The son added, “People liked him.”
Taylor was a supervisor at the Sierra Conservation Center, a minimum- and maximum-security prison outside Oxnard that trains inmates in firefighting techniques and then helps place them in jobs when they are released.
About 110 inmates there were assigned to “camps” led by Taylor, who took them in groups to forests and wildfires around the state. They were sometimes gone for weeks or months at a time. While there, the inmates, under the direction of state firefighters, hiked into mountains and forests, clearing brush and trees to create fire lines to prevent flames from advancing. They did not fight the actual fires, but their work was grueling and dangerous.
Taylor had been in charge of such camps for 17 years.
For part of August and all of September, Taylor took his inmate team on the road, hitting several fires in the state. The last, the Berry Fire, burned nearly 1,000 acres over 16 days near California’s largest national forest.
“I just met Lieutenant Taylor at the Berry Fire,” one person wrote jn a tribute on the website for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. “My husband and I were doing laundry for the crews. He would come by and we would visit. He was such a wonderful man.”
Said another: “Unbelievable. If you crossed paths with Bo Taylor you were blessed to have known him.”
Kyle described his father as an easygoing man who didn’t take his stressful job home and liked nothing more than to take his grandchildren to the park.
He said his father once told him, “It doesn’t hurt to be nice.”
— Peter Hermann
Read moreOn Saturday, January 5, over 1,000 breastfeeding mothers, children, and the friends that stand in support of them gathered peacefully at Hollister stores around the United States and Canada.
More than 50 mothers participated at the Galleria Mall in Houston, Texas, the Hollister store that sparked the nurse-in. Days before the nurse-in, one of the Houston store’s managers screamed at Brittany Warfield and forced her to leave for nursing her baby in the store. You can see video about Houston’s nurse-in at KHOU.com.
Unfortunately, Brittany was not the only mother illegally harrassed for breastfeeding in a mall recently. We’ve heard reports of mothers being harassed at the nurse-ins at Lakeland Square Mall in Florida and at the Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg, IL (but security later apologized!), and one mother saw a bathroom stall in the Siver City Galleria Mall in Taunton, MA set up for mothers to breastfeed (the toilet had been replaced by a rocking chair and a mall employee confirmed that was the intended use; read more at the link). Ew.
Sadly, it gets worse. In Wilmington, Delaware, Diana Hitchens and two other mothers participated in the Hollister nurse-in at the Concord Mall. Two security guards approached the mothers in a seating area outside of Hollister and asked them to remove the signs they had on their strollers (the women had made signs that said something about normalizing nursing in public) and move to another part of the mall. The mothers took the signs down but continued to breastfeed in their chairs, as they are allowed to do by Delaware law.
The security guards then apparently asked local police to intervene due to the mothers’ “indecent exposure.” The police spoke with the mothers, but the officers did not take any action after Diana showed them a copy of Delaware’s law that protects breastfeeding pairs.
Del. Code Ann. tit. 31 § 310 (1997): Notwithstanding any provisions of law to the contrary, a mother shall be entitled to breast-feed her child in any location of a place of public accommodation wherein the mother is otherwise permitted.
After the police officers left, the security guards threatened the mothers with removal if they nursed again and followed the mothers throughout the mall.
When mothers on Facebook heard about the Concord Mall’s security guards’ actions, they posted on the mall’s Facebook page, asking why the guards were allowed to violate state law. Concord Mall’s response was shocking.
This is one of the mall’s exchanges as captured in the screen shot below:
When this exchange (and others like it) were shared on Facebook, the outrage was immediate. Women from across the U.S. began writing and calling Concord Mall to denounce their company’s deplorable treatment of mothers.
In a poorly executed effort to cover any evidence of wrongdoing, it appears that Concord Mall’s management has disabled its Facebook page. In its responses to several women who have emailed to express their disgust, Concord Mall management denies that it ever had a Facebook page and attempts to distance itself from the security guards in question.
The detective work of several mothers, however, seem to show that Concord Mall is being dishonest. Concord Mall’s website prominently features a link to its Facebook page with this URL: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Concord-Mall/262301207123393
Digging a little further, you can see what looks like business-appropriate activity on a Facebook page for Concord Mall in Google’s cached pages. Google’s cached version matches the URL of the Facebook link on the company’s site. (This is Google’s cache of http://www.facebook.com/pages/Concord-Mall/262301207123393).
Additionally, a Concord Mall employee confirmed to one mother by phone that Concord Mall does maintain a Facebook page that is controlled by mall management.
Concord Mall’s actions are unconscionable. As I wrote in my call to action letter to Concord Mall management,
First, please educate your employees about the rights of breastfeeding pairs. If you need help finding materials or someone to lead an informational session, I will help you find a qualified volunteer from Best for Babes or NursingFreedom.org, or an attorney, Lactation Counselor, or La Leche League leader in your area. Second, you can also display signs that identify your facility as “breastfeeding friendly.” Third, we ask that you issue a formal and public apology for the actions of your employees – not only in humiliating the breastfeeding mothers, but for the ignorant and disgusting comments on your public Facebook page.
You can read the letter in its entirety at Code Name: Mama, and I encourage you to call and write to the mall’s management yourself. They must be made aware that treating women and children this way is illegal, immoral, and we will not allow it to stand.
Calling and asking to talk to management is more effective than writing. Just have a few talking points written down, and calmly tell them how you feel. The number for the Concord Mall is (302) 478-9271. Please be polite.
You can follow up by emailing your concerns. Here are several email addresses you can send your message to:
Ed Tennyson etennyson@alliedrealprop.com
Jim Oeste joeste@alliedrealprop.com
info@alliedrealprop.com
We need to harness the emotions running high from these nurse-ins and make some positive change across the country. If you live in a state with no enforcement provision for your breastfeeding law, or if your state’s breastfeeding law is inadequate or nonexistent, take action! Let’s join together to protect the rights of breastfeeding pairs.
And please help keep our 1-855-NIP-FREE Nursing Harassment Hotline Alive! Your donations, no matter how small make it possible to provide this badly-need public service to moms and babies!
_________________________
Dionna is a lawyer turned work at home mama of two amazing kids, Kieran and Ailia. You can normally find Dionna over at Code Name: Mama where she shares information, resources, and her thoughts on natural parenting and life with little ones. Dionna is also cofounder of Natural Parents Network and NursingFreedom.org, and author of For My Children: A Mother’s Journal of Memories, Wishes, and Wisdom.
All photos used with permission.
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access to the game faster.
Note, that a Replay Button will be available only for new attacks. Old replays are not available any more.
Good luck in dungeons!WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. telecommunications operators should not do business with China’s top network equipment makers because potential Chinese state influence on the companies poses a security threat, the U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence Committee said in a report on Monday.
The report follows an 11-month investigation by the committee into Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and its smaller rival, ZTE Corp.
The companies have been fighting an uphill battle to overcome U.S. lawmakers’ suspicions and expand in the United States after becoming key players in the worldwide market.
The House Intelligence Committee’s bipartisan concerns are bound to set back the companies’ U.S. prospects and may also lead to new strains in trade ties between the United States and China, the world’s two biggest economies.
Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, at a press conference to release the report, said companies that had used Huawei equipment had reported “numerous allegations” of unexpected behavior, including routers supposedly sending large data packs to China late at night.
The panel cited what it called long-term security risks supposedly linked with the companies’ equipment and services. It did not provide any hard evidence to back up its concerns, at least not in the unclassified version of the report.
Rogers, a Michigan Republican who is a former FBI agent, said lawmakers’ concerns had been heightened by what he and the panel’s top Democrat, C.A. Ruppersberger of Maryland, described as the companies’ lack of full cooperation with the investigation.
If the committee’s warnings about doing business with Huawei and ZTE prompt the Chinese government to get out of the business of cyber espionage, a growing U.S. concern, “then that’s great,” he added.
The committee recommended that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, an inter-agency group that evaluates the national security risks of foreign investments, should block any deals involving Huawei or ZTE.
Government contractors and private-sector companies should seek other vendors for their network equipment, the panel said.
Rogers, responding to a question at the press conference, stopped short of urging a U.S. boycott of mobile phones and other handheld devices made by Huawei and ZTE.
The panel’s warning pertains only to devices that involve processing of data on a large scale, he said, not Huawei- and ZTE-made mobile phones.
Employee-owned Huawei is the world’s second-biggest maker of routers, switches and other telecommunications equipment after Sweden’s Ericsson. ZTE ranks fifth.
The panel said it had received credible allegations suggesting Huawei may be guilty of bribery and corruption, discriminatory behavior and copyright infringement.
Such allegations will be referred to the Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security for investigation, the panel said. A spokesman for the Justice Department, Dean Boyd, declined to comment.
‘RUMORS AND SPECULATIONS’
The committee’s warning comes as Huawei weighs a possible initial public offering, sources said, as part of an effort to overcome suspicions that have all but blocked its U.S. efforts, including business tie-ins.
Huawei denounced the findings, which it said “employs many rumors and speculations to prove non-existent accusations.”
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-MI) (L) and Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD) hold a news conference to release a report on "national security threats posed by Chinese telecommunications companies Huawei and ZTE" on Capitol Hill in Washington October 8, 2012. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas
“We have to suspect that the only purpose of such a report is to impede competition and obstruct Chinese (telecom) companies from entering the U.S. market,” Huawei said.
ZTE, in a newly released copy of a letter to the committee, said it “profoundly disagrees” with allegations that it is directed or controlled by the Chinese government.
“ZTE should not be a focus of this investigation to the exclusion of the much larger Western vendors,” it said.
Zeus Kerravala, a networking equipment analyst at ZK research, said the effect of the congressional probe was to hand the market to Ericsson and Altactel-Lucent because he does not see any U.S. firm able to compete, for instance, with wireless technology.
ZTE’s Hong Kong-listed shares fell as much as 3.4 percent early on Monday.
Huawei’s U.S. sales totaled $1.3 billion last year, a small fraction of its worldwide sales of $32.4 billion. Handheld devices accounted for about three-fourths of Huawei sales in the United States last year, including via T-Mobile, AT&T and Sprint.
ZTE’s U.S. telecom infrastructure equipment sales last year were less than $30 million. In contrast, two of the larger Western vendors alone had combined U.S. sales that topped $14 billion, ZTE has said, alluding to Espoo, Finland-based Nokia Siemens Networks and Paris-based Alcatel Lucent.
GLOBAL PLAYERS
Huawei and ZTE, which are both based in Shenzhen, China, are rapidly becoming “dominant global players” in the telecommunications market, the report said. It noted that telecoms are intertwined with computerized controls for electric power grids; banking and finance systems; gas, oil and water systems; and rail and shipping.
The National Counterintelligence Executive, a U.S. intelligence arm, said in a landmark public report a year ago that “Chinese actors are the world’s most active and persistent perpetrators of economic espionage.”
China has also been a frequent target on the campaign trail, with President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney both saying the United States needs to get tougher on China for alleged abusive trade practices.
The committee’s report criticized Huawei and ZTE for failing to answer questions or provide documentation regarding their business activities in Iran. In the case of ZTE, the report said the company “consistently declined to comment on recent media reports that ZTE had sold export-controlled items to Iran.”
Reuters reported in March and April that ZTE had sold banned U.S. computer equipment to Iran’s largest telecom firm. ZTE also agreed last year to ship millions of dollars worth of additional U.S. tech products to a unit of the consortium that controls the telecom firm. The Reuters stories have sparked investigations by the Commerce Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
In the wake of those allegations, Cisco Systems has ended a longstanding sales partnership with ZTE Corp.
“MEANS, OPPORTUNITY, MOTIVE”
Huawei and ZTE may not be the only companies that present a risk to U.S. infrastructure, the committee’s report said, but they are the two largest Chinese-founded, Chinese-owned companies seeking to market critical network equipment in the United States.
Beijing has the “means, opportunity and motive” to use them to its own ends, it added.
The report underscores how little return Huawei in particular has gotten from its significant investment in lobbying in Washington after suffering a number of high-profile setbacks.
Slideshow (10 Images)
In 2008, Huawei and private equity firm Bain Capital were forced to give up their bid for 3Com Corp after a U.S. panel rejected the deal because of national security concerns. Then in 2011, the company was forced to relinquish plans to buy some assets from U.S. server technology firm 3Leaf after the Committee on Foreign Investment mandated that Huawei divest certain parts of the deal.
The company has brought on seven firms registered to lobby U.S. lawmakers, including APCO, Doyce Boesch and Fleishman-Hillard, according to forms filed under the lobbying disclosure act. That is up from four firms in 2011, two in 2010 and one in 2009.My Climate Change
Decades of reporting on climate science and the climate policy debate have led me through a long evolution in my thinking, and I hope to a little practical wisdom.
Some things just seem too momentous to keep in mind. One is the planet we’re living on. We’re on the third rock from the sun twenty-four hours a day, but I’ve only been to one place where that awareness is enforced by nature. Squatting on a floe of eight-foot-thick sea ice at the North Pole, drifting on the 14,300-foot-deep Arctic Ocean hundreds of miles from land, with everything in every direction south and the sun circling the horizon, you absolutely feel you are on a planet.
Another momentous thing we hardly ever think about is the thing we think with: the brain. I think about mine now quite a bit, ever since a hot July day in 2011 when my eyes started telling me conflicting stories about the nature of the world as I huffed and strained to keep up with my far fitter son running up a steep trail in the woods near my home.
My left eye told me the world was paisley. The right eye insisted all was well. I called out; we returned home. I took a shower and some aspirin, wondering if I could be having a stroke. My son drove me to the hospital. It wasn’t a stroke... yet.
By the next morning, it was. From my hospital bed, I began reporting and blogging and tweeting about stroke risk and treatment—at least as well as I could in a hunt-and-peck way, given that my right hand didn’t work well for about a month. The stroke made me confront that critical human operating system in my skull for the first time.
I’d had the rarer kind of stroke that hits younger people who are not typical stroke candidates. Part of my drive to write about my experience was fueled by my desire to raise awareness; one tweet from the hospital was, “Don’t stress your carotid arteries if you like your brain and the things it does for you.” But my writing wasn’t all selfless. Turning to journalism allowed no emotional space for absorbing the jarring reality that the white spots in my brain scan showed I was breakable—that something as basic as dexterity, let alone a long healthy life, was no longer a given. (Fortunately, I recovered fully, but there was no guarantee that would be the case.) Reporting on my stroke as a medical and health care problem allowed me to treat it as an intellectual puzzle rather than an emotional crisis—to levitate above my mortality instead of confronting it, deeply feeling it, embracing it.
Some challenges are so grand and momentous that anxiety seems, at best, a waste of time and energy in confronting them. It occurs to me, looking back, that my approach to my stroke parallels, in a strange way, my approach to another almost incomprehensibly large challenge: that of how we face climate change. I have spent thirty years covering the growing human influence on the atmosphere and climate—how profoundly, irreversibly, and consequentially we are changing one of Earth’s critical operating systems. In essence, we have been learning, as uncomfortably as we navigate puberty, that our only planet is somewhat breakable.
And yet, I find global warming doesn’t worry me—at least not in a gut-twisting, obsessive way. Rather, a stripped-down agnostic version of the Serenity Prayer has come to mind lately as I’ve grappled with humanity’s “only one planet” predicament: change what can be changed, accept what can’t, and know the difference. Science can help clarify which is which.
With that mix in mind, in both making the most of a finite life and limiting regrets related to global climate change, it seems necessary to integrate two seemingly incompatible traits: urgency and patience. Since my stroke, I’ve struggled to balance the need to slow down with a rising sense of urgency related to the years ticking down. In my environmental journalism, the result has been lifelong engagement and, more recently, acceptance (if not full-scale embrace) of a lot of inconvenient truths that weren’t in Al Gore’s film.
I used to think of my reporting as a thousand separate stories. But I can see, as I age, that it is in fact one story—a single meandering learning journey with more than a few wrong turns, surprises, and reversals, starting with a dancing bivalve and scribbled death threat in the late 1960s. I didn’t start out wanting to be a journalist; my first fascination, as my childhood was coming to an end, was with biology. Charmed into the undersea world by Jacques Cousteau, I was taken by surprise one summer while snorkeling where a small river meets the sea not far from my Rhode Island home. A bay scallop, trying to evade me, jetted through the sea grass by castanet-clapping its corrugated shells, which were surreally fringed by fleshy curtains flecked with tiny glinting blue eyes.
I quickly moved from embracing nature to defending it. A small patch of woods and fields behind our house remained untouched amid the expanding suburban grid of streets and lawns. Around age fourteen, on one of my regular after-school walks through the trees, I encountered a bulldozer parked in a fresh-cut clearing near my favorite spruce. I placed a scribbled warning on the seat, something like Whoever chops down this tree will suffer a horrible death. (A few decades would pass before I reflected back on that bulldozer encounter and realized I had never considered that a bulldozer, just a few years earlier, had cleared the tract our house occupied.)
In high school, a teacher let me and a friend build and refine a crude wave tank in lieu of writing a paper. I loved reshaping the cardboard baffles I taped over an aquarium until the airflow from a fan blew across the water in the tank just right, forming perfect waves breaking on our artificial beach. The experience helped ignite my interest in science. I thought I might become a scientist, in fact, but biology studies at Brown University taught me that I didn’t have the close-focus temperament to pursue a Ph.D.
Finding my path
I shifted to journalism after winning a traveling fellowship just before graduation. My project was to study man’s relationship to the sea on some small islands, starting in French Polynesia. Three months in, I ended up studying my own relationship to the sea after encountering a Crew Wanted sign on a pier in Auckland, New Zealand, and signing up as first mate on a circumnavigating home-built sailboat, the Wanderlust.
That journey exposed me to the wonders and ills of a fast-changing world, including the sight of dozens of leopard skins piled on a street corner in Djibouti, at the base of the Red Sea, to entice French Foreign Legionnaires stationed there.
I felt a mix of anger and mission as I photographed the remains of those slaughtered cats, determined to tell their story. Where were they being killed? How could this be tolerated? A week or so later, riding a strong southerly wind up the Red Sea, we sheltered for a day or so in the lee of an uninhabited island off the coast of Yemen. Hiking to the windblown south-facing shore, I stumbled upon a random assortment of intact light bulbs—presumably cast from passing ships over many years—piled in drifts just above the tide line. Small inconsequential wounds to the world, building inexorably.
Energized by these experiences, I pursued journalism in graduate school and forged a path into magazines in the early 1980s—the heyday of science writing. At my first stop, Science Digest, I exposed pesticide perils, described the future of the automobile (at the time, the future was the Ford Taurus!), reported on the rise of the supercomputer, and more.
Fairly early on, I began probing what soon appeared to be the ultimate environmental story—our evolving and worrisome relationship with Earth’s atmosphere and climate. Until this point, most human assaults on nature were local—polluting a stream, felling a forest. Now, through booming populations and resource appetites, we were going global.
My first in-depth look at human-driven climate change, starting in 1984, focused on the dark sister of global warming—the Cold War prospect of a “nuclear winter.” This was the scary hypothesis that a nuclear war, by incinerating hundreds of cities, could cloak the planet in sun-blocking particles, disrupting agriculture and ecosystems around the world and thus undercutting the logic of a “Star Wars” missile defense. The authors of the key study, including Carl Sagan, had reached this result using computer models that had been built to study global warming as early as the 1950s but were becoming ever more sophisticated as computing power grew. The researchers called the hypothesized post-war chill the “anti-greenhouse effect.” The cover art for my article was an image of Earth frozen in an ice cube.
Subsequent analysis pointed to a more transitory climatic effect, which two climate scientists, Stephen H. Schneider and Starley L. Thompson, called “nuclear autumn” in one piece. Clearly less of a headline there. That pattern would pop up again and again in weighing environmental perils: newly discovered, they were stark and vivid, but in most cases, more science only led to more nuance and more questions—not a good mix for media thriving on stark drama.
Three years later, at Discover magazine, I was assigned to write a feature on global warming. Though only well understood by a handful of scientists and policymakers in the mid-1980s, research was revealing that human numbers and technological potency were changing the human-climate relationship in profound ways. Through nearly all of human history, this had been a one-way relationship. Weather patterns changed; ice sheets, coastlines, or deserts advanced or retreated; and communities thrived, suffered, or adjusted how or where they lived. But now, in subtle but measurable ways, the relationship was running in two directions, with enormous potential consequences.
A host of human activities, particularly the burning of fossil fuels and forests, were adding long-lived gases—most important, carbon dioxide—to the atmosphere. These gasses prevented some of the energy that arrived as visible sunlight from escaping as radiating heat. The imbalance guaranteed warming and resulting changes in climate, ice sheets, and sea levels with big implications for humans and other life. It soon became apparent, even back then, that this would be hard to reverse.
Climate change achieved headline status in 1988 because Yellowstone National Park and the Amazon rain forest were ablaze and the eastern United States baked in record heat. After testifying at a high-profile Senate hearing on global warming, James Hansen, the pioneering NASA climate scientist who would later become a climate activist, said, “The greenhouse effect has been detected and is changing our climate now.” Reporters who had been covering the Clean Air Act or endangered species or threats to the ozone layer had a big new story to tell.
It was a heady time. That year, I reported from the first World Conference on the Changing Atmosphere, in Toronto, where a keystone statement spelled out the momentous nature of what was unfolding: “Humanity is conducting an unintended, uncontrolled, globally pervasive experiment whose ultimate consequences could be second only to a global nuclear war.” The attendees recommended a 20% cut in emissions by 2005. The portentous cover art for my October 1988 climate article was the sweating Earth melting on a hot plate.
In the end, it is values and instincts and particular circumstances—economic and environmental and cultural—that determine what individuals and societies do.
The Toronto meeting, although relatively obscure, initiated the process leading to the first climate treaty, adopted at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, and the negotiations that have been under way ever since, most recently in Paris, to try to strengthen responses to the threat. Later that year, the American Museum of Natural History staged the first museum exhibition on climate change. Reflecting how much momentum had built around this issue and how mainstream environmentalism had become, the exhibit was co-sponsored by the Environmental Defense Fund and largely funded by the National Science Foundation.
I was invited to write the companion book for the exhibition, and I drew some pretty ominous word pictures to lay out the stakes. In a section on climate history, I described how we were growing potent enough, perhaps, to end the current geological epoch, the Holocene:
Perhaps earth scientists of the future will name this new post-Holocene era for its causative element—for us. We are entering an age that might someday be referred to as, say, the Anthrocene. After all, it is a geological age of our own making. The challenge now is to find a way to act that will make geologists of the future look upon this age as a remarkable time, a time in which a species began to take into account the long-term impact of its actions. The alternative may be to leave a legacy of irresponsibility and neglect of the biosphere that could eventually manifest itself in the fossil record as just one more mass extinction—like the record of bones and footprints left behind by the dinosaurs.
Actually, it was only eight years later, in 2000, that “scientists of the future”—the chemistry Nobelist Paul Crutzen and the biologist Eugene Stoermer—proposed that Earth had entered the Anthropocene (a more etymologically sound neologism). As an environmental writer, I was on a roll, with several awards signaling my skill at communicating environmental science. But flipping through my 1992 book now, I see some signs that I was a bit carried away with a sense of mission and more than a bit naïve about the scale of the global warming challenge. For example, there was no basis for this breathlessly optimistic line about how the adoption of the 1987 Montreal Protocol—designed to phase out chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and other chemicals threatening the planet’s protective ozone layer—could be a template for curbing carbon dioxide: “The lesson of CFCs can be applied directly to the looming problem of greenhouse warming.”
I hate finding inconsistencies in my own writing, but this line from elsewhere in the same book strongly implies that, even at the time, such a comparison was unduly optimistic:
Of course, eliminating a class of synthetic chemicals is a relatively simple task, as Pieter Winsemius, a former minister of the environment for the Netherlands explained to me at one greenhouse-effect meeting. Substitutes for these destructive compounds are already being developed, he said. “There are only thirty-eight companies worldwide that produce CFCs. You can put them all in one room; you can talk to them. But you can’t do that with the producers of carbon dioxide—all the world’s utilities and industries.” Gases such as carbon dioxide and methane are a byproduct of the processes at the heart of modern civilization: industry, transportation, power generation, and agriculture.
Carbon dioxide had little in common with pollutants of old, stray impurities produced during combustion (sulfur compounds, for example), which could be controlled relatively easily and affordably with filters or catalytic converters. In the case of CFCs, industry had swiftly moved ahead to develop more sustainable, and affordable, alternatives. And it turned out, surprise of surprises, that we didn’t really need aerosol hair spray and deodorants.
Carbon dioxide, in contrast, is a fundamental and long-lived byproduct of burning fossil fuels, and, even now, efforts to capture and store this gas permanently—at a scale relevant to the climate system—remain costly drawing-board pipe dreams. Adding to the challenge, billions of people benefit from the actions creating the risk—burning cheap fossil fuels, spreading fertilizer made with fossil energy, cutting down forests—while most of those who stand to suffer the worst predicted impacts haven’t yet been born. Too, unlike other pollutants, carbon dioxide is also a ubiquitous and normal component of the air—not to mention the bubbles in beer and every exhaled breath. Where’s the peril, the villain, in that?
A tougher audience
There was another tough reality I hadn’t fully absorbed yet. Science magazines, books, and museum shows were mainly preaching to the converted. Once I moved to The New York Times in the mid-1990s, the phenomenon of global warming itself became a tougher sell, both to my editors and the public. A stock-market correction, an earthquake, a particular hurricane: that’s news. But you’d never see a banner headline proclaiming Planet Warms, Coasts Flood, Species Vanish, People Flee even though all of these things are sure to happen in a human-heated world—over decades or generations, and always amid a mix of old-fashioned truly natural disasters.
Still, they were great years for reporting. The paper sent me far and wide. In 2003, after several years of trying, I made that North Pole trip, spending three days with scientists camped on the drifting sea ice near the North Pole, studying the shifting ocean conditions for clues to how warming would affect the region. My addictions to science and nature were never more fully fed. Squatting by the edge of an expanding opening in the ice—staring at formations called “frost flowers” that formed where the frigid but steaming water met the twenty-below-zero air—I was so mesmerized that a Russian camp worker had to rush over and physically pull me back.
Some part of me anticipated a hero’s welcome when I returned to the newsroom, towing a huge duffel of Arctic gear. After all, I had literally gone to the ends of the Earth. But the newspaper was embroiled in controversy: a young reporter, Jayson Blair, had been caught serially fabricating details in stories. An ambitious package of climate change articles planned that year was spiked as new management, more focused on core issues, settled in.
The path to the front page was through covering climate politics, not climate science. I think one reason the issue was covered so often through the lens of politics is that doing so made the solution seem easier. After all, the only thing missing was political will, campaigners insisted. Stories that had villains and heroes, the empowered and the powerless—those were (often appropriately) news.
I thrived under this model, too. Advancing in newspaper journalism is mostly about the “get”—publishing the telling piece of evidence, ideally uncovered through wile or enterprise, that lays bare some nefarious activity or portentous threat. I got a series of exclusives on the Bush administration’s meddling at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and other agencies. And in 2006, it was with some pleasure that I saw one of my front-page stories—about a former oil lobbyist who had softened the language in government climate change reports while in the Bush White House—scrolling on Al Gore’s laptop screen in An Inconvenient Truth.
By then, I’d written hundreds of newspaper and magazine stories as well as two books about global warming, burning rain forests, melting glaciers, and the rest. I was hitting the peak of my influence among Earth-loving activists and loving it. After all, I was among my kin, in essence, as a liberal, Ivy League, middle-class Northeasterner. My responsibilities as a journalist were, at least at that moment, aligned with my longtime passion for protecting the environment.
Climate apostasy
But then my underlying hunger for reality spoiled things.
I saw a widening gap between what scientists had been learning about global warming and what advocates were claiming as they pushed ever harder to pass climate legislation or strengthen the faltering 1992 climate change treaty. Mind you, there was usually a much bigger gap between the science and the views of industry supporters defending fossil fuels or fighting environmental regulations or taxes. But to me, the monumental nature of the task facing those trying to move the world away from fossil fuels called for extra attention to detail.
Maybe, as the climate scientist Thomas Crowley later proposed, I was also prone to a kind of “reverse tribalism”—a variant on Groucho Marx’s aversion to being a member of a club that would have him as a member.
Thus it was that I found myself diverting from the pack—and not just environmental campaigners. In early April 2006, Time magazine ran a cover story intoning “Be Worried. Be Very Worried.” That would really kick people into acting, right? Well, no, I learned, as I began interviewing behavioral scientists about what prompts people to act or recoil. On Earth Day weekend that year, I wrote a piece titled “Yelling Fire on a Hot Planet,” which noted how hyperbole not only didn’t fit the science at the time but could even be counterproductive if the hope was to engage a distracted public. I always stressed that uncertainty was not a reason to relax, but warned that downplaying known unknowns simply empowered those seeking no action at all.
In 2006, I was part of a team of reporters at The Times that undertook a multi-year series called “The Energy Challenge” (nytimes.com/energychallenge), examining what it would take to deeply cut reliance on coal, oil, and gas, and move to climate-friendly technologies. The deeper we dug, the more we ran into enormous disconnects between the data and the claims. It was very clear that any transition to clean energy would be neither simple nor quick—and it wasn’t only for lack of political will.
I toured labs at Caltech with Nate Lewis, a chemist focused on improving solar panel performance. He described the challenge of transforming America’s fossil-dominated energy systems this way: “We already have electricity coming out of everybody’s wall socket. This is not a new function we’re seeking. It’s a substitution. It’s not like NASA sending a man to the moon. It’s like finding a new way to send a man to the moon when Southwest Airlines is already flying there every hour, handing out peanuts.”
And then there was the other end of the energy spectrum—areas of the world where electricity wasn’t coming out of a socket for hundreds of millions of people because there was no socket, or light bulb. More than a billion people lacked a way to cook that didn’t produce clouds of toxic indoor smoke. It became vividly clear that the world will need far more clean energy than even fossil fuels are currently providing as the human population heads toward a predicted mid-century peak of nine billion or so and poor nations push to improve well-being. The gap in energy access has contributed to rising tensions in the climate talks between nations that have already prospered burning fossil fuels, with prosperity reducing vulnerability to climate hazards, and those where hundreds of millions of people still cook in the dark on dried dung or firewood, with millions dying young each year from avoidable indoor pollution.
Renewable electricity sources like solar panels could help in many places that probably will never see a conventional power grid. But swelling cities need central power plants, as well. I took some consolation in looking back at my very first climate story, from 1988, and seeing a line which warned that this issue would loom: “[E]ven as the developed nations of the world cut back on fossil fuel use, there will be no justifiable way to prevent the Third World from expanding its use of coal and oil.” Great. I had seen it coming. Maybe we all had. But that foresight didn’t make the challenge now any smaller.
Journalism’s norms also required considering the full range of views on a complex issue like climate change, where science only delineated the risk but societal responses would always be a function of considering various tradeoffs. In 2007, I included Bjorn Lomborg’s climate book, Cool It, in a roundup of voices from “the pragmatic center.”
Lomborg, a Danish political scientist, became a widely quoted contrarian pundit after the publication of The Skeptical Environmentalist, a previous book that had challenged—and was vigorously challenged by—the environmental science community.
Given how Lomborg hadn’t resisted having his arguments wielded by factions seeking no action to cut climate change risks, my description of him was not apt.
But the reaction from longtime contacts in environmental science was like a digital sledgehammer. An e-mail string excoriating the story was forwarded to me in hopes I would understand how far I had strayed. In the exchange, one of the country’s top sustainability scientists told the others: “I think I’m going to throw up. I kept trying to believe that Andy was quite good, albeit subject to occasional lapses as well as rightward pressure from NYT higher-ups. But this is really too much. We have all over-rated him.”
The intensity of feelings, the divergent views of data, prompted me to examine old questions in new ways. For twenty years, I’d been reporting on climate change as a mechanistic geophysical problem with biological implications and technical, economic, or regulatory solutions. As a science writer, I was so focused on the puzzle that, I suddenly realized, I had neglected to consider why so little was happening and why so many people found the issue boring or inconsequential.
As I dug deeper into studies of human behavior and risk misperception—a different kind of science—much of what I learned posed potent, nearly existential questions, especially for a journalist. Like many of my friends in environmental sciences and journalism, I had long assumed the solution to global warming was, basically, clearer communication: fresh innovation in mixing pictures and words, video and graphics, different metaphors. If we could just explain the problem more clearly, people would see it more clearly, and then they would change.
There were countless attempts, often relying on metaphor:
Climate is your personality; weather is your mood.
Carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere is like water flowing into a tub faster than the drain can remove it—and the drain is getting clogged. (The bathtub effect!)
The greenhouse effect is building like unpaid credit card debt. Reducing spending doesn’t eliminate the debt.
There was, of course, the simmering frog failing to jump out of the pan.
On my blog, I tried breaking the language down to clear up disputes over which climate science conclusions were established and which remained uncertain. But I came to realize that the answer could not be found in clever slogans. Empirical studies and a batch of surveys pointed to a set of biases, reflexes, and cognitive filters that almost guaranteed failure in trying to galvanize broad action on global warming given the long time scales, enduring uncertainties, geographic spread, and lack of quick fixes.
One finding, by the British climate communication expert George Marshall, obliterated one of my longstanding assumptions—that people with children were more likely to be concerned about climate change because of its impact on their offspring. He found that, in fact, parents often appeared less concerned because they were so fixated on the day-to-day challenges of raising a family. Then there’s status quo bias (we overvalue the way things are), confirmation bias (we select information to reinforce established views), and motivated reasoning (even when we think we’re thinking objectively, we’re not).
I looked into the “cultural cognition” research of Dan Kahan, a professor of law and psychology at Yale, who has the animated mannerisms and wardrobe of Quentin Tarantino. Among a host of sobering findings, he showed that scientific literacy abounded at both ends of the spectrum of beliefs on global warming. So I tried a little experiment: I sifted for Nobel laureates in physics who’d expressed strong views on global warming. It turned out there was one to suit just about anyone’s argument, from deep worry to total unconcern.
As a journalist in my fifties, pondering how to make the most of the rest of my productive years, this was a more profound blow than that stinging e-mail from former fans years earlier. It was even worse than hearing Rush Limbaugh, from the other side, suggest in 2009 that if I really thought people were the worst thing for the planet, I should just kill myself.
A new path
Ultimately, the insights that these findings revealed helped drive my decision late that year to leave full-time reporting for academia. (Of course, journalism itself was going through profound changes at the same time, and my growing conviction to try new paths fortuitously coincided with an attractive buyout offer.)
The job title I concocted for my position at Pace University—Senior Fellow for Environmental Understanding—was meant to reflect that I was exploring how to make information matter, but in a new way. My Dot Earth blog moved to the Opinion side of The Times in 2010, but, as I stated at the time, my opinion was still that reality matters.
I hardly gave up communicating. In fact, I write more than ever, and I teach others how to make the most of the rapidly changing online information environment. It’s changing even faster than humans are changing the biophysical environment.
And the more time I’ve spent focusing on that sobering behavioral research, the more I’m realizing that it points to distinct opportunities to make progress on climate-smart energy steps and policies, which can create more resilient communities. Paradoxically, though, in some instances this would require something odd: not talking about global warming at all. Most powerfully, a recent nationwide analysis by researchers at Yale and Utah State University found that although asking questions about global warming reveals muted passions on both ends of America’s deeply polarized political map, asking different questions can mute the differences. For example, both red and blue voters strongly support investing in more research on renewable energy sources and regulating carbon dioxide as a power plant pollutant.
There are plenty of other examples across the board. There are libertarians who crave the taste of energy independence that comes with a rooftop solar panel. There are liberals who hate the idea that taxpayers should pay the bill when people who build repeatedly in flood zones get reimbursed under federal insurance policies that don’t reflect the real risk.
And as that national survey showed, there is widespread support for invigorating this country’s lagging investments in basic sciences related to better battery technology or solar panels, more efficient vehicles and electrical grids, and possibly even a new generation of nuclear plants. It’s time: American investment in basic research in energy-related sciences has been a dribble for decades compared to the money poured into science in other areas, such as defense and homeland security or the cancer fight.
And yet, it’s important to remember that science doesn’t always lead in directions you might expect.
Take, for example, fracking, shorthand for the hydraulic fracturing technology that has greatly expanded access to oil and gas reserves that were thought to be untappable. The roots of this technology lay in federally funded research that sat dormant until pioneering energy entrepreneurs, spurred by declining gas and oil supplies, adopted it. (I’ve been supportive of tightly regulated fracking but recognize that this leads to a longer tail on the era of gas and oil than those proclaiming Peak Oil foresaw.)
Here’s the other problem: science doesn’t tell you what to do.
The climate scientist Ken Caldeira, who studied philosophy in college, likes to paraphrase the 18th-century philosopher David Hume when describing the line between values and data: “You can’t get an ought from an is.”
In the end, it is values and instincts and particular circumstances—economic and environmental and cultural—that determine what individuals and societies do. In open societies, and in a variegated global discourse on climate vulnerability and energy access, that means there will inevitably be divergent stances and tradeoffs.
Those of us with a science bias expect that proper research will lead us to a menu of objective fixes, but you have to realize that even a passion for investing in science as the source of answers is the result of a value judgment.
It was Pete Seeger who helped me understand this as we sat in the kitchen of his hand-hewn home tucked high on the wooded |
by Raju, and we still don’t have a conviction.
The government may promise anything to satisfy public anger, but this is only to enable us to get on with our lives and forget about what is enraging us today. It may even convict the gangrape perpetrators in double-quick time; but that isn't ultimately the point. We don't want one quick conviction to be the exception that proves the rule.
What we need to understand is that better policing, better investigations, guards in buses, more women policepersons, and fast-track courts are necessary conditions for improving the situation, but they are not sufficient to end the more deep-rooted misogyny that lies within our hearts – not only in the hearts of men, but also women of the old school who have been compromising with mindless patriarchy for ages. For more enduring change we need a social transformation. This can come about only by developing leaders from the community who are selfless, and who do not have an axe to grind.
India has produced such leaders in the past – from the Buddha to Gandhi and Ambedkar – but we are not talking here only about the ones who rose head and shoulders above the rest, but leaders at every level in society.
The Lokpal movement did bring some such leaders to the fore – new ones like Arvind Kejriwal and some others. But one Kejriwal who rises in front of TV cameras is not enough. We need more Kejriwals who will work far away from the limelight, in areas where TV cameras cannot, should not or will not reach.
The movement that began after the horrific gangrape also needs to produce many, many more such grassroots leaders at the national, regional and local levels.
Leadership is not about someone who can make a speech or galvanise people, but also about taking charge of any situation we all find ourselves in.
Everyone of us can be a leader – in our homes, in our workplaces, in public places. But more than anything else, the leadership we need to show is to ourselves: we have to become the change we wish to see in society, as Gandhi used to say.
We have to become leaders ourselves to show our public leaders how to lead. We have to get active.
Most important, this is a movement that women should seek to lead – to protect themselves, to be self-reliant, to teach us, and to help us all evolve into better human beings. The men can follow and support.
Firstpost is now on WhatsApp. For the latest analysis, commentary and news updates, sign up for our WhatsApp services. Just go to Firstpost.com/Whatsapp and hit the Subscribe button.Three months after the police attack on teacher training students in Guerrero, Mexico, which left 6 people dead and 43 disappeared, more details are emerging which cast even more doubts on the official version of events and the level of complicity of the state in the affair.
On the night of September 26, police officers from Iguala, Guerrero, stopped and opened fire on coaches transporting students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teacher Training College. Three students and another three people were killed in repeated attacks over a period of several hours. Police officers from Iguala and nearby Cocula then chased the surviving students and took away 43 of them. To this day they have not yet been found.
From the very beginning it was clear that the local mayor of Iguala, his wife and his head of local police were part of this crime and are heavily involved with a local drug cartel. They fled and were later arrested. The regional governor of Guerrero was also forced to resign because of complicity in the case.
The Mexican government has tried everything to make the case go away. They ignored it for weeks. Then they tried to shift the blame to local officials only. They attempted to bribe the relatives of the disappeared students. It was only the courageous struggle of the families, the Ayotzinapa students and their allies and supporters in Guerrero and throughout the country which has kept the demand for justice alive. Hundreds of thousands have marched in the capital Mexico City, there have been demonstrations in dozens of other state capitals and also abroad. Students nationwide have participated in several strikes. In the state of Guerrero itself the movement has acquired insurrectionary proportions, with the occupation of local town halls, the burning of official buildings and those of the ruling parties and the strengthening of the arming of the people in the “community police”.
All of this forced the government to come up with a story which could help them bury the case and put an end to the protests. The State Attorney declared that members of the Guerreros Unidos drug gang had confessed to having taken the students, killed them and burnt their bodies in an operation which lasted for 15 hours in a rubbish dump in Cocula, and then the remains were thrown into a nearby river. The families of the disappeared students rejected this explanation as the state had not produced any evidence backing it. A large number of bodies and human remains had been found in several mass graves, but none of them had been identified as belonging to any of the Ayotzinapa students.
Then, as the struggle for justice was growing stronger, the state announced that DNA found in human remains recovered from the river had been identified by experts in Austria as belonging to one of the students, Alexander Mora. On this basis, the president himself made an appeal to the families to “get over it” and move on, which further enraged the movement. The relatives, again, demanded to know the whole truth.
In the last week, more evidence has surfaced which casts doubt on the official government version of events.
First of all, local people pointed out that on the night in which the incineration of the bodies of the 43 students had allegedly been carried out by the drug gang, it had been pouring down with rain, which would have made the burning almost impossible or at least extremely difficult.
Then the Argentinean forensic team working in the search for the kidnapped students declared that they did not witness the finding of the remains which had been identified by the Austrian forensic team as belonging to one of the students. When they arrived, the bags containing the remains had already been opened and moved by the police. The relatives suspect that the remains had been planted.
A team of researchers from the UNAM university also published a detailed study which concludes that the official version is highly implausible, based on many different aspects, including the amount of combustible material and fuel which would have been necessary to incinerate 43 bodies, and the smoke plume which it would have created which should have been seen from a great distance. (Full text of the study).
The most damning evidence to have surfaced so far has been uncovered in a special report published by the magazine Proceso. The main points of the Proceso revelations are:
That the Ayotzinapa students were under state security surveillance as a result of their political activities. That the C4 security structure (which all police forces have access to, including the federal police and the army) reported the arrival of the Ayotzinapa students in Iguala and the local police opening fire on them, as these events were taking place. This would destroy the government contention that they did not find out what was happening until after the event. Mobile phone video recordings by the students appear to show federal police at the scene as the students are being shot at by local police. The government’s version of the story relies solely on the testimony of members of the Guerreros Unidos drug cartel, but these accounts were obtained under torture which casts doubt on their veracity and would rule them inadmissible in court. On two separate occasions the Ministry of Interior (Secretaria de Gobernacion) offered money to the relatives to make the case go away.
This confirms what the movement for justice for the disappeared students had been saying all along: “Fue el Estado” (The State did it). This political conclusion goes to the heart of what this case is about and it is also the reason why the Peña Nieto government can never fully reveal the truth about it. There is a web of complicity and collusion between organised crime, the main political parties, the state apparatus and big banks and corporations. In turn they are linked to big multinationals, mining corporations, the interests of US imperialism and the international banking system.
The attack on the Ayotzinapa students brings together all of the following factors. The direct role played by the PRD and the fact that local police acted in conjunction with the drug cartels. The militancy of the Teacher Training College students in defence of their institution, a conquest of the Mexican revolution which the state wants to abolish. The fact that the federal state had subjected them to surveillance for their political views. The state of Guerrero as the site of ferocious struggle by the democratic teachers’ union against the education counter-reform. The state of Guerrero as one of the places where the armed self-defence of the peasant communities has reached a higher degree of organisation. The state of Guerrero as a battleground between powerful Canadian mining corporations and the rights of the indigenous communities.
All of this makes the demand for justice and the struggle for the truth about what happened to the 43 students who were disappeared by the state, one which questions the whole of the capitalist system in Mexico.
This is the reason why the government has resorted to all means at its disposal to make it go away: ignoring it, bribing the families, sacrificing scapegoats, selective and more widespread repression against those struggling for justice and truth, etc.
If we take all of this into account, the conclusion is unavoidable: the movement for the Ayotzinapa 43 must be linked to a wider movement against capitalism and its rotten state in Mexico.
19 December 2014First came the joy, as he threw his arms into the air, energizing the crowd.
Then, as he approached the finish the raw emotion came over him. His hand moved to his mouth, tears began to stream down his face, which scrunched up as the gravity of what he had just achieved came over him.
On Sunday in Park City, Utah, Australian Lachlan Morton (Jelly Belly-Maxxis) crossed the finish line alone and collapsed to the ground, the effort rendering him unable to stand. His team manager came and coaxed him up into an immense hug, lifting him off the ground. His father, David, was there, his pride shining through.
After the podium champagne had been sprayed and drank, and the media poked and prodded his mind for thoughts, Morton strolled down to his team camper, where the celebration had already begun. He hugged and high-fived everyone in sight and popped a beer, before finally heading over to anti-doping.
Morton emphatically captured the overall title of the 2016 Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah with a ride of pure class on the final day, as the race traversed the brutally steep climb of Empire Pass.
With heavy rain, hail, and an attack by the yellow jersey creating a nervous run-in to the final climb, Morton was put between a rock and a hard place, but he didn’t waver. He “stuck to his guns,” he explained, and entrusted his Jelly Belly teammates, as the small Continental squad from California pulled off the upset, beating WorldTour powerhouses such as Cannondale-Drapac, BMC Racing, and Trek-Segafredo.
It was Morton’s second UCI stage-race victory of 2016, following his overall win at the Tour of the Gila in May.
“I’ve had a pretty tough few years since the last time I raced well here,” Morton said. “A lot of changes in my life and to get back to this top step, it’s very special and there’s a lot of people involved in that. There were a lot of things going through my head. Mainly just all of the people who’ve continued to support me when things weren’t good. It’s easy for guys to come out and congratulate you and pat you on the back when you do something good, but when you’re down and out, that is when you realize who your friends are. I guess I was thinking about all those people and those tough moments.
“I think I’ve learned now not to look too far ahead. I think it’s important to just take stock from what I’ve managed to do this season and just even today and just celebrate that and enjoy that. It’s easy to look at next week and next season and the rest of your career and then all of a sudden it’s over and nobody cares anymore. I’m just going to enjoy this and take everything as it comes.”
Morton’s overall victory in Utah comes, as he tries to find his way back into the WorldTour after having ridden for Garmin-Sharp in 2013 and 2014, signing when he was just 20 years old. Though he never tasted success in Europe, in 2013 he spent time yellow in both Utah and Colorado, at the USA Pro Challenge, winning the Best Young Rider Competition at both races.
Heading into 2017, it’s a tough market for WorldTour riders, with both IAM Cycling and Tinkoff closing up shop. Morton told CyclingTips earlier during the Utah tour that he had not signed with a team for next year, and wasn’t talking with any team directors, either.
The 24-year-old from New South Wales is soft-spoken, and often a man of few words, but when he does open the world into his mind, his thoughts reveal someone who is caring and down to earth, living life in a relaxed Aussie manner.
“I think there’s this misconception about Lachy and he’s this loose cannon and just doesn’t give a fuck and he’s just doing whatever, but he’s a very dedicated guy,” Lachlan’s older brother Angus, also a Jelly Belly rider, told CyclingTips. “He’s focused. He wants what he wants and not what other people think he should be going after. I think people misconstrue that for a lack of focus or something, but he’s not going to go out [training] just because the Tour de France is the biggest race in the world or the WorldTour is the highest level, he’s not going to go do that just because everyone says he should go do that.”
While the Morton brothers live together in Boulder, Colorado, and often room together when they are on the road, they choose to go their separate ways when it comes to training. Lachlan often rides alone in the mountains, and is known within the Boulder cycling community to offer a wave to any cyclist that crosses his path.
“He’s got a big heart,” Danny Van Haute, Jelly Belly general manager, said. “He’s a family man, and he’s a team player. He loves his teammates. He loves the staff. I can’t say anything else about him. I can’t say anything bad about him.”
The 2014 season was a tough one for Morton, and he left the Slipstream Sports program with thoughts of not returning to the professional ranks of cycling. A trip across the Australian outback with Angus revived that passion.
“My family has been amazingly supportive,” Morton said. “It was a big change for me to come back from Europe, and I moved back in with my parents. They are obviously really proud of it. I got married and my wife, she left university to come live here. That’s a pretty big step, or sacrifice. Then my brother, he left his job to come back here and pretty much race for nothing to be here with me. They’re pretty much the direct people who have helped me the most.
“Then on from that, Danny Van Haute at Jelly Belly, he’s been amazing for me. He took a big chance by bringing my brother on, and then he gave me the time last year to find my feet again. This year we had some big goals and he’s put himself and the whole team behind me. Then obviously this week, my team were incredible.
“I think if you speak to people who were in the race, they’ll say they didn’t expect our team to be quite as strong as they were. Right down to the beginning of the climb today, they were still teammates there helping me out and put me in the position I am now. I think they’re directly the people who have affected me the most.”
Morton broke from his private self and opened up on Instragram earlier in the week, holding the leader’s yellow jersey as the potential of overall victory began to present itself and become apparent. After thanking his family and teammates and those who have helped him more recently like Taylor and Davis Phinney, Mike Friedman, and Allen Lim, founder of Scratch Labs, he thanked himself “for actually committing 100% without fearing failure.”
It was a theme Morton reiterated in the post-race press conference, saying, “To win any race, you’ve got to be willing to lose it first.”
While in the yellow jersey, Morton’s handlebars gleamed with yellow bar tape, a touch not usually seen at races other than Grand Tours. It seemed to signify what this meant to Morton and his Jelly Belly team.
“Seventeen years,” Haute told CyclingTips. “Seventeen years of this organization and it took that long to get a big win. This is bigger than our national championships, Freddie Rodriguez, or Canadian national championships. We’ve had many national championships, but winning a 2.HC, a Continental team taking it to the WorldTour teams, is a big deal.”
Morton revealed to CyclingTips he has recently been bringing a coloring book with him on the road, going as far as saying it’s become a “pretty essential” item with him on the road.
“I’ve been bringing a coloring book with me lately,” he said. “That’s becoming pretty essential, otherwise you end up looking at your phone for hours on end.”
Whatever it is that has brought Morton’s racing back into focus, it seems to be working. His performances this year have demonstrated his renowned climbing ability, but they are back to his previous level because his mind is in the right place.
It remains to be seen whether an overall victory and two stage wins at the 2016 Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah — along with a stage win and GC victory at Gila — will help him punch his ticket back to the WorldTour in 2017, but for now, Morton is living in the moment, savoring this victory before moving forward and worrying about what lies ahead.Yea, and you remember it was said in those writings that a more particular account was given of these things up on the plates of Nephi.
And now, because the account which is engraven upon the plates of Nephi is more particular concerning the things which, in my wisdom, I would bring to the knowledge of the people in this account
—
Therefore, you shall translate the engravings which are on the plates of Nephi, down even till you come to the reign of king Benjamin, or until you come to that which you have translated, which you have retained;
And behold, you shall publish it as the record of Nephi; and thus I will confound those who have altered my words.
I will not suffer that they shall destroy my work; yea, I will sho w unto them that my wisdom is greater than the cunning of the devil.Description:
The Virtual Boy is a RISC-based 32-bit system, which produces high-resolution red 3D images against a deep black background using two mirror-scanning LED (Light Emitting Diode) displays. The 3D experience is enhanced through stereo sound and a new specially-designed, double-grip controller that accommodates multidirectional spatial movement. It is powered by either six AA batteries or a seperately sold AC-adapter.
Display Systems:
Besides the regular US and japanese versions of the Virtual Boy, there were also special ones sent to stores together with the store displays. They came in different packagings to make sure they were not sold as retail. There are two known versions of those display systems, there's a US one in a white box labeled
"VUE S RA
VIRTUAL BOY� W/O SOFTWARE
FOR INTERACTIVE DISPLAY
MADE IN JAPAN",
which content does not differ to a regular system besides the box and missing pack-in game and battery pak though, and a japanese one with a box looking similar to the retail version, but showing a monochrome, pixeled Virtual Boy. The manual of the system has the same cover and some little differences in it as well, but other than that, the content of the box is the same as the retail system. There also exist AC Taps with the "mosaic" box.
Technical Information:
The system does not have a full 384 x 224 array of LEDs as a display. It uses a pair of 1 x 224 linear arrays (one per eye) and rapidly scans the array across the eye's field of view using curved mirrors. These mirrors oscillate at very high speed (they are what produce the mechanical humming noise from inside the unit) and can be damaged if the Virtual Boy is hit, knocked over, or used while in rough motion (such as in a car). A full-size display, while mechanically simpler, would have increased the Virtual Boy's physical size and unit cost to the point where the system would become uneconomical.
Monochrome Display:
A full color Virtual Boy was impossible to release in 1995, due to the fact that high-efficiency InGaN (Indium Gallium Nitride) blue and green LEDs only became available from Nichia in 1996. While blue LEDs did exist before then, they were extremely inefficient, resulting in very low brightness. The Virtual Boy, which uses a oscillating mirror to transform a 1-D line of dots into a 2-D field of dots, requires high-performance LEDs in order to function properly. Because each pixel is only in use for a tiny fraction of a second (384 pixels wide, 50.2 Hz scan rate = approximately 52 �s per scanline), high peak brightness is needed to make the virtual display bright and be comfortable for the user to view. Without the technology of high-efficiency blue and green LEDs, the Virtual Boy was limited to a red-only display.
Box Art: Info: Title: Virtual Boy (バーチャルボーイ)
Virtual Boy Virtual Boy (バーチャルボーイ)Virtual Boy Working Title: Virtual Utopia Experience,
VR32 Developer: Nintendo Co., Ltd. (R&D 1),
Reflection Technology, Inc. Distributor: Nintendo Co., Ltd.
Nintendo of America Nintendo Co., Ltd.Nintendo of America Versions: JPN,
USA,
JPN Display System (Mosaic pattern box),
USA Display System (White Box)
Release Date: 07/21/1995
08/14/1995
07/21/199508/14/1995 _INFO_PRICE: �15,000
$179.95
($159.95 since Oct. 95,
$99.95 since May 96)
�15,000$179.95($159.95 since Oct. 95,$99.95 since May 96) Hardware Number: VUE-001 Hardware ID: VUE-S-RA
VUE-S-RA01
VUE-S-RAVUE-S-RA01 Barcode: T4902370502152
045496750015
T4902370502152045496750015 Pack-In Game: -
Mario's Tennis Mario's Tennis Items sold: 140,000
630,000
140,000630,000 Rarity: 2/4 (JPN)
1/4 (USA)
3/4 (JPN Display)
4/4 (USA Display)
Buy Virtual BoyFrom Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia.
Sylveon (Japanese: ニンフィア Nymphia) is a Fairy-type Pokémon introduced in Generation VI.
It evolves from Eevee when leveled up knowing a Fairy-type move and having at least two levels of Affection. It is one of Eevee's final forms, the others being Vaporeon, Jolteon, Flareon, Espeon, Umbreon, Leafeon, and Glaceon.
Biology
Sylveon is a quadruped, mammalian Pokémon covered primarily in pale cream-colored fur with pinkish feet, ears, and tail. There are two bows on its body, one on its left ear and one around its neck, from which two feelers adorn it. The bows are pale cream with pinkish centers, while the feelers are pale cream with pinkish and blue tips. It sends a soothing aura from these feelers to calm fights, and will also use them to "hold hands" with its Trainer. It has short, slender legs and small paws with three visible toes on each foot. Its eyes are blue with white pupils and no visible sclera. When its mouth is open, two pointed teeth can be seen on its upper jaw. Its furry pinkish tail is slightly curved in a crescent shape. Sylveon uses its ribbons to distract cautious prey before it attacks.
In the anime
Major appearances
Serena's Eevee evolved into Sylveon in Party Dancecapades! during a Tag Battle alongside Ash's Pikachu, where they faced off against Miette's Slurpuff and James's Inkay.
Other
Sylveon debuted in Eevee & Friends, where it showed Pikachu and his friends around its home, and introduced them to Eevee and its fellow Eeveelutions.
Sylveon made its main series debut in Kindergarten Chaos!, under the ownership of Penelope. It was used in a battle against Ash's Froakie and defeated it with Attract. Later on, it was captured by Team Rocket, but later rescued.
A Sylveon appeared in A Fashionable Battle! and Fairy-Type Trickery!, under the ownership of Valerie. It was used in a Gym battle against Ash, but it was defeated by Fletchinder.
A wild Sylveon appeared in Turning Heads and Training Hard!, where it was summoned to help Ilima's Eevee perform Extreme Evoboost. It reappeared in the Poké Problem segment of the next episode, where it saw Ilima and Eevee off.
Minor appearances
A Performer's Sylveon appeared in A Showcase Debut!, where it participated in the Coumarine Showcase Rookie Class.
A Sylveon appeared in a fantasy in Tag Team Battle Inspiration!, where Serena imagined what her Eevee could evolve into.
A Sylveon appeared in Volcanion and the Mechanical Marvel.
Pokédex entries
Episode Pokémon Source Entry XY013 Sylveon Ash's Pokédex Sylveon, the Intertwining Pokémon and an evolved form of Eevee. Sylveon affectionately wraps its ribbon-like feelers around its Trainer's arm as they walk together. XY105 Sylveon Serena's Pokédex Sylveon, the Intertwining Pokémon. Sylveon affectionately wraps its ribbon-like feelers around its Trainer's arm as they walk together. This concludes the entries from the XY series.
In the manga
In the Pokémon Adventures manga
Y owns a Sylveon named Veevee. She evolved during a battle against Team Flare in the X & Y chapter.
In the TCG
Other appearances
Sylveon appears as a trophy in the 3DS and Wii U versions of the game.
Trophy information
Sylveon is one of Eevee's various final evolutions. It has a lot of great attacks to use in battle, but it actually seems to be a peace-loving sort of Pokémon. Case in point, it can completely stop the flow of battle by moving its ribbonlike feelers in a way that charms its opponents into not wanting to fight anymore.
Game data
Pokédex entries
This Pokémon was unavailable prior to Generation VI. Generation VI X It sends a soothing aura from its ribbonlike feelers to calm fights. Y It wraps its ribbonlike feelers around the arm of its beloved Trainer and walks with him or her. Omega Ruby It sends a soothing aura from its ribbonlike feelers to calm fights. Alpha Sapphire It wraps its ribbonlike feelers around the arm of its beloved Trainer and walks with him or her. Generation VII Sun Its ribbonlike feelers give off an aura that weakens hostility in its prey, causing them to let down their guard. Then it attacks. Moon When this Pokémon sights its prey, it swirls its ribbonlike feelers as a distraction. A moment later, it pounces. Ultra Sun Once a fight breaks out, it will unflinchingly charge at dragon Pokémon that are many times larger than itself. Ultra Moon Sylveon wraps its ribbonlike feelers around its Trainer's arm because this touch enables it to read its Trainer's feelings.
Game locations
In side games
In events
Held items
Stats
Base stats
Stat Range At Lv. 50 At Lv. 100 HP : 95 155 - 202 300 - 394 Attack : 65 63 - 128 121 - 251 Defense : 65 63 - 128 121 - 251 Sp.Atk : 110 103 - 178 202 - 350 Sp.Def : 130 121 - 200 238 - 394 Speed : 60 58 - 123 112 - 240 Total: 525 Other Pokémon with this total Minimum stats are calculated with 0 EVs, IVs of 0, and a hindering nature, if applicable.
Maximum stats are calculated with 252 EVs, IVs of 31, and a helpful nature, if applicable.
Type effectiveness
Learnset
All damage-dealing Normal-type moves will get STAB if Sylveon has the Ability Pixilate.
By a prior evolution
Side game data
Evolution
Sprites
Trivia
According to a Ken Sugimori interview with the Famitsu magazine, Sylveon was designed by Atsuko Nishida.
magazine, Sylveon was designed by Atsuko Nishida. Sylveon is the only cross-generational evolutionary relative introduced in Generation VI. It is also the only Pokémon introduced after Generation V that can be in a Dream Ball.
Sylveon is the only Eeveelution to be introduced alone in an individual generation. Sylveon is also the only Eeveelution to not resist its own type.
If Eevee meets the conditions for evolving into Sylveon while also meeting the conditions for evolving into Espeon or Umbreon, Eevee will evolve into Sylveon regardless.
Origin
In contrast to the rest of the Eeveelutions' pointed ears, Sylveon's ears are large and rounded, giving it a resemblance to jackrabbits. Fairies were thought to be particularly active under the light of the full moon; because of this and the jackrabbit association, Sylveon could be based on the mythical Asian moon rabbit, which is often portrayed as a companion of the Chinese moon goddess Chang'e, who is often depicted wearing a robe adorned in many ribbons. In addition, Sylveon's tail has some resemblance to the tail of the viscacha.
Name origin
Sylveon may be a combination of sylph, a mythological creature described as invisible beings of the air, or sylvan, a word referring to an association with woodlands or forests (where fairies are often depicted), and eon (an immeasurably long period of time, possibly referring to how long evolution takes naturally). Eon is a suffix all Eevee evolutions share and was Eevee's English prototype name.
Nymphia is derived from nymph, a deity existing in Greek Mythology associated with a particular location or landform.
In other languages
Language Title Meaning Japanese ニンフィア Nymphia From nymph. French Nymphali From nymph. Ends with -li like every Eeveelution in French. Spanish Sylveon Same as English name German Feelinara From Fee. Ends with -a like every Eeveelution in German. Italian Sylveon Same as English name Korean 님피아 Nymphia From nymph Cantonese Chinese 仙子伊貝 Sīnjíyībui Literally "Fairy Eevee". Ends with -伊貝 like every Eeveelution in Cantonese. Mandarin Chinese 仙子精靈 / 仙子精灵 Xiānzǐjīnglíng Means "Fairy spirit". Ends with -精靈 / -精灵 like every Eeveelution in Mandarin. More languages Hindi सिलवीओन Sylveon Transcription of English name Russian Сильвеон Sil'veon Transcription of English name
Related articlesLiverpool’s Making All The Right Moves
Liverpool’s heart was broken when its courageous fight for the English Premier League title came up short, but that doesn’t mean Everton’s arch-rival is sitting back and letting the wound heal. The club has saddled up and gone out in search of new recruits. In a couple of days, the club has signed an aging striker and a young midfielder.
The acquisition of Rickie Lambert and Emre Can does not make Liverpool the best team in the league; however, it is the perfect foundation for what could become a dominant force in modern football. Brendan Rodgers has signed these players because his team will be competing in at least four competitions next season.
Lambert is the perfect understudy for Daniel Sturridge and Luis Suárez. The 32-year-old has lots of experience, and unlike Iago Aspas, he knows the Premier League like the back of his hand. In his two seasons in the league, he’s scored 28 goals and created 15.
The former Southampton forward would provide adequate cover in case either Suárez or Sturridge needs rest or gets injured. Lambert has been acquired to provide depth and experience up top, which is why he will be the go-to guy less meaningful competitions like the Football League Cup.
The big forward’s niche is inside the 18 yard box. He enjoys battling center backs, which is perfect for Suarez. The game should open up for the Uruguayan to score goals like this.
Upon his return from the World Cup, Lambert’s leadership will be crucially needed in the locker room. He and skipper Steven Gerrard will be tasked with keeping the younger players in line.
Can is a different kind of animal. The German youth international is young and inexperienced. Last season was his breakout year in the Bundesliga. He played 29 league games for Bayer Leverkusen and scored three goals.
Even though he might not be a regular starter next season, Can will definitely make Liverpool better. The German’s versatility make him the ideal athlete that Rodgers has been desperately seeking.
He mostly plays as a holding midfielder, but has also been used as a left back and center back. These are three positions Liverpool struggled to fill last season. Lucas Leiva was always an injury risk, the left backs were never consistent and the center backs let in too many goals.
Can will learn what it takes to be a world-class deep-lying midfielder from Gerrard and Leiva. And the German should gain valuable experience either in the FA Cup or Football League Cup.
These two signings will make Liverpool a strong side even without Gerrard, Suárez or Sturridge. Can and Jordan Henderson would provide the energy in the middle, while Philippe Coutinho creates scoring chances for Lambert.
Lambert and Can’s acquisition is proof that Rodgers means business, but the manager needs to sign at least three more players. For his side to really instill fear in its opponents, Rodgers has to sign a solid and experienced center back, a winger (Adam Lallana is a strong option) and a top-notch left back.
Write for us If you like to discuss the game and want to write for us, get in touch now. Click here!Pat Robertson has said a lot of shocking things, but his latest comment about the transgender community might be the most surprising yet.
The 83-year-old televangelist sat down on Sunday for the "Bring It Online" advice portion of his Christian Broadcasting Network show, "The 700 Club." A viewer named David wrote in asking how he should refer to two transgender females who work in his office and have legally changed their genders. Instead of criticizing the trans individuals, Robertson approached the situation in a seemingly level-headed manner.
"I think there are men who are in a woman's body," he said. "It's very rare. But it's true -- or women that are in men's bodies -- and that they want a sex change. That is a very permanent thing, believe me, when you have certain body parts amputated and when you have shot up with various kinds of hormones. It's a radical procedure. I don't think there's any sin associated with that. I don't condemn somebody for doing that."
He went on to say he would "question the validity" of someone who just says, "Well I'm really a woman" because you "don't count somebody as female unless they really are, or male unless they really are."
When his co-host said the viewer doesn't know the intentions or medical history of his co-workers, Robertson rebutted, "It's not for you to decide or to judge."
ThinkProgress called his statement a "refreshing change of pace." Back 2 Stonewall joked that the comments might push anti-gay American Family Association host Bryan Fischer even "deeper into the end of the insanity pool." America Blog called it a "huge deal."Ronald Reagan never had it from Congress the way Barack Obama does.
Photo by AFP/Getty Images
Charles C. Johnson is a careful reporter for the Daily Caller, an expert at digging through public records to find graft or hypocrisy. Example: It was Johnson who proved that former Institute for Study of War analyst Elizabeth O’Bagy both had a problem with disclosure and a problem with overstating her academic credentials.
Today, Johnson attempts to prove a point that Republicans have been making before they release their full debt limit demands. “The Democratic Party,” he writes, “has consistently battled debt ceiling increases when Republican presidents were in power.” Fair-minded journalists have been wondering about this, wondering how many Pinocchios or Pants on Fire to assign Barack Obama when he says the GOP’s current demands are without precedent. Johnson’s near-total failure suggests that Obama might be right.
First of all: Consistently? Like, every time it’s come up for a vote. Actually, no—not even Johnson really proves that. He finds three examples in the 1980s when the Democratic House did not quickly give Ronald Reagan a debt limit increase. Exhibit A:
In 1981, the Democrats opposed efforts to increase the debt limit and accused Republicans of “conscience-less” politics targeting the poor, according to The Milwaukee Journal.
This leaves out oodles of context. At the start of 1981, Republicans controlled the Senate and White House. Some Senate Republicans wanted to pass a debt limit increase and attach a tax cut. Some Democrats, who had voted for debt limit increases under Jimmy Carter and been attacked by Republicans, balked. They didn’t actually make demands, and from the outset they had a majority of members ready to vote for a clean debt limit increase. From the Feb |
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The tough part will be picking just one of the three prizes above and I will be giving things away on a first-come, first-served basis. If none of the prizes you want are available when you enter, I will contact you directly to let you know what choices are left. And I’ll just work through the list until all the prizes are gone.
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Like this: Like Loading...JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - A Florida animal rescue group looking for a lost dog Thursday wound up finding another dog that had been missing since January.
At the time, Florida Urgent Rescue was out searching for Allie, a dog that slipped her collar and ran away from the veterinarian's office, according to a Facebook post from founder Mike Merrill.
Even though the group had no luck finding Allie, volunteers spotted another dog in the woods nearby and then managed to trap him in a crate, Merrill wrote.
The dog, which was in "pretty rough shape," was taken to the vet for treatment. But while at the vet's office, others recognized the dog as one that had gone missing 10 months ago.
It turns out, the dog's name is Toto. He had been on the run since January when he broke free at First Coast No More Homeless Pets, ran into the road and was struck by a car.
"He ran off, and everyone told his owner he probably died, but she said she never gave up hope," Merrill wrote.
Merrill said Toto's owner has cancer and takes medication that causes seizures. Toto used to alert her before she had an episode so she could go somewhere safe.
"She has had a very rough year," wrote Merrill. "She had to put her older dog down right after Toto went missing, and then she had open heart surgery in August."
But after months of hoping Toto would turn up, his owner was reunited with her canine companion for the first time in almost a year.
Allie's owner called News4Jax Sunday to say she had been found and extended his gratitude for Merrill's devotion to rescuing lost pets.
Copyright 2017 by WJXT News4Jax - All rights reserved.A woman staying at UNM’s Yale Park, Occupy Albuquerque’s Camp Coyote, died Saturday.
Officers were dispatched to the walkway across Redondo Drive from Yale Park Saturday at 6:30 p.m. in response to a “woman having seizures,” police reports said.
According to the reports an intoxicated man, Iran P. Phillips, attended to the woman. Phillips identified the woman as Stephanie.
The woman died on a bench with her head in Phillips’ lap, the reports said.
“Phillips said the female followed him to the bench and said she wasn’t feeling too good. Phillips said he told her to lie on his lap and take a power nap. … She had been asleep for 30 minutes and wasn’t responding, so he told a woman walking by to call 911.”
Phillips said the woman told him she had finished a gallon of vodka prior to the incident.
When officers arrived at the scene the woman didn’t have a pulse and wasn’t breathing.
Albuquerque Fire Department was called to the scene and attempted to revive the woman, but attempts were unsuccessful, reports said.
A representative from the Office of the Medical Investigator confirmed the woman’s death and took the body from the scene.Want to read, in Monica Lewinsky’s own words, what she told the TED Conference in Vancouver today?
Every journalist I know here attending the conference at the Vancouver Convention Centre filed a story on what Lewinsky, in a riveting and emotional way, had to say about her experiences following the public revelation she and President Bill Clinton had an affair in the mid-1990’s. My story is here.
But what you won’t find online – at least as I write this – is a full transcript of her powerful and moving talk.
I took the time to transcribe this only because I think her message, given over 20 or more minutes, will not be fully reflected in any story now being written. Until TED releases the video of her talk – and I am certain they are under enormous pressure to do so – the best you will get is a transcript. Here it is, word for word.
Monica Lewinsky
You are looking at a woman who was publicly silent for a decade. Obviously that has changed, but only recently.
It was several months ago that I gave my very first, major public talk at the Forbes 30 Under 30 summit.
1500 brilliant people, all under the age of 30. That meant that in 1998 the oldest among the group were only 14 and the youngest just 4.
I joked with them that some might only have heard of me from rap songs. Yes, I am in rap songs. Almost 40 rap songs.
But the night of my speech, a surprising thing happened. At the age of 41, I was hit on by a 27-year-old guy. I know, right? He was charming and I was flattered and I declined. Do you know what his unsuccessful pickup line was? He could make me feel 22 again.
I realized later that night I am probably the only person over 40 who does not want to be 22 again.
At the age of 22 I fell in love with my boss. And at the age of 24, I learned the devastating consequences.
Can I see a show of hands of anyone here who didn’t make a mistake or do something they regretted at 22? Yep, that’s what I thought. So like me, at 22, a few of you may have taken wrong turns and fallen in love with the wrong person. Maybe even your boss.
Unlike me, your boss probably wasn’t the President of the United States of America.
Of course, life is full of surprises.
Not a day goes by that I am not reminded of my mistake. And I regret that mistake deeply.
In 1998, after having been swept up into an improbable romance, I was then swept up into the eye of a political, legal and media maelstrom like we had never seen before. Remember, just a few years earlier, news was consumed in just three places: reading a newspaper or magazine, listening to a radio, or watching television. That was it.
But that wasn’t my fate. Instead, this scandal was brought to you by the digital revolution. That meant we could access all the information we wanted, when we wanted it, anytime, anywhere. And when the story broke in January, 1998, it broke online. It was the first time the traditional news was usurped by the internet for a major news story. A click that reverberated around the world.
What that meant for me personally was that overnight I went from being a completely private figure to a publicly-humiliated one worldwide. I was Patient Zero of losing a personal reputation on the global scale almost instantaneously.
This rush to judgement enabled by technology led to mobs of virtual stone-throwers. Granted, it was before social media, but people could still comment online, email stories and of course, email cruel jokes. News sources plastered photos of me all over to sell newspapers, banner ads online, and to keep people tuned to the TV.
Do you recall a particular image of me, say, wearing a beret? Now, I admit I made mistakes, especially wearing that beret. But the attention an judgement I received, not the story, but that I personally received, was unprecedented.
I was branded as a tramp. Tart. Slut. Whore. Bimbo. And, of course, “That Woman”. I was seen by many, but actually known by few. And I get it. It was easy to forget that “that woman” was dimensional, had a soul, and was once unbroken.
When this happened to me 17 years ago, there was no name for it. Now we call it cyber-bulling and online harassment.
Today I want to share some of my experiences, and talk about how those experiences helped shape my cultural observations, and how my past experiences can lead to a change that can lead to less suffering for others.
In 1998 I lost my reputation and my dignity. I lost almost everything. And I almost lost my life.
Let me paint a picture for you. It is September of 1998. I am sitting in a windowless office room inside the Office of the Independent Counsel, underneath humming flourscent lights. I am listening to the sound of my voice. My voice on surreptitiously taped phone calls that a supposed friend had made the year before. I am here because I’ve been legally required to authenticate all 20 hours of taped conversation. For the past eight months, the mysterious content of these conversations has hung like the Sword of Damocles over my head.
I mean, who can remember what they said a year ago?
Scared and mortified, I listened. Listened as I prattled on about the flotsam and jetsam of the day. Listen as I confess my love for the president. And of course, my heartbreak. Listened to my sometimes catty, sometimes churlish, sometimes silly self being cruel, unforgiving, uncouth. Listened deeply, deeply ashamed of the worst version of myself. A self I don’t even recognize.
A few days later, the Starr Report is released to Congress and all of those tapes and transcripts, those stolen words, form a part of it. That people can read the transcripts is horrific enough. But a few weeks later the audio tapes are aired on TV, and significant portions are made available online.
The public humiliation was excruciating. Life was almost unbearable.
This was not something happened with regularity back in 1998. And by this, I mean the stealing of people’s private words, actions, conversations or photos, and then making them public. Public without consent, public without context, and pubic without compassion.
Fast forward 12 years to 2010 and now social media has been born. The landscape has sadly become much more populated with instances like mine, whether or not someone actually made a mistake. And now it is for both public and private people. The consequences for some have become dire. Very dire.
I was on the phone with my mom in September, 2010 and we were talking about the news of a young college freshman from Rutgers University named Tyler Clementi.
Sweet, sensitive, creative Tyler was secretly webcammed by his room mate while being intimate with another man. When the online world learned of this incident, the ridicule and cyber-bullying ignited. A few days later, Tyler jumped from the George Washington Bridge to his death. He was 18.
My mom was beside herself about what happened to Tyler and his family and she was gutted with pain in a way I just couldn’t understand.
And then eventually, she was reliving 1998. Reliving a time when she sat beside my bed every night. Reliving a time when she made me shower with the bathroom door opened. And reliving a time when both of my parents feared I would be humiliated to death. Literally.
Today too many parents haven’t had the chance to step in and rescue their loved ones. Too many have learned have of their child’s humiliation and suffering after it was too late.
Tyler’s tragic, senseless death was a turning point for me. It served to recontextualize my experiences and I then began to look at the world of humiliation and bullying around me and see something different.
In 1998 we had no way of knowing where this brave new technology called the Internet would take us. Since then it has connected people in unimaginable ways, joining lost siblings, saving lives, launching revolutions.
But the darkness, cyber-bullying and slut-shaming that I experienced had mushroomed. Every day online people, especially young people who are not developmentally equipped to handle this, are so abused and humiliated that they can’t imagine living to the next day. And some, tragically, don’t. And there is nothing virtually about that.
ChildLine, a UK-based service that is focussed on helping young people on various issue, released a staggering statistic late last year. From 2012 to 2013, there was an 87 per cent increase in calls and emails related to cyber-bullying. A meta analysis done out of the Netherlands showed that for the first time, cyber-bullying was leading to suicidal ideations more significantly than offline bullying.
And you know what shocked me, although it shouldn’t have, was other research that determined that humiliation was a more intensely felt emotion that either happiness or even anger.
Cruelty to others is nothing new. But online, technologically-enhanced shaming is amplified, uncontained and permanently accessible.
The echo of embarrassment used to extend only as far as your family, village, school or community. But now it is the online community too. Millions of people can stab you anonymously with their words, and that is a lot of pain. And there are no perimeters around how many people can publicly observe you and put you in a public stockade.
There is a very personal price to public humiliation. And the growth of the internet has jacked up that price. For nearly two decades now we have slowly been sowing the seeds of humiliation and shame in our cultural soil, both on and offline.
Gossip websites, paparazzi, reality programming, politics, news outlets and sometimes hackers all traffic in shame. It has led to desensitization and a permissive environment online which lends itself to trolls, trolling, cyber-bullying and invasion of privacy. This shift has created what Professor Nicolas Vilas calls a culture of humiliation.
Consider a few common examples just from the past six months alone.
Snapchat, the service which is mainly used by the younger generations and claims that its messages only have the life span of a few seconds. You can imagine the range of content that gets. A third-party app that SnapChatters used to preserve the life span of the messages was hacked, and 100,000 personal conversations, photos and videos were leaked online to now have a lifetime of forever.
Jennifer Lawrence and several other actors had their iCloud accounts hacked and private, intimate nude photos were plastered across the internet without their permission.
One gossip website had over one million hits for this one story.
And what about the Sony Pictures cyber-hacking? The documents that which received the most attention were private emails that had maximum public embarrassment value.
But in this culture of humiliation, there is another kind of price tag attached to public shaming. The price does not measure the cost to the victim, which Tyler and many others, notably women and minorities and members of the LGBTQ community have paid, but the price measures the profit of those who prey on them.
This invasion of others is a raw material efficiently and ruthlessly mined, packaged and sold at a profit. A marketplace has emerged where public humiliation is a commodity and shame is an industry.
How is the money made? Clicks. The more shame, the more clicks. The more clicks, the more advertising dollars. We are in a dangerous cycle. The more we click on this kind of gossip, the more numb we become to the human lives behind it. And the more numb we get, the more we click.
All the while, somebody is making money off of the back of someone else’s suffering. With every click we make a choice. The more we saturate our culture with public shaming, the more accepted it is, the more we will see behaviour like trolling, cyber-bullying, some forms of hacking and online harassment.
Why? Because they all have humiliation at their cores. This behaviour is a symptom of the culture we’ve created. Just think about it.
Changing behaviour begins with evolving beliefs. We’ve seen that to be true with racism, homophobia and plenty of other biases today and in the past. As we have changed beliefs about same-sex marriage, more people have been offered equal freedoms. When we began valuing sustainability, more people began to recycle.
So as far as our culture of humiliation goes, what we need is a cultural revolution. Public shaming as a blood sport has to stop. And it is time for an intervention on the internet and in our culture.
The shift begins with something simple, but it is not easy. We need to return to a long-held value of compassion. Compassion and empathy. Online we have a compassion deficit and an empathy crisis.
Researcher Berne Brown said, and I quote, “shame can’t survive empathy. Shame cannot survive empathy.”
I have seen some very dark days in my life. It was the compassion and empathy from my family, my friends, professionals, and even strangers, that saved me.
Even empathy from one person can make a difference. The theory of minority influence proposed by social psychologist Serge Muscovici says that even in small numbers, when there is consistency over time, change can happen.
In the online world we can foster minority influence by becoming “up standers”. To become an upstander means instead of bystander apathy, we can post a positive comment for someone or report a bullying situation.
Trust me, compassionate comments help abate the negativity. We can also counteract the culture by supporting organizations that deal with these kinds of issues, like the Tyler Clementi Foundation in the US. In the UK there is anti-bullying Pro, and in Australia there is Project Rocket.
We talk a lot about our right to freedom of expression. But we need to talk more about our responsibility to freedom of expression. We all want to be heard. But let’s acknowledge the difference between speaking up with intention and speaking up for attention.
The internet is the superhighway for the Id. But online, showing empathy for others benefits us all and helps create a safer and better world.
We need to communicate online with compassion, consume news with compassion and click with compassion. Just imagine walking a mile in someone else’s headline.
I’d like to end on a personal note. In the past nine months the question I have asked most is why.
Why now, why now was I sticking my head above the parapet. You can read between the lines in those questions, and the answer has nothing to do with politics. The top note answer answer was, and is, because it is time. Time to stop tip-toeing around my past, time to stop living a life of oppoprium, and time to take back my narrative.
It is also not just about saving myself. Anyone who is suffering from shame and public humiliation needs to know on thing. You can survive it.
I know it is hard. It may not be painless, quick or easy. But you can insist on a different ending to your story. Have compassion for yourself.
We all deserve compassion. And to live both online and off in a more compassionate world.
Thank you for listening.0 Family sees'sign from heaven' at site of deadly crash
HALL COUNTY, Ga. - The lives of two families were forever changed last week by a crash that killed two young women and a 9-month-old baby.
Hannah Simmons; Simmons' daughter, A'lannah Hopkins; and Lauren Buteau were killed in the wreck on Georgia State Route 347 on April 25.
Authorities said the three were returning from a doctor’s appointment when Simmons lost control of her car and veered into the path of the truck.
“It’s challenging how to live your life day to day without the people who were there for you every day,” Paige Wilson told Channel 2’s Tom Regan.
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Wilson said the victims were her cousins.
“Hannah, that was my best friend,” she said. “She was my maid of honor and the godmother of my children. A’lannah was my goddaughter.”
Wilson said the loss of her Goddaughter is heartbreaking.
“A’lannah was just like her mother, the most infectious child in the world,” she said.
According to Wilson, Simmons was engaged to marry Javont'e Hopkins and was two months pregnant with their child.
“We were working on planning her wedding,” she said.
Wilson said she was also very close with Buteau.
“Lauren was the life of the party. She could light up any room and make anyone laugh,” Wilson said.
While the family continues grieving, it says it's getting hope and peace from a picture called "A Pathway to Heaven."
"I'm at peace with this because I know they're in a better place than we are now," Jodie Carter said.
Carter said she's finding strength through faith after her niece, Buteau, and her cousins died.
She said the photo, which was taken by a driver moments after the crash, appears to show a streak of light coming from the sky.
"It took my breath away. Chills covered my body. And then a peace came over me," she said.
While some may discount the image as a sun flare on the camera lens, she sees something profound and divine.
Family members say a light from heaven was shined onto the site of a deadly crash in Hall County.
"I see God taking them up to heaven," Carter said. "Their spirits, their orbs are up there. No other explanation."
Another cousin, Paige Winston, said she questioned her faith immediately after the crash. But seeing the picture has changed her perspective.
"When I saw the picture, it completely reassured me. We may not understand why things happen like this," Winston said.
You can donate to the GoFundMe pages of Hannah and A'lannah and Lauren Buteau.
© 2019 Cox Media Group.The Carolina Hurricanes will enter the NHL trade deadline as sellers, and one player who will draw interest from a number of teams is defenceman Andrej Sekera.
Elliotte Friedman and Damien Cox noted during this week’s instalment of “Headlines” on Hockey Night in Canada that the Dallas Stars could make a run at acquiring Sekera from the Hurricanes.
The 28-year-old blueliner is in the final year of his current contract that sees him check in with a $2.75 million cap hit. Sekera set career highs in goals (11) and points (44) in 2013-14. He has two goals and 18 points in 51 games this season.
Stars head coach Lindy Ruff is familiar with Sekera from his days with the Buffalo Sabres. Dallas general manager Jim Nill acquired goaltender Jhonas Enroth from the Sabres last week.
Sekera would present the Stars with solid a two-way defenceman who could handle some tough minutes down the stretch. The Stars currently trail the Calgary Flames by three points in the standings for the second wild card playoff spot.Caltrans maintenance supervisor Gaspar Inzunza says we’ll be seing fewer and fewer Botts’ Dots on the freeways.Botts dots are facing an uncertain future as they’re technologically left behind by new standards. Gaspar works in the Caltrans maintenance yardin Orange, CA on Thursday, May 11, 2017. (Photo by Bill Alkofer,Orange County Register/SCNG)
Caltrans officials said that they’ll be phasing out Botts’ Dots. Here’s a dot on the northbound 57 freeway in Orange.(Photo by Bill Alkofer,Orange County Register/SCNG)
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Botts’ Dots are not facing a sunny side up.They’re technologically being left behind by new standards. Here are a few dots on display in the CalTrans maintenance yard inin Orange, CA on Thursday, May 11, 2017. (Photo by Bill Alkofer,Orange County Register/SCNG)
Botts’ dots are named after Dr. Elbert Dysart Botts, a California Department of Transportation engineer credited with overseeing the research that led to the development of the markers. (Photo courtesy Caltrans)
Botts’ Dots – the raised, rumbly markers between lanes on California’s highways and freeways – are on their way out, with Caltrans saying it will no longer maintain or install them.
Named after Elbert Dysart Botts, the Caltrans engineer credited with the 1950s research that led to their creation, the dots spread across the nation as a way to stripe lanes.
The dots later become known for a different benefit: The powerful feedback when driving over them that could snap awake sleepy motorists.
But Caltrans is now taking a different route. After a half-century, federal transportation officials are encouraging California to dump them. Critics say the ceramic buttons aren’t reflective, don’t really help that much, mess up autonomous cars and don’t last very long.
Related Articles Roadshow: Botts’ Dots have zillions of supporters, three detractors
Roadshow: Why is California getting rid of Botts’ Dots? “It’s an older technology that’s getting phased out,” said Gaspar Inzunza, a Caltrans maintenance supervisor in Orange County. “Having a newer technology completely replace it is ideal. It’s safer and more cost effective – everything across the board is a positive.”
For years, on all Caltrans freeways and highways, every 48 feet there was to be a raised reflective marker, then a four-inch-wide stripe topped with four Botts’ Dots, and then another raised reflector.
Now the remaining dots, as many as 20 million of them, will just slowly disappear over time from state highways and freeways, although some cities still use them.
Larry Zwart, a 69-year-old Huntington Beach resident, isn’t keen on them going away.
“I think it’s a poor judgment, given that they probably saved my life, and probably many others,” Zwart said.
Five years ago, he was heading home at about 65 mph on the I-405, cutting through Los Angeles County, belly full with a turkey sandwich.
“I apparently fell asleep, and the next thing I knew, I was awakened by the vibration of going over the Botts’ Dots,” Zwart recalled. “It was a heart-stopping experience.”
He had drifted two lanes and now figures he was headed toward leaving the road, or striking another car.
“I think most everybody has at some point had an experience where they were driving and drowsy,” he said. “You think you can push through it, and most of the time, you can.
“But I believe there are probably many instances similar to mine, for which there isn’t really much data or reporting, because there’s no tragedy that comes out of it,” Zwart said. “People just go on their merry way, and the Botts’ Dots have done their job.”
When first created, the life expectancy of a dot was 10 years. With today’s heavier traffic pulverizing their porcelain, dots rarely last more than six months. In recent years, they had been getting replaced only when another project called for workers to be out on the lanes.
A six-year Caltrans study that concluded in the early 2000s showed that accident rates weren’t significantly affected whether the dots were there or not. The state agency then spent years weighing the dots’ pros and cons before deciding they were no longer worth the maintenance effort – or the risk to workers.
Inzunza, the Caltrans maintenance supervisor, has seen in his eight years with the state technology improve, such as with thermoplastic striping that reflects more light in the dark and rain, and with plastic composite markers that stand up to traffic for years longer than the dots.
With the reflective striping and markers already in place, removing the dots improves reflectively overall, because then they are no longer obscuring part of the striping.
“If anything, you’d lose some of that rumble,” Inzunza said. “But there will still be a rumble people are familiar with. There will still be an audible bump, and actually more reflectivity.”
Driving at 60 mph, drivers can expect to feel two bumps a second going over the markers without the dots in place, Caltrans officials said.
Over the years, what motorists might not have seen, is that when slapping Botts’ Dots onto the roadway, workers were at times next to hustling traffic.
Catrans preferred to use a bucket truck, with the bucket riding just over the intended targets, an employee deploying an electric gun to apply 400-degree adhesive to the dot before plopping it onto the roadway. A California Highway Patrol car would follow, and then two Caltrans trucks, with gigantic cushions to absorb the blows of any wayward motorist, completing the caravan.
More often, lanes and ramps would be shut down, and an employee would push a cart along with a heater, gluing the Botts’ Dots to the ground.
Wth the dots out of the picture, maintenance crews will be in peril less often. “It’s a huge impact,” Inzunza said. “You multiply the time you’re out there by your chances of you getting hit, and this reduces (that) significantly.”
James Pinheiro, deputy director of operations and maintenance with Caltrans in Orange County, said the decision to phase out the dots came after lengthy considering of the needs of the motorists and the maintenance workers.
“We’re a big state – we’re one of the most heavily-traveled states in the country, so we have to be sure we’re making good decisions,” Pinheiro said.
Pinheiro pointed out that the dots can too easily break apart and spray debris toward traffic.
“You don’t want the motorists exposed to debris or flying pieces of anything,” he said. “We know Botts’ Dots break up earlier and don’t last as long, we don’t want that. A loose Botts’ Dot might be like half of a hockey puck – you just don’t want that when you’re driving down the freeway.”
Another major Caltrans concern: Self-driving vehicles may someday be common. Tests have shown that by covering up the striping with Botts’ Dots, the navigation systems of those vehicles can get confused, perhaps leading to drifting.
But many Orange County motorists love their Botts’ Dots.
Ken Gregory, 63 of Anaheim, said Caltrans is too focused on the future and is overlooking the people currently filling the roads.
“Which is more important, the driverless car or drivers? People or machines?” the retired policeman asked. “Are the driverless cars a fad, or not? Let’s take 10 years to figure it out.”
Cindy Perz, a 60-year-old software engineer who lives in Huntington Beach, said the dots have been helpful in keeping her in her lane on foggy days. She wonders if the reflective markers alone will guide people back into their lanes as effectively.
“Especially with all the distracted driving and things that go on, I’ve watched people hit the lane and pull back,” Perz said. “If you’ve got a chance of not hitting them because they’re widely spaced, like the markers might be, it will make a difference. It’s so easy to be distracted in the car these days.”
Laguna Niguel’s Jennifer Morris, 40, recalled a time when she was real tired and Botts’ Dots shook her to attention.
“They woke me right up, my heart was beating all fast,” she said. “I probably would have crashed against somebody or driven off the side of the road.”
She’s unsure whether the more spaced-out markers would do the same job, but said she’s willing to see.
All California motorists will see for themselves as well, willingly or not.An assistant for the ruler of Chechnya has been chosen through a reality TV programme styled on The Apprentice.
After seeing off 17 other contestants and enduring numerous challenges, Filip Varichenko, 24, will now work as head of the Chechen government’s strategic development.
But the real star of the show was Ramzan Kadyrov, the eccentric strongman leader of Chechnya, for which it served as a useful PR platform, broadcasting his image across Russia in a positive light.
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To win the chance to work for Mr Kadyrov, Mr Varichenko had to undergo a number of challenges and outperform his rivals, just like contestants on The Apprentice broadcast in the US, which saw a resurgence in the popularity of Donald Trump.
Some scenes of the programme, named Komanda (The Team), would be familiar to Western viewers. Contestants had to sell ice cream in the capital, Grozny and had to set out their visions for developing Chechnya and attracting investment.
Others tasks were more challenging, such as arranging for a man’s heart operation, according to Newsweek.
However, unlike the original versions of the programme, the challenges also included harsh physical activities such as archery, horse riding, jogging and boxing with Mr Kadyrov and completing a police assault course.
The ruler said “weak spirited” contestants were useless to him and he was looking for someone with “fighting character”.
Shape Created with Sketch. In pictures: Chechnya's leader Ramzam Kadyrov's Instagram Show all 7 left Created with Sketch. right Created with Sketch. Shape Created with Sketch. In pictures: Chechnya's leader Ramzam Kadyrov's Instagram 1/7 chechnay5.jpg Chechnya's controversial leader Ramzam Kadyrov has been posting pictures on Instagram as he has a double, but he has admitted that it's just Photoshop and his aim is to 'highlight how easily people believe rumours and lies about me' 2/7 chechnay4.jpg Two pictures edited in one of Chechnya's controversial leader Ramzam Kadyrov posted on his Instagram account 3/7 chechnya2.jpg More of Chechnya's controversial leader Ramzam Kadyrov's Instagram pictures 4/7 chechnya3.jpg More of Chechnya's controversial leader Ramzam Kadyrov's Instagram pictures 5/7 chenya1.jpg One of the collages that Ramzam Kadyrov posted on his Instagram account 6/7 instagram4.jpg Pictures of the meeting of actors Gerard Depardieu and Liz Hurley with Chechnya's leader Ramzan Kadyrov 7/7 instagram1.jpg Meeting of the actors with the controversial leader of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov 1/7 chechnay5.jpg Chechnya's controversial leader Ramzam Kadyrov has been posting pictures on Instagram as he has a double, but he has admitted that it's just Photoshop and his aim is to 'highlight how easily people believe rumours and lies about me' 2/7 chechnay4.jpg Two pictures edited in one of Chechnya's controversial leader Ramzam Kadyrov posted on his Instagram account 3/7 chechnya2.jpg More of Chechnya's controversial leader Ramzam Kadyrov's Instagram pictures 4/7 chechnya3.jpg More of Chechnya's controversial leader Ramzam Kadyrov's Instagram pictures 5/7 chenya1.jpg One of the collages that Ramzam Kadyrov posted on his Instagram account 6/7 instagram4.jpg Pictures of the meeting of actors Gerard Depardieu and Liz Hurley with Chechnya's leader Ramzan Kadyrov 7/7 instagram1.jpg Meeting of the actors with the controversial leader of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov
Komanda was apparently largely aimed at softening the image of the Putin-backed ruler. Mr Kadyrov – who fought as a Chechen rebel in the region’s war before switching sides - has a reputation for violence and human rights abuses.
“People believe my image that was created by the liberals, that I am frightening, that I will kill whoever says anything about me, that I will put them in a dungeon and stab them,” Mr Kadyrov said on Komanda. “That was invented by enemies of the people.”
During his frequent airtime on the show, he was portrayed as a tough but fair leader, who enjoyed hobbies like horse taming and picking flowers. Local celebrities and politicians made cameo roles and piled praise on him.
It has been speculated that Mr Kadyrov’s prominence in the show could be preparing him for a more senior political role.
The show also paid strong tributes to the natural scenery and achievements of Chechnya – at a time Russia at large is suffering from poor finances, which will affect subsidies given to the region.
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At The Independent, no one tells us what to write. That’s why, in an era of political lies and Brexit bias, more readers are turning to an independent source. Subscribe from just 15p a day for extra exclusives, events and ebooks – all with no ads.
Subscribe nowRobert Fife and Philip Ling, CTV News
OTTAWA -- The RCMP has formally laid out its criminal case against Sen. Mike Duffy, saying he is being investigated for allegations of breach of trust and fraud against the government, court documents obtained by CTV News show.
The documents reveal for the first time details surrounding the $90,000 cheque written to Duffy by Nigel Wright, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s then-chief of staff -- including revelations that the Conservative Party was initially going to reimburse Duffy so he could pay off the Senate for improper living expense claims.
In affidavits filed last week in the Ontario Court of Justice in Ottawa, lead investigator RCMP Cpl. Greg Horton alleges that Duffy broke the law by accepting “an advantage or benefit of money ($90,124.27) from Nigel Wright.”
The criminal code states that government officials and employees are prohibited from accepting money from anybody who has “dealings with the Government of Canada,” without the written approval from the head of the branch of government that employs them.
Court documents show that Wright’s lawyers -- Peter Mantas and Patrick McCann -- met with two RCMP officers on June 19 to discuss the circumstances around the $90,000 cheque.
They told the Mounties that the Conservative party initially planned to secretly repay Duffy’s improper living expense claims.
“The Conservative Party was initially going to repay the money for Duffy from a Conservative fund, when it was believed that the amount he owed was approximately $32,000,” the documents read.
Conservative Sen. Irving Gerstein, who controls the party fund, refused to pay when the amount owed was nearly three times higher. “It was too much |
imate factors like (but not exclusive to) the accumulation of capital, the adoption of technology, or labor market participation decisions. So if we are going to describe how culture influences economic activity, we need to describe how culture influences those proximate factors.
The decisions regarding saving, technology adoption, and labor market participation are similar in that they involve some sort of constrained optimization problem. That is, there is some budget constraint and some utility function, and people do the best they can to maximize utility while keeping within that budget. I have some income, for example, and I need to decide how much of it to consume and how much to save. I have some profits as a firm, and I need to decide whether to invest in a new technology, or distribute the profits to my stockholders. I have a finite amount of time, and I need to decide whether to stay home and raise my kids or put them in day care and go back to work. All constrained optimization problems.
So if culture is going to influence economic activity, it has to influence those constrained optimization problems. And there are really only two options then. Either culture influences budget constraints, or it influences utility functions. I haven’t seen any argument that culture actually changes the budget constraints of people, firms, or governments. Finite resources are finite no matter what you believe. So culture probably acts through utility functions, changing people’s preferences towards the future, or towards education, or towards material success, or towards the environment, or whatever.
Maximizing utility does not mean that people are individualistic money-grubbers. You can write down a utility function where someone cares about other people’s welfare, or a function where someone really enjoys free time with their kids, or highly values the environment, or values the success of their group. Culture, if it has economic effects, would presumably act by changing exactly what is valued in the utility functions of people or households.
Take as an example the common cultural distinction that Americans are more individualistic than Europeans. This would manifest itself in a utility function in the U.S. that is heavily weighted towards individual income, say, versus any measure of community income. In Europe, the opposite would apparently hold. Then, given the same budget, Americans would make choices aimed towards better personal outcomes (e.g. low tax rates and social safety nets) while Europeans wouuld makes choices aimed towards better group outcomes (e.g. high tax rates and social safety nets).
So here’s the issue that I mentioned at the top. If culture leads to different utility functions, which in turn lead to different measurable economic outcomes, then why should we bother with measuring economic outcomes? Let me take this from the opposite angle. If everyone has identical utility functions, then measurable economic outcomes (GDP, average wages) have some information about relative welfare across countries. But if everyone has a different utility function, then measurable economic outcomes don’t necessarily provide any information about relative welfare. If one culture derives utility from having massive families with lots of kids, and doesn’t really care about consumption goods, then what does their low GDP per capita tell me? Nothing. It doesn’t tell me they have lower welfare than a high GDP per capita culture.
If you tell me that culture is important for economic outcomes, then you’re telling me that utility functions vary across cultures. But if utility functions vary across cultures, then cross-culture comparisons of economic outcomes don’t imply anything about welfare. So aren’t the regressions with culture as an explanatory variable self-defeating, even if they are econometrically sound?
I could well be over-thinking this, and I’d be happy to hear a good argument for what the culture/growth or culture/income regressions are supposed to be telling me.
AdvertisementsImam and Brother Arrested for Drugging, Strangling Pakistani Internet Star in Honor Killing
Pakistani internet celebrity Qandeel Baloch was strangled in June 2016.
Her brother was later arrested for killing his sister in an honor killing.
He was offended by her online postings so he drugged her and strangled her to death.
Qandeel Baloch was considered to be the country’s Kim Kardashian. She was drugged, strangled and killed at her parents’ house in the central city of Multan.
She starred in a video where she was twerking and looking sexy.
This was too shameful an act for her brother – so he killed her.
Pakistani social media star Qandeel Baloch has been strangled by her brother https://t.co/pKY2C6LmzQ pic.twitter.com/LN21Ek15ns — Newsweek (@Newsweek) July 16, 2016
Now this…
An Islamic imam was arrested in connection to Qandeel’s honor killing.
Sky.com reported:
Pakistani police say a Muslim cleric has been arrested over the murder of social media star Qandeel Baloch. Ms Baloch, whose real name was Fauzia Azeem, was found strangled in her home in the city of Multan last year after posting racy images of herself on Facebook. Her brother, Muhammad Waseem, has confessed to strangling her after giving her a “tablet” to subdue her. A senior police officer, Mohammad Fahad, said the cleric – Mufti Abdul Qavi – was arrested as he tried to leave Multan. Some of his phone calls were traced to another brother of Ms Baloch around the time of her killing, police said.North Korea broadcasted indecipherable five-digit number segments during a radio segment on Friday, a Cold War-era espionage method intended to relay information to agents in the field, according to a North Korea intelligence source.The source exclusively told the JoongAng Ilbo that the North’s propaganda radio station Pyongyang Radio Station aired a 12-minute segment in which a female announcer read five-digit numbers for 12 minutes, the first such broadcast in 16 years.The source said the authorities were poring over the North’s intentions in making such a broadcast. Not since 2000, when the first inter-Korea summit was held in Pyongyang, has the North aired such a coded-message on shortwave radio broadcast, known as the “numbers stations.”The coded radio broadcast began at 12:45 a.m. on Friday when an unnamed female announcer began the segment by saying, “From now on, I will give review work for the subject of mathematics under the curriculum of a remote education university for exploration agents of the 27th bureau.”The news reader continued by saying, “On page 459, question number 35, on page 913, question number 55, on page 135, question number 86, on page 257, question number 2,” followed by more numbers until 12:57 a.m.South Korean intelligence was familiar with the North’s use of such old-fashioned communication at the height of the Cold War era, when the two Koreas were also at the apex of inter-Korea tension.But the North stopped airing such radio encrypted messages in 2000 because of the summit between then-North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung in June that year.South Korean intelligence is reportedly scrambling to find out why Pyongyang resumed this type of communication 16 years after its last such message, particularly in the digital age when it could have simply given out orders via the internet.The revelation has put the government on high alert over possible strikes against facilities in the South by agents sent by the North.The timing of the broadcast also alarmed authorities as it was aired just one week after a decision by Seoul to deploy the U.S.-made missile defense system known as the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (Thaad) system, which has drawn sharp protest from Pyongyang and Beijing.BY LEE YOUNG-JONG, KANG JIN-KYU [kang.jinkyu@joongang.co.kr]Lawrence Lessig has reversed himself on the one aspect of his presidential campaign that I considered deflating, that dampened what would otherwise have been true enthusiasm: He’s no longer pledging to leave office once he achieves his legislative objectives. He means to be president and stay president. He wrote at The Atlantic:
If the Democrats won’t take seriously a candidate with a viable, credible, and professionally managed campaign just because it includes a promise to step aside once the work is done, then fine. You win. I drop that promise. I am running for president. … After we pass that reform [the Citizen Equality Act], I will remain as president to make sure the reforms stick. I will work with Congress to assure they are implemented. I will defend them against legislative or legal attack. But beyond that priority, I would do everything else a president must do, too. Which means I bear the burden in this campaign of convincing America I could do that well.
Excellent. I’m delighted by this.
But it’s almost certainly too late to matter.
After the first Democratic debate last week, I said that the quality performances of the first-tier candidates more or less ruled out a Joe Biden candidacy, as the debate made clear that there was no need for either an establishment alternative to Hillary Clinton, nor a left-flank alternative to her or Bernie Sanders. The two of them both did well enough for themselves to settle the race as one between the two of them, and the remaining three candidates were rendered more irrelevant than they already were, if that was even possible.
So my concerns for Lessig are that, first, his being left out of the debates has as much to do with resistance to true reform candidates from the DNC as it does with poor poll showings, or being left out of polls altogether. That resistance certainly won’t have changed now that Lessig is promising to remain president, and the DNC has little interest in someone standing on stage saying that the whole system that keeps them (and the GOP) in power is the real problem. It is the real problem, the problem from which all other problems flow, but it boots the Democrats nothing to admit it.
But second, and probably more importantly, I’m afraid that the moment has passed for grassroots excitement for Lessig to compel the networks, or whoever else has veto power, to care whether or not he’s there. To this time, I have not seen the kind of unbridled enthusiasm for Lessig’s candidacy that I would have expected, especially from the young, civil liberties-minded, Silicon Valley crowd, and I chalk this up to his poorly conceived resignation pledge. Now that he’s wisely reversed himself on this, that enthusiasm has now been channeled largely toward Bernie Sanders. In other words, Sanders is sufficiently reform-minded to sate the appetite for change that Lessig represents. And the debate last week only solidified that state of affairs.
I truly hope that new interest is sparked in Lessig’s campaign, again, not because I think he has any chance of being nominated or elected, but because his message is so vital. The agenda he champions is literally of existential importance to our democracy. A man of his wisdom, intelligence, and humanity carrying a message of achievable and necessary democratic rebirth deserves and needs to be on the next debate stage. He needs to be heard, and the other candidates, the ones who actually can be president, need to address them.
I just despair that it simply won’t happen now. The moment, I fear, has passed. Please, let me be wrong!Arsene Wenger has revealed the latest team news ahead of Saturday's Premier League fixture against Norwich City:
on the team news...We have no big problems injury wise and there is not much time to go. The players are all available now. It looks good for the [European Championship].
on his view on having all players fit for the Euros…It is good. Ideally, the players are not injured. Their injuries are accidental and traumatic injuries. It is good they have hope to go to the European Championship.
on his team selection…It is difficult and easy because all the players are at a good level. Any decision will be good, and any decision will be is bad as well because you have to leave a good player out.
on if he knows when he last had a fully-fit squad…No, I don’t know because between you have some players who make their place in the team like Iwobi and Elneny who we brought in January so there is more competition for places now.
on Oxlade-Chamberlain...It's Oxlade-Chamberlain's first week in full training now, so I don't think I will select him this weekend.
on Cazorla...Santi might be in the squad this weekend, I don't know yet. He is available. Everyone is available, but maybe Oxlade-Chamberlain is not competitive yet.
Login or register to play video 12:20 Arsenal 4-1 Norwich, October 19, 2013
ADVERTThe Obama campaign's newest ad, airing in nine states, hammers Mitt Romney's economic record as governor and makes the case that if Romney economics didn't work for Massachusetts, it won't work for the nation.
The ad targets the Bay State's weak jobs growth under Romney, when it fell to 47th in the nation and lost 40,000 manufacturing jobs, twice the national average. It also calls out Romney for lowering taxes on the millionaires "like him" while raising fees on everyone else yet adding $2.6 billion to the state's tax burden.
The ad explicitly ties Romney's record in Massachusetts to the 2012 campaign with video clips from both campaigns of Romney claiming his private sector experience as CEO of Bain Capital taught him what it takes to create jobs. That claim was the centerpiece of his 2002 campaign just as it is today. "Remember, we've heard it all before," the ad warns. "Romney economics. It didn't work then, and it won't work now."
The Obama campaign says it is airing in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.Many of you have heard about your San Diego Comic-Con 2017 hotel placement fate. Many of you… still haven’t.
Here’s the good news: Comic-Con said that you would be alerted “no later” than May 15 if you weren’t able to be placed into a hotel room. That implies, to us, that they may use some returned inventory from Group 2 to give to folks who haven’t heard back yet at some point on or before next Monday.
Here’s the bad news: Since they didn’t really promise a Round Three of confirmations, it’s not likely to be a ton of e-mails going out, if there even are any more placements to be given. Which means, for many, you may not receive any hotel, or maybe you did get one but not the one/area that you wanted.
So what are your next moves?
Wait for More E-mails: As we said above, CCI promised that attendees would be alerted “no later” than May 15 if their hotel placement request was rejected. That means we may still get more hotel room e-mails between now and next Monday.
As we said above, CCI promised that attendees would be alerted “no later” than May 15 if their hotel placement request was rejected. That means we may still get more hotel room e-mails between now and next Monday. Room Trade: One of the positive things about onPeak is that attendees have the option of changing the names on their hotel reservation, and it’s relatively painless. We recommend having the original owner of the reservation call if at all possible. But assuming you get through to a willing customer service rep (which is about 90% of them – usually if you get one unfamiliar with the process, just hang up, call back, and speak to someone else), this means that you can both give and receive any unwanted room reservations to someone who does want it, making two people happy. There are room swaps all over, but the biggest and most trusted is over at the Friends of CCI forum. Don’t pay someone to “buy” their hotel room reservation from them, though. Ever.
One of the positive things about onPeak is that attendees have the option of changing the names on their hotel reservation, and it’s relatively painless. We recommend having the original owner of the reservation call if at all possible. But assuming you get through to a willing customer service rep (which is about 90% of them – usually if you get one unfamiliar with the process, just hang up, call back, and speak to someone else), this means that you can both give and receive any unwanted room reservations to someone who does want it, making two people happy. There are room swaps all over, but the biggest and most trusted is over at the Friends of CCI forum. Don’t pay someone to “buy” their hotel room reservation from them, though. Ever. Cancellations : Some hotels will go back on sale. Deposits for these Round Two hotels are due by Friday, May 12 at 12AM PDT (so basically Thursday night). Hotels (yes, even downtown hotels!) will be returned, as often, each roommate in a room will try for a hotel, and then if the group receives multiples, they can cancel the rest. Most of these will be Mission Valley options, but it’s a hotel, and it certainly beats sleeping on the sidewalk. Some of these cancellations may be e-mailed out next Monday with the rejection e-mails, and if not – there’s the Waitlist.
: Some hotels will go back on sale. Deposits for these Round Two hotels are due by Friday, May 12 at 12AM PDT (so basically Thursday night). Hotels (yes, even downtown hotels!) will be returned, as often, each roommate in a room will try for a hotel, and then if the group receives multiples, they can cancel the rest. Most of these will be Mission Valley options, but it’s a hotel, and it certainly beats sleeping on the sidewalk. Some of these cancellations may be e-mailed out next Monday with the rejection e-mails, and if not – there’s the Waitlist. Pray for Waitlist : For at least the last few years, onPeak/Travel Planners has opened up some returned downtown hotels to those who were on the waitlist, or who simply didn’t receive their top hotel picks. In years past, onPeak let those who had booked hotels in Mission Valley or other areas they didn’t originally request get a full refund, even though the refund deadline had passed — which is good news for anyone debating about whether to book the hotel they got assigned now, or wait it out. This will likely open up sometime on or after May 15.
: For at least the last few years, onPeak/Travel Planners has opened up some returned downtown hotels to those who were on the waitlist, or who simply didn’t receive their top hotel picks. In years past, onPeak let those who had booked hotels in Mission Valley or other areas they didn’t originally request get a full refund, even though the refund deadline had passed — which is good news for anyone debating about whether to book the hotel they got assigned now, or wait it out. This will likely open up sometime on or after May 15. Go Outside the System : So you didn’t get a hotel. You have other options that aren’t the Hall H line, we promise. Although downtown hotels basically want attendees’ first born in exchange for a room (the Hilton Bayfront has rooms starting at just $1500 a night, kids!), with a quick search we were able to find several motels in San Diego for under $300 a night. You won’t be spending much time there anyway.
: So you didn’t get a hotel. You have other options that aren’t the Hall H line, we promise. Although downtown hotels basically want attendees’ first born in exchange for a room (the Hilton Bayfront has rooms starting at just $1500 a night, kids!), with a quick search we were able to find several motels in San Diego for under $300 a night. You won’t be spending much time there anyway. Accept Your Fate: If all else fails, if you at least have somewhere to stay — make the most of it. So maybe you’re in Mission Valley instead of the Gaslamp District. There are plenty of Comic-Con shuttles that run 24 hours, or you can even look into renting a car and buying parking. You now have a quiet hotel room to go back to, twice the dining options, and you can still hang around downtown as much or as little as you want. Getting that perfect downtown hotel isn’t the be-all/end-all of the Comic-Con experience, and it only means you won’t have a good time if you let it mean that. Now start planning the fun stuff.
What’s your strategy if you didn’t get what you wanted in the hotel sale? Let us know in the comments.‘Napoli want Vermaelen but…’
By Football Italia staff
Napoli are in for Thomas Vermaelen, says the player’s agent, but they are not the only team interested and have to wait until after the World Cup.
The Belgium international centre-back has fallen down the pecking order at Arsenal and is increasingly linked with a move away in the summer.
According to his agent, rumours of interest from Serie A and from Rafa Benitez’s side do hold an element of truth, even if they must be tempered with patience.
“Yes Napoli have been on the player and have stepped forward, but just as the Neapolitans have, other clubs have shown their interest and not just Italian clubs,” agent Alex Kroes has warned to calciomercato.com today.
“You cannot say, though, that the player is close to a transfer to Napoli.
“I repeat - wait until after the World Cup, where Vermaelen is going to do his best, then we will face any kind of discourse for his future.”While nothing is set in stone and no official announcements have been made by anyone associated with the film, Stu Tinker, owner and operator of SK Tours, the official Stephen King tour of Bangor, took a production designer from the upcoming Hollywood two-part remake of King’s “It” on a tour of the city on Monday.
Tinker, who owned King-centric bookstore Bett’s Books and has for 18 years run SK Tours, took production designer Mara LePere-Schloop on a tour of the city, scoping out locations including the Thomas Hill Standpipe, the land running alongside the Kenduskeag Stream that in “It” is called The Barrens, and the Waterworks on the Penobscot River. Bangor — well, Derry, Bangor’s stand-in in the King Universe — is the primary location in “It.” Tinker said LePere-Schloop said during her tour that they were hoping to shoot some scenes in the city and possibly get some aerial shots, though currently the leading locations for the majority of filming for the movie are in Yonkers, N.Y. and in upstate New York.
As to why Bangor, seemingly the logical choice for the location for filming “It,” may not end up being the chosen location, the answer is the same reason why many films and TV series — from HBO’s “Olive Kitteridge” to Tim Burton’s “Dark Shadows” — are not filmed here. Simply put, Maine does not offer the same tax incentives to filmmakers as other states like New York, Massachusetts and North Carolina do — which is why, for example, the TV series “Under The Dome,” based on King’s Maine-set 2008 novel, was filmed in North Carolina instead of Maine. Filming in Maine is just too expensive for most filmmakers.
Maine Film Office director Karen Carberry Warhola said in a phone call on Monday afternoon that no one from the “It” production had yet contacted her office.
Though not much else is known about the “It” remakes, here’s what we do know:
It will be written and directed by Cary Fukunaga, best known for directing the films “Sin Nombre” and “Jane Eyre” and the highly acclaimed first season of HBO’s “True Detective,” with stars Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson. Interestingly, LePere-Schloop was the art director on “True Detective,” which might mean some of that show’s ominous, Southern Gothic-inspired aesthetic might find its way into the new film. LePere-Schloop has also worked on films including “Django Unchained” and “Terminator: Genisys.”
“It” will be a two part adaptation, with the first installment tentatively slated to be released in 2017. The first part will feature the main characters as children; the second, as adults. According to what Tinker says LePere-Schloop said, the adaptation will also move the timeline up to the 1980s for the children’s story, and the present day for the adult’s story.
“It” producer Dan Lin said in an interview with Vulture that a summer 2015 shoot is currently the plan for the movies.
King himself is apparently pleased with the initial scripts for the remakes, and has given his full blessing.
The beloved but rather dated two-part 1990 TV miniseries adaptation of “It” is still popular among King fans. Despite their wishes, it seems highly unlikely Tim Curry will reprise his role as Pennywise.
What do you think? Should Bangor be a location for the “It” remake? Make your voice heard!
We all float down here, Richie.HyperNormalisation Title screen Directed by Adam Curtis Produced by Sandra Gorel Written by Adam Curtis Production
company BBC Release date 16 October 2016 ( ) (UK)
(UK)
Running time 166 minutes Country United Kingdom Language English Budget £30,000[1]
HyperNormalisation is a 2016 BBC documentary by British filmmaker Adam Curtis. It argues that governments, financiers, and technological utopians have, since the 1970s, given up on the complex "real world" and built a simpler "fake world" run by corporations and kept stable by politicians. The film was released on 16 October 2016 on the BBC iPlayer.[2]
Etymology [ edit ]
The word hypernormalisation was coined by Alexei Yurchak, a professor of anthropology who was born in Leningrad and later went to teach in the United States. He introduced the word in his book Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation (2006), which describes paradoxes of life in the Soviet Union during the 1970s and 1980s.[3][4] He says that everyone in the Soviet Union knew the system was failing, but no one could imagine an alternative to the status quo, and politicians and citizens alike were resigned to maintaining the pretense of a functioning society.[5] Over time, this delusion became a self-fulfilling prophecy and the fakeness was accepted by everyone as real, an effect that Yurchak termed hypernormalisation.[6]
Chapters [ edit ]
The film comprises nine chapters.
1975 [ edit ]
The fiscal crisis in New York City and the emergence of the idea that financial systems could run society; shuttle diplomacy between then-US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Middle Eastern leaders in the Arab-Israeli dispute and the subsequent retreat by Hafez al-Assad of Syria; and the onset of hypernormalisation in the Soviet Union.
The Human Bomb [ edit ]
How, following the United States' involvement in the 1982 Lebanon War, a vengeful al-Assad made an alliance with Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran. They planned to force the US out of the Middle East by encouraging civilians to carry out suicide bombings on American targets in the region, thereby avoiding reprisals. In February 1984, the US withdrew all its troops from Lebanon because, in the words of then-US Secretary of State George P. Shultz, "we became paralysed by the complexity that we faced".
Altered States [ edit ]
By the mid-1980s, banks and corporations were connecting through computer networks to create a hidden system of power, and technological utopians whose roots lay in the counterculture of the 1960s also saw the internet as an opportunity to make an alternative world that was free of political and legal restraints.
Acid Flashback [ edit ]
John Perry Barlow's vision of cyberspace as the 1990s equivalent of the Acid Tests. Barlow had been part of the LSD (also known as "acid") counterculture in the 1960s and founded the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He wrote a manifesto called A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace. Addressed to politicians, it declared "the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose upon us". Two computer hackers—Phiber Optik and Acid Phreak—knew that in reality corporations were using the internet to exert more control over the lives of people than governments had done in the past, and they demonstrated that hierarchies did exist online by obtaining Barlow's credit record from TRW Inc. and posting it on the internet.
The Colonel [ edit ]
This chapter describes the Reagan administration using Muammar Gaddafi as a pawn in their public relations (PR) strategy of creating a simplified, morally unambiguous foreign policy by blaming him for the 1985 Rome and Vienna airport attacks and the 1986 Berlin discotheque bombing that killed US soldiers, both of which European security services attributed to Syrian intelligence agencies. Gaddafi is described as playing along for the sake of increasing his profile in the Arab world as a revolutionary. The 1986 United States bombing of Libya, 10 days after the disco bombing, is described as an operation carried out mainly for PR reasons, because attacking Syria would have been too risky.
The Truth Is Out There [ edit ]
This chapter begins with a montage of unidentified flying object (UFO) sightings recorded by members of the public in the United States. It argues that the phenomenon surrounding UFOs in the 1990s was born out of a counter-intelligence operation designed to make the public believe that secret airborne high-technology weapons systems tested by the US military during and after the Cold War were alien visitations. Top secret memos forged by the United States Air Force Office of Special Investigations were allegedly leaked to ufologists who spread the manufactured conspiracy theory of a government cover-up to the wider public. The method, called perception management, aimed to distract people from the complexities of the real world. American politics are described as having become increasingly detached from reality. Curtis uses the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of the 1980s as an example of an event that took the West by surprise because reality had become less and less important. A Jane Fonda workout video is shown to illustrate that socialists had given up trying to change the real world and were instead focusing on the self and encouraging others to do the same. The video is intercut with footage of Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife, Elena, being executed by firing squad and buried following the Romanian Revolution in 1989.
Managed Outcomes [ edit ]
Ulrich Beck is identified as a left-wing German political theorist. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, he saw the world as too complex to change, and Beck asserted that politicians should merely keep the West stable by predicting and avoiding risks. Curtis looks at Aladdin, a computer that manages about 7% of the world's financial assets, analysing the past to anticipate what may happen in the future; and how anti-depressant drugs and social media both stabilise the emotions of individuals.
A Cautionary Tale [ edit ]
The start of this chapter is about the flaws of trying to predict the future by using data from the past. Curtis tells the story of how a card counter was recruited by Donald Trump to analyse the gambling habits of Akio Kashiwagi at his casino, the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, after Trump had lost millions of dollars to Kashiwagi. In an effort to avert the impending bankruptcy of the casino, a model was devised that predicted a way of recouping the money from Kashiwagi, who lost US$10 million. However, before he could pay, he was killed by yakuza gangsters and the casino went bankrupt, with Trump having to sell many of his assets to the banks.
Attention turns back to the Middle East and the Lockerbie Bombing in 1988. Curtis says that immediately after the bombing, journalists and investigators blamed Syria for carrying out the attack on behalf of Iran in revenge for the shooting down of Iran Air Flight 655 by the United States Navy.[a] It was generally accepted as true until US security agencies announced that Libya was behind the attack. Some journalists and politicians believed that the West had made the volte-face to appease Syria's leader, who the US and the United Kingdom required as an ally in the coming Gulf War.
He focuses on the spread of suicide bombing tactics from Shia to Sunni Islam and the targeting of civilians in Israel by Hamas during the 1990s. The resulting political paralysis led to a stalling of the Israeli–Palestinian peace process. It is described as an unintended consequence of Israel's response to the 1992 killing of an Israeli border guard.
A montage is shown of clips from pre-9/11 disaster films in which New York City landmarks are variously destroyed by alien invaders, meteorites, and a tsunami. Curtis argues that such films were characteristic of a mood of uncertainty that pervaded the United States at the end of the 20th century.
Curtis shows how Muammar Gaddafi was turned into the West's "new best friend."
A World Without Power [ edit ]
The effect of the Iraq war wreaks havoc on the American psyche and people retreat into cyberspace. Judea Pearl creates Bayesian networks that mimic human behaviour. Judea's son, Daniel Pearl is the first American to be beheaded on a video uploaded to YouTube.
Meanwhile, social media algorithms show information that is pleasing to its users and hence does nothing to challenge their beliefs. Despite this, Occupy Wall Street emerges in an attempt to disrupt the system by imitating the leaderless system that the internet was once imagined to become. Using a similar method, the Egyptian revolution of 2011 commenced.
Britain, France and the US turn their backs on Muammar Gaddafi once Libyans rise up against him. The US drops bombs using drones, and then footage is shown of Gaddafi being captured by rebels.
Neither Occupy Wall Street nor the Arab Spring turn out very well for the revolutionaries.
In Russia, Vladimir Putin and his cabinet of political technologists create mass confusion. Vladislav Surkov uses ideas from art to turn Russian politics into a bewildering piece of theatre. Donald Trump used the same techniques in his presidential campaign by using language from Occupy Wall Street and the extreme racist right-wing. Curtis asserts that Trump "defeated journalism" by rendering its fact-checking abilities irrelevant.
The American Left's attempt to resist Trump on the internet had no effect. In fact, they were just feeding the social media corporations who valued their many additional clicks.
Syria's revolution becomes more vicious and violent. The technique of suicide bombing that Curtis argues Hafez al-Assad introduced in order to unite the Middle East has instead torn it apart. Russia uses Surkov's concept of "non-linear warfare" to fight against the Syrian rebels. Russia claims to leave Syria, but doesn't.
Abu Musab al-Suri in Syria suggests that terrorists should not carry out large-scale attacks such as Osama Bin Laden's, but instead carry out "random" small-scale attacks throughout the West to create fear and chaos, against which it would be more difficult to retaliate.
Destabilisation of the West's psyche leads to the vote for Brexit and the popularity of Donald Trump.
The film closes with a Barbara Mandrell performance played over a montage.
Don't help me set the table
Cause now there's one less place
I won't lay mama's silver
For a man who won't say grace
If home is where the heart is
Then your home's on the street
Me, I'll read a good book
Turn out the lights and go to sleep "Standing Room Only" from This Is Barbara Mandrell
Music [ edit ]
Music used at any stage or repeatedly includes:
Clips [ edit ]
HyperNormalisation makes extensive use of footage from the BBC Archives and includes material shot specially for the documentary.[8]
Critical reception [ edit ]
Most critics praise the film-making style, excusing the long running time due to the complexity of the themes being explored. However, there is some disagreement about the arguments presented in HyperNormalisation. "He has to go and ruin everything by pushing his theories that little bit too far into the realms of conspiracy-theory silliness," James Delingpole wrote in The Spectator.[9] Phil Harrison, in a review for The Quietus, wrote "it could be argued that Curtis himself is just another master manipulator."[10].
In Little White Lies, David Jenkins wrote that the film "reveals [Curtis's] limited range as a filmmaker":
Curtis believes that declaiming something with conviction imbues it with the essence of truth. His work is the cinematic embodiment of the Milgram experiment, in which subjects continue to electrocute unseen victims at the behest of a lab-coated authority figure. His wall-to-wall voiceover narration is rife with sweeping statements which act as the teetering tentpoles of his thesis.[11]
Awards and nominations [ edit ]
Year Association Category Nominee(s) Result 2017 Diversity in Media Awards Movie of the Year Nominated
See also [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ]
^ [7] Lebanese involvement has also been suggested.
References [ edit ]
Reviews:BOCA RATON, FLA. — Gary Kubiak sat down for breakfast Tuesday, and before he could eat his first bite of watermelon was asked how he was digesting the Broncos’ uncertainty at quarterback.
The Broncos are the first Super Bowl champions since the 2000 Baltimore Ravens to lose their top two players at the position, and no recent defending champion has gone this late into the offseason without knowing who its starter is.
“We are in no hurry to add a quarterback. We talk about it every day. The important thing is that we get it right, not rush it,” Kubiak said at the coaches’ breakfast at the NFL owners meetings. “It’s going to be a competitive situation. May the best man win.”
Broncos Mailbag: Pose a question for Troy E. Renck
The Broncos’ recent acquisition of Mark Sanchez allows for patience with the decision. Kubiak said Sanchez will learn Denver’s offense quickly because of his familiarity with the verbiage dating to his days at the University of Southern California. He has been a regular at the Broncos facility preparing for his opportunity since he was acquired.
The Broncos continue to explore multiple options to get a quarterback in free agency — Ryan Fitzpatrick, Robert Griffin III — and trade (though Kubiak could not discuss players under contract such as San Francisco’s Colin Kaepernick, Houston’s Brian Hoyer and Tampa Bay’s Mike Glennon).
Eager to embrace the challenge of repeating, beginning with offseason workouts on April 18, Kubiak addressed multiple topics during a wide-ranging interview that lasted more than an hour at the Boca Raton Resort and Beach Club. Following are highlights:
On the locker room void created by Peyton Manning’s retirement |
This is because their impulses have no apparent “value” in life and society.
. This is because their impulses have no apparent “value” in life and society. A feeling of being lost. This is because their impulses give them no place in life.
. This is because their impulses give them no place in life. A feeling of being controlled. This is because they feel they have no control over their lives.
. This is because they feel they have no control over their lives. Certain impulses control them or they feel they do not have control over certain impulses. Because these impulses have not been given a direction and place these impulses often go astray, uncontrolled, and undirected.
As a result of identity problems the female-as-victim tends to feel particularly controlled by, and at the mercy, of menstrual feelings (described above). Being without a firm and healthy identity these impulses, basically, have no place to go nor any meaning. Since these impulses are repetitive, with great force, entail the importance of childbearing, and given no meaning, they tend to as if “impose” themselves upon the female forcefully. As a result, the menstrual traits described above tend to be exaggerated and intensified (feeling damaged, feeling a slave, and that someone else is at fault). This becomes the base of the feelings of being a victim. If it is particularly severe then they start to see these themes everywhere and in everything (such as everything damages them, everything enslaves them, and its someone else’s fault). Once this starts it starts to control or overwhelm many females. This is particularly aggravated because of a lack of self to control things (see above)... they are now defenseless against it. As a result, many females literally become “at the mercy” of these menstrual feelings... it dominates them, it controls them, and they become a “puppet” to it. This condition, really, is a big part of the female-as-victim.
My observation is that females who have firm identities, as a female, tend to not have victim feelings nor develop the female-as-victim mentality. This shows, at least to me, the importance and value of the female identity. It also shows that a significant trait, and quality, of the female identity is in dealing with menstrual feelings, passions, and tendencies. In some respects, one could say that this is one of the biggest differences between male and female identity as the male does not have these feelings.
The female needs to control these menstrual feelings in order to have a healthy and meaningful life. As a result, female identity tends to have a qualities such as:
Being reactive. In other words, females are reacting to a condition that is as if “imposed” upon them. Identity allows them to reactive in a more effective, meaningful, and healthy way. When the female has no identity this “imposition” of the mother instinct, particularly through menstruation, can cause great problems (or lead to great problems). As stated above, the power of the mother instinct is so strong that many females end up struggling with it, at least to some extent. A lack of identity only predisposes them to problems.
. As stated above, the power of the mother instinct is so strong that many females end up struggling with it, at least to some extent. A lack of identity only predisposes them to problems. Being controlling. The power of the mother instinct is so strong and powerful that the female identity needs to have particularly strong and powerful means to control it and its effects. In a sense, the mother instinct “needs to be controlled” which means that the female identity “needs to be controlled”. As a result, the female identity tends to reflect this “control” by entailing more restrictions, more controlling qualities, more prohibitions, etc. This fact tends to give the female identity more of a “slavish” and controlling quality. Many males can sense this. For some males it will cause them to develop a low view of the female as a result. From my own observation I’d describe this quality as giving females a “minion”or robot-like quality.
These qualities are unique to the female identity and, accordingly, give much of the quality of “being female”.
The female identity is closely associated with the “female niche”. In fact, they are so closely related that one could say that the fall of the “female niche” is the fall of the female identity. I’ve described some of the aspects of the fall of the “female niche” above.
The “female niche” benefits the female identity a number of ways:
Since it is a “female world” it brings out, and develops, many naturally appearing female passions, impulses, etc.
It is where they learn to make these impulses have value and worth.
It gives females a “role model”.
It allows the older generation of females to impart a healthy identity on the younger generations based on their experience.
It is a “protected world” where they do not feel threatened and are free to develop an identity.
It seems, to me, that the female identity is so associated with the “female niche” that its fall is a great unspoken tragedy.
At this time, I see no evidence that the male had any involvement in the destruction of the “female niche” or the female identity, as many female-as-victims claim (as part of their blame and accusation). In fact, my inquiry shows that the males were generally supportive of the “female niche” and female identity as a whole. But when the male tried to support the female identity, such as maintaining the role of a wife, the female-as-victim females called it “oppression” or some form of abuse. So you see that the female-as-victim female had more help and support than they think but they pushed it away. This is because they were so fixated on the victim theme that this is how they interpreted everything and all that they could see. My observation is that this tendency to push away support is a big contributing factor in the fall of the female identity and the “female niche”. In other words, the female-as-victim is so committed to being a victim that they undermined themselves by not accepting support!
I see no evidence that society destroyed the “female niche” or the female identity. The role played by society is one of a “backdrop” or in the fact that it “cast a shadow” over it all. As a result, it set a form or pattern for how this problem appeared and manifested itself but it did not create it. In this way, society did not play an active role.
From what I can see, the active role in the destruction of the “female niche”, and the female identity, seems to lie with the female herself. I’ve discussed aspects of this in a number of articles, such as “Thoughts on the ‘failed sex’ – how many female traits have failed – a hidden crisis of the American female ” and “Thoughts on how females are continuing the mistake of their mothers before them... continuing the ‘failed sex’ and promoting alienation “. Sadly, as I watch females today, I can see how many are undermining the female identity. And, more importantly, no one is forcing them to do it, no one is making them do it.. they are doing it all on their own. Common ways they undermine themselves include:
Being a slave to social ideals. Here they are trying to as if make the female identity equated with the social ideas. Even recently, I’ve seen many girls with shirts on that reflect social ideas, such as “be happy”, “life is good”, etc. Some shirts are more revealing and say something like “be kind, be compassionate, be you”. They are basically saying “I am these social ideals, they are who I am”. The problem is that this is not a genuine identity and does not really reflect them as a person... they’re just blindly following social ideals. In short, social ideals fails as an adequate identity. Another social ideal is going to college and having a job. Many females are sacrificing everything, including their female identity, to pursue this high and mighty American ideal, all so they can have a job. I tend to believe that, one day, many females are going to “wake up” and realize that all a female has become is someone who has a job... and that’s it! The mother instinct, the base of the female identity, will be nowhere to be seen. “Having a job” is not an adequate identity either.
Here they are trying to as if make the female identity equated with the social ideas. Even recently, I’ve seen many girls with shirts on that reflect social ideas, such as “be happy”, “life is good”, etc. Some shirts are more revealing and say something like “be kind, be compassionate, be you”. They are basically saying “I am these social ideals, they are who I am”. The problem is that this is not a genuine identity and does not really reflect them as a person... they’re just blindly following social ideals. In short, social ideals fails as an adequate identity. Another social ideal is going to college and having a job. Many females are sacrificing everything, including their female identity, to pursue this high and mighty American ideal, all so they can have a job. I tend to believe that, one day, many females are going to “wake up” and realize that all a female has become is someone who has a job... and that’s it! The mother instinct, the base of the female identity, will be nowhere to be seen. “Having a job” is not an adequate identity either. Being a slave to social trend. This includes fads, trends, and mass hysteria. Social media plays a large role here. What they do it slavishly follow social trends, whatever it is. Typically, this is done blindly and slavishly. They then associate their identity with how well they follow social trend. The better they follow the trend the “better they feel about themselves and who they are”. This, obviously, is not a source for an adequate identity.
This includes fads, trends, and mass hysteria. Social media plays a large role here. What they do it slavishly follow social trends, whatever it is. Typically, this is done blindly and slavishly. They then associate their identity with how well they follow social trend. The better they follow the trend the “better they feel about themselves and who they are”. This, obviously, is not a source for an adequate identity. Trying to be a man. Many females tend to think that being a man will somehow “save” them from the ordeal of female problems. Someone tell me how trying to be a man makes for a stronger female identity? I think its obvious: it doesn’t!
Many females tend to think that being a man will somehow “save” them from the ordeal of female problems. Someone tell me how trying to be a man makes for a stronger female identity? I think its obvious: it doesn’t! Portraying themselves as victims. This, of course is the female-as-victim I am speaking of in this article.
Keep in mind that these are the most common things I see and doesn’t include everything but they all tend to undermine the female identity or prevent its development. I should also point out that all these are responses to the problem not solutions. So far, from what I can see, there is little constructive effort on the part of the female to develop a healthy and firm female identity at this time.
SOCIAL HYSTERIA – THE SOCIAL SPREAD OF THE FEMALE-AS-VICTIM
With the absence of self the female needs the child or “child substitute” to complete themselves, as I’ve said before. A common “child substitute” is society. This makes many females almost slavish to social trend, fads, ideals, and such. Some follow society like a puppy dog begging for food. I’ve even described some females behavior as a “brown-nosing” or a “sucking up” to society.
Since following society, as a form of “child substitute”, is associated with the absence of self (as described above) it follows that this tendency is associated with the weakness, frailty, and insecurities that the absence of self causes. As a result, many females quickly become insecure when a fear or threat develops in society. This insecurity makes many females prone to social hysteria.
Many females are particularly prone to other females “feeling threatened” (that is, feeling a victim). So if one female “feels threatened” it often spreads from one female to another like domino’s. With the social media this can spread and get out of control quite quickly. This tendency shows a “connection” or “bond” that females have with each other which, I believe, is rooted in various aspects of the mother instinct:
Being a victim
The self-protective sense
Motherhood
These are all things they feel in other females which creates something like an “instinctual bond” between females. It seems to be unconscious. This “instinctual bond” causes a bond that makes fears and threats spread between females. Its like a common denominator that allows an avenue for fears and threats. What this means is that the mother instinct creates a tendency in females of social hysteria and a quick spread of fears and threats between females.
“FEMININE NEAR-SIGHTEDNESS” – THE EFFECT OF OBSESSION
The mother instinct tends to cause a tendency in the female where they become “focused” or “fixated” on something. This causes naturally appearing character traits that can be described in ways such as:
A naiveness.
A “narrow-mindedness”.
As if they are looking at life “through a tube”.
As if they have “blinders” on.
A near-sightedness or they can only see so far.
An inability to “get the big picture”.
It also creates a particular form of stupidity that is unique to the female. Basically, being “focused” and “fixated” tends to impair what they see and, as a result, their understanding of things.
These tendencies are a manifestation of the mother instinct. Basically, the mother instinct creates an instinctual-like tendency in the female where they put all their concentration, effort, and awareness in a specific thing. This “specific thing”, of course, is the child. In other words, the mother instinct creates a tendency to a “focusing” or “fixation” on the child or a representation of the child. This creates a generalized attitude which they take in life, of “focusing” or becoming “fixated” on certain things. This creates the qualities described above. I call this tendency “feminine near-sightedness”. Males, on the other hand, tend to be far-sighted and, accordingly, display “masculine far-sightedness”. As a result, males tend to get more of the “big picture” whereas females get more of the “little picture”.
“Feminine near-sightedness” tends to cause some unique traits in the female, such as:
They see more of the “suttle” things of life, the small nuances, and meanings in life (which the male tends to overlook).
They can often read the “hidden meanings” between people.
They live “second-by-second”.
They are often more “in tune” with the social mood.
At times, this quality can be the greatest strength of the female. At other times, though, it can be their greatest weakness. This is generally because they become too “focused” on small things, forgetting the bigger picture.
The tendency to “fixation” often figures in the female-as-victim. This is because of the association between “fixation” (that is, on the child representation) and the victim mentality... they reflect the mother instinct. As a result, when they feel a victim its not uncommon for them to become “fixated” on things such as:
The fact that they see themselves as victims.
What the view as the cause.
Who they blame and accuse.
Once this “fixation” takes place they often display these qualities:
They often cannot get their mind off of it.
They see it in everything.
They act as if the whole world revolves around it.
It dominates their interpretations of things.
In this way, the female-as-victim often takes on qualities of an obsession disorder. What this shows is that there is a close association between the female-as-victim and obsession. Many females become obsessed with being a victim and often can’t get it out of their minds. This is why it dominates and controls their lives. I’ve seen some females where the female-as-victim becomes a world view, and a basis of how they interpret the world (for example, I’ve heard some say something to this effect: “the female has been oppressed by the male since the beginning of time”). When this happens it almost looks “insane” or “psychotic”, in a way. They start conjuring up all these weird threats and victimizing as if pulling rabbits out of hat. Feminists are well known for this.
COMMON THEMES WITH THE FEMALE-AS-VICTIM
Overall, there are common themes associated with the female-as-victim. These are:
The idea that the female is a victim or damaged in some way
Menstruation – “negative childbearing”
Childbearing – “positive childbearing”
Sex
The male
These themes are as if intertwined and are often closely related, equated, and in different ways and forms. For example, sex is viewed as the means for childbearing but some females see sex as a form of victimizing or damaging of the female. As a result, the male is often viewed as the “victimizer” as he is associated with sex and childbearing. Another example is that the male is viewed as “enslaving” the female but this really is a manifestation of menstruation. The reason why this interests them so much is a deep desire to be pregnant which is associated with menstruation. This reveals a theme I see all the time, that when the female feels she’s a victim, or is damaged in some way, it often hides a desire to be pregnant. This is why some females will become preoccupied with being a victim. Other females will even seek to be victims of the male for this very reason (such as by going to bars or being attracted to abusive males).
All in all, its quite clear that motherhood, and the mother instinct, is closely associated with a sense of being hurt, damaged, or victimized in some way. Its as if this is the “price of motherhood”. This is a deep inner sense that females have, some more than others. This means that females innately feel “victimized” as a result. Because of this, the female-as-victim sense affects the female life in many ways such as:
It figures prominently in the mentality of the female, as a general rule.
It tends to appear when females have problems.
It motivates and causes many problems.
In this way, the female-as-victim sense is inherent in the female condition. Its a question of how far it gets out of control.
THE TUG-OF-WAR OF MOTHERHOOD – THE EFFECT OF THE “VIOLATION THEME”
One interesting effect of motherhood is that it creates a particular type of tug-of-war in the female. This can be quite a crisis for some females. Others may not feel it at all. Its a tug-of-war between two impulses:
A desire to be “violated” – The desire to be a mother.
– The desire to be a mother. The fear of being “violated” – The fear of being “damaged” by motherhood (childbearing, sex, the male) which incites the self-preservation of the womb tendency or conceit (see above).
In this tug-of-war its as if “on one hand they want to be violated and on the other hand they are frightened to be violated”. Common ways females struggle with this issue include:
They desire to be violated which can be a desire for sex or even a desire to be abused.
They alternate between wanting to be violated and being frightened, often changing with their mood.
A part of their mind wants to be violated but their conscious mind isn’t aware of it... consciously they act frightened.
They are frightened.
This shows that motherhood innately entails what can be described as a “violation theme”. This is an innate sense that their body must be “violated” or, rather, transgressed in order to have a child. There are two things that “violate” the female:
The child The male
It is one, or both, that frightens them. It is perceived that this “violation” will “damage” them. In other words, there is a deep unconscious awareness that the female body must be “damaged” for motherhood to happen. This, of course, conflicts with the self-preservation of the womb. This is the paradox of the childbearing and the cause of the tug-of-war... the female innately protects the womb as something “precious”, as its the source of childbearing, but in order for this “precious” womb to come to fruition it must be “damaged”. They don’t want to damage something they view as “precious” but they need to.
How is this dilemma resolved? Several things seem important:
A firm female identity. This gives them a firm base and understanding of what a female is and what a female does in life.
The “female niche”. This gives a sense of security and well-being as well as a sense that motherhood is part of a greater story involving all the females and the mothers that have come before you.
Established and accepted social conventions which makes it all non-threatening. These include things like courtship, marriage, a culturally based respect for childbearing, an understanding of the role of a mother, etc. These social conventions ease the conflict by making it “make sense” and “acceptable”.
These give the dilemma a “security” in its resolution. But all these things tend to be either missing or weak in the female-as-victim. As a result, the female-as-victim tends to have conflict with the tug-of-war and “violation theme” and are not able to resolve it. One effect of this is that they tend to always feel “violated”, “damaged”, “hurt”, or somehow adversely affected. In this way, the female-as-victim has a quality of someone who is really groaning about the ordeals of childbearing. After watching it all these years I’d say that there is a lot of truth in that. Its like they are saying, “motherhood is too much for me” but its said in roundabout ways, such as:
A female becoming upset because she heard a “dirty joke”.
A female feeling “raped” because guys look at her.
A feminist saying “we’re all oppressed by the male because they force us to cook”.
A female becoming traumatized because a male touched her breast (whether its intentional or not... does it matter?).
A female who tries to outdo the male.
These are just some of the claims of the female-as victim but I think you get the idea.
THE FEMALE-AS-VICTIM AND THE “STERILIZED SHELL”
As I mentioned above, the female-as-victim mentality often creates a tendency to be over reactive, offended, bothered, and “traumatized” by things like statements. In other words, nothing happens to them but yet they act like its going to kill them! We once had to go through a ridiculous seminar over sexual harassment many years ago. A great deal of what they said was reflective of the female-as-victim mentality. Basically, what we were told is that the male has to walk on “tip toes” around the female so as to not aggravate the over sensitive and neurotic female-as-victim mentality. If the male does aggravate it then the male is at fault... there was no mention, at all, that maybe the females ought to not be so ridiculously over sensitive and learn to “deal with it”. Instead, the male was told to “deal with” the ridiculousness of the neurotic female-as-victim female. This point of view, in my opinion, is not acceptable. After looking at the female-as-victim mentality all these years I feel, very strongly, that a number of things should happen, such as:
The female needs to take responsibility for her behavior.
The female cannot expect everyone, especially the male, to change for her over sensitive nature.
They need learn to deal with certain realities (such as that some males do tend to do “dirty jokes” and be vulgar).
They should be reprimanded, and even punished, for their behavior.
A good example is that if a female hears a dirty joke they need to “tune it out” and ignore it. That’s basically what the male is told to do with the female. Well, the female should do the same for the male. I will say that, after being around the female-as-victim mentality all these years I’m tired of walking on “tip toes” around them. Its like catering to someones delusion and neurosis. The more its catered to the less likely its going to be overcome. At any rate, during this seminar they told us that even if a female is in another room and overhears a “dirty joke” between two guys that, god help us, offends her then that is considered sexual harassment. I was so appalled by that. I just about stood up and said, “my god, you girls are the weaker sex... when you can’t even tolerate a dirty joke!” I’ve heard jokes that have disgusted me to but, by god, I don’t get traumatized by it. What all this shows is that the female-as-victim female expects that a “sterilized shell” is place around her, where they do not feel threatened, harmed, or bothered in any way. If this “sterilized shell” is not maintained then they tend to blame someone else for it (the all-so-familiar blame and accusation tendency).
This “sterile shell” goes so far that one must be careful of things like:
Manners and etiquette.
The”pleasantness” of things.
What they see.
What is said.
Its like the female-as-victim female needs to be in a fantasy land world where there is nothing that bothers them, where everything is “fine and dandy”, pleasant, and non-threatening.
This “sterile shell” is really an exaggeration and distortion of the “female niche” to the point of being neurotic. In fact, I tend to view the “sterile shell” as a reflection of the breakdown of the “female niche”. In actuality, its an abortive attempt at trying to create a “female niche”. Some of the differences include:
The “female niche” is generally focused on a physical location. The “sterile shell” is their immediate surroundings regardless of wherever they are.
When they are out of the “female niche” they to tend to “respect” the conditions of the new surroundings. In the “sterile shell” they do not respect the conditions of the new surroundings... they expect the “sterile shell” to be maintained and around them at all times.
The “female niche” is female focused where the females tend to themselves, their issues, their dilemma’s, and their conflicts. These generally do not leave the “female niche” (as a result, males are not usually aware of “female problems”). This point of view is absent in the “sterile shell”.
So we see that with the “female niche” there is a perception of “their place” and “not their place” which is absent in the “sterile shell”. In so doing, with the “sterile shell” mentality they expect the world to conform to their “issues”.
The “sterile shell” tends to be equated with their bodies and they treat it as if it was their bodies. As a result, when the “sterile shell” is “violated” by something that offends or bothers them, they treat it as if their bodies have been “violated”. This causes conceit and the self-preservation of the womb (see above) to come in and take over. This causes a tendency where they over react to the situation. Because of this, the “sterile shell” mentality tends to cause a tendency of over reaction in females.
In addition, conceit and the preservation of the womb tends to make females feel threatened, violated, damaged, and frightened... that is, they feel victims. As a result, the “violation” of the “sterile shell” is generally taken personally to the point of being a “personal attack”. This can get to the point that they become “traumatized” by it, even though nothing has happened. Remember that this “violation” can be something as simple as a “dirty joke” by a male.
THE “SCAPEGOAT” OF THE MOTHER INSTINCT – BLAME AND ACCUSATION – FABRICATING THREATS – THE VICTIM BECOMES THE VICTIMIZER
As I said above, the mother instinct is instinctual. It is so deep that females are not aware of it. Despite this, they are still affected by it. As a result of this discrepancy, females who are suffering its effects tend to need to find a “scapegoat” for it since they don’t know whats causing it. In so doing they basically create or fabricate a victimizer that doesn’t exist (or exaggerate or twist things around to the point that they become a victimizer). In this way, the female-as-victim sense tends to cause a lot of blame and accusation. In this society, the male or society is usually the “cause” for their problems... they become the “scapegoat” of the mother instinct.
The problem with this, and which I find appalling, is that they end up blaming and accusing innocent people. In this way, the female, who claims to be the victim, actually becomes a victimizer. I first noticed this with a group of people called feminists whose blind and ridiculous accusations I find appalling and unacceptable (see my article “Thoughts on the absurd claims of feminists“). In fact, the older I get the more appalling their claims have become. Many have created a whole world view where the female is nothing but a victim since the beginning of time, usually by the “tyrant male”. Some even think there is some sort of a “male conspiracy” against the female, a great plot to degrade, enslave, or abuse the female. Totally absurd!
Many females with the female-as-victim sense will claim all forms of abuse, victimizing, attacks, violations, and such which are often not true and may not of even happened at all. These are usually the males fault (showing its connection to sex and childbearing). There seems to be a number of patterns in which victimizing took place:
A victim-by-principle. This refers to them being a victim because they have some principle they favor “violated”. This could be things like a “rights violation”, an “attack” on their high views of themselves, a moral transgression, and such. This was used a lot by feminists who generally cited principles from the American Constitution and law.
This refers to them being a victim because they have some principle they favor “violated”. This could be things like a “rights violation”, an “attack” on their high views of themselves, a moral transgression, and such. This was used a lot by feminists who generally cited principles from the American Constitution and law. A victim-by-exposure. This means that they are a victim because they have been “exposed” to something they don’t like or which bothers them. This could be something like an idea that doesn’t agree with them, an “obscene joke”, a vulgarity, parts of the male body (intentional or not), and so on.
This means that they are a victim because they have been “exposed” to something they don’t like or which bothers them. This could be something like an idea that doesn’t agree with them, an “obscene joke”, a vulgarity, parts of the male body (intentional or not), and so on. A victim-by-emotion. This is when they feel a victim because some unpleasant or unwanted emotion has appeared in them. What they usually do, though, is blame the person or persons who instigated it... its their fault! But its actually their inability to deal with the emotion that victimizes them. In other words, they are victims of the emotion!
This is when they feel a victim because some unpleasant or unwanted emotion has appeared in them. What they usually do, though, is blame the person or persons who instigated it... its their fault! But its actually their inability to deal with the emotion that victimizes them. In other words, they are victims of the emotion! A victim-by-act. This means that something has happened to them. Probably the best example is rape.
As I’ve looked at this these past 30 or so years it seems, at least to me, that claims of abuse and victimizing tends to go in thirds: one third did happen, another third is “questionable”, exaggerated, or a matter of opinion, and the last third is made up or fabricated. I should point out that, because of the females tendency to social hysteria particularly when feeling “threatened” in some way (as I mentioned above), there is a tendency to fabricate stories of abuse once something becomes public, particularly after appearing in the media. Its like dominoes, once it starts the feelings of abuse spread like wildfire. In this way, once something becomes public, and a hysteria starts in the female population, there are more likely to be more stories of fabricated and false abuse and victimizing. Because of this, the third that is normally for fabricated and made up abuses rises in quantity, even to over a half. Some of the ways these stories start to appear include:
They start “seeing” abuse and victimizing in things that happened in the past. In other words, once the social hysteria gets going they start seeing things that have happened in the past in a bad light. Often, this is not something that bothered them enough for them to mention before. This, it seems to me, is the cause for many females “all of a sudden” saying they were abused or victimized so many years or even decades ago. They will often say, “they were scared to tell anyone”, or something like that, but my observation is that this is just a continuation of the victim line of thought: they blamed the male first, then they blame society. In this way, they complete their victimhood... the female becomes the victim-of-the-world!
In other words, once the social hysteria gets going they start seeing things that have happened in the past in a bad light. Often, this is not something that bothered them enough for them to mention before. This, it seems to me, is the cause for many females “all of a sudden” saying they were abused or victimized so many years or even decades ago. They will often say, “they were scared to tell anyone”, or something like that, but my observation is that this is just a continuation of the victim line of thought: they blamed the male first, then they blame society. In this way, they complete their victimhood... the female becomes the victim-of-the-world! They start seeing abuse and victimizing in things that are happening now. In other words, situations that normally don’t bother them all-of-a-sudden do. They start to exaggerate and twist things around to make themselves victims.
In other words, situations that normally don’t bother them all-of-a-sudden do. They start to exaggerate and twist things around to make themselves victims. They start to become overly oversensitive about things. “Little things” start to bother them or things that they don’t like are blown out of proportion. These are then elaborated to the point that they turn into abuse and victimizing.
“Little things” start to bother them or things that they don’t like are blown out of proportion. These are then elaborated to the point that they turn into abuse and victimizing. They start fabricating stories of abuse to “get in” on the hysteria. Here, they actually make the stories up. But, because of “conceit”, and its self concern, they are not awareMichael Brown and Ferguson
Even those of us with sympathy, we act like the bullet started its journey to that young man when the trigger was pulled and the charge ignited.
We act like what drove it on its journey to his soft, undefended body was the rifling in the barrel and the explosive charge that was put behind it.
But that bullet was on its way to Michael Brown when it was in the factory.
That bullet was on its way to Michael Brown when it was still a lump of unprocessed metal.
That bullet, that bullet was on its way to that young man when we didn’t integrate our society. That bullet was on its way to that young man when we devalued young black men in our media, in our culture, and to our police officers.
Yes, the white finger on the trigger was there and it was a damned racist finger, but there were racist fingers that fashioned the trigger and racist fingers that signed the papers that ordered it for a racist police force based on fear of racial violence.
It was racist fingers that made that young man a trope in media, not someone to be understood, but someone to be feared.
Those fingers were all on the trigger too. They all pushed that bullet down that barrel.
Because the sad fact is, for all our outrage, for all the yelling and screaming we might do, we’re all complicit. We created “the struggle.”
We nudged that bullet down the barrel, a barrel it had traveled down for 18 years. Every little one of our fingers that we didn’t lift gave that bullet a little push.
And you thought it was the gun powder. You thought you weren’t a part of it.
Well, you were. And you are.
Right now there is another Michael Brown, and another bullet is on its way to him. Are you going to help it get there again?A good violin depends not only on the expertise of the violin maker, but also on the quality of the wood that is used. The Swiss wood researcher Professor Francis W. M. R. Schwarze (Empa, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, St. Gallen, Switzerland) has succeeded in modifying the wood for a violin through treatment with special fungi. This treatment alters the acoustic properties of the instrument, making it sound indistinguishably similar to a Stradivarius.
In his dinner talk at the 1st ECRC “Franz-Volhard” Symposium of the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) and Charité – Universitätsmedizin on September 7, 2012 in Berlin-Buch, Schwarze reported on his research and gave a preview of what his wood treatment method could mean, particularly for young violinists.
Low density, high speed of sound and a high modulus of elasticity – these qualities are essential for ideal violin tone wood. In the late 17th and early 18th century the famous violin maker |
some backward place in the middle of Siberia which is being abandoned by its own inhabitants," said Nikolai Petrov, a regional expert with the Carnegie Center in Moscow.
In the long run, Russia's demographic dilemma may force Putin to drop Soviet revivalism, slash government controls and initiate genuine liberal market reforms, said Yevgeny Gontmakher, an economist with the Institute for Contemporary Development, a Moscow think tank linked to Medvedev.
"We don't require that every square kilometer of Russia be inhabited, but for solid strategic reasons we do need the Russia-China border to be populated" with Russians, he says. "If Russia wants to be a part of that economically dynamic region, the only way is to bite the bullet, open up and reform.
"It may be possible to reverse our dismal demographic trends, but it will require fundamental changes in the way our leaders think. We need to create economic opportunities, and drop all these grand plans based on state methods. It's a historic task facing our nation, and there isn't much time left to come to grips with it."
Editor's note: this article is part of Putin's Progress, an ongoing series about how Vladimir Putin is attempting to remake Russia. Read recent articles about the "Eurasian Union" and efforts to regain Moscow's superpower status.
Editor's note II: After publication of this article, a Forbes blogger took issue with some of the facts in the piece. GlobalPost investigated these allegations, and found them to be without merit. Click here to read GlobalPost's response to the Forbes blogger. Click here to read Fred Weir's response.
This is GlobalPost's Europe editor writing. I am responding to a posting by Forbes blogger Marc Adomanis, who alleged factual inaccuracies in a recent article by Fred Weir, titled Russia's shrinking population mars Putin's superpower ambitions. Neither Adomanis nor Forbes ever contacted us, and their blog was posted on Reddit prior to us learning of these allegations.
We looked into every detail, and found the allegations to be without merit. We stand by Fred Weir's story. Here are the details of GlobalPost's investigation:
- Adomanis takes issue with Weir's statement that "Russian death rates have stabilized in recent years." Here, Adomanis illustrates his point with a chart that appears to show a decline in the death rate. But that's only because Adomanis starts at 2003, the year that Russia posted its worst death rate since 1950, at 16.4 per 1,000. (This is like posting a chart that begins in the depths of the mortgage meltdown to show what a great investment the S&P 500 is.)
Prior to the fall of the Soviet Union, the death rate never exceeded 11.6, and it averaged 9.3. The average since 1991 has been 14.7, according to the Rostat data that Adomanis uses. Since 2004, the death rate has been 16 per 1,000, 16.1, 15.2, 14.6 and 14.7, according to Rostat.
Weir is right and Adomanis is wrong — the current death rate has dropped to the post-Soviet average — in other words, it has stabilized.
Here's a link to the Rostat death rate data: http://bit.ly/u2vQUP
And here's a chart that shows Russia's death rate since 1950. The blue line is the post-Soviet average. The dashed vertical line is where Adomanis' chart begins.
- Adomanis says Weir is wrong in stating that “Russian fertility rates have been falling for decades.” Oddly, to "prove" his point, Adomanis links to a chart that... illustrates clearly that he (Adominis) is wrong. Adomanis' chart shows a fertility rate of 2.52 in 1960, 1.99 in 1970, 1.89 in 1980, 1.89 in 1990, 1.21 in 2000 and 1.54 in 2009. The 2009 number is up from 1.3 in 2006. Still, this is clearly a downward trend, even if there are occasional upticks, including one in the last few years and another in the 1980s. More importanly, Russian fertility has remained well below the 2.1 rate required for replacement.
The fertility drop is even more pronounced if you look at previous decades — down from nearly 7 in 1925 and about 3 in 1950; see page 26 of the UN report linked above for a chart).
So Weir is correct: Russia's fertility has been declining for decades.
For the record, here's the chart Adomanis uses: http://bit.ly/sXgYsz
- Adomanis says that Weir's population figure for Russia is wrong. The difference: Adomanis used the Russian government's numbers, while Weir used the US government's. It matters little whether Russia's population is 142 million (per Rostat) or 139 million (per the US government), a difference of about 2 percent. What matters is that Russia's population has shrunk, it is shrinking, and is expected to continue doing so. It's currently **shrinking** at a rate of 0.47 percent per year. That makes it 222nd in the world in terms of population growth.
In suggesting that GlobalPost got its facts wrong, Adomanis is at odds with Foreign Affairs magazine ("Russia's Demographic Disaster") as well as the United Nations, which in 2008 dedicated a report to the matter, titled "Russia Facing Demographic Challenges," which can be found here:
http://bit.ly/uHYyLq
If you're interested in checking Weir's numbers, the demographic projections are on page 25.
- Adomanis doubts that 600,000 people die in Russia from alcohol deaths, as Weir claims. Weir's figure was used in two 2009 articles published in the prestigious journal, The Lancet. Here are links to the articles: http://bit.ly/sanka4, http://bit.ly/vTnWSu. Adomanis bases his assertion not on actual alcohol mortality data, but on a speculative extrapolation from Rostat data. We will use Lancet's numbers.
We stand by all of the facts — as well as the larger themes — in Fred Weir's article.
Editors note: GlobalPost investigated Forbes' blogger's assertions of factual innacuracies in detail, and found them to be entirely without merit. Below is Fred Weir's response to the blogger.
MOSCOW — A blogger named Mark Adomanis has taken exception to my GlobalPost article on Russia's demographic crisis. He implies that my work gives a false view of population dynamics in this country over the past several years.
In his blog, posted on the prestigious Forbes.com site, Mr. Adomanis makes harsh allegations about the quality of my work.
Mr. Adomanis blog is sub-titled, "Where are the fact-checkers when you need them?" He goes on to say that my story is "littered with basic factual errors" and concludes: "It’s really not that hard to get this stuff right... so it really frustrates me when professional journalists can’t seem to do it."
When you insert those kind of statements about a colleague into the public record they can do real harm, and so you'd better know what you're talking about.
Does Mr. Adomanis present any kind of case that might justify those assertions?
No. His critique consists of a few quibbles that might make for an interesting coffee break dispute among demographers, but in no way affect the basic facts that I reported.
I interviewed several scientists in the course of researching that story. Bad journalism, which is what Mr. Adomanis seems to be accusing me of, would consist of misrepresenting, misunderstanding, cherry-picking or otherwise distorting what the sources told me. And they told me the following key facts about Russia's demographic crisis:
1) Russia's birthrates are too low to sustain the population, and vigorous social measures implemented under Vladimir Putin have not been sufficient to fix that problem.
2) Russia's mortality rates, particularly among working-age males, are disastrously high. Much of this is down to catastrophic post-Soviet rates of alcoholism. As Yury Krupnov, a leading Russian demographer, told me: "Here in Russia we have a European birth rate, but an African death rate."
3) Internal exodus is hollowing out Siberia and Russia's far eastern regions, leaving vast swathes of strategically vital territory virtually uninhabited.
From these facts, I drew the journalistic conclusion that Putin's efforts to restore Russia's superpower status, and particularly the dream of an eastern-oriented "Eurasian Union," face severe long-term physical challenges that may make them unrealizable.
In a story like this it is important to check the wider literature, to make sure your sources aren't oddballs of some kind. I consulted the most comprehensive study ever done on Russia's demographic crisis, the massive 2009 UNDP-sponsored report entitled "Russia Facing Demographic Challenges" that was prepared by an all-Russian team of scientists, and covers virtually every aspect of the problem.
I also had a look at an almost equally weighty, but more recent (2011) study prepared by the Berlin Institute for Population and Development, entitled "The Waning World Power" — here's an English-language version.
Over the years I have written on Russia's demographic crisis several times, and in the past I've been deeply indebted to the work of Murray Feshbach — whom I've had the pleasure of knowing personally — one of the leading demographers in the US, who has spent decades studying Russia's population decline. Some of his more recent articles can be found here and here.
To put it bluntly, the entire scientific literature on this subject agrees that the three points I outline above are factually accurate. Of course demography is a tricky science, and future projections may vary between more optimistic and more pessimistic ones. But they invariably predict radical, long-term depopulation for Russia. Indeed, the only person I've ever encountered who appears to argue otherwise is Mr. Adomanis.
On his specific points of criticism:
First, he accuses me of misstating the fertility rate of Russian women, which I said stood at 1.4 babies-per-woman in 2010. I got that figure from the US Census Bureau's international data base, which can be accessed here. Mr. Adomanis' second complaint is that I employed data from the US Census Bureau, rather than Russia's official statistical service Rosstat.
Well, I did that because one of the experts I interviewed said she was dubious about Rosstat's figures, which are somewhat more rosy than those employed by the global community, and pointed to the long-standing tendency of Russian state statisticians to tweak their data to please politicians. If Rosstat's figures were wildly different from those that are generally accepted, I would have had a duty to my readers to at least mention that. But, the thing is, they're not.
Rosstat puts Russia's fertility rate at just over 1.5 babies-per-woman, which may be a difference that demographers can get excited about, but it is not one that changes the basic outlook in any way: the level at which populations become sustainable, according to all sources, is 2.1 babies-per-woman.
Next, Mr. Adomanis takes me to task for saying that Russia's death rate "has stabilized" in recent years rather than saying it's shown improvement. Actually, the passage in my story reads: "And there have been some successes in the past few years. Death rates have stabilized, birth rates rose markedly over the past decade, and male life expectancy has jumped from a low of 58 years in 2003 to 63 today." Then follows a quote from demographer Anatoly Vishnevsky, who is one of the authors of the massive UNDP population report, who states flatly that the improvements are not enough to overcome the negative trends, and that the recent growth in birth rates are already flagging. On this point, it’s not clear what Mr. Adomanis' argument is, except that he seems displeased with the conclusion that the population crisis remains with us.
[Editor’s note: according to Rosstat data, the death rate trend has settled at 14.7 percent, which is the average for post-Soviet Russia. In other words, the rate has in fact “stabilized.” See this posting for more information.]
The other main point on which Mr. Adomanis takes issue is my citation of a 2009 report from the medical journal, The Lancet, which found alcohol abuse leads to 600,000 (mostly male) premature deaths in Russia each year. That study can be found here.
Mr. Adomanis slams the report in The Lancet (a highly respected medical journal) as outdated and based on bad methodology. The Lancet is hardly the only piece of evidence pointing to catastrophic rates of alcoholism in Russia, which continue to impact heavily on the country's population dynamics. But, again, virtually all experts say the same thing.
A couple of years ago I covered the campaign launched by President Dmitry Medvedev aimed at countering Russia's tidal wave of alcohol abuse. I quoted President Medvedev as saying the problem is a "national disaster... The alcohol consumption we have is colossal.... I have been astonished to find that we drink more now than we did in the 1990's, even though those were very tough times." And this is from a guy who definitely gets his data from Rosstat.
My personal, anecdotal observations jibe very closely with what the experts say. A couple of years ago I traveled out to several Volga towns (Myishkin, Ryabinsk, Yaroslavl) with a group of Russian doctors who were touring local orphanages. Everywhere we found the orphanages stuffed with children, the vast majority of whom were not technically orphans at all, but children who'd been abandoned by or taken away from incompetent parents. In Ryabinsk, a former closed military-industrial city, I was told the city had one orphanage in 1991; it has six now. Every doctor, child care worker and official that I talked with specifically identified rampant alcoholism as the prime cause, the scourge that is blighting their communities.
So, if Russia's mass alcoholism catastrophe is a thing of the past, as Mr. Adomanis appears to be alone in claiming, I'm going to take a good deal more convincing.
Given the consensus of expert opinion on these matters, I found myself wondering why Mr. Adomanis had singled me out for special attention. But now I see that he didn't.
A very similar blog post by him, also on the Forbes website here, attacks a recent Foreign Affairs article by Nicholas Eberstadt, entitled "The Dying Bear," in rather similar terms. Mr. Eberstadt's piece, which is an exhaustive, scholarly review of the evidence, comes to extremely dire conclusions about Russia's demographic future. Mr. Adomanis' subsequent attack blog accuses Mr. Eberstadt of being "consistently hysterical" and littering his piece with "legerdemain."
Which leads to the question, who is Mark Adomanis, and why is he saying these things? His thumbnail bio suggests he is a student, who has "been lucky enough to be educated first at Harvard and then at Oxford." In which subjects, he doesn't say. Other blog postings of his suggest a strong interest in Russian politics, and the fact that he is an occasional contributor on the Kremlin-funded English-language satellite news station Russia Today, or RT as it prefers to be known. Beyond that, he doesn't provide enough information to answer the question.
In any case, we do have something in common after all. I have had a lifelong fascination with Russia — I've lived and worked as a journalist in Moscow for the past 25 years — and I happen to have been a fairly frequent guest commentator on RT.
I'm not going to question Mr. Adomanis' motives. However, I do have my doubts about his expertise. And on one matter I am certain: when he accuses me of bad journalism, he is wrong.
Editor's note: Read also GlobalPost's response to Mr. Adomanis.The heavy chime of a clock wakes you in a vaguely familiar living room. Scattered keepsakes on tables drop hints at the people who have passed through here, but you can't quite piece them together. The photos hanging on the walls capture smiling faces you don't wholly recognize, even if one of them is yours.
This is the opening scene of Forget-Me-Knot, a new video game that puts its players in the shoes of someone battling Alzheimer's disease and dementia. Alexander Tarvet, a student in Abertay University's Game Design & Production Management program in Dundee, Scotland, aims to use the game to raise awareness of the brain disease, in which a person's memory, thinking and problem-solving skills progressively worsen over time.
See also: 6 Games That Will Give You a New Perspective
"Alzheimer’s disease is a devastating condition for everyone affected and their loved ones, and through playing Forget-Me-Knot the player gets an immediate sense of the confusion the character feels," Tarvet said in a press release.
Tarvet added that while the living room is supposed to be a comforting space, the game portrays it as incredibly unsettling. The player needs to navigate the emotionally foggy terrain, sifting through clues found on shelves and in drawers to understand where — and who — he is.
"Putting yourself into the shoes of the person with the disease gives a very immediate, visceral sense of how disorientating and terrifying it must be to live with long-term memory loss," he said.
Tarvet is among 170 students who presented their final projects over the weekend at Abertay's Digital Graduate Show, part of the Ignite Dundee festival running from May 8-31.
While many of the show's projects appear exciting, Tarvet's work stands out for its social consciousness, highlighting a disease that affects millions across the globe.
An estimated 44.4 million people have dementia worldwide, and that number is expected to increase to 75.6 million by 2030. Someone in the U.S. develops Alzheimer's every 67 seconds, according to the Alzheimer's Association, while approximately 850,000 people will live with dementia in the UK by the end of 2015.
Tarvet told Mashable that, like many people, his family has been affected by Alzheimer's disease. He said he has always been interested in the way video games can evoke the empathy of players.
"The medium has so much unexplored potential that I think indie game developers have the ability and freedom to explore," he said.
Honours Projects finally submitted! A photo posted by Alexander Tarvet (@thesandoid93) on Apr 27, 2015 at 6:49am PDT
Although still in early production stages, Forget-Me-Knot joins a number of video games that shine a light on important health and social issues, and the emotional impact that accompanies them. Notable titles include Elude, which is a metaphorical portrayal of depression, and That Dragon Cancer, which illustrates the life of a parent of a young child with cancer. A short web game called Alz, developed in 2014, also explores how everyday details fade with Alzheimer's disease.
And while Forget-Me-Knot was 21-year-old Tarvet's final honors project for his degree, he told Mashable it could eventually be released to the wider public — with some help.
"The project wasn't intended to be more than a'snapshot' of this person's life due to time constraints, but due to public interest and positive feedback, I intend to do further research and see if there will be potential to continue the project," Tarvet said. "The prototype video game was created by myself, but if I were to take the project further, I would require some assistance in development."
Updated May 12, 8:44 a.m. ET to include comments from Tarvet.
[H/T Engadget]On Friday, a Monterey County woman was charged with wiretapping a police officer and possessing "illegal interception devices,” according to the Northern California District Attorney’s office. The District Attorney said that Kristin Nyunt, age 40, allegedly intercepted communications made by a police officer on his mobile phone.
Nyunt is the ex-wife of former Pacific Grove Police Commander John Nyunt, and she has already been sentenced to eight years and four months in prison after pleading guilty in July to five counts of identity theft, two counts of computer network fraud, one count of residential burglary, and two counts of forgery.
In the latest charges [PDF], the District Attorney accused Nyunt of using illegal spyware including MobiStealth, StealthGenie, and mSpy to intercept "sensitive law enforcement communication” in real time. Nyunt allegedly placed the spyware on a police officer’s phone surreptitiously, although court documents do not detail how or why.
Last month, the Chief Executive Officer of StealthGenie, one of the apps that Nyunt allegedly used to wiretap a police officer, was arrested and charged with illegally marketing his app to monitor adults. The government said that the software was "expressly designed for use by stalkers and domestic abusers who want to know every detail of a victim’s personal life—all without the victim’s knowledge.” The app took minutes to install but required the user to have physical control of the victim’s phone.
According to the Bay City News Service, between 2010 and 2012, Nyunt and her husband operated an unlicensed private investigator business called Nyunt Consulting and Investigative Services Corporation and used access to their customers’ devices and information to later commit identity theft. It is unclear whether the police officer Nyunt allegedly wiretapped was a customer of the Nyunts’ PI business.
Earlier this year, John Nyunt was convicted on state and federal charges for "steering a possible crime victim to his private investigation firm, then pretending to look into her case after accepting $10,000,” according to SFGate. "He also admitted that he gave Kristin Nyunt his department password and access to a commercial law-enforcement database without authorization.” John Nyunt was arrested in March for allegedly threatening to murder Kristin. The threat was discovered as both Nyunts, who were divorced at the time, were being investigated for possible fraud and theft. Kristin Nyunt specifically was accused of taking paintings and collectors' coins from homes, and she was thought to have committed 20 instances of identity theft since 2009.
The rise of spyware, especially programs for mobile phones often marketed toward parents who want to keep an eye on their children, has naturally led the rise of nefarious ways to use it. In 2008, two adult children allegedly put keylogging spyware on their father’s PC and monitored his e-mail and Internet use. In 2012, the man’s wife and son pleaded guilty to murdering him.
Even more recently, the EFF called out dozens upon dozens of local police forces for giving out software called ComputerCOP—a key logging program that’s essentially spyware but is marketed towards parents that want to keep track of their children.
“If [ComputerCOP is] used properly, it's something we whole-heartedly endorse,” one Alabama sheriff told Ars earlier this month.
As the case of Kristin Nyunt shows, spyware is often not used properly. And sometimes it’s turned against the police themselves.Starpoint Gemini 2 - mmihokovic
Greetings captains,As you've probably noticed, entire Starpoint Gemini franchise is now on massive sale. Latest base game – Starpoint Gemini Warlords is at 75% off! So, if you ever wanted to immerse yourself in our Universe, now is the perfect opportunity!Second big news is that final DLC for Warlords has just been released on Steam – Starpoint Gemini Warlords: Endpoint. As name suggests, this will be the last official DLC for the game. Endpoint is story driven scenario that will conclude Warlords storyline, and probably not in a manner one would expect. But those of you that will play it will understand what we mean...One sentence: Finish what you have started!Endpoint DLC key features:• Experience an all-new storyline that follows unexpected new path of Gemini Protectorate;• 8 brand new ships design, covering all ship classes with noticeable power edge in each of them;• Multiple new interesting characters involved with the storyline;• Story branching where you can choose how you wish to approach challenges in front of you;• Increased replayability as a result of multiple choices when accepting some story missions;• Modified planetary assault where players can now strike decisively at the planets alone and automatically seize entire enemy territory when the last planet is conquered.Third news today is that, as usually with addition of new DLC, base game is also updated. Not a huge update this time, but still some well needed improvements:• Faction side quest for Outlanders is now fixed retroactively• Weapon turret firing arc on Numibian corvette class is now correct• „Hanging“ misaligned beam weapons will now fire correctly• All shipyard production templates will now work properly, and all shipyards will sell intended ships• Problematic chunk of german localization is now replaced with much improved version (huge thanks to ikbg90 & Vorlod for awesome work and help with this! )• nVidia Ansel support is now added to game• multiple further optimizations and reported bug fixesIf you’re in need of some serious space adventuring, you can browse through all of our products on sale, and pick something for you. With the release of final Warlords DLC, our latest game will also be available in GoldPack from today, and full list of games and additions you can find here:In the end, we have one last message for all players out there – despite releasing last planned DLC, we’re not going anywhere.We will continue to support the game, monitor your reports, discuss everything important with you, apply patches when needed, and do our best to justify faith you guys put in us in the past years!Until new exciting news – safe travels and good hunting!LGM GamesA writer on Lost has revealed what many suspected, that there was never a plan for how to end the show and each season they would just think of "f*cked up things" to keep it ticking over.
Prison Break writer Nick Santora recalled the time his Lost writer friend (who he wouldn't name) came clean during a Nerdist Writer's Panel podcast, an admission he was pretty appalled by.
"We had an expression in the room which was 'No Polar Bears' - a reference to Lost," he explained.
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
"I had friends that were writing on Lost, I can’t say who they were. And I was watching football with one of them and I was telling them how much I loved the show…and I’m like, "How are you going to pay all this stuff off?" And he looked at me and goes, "We’re not." And I go, "What do you mean you’re not?" He said, "We literally just think of the weirdest most f*cked up thing and write it and we’re never going to pay it off." And I look at him and I’m like, "That’s such bullshi*t! You are completely f*cking with the audience."
"I want to bring a class-action lawsuit on behalf of everyone who watched Lost all those years. Nina Hartley [a porn star] jerked people off less than Lost did."
In September, Lost showrunner Carlton Cuse claimed that a seventh series of the shipwreck drama is "inevitable" now that Disney owns the rights to it.
"Disney owns the franchise, it made them a lot of money, it's hard to imagine it will just sit there idly forever," he told ABC, to a collective groan from viewers.Minecraft can be quite a resource intensive game. If you’re playing on PC however, there are some things you can to do increase performance.
#1 – Reduce Particles
By turning particles to “reduced” or “minimal”, you can improve performance – simply by removing part of what Minecraft needs to render.
#2 – Reduce Render Distance
Minecraft by default supports render distances of up to 32. In reality however, 8 chunks is a much more reliable distance for midrange hardware, and 4 chunks for lower hardware.
#3 – Turn Smooth Lighting to minimum
Smooth Lighting is an effect that makes shadows less blocky. It can have a huge impact on performance however, so reducing it to minimum reduces the draw on your computer, and allows Minecraft to run better.
#4 – Change Graphics from “Fancy” to “Fast”
This is perhaps the most important thing you can do – it will drop the preset to a lower quality, the trade off being massive system perforance improvements on restart.
#5 – Turn off Clouds
What seems like a small adjustment can bring about a massive change – just because the cloud texture isn’t being duplicated at a crazy rate.
#6 – Make sure Minecraft is the only program running.
Trying to run other games in the background will cause Minecraft to run slowly, as it is competing with other programs for the computer’s resources. If you cut everything else out, your PC can instead focus on Minecraft.
#7 – Install Optifine
Optifine is a nifty mod that optimizes Minecraft, allowing it to run better and faster with full support for HD textures. You can download it here
What’s your tip for making Minecraft run better? Let us know in the comments below!
Hey Gearcrafters! Now It's your chance to share with us, just hashtag #YoGearcraft on your Twitter post with a link or image to your art, creations, videos, servers or whatever and it will appear right on our #YoGearcraft page for millions to see! It’s that easy! So what are you waiting for!? Give us a shout out #YoGearcraft!Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption As Lucy Williamson reports, the National Front is ahead in six of the 13 regions
The triumphant leader of the far-right National Front (FN), Marine Le Pen, says French voters rejected the "old political class" in regional elections that put her party top.
Nearly one-third of voters backed the anti-immigration FN, which won in six out of France's 13 regions.
Despite the FN surge, a second round on 13 December will be the decider.
It was the first electoral test since last month's Paris attacks, in which jihadist gunmen killed 130 people.
The nationalist FN got about 28%, ahead of the centre-right Republicans party led by former President Nicolas Sarkozy, which polled just under 27%, and the governing Socialist Party (PS), trailing with 23.5%.
The PS said it was withdrawing from the second round in two regions, in the north and south, to try to block a run-off victory for the FN.
On Twitter, Marine Le Pen said both the PS and Republicans "are crumbling" and "the French people are sick and tired of that old political world".
French press sees traditional parties in meltdown
Has France's National Front changed?
The far right's charm offensive
'Ballot fodder'
In a series of interviews she condemned the PS for withdrawing some candidates from the second round, saying the PS was "neither loyal nor democratic" and was "treating its voters like ballot fodder".
The PS candidate in a third region, Alsace-Champagne-Ardenne-Lorraine in eastern France, rejected a call from party leader Jean-Christophe Cambadelis to withdraw in the second round. Jean-Pierre Masseret said he could not be expected to leave 5.5 million people in the hands of a Republican party that had veered to the extreme or an extreme nationalist right.
Mr Sarkozy refused to do any tactical deals with the PS for the second-round ballot.
The result on Sunday was a major blow for Socialist President Francois Hollande, who had seen improved poll ratings after the Paris attacks.
Image copyright EPA Image caption National Front supporters celebrated as the predictions came in
Image copyright EPA Image caption Nicolas Sarkozy ruled out a deal with the Socialists in the second round
'First party of France'
France's new regional authorities have wide powers over local transport, education and economic development.
The vote is also an important test of FN support ahead of the 2017 presidential election.
Analysis: Hugh Schofield, BBC News, Paris
There is a surly anti-establishment mood in France, of which the National Front- a quintessential anti-establishment party - is taking full advantage.
Of course triumph for the FN will not necessarily translate into power.
The regional elections (like most French elections) are in two rounds. Next Sunday, voters may rally around the two main parties.
But in two regions - the north and on the Cote d'Azur - the National Front has smashed the opposition. In a third - Alsace - its chances are very strong. Others are not beyond reach.
Read more from Hugh
Marine Le Pen has distanced the FN from her father Jean-Marie Le Pen, who founded it and has been prosecuted for anti-Semitism. She argues that France cannot take in more Muslim immigrants.
Widespread anxiety about immigration and the fear of further terrorist attacks are believed to have boosted the FN's support.
Marine Le Pen stood in Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie, an economically depressed northern region that used to be a Socialist stronghold.
Her niece Marion Marechal-Le Pen stood in Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur in the south. Both won more than 40% of the vote, breaking previous records for the party.
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Marion Marechal-Le Pen hailed a "new political generation" replacing the old world
Marine Le Pen called it a "magnificent result" which proved the FN was "without contest the first party of France".
The FN "is putting down roots, structuring itself and steadily winning the confidence of the French people", she told RTL radio.
The FN had previously won European Parliament elections in France and local government elections.
The regional election was held under a state of emergency declared after the Paris attacks, which were claimed by so-called Islamic State militants.CALGARY — Naheed Nenshi, the mayor of Calgary, thinks he knows why his city’s entrepreneurial culture is becoming so robust, despite the cold winters Calgarians endure.
“The line I usually use when people ask me why Calgary has fostered such an entrepreneurial culture is this is a place where nobody cares who your daddy is or where you went to school. I say it so often that it sounds a bit trite, but I don’t think it is true everywhere,” he said, gazing briefly at the September sunshine bathing his private city hall veranda to reflect on his answer before continuing.
This is a place where nobody cares who your daddy is or where you went to school
“It is also a very interesting and weird unintended consequence of the way our downtown has been built,” he adds, referring to Calgary’s Plus-15 network of elevated walkways connecting the city’s skyscrapers.
The walkways allow office dwellers to attend meetings in other buildings without having to brave the city’s bitter prairie winters. “Our built environment has actually in some ways molded our business culture,” Mr. Nenshi said.
Calgary’s entrepreneurial culture is even easier to spot than the hundreds of steel and glass connections crisscrossing the city’s core. It hits new Calgarians like myself almost instantly; that infectious feeling of limitless raw potential, of broken barriers to success and endless possibilities.
This is a city of risk takers, of dreamers and of visionary builders. All of these enviable traits have, however, been relatively unknown in the rest of Canada, until now.
[np-related]
In a survey by Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses for the Financial Post, Calgary ranked as the 13th most entrepreneurial city in Canada this year. Not exactly a statistic to brag about, although it is a dramatic jump from No. 35 last year.
“The story on Calgary is getting out,” said Mike Fotheringham, research manager at Calgary Economic Development. “People across the country are starting to understand what is going on in this city.”
There is a sense that if you’ve got an idea, this is the place to make it happen and I think the stats reveal exactly that
Bankruptcy rates here are among the lowest in the country at just 1%, and have fallen every year since 2002. Retail sales growth also tends to be more than double the national average of 3%, reflecting Calgary’s growing affluence.
“There is a sense that if you’ve got an idea, this is the place to make it happen and I think the stats reveal exactly that,” Mr. Fotheringham said.
What the statistics do not reveal is another sense, of the opportunities here being as rich and thick as the bitumen that powers Calgary’s massive oil towers. The sense is not only that such opportunities exist, but that achieving even the loftiest of them can be done without the vast support networks required elsewhere.
One of the largest buyout deals in Canadian corporate history — the $19-billion Suncor Energy Inc. takeover of Petro-Canada — was struck by four men sitting in a small conference room in a posh downtown hotel.
“Other steps in the acquisition had to be taken, but things were essentially wrapped up in that meeting in the Palliser, working out the details with no lawyers, accountants, advisors or second guessers anywhere in sight,” Rick George, longtime Suncor chief executive, wrote in his newly released memoir Sun Rise. “I honestly don’t believe an agreement of this magnitude could have proceeded as it did … in any other city. The city of Calgary has a tradition of openness and trust, placing as much value on a handshake as on any multi-page contract.”
That tradition extends well beyond the gargantuan oil and gas players. When Victoria MacLean co-founded Startup Calgary a little more than two years ago, she counted 45 small technology-focused companies in the city. Her latest count totaled 162.
“The people here get great exposure to big data, to enterprise-level data, so they can really start to see and identify solutions for big problems here,” said the outgoing president of Startup Calgary.
Ms. MacLean is leaving to focus full time on BeauCoo, her latest startup which seeks to build a social network for women of similar body types to share style and shopping information. The company raised a $1.1-million seed funding round from Calgary-based Zinc Ventures last month and plans to launch its mobile app in a few days.
Ms. MacLean considers |
acy—and why there will never be world peace until this malevolent forces is finally overthrown.Non-citizens (Latvian: nepilsoņi) in Latvian law are individuals who are not citizens of Latvia or any other country, but who, in accordance with the Latvian law "Regarding the status of citizens of the former USSR who possess neither Latvian nor other citizenship", have the right to a non-citizen passport issued by the Latvian government as well as other specific rights. Approximately two thirds of them are ethnic Russians, followed by Belarusians, Ukrainians, Poles, and Lithuanians.[1]
The non-citizens are "citizens of the former USSR (...) who reside in the Republic of Latvia as well as who are in temporary absence and their children who simultaneously comply with the following conditions: 1) on 1 July 1992 they were registered in the territory of Latvia regardless of the status of the living space indicated in the registration of residence, or up to 1 July 1992 their last registered place of residence was in the Republic of Latvia, or it has been determined by a court judgment that they have resided in the territory of Latvia for 10 consecutive years until the referred to date; 2) they are not citizens of Latvia; and 3) they are not and have not been citizens of another state." as well as "children of [the aforementioned] if both of their parents were non-citizens at the time of the birth of the children or one of the parents is a non-citizen, but the other is a stateless person or is unknown, or in accordance with mutual agreement of the parents, if one of the parents is a non-citizen, but the other – a citizen of other country"[2]
Latvian non-citizens passport.
Children born after Latvia reestablished independence (August 21, 1991) to parents who are both non-citizens are entitled to citizenship upon request of one or both parents.
While the issue of non-citizens is often equated to the problem of statelessness,[3][4][5][6] other sources consider that the status of non-citizen in both Latvia and Estonia is unique and has not existed previously in international law.[7] "Non-citizens" of Latvia enjoy a benefit not afforded to citizens of being able to travel to both the Schengen Area (where citizens of Latvia can travel visa-free, too) as well as Russia, without the need for a visa. (see: Visa requirements for Latvian non-citizens).
Demography [ edit ]
Citizenship of Latvian residents (Population Register, July 2017)[8] Citizens of Latvia (1,788,710) 84.48% Non-citizens of Latvia (237,759) 11.23% Citizens of Russia (54,998) 2.60% Others, mainly citizens of other countries (35,916) 1.70%
According to the population census, in March 2011, there were 290,660 non-citizens living in Latvia or 14.1% of Latvian residents,[9] down from approximately 715,000 in 1991.[10] According to the Population Register, in January 2011, 326,735 non-citizens resided in Latvia.[11]
The data of the Population Register, as at January 2016, showed 252,017 non-citizens living in Latvia (11.8% of residents).[12] By far the largest ethnic group of all non-citizens are Russians, who make up 65.6% of all non-citizens, 13.7% are Belarusians, 9.7% are Ukrainians, 3,5% are Poles and 2,5% are Lithuanians. Among the largest ethnic groups in Latvia 0,05% of all ethnic Latvians are non-citizens, as are 29% of Russians, 49% of Belarusians, 48% of Ukrainians, 19% of Poles, 24% of Lithuanians, 24% of Jews, 5% of Roma and 20% of Germans.[1] Additionally, 4,535 non-citizens were registered as living outside Latvia.[13]
In the age group below 18, non-citizens form 2.1% of residents; among adults - 14.2%; in the age group above 90, 25.0%, as at 2015.[14] As at 2014, the majority of non-citizens, 62.4%, live in the three biggest cities of country: Riga, Daugavpils and Liepāja, which comprise 40.3% of Latvia's population.[15] As at January, 2016, 42.92% of the non-citizens were born in Latvia.[16]
The referendum held in October 1998 eliminated the "windows" system, which limited the age groups allowed to naturalize each year. It also gave the right to children of non-citizens born in Latvia after August 21, 1991 to be registered as citizens without naturalisation[17] barring imprisonment or other citizenship.[18] Parents can request citizenship for their children until age 15, after which a child can make the request on their own behalf from age 15 to 17.
Status [ edit ]
According to the Constitutional Court of Latvia,
15. After the passing of the Non-Citizen Law a new, up to that time unknown category of persons appeared – Latvian non-citizens. Latvian non-citizens cannot be compared with any other status of a physical entity, which has been determined in international legal acts, as the rate of rights, established for non-citizens, which does not comply with any other status. Latvian non-citizens can be regarded neither as citizens, nor aliens or stateless persons but as persons with "a specific legal status" (..) 17. (..) the rights and international liabilities, determined for the non-citizens testify that the legal ties of non-citizens with Latvia are to a certain extent recognized and mutual obligations and rights have been created on the basis of the above[19]
Official specimen of the Alien's Identity Card
The Latvian parliament created the category of non-citizen in 1991[20] when it affirmed legal continuity with Latvia's original citizenship laws. Individuals who were citizens of Latvia as of 17 June 1940, prior to Soviet occupation, were once again recognized as citizens, along with their descendants. The law also grants citizenship to all permanent residents of Latvia, who do not hold another citizenship and are either Latvians or Livonians, or individuals (along with their children up to age 15), who have completed universal primary or secondary education with Latvian as the language of instruction.[21] That effectively limited non-citizen status to largely Russophones arriving during the Soviet era. Notably this included some of those that had elected the parliament in question.
To deal with the issue of former Soviet citizens without Latvian citizenship, the law On the Status of those Former USSR. Citizens who do not have the Citizenship of Latvia or that of any Other State[22] was adopted in 1995 as a temporary measure pending the resolution of changing citizenship regimes in the now independent former Soviet republics.
The issue of non-citizens has been equated to the problem of statelessness. Non-citizens have been described as stateless by the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly[3] and by Amnesty International.[23] Non-citizens are named as an example of problems of statelessness by Commissioner for Human Rights,[5] although conceding that non-citizens may not prefer citizenship for their children,[24] and the UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance recommends Latvia "revisit the existing requirements for naturalization with the objective of facilitating the granting of citizenship to non-citizens, implementing the commitments established by the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness."[6] Latvian Ombudsman R. Apsītis has considered the "specific legal status" of non-citizens to be questionable from the viewpoint of international law.[25]
By definition in Latvian law, non-citizens are not stateless. While they have rights akin to citizens, for example, the right to reside in Latvia without visas or temporary residence permits, rights in other areas are curtailed. Non-citizens cannot vote,[26] although they can participate to a lesser degree in public policy through NGOs. Pension rights are limited,[27] and non-citizens cannot hold certain positions in local and national government, the civil service, and other governmental entities. Non-citizens are exempt from military service, which was compulsory for male Latvian citizens until 2006. UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination described non-citizens' position as discriminatory in 1999.[28]
With regard to international law, non-citizens are not considered stateless by the EU Network of Independent Experts on Fundamental Rights, which notes:
... in Latvia, non-citizens under the 1995 Law on Status of citizens of the former USSR who are not citizens of Latvia or any other country are neither citizens, nor foreigners, nor stateless persons. A great proportion of the large Russian speaking population of the country falls within this category, unknown in public international law. The same applies to non-citizens in Estonia.[7]
The rights of Latvian non-citizens outside of Latvia are governed strictly by treaty. For example, non-citizens now travel visa-free in the EU under Schengen just as Latvian citizens do; both have access to Latvian consular services abroad. (Citizens of foreign countries residing in Latvia do not enjoy this privilege.) Outside the EU, numerous countries allow visa-free travel for Latvian citizens but not for non-citizens.[29]
Peter Van Elsuwege, a scholar in European law at Ghent University, states that the Latvian law is grounded upon the established legal principle that persons who settle under the rule of an occupying power gain no automatic right to nationality. A number of historic precedents support this, according to Van Elsuwege, most notably the case of Alsace-Lorraine when the French on recovering the territory in 1918 did not grant citizenship to German settlers despite Germany having annexed the territory 47 years earlier in 1871.[30]
Naturalisation [ edit ]
Non-citizens may naturalize provided that they have been permanent residents of Latvia for at least 5 years, demonstrate Latvian language competency, correctly answer questions regarding Latvia's Constitution and history—including that it was occupied by the Soviet Union (a question debated in Latvian Russian press)[31] and know the words to the Latvian national anthem.[32] Former members of foreign military, people convicted of propagating fascist or communist ideas or inciting ethnic hatred, and individuals considered hostile to the Republic of Latvia cannot be granted citizenship. The government can refuse naturalisation to individuals who have fulfilled requirements if they are found to be disloyal (viz. Juris Petropavlovskis case, declared admissible by the European Court of Human Rights and pending before it as of September 2010).[33])
As of June 30, 2010, 134,039 people have been naturalized, mostly former non-citizens. The naturalization rate reached its height over 2004–2006, peaking in 2005 (19 169 naturalized), and has fallen off substantially since then across all ethnic categories (2080 naturalized in 2009).[34]
A survey conducted and published in 2003 by the Naturalization Board indicated that categories of non-citizen most likely to naturalize were: socially active, aged 25 to 50, female, completed higher education, employees in local or national government, and anyone living in Riga and its environs. The factors cited as to why people have not pursued citizenship were:[35]
34.2% — people deserve citizenship automatically 26.2% — hoping naturalization will be simplified 26.2% — travel to the Commonwealth of Independent States is easier for non-citizens 23.5% — concerns about passing the Latvian competency test 21.6% — no particular need 20.5% — concerns about passing the Latvian history test 20.2% — cost of fees 18.1% — not enough time 17.9% — naturalization is demeaning Less than 9% — preference for citizenship other than Latvian
Politics of citizenship [ edit ]
The Popular Front of Latvia supported the notion that long-term residents of Latvia who declare their will to obtain citizenship of Latvia and clearly connect their destiny with the state should become citizens.[36]
According to SKDS research,[37] in 2005 45.9% of inhabitants (but only 38.4% of citizens) supported granting voting rights for non-citizens at municipal elections, against such amendments were 35.6% of inhabitants (and 42.8% of citizens). 74.6% of Russian-speaking respondents and 24.8% of ethnic Latvian respondents expressed support for this idea, a negative attitude to it was shown by 7.8% of Russian-speaking respondents and 55.9% of ethnic Latvian respondents.
Nowadays, the Harmony Party supports making naturalization and citizenship for some categories of non-citizens easier to obtain.[38] The Latvian Russian Union, supportive of these steps, also supports the idea of a "zero option", or giving cvitizenship for all "non-citizens" unconditionally.[39] On the other side, the National Alliance calls for a halt to naturalization.[40] Most of the ruling parties support the status quo. LPP and LC claimed in 2007, that they support voting rights for non-citizens in local elections, but offered a referendum on the issue in 2009, to be held at the same time as local elections,[41] and don't support the respective proposals in Parliament now.[42]
The international community expresses slightly different views on the question. The OSCE mission monitoring the 2006 parliamentary elections mentioned that
“ Approximately 400,000 people in Latvia, some 18 per cent of the total population, had not obtained Latvian or any other citizenship and therefore still had the status of "non-citizens." In the vast majority of cases, those were persons who migrated to Latvia from within the former Soviet Union, and their descendants. Non-citizens do not have the right to vote in any Latvian elections, although they can join political parties. To obtain citizenship, these persons must go through a naturalization process, which over 50,000 persons have done since the 2002 Saeima election. The OSCE claimed that the fact that a significant percentage of the adult population did not hold voting rights represented a continuing democratic deficit.[43] ”
A resolution of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in November 2006 found:
“ The Assembly considers that the naturalisation regulations adopted in Latvia do not raise insuperable obstacles to the acquisition of Latvian nationality and that the applicable procedure does not entail any requirements that are excessive or contrary to existing European standards. However, when it comes to the very specific situation of non-citizens, which is unprecedented and therefore lacks a reference framework of European norms or practices, the Assembly considers that further improvements are possible to avoid unnecessary requirements for the acquisition of Latvian nationality.[44] ”
International recommendations to Latvia, which concern non-citizenship, include:
granting voting rights for non-citizens in local elections; [45] [46] [47]
facilitating naturalization; [48] [49] [50]
reducing differences in rights between citizens and non-citizens; [51] [52]
avoiding asking those applying for naturalization to express convictions that are contrary to their reading of the history of their cultural community or nation.[53]
The Russian Foreign Ministry regularly charges Latvia with serious violations of the rights of its Russophone population, describing non-citizens as "stateless";.[54] In responding to charges of discrimination, Latvian authorities contend there is little practical difference between citizens and non-citizens,[24] the primary ones being that non-citizens cannot vote and that non-citizens are exempt from military service.
The Russian Foreign Office has published a collection[55] of international recommendations to Latvia concerning the minority rights, including those on the non-citizenship issue. Russia itself has allowed most Latvian non-citizens short trips without visas since June 2008.[56][57] This step was criticized by Latvian MFA,[58] but welcomed by the Secretary-General of CoE T. Davis.[59] Earlier, Latvian citizens were charged more for a Russian single-entry visa than non-citizens (more than five times the fee as of December 2007) seen by T. Malmlof as rewarding if not encouraging statelessness.[60]
Council of Europe [ edit ]
As reported by the European Commissioner for Human Rights 2007 report on Latvia, in 2006 there were 411,054 non-citizens, 66.5% of them belonging to Russian minority (per §30). While applications of children born after August 21, 1991, are reviewed under simplified procedure, "over 13 000 children are still non-citizens, and, children are still being born as non-citizens" (per §37,38). Commissioner has noted that "the exclusion of non-citizens from political life does nothing to encourage their integration" (§43). As reported, "the continued existence of the status of non-citizen" mostly held by representatives of national minorities is "deeply problematic in terms of real or perceived equality and social cohesion" (§29).[61]
The Commissioner conceded that not all non-citizens may wish to gain citizenship status but did not explore this possibility further. His report also contained clarifications provided by the Latvian government in response, including:
re §30. As of "2007 there are 386 632 non-citizens in Latvia, less than 17% of the population of Latvia." The report inappropriately conflates Russophones into one minority. Only 28.2% of the population is ethnic Russian and more than half (56.6%) are citizens. Latvia is devoted to strengthening all minorities including ones which suffered under Russification, e.g., Ukrainians and Belarusians.
re §43. NGOs and all members of society can participate in policy-making. "Consultative support for national minority NGOs has been ensured.... The Latvian authorities do not consider that granting voting rights at local level to non-citizens in Latvia would strengthen the incentive to naturalise; the contrary is much more likely. In fact, an extensive research project entitled The effect of regional aspects on tackling citizenship issues carried out by the Naturalisation Board revealed that one of the major obstacles for applying for Latvian citizenship is the lack of motivation, including the negligible differences between the rights of citizens and non-citizens. Latvia prefers having many citizens with full rights to having many non-citizens with many rights, at the same time acknowledging that any restrictions must have strong justification and shall be in accordance with international standards. Furthermore, there are no international standards on voting rights to non-citizens and at present it is not a widely accepted practice among the CoE Member States. In Latvia, it is a constitutional matter."[61]
The Commissioner attributed that there are still large numbers of non-citizens, particularly with regard to children, to "lack of commitment" on the part of Latvian authorities, whose response was that Latvia is materially committed to the rights of its minorities, and that from a practical standpoint there is little additional benefit and motivation to become a citizen versus remaining a non-citizen.[61]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]After such a busy news week, and with the White House press operation especially in the spotlight, there was plenty of anticipation ahead of Melissa McCarthy hosting “Saturday Night Live.”
The buildup grew when cellphone video and photos emerged Friday showing McCarthy dressed as her breakout character this season, White House press secretary Sean Spicer, rolling around a busy Manhattan street on a mobile podium.
Sean Spicer resigned as White House press secretary on July 21. Here's a look back at how Melissa McCarthy satirized him on "Saturday Night Live" this past season. (Nicki DeMarco/The Washington Post)
It turns out that scene was the lead-up to a shocking conclusion for her Spicer sketch Saturday, and one that involved SNL’s other main political impersonator: Alec Baldwin.
[Melissa McCarthy is riding a podium around New York — and it’s just her latest SNL stunt]
First, we’re in the White House press briefing room where principal deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, played by Aidy Bryant plays, says Spicer’s out on Navy reserve duty. A reporter points to a window and says, “I’m pretty sure I can see him hiding in those bushes.”
McCarthy’s Spicer, with a scared look on his face, is crouching in shrubbery — a reference to a Washington Post story about the fallout after FBI Director James B. Comey’s firing. (That story was later updated to note that Spicer was “among bushes,” not “in the bushes.”)
“That’s right, Spicey’s back, Sarah’s out,” McCarthy’s Spicer yells. “Let’s do this, first question: Michelin Man — oh, I’m sorry, I mean Glenn.”
After the typical back and forth exchange between Spicer and reporters, one asks the press secretary to “be straight with us for once — what’s really going on?”
“I am being honest with you,” McCarthy’s Spicer answers. “I’m telling you exactly what President Trump told me.”
But what if he’s lying to Spicer, reporters ask. “He — he wouldn’t do that. He’s my friend,” a pained Spicer answers.
If they’re friends, “why does he make you come out here and humiliate yourself every day” and then “why is everyone saying he is about to fire you and replace you with Sarah?”
At that, McCarthy’s Spicer loses it, and takes his moving podium to the streets of New York “to find Trump.”
Cut to a prerecorded scene of McCarthy rolling around midtown to the Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Only Boy Living in New York,” yelling “I promise I’ll talk better” and asking for the president at Trump Tower. (He’s not there.)
The show returns to McCarthy playing Spicer live. And he happens upon Trump and declares that he’s not sure he “can do this anymore,” especially given the rumors he’ll be replaced by Sanders.
“Sean, come on. I would never do that,” Baldwin’s Trump insists. “She doesn’t have your special spice, salt and pepper and a little bit of sugar.”
He then tickles Spicer, and it gets uncomfortable pretty quickly. “You like when I do that, Sean?” Baldwin’s Trump asks, and then, yup, he asks for a kiss.
“I have a wife, I took vows,” McCarthy’s Spicer answers.
Trump answers: “I’m famous. It’s okay.”
“Wait — is this like ‘The Godfather’ where you kiss me and no one ever sees me again?”
Trump’s response: “Yes.”
And then, boom. You guessed it. The two break into a kiss-of-death bordering on a pretty intense make-out session. The scene ends with McCarthy’s Spicer yelling, “I had a good run!”
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McCarthy first appeared as Spicer back in February. And her impersonation was so unexpected that it took audience members, at home and in the studio, several moments until they recognized her. Her spot also was a break from the show’s reliance on Baldwin to poke fun at Trump.
That first sketch reportedly unsettled the White House and bothered Trump so much that some questioned its impact on Spicey’s longevity in the job.Recordings of Long Island lawmakers privately bashing the politicians they praise in public ranks among the spiciest tangents stemming from the federal corruption trial against New York State Sen. Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre).
Skelos, state Sen. Carl Marcellino (R-Syosset) and state Sen. Jack Martins (R-Mineola) didn’t mince words in commiserating over fellow Republican Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano’s failed proposal to install electronic billboards on the Long Island Expressway, according to a Jan. 15 wiretapped phone call played last week at Manhattan federal court.
“We try to do whatever we can to help the county,” Skelos told Marcellino as the two complained that Nassau didn’t give them a heads-up about the proposal. “Most of it turns into shit because they don’t know what the fuck they’re doing there. And…we get the crap, and then they do this, and they don’t even tell you.”
It wasn’t the first time the former senate majority leader has been heard on wiretaps played in court candidly expressing his opinions of his fellow lawmakers as opposed to speaking in scripted six-second sound bites like those typically found in press releases with politicians congratulating each other. In a previous call between Skelos and his codefendant son, Adam, also played at the trial, the Nassau Republican said the Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo is “full of shit.”
In his conversation with Marcellino, neither senator bites his tongue regarding how the Mangano administration and the county legislature has managed cash-strapped Nassau.
“It’s unbelievable with these guys,” Marcellino told Skelos. “They can’t seem to get out of their own way. They see numbers that’s going to give you millions of dollars, and then they jump, ‘Oh, let’s do it.’”
Marcellino said: “When I see Ed Mangano, he’s going to get an earful.” Later, the state senator added: “This is going to be on a state road. You know we’ll get blamed.”
Skelos replied, “yup,” and told Marcellino to call the state Department of Transportation and have the agency reviewing the permits for the billboards to “just kill the fucking thing.”
In another call recorded the same day with state Sen. Jack Martins (R-Mineola)—who had said, “When the community hears about this, they’re probably going to go nuts”—Skelos recalled the county’s aborted roll-out of school-zone speed cameras after Nassau officials had requested that the senators help to get state authorization for them.
“They’re incapable,” Martins replied.
Skelos responded that when he asked Chief Deputy Nassau County Executive Rob Walker—who testified last week at the senator’s trial—why they’re even considering proposals to close the budget gap that have such strong public opposition, Walker had told Skelos that “’we’re desperate.’”"Fox & Friends" on Tuesday corrected its coverage of a report from The Hill regarding FBI Director James Comey, with co-host Steve Doocy telling viewers "we were mistaken."
"Yesterday on this program, we aired and tweeted a story saying former FBI Director James Comey leaked memos containing top secret information," Doocy said near the top of the program. "We were mistaken in that."
"According to a report, half of the memos contain information classified at the secret or confidential level, not top secret. Documents in which Mr. Comey leaked are at this point unclear," Doocy continued. "Just wanted to straighten that out."
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"Fox & Friends" had been accused of incorrectly characterizing some aspects of a Sunday report from The Hill regarding Comey's memos on his meetings with President Trump.
The correction by the morning program comes after Trump retweeted a "Fox & Friends" report early Monday that Comey “leaked CLASSIFIED INFORMATION.”
Trump's retweet came shortly after the segment aired on "Fox & Friends," a program the president has publicly praised in the past.
Comey admitted in testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee in June that he shared information via written memos about his meetings with the president through a friend at Columbia University, who then provided them to The New York Times.
The Hill's report, based on interviews with “officials familiar with the documents,” stated that "more than half" of the Comey memos contained classified information.
But the same report does not claim that Comey leaked classified information when he leaked his memos through a friend to the Times, however.
The Hill report also noted the information “contained information classified at the secret or confidential level."
The network has also issued a correction to the original "Fox & Friends" tweet on Monday, which said the information was "top secret."
Trump regularly retweets segments and reports from "Fox & Friends," a program on which he was a weekly guest on before announcing his candidacy.
Trump has retweeted "Fox & Friends" five times in the past day alone.Casting Calls
Are you and your friends young and/or expectant mothers?
MTV is now casting for a dynamic group of young and/or expecting mothers to share their experiences with young motherhood. This group of friends (and/or acquaintances) should live in the same area and have a genuine connection with one another. We want to showcase outgoing young women who are experiencing the joys and challenges of raising children alongside other young mothers, while juggling relationships, friendships, and family.
Please email us as soon as possible at MTVgroupcasting@gmail.com. Include:
- your contact details and the city and state you all live in
Put: GROUP CASTING in the subject line and explain why your group would be perfect for this docu-series.
Applicants must be at least 16 years of age. Applicants should appear to be between the ages of 16 and 25.From Intelligence:
A general intelligence factor in dogs Rosalind Arden, Mark James Adams,
doi:10.1016/j.intell.2016.01.008 The structure of cognitive abilities in dogs is similar to that found in people. - Dogs that solved problems more quickly were also more accurate.
- Dogs’ cognitive abilities can be tested quickly, like those of people.
- Bigger individual differences studies on dog cognition will contribute to cognitive epidemiology. Abstract Hundreds of studies have shown that, in people, cognitive abilities overlap yielding an underlying ‘g’ factor, which explains much of the variance. We assessed individual differences in cognitive abilities in 68 border collies to determine the structure of intelligence in dogs. We administered four configurations of a detour test and repeated trials of two choice tasks (point-following and quantity-discrimination). We used confirmatory factor analysis to test alternative models explaining test performance. The best-fitting model was a hierarchical model with three lower-order factors for the detour time, choice time, and choice score and a higher order factor; these accounted jointly for 68% of the variance in task scores. The higher order factor alone accounted for 17% of the variance. Dogs that quickly completed the detour tasks also tended to score highly on the choice tasks; this could be explained by a general intelligence factor. Learning about g in non human species is an essential component of developing a complete theory of g; this is feasible because testing cognitive abilities in other species does not depend on ecologically relevant tests. Discovering the place of g among fitness-bearing traits in other species will constitute a major advance in understanding the evolution of intelligence.
The study in this paper was done on 68 youngish border collies from farms in Wales. Border collies are famously energetic and trainable.
Our results indicate that even within one breed of dog, where the sample was designed to have a relatively homogeneous background, there is variability in test scores. The phenotypic structure of cognitive abilities in dogs is similar to that found in people; a dog that is fast and accurate at one task has a propensity to be fast and accurate at another. It may seem obvious that once a detour task (finding the treat behind a barrier) has been solved in one form, the solution to the other forms will follow naturally, but dogs are not people. Experiments have shown that dogs’ problem-solving skills do not transfer readily from one problem to a different form of the same problem as ours do (Osthaus, Marlow, & Ducat, 2010). The g factor we report is consistent with the prediction made by the many experts in the ‘dog world’ (trainers, veterinarians, members of dog societies, and farmers) who were consulted in the early stages of this study. Those experts said that in their experience some dogs were more likely to catch-on, learn and solve problems more quickly than others.
Pets seemed to vary notably in intelligence. My wife’s family had to move from the Austin neighborhood in Chicago to a distant exurban farm from which her parents commuted to their Chicago jobs. They took in dozens of dogs from their city friends (“Fido went to live on a farm” isn’t always a euphemism). The dogs differed sharply in personality and intelligence.
Or, for example, consider my two pet rabbits who lived in the backyard. One reacted to almost being grabbed by a giant hawk by immediately setting about digging a 15 foot long tunnel under a concrete floor, giving himself two exits. It took us months to figure out where all the dirt, like in The Great Escape, was coming from. The other one never noticed raptors, including the chicken hawk that sat on a chair 3 feet from him.
As a child, I owned, in succession over 14-years, five identical-looking blue parakeets named Tweeter. (I don’t like change.) Tweeters 1, 3, and 4 were pretty sharp, while Tweeters 2 and 5 were duds.There are actually a few on the left who are excited about the February jobs report which saw 236,000 jobs added and the unemployment rate drop to 7.7%. Most, however, are as glum as the rest of us.
Campaign for America's Future:
February’s numbers were better than the average job creation for the previous three months. But don’t break out the bubbly. We are still in a debilitating jobs recession. As these charts show, while corporate profits and the stock market are setting records, we still have 3 million fewer jobs than we had at the start of the recession. In a typical post-war recovery, the U.S. economy now would have had about 10 million more jobs than at the recession’s start. The BLS statistics reflect this gloomy reality. There are still more than 20 million people in need of full-time work. Of those, 40.2 percent remain long-term unemployed (jobless for 27 weeks or more). February’s job growth did not budge the low employment-population ratio of 58.6 percent. At 13.8 percent, African-American unemployment remains more than twice the level of that of whites.
The election is over. No need to spin the bad news. Time to face reality and reach the conclusion that AEI's James Pethokoukis has reached:
Now here’s some of what those headline numbers miss: 1. In January 2009, Team Obama economists predicted that the unemployment rate by 2013 would be 5.1% (and the economy would be booming at 4% annual growth). Heck, even without the stimulus, they thought the jobless rate would be down to 5.5%. That’s a big miss. 2. The labor force participation rate fell again as potential workers stopped looking for work. If the LFP rate was just where it was a year ago, in February 2012, the official unemployment rate would 8.3%. And if the LFP rate was where it was in January 2009, the unemployment rate would be 10.8%. Does the the aging of the US workforce make that 2009 number less relevant? Probably. But have demographics changed that radically over the past 12 months? Doubtful. 3. The February U-6 number, the broadest measure of unemployment and underemployment, was down a tick to 14.3%. This probably gives a better feel for the real state of the labor market. 4. During the past three months, the economy has added an average of 191,000 jobs. At that pace, according to the Jobs Gap calculator from the Hamilton Project, it would take 101 months to return to pre-Great Recession employment levels while also absorbing the people who enter the labor force each month. Oh, and that calculation assumes no recessions between now and late 2021. 5. The share of the unemployed out of work for 27 weeks or longer increased to 40.2% from 38.1% in January. 6. The employment-population ratio is exactly where it was a year ago, at an almost rock-bottom 58.6%. The bottom line here is that the US labor market is treading water at best, with the falling labor force participation rate number hiding that sorry reality. To get excited about these jobs numbers really is to embrace the slow-growth New Normal reality. The economy continues to grow too slowly to really crank up the American Job Machine. Boosting growth in smart, supply-side way should be the top priority of the White House and Congress.
It'll never happen, James.
Meanwhile, Market Watch has some interesting facts and figures about part-time work:
According to the household survey (on which the unemployment rate is based), the economy added a healthy 170,000 jobs. The survey also shows a tremendous increase of 446,000 part-time jobs. What this means is that the economy actually shed 276,000 full-time jobs. The Bureau of Labor Statistics labeled those 446,000 part-time jobs as "voluntary,” but I am not so sure. A Gallup survey on jobs released Thursday shows the percentage of workers working part time but wanting full-time work was 10.1% in February, an increase from 9.6% in January and the highest rate measured since January 2012. Gallup notes "Although fewer people are unemployed now than a year ago, they are not migrating to full-time jobs for an employer. In fact, fewer Americans are working full-time for an employer than were doing so a year ago, and more Americans are working |
are exceptions of course. But adhering to them will help to make your game more quickly understandable. With some smart psychological principles, good UI can help your players get through the menus and into the game world you've created. Good luck! For more information on how to build and design games and a game career, visit The Game Prodigy for a free 29-page eBook.Independent Dutch label Spinnin’ Records enjoys teasing their records without naming the creators behind the track to create buzz. They’ve done so with artists such as Don Diablo, Borgeous, and DVBBS, each marketing campaign leading to admirable streaming numbers and charting success on SoundCloud and Beatport respectively.
Diplo Drops Trap Remix of Tiesto and KSHMR's 'Secrets,' feat. Vassy
Their latest rollout driven by this strategy is "Strong," previewed nearly one month ago. Fans jumped on the opportunity to guess the makers of the song, mentioning names like Dzeko & Torres, R3hab and KSHMR.
Billboard has the exclusive honor to reveal that R3hab and KSHMR are in fact the masterminds behind the juggernaut progressive record. The two have proven to make a great team in the past, previously collaborating on "Karate," which went No. 1 on Beatport and has accumulated over 60 million views on YouTube.
In regards to their joint studio effort, R3hab says its "one of my favorite songs I ever worked on and it was a lot of fun and inspiring going back and forth with KSHMR."
KSHMR has been on a Beatport hot streak lately thanks to his most recent releases, "Memories" and "Heaven," going No. 1 overall. He will be headlining Webster Hall in New York City on Nov. 28 and will be making his India debut at Sunburn Festival later this year.
Calvin Harris Remixes 'How Deep is Your Love' With R3hab: Exclusive Premiere
His collaboration with R3hab can be streamed below and will be available on Beatport on Nov. 16.Provincial data shows firefighters in Hamilton are filing work-related cancer claims at twice the Ontario-wide rate.
But 10 years after legislation was introduced to make it easier for them to get compensation, there are still hundreds who have to fight to get their illness recognized.
According to data provided by Ontario's Workplace Safety and Insurance Board, for every 100,000 people in Hamilton, 22 firefighters were considered for work-related cancer benefits under the board's presumptive legislation.
We're exposed to so much every day. And before we had masks, we used to drink up the smoke. - Ken Cole, retired firefighter battling cancer
That's double the provincial per capita rate of 11 per 100,000 people in Ontario.
A more direct comparison to similar medium-sized cities also shows Hamilton claims at a high rate:
Ottawa's rate is 10 per 100,000 while Mississauga's is seven.
Fuelled by the fears arising from the 1997 toxic chemical fire at Plastimet, Hamilton firefighters were instrumental in the push for the 2007 legislation that made it easier for firefighters in Ontario to claim work-related cancers.
While Hamilton's high claim rate may be a result of fighting toxic fires like Plastimet in the heavily industrialized city, it may also be a result of efforts by Hamilton's firefighter union local, which, because of that history, has been proactive in both detecting and claiming its work-related cancers.
About 80 Hamilton firefighters and former firefighters have had WSIB cancer claims accepted.
A huge fire rips through a Hamilton industrial complex in 2014. (Tony Smyth/CBC)
The new legislation was supposed to simplify and clarify the claims process, but the reality is many claims considered by the WSIB are rejected, and there are many cancers that appear to be work-related that the board won't even consider for review.
The result is 10 years after firefighters won the right to compensation for their cancers, hundreds in the city still aren't getting it.
"The majority of our claims still aren't accepted," said Dan Santoli, the WSIB compensation representative for the Hamilton Professional Firefighters Association, Local 288.
'A new normal'
More than 60 years ago, Ken Cole started a lifelong career saving homes, buildings, and businesses in Hamilton's industrial east end. He was a dedicated firefighter for almost three decades.
Ken Cole looks through old photos from his career as a firefighter in Hamilton. (Sarah Peterson/CBC)
Cole fought fires in steel, rubber, plastic and chemical plants.
"You'd come out [of a factory] and your nose would be running, you'd be coughing and spluttering, your eyes would be running" said Cole.
"In those places, all of our equipment had to be destroyed, you couldn't clean it."
Just a few weeks ago, Cole was diagnosed with bladder cancer and has filed a claim with the WSIB.
You never think it will happen to you — that's what they say about cancer. But Cole says he knew very well it could.
A 19-year-old Ken Cole in his firefighter's yearbook. (Sarah Peterson/CBC)
"We're exposed to so much every day," he said. "And before we had masks, we used to drink up the smoke."
Cole says battling cancer has become a new normal for retirees of the Hamilton force.
"I would say there's probably 18 of us in the past two years that have passed away from cancer," he said.
The Plastimet fire 20 years ago was one of the worst environmental disasters in Canada's history. (CBC)
Nineteenth-century industrialization created new dangers for firefighters — and Hamilton's rise as a major industrial hub likely put its firefighters at an increased risk of exposure.
"We're the industrial heartland of the country," said Dr. Mike Pysklywec, a physician and occupational health expert in Hamilton.
Screening program
Dr. Pysklywec is part of a group of physicians who run Hamilton's occupational health screening program for firefighters. He says repeated exposure to things like burning plastic, heavy metals and asbestos can add up.
Data provided by WSIB and the Hamilton Professional Firefighters Association (Sarah Peterson)
"There's potential for a lot of carcinogens to be released when all these materials are heated," said Dr. Pysklywec.
In July of 1997, almost 300 Hamilton firefighters were deployed to the four-day Plastimet fire, and most were there for days in a row. Many firefighters suffered both short and long-term health effects in its wake.
"Once we realized what was burning, there was a lot of concern about what we were exposed to," said Rob D'Amico, a firefighter deployed to Plastimet.
According to Dr. Pysklywec, it often takes 15 to 20 years for cancer to develop from that kind of exposure, so there's a good chance some of the cancers surfacing now are linked to that fire.
Union representative Dan Santoli looks through boxes of WSIB claims filed for firefighters in Hamilton. (Sarah Peterson/CBC)
"It was a plastic-based industry with a lot of potential exposures. I'm sure that's contributing," he said.
But a lot was also learned from the Plastimet fire. Awareness increased, and the city started a screening program to catch cancers and other illnesses that might otherwise go unnoticed. Nowadays, firefighters in Hamilton talk about cancer more, they know the dangers they face, and their union makes it easy to file claims if they're diagnosed.
Fight continues, 10 years after Queen's Park victory
Plastimet was also a catalyst for the 2007 legislation. Twenty years ago, it was relatively rare for firefighters with cancer to win compensation for their illness in Ontario. Prior to Plastimet, evidence already showed firefighters were at an increased risk of many different types of cancer.
Those concerns finally made their way to Queen's Park after Plastimet.
In 2007, inspired in part by the death of Bob Shaw, a Plastimet first responder who died of cancer, the government acted. Now, if a firefighter is diagnosed with one of the board's approved cancers and meets the specific criteria, the disease is presumed to be caused by the nature of their job.
It's still difficult, but we're moving in the right direction. - Dan Santoli, WSIB compensation rep for Hamilton firefighters
The legislation was hailed as a victory, but the union says it still leaves many unprotected.
According to data provided by the WSIB, 116 claims have been filed for work-related cancer by firefighters in Hamilton under that presumptive legislation, and 68 per cent of those claims have been approved.
But Hamilton's union says the total number of claims they've filed is actually much higher.
According to their records, the union has filed more than 300 cancer claims, some dating back 25 years, of which only 25 per cent were approved.
"Just last week we filed four new claims for retired firefighters," said Santoli.
He says the reason his numbers are so much higher is because the board numbers only cover cases that qualify for consideration under its presumptive legislation — but he files cancer claims whether they're listed in the legislation or not.
"If there's evidence it was work-related, we file it," he said.
Dan Santoli is the WSIB compensation representative for the Hamilton Professional Firefighters Association, local 288. 0:59
Presumptive legislation doesn't guarantee approval
A year after the new legislation came into effect, Hamilton firefighter Brad Phillips was diagnosed with bladder cancer. Phillips filed a claim to the WSIB. It was approved without issue.
But as doctors worked to remove the cancer from his bladder, they noticed he also had cancer in his kidney. So he went back for treatment.
It was a tough year, but I'm one of the lucky ones. - Brad Phillips, Hamilton firefighter
Phillips had been working as a firefighter for over 17 years when he was diagnosed — just short of the 20-year minimum for kidney cancer to be considered presumptive — so his WSIB claim for that cancer was denied.
"That year I think I went to 26 different doctor appointments" he said. "I remember them telling me [at work], try to schedule them on your days off so you don't miss work."
But as a two-time cancer survivor, he doesn't dwell on the way it played out.
"It was a tough year," he said. "But I'm one of the lucky ones."
Santoli says there is a misconception that all cancers under their umbrella name are considered presumptive. "That's really not the case," he said.
Brain cancer, for instance, isn't considered presumptive if it's in the stem of the brain — likewise if a cancer starts somewhere else before it moves to a covered area.
The WSIB has approved about 80 claims from Hamilton firefighters for work-related cancers. (Sarah Peterson/CBC)
Santoli says colon cancer, which is considered presumptive, has been particularly tricky to get approved.
"Over the past 25 years, we've filed 49 colon cancer claims, and close to 80 per cent of those have been denied," he said.
Santoli also files claims for cancers that aren't covered in hopes they may be able to win a tribunal hearing.
"A number of our members have died from pancreatic and liver cancers. There's evidence it was work-related, but it's very hard to win."
Both Santoli and the WSIB agree around 80 firefighters' cancer claims have been approved in Hamilton.
The WSIB declined to comment on the union's records as they could not see them.
More claims filed and approved since amendments
Since 2014, the WSIB's coverage expanded to include lung, breast, testicular, prostate and skin cancer, as well as multiple myeloma.
The volume of claims has more than doubled in Hamilton since the legislation expanded.
Under the original legislation, only 30 claims in Hamilton were approved. Since 2014, 49 more have been approved.
"We were able to re-try a bunch of skin cancers that were denied before, many of those have now been approved," Santoli said.
"It's still difficult, but we're moving in the right direction."Susan Hilerio
How many of you have ever heard these questions?
Now that I am approaching my 40’s, I am pained each time someone asks those questions. I studied Musical Theatre at a wonderful University, performed my entire life …theatre has been what I’ve eaten, breathed, and dreamt about for as long as I can remember.
I can go on for endless hours about why it didn’t work out for me. I can provide you with the honest answers, and I can provide you with the scripted ones. I’ve got too many prepared and ready to spill at any given second.
The hardest decision I made in my life to this point was to decide that it was best for myself and family if I didn’t pursue theatre professionally anymore.
I still remember the moment… sitting across from my husband (then fiancé) at a local Chili’s. Feeling like I was lost…like everything I had known in the entire world was gone. I had lost myself, my identity, and the entire thing I loved the most in the world, performing.
What was I going to do now? Who will I be without being a performer? Sure, I would do community theatre and love every second of it… but that carrot that had Broadway written all over it that I had been chasing for so long seemed to fade… fade into student loan payments, mortgage, car payments, etc.
I didn’t find myself interesting anymore, became depressed, and gained weight. I went on a soul search – trying to find something, ANYTHING that would make me feel as magical and as interesting as theatre does. I tried becoming a Radio Personality, TV Personality, Police Officer, Nurse, Yoga Teacher, Dance Teacher; the list goes on and on and on. But, after so many years… nothing compares.
I began to question… what do people think of me? Do they think I’m a failure? Are they surprised that I didn’t “make it”? When I bump into my old college professors, are they disappointed? Or, are they smirking to themselves thinking that they knew I would never make it. I found myself hiding from people from that former life… embarrassed of what I had become… afraid to answer the “So what are yoooouuu up to?
How come I never see you at any auditions anymore? Or what theatre are you working for now? Or, are you Equity yet?”.
If I do answer those questions… most of the time if it was a former peer I would get the (1) pity look, (2) satisfied that you are a loser and not pursuing this anymore look, (3) or the OMG HOW COULD YOU EVER GIVE UP THEATRE YOUR LIFE IS TOTALLY GOING TO SUCK speech.
I’ve tried to reverse the roll. I think being on the asking end of these questions…the inquirer doesn’t realize how hurtful these invasions of privacy are. I’m sure the person feels that their question is innocent enough…complimentary even. But to some, on the receiving end…it’s almost as uncomfortable as someone asking why you don’t have children.
As I am getting older…I am getting wiser. I am aware of how lucky I am to have everything I have and am grateful for the ability to even say that I once did this show or that show or performed in this venue or that venue. I have the ability to surprise my co-workers when all of the sudden a give them a glimpse of what I used to be… and it’s really fun.
So, as I sit behind my desk on my lunch break, wearing sensible shoes – I will leave here at 5 pm to go to my beautiful home, see my wonderful husband, and perfect son… I remember my motives. I realize that even though I lost track of one of the things in the world I loved the most, I gained such beautiful additions to my life. So, there’s a balance for me… but every time that question comes up… the pain does find a way to sneak back in.
Why aren’t you on Broadway? It’s not my time
Don’t you even want to try? I will… someday in the future when it’s right. My life isn’t over yet. Don’t you regret it? Yes… every day I do.
But I have found my balance.Galway United are delighted to announce that Johnny O’Connor has joined the club as strength and conditioning coach for the 2017 SSE Airtricity League season.
The former Connacht Rugby legend joins the Tribesmen from Premier League side Arsenal, where he spent the last three years working as a strength and conditioning coach for the Gunners academy side.
The 36-year-old Galwegian began his rugby career with Connacht, also enjoying a spell with English Premiership side Wasps.
O’Connor picked up 12 caps for Ireland during his successful playing career and was a member of the 2006 Triple Crown winning squad.
Having retired from professional rugby in 2013, O’Connor took up his first coaching role in football at Arsenal where he spent the last three seasons before returning home to Ireland. With the knowledge garnered from a top professional club in England, coupled with his rugby background, O’Connor believes he can use his varied experiences from professional sports to help bring his hometown club to the next level.
“Arsenal were changing structures and it was a great opportunity for me to get involved in a different sport. I learned an incredible amount about football, in terms of the technical element and how important it is, not just the physical aspect. Getting a player extremely fit isn’t always the answer, you have to make sure you’re ticking both boxes.
“Culture is a word that is thrown out there a bit and words can be powerful things if you live by them. There should be work ethic, humility, honesty and resilience. These are the types of characteristics that should be ingrained in a club. From my side, I feel I thrive on them and they’re part of my philosophy. If you don’t have those good values, you’re not going to succeed and be as good as you can be.”
O’Connor had not planned on such a swift return to coaching, but Shane Keegan’s ideas for Galway United intrigued him.
“I thought I was going to take a complete year out, I was happy to do so. Shane got in touch with me, I wasn’t seeking any opportunities. We met up and he got me interested. The commitment and the constraints of the League of Ireland, Shane was very helpful about that. He’s very open and supportive of what we will be doing and he’s given ownership of what happens which is very important.
“It’s great to be back home, I thought long and hard about joining the club and it’s an opportunity for me. Adrian Cradock was here before me and he did great work and now it’s my job to build on that and put my own influence on it. The key thing was Shane was very supportive and he wanted to get someone involved not just for lip service but to actually make an impact in the club.
“There is a certain standard you have to set within the club physically and we want the players to reach those well and have an expectation to want to reach those as well. I’ve only got my foot in the door and I have to start building relationships with the players, but it’s a two-way thing. I’ll expect certain things of them but I want them to expect certain standards of me also.
JOHNNY O’CONNOR: “I believe you can match some of the best teams in the world with how you deal with your players. You have to be creative. It’s about doing hard and smart work.”
Shane Keegan was thrilled to add Johnny O’Connor to his backroom team for 2017 and he feels the former Connacht Rugby stalwart can make a massive impact at Eamonn Deacy Park.
“Getting Johnny is a real coup for the club, in terms of his mentality and the professionalism he brings from his own playing and coaching background, linked to the knowledge he has picked up through his qualifications and his tenure at Arsenal. He ticks every box for us. Johnny is an exciting addition to the club and the players should be looking forward to working with him.
“I would be a huge believer that there is massive gains to be made in this league from taking physical conditioning extremely seriously and pushing it to the highest level possible. I was looking for a guy to backbone that and drive it forward for me. I was extremely lucky in that Johnny had just arrived back in Galway and he was highly recommended. It’s brilliant for the club.
“Everybody is that bit more aware of how important strength and conditioning is now. We want to do things to the highest possible level at the club. There should be no excuse about us not being able to do this to a high level. Johnny will be at the forefront of that.
“Johnny O’Connor brings that whole aura and personality with him. He’s a great addition to the club. My backroom team is coming together nicely. He’s going to be a big part of that. We hope to have the rest of our backroom team tied down in the next few days as well.”More than six months after the New England Patriots won the AFC Championship game, the NFL on Tuesday upheld a four-game suspension levied against quarterback Tom Brady for his role in using underinflated footballs used in that game.
The ruling by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell—who appointed himself to hear the appeal—comes more than a month after Brady appealed the initial suspension. Following the NFL’s ruling, Tom Brady authorized the NFL Players Association to take up his case in federal court.
Here, Richards Professor of Law Roger Abrams, an expert on sports and labor law, discusses the appeals process, the legal ramifications, and what could come next as a result of the decision.
It took more than a month for the NFL to make its ruling after hearing Brady’s appeal. As the arbiter who heard the appeal, what factors might NFL Commission Roger Goodell have considered before making his ruling?
The commissioner needed to determine whether Tom Brady acted in a manner that was “detrimental to the integrity, or public confidence in, the professional game of football.”
Goodell had already heard the arguments made by the NFL Players Association, and thus he attempted to respond in his opinion based on the record of the hearing. He reached two startling conclusions. First, that Tom Brady actively participated in a conspiracy to violate the rules and second, that Brady deliberately destroyed his cellphone to undermine the investigation. In fact, there is insufficient evidence in the record to support either of these conclusions.
The NFL Players Association said it would take legal action on Brady’s behalf if the suspension was upheld. If the union follows through, what will that entail and does the NFLPA have legal ground on which to stand?
The NFL has already brought the matter to federal court in New York City, seeking to preserve a “home field advantage.” It is likely, however, that the case will be transferred to the federal court in Minneapolis where Judge David Doty has heard NFL appeals for decades.
The NFLPA has solid legal grounds upon which to stand based most recently on Judge Doty’s decision setting aside the discipline of (Minnesota Vikings running back) Adrian Peterson. In the meanwhile, however, the union will seek a temporary injunction, which would allow Brady to play this fall pending the court’s determination on the merits. The court is likely to grant the injunction.
How would a legal investigation differ from the NFL’s?
It is possible that the parties will seek depositions taken under oath of the persons involved. The court will also have subpoena power that can be used to compel a person to participate.
The NFL has bought itself a lawsuit it cannot win on the merits and that will undermine the business goodwill of an enterprise that nets $10 billion a year. The commissioner’s decision on Tuesday will be recognized someday as the beginning of the end of his flawed tenure.Police block off the road outside of the UCentre apartment complex on Fry St. Saturday night after a UNT police officer shot and killed a suspect. Hannah Ridings/North Texas Daily
Dalton LaFerney | News Editor
Tiffany Ditto | Contributing Writer
Nicholas Friedman | Editor-in-Chief
UNT police shoot and kill 21-year-old sophomore
Ryan McMillan had just turned 21 when he was shot and killed on the corner of Fry and Oak streets by UNT police Cpl. Stephen Bean, 27, early in the morning on Sunday, Dec. 13. The pre-hospitality sophomore’s first semester at UNT was over, but he didn’t leave Denton.
McMillan, a Fort Worth native and transfer from Weatherford College, died at a local hospital after being shot after allegedly smashing car windows with an axe. University officials said McMillan “advanced on” the officer, resulting in the man being shot.
The Texas Rangers are leading the investigation, and the officer has been placed on administrative leave, standard, officials said, for police-involved shooting investigations. The investigation could take months, officials said.
Police camera footage was released Tuesday, Dec. 15, which showed McMillan walking, holding but not lifting the axe, toward Bean, who told McMillan about six times to stop. But McMillan kept moving, telling Bean to “Shoot me! Just shoot me!”
A toxicology report was ordered in the autopsy of McMillan. The Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office said autopsy results could be available as late as February.
UNT President Neal Smatresk emailed an official statement on McMillan’s death, saying, “This is a tragic event that saddens us as a university community. We offer our condolences to the individuals, their families and all involved.”
[hypotext target=”your-target-id”]Photo from the scene. Contains graphic content. [/hypotext] [hypotext id=”your-target-id”][/hypotext]
He went on to say the police officer has been placed on administrative leave while authorities fully investigate the shooting.
The initial call, which was originally made to Denton police, was picked up by UNT police, because the corner for Fry and Oak streets is within its jurisdiction.
When the rain began to pour early Sunday morning, police were still working the crime scene on the corner of Fry and Oak streets. Some bargoers leaving the Fry Street area ran through the rain to find police tape and officers telling them their cars may not be moved for hours, as investigators recover details.
“It could be hours,” one officer said. Police were seen in the area as late as 6 a.m.
Next to her roommate along Oak Street stood Ashley Jones, a UNT student who said she knew McMillan as an acquaintance.
“He seemed like a really cool person, really down to earth,” she said. “He was the last person I would think to do that, at least from the vibes I got from him.”
We just received raw video of the suspect from last night. pic.twitter.com/Dxy8iN2vnr — North Texas Daily (@ntdaily) December 13, 2015
As the wind popped yellow police tape nearby, Jones looked on and recalled the moment McMillan stood in the first floor of the U Centre parking garage with what she remembered as a hammer, and smashed the hood of her car.
The police came, there were shots, “and that was it,” Jones said.
Another witness, who did not offer his name, said he saw McMillan, with blood on his chest, carrying an axe and was shot four times by the UNT police officer.
Police officers working the scene took reports from witnesses and those who claimed damages from the man.
There are eight people listed as victims in Denton Police Department’s incident reporting following the criminal mischief/vandalism call Sunday morning.
“He didn’t leave a window unbroken,” U Centre resident Andrew Cardenas said. “The cars he hit had all their windows smashed.”
Cardenas, a biology student, was returning home from work in the few minutes after police shot McMillan. He arrived to find dozens of police cruisers and police tape.
“There were a lot of cops and I knew it was something different,” Cardenas said. “The [police cars] occupied the entire road and I couldn’t get into the parking garage.”
Larissa Kosier, a senior criminal justice major, found her with the windows smashed in.
“All of the windows aside from the windshield were smashed, he also hit the side panels,” Kosier said. “I got towed yesterday, my car may be totaled.”
Kosier said she doesn’t think any particular cars were targeted.
“You can see, in the parking garage, it was random,” she said. “It’s all really confusing.”
Some feel as though the incident leaves many questions unanswered. Denton resident Buster Woodham questions the officer’s use of force. Woodham also wonders where McMillan’s friends were and if he was celebrating his birthday.
“Did the cops really need to shoot him in the chest?” Woodham said. “Where were his friends?”
Other locals on and near Fry Street Monday said despite the incident they still feel safe in the area known for its bar scene.
“I still feel safe on Fry Street because the police are always here,” English freshman Fatima Alrushdi said.
The real change, some feel, isn’t in the way they feel about Denton, but about how Denton will be perceived from now on.
“For the most part I still feel safe, but this incident is legitimizing Denton as a place where bad s–t happens,” Woodham said.
The North Texas Daily is following this story. Updates will be posted when they are made available.
Featured image: Police block the road outside of the UCentre apartment complex on Fry Street. Hannah Ridings | Senior Staff PhotographerThe Fitbit (NYSE: FIT) IPO date is set for Thursday, June 18.
The deal is one of the most anticipated tech deals of 2015. Fitbit will be the first standalone wearable tech company to go public. That's significant considering wearable tech is an exploding market. It's projected to be worth $19 billion by 2018.
With the Fitbit (NYSE: FIT) IPO date just three days away, here's everything you need to know about the deal – including whether or not you should buy Fitbit stock when it begins trading…
Fitbit (NYSE: FIT) IPO Date Is This Week! Here Are Your Biggest Questions Answered
What is the Fitbit IPO price?
Fitbit Inc. (NYSE: FIT) set a price range of $14 to $16 a share for its IPO. The company will announce a final IPO price the evening of Wednesday, June 17.
How much money will the Fitbit IPO raise?
Fitbit will sell 29.85 million shares. At the midpoint of the price range, the Fitbit IPO will raise $448 million.
How much is Fitbit worth?
After the IPO, Fitbit will be valued at $3.7 billion. It will be tied with Black Knight Financial Services Inc. (NYSE: BKFS) as the most valuable tech IPO of the year, followed by Inovalon Holdings Inc. (Nasdaq: INOV) at $3.4 billion and GoDaddy Inc. (NYSE: GDDY) at $3 billion.
What kind of company is Fitbit?
Founded in San Francisco in 2007, Fitbit is a consumer electronics company known for its wearable devices of the same name. According to its website, Fitbit's mission is to make products that "fit seamlessly into your life so you can achieve your health and fitness goals, whatever they may be."
Fitbits are wireless activity trackers that measure health metrics like calories burned, quality of sleep, and number of steps walked. There are six different models – Zip, One, Flex, Charge, Charge HR, and Surge.
The products caused controversy last year when Fitbit did an involuntary recall of the Fitbit Force. The recall came after roughly 9,900 customers who purchased the Force experienced skin irritation and rashes. The Consumer Product Safety Commission said it was caused by "allergic contact dermatitis." The Fitbit Force has since been made unavailable to buy on the company website.
How much money does Fitbit make?
Fitbit has enjoyed enormous sales growth over the last five years. Sales skyrocketed from $14.5 million in 2011 to $745.2 million in 2014. Over the same period, Fitbit went from a loss of $4.3 million to a profit of $131.8 million.
Last quarter, its devices constituted 85% of U.S. wearable fitness devices and revenue grew 209% to $337 million. According to market research company The NPD Group, Fitbit has sold 20.8 million devices as of March 31.
Who are the underwriters of the Fitbit IPO?
The joint underwriters for the deal are Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS), Deutsche Bank AG (NYSE: DB), and Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
Does Fitbit have any competition?
Fitbit admitted in its IPO filing that it faces stiff competition from both electronics and traditional fitness companies.
"We expect competition in our market to intensify in the future as new and existing competitors introduce new or enhanced products and services that are potentially more competitive than our products and services," the filing stated.
Fitbit's most dominant competitor is Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) and its Apple Watch, which has health and fitness tracking capabilities. According to a survey by Fortune, Apple Watch sales estimates in 2015 range from 8 million to 41 million, with an average of 22.6 million. That average beats Fitbit's total sales of 20.8 million by 8.7%.
Apparel companies like Nike Inc. (NYSE: NKE) and Under Armour Inc. (NYSE: UA) also pose a threat. These firms are starting to produce tech-supportive apparel – or "smart clothing." Smart clothing sales are supposed to hit more than 10 million units this year and 26 million in 2016.
As wearable tech grows into a $19 billion industry, there may be enough room for both Fitbit and its competitors. But since wearable tech is still in its infancy, there's no telling who will survive.
But does that mean you should buy into the FitBit IPO?FTR reports preliminary North American Class 8 orders for January 2019 dropped 26% M/M to the lowest since October 2016 at 15,600 units. This year’s January order activity was down 67% versus last year and is the worst for the month since 2010. The low Class 8 order number was not entirely unexpected, as the great majority of fleets already have all their orders in for 2019 and don’t need to place any more orders for a while. Backlogs are expected to fall, but should remain over 70% higher than a year ago. Class 8 orders for the past 12 months have now totaled 402,000 units.
FTR reports preliminary North American Class 8 orders for January 2019 dropped 26% M/M to the lowest since October 2016 at 15,600 units. This year’s January order activity was down 67% versus last year and is the worst for the month since 2010. The low Class 8 order number was not entirely unexpected, as the great majority of fleets already have all their orders in for 2019 and don’t need to place any more orders for a while. Backlogs are expected to fall, but should remain over 70% higher than a year ago. Class 8 orders for the past 12 months have now totaled 402,000 units.
Click here to view the latest release and an interactive graph of the Class 8 Orders >
“This is more of a resting point than a turning point. There is an enormous amount of orders in the backlog. The key will be how many of these trucks get built and when. The fundamentals of the economy and freight growth remain solid, so there is no reason to panic. The production rates the first few months of the year will be a better indicator of Class 8 demand than current orders are. We do expect the cancellation rate to remain elevated, as fleets move their orders around in the backlog. Order rates are expected to remain suppressed for a few months, but build rates and retail sales are forecast to climb. “
Final data for November will be available from FTR later in the month as part of its North American Commercial Truck & Trailer Outlook service. To contact FTR, send an email to
Click here to view a sample report > Final data for November will be available from FTR later in the month as part of its North American Commercial Truck & Trailer Outlook service. To contact FTR, send an email to sales@ftrintel.com or call (888) 988-1699 ext. 1 and follow us on Twitter @FTRintel
Don Ake, FTR vice president of commercial vehicles, commented, “Orders had to fall below 20,000 units at some point. There were record breaking orders placed last July and August, and this is the payback for that volume. Even with the weak January numbers, over 330,000 trucks have been ordered in the last nine months, so demand for trucks in 2019 remains strong.For more than two decades, FTR has been the thought leader in freight transportation forecasting in North America. The company’s national award-winning forecasters collect and analyze all data likely to impact freight movement, issuing consistently reliable reports for trucking, rail, and intermodal transportation, as well as providing demand analysis for commercial vehicle and railcar. FTR’s forecasting and specially designed reports have resulted in advanced planning and cost-savings for companies throughout the transportation sector.Various ship nicknames that I have collected during my reading and exploration of the Internet. This list of course is far from comprehensive. It mostly includes American and British ships, as sources describing these ships are more accessible.
Where possible and not otherwise self-evident, I have included 'explanation' for a nickname, as indicated by one source or another.
A ship might bear more than one nickname over the course of its career, or even at the same time. Different constituencies might have different names or'shorthand' for the same ship. For example, the nickname used by a ship's crew may not be the same as the shorthand used by the high command, which may not be the same as the name used by the press (and public), which may not be the same one as used by the complement of a 'rival' ship within the fleet.
Nicknames are not always polite, and I am not responsible for any offense that any readers may take to the nature of or the mere inclusion of a particular name. Believe it or not, sailors sometimes seem to enjoy showing a healthy disrespect even for their own (naturally beloved) ship, and may themselves apply what would be thought a derogatory or insulting name. This is not to say that the crew of that ship might not take offense if an outsider were to refer to their ship by that name. In other cases, names are applied by the press, public, opposition, or elsewhere within a fleet, oftentimes based on a real or perceived deficiency in either the ship or crew, and such names |
of money, you just don’t need to make a “humongous big” trade for a goalie and lose assets in the process.
The window is closing for Henrik Lundqvist. Hell, it could already be closed for all we know. The Rangers cornerstone net minder will be 36 before the start of the 17-18 playoffs and has three straight seasons of declining numbers in the regular season. That’s not the kind of production you want to see from a player making 9.5 million in the salary cap era.
The Flyers are building something, and it could be something really special. As we watch Hextall, the architect, build what he thinks will become a perennial Stanley Cup contender, we don’t need to fret over the seemingly lack of attention being paid to the crease. King Henrik was a 7th round pick in 2000, taken 205th overall (not exactly a prime draft spot). The Flyers are attempting to build a team that will be dominant at both ends of the ice, not one dependent on a goalie stealing games for them.
So far I like what I see. So patience, little grasshoppers, there is no need to rush the process. Good things come to those who wait (and wait, and wait, and wait).
Comments(Maggie McNeill is a retired call girl. She writes at her blog, The Honest Courtesan.)
A sex worker who goes by the name “Violet,” poses for a picture at a bus stop as a bystander waits for a bus in downtown San Francisco in 2008. (AP Photo/Darryl Bush)
Imagine a study of the alcohol industry which interviewed not a single brewer, wine expert, liquor store owner or drinker, but instead relied solely on the statements of ATF agents, dry-county politicians and members of Alcoholics Anonymous and Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Or how about a report on restaurants which treated the opinions of failed hot dog stand operators as the basis for broad statements about every kind of food business from convenience stores to food trucks to McDonald’s to five-star restaurants?
You’d probably surmise that this sort of research would be biased and one-sided to the point of unreliable. And you’d be correct. But change the topic to sex work, and such methods are not only the norm, they’re accepted uncritically by the media and the majority of those who the resulting studies. In fact, many of those who represent themselves as sex work researchers don’t even try to get good data. They simply present their opinions as fact, occasionally bolstered by pseudo-studies designed to produce pre-determined results. Well-known and easily-contacted sex workers are rarely consulted. There’s no peer review. And when sex workers are consulted at all, they’re recruited from jails and substance abuse programs, resulting in a sample skewed heavily toward the desperate, the disadvantaged and the marginalized.
This sort of statistical malpractice has always been typical of prostitution research. But the incentive to produce it has dramatically increased in the past decade, thanks to a media-fueled moral panic over sex trafficking. Sex-work prohibitionists have long seen trafficking and sex slavery as a useful Trojan horse. In its 2010 “national action plan,” for example, the activist group Demand Abolition writes,“Framing the Campaign’s key target as sexual slavery might garner more support and less resistance, while framing the Campaign as combating prostitution may be less likely to mobilize similar levels of support and to stimulate stronger opposition.”
But as sex worker rights organizations have repeatedly pointed out (as have organizations like UNAIDS, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International), those who are truly interested in decreasing exploitation in the sex industry would be better off supporting decriminalization of prostitution. New South Wales, Australia, decriminalized sex work in 1995, and a subsequent government-sponsored 2012 study found ”... no evidence of recent trafficking of female sex workers... in marked contrast to the 1990s when contacted women from Thailand were common in Sydney... ”
New Zealand legalized prostitution in 2003. A study by the New Zealand Ministry of Justice five years later found “no incidence of trafficking,” and sex worker advocates say the law has made it easier for sex workers to report abuse, and for law enforcement to make arrests for crimes against sex workers. Some anti-prostitution activists have tried to claim that Germany’s liberal form of legalization has encouraged sex trafficking. But they actually cite coercion among illegal sex workers (for example, those who are too young to legally work at a German brothel) and claim that their exploitation had somehow been caused by the legal framework from which those women had been excluded.
Despite plenty of evidence of the harm caused by criminalization, there’s still a tremendous amount of money in representing it as the “cure” for a situation it actually exacerbates. In an interview last May, Michael Horowitz, a fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute who led efforts to pass the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, told the Las Vegas Review Journal that the anti-trafficking movement has become more about securing grants for research than protecting victims. “Now it’s just one big federal entitlement program,” he said, “and everybody is more worried about where they’re going to get their next grant.”
Most of the scary articles about sex trafficking are larded with inflated figures and phony statistics that don’t survive any serious analysis. For example, you will often read that the average sex worker enters the trade at 13, a mathematical impossibility which appears to have originated as a misrepresentation of the average age of first noncommercial sexual contact (which could include kissing, petting, etc.) reported by underage girls in one 1982 study as though it were the age they first reported selling sex. The actual average age at which they began prostitution was 16. And though the number was already dubious when applied to underage prostitutes, it became wholly ludicrous when applied to all sex workers.
Because prostitution is illegal in most of the world, the most reliable data on the proportion of sex workers that are underage will come from places where the industry is legal and it can be studied openly, like New Zealand. And there, estimates put the figure at about 3.5%.
Another common claim is that there are 100,000 to 300,000 children locked in sex slavery in the U.S. (For just a few examples, see here, here, here, here, and here. ) That number is a distortion of a figure from a 2001 study by Richard Estes and Neil Weiner of the University of Pennsylvania, which estimated that number of “children, adolescents and youth (up to 21) at risk of sexual exploitation.” (Emphasis added.) “Sex trafficking” was the least prevalent form of “exploitation” in their definition. Other forms included stripping, consensual homosexual relations, and merely viewing porn. Moreover, two of the so-called “risk factors” were access to a car and proximity to the Canadian or Mexican border. In a 2011 interview, Estes himself estimated the number of legal minors actually abducted into “sex slavery” was ” very small... {w}e’re talking about a few hundred people.”
Yet the myth persists. The Dallas Morning News recently took the figure to new levels of preposterousness, claiming in an editorial last November that, “In Houston alone, about 300,000 sex trafficking cases are prosecuted each year.” As defense attorney Mark Bennett pointed out on his blog, the actual figure was two. Not 200,000. Just two. The paper did print a correction, though the correction simply deleted the original 300,000 figure from the editorial. The paper still didn’t bother to mention the actual number, perhaps it didn’t support the alarmism in the rest of the editorial.
And the distortions go on.
A mistaken, offhand guess by a panelist at symposium that sex trafficking might be the third most profitable underground industry gets repurposed as proven fact. Later, it’s changed to the second most profitable black market, then the first.
A highly flawed, anecdote-ridden feature in the New York Times Magazine that heavily relied on activist sources is repeated as gospel.
A 2004 study of street sex workers who had been murdered found that the average age of the victims was 34. This has since been cited as the average life expectancy of all street workers, or of all sex workers. That would be analogous to saying that because the average soldier who is killed in battle is 21 years old, the average man who joins the military dies at 21. (Newsweek made this mistake in its sensationalist 2011 article “The John Next Door,” and never bothered to correct it.)
One of the more comical incidents occurred in 2011, when an activist group called the Women’s Funding Network put out a study alleging that ads for underage sex trafficking on websites like Craigslist and Backpage.com had “risen exponentially in three diverse states.” The claim was picked up by media outlets across the country, including USA Today, the Houston Chronicle, the Miami Herald, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and the Detroit Free Press. The Village Voice, which owns Backpage.com, took a look at the methodology, a term that flatters what the study’s authors actually did. They merely asked a small sample group of people to guess the age of women pictured in ads for escort and erotic massage services. They then just assumed that the guesses were correct, and extrapolated the percentage of “underage” women in their sample set of photos were indicative of online sex ads in general.
Not surprisingly, none authors of the “study” were credentialed academics. Still, it inspired not only a wave of media coverage, but outrage from state attorneys general and members of Congress, and promises for new laws. The activists knew exactly what they were doing. As the director of the group that conducted the study told the Voice, “We pitch {a study} the way we think you’re going to read it and pick up on it. If we give it to you with all the words and the stuff that is actually accurate — I mean, I’ve tried to do that with our PR firm, and they say, ‘They won’t read that much.'”
There have been two more highly-publicized examples of this phenomenon in just the past few weeks. The first was a study funded by Cindy McCain and led by Dr. Dominique Roe-Sepowitz, an anti-prostitution crusader responsible for a controversial “diversion” program in Phoenix, Arizona. It claimed to have “proven” an increase of “sex trafficking” in northern New Jersey near the time of the Super Bowl, and was apparently conducted to counter the evidence that this annual story — that Super Bowls bring sex slaves” — is largely hype. The researchers claim to have subjected sex workers’ ads from Backpage.com to a “trafficking matrix.” The report doesn’t offer much explanation about how this “matrix” was designed and tested, but the text in the report indicates that among its dubious premises are the claims that tattoos are a sign of trafficking, and the dubious claim that the term kitty (a euphemism for female genitalia) is code for “underage.” Despite the absence of methodological design data and the obvious lack of experimental controls, the authors nonetheless boldly assert that 83.7% of the ads “showed signs of trafficking.”
The other example is a study from the Urban Institute that was widely touted in the media last week (including here at The Washington Post). The researchers made bold statements about the “U.S. sex economy” based on interviews with law enforcement personnel, 73 men convicted as “pimps,” and only 36 incarcerated street workers. As the sex worker activist Melissa Gira Grant observed, the average sex worker activist follows more sex workers on Twitter than these researchers managed to find for a supposedly “landmark” study.
Furthermore, the report’s bias is clear from the skewed proportion of its interviewees: Street workers represent less than 15 percent of the trade, but were 100 percent of the sex workers interviewed for the study. Moreover, fewer than half of street workers have pimps, and about half of the pimps are actually the employees of the women they manage, not the other way around. Yet the researchers interviewed twice as many pimps as sex workers, thus inflating their perceived importance remarkably.
To the extent that it exists, coerced sex work is of course abominable, and it should be prosecuted. But the media needs to be far more skeptical of the claims of anti-sex worker activists, including those that advocate from government perches. Uncritically repeating exaggerated claims and fabricated data may seem innocuous — after all, what harm could there be in drawing more attention to the issue? But when all sex work is illegal, consensual, of-age sex workers are far more reluctant to report coercion, abusive pimps, and underage prostitutes for fear of being arrested themselves. This makes actual sex trafficking more difficult to discover.
These moral panic proclamations and exaggerated or fabricated statistics are coming from activists who want stricter laws to criminalize prostitution, thus pushing it further underground. Spreading their message will only make actual sex slavery more difficult to detect.by Laura Lee September 2015
The world’s oldest known mask eerily resembles our modern and ubiquitous “smiley face” — though this elder manages to strike a bit more pensive and thoughtful a pose. Pretty good for being nine thousand years old.
All date to the same era, verified with microarchaeology techniques that included testing surface sediment and examining their crystalline structure and mineralogical composition under the microscope.
What makes these masks, and not simply portraits? Small circular holes, neatly carved along the edge of many of these masks, seem handy for insertion of cordage to secure onto the head. And, scans and 3D models revealed that they would have been comfortable worn as masks. They are proportional to and follow the contours of the human face, with large eye holes affording a wide angle view. The scans also revealed that some masks look to be fashioned after the skulls of individuals. And weighing in at 2.2 to 4.4 pounds, these masks of chalk and limestone are actually much lighter than many of the masks worn ceremonially by indigenous cultures today, notes Debby Hershman, curator of Jerusalem’s Israel Museum’s Prehistoric Cultures Department. She has spent the last decade studying these masks, part of the only fifteen known from the Neolithic era.
To what purpose were these many masks, so carefully fashioned? The prevailing theory is that they were used in part to lay claim to land rights. The advent of agriculture allowed migratory tribes to settle down and establish a permanent presence, and identify with one place. In the days before writing, invoking one’s genealogical lineage was one of the few ways to justify and convey rights of ownership. In ritual, one can animate the masks of the deceased and momentarily bring them to life to speak on one’s behalf.
But it wasn’t all just business. One of the caves where masks were found, known as Nahal Hemar, looks like a storage unit for ritual gear. Among the thousands of objects found were embroidered textiles that might have been ritual wear, rope baskets, wooden beads, shells, flint tools, bone figurines, and human skulls decorated with a kind of molded asphalt. Fragments of stone masks had clumps of hair still attached, as beards and mustaches, which led to the conjecture that some of holes along the masks’ edge might have given them flowing hair.
While these are the oldest known masks, we know the first making of masks reaches much further back in time. We see masks depicted on painted cave walls of twenty and thirsty thousand years ago. Long before the invention of ceramics, masks of animal skins and bone, plant fiber, cord, wood, and feathers, materials that end themselves more readily to the task, are long gone. We can imagine the long legacy of masks lost to time, which must reach even further back to include the Neanderthals. For here is a 35,000 year-old flintstone artifact found at Roche-Cotard in France, a Neanderthal site. Note the perfect and intentional positioning of the bone splinter — pushed in forcibly — that creates the eyes. The tip of the nose was shortened by removal of a flake, perhaps the cheekbones as well. That this face looks like a cross between a feline and human adds to its mystery. All this elevates it into one of the earliest portraits, all the more exceptional in that it’s maker was a member of a culture not previously known to produce art. Art lies deep within the entire human family. It just seems to be in our bones.In its fourth year under siege, with regime forces chipping away at its perimeter, Darayya, 8km west of Damascus, is on the verge of collapse.
"Each day, the space for civilians shrinks,” an official with Liwa Shuhada al-Islam, who requested anonymity, tells Syria Direct’s Omar al-Khatib.
Darayya, among the first Syrian cities to rise up in 2011, is symbolically important for the revolution and strategically important to the regime. The town lies next to several military installations, including the Mezzeh Military Airport and the 4th Armored Division base.
The regime has reportedly dropped more than 6,600 barrel bombs on Darayya since encircling it in 2012.
On June 9, Darayya received aid for the first time in nearly four years. Reports subsequently emerged that 20 barrel bombs were dropped by regime helicopters as residents gathered to receive the aid.
Last week regime forces advanced a half-kilometer into Darayya.
For opposition forces Darayya became a symbol of resistance. For the regime it is the final pocket to be cleared west of Damascus.
"The reality is the regime is no longer interested in negotiating with us, it feels like a military victory is at hand.”
Q: Could you describe the developments of the last 48 hours?
On Sunday there was relative calm. Throughout the day there was periodic sniper fire and bombing, although both were fairly limited.
In the last 24 hours, however, the regime unleashed a large assault on Darayya. The attack included an increased bombing tempo. Twelve barrel bombs, four missile strikes and eight surface-to-surface rockets have fallen on the city.
Before attempting a ground advance, the regime launched a barrage of bullets from the west of the city.
The ground advance started at 1:00pm Monday and continued until 9:00pm. Opposition fighters were able stave off the advance, which killed two militants and one civilian.
Rebel fighter moves through Darayya's rubble. Photo courtesy of Liwa Shuhada al-Islam.
Q: Where do these military developments leave the humanitarian situation?
Things remain terrible and continue to regress. Since the regime began assaulting Darayya, the UN hasn’t resumed any aid there. The UN aid program was ended almost as soon as it began.
Q: Could you explain why it is that we see relatively low civilian casualties despite the heavy bombardment of Darayya?
For one, the vast majority of Darayya's population has fled. So relative to the size of Darayya, which was home to 80,000 people, there are only slightly more than 8,000 civilians in the city. Each day, the space for civilians shrinks.
While most of the buildings in Darayya have been turned into rubble, some cellars have been turned into civilian shelters.
Q: When we talk about the humanitarian situation in Darayya, how many civilians are we talking about?
The number of civilians living under siege in Darayya is 8,300 civilians. This number was taken shortly before humanitarian aid entered the city, on June 9.
Q: Could you describe the medical and food situation in Darayya?
As for medical supplies, there are none.
The food supplies in Darayya are dwindling. The regime is targeting agricultural land and capturing large swaths of farmland west of Darayya. This last piece of farmland served as the breadbasket for Darayya's residents throughout the encirclement.
As a whole, what remains of Darayya's food supplies is meager, at best.
Q: What is the status of negotiations with the regime?
A committee was formed inside Darayya to deal with negotiations. The reality is the regime is no longer interested in negotiating with us. It feels like a military victory is at hand.
In the past, the regime has requested concessions from us which were on the verge of impossible for us to carry out. Its latest stipulations have proven a lack of seriousness on their part. They have demanded total surrender.
Given our desperation, we would welcome any reasonable attempt to mitigate the violence.
Q: What are you requesting from other rebel factions?
Generally, we are in need of reinforcements, but we are asking for the rebels in southern Syria to place more pressure on the regime. If they applied military pressure to the regime in Daraa and Quneitra, we would see relief in Darayya.
Ultimately this is in their interest. If Darayya falls, it won’t be the end. Eventually the regime will move on to focus on retaking southern Syria. The regime’s acquiescent stance in the south won’t last.At Fortune's Brainstorm Green conference on Tuesday, Apple VP of Environmental Initiatives Lisa Jackson went in-depth on the company's multiple green projects and fielded questions, including one regarding the industry-wide problem of reducing a firm's carbon footprint while growing as a business.
Flagship Apple Store at Hong Kong's International Finance Centre. | Source: AppleInsider staff photo
As seen in a video of the talk, made available as part of Fortune's Brainstorm Green 2014, Jackson was asked by her counterpart at Patagonia, Rick Ridgeway, to offer thoughts on how Apple's incremental advances in carbon footprint on a per-product basis are being overshadowed by an overall rise as a company.Specifically, Ridgeway noted Apple's success in reducing the carbon footprint of its Mac business by 27 percent over the past eight years. That figure, and improvements in other products, is displaced when compared to the growth of the company's overall carbon footprint over the same time period.The question is one that many successful companies in a wide variety of industries deal with as their business grows and more products sell. It's something Ridgeway and his team at Patagonia, which is dealing with the same issue, refers to as "the elephant in the room.""Listen, if all of us sustainability professionals have to resort to'make and sell less stuff' as the answer to the problem, then we are suffering from an extraordinary lack of imagination. And innovation," Jackson said. "One of the things that your company —certainly I think Apple — is about is trying to understand where the technology innovations and other innovations are that help us to reduce carbon intensity. We're not advocating for less people to have access to our products. That's not the answer we're looking for. What we're looking for is understanding the whole puzzle."The former EPA chief went on to say that Apple is building alternative ways to deal with its overall carbon footprint, like a recycling program that collects "well over 80 percent" of product amount by weight that the company put out seven years ago. Jackson pointed out that the size of Apple's products has decreased over successive generations, suggesting a good incoming mix.
Jackson also went over Apple's ongoing clean energy initiatives, which include an expansion of renewable energy from data centers to retail stores. Green energy in retail was among the many programs and environmental impact issues detailed in Apple's wide-reaching eco-friendly campaign that debuted on Earth Day in April.Currently, 100 percent of Apple's data centers are run off renewable energy sources, as are 94 percent of its corporate structures. Jackson said the company is now shooting for 100 percent green energy in retail, but did not elaborate on the topic.Stressed woman (Shutterstock)
Texas law enforcement officers have heroically “saved” dozens of “sex trafficking victims” by putting them in jail and plastering their mugshots on Facebook.
This article was originally published by The Influence, a news site that covers the full spectrum of human relationships with drugs. Follow The Influence on Facebook or Twitter.
According to local media outlets, the McLennan police department carried out a sting operation in which officers posed as both sex workers and clients, netting 56 arrests (and 61 arrest warrants overall). They pitched the sting as a way to bust sex traffickers and help their victims.
But as Reason points out, it seems the majority of arrests were of adult women and a handful of men alleged to be their pimps, not underage victims or women pressed into sex work against their will.
Although the relationship between the women and men who might work as their pimps can, obviously, be coercive, it’s not clear how throwing both in jail will help the women “escape” sex work if they want to. US jails are not exactly an efficient route to professional advancement. Having your mugshot plastered to Facebook is not the best advertisement for employability. This issue was not sufficiently addressed during the press conference.
“If we can save an individual, that’s part of our goal, not just to throw people in jail,” McLennan Sheriff Parnell McNamara said at a press conference. “However, make no mistake, putting criminals in jail is our favorite pastime.”
Police also availed themselves of some cash and drugs during this selfless endeavor. “As a result of the investigation approximately $4,500 in US currency was seized, along with quantities of illegal narcotics. Over the last 19 months these detectives have initiated a total of 200 cases, showing this community that this form of modern-day slavery is in our back yard.”
“They should all be ashamed,” commented one Facebook follower. “I wish you had posted their names,” said another, clearly deeply sympathetic to the victims’ plight.
This article was originally published by The Influence, a news site that covers the full spectrum of human relationships with drugs. Follow The Influence on Facebook or Twitter.The Thunder entered tonight’s game struggling on the road, but tonight was not the case. Oklahoma City started off strong in the first quarter making 54% of their shot attempts as they finished the period with a 29-24 lead. The Thunder continued their success in the second quarter by holding the Raptors to 37% from the field as they entered halftime with a 58-48 lead.
Oklahoma City has struggled at times to come out of halftime with energy by allowing opponents to make a run, but that was not the case tonight. The Thunder came out firing on all cylinders making 62% of their attempts and building their lead to 97-70. At this point, Oklahoma City’s starters began to be replaced to get some rest as the game was clearly in hand. The Thunder finished the game strong winning their 4th in a row 123-102.
Team Effort Fuels Win
The Thunder once again put together one of their best performances of the season tonight. Right from the start of the game Oklahoma City seemed to be in rhythm both offensively and defensively. Everyone seemed to come together for this win, including every bench player that received significant playing time. The Thunder finished with seven players in double-digit scoring. It will be hard to find a team that can come out on top of this Thunder team when everyone plays the way they did tonight.
Despite the impressive defensive performances that the Raptors have put together this season, every Thunder starter finished in double-digit scoring. The Thunder didn’t seem to struggle against the defense of Toronto, as they pretty much did whatever they wanted to on offense tonight. The Raptors have had pretty good success on perimeter defense this season, but the Thunder managed to shoot 56% from beyond the arc. The Thunder are finally finding their stride, and playing their best basketball as the season comes to an end. It seems like the Thunder might be peaking at just the right time heading into the playoffs.
Westbrook Earns 4th Consecutive Triple-Double
Russell Westbrook continues to put up ridiculous numbers as he tallied his 34th triple-double of the season and 71st of his career. This also makes 4 in a row for Westbrook, the 3rd time he has achieved such a streak this season. No other player in the NBA has had such a streak. The Thunder improve to 28-6 on the season when Westbrook gets a triple-double compared to 11-23 when he does not.
Russ tacks 4th straight game with a triple-double, his 3rd such streak this season.
No other player has a triple-double in 4 straight games. pic.twitter.com/DpagiNXDfN — SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) March 17, 2017
Russell Westbrook finished the game with 24 points while shoot 8/17 (47.1%) from the field, 4/8 (50.0%) from three, and 4/4 (100%) from the free throw line to go along with 16 assists, 10 rebounds, and only 2 turnovers in 28 minutes. Through the Thunder’s current 4-game win streak, Westbrook is averaging an incredible 15.5 assists per game, which is no doubt a major reason for the Thunder’s success. Oklahoma City is one of the league’s hottest teams lately, and Westbrook’s ability to get his teammates involved is the most significant factor.
Saturday Matinee At Home
The Thunder will return home on Saturday to take on Buddy Hield and the Sacramento Kings. The Thunder have one of the top home records in the NBA at 25-9, while the Kings are mediocre on the road at 13-20. The two teams have split the two games played in Sacramento so far this season, but this time, the Kings will look much differently than they did in the first half of the season due to trading away their marquee player DeMarcus Cousins. Tip-off is set for 2 PM, and the game will be televised on FSOK. It will also be broadcast on the radio at WWLS 98.1 FM.
Article written by Craig Hofeld and Zack Low. Follow @TheThunderGuys on Twitter and Instagram.
AdvertisementsThe following is a psychochronography — to use Philip Sandifer’s wonderful term — of Doctor Who, particularly those episodes aired from 1990-2004. This is my favorite part of the show — partially because it is so controversial, partially because most of the hardcore Secret Masters of Fandom want to forget it exists. I’m sure when I link this to /r/gallifrey there will be a large brawl. I may even get banned. It’s funny…the looms are addressed, as is the concept of canon. But you’d think that would please someone…
Anyway, here goes.
It is September 24, 1990. The year has been momentous. The Hubble Space Telescope has been launched, the Human Genome Project has begun in earnest, Germany has been reunified, Saddam Hussein has invaded Kuwait. Total Recall, Ghost, Dances With Wolves, Home Alone and Misery, among others, have been released in theatres.
Today, Mikhail Gorbachev has been given power to usher the Soviet Union into its future as a market economy. “Release Me” by Wilson Phillips is the Billboard #1 single. The future is here and it is marked by things falling apart. The song remains the same, though…over-synthesized kitsch in search of meaning and love.
The computer-animated face of Sylvester McCoy winks at us (what did they do that on? An Amiga? It looks terrible in this lovable way) and we’re off, past bad chrome lettering and a starfield. Just like always. There was some worry that the BBC would finally give the show its walking papers this year…that there would at last be nothing at the end of the lane. And maybe that’s not quite true…maybe it’s too early to be thankful.
We were promised the Cartmel Masterplan. To sum up, in fan conventions and DWM alike, Andrew Cartmel, the showrunner for Season 27, has explained this as a look into the Doctor’s past following on the events of Season 26. The Doctor, we are told, is actually the Other — one of three architects, along with Omega and Rassilon, of Time Lord society. Perhaps even of the universe itself. The Masterplan tells us he’s more than just another Time Lord. It’s been decried by some as a hackneyed backstory, a dark and gritty 90s reinvention, a bad Alan Moore pastiche. Others suspect it would have been a fascinating new direction.
There’s only one problem.It’s not here. Neither is Ace. Where they’ve gone is not explained. David Tennant once said he almost quit watching over this episode. Andrew Cartmel always hedges about what exactly…happened…he implies nothing did. But the Masterplan is conspicuously absent. No one acknowledges Ace is gone. Diegetically and mimetically, there is nothing at the end of the lane.
In fact, what’s fascinating about this episode is the amount of things it doesn’t do. It’s only fifteen minutes, of course, but the amount of formlessness is staggering even for the sometimes clunky late 80s-early 90s era of Who storytelling. One almost suspects that Ian Briggs is taking the piss — in the same way that Curse of Fenric played with all the story elements that make Doctor Who definably Doctor Who and turned them up to 11, prefiguring Doctor as Odin, Doctor as Face of the 20th Century, and Doctor as tightrope between man and Great Old One; Perdita plays with the very structure of Who. It begins manageably enough, with our intrepid but doddering hero meandering a lonely street. Probably Shoreditch somewhere. It’s obvious location footage..you’ll probably have to turn your speakers down if you have a decent audio setup. The usual badly mixed hiss from this time period is menacing. There are almost whispers…but that’s just because you can’t hear anyone else. The audio is just bad. Here’s a bit of McCoy’s breath on the mic — he’s fumbling today. Was the price of continued Who a draft take? He really seems like he’s less all there than he was in the ’98 feature film.
Now there’s a black and white title card. I half expect it to say “Sam Becket never made it home”. But it reads instead “Et In Arcadia ego”. There is no period. They can’t even get that right.
I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be critical. We’ve all seen it. It is that bad. Redacted almost, surreal…there’s nothing there and it hurts to watch. In a 2008 Reddit AMA, Paul Cornell suggested that this was intentional. Andrew Cartmel is not that smart. “Things happen when you travel alone…we’re all stories in the end..” These are Moffat tropes from the new series. The fucking reboot! They don’t matter to this except as a method of backforming our understanding of the…incomprehension on our screens. Doctor Who is about to go full Max Headroom.
*breathes* My tea is getting cold. There. Better. You know, that’s a good way of getting a handle on this…mess. It’s almost like a broadcast intrusion got made into a script. You’re watching a music video…but there is no music. Haunting strains of a synthesizer, maybe, but they’re indistinguishable from the ambient noise of the TARDIS console room. Speaking of which, this is a hell of a bottle show. The one Cardiffstan street, then the Tardis. Which has been covered with a thin aluminum foil, trying to look chrome, maybe silver. The Doctor stumbles around it. Cosmic rays enter the room. I can tell they’re cosmic rays because they look like visual afterimages and pass through walls. It’s a remarkably good special effect…the team responsible must have read up on the Apollo astronauts’ description of the phenomena. Now the color’s all washed out…he’s angry.
“The question is not who I am.” He looks frantically from side to side. There are…weird…what look like shadowy people facing the wall. On his left, a reddish-brown haired girl. On his right, a dusty blonde woman. They don’t speak. Is this an attempt to depict hallucinations? “Who I am shall burn my hand in this moment, as all moments. I AM THE OTHER! I am that which…that which…fascinating. I’m manic. It has been a while.”
He strides into the center as a spotlight descends. “In this moment, June 27. 2016, 11:23 PM, I must decide what that means. No one can help me. I wander in the wilderness. What shall I be? For Who can never be answered and I must make peace with that despair.” This is so oddly specific about irrelevant nonsense and overwritten it’s almost funny. But it doesn’t feel right. Phil Sandifer won’t even write about this shit. He uses the alternate fanon timeline. I’m almost beginning to suspect we repressed this…
He points the sonic screwdriver toward the blond girl, looking at the auburn one. “What must I do?”
The episode ends here, the familiar sound effects not so much a comforting presence as a stomach-curdling drop into terror and the unknown. Nothing at the end of the lane indeed.
Bohemia doesn’t even have a coastline, y’know. Stay tuned for Episode 2 of this serial…October 1, 1990. In the meantime…
exit stage left, pursued by a bear.
AdvertisementsVirgin America launches PDX service
Virgin Airlines's first flight to Portland arrives under a water cannon spray welcome as it taxis to the Atlantic Aviation hangar on June 5, 2012.
(The Oregonian/File)
Alaska Airlines' parent company will pay more than $2.6 billion to acquire Virgin America, a coast-to-coast competitor that will significantly expand Alaska's fleet and network.
Alaska Air Group has agreed to pay $57 a share for Virgin America, a nearly 50 percent premium over its Friday share price. It will also take on debt that Alaska said brings the value of the deal to $4 billion.
The purchase will make Seattle-based Alaska the fifth-largest U.S. airline, with a fleet of 280 planes and 1,200 daily departures. It will have the largest market share on the West Coast.
The deal, which will need approval from regulators, is expected to close by the beginning of next year. Fliers will see few changes before then, executives said.
The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times both reported the looming sale over the weekend, saying Alaska beat out rival JetBlue in a fierce bidding war. Virgin America chief executive David Cush acknowledged that Alaska first approached Virgin with an acquisition offer.
Alaska is the dominant carrier at Portland International Airport, through which it flew more than 3.8 million passengers last year. Regional affiliate Horizon flew another 3 million. Virgin, which offers flights between Portland and its San Francisco base, flew about 84,000 PDX passengers.
The takeover of Virgin, |
because their earnings are volatile.
It also pointed out that the combined effect of tax and benefit changes was hitting the poorest people the hardest, but Mr McDonnell was not talking about benefits.
Image copyright IFS
This chart from the Institute for Fiscal Studies shows that about 90% of income tax is paid by the 50% of taxpayers with the highest incomes, while more than a quarter is paid by the richest 1%.
Indirect taxes such as VAT and fuel duty are not progressive though - people with lower incomes do not pay lower rates - so we need to consider all taxes.
The Treasury published analysis at the time of the Budget predicting what proportion of incomes people would be spending on all taxes by 2019-20.
The result is in the darker green bars below the line in this chart, with the poorest households on the left and the richest on the right.
Image copyright HM Treasury
The proportion of income spent on taxes does appear to be increasing as income increases throughout the distribution. The exception is for the poorest 10%, who seem to be spending slightly more than the next 10%, although the IFS says that is probably due to people misreporting their incomes in the survey from which this analysis is taken.
There is more on the impact of taxes on income in this ONS report, which calculates it in a different way, flattening the increase in the proportion of income spent on taxes as households get richer.
Later in the interview, John McDonnell also said: "Middle and low earners are being hit very, very hard by... income tax rises."
The basic rate of income tax has been 20% since 2008 and the higher rate has been 40% for longer than that. There have been additional rates introduced but they do not affect middle and low earners.
In 2010, the income tax personal allowance, which is the amount you are allowed to earn before paying any income tax, was £6,475. This year it is £11,500. That has clearly risen considerably faster than inflation, so for people paying the basic rate of income tax there has been a tax cut, while a higher proportion of low earners are not paying income tax at all.
The level of income at which people start paying the higher rate of income tax has not been rising as fast as the personal allowance, in fact it has fallen in some years since 2010, but only about 15% of income taxpayers pay higher rate, so they probably do not count as being low or middle earners.
Read more from Reality CheckRemoval of nuclear fuel from power plant that suffered triple meltdown following 2011 tsunami could take 40 years or more
In the chaotic two years after its name became forever associated with nuclear disaster, the Fukushima Daiichi power plant “resembled a field hospital”, according to the man who is now in charge of the most daunting task the nuclear industry has ever faced: removing hundreds of tons of melted fuel from the plant’s stricken reactors.
“Now it really does feel like the situation is settling down and we can look ahead,” said Naohiro Masuda, head of decommissioning at the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco).
Five years after a magnitude nine earthquake triggered a giant tsunami that killed almost 19,000 people along the north-east coast of Japan and caused a triple meltdown at Fukushima, the plant has been transformed from the scene of a major disaster into a sprawling building site.
Masuda can point to lower radiation levels in and around the plant, better conditions for its 1,200 Tepco staff and 6,000 other workers – including the recent provision of hot meals and a rest area – and progress in containing huge quantities of radioactive groundwater.
In late 2014, the utility overcame arguably the most dangerous challenge since the meltdown, with the removal of hundreds of spent fuel rods from a storage pool inside a damaged reactor building.
But work on removing the melted fuel – something no nuclear operator has ever attempted – has barely begun.
All that Tepco knows for certain – although it was slow to admit it – is that fuel in three reactors melted down after the tsunami knocked out the plant’s cooling system on 11 March 2011.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Workers are scanned for radiation exposure after returning from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty
Of greatest concern, though, is reactor 1, where the fuel may have burned through the pressure vessel, fallen to the bottom of the containment vessel and into the concrete pedestal below – perhaps even outside it – according to a report by the International Research Institute for Nuclear Decommissioning. Reactors 2 and 3 are thought to have suffered partial meltdowns.
Masuda and Tepco engineers who spoke to the Guardian conceded that they still didn’t know where the fuel is located. “To be honest, we don’t know exactly where the fuel is and have to carry out more studies,” Masuda said at a recent briefing. “But we do know that the fuel is in a solid state of cold shutdown.
“No one has ever done what we’re doing, but 30 to 40 years is a target that we can work towards. There are so many people involved that it would be wrong to alter that deadline on a whim. We’ve established a goal and need to show ingenuity to reach it, not take the easy way out.”
The technology needed to send robots deep into the reactors’ bowels – where radiation levels are dangerously high – has yet to be developed. Two robots specially tailored to negotiate debris inside damaged tunnels and pipes stalled last year when they closed in on the reactors’ highly radioactive innards.
After Fukushima: faces from Japan's tsunami tragedy, five years on Read more
Yet Tepco is persisting with the government’s roadmap for the Fukushima cleanup, which envisions fuel removal to begin in 2021 and end between 30 and 40 years later, at an estimated cost of almost $20bn (£14bn).
But Shaun Burnie, senior nuclear specialist at Greenpeace Germany, said the decommissioning schedule was an attempt to convince the public that Japan was recovering from a major nuclear disaster.
“The idea that fuel debris removal will begin in 2021 is not realistic – it’s just not going to happen,” he said. “The roadmap is based on political considerations, not technical ones.
“This applies to the government’s and industry’s approach to the whole Fukushima crisis – to give the impression that things are retuning to normal and to weaken public opposition to the restart of nuclear reactors.
“No one really knows how long it will take, but it will be decades and decades and decades.”
As the deadline for the start of fuel removal edges closer, even industry regulators are beginning to question the methods set out in the current decommissioning plan.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest The 1,000 tanks built for the storage of contaminated water from Fukushima’s damaged reactors are nearing capacity. Photograph: AP
Last month, Toyoshi Fuketa, a nuclear regulatory authority commissioner, suggested removing all of the melted fuel could take much longer than four decades. “I wonder if it is desirable for work to extract fuel debris to still be going on 70 or 80 years from now,” Fuketa told reporters. “There are a number of other options, including removing as much fuel as possible and solidifying the rest.”
Fukushima Daiichi’s stability is wholly dependent on water constantly being directed into the reactor basements to prevent the fuel inside from heating up. While the method has proved effective, it has led to a buildup of enormous quantities of contaminated water – a mixture of the coolant and groundwater that becomes radioactive when it flows from hills behind the plant into the reactor buildings.
The contaminated water is then pumped out and stored in tanks that cover large areas of the Fukushima Daiichi site. Tepco is able to remove 62 radionuclides from contaminated water – but not tritium – and has so far been unable to get permission from local fishermen to release the treated water into the Pacific Ocean.
After Fukushima: faces from Japan's tsunami tragedy, five years on Read more
While pumping out groundwater upstream and redirecting it into the sea has reduced the amount flowing into the reactor basements from 400 tonnes to 150 tonnes a day, the technology that was supposed to deliver a coup de grace to Tepco’s perennial water problem has encountered problems.
The utility’s plans to activate a 32bn yen (£198m) impermeable frozen wall, which was completed earlier this year, have been frustrated by delays and questions about its effectiveness. It hopes to start filling the underground wall’s maze of pipes with water later this year.
The site is nearing its current water storage capacity of 850,000 tonnes, and there are plans to add to the existing 1,000 tanks, bringing the amount of contaminated water at the plant close to one million tonnes.
Tepco expects to have collected and treated all contaminated water pooled around the reactors by 2020, and will need to continue processing only coolant water for the reactors, according to Sadanobu Kanno, a general manager in the firm’s nuclear power and plant siting division.
The slow progress at Fukushima is mirrored in the painstaking effort to make nearby towns and villages, abandoned five years ago, fit for human habitation.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Thousands of large black plastic bags containing radioactive soil and debris removed from towns and villages near the Fukushima nuclear power plant. Photograph: Franck Robichon/EPA
The disaster forced 160,000 people to flee their homes, 100,000 of whom are still displaced. About 10,000 children whose families fled after the nuclear disaster have yet to return to Fukushima prefecture, amid parental concern over the possible health effects of long-term exposure to relatively low doses of radiation.
Their former hometowns have since been turned into temporary dumping grounds for more than 10m black bags containing soil and other low level radioactive waste cleared from areas around homes, schools and other public buildings.
Here, too, progress is slow, with local authorities reporting that more than 40 communities have yet to be decontaminated. The unprecedented cleanup, involving 26,000 workers, aims to reduce outdoor radiation exposure to one millisievert a year – a target Japan’s environment minister recently criticised as unrealistically low.
But in a blow to the government’s push to lift more evacuation orders in Fukushima communities over the next 12 months, a poll published on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the disaster showed that two out of three nuclear evacuees had given up hope of ever returning to their homes.
“It is wrong for the central government to say return home and to lift evacuation orders, even though its own declaration of an emergency situation for the nuclear accident is still in place,” said Miyako Kumamoto, a 73-year-old evacuee, at a rally in Tokyo last week.When Sling TV started, it offered only 20 channels. A lot can change in just over a year. Sling TV now offers more than 100 channels to choose from.
CNET
Best of all, unlike cable and satellite bundles, you can pick and choose from small packages of channels. This way you'll see only what you want rather than having to deal with a dozen bloatware channels for every one you actually want to watch.
In its latest update, Sling TV is now offering multi-stream service Sling Blue. This new service features Fox, FX, NBC, USA, Bravo, NBC Sports Network (NBCSN), Syfy, BBC America, and others. All together, Sling Blue has opened its doors with 42 channels. This service costs $25 per month for new customers.
Additionally, Sling Blue in some areas offers local NBC channels. Sling Blue customers will have access to live, local NBC broadcast stations in the following 10 markets: Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Hartford, Conn., Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, San Diego, and Washington DC. Access to on-demand NBC programming and NBC regional sports networks will be available in a later update. Last, but far from least, you can watch Sling Blue channels on three devices at once.
Through Sling Blue Extra packs, you can add NBCUniversal networks such as E!, CNBC, MSNBC, NBCSN, Oxygen, Golf, and NBC Universo. Premier League football fans who want to cut the cord will be especially happy to see NBCSN.
Why TV is doomed: HBO Now and the new cord-cutting economics The entire old-school television distribution system has been rocked by a quake of epic magnitude. Now I can watch whatever I want -- and save hundreds of dollars a year. Read More
Sling Orange is the old Sling TV main channel with the addition of BBC America and BBC World News. Of course, it hasn't been standing still. There are now 29 Sling Orange channels. Many of these now feature on-demand video in addition to live broadcasts. This service continues to be priced at $20 a month.
If you want -- and I for one do -- you can get Sling Orange and Sling Blue together for $40 per month. These combined with the various Sling TV Extra packs give you, according to Roger Lynch, Sling TV's CEO, "more than 100 channels to choose from as they customize their ideal television experience." Lynch continued, "With our new multi-service option and NBCUniversal programming, Sling is one of the few pay-TV options where value continues to improve."
He's not wrong. I've been a Sling TV user since day one. In its early days, its interface was difficult to navigate, and its streaming was often, well, awful. Since then, however, the interface -- especially on my Roku 3 -- is much better, and its performance has gotten much better. It's still not as smooth as Netflix, but even live sports are quite watchable on it now.
If you love commercial television, have good broadband, and want to slash your cable bill, I highly recommend giving Sling TV a try. With a free seven-day entry offer, I think you'll soon be bidding your cable or satellite provider goodbye.
Related Stories:Dr. Miles Groth, a men’s advocate, academician, professor of psychology at Wagner College and the editor of New Male Studies, has made an announcement about his organization’s efforts to install coursework in the study of human males that actually seeks to understand their life circumstances and problems, vs studying males “as” the problem.
To say this announcement is a milestone is a gross understatement.
Because of Dr. Groth’s exemplary work alongside a number of other esteemed academicians, the first degree program in MALE STUDIES begins in 2014. It is supported by the University of South Australia and will be available to students worldwide.
This is the first actual male studies program anywhere, despite the confabulations of Michael Kimmel, who claims to have worked in this field for 30 years, but has never produced a single degree program of any kind.
Indeed, without dwelling on it at this auspicious moment, all Kimmel has produced is a series of dog and pony shows that essentially emulate long established programs of academic feminism. He basically drew a penis on your average gender studies syllabus and preened as though it was an accomplishment.
What Dr. Groth has accomplished is something entirely different, new and worthwhile. And it marks THE moment in history when the complete academic hegemony of gender feminists on discussions of sex, gender, and importantly power, comes to an end.
From a personal perspective this is the biggest news and crowning achievement for men and boys in 2013. We are completely in Dr. Groth’s debt, and in debt to his colleagues in this monumental effort.
There will be much more to come on this from AVFM in the coming New Year, and we will be asking all MHRAs to help spread the word in order to help enrollments. This is a program that must succeed.
Male Studies Courses Download PDF.
NMS Facebook Page
PS. Please Tweet and Facebook this till your finger breaks. It will leave you with nine good ones.More than 10,000 cases "may have been affected" by alleged data manipulation at a forensics laboratory in Manchester, an investigation has found.
Three-quarters of the cases, across 42 police forces, were traffic offences such as drug driving, the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) said.
A number of retests have resulted in drug driving cases being discontinued and two road deaths have been referred to the Court of Appeal.
Although no murder or rape cases have so far been found unreliable, some could be in a lower priority band for testing which have yet to be reanalysed, James Vaughan of the NPCC said.
Such cases would include finalised court cases which ended in acquittals or police investigations which had no further action.
The alleged manipulation by individuals working at a Randox Testing Services forensics laboratory emerged earlier this year when a data anomaly in a drug driving case was reported to Randox.
Two men have been arrested and five interviewed under caution by Greater Manchester Police in connection with the alleged manipulation."Gift Horse," by artist Hans Haacke, debuted on the Fourth Plinth in London's Trafalgar Square in 2015. Matt Dunham/AP
Put them to work, Trafalgar Square style.
Baltimore suddenly has a surfeit of empty sculptural plinths. Overnight, Mayor Catherine Pugh and a fleet of trucks removed four Confederate monuments with a quickness not seen since the Colts skipped town. While other cities fret over what to do with Lost Cause memorials that are increasingly targets of ire and vandalism, Baltimore appears to have put the issue to rest. With the statues gone, only opportunity remains. What can the city do with those empty (and now graffiti-covered) pedestal plinths? Baltimore could do worse than to take a page from London’s Trafalgar Square. Back in the day, statues were planned for each of the four corners of Trafalgar Square, but the money ran dry in the mid-19th century. Pigeons now have their choice of British generals Henry Havelock and Charles James Napier or an equestrian of King George IV for stooping. Missing is a statue of King William IV, which the city never got around to installing. For more than 150 years, the plinth on the northwest corner sat incomplete.
Today it is home to the world’s greatest placeholder. The Fourth Plinth, a program conceived by the Royal Society of Arts in the 1990s, invites contemporary artists to figure out something new to do with the spot every year. It launched in 1999, with Mark Wallinger’s imperious Ecce Homo, a life-sized figure of Christ wearing a crown of barbed wire.
Katharina Fritsch’s 15-foot-tall “Hahn/Cock” sculpture on London’s Fourth Plinth in July 2013. (Andy Rain/AP)
A few iterations later, the city decided to run with the program, which is now operated by the Mayor of London’s culture office. Eight different Fourth Plinth proposals have been realized since 2005, from the comically surreal (Yinka Shonibare’s Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle, a recreation of HMS Victory all corked up under glass) to the conceptually tilted (Antony Gormley’s One & Other, in which members of the public were invited onto the plinth to do or say pretty much whatever they wanted for one hour). Up since last September: David Shrigley’s Really Good, a big bronze thumbs-up, which appeared just in time to congratulate everybody for the great work on the #Brexit vote. Now Baltimore’s got four empty plinths, each one of which could serve as an empty stage for the city’s artists. Not that they’re waiting for an invitation: One artist erected a giant papier-mâché sculpture of a pregnant woman made from old copies of the Baltimore City Paper in opposition to the Confederate memorial in Wyman Park Dell well before the rally in Charlottesville. Bystanders help artist Pablo Machioli erect Madre Luz where Lee and Jackson once were. #baltimore #bmore #madreluz pic.twitter.com/NEyQPuyjDM — Stephanie Podue (@Contemplatrice) August 16, 2017 Four simultaneous contemporary-art programs could be overkill. It might be asking too much of the Baltimore Office of Promotion & the Arts to operate a First, Second, Third, and Fourth Plinth. But in the meantime, while the city figures out what’s what with these empty pedestals, giving them over to chance, creativity, and inspiration would be a welcome change of pace."When I started playing cricket, no one in the state believed that any one from the state can play for the Indian team. That was the kind of mind-set everyone had." © Getty
Chapter 1: Family There are positives and negatives about it (coming from a cricketing family). I was lucky that my father played this game, so he knew the technical side of it. At the same time, since he understands the game, he will criticise and say 'this is right and this is wrong'. Most of the times, you end up discussing the game, and if you want to discuss something else, you don't have enough time. Sometimes that happens because if you're from a cricketing family, the discussions at home are most of the times about cricket. Sometimes, you want to have those chats, but sometimes you don't want to. You don't have a choice. It was (the toughest moment when my mother passed away). When I was 17, she passed away. I never thought I would lose her because at that time I didn't know she had cancer. I didn't know that it is a life-threatening disease. Initially, it was really tough, but once I got involved in the game, my attention was more on the game. I had a goal that I had to achieve. It was (devastating for my father). I was always away from home, so my father was most of the times alone and it was really difficult. He was still coaching the kids, but still, when you are not travelling, when you are free, you tend to remember your close ones. (It was) more difficult for him than me.
Chapter 2: Marriage Things haven't changed much as far as my cricket is concerned. My wife is very supportive. Now she understands the game much better. Before marriage, she didn't know much about cricket, but now she knows the game very well. She has started understanding the technical aspects of the game. Sometimes, it is difficult because if she understands then you always end up talking about the game. Then she asks a lot of questions like why you won or you lost. When you don't have much knowledge of the game, you just watch. But, now we discuss the game also. She knows what is the importance of professional cricket and being a celebrity, there are so many things to take care of. She understands and supports me really well.
If I'm lazy or not working on my game or trying to avoid something, she will tell me, 'look you're sulking at home'. Obviously, they expect you to spend some time with them. She understands that if I can't talk to her, if I'm committed to something or if there are some matches, she understands that this is my life and it's part of it. That way she is very supportive. I am still the same. You feel your life is complete when you have a partner to share your good and bad memories with. In cricket, you have failure and success, but if someone is there for you to share your feelings then it becomes much easier. She has understood that part (frustrations) very well. In our house, we have an environment which is very pleasant. My wife is very talkative. I am very quiet. Whenever she is around, she keeps the atmosphere very relaxed. She is a fun-loving girl. If she is talking, the atmosphere is always light, but when I am sitting and talking with my father, it is always very professional. I am a serious kind of person. We complement each other. More than me, she is the one who has been taking care of my father regularly - making sure he is taking medicines. My wife is always after him as he has undergone bypass surgery. He has to take medicines and needs to know what he is taking. When he is not eating well, my wife tells him.
Pujara with his wife Puja. © BCCL
Chapter 3: Younger days Basically, I started off when I was eight years old. I used to play cricket on the streets with the other kids. Then my father thought that it would be better if I go to a proper cricket ground and start learning this game if I am really interested. When I was eight years old, he took me to a cricket ground. I was playing at the Railway ground. He himself has played first-class cricket, so he knew what the game is all about. I started attending coaching camps when I was eight. After that, I practised for somewhere around three-four years, and when I was 12, I got my first break in the state team. In the first game, I scored a triple hundred against Baroda. That's when I thought I'll become a professional cricketer. That's how it all started.
The first step was the under-14s. After the triple hundred, I was picked for the under-16s and then I went on to keep playing. After that, I played the under-16s and the under-19s for the state. When I started playing cricket, my family never thought I would become a cricketer. I chose to become a cricketer. I was very good at studies initially, till probably say class seven, I was the class topper. But obviously, after that, my focus changed to cricket. So, I couldn't focus much on studies.
I had both the options open. If I had to choose studies and become'something', I don't know what I would've been, but I would've been something. There was no pressure from the family. Apart from cricket? (I was) not really interested in studies. When I was a kid and I was studying, I never thought about becoming something, or if I have to focus on one particular subject. When a kid, you just grow up naturally, you don't think much about anything. Even if you want to, you can't think. Basically, I wasn't interested in anything else. I was like a normal kid, I used to study and I used to enjoy playing all the games - not just cricket. During my school days, I used to play all the games possible - Badminton, Table Tennis and even Kabaddi, Kho-Kho, etc.
Chapter 4: Idols At that time, I used to love watching Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly. Those three were at their peak while I was growing up and used to score many runs for the Indian team. I used to like them. The main reason is, the kind of captain Ganguly was at that time, and his mindset and his mental toughness - the way he raised the Indian team. I still remember the NatWest series in which India chased down 320, which was almost impossible at that time. Those sort of victories and the kind of aggression he had, I liked that. Obviously, with Sachin Tendulkar, I mean, everyone likes him. There's hardly anyone who won't like him. I was also one of the guys who loved watching him play. Rahul Dravid was the one who was technically correct. When he used to bat, you hardly felt that he'll get out. The bowlers used to get frustrated and they knew that if he's 'in' they'll be in trouble. If you wanted to look at the right technique, he was the one. The theatre guys here arrange a separate entrance from which I go. As soon as the movie gets over, I just get up and walk out. Initially, it was a compliment, comparing myself with such a great cricketer (Dravid). Over a period of time, I have realised that if I am batting at No. 3, I have to stick to my strengths, which are very similar to Rahul Dravid. I have learnt many things by interacting with him. When I was out of form before the Sri Lanka series and was playing for India A, he was the coach and was very helpful. The comparison should not keep on going. He has 10,000 runs in both formats and I have just started. There is a lot of time to go. I don't believe in comparison because he played in a different era and now the mindsets are completely different. When it comes to Test cricket, I would still say that the strike-rate hardly matters as long as you are helping the team win. If you win a Test in three days or four days or five days, it doesn't matter. I didn't try and copy him, but naturally it happened. I'm trying to become technically perfect. I never tried to copy him but I would agree that I gained a lot of tips and advice from Rahul bhai. I have tried my own technique.
Chapter 5: Growing up in Rajkot, Saurashtra I love Rajkot because overall there is not much traffic. One end to another end (in) max 45 minutes. If I have to practice twice a day, I can come and go home, and come. Such advantages are not there in big cities. Schooling, everything was here. I don't have many friends outside of cricket. I am travelling for cricket almost through the year. I am still doing my BBA and have not been to college. At the max, I spend two or three months in Rajkot in a year. I don't get time to socialise. When I was playing under-14 and 16, I realised that I have to sacrifice many things. I never got much time to celebrate festivals and occasions with friends and family. That was the part of the game. As I progressed, I realised that it will be even tougher. Since I belonged to a small state - Saurashtra is a small state as far as cricket is concerned - when I used to score runs in under-age cricket, I wasn't getting noticed. I wasn't picked in the under-15 or the under-17 Indian team. When you want to play professionally, your aim is to play for the country. I wasn't very sure about that (since I wasn't getting picked) so, that's what motivated me a little more. But, the main obstacle was to practice on turf wickets. I grew up practising on concrete pitches. Ultimately, the way I used to perform at the junior level, finally I got my chance to play against England at the under-19 level. Even in that game, I scored a double hundred. After that, I got into the limelight. I was picked for the Under-19 World Cup, everything then started falling in place. When I started playing cricket, no one in the state believed that any one from the state can play for the Indian team. That was the kind of mind-set everyone had. The moment I was picked in the Indian side, and I was Man of the Series, then people started believing that if someone can make it to the under-19 stage, then this guy has some potential. And there is a chance that he will make it all the way. After that, I was picked in the Ranji Trophy team. I performed well in the second game, I scored a hundred in my second Ranji match. But even after that, it took me a long time to make it to the Indian team, because we had greats like Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar and VVS Laxman in the line-up.
"See, in 2006 no one told me I am only capable of playing Test cricket." © Getty
Chapter 6: Test debut (Against Australia)
I was expecting the call long back. The kind of runs I was scoring at the domestic level, I knew that one day I will make it to the Indian team. Finally, it came in 2010. I don't know whether I knew if that was the series I would be picked in, but it was there at the back of my mind. In the first Test, I wasn't part of the playing XI. And I think it was the second match that I was picked. Even then, I wasn't sure I would be picked. It was around 8:45 in the morning (that I got to know I will play), because Laxman bhai was injured. Initially, I was nervous but I was confident that I belonged here, since I'd done well in the domestic level. After the first innings, I was disappointed at getting out, the ball kept very low and I was very unfortunate to get out, but things went well in the second innings. I got an opportunity to bat at No. 3. In the second innings, the Indian team was under a little bit of pressure. It was not a big total to chase, but the wicket was tricky. We had some inexperience in our team, myself and Raina hadn't played many Tests, so to get the balance right, I was promoted up the order, to have players like Rahul Dravid bat lower down and add experience. I played according to the situation. They tried attacking me, so there were more gaps for me to pick. They thought that if they took my wicket and a couple of others, they had a very good chance and there would be more pressure on the Indian team. So I had more gaps to play my shots in, and I thought, I was in good form and I was playing my natural game, I didn't try and do anything extra.
Chapter 7: 'With time the perceptions go away' See, in 2006 no one told me I am only capable of playing Test cricket. I was Man of the Series in the Under-19 World Cup which was the 50-over format. Overall, whatever matches I played at the domestic level, I performed exceptionally well. In 50-over cricket and T20s, I was very good at it.
I think the perception started after I made my Test debut and since I started scoring more runs in the Test format. I started playing more four-day games, people started thinking that 'this guy is only suited for Tests'. But if I get an opportunity to play in the ODIs, obviously I am capable. My domestic record shows it. If I can score these many runs at a decent strike-rate in domestic and India A matches, which I have already proved, I can finally make the national team. It's always there (in my mind). Once someone has a particular perception about your game and your ability, you are always under some pressure. I don't think I need to prove it to anyone, because once I get my opportunity, the way I have performed and the people who have watched me perform well, they know I'm capable and they have appreciated me. In the same fashion, once I start scoring runs at the international level, people will watch and realise that 'no, this guy has that talent and he can score runs in the one-day format. He has his shots and can accelerate'. I keep saying that this is just a perception, and with time it will go away. Initially, when the IPL auctions happened, I was a bit disappointed that I was not a part of IPL as I had worked very hard on my game and had a very good Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy. So, I thought that I had some chance. But, I didn't get the opportunity.
The best thing is whatever work I have done to adapt to one-day and T20 format has paid off. I played some club matches for Indian Oil in the Goa corporate league. We played the semifinal and final against Reliance where most of the Mumbai Indians players play. And, I did well. In another game against Air India, I scored a 100 - big achievement in T20 cricket. Hopefully, in the near future whenever I get my opportunity, I will be able to prove myself.
Chapter 8: The setbacks The toughest phase (of my career) was during my knee injury. The first knee injury that happened before the Test debut. That was the most challenging part of my life.
I had to overcome many challenges. First of all, to get the surgery done and then get back on the field and start running again. To have the same flow with which I had played in the past. To get the rhythm back is not easy. When you're out and haven't even touched your bat for six months, that was really challenging for me. But the good thing was, I was always hard-working and I always knew what I had to do to get back on to the field. The best thing was I had a very good family, my father supported me. All the family members, my paternal and maternal aunts, all of them were home and supported me very well when I wasn't well. I could spend a lot of time with them, I used to get positive energy from them. Although I wasn't playing cricket, I knew I would come back strong. Initially, it was very difficult (when there was a relapse). I used to get many negative thoughts. 'Will the surgery go well? Will I be able to run again?'
I spoke to the doctors and they told me the injury is very common in footballers. I had ACL reconstruction, which is very common in footballers. So this was not something that was threatening my career and that helped me get back to being positive. After that doctors told me that from next week onwards you can start walking with crutches and then a couple of weeks later, on your own. You have to start your rehab. After the surgery, my focus was back on. Once I was in the rehab phase, I knew that after four months, I could start running and sprinting soon after. I had a goal. I had a timeline to be back on the field. The doctors had set the deadline for me and told me I can recover faster if I work hard. It usually takes six months, but I was able to recover in five and a half months. When you play your first game after injury, it doesn't feel natural, but as you keep playing, you start getting into rhythm. Now, I don't even get to know that I had injuries and surgeries in the past. I have worked so much on my fitness, I'm very normal now. I also participated in a half marathon in Rajkot. When it comes to fitness, I can't even remember my injuries now. That part is over now. The main thing is once you're coming back to play, you play as many matches as you can and once you start scoring, you feel you are back and you are yourself.
"The toughest phase (of my career) was during my knee injury. The first knee injury that happened before the Test debut." © Getty
Chapter 9: Giving back I'll start from why we started this (academy). The main reason is to have proper infrastructure and facility at the grassroots level. The players who can't afford this game, players or people who want to have a cricket career, they should not suffer because of the lack of infrastructure, especially in the smaller cities. If you look |
-received. I question whether the union is interested in making an
agreement.
I am very disappointed and disillusioned. Had I not experienced this
process myself, I might not have believed it. Like all hockey fans, I am
hopeful this situation can be resolved as soon as possible. I miss our
game.”
Statement from Jeff Vinik
Tampa Bay Lightning Chairman and Governor Jeff Vinik today issued the
follow statement today:
“After working this week with our players toward what we hoped would
be a new agreement, owners presented a proposal we believed would benefit
those great players, ownership, and, ultimately, our fans for many years
to come. While trust was built and progress was made along the way,
unfortunately, our proposal was rejected by the Union's leadership. My
love for the game is only superseded by my commitment to our fans and I
hold out hope we can soon join with our players and return the game back
to its rightful place on the ice.”For other people named Steven Wilson, see Steven Wilson (disambiguation)
Steven John Wilson (born 3 November 1967) is an English musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer, most closely associated with the progressive rock genre. Currently a solo artist, he became known as the founder, lead guitarist, lead vocalist and songwriter of the band Porcupine Tree, as well as being a member of several other bands.
Wilson is a self-taught composer, producer, audio engineer, guitar and keyboard player, and plays other instruments as needed, including bass guitar, autoharp, hammered dulcimer and flute. Despite being mainly associated with progressive rock, his influences and work have encompassed a diverse range of genres including psychedelia, pop, extreme metal, electronic and jazz, among others, shifting his musical direction through his albums.[2] His concerts incorporate quadraphonic sound and elaborate visuals.[3] He has also worked with artists such as Opeth, King Crimson, Pendulum, Jethro Tull, Andy Partridge, Yes, Marillion, Tears for Fears, Roxy Music and Anathema.
In a career spanning more than 30 years, Wilson has made music prolifically and earned critical acclaim.[4] His honours include four nominations for the Grammy Awards, twice with Porcupine Tree, with his collaborative band Storm Corrosion and as a soloist on one occasion. In 2015, he received three awards at the Progressive Music Awards in London for his services to the genre, where he was crowned "the king of prog rock".[5] Nevertheless, his work has largely stayed away from mainstream music, and he has been described by publications such as The Daily Telegraph as "the most successful British artist you’ve never heard of."[6][7]
Biography [ edit ]
Early years [ edit ]
Born in Kingston upon Thames,[8] London, Wilson was raised from age six in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, where he discovered his interest in music around the age of eight. According to Wilson, his life was changed one Christmas when his parents bought presents for each other in the form of LPs. His father and mother received Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon and Donna Summer's Love to Love You Baby, respectively. It was Wilson's affinity for these albums that helped craft his guitar and songwriting abilities.[9]
Both LPs influenced his future song writing. He says "in retrospect I can see how they are almost entirely responsible for the direction that my music has taken ever since". His interest in Pink Floyd led him towards experimental/psychedelic conceptual progressive rock (as exemplified by Porcupine Tree and Blackfield), and Donna Summer's trance-inflected grooves inspired the initial musical approach of No-Man (Wilson's long-running collaboration with fellow musician and vocalist Tim Bowness), although the band would later develop a more meditative and experimental Talk Talk-esque approach.[citation needed]
As a child, Steven was forced to learn the guitar, but he did not enjoy it; his parents eventually stopped paying for lessons. However, when he was eleven, he found a nylon string classical guitar from his attic and started to experiment with it; in his own words, "scraping microphones across the strings, feeding the resulting sound into overloaded reel to reel tape recorders and producing a primitive form of multi-track recording by bouncing between two cassette machines". A year later, his father, who was an electronic engineer, built him his first multi-track tape machine and a vocoder so he could begin experimenting with the possibilities of studio recording.[10]
Early bands [ edit ]
One of Wilson's earliest musical projects was the psychedelic duo Altamont (featuring a 15-year-old Wilson working with synth/electronics player Simon Vockings). Their one and only cassette album, Prayer for the Soul, featured lyrics by English psychedelic scenester Alan Duffy, whose work Wilson would later use for two Porcupine Tree songs: "This Long Silence" and "It Will Rain for a Million Years". Around the same time that Wilson was part of Altamont, he was also in a progressive rock band called Karma, which played live around Hertfordshire and recorded two cassette albums, The Joke's On You (1983) and The Last Man To Laugh (1985). These contained early versions of "Small Fish", "Nine Cats" and "The Joke's On You", which were subsequently resurrected as Porcupine Tree songs.
Wilson went on to join the New Wave/AOR band Pride of Passion as keyboard player, replacing former Marillion keyboard player Brian Jelliman (another former Marillion member, Diz Minnitt, also played in the band). Pride of Passion would later change their name to Blazing Apostles and alter their lineup and approach, finally coming to an end in 1987.[11][12]
Breakthrough work [ edit ]
Up to this point Wilson's diverse musical experiments had contained avant-garde and industrial recordings, psychedelia and progressive rock. He was, however, also becoming more interested in songwriting and pop music, something that would manifest itself in his next developments.
In 1986, Wilson launched the two projects that would make his name. The first of these was initially called "No Man Is An Island (Except The Isle Of Man)", although it would later be renamed "No-Man." This began life as a solo Wilson instrumental project blending progressive rock with synth pop, subsequently moving towards art-pop when singer/lyricist Tim Bowness joined the project the following year. The second project was "Porcupine Tree", which was originally intended to be a full-on pastiche of psychedelic rock (inspired by the similar Dukes of Stratosphear project by XTC) carried out for the mutual entertainment of Wilson and his childhood friend Malcolm Stocks.
Over the next three years, the projects would evolve in parallel. Of his two efforts, No Man Is An Island (Except The Isle Of Man) was the first to release a commercial single (1989's "The Girl From Missouri", on Plastic Head Records), while Porcupine Tree built an increasing underground reputation via the release of a series of cassette-only releases via The Freak Emporium (the mail-order wing of British psychedelic label Delerium Records).
By 1990, No Man Is An Island (Except The Isle Of Man) had fully evolved into No-Man and was a voice/violin/multi-instrument trio which had incorporated dance beats into its art-pop sound. The second No-Man single – a crooned cover of the Donovan song "Colours" arranged in a dub-loop style anticipating trip hop - won the Single of the Week award in Melody Maker and gained the band a recording contract with the high-profile independent label One Little Indian (at the time, famous for The Shamen and Björk). Their debut One Little Indian single, "Days In The Trees", won the same Single of the Week award the following year. The single also briefly charted and, although sales were not outstanding, Wilson had now gained credibility in the record industry (as well as enough finance to fit out his home studio with the equipment he would need to advance his music).
By this time, Wilson had also released the official, Porcupine Tree debut album, On the Sunday of Life... (which compiled the best material from the underground tapes). No-Man's debut full-length release – a compilation of EP tracks called Lovesighs – An Entertainment – followed in 1992, as did Porcupine Tree's infamous LSD-themed maxi-single "Voyage 34" which made the NME indie chart for six weeks.[13] No-Man also toured England with a six-piece band including three ex-members of the art-pop band Japan – Mick Karn, Steve Jansen and (most significantly) keyboardist Richard Barbieri. 1993 saw Wilson consolidating his initial success with albums from both Porcupine Tree (Up the Downstair) and No-Man (Loveblows And Lovecries – A Confession).
Porcupine Tree, meanwhile, toured frequently and passed through various overt phases of different musical stylings (including psychedelia, progressive rock, modern guitar rock and heavy metal) while retaining the core of Wilson's sonic imagination and songwriting. By the mid-2000s Porcupine Tree had become a well known rock band with albums on major labels such as Atlantic and Roadrunner. Also by this time, Wilson had become in-demand as a producer and was being cited as an influence by various up-and-coming musicians.[citation needed]
Diversification and collaborations [ edit ]
During the late 1990s, Wilson's love of experimental, drone and ambient music led to a series of new projects, notably Bass Communion and Incredible Expanding Mindfuck (also known as IEM). He also began to release a series of CD singles under his own name.
Having established himself as a producer, Wilson was invited to produce other artists, notably the Norwegian artist Anja Garbarek and Swedish progressive-metal band Opeth. Though he claims to enjoy production more than anything else, with the demands of his own projects, he has mostly restricted himself to mixing for other artists in the last few years.[14]
Wilson has written reviews for the Mexican edition of the Rolling Stone magazine. They are all translated into Spanish. Two reviews have been published so far: one for Radiohead's In Rainbows and another for Murcof's 2007 work, Cosmos.[15] He also has contributed to UK magazine Classic Rock as an occasional reviewer[citation needed] and to US magazine Electronic Musician.[16][17] Wilson wrote the foreword for 2010 book Mean Deviation.[18]
Wilson produced and contributed backing vocals, guitar and keyboards for Opeth on the albums Blackwater Park, Deliverance, and Damnation, also contributing lyrics for one song (Death Whispered a Lullaby) in Damnation. In addition to this, he has collaborated on many projects with Belgian experimental musician Dirk Serries of Vidna Obmana and Fear Falls Burning, most notably on their collaboration project Continuum which has so far produced two albums. Wilson is also featured on a Fovea Hex EP Allure (Part 3 of the "Neither Speak Nor Remain Silent" trilogy of EP's) on bass guitar. This EP was released in April 2007 through Die-Stadt Musik.
Wilson has also worked with a range of other artists, including OSI, JBK, Orphaned Land, Paatos, Theo Travis, Yoko Ono, Fish, Cipher and Anja Garbarek, by performing songwriting duties as well as performing musically. Wilson is featured on the Pendulum album Immersion, with his vocals featuring on "The Fountain".[19] He made a guest appearance on Dream Theater's 2007 album, Systematic Chaos on the song "Repentance", as one of several musical guests recorded apologizing to important people in their lives for wrongdoings in the past.
Wilson did an interview with German musician and composer Klaus Schulze. Schulze was an important figure of the Krautrock movement. This interview is featured as bonus material in Schulze's Live DVD, Rheingold.[20]
Wilson has become known for his 5.1 surround sound mixes, with the 2007 Porcupine Tree album Fear of a Blank Planet nominated for a Grammy Award in the "Best Mix For Surround Sound" category.[21] It was also voted #3 album of the year by Sound And Vision.[22] Wilson has worked on several other surround sound projects, which have included remixing the Jethro Tull and King Crimson back catalogues,[23] as well as Marillion's 1985 album Misplaced Childhood.[24] The Anathema album We're Here Because We're Here was mixed by Wilson and he is thanked in the album liner notes,[25] and he mixed two songs on their subsequent album Distant Satellites.[26] He also did the remix for In the Land of Grey and Pink by Canterbury scene band Caravan. The first three new editions were issued in October 2009, with more emerging in batches over the coming years.[27] Wilson is responsible for the 5.1 and new stereo mixes of the 1992 XTC album Nonsuch in 2013,[28] as well as the Gentle Giant albums The Power and the Glory and Octopus in 2014 and 2015, respectively.[29]
Musical projects [ edit ]
Porcupine Tree [ edit ]
Porcupine Tree started out as a duo of Wilson and his school friend Malcolm Stocks (with Wilson providing the majority of the instrumentation and Stocks contributing mostly ideas, additional vocals and experimental guitar sounds). Wilson began experimenting by recording music in his home until he had the hunch it could become someway marketable. The material was subsequently compiled into three demo tapes (Tarquin's Seaweed Farm, Love, Death & Mussolini and The Nostalgia Factory). For the first tape, he even wrote an inlay introduction to an obscure (imaginary) band called "The Porcupine Tree", suggesting the band met in the early '70s at a rock festival, and they had been in and out of prison many times. The booklet also contained information about band's obscure members like Sir Tarquin Underspoon and Timothy Tadpole-Jones, and crew members like Linton Samuel Dawson (if put into initials forming LSD). Wilson: "It was a bit of fun. But of course like anything that starts as a joke, people started to take it all seriously!".[30] When Wilson signed to Delerium label, he selected what he considered the best tracks from these early tapes. All those songs were mastered and made up Porcupine Tree's first official studio album, On the Sunday of Life....
Quickly after, Wilson would release the single "Voyage 34", a thirty-minute long piece that could be described as a mixture of ambient, trance and psychedelia. This was done partly as an attempt to produce the longest single yet released, which it was until it was later exceeded by The Orb's "Blue Room." With non-existent radio play "Voyage 34" still managed to enter the NME indie chart for six weeks and became an underground chill-out classic.[13]
The second full-length album, Up the Downstair (though Wilson considers it the first 'proper' PT album since it was made as such and not simply compiled), was released in 1993 and had a very good reception, praised by Melody Maker as "a psychedelic masterpiece... one of the albums of the year".[31] This was the first album to include ex-Japan member, keyboardist Richard Barbieri and Australian-born bassist Colin Edwin. About the end of the year, Porcupine Tree became a full band for the first time with the inclusion of Chris Maitland on drums.
Wilson continued exploring the ambient and trance grounds and issued The Sky Moves Sideways. It also entered the NME, Melody Maker, and Music Week charts[13] and many fans started hailing them as the Pink Floyd of the nineties, something Wilson would reject: "I can't help that. It's true that during the period of 'The Sky Moves Sideways', I had done a little too much of it in the sense of satisfying, in a way, the fans of Pink Floyd who were listening to us because that group doesn't make albums anymore. Moreover, I regret it."[30]
The band's fourth work, Signify, included the first full-band compositions and performance, which resulted in less use of drum machines and a more full-band sound. It can be considered a departure from its predecessors for a more song-oriented style.[32] After the release of the live album Coma Divine concluded their deal with Delerium in 1997, the band moved to Snapper and issued two poppier albums, Stupid Dream in 1999 and Lightbulb Sun in 2000.
Two years would pass until their seventh studio album, and in the meantime the band switched labels again, this time signing to the major label Lava. Drummer Chris Maitland was also replaced by Gavin Harrison. In Absentia was released in 2002, featuring a heavier sound than all the group's previous works. It charted in many European countries and remains one of the top-selling Porcupine Tree albums to date. The 2004 special edition was also their first record to be released in 5.1 Surround Sound, winning the "Best Made-For-Surround Title" award from the Surround Music Awards 2004 shortly afterwards.
In 2005, Porcupine Tree released Deadwing, a record inspired by a film script written by Steven Wilson and his friend Mike Bennion. This became the first Porcupine Tree album to chart on the Billboard 200, entering at #132. The album won Classic Rock magazine's "album of the year" award[33] and its surround version received the "Best Made-For-Surround Title" once again.[34]
Steven Wilson with Porcupine Tree at Arena, Poznań, Poland, on 28 November 2007
Wilson started writing Porcupine Tree's next album in early 2006 in Tel Aviv, Israel, alongside work on the second album for his side-project Blackfield. Writing sessions finished in London, UK, in June 2006. In August of the same year the band released their first live DVD, titled Arriving Somewhere..., and started a tour between September and November to promote it; the first half of each show was made up of all-new material. When the tour concluded the band went into the studio and finished recording and mastering the album. In early January 2007, the band revealed the album title was going to be Fear of a Blank Planet (a deliberate reference to Public Enemy's Fear of a Black Planet) and the concept was influenced by the Bret Easton Ellis novel Lunar Park. The album hit the shops on 16 April 2007 in Europe and 24 April in USA. The lyrics revolve around common 21st Century issues such as technology alienation, teen violence, prescription drugs, attention deficit disorder and bipolar disorder.
Fear of a Blank Planet resulted in the most successful album to date in terms of market and sales, and also received the most favourable reviews of the band's whole career. It entered the Billboard 200 at #59, and charted in almost all European countries, peaking at #31 in the UK. It was nominated for a US Grammy, and won several polls as the best album of the year (e.g. Classic Rock magazine, Aardshock, The Netherlands). In July 2007 the Nil Recurring EP was released, containing material that had been left off the album.
At a European show in August 2008, Wilson said that Porcupine Tree was beginning work on material for their next album with an eye toward a release in 2009.[35] This album was later revealed to be titled The Incident. The Incident is a double CD set containing "The Incident", a 55-minute "song cycle", on the first disc and 4 shorter songs on the second. It has received significant attention and media coverage and the band achieved their highest chart positions to date, reaching 5 in The Netherlands, 9 in Germany, 23 in the UK and 25 on the Billboard 200 in the USA. The subsequent tour of the US and Europe highlighted a large increase in the band's following, with many shows sold out. The single from The Incident, "Time Flies" was available as a free download from iTunes for one week in October 2009.[36]
No-Man is Wilson's long-term collaboration with singer and songwriter Tim Bowness. Influenced by everything from ambient music to hip-hop, their early singles and albums were a mixture of dance beats and lush orchestrations. However, after a few years the duo started to create more textural and experimental music. Beginning with Flowermouth in 1994, they have worked with a very wide palette of sounds, and many guest musicians, blending balladry with both acoustic and electronic sounds. No-Man was the first Wilson project to achieve any degree of success, signing with UK independent label One Little Indian (the label of Björk, The Shamen and Skunk Anansie among others).
In 1996 came the first in a series of albums by I.E.M. (The Incredible Expanding Mindfuck, a name which had also been considered for Porcupine Tree in its infancy), dedicated to exploring Wilson's love of krautrock and experimental rock music. Initially Wilson had planned for the project to be anonymous, but then label Delerium Records published a song on their Pick N Mix compilation with the composition credited to "Steven Wilson" and so attempts to pass off the project in this way were abandoned.[37] The project released 2 more albums Arcadia Son, and IEM Have Come For Your Children, in 2001. A box set of 4 CDs, consisting of everything Wilson recorded under the name - billed as "an homage and a final farewell to I.E.M." - was released in June 2010.
Bass Communion [ edit ]
In 1998 Wilson launched Bass Communion, a project dedicated to recordings in an ambient, drone, and/or electronic vein. So far there have been several full length Bass Communion CDs, vinyl LPs, and singles, many of them issued in handmade or limited editions.
Steven Wilson during a Blackfield performance at New York, in 2005
Blackfield [ edit ]
In 2001 Wilson met and began to collaborate with Israeli rock musician Aviv Geffen, with whom he created the band Blackfield. Since then the duo have released three acclaimed albums of what they refer to as "melodic and melancholic rock." The albums spawned several singles, notably "Blackfield," "Pain" and "Once." A live DVD from a show in New York was released in 2007. A third album titled "Welcome to my DNA" came in March 2011. Later that year Wilson decided to take a secondary role in the band, feeling that with so much of his time and attention devoted to his solo career, there was not enough left for him to properly fill the role of co-leader of Blackfield as well. He still contributed to the band's fourth album in 2013 as singer and producer. Wilson left the band after a short European tour in February 2014[38] and a final date in New York City on 1 May 2014,[39] due to his increasingly tight schedule with his solo career and upcoming projects. However, in June 2015[40] and June 2016,[41] Wilson was seen in recording sessions with Geffen and Alan Parsons. In August 2016, Blackfield announced that their new album, Blackfield V, would mark the return of Wilson to the band in "full partnership".[42]
Storm Corrosion [ edit ]
In March 2010 Wilson and Mikael Åkerfeldt, the front man of Opeth, decided to work on a new project as a collaboration under the name of Storm Corrosion. The self-titled album was released in May 2012 on Roadrunner Records. It has been described as being "the final part in the odd trilogy of records completed by (Opeth's) Heritage and Steven Wilson's second solo album Grace for Drowning."[43][44] Åkerfeldt and Wilson did no shows in support of the album,[45] and while the two have expressed interest in working together again, they are not currently writing another album for Storm Corrosion.[46][47]
Solo career [ edit ]
Cover versions [ edit ]
During 2003–2010 Wilson released a series of six two-track CD singles under his own name, each one featuring a cover version and an original Steven Wilson song (or in one case a Wilson arrangement of a traditional song). It featured songs by Canadian singer Alanis Morissette, Swedish pop group ABBA, UK rock band The Cure, Scottish songwriter Momus, Prince, and Scottish singer/songwriter Donovan.
Separate from the Cover Versions series, Wilson has also contributed a cover version of the Cardiacs song "Stoneage Dinosaurs". The song was featured on Leader of the Starry Skies: A Tribute to Tim Smith, Songbook 1, which is a fundraising compilation album released in December 2010 to benefit the hospitalised Cardiacs leader Tim Smith, whom Wilson has cited as a major inspiration spiritually, if not necessarily in style.[48]
The complete collection of the cover version songs was released as an album in 2014.
Insurgentes [ edit ]
In November 2008 Wilson released his first official solo album, Insurgentes, recorded between January–August 2008. The album was first released as two limited edition versions, both with hardback book featuring the images of longtime collaborator Danish photographer Lasse Hoile. A standard retail version was released on 9 March 2009.[49]
Lasse Hoile's full-length feature version of the film based on the recording of the album was premiered at the CPH:DOX international film festival in Copenhagen in November 2009. The film was also screened at film festivals in Canada, Germany, Mexico, Sweden and United States. The film is described as part documentary, part surreal road movie. Hoile also directed a video for the song "Harmony Korine" from the album. The video was a homage to European art house films, and has been nominated for "Best Cinematography Award" and "Best Music Video Award" at Camerimage.[50]
A remix mini album was released in June 2009, featuring remixes of material from Insurgentes by David A. Sitek, Dälek, Engineers, Pat Mastelotto and Fear Falls Burning.[51]
Grace for Drowning [ edit ]
Wilson's second solo album, Grace for Drowning, was released in September 2011 in CD, vinyl and Blu-ray formats.[52] It is a double album, with the individual parts named Deform to Form a Star and Like Dust I Have Cleared from My Eye.[53] Wilson also announced his first solo tour in Europe and North America to promote his solo albums. The tour took place in October and November 2011 and contained songs from both Insurgentes and Grace for Drowning.[54] A live video performance recorded in Mexico titled Get All You Deserve was released on 25 September 2012.[55]
On 16 December 2011, Wilson announced new European tour dates for the second leg of his Grace for Drowning tour, running in April and May 2012. South American dates were later added and announced on 21 February 2012.[56] He also won the "Guiding Light" title at the Progressive Music Awards in 2012.[57]
The Raven That Refused to Sing (And Other Stories) [ edit ]
Wilson's third solo studio album, recorded with most of the members of the touring band for Grace for Drowning[58] was released on 25 February 2013. Alan Parsons engineered the sessions in Los Angeles. The album reached the top 30 in the UK, and number 3 in the German album charts. In October 2012, Wilson announced the first leg of the supporting tour, consisting of 18 shows across Europe and 17 shows across North America between March–May 2013.[59] For these shows, Chad Wackerman (best known for his work with Frank Zappa)[60] replaced Marco Minnemann on drums due to conflicting schedules.[60] The second leg of the tour from October–November 2013 covered Australia and Europe, and included a sold out show at the Royal Albert Hall in London. The song "The Raven That Refused to Sing" was featured in the trailer for the 2014 film Pompeii. The album finished top of several critics and readers polls, including UK Prog magazine and German magazine Eclipsed. The album was voted album of the year at the 2013 Progressive Music Awards. On 13 July 2015 The Prog Report ranked the album as #2 on their top prog albums of the last 25 years.[61]
Steven Wilson band at Zelt-Musik-Festival 2016
Wilson's fourth solo album, Hand. Cannot. Erase., was released on 27 February 2015. It was inspired by a documentary about Joyce Carol Vincent, a young British woman who lay dead in her apartment for nearly three years before being discovered.[62][63] Hand. Cannot. Erase. received critical acclaim from music critics. The Guardian rated the album five stars and called it "a smart, soulful and immersive work of art".[63] Eclipsed magazine described the album as "one more shining jewel in the discography of Steven Wilson" and Metal Hammer awarded Hand. Cannot. Erase. 6/7 and described it as "another masterpiece".[64] US website FDRMX rated the album 4.8/5 and stated "Hand. Cannot. Erase. grabs your full attention from the beginning to the very final note, and that's the sign of a great album".[65] The supporting tour spanned from March to June 2015 and consisted of 31 shows in Europe and a total of 34 shows in North and South America.[66] In September, two special shows took place at the Royal Albert Hall in London.[66] Due to The Aristocrats tour, for the American shows Guthrie Govan and Marco Minnemann were replaced by Dave Kilminster and Craig Blundell, respectively.[67]
To the Bone [ edit ]
On 12 December 2016, Wilson began recording his fifth solo studio album[68] with engineer Paul Stacey in London.[69] With the departure of most of the members of his solo band from prior album, Wilson will handle most of the guitar on the album, with Craig Blundell and Jeremy Stacey both contributing drums. Ninet Tayeb was featured on additional vocals and had a bigger role than she did on Hand. Cannot. Erase.[70] Andy Partridge of XTC revealed that he co-wrote two songs for the album.[68] On 5 January 2017, Wilson posted a teaser clip of himself and Ninet Tayeb recording a new song titled "Pariah".[71] In April 2017, Wilson announced that he had switched record labels for the release, with the album to be released on Caroline International.[72][73] Wilson also mentioned that harmonica player Mark Feltham is going to be playing on the next record and released a clip of him contributing to a song titled "To the Bone".[74] Slovak musician David Kollar featured on three songs of the new record.[75]
On 9 May 2017, the album was officially unveiled as To the Bone and released on 18 August 2017. Wilson will embark on major tours of the UK, Europe and North America in 2018 to promote the album.[76] For the tour, Alex Hutchings was introduced to replace Dave Kilminster as the guitarist of the live band.[77]
On 12 September 2018, a live album was announced via his official Instagram account under the name Home Invasion: In Concert at the Royal Albert Hall,[78] and it was released on 2 November 2018.[79]
Performance style [ edit ]
For live shows, Wilson plays barefooted. His habit goes back to his early childhood, where he has said, "I always had a problem wearing shoes and I've always gone around with bare feet".[80] He has said that another factor in performing barefoot is the advantage it gives in operating his diverse guitar pedals.[81] He has injured his feet as a result: in one of his early shows, he ended up with a syringe inserted in his foot and had to get a tetanus vaccine. He has said "I’ve stepped on nails, screws, drawing pins, stubbed my toe, I’ve come off stage with blood just coming out… I mean, I’ve had it all mate, but to be honest, nothing's going to stop me."[80] He later started using a carpet, which reduced the frequency of such incidents.[3]
Influence [ edit ]
In addition to his legacy with Porcupine Tree, some artists have cited Wilson directly as an influence, including Steffen Kummerer of Obscura,[82] Caligula's Horse,[83] Tor Oddmund Suhrke of Leprous,[84] Jonathan Carpenter of The Contortionist,[85] Bilocate,[86][87] Alex Vynogradoff of Kauan,[88] and Kenneth Wilson of Abigail's Ghost.[89]
In addition, other artists have been quoted expressing admiration for his solo work, including Alex Lifeson,[90] Steve Howe,[91] Robert Trujillo,[92] Adrian Belew,[93] Jordan Rudess,[94] Mike Portnoy,[95] Rob Swire,[96] Seven Lions,[97] Demians (Nicolas Chapel),[98] Jem Godfrey,[99] Jim Matheos,[100] Dan Briggs,[101] Eraldo Bernocchi,[102] and Chantel McGregor.[103]
Personal life [ edit ]
Wilson is a vegetarian[104] and an atheist, fascinated by the subject of religion, and a strong critic of organised religion.[45][81] However, he believes in not imposing his views, but to express them through stories and characters. Wilson: "I think that is all you can do as an artist. Not preach to your audience but just reflect the world with all its flaws and joys".[105] He does not smoke and does not use recreational drugs, except for an occasional drink.[104][106] Wilson prefers to keep a low profile, following the example of stars like Radiohead, Pink Floyd, or Prince.[107][108] Wilson is not interested in starting a family as he believes that it would obstruct his involvement in music.[45] He currently lives in Hemel Hempstead, England.
Discography [ edit ]
Solo albums
Awards and honours [ edit ]
In 2016, Steven Wilson was named one of the 15 best progressive rock guitarists through the years by Guitar World magazine.[109] He was also ranked the 7th best prog guitarist of 2016 by a MusicRadar readers' poll.[110] Steven Wilson was awarded the UK band/artist of the year by Prog in 2018.[111]
Bibliography [ edit ]
Travis, Theo (2014). Twice Around The World: Steven Wilson Tour Blogs 2012-2013 (includes entries previously published on Travis' Facebook page, here re-edited self-published).
See also [ edit ]The Home & Garden Television (aka HGTV) network announced Wednesday it has decided to pull the plug on an upcoming real estate reality show amid a firestorm of controversy from gay rights activists who accused the evangelical Christian hosts of being anti-gay and pro-life.
Twins David and Jason Benham had been in production for “Flip it Forward,” a show that was expected to debut in October on the nation’s seventh most-watched cable channel. According to Entertainment Weekly, the North Carolina brothers “would have followed families creating their dream homes from fixer-uppers.”
After the network announced the show was on the fall lineup, the militant lobbying group Right Wing Watch labeled David Benham, son of well-known evangelical pastor Flip Benham an “anti-gay extremist” and reported on comments he made about homosexuality, abortion and divorce.
So now, these militant groups are going to start judging us based on the past behavior of our parents?
I reached out the Benham brothers Wednesday. “If our faith costs us a television show then so be it,” they wrote in a statement to me.
The Benhams, who are graduates of Liberty University, said they were saddened to hear about HGTV’s decision.
“With all of the grotesque things that can be seen and heard on television, you would think there would be room for two twin brothers who are faithful to our families, committed to biblical principles, and dedicated professionals,” they wrote.
I’d be willing to bet that’s what the Robertson family, of A&E’s Duck Dynasty fame, thought, too.
HGTV refuses to say why they decided not to go forward with the show. At 12pm ET they said this on Twitter: “HGTV has decided not to move forward with the Benham Brothers' series.” But their decision was announced after Right Wing Watch published a scathing attack on the brothers.
They reported that David Benham led a prayer rally outside the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte in 2012. They also took issue with comments he made to Christian radio host Janet Mefferd about the rally.
“We don’t realize that, okay, if 87 percent of Americans are Christians and yet we have abortion on demand; we have no-fault divorce; we have pornography and perversion; we have a homosexuality and its agenda that is attacking the nation; we have adultery; we have all of the things; we even have allowed demonic ideologies to take our universities and our public school systems while the church sits silent and just builds big churches,” Benham told the host.
“We are so complacent, we are so apathetic and we are very hypocritical in the church, that’s why the Bible says judgment begins in the house of God. So when we prayed at 714 we asked God and our city to forgive us for allowing these things in the house of God.”
Right Wing Watch also took issue with his support for a North Carolina amendment that protected traditional marriage and his support of the pro-life movement.
I’m shocked that Right Wing Watch didn’t document the number of times the brothers were caught eating a Chick-fil-A sandwich.
By the way, Billy Graham supported North Carolina’s traditional marriage amendment. Does Right Wing Watch think he’s an anti-gay extremist?
The brothers reject any accusations that they are anti-gay or discriminate. They said anyone who says otherwise is not telling the truth.
“As Christians we are called to love our fellow man,” they wrote. “Anyone who suggests that we hate homosexuals or people of other faiths is either misinformed or lying.”
“Over the last decade, we’ve sold thousands of homes with the guiding principle of producing value and breathing life into each family that has crossed our path, and we do not, nor will we ever discriminate against people who do not share our |
), were not considered by participants to be reliable signs for pain in general. They were in fact, considered to be an expression of other clinical conditions and not specific to pain, although crouching was reported to be associated with a high level of pain, when it was related to this problem. This last point emphasizes the importance of considering first the context and then intensity when assessing pain; because, although in certain conditions (e.g. after tenectomy/onychectomy) these behaviours may be expressed more frequently by subjects in pain; it seems, based on our results, that these signs are not generalizable to unspecified clinical contexts. This, once again, cautions against the use of a specific sign to denote pain in general for cats. Given that our aim was to highlight the sufficient signs of pain that can be observed non-intrusively in cats with the ultimate goal of creating and validating a behavioural assessment tool for this species that could be useful in a range of painful conditions, the signs found in our results seem to be a good starting point, and may be of wider value not only to clinicians trying to assess pain in cats but also to owners trying to determine if their cat is in need of veterinary attention. However, further studies are necessary to evidence their validity when assessing pain in cats provoked by different conditions, and also to evaluate their reliability when used by untrained observers (e.g. owners).
Conclusion Twenty-five behavioural signs were considered by experts to be reliable and sensitive for the assessment of pain in cats, across a range of different clinical conditions. Some of these signs have been highlighted in previous scientific literature, but some arose from the experience and knowledge of experts. These results improve our knowledge of this topic, but further studies are necessary in order to evaluate their validity and clinical feasibility (especially in relation to different intensities of pain) to help vets and caregivers of cats recognize pain in this species effectively and as early as possible to maximise cat welfare.
Appendix 1 List of 67 behaviours proposed at the Round 1 Abnormal Gait, Absence/reduction of grooming, Appetite/feed intake decrease, Appetite/feed intake increase, Body relaxed, Body tense, Crouching, Crying, Difficulty to jump (up and down), Ear downward, Ear flattener, Ear rotated, Escaping when owner tries to catch it, Eyes closed, General mood state, Groaning, Growling, Half blinks (eyes half closed), Hiding/lying down in the bath/ sink, Hiding/lying down in the litter box, Hissing, House soiling, Lameness, Less rubbing on objects, Less rubbing toward people, Licking objects or people, Lying on its back, Lying on its side, Lying ventrally (on the stomach), Meowing, More rubbing on objects, More rubbing toward people, Mouth open, Mouth semi open, Over Grooming, Overall activity/movement decrease, Overall activity/movement increase, Panting, Playing/hunting less, Playing/hunting more, Pupil constriction, Pupil dilation, Purring, Reaction to palpation, Reduction urination and defecation, Rolled up, Scratching less, Scratching more, Seeking contact with a person less often than usual, Seeking contact with a person more often than usual, Shaking feet, Sitting more often, Sleeping less, Sleeping more, Spitting, Standing longer than usual, Tail down, Tail up, Temperament Third eyelid shown, Tongue showing, Trying to bite someone, Trying to scratch someone, Whiskers backwards, Whiskers downwards, Whiskers raised, Withdrawn/Hiding
Appendix 2 List of 24 behaviours added at the Round 2 Avoiding bright areas/photophobia, Blepharospams, Change in dietary preference (e.g preferring soft or other specific food), Change in form of feeding behaviour (e.g. gulping food, eating on one side), Change in rate of eating—more quickly or more slowly Furrowed brow, Hunched up posture (when standing or moving), Hypersalivation, Increase respiratory rate, Licking or biting a particular body region or damaged area, Lips drawn down, back, Low grade tail twitching, Lowered head posture, Reluctance to move, Rolling skin syndrome, Shifting of weight, Straining to urinate, Tail Flicking, Teeth grinding, Tension around the eyes and muzzle, Trembling or shivering, Vocalizing when yawning, Vocalizing while eating, Vomiting,
Supporting Information S1 Table. Results of the four rounds are reported as percentage of agreement between experts. Highlighted in pink the behaviours that reached an agreement for the four property of the sign, in red the behaviours that experts excluded from the process. In order to guarantee anonymity, experts have been indicated as participants 1, 2 etc. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0150040.s001 (XLSX)
Acknowledgments Special thanks to Luciana Santos De Assis and Barbara Burgess for providing practical support and Arianne Pontes Oria, Clare Rusbridge, Éric Troncy, Erika Krick, Gunn-Moore Danielle, Jo Murrell, Julien Bazelle, Laurent Garosi, Margherita Gracis, Michela de Lucia, Paulo Steagall, Rachel Perry, Sheilah Ann Robertson, Tommaso Furlanello and Iain Grant, along with 4 veterinary experts who wished to remain anonymous for their generous involvement and support of this work as voluntary expert participants.
Author Contributions Conceived and designed the experiments: IM DSM. Performed the experiments: IM. Analyzed the data: IM. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: IM DSM. Wrote the paper: IM DSM.MARRAKESH, Morocco — Carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels have been nearly flat for three years in a row — a “great help” but not enough to stave off dangerous global warming, a report said Monday.
Emissions of planet-warming carbon dioxide stayed level in 2015 at 36.3 billion tons (GtCO2) and were projected to rise “only slightly”, by 0.2 percent in 2016, according to the annual Global Carbon Budget report compiled by teams of scientists from around the world.
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“This third year of almost no growth in emissions is unprecedented at a time of strong economic growth,” said research leader Corinne Le Quere of the University of East Anglia.
Driven largely by reduced coal use in China, this was a “clear and unprecedented break” with the preceding decade’s fast emissions growth, at a rate of some 2.3 percent per year from 2004 to 2013, before dipping to 0.7 percent in 2014.
“This is a great help for tackling climate change but it is not enough,” said Le Quere.
For the world’s nations to make true on the global pact to limit average global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-Industrial Revolution levels, emissions must do more than level off, the study found.
A decrease of 0.9 percent per year was needed to 2030.
The concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has continued to grow, the report warned, hitting a record level of 23 GtCO2 last year that looked set to reach 25 GtCO2 in 2016.
Quota running out
The analysis was published in the journal Earth System Science Data, to coincide with the UN climate conference in Morocco.
Climate envoys are gathered in Marrakesh to put plans in place to execute the so-called Paris Agreement concluded in the French capital a year ago.
It envisions a dramatic reduction in greenhouse gas-producing coal, oil and gas use for energy.
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The new report said humanity has emitted 2,075 GtCO2 since 1870 — adding 40 GtCO2 in 2016 alone.
“We have already used more than two thirds of the emissions quota to keep climate change well below two degrees,” it warned.
“The remaining quota would be used up in less than 30 years at the current emissions level.”
Under the so-called Paris Agreement’s predecessor the Kyoto Protocol, rich nations had to meet emissions reduction targets. Developing countries were excused as they needed coal and oil to fuel rapidly growing populations and economies.
China, despite not having any Kyoto targets, has been fast moving away from coal — driven in large part by major air pollution concerns.
After growth of 5.3 percent per year from 2005-2014, China recorded a decline of 0.7 percent in 2015 and is set for a 0.5 percent drop in 2016.
This decline in the world’s most populous nation and biggest greenhouse gas polluter “largely accounts” for the global trend, the report said.
The world’s number two emitter, the United States, decreased emissions by 2.6 percent in 2015, with a fall of 1.7 percent projected for 2017.
The election of Donald Trump, who has threatened to “cancel” the Paris pact, has cast a long shadow over the Marrakesh talks, where many fear the US will abandon its targets to the detriment of the global goals. CBB
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COLLINGSWOOD, NJ (CBS) — Everyday in classrooms, students stand and recite the Pledge of Allegiance.
Collingswood High School senior Chelsea Stanton is not one of them.
“I couldn’t bring myself to recite it anymore, because I felt like it didn’t respect me,” Stanton said.
The 19-year-old former Student of the Month is an atheist.
She has a problem with the words, “ … one nation under God …”
So every morning, she sits silently as fellow students stand and say the Pledge of Allegiance.
“I don’t think any student anywhere should have to stand up for this,” she said.
Stanton contends she faced possible disciplinary action at school when her teacher began to take issue with what she was doing.
She was referred to the student code of conduct, which cites a state statute saying students can keep silent but are required “to show proper respect to the flag by standing” during the pledge.
Stanton fought back.
According to The New Jersey Law Revision Commission’s Executive Director John Cannel in 1978, “That provision requiring students to stand was held unconstitutional by the United States Court of Appeals.”
He also said that the state statute has never been revised to reflect the ruling; therefore, school districts across the state get the wrong impression.
“That’s the beauty of America — that you don’t have to follow the same religion the majority does,” Stanton said.
After having looking into the matter, Collingswood Schools Superintendent Scott Oswald said Chelsea is right.
Now, she has been allowed to sit during the Pledge with no problems.
Oswald said he will likely look into revising the student code of conduct this summer.After months of knife attacks targeting soldiers, 850 new neck protectors are being distributed to combat soldiers.
After over three months of the current Arab terror wave, which has included countless stabbing attacks targeting IDF soldiers, the army has begun distributing neck protectors meant to ward off knives.
An initial 850 protective neck guards, which wrap around the neck and over the shoulders, will be passed out by the end of the month, mostly to combat soldiers stationed at checkpoints and roadblocks in Judea and Samaria.
Maj. Guy Elazar, head of the counter-terror section, spoke to the IDF magazine Bamahane about the new pieces of equipment.
"The inner part of the protector is gentle to the touch, the external section is made of half-rigid plastic, which is low and wide so as to defend the connection between the neck and the shoulder blade," said Elazar.
The IDF has stated that the combat soldiers are to use the neck protectors only during their routine ongoing security missions.CHICAGO -- Now that David Price is finally back, what can the Boston Red Sox reasonably expect from him?
It's the $217 million question.
"My thought process is [to] put up zeroes and help us win," Price says. "That's what I'm here to do, and that's what I plan on doing."
Price will make his return on the South Side of Chicago against the White Sox on Monday, 90 days after feeling what he described at the time as "a little bit more stiffness" than usual in his left elbow. He was concerned enough that he jetted to the NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis to seek the opinions of two prominent orthopedic surgeons. After a period of rest, he initiated a rehab process that took the form of a delayed spring training, with long-toss and bullpen sessions preceding simulated games.
Sidelined by elbow stiffness at season's start, lefty David Price will make his return for Boston on Monday -- and it's hard to know what to predict. Michael Ivins/Boston Red Sox/Getty Images
In two recent Triple-A starts, Price appeared considerably rusty, to put it kindly, failing to get through four innings both times. But his fastball climbed back to its usual mid-90s velocity, and on Wednesday night he was able to reach 90 pitches, the target set by the Red Sox. To hear Price tell it, being forced to labor through long innings was actually a good thing because it proved his elbow could hold up under stress.
"I think that's more of a test [of] being healthy, as opposed to going out there and throwing five or six [innings] in 90 pitches," Price says. "To do what I did in both of my rehab outings, I don't think you can do that if you're not healthy."
OK, but the question remains: Is it realistic to think Price can return to his pre-injury form as one of the best pitchers in the American League? Can he even pitch to his level from last year -- his first season after signing a seven-year, $217 million contract -- when he admits he was less consistent than usual but still compiled a 3.58 ERA after the All-Star break?
One other chapter in Price's career can at least provide some insight to these answers.
In 2013, when Price was the reigning AL Cy Young Award winner, he missed six weeks in May and June with a left triceps strain, the only other time he was on the disabled list. He made only two minor league rehab starts then, too, reaching 70 pitches over five scoreless innings in his final tuneup. Upon returning to the Tampa Bay Rays in early July, he went on an eight-start run in which he posted a 1.40 ERA with 44 strikeouts and only two walks in 64⅓ innings.
Nick Cammett/Diamond Images/Getty Images
Red Sox manager John Farrell said Price will have "a little tighter rein on him with the workload initially." The Rays applied a similar philosophy in 2013, at first capping Price at 75 pitches. He wound up pitching at peak efficiency. He completed seven innings in 70 pitches in his first start back, then tossed back-to-back complete games in 98 and 87 pitches, respectively.
Surely, the Red Sox would sign up for that.
"I've been through this before," Price says of the experience in 2013. "It's not something you want to have to go through, but if you do it the right way and treat it the right way, you can come back stronger and ready to go."
It isn't exactly apples-to-apples, however. The 2013 injury occurred two months into the season, whereas Price hadn't even made a spring-training start when he was shut down this year. The injuries are different. And Price is four years older now, with about 800 more innings of tread on his arm.
But Boston needs Price now every bit as much as Tampa Bay did then. In 2013, the Rays went 48-32 after Price's return and clinched the AL wild card. The Red Sox are counting on Price's re-entry to the rotation to at least stabilize a No. 5 starter spot that has produced a 7.71 ERA between Steven Wright, Brian Johnson, Kyle Kendrick and Hector Velazquez.
A rival AL team's scout who attended Price's start last Wednesday night for Triple-A Pawtucket characterized his stuff as "not crisp" and his command as "poor," noting that he "worked slowly." It was difficult, the scout said, to believe Price wouldn't benefit from at least one more tuneup.
But Price insists he's ready, especially when he considers how far he has come since Drs. James Andrews and Neal ElAttrache told him at the NFL combine that they would've recommended surgery if he were 22 or 23 years old rather than 31.
"I didn't have a very good outlook on it when I went to Indianapolis," Price says. "Just day by day, week by week, every time I touched the baseball, it got better, and it's continued to progress up until this point. We haven't had any hiccups ever since that first bullpen where I tried to get up and down three times. Ever since then, it's gone good.
"There's no replacing the feeling or the adrenaline that you're going to have at this level. I wasn't very good when I made my rehab starts in 2013 either, and I came back and threw the ball very well. To me, this is home. This is my comfort zone. This is where I want to be."
But now that Price is finally here, it's anybody's guess how well he will actually pitch.Dressing up as the Grinch and running in the Reindeer Romp 5K this past weekend was loads of fun. It was great to see the efforts that my friends and family directly and indirectly contributed to the project pay off. The costume was way better than races past, and because it was a team effort, more enjoyable as well.
If you’re wondering how you can misplace your sanity and create a sleigh for your baby jogger in order to fill it with a kid you’ve dressed as a dog so you can dress up as the Grinch and run a 5K then let me enlighten you. You’re going to need a few hours, a craft person (should you not be), and about $20 in supplies.
To begin, you could take the time to draw up plans so your project will go more smoothly, but you’ll probably just end up abandoning those plans and getting drunk. I recommend you just wing it like I did. Seriously, it’s not that hard. Get a model sleigh, and then buy supplies to match that example.
To build my sleigh I put my son in the baby jogger and the two of us strolled through the aisles of Hobby Lobby looking for supplies based on the ornamental sleigh pictured to the right.
Supplies
Baby jogger (BOB Revolution SE)
3 sheets of 24×30 inch, 1/4″ thick red foam board
1 wooden dowel, 3/8″ x 36″
2 wooden dowels, 1/2″ x 36″
1 package of 3/8″ acorn dowel caps
1 package of 1/2″ dowel caps
1 roll of red duct tape
1 roll of gold duct tape
Gold paint
Quick-dry adhesive, removable glue, razor, self healing cutting mat, scissors, ruler, pencil, and measuring tape*
*Already owned
Directions
With parts in hand, meet up with your crafty friend and start working.
1. Put the foam board up against the side of the baby jogger white side out, and mark where your sleigh needs to begin (back) and end (front).
2. Lay your foam board on a flat surface and draw the sleigh pattern. When you’re satisfied with how it looks, put it back up against the jogger to make sure that everything looks good.
3. Cut the foam board with a razor. Be sure to put something underneath (like a self healing cutting mat ) so you don’t destroy your dining room table. You’ll probably need to retrace the cut one or two times so that the two parts come apart without any pulling (seriously, don’t rip the pieces apart).
4. Repeat the drawing/cutting process for the other side.
5. Using your gold duct tape pull out a piece that is long enough to run the length of your sleigh’s side, then cut a slit at the end in the middle and pull the strip down to the roll. Once you have you’ve reached the roll then cut, not the other way around. This is where a second person really comes in handy because once duct tape sticks to itself it tends to stay that way.
6. Place the halved strip of duct tape along the front side of the foam board. This will keep the ugly slits you’re about to make from showing up.
7. Turn the foam board over and begin to fold the duct tape over the foam board.
8. Using a pair of scissors, cut slits into the tape wherever there is a curve. This will allow you to shape the tape around each curve.
9. Repeat the trim-taping process for the other piece of foam board.
10. Your sleigh frame will rest on the front of the baby jogger so you’re going to need to cut out a piece for the front. Place the two sides in between the tire and the jogger frame as tightly as you can. Measure the distance between the two sides by the front tire.
11. Now, measure the third piece of foam board and cut it to fit. Take it back to the jogger, measure the placement of the cut out (where the foam board will rest on the baby jogger frame), then cut the rectangular piece out. Use gold tape to trim the top, and red tape to trim the bottom.
12. Lay the front piece in between the two sides at an angle. Run a pencil along the inside of the two sides to mark where you will glue the front piece. Cut a piece of red tape to fill the white space between the gold trim and the pencil mark.
13. Cut a 1/4″ runner for both sides. You will use this to hold the front piece in place. Glue the two pieces to the sleigh sides.
14. One side at a time, glue the front piece to the inside of the sleigh frame, then tape it down with red tape.
Now you need to determine where your wooden dowels will go. To ensure stability I used three. One will go on the back of the sleigh. Be sure it’s low enough that your child won’t lay against it, and high enough to zip tie it to something. The second will go in the middle, under the seat of the jogger. I ran mine along a bar so I could zip tie the sleigh to the frame. The third dowel will go along side the front piece of foam board and across the top of the frame.
15. Cut the dowels the width of the sleigh frame and be sure to compensate for the 1/4″ width of each of the sides and the depth of the dowel caps (which varies depending on the width of the dowel).
16. Using a punch down tool (or a pencil), create a hole that is large enough for the dowel. Don’t worry, the dowel caps will cover any minor blemishes. Run your dowels through, add the caps, and make sure everything fits snuggly.
17. Paint the dowel caps gold and let them dry.
18. Run the front and back dowels through the sleigh and glue the caps on. Since you’re going to make the sleigh frame removable, you won’t add the middle dowel just yet.
19. Take the middle dowel and glue one cap on one of the sides of the dowel. For the other side use your removable glue. This will allow the cap to stay on when you need it to, but will allow you to remove it as necessary.
20. Now that your sleigh frame is all done, just slide it over the top of your baby jogger, throw on your Grinch costume, strap your antlered child into the sleigh, and GO FAR!
That’s all it took. No plans. Just a couple of hours, a couple of people, and $20. If you give it a try, leave a comment below with a picture or two, and let me know how it turned out.A video of a rifle-shaped device which the US Army’s Cyber Institute appears to be using to shoot down domestic drones has been attracted a big audience on the internet.
What they have done is connect a Raspberry Pi to a Wi-Fi antenna which transmits a data signal which can trigger a known command in a commercial quadrotor.
There are now off-the-shelf Linux-based applications that can identify the wireless signals from a drone and then intercept the signals used to control them. The same technique could be used to control the cameras of a drone, for example.
echo do_shortcode('[inread_parallax slot="DFP-EW-InRead2-Mobile" width="300"]');?
echo do_shortcode('[inread_parallax slot="DFP-EW-InRead2-Mobile" width="300"]');?
In an interview with Popular Mechanics, Captain Brent Chapman says:
“It was something that we built in order to illustrate the power of enabling the soldiers at the tactical level to ‘make’ in support of a mission. It is an idea we call tactical making, or expeditionary making.”
With drones now being more than just “boys toys”, I think this demonstrates the need for increased security and even encrypted signals for future control of drones.
“This really isn’t a use of Raspberry Pi that we envisioned when we were designing the thing,” writes Liz Upton on the official Raspberry Pi blog.next Image 1 of 2
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Judging from the media coverage, you might think that our economy was improving. You’d be wrong.
The truth is that the slowest recovery on record appears destined to set even more records for slow growth. That’s not good news for President Obama. And more bad economic news hit him this past week. Here's a short list of indicators:
-- Slow GDP growth: GDP rose at an annual rate of just 1.25% during April through June, barely keeping up with the growth in population. The economy has been getting slower and slower since the end of last year.
-- Durable goods orders plunged 13.2 percent in August.
-- Median household income has actually fallen. Income has dropped from $53,718 to $50,678 since the “recovery” started in June 2009.
Despite all this, the news media has been uncharacteristically cheerful the last couple of months. Take some of the newspaper headlines from August, when the unemployment rate had gone up again for the second time in three months, rising from 8.2 to 8.3 percent. The Wall Street Journal headline read: “Job Gains Spark Stock Rally.” The New York Times reported: “Hiring Picks Up in July, but Data Gives No Clear Signal.”
These headlines can’t truly be labeled “dishonest,” but they are misleading. Initial job growth was reported to be 163,000 (later revised downward to 141,000), but the working age population had grown by 198,000.
The media decided to emphasize the small grain of positive news that they could find in the report which was the slight uptick in jobs.
But the press isn’t always so consistent. You won't be surprised to learn that when there is a Democratic president in the White House, the media tend to view things in a positive light. When Republicans are at the helm, they are more negative.
Kevin Hassett at the American Enterprise Institute and I recently studied newspaper headlines from 1985 to 2004. We looked at the percentage of newspaper headlines that were positive when new economic numbers were released. For example, after accounting for the unemployment rate and new jobs and whether those numbers were increasing or decreasing, we looked at the percentage of newspaper headlines for those stories that could be classified as positive, negative, neutral or mixed.
Here's what we found: For the top 10 largest newspapers, for the same types of unemployment news, the headlines were 15 to 16 percent more positive when a Democrat was president.
Today, it appears that the mainstream press is particularly eager to support President Obama. They are bending over backward to spin the economic numbers in a positive way.
In September and August, The Wall Street Journal and New York Times gave Obama slightly more positive headlines than Bill Clinton would have received with the same economic news.
President Obama also got more than 20 percent more positive headlines than our data indicated that similarly situated Republicans would have gotten. This more positive coverage has a real impact on people’s perceptions of the economy. More positive headlines raised people’s perceptions that the economy was getting better. The average difference in positive headlines between Democrats and Republicans produced about a four-percentage point increase in respondents viewing the economy as getting better.
In a close election, that difference can mean a lot.Watch OnePlus officially unveil the OnePlus 5 smartphone online here starting at 12:00PM EST. The handset is expected to replace last year’s OnePlus 3 and OnePlus 3T smartphones with a game-changing design, ultra high-end specifications and a somewhat affordable price tag.
Each summer, OnePlus introduces one new smartphone part of the company’s one and only flagship product line. Last year, the Chinese headquartered manufacturer announced two smartphones a mere six months apart from each other. This year, there’s expected to be just one flagship iteration, one that skips over number ‘4’ which means death in the company’s homeland, for a substantial upgraded OnePlus 5.
OnePlus, like usual, won’t hold a formal press event so it seems. Instead, the company is pioneering online launch events. To do well, the company will have to persuade both OnePlus 3 and OnePlus 3T owners that the OnePlus 5 is worth the upgrade. OnePlus has told us that its fifth generation flagship smartphone will be a “Flagship killer’ that “Focuses on what matters.” The company has remained supreme when it comes to pricing its high-end devices, and the company will have to do so again with this year’s model if they are to stay competitive and find a market slice alongside the bevy of rivals out there. For the OnePlus 5 unveiling, you’ll be able to sit back and watch the show from the comfort of your own home, or, attend one of several pop-up events to be held in major cities some of which include London, Paris, and New York where one Marques Brownlee (MKBHD) and Carl Pei (Co-Founder of OnePlus) will be present.
June 20 will be no bigger for anyone other than OnePlus, who has had fans from around the world waiting for the clock to tick. Although many questions have already been answered through prior leaks, teasers and reports, some questions still remain including design, pricing and availability.
The live-stream has been made available on each YouTube as well as the company’s website here, and will begin once the clock ticks 12:00pm EST. Bookmark this page and tune-in once the event starts. We’ve included the stream for you directly below. In the meantime, you can catch up on what to expect here. You can count on us to bring full coverage and post analysis once the event commences.
UPDATE: Re-watch the event in its entirety below or follow the links to our coverage and analysis (thus far).
Watch the official product videos below.
To be notified right away, follow us across social media and keep it tuned to the Droid Turf website for extensive coverage of the OnePlus 5 launch event.
Related stories to the one you’re viewing can be seen below this post along with tags that act as shortcuts to related material. If you like what you see, help Droid Turf expand by letting others know using the incorporating social buttons.Cape Town - “All hair should be treated equally, and be given equal growth opportunity”, this is Peter de Villiers, former Springbok coach and world renowned moustache expert’s advice in the month when the mo is the mostest.
Following on the video-parody that’s been catching mo-mentum on social media with almost 50 000 views, the second video in a series of four this month, has been published.
In the first video De Villiers encouraged South African men not to be content with close shaves, but to get back to a time when South African men were feared and respected for their moustaches, sharing his advice for maintaining a MO-tivating stash. Or was he talking rugby?
“If you have an under-growing and under-performing moustache, you can’t just blame the moustache. It’s the management. The moustache can only perform with good management. You need the best clippers, scissors, combs and razors... you can’t use a stick and expect results.”
In the video he claims that, “some of the best managed moustaches that I’ve seen in my travels are all black,” and that ‘...nowadays even the Japanese make ours look weak.”
Now, he is back with advice on growing your mo, because “you want everyone to grow together” to “one day champion a glorious moustache”.
This time, he moves his attention away from the coaching team and tackles political issues on the field, motivating for all people of all colours to be afforded the same opportunities.
Because it’s #snorre good idea to cut your mo this November, “one of the most important things with a moustache is growth.”
Check out the video on Facebook or YouTube to get first-hand advice from Peter de Villiers on how to give all your hair equal growth opportunities.While President Trump is off writing tweets about how the alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election is “all a big Dem HOAX,” a new report from Time claims that hackers were able to access, and in one case alter, voter databases in the United States. According to Time, citing conversations with “current and former officials” with knowledge of the matter, records from thousands of voters were compromised.
Among the incidents was a successful hack involving a county database last year, though it was later caught by officials and the information was restored. (Time notes it is unknown if these particular hackers were Russian agents.) Nearly 90,000 records containing personal information were accessed by Russian hackers, with 90 percent of those records containing some kind of personal information, general counsel of the State Board of Elections, Ken Menzel, said. And according to an ex-FBI cybersecurity official, Anthony Ferrante, in the months leading up to the election, the number of states that were targeted by Russian actors multiplied, with attacks likely being attempted against every state by November 2016. (DHS officials testifying before the Senate earlier this week said election systems in as many as 21 states may have been targeted last fall.) No evidence has been discovered indicating that the Trump campaign had access to any of the stolen data, Time notes.
The one piece of good news is that, despite broad attempts, multiple officials told Time, “[T]he number of actual successful intrusions, where Russian agents gained sufficient access to attempt to alter, delete or download any information, was ‘less than a dozen.’” Still, those numbers don’t exactly bode well for voter confidence and the future of free and fair elections in the United States, particularly amid ongoing government investigations and House and Senate Intelligence Committee hearings concerning the scope of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. After all, 2018 and 2020 are just around the corner.In an age when critiques of unattainable beauty standards regularly evolve into viral memes, Kim Kardashian has faced a unique challenge: being impossibly attractive. For most of Kardashian’s life, Kardashian has been cursed with natural beauty that models only dream of attaining through digital enhancement, lighting, and extensive professional styling. Whether he just woke up out of bed, or spent hours grooming to impress, the results were always the same; Kardashian found himself too sexy for the world that surrounded him.
Kim’s beauty left him feeling alienated and alone, unable to sustain deep meaningful relationships. People either felt upstaged by his good looks or became overwhelmed with unrestrained desire in his presence. “Being gorgeous has been no bed of roses” Kardashian explained candidly, comparing the experience to being born into money, power, or celebrity. “People think they want to be as sexy as me, but if they walked a day in my shoes they would soon see how lonely and dehumanizing it is to be trapped in such a beautiful body, hidden behind a mask of perfect natural features. I never asked to be an unrealistic societal expectation”
Kardashian has had to fend off a wearying barrage of assumptions about his image, insisting that he has had no plastic surgery, special diet or training. Moreover, Kim complains that his appearance often blinds others from appreciating his other talents. “Nobody seems to even notice my intelligence, creativity, humor, empathy, and unfailing work ethic. It’s always my hotness. I have run out of breath trying to tell everyone that I am a whole person.” Even the most simple tasks, such as clothes shopping, have been onerous. “Often I will see a shirt I like, try it on in the dressing room, and be faced with the harsh reality that I am just too sexy for it.”
Fortunately, Kardashian has learned to persevere and accept himself for who truly he is. He now understands that he didn’t choose to be too sexy, and that he alone must value himself for his personality, wit, and character. “I can’t help how I was born, and I finally have come to the realization that I am going to have to learn to love myself for who I am.” Kardashian has recently begun working on a memoir chronicling his triumph over adversity, tentatively titled So Sexy it Hurts. <br>:photo:(c2de6aebee5721a202d84f09ee420103.jpg, office-romance.jpg)<br>
By Barbie WalzwerksIn the autumn of 1994, freshly minted New York City Police Chief William Bratton was at Elaine's, a bistro and favorite celebrity hangout of his, when his lieutenant Jack Maple proposed a new way of doing police work. Maple described a system that used data to map criminal activity to keep precincts accountable. He scrawled phrases like "accurate, timely intelligence" and "relentless follow-up and assessment" on the back of a napkin.
CompStat was born, and it would go on to become a national standard, a holistic management system for reducing crime based on data, for the next 22 years.
In February, the NYPD will roll out CompStat 2, a public version of CompStat that will take the data available to police officers and put it online for anyone to browse.
"It's taking the CompStat system and the information that we use internally, and finding a way to get it out to the public — to you in the media — in a much more intimate, transparent fashion," Bratton, now New York City Police Commissioner, told WNYC Monday night.
Richard Drew/AP William Bratton shows off CompStat figures |
caught 91 passes as a rookie for the Broncos in 2008, and had productive-but-inconsistent years while battling injuries in 2009 and 2010. The Broncos passing game completely collapsed in 2011, and Royal caught just seven passes in the Broncos' final nine games as the team averaged less than 20 points per game. The Chargers acquired Royal during a receiving corps rebuild, but the team has since changed coaching and management, so Royal is a former Broncos sensation trying to find a role that fits.
Wide Receiver: Plaxico Burress, Steelers. Burress is a unique talent who was once a controversial figure New York sports scene. He is now trying to stick as a goal-line specialist because of his ability to post-up smaller defenders for short touchdowns. It is not unusual for a team to consider a third-stringer as a short-yardage specialist. The Steelers used Burress this way in 2012, but the results were one touchdown, a few decoy plays, and a lot of hoopla.
Extra Receivers: Brad Smith, Bills; Josh Cribbs, Raiders; Julian Edelman, Patriots. All three of these players were college quarterbacks with great athleticism but iffy passing skills. All three switched to receiver, and it was the right choice: Instead of lingering as forgettable clipboard jockeys, they became respected all-purpose backups. Edelman has played both offense and defense for the Patriots. Smith has seen time as a Wildcat quarterback but has proven most useful as a return man. Cribbs is one of the greatest special teamers in NFL history, and he also played a little Wildcat quarterback. Cribbs is the captain of our All-Third String team, because he is Josh Cribbs, and therefore cool. Sometimes, a college quarterback's greatest attribute is his awareness that he is not an NFL quarterback.
Tight End: Jake Ballard, Patriots. The Patriots notoriously stockpile quality tight ends to back up their two oft-injured stars at the position. They grabbed Ballard after he caught 38 passes as a starter for the Super Bowl champion Giants in 2011; Ballard was recovering from ACL surgery, but the Patriots could not resist snatching him off waivers. Ballard will probably start the season higher on the depth chart because of Rob Gronkowski's injury, but he's still technically third string. The Patriots are so obsessed with tight ends that some fans think all of their third-string acquisitions are sneaky attempts to get more tight ends, but Ballard has this job all sewn up, and Michael Hoomanawanui and Daniel Fells are hands down the best fourth- and fifth-string tight ends in the NFL. So there is no room for anyone else.
Tackle: Alex Barron, Raiders. Barron was the 19th overall pick in the 2005 draft. He started for the Rams for five years, played a little for the Cowboys in a sixth season and was penalized 78 times in 75 games. Think about it: He averaged more than one penalty per game! That is probably some kind of record. Barron got hurt in 2011, flunked a tryout with the Seahawks and is now trying to catch on with the Raiders. Considering the number of false starts he committed in his career, asking him to learn new snaps counts is cruel and unusual punishment.
Tackle: Tony Pashos, Redskins. It is hard to find third-string offensive tackles with any real pedigree. Pashos has knocked around the league as a starter for the Ravens, Jaguars and Browns for years. He hasn't played since 2011. It's hard to find interesting things to say about third-string linemen, so I will quote a bit of Pashos' Wikipedia page without comment. "Pashos is the son of Greek immigrants and speaks three languages: Greek, German, and English. Pashos supported Republican presidential candidate U.S. Rep. Ron Paul in the 2012 Presidential election."
Guard: Jake Scott, Lions. Scott started for the Colts in the Super Bowl years, had a couple of decent seasons for the Titans and earned some playing time for the Eagles during the "lost cause" period of their season. He may qualify as the best third string guard in history.
Guard: Chilo Rachal, Cardinals. Rachal is actually pretty demonstrably terrible. He started seven games for the Bears last season, and Football Outsiders credited him with eight penalties and 15 Blown Blocks. He then left the team for personal reasons. Before that, he started for the 49ers in the pre-Harbaugh era. Like many of the players on this list, Rachal is getting one more chance because he was a high-round pick and has starting experience, but the gap between him and an undrafted rookie is microscopic.
Center: Ryan Cook, Cowboys. Cook was the Vikings' starting center for a few years. The Cowboys acquired him for a seventh-round pick last year, and he did not play terribly in 11 starts, but the Cowboys drafted Travis Frederick and have Phil Costa back from injury. You can never have too many mid-tier centers, I suppose. Maybe one of them will call plays.
Defensive End: Chris Clemons, Seahawks. Clemons started 16 games last season and recorded 11.5 sacks. He is the best player on this team. He is third-string because the Seahawks are trying to punish the world with pass rushers, and some of those pass rushers are taking the league's PED policy as something of a dare. Clemons is technically behind Cliff Avril and suspended Bruce Irvin, and we are living and dying by technicalities on this list, so even though he will play a lot this year, he qualifies. If our third-string offensive line faced this third-string defensive line, Rex Grossman would be in serious trouble.
Defensive End: Phillip Merling, Redskins. A former Dolphins second-round pick from the days when the Dolphins did zany things with their second-round picks, Merling was once a promising pass-rush prospect whose career fell apart because of legal trouble and an Achilles injury. He falls into the general category of "failed prospect on his last chance."
Defensive tackle: Johnny Jolly, Packers. Jolly hasn't played since 2009 because of constant run-ins with the law. Prescription cough medicine is bad news, kids. Jolly is on probation from the law, reinstated by the NFL and too talented to cut without getting a long look. That said, he will probably be cut.
Defensive tackle: Broderick Bunkley, Saints; Mike Patterson, Giants. Bunkley and Patterson were the Eagles tackle tandem during the later Andy Reid good old days. This defense is loaded with old Eagles players; Clemons is another, and we will see one more in a moment. It may seem like selection bias by this Philly-based writer, but I am not so sure. There just aren't many five- to seven-year veterans with starting experience listed third on defensive depth charts. Most of those who are have had legal problems or are ex-Eagles.
Linebacker: Stewart Bradley, Broncos. A big thumper of an inside linebacker, Bradley showed promise as a starter for the Eagles in 2008. He then tore his ACL during one of those fan appreciation preseason practices in 2009 and has never been the same since.
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Linebacker: Chris Chamberlain, Saints. Another promising young linebacker whose Achilles' heel is his ACL. (Maybe we should update that metaphor: Instead of parallel parking is my Achilles' heel it should be parallel parking is my ACL. Nah, Greek mythology is making a comeback.) Chamberlain looked pretty good as a Rams starter in 2012, and Steve Spagnuolo brought him along for the Bountygate rebuild of the Saints defense. But Chamberlain tore an ACL in August, Spags is gone and Rob Ryan is installing a completely different defense and has his own guys.
Linebacker: Niko Koutouvides, Patriots. A 10-year vet, formerly a spot starter for the Seahawks, who is generally the last player Belichick cuts around Labor Day and the first one he brings back when injuries deplete the special teams. The Patriots contacted Koutouvides while he was laying sod in his yard in November 2011, and he ended up playing in the Super Bowl. (In one of my favorite Media Day interviews, I talked to him for three minutes about sod.) Koutouvides was among the last cuts in 2012 but was brought back again. Who knows who Belichick will cut this year?
Cornerback: Aaron Ross, Giants. Ross had some fine seasons as a starter for the Giants, and he parlayed his 2011 performance for the Super Bowl champs into a three-year contract with the Jaguars. He had a terrible year (he ranked 82nd in Adjusted Yards per Pass according to Football Outsiders), then called his time in Jacksonville a "vacation" after the Jaguars released him. The Giants brought him back because they value players who know their system and can count on at least eight major injuries per year in the secondary, but Tom Coughlin will keep that "vacation" talk in the back of his mind.
Cornerback: Ron Bartell, Lions. Bartell has 71 games of starting experience, most of them with the Rams. The Raiders signed Bartell last year, and he injured his shoulder, battled back, started a few games in an awful secondary, got benched and got waived. He finished the season with the Lions.
Safety: Quentin Jammer, Broncos. The fifth overall pick by the Chargers in 2002, Jammer never quite lived up to his billing, but he never flamed out either. He was inconsistent and penalty prone, but he started 161 games, some of them for great defenses, and his pressing style (which led to many of the penalties) took some receivers out of the game. The Broncos like to have at least two players in their secondary who need Just for Men, so they signed Jammer to play free safety, or just hang around and get Champ Bailey's jokes.
Safety: Jim Leonhard, Saints. A tough, ornery little safety and returner, Leonhard started for the Ravens and Jets for several years. After a season as the designated geezer in Denver (see Quentin Jammer), Leonhard is now in New Orleans, because Ryan twins think alike.
Nickel and Dime: Javier Arenas, Cardinals; Chris Culliver, 49ers. Arenas is a useful multi-purpose nickel defender and return man who got lost in the organization turnover in Kansas City. He probably will not be third-string for long. Culliver started six games for the NFC champs last year but has gotten into a series of problems with his mouth, first by saying before the Super Bowl that he would not want a gay teammate, more recently with a publicized series of texts in which he referred to women by the b-word and by the h-word that is derived from a w-word. Third stringers are supposed to be seen and not heard, Chris. Everybody knows that.
Kicker, Punter and Returners: None. Teams do not keep third-string kickers and punters. Most teams have one veteran and one obscure youngster on the roster right now; the young guy may be a challenger, but often he is just getting a tryout and providing an extra leg for drills and such. The irony of kick returns is that the "third-stringer" at that position is often one of the best players on the team, like a starting wide receiver or cornerback. Anyway, this team has plenty of return men.
Long Snapper: Kyle Nelson, 49ers. The 49ers are the only team to list a third-string long snapper on their depth chart right now (or possibly ever). So let's celebrate the career of Nelson, who has been on the Saints, Chiefs, Eagles and Chargers preseason rosters or practice squads, and has had two tours of duty with the 49ers, all since 2011. He actually saw a little action with the Chargers last year. Nelson reminds us that the life of a third-stringer is rarely glamorous, and when it is glamorous, it usually means that something has gone wrong.
* * *
Have your own nominees? Think I've snubbed anyone? Let me know in the comments or on Twitter @MikeTanier. I never get tired of talking about third-stringers. Never!Americans for Prosperity national president Tim Phillips gets out to knock on doors during AFP's canvassing campaign in Clive, Iowa. Phillips carries an iPad that displays targeted addresses for AFP's data collection efforts. (Danny Wilcox Frazier/For The Washington Post)
Denise Bubeck studied her iPad as she scoped out her voter targets in this leafy Des Moines suburb. She was armed with a carefully honed script and a pile of slickly produced door hangers, like so many seasoned field operatives who parachute into this state during election season.
But Bubeck, 52, is no temporary campaign worker. The resident of Grimes, Iowa, is part of a permanent ground force that the conservative advocacy group Americans for Prosperity is building in Iowa and across the country — a long-term effort to undercut the left’s long-standing dominance in grass-roots organizing.
“All we’re going to do is get bigger,” said Mark Lucas, an AFP regional director who oversees operations in Iowa and 10 other states. “After 2014, we’re not shutting down our offices. You’re going to see all these guys pack up the day after the election, but we’re going to stay open.”
AFP, which is expected to spend more than $125 million in the 2014 elections, plans to plow more than half its resources into expanding its ground organization, with more than 500 paid field staffers positioned in pivotal races across the country. The group, backed by the billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch and other conservative donors, aims to keep its activists engaged through state legislative fights in 2015 and then harness more firepower in the 2016 elections.
“We’ve got to get to the point where we’re a deeper part of a community, and the left has done that for a lot longer, with a much bigger footprint,” said Tim Phillips, the group’s national president. “It’s about building a brand in a community. Then when the attacks come, ‘Oh, you’re just part of a Koch network or some national network,’ it doesn’t really ring true with what people are seeing.”
AFP still expects to be outmatched on the ground this year by the Democrats and their allies, such as labor unions, that are mounting major get-out-the-vote operations in top races.
But its field efforts this fall illustrate how the decade-old advocacy group that helped spur on the tea party movement now serves as the GOP’s most valuable outside ally.
Deep layers of data
As they go door to door, AFP activists are gathering information about voters that filters back to Republican campaigns, part of a new effort on the right to have many sources feed a deeply layered voter database. And although the tax-exempt group maintains that it is nonpartisan, AFP has decided to engage in direct campaign activity in key Senate races in the coming weeks — freeing its field staff to explicitly urge voters not to support Democratic candidates.
The group’s operation in Iowa illustrates how rapidly AFP is moving to try to catch up with the left.
The chapter is led by Lucas, a fresh-faced Army ranger and 32-year-old Iowa native who started the group alone in January 2012. It now has nearly three dozen paid staff members and five field offices. AFP’s Iowa team says it has reached 80,000 likely voters through door-knocking this year, the best performance of any of the state chapters.
But the most important metric, Lucas repeatedly tells his staff, is the number of new volunteers coming through the door.
“Basically, our field directors are community organizers,” he said, acknowledging that the term was a punch line among conservatives during the 2008 campaign. “People used to make fun of President Obama’s background, but community organizing works.”
The approach has drawn in longtime conservative activists such as Bubeck, a former special-education teacher who volunteered with AFP for two years before being hired as a part-time field associate this year.
“One thing they’ve really emphasized is building this relationship with people in the grass roots,” she said. “It’s a powerful thing.”
Occasionally, Bubeck said, she encounters hostility from voters when she explains that she’s with AFP. One man recently snapped at her: “I know who you are — you’re the Koch brothers!” she recalled. Bubeck said she is not ruffled by such reactions. “They’ve done positive things,” she said of the Kochs.
With such deep-pocketed patrons, the group has been able to spend millions on new technology, working to harness the sophisticated data analytics that the Obama campaign employed in 2012. That year, Lucas remembers, his AFP list directed him to doors already festooned with Obama literature, leaving him uneasy about whether he was targeting the right voters.
This year, he said, “our technology is awesome.”
A zippy iPad app pinpoints which likely voters canvassers should approach, then allows them to instantly upload information from each contact. The data is also much richer than before, operatives said, the result of a far-reaching effort this year by the Republican National Committee and conservative groups to share information from the field.
The project is being spearheaded by Data Trust, a private company that has an exclusive list-exchange agreement with the RNC. Through an application interface created by Data Trust, the party and outside groups that are its clients can access and update profiles of individual voters in real time: where they stand on issues, how they prefer to be contacted and how likely they are to go to the polls. In August, Data Trust forged a partnership with i360, a data management company that works with AFP and about a dozen other groups in the Koch-backed political network, further expanding the data pool.
“Any time we are having a conversation with voters, we want to have that information and share that with everyone on our side,” RNC spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski said.
Refining voter outreach
Organizers on the left say they maintain a lead in data analytics. Catalist, a private data management firm, provides voter information for dozens of liberal groups, enriched with information from every state going back to 2006, chief executive Laura Quinn said.
But conservatives say they are catching up. Every voter contact now further refines the model, an approach that activists hope will help them better identify whom to reach and how.
After AFP activists in Iowa participated in campaigns against the Affordable Care Act and a proposed state gas-tax increase, “I was able to say, ‘Okay, these people are with us on gas tax, these people are with us on Obamacare,’ ” Lucas said. “We are constantly feeding into that system, so the data is really good.”
During a day of door-knocking last week in Clive, Bubeck gently probed voters about their impressions of Bruce Braley, the Democratic congressman locked in a hard-fought campaign to replace the retiring Sen. Tom Harkin (D). At one house with two American flags displayed in the front yard, Bubeck asked Cecilia Rojas, a stay-at-home mother, what she thought of the fact that Braley referred to Iowa’s longtime GOP senator, Charles E. Grassley, as a “farmer” during a private fundraiser, as well as about the congressman’s support for Obama’s health-care law and the federal stimulus package.
Rojas, a registered Republican, was not sure what to make of the farmer comment. “But if he is in agreement with the president, I don’t agree with him,” said the 42-year-old.
Bubeck nodded politely and logged the information.
A few streets over, Bubeck made a similar inquiry of Jasmina Pandur, a 28-year-old bank employee. Pandur, a registered Democrat, said she did not have strong opinions about Braley, because she had not been following the race. “Are you with his campaign?” she asked Bubeck. No, the AFP staffer responded, explaining that she was with a nonpartisan organization.
Such confusion is one of the byproducts of AFP’s efforts to steer clear of explicit political pitches. Under tax rules, it can only spend a limited amount of its annual budget on campaign activities, and those expenditures must be reported to the Federal Election Commission — the kind of disclosure that the closely held group has sought to avoid.
Direct partisan push
But recently, AFP officials decided that they need to make a direct political argument in their final field push. In the coming weeks, canvassers in states with key Senate races, such as Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa and North Carolina, are going to urge voters to cast ballots against the Democratic candidates, as the New York Times reported last week. The direct-mail and digital advertising in those states will have similar messages.
But the message to activists remains unchanged: Focus on the long game.
After a morning of door-knocking in Clive last week, staff members and volunteers crowded into a field office to refuel with barbecue sandwiches and cold sodas.
Standing at the front of the room, Lucas reminded them how far the Iowa team had come since early 2012, when the group consisted of him and a field director, “alone and unafraid.”
“If you think you’re having fun now, just wait until after the election, because then you’ll start to see the fear in these legislators’ eyes — ‘Oh wait, AFP’s not leaving?’ ” he said, drawing laughter from the room. “Right after the election, that’s when we really go to work.”The Point of it All - History of the Pencil It can write under water, in outer space and on almost any surface. It’s been used to solve complex equations, create striking works of art and has been sucked on by schoolkids in a million exams. And it’s the weapon of choice for crossword warriors the world over. But let’s get to the point …
Actually, his first thought was that this hard, black substance would be perfect for marking his sheep. But it wasn’t long before the graphite he’d found was being cut into rods and wrapped in string that could be unwound. Later, the rods were inserted into wooden cases and the pencil was written into existence. The practicality, utility and portability of the pencil is something we take for granted, but at one time it was considered as revolutionary as the personal computer. It made writing convenient, and in one stroke replaced a range of cumbersome tools including charred sticks, metal wires, wax-covered stone tablets and messy inks.
The graphite in the Borrowdale deposit was of an extremely high quality, and by the early 1600s, England’s "black lead" was being widely exported.
So lucrative was the trade that when sufficient reserves had been extracted, mines were often flooded to keep scavengers out.
But this rich vein of graphite eventually began to wear out. France, which in the late 1700s was fighting several European countries, including Britain, in what were known as the French Revolutionary Wars, suffered a particular shortage of pencils due to an economic blockade against it.
To solve this problem, Frenchman Nicolas-Jacques Conté invented a way to use lower-quality graphite from other mines, grind it to a fine powder, combine it with clay and then bake it to produce pencil lead. Increasing the clay content gave a harder and lighter pencil, while increasing the graphite made a softer and darker pencil. This set the stage for the different grades of pencils we use today.
The Conté Method was guarded like a prized family recipe, so wouldbe copycats had to derive their own formulas. Those looking to get rich quick, like "bunglers" (anyone who was working outside of one of the allimportant labour guilds) in Germany resorted to selling pencils with only an inch or two of graphite, or even fake blackened wood sticks that only looked like pencils.
Demand pushed innovation and soon the German Lothar von Faber mastered the Conté process and began creating quality pencils that would cement the name of Faber- Castell – as the company is now known – as one of the world’s greatest pencil-makers.
Meanwhile, as the 18th century waned in the United States, a schoolgirl from Massachusetts whose name is lost to history had been given some Borrowdale graphite. She pounded it to a powder, combined it with glue and encased it in an elder branch, making the New World’s first pencil. Author Henry David Thoreau, himself the son of a pencil-maker, in the mid-1830s improved upon her invention by deducing what Conté had arrived at through chemical analysis; Thoreau combined poor-quality American graphite with clay to make some of the finest pencils available in the young country.
By the late 1800s, approximately 240,000 pencils were being consumed daily in America alone. And an enterprising Hyman Lipman attached a rubber eraser to a pencil in 1858 and patented it. Prior to that, bread was used to remove graphite marks. Slowly but steadily, the pencil-making processes began to be automated and this mass production began to take a toll on the trees.
The preferred wood for pencils had been red cedar for its pleasant odour and non-splintering quality when sharpened. As the supply dwindled in the early 1900s, pencil-makers began to recycle the wood from old cedar barns and fences. Pencil sharpeners were even declared illegal in Britain because of the amount of wood being wasted. This dwindling supply of suitable wood sparked a renewed interest in the mechanical, or "propelling" pencil. American Charles Keeran improved on previous designs and, in partnership with the Wahl Adding Machine Company, his "Eversharp" pencil was launched in 1915 to great acclaim. Still, the public wanted something simple and wooden to write with. It was discovered that incensecedar, found in abundance in California and Oregon, was capable of making a good pencil – after the wood was dyed and perfumed to resemble red cedar. Incense cedar is still the wood of choice for making pencils today, and the trees are now harvested in a sustainable way to ensure a constant supply of wood.
Pencil-making is truly a multinational industry with annual sales topping 14 billion units – enough to put two pencils in the breast pocket of every person on earth. The pencil you buy might be made from material sourced from all over the world; US clay and wood, graphite from South America and the material for making the eraser from Europe.
Best of all, a pencil won’t leak on a long plane ride, can write in extreme heat and cold, and can draw a continuous line 56 kilometres long. It can also write its history directly back over 450 years to an English hillside and a fallen oak.
How a Pencil is Made
It takes three stages to make a pencil, all of which are automated today. They are graphite processing, wood processing and pencil building.
Here’s how:
1 GRAPHITE
Chunks of mined graphite are ground into a powder and processed to remove impurities. The graphite powder is combined with purified clay and water and the resultant paste is extruded through tiny holes to make spaghetti-like strands of "lead." After drying, the leads are baked in ovens at 900 degrees Celsius for one hour and then soaked in an oil or wax bath to add smoothness. For coloured pencils the clay is combined with pigments instead of graphite. 2 WOOD
"Pencil squares" are formed from felled trees, then seasoned for several months until completely dry. The squares are then cut into slats that are treated with wax and stain to create uniformity, and several parallel semi-circular grooves are cut into one side of each slat, then filled with an adhesive.
3 PENCIL
The lead strands are laid into the grooves and covered by the complementary slat. This pencil "sandwich" is then pressed and heat is applied. Once dry, the sandwiches are sliced, forming individual pencils. The pencils are then coated in paint and lacquer. An eraser can be attached by a metal collar or "ferrule."
Famous Pencil Pushers
Thomas Edison The inventor had his pencils specially made by Eagle Pencil to be three inches long (6.6 centimetres), fatter than ordinary pencils and filled with very soft lead.
Vladimir Nabokov The Russian writer famously stated: "I have rewritten – often several times – every word I have ever published. My pencils outlast their erasures." John Steinbeck The author wrote obsessively in pencil, sometimes going through 60 in one day. It is said that he used 300 pencils to complete his novel, East of Eden.
Vincent van Gogh The Dutch artist is reported to have preferred a Faber-Castell pencil for his large studies. He claimed, "they are of ideal thickness; very soft and in quality superior to carpenter’s pencils, a capital black and most agreeable …"
Why we think it’s lead
Back in ancient Rome, scribes used sticks of lead (the metal) for writing with – but it was far from perfect as the marks it made were faint and it could damage parchment, the predominant leather-derived writing material. Nothing replaced it for centuries, and some people were still using lead sticks in England up to the 1500s, in place of quill and ink. So when the new writing material was discovered in Borrowdale, it was called "black lead" – which led to the business part of a pencil being called "lead." Valuable as Diamonds?
Pencil graphite is composed of the same substance as diamonds – carbon. In graphite, the atoms are arranged in sheet-like layers, with weak attraction between the sheets. Because these layers are not tightly bonded, the graphite is easily manipulated, which allows the graphite in a pencil to roll onto paper easily. Carbon atoms in diamonds, in contrast, are arranged in very strong three-dimensional bonds, making diamonds the hardest substance on earth. And thanks to its atomic structure, a pencil line drawn on a piece of paper can conduct electricity – which a diamond can’t.
When a passer-by spotted a black substance clinging to the roots of an oak tree upturned in a storm in Borrowdale, England in 1565, he couldn’t have imagined that he’d just stumbled upon something that would change the world.Actually, his first thought was that this hard, black substance would be perfect for marking his sheep. But it wasn’t long before the graphite he’d found was being cut into rods and wrapped in string that could be unwound. Later, the rods were inserted into wooden cases and the pencil was written into existence.The practicality, utility and portability of the pencil is something we take for granted, but at one time it was considered as revolutionary as the personal computer. It made writing convenient, and in one stroke replaced a range of cumbersome tools including charred sticks, metal wires, wax-covered stone tablets and messy inks.The graphite in the Borrowdale deposit was of an extremely high quality, and by the early 1600s, England’swas being widely exported.So lucrative was the trade that when sufficient reserves had been extracted, mines were often flooded to keep scavengers out.But this rich vein of graphite eventually began to wear out. France, which in the late 1700s was fighting several European countries, including Britain, in what were known as the French Revolutionary Wars, suffered a particular shortage of pencils due to an economic blockade against it.To solve this problem, Frenchman Nicolas-Jacques Conté invented a way to use lower-quality graphite from other mines, grind it to a fine powder, combine it with clay and then bake it to produce pencil lead. Increasing the clay content gave a harder and lighter pencil, while increasing the graphite made a softer and darker pencil. This set the stage for the different grades of pencils we use today.The Conté Method was guarded like a prized family recipe, so wouldbe copycats had to derive their own formulas. Those looking to get rich quick, like(anyone who was working outside of one of the allimportant labour guilds) in Germany resorted to selling pencils with only an inch or two of graphite, or even fake blackened wood sticks that only looked like pencils.Demand pushed innovation and soon the German Lothar von Faber mastered the Conté process and began creating quality pencils that would cement the name of Faber- Castell – as the company is now known – as one of the world’s greatest pencil-makers.Meanwhile, as the 18th century waned in the United States, a schoolgirl from Massachusetts whose name is lost to history had been given some Borrowdale graphite. She pounded it to a powder, combined it with glue and encased it in an elder branch, making the New World’s first pencil. Author Henry David Thoreau, himself the son of a pencil-maker, in the mid-1830s improved upon her invention by deducing what Conté had arrived at through chemical analysis; Thoreau combined poor-quality American graphite with clay to make some of the finest pencils available in the young country.By the late 1800s, approximately 240,000 pencils were being consumed daily in America alone. And an enterprising Hyman Lipman attached a rubber eraser to a pencil in 1858 and patented it. Prior to that, bread was used to remove graphite marks. Slowly but steadily, the pencil-making processes began to be automated and this mass production began to take a toll on the trees.The preferred wood for pencils had been red cedar for its pleasant odour and non-splintering quality when sharpened. As the supply dwindled in the early 1900s, pencil-makers began to recycle the wood from old cedar barns and fences. Pencil sharpeners were even declared illegal in Britain because of the amount of wood being wasted. This dwindling supply of suitable wood sparked a renewed interest in the mechanical, orpencil. American Charles Keeran improved on previous designs and, in partnership with the Wahl Adding Machine Company, hispencil was launched in 1915 to great acclaim.Still, the public wanted something simple and wooden to write with. It was discovered that incensecedar, found in abundance in California and Oregon, was capable of making a good pencil – after the wood was dyed and perfumed to resemble red cedar. Incense cedar is still the wood of choice for making pencils today, and the trees are now harvested in a sustainable way to ensure a constant supply of wood.Pencil-making is truly a multinational industry with annual sales topping 14 billion units – enough to put two pencils in the breast pocket of every person on earth. The pencil you buy might be made from material sourced from all over the world; US clay and wood, graphite from South America and the material for making the eraser from Europe.Best of all, a pencil won’t leak on a long plane ride, can write in extreme heat and cold, and can draw a continuous line 56 kilometres long. It can also write its history directly back over 450 years to an English hillside and a fallen oak.It takes three stages to make a pencil, all of which are automated today. They are graphite processing, wood processing and pencil building.Here’s how:Chunks of mined graphite are ground into a powder and processed to remove impurities. The graphite powder is combined with purified clay and water and the resultant paste is extruded through tiny holes to make spaghetti-like strands ofAfter drying, the leads are baked in ovens at 900 degrees Celsius for one hour and then soaked in an oil or wax bath to add smoothness. For coloured pencils the clay is combined with pigments instead of graphite.are formed from felled trees, then seasoned for several months until completely dry. The squares are then cut into slats that are treated with wax and stain to create uniformity, and several parallel semi-circular grooves are cut into one side of each slat, then filled with an adhesive.The lead strands are laid into the grooves and covered by the complementary slat. This pencilis then pressed and heat is applied. Once dry, the sandwiches are sliced, forming individual pencils. The pencils are then coated in paint and lacquer. An eraser can be attached by a metal collar orThe inventor had his pencils specially made by Eagle Pencil to be three inches long (6.6 centimetres), fatter than ordinary pencils and filled with very soft lead.The Russian writer famously stated:The author wrote obsessively in pencil, sometimes going through 60 in one day. It is said that he used 300 pencils to complete his novel, East of Eden.The Dutch artist is reported to have preferred a Faber-Castell pencil for his large studies. He claimed,Back in ancient Rome, scribes used sticks of lead (the metal) for writing with – but it was far from perfect as the marks it made were faint and it could damage parchment, the predominant leather-derived writing material. Nothing replaced it for centuries, and some people were still using lead sticks in England up to the 1500s, in place of quill and ink. So when the new writing material was discovered in Borrowdale, it was called– which led to the business part of a pencil being calledPencil graphite is composed of the same substance as diamonds – carbon. In graphite, the atoms are arranged in sheet-like layers, with weak attraction between the sheets. Because these layers are not tightly bonded, the graphite is easily manipulated, which allows the graphite in a pencil to roll onto paper easily. Carbon atoms in diamonds, in contrast, are arranged in very strong three-dimensional bonds, making diamonds the hardest substance on earth. And thanks to its atomic structure, a pencil line drawn on a piece of paper can conduct electricity – which a diamond can’t.Vol 3. No 10. September 30, 2013:
Well, September brought readings from David Drake, Susan Cooper, Emily Croy Barker, Clay and Susan Griffith and Natania Barron, Jasper Fforde, and Robin Sloan, and October shows no signs of slowing with Maile Meloy, Steven Brust, Nathan Kotecki, Lemony Snicket, a month-long series of local sf author panels at the Wake County Libraries, The Escapist Expo, and, of course, more. The immediately upcoming events are:
1 (Tuesday) 7 pm — Science Fiction panel (one of six in an October series) at the Wake County West Regional Library. With David Drake, Mark L. Van Name, Terrence Holt, and Lisa Shearin. More info: http://www.wakegov.com/libraries/events/Pages/scifiauthors.aspx
1 (Tuesday) 7 pm — Quail Ridge Books hosts Maile Meloy for The Apprentices, sequel to her YA/YR debut The Apothecary. More info |
43.5 -110 MICHST-4 PENNST+4 11/28 3:06pm MICHST -300 PENNST +250 MICHST -7.5 -110 PENNST +7.5 -110 43.5 -110 43.5 -110 MICHST-4 PENNST+4 11/28 3:08pm MICHST -310 PENNST +260 MICHST-7.5 -110 PENNST+7.5 -110 44.0 -110 44.0 -110 MICHST-4 PENNST+4 11/28 3:08pm MICHST-310 PENNST+260 MICHST-7.5 -110 PENNST+7.5 -110 44.0 -110 44.0 -110 MICHST -4.5 PENNST+4.5 11/28 3:16pm MICHST -340 PENNST +280 MICHST -8.5 -110 PENNST +8.5 -110 44.0 -110 44.0 -110 MICHST-4.5 PENNST+4.5 11/28 3:16pm MICHST-340 PENNST+280 MICHST-8.5 -110 PENNST+8.5 -110 44.0 -110 44.0 -110 MICHST -5 PENNST+5 11/28 3:19pm MICHST -360 PENNST +300 MICHST -9 -110 PENNST +9 -110 44.0 -110 44.0 -110 MICHST-5 PENNST+5 11/28 3:19pm MICHST-360 PENNST+300 MICHST-9 -110 PENNST+9 -110 44.0 -110 44.0 -110 MICHST -5.5 PENNST+5.5 11/28 3:22pm MICHST -330 PENNST +270 MICHST -8 -110 PENNST +8 -110 44.0 -110 44.0 -110 MICHST -4.5 PENNST+4.5 11/28 3:22pm MICHST-330 PENNST+270 MICHST-8 -110 PENNST+8 -110 44.0 -110 44.0 -110 MICHST -5.5 PENNST+5.5 11/28 3:23pm MICHST-330 PENNST+270 MICHST -7.5 -110 PENNST +7.5 -110 44.0 -110 44.0 -110 MICHST -4.5 PENNST+4.5 11/28 5:09pm MICHST-330 PENNST+270 MICHST-7.5 -110 PENNST+7.5 -110 44.0 -110 44.0 -110 MICHST-4.5 PENNST+4.5 MICHST -3 PENNST +3 11/28 5:17pm MICHST-330 PENNST+270 MICHST-7.5 -110 PENNST+7.5 -110 44.0 -110 44.0 -110 MICHST-4.5 PENNST+4.5 MICHST-3 PENNST+3 11/28 5:26pm MICHST-330 PENNST+270 MICHST-7.5 -110 PENNST+7.5 -110 44.0 -110 44.0 -110 MICHST-4.5 PENNST+4.5 MICHST -2.5 PENNST+2.5 WILLIAM HILL LINE MOVEMENTS Money Line Spread Total 1st Half 2nd Half Date Time Fav Dog Fav Dog Over Under Fav Dog Fav Dog 11/25 10:36am MICHST-11 -110 PENNST+11 -110 11/25 1:22pm MICHST-11 -110 PENNST+11 -110 46.5 -110 46.5 -110 11/26 12:29pm MICHST -500 PENNST +400 MICHST-11 -110 PENNST+11 -110 46.5 -110 46.5 -110 11/27 11:55am MICHST-500 PENNST+400 MICHST -10.5 -110 PENNST +10.5 -110 46.5 -110 46.5 -110 11/27 1:27pm MICHST-500 PENNST+400 MICHST-10.5 -110 PENNST+10.5 -110 46.5 -110 46.5 -110 MICHST -6.5 PENNST +6.5 11/27 2:49pm MICHST-500 PENNST+400 MICHST-10.5 -110 PENNST+10.5 -110 45.0 -110 45.0 -110 MICHST-6.5 PENNST+6.5 11/27 8:06pm MICHST -440 PENNST +360 MICHST-10.5 -110 PENNST+10.5 -110 45.0 -110 45.0 -110 MICHST-6.5 PENNST+6.5 11/27 11:18pm MICHST-440 PENNST+360 MICHST-10.5 -110 PENNST+10.5 -110 44.0 -110 44.0 -110 MICHST-6.5 PENNST+6.5 11/27 11:19pm MICHST-440 PENNST+360 MICHST-10.5 -110 PENNST+10.5 -110 44.0 -110 44.0 -110 MICHST-6.5 PENNST+6.5 11/28 10:09am MICHST -400 PENNST +320 MICHST -10 -110 PENNST +10 -110 44.0 -110 44.0 -110 MICHST-6.5 PENNST+6.5 11/28 10:39am MICHST-400 PENNST+320 MICHST -9.5 -110 PENNST +9.5 -110 44.0 -110 44.0 -110 MICHST-6.5 PENNST+6.5 11/28 10:42am MICHST -340 PENNST +280 MICHST -8 -110 PENNST +8 -110 44.0 -110 44.0 -110 MICHST -5.5 PENNST+5.5 11/28 10:42am MICHST-340 PENNST+280 MICHST-8 -110 PENNST+8 -110 44.0 -110 44.0 -110 MICHST -6.5 PENNST+6.5 11/28 10:50am MICHST -330 PENNST +270 MICHST -7.5 -110 PENNST +7.5 -110 44.0 -110 44.0 -110 MICHST -5 PENNST+5 11/28 10:50am MICHST-330 PENNST+270 MICHST-7.5 -110 PENNST+7.5 -110 44.0 -110 44.0 -110 MICHST -5.5 PENNST+5.5 11/28 11:43am MICHST-330 PENNST+270 MICHST-7.5 -110 PENNST+7.5 -110 44.0 -110 44.0 -110 MICHST -5 PENNST+5 11/28 2:57pm MICHST -300 PENNST +250 MICHST -7 -110 PENNST +7 -110 44.0 -110 44.0 -110 MICHST-5 PENNST+5 11/28 3:07pm MICHST -320 PENNST +260 MICHST -7.5 -110 PENNST +7.5 -110 44.0 -110 44.0 -110 MICHST-5 PENNST+5 11/28 3:17pm MICHST-320 PENNST+260 MICHST -8 -110 PENNST +8 -110 44.0 -110 44.0 -110 MICHST-5 PENNST+5 11/28 5:10pm MICHST-320 PENNST+260 MICHST-8 -110 PENNST+8 -110 44.0 -110 44.0 -110 MICHST-5 PENNST+5 MICHST -3 PENNST +3 11/28 5:14pm MICHST-320 PENNST+260 MICHST-8 -110 PENNST+8 -110 44.0 -110 44.0 -110 MICHST-5 PENNST+5 MICHST -2.5 PENNST+2.5 11/28 5:18pm MICHST-320 PENNST+260 MICHST-8 -110 PENNST+8 -110 44.0 -110 44.0 -110 MICHST-5 PENNST+5 MICHST -3 PENNST+3 11/28 5:30pm MICHST-320 PENNST+260 MICHST-8 -110 PENNST+8 -110 44.0 -110 44.0 -110 MICHST-5 PENNST+5 MICHST -2.5 PENNST+2.5 WYNN LINE MOVEMENTS Money Line Spread Total 1st Half 2nd Half Date Time Fav Dog Fav Dog Over Under Fav Dog Fav Dog 11/25 1:37pm MICHST-11 -110 PENNST+11 -110 11/25 3:26pm MICHST -450 PENNST +350 MICHST-11 -110 PENNST+11 -110 11/25 4:20pm MICHST-450 PENNST+350 MICHST-11 -110 PENNST+11 -110 46.0 -110 46.0 -110 11/27 1:40pm MICHST-450 PENNST+350 MICHST-11 -110 PENNST+11 -110 46.0 -110 46.0 -110 MICHST -6.5 PENNST +6.5 11/27 5:31pm MICHST-450 PENNST+350 MICHST-11 -110 PENNST+11 -110 44.0 -110 44.0 -110 MICHST-6.5 PENNST+6.5 11/27 5:32pm MICHST-450 PENNST+350 MICHST-11 -110 PENNST+11 -110 44.0 -110 44.0 -110 MICHST-6.5 PENNST+6.5 11/27 5:36pm MICHST-450 PENNST+350 MICHST-11 -110 PENNST+11 -110 44.0 -110 44.0 -110 MICHST-6.5 PENNST+6.5 11/27 5:38pm MICHST-450 PENNST+350 MICHST-11 -110 PENNST+11 -110 44.0 -110 44.0 -110 MICHST-6.5 PENNST+6.5 11/27 11:18pm MICHST-450 PENNST+350 MICHST -10.5 -110 PENNST +10.5 -110 44.0 -110 44.0 -110 MICHST-6.5 PENNST+6.5 11/27 11:48pm MICHST -420 PENNST +340 MICHST -10 -110 PENNST +10 -110 44.0 -110 44.0 -110 MICHST-6.5 PENNST+6.5 11/28 9:10am MICHST-420 PENNST+340 MICHST-10 -110 PENNST+10 -110 44.0 -110 44.0 -110 MICHST-6.5 PENNST+6.5 11/28 10:44am MICHST -290 PENNST +245 MICHST -8 -110 PENNST +8 -110 44.0 -110 44.0 -110 MICHST -4.5 PENNST+4.5 11/28 10:44am MICHST-290 PENNST+245 MICHST-8 -110 PENNST+8 -110 44.0 -110 44.0 -110 MICHST -6.5 PENNST+6.5 11/28 10:56am MICHST -270 PENNST +230 MICHST -7.5 -110 PENNST +7.5 -110 44.0 -110 44.0 -110 MICHST -4.5 PENNST+4.5 11/28 11:40am MICHST-270 PENNST+230 MICHST -7 -110 PENNST +7 -110 44.0 -110 44.0 -110 MICHST-4.5 PENNST+4.5 11/28 1:16pm MICHST -300 PENNST +250 MICHST -7 -115 PENNST +7 -105 44.0 -110 44.0 -110 MICHST-4.5 PENNST+4.5 11/28 2:29pm MICHST-300 PENNST+250 MICHST-7 -115 PENNST+7 -105 44.0 -110 44.0 -110 MICHST -4 PENNST+4 11/28 2:31pm MICHST-300 PENNST+250 MICHST -7 -110 PENNST +7 -110 44.0 -110 44.0 -110 MICHST-4 PENNST+4 11/28 3:10pm MICHST-300 PENNST+250 MICHST -7 -120 PENNST +7 +100 44.0 -110 44.0 -110 MICHST-4 PENNST+4 11/28 3:15pm MICHST -320 PENNST +260 MICHST -7.5 -110 PENNST +7.5 -110 44.0 -110 44.0 -110 MICHST-4 PENNST+4 11/28 3:15pm MICHST-320 PENNST+260 MICHST-7.5 -110 PENNST+7.5 -110 44.0 -110 44.0 -110 MICHST -4.5 PENNST+4.5 11/28 3:19pm MICHST-320 PENNST+260 MICHST-7.5 -110 PENNST+7.5 -110 44.0 -110 44.0 -110 MICHST -5 PENNST+5 11/28 3:20pm MICHST -340 PENNST +280 MICHST -8 -110 PENNST +8 -110 44.0 -110 44.0 -110 MICHST-5 PENNST+5 11/28 3:21pm MICHST -320 PENNST +260 MICHST -7.5 -110 PENNST +7.5 -110 44.0 -110 44.0 -110 MICHST-5 PENNST+5 11/28 3:27pm MICHST-320 PENNST+260 MICHST-7.5 -110 PENNST+7.5 -110 44.0 -110 44.0 -110 MICHST -4.5 PENNST+4.5 11/28 5:10pm MICHST-320 PENNST+260 MICHST-7.5 -110 PENNST+7.5 -110 44.0 -110 44.0 -110 MICHST-4.5 PENNST+4.5 MICHST -3 PENNST +3 11/28 5:29pm MICHST-320 PENNST+260 MICHST-7.5 -110 PENNST+7.5 -110 44.0 -110 44.0 -110 MICHST-4.5 PENNST+4.5 MICHST-3 PENNST+3SO THE Federal Reserve didn't push the button after all. All the speculation and the debate will now have to focus on October or (more probably) December for the first increase since 2006. On balance, we feel this was a sensible decision; the Fed didn't want to join the ranks of banks that tightened too soon.
But the zero rate regime illustrates the old adage that "it is better to travel hopefully than to arrive". And that is neatly illustrated in a new blog post from a Bank of England staffer, May Rostom. Most British homeowners have variable rate mortgages (or short-term fixed rate deals) so interest rate cuts staved off a potential disaster in the housing market. The good news is that fewer people were forced out of their homes; the bad news is that the housing market didn't "clear" as it did in the US, with prices returning to more affordable levels.
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As the economy recovered in 2012-13, house prices took off again, particularly in London. The ratio of house prices to first-time buyers incomes in London, which was 2.6 in 1996 and 7.2 at the last peak in London, is now a staggering 9.4. As Ms Rostom points out, this has inter-generational implications. Those born in the 1971-1980 and 1981-1990 cohorts have faced sharply-rising debts as they try to get on the housing ladder (some may have student debt too). But their incomes have not risen anything like as fast; the 1971-1980 and the 1981-1990 cohorts earn pretty much the same.
This is not just the life cycle at work (younger people take on debt and they pay it off as they reach middle age). Since 1995, the debt of older generations has barely budged; but the debt burden of those of 25-45 has shot up in real terms.
Low rates mean that, if you can put together a deposit, mortgage payments are affordable. But sluggish income growth means it is very hard to pay off that debt. As Ms Rostom writes
It is possible to imagine a world where younger households will reach 65 and still have debt.
Furthermore, by boosting asset prices, the low-rate regime has made older generations (the people that own the assets) wealthier; this is an intergenerational transfer. She adds that
It seems that the widening gap between the haves and the have-nots isn’t just across income or socioeconomic categories - as some have been (correctly) arguing - but also across generations.
In a sense, if the Bank of England were to push up rates and force down house prices, that would be a boon for young people, but only for those who had yet to put a foot on the housing ladder. For those struggling with high debts, it would be a disaster. And it is hard to see a way out of this dilemma; low rates mean high prices, and high prices mean high debts, which mean the Bank can't push up rates (at least not very far). It is a trap.
One way out of this trap, of course, would be to build a lot more houses. But even on the most optimistic assumption, it is unlikely to be enough. Last year. Savills forecast a 55% rise in housebuilding over a five year period, but that would still result in 167,000 units in 2018, well short of the 240,000 estimated requirement. Savills added that
Historically, we have seen periods of similar growth in the 1980s and noughties but there is no precedent for faster growth over a sustained period
Changes to planning rules, more public spending on infrastructure; these would help. But not quickly enough to solve the Bank's dilemma.
One could argue that a similar trap faces the Fed. Low rates have also pushed up global equity prices. But it seems like the August collapse in stockmarkets played its part in spooking the Fed and preventing it from raising rates. Can the Fed really tighten policy if investors are panicking?One of the things that really stands out using an iPhone is just how smooth it feels compared to using Android. Where as Android is laggy, with a measurable interim between when you touch the screen and when the OS responds, iOS almost seems to anticipate what you want to do before your finger touches the display.
How has Apple managed this incredible feat? A better question might be: “How has Google managed to screw up Android’s multitouch so much?” According to Andrew Munn — a software engineering student and ex-Google intern — Android is so messed up that Google might never be able to match an iPhone or iPad’s performance. Ouch!
Before we begin, here’s some background. In the past, it has been said that Android’s UI is laggy compared to iOS because the UI elements weren’t hardware accelerated until Honeycomb. In other words, every time you swipe the screen on an Android phone, the CPU needs to draw every single pixel over again, and that’s not something CPUs are very good at.
That argument makes sense, except if it were true, Android would have stopped measurably lagging in touch responsiveness compared to iOS when Android 3.0 Honeycomb was released. Except guess what? Android devices are still laggy even after Honeycomb is installed on them.
Most modern Android phones have specs that are equivalent or even better than the iPhone’s (for example, most Android phones ship with 1GB of RAM, compared to the iPhone 4S’s 512MB); the problem isn’t hardware. So what’s the issue?
Here’s why Android can’t render its touch UI without lagging, according to Munn. In iOS, UI rendering processes occur with dedicated threads in real-time priority, halting other processes and focusing all attention on rendering the UI.. In other words, every time you touch your finger to your iPhone’s display, the OS literally goes crazy: “Someone’s touching us! Someone’s touching us! Stop everything else you’re doing, someone’s touching us!”
In Android, though, UI rendering processes occur along with the main thread with normal priority. In other words, it treats rendering the UI the same way as it would, say, downloading a podcast in the background, checking for SMSes, or anything else. Hence, a choppy UI.
Here’s Munn explaining what this all means, and why Google was stupid enough to design Android this way.
Android UI will never be completely smooth because of the design constraints I discussed at the beginning: – UI rendering occurs on the main thread of an app
– UI rendering has normal priority Even with a Galaxy Nexus, or the quad-core EeePad Transformer Prime, there is no way to guarantee a smooth frame rate if these two design constraints remain true. It’s telling that it takes the power of a Galaxy Nexus to approach the smoothness of a three year old iPhone. So why did the Android team design the rendering framework like this? Work on Android started before the release of the iPhone, and at the time Android was designed to be a competitor to the Blackberry. The original Android prototype wasn’t a touch screen device. Android’s rendering trade-offs make sense for a keyboard and trackball device. When the iPhone came out, the Android team rushed to release a competitor product, but unfortunately it was too late to rewrite the UI framework.
So why hasn’t Google just changed the UI framework? Well, it’s a daunting task that would involve every app on Android Market to be rewritten to support the new framework. That’s at least a year away, and may never happen.
In other words, for Google to ever fully deal with Android’s lag problems, it needs to basically hit the reset button and destroy its app ecosystem. iOS, on the other hand, was built from the ground up to support multitouch smartphones; hell, Apple was the supreme visionary of it. It’s important to get things right.
[via Redmond Pie]Two first-time homebuyers who qualify for the provincial government's new interest-free loan program say they won't be taking advantage of the loan because they don't want to go into unnecessary debt.
On Dec. 15, the B.C. government announced a new program for first-time homebuyers. The program will provide a loan of up to $37,500 with a 25-year mortgage. The loan is interest-free and payment-free for the first five years and can be used towards a home with a purchase price of up to $750,000.
Andy Anissimoff, a 37-year-old visual artist who currently rents in Squamish, is eligible for the program but said he doesn't plan on using it because he thinks the real estate market is overheated.
Anissimoff started looking for a duplex in 2013, but as the months passed, he saw prices rising at an alarming rate.
We want to still enjoy life and other things but not overextend ourselves - Eligible first-time homebuyer Lauren Hinnen
"This is officially crazy," he said. "And over the next year I watched [the market] balloon even further … I'm convinced that it's a dangerous time."
At this point, he doesn't feel comfortable entering into the market.
"In certain parts of this province this loan could be awesome," he said. "But in Vancouver, Victoria and Squamish, I really think they're exposing vulnerable buyers who are going to see this money evaporate in three months."
Another eligible first-time buyer, Lauren Hinnen, is in a similar situation.
Hinnen, a non-profit worker who lives in Mission with her husband, says she's uneasy about getting a loan to pay down another loan.
"We didn't want to overextend ourselves," she said. "We're both really fiscally responsible and have strived really hard to be consumer debt-free over the years."
Hinnen said it has been difficult to find a house, or even a condo or townhouse within her price range.
"We're not going to buy an overvalued house," she said. "I'm actually concerned about going into the market with this looming because it is going to raise the amount of people looking for homes under the $750,000 range."
At the time of the announcement, B.C. Minister of Housing Rich Coleman said there would be an applicant screening procedure to prevent people from taking on too much debt.
For now, however, both Hinnen and Anissimoff plan to take a wait-and-see approach.
"We want to still enjoy life and other things but not overextend ourselves," said Hinnen.
With files from The Early Edition
To listen to the interview, click on the link labelled These eligible 1st-time homebuyers are not interested in B.C. loan programFox News host Tucker Carlson made a bizarre claim on Thursday night — namely, that the use of bump stocks during the Las Vegas mass shooting may have actually saved lives.
After one of his guests speculated that fewer people may have died during the Las Vegas shooting if Stephen Paddock hadn't used bump stocks, Carlson insisted that the bump stocks may have actually saved lives.
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"Many more would've died actually because if you talk to people who know a lot about guns they say pros don't even fire on fully automatic because they can't hit anything," Carlson insisted.
He later added, "I’m not defending bump stocks, I’m just saying, let’s be real."
Carlson's position — which, yes, amounts to a defense of bump stocks despite his protestation — is even help among his fellow conservatives. In a statement that decried any efforts at further gun control, the NRA nevertheless added that "despite the fact that the Obama administration approved the sale of bump fire stocks on at least two occasions, the National Rifle Association is calling on the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) to immediately review whether these devices comply with federal law."
Similarly, Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo of Florida has said that he would support a ban on bump stocks, arguing to a Miami news station that "I definitely think we need to revisit the issue of gun safety. A question that I have started asking around here is, ‘Why are these bump stocks legal?’"
Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin also expressed that view, arguing that "the fact that fully-automatic weapons are already illegal and this makes another weapon capable [of automatic fire], I would be supportive" of regulating bump stocks.Glaciers in western China have receded by nearly 3,000 square miles, state-run news agency Xinhua reported on Wednesday, in a startling acknowledgement of climate change striking closer to home.
Xinhua reports that glaciers in western China have receded by 15% over the past 30 years, according to a climate change study by the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Researchers said they had observed fissures in ice sheets covering Mt. Everest and warned that if the glaciers continued to melt at their current rate, it could severely reduce water flows to Asia’s major riverbeds.
The report comes amid a diplomatic thaw between China and the U.S. regarding climate change negotiations, which have periodically been a source of friction between the world’s two largest carbon emitters. China has bridled at international commitments to cut total levels of emissions, preferring to peg emissions targets to economic growth. But last month the two countries pledged to discuss steeper cuts in emissions.
It may be just talk, but with cities shrouded in thick blankets of smog, food contaminated with heavy metals, and the occasional mass grave of pigs turning up in waterways, China’s policymakers face mounting public pressure to tackle the nation’s soot-stained image.
And appearances can be deceiving. Beneath the pollution scandals, China has raced ahead of the rest of the world in renewable energies with a whopping $54 billion investment in 2013. It is not only the world’s biggest carbon emitter, it is also the world’s biggest supplier of wind, solar and other clean energy technologies.
Green on the outside, sooty on the inside, China is uniquely positioned to not only profit from the renewable energy policies in the rest of the world, but test run a few policies at home as well.
Contact us at editors@time.com.DJi firmware suspended a guest Feb 5th, 2015 383 Never a guest383Never
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rawdownloadcloneembedreportprint text 1.40 KB Dear DJI Customer, There have been a small number of reported issues with the latest Phantom firmware, v3.10. In response to these reports, DJI has proactively suspended this firmware update. If you already updated your Phantom firmware to v3.10, please reset your firmware to the prior version (v3.08) immediately. To do this, connect your Phantom to your PC, launch the DJI Phantom Assistant software, and follow the standard procedures for updating your firmware. V3.08 has now been designated as the latest version, and your Phantom will be reset. If you have not yet updated your Phantom firmware to v3.10, and your current firmware version is v3.08, no action is necessary. If you are running an older Phantom firmware version, DJI suggests that you update to v3.08 now. Check your firmware status and apply any available updates by connecting your Phantom to your PC, launching the DJI Phantom Assistant software, and clicking “Upgrade”. iOS Note: Some iOS users may experience issues when using Phantom firmware v3.08 with the latest iOS app (v1.0.46). To address this issue, an updated iOS app (v1.0.48) has been submitted to the App Store for approval and will be available soon. If you require the VISION app to fly safely, please wait for the updated app. No update is required for the Android version of the VISION app. If you have any questions, please contact support@dji.com. Thank you, DJI
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Dear DJI Customer, There have been a small number of reported issues with the latest Phantom firmware, v3.10. In response to these reports, DJI has proactively suspended this firmware update. If you already updated your Phantom firmware to v3.10, please reset your firmware to the prior version (v3.08) immediately. To do this, connect your Phantom to your PC, launch the DJI Phantom Assistant software, and follow the standard procedures for updating your firmware. V3.08 has now been designated as the latest version, and your Phantom will be reset. If you have not yet updated your Phantom firmware to v3.10, and your current firmware version is v3.08, no action is necessary. If you are running an older Phantom firmware version, DJI suggests that you update to v3.08 now. Check your firmware status and apply any available updates by connecting your Phantom to your PC, launching the DJI Phantom Assistant software, and clicking “Upgrade”. iOS Note: Some iOS users may experience issues when using Phantom firmware v3.08 with the latest iOS app (v1.0.46). To address this issue, an updated iOS app (v1.0.48) has been submitted to the App Store for approval and will be available soon. If you require the VISION app to fly safely, please wait for the updated app. No update is required for the Android version of the VISION app. If you have any questions, please contact support@dji.com. Thank you, DJIResearch presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior suggests that the key to losing weight could lie in manipulating our beliefs about how filling we think food will be before we eat it, suggesting that portion control is all a matter of perception.
Test subjects were more satisfied for longer periods of time after consuming varying quantities of food for which they were led to believe that portion sizes were larger than they actually were.
Memories about how satisfying previous meals were also played a causal role in determining how long those meals staved off hunger. Together, these results suggest that expectations before eating and memory after eating play an important role in governing appetite and satiety.
In the first experiment, participants were shown the ingredients of a fruit smoothie. Half were shown a small portion of fruit and half were shown a large portion. They were then asked to assess the 'expected satiety' of the smoothie and to provide ratings before and three hours after consumption. Participants who were shown the large portion of fruit reported significantly greater fullness, even though all participants consumed the same smaller quantity of fruit.
In a second experiment, researchers manipulated the 'actual' and 'perceived' amount of soup that people thought that they had consumed. Using a soup bowl connected to a hidden pump beneath the bowl, the amount of soup in the bowl was increased or decreased as participants ate, without their knowledge. Three hours after the meal, it was the perceived (remembered) amount of soup in the bowl and not the actual amount of soup consumed that predicted post-meal hunger and fullness ratings.
The findings could have implications for more effective food labeling.
"The extent to which a food that can alleviate hunger is not determined solely by its physical size, energy content, and so on. Instead, it is influenced by prior experience with a food, which affects our beliefs and expectations about satiation. This has an immediate effect on the portion sizes that we select and an effect on the hunger that we experience after eating," said Dr. Brunstrom.
"Labels on 'light' and 'diet' foods might lead us to think we will not be satisfied by such foods, possibly leading us to eat more afterwards," added Dr. Brunstrom. "One way to militate against this, and indeed accentuate potential satiety effects, might be to emphasize the satiating properties of a food using labels such as'satisfying' or 'hunger relieving'."
The research was funded by the Biotechnology & Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and a consortium of food companies under a joint initiative with the Diet and Health Research Industry Club (DRINC).
The lead author was Jeff Brunstrom of the University of Bristol UK.
Co-authors were P Rogers, J Burn, Jm Collingwood, O Maynard, S Brown, N Sel also of the University of Bristol UK.(CNN) -- A severely disfigured woman received the nose, cheeks, upper jaw and facial tissue from a female cadaver in the first near-total face transplant in the United States, the woman's surgeon said Wednesday.
Cleveland Clinic doctors replaced 80 percent of a woman's face two weeks ago in the first such U.S. surgery.
The 22-hour face surgery was completed two weeks ago by a team of eight surgeons at the Cleveland Clinic.
The patient had severe deformity in the middle of her face and was missing her right eye and upper jaw, the Cleveland Clinic doctors said. She could not taste or smell, and she had trouble speaking.
Dr. Maria Siemionow, the head of plastic surgery research at the Cleveland, Ohio, hospital, said many people are "hiding from society because they're afraid to walk to the grocery stores; they're afraid to go to streets because they're called names and humiliated."
"Our patient was called names, and our patient was humiliated," she said. "We very much hope for this special group of patients, there is hope, and one day they will be able to go comfortably from their houses and enjoy the things which we take for granted."
The patient is doing well, the doctors said. Interactive: More details of the surgery »
Details about the recipient, including her name and age, were withheld at her request.
In the surgery, 80 percent of the woman's face was transplanted. The forehead and chin were left intact.
In this transplant, tissue from the donor's face was shaped and fitted into position. Multiple layers of tissue, bone, muscles and blood vessels, nerve grafts and each artery and vein were connected. Watch an explanation about face transplants »
"Our hope is she should be able to smile again," said Dr. Frank A. Papay, chairman of the Dermatology |
is very high, so there are no plans for low-bands. When cyclone alerts are issued, the antennas must be taken down or else they will fly away.
Taher can tell many interesting stories, not only related to radio. He is also a qualified expert in massage, keen on health foods and lifestyle.
Taher, 3B8DB, is a member of the local Mauritius Amateur Radio Society. There are almost 30 members in the club. Two of his granddaughters are among them, and they hold B-class licences, allowing the use of VHF bands only. A cross-band repeater - 144 MHz/432 MHz - is operational in the island and it is also linked to the French island Reunion, some 200 km to the west. Mauritius has many relatively high peaks and the line-of-sight communication is hampered.
I always recommend visitors to contact local radio amateurs before going to a country without ample supply of radio components and materials. Sometimes bringing a relatively small item can be well appreciated, even vital for keeping a DX-station on the air. The DXpeditions are efficient but short-lasting, a resident active operator is there year-round.
Henryk Kotowski, SM0JHF
December 21, 2016
https://dxnews.comBy Daniel Emery
BBC technology reporter, Los Angeles
Early shots suggest Avatar will look very impressive
"Before you go any further sir, I'm going to need your phone, your laptop, your bag, and any photographic equipment you may have on you." We're being stripped of all our technology at the start of a press briefing. A process which is, to say the least, unusual. But this is an unusual press conference; we are about to get the first look at Titanic director James Cameron's new action adventure movie Avatar and see Ubisoft's game of the same name. We are ushered into a room, one side of which is filled with an enormous 103in plasma screen; a working prototype from Panasonic. The walls are plastered with concept art. Then out steps Jon Landau, the film's producer, who runs through the basic plot. "The script for Avatar started 14 years ago, but back then, the technology to make a film like that did not exist," he said. New territory The film - and game - follows the exploits of a paralysed marine called Jake Sully who is sent to the beautiful, but dangerous, world of Pandora to help a mining corporation extract a mineral Mr Landau called "unobtanium". Humans cannot breathe the air on Pandora, so they have to travel - and work - in cumbersome airtight suits. The game revolves around the battle for Pandora However, Pandora does have an indigenous population - the Na'vi - a race of 10 foot tall creatures who have no interest in helping humanity exploit, and ultimately destroy, their planet. So the corporation has created a hybrid creature from both human and Na'vi DNA that is controlled via a mental link by a human operator: the Avatar. Trouble is, every creature on the planet - plant and animal, including the Na'vi - now want humans off the planet and will use any and every means at their disposal to drive them off. Humanity is engaged in a fight for survival on Pandora, and it is into this environment that Jake Sully is dropped. "Our industry has not created a new universe in 32 years," said Mr Landau. "We have now." A reference, if ever there was one, to George Lucas' Star Wars which made its debut in 1977. Both the game and film were developed in tandem; so much so that ideas from game developer Ubisoft were incorporated into the movie. The game, an action adventure shooter, faithfully replicates the movie environment; in stereoscopic 3D if your monitor is capable. The graphics, from the little we saw, were impressive and on a par with how stunning Crysis was when it made its public debut. Foliage, creatures, characters, and weapons are superbly rendered. By day, the environment is a lush - but oppressive - jungle. At night the entire planet glows with bioluminescence, making the world look even more alien than it already is. However, this is just a backdrop to the game, which is predominantly about combat. Fighting talk Mr Landau stressed that the game's plot was not a carbon copy of the film. While the film goes into avatar mode fairly early on, the game lets you play as a human soldier fighting his way through the jungle as the various jungle life forms try their best to kill you. The game also lets you play as a Na'vi warrior. While humans may have a technological edge, they also have every plant and animal out to get them. For the Na'vi, this flora and fauna are not just friends, they are allies. In the demonstration we were shown how a Na'vi warrior could climb on the back of a large winged creature that could then be used to knock helicopters out of the sky. Mr Landau said that Jake Sully changes sides and helps the Na'vi "lead a revolution to force the humans - and avatars - off Pandora". The catch, said Mr Landau, is that when Sully is in avatar mode, he is fully mobile; back in human form, he is confined to a wheelchair. "It's a moral dilemma that he will have to face." It remains to be seen if this moral dilemma from the movie will be replicated in the game. Both film and game are due for release at the end of 2009.
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StumbleUpon What are these? E-mail this to a friend Printable versionVoice Actress Kana Hanazawa's official website announced on Friday that she will play the lead role in the live action film Kimi ga Inakucha Dame Nanda (It's Definitely No Good You're Not Here), which will open in theaters in Japan this March. This will be her first leading role in a live-action production.
Hanazawa is also performing the film's theme song, which has the same name as the film. The song will be her eighth single and her first ballad.
Tatsuya Murakami, who has handled some of Hanazawa's music videos, will direct the feature and Kenji Kurata is writing the script. Aniplex is distributing the film. The story follows picture book author An (Hanazawa), who falls into a slump after winning a rookie of the year award. She spends her days goofing off with her editor Tomoe and they never get anything done. One day, while she's out looking for her cat Pero, she sees a mysterious message board: "In exchange for bringing back Pero, take the sun from the world. Sound good? An?" She then starts finding more mysterious message boards around town, all in the writing style of her father (Shigemitsu Ogi), a novel author who disappeared when she was young.
Hanazawa is known for many anime roles including Steins;Gate's Mayuri, Psycho-Pass' Akane, Durarara's Anri, and Oreimo's Kuroneko. She also performed theme songs for several anime series.
Source: Moca NewsJeff Sessions Just Confessed His Negligence on Russia
The headlines from Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday focused on his refusal to answer questions about his conversations with President Donald Trump and his declaration — dragged out of him with all the elegance of a tooth extraction — that he had not yet been interviewed by special counsel Robert Mueller. Lost in the back-and-forth and amid focus on his testy exchange with Sen. Al Franken about Russian contacts, however, was a truly damning moment about Sessions’s tenure at the Justice Department thus far.
That moment came not in the context of hostile questioning from a committee Democrat but in a perfectly cordial exchange with Republican Sen. Ben Sasse.
With Midwestern gentility, the Nebraska senator told Sessions that he wasn’t going to grill him about Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Rather, he said, “I would like to continue talking about the Russians but in the context of the long-term objectives that Vladimir Putin has to undermine American institutions and the public trust.… We face a sophisticated long-term effort by a foreign adversary to undermine our foreign policy and our ability to lead in the world by trying to undermining confidence in American institutions.”
Russia will be back in the 2018 and 2020 election cycles, Sasse argued. “We live at a time where info ops and propaganda and misinformation are a far more cost-effective way for people to try to weaken the United States of America than by thinking they can outspend us at a military level.… So as the nation’s chief law enforcement officer and as a supervisor of multiple components of our intelligence community … do you think we’re doing enough to prepare for future interference by Russia and other foreign adversaries in the information space?”
You’d think this question would be a golden opportunity for Sessions. After all, if you’re a man who has had some — ahem — inconvenient interactions with former Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, you might relish the chance to answer a question about what you are doing to prevent Russian interference in the future, as a chance to go on offense and show how serious you are about tackling a problem that has undermined your reputation.
But Sessions’s answer did not inspire confidence: “Probably not. We’re not. And the matter is so complex that for most of us, we are not able to fully grasp the technical dangers that are out there.”
Sessions acknowledged “disruption and interference, it appears, by Russian officials” and noted that it “requires a real review.” But he said nothing about what the department is doing to ready itself.
Sasse followed up, giving him an explicit chance to spell it out. “So what steps has the department taken,” or should it take, “to learn the lessons of 2016 … in fighting foreign interference?” he asked.
Crickets from Sessions.
The department, he said, is specifically reviewing commercial, rather than political, interference from foreigners and the theft of trade secrets and data — an enforcement priority that in fact long predates the Trump administration. “We’ve got indictments that deal with some of those issues,” he said, perhaps not even realizing that he was not talking about the same subject Sasse was asking about. He noted that the department’s national security division has some “really talented people” — which is true but hardly constitutes a step he is taking to combat the Russia threat. And he touted the FBI’s experts, too. Then he acknowledged that, despite all this, the department’s capabilities are still not at the appropriate level yet.
As to a specific answer to Sasse’s question — that is, what has the department done or is planning to do to confront information operations threats from Russia in the future? Not a word.
Sasse returned to the point a few minutes later, and Sessions’s answer got even worse. Sasse asked: “Do you think the Department of Justice has a proactive role in looking at hardening our democratic process against foreign interference?”
Sessions responded that Sasse had made a “valuable point” and that if Sasse had any thoughts toward legislation, he was eager to hear them. But as to any proactive role on the Justice Department’s part, Sessions made only the following remarkable admission: “I am not sure we have a specific review underway at this point in time.”
You read that right. According to the attorney general, the Justice Department is not even reviewing the specific question of what policy or bureaucratic changes might be appropriate in establishing an active role for the department concerning the most basic defense of democracy.
Later in his five hours of testimony, Sessions had a chance to revisit the matter under similarly cordial questioning from Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar. “Are you aware,” the Minnesota senator asked, “of any efforts between the department and other federal agencies to assist states in this upcoming election to protect our elections from hacking?” Sessions responded blandly that the FBI has “capabilities and experience in many of these matters” and that he does “think it is an important matter,” and he insisted that electronic alteration of vote totals would be a “stunning disaster” and cannot happen. But as to any initiatives of the department he again offered not a word.
In short, the attorney general of the United States, though acknowledging and expressing confidence in the intelligence community’s assessment of foreign interference in the 2016 election and admitting that the government isn’t doing enough to guard against such activity in the future, could not identify a single step his department is taking or should take in that direction. He could not suggest a proactive role the department might play against foreign information operations. He could not even identify a policy review currently underway on the subject, though he agreed that one was appropriate. He could not identify legislation that might be helpful. And he could not name any departmental activity, beyond the FBI’s having capabilities, in support of states that might be targeted in upcoming elections.
This was a frank display of ignorant complacency in the face of a clear and demonstrated threat. The question of what exactly the Justice Department should be doing, what proactive role it should be playing, is a complicated one. But here’s a suggestion to begin with: DOJ should be at least thinking about the problem that Sasse posed. The attorney general’s testimony Wednesday gave no indication that the department is even doing that.As Indonesia's leader for nine years, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono knows he should give enough space to his guest ' Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott ' so that the latter can claim to the Australian people that the result of a bilateral summit between the two countries on Monday proves his tough asylum seeker policy has been endorsed by Indonesia.
The President will not humiliate his guest by telling him to 'abort' or soften his position. Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa has warned his new Australian counterpart Julie Bishop against taking unilateral measures, including buying Indonesian boats and paying Indonesian villagers to gather intelligence for Australia on the movements of asylum boats.
The President, who has dealt with the boat people issue with Australia's Conservative and Labor governments, fully realizes the sensitive nature of the illegal migrant issue for the new prime minister. But he also knows too well that 'giving too much' to the new leader will only spark protests from conservative and nationalist politicians as well as some mainstream media.
This means the President will tend to use his favorite 'play it safe' tactic, as domestically he will not gain much from the summit. His guest needs him much more than he needs Abbott. The President is more interested in leaving a strong legacy on foreign affairs when he ends his second term in October next year. He also wants to be remembered by Australians as one of their best Indonesian friends.
Abbott chose Indonesia as his first overseas destination in the job because, among others, in the election campaigns he promised to take a much tougher stance on illegal migrants coming to Australia via Indonesian waters and using boats mostly owned by Indonesians.
Australia's new leader wants to repeat the path of the former prime minister John Howard, whose stern policies to deter unwanted foreigners from Australia were proved effective, at least for a certain period of his administration.
Indonesia has a strong obligation to help Australia eradicate the flows of asylum seekers as Indonesia itself does not gain any benefit from human trafficking. It is a also a matter of national security for the country. Indonesia has a strong capacity to play a crucial role in the battle against illegal immigration.
The Australian leader, however, needs to understand that 'loudspeaker' diplomacy will only harm his own government.The Commission has decided to recommend to the Council to close the Excessive Deficit Procedure (EDP) for Greece. This follows the substantial efforts in recent years made by the country to consolidate its public finances coupled with the progress made in the implementation of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) support programme for Greece.
If the Council follows the Commission's recommendation, only three Member States would remain under the corrective arm of the Stability and Growth Pact (France, Spain and the United Kingdom), down from 24 countries during the financial crisis in 2011.
Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis, responsible for the Euro and Social Dialogue, said: "Our recommendation to close the Excessive Deficit Procedure for Greece is another positive signal of financial stability and economic recovery in the country. I invite Greece to build on its achievements and continue to strengthen confidence in its economy, which is important for Greece to prepare its return to the financial markets. Swift implementation of agreed reforms is crucial to bring about their positive effects to the Greek society and economy. A long-term growth strategy would help ensure more and better jobs, robust growth and prosperity in the future."
Pierre Moscovici, Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, Taxation and Customs, said: "This is a very symbolic moment for Greece. After so many years of sacrifices by the Greek people, the country is finally reaping the benefits of its efforts. Following the payment of 7.7 billion euros on Monday as a result of the conclusion of the second review, today's proposal by the European Commission is recognition of the massive reduction of Greece's fiscal deficit, to below the euro area average. Greece is now ready to exit the Excessive Deficit Procedure, turn the page on austerity and open a new chapter of growth, investment and employment. The Commission will remain at the Greek people's side during this new phase."
Greece has made significant progress in returning to a path of fiscal sustainability. The general government balance has improved from a deficit of 15.1% in 2009 to a surplus of 0.7% in 2016. This is well below the 3% threshold set out in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. This is in addition to the substantial and wide-ranging structural reform packages that Greece has adopted as part of its commitments under the ESM stability support programme.
According to the Commission Spring 2017 Economic Forecast, the positive fiscal performance of Greece is durable. The fiscal measures undertaken in the context of the stability support programme to date are projected to yield savings of 4.5% of GDP up to 2018. The measures agreed under the first and second reviews, which already offset the budgetary implications of the roll-out of the Social Solidarity Income scheme, will continue to make a positive impact on the process of fiscal consolidation even beyond 2018, as effects accumulate. As a result of these efforts, the deficit is now projected to remain below the 3% threshold set out in the Treaty over the Commission's forecast horizon.
The necessary conditions to recommend a closure of the EDP for Greece have, therefore, been fully met.
Greece has been exempted from separate reporting under the EDP as it has been subject to monitoring under its stability support programme. As for all euro area countries that have benefitted from stability support programmes, Greece will be subject to the normal EU rules of economic and fiscal governance, together with a dedicated system of post-programme surveillance, after it exits the programme.
Background
The Stability and Growth Pact is the framework designed to coordinate fiscal policies and ensure sustainable public finances in the European Union.
Greece has been subject to the corrective arm of the Stability and Growth Pact since 2009. The deadline to correct its excessive deficit was extended several times. It was last set in August 2015 to be corrected, at the latest, by 2017.
Since 19 August 2015, following a request by Greece, financial assistance to the country has been provided from the European Stability Mechanism in the form of a three-year stability support programme. Last week, following the closure of the second review of the programme, the ESM approved disbursement of the next tranche of financial assistance to Greece.
While it will be subject to the preventive arm of the Pact from 2017, monitoring its fiscal performance will continue in the framework of the ESM programme throughout its duration. Thereafter, Greece should progress towards its medium-term budgetary objective at an appropriate pace, including respecting the expenditure benchmark, and comply with the debt criterion.
In 2015, the Commission proposed a programme to assist Greece in maximising its use of EU funds. The "Jobs and Growth Plan for Greece", which flanks the ESM stability and support programme, aims to mobilise EUR 35 billion from the EU budget by 2020. As of June 2017, almost EUR 11 billion has already been mobilised.
As of June 2017, operations approved in Greece under the Juncker Plan's European Fund for Strategic Investments represent a financing volume of over EUR 1.1 billion. This is expected to mobilise over EUR 3.3 billion in investments. This week, the Juncker Plan backed a EUR 150 million agreement to finance enhancements and expansions of mobile broadband networks in Greece.
For More InformationHow to boost privacy in the face of Facebook's new features
There are ways to opt out of Facebook's share-it-all revolution. You can control some aspects of apps, the Ticker and Timeline.
Of course, that means some people will feel they have too little privacy. It also means Facebook will collect even more personal information and potentially make tons of money from it.
As far as seismic visions for the Web, this is one of the big ones. Think about it: Everything you do online, shared automatically. And Facebook keeps a running log of it all.
Now you don't have to "like" something to share it. A new breed of apps will tell your friends what you read, listen to and watch — because when you sign up for them, that's what you give them permission to do.
Reporting from San Francisco — Facebook Inc. recently announced a bunch of new features that Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said would allow for "frictionless sharing."
And, like it or not, none of that is going to change anytime soon. Despite the snarky comments and complaints, Facebook — with its 800 million users — is still as popular as ever: On a single day recently, 500 million people logged in to Facebook, Zuckerberg noted last month at the company's annual developers conference in San Francisco.
But there are ways to opt out of Facebook's share-it-all revolution.
Apps
First off, all of this sharing isn't entirely automatic. If you don't use the apps, then they can't share anything about you. Or if you do use them but want to maintain some mystery about your taste in music or television, you can, with a few clicks, restrict who finds out you have a secret love of Kenny G and "Petticoat Junction."
How to do it: Go to Facebook's applications settings page by clicking the arrow in the top right corner of the page, choosing "Account Settings" and then clicking "Apps" in the left-hand column. Edit each app's settings individually. For the most privacy, set the option "Who can see posts and activity from this app?" to "Custom" and select "Only Me."
Some apps have their own privacy settings. Spotify, for instance, has a "private listening" mode, and Hulu asks permission to share every time you watch a show.
The Ticker
Facebook is sharing this blizzard of information through a new feature called the Ticker. Zuckerberg says this is the perfect place to stream all that "lighter-weight" real-time information from your friends. This box in the right-hand column of the newly designed News Feed provides "a more complete picture of what your friends are doing right now," Facebook says.
The idea of having another news feed inside a news feed drives some people to distraction. Unfortunately, Facebook does not allow you to close the Ticker. But there are a few things you can do.
First, you can make the Ticker smaller by pulling up the horizontal bar and making your chat window bigger.
Second, if you use the Web browsers Chrome or Firefox, you can install extensions that banish the Ticker.
Third, you can control what your friends see about you in the Ticker. Remove individual items by clicking on "recent activity" in your profile or through the app settings, or change the privacy of your posts. You can also adjust your app activity privacy.
Timeline
Coming soon, Facebook is replacing your profile page with Timeline, which shows your entire life — or at least your entire Facebook experience — in a digital version of a scrapbook.
You scroll down to travel through time, with status updates, wall posts and photos popping up as the milestones of your life. Facebook automatically populates your Timeline with the activity that got the most likes and comments.Jersey City postal carrier Macario "Mark" Panuil, left, and Rev. Dr. Rudolph Daniels Sr., president of the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance of Jersey City and retired Pastor of Claremont-Lafayette United Presbyterian Church, pose for a photo after a ceremony on Thursday, March 13, 2014, at the Bergen South Station Post Office where Panuil was recognized by United States Postal Service officials for his honesty. Panuil found a wallet containing $4,800 while delivering mail on his carrier route and returned it to the reverend, its rightful owner. (Reena Rose Sibayan/The Jersey Journal/Landov)
What would you do if you found nearly $5,000 in a lost wallet on the sidewalk?
For most of us, it’s just a theoretical question. But New Jersey resident Marcario Panuil faced the real-life dilemma and decided to return the wallet and its contents to their rightful owner.
To get a sense of how unusual his selfless deed is, just scan the news and observe the number of stories about stolen wallets. Some estimates suggest that 1,000 wallets are stolen in the U.S. alone every two minutes. And an estimated 9 million Americans are victims of identify theft each year, often resulting from stolen wallets or credit cards.
The Jersey Journal reports that Panuil, a 20-year-veteran of the U.S. Postal Service, found the wallet containing $4,800 — all in $100 bills -- while on his delivery route in Jersey City.
"I need to give it back to the owner," Panuli told the paper when asked what was his first thought after finding the money.
In recent years, there have been other stories of returned wallets but none involved such a large amount of cash. Last year, a Canadian woman had her wallet returned 23 years after it went missing. In that case, there was no actual money involved but there were a number of priceless photos and even a birth certificate in the wallet.
And as it turns out, returning the wallet was not only a good decision in principle by Panuli, but his action also resulted in a touching, personal story.
The wallet’s owner, the Rev. Rudolph Daniels Sr., says he had withdrawn the large amount of money to give to his children as a late Christmas present. He says he lost the wallet while walking home in a snowstorm.
"I just assumed the money was gone," Daniels told the paper. "It was unbelievable. I was speechless."
After the Postal Service contacted Daniels to tell him his wallet and money had been found, the two men posed together for a number of photos.
Adding to his already impressive act, Panuil has refused to accept a reward from Daniels. However, the Postal Service did send him a letter of appreciation and a $100 gift certificate
"He's a shining example" Daniels, himself a formal postal worker, said.
Daniels said the experience also served as an example to him — mainly to not carry that much cash in his wallet.
Related video:The Nissan factory in Sunderland. The government has denied giving “compensation” to the carmaker but admits it has given “reassurances” to the company Owen Humphreys/PA
Ministers have been accused of giving in to demands from Nissan to keep car manufacturing jobs in the UK after the Brexit vote.
The Times has obtained a four-page letter from Paul Willcox, chairman of Nissan Europe, to Greg Clark, the business secretary, outlining the company’s demands to ensure vehicles are still built at the Nissan plant in Sunderland.
Announcements by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Beis) over the past six months show that ministers made spending commitments which helped Nissan and reflected demands in the letter.
The government has always denied giving “compensation” to Nissan but admits it has given “reassurances” to the company and wider industry.
In one instance, the letter in October from Mr Willcox highlights a project to…Formula E drivers will be obliged to include the sport’s official logo on their helmets for the 2015-16 season.
The rule is part of a series of new branding guidelines introduced, which include adding the logo to specific parts of the racing cars. The plans are still under wraps but have been leaked to Current E by branding specialists who foresee some consternation among Formula E drivers and their helmet designers.
Our mock-up shows the approximate positioning and size of the logos required under the new rule (one logo on either side of the helmet), which are perfectly placed to be prominent in photographs and in TV footage.
The white Formula E logos have to be included on a blue background, which could cause significant colour clashes with some existing helmet designs. The inclusion of the logos also uses up space on the helmet, which can be valuable sponsorship real estate for drivers.
Branding experts that we’ve talked to point out that pushing the Formula E logo in this way makes absolute sense for the new sport, helping to underline brand recognition at a time when the series organiser will be planning how to maximise return on investment.Dog Chapman has been captured spewing foul-mouthed racist slurs on a tape obtained exclusively by The NATIONAL ENQUIRER.
And now a civil rights leader is calling for Dog’s TV show to be removed from the airwaves.
In a shocking world exclusive The ENQUIRER has obtained tapes of two revolting phone conversations in which Duane “Dog” Chapman unleashes a filthy bigoted attack, littered with the N-word and other disgusting racial insults.
The star of the A&E reality show Dog, The Bounty Hunter directed his racist hatred at his son Tucker’s girlfriend Monique Shinnery, who is black.
“Dog Chapman should not have a show. That show should be taken off the air!”
That’s the opinion of prominent civil rights leader Roy Innis, who has served as the chairman of the Congress for Racial Equality (CORE) since 1968. Innis was shocked and outraged when The ENQUIRER played Dog Chapman’s racist telephone conversations for him.
“This man should not be held up as a role model for children,” Innis told The ENQUIRER. “He has venom deep in his soul. This is a picture of his heart — a revelation of his true nature.
Innis believes that cable network A&E needs to take swift action in response to Dog’s vicious outburst.
“He needs to answer for his behavior,” says Innis.
“When someone gets the opportunity to use the airwaves, he becomes a role model, whether he likes it or not. Dog Chapman should not be in that position, posing as a good guy.
“His comments show that he certainly is not a good guy.”
Full details are in the new issue of the NATIONAL ENQUIRER.
Update : In response to this story, A&E network has released a statement saying: “A&E has just learned of the story released by the National Enquirer concerning Duane Dog Chapman. We take this matter very seriously. Pending an investigation, we have suspended production on the series. When the inquiry is concluded we will take appropriate action.”There are some great managed hosting options available for WordPress, and it’s a hosting niche that seems to be growing quickly. WPEngine, Pagely, and Zippy Kid are usually the three big names you hear when Managed WordPress hosting is brought up in a conversation but sometimes you want a little more control over your website. While it is going to take a bit more than some guides on the internet to make your website scale to the extent those three providers could guarantee this is a great first start step for most sites out there.
This guide will take you step by step through every piece of your hosting environment and should leave you with a speedy stable website that is fairly secure as well. This process is very close to the same process I have used to help a handful of WooNinjas setup their own server.
Choosing your provider
Before I get into any of the configuration or setup of the server and website, I need to choose where the website will be hosted. There are more factors that go into this than just price and specs. Just like anything else you should also consider value, reliability, and support.
One of the providers I typically recommend for hosting is Rackspace and their Cloud Server platform. Their support is one of the key reasons I recommend them, on more than one occasion I’ve been able to get in touch with support late at night and get answers right away. We will be using their most affordable Cloud Server available which offers us 512MB of RAM, 20GB of disk space, and 1 vCPU. This is more than enough to power a handful of websites, and, after bandwidth, will cost about $18 per month.
I am also a big supporter of offloading everything you can off of your main web server. One of the benefits of Rackspace is the extra opportunities it will allows us to take advantage of.
Rackspace Cloud Databases – Offers us a managed MySQL instance using lightning fast SSD’s and adds a security benefit of requiring all connections to the database to be within the same datacenter. A single 512MB instance with 1GB of disk space will be about $44 per month.
SendGrid – SendGrid offers Rackspace customers a special free plan for up to 40,000 emails to be sent per month.
Cloud Passage – Cloud Passage also offers Rackspace customers a free plan which will give you an easy to configure firewall and allows you to setup two factor authentication for SSH & SFTP.
New Relic – Last but certainly not least New Relic offers Rackspace customers free Standard monitoring of their servers. The feeling of your fast websites will be backed up by the data you will have through New Relic.
With Rackspace the total cost of running a handful of speedy websites is a little over $60. The number of websites you can run off of this setup is limited only by the amount of traffic each website receives.
Build your platform
When you first login to Rackspace you will be greeted by a page with a big red arrow pointing to a Create Server button, click that button!
You will then enter a server name (“wordpress” will work for our purposes) and choose a region (you want “Next Generation Cloud Servers”).
I would suggest using Ubuntu 12.04 LTS as your OS but Ubuntu 13.04 will work just fine as well. The only requirement is you use Ubuntu. The reason you may want to use an older version of Ubuntu is because every two years a “LTS” version is released and LTS stands for “Long Term Support.” You can visit the Ubuntu wiki to learn more about LTS.
Now just choose the size of your cloud server (512MB) and click the Create Server button one more time and the server will begin building!
Write down the root password that appears, you will not get this password after you dismiss it.
While your server is building you will want to move on over to the “Database” section of the control panel and click “Create MySQL Instance.”
Simply enter an instance name (anything will do), leave RAM at 512MB, 1GB of disk space and be sure to choose the same region as your original server. Below the region you can add a database with a name (wordpress), user (wordpress), and password (your choice – make it secure!). This database will only be accessible through the private network within the same datacenter, which means would be hackers have one less way to access your data but also that you must plan accordingly. Click “Create Instance” to continue and the database server will begin building.
You will see a really long URL on the next screen, this is what you will enter as your database host when you install WordPress so keep this saved somewhere handy.
By now the server has built itself and you can SSH into it. If you go back to the “Servers” portion of your control panel you should have an IP address for the server and a solid green bar on the left showing that the server is “active” and not “building.”
If you have any issues during this process you can click the live chat button at the top of your screen and get quick help from a Racker right away.
Install the software
This section of this guide is going to get a bit techy-er than the rest. It involves sending commands to a server using your terminal and configuring your software. You do not need to be an expert to copy and paste the commands/files but you should have a basic working knowledge of SSH and how to connect to remote servers. You will want to use the command below to SSH into your server, but be sure to replace the temporary IP address (123.123.123.123) with your Public IP address. You will be asked for your password that you should have saved earlier so type that in as well, and if you are asked if you want to add the server to the list of known hosts you will want to answer yes.
This first set of commands is going to update and upgrade all the existing software that is installed by default – updated software on your server is always good just like you would always updater your themes and plugins in WordPress. After you’ve upgraded everything the next commands will install the new software (Nginx, PHP, and some basic utilities). The last step is to start Nginx and PHP and make sure they work.
Welcome to nginx!
If you open your servers IP address in a browser now you should see a blank white page that says “Welcome to nginx!” in it. This means you have succeeded, congratulations!
So far you have run all the commands as “root” on your server, and you do not want your website running under root. I also prefer not to use the “www-data” user on the server either. To save headaches and just solve all the permissions issues right out of the gate I create a brand new user that will only have access to their home directory. We are going to make PHP run as that user and all of the files will be in that users home directory. When you SFTP into your server that is the username you will use. Since we are installing WordPress the username is going to be… WordPress! I’m sure you did not see that coming.
These next commands are going to create the WordPress user, create a few directories, and then download and unzip the latest version of WordPress from WordPress.org. After that, it ensures the WordPress user is the owner of all the files and resets the WordPress user’s password as well. Don’t worry, you will be prompted to enter a new password so the choice is yours.
We’re not done yet!
You may have noticed your server still is welcoming you to Nginx and not showing you WordPress yet. There are three scripts below for you. The first is actual commands you need to run, this will delete the default configurations, create new ones, and then restart the services. When you use Nano (or your favorite editor) to edit the Nginx or PHP configurations you will want to copy and paste the entire sample configurations in and |
concerning".
"I have asked the schools regulator, the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority, to investigate," he said in a statement.
The former teacher wrote to government ministers this week alleging "the principal (Omar Hallak) holds beliefs that if females run excessively, they may 'lose their virginity'", The Age newspaper said.
"The principal believes that there is scientific evidence to indicate that if girls injure themselves, such as break their leg while playing soccer, it could render them infertile."
The newspaper published a letter that appeared to be written by the college's cross-country team to Hallak challenging his decision, which reportedly took place after he blocked the primary school's team from taking part in district events in 2013 and 2014.
"Just because we are girls doesn't mean we can't participate in running events," the letter said, adding that the decision was "really offensive to all the girls that were going to participate".
"It also doesn't say that girls can't run in the hadith (sayings of the Prophet Mohammed). As long as us girls are wearing appropriate clothes we can run."
Al-Taqwa College is believed to be Victoria state's largest Islamic school and had 1,701 students enrolled last year, according to government data.
The co-educational independent school takes in students up to 18 years old, and received more than Aus$15 million (US$11.6 million) in government funding in 2013.
It was not immediately available for comment Thursday.
It is not the first time Hallak has made headlines.
The principal told The Age last month that he had instructed students not to join Islamic State as the jihadist group was a plot by Israel and the United States to gain control of Middle Eastern oil.
"They are trained and equipped by them: (the) evidence is all the shiny new equipment," Hallak was quoted as saying. "We don't believe Muslims are creating IS."
He added that killing innocent people was not "the Islamic way".
Federal Education Minister Christopher Pyne reportedly wrote to the school seeking an explanation for Hallak's IS comments.
Australia has become increasingly concerned about "home-grown" IS-inspired extremists.
The country raised its threat level to "high" last September and has since carried out a series of counter-terrorism raids.Step 1: Start by setting your rear-view mirror as you normally would. Then, lean your head all the way to the left so it touches the driver's window. From that position, set your left side-view mirror so you can see the back corner of your car. Now lean the same distance the other way, and set your right side-view mirror the same way. Now, here's what happens. When a car comes up behind you, you should first see it in your rear-view mirror. But as it passes you (let's say on your left), you'll see it move to the left side of your rear-view mirror. And as its left headlight disappears from your rear-view mirror, it should instantly show up in your left side-view mirror. There should be no delay. It should slip from one to the other, so you can always see it.Fresh calls for a rethink on British abortion laws have been raised after new figures showed an increasing number of babies survive birth at 23 weeks. The figures, uncovered by The Sunday Times, raise concerns that the current legal time-frame for abortion of between 0 and 24 weeks gestation has failed to keep up with modern science, prompting MPs to call for a new vote on British abortion law.
The figures show that at least 120 babies born during the 23rd week have survived over the last four years, but that the chances of survival differ markedly from hospital to hospital. Larger hospitals with centralised expertise showed the best results, with one such hospital, North Bristol NHS Trust, successfully saving all five such babies born last year.
The legal timeframe for abortions in Britain has been changed before. The original 1967 legislation allowed for abortions up to the 28th week of pregnancy, but in 1990 this was revised downwards to 24 weeks due to improvements in neo-natal care during the intervening decades.
The matter was last debated in the House of Commons in October 2012 when pro-choice MP Nadine Dorries brought a motion to be debated in Westminster Hall (an alternative debating chamber), which included a call for a further reduction for the upper limit to 20 weeks. Introducing her motion, the controversial MP for Mid Bedfordshire said “As it stands, the 1967 Act is a joke. Everyone knows that in this country abortion is obtained on demand by whoever wants it, whenever they want it. … Parliament’s reluctance and nervousness about reforming abortion law, or even discussing it, creates an atmosphere of disrespect for Parliament among abortion providers.”
Commenting on the new figures on premature survival, Ms Dorries today told Breitbart London “It is time for the house to vote again on this issue and I shall be exploring options in what remains of this Parliament. In the past, the vote has shamefully stuck at twenty four weeks. This position is no longer acceptable and parliamentarians have to look at the facts and vote accordingly and not adhere to their own false political ideology.”
In 2008, MPs voted down attempts to reduce the limit to 20 or 22 weeks.
The figures for babies born at 23 weeks between 2011 and 2014 uncovered by the Sunday Times are as follows:
– Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, 10 out of 16 survived.
– University College London Hospital, 20 of 26 babies treated survived
– North Bristol NHS Trust, 15 of the 19 babies survived.
– Barts Health NHS Trust, London, six of 11 babies admitted to the neo-natal unit survived.
However, in smaller hospitals the survival rate can be as low as zero percent. A study published in 2012, with figures based on births in 2006, showed that just 19 percent of babies born at 23 weeks survived nationally, but this may have improved in the meantime.
Speaking to the Sunday Times, Dr Ngozi Edi-Osagie, clinical director of neonatal services at Central Manchester University Hospitals, said: “It is a concentration of expertise, both in medical and nursing, that contribute to making a difference in survival at this very low gestation.” She believes that a positive attitude made all the difference, adding. “If you say that they don’t survive, they won’t.”
Meanwhile, there were 565 babies aborted at 23 weeks gestation in 2011. Chairman of the all-party pro-life group, Conservative MP Fiona Bruce said “I do not understand why there is not more outcry about the fact that we allow viable babies to be aborted.
“The new figures support what we have known for a while: that advances in pre-natal care make a mockery of our 24-week abortion limit.”
And speaking to Breitbart London, Peter D Williams, Executive Officer of campaign group Right to Life said “As pre-natal care allows more premature babies to survive, society is naturally questioning abortion at such a late point in pregnancy. In light of the effort a hospital will put into saving wanted babies, that the same hospital could be ending the lives of unwanted babies who might otherwise be saved shows the callous inconsistency and injustice of our laws and medical system.
“When most of Europe has a standard upper limit of 12 weeks – half the limit allowed in the UK – the need for reform of our abortion legislation in this area is clear. Hopefully, the further discussion and reflection engendered by welcome improvements in medicine will also bring more attention to the core of the abortion debate: the humanity, innate dignity, and right to life of pre-born children, as of every member of the human family.”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/17JsD
— A Greensboro police officer was shot in the chest Friday afternoon during a shootout with a suspect who fled from a traffic stop.
The officer, whose name was not released, was part of a two-officer team patrolling the Hickory Trails neighborhood in response to a tip of drug activity in the area. During the patrol, the pair tried to stop a red Chevy Impala, but the driver fled.
The officers involved were J.R. LaBarre, and L.S. Garrison. Information on which officer was shot was not released.
It is unclear why the officers attempted to stop the car.
The female officer driving the cruiser pursued the Impala until it pulled over in the 4200 block of Romaine Street around 4:30 p.m. The passenger in the Impala, identified as Carlos Keith Blackman, jumped out of the car and ran; the male officer chased Blackman on foot.
Officials later reviewed body camera footage of the incident, which showed the male officer tried to handcuff Blackman, but Blackman assaulted the officer and escaped.
The female officer handcuffed the driver of the Impala before running to help the male officer.
Audio from the male officer's body camera, which was dislodged during the struggle, recorded several gunshots fired in quick succession. Shortly after the shots were fired, the female officer found her partner on the ground with a gunshot wound.
Blackman fled to a family member's house on Alma Street where police found him suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. He was taken to Moses Cone Hospital where he died.
Police said evidence collected at the scene indicated at least one other weapon other than the officer's was involved in the incident.
The injured officer was treated and released from the hospital.Advertisement
Microsoft broke OneDrive on Windows 10 for power users. While the cloud storage solution is now better integrated into Windows and more intuitive to use, the removal of placeholders, also known as smart files SkyDrive Brings Smart Files With OCR Search In Windows 8.1 SkyDrive Brings Smart Files With OCR Search In Windows 8.1 With Windows 8.1, SkyDrive will be rolling out “smart files”, previously called placeholder files, complete with Bing-powered OCR search. Read More, has disappointed many users who upgraded from Windows 8.1 Quick Guide to Windows 10 for Windows 8 Users Quick Guide to Windows 10 for Windows 8 Users Windows 10 is just around the corner and if you're running Windows 8 you will be able to upgrade for free on July 29. Let's take a look at what the big changes are. Read More.
We show you how OneDrive placeholders used to work and how you can replicate the experience on Windows 10, at least until Microsoft offers an alternative solution.
How OneDrive Worked on Windows 8
In Windows 8.1, you could see and access all files stored on OneDrive How To Keep Your Files Synced With SkyDrive In Windows 8.1 How To Keep Your Files Synced With SkyDrive In Windows 8.1 Storing data remotely and syncing them across devices has never been so easy, especially if you're using Windows 8.1. SkyDrive received a significant update, improving its integration with Windows and adding interesting new features. Read More through File Explorer, without a copy being stored on your local hard drive. What was stored locally, instead, were placeholders.
These smart files functioned like a shortcut to your OneDrive cloud storage 5 Smart Ways to Customize & Improve OneDrive in Windows 8.1 5 Smart Ways to Customize & Improve OneDrive in Windows 8.1 OneDrive can be a blessing or a curse. It's deeply integrated into Windows 8.1. You'll either want to get the most of it or disable it completely. We can help with both. Read More, a brilliant solution for devices with a lack of local storage. As long as they were connected to the Internet, users had direct access to potentially hundreds of gigabytes of data (an Office 365 subscription An Introduction to Office 365: Should You Buy Into the New Office Business Model? An Introduction to Office 365: Should You Buy Into the New Office Business Model? Office 365 is a subscription based package that offers access to the latest desktop Office suite, Office Online, cloud storage, and premium mobile apps. Does Office 365 provide enough value to be worth the money? Read More gives you 1 TB of OneDrive storage) on devices with only a few gigabytes of free space.
Unfortunately, many people didn’t realize their files weren’t actually synced to their local drive. You had to manually make files and folders available offline. When users eventually found out that they didn’t have offline access to data stored on OneDrive, while being offline of course, they were not amused.
Somehow, Microsoft didn’t foresee placeholders to be a source of frustration. While they are redesigning the smart files feature, which is expected to be reintroduced in the near future, users who appreciated the feature — thousands of them voted to keep placeholders — now have to make do with workarounds.
How OneDrive Works on Windows 10
Briefly, if you log into Windows 10 using your Microsoft account, you will be automatically logged into your OneDrive account. If OneDrive launches per default, you’ll see a cloud icon in the notification area of your Taskbar. To change OneDrive options, right-click the cloud icon and select Settings.
In the Settings tab you can choose whether OneDrive should start automatically, fetch files from another computer, or collaborate on Office documents. Here you can also Unlink OneDrive and re-associate it with another Microsoft account 5 Security Tips to Consider When Using a Microsoft Account 5 Security Tips to Consider When Using a Microsoft Account You can't use much of the new Windows 8 user interface without a Microsoft account. The account you for logging into into your computer is now an online account. This raises security concerns. Read More. Auto save gives you the option to automatically save photos and videos from connected devices. Go to Choose folders to select which files to sync to your local drive. To improve upload speed, head to Performance and allow Onedrive to upload files in batches. Under About, you’ll find useful links to Help pages and the usual official agreements.
In Windows 10, only folders selected to sync to your local drive will be shown in File Explorer’s OneDrive folder. By default, that’s all of them.
A new feature introduced with Windows 10 is the sharing of OneDrive files and folders from the desktop. Right-click the file or folder you would like to share and select Share a OneDrive link and the URL will be saved to your Windows clipboard. Obviously, this only works for items stored on OneDrive.
When using OneDrive on the web or through the mobile app, users can now add shared folders to their OneDrive and sync them to their devices. The Shared Folder sync feature is available for Windows Vista through 10, with the exception of Windows 8.1, and Mac OSX.
How to View Unsynced Files and Folders
If you store more data on OneDrive How To Best Use Your 15GB Of Free OneDrive Storage How To Best Use Your 15GB Of Free OneDrive Storage OneDrive gives you a healthy dose of cloud storage for free. Let's take a look at what you can do with that. Read More than you could ever host locally, you have several options.
View OneDrive Online
Opening a browser window isn’t that different from viewing folders in File Explorer. Head to onedrive.live.com to see everything you’ve got. You won’t be able to change how files and folders are synced — that can only be done from your device — but you can see everything and download what you need. Unfortunately, the web client doesn’t support drag and drop to your computer, but you can drag and drop files into OneDrive.
Choose Folders in OneDrive Settings
In the Choose folders tab in OneDrive Settings you can actually view all the folders stored on OneDrive and their sizes. While you cannot see individual files, if your folders are well organized you’ll know where to find what you need. This way, you could deselect one folder and create space to sync another.
Add OneDrive as a Network Drive
YouTube user Sean Ong demonstrates a more convenient solution, previously described by Paul Thurrott. Using the link to individual folders from the OneDrive web client, he mapped them as network drives to File Explorer, where they appear like external storage devices. Since you have to log in with your OneDrive credentials, you could add a different account from the one synced to your device.
Briefly, head to OneDrive, open any of your folders and copy the 16 or so characters between id= and %. Then head to This PC in your File Explorer. In the Computer tab, click Map network drive. Where it says Folder:, paste in the characters you just copied and preface them with this URL: https://d.docs.live.net/ The result should look like in the screenshot below. Make sure both Reconnect at sign in and Connect using different credentials are selected, then click Finish, and log in with your OneDrive username and password.
In case you set up two-factor authentication Lock Down These Services Now With Two-Factor Authentication Lock Down These Services Now With Two-Factor Authentication Two-factor authentication is the smart way to protect your online accounts. Let's take a look at few of the services you can lock-down with better security. Read More for your Microsoft account, remember that you need an app password for this to work.
Use a Third Party Application
Instead of using the default OneDrive desktop client, you could use a tool like Odrive for accessing OneDrive on your device. When you unsync files or folders on Odrive, a cloudfx placeholder remains, so you’ll always know what you’ve got. Odrive has the added advantage of not only supporting OneDrive, but a number of other cloud storage services, including Dropbox, Google Drive, Box, and others. Odrive is free and you can link an unlimited number of accounts.
One Drive to Rule Them All
Placeholders were an ingenious solution to a common problem: not enough space. Unfortunately, we can’t have nice things Keep Calm: This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, Internet. Keep Calm: This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, Internet. Read More when they are too complex for the majority to understand. Certainly, Microsoft is to blame for not offering a more intuitive design.
Files could have been available offline per default, with the option to replace them with placeholders. That’s exactly how Odrive handles syncing, making it the most sensible alternative to a OneDrive desktop client that isn’t serving power users.
Are you considering to downgrade from Windows 10 How to Downgrade from Windows 10 to Windows 7 or 8.1 How to Downgrade from Windows 10 to Windows 7 or 8.1 Windows 10 is here and maybe it's not what you expected. If you already upgraded, you can perform a rollback. And if you haven't yet, create a system backup first. We show you how. Read More because of the OneDrive issue? Or have you found another workaround? Please share!The Cloud, a BSkyB subsidiary, has agreed to extend its partnership with the City of London Corporation and will continue providing London’s Square Mile with unlimited access to its public Wi-Fi network.
The agreement was born out of a temporary arrangement between the two parties that saw the Cloud provide the Square Mile with access to free public Wi-Fi for the duration of the London 2012 Olympic Games. The Sky-owned service provider recorded an almost 100 per cent increase in users from the preceding three months, prompting it to remove its initial policy of placing a 15 minute time restriction on free access.
“The success of our free Wi-Fi service during the Olympics and Paralympics demonstrated that it’s a vital technology for visitors and shoppers as much as the City’s business community, so we’re pleased we can now make it available to everyone, especially at a time when other providers are switching to pay-for-use services,” said Vince Russell, managing director of the Cloud.
The Cloud launched its first hotspot in the Square Mile in 2007 and now operates 15,000 such access points nationwide. The City of London Corporation’s policy chairman asserted that the wireless provision is critical to the future progress of the business hub.
“The Square Mile is home to 10,000 residents, 400,000 workers, and five million visitors a year. As the world’s leading global financial and business centre, the City of London has one of the biggest concentrations of smartphones in the UK so having the best communications infrastructure in place to access vital information on the move is of critical importance,” he said.
“This partnership between the City of London Corporation and The Cloud will ensure that the Square Mile keeps pace with growing demand in a rapidly evolving technological landscape.”
Image Credit: Flickr (bluebus)Published by Steve Litchfield at 9:21 UTC, February 28th 2014
Whether the point I'm trying to make (again) is the appalling lack of quality control in the Windows Phone Store or that you really are spoiled for choice for 'Flappy Bird' clones and variations - or maybe both are valid - what follows is a definitive listing of flappy titles for Windows Phone. Go on, knock yourself out!
[And, yes, companies with two or three titles on the list above should be ashamed]
I give up! Believe it or not, the above litany of plagiarised aviation is only part of the problem. But the tone and title of the last one listed was the straw that broke the camel's back in terms of my research - if you want to find all the other variations and copies then you're on your own!
If it's any consolation, I have it on good authority that the avalanche of 'cash in quick' Flappy Bird clones has also hit the iOS and Android stores and that it's just as big a problem there.
Having such huge numbers of games which - quite literally - add nothing new just devalues the existing app and game titles of far greater originality. See my editorial on three questions Windows Phone Store QA people should be asking.
Or perhaps, as a Flappy Bird fan, you're actually excited by the deluge of options above? Comments welcome!!Mockingbird (Barbara "Bobbi" Morse) is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Mockingbird first appeared in Astonishing Tales #6 in 1971 as a supporting character and eventual love interest of Ka-Zar. She is soon revealed to be a highly trained agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., as well as a Ph.D in biology. She first uses the moniker "Mockingbird" in Marvel Team-Up #95 (July 1980), and goes on to be a member of several Avengers teams.
In 2012, Mockingbird was listed as #48 on IGN's "Top 50 Avengers".[2] She was portrayed by Adrianne Palicki in the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. TV series, which is set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Publication history [ edit ]
The character first appears as Barbara Morse in the Ka-Zar story in Astonishing Tales #6 (June 1971) written by Gerry Conway and pencilled by Barry Smith. The earliest story to be written and drawn (by Len Wein and Neal Adams) featuring the character was intended to appear in Savage Tales #2 (July 1971), but the series was canceled (a #2 and subsequent series appeared much later) and new homes were found for the stories in the ensuing months. In subsequent publications, creators including Roy Thomas, Len Wein, Neal Adams, Mike Friedrich, Archie Goodwin, George Evans, Steven Grant, and Mark Gruenwald made significant contributions to the development of the character.
After appearing in the 1983 Hawkeye mini-series, Mockingbird became a founding member of the West Coast Avengers, appearing in the group's initial self-titled mini-series, followed by regular appearances in the group's ongoing monthly series, until its end in 1994.
Mockingbird appeared as a regular character throughout the 2010-2013 New Avengers series, from issue #1 (August 2010) through its final issue #34 (January 2013). She also co-starred in the 2010 series Hawkeye & Mockingbird, which ran for 6 issues. Mockingbird became regular character in the 2013 Secret Avengers series by Nick Spencer and Luke Ross.[3]
In September 2015, Mockingbird starred in the one-shot Mockingbird: S.H.I.E.L.D. 50th Anniversary #1 by writer Chelsea Cain and artist Joëlle Jones.[4] That November, Marvel announced the launch of her first ongoing series by Cain and artist Kate Niemczyk in March 2016.[5] It was canceled after eight issues due to poor sales, despite receiving critical acclaim.[6]
Fictional character biography [ edit ]
First appearances [ edit ]
The character who later becomes Mockingbird first appears in a short sequence in Astonishing Tales #6 (June 1971) in which a frantic young brunette arrives at the English country estate of Lord Kevin Plunder (who is also known as "Ka-Zar"). Encountering the butler, she exclaims, "Lord Kevin Plunder where is he? I must speak with him! 'tis a matter—of the fate of worlds!" In a brief second appearance in the same issue, the character claims that "Lord Kevin Plunder and I have never met—and yet I feel that I know him...You see, I can—can 'feel' people in my mind! And I know that unless I speak with him—Lord Kevin will die!"[7] Subsequent creators continued to develop the character, and no later story makes reference to any psychic abilities.
After this story Roy Thomas took over writing the Ka-Zar strip and in his first story the as-yet-unnamed character makes another brief appearance. The butler at Ka-Zar's estate informs her that his employer is currently in the Savage Land. The girl then vows to "walk the Savage Land" for "[Ka-Zar's] sake and the sake of the world".[8]
In Astonishing Tales #8 (Oct. 1971) Thomas is joined by co-writer Gary Friedrich and the character begins to develop—her hair color changes to blonde without explanation and her name is given as "Barbara".[9] In this issue Ka-Zar comes upon the site of a plane crash in the Savage Land and encounters a survivor. This man explains that he and his fiancée Barbara flew to the Savage Land seeking Ka-Zar. He mentions that Barbara learned of Ka-Zar's whereabouts from the butler at the Plunder Estate, clearly indicating that Barbara is meant to be the same character as the brunette from the previous two issues. Barbara is shown later in the story; having parachuted from the plane before the crash she is rescued by a group of World War II veterans who have been trapped in the Savage Land for decades.
Gerry Conway briefly returned to co-write (with Roy Thomas) Barbara's next appearance where she finally meets Ka-Zar and is reunited with her fiancé (whose name is revealed as "Paul").[10] In the following issue (written by Thomas alone) Ka-Zar leads the two characters through the dangerous Savage Land.[11]
Astonishing Tales #12 (June 1972) is a key early appearance for the character, due in part to Marvel's decision to feature Man-Thing in this issue. At this point Man-Thing had made only one previous appearance, in the 1971 black-and-white magazine Savage Tales #1.[12] A follow-up seven-page Man-Thing story by writer Len Wein and artist Neal Adams was commissioned for a version of Savage Tales #2 that was ultimately never published.[13] Finally seeing print in Astonishing Tales #12 the sequence is presented as a flashback and an interlude between the main action of the book.
One of the characters in the Wein/Adams story is a blonde female scientist called "Dr. Barbara Morse". Morse is working on a research project in the Florida Everglades called Project: Gladiator, which is an attempt to replicate the Super-Soldier serum which was used to create Captain America. This is the same research which Ted Sallis had previously been working on when a flawed serum transformed him into the Man-Thing. In the story Morse is abducted by AIM thugs and is later liberated through the intervention of the Man-Thing.[14]
Framing the flashback is a sequence of newer material by writer Roy Thomas and artist John Buscema in which Barbara (now revealed to be "Dr. Barbara Morse" and thus the character from the Wein/Adams Man-Thing story) and Paul (now "Dr. Paul Allen") accompany Ka-Zar back to the United States and explain that they sought him out so that he could help them deal with the problems surrounding the appearance of the Man-Thing in Florida.[15]
In the next issue, the storyline is wrapped up and Paul reveals he is a double agent working for A.I.M. It is also revealed for the first time that Barbara has connections with S.H.I.E.L.D.; the spy agency asked her to pretend to love Allen to "learn what [she] could"[16] about his activities with AIM. At the story's end Paul dies at the hands of the Man-Thing and Barbara expresses the hope that she can "go back to just being a scientist again".[16]
Bobbi Morse, Agent 19 of S.H.I.E.L.D. [ edit ]
Mike Friedrich took over from Roy Thomas to become writer of Astonishing Tales with #15 (Dec. 1972). He introduces a new status-quo in which Ka-Zar is living in New York and "lady biologist" and S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Barbara (who now prefers to be called "Bobbi") Morse is his constant companion.[17]
Friedrich remained the writer of the various color Ka-Zar series for the next two years[18][19] and for most of that period he continued to feature Morse as Ka-Zar's sidekick and occasional love interest. In these stories she is depicted as a fully trained S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. Contemptuous of his jungle origins, she is Ka-Zar's escort to the city and modern life. Together she and Ka-Zar tackle threats such as the Pusher,[20] Gemini,[21] Victorius,[22][23][24] Gog,[22] and the Plunderer.[21][22] As the series progresses she begins to wear a regular costume of tinted-glasses, a red one-piece, and boots. Her S.H.I.E.L.D. designation of "Agent 19" is revealed[22] and she and Ka-Zar finally kiss.[25]
In 1974 the color Ka-Zar series left Astonishing Tales and was relaunched in the Ka-Zar, Lord of the Hidden Jungle title. The strip is set once again in the Savage Land and Morse is absent for the first story. She returns in the third issue—explaining that Nick Fury had sent her on a S.H.I.E.L.D. assignment to look into "El Tigre", a subversive who is exploiting the energy crisis in South America.[26] This leads her to reluctantly travel back to the Savage Land, where she and Ka-Zar defeat El Tigre and his ally Man-God together.[27]
The introduction of Shanna the She-Devil into Ka-Zar's supporting cast[28] changes Morse's role in the stories of this period. Ka-Zar expresses clear attraction to the more jungle-friendly Shanna from the outset[29] and Morse is cast as the secondary love interest. This dynamic is most notable in Morse's lone appearance in the Ka-Zar strip in the black-and-white magazine Savage Tales (#8; Jan. 1975). Written by Gerry Conway, the story depicts Morse leading Shanna and a group of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents into the Savage Land where they work with Ka-Zar to neutralise a threat to world security. During the course of the adventure Morse realises that Ka-Zar's affections lie with Shanna.[30] This story, first published in late-1974, is the last in which Morse appears as a Ka-Zar supporting character.
Huntress to Mockingbird [ edit ]
A year later Mike Friedrich returned to the character in a 20-page story with art by George Evans. Published in the one-shot black-and-white magazine Marvel Super Action #1 (Jan. 1976) the story is the first in which Morse appears as a costumed super heroine and lead protagonist. While operating as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent she is recruited by a United States Senator to look into corruption in a Latin American branch of the espionage organization. To complete her mission she "drops out" of S.H.I.E.L.D. and takes on the superhero identity of the "Huntress".[31]
In a text piece in Marvel Super Action #1 editor Archie Goodwin explained how Morse came to be used for this story
I suggested the title ["Huntress"] and the notion of using S.H.I.E.L.D. to writer Mike Friedrich. He decided to draw upon a character he'd helped develop while scripting the color Ka-Zar comic, and wound up revamping her totally. With a bit of kibitzing from Mike and myself, artist George Evans designed the lady's costume and we were in business.[32]
Marvel Super Action was originally designed as a bi-monthly publication, but the economic recession of the mid-1970s forced Marvel to scale back their plans and the magazine was published as a one-off.[32] This meant that the plot of Huntress, originally planned as a two-parter,[32] had to be condensed before publication and no follow-up stories by the same creators were ever produced.
Morse's next published appearance was Marvel Team-Up #95 (July, 1980) in which she dons a new costume and finally takes on the alias "Mockingbird".[33] This story explains that she has continued to look into corruption in S.H.I.E.L.D. and in doing so has come to be hunted by the organization which mistakes her for a criminal. Teaming up with Spider-Man (and with assistance from S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nick Fury) Mockingbird confronts Carl Delanden, a corrupt S.H.I.E.L.D. branch director. In the ensuing battle she is shot by S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who are following a previous order to subdue her at any cost. The story ends with an unconscious, badly injured but exonerated Mockingbird left in the care of Nick Fury.
In the letters column of that issue the series' then assistant editor Mark Gruenwald explained the creative origins of this new iteration of Bobbi Morse:
'Where did this Mockingbird come from?' some of you may be asking. After all it isn't every day that a new super heroine is premiered in Marvel Team-Up. Well the story behind her creation is this: when I had been writing the Spider-Woman book one of my chief objectives was to build up a rogue's gallery that S-W could call her own. One of several characters I conceived and designed was Mockingbird. Showing the sketch to Steven Grant, writer about town, he helped me work out her powers and weaponry. Well I never got round to doing a Mockingbird story before I left Spider-Woman, so I put the idea on the back burner. Time passed, and Steven was searching for something new and different to do in Team-Up. He was toying with the idea some of us have had to revamp the Bobbi Morse character (of Ka-Zar and Super-Action fame). Somehow we got the notion to amalgamate the two concepts and make Bobbi Morse the Mockingbird (Anyone venture a guess why we abandoned the "Huntress" moniker?) All that was necessary was to change her hair and skin color since the original M.B. was going to be black. So that's the story behind the story.[34]
The reference to the "why we abandoned the "'Huntress' moniker" is a nod to the fact that Marvel's rival DC Comics had debuted a character with the same name in the interim between Marvel Super Action #1 and Marvel Team-Up #95. DC's "Huntress", originally the superhero daughter of the Batman and Catwoman of Earth-Two, debuted in All Star Comics #69 and DC Super-Stars #17 (both Dec. 1977).
Mockingbird and Hawkeye [ edit ]
The character next appeared in Gruenwald's 1983 four-issue Hawkeye miniseries.[35] Fully recovered from her injuries, Mockingbird investigates corruption at Cross Technological Enterprises, where Clint Barton/Hawkeye works as security chief. Though the two initially come into conflict with each other, they end up co-operating to fight the villain Crossfire and by the series end they are shown to be seriously romantically involved, having eloped together to the Pocono Mountains and apparently married.[36]
The miniseries reveals how Morse originally became involved with S.H.I.E.L.D. recounting how she left her biology studies at Georgia Tech to follow her "favorite prof"[37] Wilma Calvin on the government's Project: Gladiator. The research project was partly sponsored by S.H.I.E.L.D. which led Morse to enroll in their spy school and graduate at the top of her class. It is also revealed that she spent six months convalescing in a private hospital after the injuries she suffered in Marvel Team-Up #95.[37]
Gruenwald was editor of the Avengers title in late 1983 when writer Roger Stern began to feature Hawkeye and Mockingbird as members of the series supporting cast.[38] In a short period Mockingbird moves back into Avengers Mansion with Barton as he returns to active duty,[38] she is formally introduced to the team as his wife,[39] the Vision then proposes that Hawkeye and Mockingbird establish a second Avengers team on the west coast,[40] and the two move out to Los Angeles.[41]
West Coast Avengers [ edit ]
This leads into the 1984 four-issue West Coast Avengers limited series, also written by Stern and edited by Gruenwald. In this series Mockingbird becomes a full-fledged Avenger as she assists her husband in setting up a new branch of the organization.[42]
West Coast Avengers became a regular series in 1985 and Steve Englehart, the series writer for its first 42 issues, featured Mockingbird heavily as one of the main cast members of the book. A year into the series Mockingbird begins to wear a modified version of her original costume, designed by series artist Al Milgrom.[43]
Over the latter course of his run, Englehart developed a storyline in which the relationship between Hawkeye and Mockingbird is put under serious strain. When the West Coast Avengers are transported to the old west of 1876 the Phantom Rider (Lincoln Slade) abducts, drugs, and brainwashes Mockingbird into forgetting her original life and convinces her she is in love with Slade (and by implication, raping her). After breaking free of his control, Mockingbird |
mm, M16A2" in 1982. The Marines were the first branch of the U.S. Armed Forces to adopt it, in the early/mid-1980s, with the United States Army following suit in the late 1980s.
Modifications to the M16A2 were extensive. In addition to the new rifling, the barrel was made with a greater thickness in front of the front sight post, to resist bending in the field and to allow a longer period of sustained fire without overheating. The rest of the barrel was maintained at the original thickness to enable the M203 grenade launcher to be attached. A new adjustable rear sight was added, allowing the rear sight to be dialed in for specific range settings between 300 and 800 meters to take full advantage of the ballistic characteristics of the new SS109 rounds and to allow windage adjustments without the need of a tool or cartridge.[181] The weapon's reliability allowed it to be widely used around the Marine Corps' special operations divisions as well. The flash suppressor was again modified, this time to be closed on the bottom so it would not kick up dirt or snow when being fired from the prone position, and acting as a recoil compensator.[182] The front grip was modified from the original triangular shape to a round one, which better fit smaller hands and could be fitted to older models of the M16. The new handguards were also symmetrical so armories need not separate left- and right-hand spares. The handguard retention ring was tapered to make it easier to install and uninstall the handguards. A notch for the middle finger was added to the pistol grip, as well as more texture to enhance the grip. The buttstock was lengthened by 5⁄ 8 in (15.9 mm).[101] The new buttstock became ten times stronger than the original due to advances in polymer technology since the early 1960s. Original M16 stocks were made from fiberglass-impregnated resin; the newer stocks were engineered from DuPont Zytel glass-filled thermoset polymers. The new stock included a fully textured polymer buttplate for better grip on the shoulder, and retained a panel for accessing a small compartment inside the stock, often used for storing a basic cleaning kit. The heavier bullet reduces muzzle velocity from 3,200 feet per second (980 m/s), to about 3,050 feet per second (930 m/s).[183] The A2 uses a faster 1:7 twist rifling to allow use of a trajectory-matched tracer round. A spent case deflector was incorporated into the upper receiver immediately behind the ejection port to prevent cases from striking left-handed users.[101] The action was also modified, replacing the fully automatic setting with a three-round burst setting.[181] When using a fully automatic weapon, inexperienced troops often hold down the trigger and "spray" when under fire. The U.S. Army concluded that three-shot groups provide an optimum combination of ammunition conservation, accuracy, and firepower.[184] The USMC has retired the M16A2 in favor of the newer M16A4; a few M16A2s remain in service with the U.S. Army Reserve and National Guard,[185] Air Force, Navy and Coast Guard.[citation needed]
M16A3 [ edit ]
The M16A3 is a modified version of the M16A2 adopted in small numbers by the U.S. Navy SEAL, Seabee, and Security units.[186] It features the M16A1 trigger group providing "safe", "semi-automatic" and "fully automatic" modes instead of the A2's "safe", "semi-automatic", and "burst" modes.
M16A4 [ edit ]
M16A4 rifle with ACOG sight, Picatinny rail and foregrip
Two JGSDF soldiers training with their M16A4 rifles
The M16A4 is the fourth generation of the M16 series. It is equipped with a removable carrying handle and a full length quad Picatinny rail for mounting optics and other ancillary devices. The FN M16A4, using safe/semi/burst selective fire, became standard issue for the U.S. Marine Corps.
Military issue rifles are also equipped with a Knight's Armament Company M5 RAS hand guard, allowing vertical grips, lasers, tactical lights, and other accessories to be attached, coining the designation M16A4 MWS (or Modular Weapon System) in U.S. Army field manuals.[187]
Colt also produces M16A4 models for international purchases:
R0901 / NSN 1005-01-383-2872 (Safe/Semi/Auto)
R0905 (Safe/Semi/Burst)
A study of significant changes to Marine M16A4 rifles released in February 2015 outlined several new features that could be added from inexpensive and available components. Those features included: a muzzle compensator in place of the flash suppressor to manage recoil and allow for faster follow-on shots, though at the cost of noise and flash signature and potential overpressure in close quarters; a heavier and/or free-floating barrel to increase accuracy from 4.5 MOA (Minute(s) Of Angle) to potentially 2 MOA; changing the reticle on the Rifle Combat Optic from chevron-shaped to the semi-circle with a dot at the center used in the M27 IAR's Squad Day Optic so as not to obscure the target at long distance; using a trigger group with a more consistent pull force, even a reconsideration of the burst capability; and the addition of ambidextrous charging handles and bolt catch releases for easier use with left-handed shooters.[188]
In 2014, Marine units were provided with a limited number of adjustable stocks in place of the traditional fixed stock for their M16A4s to issue to smaller Marines who would have trouble comfortably reaching the trigger when wearing body armor. The adjustable stocks were added as a standard authorized accessory, meaning units can use operations and maintenance funds to purchase more if needed.[189]
The Marine Corps had long maintained the full-length M16 as their standard infantry rifle, but in October 2015 the switch to the M4 carbine was approved as the standard-issue weapon, giving Marine infantrymen a smaller and more compact weapon. Enough M4s are already in the inventory to re-equip all necessary units by September 2016, and M16A4s will be moved to support[24][190] and non-infantry Marines.[191]
Summary of differences [ edit ]
Colt model no. Military designation 20" Barrel w/ bayonet lug Handguard type Buttstock type Pistol grip type Lower receiver type Upper receiver type Rear sight type Front sight type Muzzle device Forward assist? Case deflector? Trigger pack 601 AR-15 A1 profile (1:14 twist) Green or brown full-length triangular Green or brown fixed A1 A1 A1 A1 A1 A1 Duckbill flash suppressor No No Safe/Semi/Full 602 AR-15 or XM16 A1 profile (1:12 twist) Full-length triangular Fixed A1 A1 A1 A1 A1 A1 Duckbill or three-prong flash suppressor No No Safe/Semi/Full 603 XM16E1 A1 profile (1:12 twist) Full-length triangular Fixed A1 A1 A1 A1 A1 A1 Three-prong or M16A1 birdcage flash suppressor Yes No Safe/Semi/Full 603 M16A1 A1 profile (1:12 twist) Full-length triangular Fixed A1 A1 A1 A1 A1 A1 Three-prong or birdcage flash suppressor Yes No Safe/Semi/Full 604 M16 A1 profile (1:12 twist) Full-length triangular Fixed A1 A1 A1 A1 A1 A1 Three-prong or M16A1-style birdcage flash suppressor No No Safe/Semi/Full 645 M16A1E1/PIP A2 profile (1:7 twist) Full-length ribbed Fixed A2 A1 A1 or A2 A1 or A2 A1 or A2 A2 M16A1 or M16A2-style birdcage flash suppressor Yes Yes or No Safe/Semi/Full or Safe/Semi/Burst 645 M16A2 A2 profile (1:7 twist) Full-length ribbed Fixed A2 A2 A2 A2 A2 A2 M16A2-style birdcage flash suppressor Yes Yes Safe/Semi/Burst or Safe/Semi/ Burst/Full 645E M16A2E1 A2 profile (1:7 twist) Full-length ribbed Fixed A2 A2 A2 Flattop with Colt Rail Flip-up Folding M16A2-style birdcage flash suppressor Yes Yes Safe/Semi/Burst or Safe/Semi/ Burst/Full N/A M16A2E2 A2 profile (1:7 twist) Full-length semi-beavertail w/ HEL guide Retractable ACR ACR A2 Flattop with Colt rail None A2 ACR muzzle brake Yes Yes Safe/Semi/Burst or Safe/Semi/ Burst/Full 646 M16A2E3/M16A3 A2 profile (1:7 twist) Full-length ribbed Fixed A2 A2 A2 Flattop with MIL-STD-1913 rail None A4 M16A2-style birdcage flash suppressor Yes Yes Safe/Semi/Full 655 M16A1 Special High Profile HBAR profile
(1:12 twist) Full-length triangular Fixed A1 A1 A1 A1 A1 A1 M16A1-style birdcage flash suppressor Yes No Safe/Semi/Full 656 M16A1 Special Low Profile HBAR profile
(1:12 twist) Full-length triangular Fixed A1 A1 A1 A1 with modified Weaver base Low Profile A1 Hooded A1 M16A1-style birdcage flash suppressor Yes No Safe/Semi/Full 945 M16A2E4/M16A4 A2 profile (1:7 twist) Full-length ribbed or KAC M5 RAS Fixed A2 A2 A2 Flattop with MIL-STD-1913 rail None A4 M16A2-style birdcage flash suppressor Yes Yes Safe/Semi/Burst Colt model no. Military designation 20" Barrel w/ bayonet lug Handguard type Buttstock type Pistol grip type Lower receiver type Upper receiver type Rear sight type Front sight type Muzzle device Forward assist? Case deflector? Trigger pack
Derivatives [ edit ]
Colt Commando (AKA: XM177 & GAU-5) [ edit ]
A USAF Combat Control Team member with a GAU-5 carbine and oversized flash suppressor
In Vietnam, some soldiers were issued a carbine version of the M16 named XM177. The XM177 had a shorter 10 in (254 mm) barrel and a telescoping stock, which made it substantially more compact. It also possessed a combination flash hider/sound moderator to reduce problems with muzzle flash and loud report. The Air Force's GAU-5/A (XM177) and the Army's XM177E1 variants differed over the latter's inclusion of a forward assist, although some GAU-5s do have the forward assist. The final Air Force GAU-5/A and Army XM177E2 had an 11.5 in (292 mm) barrel with a longer flash/sound suppressor. The lengthening of the barrel was to support the attachment of Colt's own XM148 40 mm grenade launcher. These versions were also known as the Colt Commando model commonly referenced and marketed as the CAR-15. The variants were issued in limited numbers to special forces, helicopter crews, Air Force pilots, Air Force Security Police Military Working Dog (MWD) handlers, officers, radio operators, artillerymen, and troops other than front line riflemen. Some USAF GAU-5A/As were later equipped with even longer 14.5-inch (370 mm) 1/12 rifled barrels as the two shorter versions were worn out. The 14.5-inch (370 mm) barrel allowed the use of MILES gear and for bayonets to be used with the sub-machine guns (as the Air Force described them). By 1989, the Air Force started to replace the earlier barrels with 1/7 rifled models for use with the M855-round. The weapons were given the redesignation of GUU-5/P.
These were effectively used by the British Special Air Service during the Falklands War.[177]
M4 carbine [ edit ]
An M4A1 carbine (foreground) and two M16A2s (background) being fired by U.S. Marines during a live fire exercise : though adopted in the 1990s and derived from the M16A2, the M4 carbine was part of a long line of short-barreled AR-15 used in the U.S. military
The M4 carbine was developed from various outgrowths of these designs, including a number of 14.5-inch (368 mm)-barreled A1 style carbines. The XM4 (Colt Model 727) started its trials in the mid-1980s, with a barrel of 14.5 inches (370 mm). Officially adopted as a replacement for the M3 "Grease Gun" (and the Beretta M9 and M16A2 for select troops) in 1994, it was used with great success in the Balkans and in more recent conflicts, including the Afghanistan and Iraq theaters. The M4 carbine has a three-round burst firing mode, while the M4A1 carbine has a fully automatic firing mode. Both have a Picatinny rail on the upper receiver, allowing the carry handle/rear sight assembly to be replaced with other sighting devices.
M4 Commando [ edit ]
Colt also returned to the original "Commando" idea, with its Model 733, essentially a modernized XM177E2 with many of the features introduced on the M16A2.
Diemaco C7 and C8 [ edit ]
A Canadian soldier fires the current issue C7A2 rifle at the range with a C79 A2 sight. This particular example is missing the standard TRIAD mount.
The Diemaco C7 and C8 are updated variants of the M16 developed and used by the Canadian Forces and are now manufactured by Colt Canada. The C7 is a further development of the experimental M16A1E1. Like earlier M16s, it can be fired in either semi-automatic or automatic mode, instead of the burst function selected for the M16A2. The C7 also features the structural strengthening, improved handguards, and longer stock developed for the M16A2. Diemaco changed the trapdoor in the buttstock to make it easier to access and a spacer of 0.5 inches (13 mm) is available to adjust stock length to user preference. The most easily noticeable external difference between American M16A2s and Diemaco C7s is the retention of the A1 style rear sights. Not easily apparent is Diemaco's use of hammer-forged barrels. The Canadians originally desired to use a heavy barrel profile instead.
The C7 has been developed to the C7A1, with a Weaver rail on the upper receiver for a C79 optical sight, and to the C7A2, with different furniture and internal improvements. The Diemaco produced Weaver rail on the original C7A1 variants does not meet the M1913 "Picatinny" standard, leading to some problems with mounting commercial sights. This is easily remedied with minor modification to the upper receiver or the sight itself. Since Diemaco's acquisition by Colt to form Colt Canada, all Canadian produced flattop upper receivers are machined to the M1913 standard.
The C8 is the carbine version of the C7.[192] The C7 and C8 are also used by Hærens Jegerkommando, Marinejegerkommandoen and FSK (Norway), Military of Denmark (all branches), the Royal Netherlands Army and Netherlands Marine Corps as its main infantry weapon. Following trials, variants became the weapon of choice of the British SAS.
Heckler & Koch HK416 [ edit ]
Heckler & Koch HK416
The Heckler & Koch HK416 is an assault rifle designed and manufactured by Heckler & Koch. It is based on the M16, and was originally conceived as an improvement based on the Colt M4 carbine family issued to the U.S. military, with the notable inclusion of an HK-proprietary short-stroke gas piston system derived from the Heckler & Koch G36. The HK416 was used by U.S. Navy SEALs to kill Osama bin Laden.[193][194]
Mk 4 Mod 0 [ edit ]
The Mk 4 Mod 0 was a variant of the M16A1 produced for the U.S. Navy SEALs during the Vietnam War and adopted in April 1970. It differed from the basic M16A1 primarily in being optimized for maritime operations and coming equipped with a sound suppressor. Most of the operating parts of the rifle were coated in Kal-Guard, a hole of 0.25 inches (6.4 mm) was drilled through the stock and buffer tube for drainage, and an O-ring was added to the end of the buffer assembly. The weapon could reportedly be carried to the depth of 200 feet (60 m) in water without damage. The initial Mk 2 Mod 0 Blast Suppressor was based on the U.S. Army's Human Engineering Lab's (HEL) M4 noise suppressor. The HEL M4 vented gas directly from the action, requiring a modified bolt carrier. A gas deflector was added to the charging handle to prevent gas from contacting the user. Thus, the HEL M4 suppressor was permanently mounted though it allowed normal semi-automatic and automatic operation. If the HEL M4 suppressor were removed, the weapon would have to be manually loaded after each single shot. On the other hand, the Mk 2 Mod 0 blast suppressor was considered an integral part of the Mk 4 Mod 0 rifle, but it would function normally if the suppressor were removed. The Mk 2 Mod 0 blast suppressor also drained water much more quickly and did not require any modification to the bolt carrier or to the charging handle. In the late 1970s, the Mk 2 Mod 0 blast suppressor was replaced by the Mk 2 blast suppressor made by Knight's Armament Company (KAC). The KAC suppressor can be fully submerged and water will drain out in less than eight seconds. It will operate without degradation even if the rifle is fired at the maximum rate of fire. The U.S. Army replaced the HEL M4 with the much simpler Studies in Operational Negation of Insurgency and Counter-Subversion (SIONICS) MAW-A1 noise and flash suppressor.
US Navy Mk 12 Special Purpose Rifle [ edit ]
US Navy Mk 12 Special Purpose Rifle
Developed to increase the effective range of soldiers in the designated marksman role, the U.S. Navy developed the Mark 12 Special Purpose Rifle (SPR). Configurations in service vary, but the core of the Mark 12 SPR is an 18" heavy barrel with muzzle brake and free float tube. This tube relieves pressure on the barrel caused by standard handguards and greatly increases the potential accuracy of the system. Also common are higher magnification optics ranging from the 6× power Trijicon ACOG to the Leupold Mark 4 Tactical rifle scopes. Firing Mark 262 Mod 0 ammunition with a 77gr Open tip Match bullet, the system has an official effective range of 600+ meters. However published reports of confirmed kills beyond 800 m from Iraq and Afghanistan are not uncommon.[citation needed]
M231 Firing Port Weapon (FPW) [ edit ]
M231 FPW
The M231 Firing Port Weapon (FPW) is an adapted version of the M16 assault rifle for firing from ports on the M2 Bradley. The infantry's normal M16s are too long for use in a "buttoned up" fighting vehicle, so the FPW was developed to provide a suitable weapon for this role.
Colt Model 655 and 656 "Sniper" variants [ edit ]
With the expanding Vietnam War, Colt developed two rifles of the M16 pattern for evaluation as possible light sniper or designated marksman rifles. The Colt Model 655 M16A1 Special High Profile was essentially a standard A1 rifle with a heavier barrel and a scope bracket that attached to the rifle's carry handle. The Colt Model 656 M16A1 Special Low Profile had a special upper receiver with no carrying handle. Instead, it had a low-profile iron sight adjustable for windage and a Weaver base for mounting a scope, a precursor to the Colt and Picatinny rails. It also had a hooded front iron sight in addition to the heavy barrel. Both rifles came standard with either a Leatherwood/Realist scope 3–9× Adjustable Ranging Telescope. Some of them were fitted with a Sionics noise and flash suppressor. Neither of these rifles were ever standardized.
These weapons can be seen in many ways to be predecessors of the U.S. Army's SDM-R and the USMC's SAM-R weapons.
Others [ edit ]
Production and users [ edit ]
Worldwide users of the M16 (former and current)
The M16 is the most commonly manufactured 5.56×45mm rifle in the world. Currently, the M16 is in use by 15 NATO countries and more than 80 countries worldwide. Together, numerous companies in the United States, Canada, and China have produced more than 8,000,000 rifles of all variants. Approximately 90% are still in operation.[13] The M16 replaced both the M14 rifle and M2 carbine as standard infantry rifle of the U.S. armed forces. Although, the M14 continues to see limited service, mostly in sniper, designated marksman, and ceremonial roles.
Users [ edit ]
Canadian soldiers patrol Kandahar Afghanistan armed with C7 (M16 type) rifles
Malaysian Army soldier with an M16A1 equipped with an M203 grenade launcher during a CARAT Malaysia 2008
Peshmerga soldier with his modified M16A4 rifle
Female soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces in training with M16A1 rifles with M16A2 handguards
Philippine Marines using M16A1 rifles with M16A2 handguard during a military exercise
Republic of Korea Honor Guard toss bayonet mounted M16 rifles into the air at the celebration ceremony for the 65th Anniversary of ROK Armed Forces
U.S. Marine firing an M16A4 equipped with an ACOG
Former users [ edit ]
During The Troubles in Northern Ireland the Provisional IRA received a number of M16s.[ citation needed ]
See also [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ]
References [ edit ]If we’ve said it once, we’ve said it a thousand times: smartphone cameras are important. People are tossing their point-and-shoots aside in favor of their phones, and for a lot of consumers it’s one of the biggest deciding factors in choosing a phone. But in a lot of cases, the cameras in our smartphones are paired with software that doesn’t take full advantage of the sensors. Auto shooting modes are great for quick snaps and selfies, but just as is the case with DSLRs, if you want to get serious about your photos you’re going to want to switch to manual mode.
First off, what is manual mode? When you’re taking a picture with your phone (or dedicated camera), there’s a lot going on behind the scenes that can intimidate casual users, and automatic mode uses algorithms to tweak the settings of the camera to best suit your shooting scenario so you don’t have to. It finds the most prominent subject and focuses in on it, often blurring the rest of the background and/or foreground. It can lower the shutter speed to take in more light when you’re in a dimly lit room. It adjusts your white balance to accommodate for different shades and color tones. But ultimately, auto settings can only so much, and to take full control over your photos it’s helpful to switch to manual mode, where you tweak these settings.
Google’s own camera app, the one that comes pre-installed on most devices running stock Android, offers next to zero manual controls whatsoever. In fact, the only option you’re offered is manual exposure, buried in the settings menu. Apple’s iOS camera app is a similar story; the only thing you’re really able to change is the focus of a photo. Most other OEMs offer a greater range of controls, typically allowing for tweaks like exposure, white balance, ISO, and manual focus. Microsoft offers one of our favorite solutions in Lumia Camera, the first viewfinder app to extend all manual controls into rounded sliders for fantastic ease of use. We were also recently wowed by LG’s camera interface on the G4. On top of the aforementioned options, the G4 also utilizes a histogram and an artificial horizon. As Michael Fisher said in his full review of the G4: “nearly any effect you can dream up, you can probably execute.”
So why aren’t we seeing manual camera controls standard in every new phone? Why are Google and Apple still including camera apps so oversimplified that you have no choice but to download a third-party app if you need a more controlled experience? There’s absolutely something to be said about simplicity and ease of use, but can’t manual controls at least be tucked into the settings as an optional mode? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below, and happy shooting.Download raw source
Received: from DNCDAG1.dnc.org ([fe80::f85f:3b98:e405:6ebe]) by DNCHUBCAS1.dnc.org ([fe80::ac16:e03c:a689:8203%11]) with mapi id 14.03.0224.002; Thu, 19 May 2016 14:55:24 -0400 From: Alan Reed <ReedA@dnc.org> To: Jacquelyn Lopez <JacquelynLopez@perkinscoie.com>, "Comer, Scott" <ComerS@dnc.org>, Brad Marshall <MARSHALL@dnc.org> Subject: RE: SEC letters and donations Thread-Topic: SEC letters and donations Thread-Index: AdGxPGVh9gAve+qYR/e+lINJttavuQAw2y9w Date: Thu, 19 May 2016 11:55:23 -0700 Message-ID: <3FE7D968862A5C49876133C6FF5ECA8FB24B0B79@dncdag1.dnc.org> References: <2BF03B9E6FAD604E9A562F49648529CF12C0F137@dc2sppmail24a> In-Reply-To: <2BF03B9E6FAD604E9A562F49648529CF12C0F137@dc2sppmail24a> Accept-Language: en-US Content-Language: en-US X-MS-Exchange-Organization-AuthAs: Internal X-MS-Exchange-Organization-AuthMechanism: 04 X-MS-Exchange-Organization-AuthSource: DNCHUBCAS1.dnc.org X-MS-Has-Attach: X-MS-Exchange-Organization-SCL: -1 X-MS-TNEF-Correlator: Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="_000_3FE7D968862A5C49876133C6FF5ECA8FB24B0B79dncdag1dncorg_" MIME-Version: 1.0 --_000_3FE7D968862A5C49876133C6FF5ECA8FB24B0B79dncdag1dncorg_ Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" We've been doing the Operating Acct process set up by Graham for a while now but happy to do a call. Perhaps Tuesday around 4 pm? From: Lopez, Jacquelyn K. (Perkins Coie) [mailto:JacquelynLopez@perkinscoie.com] Sent: Wednesday, May 18, 2016 3:35 PM To: Alan Reed; Comer, Scott; Brad Marshall Subject: SEC letters and donations Hi all, Can we set up a time for a very brief call to go over our process for handling donations from donors who have given us pay to play letters? Want to make sure we have a robust process in place to make sure that donations that come in from those donors, in any form, get put into the operating account. Let me know when would be a good time for you all. Thanks, Jackie Jacquelyn Lopez | Perkins Coie LLP ASSOCIATE* 700 Thirteenth Street, N.W. Suite 600 Washington, DC 20005-3960 D. +1.202.654.6371 F. +1.202.654.9949 E. JacquelynLopez@perkinscoie.com<mailto:%20JacquelynLopez@perkinscoie.com> *Admitted in State of Florida; Admission to DC Bar pending. ________________________________ NOTICE: This communication may contain privileged or other confidential information. If you have received it in error, please advise the sender by reply email and immediately delete the message and any attachments without copying or disclosing the contents. Thank you. --_000_3FE7D968862A5C49876133C6FF5ECA8FB24B0B79dncdag1dncorg_ Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii" <html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2004/12/omml" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=us-ascii"> <meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 14 (filtered medium)"> <!--[if!mso]><style>v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}.shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} </style><![endif]--><style><!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:"Cambria Math"; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;} @font-face {font-family:Calibri; panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;} @font-face {font-family:Tahoma; panose-1:2 11 6 4 3 5 4 4 2 4;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";} a:link, span.MsoHyperlink {mso-style-priority:99; color:blue; text-decoration:underline;} a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed {mso-style-priority:99; color:purple; text-decoration:underline;} span.EmailStyle17 {mso-style-type:personal; font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; color:windowtext; font-weight:normal; font-style:normal;} span.EmailStyle18 {mso-style-type:personal-reply; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; color:#1F497D;}.MsoChpDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; font-size:10.0pt;} @page WordSection1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;} div.WordSection1 {page:WordSection1;} --></style><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:shapedefaults v:ext="edit" spidmax="1026" /> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:shapelayout v:ext="edit"> <o:idmap v:ext="edit" data="1" /> </o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--> </head> <body lang="EN-US" link="blue" vlink="purple"> <div class="WordSection1"> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#1F497D">We’ve been doing the Operating Acct process set up by Graham for a while now but happy to do a call. Perhaps Tuesday around 4 pm?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <div> <div style="border:none;border-top:solid #B5C4DF 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in"> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"">From:</span></b><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif""> Lopez, Jacquelyn K. (Perkins Coie) [mailto:JacquelynLopez@perkinscoie.com] <br> <b>Sent:</b> Wednesday, May 18, 2016 3:35 PM<br> <b>To:</b> Alan Reed; Comer, Scott; Brad Marshall<br> <b>Subject:</b> SEC letters and donations <o:p></o:p></span></p> </div> </div> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Hi all, <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Can we set up a time for a very brief call to go over our process for handling donations from donors who have given us pay to play letters? Want to make sure we have a robust process in place to make sure that donations that come in from those donors, in any form, get put into the operating account. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Let me know when would be a good time for you all.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Thanks,<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Jackie <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black">Jacquelyn Lopez</span></b><b><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#75787B"> | </span></b><b><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#D6001C">Perkins Coie LLP<o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#75787B">ASSOCIATE*<o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:7.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#75787B">700 Thirteenth Street, N.W. Suite 600<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:7.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#75787B">Washington, DC 20005-3960<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:7.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#75787B">D. +1.202.654.6371<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:7.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#75787B">F. +1.202.654.9949<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:7.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#75787B">E. <a href="mailto:%20JacquelynLopez@perkinscoie.com">JacquelynLopez@perkinscoie.com</a><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:7.5pt;color:#A6A6A6">*Admitted in State of Florida; Admission to DC Bar pending. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0 |
claiming President Barack Obama is not eligible to occupy the White House because he is not a natural born citizen was thrown out by a state appellate court on Monday.
The leading plaintiff of the lawsuit, which was filed shortly after the 2008 election, was Alan Keyes.
Keyes, who lost to Obama in the 2004 Senate race in Illinois and was the American Independent Party candidate for president in 2008, claims there is “persuasive evidence” that Obama was born in Kenya in 1961. At the time, Kenya was a British protectorate, making Obama a British citizen automatically, based on his father’s citizenship.
The other plaintiffs in the case were Wiley S. Drake Sr., a Southern Baptist minister, and Markham Robinson, a software firm owner.
The plaintiffs claimed that the government of California “has the duty to ensure that all candidates on a California ballot meet the eligibility requirements to hold office.”
The Third District Court of Appeal ruled that the California secretary of state, who oversees elections, and the state’s Electoral College members are not legally responsible for certifying that candidates meet constitutional qualifications to hold office.
That responsibility rests with Congress, according to the 12th Amendment, which provides the procedure by which the President and Vice President are elected.
“Any investigation of eligibility is best left to each party, which presumably will conduct the appropriate background check or risk that its nominee’s election will be derailed by an objection in Congress, which is authorized to entertain and resolve the validity of objections following the submission of the electoral votes,” Presiding Justice Arthur G. Scotland wrote in his decision.
“[T]he presidential nominating process is not subject to each of the 50 states’ election officials independently deciding whether a presidential nominee is qualified, as this could lead to chaotic results,” Scotland continues. “Were the courts of 50 states at liberty to issue injunctions restricting certification of duly-elected presidential electors, the result could be conflicting rulings and delayed transition of power in derogation of statutory and constitutional deadlines.”
The court ordered the plaintiffs to pay all court fees of the defendants.
Last year, a district court judge dismissed a similar lawsuit filed by Orly Taitz.
“Even should the Court permit the issuance of a letter rogatory to Kenya, the Court would still engage in a comparative exercise in which the records of America, which has historically maintained some of the most credible recordkeeping practices in the world, would be contrasted with the credibility of the records obtained from Kenya,” wrote the judge in his decision.
Taitz was fined $20,000 for “wasting judicial resources” with her “frivolous” lawsuits.U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest has issued a preliminary injunction against the clause in the National Defense Authorization Act that gave the administration the power to arrest people and hold them indefinitely, without a trial, if they were believed to support terrorism. She dismissed the government's arguments in support of the clause (NDAA §1021), which were just a rephrasing of Obama's bullshit, georgebushian signing statement, which consisted of "Nothing to see here" and "I'm a good guy, don't worry about it."
"This court is acutely aware that preliminarily enjoining an act of Congress must be done with great caution," she wrote. "However, it is the responsibility of our judicial system to protect the public from acts of Congress which infringe upon constitutional rights. As set forth above, this court has found that plaintiffs have shown a likelihood of success on the merits regarding their constitutional claim and it therefore has a responsibility to insure that the public's constitutional rights are protected."
In a phone conference, the plaintiffs' attorneys Bruce Afran and Carl Mayer hailed what they called a "complete victory." "America is more free today than it was yesterday due to the courageous and righteous and very sound ruling by Judge Forrest," Mayer said. "I think this is a hugely significant development... I think it's also a testament to the courage of the plaintiffs here."
One of those plaintiffs, O'Brien, was also jubilant in a separate interview.
"I am extremely happy right now, and what I'm most happy about it is that this ruling has given me trust," O'Brien said, "Trust is the foundation of just and stable governments, and this ruling gives me hope that we can restore trust in the foundations of government."As auto makers and tech giants rush to develop autonomous vehicles 9984 3.15% ▲ is placing a sizable bet on a startup offering the navigation needed to help these cars find their way.
The Japanese investor, which has stakes in many ride-hailing services, is leading a $164 million investment in Mapbox Inc., a startup that provides mapping and location-search technology to a variety of companies including Snap and General Electric
The money comes from SoftBank’s nearly $100 billion tech-focused Vision Fund as well as several venture-capital firms including Foundry Group, DFJ Growth, DBL Partners and Thrive Capital. Mapbox said it would expand its efforts into autonomous cars and augmented and virtual reality and will accelerate international expansion, including in China.
‘ Every time people touch us and use us, the map gets smarter ’ —Eric Gundersen.
Mapbox says it provides mapping technology to more than 900,000 developers, which in turn provide the aggregate data that power the company’s maps in real-time. The company collects data on more than 200 million miles of roads and terrain a day, while keeping users anonymous.
“Every time people touch us and use us, the map gets smarter,” Mapbox Chief Executive Eric Gundersen said. “We have more connected sensors on the road today, using Mapbox, than the entire auto industry will have by the end of 2020.”
Mr. Gundersen founded Mapbox in 2010 after trying to create layered maps for nonprofits and government agencies to help track malaria outbreaks in Zambia and support elections in Pakistan. There has since been an explosion of interest in digital maps, especially among companies trying to develop self-driving vehicles that rely on high-quality maps to navigate the world.
Inc.’s Google, whose mapping data powers a number of companies’ apps. Alphabet’s self-driving car unit, Waymo, emerged out of Google’s efforts to create detailed maps of the world, giving it a head start in autonomous-vehicle development. Mapbox is pitching itself as an alternative to Alphabet Google, whose mapping data powers a number of companies’ apps. Alphabet’s self-driving car unit, Waymo, emerged out of Google’s efforts to create detailed maps of the world, giving it a head start in autonomous-vehicle development.
Mr. Gundersen said Mapbox doesn’t collect any user data from developers for selling ads. “I want road topology—latitude, longitude, time stamp, elevation—this is the magic,” he said.
SoftBank and its Vision Fund have used their cash hoards to invest in businesses it thinks will benefit from advancements in artificial intelligence. It has been in talks about investing billions of dollars in Uber Technologies Inc., which is working to develop driverless vehicles that could operate without costly humans behind the wheel.
SoftBank also is a big investor in Asia’s three largest ride-hailing companies: GrabTaxi Holdings Pte. in Singapore, Ola in India and Didi Chuxing Technology Co. in China.
“Location data is central and mission critical to the development of the world’s most exciting technologies, from autonomous transportation to robotics through to AR and VR,” Rajeev Misra, CEO of SoftBank Investment Advisors, said in a statement.A week ago, as part of Batman Month, we made this little video looking at a few highlights from our many, many Dark Knight action figures. We had fun putting it together, you seemed to have fun watching it, and a few people over here had FAR too much fun playing with all of the action figures. However, the title of the video was definitely a little misleading. We didn't have time to show you 75 different Batman figures. Not as a video. But as an image...well, that's a different story.
Check out the full 75 action figures below. So how many do you have?
Click to view full-sized.
Click to view full-sized
Unless you have the eyes of Superman, you're obviously going to want to click the list to view it full-sized. But there you have it! 75 Batman action figures. And we're just getting started...Following legal action against the organization responsible for Sweden’s top level.SE domain, in May a Swedish court ordered two Pirate Bay domains to be seized by the state. However, in a blow to the prosecutor the court stopped short of a finding the domain registry liable. The case will now go to the Court of Appeal.
In 2013, famous anti-piracy prosecutor Fredrik Ingblad filed a motion targeting ThePirateBay.se (the site’s main domain) and PirateBay.se (a lesser used alternative).
Rather than take on the site itself, Ingblad filed a complaint against Punkt SE (IIS), the organization responsible for Sweden’s top level.SE domain.
Ingbland argued that since The Pirate Bay is an illegal operation, the site’s domains are tools used to infringe copyright. The prosecutor said that as the supplier and controller of those domains, IIS should be held liable for the copyright infringements associated with them.
Not surprisingly, IIS held the position that a registry should not be held liable for infringement and that any decision on the fate of a domain should be decided by the courts. As such, IIS flat-out refused to suspend Pirate Bay’s domains.
The case was finally heard this April and in May the Stockholm District Court ruled that The Pirate Bay should forfeit its Sweden-based domains, ThePirateBay.se and PirateBay.se. However, when considering his long-term aspirations beyond the Pirate Bay, the victory for the prosecutor lacked suitable punch.
All along, IIS said it understood the nature of The Pirate Bay and was prepared to take action against the site’s domains, if ordered to do so by a court. It’s a position taken by many organizations and companies, ISPs in particular, when asked to take anti-piracy actions in the absence of legal precedent.
Due to its refusal to terminate the Pirate Bay’s domains, the Stockholm Court found that IIS did indeed contribute to the copyright infringements of the site. However, as now explained by IIS counsel Elisabeth Ekstrand, it also noted the special circumstances of the case.
“[Unlike] an ISP that provides a service for financial gain, IIS has acted from a different point of view,” Ekstrand says.
“IIS has publicly announced and motivated its approach to the prosecutor’s motion, that is to say that we have no obligation to act but rather an obligation not to act without a direct order (for example, from a law enforcement agency).
“The statement is based on the view that the assignment of managing an important function in society does not include judging over whether an individual case can be considered illegal or not.”
Essentially, IIS believes that it wasn’t its responsibility to decide whether a domain should or should not be closed down and that requesting an official ruling from the court was the proper way of going about things. Ultimately the court agreed that the position taken by IIS was both legitimate and justified.
This meant that although The Pirate Bay’s domains were ordered to be seized, the case against IIS was rejected, with the District Court dismissing the prosecution’s case and awarding the registry close to $40,000 (SEK 332,000) in costs.
It’s now clear that the prosecution is unhappy with the outcome and will take the case to trial at the Court of Appeal. TorrentFreak has contacted Fredrik Ingblad in an effort to find out his precise grounds for appeal and will update this article when those arrive.
In the meantime, however, it seems likely that the prospect of heading to court each and every time the government wants to seize a ‘pirate’ domain is proving too much of a headache.
As it stands today, IIS is considered to be acting reasonably when it refuses to suspend a domain without an explicit instruction from a court or the police, for example. And having gone down that road with The Pirate Bay once before (and being quite vocal while doing so), all the signs point to the registry applying similar standards in future.
“A decision in the Court of Appeals trumps a decision in the District Court, which can mean that we, or the prosecution depending on who ‘wins’, will get a stronger support for their way of looking at it,” Ekstrand concludes.
No date has yet been set for the trial.TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) - A civil rights advisory panel says a Kansas law requiring people to show photo ID at the polls and provide proof-of-citizenship documents to register to vote may discriminate against minorities.
It also urges the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division to investigate whether the Kansas law violates federal voting laws.
The Kansas City Star first reported on the draft report from the Kansas Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission of Civil Rights.
The Safe and Fair Elections Act passed in 2011 has been championed by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach as a way to prevent voter fraud.
Kobach calls concerns that the state law was written and implemented with discriminatory intent an outrageous accusation.
A Democratic lawmaker introduced a bill on Monday to repeal it based on the report.Australian football players have been banned from reading blogs as reading blogs causes depression, according to the Australian Football League Players Association (AFLPA).
The AFLPA contends that blogs don’t provide any decent feedback, and are racist, carry sexual overtones, are a form of bullying and only provide titillation.
The AFLPA is also calling on people to boycott fan sites due to the criticism of players dished out.
Pippa Grange, AFLPA:
“I wouldn’t encourage any players to use them. I think it’s for bloggers, and I think it’s mostly for titillation rather any decent feedback…I wouldn’t encourage any players to use them. I think it’s for bloggers, and I think it’s mostly for titillation rather any decent feedback,” There’s no restriction of what people are able to do with the internet…blogging on websites about players is a form of bullying, it’s public bullying of people in celebrity positions.
And even worse is the huge plague of fake footballers:
More serious, she said, were players’ identities being taken by bloggers. “The biggest thing I’ve encountered in my role where it’s been a problem is where people take the identity of the player and claim to be making comments on behalf of the player,” she said. “They get obviously quite upset about that.”
Lets break down what the AFLPA is saying here: fans shouldn’t express a negative opinion about a player, this should only be the role of the mainstream media. People should boycott fan sites and definitely never pretend to be a footballer.
It’s like 2002 called and they want their retarded child back.
The notion that all blogs are bad on the basis that some are is similar to someone saying all footballers are bad because some take drugs, beat up women and regularly get drunk. Blogs have long since moved on from personal playthings and are even the basis for multi-million dollar businesses. Would Grange call for a boycott of the mainstream media because they criticize a player?
Calling for a boycott of fan sites is even stranger again; fandom encourages participation in the sport. In calling for a boycott of fan sites Grange is calling for a boycott of fandom itself. Do football clubs want less members, less people through the gate on the weekend, and less people watching the game on TV?
When did criticism of a football player become bullying? Does Grange expect the public to only think positive thoughts about players and never express a negative thought? The celebrity angle is interesting as well; Grange argues that as celebrities they should be left alone, but doesn’t the very exposure lead to negative as well as positive coverage? If they don’t want the coverage, get out of the game.
A sad attempt at censorship from people who should know better.
(via The HeraldSun)I love Adult Swim’s Rick and Morty so, for Halloween this year, I created my own version of Rick Sanchez’ Portal Gun–including a 3d-printed enclosure, printed circuit board, negative energy density tube/crystal thingy, wave file player and laser.
Here, I’ll go over the design and construction, as well as a few lessons learned along the way.
First off, to get an idea of what it looks like and how it works, check out this spoof advert/demo of the project:
Portal Gun architecture and function
In the video, you can see the essential elements of construction and function. In short, the device has two major modes: portal opening and universe selection.
A single control button is used that detects short vs long presses and reacts accordingly. The entire thing is run as a finite state machine. The original transition graph was:
but I added a few things and simplified some others as Halloween got closer! In short, there are only three signals used throughout the system: the short/long button presses and a “schedule done” emitted by one of the async processes (light show or wave file play, doesn’t really matter which, I chose to piggy back on the lighting routine end).
The hardware function is split into 5 independent modules:
LCD: support for 2 different types of display
Wave file player: support for 8kHz stereo or mono files
“Tube” lighting: 3 oscillating green and one “alert” red
“Headlight” lighting: 2 green and one line laser
Control Input: a pretty nice stainless steel MOM switch
all of which can run their own schedules/routines, and be told to sleep/wake by the hardware manager.
One of the options is to go into sleep mode, but the device will power down if inactive for a configurable delay (defaulting to one minute).
The portal gun is powered by a pair of AA batteries and everything runs straight off that voltage level, without regulation. In sleep mode, it consumes < 1 mA. In normal operation, power usage varies according to how the lighting is behaving while in idle mode (somewhere around 40-50 mA draw) and while it’s firing (all lights on/flashing, laser on, sound playing) that shoots up momentarily to about 170 mA.
Construction
Construction of the portal gun involved designing a circuit and then building a case to hold it and support all the external components, as well as hold the battery.
This was my first CAD design since some minor initial testing, a few months back. Thankfully, FreeCAD is a powerful open-source and free program that allowed me to quickly come up with this:
The five pieces lock together precisely and a notch in the handle/battery holder keeps the body and handle together nicely when everything is bolted together. From there, it was a question of turning the design from idea to reality. I looked into a few options here, but wanted something that would be quick and, ideally, local. For that 3dHubs to the rescue!
3D Hubs allows you to find locals that offer 3d prints. I don’t know if it’s always as smooth and all-around awesome, but I wound up working with JF Payeur’s hub and was more than satisfied with the result.
Once I had the case on hand and knew the PCB would actually fit in nicely, I populated the circuit board.
The circuit is relatively straight-forward, basically just an MCU surrounded by a bunch of mosfets to drive the lighting and speaker, plus the support for two types of LCDs and a sprinkling of protection diodes and bypass caps. I also have a few extra components laid out, there, that I didn’t have time (or need) to use right away (e.g. like external flash memory… I used an xmega128, so had tons of room for my wave files right in microcontroller).
The tube itself was made using plastic resin and LEDs poured into a suitable container, along with extra plastic for effect. Watch the video above to see the neat result with the LEDs pulsing.
Not too bad for a dollorama spice bottle :)
Construction itself involved creating a bunch of headers to tie everything to the mainboard. Not my favorite part, but at least it kept things more flexible than soldering directly to the PCB.
Finally: stuff it all into the box,
and take it out for a spin
Post-Mortem
Most of the lessons learned during this project involve the case design. The most important of these are:
Leave more tolerance between parts that fit together;
Don’t count on small plastic extrusions to hold anything–they just snap off (e.g. my PCB sitting nicely on the pegs in the picture further up… yeah, that didn’t last);
Make the enclosure bigger than you think you’ll need–a few cubic cm of plastic can make your life a lot easier (e.g. I had to swap out the speaker for a larger one and that caused me trouble);
Don’t be too liberal with wiring: too much is as bad as too little, when you’re trying to stuff everything into a box;
Buy more headers, especially if you design such that parts overlap (e.g. the LCD’s constrast trimmer pot is… beneath it! Not such a big deal when the LCD is removable, but I ran out of 1.27mm headers and yeah, not so much fun);
Make the damn batteries easily accessible!
So, a few good lessons learned, and at least as much fun making the portal gun as I had using it on Halloween (and every day since ;-) ).It’s a cliché, but change has always been the only constant. In recent times, the pace of change has accelerated greatly, and we all need to find ways to deal creatively with this fact of modern life. Leaders, in particular, need to face and manage change in a constructive way, but everyone who wants to be successful – in career, in relationships, in life – must learn how to see and manage change the way that successful ‘change leaders’ do. Such leaders are adaptable and creative in managing change in three key ways:
1. People who respond well to change will have a high ‘ambiguity threshold.’
Change is inherently ambiguous, and those who deal creatively with change will have a high tolerance for uncertainty and ‘shades of grey.’
2. Skillful managers of change will have a constructive ‘internal monologue.’
They will see themselves as inherently powerful and having the ability to control elements of the situation in which they find themselves. Some circumstances cannot be changed, but the way we respond to them is always a choice, and we always have a sphere of influence, however small. By focusing on this sphere of influence, and not expending energy bemoaning the area outside it, the circle will start to expand and give us progressively more control. Solutions to problems always exist, and the ‘internal monologue’ should reflect the desire to find them and the certainty that they can be successfully implemented.
3. Those who deal well with change will have a good reservoir of emotional, physical and mental energy.
Leaders draw on this reservoir when things get tough.
Managing Change
The above ways of dealing with change tend to be innate, with some people having a greater capacity for one or more of them than others. However, they can be learned, and the following are seven tips for improving your skills in managing change.
1. Spend time reflecting on your own core values and your mission in life.
A sense of purpose is essential to success and effectiveness, and those without a clear idea of what they are doing and why they are doing it will not have the foundation to keep going in the face of change.
2. Be persistent.
Success is usually more to do with tenacity that genius. Persistence is only possible when you have clarified your values and when you are able to build on the bedrock of purpose. Successful people keep going in the face of change, finding new and creative ways to achieve a positive outcome.
3. Be flexible and creative.
Persistence does not mean pushing through by force. If you are unable to achieve success one way, try another, and then another. Keep looking for more creative solutions and innovative responses to problems.
4. Think outside the box.
Read widely, and don’t confine yourself to your own area of ‘expertise.’ Try to see links between apparently separate and diverse elements in your life and experience.
5. Accept uncertainty and be optimistic.
Life is inherently uncertain, so don’t waste your energy trying to predict the future. Of all the possible outcomes, focus on the most positive one. This is not to be a ‘Pollyanna,’ but to accept that if you respond well and work to the best of your ability, a good outcome is as likely as any other. Don’t waste your energy being negative.
6. Keep fit and healthy.
Eat well, get enough sleep, exercise regularly. Meditation can help, too. This will keep up your energy levels and allow you to keep going in tough times. Not taking care of yourself physically, mentally and spiritually is foolish and short sighted.
7. See the big picture.
Change is inevitable, but if you take a bird’s-eye-view of the landscape, the change won’t be so disorientating and you will keep perspective at all times.Calgary police are looking for a woman and three teenagers who face human trafficking charges after a woman reported being held against her will and forced to have sex with strangers for five days in a southwest apartment.
The victim escaped from the apartment and ran into a store in the 900 block of Fifth Avenue S.W. last Wednesday. There, she told staff she'd been forcibly confined across the street for five days and repeatedly sexually assaulted, according to a Calgary Police Service release.
Police believe the victim met one of the suspects in the lobby of the apartment building, where she was taken upstairs and assaulted.
It's alleged that over the course of the next five days, the suspects pimped out the victim to more than 10 men, forcing her to "perform sexual acts."
The victim is "doing very well" and has been offered services through the police force, according to Det. Scott Mizibrocky with the sex crimes unit.
"The store's employees were very helpful to the victim," said Mizibrocky.
Two underage suspects were arrested immediately but released without being charged pending further investigation. Investigators then identified two more suspects — one adult and one minor. All four are now being sought in the human trafficking investigation led by the sex crimes unit.
Warrants have been issued for Jessica Nyome Louise Vinje, 29, and three teenagers — one female and two males, none of whom who can be identified in order to comply with the Youth Criminal Justice Act.
Vinje faces charges of human trafficking, sexual assault, unlawful confinement, voyeurism and assault.
She is described at five foot four and 150 pounds, with a medium build, red and purple hair and brown eyes.
Vinje has distinctive tattoos including "MOB" on her left hand, "STACY" on her left shoulder and "AR DL" with a star on her chest.
The teens also face charges of human trafficking, sexual assault, unlawful confinement and voyeurism, among others.
Police can't release the teens' identities which "definitely adds to the degree of difficulty," according to Mizibrocky, but he says his unit is used to those types of hurdles.
Police are asking anyone with information to contact them.SYLACAUGA, Ala. (AP) — Prayers said and the closing hymn sung, tea-drinking churchgoers fill Marble City Grill for Sunday lunch. But hard on their heels comes the afternoon crowd: craft beer-drinking, NFL-watching football fans.
Such a scene would have been impossible just months ago because Sunday alcohol sales were long illegal in Sylacauga, hometown of both the actor who played TV's Gomer Pyle and the white marble used to construct the U.S. Supreme Court building. While the central Alabama city of 12,700 has only one hospital, four public schools and 21 red lights, the chamber of commerce directory lists 78 churches.
Yet few were surprised when residents voted overwhelmingly in September to legalize Sunday alcohol sales. Churches lacked either the heart or influence to stop it.
That shift is part of a broad pattern across the South: Churches are losing their grip on a region where they could long set community standards with a pulpit-pounding sermon or, more subtly, a sideward glance toward someone walking into a liquor store.
In metro Atlanta, youth sports teams regularly practice and play games on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights — times that were strictly off-limits a generation ago because they conflicted with church worship services. In Mississippi, dozens of businesses display anti-discrimination stickers distributed by a gay rights group rather than worry about a church-based backlash.
"It doesn't matter who wants to buy a house," said real estate agent Diana Britt, who drives around Jackson, Mississippi, in a work vehicle decorated with one of the stickers. "If they want to buy a house, I'll sell them a house."
Church-based crusaders against gambling also are on a losing streak as all but two Southern states, Alabama and Mississippi, have lotteries. And, perhaps most tellingly, a recent survey by the Pew Research Center showed 19 percent of Southerners don't identify with any organized religion. That's fewer "nones" than in other regions, but the number is up 6 percentage points in the South since 2007.
The South is still the Bible Belt, and that same Pew survey found that church affiliation remains stronger in the states of the old Confederacy than anywhere else in the United States. Seventy-six percent of Southerners call themselves Christians, and political advertisements often show candidates in or near church. Religious conservatives remain a powerful force in many Southern statehouses.
Still, the same South that often holds itself apart from the rest of the country is becoming more like other U.S. regions when it comes to organized religion, said Jessica Martinez, a senior researcher in religion and public life at Pew.
And while race divides many things in the South, the trend is evident among blacks, whites and Hispanic adults, she said.
"We've seen this sort of broader shift throughout the country as a whole with fewer people identifying as being part of the religious base," she said. "In the South you see a pattern very similar to what we are seeing in other regions."
Thomas Fuller, a religion professor at Baptist-affiliated Samford University near Birmingham, said there's no single reason churches are losing the cultural wallop they once packed. Migration into the region and the Internet are but two factors chipping away at a society that seemed much more isolated just a generation ago, he said.
"The South is not nearly as homogeneous, is far more diverse culturally now than it's ever been," said Fuller. "In a way you're a little hard-pressed now to talk about Southern culture in a singular fashion. It's not nearly as one-dimensional anymore or easy to describe."
This photo taken Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2015, shows owner Dee Walker talking to a customer at The Fermenter's Market at The Rex, a craft beer and wine shop now open on Sunday after voters in Sylacauga, Ala., decided to legalize alcohol sales. (AP Photo)
In Sylacauga, 45 miles southeast of Birmingham, Mayor Doug Murphree said the push for Sunday alcohol sales was linked to attracting new businesses.
"We're not really trying to promote drinking in Sylacauga. But if you look at a big chain restaurant like Ruby Tuesday or O'Charley's, they're open on Sunday and a big part of their business is alcohol," said the mayor.
Murphree, who attends a Baptist church, said he met with members of the local ministerial association before the citywide vote to explain the city's economic situation and the need for Sunday alcohol sales. Pastors listened, and by and large they didn't preach against it.
"They said they were not going to try to block us," he said.
So now, Marble City Grill can sell alcohol after 1 p.m. on Sunday just two blocks up North Broadway Avenue from the white-columned First Baptist Church of Sylacauga.
"Things have changed," said Julie Smith, who owns the restaurant with her husband. "We've been open 10 years and at first we had people who wouldn't come because we sold alcohol. They come now."
Around corner from the restaurant, Dee Walker said he's attracting a larger crowd every Sunday afternoon at his craft beer and wine shop, The Fermenter's Market at The Rex, named for the old hotel in which it is located.
Walker grew up in neighboring Clay County, the last dry county in Alabama, and recalls the petition drives and fire-and-brimstone sermons anytime someone mentioned legalizing alcohol sales. Southern churches no longer have that kind of influence in many places, Walker said.
"You've got some diminishing populations when it comes to the religious opposition," said Walker, standing behind a bar with 36 taps for craft beer. Walker said his customers include church deacons and elders; a Baptist layman quoted Scripture while drinking a hoppy brown ale on a recent weekday afternoon.
Joe Godfrey, a Southern Baptist minister and head of a group that calls itself "Alabama's Moral Compass," recalls a time when churches were the center of Southern society.
"I can remember when schools looking to schedule an event would call the local churches to see if they had anything... that might conflict with the school's tentative plans. If so, the school would find a different date to hold their event. That is no longer true," said Godfrey, executive director of Alabama Citizens Action Program.
"Today, churches try to find a time to schedule their events when ball teams, schools and civic clubs are not already planning something else," said Godfrey. "Instead of being the 'hub' of the community, churches today are simply one'spoke' in the wheel of people's lives."
Fuller, the religion professor, said the loss of influence isn't all bad for Southern churches. The idea of churches controlling Southern society is giving way to individuals searching for a deeper faith, he said.
"The fact that you didn't drink, cuss or chew or go with girls who do, didn't dance, didn't do this or that, was far more a litmus test of one's faith and devotion to Christ in a previous day and in many instances in a way that, I think, produced a superficial sort of religion in many respects," he said. "I think there has been some growth and development in outlook."
Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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PhotosStar Ocean: Till the End of Time Director’s Cut Announced As An HD Title For PlayStation 4
By Sato. February 22, 2017. 4:45am
During a special Star Ocean: Anamnesis live stream, Square Enix announced that Star Ocean: Till the End of Time Director’s Cut will release on PlayStation 4 in full-HD
Hit up the 1:13:02 mark of the video for a first look that gives us a comparison of the up-rendered HD version on PS4 and the original PS2 version. We get another look at some in-game footage at the 1:15:20 mark as well. The game will be digital-only for PlayStation 4 and will retain everything from the original version of the game.
The Director’s Cut title has been enhanced through HD emulator technology from Sony Interactive Entertainment, and its contents will be the same as you remember from the PS2 RPG. With the up-rendering from the PS2 emulator, they were able to optimize jaggy edge reduction and improve on its lighting to provide more clear visuals. However, do keep in mind that the improvements will mostly be seen for the gameplay parts, while cut scenes will still be shown in the native resolution from the original PS2 version.
The game will feature trophy support, the share function, remote play, and more as features for the PlayStation 4.
Here are some screenshots:
Game screen
Field screen
Battle scene
Star Ocean: Till the End of Time Director’s Cut is in development for PlayStation 4. A release date for it will be announced later.When he wasn't jitterbugging in the gym, Chub was drilling with the Mattoon High School ROTC. That small taste of Army life helped him figure out a way to succeed in the eyes of his father, the Big Man around Mattoon and the president of the local bank. Chub decided to go to the Citadel, one of the most exclusive and demanding military colleges in the country. Peggy understood the decision, but she also knew something about Chub that had her worried.
"Arland never called a lot of attention to himself," says Peggy Fuesting, his girlfriend from high school in Mattoon, Illinois. "But he liked to have a good time. If you've ever seen Happy Days, that's exactly the way we were. We were all a group who went to high school together, went to the football games and the hops. After lunch, we'd play records and dance. We all knew who the good dancers were. Chub was certainly a good dancer."
"Danger" wasn't Arland Williams Jr.'s middle name. "Chub" was, and was he ever a Chub. Not that he was especially heavy; his Chubness was more about personality than pants size, about being a grinning, gosh-golly, aw-shucks kind of guy who wasn't even riled by everyone calling him Chub. His college roommate never heard his real name till the day they received their diplomas.
But just when it seemed the hero would forever be an unknown soldier, the D.C. coroner made a crucial discovery: Of the 74 bodies, only one had lungs filled with water. That man was the only person who made it out of the plane but not out of the river. He was Arland Williams Jr., a 46-year-old federal bank examiner whose life had been a monument to playing it safe — until the moment he lost it.
Millions of TV viewers had been riveted to the rescue as it was beamed live from the banks of the Potomac, but they couldn't see the hero from behind the wreckage. Not even the people he saved had a good look; all they saw was a hand wrapped around a rescue ring.
A riddle in the wreckage "He seemed sort of middle-aged and, uh, maybe balding?" That was all the chopper pilot could say about the mystery hero, which really wasn't much. Given that it was Washington, D.C., the description fit just about half the passengers on any flight.
" Virtue isn't respectable these days, and we've certainly seen enough hypocrisy among so-called moral leaders to question what they tell us to do," Babbie says. "But at some deeper level, we still instinctively idolize the kind of heroic behavior we claim is foreign to us, and keep acting on the heroic urges we claim we don't have."
Just the opposite, in fact: Babbie has found that most people doubt or deny they even have heroic tendencies. To demonstrate the point, he likes to read the Boy Scout Oath and Law out loud in class and watch his students squirm when he comes to the parts about being "trustworthy," "loyal," "helpful," and "friendly."
Babbie has a dream experiment he'd love to perform |
political education, whether of their membership or of the wider electorate.
Internationalisation and Asian engagement may have become buzzwords, but parties bring little substance to either of these aspirations. The need for institutional, constitutional and cultural innovation has never been greater.What do Germaine Greer, Dapper Laughs, sombreros and Nietzsche have in common? All have fallen foul of student censors. All have been deemed “unsafe” for students’ delicate eyes and ears by a new breed of ban-happy student leader who thinks controversial ideas should be crushed rather than contested.
The recent attempt by students at Cardiff University to erect a Greer-deflecting forcefield around their campus has drawn attention to the problem of student censorship. Greer was due to give a talk on women and power at Cardiff later this month.
But students have been petitioning for the grande dame of second-wave feminism to be no-platformed over her views on trans people (she thinks men who have sex-change surgery do not become women). Her views are “dangerous”, they say.
It’s now commonplace to hear students describe certain ways of thinking as a threat to their “mental safety”. Where once students might have raged and blasphemed against The Man, now they set up “safe spaces” where no offensive word may be uttered or saucy image displayed.
More than 30 students’ unions have banned Robin Thicke’s boastful sex song Blurred Lines on the basis that it makes female students feel unsafe. Others have banned lads’ mags because they’re “degrading” to women.
At the London School of Economics, student union bureaucrats disbanded the rugby club for a year after it handed out a flyer for a party that had the word “mingers” on it.
The rugby lads were re-educated in gender theory. They actually stood on street corners holding placards declaring they had become “Good Lads”. It was like something out of Mao’s China, when questioners of the Cultural Revolution were paraded in public with Maoists placards hanging round their necks.
"So insatiable is the student urge to ban anyone who goes remotely off-message that in 2012 even national treasure Tony Benn was very nearly no-platformed by the NUS"
The list of moral undesirables who must be hounded off campus grows by the week. Last year, perma-tanned laddish comic Dapper Laughs was banned from performing at Cardiff University (unlike Greer, his Cardiff censoring didn’t become a cause celebre).
The National Union of Students officially “no platforms” — a euphemism for “censors” — far-right organisations, certain Islamist groups, the feminist Julie Bindel (for something she wrote about trans people 10 years ago), and George Galloway, after he defended Julian Assange when he was accused of sexual assault.
So insatiable is the student urge to ban anyone who goes remotely off-message that in 2012 even national treasure Tony Benn was very nearly no-platformed by the NUS. His sin? He said “non-consensual sex” is “very different from rape”. He committed a speechcrime.
But in recent weeks, the crisis of free speech on campus has reached dizzying new heights. Police in Oxford confiscated 150 copies of a purposefully offensive student mag called No Offence after students complained about it. Students phoning the cops to demand they investigate an inflammatory publication? It’s behaviour better suited to the GDR than Oxford’s dreaming spires.
Last week, more than 300 academics from 72 institutions said they would boycott Israeli universities. Being pro-Israel at university is a risky business. The NUS no-platforms Zionists. Pro-Israel campus events are invaded and sometimes shut down by censorious keffiyeh-wearing radicals.
Student censorship frequently crosses the line from sinister to comical, however. In September, the student union at the University of East Anglia banned a Mexican restaurant from handing out sombreros, claiming it’s racist for white students to wear Latin American hats.
In 2014 Sheffield’s student union banned Eminem’s music because his lyrics are “homophobic”. Last year the student union at University College London banned a Nietzsche reading group, claiming it was encouraging students to dip into “fascist ideology”. Even philosophers aren’t safe from campus bans.
Disturbingly, both Bristol and Manchester’s student unions prevented students from selling or handing out the post-massacre memorial edition of Charlie Hebdo, claiming the mag contravened “safe space” rules. This is how dire things have got on campus: student leaders agree with two mass murderers that Charlie Hebdo is so offensive it must be obliterated, or at least hidden away.
"They seem unaware of the totalitarian twist to their elevation of safety over freedom."
Feminists, thinkers, songs, magazines, Israelis — nothing is safe from controversy-allergic student officials. Whenever they crush or hush things they deem offensive, they use the same justification: that it’s important to protect students’ self-esteem and “mental safety”.
I was prevented from speaking about abortion at Oxford last year, by a Facebook group of 300 students who threatened to turn up to the debate with “instruments” to disrupt it.
They claimed that having a person “without a uterus” talk about abortion would make female students feel “mentally unsafe”. Many student unions have Safe Space zones where no controversial comment may be uttered. On American campuses, Safe Spaces come with colouring books and soothing music, to make students feel mothered and happy.
They seem unaware of the totalitarian twist to their elevation of safety over freedom. From old tyrants who waged war on dissent in the name of “public safety” to Stalin’s determination to make schools into “ideologically safe” zones, the instinct to keep people safe from certain ideas has a long, ugly history.
Traditionally, universities have excelled at rattling young people’s “mental safety”? That was, surely, the whole point of them: to shake up their minds, challenge their beliefs, educate, poke and provoke them into viewing the world anew. The new paternalistic focus on keeping students “safe” changes the whole nature of campus life. It turns the academe from a challenging sphere of ideas and debate into a kind of kindergarten for grown-ups.
Robust discussion, it seems, has fallen from favour. But in the words of Cardinal John Henry Newman, the great Catholic theoriser on university life: “The energy of the human intellect does from opposition grow.”Private equity firm Sycamore Partners is in advanced talks to acquire Staples following an auction for the US office supplies retailer, people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday, in a deal that could top $6 billion.
The acquisition would come a year after a US federal judge thwarted a merger between Staples and peer Office Depot on antitrust grounds.
It would represent a bet by Sycamore that Staples could more quickly shift its business model from serving consumers to catering to companies if it were to go private.
Sycamore is in the process of finalizing a debt financing package for its bid for Staples after it prevailed over another private equity firm, Cerberus Capital Management, three sources said.
An agreement could be announced as early as next week, though negotiations between Sycamore and Staples are continuing and there is still a possibility that deal discussions could fall apart, the sources added.
The sources asked not to be identified because the negotiations are confidential. Framingham, Massachusetts-based Staples and New York-based Sycamore declined to comment. Cerberus, which is also based in New York, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Staples, which made its name selling paper, pens and other supplies in retail stores, reported a smaller-than-expected fall in first-quarter comparable sales last month, while its profit met analyst estimates, helped by a growth in demand for facilities, breakroom supplies and technology solutions.
Staples has 1,255 stores in the United States and 304 in Canada. It has the largest market share of office supply stores in the United States at 48 percent, and its share has increased since 2011, according to Euromonitor.
Private-equity acquisitions of retailers have become increasingly rare, as the investment firms worry about increasing headwinds facing the industry and their portfolio companies struggle with the debt burden left behind from leveraged buyouts. Retail deals comprised the smallest share of mergers and acquisitions in the first quarter of the year, according to Thomson Reuters data.
A number of private equity-backed retailers, from Sports Authority to Payless ShoeSource, have filed for bankruptcy in the last two years.
Sycamore, however, specializes in retail investments and has been more bullish on the sector. Its previous investments include regional department store operator Belk Inc., discount general merchandise retailer Dollar Express and mall and web-based specialty retailer Hot Topic.SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- City councilor Jake Barrett chaired a public safety committee meeting Wednesday in hopes of learning more about money and vehicles that flow into the city police department from state and federal asset forfeiture programs.
Faced with a $1.3 million request from police to buy new vehicles, councilors sought information about the off-budget cash, cars or other assets that come to the police department after being seized from criminals.
“There is not a whole lot of information that is known,’’ Barrett said at the top of the meeting. An hour later, not much had changed.
Police Chief Frank Fowler repeatedly told the five councilors at the meeting he would not publicly divulge information about vehicles or equipment obtained through asset forfeiture programs.
Assets seized in connection with federal crimes are distributed to police agencies by the U.S. Department of Justice. Assets from state crimes are directed to the police by the Onondaga County district attorney’s office, Inspector John Kolis said.
The amount of money received each year is unpredictable, but it is typically in the range of about $400,000, Kolis said. The money is not accounted for in the city budget.
Fowler said his department reports back to federal and state officials on how the money is used, but he would not provide any details publicly to city officials. He offered to brief them confidentially. Equipment purchased with seized funds is used to fight crime, often in undercover operations, he said.
“Most of this stuff is used in a covert fashion,’’ Fowler said. “We don’t want the general public or the bad guys to know what we possess.’’
Further efforts to elicit details were rebuffed, bluntly.
City Auditor Martin Masterpole said city councilors, who authorize funding for police vehicles, should be able to find out information about other vehicles that police obtain with asset seizure funds.
“I have the utmost respect, chief. Please don’t take this as a negative.’’ Masterpole said.
“I am, already,’’ Fowler responded.
Barrett suggested that some of the asset seizure funds should go into the city’s general fund, since the city pays some expenses associated with seized assets. As an example, city mechanics would repair a flat tire on an asset-seizure vehicle, Barrett said.
“The collective good, we’re all promoting that. I’m just saying that there might be an opportunity for some small percentage of these funds to help to maintain the program,’’ Barrett said.
“Are we driving toward a specific goal here?’’ Fowler said.
“No,’’ Barrett said.
Fowler insisted that discussing details publicly -- even divulging the number of asset-seizure cars -- would put his officers at risk.
“I’m never going to talk about it in specific terms,’’ Fowler said. “If you want to take my word for it, you take my word for it. If you don’t want to take my word for it, then I guess you just simply won’t. But there are some good things that are taking place within our community with asset forfeiture (funds), and they will continue.’’
After nearly an hour of fruitless back and forth, Barrett ended the meeting.
“This was not meant to have conclusion,’’ Barrett said.
“We were successful in that regard,’’ Fowler said.
Contact Tim Knauss at tknauss@syracuse.com or 315-470-3023.I will be speaking about basic income in Turku, Finland, tomorrow Thursday August 25, at a seminar organized by the Finnish Pirate Party and Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) Finland.
My presentation will be in English. Here are the slides I will be using:
Basic Income 01 PP Turku.ppt
In my talk I will present a concrete proposal for a basic income system for Sweden, including a cost estimate and financing:
The basic income would be 8.333 SEK (~900 EUR) per month for anybody between 19 and 65 who lives in Sweden and has no other income. When you start earning money the basic income would be reduced, but never with 100%, so there is always an incentive to work if you can. The cost of this system would be covered in full by letting the basic income replace the current systems for social welfare, student aid and unemployment benefits, and removing the VAT discounts that certain industries enjoy. To make the proposal politically realistic, there would be no raise in income taxes, and no reduction of current sickness benefits.
A more detailed summary, and a pdf with the complete proposal, (both in Swedish) can be found here:
Sammanfattning: Ett konkret, genomräknat förslag till basinkomstThe Seattle Seahawks have waived running back Christine Michael, the team announced on Tuesday.
Michael started seven games this season, running 117 times for 469 yards (4.0 YPC). With Thomas Rawls having suffered a fibula injury in Week 2, Michael had a chance to resurrect his career but was never able to get going.
In Week 9, rookie C.J. Prosise played more snaps than Michael, and Sunday against the New England Patriots, Prosise got the start.
Michael popped up on the injury report last Friday with a hamstring injury and was listed as questionable. He dressed for the game but played only 11 snaps.
Asked about Michael's injury Monday, Pete Carroll said simply, "He's fine."
Christine Michael had seen his carries go down over the course of the past four weeks. Against New England last Sunday, he took part of only 11 snaps. AP Photo/Elaine Thompson
Michael was originally a second-round pick by the Seahawks in 2010. After two seasons in Seattle, the team traded him to the Dallas Cowboys. Michael was released by the Cowboys during last season and caught on with the Washington Redskins before returning to Seattle for the final three games.
He was a free agent in the offseason and ended up signing a one-year, $765,000 deal to return to Seattle.
During the summer, coaches and teammates raved about Michael making the most of his second chance. Offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell described Michael's new attitude as "an awakening." But he was unable to take full advantage of his opportunity.
Prosise had 24 touches for 153 yards last week and figures to play a big role going forward. The Seahawks are also expecting to get Rawls back in Week 11.
"With C.J., the versatility of all the things he seems to be able to do at this point, and knowing that there's a real style to Thomas that we're really looking forward to seeing, it could be a real nice matchup," Carroll said. "We'll see how that works."
The Seahawks have running back Alex Collins on their roster and added Troymaine Pope from the practice squad as well on Tuesday.
The team also waived nose tackle Sealver Siliga and signed defensive lineman John Jenkins, who was recently released by the New Orleans Saints. The Seahawks currently have one open spot on their 53-man roster.At Last, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6
Bye Xen, Hello KVM
April 21, 2010
By Sean Michael Kerner
Linux vendor Red Hat today released the first public beta of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 (RHEL 6), giving observers a look at what's to come in the next version of its flagship operating system platform.
The new release takes advantage of a long list of new Linux kernel improvements for performance and scalability while also providing new technologies for security, management, and virtualization.
"When you look at RHEL 6, there is no one single feature that is the killer feature in the release," Tim Burke, vice president of platform engineering at Red Hat (NYSE: RHT), told InternetNews.com. "It's truly a release where the whole is bigger than the sum of the parts. It's a large, coordinated effort aiming for improved operational efficiency."
RHEL 6 will be the first major version update to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux platform since the RHEL 5 release in 2007. Red Hat has since updated RHEL 5 with five point releases, most recently with the RHEL 5.5 release earlier this month.
One of the major innovations of the RHEL 5 release was the inclusion of the open source Xen virtualization hypervisor. A lot has changed over the last three years in the open source virtualization space, however, namely the rise of KVM as the preferred virtualization technologies for vendors like Red Hat and IBM. As a result, Xen is not being included in RHEL 6, though support for current RHEL 5 users will remain in place for years to come, Red Hat has said.
Burke explained that RHEL 6 also includes technology that will ensure that RHEL 5 virtual guests can run on RHEL 6, converting Xen virtualization images to KVM so that users will be able to migrate if they so choose.
While Red Hat has been backporting new Linux kernel features into its RHEL 5 point releases over the last three years, Burke noted that with RHEL 6, Red Hat is delivering even more new capabilities.
"The way we do kernel development for RHEL 5, compatibility and stability are paramount considerations," Burke said. "So as we look at new kernel features, if it will break compatibility, we can't include them in the release. This is one of the impetuses that causes us to move to a major release like RHEL 6, which is when we have new, major features, which are too big to include in the standard RHEL 5."In the previous two articles, an examination into the facet of Ashaucha and the facet of austerity and self-purification associated with Menstruation in the Hindu tradition was undertaken and it was shown how inspite of menstruating women entering a temporary period of Ashaucha (ritual impurity), the process itself is very beneficial and purificatory in nature. We further saw how, Hindu scriptures implore women to consider menstruation as a period of austerity and take full benefit of the purification process, which is available exclusively to women.
In this article, let us take up another facet of Hindu view of menstruation: as a period of rest and sacred celebration.
Menstruation as a period of rest
Menstruation as a period of “rest” is another notion that is widely prevalent throughout India. Menstruating women often face discomfort, mood swings, and abdominal cramps. It is estimated that three out of four girls and women experience menstrual pain of varying intensity and one out of ten experience such a severe pain that they are unable to carry out their usual daily activities. Though, this is not an India-specific estimate, it does give a general idea regarding prevalence of menstrual discomfort among girls and women irrespective of the geography. This discomfort and pain makes girls and women, across the world, prefer to take rest during menstruation and as a result, many have been found to take 1-2 days off from their schools and workplaces. Therefore, the notion of rest is widely prevalent among modern urban women. But, what is interesting is the fact that this notion of rest is not only well recognized in the Hindu scriptures, it is also a dominant notion attached to traditional menstrual beliefs and practices among various communities.
Angirasa Smriti (Verse 37), for example, advises women to resume their household work only after their monthly periods stop. Similarly, Vashishta Dharmasutra (5.6) says that menstruating women should not indulge in physical exertion, be it household work, or activities like running. During Ambubachi festival in Kamakhya temple in Assam, the temple is closed for three days to give rest to the Goddess, who is believed to be menstruating during that time. Similarly, during the Tulu festival called Keddasa in Karnataka, mother earth is believed to have begun her earthly menstrual cycle and is given a rest for three days. This is also practiced during Raja Parva (menstruation festival) in Odisha, where farmers don’t plough the land and give rest to Goddess earth.
Frederique Apffel-Marglin, in her book ‘Rhythms of Life: Enacting the World with the Goddesses of Orissa,’ quotes a village woman from Odisha as saying thus: “During the menses of the earth, women do no work; they play and sing with their friends. The sole reason is for them to rest, just like during their monthly periods, when they do not work and must not be disturbed, they should not be touched.”
Mitoo Das, in her paper ‘Menstruation as Pollution: Taboos in Simlitola, Assam,’ mentions that both the notions of menstruation as impurity and as a period of rest are prevalent among the people of Simlitola, Assam. She writes: “The taboos prescribed are not only present, because women are taken to be ‘pollutants’ or ‘impure’ during menstruation but also because women are considered to be physically weak during menses and thus the following of taboos, at least some of it, allow her ample ‘rest’. Thus Similitola society has a second way of explaining the need for the existence of such taboos, i.e. to make women rest.”
In the modern times, Swami Chinmayananda has explained that menstruation restrictions were used as a means for providing rest to women, who otherwise indulged in physically demanding household tasks in the past, and who suffered from pain, stress, and discomfort during the menses. Therefore, the notion of menstruation as a period of rest that the women need, owing to stress and physical discomfort, is clearly recognized by Hinduism and some menstrual practices like preventing women from doing household work are aimed to serve that purpose.
Menstruation as a sacred celebration
The Hindu way of life perceives each element of an Individual’s life as sacred and worthy of worship and celebration. Thus, from the moment of birth, intake of first food, writing of first letters, till marriage, and death, every life event is associated with sacredness, worship, and celebration. Even in death, wherein people always mourn, it is recognized that the journey of the Jivatma has not ended and the death rites aim to aid the Jivatma to regain new birth and continue its journey further. Thus, even the Death rites are sacred and have utmost importance in the Hindu scheme of things.
This attachment of sacredness-of a notion of worship and celebration- to various elements of life can be observed with respect to menstruation and menstruating women as well. The best example that illustrates this is the celebration of ‘Ritu Kala Samskara’. Ritu Kala Samskara is the coming of age ceremony that celebrates the onset of menstruation among young girls. This is a highly localized ceremony that is celebrated across India based on local customs and traditions.
In Karnataka, the young girl, who has started menstruating, is dressed up and the Sumangali women (married women) from the neighborhood perform her Aarti (showing of lamp, light from a wick as in Puja) and sing songs. The girl is then given Chigali unde (a dish made of sesame seeds and jaggery that is believed to help in proper flow), Tambula (a combination of coconut, betel leaves, etc. offered to the deity in puja or given to guests) and gifts. A similar ceremony could be observed in Kerala and Andhra Pradesh as well.
On the other hand, the celebration is carried out in much fanfare for three full days in Tamil Nadu, where it is called as ‘Manjal Neerattu Vizha’ (turmeric bathing ceremony). The highlight of this festival is that the girl undergoes ritual seclusion, ritual bathing, and many other local customs, including turmeric bathing ceremony. Friends and family are invited and the girl is gifted silk sarees and she wears a Saree (or a half-saree) for the first time. The entire ceremony happens with much elaboration and pomp, and in many ways it resembles a mini-version of a marriage. (A detailed account of the event can be found here. A video here).
In North India, the celebration happens quietly and the young girls are taught about menstruation practices and are asked to maintain seclusion. In Assam, the celebration is called as ‘Xoru Biya’, which means ‘small marriage’. Thus, across India, one observes various localized customs and ceremonies that celebrate the onset of menstruation. What is common in all these ceremonies is the fact that the ceremonies are aimed at:
Imparting a very positive notion about menstruation in the mind of the girl: The girl is treated as special and is given gifts. She is perceived as a manifestation of the Supreme Goddess and is worshipped with Aarti. The young girl is welcomed with open hands into womanhood and the ritual allows her to accept the changes that come along with puberty in a positive and welcoming spirit. She is made to feel confident and happy in her feminine identity. Imparting knowledge that equips the young girl well to adjust to her on-coming physical and emotional changes during puberty; imparting knowledge regarding various menstruation practices that the girl must follow and the reasons and benefits of those practices.
It is a different issue that on the ground, many of these practices have today picked up a highly negative connotation, largely due to the fact that they have been reduced to blind mechanical restrictions that ignorant and ill-informed parents are imparting to their young children by packaging them as ‘forbidden practices/superstitions’. This may also be the result of “modernization” and “convent education” that takes on Christian ideas of taboo subjects and impurity.) But, if we were to consider the essence of the traditions and the knowledge preserved in them on their own standing, it will become clear that the Hindu ceremonies associated with the onset of menstruation perceives menstruation and menstruating women in a highly positive manner. It associates menstruation with womanhood and a woman’s ability to give birth to life. And various menstruation practices, as we shall see later, are aimed at facilitating women to understand their own individuality better and help her lead a more fulfilling life. Thus, these ceremonies associated with the onset of menstruation, forms an important Hindu practice that aims to impart the notion of menstruation as a sacred celebration.
This association of menstruation with sacredness is further reinforced in the Tantric practices like Yoni Puja (worship of the female Yoni), wherein a ritual worship is carried out not only of a woman, but also of her Yoni, which is perceived as a symbol for Cosmic Yoni from which the entire universe has emerged. Menstrual blood is considered, pure and sacred, and play a very important role in these rituals. The Yoni Tantra, in facts, says that the Yoni puja must be carried out only in the Yoni, which has started menstruating.
Similarly, the Bauls of Bengal- a syncretic group of mystic singers and dancers, whose religious beliefs are influenced by Vaishnava, Sakta, Tantric Buddhism, Samkhya, and Sufi belief systems- practice Deha Sadhana (spiritual practice using the body), a form of sexual yoga, wherein sexual energy is transformed into Prema (divine love) and Spiritual ecstasy. The Bauls believe that men and women are abodes of two different aspects of the Divine. The women’s Nir i.e. sexual fluid (literally water) contains one aspect of the divine, which is believed to descend down in the form of a fish during the monthly periods. Similarly, the men’s Kshir i.e. semen (literally milk) is said to contain the other aspect of the divine. The Bauls believe that through the ritual practice of sexual Yoga during menstruation, the ‘fish’ (the feminine aspect of the divine) that ‘swims’ in the menstrual fluid could be united with the Kshir and a state of Yogic bliss or Ananda can be attained. In other words, the Bauls perform sexual intercourse during menstruation as a means for attaining divine bliss and spiritual emancipation. It is important to note that this sexual intercourse indulged as part of Deha Sadhana, is purely a devotional act and should not be confused with sexual intercourse indulged in for the sake of sensual pleasure or conception. The importance of menstruation during the Deha Sadhana, can also understood by the fact that the time of monthly periods is called as “Mahayoga” (Great Yoga) and the first and the third day of menstruation is designated as “Amavasya” (New Moon) and “Poornima” (Full Moon) respectively. [June McDaniel, The Embodiment of God among the Bāuls of Bengal, Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, Vol. 8, No. 2 (Fall, 1992), pp. 27-39]
Devipuram is a temple in Andhra Pradesh, which is an important center of Devi worship in the Tantric tradition of Srividya. The temple itself has been built in the form of Sri Chakra- the abode of the Supreme Goddess Lalita Tripurasundari, and it contains a Kamakhya Peetham- a naturally formed Yoni. Speaking to Sinu Joseph of ‘Mythri Speaks’, Sri Amritananda Natha Saraswati, the founder of Devipuram and a practitioner of Srividya, said that most of the priests in his temple were women and they were all free to stay at the temple during their monthly periods. He further said: “What is pure, we don’t touch. And what we don’t touch, we call it a Taboo. She (a menstruating woman) was so pure, that she was worshipped as a Goddess. The reason for not having a woman go into a temple is precisely this. She is a living Goddess at that time. The energy of the God or Goddess which is there in the Murti will move over to her, and that (the Murti) becomes lifeless, while this (the menstruating woman) is life. So that’s why they were prevented from entering the temple.”
Thus, Guruji of Devipuram, clearly associated purity with menstruation and considered menstruating women as living Goddesses, while also highlighting the fact that the practice of menstruating women not being allowed into temples was rooted in the fact that there will be an imbalance in the energy of the temple.
It is to be noted that much of the Tantrika practices and the associated worldview, are highly tailor made and their applicability is limited to particular place, context, rituals, and to the competent practitioners of these rituals alone and not to the general society. Yet, despite this limited application, what the texts like Yoni tantra, practices like Deha Sadhana of Bauls, or the views of Devipuram Guruji, establish is the fact that Hinduism does not put forward a blanket worldview on any issue. Instead, Hindu tradition and practices are tailor made based on different situations, goals, competencies, and needs of the people. As a result, menstruation, which is otherwise rightly associated with ritual Ashaucha and hence sexual intercourse and sacred activities like worship are restricted, becomes associated with ritual Shaucha and sexual intercourse in the case of Yoni puja and Deha Sadhana, respectively.
The role played by menstruation in various acts of spiritual and religious practice, clearly depict their association with worship and sacredness. But, it is in the festivals associated with the menstruation of the Hindu Goddesses that one will witness the full splendor with which menstruation is celebrated. It is only in these festivals that the full implication of the notion of menstruation as a sacred celebration will become evident. One such example is the celebration of Ambubachi festival in Kamakhya, Assam.
As mentioned before, Goddess Kamakhya is believed to undergo menstruation course for three days every year and the temple is closed for the period to give her rest. The festival is celebrated during the monsoon period, in the Assamese month of Ahaar, which falls in June. For three days, the Goddess undergoes Ashaucha and takes rest. People in the region do not perform any farming activity to give the Mother, who is also same as mother Earth, rest. Similarly, daily worship and religious performances are halted because of Ashaucha. During the period, Goddess Kamakhya, who exists as naturally formed Yoni in the stone, is covered with a red cloth. On the fourth day, after the Yoni is bathed and ritually worshipped, the temple doors are opened and devotees are given special Prasada- a piece of the red cloth, which was used to cover Yoni and which has become moist due to Mother’s bleeding (in the form of natural springs). The special Prasada is considered highly auspicious and purifying in nature and hence thousands of devotees from faraway places come every year to pray to the Mother and have her Special Prasada.
The four-day festival is accompanied by huge celebrations in the form of four-day Mela (fair) called Ameti, wherein Tantric Sadhus and Babas from across India visit and rural crafts are exhibited. The Ambhubachi festival serves as a practical illustration of how Hinduism harmoniously integrates different nuances associated with various aspects of menstruation- Ashaucha, austerity, rest, and celebration- into one integral festival that is beneficial to everyone.
Another example that illustrates the notion of menstruation as a celebration, is the festival of Raja in Odisha. Just like Ambubachi festival, Raja festival is also celebrated during June and the Menstruating Goddess (Bhu-devi/Earth Goddess) who is worshipped here is variously known as Harchandi, Prithibt, Thakurant, Basudha, Draupadi. The festival is celebrated by both men and women and women consider themselves as Amsha (parts) of the Goddess and the whole celebration happens around women.
Kartikeya C. Patel, in his paper- “Women, Earth, and the Goddess: A Shākta-Hindu Interpretation of Embodied Religion”, quotes an Odiya woman, who participated in the field study on menstruation festival in Odisha conducted by Frederique Apffel-Marglin and Purna Chandra Misra, as saying: “Harchandi is at her menses; three days are gone and tomorrow is Thakurant Gadua. After taking bath as the girls will do, so also she will do. Red color will be thrown on her so it will appear as if she is bleeding. Pouring this red on her they will treat her as if she were menstruating … yes, that cloth on which the red is thrown will be put in a bucket of water so the water will be red. The priest will show it to the pilgrims and say ‘this is the blood of Thakurani.’ People out of joy and happiness will take that water.”
The women in Federique Apffel-Margin study strongly believed that ‘Stridharma’ of women and the Goddess must be respected and they should be allowed to rest during menstruation, so that the process of menstruation, which in women affects them at different levels of their being, and which in case of the Goddess, affects the cyclical continuity of life in nature and maintains balance, remains undisturbed and unaffected. Similarly, any disturbance to the menstruation will result in unpleasant effects.
Regarding how the festival of Raja connects Dharma, Happiness, and menstruation, Patel writes: “Hence, religious (dharmic) happiness is directly linked to the happiness and worship of the feminine. Giving happiness to women, the earth, and the Goddess partly depends on not disturbing them during their menstruation. During the menstruation festival the earth must not be dug or plowed and one must not walk on the earth barefoot as that would hurt or disturb her. In the same vein women should be given rest during their menstruation and should not be disturbed…. But giving rest to mother earth or to women during the menstruation period is only one way to make them happy. Another way to make them happy, and thereby make religious (dharmic) life happy, consists in worshipping the female body with offerings. The men at Harchandi offer sacrificial animals to the Goddess to make her happy…. Similarly, women are kept happy by being given clothes, ornaments, and leisure time.”
Thus, the festival of Raja, beautifully weaves various elements of rest, merriment, worship, and celebration around Menstruation. The women are treated as a manifestation of the Goddess and menstruation is recognized as a positive “natural” process that is very vital for women as well as for nature. The seclusion (away from men), resting, and other menstrual practices are recognized as facilitating women to take rest-so that the menstrual process happens without any disturbance, to play and make merriment. And since, menstrual cycle as a whole is associated with fertility and bringing new life into this world, the whole activity is treated as a sacred celebration and men are obliged to give happiness to the womenfolk.
Chengannur Mahadeva Kshetram in the southern state of Kerala is yet another place, where the Goddess menstruates and her menstruation is celebrated. Every few months, the Murti of Goddess Parvati (Bhagavati), which is present at the temple is believed to menstruate, and during that period, for three days, her Murti is shifted to a separate room and is given rest. Whether the Goddess is menstruating or not is determined by the wife of the Supreme priest of Sabarimala, who regularly inspects the Udayada (the inner skirt) of the Goddess for any blood stains. If any stains of menstrual blood are found, then the temple announces the celebration of the festival-‘Thriputharattu’. For the first three days, the Murti of Goddess is secluded from the Murti of her husband Lord Shiva and is allowed to rest. She undergoes all menstrual practices that women undergo and temple women sleep outside her room during the night to give company to the Goddess. On the fourth day, the Goddess is taken on a female elephant to the Pamba River for ritual bath. She is then dressed in grand clothes and jewelry and numerous ceremonies and elaborate rituals are performed. Thousands of people from across Kerala visit the temple to participate in this festival.
The Keddasa festival celebrated in the Dakshina Kannada district of Karnataka is another festival, which demonstrates the association of menstruation with notions of rest and sacred celebration. The festival is celebrated for three days by |
when people tweet me throwing shade, then I reply with heat, then they delete the tweet. I hate it...#firstworldproblems — Will Brooks (@TRILLwillbrooks) October 5, 2016
Good for Fedor
Fedor called out Chechen dictator Kadyrov for hosting child MMA fights: "What happened in Grozny is unacceptable & cannot be justified" — Karim Zidan (@ZidanSports) October 5, 2016
I know the feeling.
I just ate a double cheeseburger and Large fries at 5 Guys. Then walked next door to Krispy Kreme and bought a dozen donuts. Alone. pic.twitter.com/uua1PxxF9H — Andre Fili (@TouchyFili) October 6, 2016
.@Cowboycerrone's collection of custom gloves keeps growing, and we are going to keep winning.pic.twitter.com/k9MVmrRPEy — Brandon Gibson (@SixGunGibson) October 6, 2016
Looking forward to this a lot.
He's gonna make the jump eventually.
I would play with any one of them. @danawhite #manswork A photo posted by @dillondanis on Oct 5, 2016 at 11:11am PDT
FIGHT ANNOUNCEMENTS
Daniel Cormier (18-1-0) vs. Anthony Johnson (22-5-0); UFC 206, December 10.
Rustam Khabilov (20-3-0) vs. Jason Saggo (12-2-0); UFC 206, December 10.
Valerie Letourneau (8-5-0) vs. Poliana Botelho (5-1-0); UFC 206, December 10.
Zach Makovsky (19-7-0) vs. John Moraga (16-5-0); UFC 206, December 10.
Landon Vannata (8-1-0) vs. John Makdessi (14-5-0); UFC 206, December 10.
Olivier Aubin-Mercier (8-2-0) vs. Drew Dober (17-7-0); UFC 206, December 10.
TODAY IN MMA HISTORY 2012: Jessica Penne submitted Naho Sugiyama by triangle choke to win the inaugural Invicta FC atomweight championship at Invicta 3.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Rest in peace, Josh Samman. You'll be missed.
If you find something you'd like to see in the Morning Report, just hit me up on Twitter @JedKMeshew and let me know about it. Also follow MMAFighting on Instagram and add us on Snapchat at MMA-Fighting because we post dope things and you should enjoy them.You won’t be surprised that the Pew Research Center, in a survey released today, found that atheism is still the biggest political liability a candidate could have.
What may be surprising is that the candidate deemed as the least religious is the Republican frontrunner.
So while Bernie Sanders explicitly says he’s “not actively involved with organized religion,” it’s Trump with his blatant attempts to convince people he’s Christian who is thought of as the least religious. So much for authenticity.
60% of voters surveyed said they didn’t think of Trump as religious while only 35% said the same thing of Sanders.
Keep in mind that in a general election, atheism is still the biggest liability you could have. 51% of adults said they would be less likely to vote for someone if they thought the candidate were an atheist:
The only upside to that is that the 51% who despise atheists that much is the lowest such percentage we’ve ever seen.
With younger people becoming increasingly non-religious, this trend is bound to continue in the right direction.
Also, in the least surprising news of all, a majority of Americans without any religion affiliation think Sanders would make an excellent president. Only 15% of the Nones — presumably not the atheists — think the same way about Ted Cruz (who had the highest approval from the Nones among any of the Republican candidates).
None of this is eye-opening news. It’s just a reminder that openly atheist Presidential candidates have an uphill climb. The best thing you can do in that situation, if you don’t want to lie, is play down your faith and focus on preserving everyone’s religious rights.The Canterville Ghost is a 1944 fantasy/comedy film directed by Jules Dassin, loosely based on the novella of the same title by Oscar Wilde. It starred Charles Laughton as a ghost doomed to haunt an English castle and Robert Young as his American relative called upon to perform an act of bravery to redeem him.[1][2]
It was remade as a TV movie of the same title in 1986 and again in 1996.
Plot [ edit ]
In the seventeenth century, Sir Simon de Canterville (Charles Laughton) is forced by the Code of Chivalry to engage in a duel on behalf of his brother, but flees to the family castle when his opponent is substituted for a giant, the Bold Sir Guy (played by an uncredited Tor Johnson). His proud father, Lord Canterville (Reginald Owen), refuses to acknowledge that his son has disgraced the family name, even when shown in front of witnesses where Simon is cowering. The father has the only entrance to his son's hiding place bricked over as proof that Simon is not there, ignoring Simon's pleas for mercy. Lord Canterville then curses his doomed cowardly son to find no rest until "a kinsman shall perform an act of bravery" in his name.
Next, during World War II, US Army Rangers are billeted in the castle, owned now by a six-year-old Lady Jessica de Canterville (Margaret O'Brien). One of the men is Cuffy Williams (Robert Young). The Rangers encounter Sir Simon but rather than being terrorized, humiliate the ghost with a mock haunting. With Cuffy's help, Jessica overcomes her own terror of the ghost. Jessica discovers that Cuffy is a Canterville by a distinctive birthmark. Together, the two meet and learn the fate of their ghostly ancestor. One night, Simon takes Cuffy on a tour of the family portrait gallery, recounting the cowardly act of each descendant. Cuffy scoffs at Simon's misgivings and boasts that he is different.
However, when the moment of crisis comes, Cuffy seems to be a true Canterville and is paralyzed by fear in combat. Disgraced and leaving the Rangers, Cuffy is faced with an unexploded parachute mine threatening his platoon with destruction and is again overcome with fear. However, when Lady Jessica inadvertently activates the mine trying to inspire him, Cuffy hitches the bomb behind a jeep and steers it into a ravine. The courageous act finally frees Sir Simon from his centuries of bondage.
Cast [ edit ]
Production [ edit ]
The motion picture was shot at Busch Gardens in Pasadena, California. This was the first feature film edited by Chester Schaeffer. According to Laughton's biographer, Charles Higham, Norman Z. McLeod began direction of the film but was replaced after five weeks when he failed to win the actor's confidence. When Dassin was hired to finish the film, Laughton assisted him with suggestions made out of hearing of cast and crew. Robert H. Planck replaced William Daniels as cinematographer at the same time and is credited with the grainy texture of the black and white production. Of Laughton's performance, Higham wrote that it combined "burlesque, melodrama, pathetic farce, the comedy of manners, and outright tragedy in a rich range."[4]
Reception [ edit ]
John Howard Reid selected The Canterville Ghost as one entry for his 2005 book, Movies Magnificent: 150 Must-See Cinema Classics.[5]
The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:
See also [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ]
Streaming audioRonde Barber turns 38 years young next month. After 16 seasons in the NFL, Barber's legacy is secure, but the Tampa Bay Buccaneers want him back for one more spin.
Bucs general manager Mark Dominik confirmed as much in a statement released Saturday by the team.
Offseason Forecast: Buccaneers With the offseason under way, Around The League examines what's next for all 32 teams. Dan Hanzus covers the More...
With the offseason under way, Around The League examines what's next for all 32 teams. Dan Hanzus covers the Bucs
"Coach (Greg) Schiano and I met with Ronde this past week and expressed our desire for him to return to play another season with the Buccaneers," Dominik said. "He asked us for some time to make his decision and we certainly respect that."
Barber, a five-time Pro Bowl selection, is set to become an unrestricted free agent Tuesday. He's lost speed, but he remains a serviceable slot corner and plug-in safety. Besides, the Bucs don't have the luxury of shedding Barber after rolling out the NFL's worst pass defense last season. That wasn't his fault, but the Bucs have plenty of work to do on the backend.
The catch here is greenbacks. The Buccaneers -- and Barber -- sound open to ending his career in fitting fashion, but they aren't about to overpay for him. If another team comes swooping in, Barber might choose to leave the Bucs, be we don't expect that to happen. Finishing it out with Tampa Bay makes the most sense.
Follow Marc Sessler on Twitter @MarcSesslerNFL.OK, normally when I’m putting this column together, I look for a cross-section of stuff, with at least a couple things that aren’t insanely, prohibitively expensive. But you know what? Sometimes I just want to look at insanely, prohibitively expensive things! This installment of The Week in Estate is all about the ridiculously opulent.
A little while back, I told you guys about Carlo Giuliano (remember those ruby and pearl earrings?). What I didn’t tell you was that he had sons! Carlo Joseph and Arthur were trained by their father, and they continued the family business after his death in 1895. The sons were talented jewelry designers as well, and I’ve spoken with Giuliano experts who consider their work to be just as exquisite as their dad’s. This necklace is an excellent example. Circa 1890, it’s in the Renaissance Revival “Holbeinesque” style that Carlo Giuliano (the elder) made famous.
One of the main characteristics of the Holbeinesque (referring to Renaissance artist Hans Holbein) look is a border of stylized floral motifs colored in enamel in the manner of the English 16th century, surrounding a large center stone (or group of stones) — as seen in this necklace’s central pendant. Using gold as a base, Carlo Joseph and Arthur then arranged tiny sections of black and white enamel alongside diamonds and pearls, forming an openwork necklace that supports the lozenge-shaped pendant of diamonds and rubies with a pearl drop.
Unfortunately, the Giuliano firm ended sadly. We don’t know when Carlo Joseph died, but Arthur committed suicide in August 1914. His motives aren’t known, but he had recently left his wife of 20 years for another woman, and it also can’t have been easy to maintain a luxury business after the outbreak of World War I. The business closed after his death, and any remaining stock was sold at auction.
WOW. A French 3.2 ct Colombian emerald, diamond, and platinum ring, circa 1910. Just, wow.
Circa 1935, this Oscar Heyman bracelet is ridiculous. It’s got five huge step-cut aquamarines (approximately 130 carats, total) flanked by 20 square- and five round-cut sapphires. All set in platinum. It’s something Carole Lombard would wear around the house in My Man Godfrey.
A small (5.5cm) 17th century kalgi with matching pin, from Mysore, South India. Both are set with diamonds and burmese rubies.
A kalgi is a traditional Indian turban jewel, originally worn by Maharajas as an indication of their wealth and status. Nowadays they’re often worn as bridal jewelry, with the groom accenting the jewel with plumes of feathers.
This Victorian necklace features 9.00 carats of emeralds and 3.00 carats of diamonds set in silver with a gold mounting. I’m highlighting it because, yes, it’s gorgeous, but it’s also unusual — there are tons of similar Victorian necklaces out there in garnet, but I’ve never seen one in emerald before.
A late 19th century silver over gold Edwardian bracelet set with nine oval cut rubies with accents of single cut and old mine cut diamonds in a twisting garland design.
Even better, it has a ribbon collar extension, so it can be worn as a choker.
Circa mid to later 20th century, these platinum and diamond briolette chandelier earrings feature old European cut diamonds with platinum bezels, onyx bands, and inverted tulip-shaped diamond canopies from which hang incredible diamond briolettes.
Each earring has a total diamond weight of 1.75 carats.You might want to take a break now to wipe the drool off your keyboard.
This 18k yellow gold and amethyst “Candy” ring isn’t antique or even estate, but I’m breaking the rules because I love it. And even if it is a contemporary ring, it’s also by a renowned jewelry house (Verdura), so that means I get to tell you about Duke Fulco di Verdura.
Verdura, born in 1898 in Palermo, was the fun-loving child of wealthy aristocrats. As a young man, his society connections brought him into contact with Coco Chanel, and he soon left Italy to work for her in Paris. It was there that he discovered a talent for jewelry design, and he created some truly iconic pieces — including the two Maltese cross cuff bracelets that Chanel wore constantly. His style was enthusiastic — big and bold, with bright precious and semiprecious gems and interesting color combinations.
Verdura took off for Hollywood in the ’30s, and soon his pieces were being snapped up by the likes of Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, and Katherine Hepburn. Next up was a shop in Manhattan, where he also conquered the New York society crowd. In the meantime, he even found time to collaborate with Salvador Dali on a jewelry collection.
Verdura continued designing jewelry for decades, finally selling his business in 1973. (He died in 1978.) The company is now owned and run by Ward Landrigan, the former head of Sotheby’s US jewelry division, and his son Nico. Using original sketches by Verdura, they continue to produce big, gorgeous jewelry — just like this amethyst ring. If anybody wants to buy it for me, I’m a size 5 1/2.
Circa 1860, this French piece is gold encrusted with cabochon rubies, emeralds and diamonds. It’s a dress holder — the end is manufactured to grip one’s dress so that it can be lifted and kept unsullied when one is forced to walk the grimy streets of the lower classes.
Um. I don’t even know what to say about this. Circa 1890, a starburst diamond tiara with a natural buttonshaped pearl at center. Holy CRAP.
Now this is just for fun … Are there any historians out there? The dealer needs your help in figuring out the identity of this little purple man! It’s an 18k gold stickpin, circa 1820, and the little guy is fashioned out of amethyst-colored paste (which I told you about last time). The dealer thinks he might be a French general from around the time of Napoleon Bonaparte, but things still don’t tally. “The cross our general is wearing here has four arms while the normal French order has five. Also the sash and epaulets could be of important indication. Or does the haircut style indicate a British officer instead of a French one?” Click on the link and get in touch if you have any ideas!
Previously: Snakes, Tiaras, and Conch Shell Pearls.
Monica McLaughlin is extremely bummed that she can’t make the Hairpin meetup on Thursday, but she will be there in spirit, wearing that tiara.Two young brothers in critical condition (and father cannot move or speak) from a recent trip to a Virgin Islands resort. Feds saying pesticide exposure. One son suffered severe brain damage, other has heart damage (both in comas) Mom overcoming seizures, being moved into rehab.
Pesticide Exposure
My heart goes out to the family- especially the two boys who are in critical conditions in comas. Their father is awake now says CNN, but cannot talk or MOVE. Terminix (a global pest control company) were the ones who treated the resort with methyl bromide which the EPA says in agricultural pesticide deemed for outdoor use only here in the US with much frequency (if that isn’t scary enough) The family’s lawyer called it “the most horrifying story in the world”
From the CNN Piece on this breaking story
Two Delaware boys are in a coma and their father still is unable to talk or move two weeks after they became sick — perhaps from pesticide exposure, federal officials say — during a trip to the U.S. Virgin Islands, their lawyer said Saturday.
Steve Esmond, his teenage sons Sean and Ryan Esmond, and the teens’ mother fell ill more than two weeks ago in St. John, where they were renting a villa at the Sirenusa resort. The family was airlifted to hospitals in the United States. Sean, 16, and Ryan, 14, were in critical condition at a Philadelphia hospital on Saturday, the family’s lawyer, James Maron of Delaware, said. One of the boys is believed to have brain damage, Maron said, without elaborating. “The boys are in rough shape,” Maron said. “The family are all fighters,” he added. “They’re fighting for everything right now. I understand it’s a long recovery.” Steve Esmond, also being treated at a hospital, is conscious but cannot move, Maron said. The teens’ mother, Theresa Devine, was treated at a hospital but released, and is now in occupational therapy, Maron said.
Thankfully someone found the whole family in the ocean villa or else they probably would have died if much more time had gone by experts say. Even though it’s so obvious pesticides are killing people, leaving them brain damaged, harming unborn babies and pregnant mothers it seems to continue – business as usual. The pesticides were used inside this 5 star luxury high end resort, but not even in the sea side expensive villa they’d rented.
It was one next to them and just ‘trace amounts’ (their words not mine) of the pesticide found in their unit that must have made it in there from another unit which was treated. Granted when we spray our food with pesticides or herbicides (including glyphosate) it isn’t indoors but the dangers are still there. When the United Nations and World Health Organization just classified glyphosate as a probable carcinogen (las week) you know even the allegedly “Safe” pesticides are anything but safe. You have to ask yourself why you’d possibly let TERMINIX (the culprit here) spray your home or yard OR why you would let your family eat foods that are sprayed.Pesticides are nothing to sneeze at. Why you can’t escape them inside or out -even at the a top luxury resort in the world. The whole family was airlifted back to the states but a criminal investigation has been opened by the feds about this nightmare.
What people don’t seem to get is while owners of the resort might be found guilty (especially if someone dies or even if they don’t) what about the millions of pounds of pesticides sprayed on (strawberries for instance) and the proven link that it has made children who live in the area sick (let alone the kids (and adults) who eat the food. We spray our food with harmful pesticides and then I sit wondering why my cousin is bald, in a hospital, has late stage Leukemia and might die. I know exactly why and it’s time people wake up. Heck even organic strawberries are not spared. That’s why I prefer to grow my own at home in the back yard. People tell me it’s too expensive but no excuse. It’s a few cents to grow your own. Some of you know I used to be obese and thought it was expensive to work out, too expensive to get in shape, too expensive to SIMPLY grow my own food. I’m so glad I stopped making excuses and took control of my health.. Sadly this family didn’t ask for this or know about it and that’s the saddest part. I really hope all 4 will be alright and the two boys still in comas will come out soon and have a full recovery.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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You can LIKE find her on Facebook page for cutting edge news, organic recipes, videos, free books and sweet giveaways!Malaysian badminton ace Lee Chong Wei extended his winning streak against world number one, Chen Long to clinch his second Badminton Asia Championships title at Wuhan, China today.
The former world number one defeated his arch rival for the fourth time in row, winning the game 21-17, 15-21, 21-13 in a match that was closely fought for one hour and 22 minutes.
Chong Wei last lost to the two-time world champion in the 2015 Jakarta World Championship final last August, before sidelining Chen Long at the China Open, Hong Kong Open as well as Malaysia Open in April.
In the first set, Chen Long gained seven straight points after trailing 8-11 to overtake Chong Wei 15-11, but the latter fought back to win six straight points to wrap up the set 21-17.
The Chinese national however, bounced back in the second set to secure a 21-15 win and force the match to be decided by a third set.
In the decider, the Penang born shuttler showcased his skills by winning the 21-13, to secure his 12th win against the world number one in the head to head count, while the latter had won 11 times.
The 33-year-old won his first Badminton Asia Championships back in 2006, exactly 10 years ago, showing how long the Malaysian ace has been on the courts.
In the semifinal clash yesterday, Chong Wei crushed defending champion and two-time Olympic gold medalist, Lin Dan 22-20, 15-21, 21-4, while Chen Long had easily disposed compatriot Tian Houwei in straight sets 21-14, 21-16.
With the win Chong Wei walked away with US$15,000 (about RM58,702).
No other Malaysian shuttlers advanced beyond the second round at the tournament, which offers a total prize money of US$200,000 (about RM782,700).
- BernamaAdvertisement
They are quiet. They are alert. They are engaging. And they are Hong Kong's most popular shop assistants.
Cats are an ever-lasting symbol of the cramped and curious neighbourhood shops dotted around the international commercial city.
These fluffy creatures stare at the customers when they walk in, pace around them when they shop and meow at them when they pay.
Dau Ding (pictured), the pet of a traditional Chinese medicine store, is the first shop cat Marcel Heijnen has photographed
Many traditional businesses in Hong Kong, such as dried seafood shops and family-owned grocery shops, keep cats
Good companion: An adorable cat rests in a box as its owners weigh traditional Chinese medicine at a shop in Hong Kong
Dutch photographer Marcel Heijnen was impressed by the endearing bond between Hong Kong shop owners and their cats
Dutch photographer Marcel Heijnen is so drawn to the ubiquitous shop cats that he spent one year photographing the adorable pets and their owners in Hong Kong's traditional areas.
Through Mr Heijnen's lens, the modern skyscraper-filled city transforms into a kaleidoscope of traditional retailers. Chinese medicine shops, family-owned grocery shops and dried seafood vendors, the colourful pockets of century-old trades form the playground of these naughty felines.
Originally, shop cats appeared in Hong Kong because the owners wanted to use them to scare away mice.
Mr Heijnen said: 'They don't necessarily need to catch mice. Just their presence and their smell are enough to ward off mice.'
However, the 52-year-old Dutch man told MailOnline what struck him more was the bond between the shop owners and their moggies.
Drawn to the ubiquitous cats, Mr Heijnen spent one year photographing the adorable pets and their owners in Hong Kong
The shop cats tend to have similar expressions with their owners and strike near identical poses with them
Originally, these alert animals appeared in Hong Kong because the owners wanted to use them to scare away mice
Through Mr Heijnen's lens, the modern skyscraper-filled city transforms into a kaleidoscope of traditional retailers
Mr Heijnen said: 'They don't necessarily need to catch mice. Just their presence and their smell are enough to ward off mice'
Most of the owners have kept the animals for years. The cats accompany them day in day out, when there is business and when there is not.
In Mr Heijnen's pictures, many of the cats seem to have formed an endearing rapport with their owners - they tend to have similar expressions with their owners and strike similar poses with them. They doze off when their owners doze off, and they eat when their owners eat.
'Sometimes, you feel they're the real owners of the shops because they don't do anything and they get fed,' said Mr Heijnen, who has lived in Asia for 25 years.
'Their owners rush in and out, but they just sit there.
'Occasionally, the shop is so messy you can't even find the cat.'
The real bosses: Mr Heijnen joked that the cats are the real owners of these stores as 'they don't do anything and they get fed'
Fortunate cats: The moggies are considered lucky by their owners as they could draw in customers and liven up the store
'Their owners rush in and out, but they just sit there. Occasionally, the shop is so messy you can't even find the cat'
Left, Mr Heijnen was pictured with a cat as he tried to portrait the shop animal on a Hong Kong street. Right, a cat was pictured in front of coffins at a funeral store
The cats are also believed to be fortunate by their owners. Some felines would play near the entrance of the shops, bringing in customers who find them cute and livening up the atmosphere for the often straightforward shopping experiences.
Mr Heijnen, originally from Eindhoven, is a cat lover. He said he had always kept cats as pets, but when he moved from Singapore to Hong Kong at the end of 2015, he had to leave his three pet cats to a friend.
After seeing the many shop cats in Sai Ying Pun, the area he lives in Hong Kong, he started taking pictures of the animals and sharing them on Facebook.
The first cat Mr Heijnen photographed was Dau Ding, a lovely tabby guarding the traditional Chinese medicine shop he passes every day on his way to the Metro station and coffee shops.
Dau Ding's pictures got so popular that Mr Heijnen decided to explore the nooks and crannies of Sheung Wan and Sai Ying Pun, where many traditional stores are, to find out more about these iconic lucky animals and their relationships with their owners.
Most of the owners have kept the animals for years. The cats accompany them day in day out, when there is business and when there is not
After seeing the shop cats in Sai Ying Pun, the area he lives in Hong Kong, Mr Heijnen started taking pictures of the animals
When Mr Heijnen, a cat lover, moved from Singapore to Hong Kong at the end of 2015, he had to leave his three cats to a friend. The shop cats in Hong Kong sparked his great interests
On his Instagram page Chinese Whiskers, Mr Heijnen keeps an ever-growing lists of his snaps of the Hong Kong shop cats and their owners.
He has turned some of the pictures into a book, Hong Kong Shop Cats, which was published last November.
Mr Heijnen said: 'It is not uncommon to see shop cats in other countries, but due to health and safety restrictions, they don't usually appear in food stores.
'But in Hong Kong, shop cats can be found in many places, including shops selling dried seafood and traditional medicine, which makes them so special.'
Mr Heijnen's next project is to photograph the cats in the Hong Kong markets in areas such as Kowloon and Yau Ma Tei.
The artist said: 'Hong Kong is a fast-changing city. One day a shop is here, the next day it could be gone.'
Through photographing the adorable felines found at the city's shops and markets, the man hopes to capture a cute and lasting symbol of the buzzing cosmopolitan city.
On his Instagram page Chinese Whiskers, Mr Heijnen keeps an ever-growing lists of his snaps of the Hong Kong shop cats
He has turned some of the pictures into a book, Hong Kong Shop Cats, which was published last November
Mr Heijnen's next project is to photograph the cats in Hong Kong markets in areas such as Kowloon and Yau Ma TeiFor decades, it has stood as a small but iconic building at the corner of Ninth and Elm streets, and now, developers are gearing up to tear it down.
Shakespeare�s downtown location at 225 S. Ninth St. will move around the corner in late May in preparation for the building�s demolition to make way for a multistory structure with Shakespeare�s as the ground-floor tenant.
�We�ve taken 360 digital photos of the place,� Shakespeare�s Manager Kurt Mirtsching said. �Basically, we�re doing everything we can possibly do just shy of numbering the bricks and taking them apart piece by piece.�
The new building will be constructed through a partnership with the Odle brothers and the Rader family, Mirtsching said. McAlester Park LLC submitted an application for a demolition permit to the city's community development office Wednesday. The application does not give any details on the structure that will replace the current 6,513-square-foot building that currently houses Shakespeare's.
According to the county assessor's office, Ninth Street Properties LLC, registered to Jack Rader, owns the building.
Shakespeare's opened its downtown location in 1973. In 2003 it opened Shakespeare's West, and in 2012 started the south Columbia location.
The city's Historic Preservation Commission has 30 days to review the demolition permit application. Shane Creech, manager of the city's Building and Site Development division, said the commission can use this time to meet with the owners and go over the plans if members have concerns.
"They don't really have any power to stop it," he said. "It gives them some time to talk to the owner."
Creech said commission members may try to preserve historical aspects of the building or go into the Shakespeare's to photograph the structure.
Mirtsching said when Shakespeare�s opens in the ground floor of the new building, the restaurant will retain the same floor plan, look and feel of the original location. The new building�s opening is planned for late summer 2016.
While the new building is going up, Mirtsching said, the restaurant will move its downtown operations to 220 S. Eighth St., the former home over the years of BBCII, Tin Can Tavern and Los Bandidos.
Mirtsching said management Tuesday night told employees at every Shakespeare�s location about the planned move. He emphasized that no jobs will be lost during the relocation. The city has not yet received plans for the building.
John Ott, a downtown property owner who recently bought the Eighth Street property, said the deal worked nicely because the two properties abut each other, making for an easier move.
�It�s pretty rare that this kind of thing happens, and we had been talking to other long-term tenants,� Ott said. �In this case, we thought � even on a short-term basis, I mean, it�s tough to find a tenant as fun and as interesting as Shakespeare�s.�You'll never guess where Waldo shows up.
As you may or may not know, a movie "Easter egg" is a joke or reference cleverly hidden in a scene. Pixar's references to its other movies -- a plush Nemo toy in "Monsters, Inc." or the Pizza Planet truck appearing in almost every movie, for example -- are probably the most recognizable examples of an Easter egg, but many other films have at least a few.
Directors have been sneaking (often elaborate) Easter eggs into their movies for years, and though you may have seen your favorite multiple times, you probably missed some of these:
1. R2-D2 has made secret appearances in many movies, including "Raiders of the Lost Ark," along with C-3PO.
The "Star Wars" robots make two appearances in "Raiders of the Lost Ark." First, the pair noticeably shows up as a sort of hieroglyphs on a pillar, right as Indiana Jones finds the ark. Then, shortly after this moment there's an even bigger depiction of the two on a wall behind Jones and Sallah as they lift the ark. This one also features Princess Leia, who is kneeling next to R2-D2 as she presumably uploads data with C-3PO.
Image: "Raiders of the Lost Ark."
2. Frank Abagnale makes a cameo in "Catch Me If You Can," ironically, as an arresting officer of himself.
Leonardo DiCaprio plays Frank Abagnale in "Catch Me If You Can," which was inspired by a true story. In an amusing twist, when DiCaprio's character is finally arrested, the arrest is aided by the real-life Abagnale. Playing a French policeman, Abagnale helps "Abagnale" into a cop car in the small town of Montrichard, France. Speaking to his feelings about the movie, the real-life Abagnale said:
It’s quite flattering to have Leonardo DiCaprio play you in the movie. He’s a great-looking young man... I was very blessed it was Steven Spielberg who made the movie. He was very much into the redemption side of the story. They asked him in an interview why he had owned the rights to this story for 20 years before he made the movie and he said: "I wanted to see what the real Frank Abagnale did with his life before I immortalized him on film."
Abagnale was close friends with Joe Shea, the FBI agent played by Tom Hanks in the movie, until Shea's death.
Many films based on true stories actually have similar Easter egg cameos, including, "Erin Brockovich," "Apollo 13," "The Pursuit of Happyness" and "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas."
Image: "Catch Me If You Can."
3. There's a hidden sex scene in the third Harry Potter movie.
In "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban," Fred and George Weasley give Potter the Marauder's Map. The map shows all of Hogwarts, including everybody's location on the grounds.
If you wait until the credits of "Prisoner of Azkaban," you can see the map at work, tracking people's movements with footsteps around the halls of Hogwarts. Then, in the bottom left corner, the map reveals four footsteps facing each other in a corner, with two of those footsteps being spread around the others. "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" was rated PG.
4. In "Inglourious Basterds," a leaf falls onto an Austrian-born, Jewish soldier, and its appearance mimics the yellow "Star of David" that Jewish people were forced to wear on the left side of their chest by the Nazis.
Cpl. Wilhelm Wicki left Austria for America when the Nazis began to annex his homeland. Eventually, he joined the Inglourious Basterds and, in a particular moment when translating for a Nazi prisoner, a yellow leaf falls down onto the left side of his chest. Eli Roth, who starred in the film as "The Bear Jew," says Quentin Tarantino did this on purpose:
There’s [a] scene, where a soldier is pointing at a map and a yellow leaf falls on [actor] Gideon Burkhard’s chest. And someone else pointed out that it’s “down to the yellow leaf that mimics the Star of David on that soldier.” And Quentin kept that, and he kept it for a reason.
Image: "Inglourious Basterds."
5. An image of Waldo lying among dead bodies flashes in "Apocalypto."
This only happened in the theatrical release (therefore you have to trust this has not been inserted into the multiple bootleg copies of the original as a hoax), but for some reason Mel Gibson felt it necessary to put a brief frame of Waldo among a sea of dead bodies in the middle of a chase scene. (You can watch it here.)
The movie "Apocalypto" is a gory but serious account of the fall of the Mayan civilization. Waldo is a hilarious addition. Gibson also put a seemingly random image into the trailer of "Apocalypto" -- a shot of his goofily smiling face with cigarette dangling and wild beard.
Image: "Apocalypto."
6. Alfred Hitchcock makes small appearances in almost all of his movies.
Starting in 1927, Alfred Hitchcock made 39 self-referential cameos in his movies, including appearances in "Vertigo," "North by Northwest," "Psycho" and "The Birds." In four of his earlier movies, he made two appearances.
As AMC mentions, the cameos have a few recurring themes. Hitchcock often carried a musical instrument, or acted as a passenger on public transportation, and many were humorous some way, such as the use of his photo for the "before" shot in a newspaper weight reduction advertisement in "Lifeboat."
Hitchcock's appearances usually happen near the beginning of the movie, sometimes even during the opening credits, so you don't need to spend time searching for him rather than paying attention to the plot.
7. After Marty McFly accidentally knocks down a pine tree in the past at the site of the future Twin Pines mall, the name changes to Lone Pine.
Doc Brown and Marty McFly originally meet at Twin Pines mall to travel back in time. When McFly has |
to be a major player in other neurodegenerative disorders in addition to Alzheimer's, the class of drugs represented by MW151 might hold bright potential as co-therapies for Parkinson's disease, frontotemporal dementia, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, M.S. and the longer term complications of brain injury, Watterson said.
"We need more studies of therapeutic time windows in models of these other diseases so we can better plan future clinical trials," Watterson noted.
In the new study by Northwestern's Watterson and Linda Van Eldik, director of the University of Kentucky Sanders-Brown Center on Aging, a mouse model of Alzheimer's received MW151 three times a week starting at six months of age, right at the time the proinflammatory cytokines began to rise. This would be the comparable stage when a human patient would begin to experience mild cognitive impairment.
When the mice brains were later evaluated at 11 months (at a time when disease pathology is usually present), cytokine levels in the mice receiving the drug were restored to normal levels and their synapses were functioning normally. The inflammatory cytokine levels of the mice not receiving the drug, however, were still at abnormally high levels, and the mice had misfiring synapses.
"The drug protected against the damage associated with learning and memory impairment," Van Eldik noted. "Giving this drug before Alzheimer's memory changes are at a late stage may be a promising future approach to therapy."
DRUG INHIBITS MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS DEVELOPMENT
In M.S., overproduction of the proinflammatory cytokines damage the central nervous system and the brain. The proteins directly or indirectly destroy the insulation or coverings of the nerve cells that transmit signals down the spinal cord. When the insulation is stripped, messages aren't properly conducted down the spinal cord.
When mice that were induced to develop an M.S.-like disease received MW151 orally, they did not develop disease as severe.
"We inhibited the development of the disease," said William Karpus, the Marie A. Fleming Research Professor of Pathology at the Feinberg School. "Now we need to learn if the drug can prevent relapses of M.S." That study is ongoing in mice and the results will determine whether a patient trial will be planned.
The only current oral drug treatment for M.S. acts at the level of the lymph nodes, Karpus said. Because the brain is the site of the inflammation and damage, a drug that works in the brain is an ideal therapy.
DRUG PROTECTS BRAIN AFTER TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY
After a traumatic brain injury, the glia cells in the brain become hyperactive and release a continuous cascade of proinflammatory cytokines that -- in the long term -- can result in cognitive impairment and epilepsy. As a result of this hyperactivity, researchers believe the brain is more susceptible to serious damage following a second neurological injury.
In a study with mice, Mark Wainright, M.D., professor of pediatric neurology at Northwestern's Feinberg School and a physician at the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, showed that when MW151 is given during an early therapeutic window three to six hours after the injury, it blocks glial activation and prevents the flood of proinflammatory cytokines after a traumatic brain injury.
"If you took a drug like this early on after traumatic brain injury or a even a stroke, you could possibly prevent the long-term complications of that injury including the risk of seizures, cognitive impairment and, perhaps, mental health issues," Wainwright said.
Stroke also causes inflammation in the brain that may also be linked to long-term complications including epilepsy and cognitive deficits. As in traumatic brain injury, this inflammatory response is part of the recovery mechanisms used by the brain, so the use of brief and focused treatments like MW151 could prevent the harmful effects of inflammation while allowing the protective effects to occur unimpeded.
In another study, Wainwright showed MW151, when given after a traumatic brain injury, prevented the increased risk of epileptic seizures.
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The study was supported by funds from the American Health Assistance Foundation, an Alzheimer's Association Zenith award, a gift from the Kleberg Foundation and grants P01 AG005119 and R01 AG027297 from the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health and R01 NS056051 from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke from the National Institutes of Health and S10 RR026489 from the National Institutes of Health.Pavel Alekseyevich Cherenkov (Russian: Па́вел Алексе́евич Черенко́в [ˈpavʲɪɫ ɐlʲɪˈksʲeɪvʲɪtɕ tɕɪrʲɪnˈkof], July 28, 1904 – January 6, 1990) was a Soviet physicist who shared the Nobel Prize in physics in 1958 with Ilya Frank and Igor Tamm for the discovery of Cherenkov radiation, made in 1934.[1]
Biography [ edit ]
Cherenkov was born in 1904 to Alexey Cherenkov and Mariya Cherenkova in the small village of Novaya Chigla. This town is in present-day Voronezh Oblast, Russia.
In 1928, he graduated from the Department of Physics and Mathematics of Voronezh State University. In 1930, he took a post as a senior researcher in the Lebedev Physical Institute. That same year he married Maria Putintseva, daughter of A.M. Putintsev, a Professor of Russian Literature. They had a son, Alexey, and a daughter, Yelena.
Cherenkov was promoted to section leader, and in 1940 was awarded the degree of Doctor of Physico-Mathematical Sciences. In 1953, he was confirmed as Professor of Experimental Physics. Starting in 1959, he headed the institute's photo-meson processes laboratory. He remained a professor for fourteen years. In 1970, he became an Academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
Cherenkov died in Moscow on January 6, 1990, and was buried in Novodevichy Cemetery.
Discoveries in physics [ edit ]
In 1934, while working under S. I. Vavilov, Cherenkov observed the emission of blue light from a bottle of water subjected to radioactive bombardment. This phenomenon, associated with charged atomic particles moving at velocities greater than the phase velocity of light, proved to be of great importance in subsequent experimental work in nuclear physics, and for the study of cosmic rays. Eponymously, it was dubbed the Cherenkov effect, as was the Cherenkov detector, which has become a standard piece of equipment in atomic research for observing the existence and velocity of high-speed particles. The device was installed in Sputnik 3.
Pavel Cherenkov also shared in the development and construction of electron accelerators and in the investigation of photo-nuclear and photo-meson reactions.
Awards and honours [ edit ]
Cherenkov was awarded two Stalin Prizes, the first in 1946, sharing the honor with Vavilov, Frank and Tamm, and another in 1952. He was also awarded the USSR State Prize in 1977. In 1958, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of the Cherenkov effect.[2] He was also awarded the Soviet Union's Hero of Socialist Labour title in 1984. Cherenkov was a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
In popular culture [ edit ]
The name of Star Trek character Pavel Chekov was chosen as a tongue-in-cheek reference to Pavel Cherenkov.[citation needed]
In Starship Troopers spaceships travel faster than light using Cherenkov Drive.Assorted forks. From left to right: dessert fork; relish fork; salad fork; dinner fork; cold cuts fork; serving fork; carving fork
In cutlery or kitchenware, a fork (from the Latin furca ("pitchfork")) is a utensil, now usually made of metal, whose long handle terminates in a head that branches into several narrow and often slightly curved tines with which one can spear foods either to hold them to cut with a knife or to lift them to the mouth.
History
Bronze forks made in Persia during the 8th or 9th century.
Bone forks have been found in archaeological sites of the Bronze Age Qijia culture (2400–1900 BC), the Shang dynasty (c. 1600–c. 1050 BC), as well as later Chinese dynasties.[1] A stone carving from an Eastern Han tomb (in Ta-kua-liang, Suide County, Shaanxi) depicts three hanging two-pronged forks in a dining scene.[1] Conversely, similar forks has also been depicted on top of a stove in a scene at another Eastern Han tomb (in Suide County, Shaanxi).[1] In Ancient Egypt, large forks were used as cooking utensils.[2]
In the Roman Empire, bronze and silver forks were used, many surviving examples of which are displayed in museums around Europe.[3][4] Use varied according to local customs, social class, and the type of food, but in earlier periods forks were mostly used as cooking and serving utensils.
Although its origin may go back to Ancient Greece, the personal table fork was most likely invented in the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire, where they were in common use by the 4th century. [5][6] Records show that by the 9th century in some elite circles of Persia a similar utensil known as a barjyn was in limited use.[7] By the 10th century, the table fork was in common use throughout the Middle East.[2]
The introduction of the fork to Western Europe, according to theologian and cardinal Peter Damian,[8] was by Theophano Sklereina, wife of Holy Roman Emperor Otto II, who at an Imperial banquet in 972 nonchalantly produced one, astonishing her Western guests.[9] By the 11th century, the table fork had become increasingly prevalent in the Italian peninsula before other European regions because of historical ties with Byzantium and, as pasta became a greater part of the Italian diet, continued to gain popularity, displacing the long wooden spike formerly used since the forks three spikes proved better suited to gathering the noodles.[10][11] By the 14th century the table fork had become commonplace in Italy, and by 1600 was almost universal among the merchant and upper classes. It was proper for a guest to arrive with his own fork and spoon enclosed in a box called a cadena; this usage was introduced to the French court with Catherine de' Medici's entourage. Although in Portugal forks were first used around 1450 by Infanta Beatrice, Duchess of Viseu, King Manuel I of Portugal's mother, [12] only by the 16th century, when they had become part of Italian etiquette, did forks enter into common use in Southern Europe,[13] gaining some currency in Spain,[14] and gradually spreading to France. The rest of Europe did not adopt the fork until the 18th century.[5]
The fork's adoption in northern Europe was slower. Its use was first described in English by Thomas Coryat in a volume of writings on his Italian travels (1611), but for many years it was viewed as an unmanly Italian affectation. Some writers of the Roman Catholic Church expressly disapproved of its use, St. Peter Damian seeing it as "excessive delicacy":[11] It was not until the 18th century that the fork became commonly used in Great Britain,[16] although some sources say that forks were common in France, England and Sweden already by the early 17th century.[17][18][dubious – discuss]
The fork did not become popular in North America until near the time of the American Revolution.[2] The standard four-tine design became current in the early 19th century.[citation needed]
Types of fork
An ice cream fork from the early 20th century
Note folding fork guards.[19] Carving knife and carving forks.Note folding fork guards.
Carving fork from 1640.
Right handed pastry fork with widened left tine.
Two-pronged wooden Chip forks
Asparagus fork
Barbecue fork
Beef fork: A fork used for picking up meat. This fork is shaped like a regular fork, but it is slightly bigger and the tines are curved outward. The curves are used for piercing the thin sliced beef.
Berry fork
Carving fork: A two-pronged fork used to hold meat steady while it is being carved. They are often sold with carving knives or slicers as part of a carving set.
Cheese fork
Chip fork: A two-pronged disposable fork, usually made out of sterile wood (though increasingly of plastic), specifically designed for the eating of french fries (chips) and other takeaway foods. From 7.5 to 9 cm long. In Germany they are known as Pommesgabel (literally "chip fork") and "currywurst fork".
(literally "chip fork") and "currywurst fork". Cocktail fork: A small fork resembling a trident, used for spearing cocktail garnishes such as olives.
Cold meat fork
Crab fork: A short, sharp and narrow three-pronged or two-pronged fork designed to easily extract meat when consuming cooked crab.
Dessert fork (alternatively, pudding fork/cake fork in Great Britain): Any of several different special types of forks designed to eat desserts, such as a pastry fork. They usually have only three tines and are smaller than standard dinner forks. The leftmost tine may be widened so as to provide an edge with which to cut (though it is never sharpened).
Dinner fork
Extension fork: A long-tined fork with a telescopic handle, allowing for its extension or contraction.
Fish fork
Fondue fork: A narrow fork, usually having two tines, long shaft and an insulating handle, typically of wood, for dipping bread into a pot containing sauce
Fruit salad fork: A fork used which is used to pick up pieces of fruit such as grapes, strawberries, melon and other varies types of fruit.
Granny fork
Ice cream fork: A spoon with flat tines used for some desserts. See spork.
Knork
Meat fork
Olive fork
Oyster fork
Pastry fork
Pickle fork: A long handled fork used for extracting pickles from a jar, or an alternative name for a ball joint separator tool used to unseat a ball joint. [20]
Pie fork
Relish fork
Salad fork: Similar to a regular fork, but may be shorter, or have one of the outer tines shaped differently. Often, a "salad fork" in the silverware service of some restaurants (especially chains) may be simply a second fork; conversely, some restaurants may omit it, offering only one fork in their service.
Sardine fork
Spaghetti fork: A novelty fork with a metal shaft loosely fitted inside a hollow plastic handle. The shaft protrudes through the top of the handle, ending in a crank, that allows the metal part of the fork to be easily rotated with one hand while the other hand is holding the plastic handle. This supposedly allows spaghetti to be easily wound onto the tines. Electric variations of this fork have become more prevalent in modern times.
Sporf: A utensil combining characteristics of a spoon, a fork and a knife
Spork: A utensil combining characteristics of a spoon and a fork.
Sucket fork: A utensil with tines at one end of the stem and a spoon at the other. It was used to eat food that would otherwise be messy to eat such as items preserved in syrup. The tine end could spear the item, while the other end could be used to spoon the syrup. [21]
Tea fork
Terrapin fork: A spoon with flat tines used for some soups. See spork.
Toasting fork: A fork, usually having two tines, very long metal shaft and sometimes an insulating handle, for toasting food over coals or an open flame
See also
References
Further reading
Petroski, Henry (1992), The evolution of useful things, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, ISBN 978-0-6797-4039-1Polls are narrowing in Florida. While Joe Scarborough likes to tout PPP’s poll showing Donald Trump with a yuge 20 point lead over Rubio, recent polls show Rubio anywhere from 5-8 points behind with a week to go of campaigning.
Early voting is going to play a big part in this years decision and if Monmouth Polling is right. Rubio has a great head start in the early voting:
Marco Rubio has only claimed two victories so far, making the Sunshine State his make-or-break moment. The Monmouth University Poll finds the home state U.S. Senator currently trails Donald Trump by 8 points in Florida’s Republican primary. Trump has support from 38% of likely primary voters compared to 30% who back Marco Rubio. Ted Cruz earns 17% support and John Kasich has 10%. Rubio actually leads Trump by 48% to 23% among the nearly 1-in-5 voters who have already cast their ballots in this “early vote” state. Trump has a 42% to 26% lead among those who have yet to vote.
One of things we have seen during this primary season is Donald Trump’s amazingly over inflated support in closed primaries. Louisiana was a perfect example of that. Prior to actual voting, Trump’s RCP average lead was nearly 16 points. He had a 3.5 point margin of victory.
People might be thinking, “Well so what, Caruso? A win is a win.” That’s true. Especially in Florida where the winner gets all 99 delegates.
That said, Rubio has a week to convince enough voters to get out there and support him. He’s going to have to do this amidst a Super PAC ad blitz from……Ted Cruz. Cruz doesn’t have a chance to win Florida. These ads are all about sinking Rubio against Trump at which point, Rubio would be forced to drop out. That remains to be seen. It’s impossible to predict almost anything this primary season.
Still, this early voting news is good for Rubio.ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. -- It won't exactly be a homecoming, but the Buffalo Bills will face an old friend Sunday when they square off with Ryan Fitzpatrick and the Houston Texans.
While Fitzpatrick admitted Wednesday it "would have been cool" for his first game against his former team to come at Ralph Wilson Stadium, he joked that support is still strong for him in Buffalo.
"I think it's amazing that there now more [number] 14 jerseys than there were when I was there," Fitzpatrick quipped. "I think the support for me has really grown, especially in the last year -- for some reason -- since the draft. I think that's really cool.
"Is there a new 14 on the team?"
Yes, times have indeed changed. The ever-personable Fitzpatrick once wore No. 14 for the Bills, but that jersey number now belongs to rookie receiver Sammy Watkins.
In all seriousness, Fitzpatrick acknowledged that Sunday's tilt against his former team will have a different feeling.
"This is a special game for me. I think partly just because I have so many great friends, still, that are over on the other side of the ball. Guys that I'm going to be excited to watch," he said. "I'm sure they're going to be excited to hit me and watch me play."
After the Bills hired Doug Marrone as head coach in the 2013 offseason, Fitzpatrick met with the new coaching staff and tried to work out a contract restructuring to stay with the team.
"It just did happen, didn't work out. So I moved on. I would have loved to stay in Buffalo and all that. Things happen. Things happen for a reason," Fitzpatrick said. "There's definitely no hard feelings with the way that it went down. I think the little added extra whatever it is is more so because of the guys I'm playing against, and just having so many good buddies."
The Harvard product served as the Bills' starting quarterback from midway through the 2009 season through the end of the 2012 season. Fitzpatrick had high praise Wednesday for his time in Buffalo.
"The four years we spent there and how much we enjoyed the city of Buffalo and our neighbors and all the fans; what a great experience it was for us," Fitzpatrick said. "I was welcomed there with open arms right away and fell in love with the people. We did. We really loved our four years there and outside of football made a lot of lifelong friends that we'll keep in touch with forever."
Fitzpatrick has four children but said their loyalties may not lie with his current team.
"I'm still trying to convince my 7-year old -- in this game at least -- to be a Texans fan and not a Bills fan," he said. "And then my youngest daughter was born in Buffalo, so we're kind of a torn household right now but I'm trying to convince them that we got to root for the Texans now."
He and his wife, Liza, have a fifth child on the way.
"We're continuing to add. I don't when we're going to stop," he said. "I'm just trying to have more than Freddy [Jackson]."Hillsdale shooting
Portland Mayor Charlie Hales and Central Precinct Cmdr. Bob Day head to the mobile command center Wednesday at the scene of an officer-involved shooting in Southwest Portland in April. The suspect used an AR-15 to wound an officer and kill a police dog, police said.
(Maxine Bernstein/The Oregonian)
Sen. Ginny Burdick, who has championed efforts for new restrictions on guns, "stands for a safer Oregon," Mayor Charlie Hales said Saturday, adding that "as mayor, I stand with the Senator."
Hales issued the statement in response to an Oregonian report that Burdick has received a death threat for gun ownership comments she has made since Tuesday's shootings at Reynolds High School in Troutdale. Jared Michael Padgett, a 15-year-old freshman, used an AR-15 type rifle owned by his family to fatally shoot another student and wound a teacher before killing himself, police said.
"I share her sorrow over this tragedy, her commitment to see that it doesn't happen again, and her anger over these unimaginable acts of violence," Hales said in a statement.
Burdick said Thursday that she believes Padgett's parents should be held criminally responsible for the death of Emilio Hoffman, the 14-year-old freshman killed by Padgett.
"If a kid gets a hold of guns and takes them to school, those guns weren't secured," Burdick said. "Maybe they were thought to be secured or hoped to be secured, but they were not secured. These are weapons of war."
Police say that Padgett, who also carried a handgun, a knife and nine loaded magazines, "defeated" the security measures for storing the weapons. Police have not said what security measures the family had taken.
Hales has not seen specifics on any proposed legislation to make parents criminally responsible, and cannot comment on that aspect of Burdick's remarks, said his spokesman Dana Haynes. But
he agrees that "a
gun that a child can get to is not a secure gun," Haynes said. He has backed Burdick's gun-control bills in the past.
The type of weapon -- an AR-15 type rifle -- is also of great concern, Haynes said, noting several incidents in recent months have involved the military-style weapon. They include a Southwest Portland shooting in April in which suspect Paul Alan Ropp allegedly shot a Portland Police officer and killed a police dog with an AR-15.
"The mayor is just livid about this," Haynes said. "AR-15s are coming up in every story that are police are involved with."
-- Helen JungMoby Francke
At Valve, Moby has been a character designer on Half Life 2 and the art lead on Team Fortress 2. Both titles benefited from his fine art training (with an emphasis on illustration). After graduating from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, he worked at Lucas Arts as a conceptual designer, and taught figure painting at his alma mater.
Jason Holtman
As Valve's Director of Business Development, Jason focuses on Steam distribution, Steamworks integration, and game development on the Source engine. Prior to joining Valve, Jason practiced law, specializing on intellectual property and technology issues. Having travelled all over world to meet with current and potential partners, Jason can tell you the best place to park at SeaTac Airport and exactly where you should buy coffee in more than 15 major airports. He has also perfected the art of the "airport gift."
Keith Huggins
Keith came to Valve from the world of feature film special effects. Two and half years at Weta, five and a half years at Digital Domain in Los Angeles, and a brief stint at Industrial Light and Magic. His handiwork can be seen in King Kong, the last two installments of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Star Wars: Episode III, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, The Fifth Element, and several commercials and music videos. Keith is the only person in the world who has animated dialogue for both Gollum and Yoda. When he�s not working on projects at Valve, he can often be found in a casino, making a moderate effort to remain fit, or spending time with his wife.
Tom Leonard
Before joining Valve, Tom was the CTO of Buzzpad, Inc. Before that, he spent five years at Looking Glass Studios where, as Lead Programmer, he wrote the AI and core architecture for Thief: The Dark Project. Tom also spent seven years working on C++ development tools at Zortech and Symantec. He's been at Valve since 2002, working on design and technology for Half-Life 2, Episodes One and Two, and Left 4 Dead.
Realm Lovejoy
Realm�s father is a Japanese ex-monk. Her mom is an English teacher from Rhode Island. Realm grew up in snowy Nagano, Japan, and later moved to Washington State. She attended DigiPen Institute of Technology, got an AAA in 3D Computer Animation, and was part of the DigiPen team that made Narbacular Drop for its senior project. She interned at Nintendo Software Technology before joining Valve�s Portal team. Now she works on videogames full-time and spends her free time writing and illustrating.
Marc Nagel
At age 19, Marc was a Game Counselor at Nintendo of America. After years of helping people play games, he decided he wanted to help create some. He wound up at Sierra Entertainment - as a test lead for six years. The highlight, of course, was working on Half-Life - and also on Opposing Forces, Counter-Strike, Blue Shift, and many patches. When Sierra shut down, Marc headed to Microsoft. Then Valve snagged him. Now he�s back in the land of the living making sure that the zombie you kill blows up real good.
Bay Raitt
Before joining Valve, Bay led the creation of Gollum's facial system for The Lord of the Rings trilogy. He has worked as a concept artist and sculptor at the Weta workshop and helped setup the creature pipeline at Weta Digital in New Zealand. Prior to moving Down Under, Bay was the product manager for the 3D modeling and animation tools Mirai and Nendo. Bay started his career working for Olyoptics as a colorist on early issues of Spawn, The Pitt and The Maxx for Image Comics.
Elan Ruskin
Elan has worked in the game industry since 2003. Since joining Valve in 2006, he�s been an invaluable engine programmer, gameplay developer, and generalist curmudgeon. Elan is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Carnegie Mellon University.
Matthew Russell
Before coming to Valve, Matthew spent seven years as an animator with DNA Productions in Dallas, Texas. His first DNA assignment was the Emmy-nominated Olive the Other Reindeer. He went on to be a character and supervising animator for the Oscar-nominated feature Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius; a supervising animator on The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius; and Lead Animator for The Ant Bully (from DNA and Warner Bros.). Since joining Valve, Matthew has worked on Alien Swarm, Team Fortress 2, and Portal 2. He is an instructor for AnimationMentor. He also likes balloons, pony rides, and fruity drinks, the ones with the little umbrellas on top.
Several employees were let go from Steam and Half-Life maker Valve on Tuesday, Gamasutra can confirm.We've been unable to determine an exact headcount, but phrases we've heard from affected employees describing the incident include "great cleansing" and "large decisions." We've seen the number "25" tossed around, but are unable to confirm this.Affected employees were asked not to speak about specifics, but the impression we get is that these cuts were driven more by company challenges than by individual performance issues.Valve has not responded to our requests for clarification. This story will be updated as we learn more about what happened.After reports started circulating that Valve's director of business development Jason Holtman was no longer at the company, we thought we'd take a look at the company's employee directory (no longer accessible at the time of this writing) and compare it to a version scraped by The Internet Archive from last month.This is by no means an accurate indicator of who was let go yesterday -- some employees we know were never on this list to begin with, and it's possible that some left the company for other reasons in the interim -- but for the sake of trying to find a pattern to who is no longer at the company, we pulled together a roster of those who were no longer appearing as of our last check this afternoon.Additionally, Jeri Ellsworth -- who was, we understand, designing game controller prototypes, has publicly stated that she's seen her last day at the company.While Valve still hasn't replied to our requests, co-founder Gabe Newell just released a statement to Engadget, expressing that the company has not canceled any projects."No, we aren't canceling any projects. No, we aren't changing any priorities or projects we've been discussing. No, this isn't about Steam or Linux or hardware or [insert game name here]. We're not going to discuss why anyone in particular is or isn't working here," he said.A federal jury in Oklahoma has awarded $6.31 million to a group of cable TV customers after it found that Cox Communications broke federal antitrust law.
Cox unfairly forced customers to rent its set-top box as a condition of receiving premium cable service, the jury ruled. Refusing the box meant being unable to access Cox's interactive channel guide and on-demand video, according to the original complaint.
Not only did tying premium service to set-top boxes limit features for subscribers who wanted to use third-party boxes, but Cox unfairly profited from customers who rented its own set-top box (and may have been forced into the decision against their will), according to the class action. A congressional probe this year found that consumers pay more than $230 a year renting set-top boxes from their cable companies.
"Even if Cox purchases set-top boxes for only $200, Cox's monthly rental fee of at least $6.99 in its Oklahoma City market will surpass $200 in less than two years and five months," the complaint read, "leaving Cox with a minimum of 2½ years of pure profits and consumers with a substantial loss."
Cox argued that it didn't force customers into doing anything they didn't want to do, noting that Dish and DirecTV are both available in the region. It also pointed to other set-top boxes such as TiVo that could provide an alternative to the Cox equipment.
But the jury ultimately decided in the subscribers' favor. Despite the ruling, Cox officials are "gratified that the jury recognized most of the damages plaintiffs were seeking were unwarranted." The company is trying to get the verdict overturned.
Federal regulators are looking at whether to adopt new rules on cable companies that aim to weaken their control over the set-top box market. Companies like Google have argued for the ability to repackage the way cable channels are displayed to consumers on third-party boxes, while cable firms cite legal and contractual hurdles to opening up their service for others. Meanwhile, some firms, such as Time Warner Cable, hope to retain consumers by doing away with the set-top box entirely.Share
Iceland does not have a large population, but many of its most celebrated citizens are known for their progressive, quirky attitudes, like Bjork, or badass Reykjavik mayor Jon Gnarr.
Iceland likes to keep it weird, but weird as in they voted for a mayor who ran as a member of the “Best Party” and used to be a comedian and punk rocker. Weird as in drinking more Coca-Cola per capita than any other country in the world. Not weird as in having babies with close relatives.
Unfortunately, since there are only around 320,000 people living in Iceland, and most share common ancestors, almost everyone is related to each other distantly. This is cool if you want to claim kinhood with Sigur Ros but disturbing when you think about how easy it might be to accidentally crush on a cousin. So people are working to make sure relatives stay out of each others’ bedrooms by embracing technology.
An anti-virus software developer named Friðrik Skúlason developed an online database called “The Book of Icelanders” to help people trace their genetic heritage online, and now three app developers took the database and made an explicitly anti-incest feature on their “Book of Icelanders” app, which is available in beta for Android phones.
The app developers are three Icelandic men named Arnar Freyr Aðalsteinsson, Hákon Þrastar Björnsson, and Alexeander Annas Helgason, who work together at a development group called Sad Engineer Studios.
When asked what they official slogan is – since all copy is written in Icelandic – the developers tell us the app’s motto is “Bump in the app before you bump in the bed.”
They explain that the app goes beyond a basic search function. “We added a birthday calendar to make sure you don’t forget your relatives birthday. The app even reminds you on the date, to guarantee you won’t forget it. The other big feature we introduced was the Bump. This feature enables users of the app to bump two phones together to instantly see how they are related. The ‘Incest Prevention’ is a fun feature that the user can enable through the options menu which will notify him with both text and sound if the one he bumps with someone who is too related to him.”
“We aren’t sure if other countries have such interestingly interwoven bloodlines like we do, but we’re pretty sure the Icelandic genealogy database is unique in it’s completeness. So even if the need is there, other countries would first have to build a similar database before considering a smartphone implementation.”
We asked if they knew of any cases where incest had definitely been prevented. “We have no proof that the app has prevented such an unfortunate relation but it’s nice to know a such prevention exists today. One reviewer on Google’s Play Store claims that it would have prevented it if he had it last year, but we highly suspect it to be a joke.” We sincerely hope so.Mr Go's winning whopper: Kiwi China, China Kiwi. Chinese-style braised beef cheek with pickled kiwifruit, kumara crisp and chilli jam mayonnaise in a house steamed milk bao bun with Go's salted fries.
A Chinese-style burger has taken the prestigious gong of being declared Wellington's favourite whopper.
Mr Go's Kiwi China, China Kiwi burger has wowed Wellington on a Plate judges, who named it the 2017 best burger.
Meanwhile, a fish recipe created by Ortega Fish Shack swam in as the favourite festival dish, and CoCo at the Roxy's whisky cocktail created a stir, being named the top cocktail.
WELLINGTON ON A PLATE Ortega Fish Shack's market fish was the favourite fish dish.
But it was the Asian hawker-style eatery on Taranaki St that was star of the show in this year's Wellington on a Plate festival, getting a placing in all three categories. Along with winning top burger, Mr Go's cocktail and festival dish each won third place.
READ MORE:
* Wellington on a Plate finalists named
* Vegetarian flips out working at burger joint
* Foodies unite for cocktails and burgers at Wellington on a Plate
Mr Go's $19 burger was a Chinese-style braised beef cheek with pickled kiwifruit and chilli jam, mayonnaise in a house steamed milk bao bun, with homemade fries. Runner-up was Five and Dime's vegetarian Impossible Burger. Beach Road Deli's Hangi Pants, a lamb offering, scored third place.
Wellington on a Plate Coco at the Roxy's winning cocktail.
Last year, a whopping 84,000 burgers were munched during Burger Wellington.
More than 13,000 ratings were submitted by the public with finalists determined by a weighted average.
A panel of six judges tasted the finalist dishes, burgers and cocktails over the final three days of the festival, scoring them on taste, presentation, beverage or tapas match, service, use of local ingredients and how the dish reflects the festival theme, 'Celebrating food as part of New Zealand's culture'.
Wellington on a Plate Five & Dime's vegetarian burger came in second.
The winner for each was found by combining the judge's scores with the public's final weighting.
Vaibhav Vishen, from Mr Go's, was ecstatic with their supreme burger win.
"We don't take the credit. We give the credit to Wellington."
He recalled the support the city gave the fledgling restaurant after the November earthquakes last year.
SUPPLIED Beach Road Deli's Hangi Pants burger came third in Wellington on a Plate.
"It's a great reward," Quentin Ville-Renon of Ortega Fishshack & Bar said after they took out the award for top festival dish.
"We weren't expecting this at all. We don't take what we do too seriously, but we do work hard every day."
He said he would be heading back to the restaurant after the win to celebrate with all the staff.
SUPPLIED Mr Go's Filipino Boil Up came third place in the festival dish. The dish features Longbush free range pork belly, sinigang tamarind broth, green beans, bok choy.
CoCo's bartender Ray LeToa said after their win for best cocktail: "We're on an emotional roller coaster... we wanted to just have fun."
Garage Project |
prise pick given Nunu ban) and Olaf while CJ picked up Ez and Sona. With their final picks GSG picked up Blitz and Heimer completing their strategy while CJ picked up Cho and the rest is history. The amazing preparation on GSG’s part was that they led CJ Entus to pick “OP” champions who were very bad at clearing minions in the early game (Shen pre sunfire cape, Kha pre W evolution, Ez) while picking up Olaf (one of the best lane pushers) early as the solo laner. With a terrible composition to stop the amazing push ability provided by the Cait Heimer combo along with picks from the yordle trap blitz pull combo, GSG was able to push mid all the way and end the game by the 19th minute mark. This game was a testament to the former GSG members’ ability to analyze their opponents and execute a strategy flawlessly and one has to believe that this ability will be useful for the new MVP Blue team to survive in their group. Even if MVP Blue don’t do all that well in the group, I have no doubts that they can be a hellish team to prepare against due to the sheer brilliance of their strategies.
Video credits to ESL Asia
Team weaknesses
Cheonju
Cheonju is probably best known as being the best rumble in Korea. While his rumble in undeniably top tier, when that champion is taken away from him his performance level drops noticeably. One of the reasons for this is that Cheonju has a limited Champion pool which makes it easy for the opposition to prepare a counter against him. Adding to the fact that Cheonju mainly played ADC in the NLB doesn’t help with the fact that Cheonju could be singled out as the weakness of MVP Blue. The encouraging sign is that recently, Cheonju has shown that his champion pool has expanded and that he can play champions other than rumble at a high level as well but it still remains to be seen if he can keep up this level of performance when the stakes are higher than before.
The Ups and Downs of Sense
Sense aka Solo aka ChuNyang was probably considered the best player on the former RoMG team when they beat Azubu Frost during the Summer season. There were quite a bit of rumours that several pro organizations were looking into employing his services for their team. Ultimately, he finally became pro with the current MVP team. There may be reasons why some teams decided to stay away from Sense including his well-documented stage fright (when he first competed in a lan tournament) but if I had to pick the main reasons why I would have stayed away from Sense compared to other junglers, it’s his consistency and decision making. On a good day, Sense can play very solid and be a play making force with his arsenal of favourite champions like Vi and Elise but on a bad day he simply becomes a feeder on this team and his team proceeds to get dominated by the opposition. The root cause for this consistency issues is that he generally lacks top tier decision making skills especially when he decides to initiate in a fight. Often you would see Sense engaging in a fight only to have the other team and he dies. Other times you could see Sense engaging in teamfights which ends disadvantageously for his team. These issues arise from several reasons but the oddity in his pathing and his positioning before entering team fights is usually the cause of his downfall. Now that he’s in a team house and is on a professional training regimen, it will be interesting to see how many of these problems he can fix through studying his own match replays and figuring out his playing habits.
The inexperienced bot lane
When you look at the bottom lane for MVP Blue, they are the only team to feature a bot lane duo without a competitive LoL career. While this may not seem like a big issue considering they showed some great plays during the off-season, they showed some flaws in their playing as well. In their matches Deft demonstrated that he possessed mechanical skills which may be able to rival his teammate imp’s but more often than not he showed overly excessive plays which sometimes led to great kills but sometime also led him to his death. If the other teams pick up on his bloodlust tendencies, then there could be situations where he gets purposely baited by the opposing team. FLahm the support, showed that he is a good Lulu player and one day he may be able to challenge Lustboy as the best Lulu in the world but in his current state, he showed one fatal flaw which prevents him from being in that discussion. FLahm would often utilize skills at the wrong timings in a team fight situation. For a support player, this could mean the difference between saving someone or letting them die. The other problem that both of these players exhibited was that when they were forced to anything other than Lulu or Ezreal, their effectiveness decreased slightly. However considering that they are new to the professional LoL scene (especially Deft who is really young), this duo definitely has the room to improve.
Key Player: Sense (Jungler)
With Cheonju not being quite at the top tier level, MVP Blue will need Sense to perform at his highest level every night. MVP Blue is a team that desperately needs a solid tank line so that their carries can deal the most amount of damage possible in team fight situations. If a strong tank line can be established then it should tremendously improve MVP Blue subpar team fighting ability.
Team expectations
While it’s hard to overlook MVP Blue’s impressive performances in the off-season, it was basically all on online tournaments and as Najin Shield has shown us in the past online achievements do not equate to lan success. With question marks across the board, this team could easily end up being a Easyhoon one man team. If MVP Blue were on the other group I could have seen them advancing but in this group they will have trouble escaping last place.Being publicly-funded gives us a greater chance to continue providing you with high quality content. Please support us!
Finally a pet-store that is doing things right! +Kota, the largest pet store chain in Mexico, doesn’t sell pure bred puppies in its stores. Instead, they are battling the world’s homeless pet problem by coordinating with dog shelters in Mexico to make the adoption process that much easier for prospective pet parents. But with a limited budget, +Kota was struggling to spread the word about its awesome program.
Luckily, some clever animal-lovers came up with an amazing idea to let people see some of +Kota’s adorable adoptables. Mexican residents walking around several different parks couldn’t help but smile when “guardian-less” dogs walked by, leash, harness and all.
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What happened if they were interested in adopting one of these dogs? Easy! Each dog had a booklet of “Adoptame” tear-away sheets with +Kota’s adoption information. This campaign allowed people to literally step into the role of leash-holder and companion, and they did! The invisible guardian campaign was a success and 221 dogs found happy homes in the two months following.Judge in trial of eight men over Birmingham riot deaths said films raised issues that 'echoed' arguments put before jury
A judge prevented the BBC from broadcasting two documentaries about last summer's riots without having watched the films – and later prevented the media from reporting his injunction.
Mr Justice Flaux, who was presiding over the murder trial of eight men who were acquitted at Birmingham crown court on Thursday, made the injunction on the grounds that the film raised issues which "echoed" arguments put before his jury.
He used an unusual power under section 45 of the Senior Courts Act 1981, which in some circumstances grants crown court judges the same powers as those used by the high court, to prevent the film from being broadcast.
On Wednesday, the BBC and Guardian and sought to challenge the ruling, on the grounds that the films made no reference to the case being considered by the jury and did not even mention rioting in Birmingham.
They also argued that under section 5 of the Contempt Court Act a publication made as or as part of a discussion in good faith of public affairs or other matters of general public interest "is not to be treated as a contempt of court … if the risk of impediment or prejudice to particular legal proceedings is merely incidental to the discussion".
However, the judge rejected the appeal, saying the films touched on issues related to his case, and if he were to allow the films to be broadcast, jurors could potentially have "social contact" with others who watched the programmes.
He also issued a second order, under section 4 (2) of the Contempt of Court Act 1981, which barred media organisations from reporting the injunction.
However, the end of the trial rendered both orders redundant.
The first documentary in the series The Riots: In their own Words, which had been scheduled for broadcast on Monday at 9pm, was a verbatim drama, based on extracts from anonymous interviews with rioters conducted by the Guardian and London School of Economics study, Reading the Riots.
The script for the film was produced by the award-winning playwright Alecky Blythe and the rioters are played by actors.
The second film, which had been due for broadcast on Wednesday, was a more conventional documentary format, with police officers talking about their experiences policing the riots.
The ruling caused a major headache for BBC executives, who had carefully timed the broadcast of the films to coincide with next month's anniversary of the riots, while trying to avoid a clash Olympics coverage. It is not clear when the films will be shown, although the corporation has said they will be aired "at a later date".
Flaux's ruling initially meant media were unable to report details such as his name, his court, or the case he was presiding over, although it considered possible to report that an order had been made preventing the BBC films from being broadcast.
Later, the media was effectively barred from reporting the issue altogether. The move led to widespread rumour on Twitter, amid concern that a film could be pulled from the BBC's schedule by an unnamed judge without explanation.
Kirsty Hughes, the chief executive of Index on Censorship, described the ruling as "disturbing". "Censoring television programmes is not in any way helpful to our understanding of the important issues and factors underlying the disturbances," she said.
Justice Flaux initially released his injunction on Monday, without having seen either of the films of having any detailed knowledge of their content.
A defence barrister alerted the judge to the films, suggesting that although they may not contain any references to Birmingham, the judge may want to take action out of "an abundance of caution".
The BBC was told about the injunction just hours before the broadcast, and tried unsuccessfully to appeal via telephone conference.
On Wednesday, the BBC made a formal challenge to the ruling, which was supported by counsel from the Guardian.
Rejecting the arguments brought by the media organisations, the judge said that although he had not watched the films, he had read part of the transcripts and seen a two-minute clip on the BBC website.
He added that in the first film, the testimony from rioters in the first programme was similar to allegations raised by prosecution in the trial of the eight men.
He gave the examples of actors talking about the "adrenaline rush" experienced during the riots, taking revenge against police and bricks being thrown at cars – all issues raised during the trial. He said there were also issues in the second film, such as police officers talking about how rioters used BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) to communicate.
The two-part film was "literally littered" with potentially prejudicial commentary that could derail the 12-week trial, Flaux claimed.
In a pointed exchange, counsel for the eight defendants said they would have made an application to discharge the jury if the BBC films had been broadcast as planned on Monday and Wednesday.
"These programmes were potentially extremely prejudicial," Flaux said. "In my very clear judgment the continuation of the order – which, it has rightly been pointed out, is an injunction – that I made on Monday is the only necessary and proportionate remedy.
"If the BBC were to broadcast now, when the jury has already gone out, there would be a serious risk that this trial and the course of justice would be prejudiced."
He repeatedly described the BBC as "irresponsible" for attempting to overturn the order, and described as "complete and utter nonsense" any suggestion he had issued a "worldwide gagging order".
Heather Rogers QC, for the BBC, questioned whether a unilateral ban on the films was necessary and proportionate. She suggested a more reasonable measure would be to warn jurors not to watch the films, but allow them to be broadcast as planned.
However, Flaux dismissed this as "completely unreal", adding that jurors could be alerted to the content of the films through social contact with friends. He said it was "absolutely staggering" that the BBC sought further clarification on the reasons for the ban.
The judge's reasoning behind the ban appeared to suggest that any general reporting of the unrest in England, including references to the mood of rioters, their experiences or their use of social network technologies, was likely to be seen as potentially prejudicial to the trial.
Flaux described the trial as the most high-profile since the disorder last August. He said the interests in ensuring justice "outweigh" the interests in not broadcasting the programme.
A spokesperson for the broadcaster said, "The BBC was of the firm view that as the programmes did not contain any reference to the incident which was the subject of the trial their broadcast could not have affected the trial's outcome."
"As makers of current affairs programmes we felt this was a critical point regarding the freedom of the media to discuss matters that are of general public interest. We were disappointed by the Judge's ruling which prevented the programmes from being broadcast until the jury returned its verdicts. Now that has happened, we are pleased to be able to show the programmes. "Route
This route is recommended as a winter/spring snow hike with optional ski descent. Your starting location depends on whether or not the road is still blocked (for winter) at the Paris Mill or how high you can drive if it has started to melt out. Hike, snowshoe or skin up the Kite Lake road. From the summer trailhead, turn right, enter a shallow gully and follow it north-northeast toward Mt. Cameron -. The S Gully cannot be seen from the Kite Lake area and starts below the Cameron-Bross saddle.Continue northeast through the basin to approximately 12,500' in a large open area. Mt. Cameron is ahead and Mt. Democrat is back to your left -. Taken from the northwest,andshow the location of the S gully. Continue east to the base of the gully (), near 12,800'. Enter the mellow, serpentine gully and continue hiking -and. Taken at 13,700',shows the view of Mt. Democrat behind the route. Keep hiking as the gully gets steeper and turns right, near 13,800' -. The snow will likely run out somewhere between 13,700' and 14,000'. Intersect the standard, Kite Lake loop trail near 14,000', turn left and walk up to the summit.Despite having hustled, stripped and set fire to hairspray cans with her tits out in bars across New York City for years, it wasn't until releasing her debut album in 2008 that Lady Gaga became a household name. Bewildered journalists couldn't make sense of her platinum hair bows, tiny leotards and that purple teacup she used to carry with her wherever she went. But she was an immediate hit among pop fans, who became enthralled by her inherently flamboyant sense of style, increasingly creative music videos and refreshing determination to push boundaries in a pop arena that was actually quite cool at the time, but not particularly weird.
Although Gaga herself was undeniably eccentric, her music – particularly at the start of her career – was broadly palatable. Despite her debut being marketed as a complex Warholian exploration of fame, the tracks were catchy, repetitive and synth-driven. That said, they were also fucking massive. The pulsing synths and hypnotic chorus of "Just Dance" were the ideal accompaniment to WKD-fuelled teen house parties worldwide and the built-for-choreography beats of "Poker Face" had the ability to turn any dingy small town gay club into a euphoric, glittering stampede. Kids across the world ate up her addictive hits, avant-garde outfits and messages of acceptance, propelling her to the status of global icon in just a handful of months.
But it wasn't until the summer of 2009 that these aforementioned kids were given a name: "Little Monsters", which she began calling out to the crowd during her live shows. Giving a whole fandom a nickname of sorts was already commonplace in K-pop, but Gaga was the first to do it on such a grand scale in a western context – using it to describe the way fans would writhe, scream and dance in the pits of her high-octane performances. Naming her fans did two things. First, it created an "us" and "them" narrative. You were either a true Gaga fan, or you weren't. And second, it grouped them all together in a way that made sense online. For a generation of kids who existed on the internet, being a Little Monster meant more than going to a few gigs. It meant having a support network of like-minded people from around the world that you could interact with, like an extended family. Finally, there was a name for all the people who spent their waking hours immersed in the online world of Lady Gaga; one that was getting bigger by the year.
This formation quickly created a new blueprint: Bieber fans dubbed themselves, "Beliebers", Taylor got her "Swifties" and the "Rihanna Navy" formed. But Gaga was the first. Professor Mathieu Deflem – who wrote book Lady Gaga and the Sociology of Fame and dedicated an entire university course syllabus to her influence – agrees that Gaga's effect on fandom culture in this way is notable: "I would say that Gaga has at least facilitated this process for other pop stars and celebrities," he says. "Other stars now constantly name their fanbases – so much so that the effect is kind of wearing off. That also means that there is only one Lady Gaga, and that the impact of imitating her or adopting her various strategies are limited."
Strangely, as Gaga's fan base multiplied, her personal relationship to them tightened. It was in mid-to-late 2009 – just before the re-release of her debut album, The Fame Monster – that she started using a "Monster Claw" hand symbol. It was a gesture as simple as curling her fingers and raising them in the air, but she did it so frequently online and on-stage that it swiftly caught on. Fans would put their "paws up" at concerts and she eventually got the claw tattooed on her back, which she shared on Instagram like a gift back to the fandom. She would talk about feeling like an outsider, sharing personal stories and preaching about tolerance and the importance of equality, consistently vocalising a system of beliefs that she stood for. And so, the Little Monsters had both a name, an ideology and a universal symbol to unite them. By outlining exactly what a Little Monster should be, and accelerating this sense of community among her fans, Gaga basically created a cult (but, y'know, a fun one rather than the kind that ends in something sinister like mass death). And all of this was able to snowball online.
"Gaga and her team understood the creation of a hardcore fanbase via social networking sites, and her approach to fans has always been very personal and direct," says Deflem, explaining how and why the Little Monsters ultimately thrived on the internet. "She established a culture where it seems there's a symmetry between her and her fans, as they can communicate with one another another. You can tweet Lady Gaga, and who knows? She might respond. That sense of horizontal interaction, however illusory it may be, works to create that sense of community."
Of course, every artist at the time had Twitter because by then it was the norm, but their accounts were often reserved for promotional tweets and banal interactions as opposed to glimpses into the artist's personality that felt genuine. Gaga would intersperse funny tweets with videos of her speaking out against "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", the US' now-abolished toxic policy on LGBTQ+ military service members. She would share news of how she was working to fight cyber-bullying with the Born This Way Foundation, or perhaps an image of her "making a statement" in a meat dress surrounded by discharged soldiers. Gaga offered more than just her music, and when she went one step further by creating her very own social network platform LittleMonsters.com, it felt as if she'd actually woven her very own mini universe for her fans to exist within.
It's also worth noting that, because so much had been invested into creating a standalone social networking site, the star made doubly sure that she shared selfies, short responses and statements to reassure her fans that it was all worth it. It became the online equivalent of a community centre, where people could participate in multilingual chat-rooms, share memes and even join in listening parties. Gaga herself was known to scroll through the forum: it was here that she sought out die-hard fan (and now member of the fabled Haus of Gaga, a close creative network influenced by Warhol's iconic inner circle) Emma, who suffers from scoliosis, and paid for her hip surgery. Here, the star even opened up to fans, sharing inside stories and discussing pain, mental health and her experiences in the industry.
It was in 2013 that things truly began to unravel. It started with a debilitating hip injury and spiralled throughout the ARTPOP release campaign, which kicked off with the star parting ways with her management. To make matters worse, she then enlisted controversial photographer Terry Richardson to film a video in which R Kelly, a star whose career has been plagued by allegations of sexual misconduct, "do what he wants" with her body. The video was then canned, with Gaga citing a lack of quality caused by time restraints as the reason it never saw the light of day.
Gaga dealt with these various missteps by seeking solace on her own website. In public, it looked as if things were going gradually downhill, but nobody could pinpoint why. After she spawned a weird painting of a demonic chicken, one fan wrote a lengthy post about their concern for the star, to which Gaga responded. In the ultimately uplifting but still surprisingly candid post, Gaga wrote that she had felt abandoned throughout her hip surgery and as though she were little more than a cash cow to fickle people and corporations – all themes she later expanded on in an excellent keynote speech at SXSW (you know, the one where Millie Brown puked paint down her outfit). Sure, we may now live in a time where Katy Perry live-streams her therapy, but for Gaga to lay her demons bare in such a way to her fans is an example of how she's interacted with them from the very beginning.
Gaga may not have been the very first pop star to develop such a close bond with her fandom, but she is undoubtedly the first to harness the full potential of the digital age to do so. Of course, her more extravagant experiments with technology don't always hit the mark – remember that bizarre ARTPOP app that never quite materialised? But, when she strips it back to just posting short responses to her fans, sharing drunken selfies and laying bare the issues she's truly passionate about, she manages to create a genuine connection which even now feels kind of rare.
This is precisely why Gaga's blueprint is genius. In weighing in with selfies, memes and the occasional heartfelt post at the same time as being the kind of global icon that can sell out arena tours in seconds, she has molded herself into the ultimate pop star paradox: she can release a self-aware comment on fame like "Paparazzi", yet you can also imagine getting shit-faced on whiskey with her and setting the world to rights on someone's sofa at 3AM. It takes more than a meat dress and a few hair bows to curate a fanbase as rabid yet unwaveringly loyal as Little Monsters. Many stars have tried, but without understanding the sense of extended identity that comes from these fan labels. Nobody does it like Gaga.
You can follow Jake on Twitter, and see Esme's work on her website.A flicker of annoyance passed over her face, then went away. “So melodramatic, Marcus. […]”
Well, Severe Haircut Lady (I’m still half-convinced that’s supposed to be a crude dogwhistle for “lesbian”) has a point. Pronounced Winston has just given the hammiest performance about “the Bill of Rights” ever, probably to match her Movie Mobster act.
What I find interesting here is this: he’s been imprisoned and brutalized for no obvious reason, and so far has just been reacting with fear and shock. But what makes him find his “spine” again is a spurious political argument about national security.
In other words, he doesn’t feel that what was done to him was unconditionally wrong. He just thinks it was done for the wrong reasons.
Am I reaching? Possibly, because that’s ascribing a lot of rationality to someone who is being traumatized practically as we speak. Still, we’re careful and experienced readers here, aren’t we? We all know about how texts are at odds with themselves.
I don’t really need to bore you with Derrida and deconstruction; just recall William Blake’s comment about Paradise Lost, that how Milton was “of the Devil’s party without knowing it”. To convey the seductive power of evil, Milton chooses to make his Satan admirable – but can we really say, on the basis of Paradise Lost itself, that Milton was not likewise seduced? Or, in more precise terms, that the text, in the character of the androgynous Lucifer, displays an irreconcilable ambiguity at its very core? The only way to settle such ambiguities is to say – ah, but we know that the God of Protestant Christianity is good, from sources other than Paradise Lost, and because we are good Protestant Christians.
But we’re not – well, most of the people likely to read this aren’t. Apologies to any good Protestant Christians out there, for using you as a rhetorical device. I’m sure you can deal with it.
So the rift here, in Little Brother, becomes one between Marcus reacting the way he does because that’s the only thing he’s feeling sure of right now – his rights as an American – and of him reacting the way he does because of a narrative logic embedded in liberal political practice: you cannot infringe upon my rights, because there’s already a proper class of people for that, people who don't have rights, the un-American “militants”, “enemy combatants” and “terrorists”. Go hassle one of them, that’s what my tax money is for!
So I rattled my wrists, wanting to get to my phone and unlock it for her, and she just looked at me coldly, checking her watch. “The password,” I said, finally understanding what she wanted of me. She wanted me to say it out loud, here, where she could record it, where her pals could hear it. She didn’t want me to just unlock the phone. She wanted me to submit to her. To put her in charge of me. To give up every secret, all my privacy. “The password,” I said again, and then I told her the password. God help me, I submitted to her will.
The position of the phone in this scene is amazing. It’s like you’re reading the account of someone betraying their comrades-at-arms from the resistance after weeks of torture.
Except it’s just a phone.
Except it’s not just a phone, not for Marcus (and Cory). He loves his gadgets more than he loves any living person. As far as we can tell, anyway.
You might be wondering at this point what dark secrets I had locked away on my phone and memory sticks and email. I’m just a kid, after all. The truth is that I had everything to hide, and nothing. Between my phone and my memory sticks, you could get a pretty good idea of who my friends were, what I thought of them, all the goofy things we’d done. You could read the transcripts of the electronic arguments we’d carried out and the electronic reconciliations we’d arrived at.
See, he’s right. Pronounced Winston’s condition – and ours out here in the real world, arguably – is that of cyborgs, our flesh and minds intertwined with electronics, social networking accounts and all sorts of machines that make our current way of life possible. It is a serious violation.
There’s something really liberating about having some corner of your life that's yours, that no one gets to see except you. It’s a little like nudity or taking a dump. Everyone gets naked every once in a while. Everyone has to squat on the toilet. There’s nothing shameful, deviant or weird about either of them. But what if I decreed that from now on, every time you went to evacuate some solid waste, you’d have to do it in a glass room perched in the middle of Times Square, and you’d be buck naked? Even if you’ve got nothing wrong or weird with your body – and how many of us can say that? – you’d have to be pretty strange to like that idea. Most of us would run screaming. Most of us would hold it in until we exploded. It’s not about doing something shameful. It’s about doing something private. It’s about your life belonging to you.
I don’t have a critique of the concept of privacy. I don’t think a critique of the concept of privacy is necessary. Call it a bourgeois weakness in my otherwise total rejection of individualism or something.
Maybe it’s to do with my personal history, and with the fact that I’ve been deprived of privacy and self-determination for pretty long periods of time. I don’t know. I’d be happy to talk about it if you want, and figure out my position in greater detail. But as it is, I agree with Marcus.
They were taking that from me, piece by piece. As I walked back to my cell, that feeling of deserving it came back to me. I’d broken a lot of rules all my life and I’d gotten away with it, by and large. Maybe this was justice. Maybe this was my past coming back to me. After all, I had been where I was because I’d snuck out of school.
Again, I can’t help but sympathize, which kind of goes against the purpose of this whole blog, but whatever. Anyone would feel like they must’ve deserved it somehow in this situation, when their previous vision of a basically fair and predictable world is completely shattered.Mikel Arteta believes that Danny Welbeck is the “perfect fit” for Arsenal.
The England international has made a fine start to life in north London, scoring five times in 12 appearances for the Gunners.
As Welbeck prepares to face his former club Manchester United on Saturday, Arteta is delighted that he will be lining up alongside - rather than against - the striker.
“I think Danny is the perfect fit for us, [with] the kind of character he is and the kind of player he is,” Arteta told Arsenal Player.
Matchday Programme Read Mikel's full captain's notes in the Manchester United programme Click here to subscribe
“Personally I have been surprised by his technical capacity, the way he understands the game, his work rate.
“I rate him more now than I used to and this is a good sign because normally the opposite is true when you watch a player on a daily basis. I’m glad he is with us.
“He has got everything here to become one of the best strikers in the Premier League.”
ADVERTI missed this in the tumult of the past week but good news is always welcome.
When Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl was released by the Taliban in 2014 he was feted by the Obama administration despite ample evidence that he was actually a deserter. His parent were guests at a Rose Garden ceremony with Obama, himself. Habitual and reflexive liar Susan Rice took to the Sunday shows to reprise her bravura performance after Benghazi, in this case she told a lie so monstrous that even CNN’s Jim Acosta, who never saw an Obama-related knob shoe he couldn’t polish, was shocked:
RICE: I realize there has been a lot of discussion and controversy around this. What I was referring to is the fact that this was a young man who volunteered to serve his country in uniform at a time of war. That in itself is a very honorable thing. ACOSTA: But ‘honor and distinction?’
Because of the omelet sizzling on the face of Obama and Rice and others, there seemed to be an initial attempt to fix the case so Bergdahl could just go away.
An Army two-star who conducted a preliminary inquiry minimized Bergdahl’s actions and recommended against court-martial or imprisonment. (Yes, he was promoted.) The commander of US Forces Command disagreed and his legal office determined there was sufficient evidence to charge Bergdahl with one count of desertion and one count of misbehavior before the enemy. Both of which carry the possibility of life sentences.
The next step was an Article 32 hearing, which is the military equivalent of a grand jury but which is not a rubber stamp by any stretch of the imagination, but neither is it definite as it produces a recommendation not a decision. The Article 32 officer recommended that the charges be adjudicated via what is called a Special Court Martial. A Special Court Martial employs a military judge and a panel of three officers as a jury. This would have limited Bergdahl’s liability to 12 months confinement, forfeiture of two-thirds pay and allowances, and a bad conduct discharge, the latter does not deprive a soldier of all veterans benefits.
The four-star who has convening authority for courts-martial disapproved the recommendation for a Special Court and ordered that Bergdahl stand trial on the two charges and face a General Court Martial which can impose any sentence up to and including death.
Then the legal maneuvering started in earnest. Bergdahl asked Obama for a pardon and got nothing. Then his defense team started throwing stuff against the wall in hopes some of it would stick. They claimed unlawful command influence because candidate Donald Trump had called Bergdahl a traitor at least 65 different times. This gambit has been denied for the simple reason that the “unlawful command influence” has a specific meaning.
Another hearing was held in June before a military judge to decide if the charges were supported by the record or if they should be modified. Bergdahl’s team was really aiming to have the “misbehavior before the enemy” charge reduced or dropped altogether. If Bergdahl is tried on the misbehavior charge, whether or not he’s convicted of it, the evidence given to support that charge will ensure a court martial panel returns a really stiff sentence for desertion.
Last week, the military judge overseeing the trial rendered two adverse decisions. First, he decided that Bergdahl will stand trial on all charges. Most damaging, though, was his decision that if Bergdahl is convicted that the jury would be allowed to hear about the injuries suffered by an Navy SEAL and an Army NCO while specifically searching for Bergdahl.
Serious wounds to a soldier and a Navy SEAL who searched for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl can be used at the sentencing phase of his upcoming trial, a judge ruled Friday, giving prosecutors significant leverage to pursue stiff punishment against the soldier. The judge, Col. Jeffery Nance, ruled that the service members wouldn’t have wound up in the firefights that left them wounded if they hadn’t been searching for Bergdahl, so their injuries would be relevant to his sentencing if he’s convicted of misbehavior before the enemy at trial in October.
I suspect we are heading for a guilty plea and Bergdahl taking his chances with a military judge. Any court-martial panel Bergdahl draws will be composed of officers with combat tours. Bergdahl can demand that a third of his jury be composed of noncommissioned officers senior in rank to him–but he’d have to have a profoundly incompetent defense team for them to think that senior NCOs are going to be very sympathetic to his case.The Institute's Fromer-Wexler Fellow contributes to a BBC roundtable on the question 'Is Saudi Arabia to blame for the Islamic State?'
Contrary to conventional wisdom, ISIL derives a relatively small share of its funds from deep-pocket donors. And while terror financing within Saudi Arabia was once a major problem, Riyadh has begun to turn a corner -- especially when it comes to financing ISIL.
ISIL has been financially self-sufficient for years, including its early days as al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). A 2006 US assessment determined that AQI created a self-sustaining insurgency in Iraq, raising $70m-$200m (47m-134m pounds) a year from illegal activities alone. Seized AQI documents indicate that "outside donations amounted to only a tiny fraction -- no more than 5% -- of the group's operating budgets from 2005 until 2010."
Today, ISIL's primary sources of funding are extortion, oil smuggling, and other criminal activities. A small number of major donors were designated as terrorist financiers by the US Treasury Department, but these were exceptions. The Saudis have arrested several hundred ISIL suspects, reportedly including some ISIL financiers, but Riyadh provides no breakdown of the numbers.
Recent polling data suggests support for ISIL within Saudi Arabia hovers around 5%. And yet, those results suggest the Saudis have reason to worry: 5% of the Saudi population represents over half a million potential donors.
Authorities worry about ISIL sympathisers' ability to raise and move funds through hard-to-monitor cash transfers, a typical method among Saudi donors. Another concern is ISIL fundraising through social media and other communication technologies. Saudi authorities reported that ISIL fundraisers have solicited donors via Twitter and told them to establish contact via Skype. Donors were then asked to purchase international prepaid cards and provide the card numbers via Skype. These would be sold to earn cash.
In March, Saudi Arabia co-chaired with the US and Italy the inaugural meeting of the Counter-ISIL Finance Group. This working group will get a significant boost from the recent UN Security Council summit of finance ministers focused on countering ISIL financing. Doing more to prevent ISIL donors moving money through banks and money exchangers was surely on the agenda.
View other contributions to the roundtable.Facebook is taking its standalone app strategy to a new extreme today. It’s starting to notify users they’ll no longer have the option to send and receive messages in Facebook for iOS and Android, and will instead have to download Facebook Messenger to chat on mobile.
Facebook’s main apps have always included a full-featured messaging tab. Then a few months ago, users who also had Facebook’s standalone Messenger app installed had the chat tab of their main apps replaced with a hotlink button that would open Messenger. But this was optional. If you wanted to message |
Desktop Entry] Encoding=UTF-8 Name=Window Maker Exec=/usr/local/bin/wmaker Comment=This session logs you into Window Maker Type=Application
Automatic configuration
Versions of X.org since 1.2 (X11R7.2) in 2007 have supported autoconfiguration of display devices. HAL automatically detects input devices, and fontconfig automatically detects fonts, so you may never need /etc/X11/xorg.conf at all!
Once you’ve set up your.xinitrc to use your window manager of choice, just give startx a try. Hopefully it will work flawlessly. If it does feel free to skip the sections on manual configuration. That should only be necessary if you need to force a specific video driver, toggle a specific option, or just hate yourself and feel like learning one of the worst configuration file formats of all time.
Manual configuration
This section explains how you can manually configure X for systems using an AMD Radeon and the radeon driver, an Intel grahpics chip with the intel driver, virtualized graphics cards like emulators/virtualbox-ose-additions’s vboxvideo, or any other generic framebuffer device supported by the default vesa driver. If autodetection works you shouldn’t have to do this.
As root, run X -configure. It will spit out a new X.org configuration file in /root/xorg.conf.new based on your detected hardware. Copy this file to /etc/X11/xorg.conf, then pull it up in a text editor for a few modifications.
Add an “Extensions” section and enable the Composite extension.
Section "Extensions" Option "Composite" "Enable" EndSection
Add one line to the ServerLayout section to enable AIGLX.
Section "ServerLayout" Identifier "X.org Configured" Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0 InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer" InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard" Option "AIGLX" "true" EndSection
I usually enable the EXA AccelMethod and DRI by adding their respective lines to the Device section. If you have a Radeon card ensure your Driver is configured as radeon, not radeonhd! radeonhd is an older, Novell-sponsored, defunct driver for Radeon HD hardware, but -configure likes to pick it by default if it’s installed. You should use radeon instead. Otherwise X -configure should pick the best driver.
Section "Device" Option "AccelMethod" "EXA" Option "DRI" "true" Identifier "Card0" Driver "radeon" VendorName "Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI" BoardName "RV770 [Radeon HD 4850]" BusID "PCI:1:0:0" EndSection
Enable the freetype, bitmap, and type1 X font modules by adding them to the Module section. According to the manual, “[t]he extmod, dbe, dri, dri2, glx, and record extension modules are loaded automatically if they are present”, but I like to go for the explicit configuration and define them anyway.
Section "Module" Load "dbe" Load "dri" Load "dri2" Load "extmod" Load "record" Load "freetype" Load "bitmap" Load "type1" Load "glx" EndSection
Manual Configuration with NVIDIA
Skip this section if you don’t use an NVIDIA graphics card or if automatic configuration works for you.
The binary x11/nvidia-driver is the only proprietary software on my system. As much as I’d prefer a free and open solution, I’ve found that neither Nouveau nor the free Radeon or Intel driver compare to the speed and feature support of Nvidia’s official driver.
Install the driver itself, x11/nvidia-settings, and x11/nvidia-xconfig.
To load the nvidia kernel module at boot, enable it in /boot/loader.conf.
echo 'nvidia-modeset_load="YES"' >> /boot/loader.conf
Run nvidia-xconfig to get a base xorg.conf in /etc/X11/xorg.conf. Pull it up in your favourite text editor and add the Module section to enable the freetype2, glx, type1 extensions.
/etc/X11/xorg.conf Section "Module" Load "freetype" Load "bitmap" Load "type1" Load "glx" EndSection
Later on, once you’re booted into the graphical environment, you can use nvidia-settings to configure TwinView and any other settings.
Desktop Environments
The best part of the X Window System ecosystem is the variety of environments available. You might prefer the configurability of KDE, the sparse cleanliness of MATE, something minimal like Window Maker, or even tiling like i3. This isn’t xwinman, but I’ve included screenshots and descriptions for some of the most popular environments to give you an idea what’s out there.
KDE 4
KDE is the largest and most fully-featured Free Software desktop environment, based on the Qt toolkit. Its configuration options are dizzyingly numerous and it has excellent support for modern technologies like high-DPI displays. It has a modern compositing window manager, KWin, the web and file browser Konqueror that famously spawned the KHTML engine that became WebKit, and a family of other Qt applications like the excellent Clementine. The KDE4 meta-port is available at x11/kde4.
You can start KDE with exec startkde in your.xinitrc, but KDE also includes its own graphical login manager, KDM which you can optionally enable in rc.conf and start as a service.
echo 'kdm4_enable="YES"' >> /etc/rc.conf service kdm4 start
MATE née GNOME 2
GNOME 2 was a venerable desktop environment made famous as the Ubuntu default around 2008, and MATE is the community fork of GNOME 2 after the GNOME team lost their collective minds.
MATE users should configure PolicyKit to allow normal users to mount removable media automatically.
/usr/local/etc/PolicyKit/PolicyKit.conf <config version="0.1"> <match action="org.freedesktop.hal.storage.mount-removable"> <return result="yes"/> </match> <match action="org.freedesktop.hal.storage.mount-fixed"> <return result="yes"/> </match> <match user="root"> <return result="yes"/> </match> <define_admin_auth group="wheel"/> </config>
MATE doesn’t include a GDM alternative, so start it with exec mate-session in your.xinitrc using either startx or SLiM.
Compiz is a popular alternative window manager with MATE and GNOME 2 users. It gives you those fancy wobbly windows, 3d cubes, and all kinds of flashy stuff. You can install Compiz-Fusion from x11-wm/compiz-fusion. Be sure to disable the obsolete and unmaintained window decorator Emerald, a leftover from the Beryl project, when prompted on the port configuration screen. With Emerald disabled, compiz will default to gtk-window-decorator and will take on your normal GTK theme appearance but with more transparency and garish animation.
Once installed, open Settings > Preferences > CompizConfig Settings Manager. You’ll probably want to enable the following plugins at minimum:
General: Gnome Compatibility
Desktop: Desktop Cube, Rotate Cube
Effects: Animations, Window Decoration, Wobbly Windows
Window Management: Application Switcher, Move Window, Place Windows, Resize Window
Open the “Run” box with Alt+F2 and execute compiz-manager. compiz-manager is a script for detecting and using the proper compiz options for your video hardware. Your screen will flash while Compiz and gtk-window-decorator initialize and replace Marco, MATE’s default window manager.
If your windows are missing titlebars, double-check you’ve enabled “Window Decoration” in ccsm. If all seems well, add compiz-manager as a new startup application (in Settings > Preferences > Startup Applications), then change MATE’s window manager preference in DConf:
gsettings set org.mate.session.required-components windowmanager compiz
To switch back, use the same command with the argument marco.
Window Maker
It isn’t as popular or well-known as the others here, but Window Maker is my favorite and longest-used window manager. It is based on the look and feel of the NEXTSTEP operating system, the OS that became Rhapsody and then Mac OS X and iOS. Unlike the extremely limited one-dimensional Mac OS X dock, Window Maker offers a main dock as well as a “clip” dock that is unique to each virtual desktop. Docks can hold normal launchers and “dockapps”, small self-contained dock accessories.
You can install Window Maker from x11-wm/windowmaker and start it with exec wmaker in your.xinitrc. In addition, I also show x11-clocks/wmclock, sysutils/wmcpuload, net/wmnd, audio/wmix, x11/sakura, and x11-fm/rox-filer.
The first time you start Window Maker you should run wmaker.inst to install the starter configuration to your ~/GNUstep directory.
Enlightenment
Enlightenment was the original eye-candy desktop before modern compositors were even a thing. Version 0.17 was the ambitious rewrite release that almost never came out until e17releasemanager got it out the door. Since then it has followed a steady update schedule and is no longer vaporware. It contains an eye-catching desktop built on the project’s own Enlightenment Foundation Libraries. E17 is shiny, bouncy, extendable, and very configurable. You can install it from x11-wm/enlightenment and run it with exec enlightenment_start in your.xinitrc.
XFCE
XFCE descends, like KDE, from the design of the once-proprietary Common Desktop Environment. As of XFCE 4.0, however, the desktop has become more of a GNOME-lite, the “other” GTK+ desktop environment. I don’t have much to say about it, but it is a very functional and lightweight desktop with panels, a window manager, a great file manager (Thunar), and some other lightweight applications like a terminal.
You can start XFCE with exec startxfce4 in your.xinitrc.
Cinnamon
Cinnamon is a GTK 3 desktop environment from the Linux Mint project. It began as a fork of the GNOME 3 Shell into a more traditional panels and menus UI since many were dissatisfied with the drastic redesign of a beloved environment. It’s come into its own as a modern DE and offers everything you would expect from GNOME 2 or MATE with a cohesive feel and forks of several of the GNOME core apps.
You can install Cinnamon from x11/cinnamon and start it with exec cinnamon-session in your.xinitrc. There is also a fallback software-rendering mode that can be started with exec cinnamon-session-cinnamon2d instead.
GNOME 3
GNOME 3, available on Linux since 3.0 in the spring of 2011, is finally available in the official FreeBSD tree as of November 2014. The three and a half year delay is thanks to the upstream GNOME project’s years-long fight against any operating system that doesn’t have a penguin for a mascot. It took several years and a vastly waning userbase, then suddenly they care about portability again. Sure, okay. Either way, it’s here and you can install it from x11/gnome3.
We weren’t missing much in the delay, since the GNOME team tossed out everything great about their once-ubiquitous DE and turned it into a shiny but unconfigurable iOS imitator where basic features and options are either not available at all, buried inside a settings registry more reminiscent of Windows 98 than BSD, or relegated to extensions that will break with every new minor version thanks to the lack of any stable extensions API and whose very existence are opposed by many of the main project contributors. Take a look at the GNOME Shell Extensions page with me and be amused that you need an extension to use a theme, categorize the Applications menu, remove the otherwise-omnipresent accessibility menu from the status bar, or even power off your computer without knowing about the magic Alt-button toggle.
If you want a great GTK-based desktop environment maintained by a team that doesn’t hate you, check out MATE, XFCE, or Cinnamon. All three are excellent. I guess I can thank the GNOME project’s self-destruction for getting me back into Window Maker.
Theming
Finding Clearlooks too drab and blue? You can find a world of themes and icons for MATE over on GNOME-Look, for KDE at KDE-Look, for XFCE at XFCE-Look, for E17 at E17-Stuff, and for several lightweight window managers at Box-Look. There are several attractive and usable themes buried among the OS X Aqua clones, Vista Aero clones, and black-as-my-soul darkness-fests that are standard on any theming website.
You can change theme settings for Qt4 applications with qt4-qtconfig and for KDE Qt applications (like Clementine) in the KDE System Settings. GTK+ is selectable in many window managers’ appearance preferences, and you can also install x11-themes/lxappearance for a light GTK theme switcher.
Extras and Miscellany
Printing
CUPS is the standard for printing on Free Unix-like systems and can be installed from Ports along with any needed filters. Install the CUPS meta-port at print/cups. Install HPLIP in print/hplip for HP printer drivers (and my Brother HL-2170W, for some reason). Install the Foomatic filter collection in print/foomatic-filters and its database and engine in print/foomatic-db and print/foomatic-db-engine, respectively. I find the CUPS-PDF virtual printer in print/cups-pdf very useful as well.
Enable CUPS once installed:
/etc/rc.conf # Disable line printer daemon since we have CUPS lpd_enable="NO" # Enable CUPS cupsd_enable="YES"
Add local users to the cups group if you want them to be able to print.
pw usermod root -G cups pw usermod okeeblow -G cups
Start the CUPS service with service cupsd start and you should be able to access its web configuration UI at http://localhost:631/ in your web browser. It may prompt you for your root password to write the config files in /usr/local/etc/cups. Most full desktop environments include a GUI to control CUPS and add printers, but the web interface is available in any of them.
The web interfaces’ built-in documentation can help you configure different models of printer, specifically the Network Protocols Supported by CUPS and Common Network Printer URIs sections.
S.M.R.T.
sysutils/smartmontools installs smartd and smartctl, a daemon and utility for checking the S.M.A.R.T. status of your local disks.
Enable the sample smartd.conf. It contains one directive, DEVICESCAN, that causes smartd to scan all attached drives.
cp /usr/local/etc/smartd.conf.sample /usr/local/etc/smartd.conf echo'smartd_enable="YES"' >> /etc/rc.conf service smartd start
You can check the S.M.A.R.T. status of a drive directly with smartctl as root. The -H flag will show basic pass or fail health status, and the -a flag will show everything.
smartctl -H /dev/ada0 smartctl 6.2 2014-02-18 r3874 [FreeBSD 10.0-RELEASE-p2 amd64] (local build) Copyright (C) 2002-13, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org === START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION === SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
Java
FreeBSD has several available Java providers, including OpenJDK and Sun's Oracle’s JDK. I recommend the newest OpenJDK for most people. It’s far easier to install than the binary Oracle JRE which requires logging in to a web page, agreeing to the license, and manually downloading the distfile for Ports. At the time of this writing the newest OpenJDK is java/openjdk8. OpenJDK 6 and 7 are available as well if you have software that doesn’t run on Java 8.
If you need a Java browser plugin you can install java/icedtea-web once a Java provider is available.
Webcams and DVB
Most USB webcams and many DVB tuners are supported by multimedia/webcamd, and webcamd depends on the userland character device driver in multimedia/cuse4bsd-kmod. Install them, then enable them in rc.conf and loader.conf.
/etc/rc.conf # Webcam daemon webcamd_enable="YES"
/boot/loader.conf # Userland character device driver for webcams cuse4bsd_load="YES"
You can use your camera device with pwcview available in multimedia/pwcview or with Cheese in multimedia/cheese. Cheese provides a nice interface similar to Apple’s Photobooth on OS X, but it has a heavy GNOME library dependency some may not want on their systems.
IBus
IBus is a modern IME for Unix-like systems, allowing one to input CJK languages. Install the main IME from textproc/ibus as well as QT application support from textproc/ibus-qt.
You’ll need one or more input methods once the IME itself is installed. Ports of interest:
chinese/ibus-chewing - Chewing engine for IBus
chinese/ibus-pinyin - The PinYin input method
japanese/ibus-anthy - Anthy engine for IBus
japanese/ibus-mozc - Mozc engine for IBus
japanese/ibus-skk - SKK engine for IBus
korean/ibus-hangul - Hangul engine for IBus
textproc/ibus-kmfl - KMFL IMEngine for IBus framework
textproc/ibus-m17n - The m17n IMEngine for IBus framework
textproc/ibus-table - Table based IM framework for IBus
Heavyweight desktop environments like GNOME or KDE will let you configure the input method graphically. In GNOME 2 and MATE, for example, you can open the IBus preferences from the Settings > Preferences menu. KDE/Qt users can enable it as the default IME in qtconfig-qt4.
Lightweight window manager users like me can start it in.xinitrc :
~/.xinitrc export XMODIFIERS="@im=ibus" export GTK_IM_MODULE="ibus" export QT_IM_MODULE="ibus" exec ibus-daemon -d -x &
Now run any GTK or QT application, press your keyboard shortcut to switch input methods, and test it out.
Linuxulator
FreeBSD’s Linuxulator allows it to run Linux application binaries using system call translation. Desktop users will find it useful for running the handful of proprietary but necessary programs that are available for Linux but not for FreeBSD, such as Adobe Flash Player.
Install the Linux base distribution from Ports. As I write this the default base distribution is emulators/linux_base-c6, based on CentOS 6, replacing the old Fedora 10 based linux_base-f10. A newer CentOS 7 emulators/linux_base-c7 is also available and will become the default at some point in the future.
Once your chosen linux_base installed, tell your system to load the linux kernel module at boot.
echo 'linux_load="YES"' >> /boot/loader.conf kldload linux
Mount the linprocfs virtual filesystems for compatibility with GNOME and other programs requiring them.
/etc/fstab linproc /compat/linux/proc linprocfs,auto,late rw 0 0
Besides proprietary garbageware like Flash Player I also use Linuxulator along with the Loki compatibility library package to run Loki Software’s Linux ports of some of the best PC games ever made, like Simcity 3000 Unlimited.
Wine
Wine is a free implementation of the Win32 API capable of running real Windows applications on Unix-like systems. It’s available from emulators/wine emulators/wine-devel, or emulators/wine-staging, containing the latest stable, unstable, and staging versions respectively. The optional emulators/wine-gecko is an mshtml.dll replacement that will allow Windows programs to embed web pages using the Mozilla engine. The optional emulators/wine-mono will let Wine run Windows programs written in versions 1.x or 2.0 of the.NET Framework without using the proprietary.NET runtime. You can also install emulators/winetricks, a script containing Wine installation recipes for popular software, and you may find a Wine GUI such as emulators/swine useful for maintaining separate Wine prefixes.
Installing 64-bit Wine on an amd64 FreeBSD system normally precludes you from running 32-bit Windows software, a.k.a. most of the software you probably care about. As a workaround, i386 Wine packages are also available. You can install them from emulators/i386-wine, emulators/i386-wine-devel, or emulators/i386-wine-staging.
If you plan to use Wine to run browser plugins, use the staging -patched version of wine in emulators/wine-staging or emulators/i386-wine-staging.
Wine is very impressively-compatible these days. I use it to run a lot of games from Humble Store and GOG so I don’t have to fire up a Windows computer or VM. Wine is so good it is used to create the Linux versions of many of these titles, such as Freedom Planet, and in that case it’s a lot easier to run the same executable in FreeBSD Wine than to try and get the Linux Wine binaries running via Linuxulator.
If every wine command fails with ELF interpreter /libexec/ld-elf.so.1 not found your 64-bit system is missing the 32-bit libraries necessary for Wine. You’ll need to install them. From the releases FTP, grab the lib32.txz matching your version of the OS and extract it either as root or with sudo to the root of your filesystem to install. The archive contains a full directory hierarchy so all the files will end up in the right place.
fetch ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/amd64/11.0-RELEASE/lib32.txz tar xfp lib32.txz -C /
Browser Plugins
NOTE on NPAPI Deprecation: Firefox and Chromium are deprecating support for NPAPI plugins, so everything in this section will stop working at that time. Chromium removed support as of version 32. Firefox 52 is the last version with support and will be available as www/firefox-esr until the release of ESR 60.
Adobe Flash Player is not released for FreeBSD but is usable on FreeBSD i386 and amd64 through your choice of two wrappers.
The 32-bit Linux version of the Flash plugin can be installed via www/linux-c6-flashplugin24 or www/linux-c7-flashplugin24, executed through Linuxulator, and adapted to 32-bit or 64-bit native browsers with www/nspluginwrapper.
Adobe dropped support for the NPAPI Linux version of Flash with version 11.2 back in 2012. They left development up to Google who deprecated NPAPI and only released a PPAPI version for many years as part of their proprietary Chrome browser bundle, something that isn’t even available for FreeBSD. Adobe, in a surprising move, resumed Linux NPAPI Flash plugin development in 2016.
To use nspluginwrapper, make sure linprocfs is mounted and execute nspluginwrapper -v -a -i as your normal user to locate and enable the Linux Flash plugin. -a automatically finds available plugins and -i installs them. It’s important to remember it makes a copy of the Flash library in your home directory when you do this, so every time you update the version of Flash installed through Ports you need to remove your local cory with nspluginwrapper -v -a -r and install the new one with nspluginwrapper -v -a -i. Adobe promised security updates for the NPAPI Flash Player through 2017, and if history is any indication you’re going to need them.
A newer and arguably better solution is emulators/pipelight, a Wine-based wrapper for Windows browsers plugins. It supports the very newest version of Windows Flash, freeing us from the limitations of Adobe’s Linux development, and also supports Shockwave, Silverlight, Unity, Widevine, and more. It requires a special patched version of Wine, emulators/wine-staging or emulators/i386-wine-staging. Once installed, activate plugins as root.
pipelight-plugin --update pipelight-plugin --create-mozilla-plugins pipelight-plugin --enable flash
Silverlight is available as well and can allow you to watch DRMed NetFlix content via your browser on FreeBSD. I have no experience using it since I don’t buy DRMed streaming media subscriptions, but it can be installed the same way.
pipelight-plugin --enable silverlight5.1
Heed www/pipelight’s pkg-message warning about Silverlight DRM if you have a ZFS-based system:
For users running with ZFS on root, watching DRM protected content requires extensive xattr support. If you run into issues with DRM failing, you can use the “pipelight-mkufs” command to create a UFS formatted ZVOL mounted on your users ~/.wine-pipelight directory.
Other plugins are enabled the same way, and the list of available plugins can be seen in pipelight-plugin --help.
Virtualization
It’s pretty common to virtualize another operating system on your computer, possibly to run a proprietary program or access a proprietary office groupware system. Whatever the reason, it’s easy to accomplish on FreeBSD.
FreeBSD 10 has a new built-in hypervisor known as bhyve capable of running FreeBSD natively and other operating systems via sysutils/grub2-bhyve. Originally bhyve supported only a serial console but as of FreeBSD 11 also supports graphics.
Alternatively, VirtualBox open source edition is available at emulators/virtualbox-ose. Build it with Guest Additions enabled for the best experience virtualizing Windows and Linux.
To use VirtualBox, configure loader.conf to load the VirtualBox kernel module and configure rc.conf to start VirtualBox bridged networking.
/boot/loader.conf vboxdrv_load="YES"
/etc/rc.conf vboxnet_enable="YES"
/etc/devfs.conf # Allow VirtualBox network access own vboxnetctl root:vboxusers perm vboxnetctl 0660
pw usermod okeeblow -G vboxusers
Skype
Skype is bad, proprietary software that doesn’t value your freedom. Use audio/mumble or net-im/ekiga instead if you can. If you still wish to use Skype, make sure you have Linuxulator enabled and install net-im/skype.
Version 2.1 of Skype’s Linux client dropped support for OSS, found in FreeBSD as the default sound API. Thanks to this, Skype 2.0 persisted for years as the version in Ports. With the introduction of an ALSA compatibility shim in FreeBSD 8.3 and 9.0 and audio/linux-c6-alsa-plugins-oss, we can use the newer ALSA-only Skype 2.1 client.
The ALSA client, unlike the old OSS client, requires some explicit configuration to use our sound devices. They must be defined manually in /compat/linux/etc/alsa/pcm/pcm-oss.conf, the configuration file of alsa-plugins-oss.
In this example, I enable pcm6 / dsp6 for audio output, and pcm8 / dsp8, a USB webcam, as a microphone source.
/compat/linux/etc/alsa/pcm/pcm-oss.conf pcm.oss8 { type oss device /dev/dsp8 hint { description "Open Sound System - Webcam" } } ctl.oss8 { type oss device /dev/mixer8 hint { description "Open Sound System - Webcam" } } pcm.oss6 { type oss device /dev/dsp6 hint { description "Open Sound System - S/PDIF" } } ctl.oss6 { type oss device /dev/mixer6 hint { description "Open Sound System - S/PDIF" } }
There is an even newer Skype client available as net-im/skype4, but that version is not usable on FreeBSD 10.x due to missing syscalls in that branch’s Linuxulator. It will work via Pulseaudio in FreeBSD 11 and later.
For Skype 4.x, load the Video4Linux2 wrapper module:
kldload linux_v4l2wrapper echo 'linux_v4l2wrapper_load="YES"' >> /boot/loader.conf
The microphone volume can be controlled by invoking the mixer of your chosen recording device. Let’s raise the microphone volume now from 0% to 75%.
mixer -f /dev/mixer8 mic 75
ISO-8601 and other locales
This is personal preference, but I also set my LC_TIME environment variable to the en_DK faux-locale for ISO-8601 date formats instead of the ridiculous American standard.
Quick, what date is 6/5/12? Oh, it’s 2012-06-05, of course.
The locale isn’t included with the FreeBSD base system as it is in many Linux distributions, but it’s available from Ivan Voras’ blog.
tar -C /usr/share/locale -zxf /path/to/your/en_DK.UTF-8.tgz
Enable it in the login database and /etc/profile.
/etc/login.conf @@ -46,7 +46,8 @@ \:ignoretime@:\ \:umask=022:\ \:charset=UTF-8:\ - \:lang=en_US.UTF-8: + \:lang=en_US.UTF-8:\ + \:setenv=LC_TIME=en_DK.UTF-8:
cap_mkdb /etc/login.conf
/etc/profile LC_TIME=en_DK.UTF-8; export LC_TIME
Upgrade Notes
This guide assumes you will track the newest STABLE branch, upgrading to new stable branches at the initial.0 release. That’s not a thing I would ever recommend with OS X, but I haven’t been burned by a new major FreeBSD version yet. This section notes things you need to know to keep your system in top shape when upgrading.
9.x to 10.0
If you are updating from 9.x to 10.0 or higher, run pkg2ng after rebooting into the new OS. This conversion script will convert the list of installed packages from the format used by the old pkg_ tools to the format used by pkgng, the new binary package manager. If you neglect this step the OS will think you have no packages installed and your life will become very confusing.
10.0 to 10.1
WITH_NEW_XORG is no longer a thing. The old version is gone.
vt is a new console driver designed to replace syscons. It offers Unicode and graphics support using kernel modesetting. This is necessary to support UEFI. A loader variable kern.vty can select between vt and sc.
/boot/loader.conf kern.vty=vt
It will default to graphics mode but can be configured to use a text mode instead if necessary.
/boot/loader.conf hw.vga.textmode=1
History
2017-03-23
Cover FreeBSD 11
Recommend packages over ports
Re-arrange build and Xorg sections
Suggest Xorg autoconfiguration
nvidia -> nvidia-modeset
New screenshots
Stop mentioning GNOME 2, because it’s gone
wine-compholio -> wine-staging
linux_base-f10 is gone and linux_base-c7 is added
NPAPI deprecation and Flash 24
2014-12-26
Whoops, I missed that GNOME 3 and Cinnamon finally made it to the official tree!
CentOS 6 is the default Linux base.
HAL is mostly deprecated throughout the Free desktop world. Now that X.org no longer uses it by default I stopped recommending its use.
2014-11-29
Cover changes in 10.1 like installer changes, UEFI support, and vt.
Upgrade notes moved to their own section.
Cover CentOS 6 Linuxulator.
Cover Pipelight for browser plugins.
2014-07-27
SLiM wants sessiondir now, not enumerated sessions.
now, not enumerated. Update and expand Wine section
TeXLive is now the default TeX provider, so no need to specify it over teTeX.
2014-07-17
Section re-organization
I stopped using or recommending GNOME
Cover firewalling
Add a whole desktop environments section.
Cover pkgng
Cover installation instead of linking to a ZFS installation guide now that bsdinstall supports it
Stop recommending blf in login.conf because the default is sha512 now instead of md5
in because the default is now instead of KDE4_PREFIX is ${LOCALBASE} by default now
is by default now WITHOUT_NOUVEAU is gone
is gone Use TeX Live
FUSE is built-in now
Add additional device paths for permissions
Add virtualization section
Wine packages are available in Ports now
2012-06-06
2012-01-02And Rob Ford was accompanied by his city hall chief of staff, who is paid by taxpayers.
At a joint noon-hour campaign event on Monday, Karen Stintz, Olivia Chow and John Tory were joined by campaign aides. David Soknacki was represented by his campaign manager.
This event — a CityTV speaking-order draw for Wednesday’s televised debate — was held at mid-day on a weekday. And Jacobs said he is not working on the campaign at all.
Under city rules, taxpayer-paid aides are allowed to work on their bosses’ campaigns “as long as it is outside of their work hours,” said city spokeswoman Jackie DeSouza. “This can be the evenings of work days, weekends, their vacation time or if they take leaves of absence.”
“I’m part of the mayor’s staff,” he said when asked to explain his presence.
Soknacki’s campaign manager, Brian Kelcey, said Jacobs’s appearance at the studio was inappropriate. He said he himself took an unpaid leave of absence from the mayor’s office in Winnipeg when he went to work for a councillor’s campaign.
“Yes, the mayor needs to be staffed. But if he’s being staffed at a campaign event, the only appropriate use of taxpayer resources for his campaign is — not at all,” Kelcey said. “He needs to have a volunteer or campaign-paid staffer with him at all times if he wants to actually live up to his ‘respect for taxpayers’ mantra in an election period.”
Ford’s campaign is being managed by his brother, Councillor Doug Ford, who has not identified any other staffers. Asked in February who is part of the team, Doug Ford said, “The people.”
Rob Ford has been repeatedly accused of misusing his staff as mayor. Several aides assisted him with his former volunteer football coaching position and with his football foundation, and police investigating him over unrelated matters were told that he had aides buy alcohol for him and perform menial tasks at his home.Romney camp doubles down in Ohio
Despite a spate of headlines out of Ohio that push back on the notion that President Obama's campaign is trying to strip military members of voting rights in the upcoming election, Mitt Romney's campaign is drilling down on the claim.
In a memo out earlier from counsel Katie Biber, Romney's camp insisted that the suit the Obama camp filed - to restore early in-person voting rights to every Ohio citizen - is targeting military members.
The suit doesn't actually say this, and papers the campaign has filed called it "appropriate" to give three extra days to military members (more on that here). The suit argues against creating two classes of voters, using the legal term "arbitrary," which Romney's camp is seizing on to make its point - along with the argument that it's "unconstitutional."
"We disagree with the basic premise that it is arbitrary' and unconstitutional to give three extra days of in-person early voting to military voters and their families, and believe it is a dangerous and offensive argument for President Obama and the DNC to make," she wrote.
"It is not only constitutional, but commendable that the Ohio legislature granted military voters and their families this accommodation. It is despicable for the Obama campaign to challenge Ohio’s lawful decision."
She noted that a group of more than a dozen military groups is opposing the suit, which is an extremely complicated case related to the end of what had been early in-person voting broadly (which would likely help Obama) being turned into solely military early in-person voting (which is likely to help Romney).
The lawsuit is not trying to end it for military members, but make it exist for everyone. It was, however, predictable that the suit would inflame members of the military because of the language in the brief - and not surprising Obama's opponent would seize on it.
The Obama campaign, meanwhile, sent out a string of headlines that undercut the Romney campaign's claim, with statements calling it "shameful." Vice President Joe Biden made a similar statement to Time's Mark Halperin yesterday, who notes that this is a clear play to try to recreate some of the military voting outrage that existed in 2000.
So Romney's campaign has at least appeared to be making two separate points - arguing based on the brief that Obama doesn't agree military members deserve special privileges, while also, as some staffers put it, claiming the campaign is trying to deny voters rights. The suit's intent isn't about subtracting, it's about adding. But the fact that it's about the rights of service members makes it politically trickier, and the suit does suggest creating two classes of voters is a bad precedent - which is what the military organizations opposing it take issue with.
Whether the Romney campaign succeeds in making this a cause that breaks through remains to be seen. Given the involvement of the outside fraternal military groups, whichit's an open question.
* This post has been updated
Maggie Haberman is senior political reporter for Politico.Cannabis Extraction Technician Silphium, LLC - Cleveland, OH
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Qualifications:
Please provide references.
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At minimum, Bachelors degree in engineering or physical sciences |
intense negotiations between House Republican leaders, Democratic lawmakers and the Obama administration. Those talks were punctuated by a high-dollar public relations campaign aimed at derailing any deal that could force bondholders to swallow significant losses.
Thursday’s House vote came ahead of a crucial July 1 deadline, when the territory is poised to default on $2 billion in bond payments. The Senate, however, has yet to act.
Lead sponsor Rep. Sean Duffy (R-Wis.) said that unless the rescue bill becomes law, “the Puerto Rican government is likely to collapse, participants in public pension plans will be terribly damaged, and almost all bondholders could lose their investments.
“Absent this bill,” he said, “almost nobody wins and nearly everybody loses.”
[House leaders, White House reach agreement on Puerto Rico rescue bill]
The territorial government and the Obama administration have both warned of a brewing humanitarian crisis if the island’s mounting public debt is not eased. Already, debt service consumes more than one-third of annual government revenues, which has threatened into the island’s ability to address the education, safety and health of the public — including the serious threat posed by the Zika virus.
On Tuesday, the island’s only airborne ambulance service said it was suspending its services after territorial officials declined to pay a $4.4 million bill, according to an Associated Press report.
Republicans, who pointed to the bill’s potential to upend bond markets and set a precedent for future fiscal interventions, have been most skeptical of the rescue legislation in recent months. But much of the last-ditch lobbying was aimed at Democrats influenced by a rising tide of popular sentiment on the island against the bill, known as the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act, or PROMESA, after the Spanish word for “promise.”
The oversight board established under the bill would have broad powers to manage the territory’s fiscal affairs, including the power to enforce balanced budgets though asset sales and employee layoffs. The seven members would be selected by President Obama from lists drawn up by congressional leaders, most of them Republicans.
The raging debate in Puerto Rico was reflected in the gubernatorial primary elections held there Sunday, in which Pedro Pierluisi, the island’s nonvoting House representative who supports PROMESA, lost to Ricardo Rosselló Nevares, an outspoken opponent of the bill, in his bid for the New Progressive Party nomination.
That sentiment has filtered up to Washington, where groups advocating for the island’s interests have redoubled their objections to the bill in tandem with labor unions wary that $46 billion in unfunded public-employee pension obligations might be restructured alongside the bond debt.
[Bernie Sanders leads liberals’ fight against Puerto Rico rescue bill]
In a fiery speech on the House floor, opponent Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D-Ill.) compared the proposed oversight board to the state-appointed fiscal manager in Flint, Mich., who made the disastrous decision to change the city’s water supply.
“If you give power to a control board unelected and unsupervised by anyone here, be careful,” he said. “Remember Flint. Remember the poisoning of the people and what the control board did there. That is exactly what we should suspect will happen.”
The Obama administration made a last-ditch effort to convince Democrats this week, inviting Gutierrez and other influential Democratic lawmakers to the White House for a Tuesday meeting with President Obama and Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew. And on Wednesday morning, Lew visited a House Democratic Caucus meeting to urge support for the rescue bill.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) played a leading role in crafting the compromise and convincing her colleagues to support the bill. More Democrats than Republicans ending up voting for it Thursday.
“Is it a perfect bill? It is not. We would prefer that the board had a different makeup and perhaps different responsibilities and powers,” Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), the Democratic whip, said this week. “But having said all that … in a world of alternatives, this is an alternative we need to take.”
Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah), chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee and a leading GOP proponent of the rescue bill, said Wednesday that he was not concerned by the results of Sunday’s election or the new objections arising on the island.
“If you were running for governor of Puerto Rico, you would bad-mouth PROMESA,” he said. “But you would also, if you’re running for governor, realize there has to be a solution. This is the ideal solution. … You can also blame the board for all the bad decisions from here on in. It’s brilliant for a governor candidate’s politics.”
[Puerto Rico debt rescue plan engulfed in Great Recession ‘bailout’ politics]
Bishop was among those targeted by the shadowy campaign against the legislation that aired TV ads referring to the bill as a “bailout,” though the bill would not send any federal taxpayer funds to the island.
One influential conservative advocacy group, Heritage Action for America, announced it opposes PROMESA and plans to include the vote on its legislative scorecard. But two major organizations of conservative House members — the Republican Study Committee and the House Freedom Caucus — did not take positions on the bill.
A cadre of House conservatives remained sharply opposed to the bill, but House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) made a major push to sell the bill to Republicans, culminating with a forceful plea on the House floor Thursday.
“This bill prevents a bailout; that’s the entire point,” he said. “If we do not pass this bill, then there is much more likely going to be a bailout, because there is no other choice.”
Ryan racked up a major legislative achievement with the passage of PROMESA, a politically thorny and technically complex bill that also represents the first significant policy initiative that he has both launched and shepherded through the House since becoming speaker in October.
The White House issued a statement Thursday strongly backing the bill in spite the inclusion of provisions — including a potential suspension of the minimum wage and overtime rules — that Democrats largely oppose: “Failing to act now will result in an economic and humanitarian crisis far beyond what Puerto Rico is already facing today.” Also backing the bill hours before passage were two influential Democrats of Puerto Rican heritage, Reps. Jose Serrano and Nydia Velazquez of New York.
Opposing the bill were 103 Republicans and 24 Democrats.
The bill now faces an uncertain timetable in the Senate. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), the majority whip, suggested this week that the bill might receive swift floor consideration, but senators opposed to the bill could delay passage until close to or after the July 1 deadline. Key Senate leaders of both parties have refrained from taking a firm position on the House bill.
PROMESA includes a stay of litigation to give the oversight board time to start its work and to give creditors an opportunity to negotiate voluntary settlements. Should Puerto Rico default on July 1 without the stay in place, creditors would likely to rush to courthouses, kicking off a litigation spree that the territorial government and many bondholders are hoping to avoid.
The bill would instead set up a process that would allow for an orderly restructuring of the island’s debts in a process akin to bankruptcy. But how quickly that happens will depend on how soon the law is passed and the board is appointed — and on who is appointed to it.
“A lot of what’s going to happen is based on who’s appointed by the various congressional leaders and the president,” said Greg Clark, who heads municipal research for Debtwire, a firm that conducts bond-market analysis. “I think you have the right people on the board and have a good staff, you’ll have a good outcome.”Uber is giving its "bug bounty" program two shots in the arm.
The ride-sharing company announced a new program that will pay hackers a whopping $10,000 for each critical problem they find with the app's code. They will also give $5,000 to hackers who flag significant issues, and $3,000 for "medium" issues.
Many tech companies offer similar programs to hackers who help find cybersecurity vulnerabilities in their systems. But Uber's new offer is particularly lucrative. AT&T bounties range from $100 to $5,000 bug bounty, while Google pays from $100 to $20,000.
Uber also said it is creating a loyalty reward program for hackers to help Uber deal with "subtle bugs."
Here's how it works: Beginning on May 1, hackers will have a 90-day window to find four issues that Uber accepts as genuine.
Related: Hackers score 1 million miles for helping United find security bugs
Uber will then issue an additional payout if the hacker finds a fifth bug within those 90 days -- a payment that's equal to 10% of the average payouts for all other issues found during the time frame.EMMA ALBERICI, PRESENTER: The Catholic Church in Victoria has revealed that its clergy were responsible for hundreds of cases of child sexual abuse over the past 80 years.
In a submission to a Victorian parliamentary inquiry, the church admitted that over the past 16 years its internal complaints system upheld 620 claims of child abuse dating back to the 1930s.
But some are asking why it's taken so long for the Church to go public.
Hamish Fitzsimmons reports from Melbourne.
HAMISH FITZSIMMONS, REPORTER: The Catholic Church in Victoria made a confession which many have wanted to hear.
SHANE MACKINLAY, CATHOLIC CHURCH SPOKESMAN: The failures are many. The failures are largely that we were very slow to take victims seriously, to listen to what they said and what had happened to them, to believe their accounts.
HAMISH FITZSIMMONS: A briefing was held for priests, some of whom were distressed by the announcement.
PRIEST: We're all ashamed. We're shattered, really. Just we hope we can move on and help the victims in some way.
HAMISH FITZSIMMONS: The Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into Sexual Abuse by Religious Orders came after a report by retired judge Philip Cummins, which called for an independent inquiry that could compel witnesses to give evidence. The Church responded quickly.
DENIS HART, ARCHBISHOP OF MELBOURNE: If the Government chooses to have an inquiry we will cooperate fully. And I believe that in such an inquiry, what we have done in Melbourne and the value of what we have attempted to do will be strongly recognised.
HAMISH FITZSIMMONS: The Church says the numbers it revealed today date back to the 1930s.
SHANE MACKINLAY: One of the things that we do in our submission, which we have called "Facing the truth", is precisely to face the truth of those sort of numbers and the horrific extent and the horrific consequences for each of the victims represented by the numbers.
HAMISH FITZSIMMONS: The bulk of the cases are from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, and the Church maintains there's been a massive drop in abuse numbers since.
SHANE MACKINLAY: As we look at the times at that which abuse occurred, we see there's less than 20 in the last 20 years. So, where there was absolutely dramatic and appalling rates of abuse in the 1970s and 1980s, that's dropped off extraordinarily.
HAMISH FITZSIMMONS: Some though believe the real figure is much higher. Judy Courtin is doing a PhD in law on abuse in the Catholic Church, and says research shows only a fraction of people report abuse.
JUDY COURTIN, LEGAL RESEARCHER: We have no idea. All we've got to sort of use is a Victorian Law Reform Commission statistic which says that a maximum of 10 per cent of children who were sexually assaulted will ever report to the police. Generally they will not report as children. It can take the victims or survivors decades, if ever, to report.
HAMISH FITZSIMMONS: Much of the abuse was centred around the regional city of Ballarat, Oakleigh in Melbourne and Sunbury on the city's outskirts. Some are cynical about why the Church has now come forward.
JUDY COURTIN: It's interesting that it has taken the threat, if you like, of a parliamentary inquiry - and certainly in New South Wales, the very big push for a Royal Commission - it has taken that for the Church to finally come up with the stats. We have been asking for those stats for a very long time.
HAMISH FITZSIMMONS: Submissions to the inquiry close today and hearings will start next month.One of the most important elements of Armored Warfare is the matchmaking in player versus player battles. The concept of matchmaking in Armored Warfare is quite different from other games as instead of hard-coded vehicle tiers - it uses a system of battle ratings, which allows us to create a much more fluid and comprehensive matchmaking mechanism that not only works fast, but is also easily customizable, allowing us to quickly adjust general tank balance and tune it in order to achieve best results.
To create as balanced teams as possible, we have developed a system where several elements are taken into account:
The vehicle itself
The equipped modules
How many battles the player used the vehicle in
These three categories form what we call “combat rating”.
Combat rating
In our matchmaking system, each vehicle has a different rating depending on its tier, starting at 1000 and increasing by 10 percent of the previous value for every tier as such:
Tier Value 1 1000 2 1100 3 1210 4 1331 5 1464 6 1610 7 1771 8 1949
These values are further modified by vehicle modules. In Armored Warfare, the matchmaker takes your vehicle’s module setup into account by adding extra points to your vehicle’s combat rating for any additional unlocked module equipped. Some modules add more combat rating points than others – for example equipping an upgraded gun will increase your vehicle’s rating more than equipping a new engine – but overall the combat rating value will never reach the one of the tier above, no matter how well-equipped your vehicle is.
Freshly unlocked vehicles will also get a bonus to combat rating, making them meet easier opponents still.
Additionally, Armored Warfare will allow the players to play together in small units we call “platoons”. In a unit of two or three vehicles, the matchmaker always considers the highest rating for the purpose of determining what vehicles the platoon meets in battle. In theory, if a tier 1 vehicle forms a platoon with a tier 2 vehicle, the matchmaker will put such a platoon together with other vehicles with tier 2 combat rating. The situation where vehicles of significantly different enter battles together tiers however is not desirable and there will be measures in place to prevent the creation of such units – only vehicles within certain, rather narrow rating range will be allowed to enter battles together in platoons.
Creating a battle
Once a player enters the match queue from his garage, his vehicle is handed over to the matchmaking mechanism. The matchmaker will first try to place the vehicle immediately to an already formed battle group with an appropriate rating range – if no such group is available, after a certain period of time the matchmaker will take the player and form a new battle group around him.
Battle groups are groups of players taken from the matchmaker queue and “reserved” for an upcoming battle. They are formed around one player (called “seeder”), whose rating determines the rating of the entire group – initially, only tanks with rating within 10 percent range of the seeder’s rating are allowed to join his battle group. In other words – if a seeder drives a tier 5 tank with its default rating of 1464 points, only the vehicles with 1317 to 1610 rating are allowed to join at first. Because the tiers in Armored Warfare are separated by 10 percent rating by default, this creates a de-facto -1/+1 matchmaking spread for default vehicle values. If the matchmaker is able to fill this battle group with suitable tanks of appropriate rating, the battle is started as usual. In cases where there are no suitable vehicles available in the queue, after a certain period of time the matchmaker starts expanding the battle group rating range by a certain amount every few seconds, extending the de-facto matchmaking spread to -2/+2. This expansion however is usually artificially limited – before the rating range expansion reaches values that would allow vehicles of three tiers higher to join, the group is usually disbanded and the matchmaker attempts to redistribute the vehicles from that particular group to other groups immediately.
Platoons are subjected to the same rules although the matchmaker will always attempt to match them with other platoons on the opposite team. This is not a hard rule however and can be broken if the platoon spends too much time in the queue.
The matchmaker also accounts for vehicle classes and limitations. Currently, there is a hard limit set for artillery class vehicles – there cannot be more than three per team. The final thing also considered are the classes – while this is more of a guideline than an actual rule, the matchmaker will always attempt to make the game diverse by avoiding putting too many vehicles of one class into one battle group. Last but not least, completely new players do form battle groups separate from experienced players whenever possible.
Battle is formed
Once the matchmaker puts together a group of 30 players, it proceeds to the team-forming phase.
All 30 players are sorted into two teams based at first on two criteria:
Vehicle class
Vehicle tier
Both teams have to be balanced when it comes to both of these parameters, the matchmaker will neither allow one team to have all the MBT’s and the other to have tank destroyers only, nor will it for example allow one side to end up with tier 5 vehicles and the other with tier 4’s only. The players are separated into groups by their class and then these class groups are internally sorted by their tiers.
These sorted groups are then distributed to both teams based on the player quality. An internal rating was developed, taking several elements into account – these do include player’s winrate, average XP per battle and several other indicators. The matchmaker then shifts the players around the teams so both teams end with roughly the same player rating. Please note that the matchmaking system allows for a certain margin of difference and both teams will never be completely identical when it comes to skill – the matchmaker however is programmed to produce the most balanced teams obtainable. While attempting to keep the battles balanced by skill however, the classes and tiers are ultimately more important to the matchmaker than the skill.
With both teams sorted this way, the matchmaker starts the battle itself. You will have the opportunity to experience how our matchmaking works in closed beta of the game.
Remember to sign up for the Armored Warfare beta at AW.MY.COM and follow us for more news and updates on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter! If you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask them in the appropriate forum thread you can access by pressing the “Discuss” button.Congressional Republicans are fuming over President Donald Trump’s Wednesday decision to side with Democratic leadership, agreeing to a three-month debt ceiling raise and continuing resolution rather than the longer raise called for by his own party.
“He f—-d us,” one senior GOP official told Axios in reference to Trump’s spontaneous decision to accept Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s offer to support a three-month debt raise, rather than the 18- or 12-month proposals brought to the table by his own party’s leaders.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is perplexed as to why the president readily accepted Schumer’s offer, and doubts that Trump made the decision with any discernible strategy in mind, a source close to McConnell told Axios.
House Speaker Paul Ryan called Pelosi and Schumer’s offer of a three-month debt raise “ridiculous and disgraceful” hours before Trump readily agreed to it during the Oval Office meeting. Ryan alleged that the three-month raise jeopardized federal funding for Hurricane Harvey victims.
Trump’s defection from the stance adopted by party and administration leaders may imperil the GOP’s tax reform efforts. GOP leadership made a concerted effort to a secure a longer debt ceiling raise in an effort to delay the resulting political battle until after tax reform had been secured. Trump’s decision to undermine their efforts and acquiesce to the Democrats means the looming debt ceiling battle will compete for legislative time with tax reform efforts.
The timing of the December debt raise is politically perilous for Republicans, as it will likely reveal divides within the party between staunch fiscal conservatives that have advocated for steep spending cuts and the centrists hesitant to make painful cuts right before an election year.
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Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.We are bombarded with statistics about the future of cities these days, as fast as the cities themselves are growing. More than half of the world's population now live in a city, with the number of urban residents increasing by 60 million each year – that's two new urbanites every second. It is a relentless rate of expansion that will see over 70% of the global population living in urban areas by 2050, requiring the equivalent of a new city of 1 million built every five days between now and then.
These mindboggling figures make impressive headlines for breathless reports on urbanisation, to be regurgitated at conferences across the globe, but such statistics are meaningless without asking what these cities will be like, who they are for, and how they are being made.
That's why we are launching the Guardian Cities site, as an open platform for critical discussion and debate about the issues facing the world's metropolitan centres, from the future of housing and transport, to public space and infrastructure;, from the nature of planning and governance, to energy and security – along with the forces of change that can't always be planned for. What happens to cities subject to conflict and natural disaster, industrial meltdown and financial collapse?
Featuring regular contributions from established experts and new voices, we'll be peeling back the glossy veneer of the computer renderings, and going beyond the facts and figures of the city sales pitch, to ask what our future cities will actually be like – and how we can influence them for the better.
We are told that cities are getting "smarter", as technology reaches further into our streets, bringing a brave new world of crime-fighting lampposts and sentient dustbins. Smart cities have been billed as the next leap forward, the arrival of networked systems for collecting, processing and implementing urban data hailed as a "second electrification" of the world's metropolises.
City of the Future by Anton Brzezinski, drawn in 1951. Photograph: Forrest J Ackerman Collection/Corbis
No longer confined to programming traffic flows, the smart city's sensors can detect its citizens' daily routines, keep track of queues outside museums, monitor overflowing sewers, tell when dustbins are full and flag-up empty parking spaces. The citywide computer knows where it's best to put the shops, where people should live, how much amenity space they should have, and when they are behaving suspiciously. The smart city can fix our mess, bringing order to urban chaos. But is outsourcing our collective civic intelligence to a computer algorithm the answer to making good places to live? And who sits in the control room?
As tech giants like Cisco, IBM and Siemens expand their influence on the urban realm, it's worth asking who they are accountable to, indeed who owns the streets, spaces and infrastructure over which their systems keep watch. The "public" spaces, plazas and piazzas that come with urban regeneration are increasingly nothing of the sort, instead extensions of the private lobby, with public access contingent on activities and codes of behaviour that fit into the developer's vision. As whole swaths of cities are sold off to private owners, returning to the model of the 18th-century great estates, whose vision are we signing up for? And do we fit in it?
Even where our streets and spaces do still remain in public ownership, their management is being progressively outsourced to private hands. The rise of the business improvement district across the US and Europe, visible in the growing number of branded wardens and guardians patrolling the streets, is creating new elite communities with the power to tax and the power to enforce the law, making separate cities within the city. As local councils slash their own services, is a return to feudal urban fiefdoms the price we must pay for cleaner, safer streets?
One of a series of photographs by Henry Flather showing the construction, of the Metropolitan Railway's underground lines in London, in 1866. Photograph: Science & Society Library/Getty Images
And are cleaner, safer streets really the ultimate goal? Town centres are increasingly looking to the shopping mall as the model for function, planning and management, the out-of-town retail complex standing as an idealised closed loop of contained, predictable systems. But when the mall is recycled as the blueprint for the town centre, is the chance and surprise of urban life being excluded for the benefit of efficiency and control? As high streets continue to decline, could there be more to the city experience than eating and shopping?
With risk and danger designed out of cities at all costs, conventional wisdom of what makes a good place is in danger of being overturned by the inexorable rise of security consultants. Under the influence of initiatives like Secured by Design, benign elements of the city are taking on new malign meanings: the humble bench is transformed from a useful place to sit down, into a potential source of loitering and antisocial behaviour. As counter-terrorist planning becomes the ultimate authority, our cities are being defined by blast distances and hostile vehicle mitigation zones, the urban realm reconfigured through a lens of fear. Are these new fortress cities making citizens safer, or merely more paranoid?
None of this will matter much if we can't afford to live in the city in the first place. When housing has become an investment opportunity rather than a basic human right, and the majority of property bought overseas to let rather than owner-occupied, what is the impact on the city's neighbourhoods and communities? How are architects, housebuilders and planners around the world responding to the urgent need for affordable homes, and what form will that housing take? Two billion people are projected to be living in slums globally by 2050; are our future cities places of inclusion and exchange, or merely tools for consolidating division and inequality?
With the fastest urban growth happening in developing countries, how far are the new city visions in line with the real needs of most people on the ground? Driven by local politicians and global investors eager to capitalise on the next frontiers, fantastical satellite cities are popping up across Africa and Asia, Russia and the Middle East. But do these specialised enclaves of science and technology, leisure and luxury, risk becoming white elephant ghost towns, diverting funds away from meeting the basic needs of the countries' much poorer urban populations?
As cites expand ever upwards and outwards, whether hyper-dense or dispersed and sprawling, how will transport solutions adapt to changing patterns of movement? Are elevated cycleways the answer to commuting, or will they delay fixing problems on the ground and distract from the bigger picture of creating integrated streets for everyone? Will self-driving cars help to ease congestion and reduce accidents, or merely make drivers dumber and more complacent?
Traffic computers at the Los Angeles transport department's control centre, in 2007. Photograph: David Mcnew/Getty Images
With urban growth outpacing our capacity to plan, the impacts of less predictable forces are also multiplied beyond all control. Facing threats of flooding and earthquakes, storms and tsunamis, the resilience of cities is tested to the limit, with any flaws in zoning and construction exacerbating risk. How far can such extreme conditions be mitigated, with protective infrastructure and disaster management, and should the way we live always be determined by the worst-case scenario? With flooding becoming an increasingly regular event, should we be retreating behind bigger barriers and steeper levees, or learning to adapt our cities to work with, rather than against, these conditions?
These are just some of the questions that the Cities site will be tackling, along with coverage of best-practice projects from around the world and interactive visualisations from the Guardian's data team – as well as contributions from you.
"Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody," wrote the American urban theorist Jane Jacobs in 1961, "only because, and only when, they are created by everybody." So come and get involved and join the debate.About the author: Robert Anton Wilson was the author of the legendary The Illuminatus! Trilogy. He died earlier this year.
In Burlington, North Carolina in 1990, a group of decent, Christian, hard-working folks who called themselves the Truth Tabernacle Church held a trial featuring the well-known elf Santa Claus as defendant.
They charged Mr. Claus, represented in court by a stuffed dummy, with all sorts of high crimes and misdemeanors. They charged him with paganism. They charged him with perjury for claiming to be Saint Nicholas. They even charged him with encouraging child abuse by appearing in whiskey ads. Worse yet, they found him guilty on all counts, for basically being a jolly old elf — i.e., a pagan god trying to steal Christmas from Christ.
It wasn't the first time Mr. Claus got the boot from a Christian congregation. Pope John XXIII threw the suspiciously merry old clown out of the Roman Catholic church back in the late 1960s. The Jehovah's Witnesses have always denounced Santa for his unsavory pagan past. (They also recognized Christmas trees as phallic symbols long before Freud.) Many fundamentalists believe that all pagan gods are basically one false god — the same demon in different disguises — and they think the disguise is thin in the case of this particular elf. It only takes a minor letter switch, they point out, to reveal Santa Claus as SATAN Claus.
I sort of think the fundies have it right for once. Santa not only has an unsavory pagan ancestry but a rather criminal family history all around. Let me Illuminize you...
As Weston La Barre pointed out a long time ago in his classic Ghost Dance: The Origins of Religion, you can find remnants of a primordial bear-god from the bottom of South America up over North America and over the North Pole and down across most of Europe and Asia. This deity appears in cave paintings from southern France carbon-dated at 30,000 BC. You can find him and her (for this god is bisexual) disguised in Artemis and Arduina and King Arthur, all unmasked via canny detective work by folklorists -- and etymologists, who first spotted the bear-god when they identified the Indo-European root ard, meaning bear. You can track the bear-god in dwindling forms in a hundred fairy tales from all over Europe and Asia. And you can find the rituals of this still-living god among the indigenous tribes of both American continents.
And Santa, like Peter Pan and the Green Man of the spring festivals, and the Court Jester — and (in an odd way) Chaplin's beloved Little Tramp — all have traits of the god that walks like a man and acts nasty sometimes and clownish sometimes and who was ritually killed and eaten by most of our ancestors in the Stone Age, who then became one with their god and thus also became (if the ritual worked) as brave as their god. See Sir James Frazer's The Golden Bough for the gory details.
And I swear the same god-bear tromps and shambles through every page of Joyce's masterpiece of psycho-archeology, Finnegans Wake. If you don't believe me, consult Adaline Glasheen's Third Census of Finnegans Wake.
Most folklorists recognize "the cannibal in the woods" as a humanized relic of the bear-god. The heroine, in 101 tales, meets him while on a mission of mercy. He generally sets the heroine to solve three riddles, and when she succeeds, instead of eating her he becomes her ally and helps her reach her goal. One variation on that became The Silence of the Lambs. Another became Little Red Riding Hood.
What? Hannibal Lecter another of Santa's uncouth family?
Yes, indeedy.
In some rustic parts of Europe and probably in Kansas, Santa retains traces of his carnivorous past. Children are told that if they are "good" all year, Santa will reward them, but if they are "bad" he will EAT THEM ALL UP. Yeah, the Boogie Man, or Bogie, or Pookah, or Puck, are all of somewhat ursine ancestry, although other animal-gods got mixed in sometimes.
As Crazy Old Uncle Ezra wrote in Canto 113, "The gods have not returned. They have never left us."
Jung might state the case thusly: Gods, as archetypes of the genetic human under-soul (or "collective unconscious"), cannot be killed or banished; they always return with a new mask but the same symbolic meaning. Related example: Young ladies in ancient Greece were often seduced or raped by satyrs; in the Arab lands, we note a similar outbreak of randy djinn; it India, it was devas. In the Christian Dark Ages, it began happening to young men, too, especially to monks. They called the lascivious critter an incubus. Now it's happening all around us, and the molesters come from Outer Space. The sex-demon, like the Great Mother and the Shadow and our ursine hero, and the three brothers hunting the dragon (recognize them in Jaws? Spot them doing their Three Stooges gig?) — these archetypal forces always come back under new names. Sir Walter Scott called them "the crew that never rests."
And the bear-god seems wakeful elsewhere. He has appeared prominently in other bits of pop culture — the movies Legends of the Fall and The Edge (both of which, curiously, star Anthony Hopkins, who also starred as Hannibal Lecter) and snuck into Modern Lit 101 not only via Joyce but also via Faulkner's great parable "The Bear." He also pops up to deliver the punch line in Norman Mailer's Why Are We in Vietnam?
We will see more of him, methinks.
Meanwhile, Santa, the Jester/Clown/Fertility God aspect of Father Bear, is doing quite well also, despite getting the bum's rush by some grim, uptight Christers. He has quite successfully stolen Xmas from X and brings pagan lust and pagan cheer to most of us, every year, just when we need it most — in the dead of winter. His beaming face appears everywhere and if we have a minor cultural war going on between those who wish to invoke him via alcohol and those who prefer their invocations per cannabis, we all share the pagan belief, at least for part of a week, that the best way to mark the solstice and the year's dying ashes is to form a loving circle and all get bombed together.
As a pagan myself, I wouldn't have it any other way.A MAJORITY of Scots who have a view want the pro-UK Better Together campaign to return a controversial £500,000 gift from the head of the world's largest oil trading firm.
The finding came in an opinion poll conducted by YouGov and commissioned by the SNP.
The cash from Vitol chief executive Ian Taylor to the unionist grouping was a personal donation.
But critics have called for it to be handed back because of Vitol's links to Serbia, Iran, Iraq and Libya amid reports it paid $1m (£660,000) to Serbian warlord Arkan to facilitate a deal.
The SNP said Better Together leader Alistair Darling would be wise to take heed of the poll's findings.
But Better Together accused the nationalists of "desperate" attempts to "divert attention from their hapless campaign".
The YouGov poll questioned 1006 adults in Scotland between May 1 and May 3.
Those surveyed were told: "Mr Taylor is the chief executive of the oil trading firm Vitol which has previously been fined after admitting making payments to the national oil company in Iraq during the regime of Saddam Hussein, and are reported to have paid $1 million to the Serbian paramilitary Arkan as part of an oil deal in the 1990s. Vitol are also in discussion with HMRC over links to tax avoidance schemes in the UK. The company said it has not acted illegally.
"There has been no suggestion that the donation is illegal or has broken any rules and the donation has been given by Mr Taylor in a personal capacity." They were asked: "Do you believe that the No campaign should or should not return this donation?"
Of those polled, 43% said that Better Together should hand the money back, 34% said that they should not and 23% said they did not know.
Among those who did have an opinion 56% backed the donation being returned while 44% supported keeping it.
SNP Westminster leader Angus Robertson MP said: "The reputational damage this is causing the No campaign is outweighing the value of the money."
A spokesman for Better Together said: "The Nationalists' desperate attempts to find something to divert attention from their hapless campaign shows no sign of abating.
"Ian Taylor has made a huge contribution to Scotland, including to charities endorsed by ministers. The SNP don't care about this, it would seem."
Vitol has said in response to reports of the $1 million payement that it did nothing illegal, and that it was is confident its tax affairs were compliant with the law.
l Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, Culture Secretary Fiona Hyslop and former minister Bruce Crawford are among 20 SNP MSPs who backed a Scots charity which took money from Mr Taylor.
The Taylor Family Foundation charity he founded has given millions to good causes, including several in Scotland. In 2009 and 2010 it gave a total of £50,000 to Sistema Scotland, the Stirling charity which teaches music to children in disadvantaged areas such as Raploch.
In September 2010, Stirling MSP Bruce Crawford, then SNP minister for parliamentary business, hosted a reception for Sistema Scotland at the Scottish Parliament.
Last November, the Scottish Government also gave Sistema Scotland £1.3 million to set up a "Big Noise" orchestra in Govanhill, which is in Ms Sturgeon's Glasgow Southside constituency.
Ms Sturgeon and Ms Hyslop took part in a photo opportunity to publicise the grant. Twenty SNP MSPs have also signed Holyrood motions supporting Sistema and its work.Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (center)
I’m just sick.
Of all the horrible parts of the GOP’s horrible bill to cut taxes on the wealthy and raise them on the middle class, the worst is the fact that it'll end cancer treatment for Medicare patients.
That’s no exaggeration, hyperbole, or partisan spin. It’s just a plain fact. Because this bill will blow a $1.5 trillion hole in the deficit, it will also trigger an automatic $25 billion annual cut to Medicare, under a savage |
resist temptation are the MOST prone to actually giving in to temptation, and over-optimistic dieters are least likely to lose weight and keep it off. “The tempted self is an unpredictable and unreliable enemy…we need to take steps to predict and constrain that self as if it were another person.” (Behavioral economist George Ainslie, quoted in The Willpower Instinct, p. 167). Breathing is key to willpower and emotional resilience. Breathing more fully and slowly builds willpower, while reducing cravings and even depression. Try “breath pacing”. Sit down and breath for 5 minutes, trying to reach only 4-5 breaths per minute. Sleep is the key to longevity, health, and willpower. Most people run a constant sleep debt. Adequate sleep builds willpower and reduces stress hormones (among many, many other benefits). Say “No” to whatever gets in the way of you getting a full night of restful sleep. Turn off all digital screens 30 minutes before bed for best results. Relaxation is key. The common sense relaxation is “pop a beer and turn on the TV.” Wrong. Both of these things are toxic to willpower and behavior change. Actual relaxation involves lying flat on the floor and progressively tensing and relaxing all the major muscle groups for not less than 10 minutes. Try it. You’ll see. Rewarding yourself disproportionally to you results can set you back. We habitually use good behavior as a ‘moral license’ to indulge in even more ‘bad behavior.’ This is the reason many people gain weight on diets. But wait, didn’t I just say “reward yourself when building a new habit?” Yes, but not too much. That’s why we match the Reward to the size of the habit. Look at the rewards you have in your life, and look dispassionately at your results. Are you actually achieving up to the level of your Rewards, or are you over (or under) rewarding? Forgiveness, not guilt. Being self-critical makes behavior change harder. Self-forgiveness increases accountability. If you’ve been too hard on yourself, let it go. Say “I forgive myself” and move on. Immediate gratification — and satisfying it — is toxic. Whenever you experience an urge for….anything, wait 10 minutes. See if you still have the urge. Most of the time, you won’t. Next time you find yourself saying, “Oh, I should check Facebook!” set a timer for 10 minutes. The urge will pass. Don’t believe everything you think or feel. Feelings aren’t facts. Your thoughts aren’t necessarily true. (This applies to everyone else, too.) Be an observer of your experience, without having to act on every little impulse. Practice observing your thoughts in meditation. Practice labeling each thought as ‘useful’ or ‘not useful.’ Finally, The Most Powerful Secret To Behavior Change: Paying Attention. Training your attention and self-awareness pays the best dividends…and it’s free. “The faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention, over and over again, is the very root of judgment, character, and will… An education which should improve this faculty would be the education par excellence.” – William James. What education is William James, father of modern psychology, talking about? The education of attention. And what educates attention by bringing a wandering attention ‘back, over and over again’, forming the ‘root of judgment, character, and will’….? Meditation. It all comes back to meditation.
Each of the 23 principles could be a textbook in its own right, given the amount of research that has been done in that area — and there is much, much more to be said about how to actually implement changes using these principles in your own life.
But the information is out there. There is enough knowledge freely available to completely change your life and make it into whatever you wish — if you are able to take action.
As I used to say when I was working with adult students, “There are tons of ways to be an F student, but only a few ways to be an A student.”
Whenever I study another person who is really achieving greatness in life, I see them doing one of a small number of very similar things.
If you do the things they do, you will be much more likely to get the results they get.
SOURCES
The above list (and the ebook with the full 23 principles) is comprised of research from dozens of books and research articles on the subject of willpower, habit formation, interpersonal neurobiology, and cognitive science, and drawn from my own experience of being involved at the ground-level of helping other people change their patterns, habits, and lives for over 7 years.
If you’re interested in further reading, see the excellent books, articles and presentations below.India’s rupee and Turkey’s lira both crashed to record lows on Thursday following the US Federal Reserve releasing minutes which signalled a wind-down of quantitative easing as soon as next month.
Dilma Rousseff, Brazil’s president, held an emergency meeting on Thursday with her top economic officials to halt the real’s slide after it hit a five-year low against the dollar. The central bank chief, Alexandre Tombini, cancelled his trip to the Fed’s Jackson Hole conclave in order “to monitor market activity” amid reports Brazil is preparing direct intervention to stem capital flight.
The country has so far relied on futures contracts to defend the real – disguising the erosion of Brazil’s $374bn reserves – but this has failed to deter speculators. “They are moving currency intervention off balance sheet, but the net position is deteriorating all the time,” said Danske Bank’s Lars Christensen.
A string of countries have been burning foreign reserves to defend exchange rates, with holdings down 8pc in Ecuador, 6pc in Kazakhstan and Kuwait, and 5.5pc in Indonesia in July alone. Turkey’s reserves have dropped 15pc this year.
“Emerging markets are in the eye of the storm,” said Stephen Jen at SLJ Macro Partners. “Their currencies are in grave danger. These things always overshoot.”
It was Fed tightening and a rising dollar that set off Latin America’s crisis in the early 1980s and East Asia’s crisis in the mid-1990s. Both episodes were contained, though not easily.
Emerging markets have stronger shock absorbers today and largely borrow in their own currencies, making them less vulnerable to a dollar squeeze. However, they now make up half the world economy and are big enough to set off a crisis in the West.
Fears of Fed tightening have pushed borrowing costs worldwide to levels that could threaten global recovery. Yields on 10-year bonds jumped 47 basis points to 12.29pc in Brazil on Thursday, 33 points to 9.72pc in Turkey, and 12 points to 8.4pc in South Africa.
There had been hopes that the Fed might delay its tapering of bond purchases, chastened by the jump in long-term rates in the US itself. Ten-year US yields – the world’s benchmark price of money – have soared from 1.6pc to 2.9pc since early May.
Hans Redeker from Morgan Stanley said a “negative feedback loop” is taking hold as emerging markets are forced to impose austerity and sell reserves to shore up their currencies, the exact opposite of what happened over the past decade as they built up a vast war chest of US and European bonds.
The effect of the reserve build-up by China and others was to compress global bond yields, leading to property bubbles and equity booms in the West. The reversal of this process could be painful.
“China sold $20bn of US Treasuries in June and others are doing the same thing. We think this is driving up US yields, and German yields are rising even faster,” said Mr Redeker. “This has major implications for the world. The US may be strong to enough to withstand higher rates, but we are not sure about Europe. Our worry is that a sell-off in reserves may push rates to levels that are unjustified for the global economy as a whole, if it has not happened already.”
Sovereign bond strategist Nicolas Spiro said India is “caught between the Scylla of faltering growth and the Charybdis of currency depreciation” as hostile markets start to pick off any country with a large current account deficit. He said India’s central bank is playing with fire by reversing its tightening measures to fend off recession. It has instead set off a full-blown currency crisis that is crippling for companies with dollar debts.
India is not alone. A string of countries across the world are grappling with variants of the same problem, forced to pick their poison.India is becoming increasingly trigger-happy when it comes to preventing people accessing the internet.
The nation has shut down the internet in various regions 20 times in the first five months of this year, according to a report from Human Rights Watch. Four of those blackouts have taken place this month, all in states where violent protests took place.
That represents a dramatic uptick from last year, when 31 shutdowns were recorded in total, and an even greater increase since 2012 -- which saw only three shutdowns.
The Indian government did not respond to a request for comment on the report, but has argued in the past that restricting access is sometimes necessary to prevent social media rumors from fueling violence.
Related: Can Theresa May use tech to stop terror attacks?
The disputed and conflict-ridden region of Kashmir, for example, has seen 33 shutdowns in five years.
"The lack of transparency and failure to explain these shutdowns only furthers the perception that they are meant to suppress nonviolent reporting and criticism of the government," said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director for Human Rights Watch.
While the Indian government doesn't have its own internet-blocking apparatus like China's "Great Firewall," it can order service providers to go offline. That power stems from a law written in 1973, which allows the government to impose various restrictions on the public to prevent everything from riots to "obstruction, annoyance or injury."
Related: A huge wave of new users is killing 4G speeds in India
India, which is often referred to as the world's largest democracy, has been called out for online censorship before.
A 2016 survey of internet freedom in 65 countries by U.S.-based think tank Freedom House gave India a score of 41. China, with a score of 88, came last. Estonia performed best with a score of 6.
In another report by the Brookings Institution last year, India tied for first place with Iraq for the highest number of internet shutdowns among 19 countries (including Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Syria and North Korea).
Facebook also ranks the Indian government among the top countries asking it to censor content. The social media giant said in its latest Government Requests Report that India ordered 719 pieces of content to be restricted, lower only than Brazil, Turkey and Germany.
India topped Facebook's list for two straight years up to June 2015.Chris Forrester has played 13 matches for Peterborough this season
Peterborough midfielder Chris Forrester says being away from his one-year-old daughter has been hard.
The 22-year-old joined Posh from St Patrick's Athletic in August, and has only seen her four days in two months.
"It's tough that I'm away from her but I'm doing it for her and my family at the end of the day," Forrester told BBC Radio Cambridgeshire.
"As long as I can keep progressing, financially I'll be able to provide for them, that's the main aim."
He continued: "I FaceTime her every day so it's not too bad, but she doesn't really pay attention, she just wants to play games on the iPad.
"I think people forget that side of it, at the end of the day we're here to a job but we're also human as well.
"I think fans need to take that into account when you see a player make a mistake there might be something underlying."
Former Republic of Ireland Under-21 international Forrester has scored two goals in 13 matches for the League One side since his move to the ABAX Stadium.
His form has led Posh manager Graham Westley to liken him to England international Michael Carrick.
"I've played every game since I came in, but when I first came over I probably wasn't expecting to play every game and hoping to break through gradually," Forrester added.
"I've kind of set a standard for myself that I want to keep trying to improve."Club
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More on Club & CommunityAFI Latin American Film Festival (Video)
The AFI Latin American Film Festival is scheduled to run from Sept. 19 to Oct. 9 at the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center, 8633 Colesville Road, Silver Spring. The festival is in its 24th year and is one of the largest and longest-running Latin American film festivals in North America. The Festival showcases the best filmmaking from Latin America and Spain and Portugal. The 2012 festival drew more than 10,000 guests and included 50 films from 20 different countries. Events were hosted by the Mexican Cultural Institute, the Embassy of Spain, the Embassy of Peru and the Embassy of the Dominican Republic.
Festival passes (Pase Especial) are on sale now. The pass provides priority access to every film, with no tickets needed. The all-access Pase Especial gives you admission for one to every screening in the AFI Latin American Film Festival, including Opening and Closing Night and festival Happy Hours. After August 30, the pass price is $150 for general public and $125 for AFI members and students. Visit AFI Silver Pass webpage to purchase a pass.
View the AFI Latin American Film Festival program guide.
View trailers from selected films below. For more information on the films, visit AFI Latin American Film Festival website.
Here is a preview of some of the films which will be included in this year’s festival:
ANINA
Alfredo Soderguit, Uruguay
An adorable and heart-warming animated film for the whole family. A young girl with a triple palindrome name, Anina Yatay Salas, must endure a weeklong suspension after a schoolyard fight, and ultimately learn a lesson in friendship and acceptance. Best Colombian Film and Director, 2013 Cartagena Film Festival; Audience Award, International Official Selection, 2013 BAFICI Film Festival; Official Selection, 2013 Berlin Film Festival.
THE BODY [El cuerpo]
Oriol Paulo, Spain
A tense thriller that keeps viewers guessing until the final minute. From the producers of THE ORPHANAGE and starring Belén Rueda.
CHICAMA
Omar Forero, Peru
A charming story about a fresh-faced elementary school teacher sent to a remote school in the Andes mountains. Best Peruvian Film, 2012 Lima Film Festival.
THE CLEANER [El limpiador]
Adrian Saba, Peru
A gentle apocalyptic drama about a forensic cleaner who reluctantly takes in a young orphan in the midst of a deadly epidemic. New Voices/New Visions Grand Jury Prize, 2013 Palm Springs Film Festival. Official Selection, 2012 San Sebastian Film Festival; 2013 San Francisco, Karlovy Vary Film Festivals.
THE DEAD MAN AND BEING HAPPY [El muerto y ser feliz]
Javier Rebollo, Argentina
A screwball road movie about a cancer-stricken hitman. Best Actor, 2013 Goya Awards. Official Selection, 2012 San Sebastian, New York Film Festivals; 2013 Rotterdam, Karlovy Vary Film Festivals.
DUST [Polvo]
Julio Hernández Cordón, Guatemala
A powerful drama about a couple making a documentary in a village of indigenous people in Guatemala’s back country, and the villagers’ recollections of the conflict and subsequent disappearances of their family members in 1982. Official Selection, 2012 Locarno, Toronto Film Festivals; 2013 Miami Film Festival.
EDIFICIO ROYALE
Iván Wild, Colombia
A black comedy about a decaying building in Colombia and its Tom Cruise-obsessed residents. Official Selection, Cartagena and Miami Film Festivals.
THE FUTURE [Il futuro]
Alicia Scherson, Chile
A Rome-set story about two teen siblings, newly orphaned, and the dangers of sudden adulthood. Directed by Alicia Scherson (PLAY, TURISTAS) and adapted from a novel by acclaimed author Roberto Bolaño. Featuring Rutger Hauer. Official Selection, 2013 Sundance, Rotterdam Film Festivals.
A GUN IN EACH HAND [Una pistola en cada mano]
Cesc Gay, Spain
A series of comedic, interconnected vignettes about the misadventures of a group of fortysomething men, featuring a star-studded cast including Ricardo Darín, Javier Cámara and Luis Tosar. Official Selection, 2012 Rome Film Festival; 2013 Miami, Seattle Film Festivals.
HOLD-UP! [¡Atraco!]
Eduard Cortés, Spain
A rollicking caper about the stranger-than-fiction staged robbery of Eva Perón’s jewels in 1950s Madrid.
MELAZA
Carlos Lechuga, Cuba
A young couple struggles to get by when their village sugar mill is shut down. Official Selection, 2012 Havana, 2013 Rotterdam and Miami Film Festivals. Biznada de Plata Award, 2013 Malaga Film Festival.
NO AUTUMN, NO SPRING [Sin otoño, sin primavera]
Iván Mora Manzano, Ecuador
A punk ballad, this kaleidoscopic film explores the lives, loves and losses of Guayaquil City youths. Official Selection, 2013 Miami Film Festival.
ONCE UPON A TIME IN BOLIVIA [Erase una vez en Bolvia]
Patrick Cordova, Bolivia
A micro-budget road movie set against the backdrop of the 2003 Bolivian gas conflict. Best International Feature, 2013 London Independent Film Festival.
RIO 2096: A STORY OF LOVE AND FURY [Rio 2096: Uma História de Amor e Fúria]
Luiz Bolognesi, Brazil
A striking, visionary animated film, exploring 600 years of Brazilian history through the eyes of a single character reincarnated across the centuries. Best Feature, 2013 Annecy Animation Film Festival.
SO MUCH WATER [Tanta agua]
Ana Guevara, Leticia Jorge, Uruguay
A 14-year old is forced to spend time with her family when a rainstorm ruins their vacation. Grand Prix and Best Screenplay, 2013 Miami Film Festival; Best First Feature Award, 2013 Guadalajara Film Festival.
SOFIA AND THE STUBBURN MAN [Sofía y el Terco]
Andrés Burgos, Colombia
A gentle comedy starring Almodóvar favorite Carmen Maura (WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN, VOLVER) as a long-suffering married woman who decides to strike out on her own and have an adventure.
THE SWIMMING POOL [La piscina]
Carlos Quintela, Cuba
A day in the life of a public swimming pool in Cuba where five disabled teens take swimming lessons. Best First Film, 2013 Miami, Havana Film Festivals.
THESIS ON A HOMICIDE [Tesis sobre un homicidio]
Hernán Goldfrid, Argentina
A twist-filled thriller starring Ricardo Darín (THE SECRET IN THEIR EYES, CARANCHO, NINE QUEENS). Official Selection, 2013 Miami Film Festival.
THEY’LL COME BACK [Eles Voltam]
Marcelo Lordello, Brazil
“If you two don’t stop fighting, I’m going to pull this car over and leave you by the side of the road.” Cris and her brother don’t, and their parents do. A modern fable about independence and identity set in rugged northwestern Brazil. Official Selection, 2013 Rotterdam, San Francisco Film Festivals.
VIOLA
Matías Piñero, Argentina
A spritely adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night,” set among contemporary Buenos Aires hipsters. Official Selection, 2012 Toronto Film Festival; 2013 New Directors/New Films, Berlin Film Festival.
Like this post? Sign up for our Daily Update hereTyrannosaurus rex was far from a plodding Cretaceous era scavenger whose long tail only served to counterbalance the up-front weight of its freakishly big head.
T. rex's athleticism (and its rear end) has been given a makeover by University of Alberta graduate student Scott Persons. His extensive research shows that powerful tail muscles made the giant carnivore one of the fastest moving hunters of its time.
As Persons says, "contrary to earlier theories, T. rex had more than just junk in its trunk."
The U of A paleontology student began his research by comparing the tails of modern-day reptiles like crocodiles and Komodo dragons to T.rex's tail. Persons found for that all animals in his study, the biggest muscles in the tail are attached to upper leg bones. These caudofemoralis muscles provide the power stroke allowing fast forward movement.
But Persons found T.rex had one crucial difference in its tail structure.
The tails of both T.rex and modern animals are given their shape and strength by rib bones attached to the vertebrae. Persons found that the ribs in the tail of T. rex are located much higher on the tail. That leaves much more room along the lower end of the tail for the caudofemoralis muscles to bulk-up and expand. Without rib bones to limit the size of the caudofemoralis muscles, they became a robust power-plant enabling T.rex to run.
Persons extensive measurements of T.rex bones and computer modeling shows previous estimates of the muscle mass in the dinosaur's tall were underestimated by as much as 45 per cent.
That led many earlier T. rex researchers to believe the animal lacked the necessary muscle mass for running which in turn limited its hunting skills. That lack of speed cast T. rex in the role of a scavenger only able to survive by feeding on animals killed by other predators.
As for an T. rex's exact speed, researchers say that is hard to measure, but Persons says it could likely run down any other animal in its ecosystem.Travel Agency Fined £150,000 For Violating Data Protection Act
That'll teach them not to retain credit card data in perpetuity.
The UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has fined the online travel company Think W3 ₤150,000 ($254,610.75) for violating the country's Data Protection Act, as well as the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS). This penalty was issued in response to a December 2012 SQL injection attack that breached a Think W3 website and nabbed credit card numbers and other personally identifiable information on more than 1 million customers.
The site in question was a staff car parking system (for maintaining costs and availability of parking) that was created in 2006 and meant for internal use only. Unfortunately, it was installed on the same server that contained the company's main e-commerce application used to store customer personal data.
The car parking system had not undergone penetration testing or internal vulnerability scans before or after implementation -- the argument being that security testing was unnecessary, because it wasn't an external-facing site, and it required users to log in.
By compromising that site, however, attackers were able to obtain admin access to the common server. They then created a custom query to extract and decrypt cardholder data using the encryption key, which was not stored securely on the web server. After grabbing the credit card data (excluding CVV numbers), the attackers went on to lift the associated names, addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers.
The car parking system had never been updated, and the customer data had never been deleted, so when the attackers penetrated in December 2012, they were able to obtain records dating all the way back to 2006. Altogether they lifted 1,163,996 credit and debit card records, 733,397 of which were expired.
Investigators found none of these records were ever put to use for financial fraud.
Under the Data Protection Act, a "data controller" can be slammed with a monetary penalty if there is a "serious contravention" of the act, if it was "likely to cause substantial damage or substantial distress," and if it was deliberate, or if the data controller knew or should have known such a thing would occur, or if the controller "failed to take reasonable steps to prevent" it.
The highest penalty allowed by the law is ₤500,000.
Some of the factors that contributed to the size of the ₤150,000 penalty included the fact that the company failed to comply with PCI-DSS, test the site's security, patch software, update anti-virus software, and implement suitable intrusion detection systems, file-integrity monitoring software, encryption key management, and internal policies.
Another data controller was just fined for a Data Protection Act violation. Jayesh Shah, a marketing company owner from Pune, India, was fined ₤4,000 for failing to notify the ICO that he was changing his notification. He allegedly sent "millions of unsolicited text messages," but the offense was not for spamming, but rather for selling data on individuals to other parties.
Sara Peters is Senior Editor at Dark Reading and formerly the editor-in-chief of Enterprise Efficiency. Prior that she was senior editor for the Computer Security Institute, writing and speaking about virtualization, identity management, cybersecurity law, and a myriad... View Full BioDuring quiet moments I often find myself hatching cycling challenges; they provide me with tangible reasons to get out on my bike and train, especially during the cold winter months. “Something to aim at”, as Tom Simpson would say. Some challenges, however, seem to appear out of left-field and, no matter how ridiculous, plug away at my subconscious until I do something about them.
The Scrapheap Challenge came as a result of a conversation with a work colleague, during which he asked how much I had paid for my latest piece of cycling hardware - a full suspension mountain bike that was receiving rave reviews from the bike press at the time. When I explained it had cost me several thousand pounds, an amused yet horrified expression came across his face. “I’ve just bought one the same, and it cost me £115!” Slightly sceptical, I enquired if it was the same brand and model. “I don’t think it’s identical, but it’s almost the same”. He said he would bring it in to work the next day to prove it.
True to his word, the following day he produced a full suspension (I think the correct term is dual suspension) mountain ‘style’ bike with disc brakes. It was made of Hi-Tensile steel, had gears of unknown origin and suspension technology the Flintstones would have been proud of. It weighed about twice what my beautiful work of art did, but then it was a factor of 30 times cheaper! There was no denying it though; it was a full suspension mountain bike with disc brakes and lots of gears.
I pointed out a few of the – how to put it delicately – minor differences, but he was adamant that his bike was, to all intents and purposes, the same, and could do anything mine could. What if he was right?
A Simple Plan
My plan was to purchase a sub-£100 mountain bike. It had te be full suspension, brand new and from a legitimate source. I could change nothing on it except the pedals; everything else was to be as supplied. At that time I cycled in Afan Trail Centre in South Wales regularly, and rode most of the trails at least twice a month. These trails can be quite tough on a bike, especially when ridden hard. A good bike will handle it, although it may need a few minor repairs afterwards: trued wheels, new disc pads or the like. This would be the test ground. The bargain bike would be pedalled for all it and I was worth around Whites Level trail then onto The Wall trail, if mechanical condition and/or physical injury allowed. This tough 40 km of rocky climbs and rough mountain descents would truly test whether a sub-£100 bike could do what a £3K+ one could. We were all set. Then I forgot all about it.
A few years passed and, with my riding now focusing purely on road bikes, I decided to sell my full susser. It was just gathering dust and I had several other mountain bikes anyway. Watching it go to a new, excited owner, however, awoke something in me – the challenge. I outlined the plan to a friend (and bike shop owner) and he, too, wanted to know if you could make it round alive on a very cheap, supermarket bike and he too didn’t seem to prize his personal safety too highly!
The Quest
Our enthusiasm for the challenge, along with constant peer pressure and taunting, meant that we now had 7 riders prepared to put hard earned cash (admittedly not much of it) and personal safety on the line and commit to taking part.
We had the riders, now we needed bikes. Lots of leads were followed up, mostly ending in disappointment; missing 2 for 1 deals at Tesco or last minute price hikes at Asda all meant we couldn’t get anything suitable for significantly under the £100 limit. The search continued, until we eventually came across a discount bike outlet prepared to let us have 7 bikes – a mixed bunch, but all within spec – for £75 each. Cheap, certainly, but a bargain? Time would tell.
The Bikes
As is the way with bikes of this price band, they were all flat packed and semi-built. They allegedly just needed the wheels bolting on (not a quick release in sight), handlebars rotating into the correct position and tightening, saddle and seat post assembly sliding into place and a bit of air the tyres before heading off into the wilderness for hours of cycling fun! The reality was a little different however…
We had the unlimited use of a high quality professional bike workshop and Cytech 3 trained mechanic; a big step up from what these bikes would normally see: a pressed steel spanner in a living room. We were expecting them to be pretty poor, but what we found was truly eye opening. Tightening the quill stem past what seemed sensible didn’t actually secure the handlebars enough to keep them pointing in the right direction. Oh well, we’ll watch the wheel rather than the handlebars for direction information…
The fit of the seat post within the seat tube was vague at best and, with the clamp bolt tightened to the point of bending the clamp lugs together, it still only had a tenuous grip. Lots of standing up on the pedals looked to be on the cards.
The rear suspension… erm… system… well let’s call it that, is basically a hinge in the middle of the bike with a spring attached above to allow it to move a bit whilst simultaneously stopping it collapsing. There is a thing in the middle of the spring that tries to do an impression of a damping cartridge, but is in fact just a sleeve to restrict the spring from flying off into a nearby bush.
The strength required to rotate the twist grip gear shifter was herculean, and, if you did succeed, you were greeted by a grinding noise, but rarely a gear shift. We alighted on the fact that a down shift required you to drop down three gears then shift back up one, you then ended up in something like one gear lower than you started in – well, sometimes at least.
The forks were possibly the scariest part of the entire creation and flexed wildly under normal braking, which was even scarier when you appreciate how little braking was on offer from the pressed steel and plastic brakes: none, basically. The general consensus was that the forks were going to snap in half under any sort of load - and our test was going to offer lots of load!This unnerved one friend who had previously found himself flying horizontally headfirst down a rocky trail, like Wiley Coyote fired from a canon by Road Runner, after a set of Kona P2’s gave out on his rigid single-speed. Visions of this happening again seemed to haunt him, which of course amused the rest of us.
Some unfamiliar trailside tools would be required: I sourced one of those nice old-school ‘dog bone’ wrenches that appeared to be the correct tool for the job and I reckoned on finding rocks on the trailside to do any fine gear tuning that may be required along the way. The main focus for all of the riders, though, was padding. It was now very clear we were going to crash, and in ways not previously experienced, so personal protection seemed wise. I managed to beg and borrow a full face carbon downhill helmet worth around the price of at least three of the bikes I was to be riding, plus some knee and elbow pads. I was sure I would be very grateful of these at some point soon.
For Those About to Die, We Salute You.
It was 07:30am on a cold, dark and very wet November morning when I met up with the rest of the group to make the 150 mile trip down to Afan Forest. We were already down by one rider prior to the trip, due to hair coiffuring emergencies or the like, and we lost another who bailed out via a text message the night before with an equally pitiful excuse.
The weather was ominous as we set off. It was raining intermittently as we neared the Severn Bridge and the wind was picking up. Once we crossed into Wales it turned from ominous to positively livid. The rain was now torrential, combined with gale force winds that were buffeting the van all over the motorway. This tempest followed us all the way to the Glyncorrwg trail centre. On arrival, I was pleased to see the car park was still teeming with mountain bikers despite the storm.
After we changed into our riding clothes and body armour, we got the bikes off the trailer and made our last minute adjustments – for all the use they were going to be. The sight of 5 riders in body armour and expensive full faced helmets emerging from a very cool, tricked up van (known as the Mystery Machine, although my wife prefers The Sunshine Bus), to then get aboard these bike shaped contraptions caught the attention of more than a few riders in the car park. We explained the mission to those who enquired and everyone wished us good luck; they were sure we were going to need it!
And They’re Off!
So this was it. After years of talking, I was finally going to find out the answer to my question. The trail starts with a long climb of around eight kilometres, on rocky single-track, and had been the main focus of my attention. I had only really thought about the joy of overtaking people on proper bikes on the climb. Anything that happened after that was, well, just gravy.
After negotiating the initial jostling by my team members, I started the long toil to the top. Within about 100 yards I discovered that the inner chain ring was off-limits. I dismounted and manually selected it by lifting the chain off and putting it on the inner ring. I could still get a random selection of gears at the back, so the climb was proving no real problem. The forks kept making a loud thud each time they bottomed out, which was over every bump, but they were sort of working. Once I got the hang of the very unergonomic riding position things improved. A bit.
The bikes came in one size only – adult men – which meant that, at an unremarkable 6’ 1” tall, I couldn’t get the saddle high enough despite being about 1 ½ inches above the max insertion mark on the seat-post. My knees were taking quite a pounding, as were my hamstrings. The cockpit was also really short, as the stem had around 10mm of reach and with a very steep rise, which resulted in a bolt upright riding position. The tyres were a revelation though; they gripped on the wet rocks, powered through the mud and held tight through the bends…amazing!
I was making good progress when, to my delight, I spotted riders up ahead! In no time I was passing the first of the group, then the next, and the next. I was in heaven. The Virus (yes, that really was the make: a Virus Tidal Wave) was flying!
Approaching the top of the climb, I rode past a group of riders who were hanging around at the top and spotted some disdainful looks toward my bike. I said nothing and rode proudly through. I hung around for a few minutes for the others to catch up, but they were nowhere in sight. The rain had started again, so I decided to ride the first of the days downhill sections alone.
I’d hung my full-face helmet on my Camelbak for the climb but now I was going to need it. I leant down and selected the middle chain-ring – by hand – and went for it. I was skipping over the rocks and railing the berms and actually enjoying the ride. The track then took a long, steep drop into a rocky off-camber corner with a drop into a gully to either side. I grabbed a handful of brake lever, to scrub off some speed for the slippery looking bend, to be greeted with... noise. This was my first encounter with the brakes in anger, and they were non-existent. Nothing.
I made the bend by a mixture of luck and judgement. With a rapidly increasing heart rate I clamped the brake levers to the bars from a long way out and, along with a dragging foot, managed to stop with a gentle bump into the fence. As the others tolled in there was consensus: We were all surprised how well the bikes had survived the climb, but everyone was a little shocked by the lack of brakes; all five bikes had, to all intents and purposes, no way of stopping!
It’s All Downhill From Here
The beginning of the Energy section |
by the Victorian anthropologists, in which those born into the tribe assume the burden of perpetuating it. If we lose sight of this, it seems to me, then we are in danger of detaching the university from its social and moral purpose, which is that of handing on both a store of knowledge and the culture that makes sense of it.
That purpose has been central to the educational tradition that created Western civilization. Greek paideia regarded the cultivation of citizenship as the core of the curriculum. Religious practice and moral education remained a fundamental part of university studies throughout the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance ideal of the virtuoso was the inspiration for the emerging curriculum of the studia humaniores. The university that emerged from the Enlightenment did not relax the moral reins but regarded scholarship as a disciplined way of life, whose rules and procedures set it apart from everyday affairs. However, it provided those everyday affairs with the long-term perspective without which no human activity makes proper sense. Even the boisterous student life of the German universities during the nineteenth century, when dueling became part of the university culture, was contained within formal uniform codes of behavior and collegiate domesticity and devoted to that peculiar synthesis of moral discipline, factual knowledge, and cultural competence that the Germans know as Bildung.
During the course of the nineteenth century, however, the universities suffered a rapid change in their public reception. The decline of the religious way of life, the rise of the middle classes eager for social status and political power, and the demands for the knowledge and skills required by an industrial economy all put pressure on the universities to change their curriculum, their recruitment of students and teachers, and their relation to the surrounding culture. New universities were founded in Britain and America, one of them—University College London, dating from 1826—with an explicitly secular curriculum, designed to produce scientific minds that would sweep away the theological cobwebs in which all university subjects had previously been wrapped.
Despite those changes, however, which forced educational institutions into a new consciousness of their mission, the university retained its status as a guardian of high culture. It was a place where speculative thinking, critical inquiry, and the study of important books and languages were all maintained in an atmosphere of studious isolation. When Cardinal Newman wrote The Idea of a University in 1852, it was largely to uphold the old conception of the university, as a place apart, a quasi-monastic precinct opposed to the utilitarian mindset of the new manufacturing society. For Newman, a university exists to mold the characters of those who attend it. Immersing its students in a collegiate environment, and impressing on them an ideal of the educated mind, helps to turn raw human beings into gentlemen.
This, Newman implied, is the true social function of the university. Within college walls the adolescent is granted a vision of the ends of life; and he takes from the university the one thing that the world does not provide, which is a conception of intrinsic value. And that is why the university is so important in an age of commerce and industry, when the utilitarian temptation besieges us on every side, and when we are in danger of making every purpose a material one—in other words, as Newman saw it, in danger of allowing the means to swallow the ends.
Much has changed since Newman’s day. To suggest that universities are engaged in producing gentlemen is more than faintly ridiculous in an age when most students are women. Newman’s ideal university was modeled on the actual universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and Trinity College, Dublin, which at the time admitted only men, did not permit their resident scholars to marry, and were maintained as quasi-religious institutions within the fold of the Anglican Church. Their undergraduates were recruited largely from the private schools, and their curriculum was solidly based in Latin, Greek, theology, and mathematics. Their domestic life revolved around the college, where dons and undergraduates had their living quarters, and where they dined together each evening in hall, robed in their academic gowns.
Only a small proportion of those who attended the old British universities in Newman’s day regarded study as the real purpose of being “up” at the alma mater. Some were there to row or play rugby; some were biding time before inheriting a title; some were on their way to commissions in the army, and were meanwhile rioting with their chums. Almost all were members of a social elite that had hit on this unique way of perpetuating itself, by coating its power with a veneer of high culture. And in this protected and beautiful environment you could also take culture seriously. With money in the bank and time on your hands, it was not so hard to turn your back on utilitarian values.
Today’s university differs from Cardinal Newman’s in almost every respect. It recruits from all classes of society, is open equally to men and to women, and is very often financed and provisioned by the state. Little if anything remains of the poised domestic life that shaped the soul of Newman, and the curriculum centers not on sublime and purposeless subjects like ancient Greek, in which there hovers the entrancing vision of a life beyond commerce, but on sciences, vocational disciplines, and the now ubiquitous “business studies” through which students supposedly learn the ways of the world.
Moreover, universities have expanded to offer their services to an ever-increasing proportion of the population, and to absorb an ever-growing amount of the national budget. In the state of Massachusetts, university education has the largest revenue of any industry. There is at least one university in every major British or American city, and American state universities may have, at any one time, upward of 50,000 students. Higher education is offered as a right to all who pass the French baccalauréat or the German Feststellungsprüfung, and European politicians often speak as though the work of educational reform will not be complete until every child is able in due time to become a graduate. The university is no longer in the business of creating a social elite, but in the rival business of ensuring that elites are a thing of the past.
Under the pretense of providing a “purpose beyond purpose,” its critics might say, the university extolled by Newman was designed to protect the privileges of an existing upper class and to place obstacles before the advance of its competitors. It imparted futile skills, which were esteemed precisely for their futility, since this made them into a badge of membership that only a few could afford. And far from advancing the fund of knowledge, it existed to safeguard the sacred myths: It placed a protective wall of enchantment around the religion, the social values, and the high culture of the past, and pretended that the recondite skills required to enjoy this enchantment—Latin and Greek, for example—were the highest forms of knowledge. In short, the Newmanite university was an instrument for the perpetuation of a leisure class. The culture that it passed on was not the property of the whole community but merely an ideological tool, through which the powers and privileges of the existing order were endowed with their aura of legitimacy.
Now, by contrast, we have universities dedicated to the growth of knowledge, which are not merely non-elitist but anti-elitist in their social structure. They make no discrimination on grounds of religion, sex, race, or class. They are places of open-minded research and questioning, places without dogmatic commitments, whose purpose is to advance knowledge through a spirit of free inquiry. This spirit is imparted to their students, who have the widest possible choice of curriculum and acquire knowledge that is not merely firmly grounded but eminently useful in their future lives: business administration, for example, hotel management, or international relations. In short, the universities have evolved from socially exclusive clubs, for the study of precious futilities, to socially inclusive training centers, for the propagation of needed skills. And the culture that they impart is that not of a privileged elite but of an “inclusive culture” that anyone can acquire and enjoy.
That said, however, a visitor to the American university today is more likely to be struck by the indigenous varieties of censorship than by any atmosphere of free inquiry. It is true that Americans live in a tolerant society. But they also breed vigilant guardians, keen to detect and extirpate the first signs of “prejudice” among the young. And these guardians have an innate tendency to gravitate to the universities, where the very freedom of the curriculum, and its openness to innovation, provide them with an opportunity to exercise their censorious passions. Books are put on or struck off the syllabus on grounds of their political correctness; speech codes and counseling services police the language and thought of both students and teachers; courses are designed to impart ideological conformity, and students are often penalized for having drawn some heretical conclusion about the leading issues of the day. In sensitive areas, such as race, sex, and the mysterious thing called “gender,” censorship is overtly directed not only at students but also at any teacher, however impartial and scrupulous, who comes up with the wrong conclusions.
Of course, the culture of the West remains the primary object of study in humanities departments. However, the purpose is not to instill that culture but to repudiate it—to examine it for all the ways in which it sins against the egalitarian worldview. The Marxist theory of ideology, or some feminist, poststructuralist, or Foucauldian descendent of it, will be summoned in proof of the view that the precious achievements of our culture owe their status to the power that speaks through them, and that they are therefore of no intrinsic worth. To put it another way: The old curriculum, which Newman saw as an end in itself, has been demoted to a means. That old curriculum existed, we are told, in order to maintain the hierarchies and distinctions, the forms of exclusion and domination that maintained a ruling elite. Studies in the humanities are now designed to prove this—to show the way in which, through its images, stories, and beliefs, through its works of art, its music, and its language, the culture of the West has no deeper meaning than the power that it served to perpetuate. In this way the whole idea of our inherited culture as an autonomous sphere of moral knowledge, and one that it requires learning, scholarship, and immersion to enhance and retain, is cast to the winds. The university, instead of transmitting culture, exists to deconstruct it, to remove its “aura,” and to leave the student, after four years of intellectual dissipation, with the view that anything goes and nothing matters.
The impression therefore arises that, outside the hard sciences, there is no received body of knowledge, and nothing to learn, save doctrinal attitudes. In The Closing of the American Mind, Allan Bloom lamented the languid relativism that had infected the humanities—the belief, shared by students and teachers alike, that there are no universal values, and that we study merely out of curiosity the works that have come down to us. If we remain indifferent to the moral challenge with which they confront us, it is largely because we no longer believe that there is such a thing as a real moral challenge.
True though Bloom’s observation is, it is not the whole truth. Moral relativism clears the ground for a new kind of absolutism. The emerging curriculum in the humanities is in fact far more censorious, in crucial matters, than the one that it strives to replace. It is no longer permitted to believe that there are real and inherent distinctions between people. All distinctions are “culturally constructed” and therefore changeable. And the business of the curriculum is to deconstruct them, to replace distinction with equality in every sphere where distinction has been part of the inherited culture. Students must believe that in crucial respects, in particular in those matters that touch on race, sex, class, role, and cultural refinement, Western civilization is just an arbitrary ideological device, and certainly not (as its self-image suggests) a repository of real moral knowledge. Moreover, they must accept that the purpose of their education is not to inherit that culture but to question it and, if possible, to replace it with a new “multicultural” approach that makes no distinctions between the many forms of life by which the students find themselves surrounded.
To doubt those doctrines is to commit deepest heresy, and to pose a threat to the community that the modern university needs. For the modern university tries to cater to students regardless of religion, sex, race, or cultural background, even regardless of ability. It is to a great extent a creation of the state and is fully signed up to the statist idea of what a society should be—namely, a society without distinction. It is therefore as dependent on the belief in equality as Cardinal Newman’s university was dependent on the belief in God. Its purpose is to create a microcosm of the future society, just as Cardinal Newman’s college was a microcosm of the gentleman’s world. And since our inherited culture is a system of distinctions, standing opposed to equality in all the spheres where taste, judgment, and discrimination make their claims, the modern university has no choice but to stand opposed to Western culture.
Hence, despite their innate aspiration to membership, young people are told at university that they come from nowhere and belong to nothing: that all preexisting forms of membership are null and void. They are offered a rite of passage into cultural nothingness, since this is the only way to achieve the egalitarian goal. They are given, in place of the old beliefs of a civilization based on godliness, judgment, and distinction, the new beliefs of a society based in equality and inclusion; they are told that the judgment of other lifestyles is a crime. If the purpose were merely to substitute one belief system for another, it would be open to rational debate. But the purpose is to substitute one community for another.
But what is the alternative? If the universities do not propagate the culture that was once entrusted to them, where else can young people go in search of it? Some thoughts in answer to that question were suggested by experiences that began for me in 1979. The writings of Foucault, Deleuze, and Bourdieu were then beginning to make waves at the University of London, where I taught. My students were being told on every side that there is no such thing as knowledge in the humanities and that universities exist not to justify culture as a form of knowledge but to unmask it as a form of power.
In response I asked myself what exactly I was trying to teach, and why. By introducing students to the great works of philosophy, literature, and criticism that I had absorbed at school and university, I felt that I was offering them the frame of reference, the store of speculations, the paradigms of insight and allusion, through which to understand their world. I was offering them membership in a culture, not as a body of doctrine but as an ongoing conversation. And this, I felt, was a form of real knowledge: not knowledge of facts and theories, but knowledge of what to feel, how to relate, and with whom to belong. Yet this body of knowledge, as I assumed it to be, was now dismissed as bourgeois ideology, or—in Foucault’s idiom—as the episteme, the accumulated savoir, of a dominating class.
One day an invitation came to me, by word of mouth, to address an underground seminar in Prague. I accepted; as a result, I was brought into contact with people for whom the pursuit of knowledge and culture was not a dispensable luxury but a necessity. Nothing else could provide them with what they sought, which was an escape route from the world of lies by which they were surrounded. And by discussing the Western cultural heritage among themselves, they were marked out as heretics, who risked arrest and imprisonment merely for meeting as they did. Ironically, perhaps the greatest intellectual achievement of the Communist party was to convince people that Plato’s distinction between knowledge and opinion is a valid one, and that ideological opinion is not merely distinct from knowledge but the enemy of knowledge, the disease implanted in the human brain that makes it impossible to distinguish true ideas from false ones. That was the disease spread by the Party. And it was spread by Foucault, too. For it was Foucault who taught my colleagues to evaluate every idea, every argument, every institution, convention, or tradition in terms of the “domination” that it masks. Truth and falsehood had no real significance in Foucault’s world; all that mattered was power.
These issues had been brought into sharp relief for the Czechs and Slovaks by Václav Havel’s essay “The Power of the Powerless” (1978), enjoining his compatriots to “live in truth.” How could they do that, if they were unable to distinguish the true from the false? And how could they distinguish the true from the false without the benefit of real culture and real knowledge? Hence the search for those things had become urgent. And the price of that search was high—harassment, arrest, deprivation of ordinary rights and privileges, and a life on the margins of society. When something has a high moral price, only committed people will pursue it. I therefore found, in the underground seminars, a unique student body—people dedicated to knowledge, as I understood it, and aware of the ease and the danger of replacing knowledge with mere opinion. Moreover, they were looking for knowledge in the place where it is most necessary and also hardest to find—in philosophy, history, art, and literature, in the places where critical understanding, rather than scientific method, is our only guide. And what was most interesting to me was the urgent desire among all my new students to inherit what had been handed down to them. They had been raised in a world where all forms of belonging, other than submission to the ruling Party, had been marginalized or denounced as crimes. They understood instinctively that a cultural heritage is precious, precisely because it offers a rite of passage into the thing that you truly are and the community of feeling that is yours.
There was another winsome feature of the underground seminars, which is that their intellectual resources were so sparse. Academics in the West are obliged to publish articles and books if they are to advance in their careers, and in the years since the Second World War this had led to a proliferation of literature that, if not always second-rate from the intellectual point of view, has almost invariably been without literary merit—stodgy, cluttered with footnotes, without telling imagery or turns of phrase, and both ephemeral in content and impossible to ignore. The weight of this pseudo-literature oppresses both teachers and students in the humanities, and it is now all but impossible to unearth the classics that lie buried beneath it.
I sometimes think that the greatest service to our culture was done by the person who set fire to the library at Alexandria, thereby ensuring that nothing survived of that mass of literature, other than those works considered so precious that each educated person would have a copy of his own. The communists had performed a similar service to intellectual life in Czechoslovakia, by preventing the publication of anything save those works deemed so precious that people were prepared to produce them in laborious samizdat editions. These would be passed from hand to hand and read with eager interest by people for whom knowledge, rather than career advancement, was the goal. How refreshing this was, after the life among academic journals and footling footnotes!
Of course, the circumstances of the underground seminars were unusual and nobody would want to reproduce them. Nevertheless, during the ten years that I worked with others to turn these private reading groups into a structured (if clandestine) university, I learned two very important truths. The first is that a cultural inheritance really is a body of knowledge and not a collection of opinions—knowledge of the human heart, and of the long-term vision of a human community. The second is that this knowledge can be taught, and that it does not require a vast investment of money to do this, certainly not the $50,000 per student per year that is demanded by an Ivy League university. It requires a handful of books that have passed the test of time and are treasured by all who truly study them. It requires teachers with knowledge and students eager to acquire it. And it requires the continuing attempt to express what one has learned, either in essays or in the face-to-face encounter with a critic. All the rest—administration, information technology, lecture halls, libraries, extracurricular resources—is, by comparison, an insignificant luxury.
When institutions are incurably corrupted, as the universities were corrupted under communism, we must begin again, even if the cost is as high as it was in Soviet-occupied Europe. For us the cost is not so high. The most precious gift of our civilization, and the one that was most under threat during the twentieth century, is the freedom to associate. Because this freedom still exists, and nowhere more than in America, the fact that we can no longer entrust our high culture to the universities matters less. The fate of Harvard and Yale is inevitably of general concern; but there are also places like St. John’s College in Annapolis, or Hillsdale College in Michigan, where people who believe in the old curriculum are prepared to teach it. There are private reading groups, online courses, associations of scholars, think tanks, and public-lecture series. There are institutions like the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, which offers a rescue service for students beaten down by political correctness. There are journals like this one, which serve as a focal point for discussions that, after all, do not need a university in order to take place. It seems to me that we have allowed ourselves to be intimidated into the belief that, because universities have libraries, laboratories, learned professors, and substantial endowments, they are also indispensable repositories of knowledge. In the sciences this is true. But it is no longer true in the humanities.
However, the way forward is not as clear as the defenders of the old curriculum would like it be. Great Books programs, surveys of our cultural heritage, the comparative study of Western art, music, and architecture—all these are obvious choices. But why? What is it that distinguishes those programs from the courses in pop music, strip cartoons, and gender studies that so easily step in to replace them? To say that the traditional curriculum contained real knowledge as opposed to ephemeral distractions is to beg the question. For we don’t know what knowledge really consists in. We feel it, of course, as my Czech students felt it. We feel the call of the culture that is ours, and we want to say that, in responding to this call, we are leaving the world of opinion and entering the world of knowledge. But why?
Answers to date are either trivial—as when Matthew Arnold tells us, in Culture and Anarchy, that a high culture consists of the “best that has been thought and said”—or else some version of the Enlightenment view that cultural knowledge involves transcending the particular into the universal, replacing our constricted loyalties and imagined communities with some cosmopolitan ideal. And it is a small step from this Enlightenment position to the multicultural and egalitarian curriculum that espouses the human universal only because everything distinctive of a real cultural inheritance has been removed from it. Until we come up with something better than those two approaches, we will not, I suspect, escape the grip of the universities, or feel confident enough to start again without them.
Roger Scruton is author of Notes from Underground and The Soul of the World.Home / Blogs / Why did BookMyBai put a blanket-ban on providing a maid to Bollywood celebrities
Saturday, April 8, 2017
Note: I am not a good writer. Bear with me for the detailed article. However this was important.
I am a big fan of Bollywood movies. I also admire a lot of actors for their acting skills. However this admiration takes a huge U-turn when it comes to deal with some so-called “Bollywood celebrities” and providing them with a service.
BookMyBai is in a very high eye-ball business. Almost everyone needs our service. There is a common saying – “Maid – You cant live with them, you cant live without them” – We started BookMyBai with an aim to permanently disrupt this industry and become the go-to service whenever a family need a domestic help. After a lot of hard-work and innovation, we proudly claim that our hard-work is starting to pay-off and we have provided a good and reliable domestic help to over 10000 households. Most of the maid agencies in India are fraud and fly-by-night and due to this we are becoming the preferred service to hire a maid.
Fortunately, out of the 10000 households that we have served, we have not come across even a single case of harassment/exploitation. But this figure comes to a rest when it comes to providing a domestic help to a “Bollywood celebrity”.
We all are fans of some celebrity or other. We look upto them. They become role-models. Some of them also get prestigious national awards for their work. BookMyBai has worked very closely with a lot of Bollywood celebrities and provided them with a good domestic help in Mumbai and other cities and our experience has not been less than horrendous.
This piece that I am writing is to bring awareness of how some of these Bollywood celebrities exploit services. I know that I am generalizing and weighing them all in the same scale. But I am only talking out of my personal experience of providing a domestic help to over 20 bollywood celebrities in Mumbai. This is also to put in a word of caution to other buddy-startups who might fall into the trap and end up losing that precious revenue. As a matter of fact, now BookMyBai has a blanket ban on all Bollywood celebrities and we have instructed our team to not provide domestic helps to any of them.
Let me explain my experience by detailing some of the cases that has happened
1) Celebrity 1
She came to us looking for a male helper at a budget of Rs. 4000 per month! This is even lower than the minimum wage of Maharashtra. We refused and told her that we wont be able to provide a helper in this budget (wonder where does all the money go which earns through her movies). After a lot of negotiation she finally agreed upon Rs.10000 per month (which was still on the lower side considering she has a 4-bhk home and the helper needed to clean the home 6 times everyday! Yes- 6 times!) – We went ahead and provided the helper and all was going well. Unfortunately the mother of the helper passed away. The helper was from Bihar and he wanted to go back to Bihar to perform the last rituals. He promised to be back after 15 days since he wanted the money to support his family. The “celebrity” called us and told us that she wont let the person go till the time we send in a replacement. This was at 5.45pm on a Saturday evening. Our office is shut on Sundays. We promised to send a replacement on Monday and requested her to release the helper since he has to go for his mothers last ritual. Guess what! She did not. She could not care less. We did give a replacement on Monday. But the helper missed out on her mothers last ritual. I have no words to the extent of disgust I now have for this lady
2) Celebrity 2
She is a unique case altogether. She has a huge home in Mumbai suburbs and she hired a maid through us. BookMyBai has a 6-month replacement clause with the employers which means that if any domestic help leaves within the first 6-months, then we would provide a free replacement. The extent of torture and harassment to the maids was so high that we replaced maids 7 times. Each maid worked for 7-10 days before giving up and quitting. She drives a 3 crore car. Doesn’t give food to her domestic help. NO FOOD!!! Really!! Drink tea and eat bread 3 times a day. Wow!
Finally we gave the full-refund to the lady since she threatened us that her brother will send in a few bouncers to our office and “fix” us up. I didn’t want this atmosphere in my office and chose to part ways
3) Celebrity 3
This experience actually convinced my team that we would not deal with celebrities anymore. Physical abuse of the maid was almost a daily affair. As soon as we got to know, we asked the maid to leave as soon as possible. When she came to our office, we could see physical marks on her body of physical abuse. We supported her and wanted to file a complaint in the local police station. But she asked us to let it go. She didn’t have the time to run to the police station every time the police calls her. Every time she would be summoned she would have to miss work and not get paid. We understand her concern. Without her support the police refused to take a complaint and we we couldnt file a case against the employer.
The best part is this – We have a very strict abuse clause in our contract and the employer is not given a replacement if there is any form of abuse. The celebrity called us and told us that she has 4 lakh followers on twitter and she would post bad tweets about the company if we don’t give her a replacement. We enquired with the building security guard who says no one stick in this home for over a week since she beats them all.
4) Celebrity 4
She has all the money in the world. Yet she couldn’t solve her maid issues. Her P.A. reached out to us and told us about the requirement. Initially we were very excited since this would open up avenues for future round of funding for the company too. She was also paying well. Atleast more than Mumbai market rate. However her attitude towards the staff was not less than someone who is uneducated. Verbal and physical abuse was a part of her daily routine. The maid got so fed up that she just absconded to her village and never came back. This left such a huge scar in her mind that later she told us she would never want to come back to any city. Now this left us to wonder. How do these people abuse their domestic helps as slaves. Again – we were threatened with legal cases and obviously a small startup of mine cannot deal with legal notices from lawyers who charge Rs. 25 lakhs per hearing! We refunded and closed the case.
5) Celebrity 5
This one is a classic. She took a maid from us. Everything was fine and the maid was happy. No abuse/harassment whatsoever. However she refused to pay us our service charges. BookMyBai charges about Rs. 15000 for a live-in maid. Initially when we were calling her for our payment, she stopped taking our calls. Later she flat-out refused to pay and said –“jo karna hai karlo!” – If I am not wrong, she got multiple crores as alimony from her husband. She infact told us that if we call her again then she would file a case of harassment and extortion with the crime branch. CRIME BRANCH! Wow!
These are just a few cases which I have listed out. We have never come across cases like this with our not-a-bollywood-celebrity clients. Even if there is a deficiency of service, we mutually resolve the issue and come to an understanding. However these celebs have shaken our trust in all of them and we have now issued a blanket-ban
Fellow-startups – Beware! I have listed only one case where the celebrity has refused to pay us. However there has been over 6 such cases where they have threatened to spoil the company's name by filing false complaints.
All these cases disturb me. They also give the team a very good perspective.
For BookMyBai the safety and security of our domestic help is the highest priority. We are fine if we do not earn money from a certain employer. The least that we expect is that he/she can treat a person like a human should be treated. I also hope the legal system of this country improves for the better so that these ladies who work as a domestic help feel empowered and do not feel scared to report a case of abuse.
I hope some of you might be able to share this post with your friends and family to spread awareness about these inhuman celebrities and the way they function. Maybe after reading this post they might want to change the way they treat their support staff!The video will start in 8 Cancel
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CHEATS never prosper - especially when they're caught on camera in a video that has been shared around the globe over ONE MILLION times.
This fist-biting footage shows the moment when a man found his best friend's wife on the arm of another man.
A sheepish-looking woman wearing a white dress and identified only as Nina seems reluctant to be filmed as the DIY filmmaker – who she clearly knows – asks: "How you guys doing?"
The reason for her manner soon becomes clear as the would-be sleuth asks: "Who's this guy? That's not your husband, right?"
As it dawns on the other man that he has been caught hook, line and sinker by the amateur expose, he takes out his mobile phone and shines the flash light from it to hide his face.
(Image: YouTube)
"That's a good idea. I don't blame you," says the man filming the embarrassing episode.
He adds: "I'm James, I was the best man. This is Nina, this is my best friend's wife. So are you the bar tender?"
Still shining the light, he responds: "Not only, but yes."
James replies: "Okay, that’s excellent. Well you guys have a good night."
The 41-second film, which had clocked up 1.1m views in 24 hours, then cuts out.The Inca army was a multi-ethnic army[1] charged with defending the sovereignty of the Inca Empire.[2]
Composition [ edit ]
As the Inca Empire grew, an army created by a loose confederation of peasant warriors was replaced by one of professional officers. These officers were chosen during the Warachikuy festival, during which candidates had to undergo various tests of physical skill: such as racing, marksmanship, simulated combat and battle drill. There was even a competition to see if they could stay awake for a long period, with it being reported that some officers could remain awake for a whole week.[3]
Inca battalions contained permanent staff (generals and officers) and non-permanent personnel composed of drafted hatun runas (common men), who would be serving their military mit'a public service, comparable to mandatory military service or the draft. Once the mit'a was fulfilled, each hatun runa would return to their respective ayllu (community).
Each battalion was made up of a single ethnic group, the whole group being directed by a kuraka (warlord) of the same ethnicity. In the event that a kuraka fell in battle, a replacement was appointed from within the same ethnic group. In order to prevent rebellions and to promote successful performance in battle, two battalions were formed per ethnic group, each one under the command of a general (and both under the command of the kuraka). Promotion was given to the general who gave the greatest display of bravery on the battlefield, which led to competition between the two battalions.[4] This concept of "duality" is widespread in the Andean world and represents the two Inca dynasties: Hanan and Hurin.[5]
From the time of the rule of Emperor Tupac Yupanqui, a specialized elite group of soldiers was appointed for the safekeeping of the Sapa Inca ("the one and only Inca") during parades, travel or campaigns.[6] These bodyguards originated primarily in Cusco, though soldiers from other ethnicities were also accepted in their ranks. This imperial guard, consisting entirely of men belonging to the nobility, reached a size of 10,000 warriors.
All members of the Inca Army were between 25 and 50 years old.[7] All of the empire's citizens had to perform either military or community service. One in every 50 men over 25-years-old (the legal age of responsibility in the Inca Empire) would be chosen for military service. For noblemen, this was an honour and a duty, for common men, it was a means of social promotion. In accordance with the duality concept, one of every 50 young women was selected to serve in the Temple of the Virgins of the Sun.
Commoners were considered to have fulfilled their military service obligations after six or seven years. The professional officers, however, were permanent soldiers, paid by the state. This military caste enjoyed several privileges, with the state paying for their food, clothing and housing costs, as well as supplying gifts such as coca, jewellery, and wives.
Runas (common men) from the coastal region —in contrast to men from the highlands— were not compelled to serve in the army. This is probably explained by their poor adaptation to the harsh climate conditions of the highlands, where most wars took place.[8]
Army units would march in the company of a large number of women, mostly relatives of the soldiers. Women would take care of cooking and repair the soldiers' clothes and, after battles, would attend the wounded and help bury the dead. Inca armies would not fight at night for religious reasons. A group of priests would also be attached to the army units, in order to pray, make sacrifices, and try to weaken the opposing force by casting spells before and during battle. Weapons and other equipment were transported by llamas.
In the early stages of the Incan Empire, the army was mainly formed of ethnic Inca troops. Later on, however, only the officers and imperial guards were Incas (the Incas were 40,000[9] to 100,000[10] strong, and they ruled an empire of 10 to 15 million[11]). The squads were organized according to the ethnicity of the soldiers (auca runas). The soldiers were armed and dressed according to their tribe with animal skins, fabric shields, feathers, jewels or body paints.
Once a battle was over, enemy leaders would only be executed if they refused to accept the sovereignty of the Incas. The majority of conquered nations were absorbed into the Empire. Conquered nations were forced to adopt Quechua as their main language, worship Inca gods and adopt Inca social customs. Inca government officials would perform a careful study of the conquered zone to ensure the achievement of these objectives.[12]
Tactics [ edit ]
Before battle, the Inca army would usually parade in order to arouse awe in the opposing army. The soldiers would march with their banners and the commander would be carried in his litter carrying the symbol of his command. Should the opposing force still be willing to fight, the general in command (or the Inca himself) would review the troops while musical instruments were played. After this, the commanding officer would rally the troops for the attack. The Sapa Inca himself would rally the troops in larger campaigns; for smaller rebellions, barbarian invasions, or small campaigns, a general or a prince would be sent as his representative.
The Inca army's military effectiveness was based on two main elements: |
determined what skills, concepts and content are most important, only then will it be possible to align teacher preparation, professional development and evaluation, and assessment of student learning.
Felipe Martínez Rizo, coordinator of the National Institute for the Evaluation of Education (INEE) commission reevaluating the ENLACE test, agreed that the curricular program in Mexican schools is “bad” because it has become filled with a wide variety of new objectives without weeding out any of the old ones.
This has created a swamp of very little depth “covering” far more than what can be effectively taught in a school year. Faced with this situation, a teacher has three choices:
Try to cover everything, passing quickly over the year’s objectives. This creates an incentive to use traditional teaching methods in which the teacher lectures and students take notes and give back information on a test. These methods are most effective in covering an extensive curriculum, but not in ensuring student learning.
The result is that Mexican education continues to be tied to 19th-century methods which don’t work with students who are used to the interactive stimuli of their smartphones and video games.
Start the book from the beginning and keep going, page by page, until the end of the year. The objectives at the end of the book never get taught.
Teach what is personally most interesting and leave the rest (like the history teacher who only taught about military battles, which were his particular passion).
None of these options represents quality education. It’s important to highlight essential knowledge and skills and eliminate what may be superfluous in order to have enough time to teach the important stuff with depth and understanding.
This is exactly what countries whose students have top results on the international PISA test have done.
The writer is an educator with many years of experience in the administration of schools in North and South America. He lives in Pachuca, Hidalgo.Nanoscale sorting: A tiny nanofluidic chip is the key to BioNanomatrix’s effort to sequence a human genome for just $100.
In the corner of the small lab is a locked door with a colorful sign taped to the front: “$100 Genome Room–Authorized Persons Only.” BioNanomatrix, the startup that runs the lab, is pursuing what many believe to be the key to personalized medicine: sequencing technology so fast and cheap that an entire human genome can be read in eight hours for $100 or less. With the aid of such a powerful tool, medical treatment could be tailored to a patient’s distinct genetic profile.
Despite many experts’ doubt that whole-genome sequencing could be done for $1,000, let alone a 10th that much, BioNanomatrix believes it can reach the $100 target in five years. The reason for its optimism: company founder Han Cao has created a chip that uses nanofluidics and a series of branching, ever-narrowing channels to allow researchers, for the first time, to isolate and image very long strands of individual DNA molecules.
If the company succeeds, a physician could biopsy a cancer patient’s tumor, sequence all its DNA, and use that information to determine a prognosis and prescribe treatment– all for less than the cost of a chest x-ray. If the ailment is lung cancer, for instance, the doctor could determine the particular genetic changes in the tumor cells and order the chemotherapy best suited to that variant.
Cao’s chip, which neatly aligns DNA, is essential to cheaper sequencing because double-stranded DNA, when left to its own devices, winds itself up into tight balls that are impossible to analyze. To sequence even the smallest chromosomes, researchers have had to chop the DNA up into millions of smaller pieces, anywhere from 100 to 1,000 base pairs long. These shorter strands can be sequenced easily, but the data must be pieced back together like a jigsaw puzzle. The approach is expensive and time consuming. What’s more, it becomes problematic when the puzzle is as large as the human genome, which consists of about three billion pairs of nucleotides. Even with the most elegant algorithms, some pieces get counted multiple times, while others are omitted completely. The resulting sequence may not include the data most relevant to a particular disease.
In contrast, Cao’s chip untangles stretches of delicate double-stranded DNA molecules up to 1,000,000 base pairs long–a feat that researchers had previously thought impossible. The series of branching channels gently prompts the molecules to relax a bit more at each fork, while also acting as a floodgate to help distribute them evenly. A mild electrical charge drives them through the chip, ultimately coaxing them into spaces that are less than 100 nanometers wide. With tens of thousands of channels side by side, the chip allows an entire human genome to flow through in about 10 minutes. The data must still be pieced together, but the puzzle is much smaller (imagine a jigsaw puzzle of roughly 100 pieces versus 10,000), leaving far less room for error.One of college football's greatest traditions, Midnight Yell. https://t.co/aomP6WQ31D — College GameDay (@CollegeGameDay) October 8, 2016
COLLEGE STATION, Tex. — Twenty minutes to midnight, and droves stream into — not out of — the stadium. Two minutes past midnight, and everyone from the field to the upper decks suddenly knows it’s time to bend slightly and put hands upon knees to state a passage everyone also seems to know. Seventeen minutes past midnight, and there comes one of the better spectacles you’ll ever see at any hour, let alone 17 past midnight: tens of thousands interlocking arms and, often, knees, and oscillating back and forth.
Twenty-six minutes past midnight, and everybody files out neatly, occasional clots on the stairwells.
For miles and miles of dark Texas highway on a Friday night, it doesn’t seem anybody could be yelling, much less even whispering. Surely nobody could be headed toward anything titled a “Yell.” But once into College Station and past the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library, there it is, the 102,773-capacity Kyle Field, lit up, ready for ritual, great big bugs swirling in the night sky near the great lights.
Texas A&M’s “Midnight Yell,” one of the college football must-sees before dying, upholds a reality about the world: The world contains many worlds, some freighted with distinctions. You might find yourself suddenly in a place in which everyone knows the phrase “saw ’em off” refers to a steer’s horns, in particular those of a Texas Longhorn, which represents a team Texas A&M used to play but no longer does, but still loathes adequately.
[College football viewing guide: Charlie Strong reaches Peak Hot Seat]
One minute past midnight, and various groups stand at the front edge of the football field before maybe 40,000 people fill the lower deck and do a creditable job with the upper. The five guys in the middle with the microphone have nothing to do with hamburgers; they’re “Yell Leaders” elected by the nation’s second-largest student body — three seniors, two juniors — with Texas A&M literature proclaiming it “not uncommon for more than twice as many students to vote for Yell Leader candidates than to vote in the Student Body President elections.”
One minute past midnight, and the Head Yell Leader, Chris Wilder, has a microphone and a joke: “How can you tell you’re in a five-star hotel in Tennessee? When you call the front desk and say, ‘I’ve got a leak in the sink,’ and they said, ‘Okay, go ahead!’ ”
By now, you might presume the weekend football visitor might be Tennessee — in this case, an all-top-10 game between No. 8 Texas A&M (5-0) and No. 9 Tennessee (5-0). It’s a weekend big enough to be bigger than usual, plus the fact that Yell Leader Ian Moss will get his first turn at telling a fable to a Kyle Stadium “Midnight Yell” audience.
[Sumlin and Aggies are again 5-0, but some see it as five-and-uh-oh]
Moss, 21, a junior, loves Texas A&M just about as much as anybody has ever loved anything, and he’s already gathering rare experiences. Like his four Yell Leader brethren, he’s a member of the 2,500-strong Corps of Cadets (on a campus going on 60,000-strong), and as a sophomore, he became the one student chosen to care for Reveille IX, the purebred American collie mascot. “Nothing affects an Aggie like Reveille does,” he said. The side of his overalls honors her with an applique and a passage reading, “First Lady of Texas A&M.”
“Basically, I took care of all her daily events, her schedule, made sure her hair was looking good, made sure her teeth were brushed,” Moss said. As their bond grew, his brushing of her teeth (and the canine toothpaste involved) became second nature to her, helping her freshen up to attend, as Moss put it, “anything from sorority events to philanthropies to video segments for the football team,” or to meet with donors or prospective students or elementary-school children. If she wants onto your bed, he said, you want onto the floor, “because she outranks us. It’s a constant reminder of the commitment the Aggies have to the country, to the university and to each other.” He can reel off the origins of the Reveille concept (1931) to the breed of the first Reveille (“fox terrier spitz mutt”) to how she got her name (went bonkers one morning during reveille).
In his fable at Midnight Yell, Moss told of an Auburn fan who wished to convert to Alabama fandom to appease a new love, so sought out a Dallas doctor to remove half his brain, only to emerge from surgery saying, “Go Volunteers,” whereupon the doctor volunteers that the surgery took the entire brain.
That joke happened at 12:11 a.m.
[Tennessee’s crazy games can take a toll on the play-by-play man]
A chant of “Wrecking Crew! Wrecking Crew!” — honoring the A&M football defense — went at 12:12.
So did a sudden cannon boom that might have shortened a life span.
Moss can go on in deep detail about “Yell Leader” elections, deploying words such as “rigorous” and “stressful,” in addition to “campaign teams,” “campaign managers,” “platforms” and “intensive interview.” “It’s not easy if it’s about yourself, if that makes sense,” he said. “It’s about the university, because there’s a lot of times when things become inconvenient. Something we always tell each other is, ‘You’re not a Yell Leader when it’s convenient for you, you’re a Yell Leader when it’s convenient for other people.’ And so a lot of times this seems very glamorous and a job that everyone wants to be in the spotlight, when really, there’s a lot of stuff that goes on behind the scenes that a lot of people don’t know about. We do over 300 events a year. We’re doing a lot and sacrificing a lot. And so if you make it about yourself, it’s not enjoyable, but if you’re able to serve and put this university above yourself, that’s what makes it so special.”
At 12:02 a.m., a crowd in a football stadium fixed to sing “The Spirit of Aggieland.”
“Take off your cap!” somebody hollered to a Tennessee fan in the front row.
“I didn’t know, sorry!” he said.
“It’s all right!” several said.
“As a week goes on you just build up, and build up, and build up,” Moss said, “and then at midnight before the game, less than 12 hours away from kickoff, and to be able to see the 40,000 students come out and do yells, I mean you can’t find that anywhere else. And to be able to give a fable in front of them, and be able to conduct the 12th man, and just have that honor and privilege...”
The men’s and women’s basketball teams appeared to make brief announcements about upcoming seasons.
At 12:16 a.m., another song: “The War Hymn,” replete with its jabs at “Texas University” (not “the University of Texas”) and the “eyes of Texas are upon you.” At 12:18 a.m., the Yell Leaders gave best wishes to two youths, one battling a third heart transplant and the other a central-nervous-system condition. At 12:23, another cannon boom, another five minutes off the end of life. At 12:25, another wish to beat the alleged Hades out of Tennessee, plus a reminder that while there’s no Texas on the schedule anymore since Texas A&M moved to the Southeastern Conference, at least there’s an orange opponent.
“Midnight Yell” doesn’t gobble up your night. By 12:30, the stairwells bulge with maroon, throngs exiting a stadium in which there has been no football game yet, but there has been uncommon devotion already.
More college football:
Hurricane Matthew could have a big impact on the weekend’s sporting events
LSU and Florida won’t play because of hurricane and it likely won’t be made up
Week 6 kickoff: Oregon leads nation’s most disappointing teams
Herman has millions of reasons to stay at Houston, and they aren’t all money
Navy braces for Houston, its highest-ranked visitor since 1984
Ward, overlooked by Big 12 and pushed by his coach, has Houston rolling
No one knows who will run the football for Maryland. And so far, no one can stop it.
Franklin’s slow progress at Penn State hasn’t made for a Happy Valley
Steinberg: Terps coordinator lives by his words, ‘You have to be a little bit crazy’
Feinstein: Terps are again relevant in October, but don’t expect it every year
Rea$on$ why Nebra$ka won’t leave the Big Ten for the Big 12Since I’m a Tim Burton nut (as I’m sure some of you are), I’m very interested in picking the brains of this most unusual director. So I though I’d give you some more (burtonian) food for thought.
I’m thinking about your health so on the short movie menu today we have a main course that consists of white meat : clams seasoned with sea salt and a pinch of inhumanity.
As for hors d’oeuvre, we have a plot knit with algae: two newly weds spend their honeymoon on an island with a seafood based nutrition. But their diet led to an unexpected result that culminated with her giving birth to a cross-breed between a human and an oyster: Sam.
Sam’s birth contributed to the choice for a house by the sea. Though he resembled an oyster, he was far from being as happy as a clam. He was the kind of child bound to enjoy less conventional activities:
One spring afternoon,
Sam was left in the rain.
At the southwestern corner of Seaview and Main,
he watched the rain water as it swirled
down the drain.
His parents’ quarrels seemed not to influence him; that was until the doctor’s suggestion… but I won’t spoil your appetite, I’ll let you go digging for clams on YouTube.
Photo from misanthrope86 on fanpop.Have you gotten your fix of Borderlands between the original, Borderlands 2 and Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel? No? How about the Tales From The Borderlands series going on by TellTale Games? Well it seems Borderlands fans will have more soon, in the form of a ‘remastered edition’.
A recent Australian ratings board filing has been found earlier today that lists Borderlands Remastered Edition for release out of the USA. Author is Gearbox Software as they own the property and the publishers as 2K Games. It looks like we might be seeing yet another ‘remastered’ game hitting next-gen consoles in the near future. Now it depends if it fixes some of the issues with save-data in the first one, and adds all the DLC.
No word if it is just the first Borderlands or all three titles. The question is, how will fans take this instead of just getting the much wished for, Borderlands 3. Also, how will fans by continuously being fed remaster, after remaster. Time will tell, but look forward to this title being announced in an official capacity soon (PAX Austin?).Any pre-election budget puts two broad claims before the public. One: elect us, look what we’ve done! Two: elect us, look what we plan to do!
Based on the former claim only, the Conservatives would have a decent case to make. Over the last several budgets the Tories have shown sustained discipline over spending, while reducing corporate tax rates, arriving in the end at the long-promised balanced budget.
If the latter was achieved with the help of much jiggery-pokery — a sale of General Motors shares here, a raid of the contingency reserve there — it does not greatly matter. On a $2-trillion economy, whether you’re $2 billion in the red or black is hardly worth worrying about, at least if economics, rather than politics, is your concern. It’s the trend that counts, and the trend is from deficit into surplus, and a steady reduction in the debt-to-GDP ratio. The lowest net debt-to-GDP ratio in the G-7, and the lowest effective corporate tax rate: these are genuine achievements.
It’s all relative, of course. The restraint the government has imposed in recent years is only from the all-time peak to which the same government pushed spending in 2009. Indeed, measured in constant dollars per citizen, this government is responsible for 10 of the 12 highest-spending years in our history (see chart), including the current fiscal year.
It never should have gone so heavily into deficit as it did — the recovery had already begun, and the subsequent contribution of any alleged fiscal “stimulus” was negligible — but it did so to the cheers of most of the commentariat, when they were not demanding more. So it is a bit much for the same people now to complain at the resulting increase in the debt.
Sourpusses like me might — but even we would have to admit the Tories have done a better job of bringing spending back into line than we expected. And while there is some loosening of the purse strings in the current budget — spending will increase by 3.4% in the current fiscal year, and 4.2% the next — this is a long way from the kind of pre-election spending sprees that once were traditional.
The proposition the Tories put before the public, then, is not small government, or even smaller government, but big government that lives within its means. After 10 years of Conservative rule, the federal government does virtually everything it ever did, pokes its nose into just as many areas of national life, taxes, subsidizes, and regulates very nearly as much, and at considerably greater expense (even after six years of restraint, spending is still 12% higher, after inflation and population growth, than it was when the Tories took power). It just does all this, now, barely, in line with the revenues available to it.
And, in the current budget, it proposes to do even more. If the sum total of what the Tories plan to spend and tax is within the bounds of endurance, the specific ways they propose to spend and tax it — the basis, one presumes, of their election platform — are almost universally bad ideas.
I do not include in this the almost universally reviled proposals to allow couples with children to split their income for tax purposes, or to increase the annual limit on contributions to Tax-Free Savings Accounts, or to impose some mild curbs on governments’ ability to borrow. Not only are these generally sound policies, but they are important promises the Conservatives have made in the past which it is gratifying, not to say unusual, to see them keep.
It’s the new measures the government has in mind that are generally awful, if awful in a way familiar from previous budgets. The 10-year accelerated capital cost allowance for manufacturers is simply a subsidy by a complicated name. The Automotive Supplier Innovation Program is unlikely to yield any more economic benefit than the dozens of other “innovation” programs on the federal books. The $1-billion-a-year — like many of the budget’s pricier items, available only after 2018 — Public Transit Fund may do many things, but it will most assuredly not reduce traffic congestion, as claimed.
The “national aerospace supplier development initiative,” the expanded mandates for the wholly superfluous Business Development Bank of Canada and Export Development Canada, the ludicrous “Defence Procurement Strategy” — if anyone was in any doubt that this government has no interest in free markets, they need look no further. And I haven’t even mentioned the proposal, still unrepudiated, to regulate every price in Canada into line with its U.S. counterpart.
This sort of meddling in the corporate sector is mirrored by the government’s determined efforts at social engineering on the personal side. The doubling of the children’s fitness tax credit, announced last fall, is only the most overtly foolish. But now brace yourselves for the doubling of the lifetime capital gains exemption for farmers and fishermen, and the reduction in the already heavily discounted small business tax rate: measures that are both distortionary and, given the income bracket of the typical beneficiary, regressive.
But these are, mercifully, small beer. The only really costly policy mistake is the broadening of the Universal Child Benefit, on its own a defensible supplement to childcare costs (and vastly preferable to the direct subsidy to daycare operators preferred by the Official Opposition) to include children of school age. Sorry, did I say mistake? That implies the Tories do not know what they are doing. Indeed, it implies that policy has anything to do with it.
It’s an election year. Just console yourself it could have been worse.
National PostDoes an EnergyStar label change your perception of a product? Maybe it shouldn’t. Last year, an audit showed that Energy Star gave its rating to products that misrepresented their energy usage. This time, auditors posed as companies and submitted completely absurd appliances for EnergyStar ratings, like a gasoline-powered alarm clock the size of a portable generator, and a space heater with a feather duster on top claiming to be an “air purifier.” Is the study meaningless because no actual products were sold, or a warning that the program is sloppy and susceptible to fraud?
In a nine-month study, four fictitious companies invented by the accountability office also sought EnergyStar status for some conventional devices like dehumidifiers and heat pump models that existed only on paper. The fake companies submitted data indicating that the models consumed 20 percent less energy than even the most efficient ones on the market. Yet those applications were mostly approved without a challenge or even questions, the report said. Auditors concluded that the EnergyStar program was highly vulnerable to fraud.
Audit Finds Vulnerability of EnergyStar Program [New York Times] (Thanks, Howard!)
PREVIOUSLY:
Energy Star Program Relies On Honor System For Some ProductsI’m so glad I checked to see whether there was any Alter Bridge news today, as they have just premiered their new single Isolation (which is taken from their third studio album AB III).
I’m not sure where abouts Isolation ranks in terms of my favourite Alter Bridge tracks, but I’m quite pleased that they have switched things up a little by making such a bold choice with their first single. Their sound isn’t usually this hard, so it’s nice to see progression/change in their work.
The CDQ version of this will sound absolutely immense. I’m so glad to see that my favourite band are well and truly back in business!
Alter Bridge – Isolation
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.Awesome 1969 Camaro Custom – Great Eight Winner.
We are all used to seeing tons of 69′ Camaros on every car show, but this particular muscle car is something truly special. With this project Hot Rod Joe has gone way beyond everything we have seen so far blending three generations of Camaro in one vehicle. Alan Reed from Louisiana is the proud owner of this masterpiece he called “Infused” as opposite to injected.
Built with custom fabricated sheet metal and coated with beautiful Forest Green Chrysler color, this Chevrolet spins a hot set of Billet Specialties and combines clues from both old and new Camaro models.
Photos by classiccarnews.com
Responsible for the spectacular interior of this muscle car is the well known Steve Holcomb from “Pro Auto Custom Interiors” and he has nailed it again.
In the engine compartment sits nicely detailed and matching the car theme GM LS3 Crate motor supercharged with the latest Magnusson Heartbeat unit and estimated to 600+ horse power.
As usual we have a video, so you can get all details by Hot Rod Joe who is talking about the Infused Camaro in front of Scottie’s camera at 2015 Detroit Autorama. Watch, Enjoy & Share!
More on Hot Cars: Pro Touring 1969 Camaro LS3 Convertible
264 SharesEarlier this evening, we noted that the western German town of Bornheim has banned adult male asylum seekers from its indoor public pool after some German women complained of harassment.
"There have been complaints of sexual harassment and chatting-up going on in this swimming pool... by groups of young men, and this has prompted some women to leave (the premises)," the town’s deputy mayor said.
Bornheim, as it turns out, is just a stone’s throw away from Cologne where a wave of sexual assaults allegedly perpetrated by men of “Arab origin” at a New Year’s Eve festival has mushroomed into a bloc-wide scandal.
Now, officials from across Europe are struggling to deflect criticism and devise a way to ensure that women are safe in large crowds.
As we documented on Thursday, Switzerland has adopted an Austrian cartoon flyer for its upcoming Lucerne carnival. The pictogram lays out various instances of accepted behavior such as kissing and praying, while making it clear that flying into a mad rage and open-hand slapping women and small children is frowned upon in polite society.
Well now, in a story that combines the concern about public pools and the effort to dissuade lewd behavior with cartoons, The Local reports that “in Bavaria, swimming pools have issued leaflets with simple pictorial instructions on behaviour for migrants who may never have swum in public before.”
Officials dreamed up the leaflets in 2013 after witnessing an increasing number of "problems" at the city's 18 public swimming pools.
"The ground rule of respect for women – whatever clothing they're wearing – is unfortunately not respected by all our swimmers. That's why there is an explicit indication about it," a Munich city spokesman said.
The "explicit indication" the spokesman mentions is a slightly creepy first-person view of a hand reaching out to touch the behind of an unsuspecting female swimmer:
That is unacceptable, as is drowing others (#4 below), pushing women into the pool (#3 below), and leaping from the side onto a screaming blonde (#7 below).
Here is the full cartoon which you are encouraged to review in its entirety if you are an asylum seeker that plans on swimming in Bavaria.
We'd be remiss if we didn't mention that this is the same logic employed by Cologne mayor Henriette Reker who, in the wake of the New Year's Eve assaults, suggested that one solution to the "problem" would be to "explain to people from other cultures that the jolly and frisky attitude during our Carnival is not a sign of sexual openness." Neither is wearing a bikini.
We'll close with a modified version of what we said on Thursday with regard to the Austrian pictograph: "...whether the cartoons will be successful in taming the refugees' more base instincts, stop by a Bavarian public pool to find out."Backblaze will be celebrating its ten year anniversary this month. As I was reflecting on our path to get here, I thought some of the issues we encountered along the way are universal to most startups. With that in mind, I’ll write a series of blog posts focused on the entrepreneurial journey. This post is the first and focuses on the birth of Backblaze. I hope you stick around and enjoy the Backblaze story along the way.
What’s Your Problem?
The entrepreneur builds things to solve problems – your own or someone else’s. That problem may be a lack of something that you wish existed or something broken you want to fix. Here’s the problem that kicked off Backblaze and how it got noticed:
Brian Wilson, now co-founder and CTO of Backblaze, had been doing tech support for friends and family, as many of us did. One day he got a panicked call from one of those friends, Lise.
Lise: “You’ve got to help me! My computer crashed!”
Brian: “No problem – we’ll get you a new laptop; where’s your backup?”
Lise: “Look, what I don’t need now is a lecture! What I need is for you to get my data back!”
Brian was religious about backing up data and had been for years. He burned his data onto a CD and a DVD, diversifying the media types he used. During the process, Brian periodically read some files from each of the discs to test his backups. Finally, Brian put one disc in his closet and mailed another to his brother in New Mexico to have it offsite. Brian did this every week!
Brian was obviously a lot more obsessive than most of us.
Lise, however, had the opposite problem. She had no backup. And she wasn’t alone.
Whose Problem Is It?
A serious pain-point for one person may turn out to be a serious pain-point for millions.
At this point, it would have been easy just to say, “Well that sucks” or blame Lise. “User error” and “they just don’t get it” are common refrains in tech. But blaming the user doesn’t solve the problem.
Brian started talking to people and asking, “Who doesn’t back up?” He also talked with me and some of the others that are now Backblaze co-founders, and we asked the same question to others.
It turned out that most people didn’t back up their computers. Lise wasn’t the anomaly; Brian was. And that was a problem.
Over the previous decade, everything had gone digital. Photos, movies, financials, taxes, everything. A single crashed hard drive could cause you to lose everything. And drives would indeed crash. Over time everything would be digital, and society as a whole would permanently lose vast amounts of information. Big problem.
Surveying the Landscape
There’s a well-known adage that “Having no competition may mean you have no market.” The corollary I’d add is that “Having competition doesn’t mean the market is full.”
Weren’t There Backup Solutions?
Yes. Plenty. In fact, we joked that we were thirty years too late to the problem.
“Solutions Exist” does not mean “Problem Solved.” Even though many backup solutions were available, most people did not back up their data.
What Were the Current Solutions?
At first glance, it seems clear we’d be competing with other backup services. But when I asked people “How do you back up your data today?”, here were the answers I heard most frequently:
Copy ‘My Documents’ directory to an external drive before going on vacation
Copy files to a USB key
Send important files to Gmail
Pray
And “Do I need to back up?” (I’ll talk about this one in another post.)
Sometimes people would mention a particular backup app or service, but this was rare.
What Was Wrong With the Current Solutions?
Existing backup systems had various issues. They would not back up all of the users’ data, for example. They would only back up periodically and thus didn’t have current data. Most solutions were not off-site, so fire, theft or another catastrophe could still wipe out data. Some weren’t automatic, which left more room for neglect and user error.
“Solutions Exist” does not mean “Problem Solved.”
In fairness, some backup products and services had already solved some of these issues. But few people used those products. I talked with a lot of people and asked, “Why don’t you use some backup software/service?”
The most common answer was, “I tried it…and it was too hard and too expensive.” We’d learn a lot more about what “hard” and “expensive” meant along the way.
Finding and Testing Solutions
Focus is critical for execution, but when brainstorming solutions, go broad.
We considered a variety of approaches to help people back up their files.
Peer-to-Peer Backup: This was the original idea. Two people would install our backup software which would send each person’s data to the other’s computer. This idea had a lot going for it: The data would be off-site; It would work with existing hardware; It was mildly viral.
Local Drive Backup: The backup software would send data to a USB hard drive. Manually copying files to an external drive was most people’s idea of backing up. However, no good software existed at the time to make this easy. (Time Machine for the Mac hadn’t launched yet.)
Backup To Online Services: Weirder and more unique, this idea stemmed from noticing that online services provided free storage: Flickr for photos; Google Docs for documents and spreadsheets; YouTube for movies; and so on. We considered writing software that would back up each file type to the service that supported it and back up the rest to Gmail.
Backup To Our Online Storage: We’d create a service that backed up data to the cloud. It may seem obvious now, but backing up to the cloud was just one of a variety of possibilities at the time. Also, initially, we didn’t mean ‘our’ storage. We assumed we would use S3 or some other storage provider.
The goal was to come up with a solution that was easy.
We put each solution we came up with through its paces. The goal was to come up with a solution that was easy: Easy for people to use. Easy to understand.
Peer-to-peer backup? First, we’d have to explain what it is (no small task) and then get buy-in from the user to host a backup on their machine. That meant having enough space on each computer, and both needed to be online at the same time. After our initial excitement with the idea, we came to the conclusion that there were too many opportunities for things to go wrong. Verdict: Not easy.
Backup software? Not off-site, and required the purchase of a hard drive. If the drive broke or wasn’t connected, no backup occurred. A useful solution but again, too many opportunities for things to go wrong. Verdict: Not easy.
Back up to online services? Users needed accounts at each, and none of the services supported all file types, so your data ended up scattered all over the place. Verdict: Not easy.
Back up to our online storage? The backup would be current, kept off-site, and updated automatically. It was easy to for people to use, and easy to understand. Verdict: Easy!
Getting To the Solution
Don’t brainstorm forever. Problems don’t get solved on ideas alone.
We decided to back up to our online storage! It met many of the key goals. We started building.
Attempt #1
We built a backup software installer, a way to pick files and folders to back up, and the underlying engine that copies the files to remote storage. We tried to make it comfortable by minimizing clicks and questions.
Fail #1
This approach seemed easy enough to use, at least for us, but it turned out not to be for our target users.
We thought about the original answer we heard: “I tried it…and it was too hard and too expensive.”
“Too hard” is not enough information. What was too hard before? Were the icons too small? The text too long? A critical feature missing? Were there too many features to wade through? Or something else altogether?
Dig deeper into users’ actual needs
We reached out to a lot of friends, family, and co-workers and held some low-key pizza and beer focus groups. Those folks walked us through their backup experience. While there were a lot of difficult areas, the most complicated part was setting up what would be backed up.
“I had to get all the files and folders on my computer organized; then I could set up the backup.”
That’s like cleaning the garage. Sounds like a good idea, but life conspires to get in the way, and it doesn’t happen.
We had to solve that or users would never think of our service as ‘easy.’
Takeaway: Dig deeper into users’ actual needs.
Attempt #2
Trying to remove the need to “clean the garage,” we asked folks what they wanted to be backed up. They told us they wanted their photos, movies, music, documents, and everything important.
We listened and tried making it easier. We focused our second attempt at a backup solution by pre-selecting everything ‘important.’ We selected the documents folder and then went one step further by finding all the photo, movies, music, and other common file types on the computer. Now users didn’t have to select files and folders – we would do it for them!
Fail #2
More pizza and beer user testing had people ask, “But how do I know that my photos are being backed up?”
We told them, “we’re searching your whole computer for photos.”
“But my photos are in this weird format:.jpg, are those included?.gif?.psd?”
We learned that the backup process felt nebulous to users since they wouldn’t know what exactly would be selected. Users would always feel uncomfortable – and uncomfortable isn’t ‘easy.’
Takeaway: No, really, keep digging deeper into users’ actual needs. Identify their real problem, not the solution they propose.
Attempt #3
We took a step back and asked, “What do we know?”
We want all of our “important” files backed up, but it can be hard for us to identify what files those are. Having us guess makes us uncomfortable. So, forget the tech. What experience would be the right one?
Our answer was that the computer would just magically be backed up to the cloud.
Then one of our co-founders Tim wondered, “what if we didn’t ask any questions and just backed up everything?”
At first, we all looked at him askew. Backup everything? That was a lot of data. How would that be possible? But we came back to, “Is this the right answer? Yes. So let’s see if we can make it work.”
So we flipped the entire backup approach on its |
object spawners. And this is all just the “edit” mode.
By pressing the singular button above the touch pad on the Vive’s controllers, you can enter into “play” mode. Now this is where the action and the chaos can unfold. There was an assortment of pre-made scenes I could choose from to play, including target practice with guns and crossbows, bowling, sword and shields, and more. I did all of them. They were all fun. But even more fun was modifying and messing everything up, not to mention seeing the destruction physics.
At one point I was trying to play basketball, and apparently I suck at it in Modbox, so then I decided to cheat by just placing the spawner for the ball right on top of the hoop, I was alone anyway and it’s not like I have any pride to save. I had to reach a bit to place the spawner above the hoop, but the controller was still being tracked and it worked. In another scene, balls were being thrown at you, and you were given this sword and shield to slash at them, but I also tried other stuff. You can also spawn things yourself in play mode, so I turned that scene into essentially a skeet shooting game by giving myself guns.
But in my opinion, the best fun I had in Modbox, was destroying everything I’d created. There is something intensely satisfying about seeing the physics of your virtual sword shattering fragile objects into a bajillion little pieces. I found out that you could do that to almost everything in the game, or at least the objects that you would expect to break. Now I just need multi-player so I can swing a wrecking ball at my friend’s house. You won’t get that in real life! Well, unless you’re a criminal, or an actual demolition man.
After the Modbox demo, Vermeulen surprised me by letting me try another new but unnamed game he was making. Imagine if you were a giant monster from space with huge claws, walking through various cities in order to capture and destroy them. That’s the game. You could really pretend to be Godzilla, if you wanted. It’s cartoony, but the physics behave quite convincingly and are even more satisfying. It was just pure childish fun – something you could keep doing and never get bored of. It used assets, perhaps temporarily, from another game he’s making called Maximum Override, but I confirmed with him that this is a separate project in its own right. It may or may not be a Vive launch title, but if it isn’t, “it won’t be long after that.”
At present, this new title is in the prototype stages, as more details around the content and direction of it have yet to be decided. The original inspiration to make it was because Modbox is a very complicated game to just get into quickly, and to demo. Vermeulen describes this unnamed game as “one button interaction – simple as hell.” That one button is indeed the grab, or make fist, button. And for the story, “we’ll figure it out.” Nonetheless, it has great potential as a quick demo game to show off VR.
Modbox itself will be a Vive launch title, and Lee will be “releasing it to all Vive developers, at some point, before the Vive comes out.” As for other VR platforms?
We need to see what other developers do in terms of dealing with the non-room scale. Like how other Vive games translate… I don’t want to start dealing with different hardware that I’m not sure I’ll even support in the end. I really want to focus on the fundamentals of this game – that I get it right before I start adding further complexity in terms of porting it. So yeah, I have my doubts. It definitely won’t work on PSVR. It really requires a room scale thing.
Modbox is scheduled to arrive some time in 2016. Keep an eye on the game’s Steam Early Access page here for more info.Michelin says it is prepared to launch a tender to become Formula 1's tyre supplier from 2017, but will only do so if its change in philosophy is implemented.
The French firm previously supplied tyres in F1 between 2001 and 2006 alongside Bridgestone, but withdrew from the sport in disagreement at the decision to switch to a single control supply.
However, with the tyre tender up for grabs again from 2017, Michelin is signaling a desire to return to the sport, albeit under certain conditions that would ultimately prioritise durability over the current format of degradation.
Indeed, having previously opted against applying for the previous tender given the brief supplied by the FIA to offer tyres of varying compounds to challenge the driver, Michelin Motorsport boss Pascal Couasnon told Crash.net it is willing to offer ideas to the governing body that it believes would improve the racing by developing a tyre that a driver can push to the limit throughout a race.
"F1 is still very visible and we are interested by this visibility," he told Crash.net. "Michelin has new ideas to present to the FIA and if these ideas are taken on board, then Michelin would consider a return to F1. We are open to discussion, but we are only interested if the tyre regulations respect the tyre.
"We want to offer a tyre that a driver can use at the limit at all times. A driver should be pushing at all times and the tyres at the moment mean they are holding back to make them last. In WEC, we offer a tyre that allows the driver to drive at the limit all the time, but it is not a rock hard tyre.
"The best of the best - this is what we would propose to be used in F1. There is no benefit running unpredictable tyres that last only 7 to 10 laps, we want tyres that teams can potentially reuse during the race."
Indeed, Couasnon believes Michelin's proposals would have a direct influence on the construction of road car tyres, saying it would introduce 18 inch tyres with smaller side walls.
"We want to use racing as a laboratory and take the lessons from the track and apply them to road cars. We have been testing big tyres, 18 inches, with shorter side walls because they are closer to what you have on performance cars on the road. Taking innovations from the track to the road then becomes easier."
Though Michelin retains its preference for competition in F1, Couasnon says it is prepared to become the sole supplier if that is the only option.
"Michelin is ready to be a sole supplier if tyre rules are aligned with our philosophy, but we would prefer competition."
Michelin already supplies the World Endurance Championship, Formula E and the World Rally Championship, whilst it is currently preparing for its return to MotoGP, also as a control tyre supplier.Bayer Leverkusen could be in for an interesting season, with Bayern Munich bringing in a new manager and Borussia Dortmund signing a lot of new players.
Javier Hernandez will miss the start of the season because of an injury at home, but they have a strong side without him, especially with the small amount of major players departing the club.
Past Season
Through the majority of the season, Bayer Leverkusen were in the midst of the battle for a spot in any European competition, but a run of form that rivalled Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund got them into third place.
In the first six weeks Leverkusen were as high as third and as low as 13th. For the first half of the season they couldn’t get into the top four, showing the competition in the league at that time.
They got back to third in the middle of February after a win against Darmstadt, but three losses in a row against Dortmund, Mainz and Werder Bremen put them down to seventh. A draw against Augsburg on March 5 took them out of any European places.
In their final nine games of the season they won eight games, their form at this time only rivalled by Bayern Munich and at times Dortmund. They went from eighth to finishing the 2015/16 season in third with a five point lead over fourth.
For their European campaign they qualified for the Champions League after beating Lazio. They were transferred to the Europa League after finishing third in their group behind Barcelona and Roma. They then were able to beat Sporting CP but lost out to Villareal.
Their first two DFB Pokal matches were won 3-0 and 6-0 respectively against lower league opposition. They made their way to the quarter finals where they were beaten by Werder Bremen.
Transfers
Bayer have made two big signings this summer, with one being completed just before the start of the season. Kevin Volland was brought in for a club record €18 million, while centre back Aleksander Dragovic recently transferred from Dynamo Kiev.
Other Transfers
Julian Baumgartlinger (CDM) – from Mainz 05 – £3.4 million
Ramazan Ozcan (GK) – from FC Ingolstadt – £425k
Danny da Costa (RB) – from FC Ingolstadt – £425k
Christoph Kramer is the other major player who has left the side this summer, making the move to rivals Borussia Monchengladbach. The majority of their other departures have been loan moves and free transfers.
Ones to Watch
Kevin Volland
There is a reason why Bayer paid a club record amount for the 24-year-old. Even at Hoffenheim he impressed, and with the higher calibre of players that are in his new team this could be the best season of his career so far.
Javier Hernandez
In his first season in the Bundesliga, Hernandez was the fourth top scorer. While he will miss the start of the season, he will be one of the main sources of goals for Bayer during 2016/17.
Jonathan Tah
The 20-year-old made the move to Bayer from Hamburg last summer, and was used a lot by manager Roger Schmidt. He’s had interest from a number of clubs already, and he has a lot of room to become a world-class defender.
Predictions
Bayer went unbeaten in their preseason games. They won five games and drew three, although one of the draws came after the match was abandoned in the 12th minute. They were impressive against Fiorentina, while they also swept aside Real Sociedad.
Because of the changes that have happened at Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund this summer, there is the chance that Bayer can keep their form going and make the title chase into a three-horse race.
In the last few years we have seen Bayern run away with the Bundesliga title. While others think that Dortmund will be a lot closer this year, I think the stability in the Bayer squad could give them the chance to make the 2016/17 season a lot more interesting.A DAD'S last words to his teenage daughter were read to a murder trial jury.
Postie Jack Doyle - who has since died - said: "I told her to be careful and watch herself."
Mr Doyle, then 44, spoke to police hours after the naked body of his daughter, Elaine, was found in a lane just yards from her Greenock home almost 28 years ago.
He told them her bed had not been slept in and that he knew "deep down" that the early morning police activity might have something to do with his daughter.
His statement was read to the High Court in Edinburgh during the evidence of retired detective inspector James Goldie, 76, who broke the news to the Doyle family on June 2, 1986.
Mr Doyle told the detective that his 16-year-old daughter had recently left Notre Dame school in Greenock and had a £27-a-week job in a jeweller's shop.
She was planning a holiday at Butlins in Ayr with a pal.
Mr Doyle also revealed that although Elaine never stayed away all night without telling her parents, there had been a previous occasion when he called police because she hadn't turned up on time.
Elaine was brought home in a police car by officers who said she had been found talking to a boy and they added: "The boy is a baddy and not suitable for Elaine."
Mr Doyle described how his daughter got "dressed up" on the Sunday and he thought she was going to a disco in a Celtic Supporters' Club.
She left her home in Ardgowan Street in a hurry to meet her friend, Lynn Ryan, but phoned her dad later.
"She said she would be home between 12.30am and 1am. I told her to be careful and watch herself," said the statement.
Mr Doyle told how he woke at 5am - the time he usually got up for work - and saw Elaine's bed was empty. He wanted to call Lynn's parents but his wife, Maureen, said it was too early.
"Shortly afterwards I went to the window and saw all the police activity. My wife said 'It is something to do with Elaine'. I tried to re-assure her but deep down I knew it could be."
Mr Doyle said he gave a description of his daughter to a police officer. Mr Goldie then visited him to say: "A young girl had been found dead and they had reason to believe it could be Elaine."
On trial is John Docherty, 49, now of Dunoon.
He claims that at the time he is alleged to have stripped and strangled Elaine Doyle, 16, he was at home with his parents, who are no longer alive.
He denies a murder charge which alleges that on June 2, 1986, in a lane near Elaine Doyle's home in Ardgowan Street, Greenock, he seized her by the hair, struck her on the head and either removed or compelled her to remove her clothing.
The charge goes on to allege that Docherty forced Elaine to the ground, pushed her face into the ground, sat or knelt on the teenager then placed a ligature round her neck and strangled her.
The trial continues.A rotor kite or gyrokite is an unpowered, rotary-wing aircraft. Like an autogyro or helicopter, it relies on lift created by one or more sets of rotors in order to fly. Unlike a helicopter, gyrokites and rotor kites do not have an engine powering their rotors, but while an autogyro has an engine providing forward thrust that keeps the rotor turning, a rotor kite has no engine at all, and relies on either being carried aloft and dropped from another aircraft, or by being towed into the air behind a car or boat or by use of ambient winds for the kiting. As of 2009, no country in the world requires a license to pilot such a craft.
History [ edit ]
Thomas Ansboro of Glasgow, Scotland taught an autorotating-winged rotor kite in 1891. [1]
Walter Van Wie filed a patent for a Revolving Kite in 1909 claiming "certain new and useful Improvements" in revolving kites" [2]
in 1909 claiming "certain new and useful Improvements" in revolving kites" 1933: Filed: July 11, 1933. US2074327 by De Courcy and Schwarz for Kite.
. 1936: Filed: Aug 1, 1936. US2181477 by Carl B. Chupp for Aerial Device.
Research into rotor kites or gyrokites was deepened during World War II, and one type in particular, the Focke Achgelis Fa 330, reached active service, being towed behind German U-boats as an aerial observation platform. In the United Kingdom, Raoul Hafner designed the Rotachute as a means of deploying paratroops, and a larger version, the Rotabuggy, was trialled as a means of air-dropping a jeep, but neither of these aircraft progressed past the experimental stage. Plans to similarly equip a tank never left the drawing board.
During the 1950s, rotor kites were developed as recreational aircraft, largely due to the efforts of Dr. Igor Bensen in the United States, whose Bensen Aircraft Corporation produced a series of such aircraft, dubbed "gyrogliders" by Bensen. These were marketed as plans or kits for building at home, beginning with the B-5 and culminating with the B-8 by the end of the decade. The Bensen designs became so ubiquitous that the term "gyroglider" is sometimes used to refer to any rotor kite, regardless of manufacturer. In the 1960s, a B-8 gyroglider was evaluated by the United States Air Force as a "Discretionary Descent Vehicle", to provide a more controllable alternative than a parachute for a pilot ejecting from a stricken aircraft.
Manned rotor kites [ edit ]
Unmanned rotor-kites [ edit ]
See also [ edit ]Going Fast with SQLite and Python
In this post I'd like to share with you some techniques for effectively working with SQLite using Python. SQLite is a capable library, providing an in-process relational database for efficient storage of small-to-medium-sized data sets. It supports most of the common features of SQL with few exceptions. Best of all, most Python users do not need to install anything to get started working with SQLite, as the standard library in most distributions ships with the sqlite3 module.
The documentation for the standard library SQLite module ( pysqlite ) is quite thorough, so I will not try to rehash what is already covered in detail (and kept up-to-date, unlike this blog...). Instead I'll discuss some ways to achieve better performance from SQLite. I'll also share some tricks you may not have been aware of. I hope you find this information helpful.
Transactions, Concurrency, and Autocommit
pysqlite is notorious for implementing weird transactional semantics. By default, pysqlite will open a transaction when you issue your first write query (it does this by examining every query you execute). The transaction will be automatically committed when you either call Connection.commit() or execute any other query that is not a SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, or DELETE (for example CREATE TABLE or PRAGMA).
This makes it very easy to issue a write, which acquires the global SQLite write lock, and then unnecessarily hold that lock while you issue SELECT queries, etc, which have no need of the write lock. Because SQLite only allows a single writer per database, it's typically in your best interests to keep write transactions as short as possible. The semantics of pysqlite can give a false impression that SQLite is completely unsuitable for any application that requires concurrent database access, despite the fact that writes typically occur very quickly.
There are a couple ways to address the problematic interaction of the global write lock and the bad behavior of pysqlite. The most general would be to use the write-ahead-logging (WAL) journal_mode option. WAL-mode allows multiple readers to co-exist with a single writer. Ordinarily, when one connection is holding the write lock, no other connection can write or read until the lock is released. WAL-mode relaxes these restrictions by allowing readers to operate while another connection writes to the database.
Using pysqlite in autocommit mode and explicitly managing transactional state in your application can also provide better performance. In this way you can ensure that you are not holding a write-lock any longer than absolutely necessary. Unless you explicitly issue a BEGIN statement, opening a transaction, all statements will be executed independently, in their own transactions. This means that the write lock is held for the minimum amount of time necessary. As I mentioned earlier, writes occur very quickly, so it is possible for many connections to write to the database in a performant manner even though the writes occur one-at-a-time.
Another, more drastic, approach that may work for some applications is to maintain a dedicated write-thread, and send all writes to a single connection (described in more detail here). As with the other suggestions, under high write pressure latency could become an issue. It is possible that the queue could become excessively large, leading to lags when an application thread needs to verify a write before continuing, so this approach only works in some scenarios.
Example code:
# Open database in autocommit mode by setting isolation_level to None. conn = sqlite3. connect ( 'app.db', isolation_level = None ) # Set journal mode to WAL. conn. execute ( 'pragma journal_mode=wal' )
Here is an example illustrating the difference between the default journal mode, delete, and wal-mode:
### Default behavior. import sqlite3 writer = sqlite3. connect ( '/tmp/scratch.db', isolation_level = None ) reader = sqlite3. connect ( '/tmp/scratch.db', isolation_level = None ) writer. execute ( 'create table foo (data)' ) reader. execute ('select * from foo;' ) # No problem. writer. execute ( 'begin exclusive;' ) reader. execute ('select * from foo;' ) # OperationalError: database is locked ### WAL-mode. writer = sqlite3. connect ( '/tmp/wal.db', isolation_level = None ) writer. execute ( 'pragma journal_mode=wal;' ) reader = sqlite3. connect ( '/tmp/wal.db', isolation_level = None ) reader. execute ( 'pragma journal_mode=wal;' ) writer. execute ( 'create table foo (data)' ) reader. execute ('select * from foo' ) # No problem. writer. execute ( 'begin exclusive' ) # Acquire write lock. reader. execute ('select * from foo' ) # Still no problem!
You can implement a simple context manager for handling transactions:
from contextlib import contextmanager @contextmanager def transaction ( conn ): # We must issue a "BEGIN" explicitly when running in auto-commit mode. conn. execute ( 'BEGIN' ) try : # Yield control back to the caller. yield except : conn. rollback () # Roll back all changes if an exception occurs. raise else : conn. commit ()
My experience has been that by ensuring that writes are committed quickly, SQLite can be a great fit for web-based and multi-threaded applications. The WAL journal-mode and autocommit-mode also help ensure my assumptions about locks and transactional state are correct.
User-defined functions
SQLite runs embedded in memory alongside your application, allowing you to easily extend SQLite with your own Python code. SQLite provides quite a few hooks, a reasonable subset of which are implemented by the standard library database driver. The library documentation is thorough and provides example code:
Connection.create_function()
Connection.create_aggregate()
Connection.create_collation()
Access control: Connection.set_authorizer()
Serialize and deserialize native Python data-types: register_converter() and register_adapter()
The most powerful hook of all is not available through the standard libary driver, however: the ability to programmatically define complete tables (which are then queried using ordinary SQL). Using the virtual table APIs, it is possible to create completely dynamic tables. Or, put another way, to create user-defined functions that return tabular data.
The apsw SQLite driver provides hooks for implementing virtual tables in Python, but the APIs are close correlates to their C equivalents and can be tricky to work with for simple use-cases. A simpler approach is available through the SQLite extension library included in the 3.x release of peewee.
Let's look at a simple example using vtfunc, a standalone implementation of the virtual-table helper included with Peewee. In this example we'll create a user-defined function that returns tabular results (which can be joined, filtered, ordered, etc just like any normal query).
Generating series of integers
As a simple example, let's re-implement the SQLite generate_series extension, which behaves like Python's range builtin. We begin by defining a class that implements two methods ( initialize and iterate ) and defines two required attributes ( params, columns ):
import sqlite3 from vtfunc import TableFunction class Series ( TableFunction ): params = ['start','stop','step' ] # These are the arguments to our function. columns = [ 'output' ] # These are the columns our output rows will have. name ='series' # Optional -- if unspecified, uses lower-case class name. def initialize ( self, start = 0, stop = None, step = 1 ): pass def iterate ( self, idx ): pass
When our function is first called, the arguments specified by the caller are passed to the initialize function. Arguments may have default values. Then, when the database needs a row from our table (to populate a result set), the iterate() method will be called, returning a row of data or raising StopIteration if no more data is available:
class Series ( TableFunction ): params = ['start','stop','step' ] # These are the arguments to our function. columns = [ 'idx', 'output' ] # These are the columns our output rows will have. name ='series' # Optional -- if unspecified, uses lower-case class name. def initialize ( self, start = 0, stop = None, step = 1 ): self. start = self. curr = start self. stop = stop if stop is not None else float ( 'inf' ) self. step = step def iterate ( self, idx ): if ( self. step > 0 and self. curr >= self. stop ) or \ ( self. step < 0 and self. curr <= self. stop ): raise StopIteration ret = self. curr self. curr += self. step return ( idx, ret )
To start using our new series function, we'll register it with a connection and then query it:
conn = sqlite3. connect ( ':memory:' ) Series. register ( conn ) for row in conn. execute ( 'SELECT * FROM series(0, 10, 2)' ): print row # (0, 0) # (1, 2) # (2, 4) # (3, 6) # (4, 8) print conn. execute ( 'SELECT * FROM series(0, NULL, 20) LIMIT 4' ). fetchall () # [(0, 0), (1, 20), (2, 40), (3, 60)]
Using virtual tables, it's even possible to expose a SQL interface over a completely separate data source like Redis or CSV data.
More examples and information is available here:
Useful PRAGMAs
SQLite requires zero configuration to get up and running, but in order to go fast there are a few settings you may want to adjust. SQLite is configured by executing special queries of the form PRAGMA <setting> = <value>. Here are a few that I routinely find myself modifying:
journal_mode = wal - enabling write-ahead-logging means that multiple readers can coexist with a single writer. Ordinarily, when a write lock is acquired, no other connection can write or read! So this can help a lot in read-heavy, multi-threaded applications. WAL-mode is also significantly faster in most scenarios.
cache_size = -size in KiB - the default cache size is ~2MB. Typically you will want your cache to be large enough to hold your working data in memory, so size up accordingly. Warning: positive values are treated as number of pages, negative values are treated as KiB.
positive values are treated as number of pages, negative values are treated as KiB. mmap_size = size in bytes - may be more performant for I/O intensive applications, and may also use less RAM since pages can be shared with the OS cache. Check out the docs for more details.
synchronous = 0 - use with caution! Disabling syncs can cause data corruption in the event of operating system crash or sudden power loss. Application crashes will not lead to data loss in this mode, however.
Non-persistent PRAGMA queries should be executed whenever a new connection is opened. Of the above, only journal_mode will be persisted after the database is created (and then, only if you are setting it to WAL-mode).
Compilation Flags
Many distributions ship with an old-ish version of SQLite that does not include some of the cool extension modules. Here are flags I typically use to compile SQLite:
SQLITE_ALLOW_COVERING_INDEX_SCAN=1 -- enable cover index optimization
-- enable cover index optimization SQLITE_DEFAULT_CACHE_SIZE=-8000 -- more sane default
-- more sane default SQLITE_DEFAULT_SYNCHRONOUS=0 -- faster, corruption only possible due to power failure or os crash.
-- faster, corruption only possible due to power failure or os crash. SQLITE_DEFAULT_WAL_SYNCHRONOUS=0
SQLITE_DISABLE_DIRSYNC -- small optimization to reduce syncs when files deleted
-- small optimization to reduce syncs when files deleted SQLITE_ENABLE_FTS3 -- enable all the full-text search extensions!
-- enable all the full-text search extensions! SQLITE_ENABLE_FTS3_PARENTHESIS
SQLITE_ENABLE_FTS4
SQLITE_ENABLE_FTS5
SQLITE_ENABLE_JSON1 -- enable native JSON support
-- enable native JSON support SQLITE_ENABLE_STAT4 -- enable the statistics extension
-- enable the statistics extension SQLITE_ENABLE_UPDATE_DELETE_LIMIT -- allow LIMIT clause on UPDATE and DELETE queries.
-- allow LIMIT clause on UPDATE and DELETE queries. SQLITE_STMTJRNL_SPILL=-1 -- do not spill the statement journal to disk
-- do not spill the statement journal to disk SQLITE_TEMP_STORE=3 -- never use disk for temporary storage
-- never use disk for temporary storage SQLITE_USE_URI -- allow URI connection strings
For debugging / profiling, the following additional flags may be useful:
SQLITE_ENABLE_COLUMN_METADATA -- make additional metadata available.
-- make additional metadata available. SQLITE_ENABLE_DBSTAT_VTAB -- more statistics! Check out the docs.
-- more statistics! Check out the docs. SQLITE_ENABLE_EXPLAIN_COMMENTS -- adds additional info to EXPLAIN output.
-- adds additional info to output. SQLITE_ENABLE_IOTRACE -- adds.iotrace command to shell for low-level I/O logging.
-- adds command to shell for low-level I/O logging. SQLITE_ENABLE_STMT_SCANSTATUS -- see docs.
To compile the latest version of SQLite, you can run something like the following:
fossil clone http://www.sqlite.org/cgi/src sqlite.fossil mkdir sqlite-src cd sqlite-src/ fossil open../sqlite.fossil export CFLAGS="-DSQLITE_ENABLE_FTS3 -DSQLITE_ENABLE_JSON1..." # etc... export CFLAGS="$CFLAGS -fPIC -O2" export PREFIX="$(pwd)" LIBS="-lm"./configure --enable-static --enable-shared --prefix="$PREFIX" make && make install
You can create self-contained pysqlite3 libraries by statically-linking against your custom build of SQLite:
git clone https://github.com/coleifer/pysqlite3 cd pysqlite3/ cp $PREFIX/sqlite3.[ch]. # Copy sqlite3.c and sqlite3.h into checkout. python setup.py build_static build
You can use the statically-linked pysqlite3 just as you would normally use the standard library's sqlite3 module:
from pysqlite3 import dbapi2 as sqlite3 conn = sqlite3. connect ( ':memory:' ) print conn. execute ( 'PRAGMA compile_options' ). fetchall () # [(u'ALLOW_COVERING_INDEX_SCAN',), # (u'DEFAULT_CACHE_SIZE=-8000',), # (u'ENABLE_FTS3',), # (u'ENABLE_FTS3_PARENTHESIS',), # etc...
You can find a bit more information on the README for pysqlite3.
More links
For more information along these lines, here are some links you may find useful:
Commenting has been closed, but please feel free to contact meSusan E. Rice, President Barack Obama’s last national security adviser, called the arrangement “stone cold crazy” in a tweet posted Sunday.
Mr. Spicer said the language the Trump White House used in its N.S.C. executive order is, with the exception of Mr. Bannon’s position — which was created during the transition — almost identical in content to one the Bush administration drafted in 2001. And Mr. Obama’s top political operative, David Axelrod, sat in on some N.S.C. meetings, he added.
There were key differences. Mr. Axelrod never served as a permanent member as Mr. Bannon will now, though he sat in on some critical meetings, especially as Mr. Obama debated strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan. “It’s a profound shift,” Mr. Axelrod said. “I don’t know what his bona fides are to be the principal foreign policy adviser to the president.”
But Mr. Bannon’s elevation does not merely reflect his growing influence on national security. It is emblematic of Mr. Trump’s trust on a range of political and ideological issues.
During the campaign, the sly and provocative Mr. Bannon played a paradoxical role — calming the easily agitated candidate during his frequent rough patches and egging him on when he felt Mr. Trump needed to fire up the white working-class base. The president respects Mr. Bannon because he is independently wealthy and therefore does not need the job, and both men ascribe to a shoot-the-prisoners credo when put on the defensive, according to the former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski.
Mr. Bannon is a deft operator within the White House, and he has been praised by Republicans who view him skeptically as the most knowledgeable on policy around the president. But his stated preference for blowing things up — as opposed to putting them back together — may not translate to his new role.
The hasty drafting of the immigration order, and its scattershot execution, brought a measure of Mr. Bannon’s chaotic and hyperaggressive political style to the more predictable administration of the federal government. Within hours of the edict, airport customs and border agents were detaining or blocking dozens of migrant families, some of whom had permanent resident status, until John F. Kelly, the new homeland security secretary, intervened.Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has officially unveiled a new ID program he says is designed to welcome the “undocumented” community and people “on the sidelines” into the city.
“If you want somebody who’s undocumented to feel comfortable to be able to drive their child to school and all the benefits, they have to be part of the city.” — Mayor Rahm Emanuel, on the new Chicago IDs
“If you want somebody who’s undocumented to feel comfortable to be able to drive their child to school and all the benefits, they have to be part of the city,” Emanuel said.
The name “municipal ID” was initially floated for the program, but Emanuel revealed that Chicago’s city IDs would actually be called “City Keys.”
He said City Keys were designed to give a person who doesn’t have an ID or a driver’s license essentially the same benefits as those who do. “When somebody says, 'Can I see your driver’s license?' -- what that unlocks and what that smooths out and all the speed bumps that literally get eliminated because you have a driver’s license,” Emanuel said.
The mayor says the IDs will also provide benefits including discounts at cultural centers, on public transit and for veterans and senior citizens at locations across the city. Chicagoans will be able to link their public transit and library card to the ID and potentially even open bank accounts with it.
Critics of the program say it might be a way for undocumented workers or people illegally in the U.S. to obtain a valid ID.
“Is this going to be a way for people get fake identification? I think there's a strong chance for that happening.” — Chicago Alderman Nick Sposato
“Is this going to be a way for people get fake identification? I think there's a strong chance for that happening,” Chicago Alderman Nick Sposato told Fox News this past summer.
Chicago’s city clerk, Anna Valencia, says that there will be a strong four-point application process that a person must navigate in order to get an ID, and that the cards come with hidden security features. The city says it is preparing to release the types of documentation it will accept from an applicant to prove identity.
"I can’t go into all the details of what is the security features because we want to keep that private so no one duplicates these, but we feel very confident in our security features for the card,” Valencia said.
The city says the IDs will help those who currently struggle to get one – like the homeless or those re-entering the city after being imprisoned.
"You need an ID for a job. You need an ID to get an apartment. You just need an ID for everything,” Gilbert Villegas, who chairs the City Council’s Latino Caucus, told Fox News this summer.
The mayor also pointed out that certain undocumented people, like Francis Velez, might only stay in a bad living situation or abusive relationship because they can't get the ID they need to move out.
"With me, I was only running around with a police report saying who I was,” said Velez, who says she had trouble leaving an abusive relationship without a driver’s license. “Now, with this ID, people can go get them and be better off not going back to the abuser.”
Benefits notwithstanding, critics including some city aldermen think the program might be a ploy for Emanuel to pick up Latino votes as he potentially revs up another mayoral campaign.
“I think it's all about votes. I mean, I think they're just trying to please a certain demographic in the city to say, ‘Hey we're for you, we support you,' and I think that's what it's about,’” Sposato said.
The IDs will be available in March, and applicants can choose their gender on the ID. The city says the first 100,000 IDs will be free. After that, the IDs will cost $5 for minors and $10 for applicants 18 to 64.
The mayor budgeted $1 million this year for the program and will budget another $1 million next year. City aldermen who voted against the ID program figure it might cost up to three times the budget.Berea, Ohio -- Browns coach Mike Pettine hopes that Josh Gordon doesn't end up on the boulevard of broken dreams like so many other players he's seen in his NFL career.
"There's a lot of help available (in the NFL),'' he said. "It's very impressive, but there has to be a willingness on the other side. Sometimes guys get the message, but it's too late. In all my time in the league, there's always going to be a handful of guys that just don't get it.''
Gordon will spend part of his day off day Wednesday appearing in Berea Municipal Court to dispute a speeding ticket from the Sunday night of Memorial Day Weekend, when he was caught going 74 miles per hour in a 60 m.p.h. zone. The officer smelled marijuana in the car, and one of Gordon's three passengers, Terrell McKenzie of Cleveland, was cited for possession.
The incident complicated matters for Gordon, who's appealing the NFL's anticipated decision to ban him indefinitely for a failed marijuana test.
In Pettine's view, the speeding incident doesn't change anything for now, but acknowledged "it can be (troubling) if it's a pattern.''
Gordon has definitely displayed such a pattern, dating all the way back to when he got kicked out of Baylor in 2010 for two failed marijuana tests. The hard part for Pettine is that Gordon is the model citizen around the Berea facility: quiet |
if not, the finest football coaches I have ever worked with," Monte Kiffin once told former Seahawks coach Jim Mora. "He's an A-plus. He's a once-in-a-lifetime coach.... This guy is special."
Why Caldwell is on the list
When owner Shad Khan hired David Caldwell last offseason, he asked his newbie general manager to overhaul the culture of an organization with just two playoff appearances in 14 years.
Caldwell's first order of business after taking the job? "I had them replace the cold, dungeon doors with windows," he told The Buffalo News in December. "I wanted transparency."
His second move -- hiring Bradley -- came easy, with Caldwell telling the newspaper that "about 30 minutes into the interview I knew Gus was our coach."
Fixing Jacksonville's ghost town of a roster has proven more challenging, but Caldwell's deft approach is why he makes this list.
The Bill Polian and Thomas Dimitroff disciple could have sold a trillion tickets out of the gate, but instead used his first day on the job to boldly and decisively slam the door on Tim Tebow.
The former scout who still obsesses over game tape has since used back-to-back drafts to find his left tackle of the future in Luke Joeckel and Jacksonville's new franchise passer in Blake Bortles.
Veteran players see a change. Former Seahawks Red Bryant and Chris Clemons talked of signing with the Jaguars because of their desire to reunite with Bradley, while Pro Bowl center Alex Mack -- before the Browns matched Jacksonville's offer sheet -- gushed over what he saw from the team's leadership.
The mind-meld between Khan, Bradley and Caldwell gives this long-suffering fan base new hope.
"It's really fit together," Bradley said. "We've trusted the results will come, and they have. I trust Dave will bring in the guys to make us better. We improved the roster from the bottom up."
Obstacles
Caldwell doesn't have the luxury of using free agency and the draft for depth. He's charged with finding immediate heroes. When one league personnel man was asked by CBSSports.com's Pete Prisco in February how many Jaguars would have started on the Super Bowl-winning Seahawks, the reply was grim: two.
Until that figure rises, happiness on Sundays will be elusive.
Questions at quarterback linger. While Jacksonville believes Bortles can develop into a savior, they continue to hint at a redshirt campaign for the No. 3 overall pick. Chad Henne's first errant pass will make that plan a struggle for Caldwell and Bradley.
Bortles is going to play this season. While Caldwell deserves credit for parting ways with Blaine Gabbert -- a quarterback he inherited -- he's responsible for Bortles, win or lose. Few general managers survive a bust at the quarterback position.
2014 expectations
The honeymoon is over.
Another four-victory campaign would unleash the dogs, but I believe the Jaguars will double last season's win total.
'ATL Podcast' The
The Around The League team hits all the NFL's hottest topics in its award-winning podcast. Join the conversation. Listen
That would represent a significant step for a team lost at sea since their last playoff berth in 2007.
Beyond the record, Jacksonville -- as an organization -- will "leap" if they are viewed league-wide as having a plan in place. If they have their quarterback, too, Caldwell and Bradley house a legitimate shot to guide this team into the next decade.
"It's difficult to build slowly, but it's the right thing to do," Caldwell said. "Sometimes I have to tell Gus and Shad, 'Please keep me patient. Don't let me get caught up and go down a path I don't believe in.' That's why our executive structure is so good. We have such good communication to talk through things."
In the latest edition of the "Around The League Podcast," the heroes discuss which teams "realistically" have no shot at winning the Super Bowl this season.Heroin addicts seeking stronger highs are turning to a drug that's even shocking law enforcement. Carfentanil was originally manufactured as an elephant tranquilizer yet people are snorting and injecting it.
Lt. Scott Reed works on the Multi-County Narcotics and Violent Crime Enforcement Unit in Franklin County. He says the powerful drug has already shown up in the City of St. Louis and St. Charles County. The D.E.A. recently found a lab making the drug as close as Cape Girardeau. Reed says this is only the beginning.
Already, Franklin County first responders respond to around five heroin or fentanyl overdoses every week. With carfentanil making its way through the area, their tough job could soon become even tougher. Reed says carfentanil is a synthetic opioid that's 100 times more potent than heroin.
"The dosage of carfentanil is measured in micrograms, which is smaller than a grain of salt," he said. "The amount that it takes to kill you is very, very, small."
He says carfentanil not only a danger to drug addicts. It also threatens the first responders treating overdosing patients.
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"It can go through the skin or they can inhale it or it gets in the eyes or the mouth," Reed said. "Nationwide there have been, that I know of, at least three police officers who have been injured just by being in vicinity of carfentanil, not knowing what it was."
First responders could immediately go into overdose. If that happens, the heroin treatment drug Narcan would be used.
"Of course we carry it for the general public," Reed said. "We also carry it for each other in case one of us goes down."
The trouble is that carfentanil is so powerful, Narcan doesn't last long. Within 10-15 minutes, it begins to wear off on the patient. Bottom line, first responders have to be even more cautions now when approaching an unconscious person. Reed says Franklin County officers are now doubling up on gloves they wear on the scene. He says carfentanil is also dangerous for doctors in hospitals treating the overdose patients.
"It's really scary," Reed said.The past two weeks first saw a 2016.01 Rakudo compiler release, followed by a 2016.01.1 release with a hot-fix for packagers, both done by Will [Coke] Coleda. Then we had the first post-Christmas Rakudo Star Release, done by Tobias Leich. Followed by the Windows MSI installers, also done by Tobias Leich. Many kudo’s to Will and Tobias for the hard work getting this together for the first time in the Perl 6 Post-Christmas world!
Thank You Sponsors!
Will [Coke] Coleda wrote an addendum to the original Christmas Announcement to thank all of the corporate sponsors of Perl 6 over the years.
Javascript Backend for Rakudo
Paweł Murias, already known for his work on the Javascript backend work for Rakudo, has made a Grant Application for 4 months of full time development work on the Javascript backend. The list of deliverables is impressive:
Upload rakudo-js to npm and CPAN.
Have this rakudo-js be able compile our chosen subset of the 6.c roast (official Perl 6 test suite) to JavaScript and pass them in a modern browser.
Write a simple REPL in Perl 6 that will run in a modern browser.
Write a tutorial showing how to use the JavaScript backend.
Please check it out and let your voice be heard! It would be so nice to have this!
Experimental Multi-Line REPL
Rob Hoelz is working on a experimental multi-line REPL and wants you to test it out and receive any feedback you may have. This looks like a really exciting new development for REPL lovers!
Atom Perl 6 Editor Tools
Ahmad M. Zawawi introduced an impressive Github repository of Atom Perl 6 Editor Tools. If Atom is your favourite editor, then this is definitely a place to check out!
FOSDEM 2016
It was busy, and the Perl DevRoom was filled to the rim for most of the day. Unfortunately, no videos available as of now, but they are expected soon (especially since we had Tom Bloor of ShadowCat also taping all of the presentations with 2 cameras). There are also some pictures by Chris Jack. And there are some interviews with Wendy van Dijk, Curtis “Ovid” Poe and Mark Keating made by Hacker Public Radio. And reports by Steve Mynott and Mark Keating.
Other developments
Elizabeth Mattijsen has done a lot of incremental optimizations, mostly about Map/Hash access, object creation, dynamic variable lookups, phaser handling, which made some programs of some users go about 10% faster
has done a lot of incremental optimizations, mostly about Map/Hash access, object creation, dynamic variable lookups, phaser handling, which made some programs of some users go about 10% faster Jonathan Worthington has been optimizing MoarVM and plugging memory leaks. These have not been merged yet, but could have dramatical memory savings for some applications. More about this probably next week!
Blog Posts
Ecosystem Additions
Almost an average of 2 additions per day!
ACME::Scrub by thundergnat
App::P6DX by Jake Russo
ACME::Mangle by Jake Russo
Linux::Signal::ProcessInfo by LE Manh Cuong
LendingClub by Jeremy Carman
WebService::SOP by Yoko Oyama
String::Quotemeta by Zoffix Znet
Algorithm::Treap by okaoka
Inline::Scheme::Gambit by Zhenyi Zhou
Term::Choose by kuerbis
Inline::Scheme::Guile by Jeff Goff
Control::Bail by skids
Winding down
Sorry everybody about the Weekly taking 2 weeks again. But after FOSDEM, I was pretty much exhausted. If you are annoyed by the unweekliness of the Perl 6 Weekly, please consider becoming part of the P6W writing team! Contact timotimo or lizmat on the #perl6 IRC channel on Freenode.
AdvertisementsLIMA, PERU—A shadowy cyber-espionage group that sent malware to the prosecutor whose mysterious death transfixed Argentina early this year has been hitting targets in left-leaning nations across South America, the Internet watchdog group Citizen Lab reported Wednesday.
Ecuadorian journalist Janet Hinostroza, who won a 2013 press freedom award from the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, says she was hacked in August, a month after the interior minister claimed she was involved in a plot to overthrow the government. ( Dolores Ochoa / The Associated Press )
The breadth and brazenness of the hackers’ activity bear the hallmarks of state sponsorship, the researchers found. So do its targets. The group has been attacking opposition figures and independent journalists in Ecuador with spyware. It also ran dummy websites. The most elaborate, geared toward Venezuela, was a constantly updated news site featuring dubiously sourced “scoops” on purported corruption among that country’s ruling socialists. In Ecuador, a similarly bogus site seemed tailored to attract disgruntled police officers. The researchers launched the three-month probe after determining that spyware found on the smartphone of Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman was written to send pilfered data to the same command-and-control structure as malware sent to targets infected in Ecuador. They said the hackers had a “keen and systematic interest in the political opposition and the independent press” in the three nations, all of which have been run by allied left-wing governments. That suggests it may have operated on behalf of one or more of those governments, the report said.
Article Continued Below
In September, the hackers threatened a Citizen Lab researcher as he poked around in a U.S.-based machine the group had infected. “We’re going to analyze your brain with a bullet — and your family’s, too,” read a message that popped up on his computer screen. “You like playing the spy and going where you shouldn’t, well you should know that it has a cost — your life!” That’s rare behaviour among professional hackers, indicating little fear of criminal prosecution, said Morgan Marquis-Boire, one of the researchers. In November, the group attempted to infect the computer of an Associated Press reporter with a phishing attack aimed at stealing his Google password. The researchers identified the group through intertwined Internet domains and telltale digital signatures on emails sent to infect computers. They said it had been active for seven years, finding it to have used hosting services in Brazil since at least 2008.
Determining who is behind the hacking, however, may be possible only with court orders due to Internet hosting companies’ privacy policies. In two examples, targets received an email from a phoney organization purporting to oppose President Rafael Correa of Ecuador. Others received a message falsely signed by an opposition leader claiming to reveal names of people investigated by Ecuador’s espionage agency.
Article Continued Below
Those who clicked on embedded links had their computers infected with spyware that secretly culled information from users’ machines and sent it to servers run by the group, which researchers dubbed “Packrat.” “We believe this is a highly targeted operation,” said John Scott-Railton, lead researcher on The Citizen Lab team at the University of Toronto’s Munk School for Global Affairs. “Packrat seems to carefully choose and then relentlessly go after its targets.” The group has used the same Internet domains for years, a technical convenience that would be shunned by garden-variety cybercriminals wary of being identified by law enforcement agencies. The researchers found at least 35 different types of booby-trapped files on servers hosted by companies based in Argentina, Brazil, France, Spain, Sweden, Uruguay and the United States. For much of the past two years, about two dozen “seeding” sites resided at one time or other on servers owned by U.S.-based GoDaddy.com LLC, a web hosting company. The domain names that GoDaddy hosted included soporte-yahoo.com, update-outlook.com, mgoogle.us and login-office365.com. The researchers notified most of the providers Friday, asking that Packrat’s known infrastructure be shuttered. GoDaddy spokesman Nick Fuller said the company takes immediate action when it identifies a problem website but did not elaborate. Citizen Lab labelled the operation Packrat because the hackers use commercially available packages of remote access trojans — or RATs — that infect computers and smartphones, allowing hackers to capture keystrokes, emails and text messages. The software could even hijack microphones and webcams. The malware was skilfully packaged to avoid detection by anti-virus programs, the researchers found. The investigation was begun after it was determined that Packrat had targeted Nisman, the Argentine special prosecutor found dead of a gunshot wound last January while trying — unsuccessfully — to bring criminal charges against Argentina’s president. Researchers said Packrat sent a top Argentine journalist, Jorge Lanata, the identical virus that Nisman received a month before his death. The virus’ digital fingerprints showed it was built to communicate with the same Internet domains being used to spy on Ecuadorian opposition figures, who identified Packrat malware in their email with search scripts written by the researchers. Journalist Janet Hinostroza, who won a 2013 press freedom award from the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, said she was hacked in January and then again in August, a month after the interior minister claimed she was involved in a plot to overthrow the government. “My computer has been contaminated for so long that I imagine they’ve got access to all my information,” said Hinostroza. She still can’t access contacts and other data on her Apple iCloud because hackers changed her password and security questions. Other prominent alleged Packrat targets in Ecuador include Martha Roldos, an environmental activist, and Cesar Ricuarte, director of the press freedom watchdog Fundamedios. Roldos got a total of 34 malicious emails from Packrat, Citizen Lab found. One website created by Packrat, called “justicia-desvinculados.com,” tried to attract Ecuadorian police officers fired after a September 2010 revolt over benefits that badly shook Correa. Now removed, it included an affiliated Twitter account. The group’s most elaborate spurious website appears to be Pancaliente.info, the Venezuelan compendium of opposition-friendly news including plagiarized articles and inaccurate “scoops.” Taken offline Tuesday, the site displayed no contact information about itself. But it did ask readers to enter their email addresses.
Read more about:I've just finished uploading new test beta 0.985b, which includes new content, a new faction, and several fixes. I've also promoted the previous 0.984b test build to default build status.
The build is available to anyone who owns the beta at bluebottlegames.com, or on Desura and Steam. Desura (and therefore, Groupees) users can use Desura Connect to gain access here, or even get their Steam keys and try it on Steam.
To access the test build on the official site, simply visit the beta page, and click any of the download links below the usual Windows, Mac, and Linux buttons.
Steam users can access the test build by opting into the beta for it. To do so, open up your Steam client and:
Right-click on NEO Scavenger in your Steam library
Choose "Properties"
Choose the "BETAS" tab in the resulting dialog box.
In the drop-down, select "public_test."
Choose the "public_test" option on the "BETAS" tab in NEO Scavenger's properties.
Following the above steps will begin downloading version 0.985 immediately. Just click "Play" when it's done!
Updates Included in the Test Beta
Test beta 0.985b includes the following changes:
Added new major encounter/location in wilderness.
Added new faction with wandering creatures.
Added new faction equipment.
Added new hex art for Allegan, Isotope Mine, Zom Zom's, and Strange Forest.
Added encounter illustration by Max Antonov for Haggerty Health Clinic.
Added combat ability DMC guards to summon sniper.
Added code to strip all passive moves from AI choices when target is an enemy. (Prevent stuck AI from randomly choosing passives.)
Added crawl towards and away moves, for when AI is crippled and fallen, and tends to choose passive when it shouldn't.
Added code to anger AI if player is ignoring talk and ceasefire offers.
Added code to show 0.1% item condition when low enough to round to 0.0%.
Added code to prevent "delete" and "use" cursor modes on crafting screen.
Added code to hook up spacebar to crafting clear button.
Added code to message player when hiding changes campsite.
Changed Merga Wraith to disappear when talisman removed, and will not linger and fight if talisman restored.
Changed Merga Wraith AI to always attack player if it can, exit if it can't, and despawn if player is invalid target.
Changed AI's method of selecting random move to be weighted by priority, rather than just ranked.
Changed well-fed condition to hunger sated.
Changed well-hydrated condition to thirst slaked.
Changed value of tannin tea to be more than pure water (Since it acts like pure water and antibiotics combined.)
Changed NPC battle move icon to be mirrored in battle, for clarity (charge/retreat).
Changed arrow degrade rates to be slower.
Changed DMC Guards to start with fresh equipment.
Changed medium campfire to always produce 4 ashes when extinguished.
Changed small parts and similar items to have shorter names.
Fixed a bug in AI faction standings save data, which caused strange AI behavior in battle.
Fixed a bug in the despawn code. Now despawn completely and immediately.
Fixed index out of range bug in random move selection.
Fixed a bug that allowed reinforcement battle move to break local population caps.
Fixed a bug that caused wound to be "null" in message log.
Fixed a bug that failed to clean and dress wounds when purchasing said service at HH.
Fixed missing wounds in crazy random encounter.
Fixed empty travois image to have less wasted/empty space.
Fixed a bug that caused AIs to badmouth player to each other when sharing faction standings each turn.
Fixed a bug that caused mirrored slots to re-mirror image when emptying containers.
Fixed a bug that caused stacks to overlap in take/drop when partial stack space was available.
Fixed a bug that caused infinite scent in hexes.
Fixed bug that caused slot-swapping to equip water on wound instead of use it.
Fixed a typo in cryo encounter.
Fixed a bug that prevented dropping wheelless cart in battle.
Fixed a bug that allowed TAB to exit encounters and combat prematurely.
Fixed a bug that caused scavenging to cut short if exit chosen with optional skill/tool.
Fixed a bug that caused scavenging bars to update incorrectly when exit chosen with other skills/tools.
Fixed typos in Food Truck encounter near Concrete Apts.
Fixed balaclava art to fit hoodie and armor better.
Fixed missing shadow in human and melonhead creature sprites.
Fixed a bug that caused AI to constantly switch between two similar attack modes.
Fixed a bug that allowed creatures to continue to attack after falling unconscious against more than one target.
Fixed a typo in locked storage shed scavenge encounter.
Quite a few surprises await you in 0.985!
One of the highlights in this update is the new faction. You'll find a new location in the wilderness, which is home to a new faction of wandering creatures. It also has some information to discover, and services in which to partake.
Furthermore, many of the special hex encounters how have their own hex art. And Haggerty Health clinic now features an illustration by Max Antonov.
0.985b should also include a fix to the AI standings bug we saw in 0.984b. In particular, DMC guards shouldn't attack the player without provocation any more. Quite a few other improvements were made to the AI, too. And there were some specific changes to the DMC guard and Merga Wraith AI. Guards can now call on sniper support when needed, and the Merga Wraith will appear and disappear more accurately based on the player and talisman. It will also focus solely on the player when possible.
Overall, another big batch of fixes, and quite a bit of content, too! As always, let me know what you think of the changes, and if any new bugs arise!Ukraine has rejected a key integration deal with Europe. The EU ‘keeps the door open’ for Kiev, but doubts it would happen under the current government. It comes as opposition holds thousands-strong protests against the rejection.
The deal was rejected on Friday in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, where European leaders have gathered. Unlike Moldova, Azerbaijan and Georgia, which initialed association agreements with the EU, Ukraine stuck to its decision not to integrate with the union.
Even after announcing that there would be no deal, Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovich went to the summit to personally explain his government’s move. He said it would be too painful for Ukrainian economy at present.
Kiev wants to integrate into the EU, but is not ready to do it at the moment even after four years of preparations.
“[Softening the economic blow] requires our joint work on a program of economic aid to Ukraine, which will allow us to implement the preparation for the signing of the agreement. We believe such a program should be the result of a joint effort by Ukraine and the EU,” Yanukovich said on Friday.
Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite, whose country currently holds the rotating EU presidency and who was among the most vocal proponents of the Eastern Partnership integration project, didn’t take long in dismissing Yanukovich’s requests.
“The Ukrainian elite, Ukrainian government could have changed their approach. The European Union will not bargain anymore. All the main terms [of the agreement] are well-known. There will be no additional terms,” she said.
“The EU still supports the intention of the Ukrainian people to become closer with Europe, but the Ukrainian authorities have to a large extent lost the EU’s trust,” Grybauskaite added.
In addition to the aid, the Ukrainian president requested that the EU settle its differences with Russia over Ukrainian integration through trilateral talks, a request that Europe has been strongly rejecting.
“We are talking about bilateral agreement between the EU and Ukraine. How can we involve a third country in it? We cannot allow a third to have a veto,” President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso said.
The scolding remarks are a sign of disappointment with Ukraine’s U-turn, which the Lithuanian president described as “choosing a road to nowhere” on Tuesday following a meeting between Yanukovich and European leaders.
Even as the meeting was about to start, EU leaders were not hiding that they have little hope of convincing Yanukovich to reconsider.
“We will make very clear here that the EU is ready to accept Ukraine as an associate member, to sign the association treaty. Then we will see. We have no hope that it will happen this time, but the door is open,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said.
Apparently the door will have to remain open for some time, until there is a new government in Kiev.
“What’s very certain is that the president of a country isn’t the country,” EU parliament President Martin Schulz said before the meeting. “One can agree with Yanukovich or not. Maybe another government with another orientation will come to power.”
EU Council President Herman Van Rompuy has called the EU’s offer “the most ambitious” proposed to a non-member. Despite Ukraine’s decision, Rompuy said, the summit was successful.
“The European Union’s position [over Ukraine] remains clear. The offer of signing the most ambitious agreement the EU has ever offered to a non-member state is still on the table,” he said.
Rompuy stressed that the EU is ready to resume negotiations with Ukraine at “any moment”.
Streets to the rescue?
The next presidential election in Ukraine is to be held in 2015, but the country’s recent history saw a vivid example of how a government can collapse under a pressure from the streets. The same Yanukovich was called the winner of the 2004 elections, but was forced out by the crowds supporting his main competitor.
The past experience of the Orange Revolution lingers over Ukraine now, as tens of thousands of people gather in the streets to protest against the government. Tens of thousands of people have gathered in Kiev to protest both for and against Yanukovich.
Pro-EU integration protesters, many of whom are students, have linked hands to form a human chain. Organizers said the “chain” should link Ukrainian cities and eventually reach the Polish border as a symbol of unity with the EU.
The ambitious feat would require some 522,000 people, according to the organizers’ initial estimate, a figure which skeptics say they have no hope of mustering.
Anti-government protesters also called on Washington to pressure their government. An online petition on the White House website asking the US to issue travel ban on top Ukraine government officials unless Yanukovich signs the deal with the EU has gathered over 75,000 signatures.
The mass demonstrations, which started last week after the government first announced the decision, have been mostly peaceful. But on several occasions groups of aggressive activists armed with pepper spray clashed with Ukrainian riot police. There were also some calls on the internet for a takeover of government buildings, which prompted police to warn the protesters against such moves.
Cost doubts
Kiev’s main argument against the trade agreement was that it would cost too much. While the $830 million figure that Yanukovich voiced drew some skeptical comments from the Europeans, EU officials admit that without the union’s help Kiev would find it hard to adapt to greater openness of its market.
But Europe is not in the best economic shape and is not prepared to shoulder Ukraine as much as it would like it to.
Ordinary Europeans “are very uncomfortable with the idea of Ukraine coming to the EU. The EU right now is bankrupt with the crisis in the PIGS countries – Portugal, Italy, Greece and so forth” geopolitical analyst William Engdahl told RT. “They don’t have money to do anything positive for Ukraine. The only thing they can do is to try to take advantage of the weakness of Ukraine.”
One of the reasons why Ukraine’s integration with the EU would cost so much is that the move would leave it barred from its traditional Russian markets. Moscow warned that it would not keep export preferences with Ukraine after it signs free trade agreements with EU, because it would effectively open the Russian market to European goods.
EU officials are branding Russia’s position as harsh economic pressure and say it was due to that pressure that Kiev rejected the trade deal. Moscow accuses Brussels of politicizing a purely economic issue and says the Europeans are the ones pressuring Ukraine into signing an unfavorable deal.
The head of Russia’s State Duma Foreign Affairs Committee, Aleksey Pushkov, has predicted that the EU will not support Yanukovich in the next presidential elections, saying the Union now “counts on” the opposition.
“The signal is clear: on the threshold of Ukraine’s 2015 elections the EU counts on the opposition and is already preparing a replacement for Yanukovich. Expect new Maidans [referring to protests at Kiev’s Independence Square (Maidan Nezalezhnosti)],” Pushkov posted on his Twitter page.Acts of cruelty to animals are not mere indications of a minor personality flaw in the abuser; they are symptomatic of a deep mental disturbance. Research in psychology and criminology shows that people who commit acts of cruelty to animals don’t stop there—many of them move on to their fellow humans. “Murderers … very often start out by killing and torturing animals as kids,” says Robert K. Ressler, who developed profiles of serial killers for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).(1)
Studies have shown that violent and aggressive criminals are more likely to have abused animals as children than criminals who are considered non-aggressive.(2) A survey of psychiatric patients who had repeatedly tortured dogs and cats found that all of them had high levels of aggression toward people as well.(3) According to a New South Wales newspaper, a police study in Australia revealed that “100 percent of sexual homicide offenders examined had a history of animal cruelty.”(4) To researchers, a fascination with cruelty to animals is a red flag in the backgrounds of serial killers and rapists. According to the FBI’s Ressler, “These are the kids who never learned it’s wrong to poke out a puppy’s eyes.”(5)
Examples That Make the Headlines: Notorious Killers
History is replete with serial killers whose violent tendencies were first directed at animals. Albert DeSalvo (the “Boston Strangler”), who killed 13 women, trapped dogs and cats and shot arrows at them through boxes in his youth.(6) Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer impaled frogs, cats, and dogs’ heads on sticks.(7) Dennis Rader (the BTK killer), who terrorized people in Kansas, wrote in a chronological account of his childhood that he hanged a dog and a cat.(8) During the trial of convicted sniper Lee Boyd Malvo, a psychology professor testified that the teenager, who killed 10 people with a rifle, had “pelted—and probably killed—numerous cats with marbles from a slingshot when he was about 14.”(9)
The deadly violence that has shattered schools in recent years has, in most cases, begun with cruelty to animals. High-school killers such as Kip Kinkel in Springfield, Oregon, and Luke Woodham, in Pearl, Mississippi, tortured animals before starting their shooting sprees.(10) Columbine High School students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who shot and killed 12 classmates before turning their guns on themselves, spoke to their classmates about mutilating animals.(11)
“There is a common theme to all of the shootings of recent years,” says Dr. Harold S. Koplewicz, director of the Child Study Center at New York University. “You have a child who has symptoms of aggression toward his peers, an interest in fire, cruelty to animals, social isolation, and many warning signs that the school has ignored.”(12)
Sadly, many of these criminals’ childhood violence went unexamined—until it was directed at humans.
‘The Link’ Next Door: Cruelty to Animals and Family Violence
Because abusers target the powerless, crimes against animals, spouses, children, and the elderly often go hand in hand. Children who abuse animals may be repeating a lesson learned at home; like their parents, they are reacting to anger or frustration with violence. Their violence is directed at the only individual in the family who is more vulnerable than they are: an animal. Professor Frank R. Ascione of the University of Denver Graduate School of Social Work says, “The research is pretty clear that there are connections between animal abuse and domestic violence and child abuse.”(13)
Parents who neglect or abuse animals frequently subject their own children to similar hardships. Indiana residents Jade M. Jonas and Michael R. Smith faced felony charges after authorities reportedly discovered their two children as well as three dogs languishing in their filthy home. According to news sources, officials first found a tethered dog who was deprived of food and water outside the home. Upon entering the couple’s residence, investigators reportedly found a 3-month-old boy lying near piles of feces, trash, and rotten food. They also found a half-clothed toddler and two additional dogs.(14) In another case, Illinois authorities found 40 parasite-ridden dogs languishing amid 6 inches of feces on property occupied by John Morris. According to news reports, officials responding to neighbors’ concerns found the sick and emaciated dogs confined to filthy animal carriers before confirming that three children—ages 3, 10, and 15—lived in the horrific conditions as well.(15)
Sixty percent of more than 50 New Jersey families that had received treatment as a result of incidents of child abuse also had animals in the home who had been abused.(16) In three separate studies, more than half of the battered women surveyed reported that their abuser threatened or injured their animal companions.(17) In one of those studies, one in four women said that she stayed with the batterer because she feared leaving the animal behind.(18)
Stephen Williams was charged with cruelty to animals, child cruelty, and aggravated assault in Georgia after allegedly hacking his wife’s puppy to death with an ax and threatening to decapitate her with the same weapon—all in front of three horrified children.(19) Scott Maust of Pennsylvania was charged with corruption of minors, making terroristic threats, and cruelty to animals after allegedly shooting his family’s dog with a.22-caliber firearm, ordering his four children to clean up the bloody scene, and threatening to kill them if they told anyone.(20)
Stopping the Cycle of Abuse
Schools, parents, communities, and courts are beginning to realize that shrugging off cruelty to animals as a “minor” crime is like ignoring a ticking time bomb. Some courts now aggressively penalize animal abusers, examine families for other signs of violence, and order perpetrators to undergo psychological evaluations and counseling.
In March 2006, Maine Gov. John Baldacci signed a law—the first of its kind in the U.S.—that permits judges to include animal companions in court-issued protection orders against domestic abusers.(21) Other states, including Vermont, New York, California, and Colorado, followed suit. People who harm animals in violation of a court order can face fines and jail time.(22)
A handful of states require animal control officers and spousal/child abuse investigators to share information when animal abuse or domestic abuse is found in a home. Professor Ascione, who also advises law enforcement officials in abuse cases, told The New York Times that cross-reporting requirements have helped foster early intervention.(23)
What You Can Do
Communities must recognize that abuse to any living being is unacceptable and endangers everyone. Children should be taught to care for and respect animals. After an extensive study of the links between animal abuse and human abuse, two experts concluded, “The evolution of a more gentle and benign relationship in human society might be enhanced by our promotion of a more positive and nurturing ethic between children and animals.”(24)
With that in mind, please be sure to do the following:
Urge your local law enforcement agencies, prosecutors, judges, and schools to take cruelty to animals seriously. Those charged with protecting our communities and animals must send a strong message that violence against any feeling creature—human or nonhuman—is unacceptable.
Be aware of signs of neglect or abuse in children and animals, and immediately report suspected crimes to authorities. Take children seriously if they report that animals are being neglected or mistreated. Some children won’t talk about their own suffering but will talk about an animal’s.
Don’t ignore even minor acts of cruelty to animals by children. Talk to the child and the child’s parents. If necessary, call a social worker.
References
1) Daniel Goleman, “Experts See Parallels Between Dahmer, Previous Serial Killers,” New York Times News Service, 11 Aug. 1991.
2) Sara C. Haden and Angela Scarpa, “Childhood Animal Cruelty: A Review of Research, Assessment, and Therapeutic Issues,” The Forensic Examiner 14 (2005): 23-33.
3) lan R. Felthous, M.D., “Aggression Against Cats, Dogs, and People,” Child Psychology and Human Development 10 (1980): 169-77.
4) “Animal Cruelty; Common in Many Killers,” Sunbury/Macedon Ranges Leader, 26 Apr. 2005.
5) Ruth Larson, “Animal Cruelty May Be a Warning. Often Precedes Harm to Humans,” The Washington Times, 23 Jun. 1998.
6) Andrea Vance, “10-Year-Old Luke Kicked a Lamb to Death Like a Football,” News of the World (U.K.), 23 Jan. 2005.
7) Goleman.
8) Tim Potter, “BTK Describes His Own Crimes,” The Wichita Eagle, 16 Jul. 2005.
9) Paul Bradley and Kiran Krishnamurthy, “Right and Wrong ‘An Illusion’/Psychologist Who Met With Malvo Said Teen’s Disorder Limited His Moral Judgment,” Richmond Times Dispatch, 9 Dec. 2003.
10) Deborah Sharp, “Abuse Will Often Cross Species Lines,” USA Today, 28 Apr. 2000.
11) Mitchell Zuckoff, “Loners Drew Little Notice,” Boston Globe, 22 Apr. 1999.
12) Ethan Bronner, “Terror in Littleton: The Signs; Experts Urge Swift Action to Fight Depression, Isolation, and Aggression,” The New York Times, 22 Apr. 1999.
13) Ian Urbina, “Animal Abuse as Clue to Additional Cruelties,” The |
tragedy reminded the world of Pemex's troubles when a methane leak in a Pemex building in downtown Mexico City exploded, killing more than 30 people and injuring 120 others.)
In October, Pemex announced discovery of a big new field in the Gulf of Mexico. Newly elected Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto is urging his country to amend its constitution to allow foreign investment in Mexican oil fields. Experts assess that opening the Mexican oil industry to global investment will revive Mexican oil production and boost Mexico's economic growth by potentially 2 points a year. Nieto's PRI party -- the very party that nationalized Mexican oil 80 years ago -- is expected to vote this weekend to approve the new policy.
Meanwhile, the International Energy Agency is warning oil markets to ready themselves for a "flood" of cheap oil from Iraq. Last year, Iraq for the first time exceeded pre-1990 oil production. The agency expects Iraq eventually to overtake Russia as the world's second-largest oil exporter.
In 1972, the year of the famous "Limits to Growth" report by the Club of Rome, the world produced about 55 million barrels of oil per day. In 2011, the world produced almost 80 million barrels. If today's prices hold, many experts expect production of 90 million barrels by decade's end.
Our oil problem is not that "we're running out." Our oil problem is that we're producing so much of the stuff that we are changing the planet's climate.
Yet on the environmental front too, there's reason for optimism. One of the technologies developed by the oil industry -- fracking -- has made available vast new supplies of cheap natural gas. Gas has become so cheap that it can be substituted for coal as an electricity-generating fuel. In just eight years, coal's share of the U.S. electricity market has tumbled from one-half to one third -- and still falling. Gas emits only half the carbon per unit of energy of coal. The transition from coal to gas explains why U.S. carbon emissions declined 8% from 2011 to 2012, reaching the lowest level since 1992.
Soon the United States and Canada will be producing so much gas that they can export it to Europe, perhaps also to China, helping to cut carbon emissions in those economies as well. No, it's not the answer to everything: Gas still emits carbon. But it's an improvement -- and that's how progress comes.
Instead of fantasizing about catastrophes (running out of oil) and miracles (a rapid transition to solar power), our energy thinking needs to emphasize the achievable and the incremental. Convert from coal to gas. Tax gasoline to induce people to live closer to work and to buy more fuel-efficient cars.
We can enjoy a rising quality of life with declining energy inputs. Put us on the path to the right kind of "peak oil" -- and peak carbon -- the peak that comes, not because we find less and less, but because we want less and less.Raley’s Elevates Keith Knopf to President & Chief Executive Officer Raley’s announced the elevation of Keith Knopf to President & Chief Executive...
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Raley’s Launches New Website to Enhance Customer Experience Raley’s is inviting customers to explore the new Raleys.com. The new website has been...As one satisfied customer bounced away from the glittery chair, a young man plopped in. Kaylee Britton, aka Salem Massacre, was ready and willing to gussy up another mug at Electric Forest 2017, but when the drag queen asked this fella what he had in mind, her heart broke.
“He was like, 'Oh, you know, whatever you think matches my poop-brown eyes,'” Massacre remembers. “I was like, 'What the heck? No. Your eyes are warm chestnut. They're really nice,' and he goes, 'Oh, that's such a better way to describe it.' I was like, 'Oh, this red is just bringing out the warmth in your face.'”
That man left the Sherwood Forest Chapel with more than just some red glitter. He was leaving with a whole new perspective on himself, and it's that kind of small but meaningful interaction that inspired the Electric Forest organizers to name Massacre's twin Rachel Britton, aka Jack Dup, as the official Monarch of Electric Forest 2017.
The Monarch program crowns one Forest Family member as king or queen of the realm. Anyone and everyone is encouraged to apply, and the winner is chosen based on a vision that spreads positivity throughout the festival grounds. Winners get four VIP camping passes so they may bring a royal court, as well as a personal golf cart and the opportunity to make their impact on the festival.
Past Monarchs have included initiatives to encourage healthy eating, hydration and fun things like scavenger hunts, but Monarch Rachel was about one thing: being wonderfully, colorfully and unabashedly yourself.
“It's just so fun,” Rachel says of drag. “I was really confused about my gender identity. Being able to play with gender and put on a mustache, just wearing weird and different stuff, it really helped me. I'm kind of in the middle. I'm a nice variation of feminine and masculine. That's what I like.”
By day, Rachel, who identifies with the pronoun “they,” is a photography major at Grand State Valley University in Allendale, Michigan. In a little more than a year, they'll graduate with a minor in advertising, a feat they also owe to their drag roots. Rachel rediscovered a love for the art form while capturing Kaylee and their friend Barrett Kyle's transformations. Those weird and wonderful subjects helped Rachel realize their own artist inside and eventually helped give birth to Jack Dup.
Rachel is what's called a drag king. Born a female, identifying as non-binary, Rachel transforms into a “masculine” figure. Their twin Kaylee is what's called a bioqueen. She was born a female and takes on the qualities of a traditional drag queen, accentuating femininity to heights so over-the-top, it becomes less about appearing womanly and more about taking on the qualities of a cartoonish being. Kyle is a traditional drag queen, who incorporates his degree in cellular molecular biology to become the often science-themed Beeka Darwin.
Together with feminine friend Rikki Paepke, the four friends descended upon Electric Forest 2017 weekend one to defy gender roles, challenge stereotypes and inspire fun from every shady nook to sunny field. The royal Monarch crew paraded through the festival grounds in different theme costumes each day; including sci-fi, vintage and spooky. They also transformed willing attendees with drag makeovers and pounds of glitter, while hosting and headlining very special drag performances.
“When I've come [to Electric Forest] in the past, you see all the cool hired performers and characters that walk around with these crazy amazing costumes, and it's just been very inspiring for me, my drag and my photography,” Rachel says. “There are so many people here that are so open to getting made over and talking to us queens. They're just so many people that are very open minded, but I think there are a lot of people here that don't really understand the gender fluidity, or anything but binary. I think this [program] is a good thing, because there are people that need to see different genders, learn more about LGBT variety, and the fact that were representing it here is very important.”
“If you've never experienced drag before, there are definitely stereotypes of what a drag queen is,” Kaylee says. “It's very nice to have this open environment that's not a bar scene, because for certain people that can be really intimidating, and this is a cooky playground. It's really cool to have more of an open space where people can just come in, talk to us and see us, break down those negative stereotypes, and see us for what we really are. Under all three inches of foundation, there's a person.”
The warm, welcoming attitude the four friends share is truly infectious. They giggle at each other's words. Their conversations are full of squeals, sarcastic jokes and enthusiastic compliments. It's hard to see how anyone could wander upon their marry banter and not leave feeling a little shinier -- glitter-faced or not. Monarch Rachel and their Royal Court didn't have to get in full “geish” to stand out, even as they travel the winding paths of the festival and fit right in.
“I didn't realize how big the forest was,” Kaylee says. “We're walking a mile that way, there's stuff this way, in every direction, up in the sky, down in the ground. There's so much, and it's cool to see how each venue has its own personality. It's very similar to drag, because each outfit we do has its own personality. Just like each person.”
To learn more about Monarch Rachel and their photography, follow them online. To learn more about the Monarch Program at Electric Forest, head to the festival website.Jeremy Corbyn is, in effect, a Zionist, it has been revealed.
Emily Thornberry, Labour’s Shadow Foreign Secretary, said the party leader believed in a two-state solution, and as such, he could be termed a Zionist.
She was responding to a question about Mr Corbyn at the Balfour centenary conference in Parliament on Thursday afternoon.
Ms Thornberry said Mr Corbyn backed the party’s position on finding a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and told the audience “read from that”.
If Zionism was the belief in a Jewish state of Israel, she said, then “of course, it’s self-evident” that Mr Corbyn is a Zionist.
She had earlier given a balanced address in which she explained her comments earlier this week in which she said it was better to “mark” the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration rather than “celebrate” it.
Ms Thornberry said that if Lord Balfour were alive today he would see rising global antisemitism and the plight of the Palestinians and would not celebrate the situation. The terms of the British Foreign Secretary’s declaration a century ago today – promising a Jewish homeland and pledging to protect the rights of Palestinians – had not been carried out in full, making it a “job half done”, she said.
Re-stating Labour’s policies on Israel and the Palestinians, she added that there was “no place in the Labour Party for anyone holding the view that Israel should not exist”.
Labour would not “indulge those who deny Israel’s right to exist”, she said.
She repeated her pledge that a Labour government would immediately recognise Palestinian statehood.
Ms Thornberry will travel to Israel and the Palestinian territories next week, spending time touring the area with Labour Friends of Israel and the Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East group.
The conference, organised by Bicom and the Jewish News, featured a number of high-profile speakers and panel discussions, including an address by Priti Patel, the International Development Secretary.
Earlier, Sir Simon McDonald, Permanent Under Secretary at the Foreign Office, told the audience: “The second half of Balfour’s Declaration remains unfinished business.
“While we are proud of our role in helping to make a Jewish homeland a reality and fully support the modern State of Israel as a Jewish homeland, the UK wants to see a lasting peace that fulfils the full aspiration of the Balfour Declaration: A just and lasting resolution that ends occupation of the Palestinian territories and delivers security and peace for both Israelis and Palestinians.
“We believe the best way to achieve this is through a two-state solution, based on the 1967 borders with agreed land swaps.”
Other attendees included Isaac Herzog, leader of the opposition in Israel, and Daniel Taub, former Israeli ambassador to Britain.
Malcolm Rifkind, former Foreign Secretary, spoke about Britain's involvement in the Middle East over the past 100 years.
Meanwhile in Whitehall, dozens of anti-Zionist Orthodox Jews protested against the Balfour Declaration.
Carrying placards with terms including “Israel, Holocaust for religion” and “Benjamin Netanyahu and the State of Israel do not represent world Jewry”, they chanted tehillim and gave speeches in Yiddish.
They're now saying tehillim against Bibi and Israel. Came on busses from Stamford Hill, Manchester, elsewhere pic.twitter.com/aMIyVXgHAS — Marcus Dysch (@MarcusDysch) November 2, 2017
One representative of the group told the JC that the Satmar men had travelled on buses from Stamford Hill, Manchester and other parts of the country to attend.
Earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had met Theresa May for talks at Downing Street.(Larry Downing/Reuters)
Last week this is what a gleeful John Boehner had to say about the GOP having their ransom demands met on the debt deal:
When you look at this final agreement that we came to with the White House, I got 98 percent of what I wanted. I'm pretty happy.
And tonight, for the first time in this country's history, "S&P cut the long-term U.S. credit rating by one notch to AA-plus," because:
The political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America’s governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable than what we previously believed. The statutory debt ceiling and the threat of default have become political bargaining chips in the debate over fiscal policy... It appears that for now, new revenues have dropped down on the menu of policy options.
Congratulations, Mr. Speaker.The East Coast Greenway is an urban network of trails stretching 3,000 miles from Key West, Florida to Calais, Maine on the Canadian border. Founded in 1991 by a group of trail advocates, the East Coast Greenway (ECG) began as a vision to provide cyclists and pedestrians with a safe and continuous, traffic-free route connecting 25 major cities along the Eastern seaboard. Today, 25% of the route is complete with car-free trails. The remaining 75% travels on roads that have been studied for safety and, in many cases, use bike lanes or wide shoulders.
Despite a weak economy, the East Coast Greenway saw impressive growth in 2009 and 2010, due in large part to stimulus funding for trail construction. East Coast Greenway Alliance Executive Director, Dennis Markatos‐Soriano stated in last year’s press release:
If we continue to grow at this quick pace, our East Coast Greenway will be safe and accessible to millions of Americans within a few years.
No doubt an ambitious project, the ECG is on the path to turning a dream into a reality and proving that communities are prepared to embrace this national resource. Continued development stimulates local economies and provides green jobs along the route. Other benefits include low-cost transportation, connecting people with local business, reducing traffic congestion, diminishing dependence on fossil fuels, and promoting health and well-being. It’s been designated by some users as the urban version of the Appalachian Trail.
Commuters up and down the east coast use segments of the Greenway in their daily commute, while others take advantage of the recreational opportunities. Many cyclists have biked the entire route. Utilizing rail trails, canal towpaths, current greenways, and waterfront pathways, the East Coast Greenway is mostly paved, though some sections contain crushed stone surfaces. It is suitable for all muscle-powered transportation: cycling, walking, and wheel chairs. Some sections of the route allow in-line skaters and equestrians.
For more information see the East Coast Greenway website.Ice Skates
History
Ice skating, in one form or another, has existed for thousands of years. Evidence suggests that as long ago as 1000 B.C. Scandinavians were fashioning crude blades from the shank or rib bones of elk, oxen, and reindeer and strapping them onto boots. A game played on ice between teams has been recorded as early as the second century A.D. In the Netherlands, both men and women skated on the canals during the Middle Ages. Scottish history recounts tales of armies crossing frozen marshes on skates to attack enemy territories. Ice skating became so popular in Scotland that the first skating club was established in Edinburgh in 1742. In 1848, E.W. Bushnell invented the first all- iron ice skate that could be clipped onto a boot.
During the 1800s, the popularity of ice skating skyrocketed. Skating clubs opened in London, Vienna, and New York. Rinks were built in Toronto, Canada, and in Davos, Switzerland. In 1876, the first artificially frozen ice rink, called the Glaciarium, opened in London. During the 19th century, the sport of speed skating was introduced and classical dance theory was applied to create the sport of figure skating.
There are three basic types of ice skates: hockey skates, figure skates, and speed skates. Speed skates are designed for optimum swiftness in one direction, with the skater moving right foot over left. The speed skate features a straight blade up to 18 inches (46 cm) long and 0.03-0.06 inch (0.08-0.15 cm) wide. The blade is reinforced with hollow steel tubing. The boot is constructed of very light, thin leather.
Hockey skates are constructed to allow the skater to move both right foot over left and left foot over right. The blade, usually 0.06 inch (0.15 cm) wide, is also reinforced with hollow tubing. The boot is short, measuring 4-5 inches (10-13 cm) from the sole, and reinforced with plastic caps and extra layers of leather at the toe. This protects the skaters' feet from the blades of other skates. The original hockey skate was made of leather with a plasticized sole, a safety tip at the rear, and a hard toe. A ballistic-proof nylon was then introduced that provided even greater protection against cutting. The newest innovation features a plastic molded boot with plastic stanchions and plastic tubing. A heavily padded, removable liner helps to control the fit.
Figure skates are fitted with a 0.125-inch (0.32 cm) steel blade designed for spinning. The blade is hollow on the bottom so that only the outer edges touch the ice. A series of sharp angles at the front of the blade called toe picks facilitate landing from toe jumps. The figure skate has a high boot, measuring 7-8 inches (18-20 cm) from the sole to the top, completely covering the ankle.
Raw Materials
Ice skates are constructed of leather, nylon, plastic, steel, and various other synthetic materials. In most cases, the raw materials are purchased from outside vendors. The ice-skate manufacturer inspects the leather hides closely to insure that the skins have been cleaned and tanned to the company's specifications. Kangaroo leather is one of the popular skins used for figure skates.
Knit nylon and molded plastic are commonly used for hockey and speed skates. The leather and nylon are specially treated for water-resistance.
Blades are generally made of tempered steel and coated with a high-quality chrome. Some blade manufacturers may add titanium to the metal. The ice-skate manufacturer contracts with outside manufacturers to supply them with blades in various styles and sizes. Competitive skaters (as opposed to recreational ones) usually have their blades mounted by a specialist.
The cements, stitching threads, and other synthetic materials are also purchased from outside vendors and stocked at the skate manufacturing plant.
The Manufacturing
Process
Neither the Olympic Committee nor the U.S. Ice Skating Federation has requirements regarding the manufacture of ice skates. However, the manufacturers pay close attention to the needs and suggestions of professional skaters and coaches.
Cutting the boot segments
1 The leather or nylon is fed into a cutting machine that stamps out eight standardized pieces: four for the boot lining and four for the boot upper. A similar machine cuts pieces for the tongue, sole, heel, and reinforcement sections. The pieces are mechanically punched with a date code, size, order number, and eyelet holes.
Constructing the upper
2 The boot is sewn together on industrial sewing machines that the plant workers regulate with foot pedals or control panels. The lining pieces are stitched together at the back and toe seams. The upper pieces are stitched together in the same manner. Stiffening material, called a counter and usually made of leather or plastic, is inserted from the ball of the boot around the heel to the middle of the arch to provide support for the ankle. Reinforcement pieces are cemented onto the underside of the upper with latex or neoprene base cement. Foam padding is layered on top of the reinforcement. The lining is then sewn onto the upper boot through all three layers. Excess edges are trimmed. A line of top-stitching provides additional support and decoration. The eyelet placket is also reinforced by means of a strip of leather. The tongue is lined with sponge rubber, then tacked first to the lining, and then to the boot upper, using a cross-butterfly stitch.
3 The partially constructed boot is then subjected to a heat and moisture process called mulling that leaves the leather more pliable.
Shaping the boot
4 The boot is shaped by placing it on a last, which is a plastic foot form corresponding to a particular shoe size and width. The lasts resemble shoe trees. A skate manufacturer can have as many as 102 sizes and widths for women and as many as 57 sizes for men. This large difference in number of lasts may be due to several factors: there are more women skaters (particularly in figure skating) than men, thus increasing the variety demanded. In addition, women may be more particular about fit, as evidenced by the wider variety of width and sizes for women's street shoes than men's. First an insole is tacked onto the last. Then the boot is pulled tight, by hand, over the bottom of the last. The worker must make sure that all wrinkles are eliminated, working from the arch to the heel then from the arch to the toe. Tacks or cement adhere the arch, heel, and toe to the insole.
Drying and setting the boot to the last
5 The tacks holding the insole to the last are removed. The boot, still stretched over the last, is placed into a drying chamber. Heat is applied to set the boot to the length and width of the last. A worker then removes the last from the interior of the skate boot.
Preparing and attaching the sole
6 The boot is placed upside down on a peg under an electric grinder to remove the leather finish from the boot bottom. The grinding process causes a crevice to form across the middle of the boot bottom where the foot's natural arch occurs. This crevice is packed with a synthetic filler and an 18-gauge spring-steel arch support shank. A leather or rubber sole is then attached to the boot with a urethane base cement.
Attaching the heel
7 The heel is constructed by gluing square stacks of leather or water-repellent fiberboard on top of each other. The height and width of the heel varies with the type of skate. The heel is glued onto the boot and then six to ten long nails are driven through the heel, outsole, and insole. Finally, the heel is trimmed and smoothed.
Attaching the blade
8 The sole and heel plates of the blade are lined up with the sole and heel area of the boot bottom. The worker "eyes" the placement, making sure that the blade is centered on the sole. An equal amount of boot bottom should be exposed at the toe and heel. The worker then screws the blade onto the boot using a high-speed drill on a foot-powered press. Only a few of the screws are inserted into the boot; the remainder are packaged with the ice skates. This allows the skater to adjust the blade as necessary before the remaining screws are inserted and tightened. However, the blades of skates fitted with rubber soles are permanently attached with rivets.
Finishing and polishing
9 The completed skate is hand-polished and sprayed with a solution to make it shine. Laces are threaded through the eyelets. The skates are then boxed for shipping.
Quality Control
The manufacturing process includes several inspection points. At each position, the inspector checks the alignment of the various pieces. Seams and eyelets are checked for straightness and evenness. Structural and visual imperfections such as loose threads and wrinkles are weeded out.
Most ice skate manufacturers have professional skaters on staff who are involved in the design and testing of the product.
Where To Learn More Book Jonland, Einar and Jim Fitzgerald. Inside Ice Skating. Contemporary Books, 1978. Periodical Faiad, Andrea. "The Making of a Boot the Riedell Way." Skating, March 1995, pp. 40-41.Story highlights After the water is purified, the Charles River is a source for six local breweries
As recently as 1996, the river's raw sewage was severe enough that it failed state swimming standards
(CNN) Would you drink a beer originating in what used to be one of the most polluted rivers in the country?
In early August, Newton, Massachusetts-based water technology company Desalitech withdrew 4,000 gallons from Boston's Charles River. After purification, the water was delivered to six local breweries for a beer-making competition.
"The Charles River is one of the biggest icons of Boston. Being able to drink it is really tapping in one of the biggest symbols of the town," said Nadav Efraty, Desalitech's CEO. "Our company has reinvented the purification and reuse process in a way that enables us to almost completely eliminate the waste of water."
The company upgraded a traditional process called reverse osmosis to treat the water and clean it for reuse. Reverse osmosis uses special membranes to block salts and contaminants, producing purified water and a stream of concentrated pollutants.
Reverse osmosis systems typically operate around 75% water efficiency, wasting about 25 gallons for every 75 gallons of purified water, according to Efraty. For the Brew the Charles project, he said, there was 98% efficiency.
Read MoreShut up and write the book!
Five things that have helped me get more writing done.
Austin Kleon Blocked Unblock Follow Following Mar 22, 2013
I’m working on the followup to Steal Like An Artist, my book about how to be more creative in the digital age. It’s been a real pain in the ass. Here are five things that have helped:
1. Shut up and write the book.
I’m an extreme extrovert, which is really great after I write a book and I have to go out into the world and talk to people about it, but not so great when I need to sequester myself long enough to actually get some real writing done.
I do most of my thinking “out loud,” which means that ideas don’t really come to me until I’ve expressed them. If I express them through speech, I’m less likely to turn around and say them in writing.
2. Use the bathroom.
I get a lot of good ideas getting ready in the morning. If I have an idea in the shower, I write it down on my Aqua Notes pad, and if I have one after I step out of the shower, I’ll use a dry-erase marker to write it on the bathroom mirror.
3. Fix that mise en place.
Mise en place is a French cooking term that means “everything in place.” It’s used to refer to the way chefs have all of their ingredients organized and ready to go before they start cooking. For writers, I think it’s equally important to have your workspace organized and ready to go, with nothing in your way.
I made a slight adjustment to my desk recently that made a world of difference. I raised my external monitor up slightly, so I could set my laptop in front of it, and got rid of my external keyboard. Now, when I sit down, I can just open up my laptop and get to work. If I need the extra monitor for research or design work, I can plug it in, but most of the time I don’t even use it.
4. Less notification, more meditation.
It might be an obvious point, but it’s crazy how many of my devices tout their ability to distract me as an intelligent feature. The dumber I make my devices, the smarter I feel. Notifications I’ve killed:
All notifications on my iPhone. Tweetdeck on my laptop. Gmail Notifier.
As for meditation, it’s pretty simple: I put my kid down for a nap, sit at the top of the stairs, set my iPhone timer for 10 minutes, and close my eyes. That’s it. I’ve been doing it on and off for about a month and a half and I’ve felt less angry, less stressed, lighter.
More about meditation here.
5. Stop researching.
I’ll let Steven Johnson take this one:
Email and social media and games are obvious distractions. In my experience, the more subtle threat — particularly for non-fiction writers — comes via the eminently reasonable belief that you’re not ready to start writing, because you haven’t finished your research yet.
David McCullough agrees:
There’s an awful temptation to just keep on researching. There comes a point where you just have to stop, and start writing. When I began, I thought that the way one should work was to do all the research and then write the book. In time I began to understand that it’s when you start writing that you really find out what you don’t know and need to know.
Okay! Back to writing.A pretty cool thing that has come out of recent Machine Learning advancements is the idea of " Word Embedding", specifically the advancements in the field made by Tomas Mikolov and his team at Google with the Word2Vec approach. Word Embedding is a language modelling approach that involves mapping words to vectors of numbers - If you imagine we are modelling every word in a given body of text to an N-dimension vector (it might be easier to visualise this as 2-dimensions - so each word is a pair of coordinates that can be plot on a graph), then that could be useful in plotting words and starting to understand relationships between words given their proximity. What's more, if we could map words to sets of numbers, then we could start thinking about interesting arithmetic that we could perform on the words.
Sounds cool, right? Now, of course, the tricky bit is how can you convert a word to a vector of numbers in such a way that it encapsulates the details behind this relationship? And how can we do it without painstaking manual work and trying to somehow indicate semantic relationships and meaning in the words?
Unsupervised Learning
Word2Vec relies on neural networks and trains on a large, unlabeled piece of text in a technique known as " unsupervised" learning.
Contrary to the last neural network I discussed which was a " supervised" exercise (e.g. for every input record we had the expected output/answer), Word2Vec uses a completely "unsupervised" approach - in other words, the neural network simply takes a massive block of text with no markup or labels (broken into sentences or lines usually) and then uses that to train itself.
This kind of unsupervised learning can seem a little unbelievable at first, getting your head around the idea that a network could train itself without even knowing the "answers" seemed a little strange to me first time I heard the concept, especially as a fundamental requirement for an NN to converge on optimum solution requires a " cost-function" (e.g. some thing we can use after each feed-forward step to tell us how right we are, and if our NN is heading in the right direction).
But really, if we think back to the literal biological comparison with the brain, as people we learn through this unsupervised approach all the time - it's basically trial-and-error.
It's Child's Play
Imagine a toddler attempting to learn to use a smartphone or tablet: they likely don't get shown explicitly to press an icon, or to swipe to unlock, but they might try combinations of power buttons, volume controls and swiping and seeing what happens (and if it does what they are ultimately trying to do), and they get feedback from the device - not direct feedback about what the correct gesture is, or how wrong they were, just the feedback that it doesn't do what they want - and if you have ever lived with a toddler who has got to grips with touchscreens, you may have noticed that when they then experience a TV or laptop, they instinctively attempt to touch or swipe the things on the screen that they want (in NN terms this would be known as "overfitting" - they have trained on too specific a set of data, so are poor at generalising - luckily, the introduction of a non-touch screen such as a TV expands their training set and they continue to improve their NN, getting better at generalising!)
So, this is basically how Word2Vec works. Which is pretty amazing if you think about it (well, I think its neat).
Word2Vec Approaches
So how does this apply to Word2Vec? Well just like a smartphone gives implicit, in-direct feedback to a toddler, so the input data can provide feedback to itself. There are broadly two techniques when training the network:
Continuous Bag of Words (CBOW)
So, our NN has a large body of text broken up into sentences/lines - and just like in our last NN example, we take the first row from the training set, but we don't just take the whole sentence to push into the NN (after all, the sentence will be variable length, which would confuse our input neurons), instead we take a set number of words - referred to as the " window size", let's say 5, and feed those into the network. In this approach, the goal is for the NN to try and correctly guess the middle word in that window - that is, given a phrase of 5 words, the NN attempts to guess the word at position 3.
[It was ___ of those] days, not much to do
So it's unsupervised learning, as we haven't had to go through any data and label things, or do any additional pre-processing - we can simply feed in any large body of text and it can just try to guess the words given their context.
Skip-gram
The Skip-gram approach is similar, but the inverse - that is, given the word at position n, it attempts to guess the words at position n-2, n-1, n+1, n+2.
[__ ___ one __ _____] days, not much to do
The network is trying to work out which word(s) are missing and just looks to the data itself to see if it can guess it correctly.
Word2Vec with DeepLearning4J
So one popular deep-learning & word2vec implementation on the JVM is DeepLearning4J. It is pretty simple to use to get used to what is going on and is pretty well documented (along with some good high-level overviews of some core topics). You can get up and running playing with the library and some example datasets pretty quickly following their guide. Their NN setup is also equally simple and worth playing with, their MNIST hello-world tutorial lets you get up and running with that dataset pretty quickly.
Food2Vec
A little while ago, I wrote a web crawler for the BBC food recipe archive, so I happened to have several thousand recipes sitting around and thought it might be fun to feed those recipes into Word2Vec to see if it could give any interesting results or if it was any good at recommending food pairings based on the semantic features the Word2Vec NN extracts from the data.
The first thing I tried was just using the ingredient list as a sentence - hoping that it would be better for extracting the relationship between ingredients, with each complete list of ingredients being input as a sentence. My hope was that if I queried the trained model for X is to Beef, as Rosemary is to Lamb, I would start to get some interesting results - or at least be able to enter an ingredient and get similar ingredients to help identify possible substitutions.
As you can see, it has managed to extract some meaning from the data - for both pork and lamb, the nearest words do seem to be related to the target word, but not so much that could really be useful. Although this in itself is pretty exciting - it has taken an un-labelled body of text and has been able to learn some pretty accurate relationships between words.
Actually, on reflection, a list of ingredients isn't actually that great an input, as it isn't a natural structure and there is no natural ordering of the words - a lot of meaning is captured in the phrases rather than just lists of words.
So next up, I used the instructions for the recipes - each step in the recipe became a sentence for input, and minimal cleanup was needed, however, with some basic tweaking (it's fairly possible that if I played more with the Word2Vec configuration I could have got some improved results) the results weren't really that much better, and for the same lamb & pork search this was the output:
Again, its still impressive to see that some meaning has been found from these words, is it better than raw ingredient list? I think not - the pork one seems wrong, as it seems to have very much aligned pork as a poultry (although maybe that is some meaningful insight that conventional wisdom just hasn't taught us yet!?)
Arithmetic
Whilst this is pretty cool, there is further fun that can be had - in the form of simple arithmetic. A simple, often quoted example, is the case of countries and their capital cities - well trained Word2Vec models have countries and their capital cities equal distances apart:
( graph taken from DeepLearning4J Word2Vec intro)
So could we extract similar relationships between food stuffs? The short answer, with the models trained so far, was kind of..
Word2Vec supports the idea of positive and negative matches when looking for nearest words - that allows you to find these kind of relationships. So what we are looking for is something like "X is to Lamb, as thigh is to chicken" (e.g. hopefully this should find a part of the lamb), and hopefully use this to extract further information about ingredient relationships that could be useful in thinking about food.
So, I ran that arithmetic against my two models.
The instructions based model returned the following output:
Which |
byrnesam wrote:
watch weed brownies youtube and rethink.
Is that the Krantz video where he's high as fuck and playing nosebleeds? If so.... LOOOOOOOOOOOOOL BEST VIDEO EVER aka SouL)Z(Isadie and SouL)P(Fujikura
1
Mortensen88 United Kingdom. May 19 2010 18:28. Posts 266 well i think it can be true for some people if I smoke I play way too scared and if I drink I play too crazy
1
wondurrrrful Bulgaria. May 20 2010 16:08. Posts 25
On May 19 2010 17:28 Mortensen88 wrote:
well i think it can be true for some people if I smoke I play way too scared and if I drink I play too crazy
do both for balance obv
1
SIG1 United States. May 21 2010 22:02. Posts 649
On May 20 2010 15:08 wondurrrrful wrote:
Show nested quote +
On May 19 2010 17:28 Mortensen88 wrote:
well i think it can be true for some people if I smoke I play way too scared and if I drink I play too crazy
do both for balance obv
LOLFour flawed beliefs have dominated the actions of UK governments on healthcare over the past 25 years: personal responsibility for health supersedes government responsibility; markets drive efficiency; universal healthcare is ultimately unaffordable; and it is entirely legitimate to view healthcare as a business.
How paying for your treatment would help save the NHS | Christopher Smallwood Read more
But infants and children cannot exercise personal responsibility – nor have the greatest health gains come from personal choices, but rather from public measures: clean water, clean air, immunisations, affordable good food and housing, and environments that facilitate healthy lifestyles. Good health also comes from the security of a strong social safety net.
Government understands its responsibility to protect citizens from lawlessness and terrorism, but failing to invest in safeguarding the health and social care of children will ultimately prove even more damaging to the national wellbeing.
More and more, we hear voices claiming the NHS is somehow unaffordable through taxation, and that we need to look at different funding models, such as insurance. Hospital trust chair Christopher Smallwood has made that case. But there are better options.
Margaret Thatcher’s government introduced the internal market in 1990, creating a split between purchasers and providers. New Labour expanded the private finance initiative, further opening the door to commercialisation. The Conservative-Lib Dem coalition reneged on a major election promise, introducing the biggest ever restructuring with the 2012 Health and Social Care Act. This reduced the NHS in England to a logo and a funding stream channelled through a new commissioning board, hastily renamed NHS England.
With the act, the health secretary’s responsibility to “provide or secure” healthcare – in place since the founding of the NHS in 1948 – was lost; universal provision was replaced with commissioning for registered patients; healthcare was thrown open to “any willing” – hastily changed to “any qualified” provider; and a crippling financial straitjacket was imposed.
Although discredited – in 2010 a Health Select Committee called it “20 years of costly failure” – the internal market was retained, paving the way for a growing external market in healthcare.
Currently 853 independent organisations contribute to NHS care – commissioned by more than 400 local authorities, 209 clinical commissioning groups, and NHS England. Into this chaotic mix has come further fragmentation with the devolution of acute, public and social care commissioning to large urban conurbations. The opportunity for improved healthcare through strong national coordination is being lost.
The balance of evidence is that for-profit healthcare is poorer quality at greater cost. Following a damning report from the Care Quality Commission, Circle is reported to have pulled out of a £1bn 10-year hospital contract. And after data falsification and a culture of intimidation was exposed, Serco withdrew from a GP out-of-hours contract.
Private firms operate under the NHS logo, so the public is likely to be unaware when treatment is being provided by a for-profit company. The private sector is said to have received 70% of contracts awarded over 2013-14, estimated at £20bn of the total NHS budget of £113bn.
The NHS embodies our connection to the state. No wonder the Tories want to break it | Suzanne Moore Read more
Virgin Care – awarded some of the biggest contracts, including £140m for children’s services in Devon – admits a profit intention of at least 8% – is this use of taxpayers’ money defensible while the health budget is being squeezed?
PFI repayments haemorrhage around £10bn each year; providers and commissioners, ill-prepared for the burgeoning complexity of a devolved health service, spend £640m each year on management consultants. Expenditure on private health insurance and products currently runs to £20bn; incompetence in dealing with the pharmaceutical industry has led, for example, to a sharp rise in the annual cost of a widely used epilepsy medication from £2m to a breathtaking £47m.
Addressing this appalling waste and doing away with the internal market, which is estimated to cost between £4.5bn and £10bn to administer, should surely be the focus of a government committed to fiscal prudence. Instead there has been a 30% increase in advertisements inviting bids from non-NHS organisations, and a growing proportion of the healthcare budget is in the pockets of private enterprise – at a time when the NHS is being starved of resources and required to find £20bn in “efficiency savings”.
UK health expenditure at 7-8% of GDP is about half that of the United States, and less than our European neighbours – though the public has indicated time and again that it would willingly support a greater contribution through general taxation to strengthen the NHS.
The 2014 Commonwealth Fund report on 11 wealthy countries shows that the UK spends least but ranks first in healthcare performance; the US spends most but ranks bottom. In the US, one in six citizens has no health cover and inability to pay healthcare bills is the primary cause for personal bankruptcies, yet we are witnessing extraordinary, deliberate moves towards a failed US-style healthcare model.
Why have successive governments behaved so irresponsibly and illogically? The only possible explanations are ideological conviction, ignorance of the evidence, or personal self-interest.
Universal healthcare, free at the point of need and funded through general taxation, is cost-effective, increasingly justified by evidence, and morally right. The formation of the NHS was ahead of its time in recognising health as a leveller (any one of us might break a leg, contract pneumonia or have a child develop leukaemia), and enshrining in law a government responsibility. Healthcare in a civilised 21st century nation is a human right, a public service, not a business.
The public may not be fully aware of the extent to which the health service has moved away from its founding principles. The NHS is not unaffordable, but marketisation and commercialisation have led to escalating costs, inefficiencies and a widening of health inequities.
Re-establishing the secretary of state’s legal duty to the NHS in England, and protecting the NHS from competition law and increasing marketisation would be a good opportunity to redress past mistakes and strengthen a magnificent service that, though not perfect, has been a global beacon of equality and efficiency.Singer Rick James, arrested for allegedly torturing a woman with a hot cocaine pipe, was released on bail Saturday night from the Los Angeles County Central Jail, more than three weeks after he was arrested, sheriff's deputies said.
James, 43, known as the "king of funk," was arrested Aug. 2 with his girlfriend, Tanya Hijazi, 21, on suspicion of torturing and sexually assaulting a Santa Monica woman while holding her hostage in the singer's Hollywood Hills home last month.
James allegedly forced the 24-year old woman to smoke crack cocaine and orally copulate Hijazi. The woman told police that, when she resisted, James pistol-whipped her and burned her repeatedly with a cocaine pipe.
James, whose original $1-million bail was reduced by half on Wednesday, left the jail Saturday about 9:40 p.m., Deputy Hal Grant said.
Hijazi, whose bail was set at $200,000, was expected to be released later, Grant said.TV Reviews All of our TV reviews in one convenient place.
This Game Of Thrones post is written from the point of view of someone who has not read the books the series is based on. As such, spoilers are strictly forbidden. Any spoilers in comments will be deleted on sight. If you see spoilers, please mark them as best you can and email eadams at avclub dot com or contact Erik on Twitter, and he’ll take care of them as soon as possible. Remember: Discussions of things that were different in the books or confirmations of things that won’thappen count as spoilers, too. Have you read the books and want to discuss what’s coming? That’s what our experts reviews are for.
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Power is the prize promised to the game of thrones’ ultimate victor. The power to rule, the power to define right from wrong, the power to mold the known world in your image. No matter how they may protest, nor matter what they may say otherwise, this is a motivating factor for any prospective Game Of Thrones royalty.
Power is a prize that’s won at the end of the game; survival is a gift given during its every turn. The gift of another chance, the gift of seeing your loved ones again, the gift of outlasting your enemies. Pain, suffering, and death are all givens for these characters, making life, and the living of that life, all the more precious. In “The Gift,” The High Sparrow speaks of the seven heavens that await the virtuous in the afterlife, but even he can’t speak from a place of authority on that subject. To pick yourself up out of the morass and live another day is a real and tangible reward, one “The Gift” believes in wholeheartedly. If it didn’t, what would be the point of coming back to this fucked-up dragon world week-in and week-out?
We keep coming back because of the survivors. Partially because the only characters you can recognize in season five are those who’ve made it through the preceding four seasons, but also because the endurance of Sansa, Brienne, Sam, Gilly, Dany, Jorah, and Tyrion suggest better things for a Westerosi future. Game Of Thrones doesn’t necessarily believe that good is destined to triumph over evil—or even believe in the existence of “good” and “evil” in the abstract—but it is powered by the triumph of the spirit. No matter what cruelty Sansa faces within the walls of Winterfell, no matter the setbacks Jorah confronts on the road to Meereen, each keeps pushing on. (“We march to victory, or we march to defeat,” surviving Baratheon brother Stannis says in “The Gift.” “But we go forward, only forward.”) They keep the candles burning, even when someone’s trying to snuff them out.
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“The Gift” features a gorgeous transition to that effect, fading from an unlit window (monitored from afar by Brienne) to the flames illuminating Maester Aemon’s final moments. There’s a hopelessness to the Winterfell scenes this week, similar to that felt during season three’s stay at the Dreadfort—Ramsay’s unrelenting sadism just has that effect, I suppose. Director Miguel Sapochnik even frames Theon’s journey from Sansa’s chambers as a classic Bolton bait-and-switch, implying a trip to the Broken Tower that actually leads to Ramsay’s door. It’s a shocker, albeit an inevitable one: Reek was never going to turn on his master so quickly. Hopelessness, in this instance, is more a case of getting your hopes up too high.
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And yet, the darkening conditions under Bolton rule are given some light by Sansa’s faith that her torture marriage to Ramsay is merely a temporary arrangement. She has Littlefinger’s word that the Boltons are not long for Winterfell, and after some time under his tutelage, she also has his ability for playing all the angles against her enemies. Verbally sparring with her husband, Sansa reminds him that the only thing making him Roose’s true son and Winterfell’s heir is the word of yet another bastard—Tommen Baratheon. He breaks down her defenses with the flayed display of the Starks’ friend in the North, but that’s only after Sansa surreptitiously swipes some sort of pointy-looking implement from among the Bolton arms. When she makes the theft, she’s yet to learn that she’s lost an ally, but even then, she’s thinking that the fight for survival is one she’ll have to wage on her own. That adds a neatly ironic twist to Ramsay gloating that “Our people are used to fighting in frost.”
In “The Gift,” surviving in the north means surviving in isolation. While Sansa loses one accomplice and is betrayed by another, Samwell Tarly remains at Castle Black while one friend rides into enemy territory and another wades into oblivion. Jon Snow’s sympathy for the Wildlings made it hard enough for Sam, Gilly, and li’l Sam, and the Lord Commander’s diplomatic trot with Tormund Giantsbane isn’t making things any easier. (The campaign remains unpopular, Alliser Thorne reminds us, as spoken updates on Jon’s popularity are one of the First Ranger’s main duties.) Maester Aemon’s death sets them further adrift, as the old man’s funeral is barely a memory before two crows make unwanted advances on Gilly, only to be frightened off by the combined forces of Sam The Slayer and Ghost the direwolf.
Here, as in Winterfell, there’s a “darkest before the dawn” sensation. The Night’s Watch barely sticks to its oath when its leaders are present, and the removal of Jon and Aemon leads directly to this scene of lawlessness within the walls of Castle Black. Survival here is a matter of self-determination, Sam and Gilly taking their licks from brothers Rat Stache and Five O’Clock Shadow but not backing down. Ghost scares the goons away, but he has the time to make it to the mess hall because Sam and Gilly held their attackers off. So thrilling is the rush of survival that the couple immediately sets about breaking one part of Sam’s oath. They need all the allies they can get, so they may as well make one, biologically speaking.
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The plainest statement on survival comes from the sequence that gives “The Gift” its name: Jorah and Tyrion, having successfully negotiated themselves to the fighting pits, stand among several slain warriors and declare themselves to Daenerys. Jorah’s fellow fighters clumsily bludgeon each other to death, delighting the spectators, disgusting the queen, and disappointing the pit master. But the masked man who emerges from the gates mid-melee fights with skill and confidence. He fells opponents with non-fatal blows, using their own limbs and armor against them. In an arena that favors blunt force, Jorah is artful in his survival. Where the preceding violence is jump-cut brutality, his entry into the fracas plays out in relatively long, relatively smooth takes. His professionalism even halts an early exit by noted fan of professional warriors Daenerys Stormborn.
Victory in the pit and a dramatic unmasking make a fitting end to Jorah and Tyrion’s season-five picaresque. Weathering the sea, the stone men, slavers, and each other, the duo clears one last hurdle to stand before the queen. It’s convenient that all three should wind up at the very same fighting pit, but we’re at episode seven (and episode nine will almost certainly depict the battle between Stannis’ frostbitten forces and the Bolton army), so D.B. Weiss and David Benioff are working with limited storytelling real estate here. “The Gift” wraps its Meereen section before Jorah can explain what he means to achieve, but we already got his address about redemption a few episodes back. Once more, the demands of serialized storytelling must be paid heed, so the scene ends on one of those quintessential Game Of Thrones cliffhangers, in which one character drops some sort of bombshell (“My name is Tyrion Lannister”) and the camera does a slow, soap-opera zoom on the assembled players. Ramin Djawadi brings the score to a crescendo, the actors do their best take on “The Californians” (“Tyri-ahn? Whad’re you doing here?”—Emilia Clarke’s face), and we wait for things to pick back up next week.
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There’s no visual reminder of the infection that’s slowly turning Jorah’s arm into a scaly stalagmite this week, but internally, that gives the character one more reason to meet with Dany ASAP. Swords can be shielded against, servitude can be talked around, but greyscale could be the only opponent Jorah doesn’t survive. And so he gives himself the gift of being in his khaleesi’s presence, knowing that such things are not granted. It’s unclear what he and Tyrion will get out of their trip to Meereen, but in bringing Dany something she can use to win the game, Jorah himself is rewarded.
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On the “We go forward, only forward” front, there’s also a major development in the Red Keep: On the word of Brother Lancel, Cersei is locked up by the Faith Militant. In one of the most cathartic moments in Game Of Thrones’ history, an episode that finds Cersei rubbing her freedom in Margaery’s face ends with the Mother of Madness’ own face being blocked from view by a cell door. This is the comeuppance she’s been bucking for since the beginning of the series, a defeat more profoundly felt than the deaths of Tywin, Joffrey, or Robert because the misfortune is befalling her directly. Prior to this, the biggest defeat we’ve seen Cersei suffer involved the loss of her title—but even then, she retained the power and the control of queendom. Not even Margaery Tyrell could lay Cersei this low—it took a shoeless man in rags to pull off that feat.
Like Theon betraying Sansa, it was only a matter of time before the Faith Militant scheme backfired on Cersei. An army of fanatics has been granted unchecked and unrestrained authority, but to hear the High Sparrow tell it, it almost sounds like a positive for Westeros. His meeting with Lady Olenna is one of those instances when Game Of Thrones boldly refuses to paint in black and white: It begins by playing on our sympathies for the Tyrells, but ends with those sympathies in question. The High Sparrow is busy at work dismantling sword-and-sorcery conventions, pointing out that the protagonists of this show are, by-and-large, nobles disconnected from the struggles of the common folk. “You are the few and we are the many,” he reminds Olenna, putting him in a position that represents the vast majority of Game Of Thrones viewers.
It’s a fascinating scene, for reasons beyond pitting Emma Peel against Sam Lowry in a battle of wits. While the High Sparrow retains his air of eccentricity, he shows he’s as cunning as anyone in King’s Landing—a city that could eventually fall under his rule. (Not that he’d ever consider himself a ruler.) He’s already outfoxed the queen mother, and now his sights are set on working his way around the team that toppled a king. They’re working toward similar goals, if not for the same reasons. The Baelish-Olenna conspiracy unseated Joffrey; the High Sparrow would unseat every Lannister, every Tyrell, probably every Stark, too.
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The Faith strikes at a moment when the crown is particularly weakened. Like their rivals in the North, the members of the royal family are scattered and isolated: Cersei’s arrest leaves Tommen entirely on his own, with Jaime stuck in Dorne with Myrcella, who shows no interest in returning to her homeland. The great houses of the Seven Kingdoms are in disarray, making conditions all the more suitable for a populist uprising. They have no poisoned blades at their disposal, but the Faith Militant poses a greater threat to the Lannisters than a hundred Sand Snakes.
But even the Sand Snakes are neutralized this week, behind bars like so many of the show’s main characters. Talk about having something to survive: In nearly every one of “The Gift”’s storylines, there’s someone incarcerated, in captivity, in chains, or incapacitated by the weather. “The Gift” packs a remarkable amount of plot movement for an episode in which so many characters can’t move. The weather’s getting worse, the wind whipping the snow around The Wall and Winterfell in ways that foreshadow Stannis’ frozen forces. Melisandre suggests that her king can reverse his misfortune and being laying his path to the Iron Throne if only he spilled his daughter’s blood. But that’s not a sacrifice he’s prepared to make. Survival is a gift, but being someone’s survivor can be a tragedy.
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Stray observations:
This is the final version of tonight’s Game Of Thrones (newbies) review. Because our readers are so eager to read about and discuss the show after it airs, for the rest of season five I’ll post a review that examines a major thematic or story element of the episode, then update throughout the night with further analysis on the episode, screenshots, and stray observations. There’s always so much packed into a Game Of Thrones episode that trying to unpack it all in a timely manner can prove difficult. I hope this method will satisfy those of you who want to read and comment before you go to bed on Sundays, but still want a deeper dive into the contents of any given episode later on.
More gorgeous overhead photography this week, with a pair of bird’s eye views surveying the wreckage of season five. First we see the body of Aemon Targaryen, the snow falling on his robes evoking the celestial bodies among which he now resides.
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After that, there’s this heartbreaking image of Littlefinger’s brothel, post-Faith Militant—as heartbreaking as a busted-up brothel can look, at least.
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Before they start insulting one another, Olenna and the High Sparrow compare aches and pains. “For me, it’s the knees. You?” “Hips.”
“I’ll start a war if I have to.” Every kingly line from Tommen should be followed by a patronizing pat on his kingly little head.
Two minor characters in Meereen that I’d love to learn more about: The big guy who chops through Tyrion’s chains, and the incredulous pit master. If any Game Of Thrones character has ever said “I’m getting too old for this shit,” it’s this guy:
AdvertisementPilots of the Russian Warriors air force aerobatic squadron fly their Su-27s and fire flares during a demonstration flight at the Moscow International Air Show: Oleg Nikishin/Getty Images
Russia's air force has been ordered to prepare for a "time of war".
President Vladimir Putin has ordered a "snap check" of the country's armed forces, accoording to defense minister Sergey Shoigu. As well as checking whether agencies and troops are ready for battle, the same order will ensure that systems are ready to fight, according to state news agency TASS.
Those preparations have already begun, according to Russian ministers.
"In accordance with the decision by the Armed Forces Supreme Commander, a snap check of the Aerospace Forces began to evaluate readiness of the control agencies and troops to carry out combat training tasks," he said, according to TASS.
"Special attention should be paid to combat alert, deployment of air defense systems for a time of war and air groupings’ readiness to repel the aggression," Shoigu added.
The preparations come amid increasing concern about tensions between Russia and many of the world's largest superpowers. Donald Trump has both condemned Russia's military campaigns and been criticised for being too close to the country's leaders, and Russia itself is standing in an increasingly tense relationship with some Nato countries.
The country has been increasing movement of its military including the launch of the biggest Arctic military push since the fall of the Soviet Union, last month. It has also revealed plans to expand its military over 2017, including a huge boost in the number of tanks, armoured vehicles and aircraft controlled by the company.(December 20, 2014 Update Below)
For their Christmas party this year, Christ’s Commission Fellowship Executive Pastor Ricky Sarthou dressed up in traditional Arabic garments. The twist, however, is that strapped to his chest was a mock explosive device.
The Executive Pastor of one of the country’s largest Christian churches chose the outfit for their Church’s party’s theme, “Heroes and Villains.” The photo shown here is a screen-capture of a now-deleted post on Instagram by Ickhoy de Leon, another CCF Pastor. Along with a mock improvised explosive device, Pastor Sarthou can be seen in the photo wearing the traditional Arabic headdress called a keffiyeh.
While the intentions for dressing up in the costume may have been innocent, what message does it send for a high-ranking official in a Christian church to portray a violent stereotype of another religion?
Update (December 20, 2014): On the comments section of this article, a person claiming to relay the words of pastors from the CCF said the following.The wind howled in the white plain where blood was said to have felt grieved. Here, on the stone where only a sigil of a flower rested, my blood had been laid to rest. The Summer, so they say, had died all those years ago, leaving Ruby all alone. This was the very grave my mother did grieve. Only luck and blessings allow me to not be in the same position.
Luck. Could a word such as that be used? Could I be described as the blood of her? The extension? Was I truly alive?
I was created, not born. My skin did pump blood and feel, but I wasn't born. Created not in a womb or a factory, but in a test tube. A clone based on the genomes of two others.
Walking away, I grabbed a can out of my satchel and popped it open. Holding the Schnee Cola up to my lips, the bubbly brown liquid poured down my throat. My boots crunched in the snow as I walked into the forest, pausing by a tree. With a sigh, I unzipped my pants and let loose, carving my name 'Cerise' into the snow with my urine. Of course, the 'Pale Rose' part of my name was just a little too long for one go. With another sigh of relief, I zipped up my zipper.
I glanced away from my tree, my red hood flapping in the howling gales. The snow crunched against my boots, my gray eyes settling on the black horde in front of me.
"Eh?" I said in surprise, my eyebrows leaping up. "Haven't you lot heard of a little thing called privacy?" I paused, placing my finger to my chin as they snarled.
"No, that is not what you just saw. Shut up, its cold outside."
Wolves of black and bone howled, just as they did all those years ago, wishing to feed on blood. So hungry, they were.
He, who lusted for blood and meat. He, who was Famine.
The wind roared as I removed my hood, revealing my white hair with red-dyed tips. I lowered my hand slowly to the chunk of beautiful crimson metal that hung from the back of my waist, which had been passed down to me. The Crescent Rose II felt so cold against my hand, yet that was only in my eyes. To the Crescent Rose II, I'm sure the flesh of my hands must have been boiling, worse than the heat of a dying sun.
I thought something similar, looking at the Grimm.
Even so, I drew the weapon and pulled the bolt, placing in a heavy clip and readying the weapon. My hand clicked open Crescent Rose. It whirred and ground together as the weapon stabbed into the ground, the wind howling as it swirled around the scythe. The growls of the Beowolves melded into the wind as I set my eyes downwards, taking in a deep breath. Behind me was only a cliff, leading down to only fog and stone.
Seven wolves inched ever so closer, testing how close they could approach their prey. In utter excitement of their next meal, the seven leaped forward, slashing at my shadow. I already had leapt into the air, my hand gripping the handle on the Crescent Rose II.
Drawing the weapon, I pulled the bolt of the gun and blasted into the horde, creating rain of crimson petals as I landed. The Grimm howled as I slowly lowered my hand down the grip, opening into its metal glory. The scarlet iron stabbed into the snow, my arm extending and simply motioning forward with two fingers.
The Grimm howled, three wolves pouncing on their prey. I grabbed the scythe and spun it around my back, slashing into the left one with the knife on the butt of the staff. As this was happening, my finger wrapped around the trigger, pulling it tightly. The scythe blasted back as the bullet bore a hole through the Grimm on the right, the recoil impaling the middle Beowolf. I tossed it aside, two more Beowolves leaping into the fray. I slammed the scythe behind me, aiming my gun in the direct opposite direction.
I pulled the trigger, launching forward.
I spun the scythe, slicing into the two Grimm to my right and placing me directly in the middle of the crowd. The blade stabbed into the ground, my arms popping as I continued moving. I spun around the immobile scythe in the stone, kicking each of the Beowolves as they howled and attempted to bite into my legs. I landed into the crisp snow, my feet settling on the base of the blade. Pulling the trigger, the scythe exploded into the air. I twirled the heavy scythe around, yanking on the bolt and firing into the black mob. Falling back, I spun around, slicing into Grimm after Grimm. With a roll, my scythe twirled around, slicing apart a wolf from the back. Continuing the momentum, the shaft of the scythe spun around my hip, cutting two Beowolves at the stomach. My hand retrieved the blade, extending my forearm behind me and wrapping the scythe's blade around the throat of Grimm. I spun around, slicing into it and causing the wolf to choke as it fell over and withered away.
A Grimm broke through my defenses, slashing at my throat with its ugly claws. With a disgusted look, I grabbed the Grimm and pulled him in, stepping underneath his arm and wrapping the blade around his stomach. My hand wrapped around the trigger as I blasted myself forward, tearing the Wolf behind me in two as I flew to the next one. With a look of pure concentration, I stepped onto its skull and placed the scythe beneath me, slicing its head in two. I flipped, bringing the blade down into the body of a Beowolf.
The Grimm thrust a claw, only visible to be through the reflection of the perfectly polished scythe blade, allowing me to duck under it. I pulled the blade out of the ground twirling it as I sliced up and down, cutting it in several pieces.
My mother was able to control the speed of her body, able to become a blur in the greater Gale. All the while, my other mother was able to only control the direction she went, never deciding when to take it slow or fast. I, however, was the hybrid.
To control all vectors of the body. Acceleration could be stopped instantly, gravity could be adjusted, and logic broke down. I could control direction and speed, power and glyphs. I controlled all the forces that made my body move through glyphs.
Aura, start Boot_Semblance
A large glyph glowed on my back, my eyes beginning to glow a bright blue.
Execute.
The Grimm slashed into my side with enough force to hit back a car, but I took it without any reaction.
The energy that was transferred to my body was deleted, expelled.
I pulled the scythe into motion, my hands blurring as I increased the vector speed of my hands, creating a pure circle of light. The Grimm flooded in as I danced around, twirling the light circle as I tore into each and every Grimm.
One managed to break through, slashing upwards and thrusting me into the side.
Adjust upwards vector, 0.
I paused midair.
Adjust motion. 0 degrees x, 0 degrees y. 12 M/S/S
I ran, kicking upwards at an insane speed and launching a wolf into the air.
Adjust vector. 12 M/S/S 180 degrees z, 0 degrees y, 0 degrees x
My body instantly stopped.
Adjust speed, 0 degrees x, 19.62 M/S/S y.
With intense calculations and concentration, I torn upwards against gravity and kicked into the airborne monster, pushing off of him and falling to the ground. I fell to my hands and twirled around, kicking a Grimm as I flipped to my feet, slicing it in two with the rose. Speeding up, I tore into a run and sliced straight through several wolves, the others backing away slowly. One leapt forward with a growl, his claws aimed for my head. I passed beneath him with a slide as I pushed off with my hands and did a flip, slicing him in two.
I glanced at the remaining Beowolves, a slight smirk rising to my face. With a deep breath, I snapped my fingers together. Glyphs glowed at various locations around the Grimm, causing them to cower together. The lights of the runes surrounded them, my hands falling to my feet.
Execute
I burst forward with the speed of the glyph, slicing through a Grimm as I hit another glyph, bouncing from it and flying to the right, the Crescent Rose II swinging around my hands as I slicing into the Beowolf, hitting the third rune. My hands reached the trigger and blasted forward, sending me to the right as the wolf in front of me exploded, my back hitting another glowing light. I flipped as my scythe rotated around my hip out of pure momentum, my body flying through the crowd of Grimm and slicing into each black animal.
As I flew towards the next Grimm, I pushed off and flipped into an upside down position, stabbing my scythe into the ground. I felt my shoulders pop as I swung around the blade, redirecting myself to the next glyph. Several heads rolled as my scythe flew through the air, my hands twirling the shaft.
My body bounced faster and faster, devolving to a blur of light in the box of glyphs I had made, my scythe orbiting my hand and slicing into each and every Grimm.
I paused, setting my feet down and letting my scythe stab into the ground, my Aura completely exhausted.
The Grimm behind me slid apart into sliced pieces, each and every animal fading away to dust.Originally published by the Gatestone Institute.
Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.
When a 1,400-year-old Iraqi Christian monastery was destroyed by the Islamic State (ISIS) most of the world condemned the demolition -- except for spokesman for the U.S. military's Operation Inherent Resolve, Col. Steve Warren.
“Thousands [of Iraqi Christians] have been killed, hundreds of thousands have been forced to flee,” noted CNN’s Wolf Blitzer in an interview with Col. Warren last week. “There is legitimate fear – you’re there in Baghdad – that the long history of Christians living peacefully, productively in Iraq, is coming to an end. How worried should we be about the Christian community in Iraq?”
The response: “Wolf, ISIL doesn’t care if you’re a Christian … We’ve seen no specific evidence of a specific targeting towards Christians.”
Wrong: Roughly two-thirds of Iraq’s 1.5 million Christian citizens have been killed or forced to flee the country by ISIS and its jihadi predecessors over the past decade—and this has everything to do with their religious identity.
In Iraq and everywhere else it has conquered, ISIS has, at a minimum, rigorously enforced on pain of death Islam’s dhimmi laws, which require Christians to pay extortion money (jizya) and agree to live by a set of degrading rules.
Often, ISIS fighters skip these formalities and simply torture to death Christians who refuse to convert to Islam, sometimes releasing the footage online for propaganda purposes. Most notable are two videotaped mass executions of 21 Egyptians and 30 Ethiopians in Libya last spring, but there have been many lesser-known cases. When a group of Iraqi Christian children refused to renounce Christ in 2014, saying “No, we love Jesus,” ISIS decapitated and mangled their bodies. Last summer in Aleppo, Syria, ISIS tortured, mutilated, publicly raped, beheaded and crucified 12 Christians for refusing to convert. Escaped eyewitnesses have reported ISIS places Iraqi and Syrian Christians in cages or coffins and sets them on fire.
ISIS has frequently kidnapped Christians and demanded ransom payments for their release, often forcing female captives into sexual slavery. A 12-year-old girl, raped by an Islamic State fighter, was told that “what he was about to do was not a sin” because she “practiced a religion other than Islam.” ISIS has even sent operatives disguised as refugees into U.N. refugee camps in Jordan to kidnap young Christian girls to sell or use as slaves.
The Islamic State is committed to expunging all physical traces of Christianity in areas it conquers, demolishing dozens of ancient churches—in Syria alone, up to 400 churches have been destroyed since the war—not to mention countless crucifixes, statues, graves, and other relics. It ordered the University of Mosul to burn all books written by Christians and decreed that all schools in Mosul and the Nineveh Plain that bore Christian names (some since the 1700s) be changed.
As for the occasion of Warren’s comments—ISIS’ destruction of a 1,400 year-old monastery—this is nothing new. Last summer ISIS set fire to a 1,800 year-old church in Mosul and bulldozed a 1,600 year-old monastery in Homs for “worshipping a God other than Allah.”
In short, Christians are certainly experiencing “specific targeting” by the Islamic State. While ISIS has also killed |
with this big jazz guy, or see people like the Everly Brothers. I remember Phil Everly reading my palm at 2 in the morning. And he was dead on, too.”
In early May of 1968, 18-year-old Little Stevie Wonder was in residency for the week at the Cellar Door, and it was then and there that Danoff met his future wife, Taffy Nivert—who auditioned for his band, Fat City, the next weekend. She joined the group and began making suggestions a few weeks later.
“We just started to fall into a pattern of going back and forth with lyrics,” Nivert said. “I don’t know what the secret is to collaborating, all I know is that it worked.”
Fat City became a duo, recorded an album for ABC in 1969 and started playing at Emergency, a alcohol-free teenage nightclub at 29th and M, where Sageworth was practically the house band.
By his junior year, Egan and his band had moved into a house on 1608 Wisconsin Avenue, dubbed Sageworth House. Linda Ronstadt and her band—including future Eagles Don Henley and Glenn Frey—visited, as did Spirit, Emmylou Harris and Neil Young.
“When you came in the front door,” Zambetti said, “on the left hand side there was a wall of the hallway, and musicians would sign the wall as they came in.”
In addition to Emergency, clubs like the Silver Dollar (located next to Nathan’s) and Apple Pie (across M street from the Cellar Door) made up the Georgetown circuit.
John Denver was a relatively unknown solo act at this time, and had recorded one of Fat City’s songs, “I Guess I’d Rather Be In Colorado,” after hearing them play it one night at JAMF (short for Jive Ass Mother Fuckers, and located where J.Paul’s is now). Since Denver wasn’t much of a local draw, the owners of the Cellar Door booked the locally popular Fat City to open for him in late December of 1970.
On December 29th, Danoff and Nivert returned after the gig to their slum basement apartment on Q Street to swap songs with Denver.
“Country Roads” was one of about 350 songs that Danoff and Nivert had written by that point. The song came to Danoff while he and Nivert drove along Clopper Road in Montgomery Country, Maryland.
“The joke at the time was nothing rhymes with Maryland,” Nivert said. “West Virginia seemed slightly more lyrical perhaps, and we knew a guy who had moved to a commune up there.”
Lacking only lyrics for the bridge, they played it for Denver. “John just flipped,” Danoff recalled. They stayed up and worked on the song throughout the night, looking up West Virginia—which Danoff had never visited—in whatever reference material was handy to find details to put in the song. The next night, Danoff and Nivert joined Denver on stage to debut the song at the end of his set, getting a standing ovation. The same thing happened the following night.
On New Years Eve 1970, his birthday, Denver joined his good friend Paul Meek, the coordinator of the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, at a Georgetown restaurant and told him, “I’m on my way.” Denver recorded the song with Fat City, and it quickly went to number 1, becoming his signature song.
…
By early 1971, Emmylou Harris had considered leaving the music business, but according to Meek, Danoff and Nivert managed to convince her otherwise and got her a gig at Clyde’s Restaaurant. Sageworth, Egan’s band, continued to play around D.C. after graduation, opening for acts such as the Allman Brothers, Jefferson Airplane, Poco and the Grateful Dead.
Chris Hillman saw Harris sing at Clyde’s and told Gram Parsons, who had left the Flying Burrito Brothers and was looking for an accompanying female vocalist. “The first time they sang together was in my kitchen,” Egan said. “And I was pretty much the only one there … they sang ‘That’s All it Took’.”
Courtesy WALTER EGAN
Shortly thereafter, Egan wrote his first country song, “Hearts on Fire.” Parsons recorded the song with Emmylou Harris on his final album, just before his death from a drug overdose made him a music legend.
Sageworth moved to Boston in 1972, hoping to find steady gigs in New England college towns, but broke up when they were unable to secure a record deal. With his credit for “Hearts on Fire,” Egan thought about pursuing a solo career.
Chris Darrow—a member of influential underground sixties bands like Kaleidoscope, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and the Corvettes—had met Egan in D.C. while playing with Rondstadt, and encouraged Egan to come to California. In Boston, Egan auditioned for Linda Ronstadt’s band without success, and sent a letter to the Eagles asking to hold open the vacancy left by Bernie Leadon.
When he arrived in California, the Eagles told him to “just stick it out, persevere, that’s the key, you’ll make it.” Egan was simply happy to be where all the music he loved came from.
“It was the promised land to him,” Darrow said.
…
The money—and success—from “Take Me Home, Country Roads” took its time to arrive. Danoff has a picture of Nivert bailing out their apartment after a big rainstorm, holding a trade magazine showing “Country Roads” at number 1, though they still hadn’t seen a penny. But Denver soon gave their careers a boost when he took them on tour to open for him and sing “Country Roads.”
Courtesy BILL DANOFF
After two albums as Fat City, Danoff and Nivert recorded two albums under their first names for RCA that went nowhere. But they made a big impression on Robert Altman, the Academy Award-winning director of MA*SH, at the afterparty for a show at Carnegie Hall, thrown by their agent, Jerry Weintraub. They met with Altman, who wanted to make a movie about Nashville but didn’t know anything about country music. Altman introduced the pair to screenwriter Joan Tewkesbury, and sent them with her to Nashville for research. They used their “credentials as the folks who wrote ‘Country Roads’ to call on some people, check out the country music hall of fame, go to [the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers]offices, check out some clubs,” according to Danoff. Tewkesbury kept a journal of the trip, chronicling their adventures for what became Nashville, one of Altman’s most critically acclaimed films.
After returning, Danoff and Nivert “didn’t take gigs because we were going to be in the movie,” even though they had insisted throughout that they were not actors. But their roles of Bill and Mary—married songwriters and members of a folk trio inspired in part by Peter, Paul and Mary—had been cast, and they never heard from Altman again.
RCA decided that Danoff and Nivert should record a few singles before the company would commit to another full album. Soon after, Danoff walked into a music store for strings, and came out with an inexpensive 12 string guitar, which inspired him to write a batch of new songs—one of which became “Afternoon Delight,” its title inspired by the appetizer menu at Clyde’s.
Danoff decided that the song needed more voices than just his and Nivert’s, and asked Jon Carroll and Margot Chapman to sing with them.
Courtesy BILL DANOFF
“[It] was a perfect blend,” and Bill asked if they wanted to join the group, Nivert said. “We knew our strength was not actually in vocalizing, but in songwriting.”
Starland Vocal Band recorded “Afternoon Delight,” which became an indelible part of the summer of 1976, reaching the top of the charts on July 10th. “Once you finish the song and finish your record, everything in the universe is out of your control,” Nivert said. Their label promoted the song heavily, booking Starland as the opener for John Denver and setting up radio interviews.
Their success led to the creation of a summer replacement series on CBS, the “Starland Variety Show”—a retread of the tired slapstick comedy meets musicians formula. It was David Letterman’s first entertainment job, and one episode was filmed in Georgetown; the band performed in Dahlgren Quad. Danoff made sure Clyde’s got a gold record, which now hangs on the wall of the Atrium—once the alley where they would smoke.
…
California agreed with Egan, whose hair became increasingly feathered as the decade progressed. While touring England with Darrow, Egan met a talent scout named Andrew Lauder, who later saw him play with his band Wheels at the Troubadour in February of 1976. He offered Egan (but not the band) a deal for six songs on United Artists UK; with this deal in hand, Egan went to Columbia, who then offered him an album deal. The only remaining obstacle was finding a producer.
Courtesy WALTER EGAN
Egan’s first choices—John Fogerty and Brian Wilson—were unavailable, but he found that he had a lot in common with his final choices, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mac.
“I always loved the interplay between male and female voices,” Egan said.
On the way home from recording “Tunnel o’ Love” for his first album, Egan was behind a Lincoln Continental with a diamond window and neon lights, and a license plate reading “not shy.” Like Danoff, Egan took to the found idea, which inspired the title of his next album and the chorus of his biggest hit: “With you I’m not shy.”
“‘Magnet and Steel’ was very much tongue out of cheek,” Egan said. “That was when I was madly in love with Stevie Nicks.”
“To me, the high water mark of my whole career in those days was September when ‘Magnet and Steel’ was riding high in the charts,” Egan said. “I felt like this is where it should all go … of course it didn’t work out that way, but … ”
…
On February 22nd, 2008, a lonely pair of snowy footsteps were tracked through the lobby to the lower level of the Davis Performing Arts Center. The clicks and winding of a disposable camera led to Egan—now white haired—documenting his exhibit of paintings and prints.
Courtesy BILL DANOFF
“Basically this is a culmination of a life spent in creativity,” Egan said “I’ve tried to be an artist in whatever I do.” Since his commercial heyday, he has continued writing—songs, an unpublished book (Top 10, a thinly veiled autobiography) and an unoptioned screenplay called College Radio ’68. Egan released two more albums before being dropped by Columbia, but continued to play intermittently with the Malibooz (which reformed in 1981), and with Sageworth for college reunions. He also toured with Spirit in the eighties, his own bands the Brooklyn Cowboys and the Walternative band in the nineties. He’s been with Burrito Deluxe—the latest incarnation of the Flying Burrito Brothers—since 2006.
And he has become a four letter word, an answer in crossword puzzles for the New York Times and T.V. Guide.
“I’m really lucky that ‘Magnet and Steel’ did what it did, I’m really lucky that Hearts on Fire got covered by Gram Parsons,” said Egan. “I wish I didn’t have to supplement my income doing substitute teaching and whatever else I have to do.”
Radio stations that played “Magnet and Steel” after its March release moved on to another track off the album, “Hot Summer Nights,” by the summer. When “Magnet and Steel” peaked in September at number 8 on the Billboard Hot 100, Columbia released “Hot Summer Nights” officially as a single, but those radio stations had already moved on.
“It was misfired, mistimed,” Egan said. “It got to the mid 50s, and it was disappointing for everybody.”
Zambetti has known Egan since he visited his house in Forest Hills, New York, in high school.
“It didn’t matter if [he lived in]a dorm room in Copley or in a multi-million dollar mansion in Beverly Hills,” Zambetti said. “He’s been exactly the same, all the way through. He is a true artist. All the other stuff can either
be there or not be there, it doesn’t really matter that much to him.”
“It’s so beyond our wildest dreams how things turned out,” Zambetti said. “I remember out in L.A. in 1976, Walt had a publicity picture taken for Columbia. And as a joke, he signed it ‘Top 10 in ’76.’ Of course, two years later, it actually happened.”
“It’s bittersweet after it goes along,” Egan said. “And I got married after all that, so she always felt like why isn’t this happening now for you?”
…
Starland Vocal Band became infamous as a one-hit wonder, though if they had two they wouldn’t have been eligible for the one-hit wonder wall in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Starland released a string of disappointing albums, and the eighties found Danoff and Nivert separated and then divorced. Danoff wrote a play and a musical, neither of which were ever produced.
“There are just too many factors, too many reasons why we didn’t sustain,” Nivert said. “I don’t have a story to go along with why we were a one-hit wonder. Shit happens, and along with that goes, sometimes shit doesn’t happen.”
During those lean years, Danoff became disillusioned with pop music and stopped listening to the radio.
“Some people can go 25 years and never get a hit, or it takes them that long to get something happening,” Danoff said. “With me it was sort of the opposite, which is fine with me.
“All the things that have to happen to have a hit are really incredible. They all have to line up correctly. And without any of the particular things it doesn’t happen. It’s some sort of cosmic destiny when you actually have something that comes out like that.”
…
The director of Georgetown’s fledgling music program, Dr. Anna Celenza, introduced herself to both Danoff and Egan after their performances at the Georgetown Entertainment and Media Alliance’s first annual show at the Orpheum Theater in New York City. She was impressed by their stories and experience, and floated the idea of teaching to both of them. Danoff came to Georgetown last fall to teach songwriting.
Danoff had his students write four songs for the course, after spending the semester analyzing songs to discover what they enjoyed.
“One of the first things I told them is ‘I can’t think of any great songwriter or performer who took a class on how to write a song,’” Danoff said. “They just did it. That was the underlying assumption of the class, sort of a zen approach.”
Egan teaches a seminar on the music industry, which is a natural fit for him “He’s played a lot of roles, put together his own bands, songwriting, so it’s perfect fit for a music industry class,” Dr. Celenza said.
“The way that I structured this course is my point of view of the music business, which started from the songs,” Egan said. The 16 students in the class have formed four bands, which will be performing a concert on April 25th. “Not everyone in the class wants to be that performer. There are a couple who want to be managers and promoters, so they’re gonna promote the show.” The class also features many guest speakers, since the business has changed significantly since Egan’s most extensive involvement with the industry. Its atmosphere is laid-back and pretty loose, not unusual considering its late afternoon time on Fridays.
“It’s kinda like School of Rock, you know, like the movie,” Rich Webster (MSB ’11) said. The dynamic encourages a certain amount of goofing off—members of one band sitting across the room from one another discussed ‘90s rock while Egan attempted to explain the plan for the rest of the semester.
“I know few people in this country that are better rock and roll historians, with encyclopedic knowledge,” said Annie McCloone. “He’s got passion for it. I don’t think you can find any better person with more passion, more knowledge … on his pedagogy, I’ll reserve judgment.”
…
“I’d like to think that I can still try to find a way to replicate that success of writing a song [like Afternoon Delight],” Danoff said, a sentiment echoed by both Egan and Darrow.
“I remember people would say … ‘What if you never do that again, what if the songs aren’t hits?’ I don’t have time to think like that. So I never had a plan B. And I still don’t.”
Bill Danoff will be performing a free concert for Friday Music in McNeir auditorium on March 14th at 1:15 P.M. Walter Egan will be performing a free concert for Friday Music in McNeir auditorium on April 4th at 1:15 P.M. Walter Egan’s art will be exhibited until the end of April on the lower level of the Davis Performing Arts Center.Media playback is not supported on this device David Jeffrey spoke to BBC Sport NI's Thomas Niblock on BBC Newsline
David Jeffrey is the new manager of Ballymena United and has signed a three-year contract with the Sky Blues.
The former Linfield boss held preliminary talks with club officials last week and was appointed following further discussions on Monday.
Jeffrey, 53, told BBC Sport NI it was "a very easy decision to make".
He succeeds Glenn Ferguson, who was sacked last week, and takes charge for the first time in Saturday's league game against Crusaders at Seaview.
Jeffrey left Linfield at the end of the 2013-14 season after a 17-year managerial tenure which yielded a remarkable haul of 31 trophies.
He will again link up with Brian McLoughlin, his assistant during a stellar managerial career at Windsor Park, who now departs his role as first team coach at Glenavon.
Media playback is not supported on this device David Jeffrey targets Showgrounds success
Jeffrey claimed the interest from Ballymena, who sacked Glenn Ferguson after a run of five straight league defeats, was "very much out of the blue".
"At no time was I planning to come back in, I hadn't targeted anything, I wasn't looking at any particular club.
"At the beginning of this process, it was very much informal talks. I wanted to see what the club's plans were, what vision they had, and I took time to consider and reflect upon it.
"I thought it was a fresh challenge and after nearly two years out, maybe it was about time to get back in again."
Ballymena sit ninth in the Premiership table, just five points above in-form basement club Warrenpoint Town.
David Jeffrey Fact File Born October 1962
Spent three years at Manchester United 1979-82
Played for Linfield 1982-92
Finished playing career at Ards and Larne
Managed Linfield 1997-2014 winning 31 trophies
Jeffrey, so used to a winning environment at Linfield, insisted the club can expect "110 per cent commitment" from him but refused to make any rash predictions about transforming the side into title contenders.
"I know where I'd like to go with the club and the club know where they'd like to go," he said.
"Hopefully we will get there together."
Meanwhile Portadown's all-time leading goalscorer Vinny Arkins has offered to help the club in the wake of long-serving manager Ronnie McFall's resignation on Saturday after his side lost 3-2 to Lurgan Celtic in the Irish Cup.
McFall was Europe's longest-serving manager, having been at the helm at Shamrock Park for more than 29 years.Nick Percat and Macauley Jones will race under the colours of Boost Mobile for this weekend’s Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000.
The #8 Brad Jones Racing entry will adopt a special one-off silver and metallic orange livery for the Mount Panorama classic.
Boost Mobile becomes the latest in a line of firms to provide primary backing for the Percat Commodore this year.
The telecommunications carrier has been the title sponsor of James Courtney’s Mobil 1 HSV Racing Commodore, which will run under a similar livery to Percat and Jones this weekend.
Percat and Jones head to Bathurst after a difficult Sandown 500 which resulted in a 23rd place finish, having been hampered by a mystery vibration.
Bathurst has proved a happy hunting ground for Percat, who tasted victory on debut in 2011 alongside Garth Tander.
The South Australian finished third in 2014 before repeating the feat last year for Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport.
“It’s an exciting time for the team at Boost Mobile because you’ll see JC (James Courtney) in his Boost Mobile livery, and ours. Even though we’re competing against each other, I know we both want to be on top of the podium,” said Percat.
“Our fans are always eager to see what we come up with next, and I think everyone will be pretty excited to see this metallic Boost Mobile Commodore on track.
“Bathurst is every drivers’ favourite track.
“Anyone that knows Brad Jones and this team, knows that a Bathurst win would mean absolutely everything.
“Everyone there works incredibly hard, and after the tough year they have had, it would be fantastic to get the Boost Mobile Commodore on the podium and spray some champagne.”
The pair will begin their Bathurst 1000 campaign on Thursday when opening practice begins at 0945 local time.Spread the love
Longview, Texas- In a video posted to YouTube this past Saturday, alleged Anonymous member AnonSec 101, announced #OpSLFOC (Stop Lethal Force on Children) in response to the recent killing of teenager Kristiana Coignard by Longview police.
The city of Longview confirmed Monday it had been targeted by hackers, according to the Longview News-Journal.
“We are aware that we were targeted. … We have taken appropriate steps,” city spokesman Shawn Hara said. “One thing that they targeted was the website.”
The shooting of Coignard, who was killed by officers after entering the police station lobby and allegedly threatening officers with a knife, once again raises the question of why there is a nationwide epidemic of police on citizen violence/killing.
According to Think Progress, Coignard lived with her Aunt, Heather Robertson, in Longview.
Robertson said that her niece had been struggling with mental illness, including depression and bipolar disorder, since her mother died when she was four. She had been hospitalized twice in recent years after suicide attempts. One time, she tried to hang herself. Another time, she drank toilet bowl cleaner. Since arriving in Longview in December, Coignard had been taking medication and regularly seeing a therapist. She had no criminal record and “was only violent with herself, ” Robertson said.
Why are non-lethal options not being utilized when dealing with someone of the physicality of a petite 17-year-old girl?
While cops often claim the reason for deadly force is fear for their own life, the numbers indicate it’s much more dangerous to be a citizen than a cop.
So far this year, roughly 78 citizens have been killed by cops, while zero officers have been killed in the line of duty.
The statement from attributed to Anonymous reads:
“Greetings World. We are Anonymous. It has been brought to our attention that the lethal force of firearms by police is being used on our children in America. We will no longer stand for this. In longview, Texas, Kristiana Cognard, was shot and killed on January 22nd by police for pulling a knife and threatening officers. We ask you, Longview police department, are you happy with the choice of actions taken by your officer? We ask you, what kind of people you hire as police officers that can’t take a knife from a small 17-year-old girl? We ask you, why are your officers carrying tazors if they will only reach for their guns first? A firefighter will endanger their life and enter a burning building for the POSSIBILITY of saving a life, a lifeguard will risk drowning for the possibility to save a life. But a COP will kill you, OR even a 10 year old child, because you POSSIBLY could have caused them harm. To the citizens of America, it looks as if police are trained to kill and not to serve and protect us. Police are trained to not trust anyone they approach, so why do you believe we should trust the police officers? In 2014, we watched as police killed children and it started a army of angry Americans. This teen girl’s death just put fuel on that fire, and also of Anonymous around the world. This is only the beginning of what is to come from Anonymous. If we don’t protect the children no one will. We are Anonymous. We are legion. United as one. Divided by zero. Expect us.”
It’s hard to imagine that the only option Longview police department had was to shoot and kill Kristiana.
Police killing of citizens, often times mentally ill or unarmed, is reaching disturbing proportions and needs to be seriously addressed as the problem is systemic.
The reality is that America is in the grip of a grave public health crisis.
Jay Syrmopoulos is an investigative journalist, freethinker, researcher, and ardent opponent of authoritarianism. He is currently a graduate student at University of Denver pursuing a masters in Global Affairs. Jay’s work has previously been published on BenSwann.com and WeAreChange.org. You can follow him on Twitter @sirmetropolis, on Facebook at Sir Metropolis and now on tsu.Sacramento Republic FC return home this Saturday to face the Seattle Sounders FC 2 for the third time this season. Coming off a 1-1 draw against Arizona United SC last week, the Republic look to gain some ground in the standings against a struggling Sounders 2 team that only have three wins on the season.
The Sounders 2 are having a disappointing season and have failed to score against the Republic in their previous two matches. Currently tied for last in the Western Conference in goals scored with 13, the Sounders 2 will be itching to find the back of the net and get back to winning. The Republic have a great opportunity to gain three points this weekend and extend their unbeaten streak to nine games in a row.
To keep their unbeaten streak alive, the Republic will need to focus on the following keys to success:
Improve the Finish
The Republic have been improving on offense lately, with forward Cameron Iwasa has leading the way as Sacramento’s top scorer. Iwasa has five goals on the season and he threatened to add more with an impressive showing against Arizona last week. The Republic had trouble finishing when they had the ball inside Arizona’s penalty box and should have scored at least two more goals.
The first opportunity for a goal came from Iwasa when he was left alone in the penalty box without the opposing goalkeeper in the 41st minute. Iwasa one-touched the ball but it was headed off the line by Arizona forward Tyler Blackwood. In the second half, defender Emrah Klimenta sent a low cross into the box only to have Mackenzie Pridaham and Octavio Guzman take a combined three shots on goal which resulted in zero actual goals.
The Republic have been excellent at crossing the ball into the box lately but will need to improve the finishing to put teams away. Against one of the worst defenses in the league, the Republic have an opportunity to finish strong.
Maintain the Defensive Status Quo
Paul Buckle has ingrained his philosophy of establishing a strong defense into the Republic’s psyche, which has led to the team's continued defensive dominance of the league. The Republic have done well at making it a struggle for opponents to find the back of the net and have been rewarded with a Western Conference best 10 goals allowed. The Sounders 2 come to town with the worst offense in the Western Conference and the Republic’s defense will need to continue their defensive dominance, something which the back line should be able to handle.
Avoid the Trap
Although the Republic should be able to handle the Sounders 2 this Saturday, sometimes teams can overlook an opponent and fall victim to a trap game. The Sounders 2 may only have three wins this season but two of those wins came against the top two teams in the Western Conference. Although they are one of the worst teams in the league on paper, the Sounders 2 are dangerous and can play with the top teams in the conference.
To avoid the trap game, the Republic will have to respect their opponent and play extremely hard. Thankfully, I have yet to see the Republic not take a match seriously this season and I don’t expect a Buckle-coached team to take it easy.
Please let us know what you think are the keys to success this week in the comments below.It looks like Wednesday's SOPA Blackout Day should be considered a success: Reuters is reporting that the Stop Online Piracy Act has been withdrawn by its chief sponsor, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith. This comes only hours after Senator Harry Reid announced that next Tuesday's scheduled vote on the Protect IP Act (PIPA) was going to be postponed. While the SOPA bill is off the table for now, there's no indication that it's being completely abandoned — Smith told Reuters that he's pulling the measure "until there is wider agreement on a solution," and also said that he has heard the critics loud and clear and is taking their concerns seriously.
Since the proponents of SOPA and PIPA have indicated that they're still very interested in pushing through an anti-piracy bill in some form, the latest moves indicate more of a holding pattern than a final resolution. We will closely monitor the situation as Congress mulls new legislation that's more likely to have a chance at passing a vote.
T.C. Sottek contributed to this report.Lupus: Australian scientists identify genetic cause of disease in 10yo girl
Updated
Scientists from the Australian National University (ANU) have been able to identify the genetic cause of lupus in a specific individual for the first time.
ANU lead researcher, Dr Julia Ellyard, said scientists have used personalised medicine to identify the cause of the autoimmune disease in a 10-year-old girl.
Lupus causes various tissues in the body to become inflamed, swollen and painful.
The disease can affect the skin and joints of a patient, but can also target major organs.
While it has been previously known that there are genetic causes for the disease, it is not known what triggers lupus.
It may be triggered by injury, illness or a period of stress.
"Using DNA sequencing, the approach we've taken, we've been able to identify the specific cause of this child's disease," Dr Ellyard told 666 ABC Canberra.
"[It is an] increased amount of a particular molecule, called interferon-alpha, being produced."
Dr Ellyard said while any treatment would target the girl's specific condition, it could lead to new ways of treating other people with lupus.
"We're hoping that now this girl can have specialised treatment using anti-interferon therapies, which are currently in clinical trials," she said.
"Now we are able to tailor treatment for her disease."
There are several varieties of lupus, which range from potentially life-threatening, to mild and treatable.
"Lupus is what we like to call a 'grab bag' disease, the spectrum is quite wide, and people can have very different symptoms," said Dr Ellyard.
One in 700 people in Australia suffer from lupus.
Topics: science-and-technology, health, medical-research, australia, act, canberra-2600, australian-national-university-0200
First postedThursday, May 22, 1980
4 PM. Yesterday’s good mood carried into today. Last night I saw Back Wards to Back Streets and I thought I looked like a fat idiot. I’ve got to lose some weight. Maybe at MacDowell. And maybe I’ll grow a beard there, too.
My parents called after the show; they said that Marc and Rikki came over to watch me and that Grandma Sylvia was excited to see me. Marty and Arlyne, also in Florida at Arlyne’s mother’s – Grandpa Herb and Grandma Ethel are in Oceanside watching Jeffrey – were flicking around the TV dial and were stunned to see me on the tube.
Soon after the program ended, Josh called and said I looked “nervous as hell.” That’s Josh for you. Since it was about the twentieth take on the show, I had nothing to be nervous about, just tired.
I spoke to Mikey and we made plans to meet at the beach this weekend. A guy whose Voice ad I answered called me at 11 PM. His name’s Joseph Silver, he’s a writer for The Soho Weekly News, and he sounds pretty nice. He’s very busy next week, so I said I’d call him when I return from MacDowell.
This morning I took my SVA class out to breakfast at McDonald’s. We had a lot of fun. They were a nice group of kids and I enjoyed the year (nine months, anyway) I spent with them. I got to know some of them – Laurel,
Daryl, Liza, Dean – pretty well, and I will miss them. It was sad to see them go.
I walked down Park Avenue South the few blocks to the Taplinger offices to say hello. Mary is very sweet and always has a nice word for me.
She said that they’re awaiting the return of the fall catalog from the printers; then they’ll have a sales conference, the ABA convention in Chicago, and the ALA in New York. After June, things will slack off.
Mary showed me a great cover Jim designed for Elaine Suss’s A Money Marriage, the book Wes was editing last summer. Jim and Beth are now on their honeymoon.
At the Junction, I had a quiche at Circles Café, then came home to lie on the beach for an hour; it’s great to live right on the boardwalk this time of year.
I was rejected for jobs at Queens College, Wesleyan and Brevard Community College.
Thank goodness for MacDowell: I got accepted somewhere. Funny: Joan Schenker at SVA told me that on Tuesday she was also asked to go up to MacDowell, but she couldn’t make it, and apparently I got the spot she was offered first.
Sunday, May 25, 1980
7 PM. Today wasn’t such a bad day, either. I’ve just come back from dinner at the Ram’s Horn; with all the holiday business, the place was a madhouse.
I feel a bit uncomfortable walking in this neighborhood – just now and last night at 11 PM, when I went to get the newspaper. There are a lot of Irish toughs who hang out on the boardwalk, and I’m a little afraid of them. Not that I really fear physical violence: most of them seem fairly harmless.
What it is, is a throwback to my very young years. I’m afraid of being harassed or ridiculed – maybe because I’m Jewish and maybe because I’m effeminate, though I can’t tell if I appear to be either of those things. (The other day on the boardwalk, someone waved to me and said, “Hi, Seamus.”)
God knows why it should matter to me what some street punks think. They’re going nowhere, have menial jobs, and live with their parents, while I have been a writer and a college teacher for five years and live on my own.
A lot of it stems from my refusal to see myself as an important, responsible adult. Both the Irish kids and the old people in my building don’t know my credentials, so unlike my students or my friends, they see me as just a kid.
I’m not exactly the sissy kid or the bookworm – half the time I actually liked to fight – but I often still feel that way. It will be interesting to see how I react to the way I’m treated at MacDowell.
Last night I prepared my manuscript for the CAPS application – yes, I’ll try to get a grant this year – and read the Sunday Times, answering five ads for teaching jobs. I slept fitfully but tried not to stay in bed all morning.
At 11 AM, I put my laundry in the washing machine and then walked to Ark Drugs, using Dad’s visa card to buy $35 worth of supplies I’ll have to take to MacDowell.
Back home, I transferred my laundry to the dryer and cleared up some loose ends. I’d like to have a clean desk before I go to New Hampshire. I marked the SVA term papers and gave out final grades, although I don’t have to hand them in until Friday.
After lunch, I went out on the beach, but only for an hour because the sun was strong and I don’t want to carry this tanning business to a ridiculous (and dangerous) extreme.
Back upstairs, I began to sift through the research material The People’s Almanac gave me. Edward Stratemeyer was an interesting man: not as a person, but because of the remarkable determination and business sense he had as a writer and head of his own writing syndicate.
How did Stratemeyer turn out so many series books? I bet I could get a full-blown biography out of this if I wanted to.
Reading about Tom Swift, the Rover Boys, the Bobbsey Twins, the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew and other heroes gave me an idea for a parody of those books. It’s only the germ of an idea so far, but I’m sure that eventually it will get written.
On the boardwalk I saw Steve Katz from the old Brooklyn College days; although he’s changed, I recognized him immediately. He and Paula are visiting his parents.
Steve got his Ph.D. in biostatistics from North Carolina and is now working for the government and living in Silver Spring, Maryland; he starts a teaching job at GWU in the fall.
Steve had heard that I’d “written a book about Brooklyn College,” and I didn’t correct his impression that I was doing well as an author.
We played “Whatever happened to...?” and I learned that Casey and Sharon got married again (to each other!) and had a baby, that Leon is living with Donald in San Francisco, that Bob and Estelle are parents.
Steve and I hadn’t seen each other in seven years; I can |
36.9. However, he played well in coverage as he was targeted three times, allowing one receptioin for only two yards which led to a grade of 88.3 in that department.
DI David Irving, 77.3 overall grade
David Irving was the Cowboys only real threat rushing the passer Sunday night as he recorded three total pressures and a batted pass which led to a pass-rush grade of 82.7. Irving was the lone Cowboy to record a grade above 80.0 rushing the passer as the front four failed to record a sack.
PFF Game Ball: Patrick Robinson, CB
*Grades are subject to change upon reviewBy Christopher Cudworth
Here in the Chicago area the Jackie Robinson West Little League team inspired the city with its victory in the US championships and took second place overall in the Little League World Series. The performance of those middle-school aged kids and their personalities was truly inspiring.
But you don’t have to win the national championships to give inspiration to others.
Running buds
Yesterday evening I rode over to Rotolo Middle School here in Batavia, Illinois to watch my backdoor neighbor Beau Cunningham compete in his first cross country meet of the year. He’s now in 8th grade, but everyone who knows him jokes that he’s 13 going on 30. He’s a fun-loving kid with a serious mind.
I’ve known him since he was born, have babysat for him on a number of occasions and watched him grow his lawn-mowing business into an actual enterprise with nearly a dozen customers and a nice shiny riding mower. Frankly we were glad he finally traded in the smoke-blowing Montgomery Ward monster that sounded like a military vehicle on some occasions.
For a thirteen year old kid, Beau is very much his own man. That is not to say he is not subject to the same vagaries as other 13 year old young men. He’d be the first one to tell me that no one is perfect. We talk at times about life and work and play and always he’s up for a chuckle about the foibles of being human.
And to that end, we’ve shared quite a few conversations about what it’s like to be a runner. He’s following in the footsteps of his older brother Alec who just graduated from high school and is headed to DePaul. The Batavia cross country team made it downstate last year for the first time in its history. No small feat in the competitive Chicago region.
Beau has been running for a couple years with the Accelerators Running Club, a local organization that gets kids involved in running. The coach has a great attitude about involvement and is encouraging without being pushy.
Called to run again
In fact Beau is the one that encouraged me to come run at a summer cross country meet a few years back. I had not raced in several years and it felt great to race on the grass in a park where I’d done training years ago. I finished three miles in exactly 21:00 and the spark to compete again was re-lit. That day I had wound up running the last mile with a young woman that had passed me in the first mile. When I caught up I told her, “Run with me, then kick it in at the end.” She did just that, sprinting the last 200 meters. That inspired me too.
So it was fun to cycle over to the middle school and watch the boys and girls race a two mile course. The open fields of the middle school are perfect for parents to see their kids in action. The well-designed course has some short climbs on it to make things interesting.
The race is on
When the girls race commenced two young women took it out fast. The runner from Yorkville has a quick stride and took the lead. She was followed in the first mile by Megan Ronzone, whose smooth stride belies her age. She’s an 8th grader but runs with the maturity and form of a much older runner.
For the first 1.5 miles the Yorkville girl held the lead by 10 yards. Somewhere in the Back 40, out of sight from the crowd, Megan made her move and strode home for the victory.
The Yorkville girl finished strong, just 30 yards back. She walked with eyes gleaming and furiously engaged in a review of her race.
The glint of competition was still sparking off her sweat brow and her breathing wheezed a bit in the humidity. She was the picture of
determination. Every man and woman who ever competed in a race could draw lessons from the look on her face.
Megan cooled down and met back up with her mother Liz, who chuckled that she was just about as sweaty as her
daughter from traipsing around to cheer her on. The two paused for a picture in the late summer sunshine. One could only imagine how many more photos there will be of the triumphant daughter with obvious talent and the mother who clearly appreciates the opportunity for her daughter to shine.
But it’s not just the “winners” at a middle school cross country meet that count. Every child out there running got equal cheers it seemed. The importance of such physical activity is so clear these days. There is triumph in every footstep.
My friend Beau did well in his race, which featured a brisk early gallop down the starting hill. The race centrifuged quite quickly and it was up to every kid to make up his mind on his own how fast to go.
Some bounded up the short hill near the center of the course with a burst of determination only a middle school kid could muster.
These programs have pumped new athletes into the high school program where the freshman class of cross country runners is bigger than ever. There is perhaps no purer sport on the face of the planet, and its participants often achieve good grades because the discipline involved in running is effectively transferred to the classroom. Persistence. Perseverance. Creativity. All those traits help you excel in running. They also help you study and learn.
Plus there’s no more loneliness of the long distance runner to worry about. Kids who run are no longer the outcasts or the skinny geeks or nerds. They are runners, plain and simple. There’s much to admire about that, and be inspired.
Note: A reader of this blog Nancy Mansfield pointed out the following: “Hi Chris Just FYI~the RMS cross country team went to state the last two years. Erika was on both teams. Last year was the first time that both the girls and boys teams placed 2nd at state.James Stanley
Every cryptocurrency is over-valued relative to Bitcoin
Sun 27 August 2017
UPDATE: Just realised my maths is off. I posted this prematurely and the conclusion is actually wrong: not every cryptocurrency is over-valued relative to Bitcoin. The updated version of this article is available here.
I did a little analysis this evening to try to find cryptocurrencies that are under-valued relative to Bitcoin, based on Google Trends data, with the intention of buying whatever is under-valued and waiting for it to go up. But I found that all of the top cryptocurrencies listed on coinmarketcap.com are in fact over-valued.
The hypothesis here is that if the Google Trends score for "buy ethereum" is 50% of the score for "buy bitcoin" (i.e. about 50% as many people are looking to buy Ethereum as are looking to buy Bitcoin), then the Ethereum market cap should be approximately 50% that of Bitcoin. If the market cap is too low then it is under-valued and I should buy some Ethereum.
Unfortunately, I didn't find a single cryptocurrency that is under-valued based on this hypothesis. We'd be looking for a cryptocurrency with a "market cap over-valued factor" of less than 1, i.e. under-valued. Here's a table of my data:
Coin Google Trends score Score relative to Bitcoin Market cap Market cap relative to Bitcoin Market cap over-valued factor Bitcoin 75 1.00 $71,700,000,000 1.00 1.00 Ethereum 15 0.20 $32,000,000,000 0.45 5.00 Bitcoin Cash 8 0.11 $10,200,000,000 0.14 9.38 Ripple 14 0.19 $7,820,000,000 0.11 5.36 Litecoin 4 0.053 $3,300,000,000 0.046 18.8 Dash 5 0.067 $2,730,000,000 0.038 15.0 IOTA 4 0.053 $2,550,000,000 0.036 18.8 Monero 2 0.027 $1,970,000,000 0.027 37.5 Ethereum Classic 0 0.00 $1,520,000,000 0.021 ∞ ZCash 0 0.00 $568,000,000 0.0079 ∞
I also tried looking at Google Trends for just "bitcoin", "ethereum", etc. (instead of "buy bitcoin", "buy ethereum", etc.) but it just came up with an even higher "market cap over-valued factor" for each coin.
Either fair market cap of a cryptocurrency is not a linear function of Google Trends results, or every cryptocurrency except Bitcoin is over-valued relative to Bitcoin.
I intend to re-run this analysis periodically in case it throws up anything interesting. Although I admit it is likely that by the time the public at large are sufficiently interested in a cryptocurrency to start Googling about buying it, there will probably be much earlier and stronger indicators that it is about to increase in value.TonidoPlug is a tiny, low power, low cost home and small-business server that allows you to access your applications, files, photos, music and media from anywhere via a web browser or mobile applications. You can effortlessly access and share your TonidoPlug's files through native iPhone, iPad, Android, Blackberry or Windows 7 mobile apps.
TonidoPlug comes pre-installed with powerful Tonido Applications - Explorer, WebsharePro, Search and more - all running on top of embedded Linux OS. Additionally, TonidoPlug can be extended by installing new thirdparty applications from the Tonido App store.
Applications and data are always local with the TonidoPlug. Your data and applications are available even if there is no internet connection available to your TonidoPlug and your plug continues to work.
When an external USB hard drive or internal SATA drive is connected, TonidoPlug2 converts it to a NAS storage accessible from Windows/Mac/Linux computers in the local network.
When you are outside your local network, you can still mount TonidoPlug folders as local drives using free TonidoDrive software (for Windows) or by using WebDAV for drag-and-drop download and upload support.
You can even stream media to some UPnP/DLNA compliant devices like the XBOX 360 or PlayStation 3 (Beta).
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Press Reviews
Linux Wall Wart Works Wonderfully - Linux Planet
Linux Wall Wart Works Wonderfully - Linux Planet
A cloud in a plug - brilliant - ZDNet
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SERVE YOURSELF - Linux Magazine
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SPECIFICATIONS
Dimensions (L*W*D): 5.5"* 3" * 1"
5.5"* 3" * 1" Power Requirements: 100-240V, 50/60HZ
100-240V, 50/60HZ Memory: 512 MB of DDR3
512 MB of DDR3 Storage: 512 MB of Flash
Network: Gigabit Ethernet, WiFi b/g/n
Gigabit Ethernet, WiFi b/g/n Interface: USB 2.0
USB 2.0 Internal HDD Bay: 2.5 inch SATA (9.5mm)
2.5 inch SATA (9.5mm) Browsers: IE, Firefox and Safari
PACKAGE CONTENTS
TonidoPlug2
Ethernet RJ45 Cable
AC Power Cord
Quick Start GuideIt is done! My husband’s finest knife to date!
This beauty is called Indian Summer. Max was commissioned to design this knife for actor/singer/comedian, Brent Spiner (Star Trek: The Next Generation, Fresh Hell). The project was labor intensive and took nearly nine months to complete during Max’s spare time, often after a 110 mile daily work commute. I watched in awe as he developed new skills during the project and I learned a few new Russian curse words along the way.
The custom patterned Damascus steel used for the project was designed by Bob Eggerling. Max painstakingly cut out the form of the blade, smoothed it by hand, and heat treated it right in our kitchen oven to bring out the gorgeous mosaic pattern. The handle is made of mammoth ivory accented with mother of pearl inserts on both sides. The bead on the hand braided leather lanyard was made from a glass combination Max fused together through lampworking.
One of the things Max had the hardest time with was the design for the case. He originally wanted to go with leather, but given the unique curvature of the piece, it didn’t properly accommodate the knife. After much thought, and a few suggestions from me, he came up with this stunning sheath comprised of Black Ash wood. As you can see, the case has a band with the same leather as the lanyard and is fashioned with a smaller version of the bead. Only the finest materials were used to bring Indian Summer to life, and it certainly shows!
I’m extremely proud of the results Max yielded from all his hard work! He encountered many obstacles during this highly ambitious project, but not once did he consider giving up. As a result, he accomplished something truly extraordinary. His resolve is an inspiration that helps keep me determined in the face of my own struggles.
Max, HUGE congrats on a job well done!
Brent, if you’re reading this, you’re one lucky man and a great person! Max and I are happy that his work is going to a person who can appreciate fine craftsmanship. I truly hope you’ll enjoy your knife for years to come. Just don’t go around stabbing people.
Click here to see my earlier post with more photos.
We are currently planning a website so Max could share all of his fine creations on a grand scale. For now, you can check out the step by step process of how Indian Summer was completed on his blog on LiveJournal. Click here for the thread on this specific project. As for the rest of his blog, he mainly posts in Russian, but feel free to check it out if you’re interested.A preliminary report by the office of the public protector has reportedly found that Absa benefited from an apartheid-era bailout that was in breach of the country’s constitution and the Public Finance Management Act.
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The mega-bank could be forced to fork out R2.25 billion to the national fiscus if the draft report compiled by Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane remains unchanged, the Mail & Guardian reported on Friday.
The weekly says that the report, seen by the paper, recommends that President Jacob Zuma should consider establishing a commission of inquiry into apartheid-era looting of the state. The document has been sent to Absa, the SA Reserve Bank (Sarb) and National Treasury.
Mkhwebane told the paper that the report was provisional and she was awaiting a response from the implicated parties, which could change the final status of the report “drastically”.
The implicated parties had until Monday to make submissions as to why the damning findings should not be changed. However, they have requested an extension and the date was changed to February 28 to make submissions.
From where does the probe originate?
The report comes mainly from a 1997 investigation by a covert United Kingdom-based asset recovery agency called Ciex. It was headed by former UK intelligence official Michael Oatley, who approached the SA government to investigate and recover public funds and assets misappropriated during the apartheid-era.
The government and the SA secret service were reportedly represented at the time by Billy Masetlha, a former head of the SA National Intelligence Agency, and contracted Ciex to probe allegations of large-scale looting of the state under the apartheid government.
Ciex’s report into the allegation, known as Project Spear, apparently investigated how R1.5 billion was offered to the Bankorp group of banks disguised as a bank “lifeboat”.
According to M&G, Ciex also investigated R100 million given to Nedbank and several billions allegedly siphoned offshore illegally.
From 1985 to 1992, the apartheid government, through Sarb, reportedly provided Bankorp with a series of bailouts to offset bad loans that threatened the bank’s survival. One of the bailouts included R225 million a year for a period of five years.
“It was implemented in a very complex series of transactions, described as simulated transactions. According to one investigation, these were deliberately engineered for secrecy, in one case using what amounted to a front company.” M&G reported.
ALSO READ: ANC condemns Maimane’s visit to Israel
It was in 1999 that Ciex suggested that Sarb should recover the billions from Bankorp, which had been taken over by Absa. But according to Mkhwebane’s preliminary report, the government has failed to implement Project Spear, despite footing the bill for Ciex’s investigations.
The asset recovery agency was paid for a period 0f six months, amounting to 600 000 pounds, the equivalent of about R10 million in today’s terms
Absa has described the draft report as containing “several factual and legal inaccuracies”. The bank said it perpetuated an incorrect view that it had benefited from the bailout in question, reported the M&G.
It also said it was “regrettable” that the preliminary report had been leaked to the media.YEREVAN, APRIL 29, ARMENPRESS. Deputy Foreign Minister of Armenia Shavarsh Kocharyan has commented on the 25th anniversary of the military operations of Azerbaijan against the civilians of Nagorno Karabakh, called “Operation Ring”.
As “Armenpress” was informed from the press service of MFA Armenia, the comment reads as follows, “25 years ago, on April 30, the launch of another state terrorism by Azerbaijan against the Armenian people was heralded. This was the elimination of the Armenian population in northern Artsakh and deprivation of their motherland. This operation that has been approved by Azerbaijani authorities up till now has one legal assessment: crime against humanity.
The atrocities committed in the sidelines of “Operation Ring” carried out by Azerbaijani militia with the participation of the Soviet Army have deserved adequate assessment by the international community: international human rights organizations, legislative bodies of the USA and the RF, and by relevant resolutions of the EU. Anyway, Azerbaijan did not decline its policy of racism and Armenophobia, the latest demonstration of which is the April aggression of Azerbaijan against Nagorno Karabakh and the atrocities accompanying it.
Azerbaijan showed by its power politics adopted just from the beginning, military rhetoric and brutality typical for terrorist organizations why self-determined Nagorno Karabakh Republic can never be part of Azerbaijan”.A father has called for a football fan who launched an unprovoked attack on his disabled son for wearing a Crystal Palace shirt to come forward.
The drink-addled Brighton supporter launched an abusive tirade at Dan White, 22, who has Down’s syndrome, and then shoved him at the top of a flight of stairs.
Mr White, who is unsteady on his feet according to his father, just managed to cling onto a railing to save himself from tumbling down the flight and sustaining a nasty injury.
The incident happened at Haywards Heath station as lifelong Palace fan Mr White and his dad returned home after the club’s 2-1 victory over Stoke, at about 6.30pm last Saturday.
Father Bob White, 60, told the Standard: “Dan’s quite a slow walker and he’s not very steady on his feet.
“He was near the top of the stairs – quite a steep set of stairs – when this young person dressed with Brighton gear started being abusive.
“Dan was wearing a Palace shirt and that was like red mist to him. He started hurling all sorts of offensive comments at Dan.
“Then he grabs Dan by the shirt and then pushes him forcefully. Dan was holding onto the railing otherwise he would have tumbled down the stairs and had a horrible accident.
“This was totally out of the blue. Dan is used to all the hustle and bustle at football matches but he couldn’t work out what was going on.
“He wasn’t injured but he was shaken up from it.”
Mr White, who was a coach at Crystal Palace for 10 years, said the thug was shouting abuse about Crystal Palace and appeared to be extremely drunk and angry.
The incident happened after Brighton had failed to earn automatic promotion to the Premier League after drawing with Middlesbrough on Saturday afternoon.
However, he said it is the first time in 15 or 16 years of going to football matches with his son that they have ever had any problems.
He also praised the reaction of Brighton supporters, who inundated him with support after he posted a furious tweet about the incident.
Today he issued a call for the culprit to come forward and hand himself into police.
“It would be great he came forward and put his hands up,” he said.
“He’s done something which is really unacceptable against a vulnerable man.
“It would be great if the guy stepped forward rather than to have to hunt him down, which is what the police are going to have to do.”
British Transport Police are investigating.View Caption Hide Caption Duke Johnson left UM as the program's all-time leading rusher. (Getty Images)
Eight Hurricanes received invitations to the NFL Scouting Combine, the Post learned.
Among them are six seniors – defensive end Anthony Chickillo, wide receiver Phillip Dorsett, offensive lineman Jon Feliciano, cornerback Ladarius Gunter, linebacker Denzel Perryman and tight end Clive Walford of Glades Central High – and two underclassmen who declared for the NFL draft.
Running back Duke Johnson and offensive tackle Ereck Flowers, both juniors, will be in Indianapolis from Feb. 17-23.
Also scoring an invitation to the event: UM athletic trainer Vinny Scavo and team physician Lee Kaplan.
The combine draws top executives, coaching staffs, player personnel and medical personnel from all NFL teams to watch up to 335 of the nation’s best college football prospects perform a variety of drills and conduct interviews. NFL Network will televise live workouts Feb. 20-23.
Schedule coming: The ACC will release its 2015 football schedule at 10 a.m. Thursday. Check this space then for full analysis of UM’s slate of games.Every year at Oscar time, the cry goes up: where are all the women? But in the 1950s, they were all over the place: screenwriting, producing, even directing. The wildly glamorous Muriel and Betty Box were sisters-in-law; Muriel was married to Betty’s brother, Sidney, and it was to him that they initially owed their careers (he gave both their first break).
In the 1950s Betty was Britain’s most successful movie producer – her nickname in the business was Betty Box Office – thanks in large part to her decision to turn Doctor in the House, a comic novel about student doctors, into a film starring Dirk Bogarde.
Muriel was a director – in spite of the best efforts of some studio bosses, who simply refused to believe a woman was capable of such a job. Among her best pictures is Simon and Laura (1955), a weirdly prescient comedy (it’s as though she saw reality television coming) in which Kay Kendall and Peter Finch play married actors whose smug portrayal of a happy couple in a soap opera is in stark contrast to the reality at home.
READ: Rachel Cooke on women in the 1950s
Sheila van Damm
Sheila van Damm was the youngest of the three daughters of Vivian van Damm, the owner of the Windmill Theatre in Soho. Sheila loved the theatre, and longed to run it herself, but her first career was as a rally-car driver, a sport her father encouraged her to take up, the better to win publicity for him (her first car had “Windmill Girl” painted on its side).
Sheila van Damm with her racing team-mate Stirling Moss
Twice winner of the Ladies European Championship, Sheila was at one point deemed “the fastest woman in Europe”, having beaten her team-mate, Stirling Moss, to set a class record for 2-3 litre cars by driving her Sunbeam Alpine at an average of 120mph at Jabbeke in Belgium (on tour, Moss would sometimes wash her “smalls”, she claimed).
In 1955 she retired, increasingly frightened by the risks involved in rallying. She returned to the Windmill, becoming its manager in 1960. Sheila lived with her friends, Nancy Spain, the radio personality, and Joan Werner Laurie, the editor of She – a highly complicated triangle – and was devastated when they were killed in a plane crash in 1964.
Rose Heilbron QC
It would be difficult to overstate how well known Rose Heilbron was in her day. The papers reported everything she said and everything she did – including, on one occasion, the news that she had dared to wear a calf-length evening-gown.
She was, quite simply, the most famous lawyer in the land, and had been ever since she had taken silk in 1948 (she and Helena Normanton were the first two female barristers to achieve this status – though Normanton, who was much older than Heilbron, no longer practised).
Rose Heilbron QC, at right (Getty)
When she was appointed the new Recorder of Burnley in 1957 and thus became Britain’s first female judge, a crowd of “housewives and schoolgirls” waited for two hours to see her installed (“the most exciting quarter sessions Burnley has ever known,” said The Daily Herald). The public thrilled to her successes – over and over again she saved defendants from the gallows, and in cases that seemed impossible to win – but they also loved her humble roots (in Liverpool, her father had struggled to keep his small hotel afloat); the touch of Scouse at the edges of her melliflous voice; and the fact that she was, away from the courtroom, a devoted wife and mother who did her own shopping.
Alison Smithson
In 1954, in the unlikely setting of Hunstanton, Norfolk, a startling new school opened. Built of glass and steel, the Smithdon School, an extraordinary and sometimes unpopular building (outraged locals insisted passers-by would be able to see up the skirts of female students), was the work of Alison and Peter Smithson, a pair of young architects who were determined to make bombed Britain modern. Theirs was a partnership of equals, but it was Alison, in her extraordinary home-made clothes, who was its engine: full of ideas, convinced of her own talents, hungry to build.
Alison Smithson with her husband Peter Smithson (Getty)
In 1954, in the unlikely setting of Hunstanton, Norfolk, a startling new school opened. Built of glass and steel, the Smithdon School, an extraordinary and sometimes unpopular building (outraged locals insisted passers-by would be able to see up the skirts of female students), was the work of Alison and Peter Smithson, a pair of young architects who were determined to make bombed Britain modern. Theirs was a partnership of equals, but it was Alison, in her extraordinary home-made clothes, who was its engine: full of ideas, convinced of her own talents, hungry to build.
These days she is mostly associated with Brutalism, and its failures, but this is unfair. She did so much other work – an elegant St James’s home for The Economist, a “solar pavilion” in Wiltshire in which her family could spend the weekend, a daring Watford house still loved by its owner half a decade on – and she took her inspiration as much from Beatrix Potter as she did from Le Corbusier.
As for the Smithdon School, it was, and is, a masterpiece: a building that had the great American architect Philip Johnson swooning with pleasure. Listed as Grade II*, it is now considered one of the most important modern buildings in Britain.
"Her Brilliant Career: Ten Extraordinary Women of the Fifties" (Virago), by Rachel Cooke, is available from Telegraph Books
Follow @TelegraphBooksFirst, they attached the metal probes to my hip, and to my sneaker. Then, two men grabbed my forearms, in case I fell over. After a deep breath and a final look, I gave the thumbs-up. That’s when Taser International chairman and co-founder Tom Smith blasted me with his latest stun gun, the X3.
It was brutal – like sticking your finger in a socket over and over and over again. I screamed in pain as he zapped me. I screamed some more after it was over. Then I cursed, and put my fingers to the bridge of my nose. “Kind of like hitting a funny bone,” Smith said. “Like a good workout.” Uh, not exactly. Five hours later, I was still tingling.
By the company’s estimate, Taser-wielding police and troops have blasted more than 750,000 men, women and children. On average, they received a five-second shock. Which means I got off relatively easy: Mine was just a one-second blast, at 19 pulses per second. The X3 can fire up to three sets of probes into a single target, generating 57 pulses per second. The company’s XREP wireless, shotgun-fired projectile can keep shocking for as long as 20 seconds. I guess there must be someone out there tough enough or crazy enough to take on that much punishment.
What I keep wondering is: Who would inflict that kind of pain? And under what circumstances? We all know that our tools change our behavior. Give us cars, and we’ll go new places; give us iPhones, and we’ll check our e-mail way more often. So when we hear stories about grandmothers and kids and handcuffed prisoners and even runaway sheep getting tased, I asked Smith, what does that say about the stun gun’s impact?
He and his colleagues gently ducked the question, saying it was up to individual police forces and military units to teach their troops how and when to use the electroshock weapons. “All we can do is build in as many features as we can think of,” said Brian Beckwith, vice president of product development.
“Any new tool has to have good policy and good training,” Smith said. His VP of public relations, Peter Holran, added, “You’re not just going to give someone a BlackBerry and expect them to use it.”
My colleague Steven Levy then asked about that 72-year-old Texas woman who was tased during a traffic stop. “I felt it was justified,” Smith replied. “Just because she was 72 doesn’t mean she wasn’t strong,” one his associates answered.
Levy then tried to determine how old a lady has to be before she’s considered ineligible for zapping. Holran took it as an accusation. He said angrily that “we can’t change the U.S. Constitution.” After another minute or two, the question was repeated. Smith said there was no upper age — or a lower one, for that matter. The only guidance the company gives cops and soldiers is not to use the stun guns on pregnant women, or people with heart conditions or epileptics. Which seemed to me a less-than-satisfactory answer.
Used right, Tasers save lives, disabling targets instead of shooting them dead. But the shock weapons aren’t always a firearm substitute. Tasers are also employed in all kinds of situations in which an officer would never even consider pulling out his pistol. When that happens, people often get blasted.
And trust me, it hurts.
[Photo: Shelley DuBois]In a much publicized debate between Bill Nye the Science guy and Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis, a common retort was made by the non-Christian position that the Bible had been translated hundreds of times over the last three millennia before it ever made it into American English. The implication was clear—the transmission and translation process of the Bible is much akin to the children’s’ game telephone. Is this true? Paul D. Wegner, professor of Old Testament at Phoenix Seminary, has written an excellent and thorough text on the history of the Bible. With a keen eye to history and a wealth of knowledge concerning the various manuscripts, Dr. Wegner highlights the flaccidity of the charge against the Bible.
The book is divided into five parts: preliminary matters regarding the Bible, canonization of the Bible, transmission of the Bible, early translations of the Bible, and English translations of the Bible. Section one discusses various preliminary issues concerning the creation and nature of the Bible. What is the Bible? What is the relationship between the two covenants? How does the synoptic problem affect interpretation? These questions and more are answered in a systematic and holistic fashion. Part two shows the development of the canon within the inner-workings of the early church. By the time of Jesus, an established Old Testament canon existed and the new functioned soon after the death of the apostles. Heresy, persecution, missionary usage and other factors drove the early church into recognizing and codifying a New Testament canon.
The third portion of the book spent considerable time discussing the transmission of the Bible. Where did the Greek and Hebrew texts come from and how reliable are they? What manuscripts do we have and what are their dates? What communities developed the text and for what purpose were they created? After offering a lengthy dialogue on each testament, the other shows the value of translations of the Bible in different languages. The author also offers broad principles relating to textual criticism. Part four is the shortest division within the book and seeks to educate the reader about other translations floating around the Roman world in the centuries following the time of the apostles. The author gives special care to informing one of the historical context behind the early printing of the Bible. Because of the Renaissance and the invention of the printing press, the need for a Bible in English was apparent and almost inevitable. Gutenberg’s first book printed was Jerome’s Latin Vulgate which began the process of disseminating the Bible throughout the West.
The last section of the book is on English translations of the Bible. The author breaks this section up into smaller subunits based upon the time period: English Bibles prior to 1611, modern English Bibles up to 1950, and modern translations from 1950. In light of the cultural and literary significance of the authorized version of the Bible, the writer devotes a whole chapter to its history and revisions. A special appendix is tacked onto the chapter discussing the unfortunate “KJV Only” debate in the Church today. The work closes answering the question of “Why are there so many English translations?”
Dr. Wegner remarks, “The purpose of the book is to provide a general survey of how the Bible we use came to be in its present form.” In my opinion, the author met his goal and much more. Within the span of only four hundred pages, the author indeed offered a lot of valuable information about the Bibles we cherish in our churches today. The value of the book is threefold: education, defense, and encouragement. Wegner’s book obviously educates the average Christian sitting in the pew on how we got our Bibles. Because pastors are mainly focused on teaching and preaching from the text and not necessarily discussing its integrity and textual history, this book offers the laymen a plethora of arrows in their intellectual quiver. The section alone of the various modern translations is worth the price of the book. There are good reasons why some preach from one translation as opposed to another. The book also serves an apologetic purpose. Snide and clever witticisms about the text from disbelieving dissenters can be rebuffed with the knowledge gleaned from Wegner’s book. The transmission of the Bible is a more sophisticated, tedious, and careful process than any analogy from the telephone game can provide. Lastly, the book bolsters our confidence in the Bible. The author shows that great trouble was taken in the transmission and translation process in such a way that the average reader can be sure that the text is accurate and worthy of their spiritual studiousness.
I perceived at least three important strengths of the book. First, the text is comprehensive in its scope. Almost no stone was left unturned. While more could be said on each and every subject mentioned, I did not feel the author short-changed the reader in any area. One can walk away with at least sufficient knowledge on these issues. Second, the book was both readable yet scholarly. The author did not write using unclear and difficult concepts without taking the time to explain and define the words. Many books of this |
a great system... Sven Vath’s Cocoon system when it was open.” And what about the other big-hitter in London clubland, Fabric? “Who?” comes the joking reply, before various platitudes are offered.
Why sound quality matters
The most important people in the club are of course the paying punters and while it would be easy to dismiss the idea that people care about audio quality at 3am, there's no doubt in Chris and Phil's minds that the quality of the system impacts on their experience in a positive way.
"Whether they consciously care or not, the quality of the sound absolutely matters," Phil says. "Whether they walk away knowing how that’s impacted on their night, I don’t know. The common thing [at other clubs] is for people to leave the club and complain about their ears ringing. What they’re really saying is that the sound quality was terrible.
"It’s not about volume, it’s about the quality. We have tonnes of volume but we have clarity and no distortion. One of the objectives is that nobody leaves here with their ears ringing.
"You can’t tell in there [how loud it is]. Given it’s running at 115 dBA, it doesn’t feel that loud because it’s clean. You could go into a room with a badly set up system running at 115 dBA and you’d be aware it’s very loud because it would be hurting your ears."
And while many of the latest breed of DJs - who are more used to playing the plethora of festivals and warehouse-style parties that are currently in vogue, and where the sound systems by nature are more transient - may not value the sound system, there are still plenty of artists who do.
"Richie Hawtin comes back every few years because he wants to play on the system, a lot of them do still care about the quality of the sound. Some artists… it’s not what it’s about for them. They don’t understand the dynamic of sound the way the older guys do," says Phil.
"They over-compress in the studio, then they pump it out of the system, red-line the mixer [hitting the maximum volume]… I’m not one for preaching to the unconverted, but we have this amazing system and you stick in a compressed sound... it’s a bit of a battle."
Ministry of Sound audio range
Phil is keen to stress that the new Ministry of Sound Audio range of products aims to do justice to the club and the sound system.
While previous Ministry products were ultimately little more than a branding exercise - albeit a fairly successful one, we're told - this new range aims to match the sonic heights of the club system, but in the world of wireless speakers and headphones.
Phil has been heavily involved and is bullish about the audio quality. "The last time we did audio products, they weren’t custom-designed. They weren’t bad at the price but they weren’t unique. These are custom-designed from the ground up.
"The brief was to create the best products we can at any given price. The Audio L Plus is probably better than the Sonos Play:5. It was benchmarked against the Play:3 but I think it’s better than the Play:5.
"It’s about clarity. Acoustics is part science, part art. We deliver the best sound experience every weekend, we constantly adjust and tweak the system, so [with the speakers] it’s the design and engineering aspects coupled with our week in-week out experience in the real world. I understand how people react to sound."
That's a bold claim. We look forward to hearing how the new products measure up when we get them in our test rooms for review.
What next for Ministry of Sound?
Aside from the Audio range, there's the business of a new club, which is scheduled to open in 2018.
"We are in the process of designing and building a new venue. Again, a lot of thought is being put into the rooms, and there's a lot of debate about sound systems with our partners, Martin Audio. It needs to be better than it is now."
And what will come of The Box? "My feeling is that system will come with us, it may not be in the main room, but maybe the second room."
But one thing remains certain, sound quality will be the number one concern, as it was back in 1991: "The new venue is about retaining that authenticity, the core experience. That excellence in sound story has to prevail."
MORE: Read about the new Ministry of Sound Audio range
See all our Ministry of Sound news and productsSwift, once a master of petty comeuppance, has typically used her music as a vessel for romantic anguish, in which she could connect with the public imagination by detailing her tortured relationships with unnamed men. Her songs provided personal refuge, and she was far more loyal to her listeners than to her lovers. The tables have turned: on “Reputation,” the lovers are the ones offering Swift a way out. At several points on the album, she focusses on a burgeoning romance that’s enabled her to tune out the scornful noise of the past two years. The rest of the world falls away when she is with the new man, who doesn’t bother reading the tabloids to see what people are saying about her. “My reputation’s never been worse, so you must like me for me,” she whispers, on “Delicate.” She has found relief in an unexpected place. But anxiety lurks beneath this escape, and you get the sense that she’s looking over her shoulder at every moment.
These days, you can find Swift, a baby hedonist, meeting men in dark bars, buying a dress just so her lover can “take it off,” dropping a curse word—the first in her career stronger than “damn” or “hell”—and channelling a “Criminal”-era Fiona Apple. “They say I did something bad, but why’s it feel so good?” she sings breathily, over a bleating electronic beat, on “I Did Something Bad.” Her gaze, once trained on the failures and the betrayals of those in her personal orbit, has turned inward, and she revels in a state of sin—sometimes clumsily, sometimes deftly. (Thankfully, the album doesn’t contain much of the cartoonish revenge-drama of its lead single, “Look What You Made Me Do,” in which she says that the “old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now. Why? Oh, ’cause she’s dead.”) “It’s no surprise I turned you in / ’Cause us traitors never win,” she sings, eager to implicate herself, on “Getaway Car,” a song about leaving one man for another. Of course, she doesn’t surrender fully to her disgraced status, and she can’t help but let self-pity seep in. “They’re burning all the witches, even if you aren’t one,” she sings, on “I Did Something Bad,” making a thinly veiled reference to political melodrama.
This air of newfound jadedness is one of the many ways in which Swift broadcasts her long-overdue loss of innocence on “Reputation,” an album that captures the singer during the most turbulent but commercially successful period of her career. Swift went into hibernation last year: the budding country star had become an international pop icon before suddenly finding herself at the wrong end of a long-running public feud with Kanye West. Now she emerges as a victim turned antihero. On “Reputation,” she is embittered and vindictive toward a public that she feels has abandoned her, but she’s also liberated from the imaginary harness of perfection. “They took the crown, but it’s all right,” she sings with a well-rehearsed shrug on “Call It What You Want.”
There are many inadvertently comic moments on Taylor Swift’s new album, “Reputation,” but none are as jarring as an admission made on “So It Goes.” In the first flush of romance, she’s making a confession to her love interest. “I’m so chill,” she sings. “But you make me jealous.” This is Swift—the unyielding perfectionist, the professionally heartbroken woman who has built a career by enacting lyrical revenge on her lovers—characterizing herself as “chill.” She has grown fond of this word, which also appears on “Delicate.” She asks her suitor, “Is it chill that you’re in my head?” If there is a wink in either of those lines, it’s imperceptible.
The current landscape of pop is dominated by complicated and moody young women such as Halsey, Lorde, and Lana Del Rey, who wear their imperfections proudly and allow darkness to surface in their music. Wholesomeness has gone out of fashion, and Swift’s abrupt moment of maturation finds her playing catch-up. In her bid for self-defamation, is she confessing that she is flawed, like everyone else, or simply trying to fit in? Is she reclaiming the narrative, or acceding to it? “Reputation” raises these questions, but it doesn’t bother answering them.
Swift has always been lauded for the emotional precision of her words and the nuance of her melodies. Even when the sentiment and the tone were too precious or wounded, there was still room to appreciate the craft of her lines. “Loving him is like driving a new Maserati down a dead-end street,” she sang on the title track of “Red,” from 2012, an album that boldly straddled the pop-country divide. Part singer, part diarist, Swift can switch effortlessly between swelling pop choruses and intricate, conversational verses filled with wry and revealing asides that point to the shrewd tactician beneath the veil of the wholesome country starlet.
But, as Swift has grown into her pop stardom, she has abandoned much of the sharpness and specificity of her expression. On both her previous album, “1989,” from 2014, and “Reputation,” she moves away from her internal monologue, grappling instead with the desires and the anxieties of some imagined audience. This tendency has produced flashes of cynicism and condescension toward her listeners which were formerly never present in Swift’s world. “Don’t Blame Me” feels like a focus-grouped scrapbook of haphazard images concerning betrayal and lust. “I’m insane but I’m your baby / Echoes of your name inside my mind / Halo, hiding my obsession / I once was poison ivy, but now I’m your daisy,” she sings. It is one of the most emotionally incoherent songs of her career. If she wants to escape the image imposed on her by the public, camouflaging herself in muddled pop cliché is certainly one strategy.
This kind of thing would make “Reputation” feel generic and disembodied if its sound were not so skillfully executed. Swift has not abandoned her ambition, or her perfectionism. In the era of streaming singles, she is the rare young star who still worships at the altar of the album, an old-fashioned instinct that serves her surprisingly well. She is the most consistent singer and songwriter of her generation, and “Reputation” is impressively short on filler. Every chorus is huge and memorable, and she pulls off bracing tone shifts within a single song. On the opener, “Ready for It,” she moves elegantly from menacing to exuberant and back again, flaunting her old songwriting chops. Even “End Game,” her collaboration with Future and Ed Sheeran—on paper, a nightmarish mismatch of styles—is not only not embarrassing but unexpectedly thrilling.
On “Reputation,” Swift has once again teamed up with the producers Max Martin and Jack Antonoff, who helped imbue “1989” with a modern but deferential take on eighties synth-pop. This time, Antonoff has higher billing than Martin. It’s a leap for the newly minted back-of-the-house superstar, who has helped to revitalize the sometimes directionless world of contemporary pop made by white women, refashioning and refining the eighties for Lorde, St. Vincent, Pink, and Swift. But here Swift moves from the eighties to the present day, incorporating big-room electronic flourishes and the stuttering hiccups that are standard in contemporary hip-hop. On “Delicate,” she even flirts with a version of the light Caribbean sound that has infiltrated pop radio in recent years. And she stays within a narrower range in her vocal melodies, sticking to chant-like choruses and sometimes obscuring her voice with a vocoder or burying it deep in the mix—another way that “Reputation” has ceded Swift’s ownership of her sound to a force bigger than her, if there is such a thing.
Maybe this all sounds like a grand reckoning—with her public image, with getting older, and with the increasingly fractured sound of pop today. And yet there is still something about “Reputation” that feels sealed off from the rest of the world. Swift nods at the forces of hip-hop, R. & B., and electronic dance music, but she never fully invites them into her space, which remains aseptic. For Swift, and for Antonoff and Martin, this may be the last moment during which they can avoid confronting the streaming-enabled, rapidly growing margins. “Reputation” subtly bends the cautious Swift to the whims of the mainstream, but it still argues in favor of pop music as a culturally neutral force. The album tries to nail down the center of pop at a time when such a thing hardly exists. In the future, when people tell the story of pop’s dying days as a monolithic entity, they might point to “Reputation” as one of its final chapters. ♦(IBJ Photo/Aaron P. Bernstein) (IBJ Photo/Aaron P. Bernstein)
The leap: In 2013, Green left her position as curator of contemporary art at the Indianapolis Museum of Art to launch, with her husband—and fellow Forty Under 40 honoree John Green—the interactive PBS online program “The Art Assignment,” debuting Feb. 20.
Why Indianapolis? While finishing grad school at Columbia University, Green and husband John saw peers limiting job searches to the city. “We had a great network of artists and writers and friends,” Green said. “But we made the decision that we were OK leaving. It would be a high risk but a greater chance of reward.” When the IMA called, the Greens moved.
Creating versus curating: Green originally had artistic ambitions herself. At some point, I realized I much preferred talking about others’ art. And that other people’s art was better.” That led to gallery work in Chicago, where she found she was happy to talk about the art but less comfortable trying to sell it. Thus, grad school.
AGE 34 Hometown: Washington, D.C. (but grew up in Birmingham, Ala.) Washington, D.C. (but grew up in Birmingham, Ala.) Family: husband, John; children Henry, 4, and infant daughter, Alice
Art + internet =? “There’s an active online community sharing and discussing art—and not just fellow art history grads. This is the right time and a great opportunity to bring contemporary art to that audience in a very accessible way.”
And the “assignment”? Most of the 42 eight-minute videos will include an interview with an artist who will present a creative assignment. Viewers are invited and encouraged to create their own art in response to the challenge, posting the results to their own social networks, thus spreading the art … and word about the program.
On working with her spouse: “I’ve never been keen on working with my husband. We enjoy collaborating on creating things but, in day-to-day office life, I like to have my professional space. And he does, too.”•Kanawha was a proposed name for the 39 counties which later became the main body of the U.S. state of West Virginia, formed on October 24, 1861. It consisted of most of the far northwestern counties of Virginia, which voted to secede from the state after Virginia joined the Confederate States of America at the beginning of the American Civil War on April 17, 1861.
Background [ edit ]
The Wheeling Conventions [ edit ]
The geopolitical separation from Virginia had been approved by the Second Wheeling Convention of August 20, 1861.[1][2] The proposed name of "Kanawha" was based on the prominence of the Kanawha River running through the area (itself named after the local Canawagh, or Kanawha, Indian band,[3] which had abandoned the area sometime after 1780) and was originally proposed by a committee of the founding convention as the name for the new state.[4]
Name change [ edit ]
During the First Constitutional Convention held in Wheeling on December 3, 1861, Harmon Sinsel, of Taylor County, made a motion to strike the word Kanawha from the new state constitution. The discussion regarding the motion revealed concerns of possible confusion between the State of Kanawha and the County of Kanawha within the same state. Additionally, there was an expressed desire among the convention members to reflect their Virginian heritage. After much debate, the motion passed 30–14, and a new name was sought.[1]
During the subsequent discussion, names such as "Allegheny," "Augusta," "Columbia," "New Virginia," "Vandalia" (namesake of the failed Vandalia colony of the previous century)," "West Virginia," and "Western Virginia" were suggested, it was decided that roll would be called and each member of the convention would answer their name with their preferred name for the new state. When one of the names reached a majority vote, it would be selected as the new name for the state. Upon the roll call, 30 of the 44 members had selected "West Virginia." Having reached a majority, the name for the new state officially became West Virginia.[1]
Geography [ edit ]
During the constitutional convention the boundaries of the new state went through various changes. The original composition of the state consisted of 39 counties, 15 of which were secessionist and had voted in favor of Virginia's secession from the United States on May 23, 1861. Eventually nine more secessionist counties would be added to the new state.[5]
West Virginia statehood [ edit ]
West Virginia, by then comprising 50 counties carved out of northwestern Virginia, southwestern Virginia and the Shenandoah Valley[6], was made a state by President Abraham Lincoln on April 20, 1863, effective sixty days thereafter. West Virginia was formally admitted to the Union on June 20, 1863.
References [ edit ]
Coordinates:Otto Pérez Molina tells John Mulholland that leaders of drug-consuming countries in the west have to accept that the war on drugs has brought Latin American nations to their knees
In any war there are innocent victims. In the 40-year war on drugs, the central American state of Guatemala can lay claim to being just such an innocent casualty. It has been caught in the crossfire between the nations to the south (principally Peru, Colombia and Bolivia) that produce illegal narcotics and the country to the north (America) that has the largest appetite to consume them. Guatemala does little of either.
The problem is that the drugs – principally cocaine – have to be transported from the producing countries to the US, from the south to the north. Unfortunately for Guatemala, it's in the way.
But Guatemala's location at the tip of Central America did not always present a problem. As recently as 2008 the US National Drug Intelligence Centre estimated that less than 1% of the estimated 700 tonnes of cocaine that left South America passed through Central America. But that was before the war on drugs intervened, and Guatemala was caught in the fallout.
Prior to 2008 the favoured method of transporting drugs from South America to the US was by sea (via the Caribbean or the Pacific) or by air; land-based smuggling was rare. But two things happened to radically change that, both initiatives of the "war on drugs".
First, Mexico and Colombia – partially funded by the US – stepped up surveillance of aircraft and airspace. Simultaneously the US began more vigorous co-operation with Mexico to stop drugs shipments by sea. In July 2008 the Mexican navy, apparently using US intelligence, made the rather remarkable capture of a "narco-submarine", a semi-submersible loaded with cocaine destined for the US.
Graphic: Giulio Frigieri
According to a report in the Economist, US officials were monitoring 10 such vessels a month by 2008. Colombian cartels favoured shipments by sea as they did not have to do business with – and pay – cartels in other countries to move the drugs to the US.
But by 2009, with sea and air routes increasingly unreliable, the trade was shifting to land. And with that, the concept of the "transit" nations was born – countries in Central America through which drugs were passed en route to the world's largest drugs market, America. Increasingly it is the transit nations that are being caught up in the horrific fallout from the war on drugs (see Ed Vulliamy's report, right). In Guatemala's case, US officials now estimate that 300-400 tonnes of cocaine are transported through the country each year – up from seven tonnes in 2008.
This is often the problem with the war on drugs: shifting the problem from one region to another. As President Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia made clear in an interview with this paper 14 months ago: "We are now helping other countries – the Caribbean countries, Central American countries, Mexico – because our success means more problems for them. There's the balloon effect." Meaning if the problem were eliminated in one country or region, it would pop up somewhere else because the demand – principally from the US – remains unchanged.
The transit nations are now recognised as a distinct set of countries caught in the war on drugs. As they produce and consume few drugs they are among the more innocent victims. But now they have a bullish and vociferous spokesperson in Guatemala's president, Otto Pérez Molina. A previously hardline director of military intelligence (accused by some of gross human rights abuses and torture during his tenure – claims that he denies) Pérez Molina became president a year ago. He surprised many when, within weeks, he declared that the war on drugs had failed and that the international community needed to end the "taboo" of debating decriminalisation. Since then he has taken a lead role at the Summit of Americas in Cartagena last April and at the UN Assembly in September. Next week he takes the debate to the home of the world's economic elite, the Davos forum in Switzerland.
Pérez Molina is unequivocal about the need to search for an alternative to the current paradigm, but he is not alone. Increasingly, politicians across Latin America are asking if the price of war has been too high for their nations while consuming nations, especially in the west, escape with far less damage to their institutions. As Santos said last year: "For Colombia, drugs are a matter of national security; for other countries it is mainly a health and crime issue."
This is at the heart of the awakening in Latin America, a feeling that drugs prohibition has allowed rich and powerful cartels to rise to such prominence that they threaten the institutions of the state – the police, the judicial system, the army, the media, and the body politic. In Latin America it is not about rehab and criminality, it is about an existential threat to the state.
Pérez Molina, in an interview with the Observer before his visit to Davos, says the need to look again at the efficacy of the war on drugs is no longer optional. "I believe this has been forced on us by the situation we have to live with in Guatemala, in Central America and throughout the region over the last 40 years. We have seen that prohibitionism and the war against drugs have not given the results hoped for. Quite the opposite. The cartels have grown in strength, the flow of arms towards Central America from the north has grown and the deaths in our country have grown. This has forced us to search for a more appropriate response."
The situation in Guatemala has become more serious as Mexican cartels – taking refuge from an attempt to militarily defeat them – have inserted themselves into Guatemala and sought to control the trafficking routes through that country. And with the cartels come other nightmares: kidnapping, extortion, contract killers and people trafficking.
The cartels are now posing a serious threat to the Guatemalan state, as Pérez Molina concedes: "Drug traffickers have been able to penetrate the institutions in this country by employing the resources and money they have. We are talking about the security forces, public prosecutors, judges. Drug money has penetrated these institutions and it is an activity that directly threatens the institutions and the democracy of countries."
This is the issue that increasingly animates Latin leaders. While their countries battle to survive the political and institutional fallout of the war on drugs, the leaders of the consuming countries in the west remain disengaged from this aspect of the debate. One of the reasons Pérez Molina is travelling to Davos is to take the debate into their territory.
"I believe that, in the end, western countries fail to understand the reality that countries such as Guatemala and those of Central America have to live in," said Pérez Molina. "There has been plenty of talk, but no effective response. I believe, ultimately, this is due to a lack of understanding on the part of western countries.
"A message should be sent to the leaders of the countries with the biggest drug markets. They must think not only of their country, but rather of the context of what is happening in the world, in regions such as Central America, where this destruction, this weakening of democracy, is happening. They must be open to recognising that the struggle against drugs, in the way it has been conducted, has failed. That is a fact, a fact that can be analysed after 40 years."
Pérez Molina has gone further than other leaders in arguing explicitly for the introduction of a regulated market for drugs. Not full legalisation, but a controlled, regulated market for the production, distribution and sale of narcotics.
The prohibition of drugs, from a Latin and Central America perspective, is becoming more difficult to accept. Not just because of the economic, political and civic cost to those countries but because of the increasing paradox which recent events in the US highlight.
In November two US states, Colorado and Washington, voted to legalise marijuana. The federal government has indicated that it will not seek to overturn the will of the people in those two states. And yet America still helps to fund the Mexican government's attempts to eradicate cannabis plantations and seize shipments en route to the US. As one former Mexican foreign minister said recently, "Why are we busting trucks of marijuana in Mexico when they are selling it... in some US states? There is no logic to it."
A senior official in the newly elected administration of President Enrique Peña Nieto said: "We can't treat a product as illegal in Mexico and try to prevent it being trafficked to the US when it has legal status there."
Pérez Molina recognises this paradox and hopes the US will too. The signs though are not encouraging. When Pérez Molina first announced his preference for a regulated drug market, the response was swift. "Within 24 hours, the [US] embassy here in Guatemala made a statement that they had rejected this position. However, some months later we saw at the Summit of the Americas that President Barack Obama said the US was willing to enter into a dialogue, even though they maintained their position of the rejection of regulation or decriminalisation.
"I believe that as he is entering his second term, [Obama] is going to be more open to this debate. In the end, this is the direction we all have to move in. There is going to be a change away from the paradigm of prohibitionism and the war against drugs, to a process that will take us towards regulation. I would expect a more flexible and open position from President Obama in his second term."
Pérez Molina's decision to take the debate to Davos signals a new front is opening up in the debate – namely to engage leaders of the business community. Many already are engaged. The Economist magazine has argued for the legalisation of drugs for more than 20 years. And there is a growing business lobby in the US that wants to shift the drugs market – and profits – from cartels to capitalists. Seven years ago Forbes, America's business bible – listed 500 members of the business community who favoured a regulated drugs market.
This is the debate that Pérez Molina wants to raise in Davos "with leaders of various sectors of societies". He said: "This must lead to the revising of various protocols, conventions at the UN, but it is also important for this to be accompanied by the civil society of the various countries. That change will come by combining these forces – politics must be combined with economics. That is why it is important for the issue to be present in Davos. It is important for the issue to be discussed and be present in those environments."
In looking at the alternatives to the war on drugs and in setting out radical proposals for a regulated market the Guatemalans have been consulting with the Beckley Foundation, probably the leading global advocate of deploying science and empirical evidence to drive the debate about the war on drugs. Amanda Feilding, head of the Beckley Foundation, was in Guatemala last week presenting its proposals for an alternative drug policy.
The proposals are likely to inform Pérez Molina's discussions in Davos this week as he is keen to shift the debate from one about morality to one governed by science. "Contacts such as the Beckley Foundation allow us to have more scientific evidence. That enables us to demonstrate that the struggle that has been conducted for these last 40 years has failed. With scientific data it can be demonstrated that, by placing the emphasis on health, on preventive programmes, on educational programmes, then regulation is an alternative that could enable us to avoid more deaths, more destruction and more crime, such as we have had until now."
And as he arrives in Europe, he comes with a message for drug users in the consuming countries. "I would call on them to reflect on the path of death behind [their] cocaine. It has left a path of destruction, it undermined the institutions and the democracy of countries in Central America, such as Guatemala. They should reflect not only on the harm to their own health, but also on the deaths that enable them to consume that cocaine.
"I believe they should reflect on this, to avoid these deaths that are occurring in transit countries. We don't produce and we don't consume, but we are countries that suffer deaths and place our institutions and our democracy at risk."
• This article was amended on 24 January 2013 to correct the spelling of Amanda Feilding's name.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 is demanding that The New York Times retract and apologize for a "libelous" article published Wednesday in which two women allege that Trump kissed or groped them without consent.
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In a letter to Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet published late Wednesday, the Republican nominee's lawyer claims the article is an attempt to undermine Trump's presidential campaign.
“Your article is reckless, defamatory and constitutes libel per se. It is apparent from, among other things, the timing of the article, that it is nothing more than a politically-motivated effort to defeat Mr. Trump’s candidacy,” Marc E. Kasowitz wrote.
The letter states that the Times’s investigation into the “false and malicious allegations” was “entirely inadequate.”
“Clearly, the New York Times is willing to provide a platform to anyone wishing to smear Mr. Trump’s name and reputation prior to the election irrespective of whether the alleged statements have any basis in fact,” the letter reads.
The letter goes on to demand that the Times cease any further publication of the article, remove it from its website and issue a full retraction and apology.
“Failure to do so will leave my client with no option but to pursue all available actions and remedies," Kasowitz concludes.
In the Times article, published Wednesday evening, one woman alleges that Trump grabbed her breasts and tried to put his hand up her skirt while the two were sitting next to each other on a plane more than 30 years ago. Another says that in 2005, she met Trump in an elevator in Trump Tower and he tried to kiss her.
After the Times article was published, several other similar allegations emerged in different outlets, including one from a former People magazine reporter who said Trump pushed her up against a wall and started trying to kiss her at his Florida resort.
Trump's campaign has vehemently denied the claims.He realized that most of the country doesn't pay attention to what's happening in DC. When they do, it is a rare moment. The last time the public really watched Congress was during the Congressional recess health care hearings which leaked over into prime time. That was bad for us/Obama because the narrative was driving by Fox/Koch/GOP Inc.
This time, it is really good for us because the public saw -- unfiltered (thanks to Cantor's and other GOPers idiocy) what incredible childish, churlish, GOPissitc, greedy, head in the sand, unAmerican morons are running the House of Representatives and ruining our country.
Because I work in DC and am an activist, I forget that most people (including those who vote) are not only not following what's happening in DC they are actively ignoring it.
Oh, I do think Obama got a little lucky with the stock market (hopefully temporary!) dip after the agreement. It put the cap on the GOP crazy and may well change the narrative away from need for austerity to the need for growth.
I still would have preferred Big Dog vs. GOP round II and have Obama pummel Cantor by really suckering them into the corner and then making clear the consequences but I think Obama essentially pulled it off without having to see what would happen if the US stopped paying its bills or he had to try to sell debt backed by the 14th amendment.
Now, hopefully the market (and my 401K) goes back up and I can get some sleep.Congressional negotiators have unveiled a $1.1 trillion spending bill tonight that officials say will avoid a government shutdown, and will also increase Pentagon spending above the levels a previous sequestration deal called for.
As usual, the Pentagon spending is still being spun as a “cut,” since it was lower than the Pentagon’s own demand for an increase, but it is actually $20 billion above the sequestration deal, and includes $90 billion in war funding, more than initially sought.
The nearly 1,600 pages of the bill include all sorts of putative compromises, and a lot of major disappointments, including an official authorization from Congress for President Obama to continue breaking the law by funding the Egyptian military junta.
President Obama has indicated he intends to continue sending $1.5 billion to the Egyptian military annually despite the June coup d’etat. US law explicitly bans military funding after coups, but the administration has insisted they just are going to pretend they didn’t hear that.
Last 5 posts by Jason DitzSignificance We examine why dominant/authoritarian leaders attract support despite the presence of other admired/respected candidates. Although evolutionary psychology supports both dominance and prestige as viable routes for attaining influential leadership positions, extant research lacks theoretical clarity explaining when and why dominant leaders are preferred. Across three large-scale studies we provide robust evidence showing how economic uncertainty affects individuals’ psychological feelings of lack of personal control, resulting in a greater preference for dominant leaders. This research offers important theoretical explanations for why, around the globe from the United States and Indian elections to the Brexit campaign, constituents continue to choose authoritarian leaders over other admired/respected leaders.
Abstract Across the globe we witness the rise of populist authoritarian leaders who are overbearing in their narrative, aggressive in behavior, and often exhibit questionable moral character. Drawing on evolutionary theory of leadership emergence, in which dominance and prestige are seen as dual routes to leadership, we provide a situational and psychological account for when and why dominant leaders are preferred over other respected and admired candidates. We test our hypothesis using three studies, encompassing more than 140,000 participants, across 69 countries and spanning the past two decades. We find robust support for our hypothesis that under a situational threat of economic uncertainty (as exemplified by the poverty rate, the housing vacancy rate, and the unemployment rate) people escalate their support for dominant leaders. Further, we find that this phenomenon is mediated by participants’ psychological sense of a lack of personal control. Together, these results provide large-scale, globally representative evidence for the structural and psychological antecedents that increase the preference for dominant leaders over their prestigious counterparts.
From the recent Brexit vote in the United Kingdom (1), to the resurgence of nationalism in communist China (2), to the ascend of the authoritarian Narendra Modi in India (3), to the overwhelming support for Donald Trump in the US elections (4), we are witnessing a return of populist, authoritarian leaders, with rhetoric focused on nationalism and protectionism of indigenous citizens. Despite the general notion and research findings indicating that such individuals are often narcissistic, aggressive, and guided by a vague moral compass (5), their popularity remains steadfast even in the presence of other respected and admired candidates. This paper investigates when and why dominant leaders, despite the multitude of negative attributes associated with them, are often revered by a nation’s citizens.
We contend that the preference for a dominant leader increases with uncertainty and competitive threats in one’s environment. When faced with a milieu of uncertainty and the resulting psychological lack of control, individuals favor a dominant/authoritarian leader who, they believe, has the capability to brave unfavorable winds and increase their future chances of success. We draw upon relevant literature in social psychology (6, 7), political psychology (8), and evolutionary psychology (9, 10) to develop our theoretical arguments.
A key tenet of Hogg’s uncertainty theory (6) is that individuals are motivated to reduce uncertainty, an aversive state often perceived as a threat. Thus, when uncertainty implicates the self via group membership, those who identify more strongly with their group are motivated to take extreme actions to overcome challenges in the environment. For instance, when faced with uncertainty, individuals support groups that are perceived as more agentic (11), i.e., capable of taking radical actions against others (12), and endorse leaders who are perceived as nonprototypical and action oriented (13) in hopes that such actions would lead to the reduction of uncertainty. Similarly, Jost et al. (ref. 8, p. 341) argued that support for right-wing authoritarianism, social dominance, and political conservatism is based on a “matching process” whereby people support ideologies “that are most likely to satisfy their psychological needs and motives (such as needs for order, structure, and closure and the avoidance of uncertainty or threat).”
Ev |
depth. Goalie Anton Khudobin left for Carolina, while the Bruins signed goalie Chad Johnson (Phoenix) and defenseman Aaron Johnson (Rangers).
They might regret it down the line, but in the short term the Bruins get …
GRADE: A-minus
Buffalo Sabres
The Sabres believe Henrik Tallinder is going to help Tyler Myers figure out what the hell happened to Tyler Myers. He was his mentor before leaving for the Devils, who wanted to shed his salary. Their loss is Buffalo’s gain. Otherwise, it was quiet for the Sabres, which is a nice change of pace for Pegulaville (Population: All On 10-Year Free-Agent Contracts) Still, their inability to trade Ryan Miller as the rest of the goalie market started to settle is a little frustrating.
GRADE: B
Calgary Flames
The Flames made two small moves that have some upside. TJ Galiardi was plucked from the San Jose Sharks, and has a 1 year deal worthier $1.25 million. Defenseman Kris Russell was jettisoned from the Blues after he turned down a 1-year deal. He was a spare part there; maybe he gets his ice time in Calgary. Brian “Big Ern” McGrattan re-signed for 2 years and $1.5 million, and he’s always good for punches.
GRADE: C
Carolina Hurricanes
That Mike Komisarek is an upgrade to the Carolina defense should speak volumes, but he is: At the very least, he’s doesn’t seem like a redundancy, which has been that group’s problem for the last few years. Maybe without that contract and the Toronto media asking when he’ll be bought out, he thrives. The Anton Khodobin/Dan Ellis swap saved the Canes $100,000 and gained them someone who can push Cam Ward. GM Jim Rutherford has other irons in the fire, but for now …
GRADE: B
Chicago Blackhawks
All of the exoduses were expected for the champs, as Viktor Stalberg (Nashville), Ray Emery (Philly) and Rostislav Olesz (Jersey) all departed. That opened up salary space to re-sign Bryan Bickell and Michal Handzus, so that’s a fair tradeoff. Nikolai Khabibulin as a $2 million backup goalie isn’t as risky as it sounds, especially if Corey Crawford’s ready to carry more of the freight next season in starts. They could have probably found a cheaper alternative, but we imagine Stan Bowman’s still buzzed from the parade.
GRADE: B
Colorado Avalanche
Nick Holden! Andre Benoit! J.T. Wyman! Guillaume Desbiens! Nate Guenin! If any of these names mean something to you, you’re probably an Avalanche fan. Our only surprise: That with Patrick Roy’s Ego now in player personnel, only two of these players are French-sounding. Bottom line: The Avs weren’t looking to be players in free agency, and weren’t.
GRADE: C-minus
Columbus Blue Jackets
How anyone can view the Nathan Horton contract as anything but a win for this team is baffling. Yes, he’s going to undergo shoulder surgery. Yes, he has a concussion history – funny how that’s an issue for a free agent signing but never for, say, Patrice Bergeron re-signing.
Horton is a power forward the Jackets need. The $5.3 million cap hit is actually lower than you’d expect a desperate team to hand out. The seven years are about two too long, but who cares? The Blue Jackets won a free agent derby because a guy wanted to play in Columbus and they didn’t pay significantly over market value. Two summers ago, they had to trade for Jeff Carter because no one wanted to play there; now, Horton picked them.
GRADE: A-
Dallas Stars
Well, Jim Nill certainly didn’t waste any time, did he?
The Tyler Seguin/Loui Eriksson seven-player swap puts his mark on this team in dramatic fashion. Seguin’s maturation as a star player will determine its success, because the Stars sent significant assets back to Boston. Rich Peverley adds much needed depth to the middle. So does Shawn Horcoff, acquired for Phillip Larson and a 2014 seventh-rounder. He has a relationship with Lindy Ruff and Nill, and desperately needed a change in scenery – his points per game were down to 0.39 in Edmonton, as he fell down the depth chart.
So three additions down the middle, which will allow Jamie Benn to move back to the wing, which is a good thing. Lindy Ruff said he expects Seguin to play with Benn from the start, which is either a way to further fuel his sense of entitlement or to give him a ball he shan't drop.
Dan Ellis is a nice backup to Kari Lehtonen without being threatening.
It’s tough to judge this one, because if Seguin stops pretending he’s auditioning for an E! reality show (tentative title: “Ty One On”) and fulfills his potential, this could be a banner day for the Stars franchise. As of now, a lot of needs filled by Nill.
GRADE: A-minus
Detroit Red Wings
The Wings missed on Ryan Suter last summer, then entered into a “transition year” that saw them transition right into the conference semifinal. So GM Ken Holland went into the off-season ready to spend – little did he know what opportunity would arise.
Daniel Alfredsson at $5.5 million for one season is a classic “hired gun wants to win Cup” scenario, but this gun has more than a few bullets left. He’s a perfect addition to the top six for this team. So is Stephen Weiss (5 years, $4.9 million) who costs less and might even be a shade better than Valtteri Filppula. Much like Nathan Horton when he left Florida, Weiss has been waiting years for this chance.
The Wings are losing Damien Brunner (bummer) and potentially Dan Cleary.
They still need to address the blue line, but adding two top-six forwards makes Detroit a lot closer to that Cup Alfie’s chasing. Hey, remember when Marian Hossa went to Detroit to chase one? Good times …
GRADE: A-
Edmonton Oilers
Is it OK to really, really love what the Oilers did here?
Andrew Ference is exactly what the team needed on the back end: Veteran presence, some physicality and leadership from a guy with a ring. Some have complained that Ference hasn’t played against top competition thanks to Zdeno Chara with the Bruins, but Tyler Dellow goes the distance in explaining why that’s a bit of a misnomer. At a $3.25 million cap hit, it’s a great deal, even if four years is perhaps one too many for a player his age.
The Boyd Gordon signing is even better. He’s terrific on draws, kills penalties and isn’t an offensive black hole despite his role. Edmonton might have overpaid a bit at $9 million over 3 years, but you try convincing a guy to leave the golf courses of Glendale for Edmonton in December and see how much it takes. Jason Labarbera, also from the Coyotes, is a serviceable backup at $1 million.
They also found a taker for Shawn Horcoff’s $5.5 million cap hit through 2015.
GRADE: A
Florida Panthers
Stephen Weiss wasn’t coming back; not with Detroit and St. Louis in the mix. The Panthers added Washington Capitals fourth liner Joey Crabb for 2 years at $1.2 million and Toronto spare part defenseman Mike Mottau at 1 year and $700,000. Remember when Dale Tallon signed, like, all the free agents? We miss those days. For now, they deserve an incomplete, because other moves have to be made. But for now …
GRADE: D
Los Angeles Kings
The Kings lost The Piece, Rob Scuderi, to the Penguins and checking winger Brad Richardson to the Vancouver Canucks. They re-signed Keaton Ellerby for one year and inked Jeff Schultz, who was bought out by the Capitals, for one year. Schultz is, as they say, not good. But hey, they’re still in the “pulling Matt Frattin for Bernier” afterglow, so …
GRADE: D
Minnesota Wild
The Wild spent the gross national product of Belize on two free agents last summer, so this was quiet by comparison – but more controversial. Matt Cooke is still considered the scum of the Earth by Western Conference fans who get their news from Mike Milbury and/or morons who think he intentionally Ginzu’d the leg of Erik Karlsson. At 3 years and $7.5 million, he’s a guy who plays on the edge (like the departed Cal Clutterbuck) but is a more-than-serviceable depth player (unlike Cal Clutterbuck).
Keith Ballard gets 2 years with a $1.5 million cap hit and is another player that should thrive without the crushing weight of his cap hit smothering him. Matt Cullen (Nashville) was allowed to leave so Mikael Granlund could slide up the depth chart. Pierre-Marc Bouchard also left, for the Islanders.
GRADE: B-minus
Montreal Canadiens
The Danny Briere signing was expected but nonetheless impressive for the Habs, who get a versatile forward who’s money in the playoffs and can be an insufferable [expletive] to play against, which seems to be the only requirement for Marc Bergevin to give you money and a Montreal sweater.
Gone were Michael Ryder (NJ) and Yannick Weber (Vancouver). But George Parros has arrived to punch people with a funny mustache. Like, he has the funny mustache, we mean. We assume he’d also punch people with one too.
GRADE: B-plus
Nashville Predators
The Predators needed goals. That’s it. That was the mission for GM David Poile this summer. Find goals.
Viktor Stalberg had 22 of them for the Chicago Blackhawks in 2011-12, so that’s promising. Matt Cullen had 14 of them that season, which isn’t bad. Eric Nystrom had 16 that season too, which is even better.
The problem is that none of these players can be counted on consistently for offense, and that they eat up $8 million in cap space. These are fine players. These are nice players. But these are not players that you enter next season with wiping your hands and saying “offensive problems solved!” Which, again, was the mission.
The Cullen signing was, I think, the best of the lot. But again: Briere went for $500,000 more. It speaks to Nashville’s inability to attract top line offensive talent, which speaks to either the market or the team’s philosophy.
Also: Matt Hendricks was one of my favorite players to watch and cover with the Washington Capitals, but a 4-year contract (even with a small $1.85 million hit) is truly bizarre for a player the Predators seem to already have five of.
GRADE: C-minus
New Jersey Devils
When Lou is good, he’s very good: Michael Ryder for 2 years and $7 million is very good. Patrik Elias back for three years and a $5.5 million cap hit shows that Lou’s Kool-Aid remains strong. Rusty Olesz for 1 year and $1 million … sure, whatever. Shedding Henrik Tallinder’s salary was a plus as well.
When Lou is bad, it’s usually in reaction to someone leaving the Devils: When Niedermayer left, it was Malakhov and McGillis. When Clarkson left on Friday, it was 5 years and $24.25 million for Ryane Clowe, a player I believe is sliding on the downside of his career like a snowboarder trying to avoid an avalanche.
GRADE: B-minus
New York Islanders
The most significant move for the Islanders was re-signing Travis Hamonic for 7 years at $27 million. In typical fashion, it was a move trashed by uppity Canadian media types that watched the Islanders for the first time in seven years during the Eastern Conference quarterfinals, which ignores the fact that Garth Snow locked up a 23-year-old minutes-eating two-way defenseman at $3.857 million through 2020.
Assuming Evgeni Nabokov gives them exactly what he did in 2012-13, it’s not a bad move to bring him back for another year, even at $3.25 million. But you’d like to see the Islanders add another goalie to that mix.
Pierre-Marc Bouchard has been called “tentative” and “soft” by Minnesota Wild observers that have seen his game diminish in the last few injury-riddled seasons. One year, $2 million, and the chance to resurrect his career with Tavares and Moulson? That’s a better investment than relocating to Brooklyn.
GRADE: A
New York Rangers
The Rangers decided not to buy out Brad Richards for some misguided reason, let Ryane Clowe become the Devils problem, re-signed Ryan McDonagh to a great deal, traded for Justin Falk and Danny Syvret and signed both Benoit Pouliot (1 year, $1.3 million) and Aaron Johnson (1 year, $600K). GM Glen Sather has to take care of his own – Derek Stepan needs a contract, too – before bringing in more bodies. As it stands:
GRADE: B-minus
Ottawa Senators
The Daniel Alfredsson controversy overshadows everything else the Senators did, which is a shame, because they’re a better team now than they were on July 3.
Bobby Ryan is an elite goal scorer with size – essential in the East – and one assumes he’ll keep Jason Spezza in girlish giggles for the next two years if the two find chemistry. You have to give to get, and the Sens paid up for Ryan, but he’s a star.
The Clarke MacArthur signing is great because (a) he’s an essential replacement for Silfverberg on that second line and (b) because the next two years of Leafs fans bitching about an overpaid Clarkson while Sens fans celebrate an underpaid MacArthur ($3.25 million cap hit) are going to be glorious.
Joe Corvo is back again as a spare part defenseman, while Peter Regin’s disappointment output is now with the New York Islanders.
Tough losing Alfie, but it might be his loss.
GRADE: A-minus
Philadelphia Flyers
Remember when the Flyers signed Vincent Lecavalier at $4.5 million annually for five years and everyone went apoplectic? Welp, he’s going to earn less than Iginla, Ribeiro, Alfredsson, Horton, Clarkson, Filppula, Weiss and Clowe next season against the cap.
Yeah, horrible signing, Philly, coming in under market value like that.
Oh, and what’s this: Ray Emery is back for just $1.65 million after going 17-1-0 last season with Chicago?
Adam Hall was also signed for $600,000 and one season. Which is obviously why they bought out Bryzgalov and Briere.
For some reason, these signings are being demonized as terrible. Maybe you don’t feel they needed Lecavalier; you weren’t saying the same thing when the lack of a veteran winger, in the wake of Jagr’s departure, helped sink the team during the season.
The Flyers didn’t solve all of their issues, but these were shrewd financial moves from a team we weren’t sure knew had to make them. So, with the bar set there:
GRADE: B-plus
Phoenix Coyotes
Mike Ribeiro wanted five years, got four years and signed with the Coyotes for $5.5 million against the cap annually. If you expect last year’s numbers, you’re an idiot: No Alex Ovechkin, no Adam Oates’ orchestrated power play, no contract year. Better to expect him in the neighborhood of 60-70 points, most likely playing with Shane Doan. Dave Tippett’s had Ribeiro before, and this is good reunion for the center – even if that’s a mighty high price for what amounts to a second line center.
The Coyotes will miss Boyd Gordon’s defense. Thomas Greiss backs up Mike Smith for $250,000 less than what Jason Labarbera wanted.
The major failing, thus far: The Coyotes still haven’t addressed a lack of veteran scoring on the wing.
GRADE: B-minus
Pittsburgh Penguins
Rob Scuderi is a nice, safe move by the Penguins, at four years and a $3.375 million cap hit. He still has plenty left, and folds right back into the Pittsburgh system with ease.
The Penguins let Iginla and Matt Cooke walk, traded Tyler Kennedy, and made the smart decision to bring back Craig Adams at two years and $1.4 million. Oh, and Pascal Dupuis got paid: Four years and $15 million.
GRADE: B
San Jose Sharks
The Sharks were really, really quiet during the Frenzy, dealing away T.J. Galiardi to Calgary and watching Thomas Greiss leave for the Coyotes. They re-signed Scott Hannan for one year and a million dollars, so that’s something. They flirted with Alfredsson, so that’s another thing. Also, they didn’t do anything stupid, which is the important thing.
GRADE: C-minus
St. Louis Blues
Look, Maxim Lapierre is a nice signing for a team that’s at its best when it’s at its most annoying. Re-signing Jordan Leopold is a positive move (2 years, $2.25 million). But the Blues chased Stephen Weiss, Valterri Filppula and Lecavalier and couldn’t convince them to sign in St. Louis. Instead, they spent $4 million on Derek Roy for one season, his third team in two years. GM Doug Armstrong rationalized it: “We're still bringing back the same centermen that got us home-ice advantage the last two years in the playoffs.” Yeah, that must be why you were desperately seeking an upgrade. For now, a...
GRADE: D-plus
Tampa Bay Lightning
The Lightning buy out Vincent Lecavalier, and everyone celebrates the end of a regrettable contract. Which leads to GM Steve Yzerman … entering into another regrettable contract.
Filppula as a $5-million player annually over five years makes Jiri Hudler seem underpaid. This is another Matt Carle signing, made worse because Yzerman was part of the Red Wings and should know better.
Cardinal rule: If the master signs a better player at $4.9 million annually over five years, best not give his castoff more money if you’re the student.
GRADE: D
Toronto Maple Leafs
By now, the Tyler Bozak (5 years, $21 million) and David Clarkson (7 years, $36.75 million) contracts have been picked apart to the cent. Bozak is the overpaid faux first liner who’s actually a drag on his buddy Phil Kessel’s stats. Clarkson’s contract promises value in the first couple of seasons, before what Mirtle believes will be a sharp decline.
The Bozak signing is nepotism; you can almost feel the tap on the shoulder to Kessel saying, “Hey, champ, see what we did for your boys? How about that contract extension?” The Clarkson signing would be a good one at the right price; but at seven years and a cap hit of $5.25 million, he will be afflicted with Chris Drury Disease – player with great intangibles seen as a hapless bust because his numbers don’t sync up with his contract – by Year 3 at the latest.
They won’t miss Komisarek. They will miss MacArthur and, especially, Mikhail Grabovski, inexplicably allowed to walk in order to pay Bozak.
GRADE: D
Vancouver Canucks
The Canucks had addition by subtractions, as Derek Roy and Keith Ballard left for St. Louis and Minnesota. Vancouver will miss Max Lapierre’s particular brand of whimsy, but Brad Richardson’s a nice addition to the bottom six. Yannick Weber’s a depth defenseman on the cheap. Now, about that Luongo issue …
GRADE: C-plus
Washington Capitals
Gone are Mike Ribeiro, Matt Hendricks, Jeff Schultz and Joey Crabb. Coming in is … nobody. The Capitals were quiet during the Frenzy, keeping with Adam Oates plan to maintain consistency on the roster from year to year. Which is all well and good but who the [expletive] is playing second-line center next season?
GRADE: C-minus
Winnipeg Jets
The Jets traded for Devin Setoguchi and watched Alex Burmistrov leave for the KHL, so at least their offensive enigma quota remains sufficiently filled.
GRADE: C-minus
Related coverage on Yahoo! Sports:
• Report: Hurricanes, Sabres and Habs among Jaromir Jagr suitors
• Alex Burmistrov leaves Jets to play in KHL
• Ryan McDonagh, Rangers agree to six-year extensionIf you haven’t seen it already, and if you have a liberal bone in your body, you’ll enjoy these excerpts from a recent Senate floor speech by Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. For those who like to look at words all spelled out, I’ve appended the text below the video. Have a nice day.
It was delivered on Oct. 3. Here’s a partial transcript:
Mr. President, we are now three days into a completely unnecessary, completely avoidable Republican shutdown, and there is more talk than ever about our inability of our leaders to find common ground on central economic and fiscal issues of our time.
The government shutdown is throwing a major wrench into a fragile economic recovery.
Nearly 1 million federal employees are sitting at home for no reason, and other public servants are working but not earning a paycheck. Cancer patients are being turned away from clinical trials at the NIH. Veterans’ benefits are at risk. Basic nutrition services for pregnant women and new moms will be disrupted. Small businesses won’t be able to get federal loan guarantees.
And all this is happening on top of the idiotic sequester – drastic, across-the-board spending cuts – that have crippled Meals on Wheels, Head Start, and investments in medical research.
We all know how we got here. For years now, we’ve heard a small minority in this country rail against government.
When I hear the latest tirades from some of the extremists in the House, I am struck by how vague these complaints are.
From their rhetoric, you’d think they believe that anytime that we the people come together to improve our lives that the nation is committing some terrible wrong.
From their rhetoric, you’d think they believe that the government that functions best is a government that doesn’t function at all.
So far, they haven’t ended government but they have achieved the next best thing: shutting the government down.
But behind all the slogans of the Tea Party and all the thinly veiled calls for anarchy in Washington, behind all that there’s a reality.
The American people don’t want the extremist Republican’s bizarre vision of a future without government. They don’t support it. Why? Because the American people know that without government, we would no longer be a great nation with a bright future. The American people know that government matters.
The anarchy gang is quick to malign government but when was the last time anyone called for regulators to go easier on companies that put lead in children’s toys? Or for food inspectors to stop checking whether the meat in our grocery stores is crawling with deadly bacteria? Or for the FDA to ignore whether morning sickness drugs will cause horrible deformities in little babies? We never hear that, not from political leaders in Washington and not from the American people.
In fact, whenever the anarchy gang makes headway in their efforts to damage our government, the opposite happens.
After the sequester kicked in, Republicans immediately turned around and called on us to protect funding for our national defense and keep the air traffic controllers on the job.
And now that the House Republicans have shut down the government, holding the country hostage because of some imaginary health care bogeyman, Republicans almost immediately turned around and called on us to start re-opening parts of our government.
Why do they do this? Because the bogeyman government is like the bogeyman under the bed. It’s not real. It doesn’t exist.
What is real, what does exist, are all those specific and important things that we as Americans have chosen to do together through our government.
In our democracy, government is not some make-believe thing that has an independent will of its own. In our democracy, government is just how we describe the things that we the people have already decided to do together.
It’s not complicated. Our government has three basic functions: Provide for the national defense, put in place rules of the road – like speed limits and bank regulations that are fair and transparent, and build the things together that none of us can build alone – roads, power grids, schools – the things that give everyone a chance to succeed.
We are a nation of innovators and entrepreneurs, growing small businesses and thriving big businesses. But our people succeed – our country succeeds – because we have all come together to put public institutions and infrastructure together.
We all decided to pass laws to put cops on the beat so that no one steals your purse on Main Street or your pension on Wall Street.
We all decided to invest in public education so that businesses have skilled workers and a kid with an idea can create the next breakthrough company.
We all decided to invest in basic science so there is a great pipeline of ideas to create our future.
These achievements aren’t magic. They didn’t simply occur on their own or through dumb luck. In each instance, we made a choice as a people to come together.
The Food and Drug Administration makes sure that the white pills that we take are antibiotics and not baking soda.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration oversees crash tests to make sure that all new cars have effective brakes.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission makes sure that baby’s car seats don’t collapse in a crash and the toasters don’t explode.
We don’t know who they are. But there is no question that there are Americans alive today, Americans who are healthier, Americans who are stronger because of these and countless other government efforts. Alive, healthier, stronger because of what we did together.
The anarchy gang at the House can dump on their make-believe version of government all they want. But when the real government fails to live up to the high expectations we have all set for it, politicians in both parties rush to outrage. Why? Because the American people know that government can work and believe government should work.
Today – that’s right, today – marks the fifth anniversary of President Bush signing the bank bailout into law. That financial crisis cost us upwards of $14 trillion. That’s trillion with a T. That’s $120,000 for every American household, more than two years worth of income for the average family. Billions of dollars in retirement savings disappeared. Millions of workers lost their jobs. And millions more families lost their homes.
In April 2011, after a two-year bipartisan inquiry, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released a 635 page report that made it plain regulators could have and should have used their existing tools to prevent the crisis. Republicans and Democrats, a bipartisan group, found strong agreement that – you better believe it – government matters.
The attacks on government are abstract, but the consequences of this shutdown are real. Less accountability for cheaters and rule breakers. Less opportunity for our children. Cracks in the foundations that businesses need to succeed. And a tilted playing field that limits opportunities for all of our people.
We know the government doesn’t always work. We know that no institution is infallible. People make mistakes. Ideas fail, and sometimes we get things wrong.
But our response isn’t to give up. Our response isn’t to sit back and say, “I told you so.” We’re not a nation of quitters!
Our response – the American response is to fix it, to make government work better.
Our democracy is an experiment, and it’s always evolving. We constantly re-design and re-imagine and improve on what we do together. But time and time again throughout our history, we have reaffirmed the simple truth that government matters.
And right now, right at this moment, if you look closely, you’ll see that we are reaffirming it once again.
It’s not an accident that the desire to shutdown government is confined to one extremist faction of one political party of one chamber of Congress of one branch of government.
It is not an accident that this extremist faction must resort to absurd hostage tactics, threats to turn off the government, threats to default on our debts, threats to tank the economy, to force their views on everyone else.
And it’s not an accident that this faction is doing everything in its power to make government appear dysfunctional.
In a democracy, these hostage tactics are the last resort for those who can’t win their fights through elections, can’t win their fights through Congress, can’t win their fights for the Presidency, and can’t win their fights in court.
But these threats are not working and they will never work because this is a democracy, and for more than 200 years our democracy has defeated extremists and rejected the idea that government doesn’t matter.
So, Mr. President, to those who have forced us to the brink, to those who rail against a make-believe government, to those who seem to rejoice in anarchy, to those who have salivated at the chance to shut down our government because their extremist views have left them disconnected from the experiences of the American people, it is time to hear a simple message:
You can do your best to make government look like it doesn’t work when you stop it from working. You can do your best to make government look paralyzed when you paralyze it. You can do your best to make government look incompetent through your incompetence and ineffective through your ineffectiveness. But sooner or later, the government will re-open because this is a democracy and this democracy has already rejected your views. We have already chosen to do these things together. We all know that we are stronger when we come together.
When this government re-opens, when our markets are safe again, when our scientists can return to their research, when our small businesses can borrow, when our veterans can be respected for their service, when our flu shots resume and our Head Start programs get back to teaching our kids, we will have rejected your views once again.
We are not a country of anarchists. We are not a country of pessimists and ideologues whose motto is “I got mine, the rest of you are on your own.” We are not a country that tolerates dangerous drugs, unsafe meat, dirty air or toxic mortgages. We are not that nation. We have never been that nation, and we will never be that nation.
Today, a political minority in the House that condemns government and begged for this shutdown has had its day. But like all the reckless and extremist factions that have come before it, their day will pass, and our democracy will return to the important work that we have already chosen to do together.
Thank you.Monads in Pictures
This is not a tutoral on monads, nor will I use any math terms here. This is for people who have learned enough about monads to use them, but want to get a better picture of what they’re doing and why they exist.
Functions
One way to develop a first intuition about monads is to follow the progression of abstractions from functions to monads. Here is a simple picture of what a function does. I’ve put Haskell syntax for calling the function on top, and a graphical representation of the operation on the bottom:
Function use
A function maps some value a to another value, here shown as b. What happens along the way between input and output is anybody’s guess, although it’s usually some form of computation. My own programming background led me to view every function as requiring some kind of processing work, but that’s only one way to implement a function. Functions, in the abstract, are simply a way to go from one value to another.
Functors
The next step up the abstraction ladder is the Functor. Why do you need functors? Because sometimes you don’t just want to go from a to b. Instead, you know that a wraps (or contains, or provides) another value, and what you really want is to apply your function to “the inner value of a ”.
Lists do this. If you have a list of integers, there are times when you want to apply a function to the integers in the list rather than to the list itself. So Lists are great candidate for being Functors, which they are.
To represent the “context” around the value you really want, I’ve used brackets in the following diagrams. But these brackets do not mean lists, they just mean “context”:
Functor use
Here we use the same function as before, only instead of mapping from a to b directly with a function call, the function fmap :
“Unboxes” the value from the incoming Functor; Calls f to turn that value to a new value; “Boxes” the result in another Functor of the same shape and kind.
NOTE: Although I use physical metaphors here, like boxing, shape, etc., do not be misled into thinking of Functors as always being like physical things. It’s possible for a Functor to itself be a function, in which case the “context” models computation, rather than containership. The best way of thinking about a Functor depends entirely on how it’s implemented.
Monads
Believe it or not, Monads are just a simple tweak on Functors. Browsing the Internet might leave you thinking they are a highly specialized entity only properly understood by mathematicians. But the real truth is that if you grok Functors, you’re only one step away from comprehending Monads in all their glory.
Up above we said that fmap does three things: it unboxes a Functor, applies your function to the value that was in the box, and then boxes the result into a new Functor of the same shape and kind. This is the very soul of Functors.
Monads do almost exactly the same thing! They just make one little change: they don’t re-box the result value. Boxing the result still needs to happen, but that job gets moved from the Monad to your function.
Here’s a picture showing a Monad at work:
Monad use
What?! This looks just like the Functor picture! Only look closely: instead of the grey application arrow going from a to b, it now goes from a to the context of b. Also, instead of calling fmap f [a], we use an infix function that swaps the arguments: [a] >>= f.
This is all that makes Monads special. But what the picture doesn’t tell you is why they’re awesome, and what the implications of such a change are.
Because our function now returns a new context, it can decide to change that context, a service Functors cannot provide. If I map a function over a Functor, the result is always a new Functor of the same shape and kind. But if I bind a function over a Monad (note the difference in terminology), the result can be a new Monad of the same kind but a different shape. It’s this potentional for difference that provides the power of Monads.
Consider this chain of Monadic binds:
Monad chain
At each step along this chain, context can change. It can be used to carry mutating state, a token stream, an auxiliary result value, an error code, etc. All because the functions involved now participate directly in the binding operation, by having job of boxing intermediate results in new monads.
This new responsibility can be a burden. You can’t bind a pure function over a Monad that knows nothing about the Monad. At the very least, you have to call liftM on your function, to get a new function that does know about the Monad. There are times when all this lifting, and having to be conscious of the “monadic context” can get wearisome.
But there you have it: Functions give you the ability to associate values; Functors give you the ability to associate values within contexts; and Monads let you carry that context through a sequence of binding operations.
Arrows
Sometimes, the Monad abstraction keeps its context in the wrong place: around the values passed between functions. There are times when you’d rather have context surround the operation, rather than the data. This is what Arrows provide. Put simply, they add context to the concept of value mapping (i.e., the service that functions provide, although this is not the only way to map values). In fact, any function can be turned into an arrow with the arr function.
Here is the function call from above again, this time upgraded to an Arrow operation:
Arrow use
Note the use of run<Arrow>. Each arrow provides its own method for executing it – or it may not expose this functionality at all. It’s quite possible for a library to provide completely opaque arrows, which only get executed under controlled conditions. Thus, the input and output types to an arrow are all the user of an arrow needs to know about. There could be all kinds of other information there, including other functions that get called when arrows of such type are composed.
So what can arrows be used for? Any time you want context passed around with your function. Take, for example, a database query function you want to pass to another function. Ordinarily (and thanks to lazy evaluation), you’d just invoke the query and pass the result, and the query would only happen if the results were actually needed. But what if the function needs to execute the query repeatedly? In that case, the callee must perform the query.
With regular functions, you’d need to pass both the query function and the database handle for it to execute the query on. Or you could use a reader Monad, infecting the code performing the query with knowledge of that Monad. What would be preferable would be to bundle that database handle with the query, creating an enriched query function that knows itself which database to talk to. Enter the arrow.
Even more interesting use cases for arrows typically involve rich compositions. You can take one arrow with context, and another arrow with context, and compose them in various ways to create a composed arrow with composed context. What that composition means depends entirely on the Arrow type involved.
Applicative Functors
As a bonus – though it probably won’t help you grok Monads any better – I want to mention Applicative Functors.
Applicatives upgrade our use of Functors in one special way: Whereas fmap only accepts functions that go from one value to another, Applicative lets you map functions that take any number of arguments over an equal number of Applicative Functors:
Applicative use
In this example, rather than applying an f that goes from a to b over a Functor that provides an a, we get to apply an f that takes four |
and Meng.
Для того, чтобы читателю было проще понять моё мнение, я обобщу его:
Я начал с наборов KP и Smer. Я считаю, что лучшая проработка в наборах Dragon 2011-12 годов, Tamiya и Meng.
Aby čtenář lépe pochopil mé názory, napíšu toto:
Začínal jsem na KP a Směrech. Dle mého názoru jsou nejlepší stavebnice bojové techniky v poěru detaily/sestavitelnost od Dragonu do let 2011-12, Tamiya a Meng.( Check out Deconstructing the Syrian War, my new e-book on the Syrian war, the most consequential war of recent times)
People these days look at you like a weirdo if you talk about the healing properties of plants or any other holistic practices. Much like anything else, there is a lot of politics and money behind our modern medical system.
It all starts with John D. Rockefeller (1839 – 1937) who was an oil magnate, a robber baron, America’s first billionaire, and a natural-born monopolist.
By the turn on the 20th century, he controlled 90% of all oil refineries in the U.S. through his oil company, Standard Oil, which was later on broken up to become Chevron, Exxon, Mobil etc.
At the same time, around 1900, scientists discovered “petrochemicals” and the ability to create all kinds of chemicals from oil. For example, the first plastic — called Bakelite — was made from oil in 1907. Scientists were discovering various vitamins and guessed that many pharmaceutical drugs could be made from oil.
This was a wonderful opportunity for Rockefeller who saw the ability to monopolize the oil, chemical and the medical industries at the same time!
The best thing about petrochemicals was that everything could be patented and sold for high profits.
But there was one problem with Rockefeller’s plan for the medical industry: natural/herbal medicines were very popular in America at that time. Almost half the doctors and medical colleges in the U.S. were practicing holistic medicine, using knowledge from Europe and Native Americans.
Rockefeller, the monopolist, had to figure out a way to get rid of his biggest competition. So he used the classic strategy of “problem-reaction-solution.” That is, create a problem and scare people, and then offer a (pre-planned) solution. (Similar to terrorism scare, followed by the “Patriot Act”).
He went to his buddy Andrew Carnegie – another plutocrat who made his money from monopolizing the steel industry – who devised a scheme. From the prestigious Carnegie Foundation, they sent a man named Abraham Flexner to travel around the country and report on the status of medical colleges and hospitals around the country.
This led to the Flexner Report, which gave birth to the modern medicine as we know it.
Needless to say, the report talked about the need for revamping and centralizing our medical institutions. Based on this report, more than half of all medical colleges were soon closed.
Homeopathy and natural medicines were mocked and demonized; and doctors were even jailed.
To help with the transition and change the minds of other doctors and scientists, Rockefeller gave more than $100 million to colleges, hospitals and founded a philanthropic front group called “General Education Board” (GEB). This is the classic carrot and stick approach.
In a very short time, medical colleges were all streamlined and homogenized. All the students were learning the same thing, and medicine was all about using patented drugs.
Scientists received huge grants to study how plants cured diseases, but their goal was to first identify which chemicals in the plant were effective, and then recreate a similar chemical – but not identical – in the lab that could be patented.
A pill for an ill became the mantra for modern medicine.
And you thought Koch brothers were evil?
So, now we are, 100 years later, churning out doctors who know nothing about the benefits of nutrition or herbs or any holistic practices. We have an entire society that is enslaved to corporations for its well-being.
America spends 15% of its GDP on healthcare, which should be really called “sick care.” It is focused not on cure, but only on symptoms, thus creating repeat customers. There is no cure for cancer, diabetes, autism, asthma, or even flu.
Why would there be real cures? This is a system founded by oligarchs and plutocrats, not by doctors.
As for cancer, oh yeah, the American Cancer Society was founded by none other than Rockefeller in 1913.
In this month of breast cancer awareness, it is sad to see people being brainwashed about chemotherapy, radiation and surgery. That’s for another blog post … but here is a quote from John D. Rockefeller that summarizes his vision for America…
Author: Chris KanthanBack in February industry luminary Peter Moore announced that he'd be leaving the video game industry to become the CEO at Liverpool FC. Today is his last day.
One has to admire Peter Moore's outlandish commitment to the bit.
In a heartfelt farewell to the industry that occupied 18 years of his life, Moore celebrated the time he spent at Sega, Microsoft, EA, and all the friends he's made along the way.
"From the advent of online gaming (albeit via a 56K modem), to the 'console wars,' and now to games as 365 days a year, live experiences, I have been fortunate to have borne witness to the amazing growth of this, our wonderful gaming industry," Moore said in his farewell.
Despite being the president of Sega of America, vice president of Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business, and head of EA's sports division, Moore humbly maintained that he was often the face of these companies, but not the one responsible for the products we've all been so passionate about.
"I was merely the front man for your brilliant achievements," he said. "The'suit' that sometimes did goofy, cheesy stunts and speeches to draw attention to your phenomenally creative talent."
One such "cheesy stunt" was the time he got the release date of Halo 2 tattooed on his right bicep. Thank goodness it didn't get delayed after that!
"If you work in the industry, I am in awe of what you do in bringing games to life in ways we could have only dreamed of a few short years ago," Moore said of his colleagues, cohorts and competitors.
As he bowed out of the industry, Moore left one piece of constructive criticism for the gaming fanbase at large:
"If you are a gamer, take a deep breath and a moment of reflection occasionally and admire the incredible creativity of the medium you love. And if a game disappoints, provide constructive feedback, not the vitriol that is unfortunately so prevalent nowadays."
Indeed Moore was always a good sport about criticism, as he deftly defied our delirious, sardonic take on EA's Gamescom 2016 livestream. He'd read our mocking livetext, as we were bewildered by the lack of announcements, and he took it on the chin, eloquently explaining that it simply wasn't that kind of event before reaffirming that he still has that Halo 2 tattoo.
Moore signed off with "you'll never walk alone" after linking to the above video he compiled commemorating his achievements over the past 18 years.Smoke rises after serial bomb blasts took place at the venue of Narendra Modi's Hunkar rally in Patna.
There are conflicting reports about a man who managed to escape - with apparent ease - on Wednesday from the custody of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) and the country's top counter-terror agency. The man claimed to have crucial information about Sunday's serial blasts in Patna. He has reportedly been found on a train in Uttar Pradesh this evening.The National Investigating Agency or NIA claims that because Mehre Alam had not been formally arrested, it's incorrect to say that he escaped.Mehre Alam, according to the NIA, showed up in Patna and offered to help locate Haider Ali, who is allegedly a senior commander of the terror group Indian Mujahideen and is wanted for Sunday's blasts in which six people died and 83 were injured.He led investigators to a village where he said Haider Ali was hiding, but the search proved fruitless and on the way back, Mehre Alam, who was staying with members of the Bihar Police and the NIA at a lodge, excused himself to go to the toilet - and didn't return. The police then began searching for him.The blasts on Sunday preceded a massive rally held in the capital by Narendra Modi, the BJP's candidate for Prime Minister. Six people are named in the First Information Report of FIR filed in the case. Two of them have been arrested. Among them is Imtiaz Ansari, the alleged mastermind. But Tehseen Akhtar, an alleged senior commander of the Indian Mujahideen and Haider Ali, who helped orchestrate the attack, are among the suspects who have not yet been found.About this mod Adds craftable, unenchanted clothing to the game, as well as craftable unenchanted staffs. Requires Dragonborn Requirements DLC requirements DLC name Dragonborn Permissions and credits Author's instructions File credits Got the idea for the staffs from the "Craftable Unenchanted Staffs" mod by FantasyWriter (on Steam). This is, however, all my work, the idea simply came from seeing his mod so I thought I would add a similar thing to mine. Donation Points system This mod is not opted-in to receive Donation Points Translations Polish Translations available on the Nexus Language Name Polish Author: LordTorus Craftable Clothing and Staffs - Polish Translation
This adds a whole bunch of unenchanted clothes to the crafting menu at the tanning rack, as well as a few select items to the forge and staff enchanter. The clothes are all treated as clothing by the game engine so should work with the Mage Armour perk etc.
Some of these items are not marked as "playable" in the vanilla game. Because of that, they may have clipping issues etc. There is nothing I can do about that.
Now includes the unenchanted staffs from Dragonborn, they may be crafted from the staff enchanter in Tel Mithryn. (Got the idea from another author's mod so I thought I would add the same functionality it in here.)
Also adds the woodcutter's axe and pickaxe to the iron crafting menu at the forge.
~ REQUIRES DRAGONBORN ~
The clothes included are:
> Archmage Boots
> Archmage Robes
> Green Monk Robes
> Thalmor Boots
> Thalmor Gloves
> Thalmor Robes
> College Hood
> College Hood (Variant 1)
> College Hood (Variant 2)
> College Robes Apprentice (Variant 1)
> College Robes Apprentice (Variant 2)
> College Robes Common
> College Robes Common (Variant 1)
> Cultist Robes
> Blue Dark Elf Outfit (no hood)
> Dark Elf Outfit (no hood)
> Red Dark Elf Outfit (no hood)
> Dark Brotherhood Hand Wraps
> Dark Brotherhood Hood
> Dark Brotherhood Robes
> Dark Brotherhood Shoes
> Emperor's Robes
> Executioner's Boots
> Executioner's Gloves
> Executioner's Hood/mask
> Executioner's Robes
> Greybeard Boots
> Greybeard Hood
> Greybeard Robes
> Jarl Outfit 01
> Jarl Outfit 02
> Jarl Outfit 03
> Jester Boots
> Jester Gloves
> Jester Hat
> Jester Clothes
> Necromancer Robes
> Psiijic Boots
> Psiijic Gloves
> Psiijic Hood
> Psiijic Robes
> Telvanni Robes
> Temple Priest Robes
> Temple Priest Hood
> Temple Priest Robes
> Vaermina Robes
Change. Added:
> Monk Robes Brown
> Monk Robes Grey
> Monk Robes Red
> Bar Keeper's Clothes
> Fine Clothes 01
> Fine Clothes 01 (Variant)
> Fine CLothes 01 (Wedding Dress Variant)
> Fine Clothes 02
> Fine Clothes 02 (Variant)
> Merchant Hat
> Merchant Boots
> Merchant Clothes
> Merchant Clothes (Variant)
> Focus Gloves
> Staff Template (Unenchanted Staff) - Alteration
> Staff Template (Unenchanted Staff) - Conjuration
> Staff Template (Unenchanted Staff) - Destruction
> Staff Template (Unenchanted Staff) - Illusion
> Staff Template (Unenchanted Staff) - Restoration
> Woodcutting axe
> Pickaxe
Change. Added:
> Blacksmith Robes
> Blacksmith Robes (Variant)
> Skaal Boots
> Skaal Coat
> Skaal Gloves
> Skaal Hat
I also added a few unenchanted weapons which are all temperable:
> Ash Spawn Battleaxe (stats of steel battleaxe, requires steel perk)
> Ash Spawn Waraxe (stats of steel waraxe, requires steel perk)
> Headsman's Axe (stats of iron battleaxe)
I may add more later, but that should be enough for now. I haven't included the hooded versions of these clothes because they require an extra slot (head) so aren't good for enchanting.
COMPATIBILITY
In order to get a CLOTHING submenu at the tanning rack I had to usurp the Studded category which studded armour is in. The Studded armour is now under IRON.
Therefore, anything which uses the STUDDED category will have issues with this mod.
Enjoy!
Thanks for downloading, I hope you enjoy my mod, I am proud of it.
If you find any bugs, problems, or suggestions, leave a comment. I will do my best to fix them.During the first presidential debate, Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton decided to play the sexism card against Republican nominee Donald Trump by bringing up former Miss Universe Alicia Machado, who has accused Trump of making comments about her weight.
Machado claimed that Trump called her “Miss Piggy” during the pageant because of her weight. Trump has denied these claims, of course, and in the days following the debate some disturbing details about “Miss Piggy” have come to light.
Fox News uncovered an interview that Machado did with The Washington Post on May 16, 1997, in which she said she was anorexic and bulimic before the pageant even started.
“When I was preparing for Miss Universe it was almost an obsession for me to not gain weight. By the time I won, I was actually recovering. But the year leading to it, I didn’t eat at all,” she stated in the interview.
According to American Medical Association charts, she was nine pounds below a healthy weight at the time of the pageant.
When Fox News’ Megyn Kelly confronted her with the contents of this interview, Machado simply denied making such remarks and claimed that the pageant must have somehow manipulated her answers.
So instead of the vast right-wing conspiracy, we now have the vast beauty pageant conspiracy. Delightful.
This interview is important because a key element of Machado’s attack on Trump has been the assertion that his comments about her weight led to her having an eating disorder. Never mind he having previously said that “I was skeletal” at the time of her pageant victory.
The Post interview indicated that she had an eating disorder well before Trump said anything to her. Clearly Machado — who at one point was accused of threatening to kill a judge (the real kind, not the pageant kind) and who is thought to have been closely associated with a prominent crime lord — was being less than honest.
If she is lying about the biggest part of her story, she is probably lying about the rest of it too.
Machado also couldn’t confirm that anyone else actually heard Trump call her “Miss Piggy,” for that matter.
You can see her full interview with Megyn Kelly here:
The Clinton campaign knows that Trump’s policy ideas are better than Clinton’s and will resonate more with the American people, which is why they are resorting to these desperate attacks on Trump — attacks that we “deplorable” folk hope will ultimately fail.
H/T teaparty.org
Share this on Facebook and Twitter and let us know what you think about Machado’s story.
Source: conservativetribune.comSmart people should thank their mothers because, according to researchers, their mothers are mainly responsible for transmitting intelligence genes. Thus, gender stereotypes that have survived for centuries are perhaps about to disappear. Single women who want an intelligent child don’t need to look for a Nobel Prize at the nearest sperm bank and it is likely that men will begin to see the intelligence of women as an important part of their attraction.
At the basis of this idea are found what are known as “conditioned genes”, that behave differently depending on their origin. Basically, these genes have a kind of biochemical tag which allows their origin to be traced and even reveals if they are active or not within the descendant cells. Interestingly, some of these conditioned genes work only if they come from the mother. If that same gene is inherited from the father, it is deactivated. Obviously, other genes work the opposite and are activated only if they come from the father.
Mother’s genes go directly to the cerebral cortex, those of the father to the limbic system
We know that intelligence has an hereditary component, but until a few years ago we thought that much of it depended on the father as well as on the mother. However, several studies revealed that children are more likely to inherit intelligence from the mother, because intelligence genes are located on chromosome X.
One of the first studies in this area was conducted in 1984 at the University of Cambridge, followed by many others over the years. In these studies the co-evolution of the brain and the conditioning of the genome was analyzed, leading to the conclusion that maternal genes contribute most to the development of the thought centers in the brain.
During the first experiment, researchers created embryos of rats that only had genes of the mother or of the father. But when it came time to transfer them to the uterus of an adult rat, the embryos died. So it was discovered that there are conditioned genes which are activated only when inherited from the mother and that are vital to the proper development of the embryo. On the other hand, the genetic heritage of the father is essential for the growth of the tissue that will form the placenta.
At that time, the researchers hypothesized that if these genes were important for the development of the embryo, it was also likely that they could play a major role in lives of animals and people, maybe they could even result in some brain functions. The problem was how to prove this idea, because embryos with genes from only one parent died quickly.
The researchers found a solution: they discovered that embryos could survive if normal embryonic cells were maintained and the rest were manipulated. This way they created several genetically modified laboratory mice that, surprisingly, did not develop the same way.
Those with an extra dose of maternal genes developed a bigger head and brain, but had little bodies. Conversely, those with an extra dose of paternal genes had small brains and larger bodies.
More deeply analyzing these differences, the researchers identified cells that contained only maternal or paternal genes in six different parts of the brain that control different cognitive functions, from eating habits to memory.
In practice, during the first days of embryonic development, any cell can appear anywhere in the brain, but as the embryos mature and grow, cells that had paternal genes accumulate in some of the emotional centers of the brain: the hypothalamus, amygdala, the preoptic area and the septum. These areas are part of the limbic system, which is responsible for ensuring our survival and is involved in functions such as sex, food and aggression. However, researchers have not found any paternal cells in the cerebral cortex, which is where are developed the most advanced cognitive functions, such as intelligence, thought, language and planning.
New studies, new lights
Of course, scientists have continued to investigate this theory. Robert Lehrke, for example, revealed that most of a child’s intelligence depends on the X chromosome. He also showed that since women have two X chromosomes, they are twice as likely to transmit characteristics related to intelligence.
Recently, researchers at the University of Ulm, Germany, studied the genes involved in brain damage and found that many of these, especially those related to cognitive abilities, are found in chromosome X. In fact, it is no coincidence that mental disability is 30% more common in males.
But perhaps one of the most interesting results in this sense comes from a longitudinal analysis conducted by the Medical Research Council Social and Public Health Sciences Unit in Glasgow, Scotland. In this study, 12,686 young people aged between 14 and 22 years were interviewed every year since 1994. The researchers took into account several factors, from skin-color and education to socio-economic status. They found that the best predictor of intelligence was the IQ of the mother. In fact, the young people’s IQ varied only an average of 15 points from that of their mothers.
Genetics is not the only factor Besides genetics, we can also find other studies that reveal the mother plays an important role in the intellectual development of children, through physical and emotional contact. In fact, some studies suggest that a secure bond is intimately tied to intelligence. Researchers at the University of Minnesota, for example, found that children who have developed a strong attachment with their mothers develop a capacity for playing complex symbolic games at the age of two years, are more persistent, and show less frustration while problem solving. This because a strong bond gives children the security necessary to explore the world and the confidence to solve problems without losing heart. In addition, these mothers also tend give their children a higher level of support in solving problems, thus helping to further stimulate their potential. The importance of the emotional relationship for the development of the brain has been demonstrated by researchers at the University of Washington, who revealed for the first time that a secure bond and the love of the mother are crucial for the growth of some parts of the brain. For seven years, these researchers analyzed the way mothers relate with their children. They found that when the mothers were emotionally supportive and adequately fulfilled their children’s intellectual and emotional needs, the hippocampus of the kids at age 13 was 10% greater than that of children of mothers who were emotionally distant. It is worth mentioning that the hippocampus is an area of the brain associated with memory, learning and stress response. Of course, this not to say that the relationship with the father should not be as fully developed, just that because of our social structure, including some of the gender stereotypes that still remain, it is usually the mother that spends the most time with her small children.
Can we really talk about hereditary intelligence? It is estimated that between 40-60% of intelligence is hereditary. This means that the remaining percentage depends on environment, stimulation and personal characteristics. In fact, what we call intelligence is nothing more than the ability to solve problems. But the curious fact is that to solve problems, even a simple mathematical or physical one, the limbic system also comes in to play, because our brain works as a whole. Thus, even if intelligence is closely linked to the rational thinking function, it is also influenced by intuition and emotions, that genetically speaking, are influenced by the contribution of the father. Moreover, we must not forget that even if a child has a high IQ, we must stimulate that intelligence and nourish it throughout life with new challenges. Otherwise that intelligence will stagnate. Despite what may be influenced by genetics, fathers should not be discouraged because they also have much to contribute to the development of their children, especially by being emotionally present. The IQ with which we are born is important, but not decisive.Have you heard of Trapwire? It’s a formerly obscure counter-terrorist surveillance network, created by a company run by ex-CIA agents, that links together thousands of ordinary, privately owned security cameras, digitally analyzing the footage they generate and delivering it to various police departments and branches of the U.S. federal government. It’s been making headlines in the U.S. since Wikileaks exposed its existence, and online chatter has been obsessively focused on it ever since. There’s been endless analysis, opinion, misinformation and clarification (here’s a credible run-down of the story so far). Everyone from NBC to Anonymous is talking about it, but the Canadian media has yet to take notice. Which is surprising, since Trapwire is apparently live in Ottawa.
Wikileaks has leaked emails from private security firm Stratfor, who market Trapwire. One of them, written by Stratfor vice president Fred Burton, says:
“Trapwire is in place at every HVT in NYC, DC, London, Ottawa and LA.”
In U.S. Military parlance, an HVT is a “high-value target,” like a federal government building, a military structure or a travel hub. Ottawa has lots of those, and apparently they all house cameras that are spying on Canadians and feeding the footage to Trapwire.
Trapwire’s menace has been overhyped. It does not collect facial recognition data, as has been rumoured. Neither does it allow authorities to track individuals as they move from camera site to camera site. These myths have been debunked, as journalists and security analysts learn more about what the Trapwire network does in fact do. The language around that is pretty fuzzy. Trapwire claims to “detect patterns of behavior indicative of pre-operational planning.” What does this mean? Does Trapwire watch for individuals who visit and stake out several possible targets? How can it tell them apart from sight-seeing tourists? What exactly indicates “pre-operational planning”? Have there been enough terrorist operations to provide a viable dataset on which Trapwire can base its scrutiny? The mechanics and effectiveness of the system is very much in doubt.
Regardless of whether or not Trapwire works, it’s still a cause for concern. By piggybacking on privately owned cameras and linking them to government authorities, Trapwire circumvents privacy laws and law enforcement protocols. Annalee Newitz at Gawker’s i09 blog argues persuasively that the whole thing probably violates U.S. Constitutional law. Noah Scachtman at Wired documents the sleazy dealings between Trapwire and Stratfor as they colluded to sell expensive licenses (starting at $20,000) to government agencies and private clients.
Add to this the one crucial question for us Canadians. If Trapwire’s activity does indeed extend to Ottawa, who’s on the receiving end of the data flow? Is it our government or is Homeland Security spying on Canadians as well?
Follow Jesse on Twitter @JesseBrownDonald Trump said he would force the people of Mexico to build his vowed border wall to keep immigrants out of the United States, warning that if his order was not fulfilled, he would do something “severe.”
When asked how he might force the country to build this wall, Trump said in an interview that aired on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday, “you force them because we give them a fortune. Mexico makes a fortune because of us. A wall is a tiny little peanut compared to that. I would do something very severe unless they contributed or gave us the money to build the wall.”
The 2016 presidential candidate added: “I’d build it. I’d build it very nicely. I’m very good at building things.”
Related: How will Donald Trump affect debate stage?
Trump also doubled – or more like quadrupled – down on his controversial remarks about Mexican immigrants, saying they aren’t just “bad,” but that they’re “really bad.”
“You have people coming in, and I’m not just saying Mexicans, I’m talking about people that are from all over that are killers and rapists and they’re coming into this country,” he said.
Trump prefaced by saying that he likes – no, loves – Mexico and its people, as he has for the past several days. “But you have people coming through the border that are from all over. And they’re bad. They’re really bad,” he said.
CNN host Jake Tapper said the Mexican government found those comments to be “prejudicial and absurd” – that Trump is “painting [Mexicans] with a very broad brush as rapists and criminals,” as Tapper described. Trump responded by saying that it’s not necessarily Mexicans, “they’re coming from all over,” he said.
Trump’s incendiary remarks – first delivered during his GOP presidential campaign announcement, and repeated in the days following, caused behemoth Spanish-language TV network Univision to drop its partnership with the Miss Universe Organization, which Trump co-owns the rights to. Trump said he plans to sue the company for breaking what he’s called an “iron-clad” 5-year $13.5 million contract with him. NBC Universal (which is also msnbc.com’s parent company), also owns rights to the Miss Universe show.
Related: Donald Trump lashes out at Univision in strongly-worded letter
Trump has seen a recent surge in polls, currently landing a second place spot just behind Republican Jeb Bush. The latest Suffolk poll in New Hampshire showed Trump with 11% support; Bush led with 14%. Then, a Fox News poll echoed the lineup. “Support for Trump more than doubled since his announcement and that catapults him into the top tier at 11%,” the Fox analysis read.
Asked by Tapper whether his run is just about promoting his brand, as many have criticized, Trump said, “I’m giving up hundreds of millions of dollars to do this. I’m giving up a prime-time television show … I’m in it to win it.”B.C. conservation officials have launched an investigation after video was posted Saturday to YouTube showing an unidentified man jumping on and riding a moose.
The video, shot from a motor boat, shows the pursuit of a moose as it crosses a shallow body of water.
A man in bathing trunks is on the bow of the boat. As the boat pulls up behind the moose, the man jumps onto its back and rides the struggling animal for 15 seconds before falling off.
One of the passengers in the boat can be heard shouting, "I've never seen anything so awesome." Others in the boat can be heard laughing.
David Vince, a conservation officer with the B.C. Ministry of the Environment, says there is a law against harassing wildlife and what's shown in the video is "the ultimate form of harassment."
"You can see that the moose is struggling with that fellow on her back. You can see the fright in her eyes," he told CBC News.
Vince says conservation officers believe the incident may have taken place last July on Tuchodi Lakes in Northern Rocky Mountains Provincial Park, although the exact location has yet to be confirmed.
He's asking anyone with information to call 1-877-952-7277.
The video was sent to the province's conservation service by a group called Wolftracker.
Wolftracker's Facebook page says it supports "responsible, legal, predator control in British Columbia."
Google Map: Northern Rocky Mountains Provincial ParkA new study shows that Beef production is substantially more environmentally destructive than chicken and pork combined— requiring 28 times more land and 11 times more water.
The heavy impact that the meat industry has on the environment has been known for a while, but recent research now shows the scale and extent of the effects compared to other agricultural products. Agriculture is a significant contributor to global warming, creating 15% of the worlds total emissions— half of that coming from livestock. Along with using 28 times more land and 11 times more water than pork and chicken, beef production also produces 5 times the amount of climate-warming emissions.
When you start comparing the amount of resources that go into producing beef per calorie as opposed to other agricultural products such as potatoes, wheat, rice, and legumes, things get really out of control; taking up 160 times the amount of land and producing 11 times the amount of green house gasses.
Professor Tim Benton, at the University of Leeds, said the new research is based on national US data, rather than farm-level studies and provides a useful overview. “It captures the big picture,” he said, adding that livestock is the key to the sustainability of global agriculture.
“The biggest intervention people could make towards reducing their carbon footprints would not be to abandon cars, but to eat significantly less red meat,” Benton said. “Another recent study implies the single biggest intervention to free up calories that could be used to feed people would be not to use grains for beef production in the US.” However, he said the subject was always controversial: “This opens a real can of worms.”
Prof Mark Sutton, at the UK’s Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, said: “Governments should consider these messages carefully if they want to improve overall production efficiency and reduce the environmental impacts. But the message for the consumer is even stronger. Avoiding excessive meat consumption, especially beef, is good for the environment.”
A separate study of people’s eating habits showed that a meat heavy diet caused double the amount of global warming emissions than that of their vegetarian counterparts.
The study of people’s diets was conducted by University of Oxford scientists and found that meat-rich diets – defined as more than 100g per day – resulted in 7.2kg of carbon dioxide emissions. In contrast, both vegetarian and fish-eating diets caused about 3.8kg of CO2 per day, while vegan diets produced only 2.9kg. The research analysed the food eaten by 30,000 meat eaters, 16,000 vegetarians, 8,000 fish eaters and 2,000 vegans.
The main issue is sustainability. An additional 3 billion people could be fed on the existing cropland if it was used more efficiently. Beef production is such an inefficient process. Very little of the resources used in producing beef is actually getting passed into the bloodstream, especially when you start feeding cattle grain rather than grass. It just does not make sustainable or economic sense to use so many resources for the amount of calories you get in return.
Humanities population by 2050 is projected to reach 9 billion people. With current food production methods; we would need to increase food production by 70% in order to feed the extra 2 billion people. Using the resources that are normally used for beef production would be better spent feeding humans.
Consider lowering the amount of meat you eat per week, if everyone cut out one extra day to enjoy a meat free meal, it would be a step in the right direction. Millennials are the last generation to be able to stop the major effects that global warming will have on our world. It is up to us to keep our home clean and safe for future generations.
Comments
commentsOn the Sunday before Canada Day, Conservative MP Wai Young spoke at Harvest City Church, a large evangelical house of worship in her riding of Vancouver South.
The church later posted her remarks online, where the left-wing Press Progress website found them and brought them to the attention of the Internet, which mocked them at length.
Young began by saying Prime Minister Stephen Harper “finds it a little troubling, I guess,” that he’s now one of the “senior statespeople” at international gatherings.
“Canada is blessed with a stable government,” she said, but bad journalism puts that at risk. “I wanted to say to you that I do not read the newspapers anymore, because most of the facts in there are not factual,” she said.
Too many journalists slant the truth, she said.
“Given that it’s so difficult to get real information nowadays, I just want to go back to people of faith, to just say that we’re here because we believe that Jesus served. He served but he acted as well.”
Kind of like the prime minister, in fact.
“I want to share with you about what I think our government is doing in this same vein,” she said. “Jesus served and acted to always do the right thing, not the most popular thing.”
That’s also how the Conservative government behaves, she said, and pointed to C-51, the anti-terror bill.
Young told the parishioners that if C-51 had been in place 30 years ago, the Air India bombing, which killed 329 people, wouldn’t have happened.
“That is because CSIS knew or heard there was a bomb aboard that plane, but because of the strict laws that government departments have, they cannot share information between departments,” she said.
“I don’t know if you guys know that. Because they couldn’t share information with the RCMP, the RCMP could not act to take that bomb off the plane.”
Young later admitted that she had her facts wrong. There was a public inquiry into the Air India bombing, and it didn’t find that CSIS knew about the bomb.
It is not the first time that Young has failed to inform herself about important facts concerning that terrorist attack.
During her race against Liberal incumbent Ujjal Dosanjh in 2011, she won the endorsement of Ripudaman Singh Malik, a businessman who was charged and acquitted in connection with the attack. (Young said she was unaware of his link.)
Young beat Dosanjh by just 3,900 votes.
The Conservatives are polling about 20 points lower in British Columbia than they were then, so this fall Young will need every vote she can get.
She and Harper are likely counting on the votes of the Harvest City Church congregation.
Harper appears to have been influenced by Karl Rove, the strategist behind George W. Bush. Rove put a lot of energy into motivating evangelicals, who are reliable conservative voters, if you can get them to the polling station.
Rove’s strategy — increase the turnout of reliable voters rather than building a broader coalition — seems to have influenced Harper, who doesn’t talk about this kind of thing, but can be observed handling issues important to evangelicals with great care and ignoring the concerns of people who won’t ever vote for him.
This fall, he will need those evangelical voters, which means making sure they vote.
One thing might make it a bit easier this fall. The Conservatives have amended the Elections Act to allow for an advance poll to be held on a Sunday for the first time.
At noon on Thanksgiving Sunday, as services end in churches across Canada, polling stations will be opening — often right in the basement.
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• Email: smaher@postmedia.com | Twitter: stphnmaherSen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) this week helped Democrats break a Republican-led filibuster of a short-term extension of unemployment benefits. Brown risks rift with right
When an aide to Sen. Jim DeMint used her Twitter account to call out Sen. Scott Brown and other Republicans for breaking ranks on a jobs bill, an annoyed Brown confronted DeMint on the Senate floor after privately suggesting he may have been attempting to stir up trouble with the conservative base.
DeMint said it wasn’t so, and the two men are downplaying the spat now.
But the divide between Brown and the Republican conservative base is at risk of growing — as it did this week when Brown joined moderate Republican Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snow |
tied up in a political battle brewing in the nation’s Senate, which has failed at three attempts to fill the position, she said.
The appointment is controversial because the term ends in October 2018 after which the current attorney-general Raul Cervantes, who was appointed by President Enrique Peña Nieto, will have the power to fill the position for a nine-year term.
Some senators fear that Cervantes will appoint himself to the position, Lourdes said.
But she predicts the political battle “can be overcome,” and she gives a grade of eight out of ten to the sweeping reforms.
“I’d like to give it a ten, but I believe that social pressure will serve to propel the process forward.”
Eighteen new administrative judges slated to hear corruption cases at the federal level have still to be appointed and only ten out of 32 states have implemented the reforms called for by the new law.
And resources need to be appropriated for a citizens oversight committee and an internet platform aimed at providing the public with access to the names of companies sanctioned for corruption, as well as personal financial disclosure forms the new law requires of all public servants.
“It’s a slow process. I believe it has been advancing significantly. There’s no magic wand. Things don’t change overnight. I am convinced things will change,” Lourdes said.It was first reported back in December last year that Jason Momoa would be joining Zack Snyder's Man of Steel follow-up, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, in an unspecified role. Since then, the Game of Thrones actor has been rumored to play Aquaman among other Justice League members. Despite laughing off those very rumors just last month, HitFix has it on good authority that Momoa will "totally" play the King of Atlantis in the 2016 film. In addition to Snyder already "finalizing his designs for the character so shooting can take place soon," the usually credible Drew McWeeny further reveals just how Aquaman will come into the picture.
As many expected, it seems the mass destruction in the final act of
will have an impact on
, with Lex Luther using it to make Superman "look like a monster" and it also upsetting Aquaman.
says McWeeny. Though Jason Momoa won't play a major part in
, it seems he will definitely establish the character briefly in 2016 and return when Zack Snyder returns to direct
, which is said to film back-to-back with
. What do you think?
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice stars Henry Cavill, Ben Affleck, Gal Gadot, with Amy Adams, Laurence Fishburne, Diane Lane, Jesse Eisenberg, Jeremy Irons, and Holly Hunter. The film, written by Chris Terrio from David S. Goyer's screenplay, and directed by Zack Snyder, hits May 6, 2016!
Man of SteelDawn of JusticeBatman v SupermanJustice LeagueDawn of JusticeBundy grazed his cattle on federal land without paying the proper fees — and when the government tried to stop him in the spring of 2014, he made them back down.
How did the government get into an armed standoff with a Nevada rancher in 2014?
For 20 years, Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy defied the federal government by letting his cattle graze on federal lands without paying the proper fees. So in the spring of 2014, the government sent armed agents to confiscate the cattle. But hundreds of protesters — some of whom were armed militia members — assembled in support of Bundy. The situation threatened to get violent, and so the government backed down and returned the cattle to Bundy. As of December 2014, Bundy hadn't "seen any sign of federal agents since," the Washington Times reported.
Bundy wouldn't admit that the federal government owns the land at all, saying, "I abide by almost zero federal laws." He also said in the past that he believes the land belongs to the state, and that the federal government has no business being there.
Many conservatives sympathetic to Bundy conceded that his legal claim is weak — for instance, John Hinderaker wrote, "It must be admitted that legally, Bundy doesn't have a leg to stand on." The federal government owns 640 million acres of land, and has for decades — this land doesn't revert to individual states just because people want it to.
Yet Bundy, then the last cattle rancher remaining in Clark County, appealed to populist traditions of individualism and rural self-reliance. Some of his ancestors were among the first settlers in what was then the Mormon colony of Bunkerville in 1877 — though the ranch itself was only bought by his parents in 1948. He was suspicious of federal environmental regulations, and had harshly criticized the Bureau of Land Management, the agency that administers the land. So some Tea Party supporters and others rallied to his side, calling his act civil disobedience against the heavy hand of big government.
What was the background of the dispute between Bundy and the government?
For decades leading up to the spring 2014 confrontation, Cliven Bundy's cattle grazed on land near his Nevada ranch. But in 1993, the Bureau of Land Management increased its restrictions on grazing — in part to protect the then-endangered desert tortoise — and required Bundy to pay a fee if he wanted to keep grazing on federal land.
Bundy simply refused to pay, and continued to graze his cattle there anyway. (He decided to submit a check to the county government instead, in protest of the feds, but the county returned it because of lack of jurisdiction.) In response, the federal government fined him, and he wouldn't pay that either. As of early 2014, he owed $1 million in unpaid fees and fines, according to the BLM.
The case wound through various courts for 20 years, and Bundy lost several times but refused to comply with court orders to remove his cattle from the government lands. In 2013, a Nevada district court judge permanently banned Bundy's cattle from grazing there, and authorized the government to confiscate the cattle. That court decision is what led to the spring 2014 standoff.
What exactly happened in the standoff between Bundy and the government?
On April 5, 2014, the Bureau of Land Management began confiscating the cattle Cliven Bundy had grazing on federal land. The BLM did so under authority given by a Nevada federal district court judge, and it planned to auction off the cattle later on. To carry out the operation, the BLM brought in armed federal agents and private contractors, and closed down much of the federal land in the area, restricting entry:
More than 100 cattle were confiscated that first weekend, and Bundy's son Dave was arrested for refusing to leave the temporarily closed federal lands. So, on the night of April 6, 2014, Bundy posted a message on the Bundy Ranch website: "They have my cattle and now they have one of my boys. Range War begins tomorrow."
Protesters assembled over the next few days, and confrontations between Bundy's supporters and the BLM began to grow more heated. On April 9, another Bundy son, Ammon, kicked one of the government's dogs and was then tased three times by BLM officers. You can see video from that day below:
As the week went on, out-of-state groups, including some with militia ties, arrived to support Bundy. Several of Bundy's supporters were armed (as were many federal agents). CNN has video of a tense moment here.
Finally, on April 12, 2014, the BLM caved, calling off the operation out of "grave concern about the safety of employees and members of the public," according to a statement. The 400 or so cattle the bureau had confiscated so far were returned to Bundy. The BLM reiterated that Bundy owed $1 million to the government, and said it would continue to "work to resolve the matter administratively and judicially."
Why did Harry Reid call the Nevada rancher a domestic terrorist?
On April 17, 2014, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) decided to weigh in on the Cliven Bundy controversy during a event hosted by the Las Vegas Review-Journal. "Those people who hold themselves out to be patriots are not. They're nothing more than domestic terrorists," Reid said. "They had sniper rifles on the freeway. They had assault weapons. They had automatic weapons." Reid also criticized Bundy's statements that he doesn't recognize federal authority: "He says that the United States is a foreign government. He doesn't pay his taxes. He doesn't pay his fees. And he doesn't follow the law."
Reid expressed particular disgust about reports that the protesters endangered the lives of women. He was apparently referring to comments by protester Richard Mack, a former Arizona sheriff, who said on Fox News:
"[We] were actually strategizing to put all the women up at the front. If they are going to start shooting, it's going to be women that are going to be televised all across the world getting shot by these rogue federal officers." Reid reiterated that the government's involvement in the issue isn't over: "It is an issue that we cannot let go, just walk away from."
Separately, there were then rumors on the right that Reid was somehow the driving force behind the Bureau of Land Management's attempts to confiscate Bundy's cattle. The current director of the BLM, Neil Kornze, is a 35-year-old former aide of Reid's. And since the BLM has been actively trying to encourage solar energy development on some of its lands, a theory arose that Reid had orchestrated the crackdown to benefit a Chinese-backed solar company, ENN Mojave Energy. But according to Snopes.com, there was no basis for this: "The site that ENN Mojave Energy was planning to buy in order to build a solar plant is nowhere near the public land Bundy has been disputing with the government, and ENN gave up the solar project and terminated its agreement to buy land to house it as far back as June 2013."
What did Cliven Bundy say about "the Negro" in 2014?
At a press conference attended by New York Times reporter Adam Nagourney in the spring of 2014, Bundy held forth on race in America at some length.
"I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro," he said. Mr. Bundy recalled driving past a public-housing project in North Las Vegas, "and in front of that government house the door was usually open and the older people and the kids - and there is always at least a half a dozen people sitting on the porch - they didn't have nothing to do. They didn't have nothing for their kids to do. They didn't have nothing for their young girls to do. "And because they were basically on government subsidy, so now what do they do?" he asked. "They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton. And I've often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn't get no more freedom. They got less freedom."
The comments were quickly rejected by some of Bundy's most ardent supporters. A spokesperson for Nevada Senator Dean Heller told the Times that Heller "completely disagrees with Mr. Bundy's appalling and racist statements, and condemns them in the most strenuous way."
Cliven Bundy: If blacks are offended by me, MLK failed
In a CNN interview on April 25, 2014, Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy said that blacks shouldn't be offended by his use of words like "Negro," "black boy," or "slave."
"Maybe I sinned, maybe I need to ask forgiveness, and maybe I don't know what I actually said," Bundy said. "But when you talk about prejudice, we're talking about not being able to exercise what we think and our feelings — we don’t have freedom to say what we want. If I say 'Negro' or 'black boy' or'slave' — I’m not — if those people cannot take those kinda words and not be offensive, then Martin Luther King hasn’t got his job done yet."
How much land did the federal government own as of 2014?
As of 2014, the federal government owned 28 percent of all land in the US — about 640 million acres, according to the Congressional Research Service — and the vast majority of its holdings were concentrated in the West. This National Atlas map shows all federal lands in the country — here is just the western half of it (note that all colors represent federal land holdings):
Federal lands have declined somewhat over the past two decades, mostly because 20 million acres of Alaskan land has been returned to local control. Other states like Utah have also urged the federal government to give up some of its land holdings.
Why does the federal government own so much western land?
In the 11 westernmost states in the continental US, the federal government owns about 50 percent of the land, as of 2014 — compared with only about 4 percent in the rest of it. In Nevada, where the Cliven Bundy controversy is taking place, the federal government owns a larger share of land than in any other state:
It seems odd that the federal government owns so much land in the West and so little elsewhere. But between the settlement of most other states and the settlement of the West, American attitudes toward land policy changed. "From its founding, the US assumed that the best thing to do with land was basically to privatize it, and probably turn it into farms, and that would lead to a productive economy," James McCarthy, a professor of geography at Clark University, told me in 2014. "The federal government took for granted that it would take its land and turn it over to private ownership."
But toward the end of the 19th century, that approach was rethought. The climate of many western lands wasn't really suitable for small private farms, and there was worry that America's natural resources were being depleted by the private market.
"In the 1890s, there was a huge concern about the prospect of a timber famine, and timber was every bit as important to the national economy as fossil fuels are now," McCarthy said. It was the main building material, was critical for railroads and mining, and was used as a primary fuel source in many places. "People said we absolutely have to have a reliable steady supply of timber, and we clearly can't trust private interests to do that, so we'd better have the federal government do it."
As a result, the US government decided around 1891 to start holding onto most of the federal lands it still had. And most of those lands were in the West — because it was the last major region to be settled.
What is the Bureau of Land Management?
The Bureau of Land Management, or BLM, is an Interior Department agency that owns about a third of federal land, totaling 264 million acres. It was created in 1946 as a combination of two existing agencies — the Grazing Service and the General Land Office. It's the biggest landholder in Nevada, and was the main federal agency involved in the 2014 Cliven Bundy controversy.
When the federal government shifted toward retaining public lands rather than giving them away, lands with particular uses — forests, coasts, or recreation — were handed over to various agencies to administer. The BLM ended up with everything that was left over. "The BLM manages most of those lands that were at one point used either for grazing, or that were seen to have mineral potential," James McCarthy, a professor of geography at Clark University, told me in 2014. "Grazing was the sole use for a lot of these lands."
As an agency, the BLM is tasked with considering multiple different interests, many of which conflict with each other. "They are supposed to pay attention to commodity production, grazing, recreation, ecological functioning, endangered species habitats, and also revenue," McCarthy said.This Article From Issue November-December 2013 Volume 101, Number 6 Page 426 DOI: 10.1511/2013.105.426 Download pdf
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Humans are funny mammals. Among other things, we walk oddly (on two legs) and we have curiously big brains. We bear large babies with active and highly developed brains but with pitifully inept bodies. Despite what would seem evolutionarily unfavorable, one in 1,000 human mothers have a baby whose head is too big to fit through the birth canal, which necessitates a cesarean section, if medical care is available. Virtually all human mothers experience pain in childbirth, and delivery takes much longer than in other mammals. For example, in University of New Mexico researcher Leah Albers’s 1999 study of 2,500 full-term births, labor lasted on average almost nine hours for first-time mothers. In comparison, apes and monkeys generally give birth within two hours. Cross-culturally, assistance in childbirth is almost universal. Although evolution ought to favor low-risk, easy deliveries, this is not how it turned out for humans. To understand why, we need to consider advantages and disadvantages of more developed newborns, wider hips in the mother, and the metabolic demands on the mother.
Unlike other singly borne offspring, human babies cannot immediately get up, feed, and walk around like a newborn lamb. Nevertheless, human newborns’ brains are much more active than those of a litter of helpless newborn puppies, which are born with eyes that are closed shut and ears that cannot yet hear. Why are human babies born with comparatively active brains but helpless bodies, a unique phenomenon among mammals? Photo at top, Mauro Fermariello/Science Source; at middle, Ocean/Corbis; at bottom, Organics image library/Alamy
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Human newborns are unique among mammals in that, unlike other singly borne offspring, our babies cannot immediately get up, feed, and walk around like a newborn foal; yet our newborns’ brains are much more active than those of a litter of helpless newborn pups with their eyes still closed and their ears unable to hear. Thus, in comparison to other animals born one at a time, human babies are born at an earlier developmental stage, before their bodies have developed enough to walk around. This strange mélange of two basic adaptive strategies—an active brain with an inept body—is widely thought to have evolved because our unusually large brains and our peculiar, bipedal mode of getting around produce conflicting demands. This explanation is called the obstetrical dilemma. In humans, the size of the head of term fetuses is a tight fit for the mother’s bony birth canal. According to the obstetrical hypothesis, we need a wide pelvis to bear big-brained babies but a narrow one to walk or run efficiently. The compromise between these opposing needs is to carry babies as long as possible so that the brain can grow in utero and then—just before the baby’s head gets too big to fit through the birth canal—deliver the infant earlier relative to when other mammals deliver theirs. The work of reproduction isn’t finished then. For the first year after birth, human babies continue to develop rapidly at a fetal rate in both brain size and body maturity—a risky strategy that calls for a great deal of investment by the mother. Not only must she grow the baby inside her womb for 9 months, but also she must continue to care for and protect the helpless infant for another 12 months after birth. She also continues to nourish the baby with breast milk, if we ignore the relatively recent invention of formula or other substitutes. To grow into big-brained adults, our mothers have to give us a great deal of care and feeding. Of course, fathers make genetic contributions to the baby and can ease the mother’s task substantially if they provide for or protect the mother of their offspring. As Robert Martin quips in his new book, How We Do It, “We get our brains from our mothers,” genetic contributions from the father notwithstanding. What mothers do for their babies is meet their enormous metabolic needs, enabling baby brains to grow big before and immediately after birth. The prolonged period of breastfeeding needed by a human baby is the most energetically demanding period of a female’s life. A mother may even allocate her own brain during pregnancy, losing some 4 percent of its volume, to meet the energetic demands of her baby’s brain. (The loss is regained, fortunately, in about six months.) Some have speculated that the reason female mammals are often much smaller in body size than males is so that the lifetime energetic needs of a female, who experiences metabolically demanding pregnancy and lactation, will equal those of a male.
Casting Doubt on a Paradigm
The obstetrical hypothesis postulates that the demands of an unusual locomotor system increase the risk and cost of the reproductive process. If this is the case, evolution would favor human birth at earlier stages of development than in other, nonbipedal primates, and mothers with wider hips would experience decreased motor efficiency.
The obstetrical dilemma hypothesis postulates that newborn brain size is limited by the disadvantages to the mother’s locomotion posed by wider hips. The energetics-of-gestation-and-growth hypothesis postulates that the baby’s head size is limited by the metabolic cost to the mother of carrying a large baby. Illustration by Tom Dunne.
The obstetrical hypothesis is neat and readily comprehended, which helps explain its widespread acceptance, but new evidence casts doubt on it. A recent paper by Holly Dunsworth of the University of Rhode Island and colleagues reexamines the predictions and evidence supporting the obstetrical hypothesis and suggests an alternative explanation. For instance, human gestation is often said to be short relative to that of other primates, based on how much more growth is needed in neonates to achieve adult brain size. The shorter duration of gestation on first glance supports a prediction of the obstetrical hypothesis—that birth has evolved to occur earlier in hominids so that the baby is born before its head is too large to pass through the birth canal. Actually, the duration of human pregnancy (38–40 weeks) is absolutely longer than that of chimps, gorillas, and orangutans (32 weeks for chimps and 37–38 weeks for the latter two). When Dunsworth and her colleagues took maternal body size into account, which in primates is positively correlated with gestation length, they showed that human pregnancy is also relatively longer compared to that in great apes. No wonder that the third trimester seems so long to many pregnant women. Another oft-cited fact supporting the obstetrical hypothesis is that, of all the primates, human newborns have the least-developed brains. Human babies’ brains are only 30 percent of adult size, as opposed to 40 percent in chimps. This difference in newborn brain size seems to suggest that human babies are born at an earlier developmental stage than other primates.
Compared with the heads of other primates, the head of a human newborn is a very tight fit through the birth canal. For the sake of comparison, the drawings are scaled so that the transverse diameters of the birth canals are the same. Image adapted by Tom Dunne from K. Rosenberg and W. Trevathan, BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology 109:1199.
The catch is that adult brain size in humans is much larger than in other primates for reasons having nothing to do with birth. This means that using adult brain size as a basis for comparing relative gestation length or newborn brain size among primates will underestimate human development. But as one of the collaborators with Dunsworth, Peter Ellison of Harvard University, pointed out in his 2001 book Fertile Ground, the relevant question is, Given how large a mother’s body size is, how big a brain can she afford to grow in her baby? It is an issue of supply and demand. Labor occurs when the mother can no longer continue to supply the baby’s nutritional and metabolic demands. As Ellison puts it, “Birth occurs when the fetus starts to starve.” From this perspective, the brain size of a human newborn is not small for a primate but is very large—one standard deviation above the mean. Body size in human newborns is also large relative to other primates when standardized for a mother’s body size. Both facts suggest that pregnancy may push human mothers to their metabolic limits. The obstetrical hypothesis, in contrast, suggests that locomotion rather than metabolism is the limiting factor in birth size. The underlying concept here is that wider-hipped women—capable of giving birth to larger offspring—should suffer a disadvantage in locomotion. But detailed studies of the cost of running and walking—including new work by Dunsworth’s coauthors Anna G. Warrener of Harvard University and Herman Pontzer of Hunter College—do not support this idea. Men and women are extremely similar in the cost and efficiency of locomotion, regardless of hip width. Enlarging the birth canal to pass a baby with a brain 40 percent of adult size, as is typical of newborn chimps, would require an increase in diameter of only three centimeters—just over an inch—in the smallest dimension of the birth canal. This wouldn’t hinder locomotion significantly, given that many women already have such broad hips. The conflict between big-brained babies and upright walking may be more conceptual than real.
What Does a Baby Cost?
Although the findings showing that human babies are not earlier than other primates are interesting, they still fail to identify what limits baby brain size. Dunsworth and her coauthors propose that the metabolic constraints faced by a mother limit the length of pregnancy and fetal growth. They have dubbed their hypothesis the energetics-of-gestation-and-growth hypothesis.
From the infant’s perspective (top), humans are born with less-developed brains than chimpanzees—supporting the obstetrical hypothesis. From the mother’s perspective, humans are born with large brains relative to chimpanzees (bottom)—supporting the energetics hypothesis. Holly Dunsworth and colleagues contend that because adult brain size in humans is much larger than in other primates for reasons having nothing to do with birth, using adult brain size as a basis for comparing primate gestation length or newborn brain size will underestimate that of humans. Graphs adapted by Barbara Aulicino from H. Dunsworth, et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S.A. 109:15212.
As the baby grows in both brain and body in the womb, its demand for energy accelerates exponentially. At some point, the mother reaches the limit of her ability to supply the fetus’s demands, and then labor begins. Even following birth, the big-brained, big-bodied newborn needs a loving mother who will continue to feed and care for it while its brain continues to grow at a fetal rate. In the womb, the fetus is basically part of the mother. Once born, the baby is effectively at a higher trophic level than its mother, like a parasite feeding on her, which increases the metabolic demands on her. However, the baby’s needs have shifted to include more long-chain fatty acids, which are key for brain growth. Since these are very efficiently transmitted to the baby through breast milk, rather than through the placenta, moving the baby outside the womb isn’t a problem. The obstetrical hypothesis is not defunct; it is simply under question. But merely convincing those who were raised intellectually within this paradigm to consider an alternative hypothesis can be challenging. When she gives a talk about the energetics hypothesis, Dunsworth summarizes a conversation that illustrates this challenge: What always comes next is, “then why doesn’t the pelvis get wider to make childbirth easier?” And my answer is always, “Because it’s good enough. Witness over seven billion humans on the planet.” But that doesn’t satisfy most people who are moved to ask the question in the first place. And when they argue “the tight fit at birth is too much of a coincidence to ignore,” I ask, “Isn’t it just a coincidence that my finger fits perfectly into my nostril?” She’s right. Evolutionary adaptation doesn’t have to be perfect, just good enough. Perhaps the female pelvis adapted to fit the size of the human fetus’s brain, rather than the female pelvis’s limiting the baby’s brain size. Still, we are left with no clear reason why a baby is such a tight fit in the mother’s birth canal. Pelvic size may be limited by something not yet taken into account in locomotor studies, such as speed, balance, or risk of injury. Or, perhaps simple economy keeps pelvic size close to neonatal brain size. The third alternative is that human childbirth was not always difficult and has only become so as improvements in diet have increased newborn body size. The obstetrical hypothesis and the energetics hypothesis are not mutually exclusive. The evolutionary conflict that makes human birthing difficult may not be between walking or running and having babies, but between the fetus’s metabolic needs and the mother’s ability to meet them. Perhaps the problem isn’t only having —bearing—a big-brained baby. Perhaps the real problem is making one.Charlie Chaplin's film classic The Kid (1921) made him one of the first child stars in film history. He later sued his mother and stepfather over his squandered film earnings and provoked California to enact the first known legal protection for the earnings of child performers, widely known as the Coogan Act. [3] Coogan continued to act throughout his life, later earning renewed fame in middle age portraying Uncle Fester in the 1960s TV series The Addams Family.
He was born as John Leslie Coogan in 1914 in Los Angeles, California, to John Henry Coogan Jr. and Lillian Rita (Dolliver) Coogan.[1][4] He began performing as an infant in both vaudeville and film, with an uncredited role in the 1917 film Skinner's Baby. Charlie Chaplin discovered him in the Orpheum Theatre, a vaudeville house in Los Angeles, on the stage doing the shimmy, a dance popular at the time. Coogan's father was also an actor, as was Jackie's younger brother, Robert Coogan.
Jackie Coogan was a natural mimic and delighted Chaplin with his abilities. Chaplin cast him in a small role in A Day's Pleasure (1919). He was Chaplin's irascible companion in The Kid (1921) and the following year played the title role in Oliver Twist, directed by Frank Lloyd. Coogan was one of the first stars to be heavily merchandised. Peanut butter, stationery, whistles, dolls, records, and figurines were among the Coogan-themed merchandise on sale. Coogan was tutored until the age of 10, when he entered Urban Military Academy and other prep schools. He attended several colleges, as well as the University of Southern California. In 1932, he dropped out of Santa Clara University because of poor grades.
In November 1933, 22-year-old Brooke Hart, a close friend of Coogan from Santa Clara University and heir to a successful department store in San Jose, was kidnapped as he drove his car out of a parking lot. After several demands for a $40,000 ransom were delivered to the family, police arrested Thomas Thurmond and John Holmes in San Jose. Thurmond admitted that he and Holmes had murdered Hart the same day he was kidnapped. Both killers were transferred to a jail in downtown San Jose. A mob broke into the jail, and Thurmond and Holmes were hanged from a tree in a nearby park, with the unapologetic approval of the state's governor. Coogan was reported to be present and to have held the lynching rope.[5]
In 1935, 20-year-old Coogan was the sole survivor of a car crash in eastern San Diego County that killed his father; his best friend, 19-year-old actor Junior Durkin;[6] their ranch foreman, Charles Jones; and actor and writer Robert J. Horner. The party was returning from a day of dove hunting over the border in Mexico in early May. With his father at the wheel, the car was forced off the mountain highway near Pine Valley by an oncoming vehicle and rolled down an embankment.[7][8][9]
Coogan Bill Edit
“ Mr. and Mrs. Bernstein will never be serious contenders for the title of Mr. and Mrs. America. ” — New York Herald Tribune, 1938[10]
As a child star, Coogan earned an estimated $3 to $4 million. When he turned 21 in October 1935, his fortune was believed to be well intact. His assets had been conservatively managed by his father, who had died in the car accident less than six months earlier.[11]
However, Coogan found that the entire amount had been spent by his mother and stepfather, Arthur Bernstein, on fur coats, diamonds and other jewelry, and expensive cars. Bernstein had been a financial advisor for the family and married Coogan's mother in late 1936.[12] Coogan's mother and stepfather claimed Jackie enjoyed himself and simply thought he was playing before the camera. She insisted, "No promises were ever made to give Jackie anything",[10] and claimed he "was a bad boy".[13] Coogan sued them in 1938,[12] but after his legal expenses, he received just $126,000 of the $250,000 remaining of his earnings. When he fell on hard times and asked Charlie Chaplin for assistance, Chaplin handed him $1,000 without hesitating.[14]
The legal battle focused attention on child actors and resulted in the 1939 enactment of the California Child Actor's Bill, often referred to as the "Coogan Law" or the "Coogan Act". It required that a child actor's employer set aside 15% of the earnings in a trust (called a Coogan account), and specified the actor's schooling, work hours, and time off.[15]
Charity work Edit
Coogan worked with Near East relief, he toured across the United States and Europe in 1924 on a "Children's Crusade" as part of his fundraising drive, which provided more than $1 million in clothing, food, and other contributions (worth more than $13 million in 2012 dollars). He was honored by officials in the United States, Greece, and Rome, where he had an audience with Pope Pius XI.[16]
A Roman Catholic, Coogan was a member of the Good Shepherd Parish and the Catholic Motion Picture Guild in Beverly Hills.[17]Despite poll after poll showing that Americans want more clean energy, Indiana legislators are pushing bills that would reduce energy efficiency and make it harder for Hoosier state residents to go solar, just as the solar industry is getting on its feet in the state.
Last week, Indiana's Senate Utilities Committee heard from a packed room about its bill that would let utilities set energy efficiency goals. Last year the state decided to end the popular Energizing Indiana efficiency program. Now some in the legislature have created Senate Bill 412, which is very one-sided in favor of utilities who sell electricity and doesn't protect the average person from monopoly interests.
Full house for the SB 412 Hearing. Clean Energy supporters wearing red! #EnergyFreedom #INLegis pic.twitter.com/fK3hbiP3ID — Indiana Beyond Coal (@INBeyondCoal) January 22, 2015
Energy efficiency is a proven tool to lower electricity bills and save money for people across the state. Handing control of these programs over to companies that are in the business of selling more electricity jeopardizes Indiana’s progress on energy efficiency.
And many Indiana residents spoke their mind and delivered that message during the hearing.
"We need state leadership that actually leads, engaging all of the state energy providers, community organizations, businesses, landlords and homeowners in a broad partnership that incentivizes broad-based investment in a more efficient, affordable and broadly-distributed energy future, instead of just pitting the utilities in an adversarial role against the ratepayers," said Rich Van Dyke, of the group NESCO, which represents 32,000 residents on the Indianapolis East Side.
People from many backgrounds spoke out against the utility's plan to control energy efficiency goals, including many from the faith community.
"This bill could be improved if it provided for mechanisms to encourage local governments and non-profit groups to develop energy efficiency programs for the poor in their communities," said Jack Hill, a minister in the Secular Franciscan Order of the Catholic Church in Indiana, in his written testimony submitted to the committee. "More than anyone else, the poor must spend extra money to pay for homes that are poorly insulated and appliances that waste too much energy."
HB 1320 is not fair to current and future owners of rooftop solar and small-scale wind, and threatens to drive up costs for all ratepayers—not just those who own solar—by allowing utilities to increase everyone's fixed monthly charges to feed their bottom line.
Sierra Club Indiana activists were part of the coalition of groups testifying, as Indiana Beyond Coal has long been working getting the state to switch to clean energy and energy efficiency.
"Energy efficiency means lower energy bills and less reliance on expensive power plants, creating savings for all Hoosier families and small businesses," said Jodi Perras, Indiana representative for Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign. "It's time for our elected officials to stand up for the interests and financial security of ordinary Hoosier families by keeping energy efficiency strong and out of the total control of those who sell electricity."
What's more, there's also a bill being proposed that would severely hamper solar's growth in the Hoosier state as well.
Electricity customers in Indiana who use solar power receive credits for selling excess power back to the grid, but HB 1320 would minimize those credits, and allow utilities to set fixed charges for solar users.
Brad Morton, owner of Morton Solar in Evansville, says it would increase the cost to install solar power, effectively killing it as an energy option in Indiana.
"It takes the incentive out of the homeowner's pocket and puts it right into the pocket of the utility company," he says. "That's what this bill is all about, shifting the profits from the homeowner to the utility company."
Indeed, our Indiana experts say this bill is clearly designed to make residential rooftop solar and small-scale wind more expensive, rig the game in favor of electric utility control and restrict residents’ freedom to generate their own electricity.
HB 1320 is not fair to current and future owners of rooftop solar and small-scale wind, and threatens to drive up costs for all ratepayers—not just those who own solar—by allowing utilities to increase everyone's fixed monthly charges to feed their bottom line.
You can help fight for energy efficiency and clean energy in Indiana—take action today!
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The War on SolarA huge chunk of the U.S. may no longer have “broadband” service soon, if a new plan by federal regulators to change the definition of high-speed access is approved.
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler proposed Wednesday to increase the U.S. definition of broadband to 25 megabits per second, saying the |
, "Why not?" Well, how about the fact that in order for this thing to actually fool someone, they'd have to be so far away from it that you'd be safe from attack anyway? Or that it makes it impossible to run away? Or that you'd have to not only carry this bulky thing around, but also a case of Cokes in case somebody drops in some change while you're hiding? Continue Reading Below AdvertisementScientists knew there were certain neurons in the brain stem that are awake when we are awake and "sleep when we sleep," says Dr. Sigrid Veasey, a study author and professor at UPenn's Perelman School of Medicine.
“This gave us an indication that maybe [the cells] needed their rest,” she says. “We hypothesized that the cells that were going to be the most likely to get injured would be some of the cells that are active during wakefulness.”
These particular neurons located in the brain stem are critical to attention, cognitive performance and also play a role in determining one’s mood.
“So if there’s an injury to these neurons, then you may have poor ability to pay attention and you might also have depression,” Veasey says.
[ALSO: Healthy Tips for Night Shift Workers]
Veasey and her colleagues used a mouse model to explore the impact of imposed wakefulness on mice’s brains. They separated mice into three groups. One group was allowed sleep as usual, another group was kept awake for three additional hours during their normal sleep period in a space outfitted with "play" items – wheels, toys and other mice. A third group of mice was kept awake in a similar environment during their normal sleep period for an additional eight hours, for three days.
Humans and other mammals share these same neural networks, so looking at wakefulness in mice is a good proxy for understanding the sleep habits of humans.
“There’s every indication that they function the same way,” says Veasey.
After procuring brain tissue from the mice, researchers found an increase in the amount of a protein known as SirT3, that protects these "wake-active neurons" from damage among the mice who were kept from sleeping for shortened periods, but the mice who were kept awake for extended periods did not show any increase in this protective protein. Researchers also found a 25 to 30 percent loss of neurons and an increase in what’s known as oxidative stress in the extended wakefulness group of mice. This stress causes the proteins inside these neurons to fold on top of each other and can prevent them from communicating with other neurons. Some of the mice had a genetic deletion which stopped them from producing this key protein. Those mice also incurred damage to these sleep-sensitive neurons, even with only short-term sleep loss.
“So really the cells that are remaining just don’t function well,” says Veasey.
The results of the study emphasize the critical importance of sleep, says Veasey.
“You can push the system a little bit, but you can’t push it too hard and for too long or you’ll have irreversible consequences,” she says.
[MORE: The Trouble With Sleep Texting]
For students, academics and other professionals looking to gain an edge, Veasey says, “You’re at a time in your life when you really have to pull a couple of all-nighters to sustain that edge academically or professionally, but by cutting our sleep times short then do we end up losing that edge in the long term because we lose those neurons that are so critical for attention?”
Veasey says while she can't repeat this study in humans, there is certainly room for more research.
In addition, having learned the critical importance of this protective protein SirT3, researchers believe that it could provide avenues for new treatment.
"If we can show that we can protect the cells and wakefulness, then we're launched in the direction of a promising therapeutic target for millions of shift workers," said Veasey in a press release.
Future studies could use brain imaging techniques to look at people with sleeping disorders to help researchers better understand the damage that's incurred through sleep loss.
The study was first published Tuesday in the Journal of Neuroscience.AP Images/Jacquelyn Martin
Generational fairness has been a big theme of the austerity crusaders, whose most strident advocates tend to be financiers and business titans of substantial net worth. Yet their calls to radically reduce social investment out of a sense of generational equity diminishes the prospects of young people. The true generational injustice has little to do with the projected public debt and everything to do with the real crisis going on right now. Today’s young adults—especially 20- and 30-somethings with young children—face shrinking opportunity and growing insecurity.
The fate of today’s infants and toddlers is inextricably connected to that of their millennial--generation parents. Two-thirds of children under the age of 5 are raised by parents younger than 34. The true generational injustice is a threadbare to nonexistent social contract that has made it harder than ever before for the young to either work or educate their way into the middle class—and stay there if they’re lucky enough to arrive. The prolonged downturn intensified the struggle; state and federal budget cuts only deepened the damage.
More than three years after the official end of the recession, more than 5.6 million 18- to 34-year-olds want a job and can’t find one. An additional 4.7 million young adults are underemployed—they’re either working part time when they really want a full-time position, or they’ve simply given up on their job search. High unemployment is unlikely to abate anytime soon without much greater public investment, direct action to create jobs, or both. If we continue to add jobs at the current rate, it will be 2022 before the country recovers to full employment, and even under those conditions workers younger than 25 will face unemployment rates double the national average—and flat or declining wages.
While much media attention has focused on young college-educated grads who can’t find work or are working at jobs that don’t require their degrees, the greatest pain accrues further down the income and education ladder. Less-privileged young people are experiencing joblessness at levels not seen since the Great Depression. Young African Americans face joblessness at a rate double that of young whites, and the gaps between those with college degrees and high-school diplomas is even wider. Most children of baby boomers will not be able to achieve even their parents’ standard of living.
And Baby Makes Broke
The millennial generation is now in its peak childbearing years, and more than in any previous generation, the cultural and economic expectation is that both mom and dad will be in the workforce throughout their children’s lives. Compared to baby boomers and gen-Xers, millennials are much more supportive of policies that would make child care widely more available and affordable and that would provide paid family leave for new parents. With good reason: They earn less than their parents did at their age, they have more debt, and both men and women have come of age expecting to be full participants in both parenting and bread-winning. Our society is not meeting their needs—and as this sizable generation continues to progress through its childbearing stage, austerity measures are likely to make the child-care crisis even worse.
Compared to other rich nations, the United States spends considerably less of its national wealth on child care. The United States ranks 32nd out of 39 rich nations in spending on child care as a percentage of gross domestic product, which means that high-quality care is spectacularly expensive, and as a result, in short supply. Most public child-care spending is targeted toward single parents, delivered primarily through Head Start, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, and the Child Care Development Block Grant. But none of these supports is fully funded, so the supply of available slots falls short of the demand for services. State and federal budget cuts have further shrunk the number of children and families who will benefit from early care and learning programs.
More than one in three young families lived in poverty in 2010, the highest share on record. The price of child care is rising faster than inflation, with average monthly fees for two children exceeding median rent in every state. Because of these high costs, professional child care is unaffordable for many families, and only a fraction of families with working mothers put their children in paid care. Lower-income families are increasingly turning to their own extended family—grandparents and other relatives—to watch their children while they’re at work. The quality is dramatically uneven, and lower-income children are much more likely to end up in less stable and developmentally rich child-care settings.
Single parents, mainly single mothers, have a particularly tough time. Without the benefit of a second income, they often have trouble making ends meet. Just as this generation is experiencing growing inequality in their pursuit of higher education, their ability to provide top-quality care for their young children depends greatly on where they fall in America’s increasingly skewed income distribution.
For low-income families who don’t have relatives to provide care, paying for child care takes a substantial bite out of their incomes. The national average for center-based child-care costs in 2010 was $8,900 for full-time care for an infant and $7,150 for full-time care for a preschooler. Families making less than $1,500 per month with children under the age of five that paid for child care spent more than half of their monthly income on child-care expenses. It’s not uncommon for young children to be bounced around between several different settings during their formative years as child-care subsidies decrease with their mom’s earnings or cuts in state funding result in longer waiting lists or loss of a subsidized slot due to tightened eligibility. Investing in the critical first three years of life has been shown to be essential for a strong cognitive and social foundation. Reaching vulnerable children at birth is especially critical in preventing early and persistent learning gaps. Yet our nation, unlike other advanced and wealthy nations, leaves this stage of life largely to chance.
In his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama made a commitment to ensure universal pre-kindergarten for four-year-olds. Given the enormous political pressures to continue cutting the federal budget, it’s a long shot that we’ll be able to achieve universal pre-K anytime soon, let alone make significant strides toward ensuring all infants and toddlers are provided with nurturing and developmentally appropriate care while their parents work. Indeed, the issue of child care more broadly remains at the margins of political debate, gaining prominence only when existing funding is threatened or cut.
The Generational Earnings Gap
While the cost of child care has nearly doubled since the mid-1980s, over the same time the typical earnings of young people—many of whom need to purchase that care—have failed to keep pace. Between 1980 and 2011, typical earnings for young workers declined for all but college-educated women. Everyone else either lost ground or stayed in place—failing to either match or exceed what their parents earned a generation ago. Overall, young men in their mid-twenties to early thirties are earning 90 cents for every dollar their father earned in 1980, while young women overall have pulled ahead, earning $1.17 in 2010 for every dollar earned by their mothers in 1980—a gain entirely driven by college-educated women.
But these averages mask large differences in the generational earnings gap that has occurred for non-college-educated young people. The typical inflation-adjusted earnings for young men with no education beyond high school are 25 percent less than in 1980, a loss of more than $10,000. Young women without any college credentials earn less too, but their loss is $2,500. The declines continue for young people with some college or an associate’s degree, though the drop in earnings power is less severe. It’s important to note that the generational decline in earnings power was well under way before the recession hit, and it shows no sign of improving in the absence of public policies to increase the minimum wage, enforce existing labor laws, universalize career paths in health-services occupations, and bolster the practical right to collective bargaining. There are millions of jobs that can’t be shipped overseas or replaced by robots—think home health-care aides, stockers, day-care workers, waiters, cooks—and these jobs will continue to be the largest source of new positions in the next decade. The only way to improve job quality for millions of workers in these occupations is through public--policy choices and collective-bargaining rights, aimed at professionalizing jobs and pay levels, improving working conditions, and providing pathways out of entry-level jobs.
In the meantime, going to college remains the best route to the middle class. It’s become a common refrain that a college graduate today will earn more than $1 million more in his or her lifetime than someone without a college degree. What’s less appreciated is that the so-called college premium isn’t due to the average college grad making out like gangbusters; it’s because everybody else’s earnings have taken a nosedive.
Some in the media have taken the job slump of recent college grads and their rising debt burdens as a reason to question whether a college degree is still worth it today. But that’s the wrong conclusion. The more appropriate question to ask in the wake of $1 trillion in college debt is whether our debt-for-diploma system is a good way to provide access to college and a real chance at upward mobility.
The Debt-for-Diploma System
What gets lost in the trendy conversation about whether college is really worth it is the radical nature of the current status quo. Today, two-thirds of college-going students borrow to help pay for the cost, graduating with an average of $26,000 in undergraduate debt. African Americans and lower-income students are much more likely to borrow, and at higher amounts, than their white and more privileged peers. Fully eight out of ten African American college students take on debt to pay for college (average graduating debt: more than $28,000), compared to just over six out of ten white students, who graduate with $4,000 less debt than their African American counterparts. Not everyone makes it to commencement, of course. Today, dropping out often means leaving the college gates with debt but no degree—a fate that befalls almost 30 percent of college students who take out loans, leaving them with less income to defray debt.
The path to our current debt-for-diploma system is the result of several overlapping trends. The first is a steady decline in public investment in state colleges and universities, down 26 percent per full-time equivalent over two decades. This, more than any other trend, fueled the tripling of public university tuition in one generation. Second, as tuition spiraled, the purchasing power of the Pell grant dwindled from covering about $70 out of every $100 in college costs to around $30 of every $100 today. In addition, many states and colleges shifted their aid programs to play the rankings game and attract the highest-scoring students, diverting scarce resources away from students with financial need. The result of all of this is a widening level of unmet need—the amount of money after all available aid that students need to either earn or borrow to pay for school. Students from modest backgrounds coped with the yawning gap between their resources and the cost of college by working more hours at part- or full-time jobs and piling on debt. Having to work while attending college reduces one’s chance of graduating within five years—or graduating at all. The whole system serves to harden class lines.
The debt-for-diploma system has distorted the way we think about the returns to a college education. Vanishing from our discourse is acknowledgment of the vital role higher education plays in a democracy or the vast public benefit we all derive from an open and affordable college system. The debt that is now required to attend college has essentially commoditized and privatized what has been since our nation’s founding a public good. Our national discussion about college has become dominated by business-speak. Major foundations and a growing cadre of public intellectuals have commandeered the dialogue to press for a greater return on investment by ensuring today’s college degrees have labor-market value. But in a debt-for-diploma system, “labor-market value” becomes harder to define or achieve. Has a teacher with $30,000 in student debt who is making $25,000 a year achieved labor-market value? What about the music-studies major who took out $15,000 in loans and makes a living teaching piano lessons to neighborhood kids and serving lattes, while performing in the all-volunteer community symphony? Does his degree produce defensible labor-market value? Does the answer change if we add to the analysis that the teacher is the first to go to college in her family while the Wall Streeter comes from a well-heeled family of Ivy Leaguers? How about the business major who takes out $60,000 in loans and lands a job on Wall Street making $150,000? No question her degree has good labor-market value. Does it make her investment better than the teacher’s investment? Suppose the Wall Streeter used her knowledge to enrich herself at the expense of her customers or helped crash the economy? The very premise of labor-market value presumes that markets accurately value social goods, of which education is a prime example. The fact that society needs tax-supported primary and secondary education in the first place is long-standing proof that markets do not value education correctly.
The debt-for-diploma system has consequences of bigger import than whether it helps an individual land a job that makes going to college “worth it.” As debt financing has become the required gateway for attending a four-year university, we’re experiencing growing gaps by race and class in who enrolls and completes four-year degrees. Smart and passionate young people from modest or poor backgrounds are doing the best they can to avoid debt by enrolling part-time and working full-time—the two biggest factors for dropping out. Meanwhile, our nation’s most elite colleges are engaged in a battle of “who has more luxuries” so they can entice well-heeled students who will pay full price.
Until about the mid-1990s, state universities and colleges were affordable for middle-income households, with summer jobs helping fill any leftover financial need. Lower-income students could pay the bill with grants and part-time jobs. Debt was the exception, not the rule. Well-funded public universities and generous financial aid is what made America’s older population the most educated in the world. The debt-for-diploma system has made America’s younger population the 14th most educated in the world, while our older population ranks No. 1 in education attainment. Every year, millions of smart and passionate young people downscale or abandon their dreams because college has become so financially complicated. For those lucky enough to make it to graduation thanks to five-figure student loans, their monthly loan payments will exert a slow drag on their pocketbooks, slowing down their savings and ability to buy a home and even distorting key life decisions like getting married and starting a family. So the economic pain and diminished prospects of the parents will be reflected in the next generation.
Our nation has a long, rich history of expanding access to higher education through generous public investment—a path that has been abandoned in one generation. At the other end of the education spectrum, however, our system of early childhood education and care has overwhelmingly been treated as a private good, with access to high-quality care largely dependent on whether a family can afford to pay top dollar.
What Can We Afford?
Outlays on social goods such as child care or higher education have always drawn conservative opposition. But the struggle has intensified as the super-affluent have gained more power and influence over our political priorities and decision-making. It turns out that the rich, who have private options, also have different opinions than most Americans on key policies that shape opportunity and living standards. Because policymakers engage much more directly and routinely with this relatively small group of affluent Americans, their priorities and preferences are much more likely to shape the agenda and the terms of the debate.
A recent survey funded by the Russell Sage Foundation found that the policy preferences of those with average annual incomes of more than $1 million vary widely from those of most citizens. This survey found that the general public is more open than the wealthy to a variety of policies designed to reduce inequality and strengthen economic opportunity, including raising the minimum wage, ensuring jobs for all who want one, and protecting our most vulnerable residents.
But the affluent don’t just hold different opinions about public policies—they are much more able to convert those preferences into policy changes. In his recent book, Affluence and Influence: Economic Inequality and Political Power in America, political scientist Martin Gilens concludes that “the American government does respond to the public’s preferences, but that responsiveness is strongly tilted toward the most affluent citizens. Indeed, under most circumstances, the preferences of the vast majority of Americans appear to have essentially no impact on which policies the government does or doesn’t adopt.” Gilens shows that, in many cases, public-policy outcomes would have been quite different if Congress and the president had been equally responsive to all income groups.
The role that the donor class plays in both shaping and affecting the outcomes of policy is particularly critical on economic policy, notably high-income Americans’ stronger opposition to taxes (which are essential to affording anything) and corporate regulation. In his 2008 book, Unequal Democracy, political scientist Larry Bartels writes that “the preferences of people in the bottom third of the income distribution have no apparent impact on the behavior of their elected officials.”
Our nation is pulling apart—politically and economically—in a toxic, mutually reinforcing cycle that confers more political advantages to the privileged few, while the majority of Americans struggle under an economic system whose rules are written to increasingly reward only those at the top. The millennial generation is coming of age and growing into adulthood at the pinnacle of this inequality era—and all indications are they will be worse off than previous generations. Their children are likely to be still worse off. This is not because of happenstance, nor is it due to the ravages of the lingering downturn. The descent of this generation has its roots in political changes that began just when they were being born, when conservatives began their assertive and effective assault on our common good.
Privileges at birth were never supposed to define one’s life in America, and while this has always been more aspirational and mythical than we’d like to think, it is perhaps the idea that most defines us as Americans. Throughout most of our history, we’ve taken deliberate steps toward closing the gap between this idea and our actual lives. Today we are no longer on a path toward more equality of opportunity, and this generation’s challenges provide ample evidence of our retreat. There is nothing inevitable about this fate, but altering the prospects of young Americans and their own children will require drastically different politics and policies.The Swedish physician and statistics expert Hans Rosling died today, age 68, from pancreatic cancer. Humanosphere has met with and reported on Rosling‘s work for many years. As a professor at the Karolinska Institute and founder of the viz-info site Gapminder, he made the data showing humanity’s progress against disease and poverty so compelling and easily understood it can be like watching an action movie. Rosling was almost always the voice of optimism, but as one of our later stories illustrated he sometimes used his powerful skills at visualizing information to make a difficult or even politically charged point – in this case chastising Europe for its ‘pathetic support’ given at the time to Syrian refugees.
In this era of fake news, post-truth and other problems caused by the failure to accept or understand the facts Rosling’s simple and powerful talent for presenting information will be sorely missed.Census Bureau map depicting territorial acquisitions and dates of statehood, probably created in the 1970s
Map of the United States and directly-controlled territory at its greatest extent from 1898–1902, after the Spanish–American War
This is a United States territorial acquisitions and conquests list, beginning with American independence. Note that this list primarily concerns land the United States of America acquired from other nation-states. Early American expansion was tied to a national concept of manifest destiny.
History of the United States of America [ edit ]
Control over North America (1750–2008)
National Atlas map (circa 2005) depicting territorial acquisitions.
A government map, probably created in the mid-20th century, that depicts a simplified history of territorial acquisitions within the continental United States
The 1783 Treaty of Paris with Great Britain defined the original borders of the United States. It generally stretched from the Eastern Seaboard to the Mississippi River in the west. There were ambiguities in the treaty regarding the exact border with Canada to the north that led to disputes that were resolved by the Webster–Ashburton Treaty in 1842.[1] Beginning in the late 18th century, the new nation organized areas west of the Original thirteen states into several United States territories, setting a template for future expansion.
Louisiana Purchase [ edit ]
The Louisiana Purchase in 1803, was negotiated with Napoleon during Thomas Jefferson's presidency. The territory was acquired from France for $15 million (equivalent to $251 million in present-day terms). A small portion of this land was ceded to Britain in 1818 in exchange for the Red River Basin. More of this land was ceded to Spain in 1819 with the Florida Purchase, but was later reacquired through the Texas Annexation and Mexican Cession.[2]
West Florida [ edit ]
West Florida was declared to be a U.S. possession in 1810 by President James Madison after the territory had declared its independence from Spain.[3] Madison ordered the U.S. Army to take control. Six weeks later, the army entered and occupied the capital, St. Francisville, putting an end to the republic after 74 days of independence. Spain did not relinquish its claim to sovereignty (see West Florida Controversy) until ratification of the Adams–Onís Treaty. General Andrew Jackson personally accepted the delivery of West Florida from its Spanish governor on July 17, 1821.[4]
Red River [ edit ]
The parts of Rupert's Land and the Red River Colony south of the 49th parallel in the basin of the Red River of the North were acquired in 1818 from Britain under the Anglo-American Convention of 1818.
East Florida [ edit ]
The Adams–Onís Treaty of 1819 with Spain resulted in Spain's cession of East Florida and the Sabine Free State and Spain's surrender of any claims to the Oregon Country. Article III of the treaty, when properly surveyed, resulted in the acquisition of a small part of central Colorado.[5]
Along Canada–US border [ edit ]
Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842 with Britain split the disputed territory in Maine and New Brunswick and finalized the border with Canada,[6] including the disputed Indian Stream territory. In 1850 Britain ceded to the U.S. less than one acre of underwater rock (Horseshoe Reef) in Lake Erie near Buffalo for a lighthouse.[7]
Texas [ edit ]
Texas Annexation of 1845: The independent Republic of Texas long sought to join the U.S., despite Mexican claims and the warning by Mexican leader Antonio López de Santa Anna that this would be "equivalent to a declaration of war against the Mexican Republic." Congress approved the annexation of Texas on February 28, 1845. On December 29, 1845, Texas became the 28th state. Texas had claimed New Mexico east of the Rio Grande but had only made one unsuccessful attempt to occupy it; New Mexico was captured by the U.S. Army in August 1846 and then administered separately from Texas. Mexico acknowledged the loss of territory in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1848.
Oregon Territory [ edit ]
Oregon Country, the territory of North America west of the Rockies to the Pacific, was jointly controlled by the U.S. and Britain following the Anglo-American Convention of 1818 until June 15, 1846 when the Oregon Treaty divided the territory at the 49th parallel (see Oregon boundary dispute). The San Juan Islands were claimed and jointly occupied by the U.S. and the U.K. from 1846–72 due to ambiguities in the treaty (see Northwestern Boundary Dispute). Arbitration led to the sole U.S. possession of the San Juan Islands since 1872.
Mexican Cession [ edit ]
Mexican Cession lands were captured in the Mexican–American War in 1846–48, and ceded by Mexico in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, where Mexico agreed to the present Mexico–United States border except for the later Gadsden Purchase. The United States paid $15 million (equivalent to $403 million in present-day terms) and agreed to pay claims made by American citizens against Mexico which amounted to more than $3 million (equivalent to $81 million today).
Gadsden Purchase [ edit ]
In the Gadsden Purchase of 1853, the United States purchased a strip of land along the Mexico–United States border for $10 million (equivalent to $301 million in present-day terms), now in New Mexico and Arizona. The territory was also bought as Americans were passing through the land west to California. After the American Mexican War, over the dispute of border claims, American bought the land to prevent future conflict. Few historians would argue the territory was intended for a southern transcontinental railroad.
Since 1853 [ edit ]
Alaska [ edit ]
Alaska Purchase from the Russian Empire for $7.2 million (2 cents per acre)[8] on March 30, 1867 (equivalent to $129 million in present-day terms), as a vital refueling station for ships trading with Asia. The land went through several administrative changes before becoming an organized territory on May 11, 1912, and the 49th state of the U.S. on January 3, 1959.
Hawaii [ edit ]
Hawaii and Outlying Islands In 1959, 94% of Hawaii's residents voted to relinquish all land claims (proposition 2) to the United States and become a state.
Today's United States Minor Outlying Islands excluding Caribbean
The Kingdom of Hawaii was closely linked by missionary work and trade to the U.S. by the 1880s. In 1893 business leaders overthrew the Queen of Hawaii and sought annexation. President Grover Cleveland strongly disapproved, so Hawaii set up an independent republic, the Republic of Hawaii. Southern Democrats in Congress strongly opposed a non-white addition. President William McKinley, a Republican, secured a Congressional resolution in 1898, and the small republic joined the U.S. All its citizens became full U.S. citizens. One factor was the need for advanced naval bases to fend off Japanese ambitions.[citation needed] The Hawaiian Islands officially became an incorporated territory of the U.S. in 1900. Following 94% voter approval of the Admission of Hawaii Act, on August 21, 1959 the Territory of Hawaii became the state of Hawaii, the 50th state.
With Hawaii came two remote coral atolls: the Palmyra Atoll which had been annexed by the U.S. in 1859, abandoned, then claimed in 1862 by the Kingdom of Hawaii, and the Stewart Islands, which had joined the Kingdom a few years before Palmyra. At Hawaiian statehood in 1959, Palmyra and arguably the Stewarts were excluded from the new state. Palmyra remained an incorporated U.S. territory, while the Stewarts were claimed and are now controlled by the Solomon Islands.[9]
Spanish colonies [ edit ]
Post-Spanish–American War map of "Greater America".
Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines (for which the United States compensated Spain $20 million, equivalent to $602 million in present-day terms), were ceded by Spain after the Spanish–American War in the 1898 Treaty of Paris. Spain relinquished all claim of sovereignty over Cuba, but did not cede it to the United States, so it became a protectorate. All four of these areas were under United States Military Government (USMG) for extended periods. Cuba became an independent nation in 1902, and the Philippines became an independent nation in 1946.
This era also saw the first scattered protests against American imperialism. Noted Americans such as Mark Twain spoke out forcefully against these ventures. Opponents of the war, including Twain and Andrew Carnegie, organized themselves into the American Anti-Imperialist League.
During this same period the American people continued to strongly chastise the European powers for their imperialism. The Second Boer War was especially unpopular in the United States and soured Anglo-American relations. The anti-imperialist press would often draw parallels between the U.S. in the Philippines and the British in the Second Boer War.[10]
Cuba [ edit ]
Under the 1898 Treaty of Paris, Spain relinquished all claim of sovereignty over and title to Cuba, with the island to be occupied by the United States. Under the Teller Amendment Congress had already decided against annexation. Cuba gained formal independence on 20 May 1902. Under the new Cuban constitution, however, the U.S. retained the right to intervene in Cuban affairs and to supervise its finances and foreign relations through the Platt Amendment;[11] this, however, was later renounced as part of Franklin Roosevelt's Good Neighbor Policy.[11] Under the Platt Amendment (1901), Cuba also agreed to lease to the U.S. the naval base at Guantánamo Bay.
The naval base occupies land which the United States leased from Cuba in 1903 "... for the time required for the purposes of coaling and naval stations." The two governments later agreed that, "So long as the United States of America shall not abandon the said naval station of Guantanamo or the two Governments shall not agree to a modification of its present limits, the station shall continue to have the territorial area that it now has, with the limits that it has on the date of the signature of the present Treaty."[12][13]
Puerto Rico [ edit ]
On July 25, 1898, during the Spanish–American War, Puerto Rico was invaded by the United States with a landing at Guánica. As an outcome of the war, the Jones–Shafroth Act granted all the inhabitants of Puerto Rico U.S. citizenship in 1917. The U.S. granted Puerto Ricans the right to democratically elect their own governor in 1948. In 1950, the Truman Administration allowed for a democratic referendum in Puerto Rico to determine whether Puerto Ricans desired to draft their own local constitution without affecting the unincorporated territory status with the U.S.[14] A local constitution was approved by a Constitutional Convention on February 6, 1952, ratified by the U.S. Congress, approved by President Truman on July 3 of that year, and proclaimed by Gov. Muñoz Marín on July 25, 1952, the anniversary of the 1898 arrival of U.S. troops. Puerto Rico adopted the name of Estado Libre Asociado (literally translated as "Free Associated State"), officially translated into English as Commonwealth, for its body politic.[15][16]
Guam [ edit ]
In Guam, settlement by foreign ethnic groups was small at first. After World War II showed the strategic value of the island, construction of a huge military base began along with a large influx of people from other parts of the world. Guam today has a very mixed population of 164,000. The indigenous Chamorros make up 37% of the population. The rest of the population consists mostly of white Americans and Filipinos, with smaller groups of Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Micronesians, Vietnamese and Indians. Guam today is almost totally Americanized. The situation is somewhat similar to that in Hawaii, but attempts to change Guam's status as an 'unincorporated' U.S. territory have yet to meet with success.
Philippines [ edit ]
The Philippine Revolution against Spain began in April 1896. The Spanish–American War came to the Philippines on May 1, 1898, when the United States Navy's Asiatic Squadron, commanded by Commodore George Dewey, defeated the Spanish Pacific Squadron under Admiral Patricio Montojo y Pasarón during the Battle of Manila Bay. On June 12, Philippine revolutionaries declared independence and establishment of the First Philippine Republic. On December 10, 1898, the Treaty of Paris which ended the Spanish–American War was signed. The treaty transferred control of the Philippines from Spain to the United States. This agreement was not recognized by the Philippine revolutionaries, who declared war against the United States on June 2, 1899.[17] The Philippine–American War ensued. In 1901, Emilio Aguinaldo, president of the Malolos Republic, was captured and pledged his allegiance to the American government.[18] The U.S. unilaterally declared an end to the conflict in 1902. Scattered fighting continued, however, until 1913.
The Philippine Organic Act of 1902 provided for the establishment of a bicameral legislature composed of an upper house consisting of the Philippine Commission, an appointed body with both American and Filipino members. and a popularly elected lower house, the Philippine Assembly. The Philippines became a U.S. colony in the fashion of Europe's New Imperialism,[citation needed] with benevolent colonial practices. English joined Spanish as an official language, and English language education was made compulsory. In 1916, the United States passed the Philippine Autonomy Act and committed itself to granting independence to the Philippines "as soon as a stable government can be established therein."[19] As a step to full independence in 1946, partial autonomy as a Commonwealth was granted in 1935.
Preparation for a fully sovereign state was interrupted by the Japanese occupation of the Philippines during World War II. The United States suffered a total of 62,514 casualties, including 13,973 deaths in its attempt to liberate the Philippines from Imperial Japanese rule during the hard-fought Philippines campaign from 1944–1945. Full independence came with the recognition of Philippine sovereignty by the U.S. in 1946.
Wake Island [ edit ]
Wake Island was annexed as empty territory by the United States in 1899 (the claim is currently disputed by the Marshall Islands).
American Samoa [ edit ]
Germany, the United States, and Britain colonized the Samoan Islands. The nations came into conflict in the Second Samoan Civil War and the nations resolved their issues, establishing American Samoa as per the Treaty of Berlin, 1899. The U.S. took control of its allotted region on June 7, 1900, with the Deed of Cession. Tutuila Island and Aunuu Island were ceded by their chiefs in 1900, then added to American Samoa. Manua was annexed in 1904, then added to American Samoa. Swains Island was annexed in 1925 (occupied since 1856), then added to American Samoa. (The claim is currently disputed by Tokelau, a colonial territory of New Zealand.) American Samoa was under the control of the U.S. Navy from 1900 to 1951. American Samoa was made a formal territory in 1929. From 1951 until 1977, Territorial Governors were appointed by the Secretary of the Interior. Immigration of Americans was never as strong as it was |
Malaysians. Economists say the policy has deterred investment and driven a brain drain, especially of ethnic Chinese, entrenching Malaysia’s “middle-income” trap.
The Penang reforms helped level the playing field for small Malay businesses, Mr. Lim said, enabling them to win contracts based on merit rather than connections. Smaller firms still have special protection because all contractors for “class F” jobs, those valued at as much as 200,000 ringgit, or $65,000, must be bumiputra by federal law.DETROIT (Reuters) - Former U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney attacked 2016 Republican front-runner Donald Trump as “a fraud” on Thursday and urged primary voters to keep the outspoken New York billionaire from getting the nomination, paving the way for possible horse trading at a party convention in July.
Mitt Romney speaks critically about Donald Trump at the Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah, March 3, 2015. REUTERS/Jim Urquhart
In an unusually harsh speech, party elder Romney warned that former reality TV star Trump would likely lose to possible Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in the Nov. 8 election if he becomes the Republican nominee.
Trump’s rise has split the Republican Party between mainstream figures like Romney, and Trump supporters who complain the party does not reflect their concerns about illegal immigration, the slow economic recovery and what they see as America’s diminishing role in the world.
That split widened when Romney, the party nominee in 2012, urged Republican primary voters to vote tactically in different states to back Trump’s opponents and block his path to the nomination.
“Here’s what I know. Donald Trump is a phony, a fraud,” said Romney, 68, who did not endorse any candidate.
“I would vote for Marco Rubio in Florida, for John Kasich in Ohio, and for Ted Cruz or whichever one of the other two contenders has the best chance of beating Mr. Trump in a given state,” he said. Rubio is a U.S. senator from Florida and Kasich is the Ohio governor.
By calling for targeted voting, Romney was setting up the possibility of a contested convention when Republicans gather in Cleveland in mid-July to select their nominee for the November election to succeed Democratic President Barack Obama. That could create a pathway to deny Trump the 1,237 delegates needed for nomination.
The last Republican convention to go beyond one ballot was in 1948 when Thomas Dewey was nominated.
“I think the governor is just being realistic about where things stand and advocating a potential strategy that could stop the Trump nomination,” said former Romney spokesman Ryan Williams.
ESTABLISHMENT UNEASE
Republican strategist Scott Reed said he doubted the last-ditch tactical voting suggestion would work. “No one will be playing the targeted voting game. There’s too much anger and distrust,” Reed said.
Trump, 69, has made his party’s establishment uneasy with his abrasive tone and policy positions, including plans to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexican border, deport 11 million illegal immigrants and temporarily bar Muslims from entering the country.
More than 90 Republican national security leaders have signed a scathing open letter opposing Trump and his stance on many foreign policy issues.
Romney’s speech in Utah was the spearhead of a mainstream Republican attempt to rein in Trump after he won most states in this week’s Republican Super Tuesday nominating contests and took a step toward earning the nomination.
The address came hours before Trump and his rivals shared a stage in Detroit at 9 p.m. EST for a debate hosted by Fox News.
Trump leads many polls for primaries in the remaining states, including in major ones like Florida on March 15, dampening prospects of derailing him.
The party establishment’s strategy risks backfiring by further energizing Trump’s supporters, many of them white, blue-collar voters.
“If only Romney talked like this four years ago about Obama... or Trump,” conservative political commentator Michelle Malkin said on Twitter. “Too freaking late and too freaking lame.”
‘FAILED CANDIDATE’
Trump dismissed the former Massachusetts governor who lost to Obama four years ago. “Mitt is a failed candidate. He failed. He failed horribly. He failed badly,” Trump told a rally in Maine.
Romney decided on his own to give the speech, which he wrote himself. Romney said Trump’s economic policy would sink America “into prolonged recession,” mocked Trump’s ego, and called him a “con man.”
“A business genius he is not,” Romney said.
David Axelrod, a former senior adviser to Obama, called the Romney speech a “break glass” moment he had not seen since 1964, when Republicans abandoned their candidate Barry Goldwater.
Axelrod noted thousands of Republicans had already voted for Trump in primary elections. “I wonder about tactic of calling them fools,” Axelrod wrote on Twitter.
Slideshow (2 Images)
(Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu, Eric Beech, Warren Strobel, Jonathan Landay and Matt Spetalnick in Washington; Writing by Steve Holland, Roberta Rampton; Editing by Alistair Bell and Peter Cooney)
This article was funded in part by SAP. It was independently created by the Reuters editorial staff. SAP had no editorial involvement in its creation or production.Update: Someone claiming to be Sngisback contacted me and has clarified some things, St4ck wasn't using crafted cards and probably spent quite a bit more money: "he had $13k worth in bugged(not crafted) cards. He spent ~x4 more."
Original:
Over two weeks ago, Valve began their Steam Summer Sale, an event that brings tears to wallets and huge discounts to games. Within Steam, users are given 'Levels' and 'XP' (experience points) for playing games or trading Steam cards (as well as other things).
One Steam user decided that this Summer Sale would be the sale that would make himt he highest level Steam user in the world – no matter how much money it took. Well, it worked. Steam user St4ck has the highest level on Steam and it took quite bit of money to get there.
Currently, St4ck’s is sitting at a Steam level of 1113 – the highest in the world. He got this title (which doesn't really add up to much outside of Steam) by using the Steam Sale's discounts to max out his XP and having around $13,000 to throw away.
According to someone close to St4ck, who goes by sngisback, this is how he did it:
"he bought Summer sale (mysterious) cards every day from the 1st day of release on Steam community market for $2000 daily limit"
"he prepared [approximately] 7000 trading card complete sets from different games to get bonus Summer sale cards after craft them"
"he ask[ed] for me with help him to get the maximum of Summer sale cards and i got few thousands from trades with many steam community users"
Basically, St4ck wanted to be the top dog on Steam and $13,000 got him there. It's a shame to see that he didn't buy games with that money…
[Kotaku]Here’s the second strip. There might be another one, I’ll decide tomorrow. Until then, another bit of “C” Team fic. I’ll get the art from Ryan later, it’s fucking Christmas.)
——-
There were many tales of them, so many that it seemed impossible they all referenced the same pair. In the manner of stories that wobble as they are told, though, every turn in the telling only seemed to gird the legend.
They had a knack for being where they were needed most. Whether it was towns with an overabundance of bandits, or, occasionally, bandits with an overabundance of morals, they had a way of changing the path of the river wherever they went.
A stubborn tale, one that seemed to hold its shape with greater vigor, is known as The True Knife. The name of the town could change, but the events never did, which led the gatherer of tales down two paths: first, that many towns longed to be the source of it, and second, that it was possible (however improbable it might seem) that the events it described had taken place more than once.
The Pair - called most often by the names The Circlet and the Stone - had taken rest in a simple room whose cost they paid with the work of their hands. Other tales implied some royal lineage for the two, how the eldest held her cup, or the strange oaths she swore, but “The Knife” was always careful to retain this air of common virtue.
While bandits massed outside the village, a rough Envoy was sent within to demand release of the Circlet and the stone she wore into their keeping, that they might derive payment for some slight they had suffered at her hand. The old woman who owned the washing-house where the Pair dwelt held them in fondness, and would not reveal them, which drove the bandit into a frenzy of cursing and wildness. When he drew steel, a dagger above his station, the Circlet and the Stone emerged from their place of hiding. Over the old woman’s objections, and her plaintive gestures, The Pair accompanied the Envoy, who demanded that she leave the Stone behind, as they were not murderers of children. As though she had not heard him, The Circlet left the gates with her jewel affixed, along with the greatest of her weapons.
The people of the town crept to the top of the low wall that surrounded the gate, and when this was full they boiled out the gate and around the edge, each with a tale of how they would enter the fray at the first sign of treachery. All said it, but none believed it; not from themselves, or from the others.
The leader of this rugged band was called Harvest Frost, for it was said that he could glean even in the dead of winter. He said that this band was his Sickle, and that they were Farmers of Farmers; that is to say, they harvested from those who harvest and this was the world as it was. As he held forth about the natural state of things, she asked in reply if any who could claim his head, then, would rule the band, and it was at this time a light snow began to fall.
Harvest Frost suggested that, yes, this was in keeping with the untamed world, though when the arrow pierced his throat his surprise was apparent. As the sender of this arrow raised his bow in triumph, asserting his rightful place, the bow was cut in two by an axe, along with all of his clever parts. It went on like this for some time, each tyrant seizing the throne for a few doomed moments, until the next one took his place. When she was satisfied that her blow would end them, The Circlet and her Stone returned to their labors in the washing-house, where her sword still lay.Photo by Tim Pierce.
I want to start with a few hard, fundamental truths. Tamir Rice was a child, and not the first Black child to be murdered in the way he was. It is a systemic part of the United States policing and criminal justice systems. Also, prosecutors are not tasked with creating justice, whatever ostensible rules of conduct might say otherwise. They are tasked with representing the interests of the state. When the executive branch of that state is systemically wired to kill Black children, justice for those Black children will never be an objective of prosecutors. This post will be about the third piece of this puzzle: grand juries.
First, I will provide a little background on what grand juries actually do and why, a subject even a number of lawyers fundamentally misunderstand. I will analyze the recent California legislation that prohibits grand jury inquiries into any incident involving a shooting by a police officer. Then I will conclude with an argument against going after grand juries, and instead how expanding and strengthening grand juries is the most feasible way to circumvent the exceptionalism afforded to the police and others by prosecutors.
A grand jury is summoned to decide whether criminal charges should be brought against a person being investigated by the state. How exactly grand juries function depends on whether it is a federal or state criminal charge: because the Fifth Amendment has only been selectively incorporated (see Adamson v. California, 332 U.S. 46 (1947)) into the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause, there is no right to a grand jury for state criminal charges. However, all states have some form of grand jury system, but only twenty-two of those states require a grand jury.
I am going to use Ohio as an example, not only because it is the grand jury system in question but because it has many important elements for consideration. Ohio has denied the government the power to abolish the grand jury, but whether a grand jury is necessary for a particular proceeding is up to the discretion of the presiding judge (Baldwin’s Oh. Prac. Crim. L. § 39:3 (3d ed.)). The grand jury is essentially an arm of the court of common pleas, and the judge has the standard powers afforded to judges for trial juries such as dismissing individual jurors, placing a juror in contempt, etc. (id. § 39:10 (3d ed.)). However, the only party allowed to present evidence to the grand jury is the prosecutor (id. § 39:11 (3d ed.)). Even the Ohio Supreme Court has state that this power creates abuses:
In federal and state jurisdictions the grand jury serves as a shield against official tyranny, malicious prosecution, and ill-advised, expensive trials. However, a potential for abuse still exists within the grand jury system. Examples of abuse are: selective prosecution, vindictive prosecution, the use of perjured testimony, excessive use of hearsay, and prosecutorial appeal to the passions of the jurors.
These abuses stem from the degree of control a prosecutor wields in grand jury deliberations. –State v. Grewell, 45 Ohio St.3d 4 (1989) [internal citations removed].
Despite the purported role of grand juries as “a shield against official tyranny,” most experts recognize that the nonadversarial nature of the proceeding makes them simply a tool of law enforcement and prosecutors to investigate and charge respectively (Baldwin’s Oh. Prac. Crim. L. § 39:2 (3d ed.)). In Ohio, 5,565 individuals were indicted for drug offenses in 2014. While I was not able to find an official number, it appears that 10 police officers were indicted in 2014, 6 for manslaughter in an excessive force case, one for illicit sexual contact with a minor, and one for office theft (please feel free to correct me if these numbers are wrong). Several officers were not indicted by grand jury investigations, including in the shooting of John Crawford III at a Wal-Mart. The grand jury is not governed by any technical rules of evidence, and do not even have to be there for every witness testimony or other evidence introduced (Turk v. State, 7 Ohio 240, PT. II (1836)). But the accused do retain privileges against self-incrimination by questioning during the grand jury, though evidence can be introduced of self-incrimination earlier, such as by police officers (State v. Baker, 137 Ohio App.3d 628 (2000), cf. State v. Mackey 2005 WL 1415419 (2005)). A grand jury’s ruling can be challenged, but only when it is an indictment (Baldwin’s Oh. Prac. Crim. L. § 40:10 (3d ed.)).
So now that we have a basic understanding of grand juries, but keeping in mind that they vary from state-to-state, let’s look at the new California legislation. The new bill prohibits the use of grand juries, and vests the power solely in prosecutors. The thinking behind this is that, because prosecutors are elected in California, the change will make indictments accountable to the public. However, this thought is logically flawed for a simple reason: the power is already mostly in the hands of prosecutors. If anything, prosecutors are far more likely to be sympathetic to police officers than a grand jury: they depend on those officers for every criminal conviction, from the arrest to testimony at trial. Whether they are elected or not is immaterial: it is not a policy preference, it is an intrinsic part of their work. While not all prosecutors are popular among police, all prosecutors walk a fine line and most certainly cannot be objective in how they carry out indictments of police officers. The California law’s likely effect is to simply change the arena, and I doubt that in 2016 we will see significant differences in police being indicted or convicted.
And this is why the recent call by some activists to abolish grand juries in these situations concern me. It makes me fear that the mainstream media and prosecutors have succeeded in the most common tactic of white supremacy: convincing us that individual racists, rather than a racist system, is the problem. That “peers” are responsible rather than prosecutors. And this is not to deny the evil side of jury nullfication, and that there are situations in which the individual racism significantly contributes or is even the main source of the problem. But that level of contribution is rarely the deciding factor. Regardless of our feelings about individual racists (and I have plenty as someone from a Southern small town), individual racism is not what prevents grand juries from indictments against police officers.
I also worry that prohibition of grand juries for police killings could be a slippery slope: after all, the decision for whether a grand jury will be called is usually up to the judge, and if the judge sees that one cannot be called for police officers, depending on their politics they may see this as ample reason to restrict the privilege from others. And while the current grand jury system is in no way “a shield against official tyranny,” any removal takes away opportunities for indictments to not happen as frequently, which is certainly a goal for any of us who recognize how punitively inane and racist our criminal justice system is.
What if instead of abolishing the grand jury system we made the burdens of carrying it out as due process heavier? The very same rules of evidence that can be subverted to not bring an indictment against a police officer can be subverted to bring an indictment against a young Black person for smoking marijuana. Making the proceeding more adversarial could pressure prosecutors into carrying out more substantive investigations of police officers. And making grand juries mandatory for a criminal indictment could actually help to prevent all the police misconduct that does not even get to the level of a grand jury.
However, the process itself, the way that prosecutors have transformed it over the years, should bring us to a broader conclusion: that much more change is needed to actually start holding the government and individual police officers accountable for the violence they commit. One of my favorite things to cite to those who have faith in the criminal law is how many criminal laws prior to Model Penal Code had explicit statements that their purpose was to identify and segregate a class of undesirable individuals. While such transparency no longer exists in the mission statements of these laws, almost all of the laws have retained most of their substance (vagrancy became loitering and disorderly conduct, sodomy became criminal sexual act or crime against nature, etc.). Perhaps it is time to seek measures of accountability outside of a capitalist state built at the very foundations to avoid that accountability.
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AdvertisementsThe investigation into Thursday's ride accident at the N.C. State Fair has led to the arrest of a 46-year-old man who operated the ride.
Arrest
Wake County Sheriff Donnie Harrison announced Saturday night that Timothy Dwayne Tutterrow, of Georgia has been charged with three felony counts of assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious bodily injury.
"After inspection of the ride, we determined that it had been tampered with and critical safety devices were compromised," said Harrison.
Tutterrow appeared before a magistrate at the Wake County Justice Center Saturday night. Investigators said his actions set in motion the horrific chain of events that sent five people to the hospital.
ABC11 spoke to Tutterrow's attorney Sunday, but he told Eyewitness News that it is too early for an official interview.
However, he did say that Tutterrow is a father, a grandfather, and that he is devastated, distraught, and his thoughts and prayers are with the families of those who were hurt.
Tutterrow remains behind bars and will face a judge Monday morning.
The sheriff's office would not say exactly what was done to the ride, but they did say the investigation is continuing, and additional arrests may be made.
"This makes me mad to think that anybody would put people's safety in danger like they have and I'm not mad, I'm furious and people are going to have their day in court," said N.C. Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler.
"Just the thought that somebody would do something like this, I can hardly stand it, and that's where my patience runs thin," he added.
"You want everyone who does come here to have a good time and you want them to go home safely... the thing we keep in mind is we had something happen that you never want to see happen," said N.C. State Fair spokesman Brian Long.
Tutterrow is employed by an independent ride contractor. The Vortex is the only ride the company has at the State Fair.
Officials have already decided the Vortex will not be at the fair next year and said it is highly unlikely the company will bring any other rides to the fair in the future.
"We will be very cognizant of the fact that that particular company was here this year when something happened," added Long.
Victims
Five people were injured in the accident. The victims, all between the ages of 14 and 39 years old, were taken to WakeMed Hospital. Two have been released.
The three victims that remain hospitalized are 29 year-old Anthony Gorham, 39-year-old Kisha Gorham, and a 14-year-old whose name was not released.
The severity of the conditions of those still being treated has not been released.
Attendance since the Accident
On a Friday night that would normally be packed with fairgoers eager to ride the attractions, ABC11 saw noticeably shorter lines at the rides.
Friday's official attendance at the fair was 82,163. Last year, the second Friday drew 92,418 people.
On Saturday, the fair was 17,000 people shy of what it was on the same day last year.
N.C. State Fair spokesman Brian Long said they noticed a dip in attendance since the accident, but he said weather also played a factor.
Officials said the Vortex will not reopen and it will continue to serve as a crime scene in this ongoing investigation.
911 Calls Released
» Dramatic 911 calls just released from State Fair accident. «
Seconds after the accident happened, 911 calls flooded into the emergency center.
Caller: "We're at the Vortex ride, and people have come off the ride. People were hurt bad."
Caller: "My son was on the ride. He's okay, but there are people hurt here."
Caller: "I'm standing here at the Vortex, and there's like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 people down. They fell 30, 15 to 20 feet."
Caller: "The ride turned upside down and dumped everybody out. There are people bleeding really bad, like their heads and stuff, not moving at all."
Caller: "I have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 confirmed that are still on the ride. I think they've drug a few of them off. But all five are unconscious and bleeding."
Caller: "The ride broke loose and five people fell from straight from the sky, 20 feet drop."
Caller: "We got three knocked out completely, one bleeding from the head."
Caller: "They were getting off the ride the guy I guess he was in the booth and he says he didn't. He turned it off and I guess he accidentally turned the button on again and they weren't, they weren't, they weren't in it. They were trying to leave, they weren't strapped anymore."
Caller: "You've got to get someone out here quick, on the Vortex ride. The ride started and it wasn't supposed to. People were still on the ride, it went up in the air and people have fallen down on the platform."
Eyewitness Accounts
An eyewitness told ABC11 that he had just gotten off the fair ride when it started up again.
"I heard three or four bangs, I mean it sounded like baseballs hitting an aluminum floor," witness Jonathan Stanley said. "I just ran over and I saw the bodies, I mean, I was right at the fence. There was one guy in particular; he was all the way back against the back of the ride. It looked as if he had flown out and maybe hit it and then maybe came down face first."
"They were falling like rain drops," said witness Max Bryn. "A person fell and landed head first on the ground and was just completely knocked unconscious. People were falling everywhere. I'm pretty sure a girl fell right in front of me at least four feet away and just slammed on there. It was terrible."
Bryn had barely left his seat when the Vortex started spinning out of control.
"It was swinging with people still on it with people on the metal platform and it was swinging about 8 feet away from my face," he said.
He and friend had to dive of the way, watching helplessly in the crowd as chaos broke out.
"They were all lying around on the ground pretty sure unconscious, none of them were moving," said Bryn.
Witnesses also said one ride attendant was visibly upset.
"They were hitting the metal board right in front of us where the ride was on, non-stop," Bryn said.
"The ride attendant was crying, just torn up... was on his knees... all shaken up," Stanley said.
"I'm sure he thought it had something to do with him and it may or may not, but I'm sure that in that moment he felt guilty," Stone Gully said.
An eyewitness, who went on the Vortex ride Thursday right before the accident, told ABC11 he saw problems and warning signs.
"I probably took it a little lightly that the ride had malfunctioned a little bit before we got on it," said witness Bashir Jabbour.
Jabbour said there were warning signs that something was off on the Vortex ride while waiting to get on. First he said the lights just stopped. Then attendants came over, made some repairs, and the ride resumed.
Jabbour said there were no issues up in the air but there was a problem when he was about to get off the ride. He said his safety harness violently swung up and hit a ride attendant.
"Stumbled backwards a little bit, hit his head. Kind of looked dazed," said Jabbour.
Jabbour got out of his seat and started walking away but not before turning around to check on the hurt attendant.
"As he was admitting the next round of people [he] was still holding his head, looked a little bit off," adds Jabbour.
Joel Gilllie was waiting to get on a neighboring ride at that same time Thursday.
"I heard the people hit that metal floor and it was just real loud...multiple hits and then saw people laying there. People running away because at that point the ride was still kind of moving some," said Gillie.
Gillie's friend is a firefighter stationed at the fairgrounds and he immediately called him to come help.
"It's definitely one of those things that's in the back of your head and I think you'll always think about after you witness something like that," said Gillie.
An eyewitness, who was suppose to be on the Vortex ride just before riders were thrown off, said she was even close enough to see Tutterrow visibly upset.
"It could have been us on that ride," said Manar Joudeh.
Joudeh said she had just ridden the Vortex with her friends and was about to get on, again, when those running the ride stopped them.
"There was four empty seats that we were supposed to get on, but they were like why don't you guys wait until the next ride," said Joudeh.
However, after she saw what happened next, she said she is happy she did wait.
"The people they were just flying off the ride," said Joudeh.
"He [Tutterrow] tried stopping it," she added.
Joudeh said after the ride stopped, she saw Tutterrow fall on his knees crying.
I-Team: Vortex Had Previous Problems
The ABC11 I-Team has been digging into the safety and inspection records of fair rides, and talking with people who say they saw problems with the Vortex ride before Thursday night.
State officials are saying the first time they heard about a problem with the Vortex was on Monday when a restraining bar was stuck. It may not have been the last time.
Given what ABC11 has been hearing from fairgoers, there were numerous accounts of problems with the ride in the days and hours before the accident.
"Turned out to be a switch that was bad," said ride inspector Tom Chambers. "We checked it, repaired it and the ride went back into operation."
Chambers defended the decision to open the Vortex to the ABC11 I-Team after what's called a solenoid switch caused problems with a safety harness on Monday.
Officials won't say if other complaints came in, but that doesn't mean there wasn't cause for them.
A half-dozen emails came into the ABC11 newsroom Friday with people tell us about problems they saw with the ride.
The earliest came on Wednesday, which was the day before the accident.
The ride wasn't working and was evacuated, but as people got off of it, it restarted suddenly. It's an account disturbingly similar to what appears to have happened Thursday night.
Other emails describe problems noticed just hours before the accident. One woman said around 9 p.m. that she saw the ride smoking.
Another told us about a stuck restraint bar that released suddenly, hitting the operator in the head.
A fourth viewer again said they were having problems with the restraint bars.
"The bars on the left seemed to be working but the bars on the right just wouldn't come down," said Ken Vrana.
Vrana said he watched as three ride operators struggled with the restraint bars for 15 minutes. They finally jammed them in place, and started the ride. Vrana says that was 45 minutes before the accident.
"When that thing started acting up, you shut it off and you keep it shut off until it's fixed," said Vrana.
Ongoing Investigation
N.C. State Fair officials said they do not train ride operators, the ride companies do, and they just monitor that the operators are paying attention.
"It appears to be an accident and things like this happen," Harrison said shortly after the incident. "We hate it because it is supposed to be a fun time for families."
However during a news conference Friday morning, Harrison said they are treating their investigation as criminal -- as they do every investigation.
He said the investigation is ongoing and will "take time" because they have a lot of witnesses to interview.
Harrison has urged anyone with video of the accident or the aftermath to contact the Wake County Sheriff's Office.
Meanwhile, North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory has offered his support to the victims and the investigation.
"Our sincere thoughts and prayers are with those injured in last night's State Fair accident and their families," McCrory said in a statement. "The state stands ready to assist in any way we can to help those impacted and ensure the safety of our citizens and fairgoers."
Fair officials said they will be looking at diagnostics and all the safety systems of the ride.
The Department of Labor said the rides are inspected three times a day.
There are two rides named 'Vortex' on the fairgrounds, but fair officials said they are different.
The ride was manufactured by Technical Park International of Italy. The ride is owned by Family Attractions out of Georgia. This is the first time it had been at the N.C. State Fair.
The Amusement Safety Organization lists three incidents involving rider injuries against Family Attractions Amusement between 2004 and 2011.
"Family Attractions Amusement Company, LLC is a family-owned and operated enterprise from Valdosta, Georgia. It has an excellent equipment safety record and has never before experienced an incident with any of its rides like this one. The owners, Dominic and Ruby Macaroni, are devastated by this accident and send their thoughts and prayers to those injured at the North Carolina State Fair," said Joyce Fitzpatrick, spokesperson for Family Attractions.
The company is being represented by attorney Gregory Brown. Brown will only be representing the company.
According to the attorney's website, Brown does not take on criminal cases.
As the fair winds down, fair officials said their thoughts and prayers are with those who were hurt.
"We're feeling for those people injured and we're pretty furious at whoever was responsible," said N.C. State Fair spokesman Brian Long.
While investigators look back on last week's horrific accident, fair officials are looking forward.
"We always evaluate the fair, every year, various aspects...this incident that happened will definitely factor into our discussions," said Long.
Ride Accidents
It is not the first time an accident involving a ride has happened at the N.C. State Fair.
The most recent one occurred in 2009 when a worker fell while trying to break down the 'Flying Bobs' ride.
In 2004, another workers was hurt by a falling steel beam.
Years earlier in 2002, a worker was killed when he slipped and was hit by the 'Bonzai Ride.'
In 1998, three riders were hurt in an accident on the 'Zyklon' roller coaster. Three cars collided when a wheel bearing on one of the cars seized up. The riders suffered minor injuries in that incident.
Fair Future
The fair is operating on normal schedule. Fair officials said they hope Thursday's "isolated thing" will not impact people enjoying the last weekend of the fair.
"I am confident my grandchildren can ride the rides... and they will," State Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler said.
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Follow @abc11 on Twitter | Become a fan on FacebookUpdated A trove of leaked information, purported to be the entire Turkish citizenship database, has been leaked.
The leaked info appears to contain names, addresses and ID numbers of more than 49 million citizens. If confirmed, the leak would become one of the biggest privacy breaches, by number of records, ever.
Although billed as a Turkish citizenship database there are doubts about that and it seems more likely that we’re looking at a residency database put together for the police and other law enforcement agencies, and already leaked, perhaps multiple times.
If this is really what it claims, I think it is one of the largest security/PII breaches since the #OPM hack: https://t.co/xyFRTf2hHD — Jacob Appelbaum (@ioerror) April 4, 2016
The leaked info weighs in at 6.6GB uncompressed and is searchable.
Those behind the leak imply that it was politically motivated, aimed against Turkey’s controversial president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
The purportedly leaked data is online at http://185.100.87.84/ and El Reg advises readers to tread with care before downloading the torrent linked from that page. On the page is what appears to be some of President Erdoğan's personal information, along with that of his predecessor, Abdullah Gül, and the current prime minister of Turkey, Ahmet Davutoğlu.
A statement at the top of the data leak page says:
Who would have imagined that backwards ideologies, cronyism and rising religious extremism in Turkey would lead to a crumbling and vulnerable technical infrastructure?
Turkey’s population is 79 million, according to a 2015 census. ®MORE TOP RANKED STORIES WE THINK YOU'LL ENJOY:
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THIS IS THE STORY OF A DAY WHERE THERE WAS ALL THIS BLOOD. A MAN WAS WALKING AROUND AND BLOOD STARTED COMING OUT OF HIM EVERYWHERE. THERE WAS SO MUCH BLOOD THAT IT FILLED UP AN ELEVATOR. HE WENT TO THE STORE AND THERE WAS JUST BLOOD ALL OVER THE PLACE! PEOPLE WERE SLIPPING IN IT AND THEY WERE ALL GROSSED OUT. HE TRIED TO GO SWIMMING AND ALL OF THE SHARKS WENT NUTS AND BITTENED EVERYBODY. HE GOT CHASED BY ALL THE VAMPIRES EVER. ONE TIME THE BLOOD GOT A KID AND A DOG. AT THE END OF THE DAY EVERYONE DECIDED THEY WOULD SEND HIM TO SPACE SO THAT HE WOULD STOP GETTING BLOOD EVERY WHERE. THE SCARIEST PART IS THAT THE MAN WAS YOU!!! (OR HE WAS A LADY IF YOU ARE A LADY) AND YOU FORGOT THAT THIS HAPPENED
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You should probably go visit bogleech.com today.
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RANDOM PASTAS YOU MAY ALSO ENJOYNetflix isn’t going to get Disney’s “Frozen 2,” but it’s not yet frozen out of potentially getting streaming rights to Lucasfilm’s “Star Wars” franchise and Marvel Entertainment movies.
Netflix remains in “active discussions” with Disney about a deal for Lucasfilm and Marvel titles after the companies’ current movie-output deal expires in 2019, chief content officer Ted Sarandos said in an interview with Reuters.
On Tuesday, Disney said it plans to introduce its own direct-to-consumer Disney-branded subscription VOD service in 2019; it’s also looking to roll out an ESPN over-the-top streaming service in early 2018.
The Disney OTT service will exclusively offer movies from Pixar and Disney studios starting with 2019 releases — so Netflix won’t have those. But Disney has yet to decide whether it will re-up with Netflix for the Marvel and Lucasfilm lines. Those could be bundled into in the Disney-branded service, broken into their own subscription VOD services, or licensed to a third party — whether that’s Netflix, HBO, or another partner.
Sarandos told Reuters that Disney’s streaming service was a “natural evolution” for media companies and opined that the Mouse House’s OTT offerings will be “complementary” to Netflix. The exec added, “That’s why we got into the originals business five years ago, anticipating [negotiations to license content] may be not as easy a conversation with studios and networks.”
Related Disney to End Netflix Deal, Sets Launch of ESPN and Disney-Branded Streaming Services
Netflix and Disney inked the licensing pact for the U.S. pay-TV window in 2012, under which Netflix secured streaming rights to the Mouse House’s films starting with 2016 releases. Netflix has had a similar “pay one” |
2009.
The nine-time Ligue 1 champions have stagnated in recent seasons and only managed a 13th-place finish in the league last season, but McCourt has promised a brighter future ahead.
"Today opens a new chapter in the great history of Olympique de Marseille," he said in a statement on the club website. "A chapter of which I am proud and honoured to be a part.
"I have no doubt that the challenges OM have had to face on and off the field have had a negative impact on the fans in recent years. Despite the difficulties, the fans have been loyal and steadfast in their support, demonstrating the power of sport and the affection they have for our club.
"I want to tell the fans: 'I thank you sincerely for your continued support. And perhaps more importantly, I wish to assure you of my commitment to make every effort to be worthy of your support and pursue our sporting ambitions'."
The 63-year-old McCourt has a background in real estate, but also has an extensive history in the business side of sport.
The grandson of a part-owner of the Boston Braves baseball team, he once attempted to buy Major League Baseball's Boston Red Sox but instead acquired the Dodgers in 2004.
After being part of one of the most expensive divorce proceedings in California history, McCourt sold the Dodgers to a group fronted by basketball star Magic Johnson for a record price of $2 billion in 2012 -- the most ever paid for a sports team.
McCourt acquired the operating rights to the Los Angeles Marathon in 2008, and bought 50 percent of show-jumping's Global Champions Tour in 2014.No longer are the terms "nerd" and "geek" used as insults. We have taken them back from those who would mock us, and now wear them with pride. But those who don't remember the past are doomed to repeat it, and thus it is helpful to know what these terms originally meant, and where they came from. If only so we know that when someone calls something "adorkable," he/she is in some sense calling it "a cute penis."
Nerd
The word nerd was first used in the 1950 Dr. Seuss book If I Ran the Zoo, in which a nerd was one one of the many oddly named creatures in the titular zoo. According to Ben Zimmer of Vocabulary.com, a 1951 Newsweek article mentioned it as one of the new terms being used by teenagers. It seems unlikely for teens to have latched on to a single proper noun in a Dr. Seuss book so quickly, but there is no recorded source of the word being used previously. It's possible that it was based on the 1940s slang word "nert," which referred to a stupid or crazy person. It's certainly easy to see how teens of the '50s might co-opt the adults' term for morons and use it to mean "squares" and people who didn't understand their culture.
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Geek
Geek is actually an old English word meaning freak, imported via the German word "geck," which could also mean fool. Circuses in 18th century Austro-Hungary used to advertise their "geeks" as their weirdest human attractions, and the word was often used to refer specifically to those whose act consisted specifically of biting the heads off of live animals. The word had its resurgence when it was used in the popular 1941 book Nightmare Alley and its equally popular movie adaptation, to refer to such. Calling someone a person who bites the head off of live chicken's is a pretty potent way to tell someone they're weird.
Dork
Most etymologists think that dork is an alteration of the word dick, perhaps coming out of the Midwest, and thus originally meant penis, too. It was certainly used to mean a penis in the 1961 novel Valhalla, although it was spelled "dorque"; a 1964 article in American Speech confirmed its phallic meaning and spelled the word as "dork." It was also used by Charles Schmid, a serial killer known as "The Pied Piper of Tuscon," who was interviewed in the (then obviously extremely prevalent) Life magazine, in which he was quoted saying "I didn't have any clothes and I had short hair and looked like a dork. Girls wouldn't go out with me." Schmid almost certainly meant "penis" when he said "dork," but as the word caught on in pop culture it more commonly came to mean people who look uncool and/or odd.
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Weirdo
Weirdo is obviously the noun form of the adjective weird, which is pretty commonly known to have come from the old English word "wyrd." But "wyrd" doesn't mean "weird", at least not like we mean it. "Wyrd" was a noun that meant "fate," or more specifically, Fate. When Shakespeare called the witches in MacBeth the Weird Sisters, he didn't mean they were bizarre, he meant they were the Fates, the three sisters out of Greek mythology who controlled peoples' destinies. Of course, by using it, Shakespeare helped change the word through his works' popularity — as the Fates faded from popular culture, Weird came to refer to the second biggest characteristic of the witches — that they were supernatural. Of course, supernatural is often interchangeable with unnatural, which the sisters also were, and unnatural is just a more powerful word for strange or unusual, and thus "weird" still has all of those meanings to some degree or another. The –o that turns weird into the noun weirdo is thought to come from the Middle English interjection "o," and over time become an diminutive suffix. It's the same process that turns kid into "kiddo."
Dweeb
The origin of the word dweeb is actually a mystery. The Oxford English Dictionary thinks it's a modern slang term derived from "dwarf" and "feeb" as in feeble, but it also says the word was coined in the '80s and other etymologists feel dweeb was a college slang word of the '60s. So... moving on.
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Goof
Stupid people in America have been called goofs since the early 20th century. In 18th century English, a goff was a "foolish clown." And for centuries before that, the French were calling idiots goffe — which came whatever proto-word eventually also gave us "gaffe," meaning a blunder. Which is funny, because goof also became a verb, and to goof is basically the same thing as to commit a gaffe.
Dickweed
This is a term popularized in the '80s that originally meant pubic hair, as the human race never, ever has enough nicknames for our sex organs and their surrounding areas. Its use as an insult came quickly enough, popularized by its use in 1986's Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, which is awesome because the Oxford English Dictionary has an entry for it, which includes the Bill & Ted's reference. From there's it's an easy step to get to its linguistic pal the "dickwad." And of course "dillweed" is to dickweed as "fudge" is to fuck — the socially acceptable variant. Which is almost certainly why Beavis & Buthhead used it so frequently on the somewhat more conservative MTV of the ''90s..
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Egghead
While egghead was used to refer to bald people early in the 20th century (not because their heads were egg-shaped, obviously, but because they were both smooth), poet Carl Sandburg actually popularized its meaning of "intellectual" back when he was a Chicago newspaper journalist, using it in a 1918 article implying that "eggheads" were people full of knowledge but otherwise vapid (hence the metaphor having a large skull, but one that was also extremely fragile). Egghead was certainly a negative term when Richard Nixon used it to describe his boss Dwight Eisenhower's political opponent Adalai Stevenson in 1952.
Poindexter
This uncommon name became even more uncommon after it became a synonym for nerd, and its all thanks to Felix the Cat. When the 1959 Felix cartoon debuted, it introduced a great many new characters including Poindexter, the nerdy nephew of the Professor, who dressed in a lab coat, wore thick glasses, was super-smart and socially awkard. The character was such the perfect representation of what a nerd meant at that time, the character's name enter pop culture, and the term has remained even as the character has been almost completely forgotten.
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Image from Knights of Badassdom.You’ve probably seen that today the White House held a daily gaggle (an informal, off-camera Q&A) in which only a few select news outlets – including Breitbart, The Washington Times and One America Network – were allowed to attend. CNN, NYT, LAT, Politico and apparently others were barred. In other words, two shlock ‘news’ outlets and one highly conservative but still legitimate news organization. The places breaking the unwelcome Trump/Russia stories are blocked.
CNN is in high dudgeon over this, as are other outlets, which is entirely understandable. But I’d like to make a basic point about how we should see this, how journalists and news organizations should treat this. I think it is both more accurate and more productive to see this as cowardice rather than some sacrilege against journalism.
Don’t get me wrong. As I wrote a month or so ago in a similar context, it is far preferable to have a President and a White House who believe in democratic and American values. But we don’t. It is best to recognize that fact and act accordingly. Whining is never a good look for journalists, for myriad reasons. Not least of which is that it plays into all the tools that authoritarians mobilize against a free press and American values. As I also wrote in that post, the answer to attacks on journalism is always more journalism. The most consequential reporting being done right now isn’t happening in the briefings. It’s happening with the ‘anonymous sources’ that President Trump says need to stand before him for retribution.
Authoritarianism is inimical to American political culture. It is a sometimes visitor, an annoying relative. But it has never been a welcome visitor or an owner of the national home. This doesn’t mean that our history is unblemished. Far from it. To pick only one of the most glaring examples, even after emancipation, for almost a century the American South maintained a political system of democracy for whites and terror-enforced near-rightslessness for blacks. But that doesn’t change the continuities of political culture for whites which non-whites and other minority groups have fought for decades and centuries to enter on equal terms. We know what our culture and traditions are. This isn’t it.
Authoritarians always portray attacks on a free press as a sign of strength when in fact it’s sign of cowardice and weakness. Perhaps another way to put it is that weakness and strength have a particular meaning for free people. Fear of free people or violence against their mores is weakness. In our tradition if you fear free society, if you run to toadying sycophants to avoid being challenged, or demand followers toast your every action with superlatives, you’re a coward. You’re weak. You lack the strength to lead. This isn’t Russia. It’s not Horthy’s Hungary. This is America.
This isn’t surprising. We got a look yesterday at the mind and driver behind Trumpism, Steve Bannon. Bannon pitches himself as a champion of American ‘nationalism’, but it is a peculiar nationalism which takes most of its ideas and examples from the toxic and blooded authoritarians of 1930s-era Central and Eastern Europe. It’s no accident that we also learned today that Bannon’s ‘nationalist’ intellectual, Sebastian Gorka, was actually involved in forming a far-right political party in Hungary with known anti-Semites as recently as the aughts. So the guy who is going to give us American nationalism was born in Britain, set up shop as a rightist nationalist in Hungary before deciding to show up in America and become a citizen. Are we even sure we’re the last stop on his global tour?
As I wrote over the weekend, we’re in an odd period. The American experiment is a kind of de facto exile, perhaps an internal exile, but an exile still. The good news is that the majority doesn’t support Trumpism. But Trumpism has taken possession of the key powers of the state. It will require being aggressively American to beat back Bannon’s thuggish practices and contempt for the habits of free people.NEW YORK (Reuters) - The number of credit card offers sent to Americans has declined to its lowest point in over three years, punctuating the extreme credit tightening by banks amid the tumultuous financial and housing crisis.
Credit card acquisition offers mailed to Americans totaled only 1.34 billion during the third quarter, representing a 28 percent drop from one year earlier, according to Mintel Compermedia, which monitors and analyzes trends in direct mail, e-mail and print advertising.
In 2005 and 2006, Mintel tracked an average of 2.07 billion credit card acquisition offers quarterly. In the first quarter of 2005, credit card offers to Americans reached only 1.86 billion, however.
Lisa Hronek, senior credit card analyst at Mintel, said credit card companies have been cutting back direct mail dollars for years, as they realize that blanketing Americans with credit card offers doesn’t translate to increased sign-up or card usage.
“But now, they’re facing a twofold problem that is much worse,” Hronek said. “Not only are consumers tapped out financially, but issuers are also facing record losses.”
The meltdown in the U.S. housing market, pointed to as the key driver of the credit crisis, has resulted in more than $500 billion of write-downs at financial institutions globally so far.
WAMU AND CHASE ON ‘TOP 10’ LIST
During the third quarter of 2008, Mintel reported that the top 10 mailing credit-card issuers for acquisition direct mail were: Chase, Capital One Bank, American Express, Washington Mutual, Bank of America, Citibank, Barclays Bank, Discover, HSBC and U.S. Bank.
On Sept. 25, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. seized Washington Mutual (WM.N) in what was called the largest bank failure in U.S. history. Washington Mutual, or WaMu, had been the largest U.S. savings and loan. During the long housing boom, WaMu had aggressively expanded its risky subprime mortgage lending. JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N), the parent of Chase Bank, bought Washington Mutual’s assets for $1.9 billion in the Sept. 25th deal facilitated by the FDIC.
The decline in direct mailing has hurt the paper industry.
The North American paper industry has been particularly hard hit by the plunge in direct mailing, as demand for printing paper from banks and financial institutions has fallen significantly in recent months.
Last month, International Paper (IP.N), one of the largest North American paper producers, said its third-quarter North American paper shipment volumes fell 6 percent from a year ago.
Citigroup Inc (C.N) and Capital One Financial Corp (COF.N) are among the major clients that International Paper supplies with products for both direct mailing and internal company use.
Analysts and industry consultants expect printing paper demand to decline between 3 percent and 6 percent in 2009.All the cool kids (or the talentless, depending on how you look at it) have been flocking to mash-ups for a while now. What (somewhat) hit the mainstream in 2004 when Danger Mouse released “The Grey Album” has now become a cottage industry. Starting to rise up in the ranks however, and the one we’re highlighting today, is the Chicago-based The Hood Internet.
THI, comprised of two guys who release playlists via their blog, specialize in A vs. B mash-ups, playing hip hop against indie rock beats. You’d be right to expect several MGMT references in there, but they’ve put out some eyebrow-raising material in the past as well (Ludacris vs. She & Him, anybody?).
But they’ve just come out with their seventh mixtape, “Trillwave”, described by them as “the soundtrack to the party after the afterparty or maybe to a sun-drenched backyard barbeque the next day.” The duo delivers on the promise- playing the likes of Kanye and Jamie Foxx alongside the shoegazing, neo-New Wave segment of the indie scene delights in creating the perfect sound for a lazy Sunday, or lazy any day.
The mix, with its seamless transitions from song to song, takes a couple minutes to get going. But don’t be deterred. It hits full stride with “Feel It on the South Side”, mashing Birdman’s “South Side” with Washed Out’s “Feel It All Around” to make a near-quintessential poolside sound. It’s all uphill from there, throwing together the likes of Lloyd Banks with Neon Indian (“Beamer, Drips”), Iyaz and The Big Pink (“Velvet Replay”) and a superb denouement with two of the brightest rising stars in their respective genres, Drake and Beach House (“Walk in the Park is Over”).
The link to download “Trillwave” is here. Check it out. It’s free, it’ll complement the remainder of your summer and it’ll expand your knowledge of mash-up artists beyond Danger Mouse and Girl Talk.
Marc
Photo Credit: http://twitpic.com/23t6ldImage copyright AFP/Getty Image caption Indian drivers for Uber show mobiles phones given to them by the company
Uber is suing Indian rival Ola, alleging it created more than 90,000 fake accounts to interfere with its business and frustrate its drivers.
The US company claims the fake accounts were used to make over 400,000 false bookings that ended up cancelled.
It filed a lawsuit in the High Court of Delhi this month requesting an injunction against Ola and $7.4m (£5.2m) in damages.
OlaCabs has denied the accusations, calling them "frivolous and false".
"It is not beyond our imagination that this is an effort to divert attention from the current realities of the market where Uber has faced major setbacks," the company said in a statement.
Uber, considered the world's most valuable start-up, refused to comment beyond their legal petition.
The battle for India's transport market has heated up in recent months, with Uber investing $1bn over the past nine months.
Ola, which is backed by Japan's SoftBank Group and hedge fund Tiger Global Management, is part of an alliance aimed at trying to reduce Uber's market dominance.
The other members include San Francisco's Lyft, Southeast Asian rival Grab and China's Didi Kuaidi.
A hearing on Uber's Indian petition has been set for 14 September.Simon Grimm (formerly Simon Gotch in the WWE) has picked up his first Title post his WWE career this weekend in the UK. Grimm spent the weekend wrestling for British promotion XWA in which he defeated Doug Williams and Daisuke Sekimoto to capture the XWA Frontier Sports Championship and pick up his first ever singles Title.
Grimm kicked off his British tour picking up a win on Saturday night against fellow American Matt Riddle at XWA 47 at the Resistance Gallery in London. Fleisch sustained a concussion at XWA 47 in his match with Jonny Storm and relinquished the Title as a result.
The Frontier Sports Title was then announced to be competed for between Grimm and Japanese star Daisuke Sekimoto on Sunday at Charter Hall in Colchester. Former Frontier Sports Champion Doug Williams came to the ring before the match started to make it a three way. Grimm scored the win, pinning Sekimoto.
Grimm has previously only held Titles under a Tag Team both at WLW (160 days) and more famously in WWE NXT for 61 days as part of The Vaudevillains alongside current WWE employee Aiden English.
XWA has confirmed exclusively to Steelchair Magazine that Grimm will defend the belt against Doug Williams in Colchester on 8th October. Ticket information for the event will be posted shortly.Delhi Queer Pride 2016: LGBTI people in India are calling for the repeal of Section 377
A young man in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), India, has been subjected to physical abuse and mental torture after his family discovered that he is gay and living with another man.
India Times reports that Sanjoy (not his real name), in his early 20s, lived with his male partner.
His parents were unaware of his sexuality, but when they found out, they hired local thugs to harass and assault him, according to India Times.
India Times were informed of the story by Koninika Roy, an advocacy manager at The Humsafar Trust.
Humsafar Trust is one of the oldest and most respected LGBTI advocacy organizations in India.
Roy said Sanjoy’s family took him to a doctor for ‘treatment’. However, the doctor said there was nothing wrong with him and tried to explain that there was nothing unnatural about homosexuality.
However, the family did not accept this and suggested that ‘corrective rape’ might help him.
There is no indication that any sexual assault took place on the young man.
‘Violence against the LGBTQ community is extremely common in India. Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code and the fact that same sex behavior is criminalized in the country means that homosexuals cannot live freely,’ said Roy.
‘The story of this gay couple is just one of the examples of how the LGBTQ community is treated in India.’
‘The pain is real, the hardships loom large’
Approached for further comment, Roy provided GSN with a statement from the couple, who declined to provide identifying details. The the trouble began last year during Diwali.
They couple said that they did ‘not wish to play the victim card’, but that ‘family honor crimes’ can have a deep impact on the lives of LGBT people.
Sanjoy’s partner said: ‘The pain is real, the hardships loom large, the tears are red and at times you feel low enough not to live or breath anymore because there doesn’t feel a point in doing so.’
He said that although the family succeeded in keeping the couple apart for a few days, they were now back together.
‘Love kept us strong and our mental strength added to the fuel of won’t-be-giving up attitude … We are living together as for now, with nothing but each other.’
Homophobic attitudes remain deeply embedded within many sections of Indian society.
In 2013, the country re-criminalized any sexual activity regarded as ‘non-traditional’ when it re-adopted Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code. The law dates back to the country’s Colonial times as part of the British Empire.
Last February, the Supreme Court referred the law to a five-member bench for consideration. Equality advocates are awaiting the court’s hearing of a curative petition filed by the NGO Naz Foundation calling for the law to be overturned.
Koninika Roy told GSN that it is not yet known when the hearing will take place, and the court is likely to give just a day’s warning of the petition being heard.Austin shooting: US police officials warned people to stay away from downtown Austin.
A gunman killed a woman and seriously wounded three others in Austin early on Sunday when he shot into a crowd as people streamed out of nightclubs in the Texan capital’s downtown area, police said.
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The unidentified gunman opened fire at about 2:15 a.m. local time before fleeing, Austin police chief of staff Brian Manley told reporters. The motive for the attack was not immediately clear.
“Active shooter incident downtown, multiple victims. Stay away from downtown,” Austin police said in a message on Twitter. It was not immediately clear how many people were shot.
In an update on Twitter, the Austin Police said there were shootings at multiple locations. “Update: separate shootings within the same area. Both scenes are secure at this time. PIO responding to identify staging area.”
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The Austin Medical Emergency Services also took to Twitter warning residents to stay away from sixth street saying several people were injured in a shooting incident. The police officials have also asked the media not to contact them for now and updates will be provided as early as possible.
UPDATES: Texas shooting
* Witness Dorian Santiago told the media: “We heard five shots and then people started running crazy … We don’t hear any more shots …The cops were running behind someone.
WATCH VIDEO: Austin Shooting: Multiple Victims, At Least One Dead
* News agency in Texas report that at least one of the shootings took place outside Friends Bar.
No further updates re: 2 shootings in downtown area. Any new info will be released via social media. Current details:https://t.co/Bd9LMuXzoH — Austin Police Dept (@Austin_Police) July 31, 2016
* An eyewitness told Sky News: “There was a girl freaking out who was injured … The other one was already on the floor – they were doing CPR to help her but it looked like she was already dead.”
* Raw videos from the location show people running out of buildings after they heard gunfire. The attack took place at around 3 am this morning (local time).
* The shooting reportedly took place a little before 3 am Sunday morning. About half an hour later, the police confirmed the area to be secure. However, there were no reports on whether the gunman was apprehended by the police or shot dead by police officials.
* A woman in her 30s was killed in the shooting, the Austin American-Statesman newspaper reported on its website, citing the Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Services agency. The report could not immediately be confirmed by us.
Watch | Austin Shooting: Multiple Victims, At Least One Dead
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On Saturday, officials said a shooting left three people dead and another person hurt in a Seattle suburb. A suspect was apprehended and is in custody. The city of Mukilteo said on its Twitter feed that there were three fatalities in the Chennault neighborhood.
This is a developing story, more details are awaited.The poetry of the Seedball concept is simple, yet immense. Encase a seed (or seeds) in a protective jacket of clay, creating a Seed ball. Distribute Seedballs across ground, not worrying if this day, or this month even, is the best time to ‘sow’.
Protected from insects, birds, heat and sunlight until the time is right, the seedball activates with a rain event which is sufficient to soak through the clay coating to germinate the seed. Which incidentally is the sort of rain event that you want to have directly following the perfect seed sowing day. And that’s it. But that’s not all.
Let’s talk ferment. Add compost to the clay. Now you have something to kickstart those seeds after germination. Add more growing medium to the Seedball. Even better, for some situations. Add more that one seed. Different seeds. Compatible seeds.
Now you’re companion planting in the palm of your hand. Seedbombs the size of mandarins, which contain the beginnings of a field of wildflowers, or a hardy herb patch, or a bunch of soil-conditioning legumes. Now you’re talking revolution.
Seedballing was probably initiated by Masanobu Fukuoka as part of his experiments in gentle, non-invasive farming methods at his family farm in Japan. A gentle pioneer of the organic farming movement, Fukuoka practiced a system of farming he called ‘Do Nothing Farming’, which is code for setting up a passive system that is as self regulating as possibe (how very permaculture). Fukuoka used a combination of powdered clay, fine compost and seeds, with simple tools like a series of screens, to make hundreds of seedballs every year as a part of his farming regime.
Fukuoka called seedballs ‘a small universe in themselves’. His seed ball theory and methods are well outlined in his small manifesto on farming, eating and the limits of human knowledge, the delightfully readable One Straw Revolution, which incidentally has just been re-issued as a new translation in paperback (yay).
The beauty of the seed ball principle is not only its simplicity and economy of production. Seedballing can be used like a sort of amplified natural selection… Nature, ultimately, still decides what to grow where, but if the conditions in a particular place are right, you now have a crop. Or a stand of fast-growing pioneer trees, or a meadow.
There is a patience needed for this method – call it stealth sowing. The seeds may germinate next week, or next Spring. Or not at all. Wait and see. And in the meantime, move on to another chore. Or make more seed balls and seed elsewhere!
Guerilla seed ball action in Vancouver – before and after. Photos by Urbanwild
Seed selection is of course a fundamental factor in this method. You will be broadcasting these seedballs and probably leaving them to fend for themselves. The hardier and more appropriate to the environment the plant, the greater the chance of success. Here at Milkwood we are currently seedballing a wide mixture of acacia seeds and nitrogen-fixing tree seeds, with a sprinkling of woody ground covers and hardy native grasses. These are all being broadcast along our riparian zones, swales and future shelter belts.
We can now ‘plant’ thousands of trees in a day, in un-favourable conditions, and leave Nature to do her thing…
Since Fukuoka got the ball rolling, so to speak, many others have since been getting their hands dirty and producing seed balls, seed bombs, seed grenades and other heroic-sounding lumps of clay with seeds in. There is a heap of info out there on technique, but not much documentation on results that I have found, apart from anecdotes and Fukuoka’s plainly successful examples.
Moving from the rural to the urban, seed balls and seed bombs are now firmly in the domain of the worldwide guerilla gardening movement. If your community doesn’t have one, it’s probably time to start a guerilla gardening group, which is both a funky way to spend your spare time (or all your time) and might just increase your food security. And a seed balling workshop would be a very fine, inspirational and easy inaugral event to hold.
Anitya by Anne Cooper – Land Art piece involving seed balls, unfired clay bowls, mulch, and time. Photo by Deanna Nichols
Milkwood is currently being sprinkled in seed balls, and we will be sure to document the results (and how to make a bicycle powered seed balling machine – stay tuned!). In the meantime, here’s a smattering of where the seed ball craze has spread so far:
Masanobu Fukuoka: Firstly, Fukuoka’s texts, including Seed Balling technique, are all bunked at the Soil Health Library, an amazing online resource which has thousands of seminal farming texts available for download. Make sure if you use this option to donate, to keep this resource breathing.
Jim Bones: Who used to have an extensive website on the subject called seedball.com which is now defunct. Happily, his how-to and why-to video, The Seed Ball Story, has found its way to Youtube.
Kathryn Miller’s Seed Bombs: an early example of Seed Bombs as art from 1992. ‘As a form of urban and suburban guerrilla activity, it was a small scale, non-sanctioned intervention in the landscape. The seed bombs were made available to museum visitors to take and throw somewhere they felt needed native plants, and in the process they assisted me with my project.’
The Vancouver Guerilla Gardening Group: have done various seed balling workshops, with great success. Probably the best bunch of urban seed ballers i know.
Seed Bomb how-to: there are heaps of videos up now in this technique, but this is one of the most concise. The host, Richard Reynolds, also has the best hair.
Seed Ball land art by Anne Cooper: Anitya is a gorgeous piece from New Mexico set in a field involving seed balls, clay balls, the land, and time.
It seems strange somehow that something so simple and small can hold so much power, but I’m beginning to think that’s the way of things, these days. And of course it comes back to the power of the seeds themselves. Just the idea of it – portable, potential ecosystems, folded in on themselves many times over. Amazing. I think I’m in love. Thanks, Nature! Thanks, Masanobu!
Happy holidays, everyone. May your next seed experience, whether it be on your salad, in your garden or just out of the corner of your eye, fill you with wonder, joy, and a sense of renewal.Bought this amp to go with a single Polk Dual 4 ohm 12" sub. Already had wired up my vehicle with a high quality Stinger 4 awg amp kit. Pretested all my wires. Flawless. Amp worked for less than 48 hours. Goes into protection mode. Checked my wiring again anyway with my digital multimeter. Voltage is good, ground is clean (17mm 1" bolt with 2" diameter sanded to bare metal contact), double checked my remote turn on (blue wire), and alternator and battery are solid on the car. No mistakes on my parallel wiring to see 2 ohm mono). Did some online lurking and way too many people are complaining of the same issues. Never would have changed it with this amp if I would have seen. Owned Kenwood amps before. Disappointed. I have 17 years of mobile electronics installation experience (including actual shop experience and carried a MECP certification) and I am not happy.
Read moreWASHINGTON/HAVANA (Reuters) - The Trump administration on Tuesday expelled 15 Cuban diplomats to protest Cuba’s failure to protect staff at the U.S. embassy in Havana from a mysterious spate of health “attacks,” spurring new tensions between the former Cold War foes.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the expulsions from Cuba’s embassy in Washington were also intended to ensure “equity” in staffing levels, after he recalled more than half the U.S. diplomatic personnel in Havana on Friday.
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez denounced the decision as “unjustified,” accused the United States of insufficient cooperation with Cuba’s investigation of the health incidents and urged Washington to stop politicizing the matter.
The steps taken by Republican President Donald Trump’s administration delivers another blow to his Democratic predecessor Barack Obama’s policy of rapprochement, including actions likely to erode the normalization of a relationship dominated for decades by mutual hostility and suspicion.
The latest U.S. move was communicated to Cuban Ambassador Jose Ramon Cabanas on Tuesday, and the diplomats were given seven days to leave, a State Department official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“Until the Government of Cuba can ensure the safety of our diplomats in Cuba, our embassy will be reduced to emergency personnel to minimize the number of diplomats at risk of exposure to harm,” Tillerson said in a statement.
“We continue to maintain diplomatic relations with Cuba, and will continue to cooperate with Cuba as we pursue the investigation into these attacks,” he added.
The United States announced on Friday that it was sharply reducing its diplomatic presence in Cuba, as it warned U.S. citizens not to visit the Communist-ruled island because of the alleged attacks it says have caused hearing loss, dizziness and fatigue in 22 U.S. embassy personnel.
The State Department had said the embassy was halting regular visa operations for Cubans seeking to visit the United States and would offer only emergency services to U.S. citizens.
Cuba has denied involvement in any attacks and says it has reinforced security for U.S. diplomatic personnel.
Cuba's Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez addresses a news conference in Havana, Cuba, October 3, 2017. REUTERS/Alexandre Meneghini
Rodriguez said lack of U.S. cooperation had stymied its own investigation into the matter. Authorities had not provided access to the injured people and the doctors who examined them, or to the homes where the attacks allegedly took place, he said, adding that evidence had been delivered late.
Rodriguez urged the United States to cooperate more and said Cuba was also working with Canada on the investigation as Canadian diplomats have reported similar symptoms.
So far, none of the probes have yielded any answers about how the alleged attacks were carried out or who was responsible.
PRESSURE FROM LAWMAKERS
Several Cuban-American Republican lawmakers, including U.S Senator Marco Rubio and Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, had urged that Cuban diplomats be kicked out in retaliation for the Cuban government’s failure to get to the bottom of the attacks.
“I commend the U.S. State Department for expelling a number of Cuban operatives from the U.S.,” Rubio, an influential voice on Trump’s Cuba policy, said in a statement.
But James Williams, president of Engage Cuba, a Washington-based pro-engagement lobbying group said: “This decision appears to be purely political, driven by the desire of a handful of individuals in Congress to halt progress between our two countries.”
“It looks like we are returning the threats and tensions of the 1960s,” said Maria Fernandez, a 45-year-old office worker in Havana. “This is madness by Trump. It’s really sad, because we are so close, and yet so far away from a sincere rapprochement.”
Trump, who in June vowed to partially roll back the detente with Cuba agreed by his Democratic predecessor Obama after five decades of hostility, called the Cuban government “corrupt and destabilizing” in his address to the United Nations last month. Cuba described his comments as “unacceptable and meddling.”
Rodriguez urged the United States “not to continue politicizing this matter, which can provoke an undesirable escalation and could rarify and reverse even more bilateral relations.”
Slideshow (4 Images)
In Havana, U.S. diplomats frantically selling off their belongings at garage sales and on social media, said they were disappointed to be ordered to leave.
In a message on Facebook, the embassy’s top official, career diplomat Scott Hamilton, said he would also be leaving. “I am an optimist and hope we will return one day, before too long,” he wrote. “Hasta la proxima Cuba.”Clayton Pettet.
Virginity generally tends to be a big deal for most people. Presumably because society dictates that, pre-sex, you are a hairless fawn crawling your way through the embarrassing undergrowth of training bras and stealth wanking, and post-sex you're fully grown with a comprehensive understanding of D'Angelo's discography and the right to drink triple sec next to swimming pools. But then society is notoriously mean and ill informed and probably doesn't even know what it's talking about.
In a bid to understand where the obsession and scrutiny of virginity comes from, my friend Clayton Pettet has decided to lose his flower in front of a crowd next year as part of |
scorer. From 2005 to the end of last season, he had taken 1,355 shots and scored on 123 of them for a 9 percent conversion rate, which is about league average. This year he is lighting the lamp on every third shot, which if continued would shatter the previous post-lockout best (minimum 100 shots taken) set by Mike Ribeiro in 2007-08 with 25.2 percent. I don’t think anyone expects Steen to keep on a 89-goal pace, but don’t be too surprised if he just barely sets a new career high in goals scored with 30 by season’s end.
@ngreenberg.CamFind Helps You Identify and Learn About the World Around You
As time passes, the amount of recognition apps coming to Google Glass increases. It seems like every month we hear something about an app that can recognize faces, items, and other things.
The latest recognition app that is coming to Google Glass is CamFind. CamFind is an image recognition app created by a startup company called Image Searcher. CamFind has been available on smartphones for a little while now, and recently Image Searcher submitted a Google Glass version of the app for approval.
The way the app works is similar to the way the Google Goggles app works. Google Glass wearers can look at an item, object, animal or whatever and CamFind will identify it and provide information about the item to the wearer.
The app seems quite easy to use, but it also seems a bit slow. Users can start the application by saying the command “OK Glass, what do you see?”. Saying the command will cause Google Glass to snap a photo of what you’re looking at and then the application will match the snapped photo to items, objects and other things on the app’s servers. Once a match is found, users will see the results on the Google Glass display. Results appear as easily readable plain text.
Results from searches are usually provided in around 12 seconds. 12 seconds is a considerable amount of time for a single search. While getting results may seem a bit slow though, the results are apparently far more accurate than the results that Google Goggles provides. Also, the app has a staff team that manually identifies different things when the app isn’t able to. So, while you may not be able to identify something one day, you might be able to the next day.
The smart phone version of CamFind has been downloaded 1.6 million times and has apparently answered about 17 million searches. The app seems to be quite successful on smart phones and hopefully the Google Glass version will make the app even more successful. Image Searchers has submitted the application for approval, and it has yet to be approved. Hopefully, it will be approved soon so that Explorers can tinker with it.
So, what are your thoughts on this application? Are you going to play with it once the application gets approved? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section down below!
Source: VentureBeat.comSlightly Mad Studios has revealed that Project CARS has now sold over 2 million copies.
Ian Bell, CEO at Slightly Mad Studios, said: “The multi-million sales of Project CARS validates not only our revolutionary racing simulation, but also our unique World of Mass Development platform. From the onset, we believed that our groundbreaking way of funding games, alongside our commitment to working with our customers and listening to what they wanted from a racing simulation, would push us in the right direction.”
Stephen Viljoen, Project CARS Game Director, said: “We’re really proud of what we have created with Project CARS. Two million sales shows that there will always be a place for games made with passion and craftsmanship. This gives all of us working hard every day on the Project CARS franchise an adrenaline boost as we strive to keep creating the games and features our fans want.”
You could say that Project CARS naturally evolved from the Need for Speed Shift series which to be fair didn't quite know what it wanted to be. Project CARS carries over many elements from Shift but instead has a clear focus on simulation and does away with any superfluous presentation of any sort.
We reviewed Project CARS and thought it was “a landmark racing game” which provided an uncompromising experience to bridge the gap between the PC and console markets. You can read our extensive review on Project CARS here, congratulations Slightly Mad Studios.The timeless wisdom of the ancient Indian mantra Satyameva Jayate found in Mundaka Upanishad and meaning “Truth Alone Triumphs” was adopted as the National Motto of India. But truth is often unpalatable to those in power and thus a decision was taken to retain S.499, S.500 of the Macaulay Code to control natives, also known as Indian Penal Code, 1860. These sections on Criminal Defamation enacted in year 1860, penalise even “Truth” unless it is in “Public Good” whatever that imprecise, vague, pro-British colonial/Government policy term may mean. The aim of English masters to fetter truth by “Public Good” was to completely restrict freedom of speech as anything critical of the Imperial British power.
The purpose of not following the national motto in criminal law, even after independence is simple, it is done to restrict free speech, as a person even though he may speak the truth, he may still have to face a criminal trial to prove his truthful statement was in “Public Good” or “Good Faith”. During such a trial the person will be referred to as accused with all its resultant stigma, quite apart from the hardship and expenses of criminal trial, and thus citizens knowing the consequences, will prudently decide not to speak freely.
Comparisons are odious, yet oddly informative. It makes a stark study in contrast to observe how politicians enacted constitutional amendments in the USA and India after coming to power. The First Amendment to the Constitution of the US, states- “Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press”. Thus by the first amendment, the Government recognized the fundamental right of citizens to free speech and that no law shall abridge it. In India unfortunately the First Amendment to Constitution did the opposite, it severely restricted right to free speech recognized by Article 19 (1) (a) by adding Article 19(2) which retained the existing law i.e. Criminal Defamation and also gave further power to make laws to restrict Free Speech on various grounds.
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Thus while American Government after coming to power gave Free Speech rights, by its first amendment, The Indian Government by its very first amendment, decided to restrict Freedom of Speech. In these first amendments lies the destiny of citizenry right to free speech.
This tendency in Indian Politicians to suppress the voice of people after assuming power was not restricted to the past, it is alive even now as was evidenced from recent circular of AAP Government to file Criminal Defamation cases, to supress voices and scare people from sharing opinion. It was stayed by the Hon’ble Supreme Court, which took a dim view of the hypocrisy of the situation where on one hand Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal took shelter under Dr Subramanian Swamy’s petition to quash Criminal Defamation law and on other hand issued a circular to file Criminal Defamation cases on others. Later AAP Government withdrew the circular, though this writer will not be surprised if in case the Supreme Court does not strike down the law, such a circular may be issued again.
The Hon’ble Supreme Court in recent years has usually given a liberal interpretation to the fundamental rights of citizens. This was necessary to curb the Government’s desire to restrict peoples’ right and control them. By the first amendment which brought Art 19 (2) into the Constitution, the Government got power to restrict freedom of speech. The language of Art 19(2) had term “reasonable restrictions….on freedom of Speech”, The court considered the phrase “reasonable restrictions” which prefaces Government powers in Article 19 (2) to make laws to restrict speech to be of importance, and has interpreted it to mean that the law has to be “reasonable”. Many jurisdictions consider laws restricting basic freedoms reasonable only if they do not unduly restrict the freedom sought to be restricted. Such “restrictions” have direct nexus with an important aim sought to be achieved and other effective alternatives are not available.
Further as Criminal Defamation has penal consequences it’s important to keep in mind that under Article 21 “Protection of life and personal liberty”- No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law. The word ”law” used in Article 21 is of utmost importance as Supreme Court has interpreted it to mean law which is “Just, Fair and Reasonable” and not any arbitrary or capricious law.
Based on above parameters of interpretation of fundamental rights as evolved by SC S.499 has to be declared unconstitutional on various grounds amongst which some in brief are-
1) Any law in which a person can be sent to jail even though he spoke only the truth is not Just, Fair or Reasonable and violates Fundamental Rights
2) Sarcasm, Irony can also be defamation. The very purpose of sarcasm, irony is often exaggeration to highlight a point, frequently used by cartoonist, comedians and various people in public life. To consider it defamation will have “Chilling Effect” on public debate vital in a democracy.
3) S.499 criminalizes making imputations against a company or association, e.g. of doing corruption, environmental damage, malpractices etc. Thus for allegedly harming reputation of a financial/legal entity by words, a person can be sent to jail, which is violative of Art 19, 21 as recourse to financial loss of reputation for a company cannot be jail for a human being. It can only be civil damages.
Beyond this there are various other grounds including International Treaties, S 199(2) of CRPC, and arguments on interplay of fundamental rights which have been taken up in Supreme Court but due to space constraints not being set out here.
In western countries including America, laws have been passed restricting even civil suits of damages as they were being used by rich, powerful, influential individuals and corporations to stifle free speech by bringing – Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation called (SLAPP). Under this type of legal action the aim is to frighten and silence critics due to costs of mounting a legal defence by them. This goes on until the defendant decides to abandon criticism or opposition and thus restricts their right to free speech.
In India unfortunately mere speech without any physical action still has criminal consequences and can land you in jail. In order for citizens to regain freedom including of speech for which freedom fighters fought, which the Constituent Assembly recognized, which was enshrined in the original Constitution and which was taken away by the very first amendment it is essential that the challenge mounted in the Supreme Court in Subramanian Swamy Vs Union of India succeeds.
By- Ishkaran Singh Bhandari
Disclaimer- Author of this article is assisting Dr Subramanian Swamy in the Constitutional Challenge to abolish Criminal Defamation. The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. OpIndia.com is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, suitability, or validity of any information on this article. All information is provided on an as-is basis. The information, facts or opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of OpIndia.com and OpIndia.com does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.
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StorekeeperI debate MMT with Scott Sumner and others in the comments here.
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Possibly I’m doing him an injustice in saying he suggests there is a free lunch. Anyway, I left a comment saying there is no more of a free lunch available now than there ever was, despite the Fed’s new way of controlling inflation, i.e. adjusting interest on reserves.
George Selgin seems to suggest in the Washington Post that there is some sort of free lunch available in that (to quote his last sentence) “…the Fed’s newfound ability to stock up on government debt......does give politicians whose pet projects come with big price tags more reason than ever to suggest that the Fed can pay for them.”Possibly I’m doing him an injustice in saying he suggests there is a free lunch. Anyway, I left a comment saying there is no more of a free lunch available now than there ever was, despite the Fed’s new way of controlling inflation, i.e. adjusting interest on reserves.
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My bright anti-global warming idea of the day is... make it illegal to complain about anyone else’s body odour. Washing your body requires warm water, and warming water consumes energy. Ergo anyone who smells like a tramp should be congratulated.
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I’m working my thru the litany of nonsense that is “Full reserve banking reform proposals…” by Messers Roche, Bentata and Janson. Will do a post here about it in due course.
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Please note that anyone who disagrees with me is suffering from "Musgrave-phobia". And since phobias are a serious mental condition, that proves that anyone who disagrees with me is a nutter.
Leftie logic is GREAT once you get the hang of it....:-)
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Deputy governor of Japan’s central bank says “Fiscal and monetary policies need to work as one, so that more money is spent on fiscal measures and the total money going out to the economy increases as a result.” I suspect most MMTers and Positive Money agree with that.__________
A great idea for wiping out the US national debt: sell Montana to Canada for a trillion dollars.
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My Twitter handle is @MusgraveRalph - until I get banned for speaking the truth....:-)
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I just met someone who was at the recent Berlin MMT conference. He said he met a German economist who regularly got papers in journals, but the German economist said he didn’t dare mention MMT in his papers. Reason is that journals are dominated by orthodox economists who were terrified of anything heterodox. So orthodox economists are not happy with any idea not straight out of the Middle Ages???
I exaggerate to make a point of course....:-)
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While I often criticise Richard Murphy, I do like this short (130 word) post of his. He takes the p*ss out of the idea that stimulus necessarily has to come in the form of interest rate cuts. That very much chimes with a point I've been making on this blog for years, namely that having two different ways of doing the same thing (i.e. implementing stimulus in two different ways (monetary and fiscal policy) is nonsense.)
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Rewarding incompetence: Greece to rescue home owners who borrowed too much.
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Now I reckon a problem to which there is a costless solution is not, by definition, a problem. What do you reckon?
Malcolm Sawyer, of Leeds University, UK, claims full reserve banking has what he calls a “deflationary bias”, i.e. that it would cut demand. Well there’s a simple solution to that, which he seems to be unaware of: it’s called “stimulus”. And as Milton Friedman rightly said, stimulus dollars cost nothing in real terms.Now I reckon a problem to which there is a costless solution is not, by definition, a problem. What do you reckon?
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The pig ignorant Olivier Blanchard (former chief economist at the IMF) says he "wants to start a conversation about public debt and fiscal policy". Well this may to news to him, but conversations (ten miles above his head) have been going on on this topic for YEARS. My suggestion to him is that he just puts a sock in it.
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Chief executive of the New Economics Foundation makes some totally inane points about austerity. Zzzzzzz.
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I get involved in a debate with George Selgin in the comments here on the "full reserve versus existing bank system" question.
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Some details about Germans in the 1920s with Keynsian type ideas.
BTW, the author of that article, who calls himself "Lord Keynes" advocates "far right" ideas on Twitter and on his blog, something that lefties may find emotionally distressing, and causing them to flee to "safe spaces". You have been warned.....:-)
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Increased interest in MMT in chart form here.
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Defenders of the existing bank system often criticize full reserve banking on the grounds that it would raise interest rates, which it probably would. So why weren’t defenders of the existing bank system kicking up a monster fuss in the 1990s when mortgagors in the UK were paying THREE TIMES the rate of interest they do nowadays? Makes you wonder whether defenders of the existing bank system know what they’re talking about.
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The two prize idiots, Kenneth Rogoff and Olivier Blanchard have now apparently realized that a rising national debt does not necessarily matter: a point which MMTers have been trying to drill into their thick heads FOR YEARS.
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For anyone in the North East of England on Monday 18th Feb, there are two talks (30 minutes each) plus question and answer sessions about whether commercial banks should create money. That's at "Good Space", 2nd Floor, Commercial Union House, Pilgrim St, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Monday,18th Feb, 18.30 to 20.30. Entrance is free, but those attending are asked for a £2 contribution to expenses.
This isn't really for complete beginners, i.e. some of the phraseology used will be a bit technical, but neither will it be totally incomprehensible economics jargon. There will be a free list of articles, books, videos for you to take away if you want to read up this subject further at a later date.
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However, Mariana Mazzucato has stuck her neck out and
To date, no economist far as I know has predicted a recession in the UK post Brexit because it so stark staring obvious there’ll be at least a bit of a recession, that it goes without saying. Brexit, especially a no deal Brexit, means temporary DISLOCATION. Doh.However, Mariana Mazzucato has stuck her neck out and predicted the obvious. What next? MM predicts the Sun will rise tomorrow?
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Study says a ten percentage point increase in tariffs on all world exports and imports would cut world GDP by just under 2%. That feels about right (for what my feelings are worth). Assuming that 10% equals what a no deal Brexit would amount to (very crude assumption of course) then I conclude that no deal Brexit would certainly involve a FINITE fall in GDP, but that the fall would not be dramatic.
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5,000 word article by Ann Pettifor much of it devoted to extoling the benefits of government debt. She hasn’t caught up with the fact that several MMTers have explained why government debt is not necessary at all: e.g. Bill Mitchell, me, and Warren Mosler (see Warren’s second last para, and his paper here.
To be accurate, those three MMTers do advocate the creation and distribution of whatever amount of zero interest yielding base money is needed to keep the economy at full employment. And zero interest yielding base money could be said to be “zero interest yielding government debt”. Martin Wolf said that base money and low interesting yielding government debt are virtually the same thing.
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theoretical literatures” on the subject of banking. Given that Dyson & Jackson’s book “Modernising Money” contains 160 references, I regard Sawyer’s accusation as a joke.
Malcolm Sawyer claims that Ben Dyson and Andrew Jackson of Positive Money are guilty of a “disregard of establishedtheoretical literatures” on the subject of banking. Given that Dyson & Jackson’s book “Modernising Money” contains 160 references, I regard Sawyer’s accusation as a joke.
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Well he answered that question himself. As he rightly says, there are numerous idiots at the top of the economics profession, especially Kenneth Rogoff and Olivier Blanchard (both of whom he names).
But of course DeLong, as a respectable member of a respectable middle class profession cannot say so in so many words. As Adam Smith rightly said long ago, members of each profession look after the own (or perhaps I should say "own idiots").
Brad DeLong ponders the question as to why much of the economics profession at the start of the recent recession fell for the nonsense about the need to limit deficits and debts. As he says "It is still not clear to me why the Global North fell into this fit of denial of basic economic principles."Well he answered that question himself. As he rightly says, there are numerous idiots at the top of the economics profession, especially Kenneth Rogoff and Olivier Blanchard (both of whom he names).But of course DeLong, as a respectable member of a respectable middle class profession cannot say so in so many words. As Adam Smith rightly said long ago, members of each profession look after the own (or perhaps I should say "own idiots").
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The % of money created by commercial banks was often given as 97% before QE started. I've always known that that figure must have dropped as a result of QE. But the first chart in an article by Jo Michell shows Bank of England created money is now MORE THAN commercial bank created money. What can I say, apart from strewth, cor blimy, stone the crows, etc?
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I reckon anyone who attributes “hate” to anyone else without an EXTREMELY GOOD EXPLANATION is a nasty little so and so. What do you reckon?
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It’s good to see that Olivier Blanchard (former chief economist at the IMF) who was kicking up a fuss about the size of deficits and debts during the recent recession, just when large deficits were needed, has now come round to something nearer the Keynsian / MMT view that large deficits during recessions do not matter. What took him so long? As Bill Mitchell rightly says, the IMF is so incompetent, it should be closed down.
__________
Does the head of the Swiss central bank understand how money is created? Looks a bit doubtful to judge by the first few paragraphs here. (Hat tip to Mike Norman Economics.
__________
Crypto exchange loses $150million because they lost a pass-word. Ha ha.
__________
Dirk Ehnts claims on Twitter that banks are not intermediaries. David Andolfatto and I beg to differ.
__________
Lawrence Summers wants to know why money financed deficits make sense and what is wrong with the existing combination of fiscal and monetary policy. The answer is that as explained by Warren Mosler, Bill Mitchell, Milton Friedman and me, government borrowing makes little sense plus a permanent zero interest rate DOES make sense. So in that scenario, traditional fiscal and monetary policy cannot be done. (Though like Friedman I wouldn't rule out raising interest above zero in an emergency.)
__________
Bizarre article by Stephanie Kelton (published a few hours before I write this) advocates spending billions on social programs (or maybe tens of billions - she doesn’t say) without any extra tax or borrowing to pay for it!!! That would work if the US economy was nowhere near capacity, but it’s pretty obvious it’s QUITE near capacity right now. But she appears to be totally unconcerned about exactly how near capacity the economy is. She’s making MMTers look silly.
__________
The British Labour Party's fiscal credability rule is here, if you're interested.
__________
What’s all this carry on about house prices having shot up and housing being unaffordable in the UK? According to this site, interest on the typical variable rate mortgage in 2018 was less than a third of what it had been in 1997.
In contrast, house prices in real terms did not rise by anything near that much over that period. In fact they did not even DOUBLE. See here. Incidentally I've gone by the “trend line” (right hand column) at the second site.
__________Summary: New research proposes asymmetry in the lower face could be a novel marker that signifies early life stress.
Source: University of Washington.
Dentistry research ID novel marker for developmental instability.
Research has repeatedly confirmed that the first 1,000 days after conception strongly influence a person’s life expectancy and susceptibility to chronic diseases. The primary marker used to identify early life stress is low birth weight, which can, for instance, indicate poor nutrition of the mother during pregnancy.
But low birth weight is a marker only until birth, about 280 days – far short of a measurement useful for the first thousand days.
New research from University of Washington investigators suggests that an asymmetric lower face is a novel marker that also captures early life stresses that occur after birth.
“Asymmetries in the skull and teeth have been used for decades by anthropologists to mark environmental stress, but they have only rarely been used in living populations,” said Philippe Hujoel, the corresponding author. “Such lower-face asymmetries can be assessed by looking at the dental bite in the permanent teeth – an exam that can be completed in seconds and with more certainty than a mother’s recall of birth weight and more ease than a search for a birth certificate.”
Hujoel, a professor in the UW School of Dentistry, described a crooked, or asymmetric, bite as the teeth biting backward or forward on one side of the face and normally on the other side. Backward-biting asymmetries, the most common lower-face asymmetry in the U.S. population, were found to fluctuate randomly between the left and right sides of the face. Such randomness is evidence for early life stress, he said.
Hujoel emphasized that crooked teeth, overbites and underbites are different than an asymmetric bite. Those conditions can be associated with asymmetric and symmetric bites, the latter of which is largely a reflection of genetics, not environmental stress, he said.
Hujoel, Erin Masterson and Anne-Marie Bollen researched data gathered from 1966 to 1970, a sample of 6,654 12- to 17-year-olds involved in a National Health Examination Survey. The study found that one in four of the U.S. adolescents had lower-face asymmetries.
“Lower-face asymmetries were common in a generation that became typified by an epidemic of diabetes and obesity in adulthood,” noted Hujoel, an adjunct professor of epidemiololgy in the School of Public Health.
The team had to look back four decades for data because in the 1970’s, he said, dental researchers in charge of designing U.S. surveys began to disregard the value of diagnosing facial asymmetry, and stopped taking those measurements.
“From a biological perspective, this decision resulted in an inability to reliably track trends in the U.S.,” Hujoel said. “We don’t have current information on the prevalence of lower-face asymmetries in the U.S. population.”
Further research is needed to identify whether lower-face asymmetries are predictive of chronic diseases in living populations in the same way that skull asymmetries have been associated with degenerative diseases in long-deceased populations.
About this Genetics research article
Source: Brian Donohue – University of Washington
Image Source: NeuroscienceNews.com image is credited to Philippe Hujoel.
Original Research: Abstract for “Lower face asymmetry as a marker for developmental instability” by Philippe P. Hujoel, Erin E. Masterson, and A-M Bollen in American Journal of Human Biology. Published online April 11 2017 doi:10.1002/ajhb.23005
Cite This NeuroscienceNews.com Article
MLA
APA
Chicago University of Washington “A Crooked Bite May Indicate Early Life Stress.” NeuroscienceNews. NeuroscienceNews, 15 April 2017.
<http://neurosciencenews.com/stress-crooked-bite-6420/>. University of Washington (2017, April 15). A Crooked Bite May Indicate Early Life Stress. NeuroscienceNew. Retrieved April 15, 2017 from http://neurosciencenews.com/stress-crooked-bite-6420/ University of Washington “A Crooked Bite May Indicate Early Life Stress.” http://neurosciencenews.com/stress-crooked-bite-6420/ (accessed April 15, 2017).
Abstract
Lower face asymmetry as a marker for developmental instability
Objectives
Fluctuating asymmetries in the craniofacial skeleton have been shown to be predictive for mortality from degenerative diseases. We investigate whether lower face asymmetries are a potential marker for the developmental origins of health and disease.
Methods
The lower face of a representative sample of 6654 12- to 17-year old United States (US) adolescents (1966-1970, National Health Examination Survey III) was classified as asymmetric when the mandibular teeth occluded prognathically (forward) or retrognathically (backward) on one side of the face only. It was investigated whether these lower face asymmetries were directional (preferentially to the left or the right) or fluctuating (random left-right distribution) in the US population.
Results
Lower face asymmetries affected 1 in 4 of the US adolescents. Unilateral retrognathic dental occlusions were fluctuating asymmetries, had a US prevalence of 17.0% (95% confidence interval: 15.5-18.4) and were associated with race/ethnicity (P
Conclusions
The findings suggest that lower face asymmetries are a marker for environmental stress and cerebral lateralization during early development.
“Lower face asymmetry as a marker for developmental instability” by Philippe P. Hujoel, Erin E. Masterson, and A-M Bollen in American Journal of Human Biology. Published online April 11 2017 doi:10.1002/ajhb.23005
Feel free to share this Neuroscience News.When you hold a top-five pick in the NFL Draft, it is only right to do you due diligence with all the top draft prospects who are available.
The Titans, who have that pick, courtesy last year’s trade with the Los Angeles Rams, have hosted a number of the top prospects in this year’s draft, and Monday, Alabama defensive lineman Jonathan Allen joined that list.
According to Allen’s social media account, Viktre, Allen sent out a photo of himself and a companion in Nashville, showing that he visited downtown after his visit with the Titans concluded.
Allen is considered by many to be the second best defensive line prospect available in this year’s draft, behind Texas A&M star Myles Garrett.
Defensive line isn’t necessarily a need position for the Titans this season, but the Titans may be in a position at No. 5 to draft the best player available on their board, regardless of position.
Among the other top players the Titans have visited with according to reports include Derek Barnett of Tennessee, O.J. Howard of Alabama, Mike Williams of Clemson, Corey Davis of Western Michigan.
The Titans also hold the 18th pick in the draft as well.I am baffled. How can anyone possibly give this case bad reviews?
I bought it blindly based on the positive Amazon reviews. I own about 15 bands for my Apple Watch. I had nowhere to store them. This case is an absolute godsend for me.
Yes, it's huge, but it stores 20 -- count 'em -- 20 bands.
And the case isn't as shoddily built as some of these reviews might want you to believe. In fact, I was quite amazed by the amount of abuse the watch holder straps inside took. You really have to stretch the straps to their limit to fit the wide watch band hooks through. Those holding straps seem to have the stretching capacity to initially do the trick of fitting and holding the bands in place. Long term? Not so sure.
Listen, Amazon review readers, this is a $20 case. Don't expect miracles, but do expect to be pleased with what it does. It effectively It holds 20 watch bands, whether Silicone, Milanese, Woven, Stainless steel or Leather. That is a huge accomplishment. Yes the case is a bit large to perhaps throw in a duffle bag. However, in a suitcase for traveling, it fits perfectly and doesn't take up much room. At home, it fits nicely in a dresser drawer. It seems to be a reasonable quality case for the price. Not overly cheap. It serves its purpose well for its price point. Honestly, I didn't want to spend a huge amount of money for watch band storage. I just needed to find a way to get my large collection organized. For that purpose, this case performed wonderfully.
There is even an inner protective covering flap to prevent any damage to your bands when the case is folded.One of the master of cosmic horror's greatest tales is being made into a film -- with an interesting choice behind the camera.
According to EW (via Empire), H.P. Lovecraft's "The Colour Out of Space" is being adapted for the screen as Color Out of Space by writer/director Richard Stanley, whose last directorial effort, Dust Devil, came out all the way back in 1992. Backing the production is SpectreVision, an independent company (co-founded by The Lord of the Rings star Elijah Wood) that has already released the well-received A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, as well as The Boy and the brand-new Cooties.
SpectreVision co-founder Daniel Noah said in a statement, "H.P. Lovecraft is the undisputed father of literary horror, and yet, bafflingly, there has yet to be a cinematic treatment that captures the dark beauty of the man’s oeuvre. Richard Stanley’s note perfect adaptation of 'The Colour Out of Space' represents an epiphany for me, as it no doubt will be for legions of Lovecraft devotees around the world.”
"The Colour Out of Space," first published in 1927, remains one of the most acclaimed works of Lovecraft's career. It was his personal favorite of all his stories and is considered the first of his tales to overtly blend horror and science fiction. The story deals with a meteorite that crashes on a remote farm and unleashes an alien entity in the form of colors that are unrecognizable within the visible spectrum. The colors mutate the plant and animal life on the farm while slowly driving the farmer and his family insane. The story has been adapted for the screen twice before, as Die, Monster, Die! (starring Boris Karloff) in 1965 and as the little-seen The Curse in 1987.
Stanley first arrived on the scene in 1990 with the cult sci-fi movie Hardware, moving on |
for drama and?
With her political star fading and tea party sister Michelle Bachmann suddenly commanding all the excitement about 2012, it’s not exactly a coincidence that Palin chose Wisconsin as her next battleground.
With thousands of angry followers on and Twitter, Palin might no longer hold office, but she's still holding court. And that combined with her almost gleeful ignorance makes her dangerous. It's time to call Palin out and hold her accountable.
It's an icky, but somebody's got to do it.Quote Hey folks,
We wanted to give you an update on a change of plans around our Seattle Cantina, planned to happen around PAX Prime. As we have been looking at our schedule, we feel that as we are just a few short months from Fallen Empire’s launch, it is really important that we focus our resources internally. Our goal is to deliver a AAA-quality expansion and we need to allow the team to put their focus on development priorities, to put all resources into making Knights of the Fallen Empire the best it can be. With that in mind, we have decided to cancel our on-site PAX Seattle Cantina in favor of a livestream event – this allows us to have our team participate without the necessity of traveling cross-country.
However, we know that Cantinas are often a place where players look to get time to talk with developers, get new information, and acquire some event-exclusive swag. We still want to deliver on those expectations and live up to the spirit of the Cantina event experience. So, in lieu of the Seattle Cantina, we are going to host a livestream on Wednesday, August 26th.
Here are some of the things you can expect to be included as part of the stream: A live gameplay play-thru of a chapter from the new Digital Expansion: Knights of the Fallen Empire
The team to answer questions via chat throughout the stream
A shareable link for a 2015 Cantina Tour Pack, which includes the Prinawe Aggregate (a vehicle available exclusively via the livestream) and another random item!
Plus, a first reveal of a familiar face who will be returning to SWTOR in Knights of the Fallen Empire I know that some of you may have been looking to book your travel or hotel stay in Seattle for the Cantina, so we wanted to get this information out as soon as possible. As of this post we will be removing Seattle from the pre-registration list to avoid any confusion. Thanks everyone!
We hope to see you on the stream next month.
-eric Eric Musco | Community Manager
Follow us on Twitter @SWTOR | Like us on Facebook
[Contact Us] [Rules of Conduct] [F.A.Q.]Home > Press > A quantum simulator of impossible physics: In the experiment, developed by the UPV/EHU-University of the Basque Country in conjunction with the University of Tsinghua (China), the atoms simulate absurd actions "as if they were actors in a quantum theatre"
Abstract:
The researchers in the two groups have succeeded in getting a trapped atom to imitate behaviours that contradict its own fundamental laws, thus taking elements of science fiction to the microscopic world. "We have managed to get an atom to act as if it were infringing the nature of atomic systems, in other words, quantum physics and the theory of relativity. It is just like what happens in the theatre or in science fiction films in which the actors appear to display absurd behaviours that go against natural laws; in this case, the atoms are obliged to simulate absurd actions as if an actor in the theatre or in science fiction were involved," explained Prof Solano.
A quantum simulator of impossible physics: In the experiment, developed by the UPV/EHU-University of the Basque Country in conjunction with the University of Tsinghua (China), the atoms simulate absurd actions "as if they were actors in a quantum theatre"
Leioa, Bizkaia | Posted on October 8th, 2015
The results of this research have been published in the prestigious journal Nature Communications, in the article "Time reversal and charge conjugation in an embedding quantum simulator". The research team of the UPV/EHU's QUTIS group has been led by Prof Enrique Solano and has had the participation of Dr Lucas Lamata and Dr Jorge Casanova, currently at the University of Ulm, Germany.
In this experiment the researchers reproduced in the lab the theoretical proposal previously included in a previous piece of research led by the QUTIS group; it describes the possibility that a trapped atom can display behaviour that is incompatible with the fundamental laws of quantum physics. More specifically, we are talking about operations prohibited in microscopic physical systems, such as charge conjugation, which transforms a particle into an antiparticle, or time reversal, that reverses the direction of the time arrow.
To conduct the experiment it was necessary to use a charged atom trapped by means of electromagnetic fields under the action of an advanced laser system. We could describe symmetry operations of this type as prohibited ones, as they could only exist in a universe that is different from the one we know and governed by different laws. Yet in this experiment it has been possible to simulate the realisation of this set of impossible laws in an atomic system.
The UPV/EHU's QUTIS group is a world leader in quantum simulation and its influential theoretical proposals are often verified in the most advanced quantum technology laboratories. In this case, physical operations that are prohibited for the atomic world can be reproduced just as in science fiction, in other words, just as if they were taking place artificially in a quantum theatre.
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February 8th, 2019As the author of www.SilverPriceAdvisor.com I believe that silver could go to $60 per ounce from today’s price of just $30 by the end of 2014. That would be double from today’s current prices in just a little over two years! I also believe silver will be the best single investment of this decade. The following article is focused on why I think that you should seriously consider having a significant percentage of your investment portfolio in silver.
Many gold investors deride silver as the "poor man's gold" because of its low relative price to gold. They also don't like the fact that it because it is used primarily as an industrial metal it can be negatively affected by a cyclical downturn in the economy. This is opposite of gold which is viewed almost entirely as a precious metal. Many years ago, the silver market was so oversupplied because there were huge artificial inventories of silver. This was because the US took currency (coins) out of circulation due to its physical silver content. Because of this artificial situation, huge surpluses hung over the market until these excess inventories were depleted. This led to silver prices crashing as low as $2 and then traded around $5 for years. Because silver had so decoupled from the price of gold during this period, it began to be thought of as just another industrial metal and not a precious metal.
There are still skeptics who think of silver as just another industrial metal. However after a 600% rise in price from $5 to $30 since 2003, it has begun again to be viewed as a precious metal. I think that silver has only completed about fifty percent of that process. As this transformation continues there will be additional significant moves higher in price. That will attract more investors to silver again until it once again retains its true status as a precious metal.
The amount of silver consumed annually and bought for investment exceeds currently exceeds total annual mining output and has for years. That gap has been filled by sellers willing to sell from existing inventories and as prices rise. As time passes this will naturally push prices significantly higher until this fundamental imbalance reaches a true equilibrium price where supply is closer to demand.
Both industrial and investment demand for silver is growing in excess of the annual increase in mining production growth. The available inventory is low and will get even tighter over time. These two factors will lead to a continued tighter supply-demand situation going forward..
The lower price of silver at $32 appeals more broadly to small investors relative to the more expensive gold at $1705, especially if gold prices continue to rise.
Most silver is not found in mining sites in any significant concentrated form. It is usually chemically bound to other metals; much of it is actually the byproduct of mining for lead, copper, etc. In the last few decades this made it less attractive from a profitability standpoint to invest in pure silver mine. Now prices have finally recovered enough to make new projects feasible again. So there is new investment in the sector but it is a lengthy multi-year process to bring on significant new production..
The last time silver was found in huge concentrations or veins that dramatically affected the amount available and therefore significantly lowered prices was in the Comstock Lode in Nevada in the late 1800's. The Comstock Lode produced tons of ore that was very pure with concentrations of 25-50% silver. Silver mines today have much lower concentrations, usually always less than two ounces per ton of refined ore.
Silver is the most conductive metal on earth. Gold is also conductive but is prohibitively expensive due to its much higher price for most industrial uses compared to silver.
Silver is an industrial metal with over 10,000 commercial applications. Because it is one of the best electrical and thermal conductors, that makes it ideal for electrical uses such as switches, multi-layer ceramic capacitors, conductive adhesives, and contacts. It is used in some brazing and soldering as well. Silver is also used in solar cells, heated automobile wind shields, DVD's and some mirrors.
Silver is an essential element in the electronic gadgets that are a growing part of our digital age. It is in every cell phone, smart phone, tablet, computer keyboard, solar cells and every radio frequency if ID device (RFID). This makes it an essential element going forward as the world becomes more addicted to gadgets. The growth and rising living standards of people in the emerging economies will drive long-term growth of new customers that will demand more and more electronic gadgets.
Silver's industrial demand should increase 60% to 666 million ounces per year by 2016 from 487 million ounces in 2010. Current annual mine production is only around 700 million ounces per year growing a few percent annually.
Of a total of fifty billion ounces of silver that have been mined in history, only two ounces (estimate) or 5% remain in above ground inventories available to be bought and sold. This is due to silver being used up in industrial applications in very small quantities, which makes it unprofitable to recycle at today's prices. A lot of silver is used in minute quantities in industrial products which are used up and discarded without being recycled.
This is unlike gold where five billion ounces have been mined and two and half billion ounces (estimate) are still available in all inventory. Since gold is hardly ever discarded because of its very high price, used mainly in jewelry or for investment purposes, the total inventory is so much larger than silver.
The supply demand equilibrium in silver is extremely tight. There is now less than one year of inventory of silver, compared to over eleven years of inventory in the 1970’s.
Exchange Traded Funds (mainly SLV, SGOL, PSLV, and CEF) have opened precious metals investing in silver to millions of investors around the globe. When investor make net new purchases, the ETF purchases physical silver and removes it from the available market, which increases the scarcity of available supply. This is the first time many investors worldwide are not required to actually buy physical silver bullion and coins and store it themselves. Now they have an investment vehicle that offers liquidity and ease of trading to get exposure to precious metals.
Silver also has many medicinal applications. Roman soldiers long ago noticed that if water is kept in silver cups, it wouldn’t become stagnant. Today silver in "colloidal" form is used as a broad spectrum antibiotic. It can be used in bandages to treat burn victim's wounds and also in colloidal form actually swallowed to target microorganisms in one's gut. It is also used in water purification systems.
The US Dollar has lost 31% of its purchasing power just since 2000. The dollar has lost a staggering 82% of its value since the US was taken off the gold standard in 1971. Since the Federal Reserve was created in 1913, the US dollar has lost 95.6% of its purchasing power. When you compare the historical appreciation and more importantly, the retention of real purchasing power of precious metals versus the dollar in those same time frames, those facts alone should convince you that significant exposure in precious metals is necessary to protect your wealth. The primary and overarching reason you should have a significant percentage of your investment assets in precious metals is simple: to protect the real purchasing power of your accumulated wealth! In this age of government's abusing their privilege of excessively printing currency, on a magnitude and scale not seen for decades, only gold and silver can protect and actually grow your wealth.
Gold and silver are such unique elements with so many uncommon properties. Therefore the chance of a gold or silver substitute being developed is almost impossible. It hasn't happened in thousands of years and it probably never will. That is what makes them exclusive; they can't be printed, manufactured or copied. They can only be mined, purchased from a willing seller of the world's existing inventory and from recycling.
Unlike an account at a bank, a dollar bill or a bond, these are all both an asset and liability to counterparty. This includes every other financial instrument and derivative man has created in history. Precious metals are the only asset class with no counterparty risk if you have physical or very secure possession. They will always retain some value and can’t go to zero like any other investment.
The total amount of silver available to trade in the physical silver market is only about $70 billion versus the total gold market which now exceeds $4.3 trillion. As you can see from these numbers, the total market size of the silver market is only 1.6% of the size of the entire gold market. This lack of liquidity and use of extreme leverage in its respective futures market produces wild volatility in price fluctuations of silver.
The total gold market is sixty one times the size of the silver market yet. As interest in silver increases this sets up a situation where prices could soar higher.NBC’s rom-coms ruled the carpet at the network’s Tuesday premiere party, sponsored by Vanity Fair, at Hollywood’s Hyde as the casts of “Marry Me” and “A to Z” buzzed with excitement for the premieres of their shows.
“It’s been so great,” exclaimed “Marry Me’s” Casey Wilson of working on the laffer. The Tuesday night comedy stars Wilson and Ken Marino as they navigate the process of getting engaged and making it to the altar. But the show is not just about getting married, said Wilson.
“I think we’re also just taking relationship stories and blowing them out and making them really funny,” she told Variety, teasing that upcoming stories include a “Bride Wars”-esque encounter with Dan Bucatinsky, who plays one of Wilson’s fathers, and the couple attempting an open-eyed cuddle – an exercise that Wilson learned in acting school.
“I did it with my husband and he lasted five seconds, so he has Ken try to do it with my character,” she laughed. Wilson is married to David Caspe, creator of “Marry Me,” and shared that they tried to draw on their own relationship when they began developing the comedy.
Related EXCLUSIVE: Former NBC Anchor Accuses Tom Brokaw of Sexual Harassment 'Chicago PD,' 'Chicago Med' and 'Chicago Fire' Renewed at NBC
“A to Z” is also loosely based on how creator Ben Queen met his wife. Queen drew on their story and a desire to see more relationship comedies as inspiration for Andrew (Ben Feldman) and Zelda (Cristin Milioti).
Queen spent six years working at Pixar prior to developing the series, and considers the experience “like graduate screenwriting school. The big take away was take the time, do the hard work in the first act to make your audience care about the story and the characters. I’m trying to do that every week on the show and have an emotional tie-in.”
The show’s ambition to be heartfelt in addition to being funny was a big draw for Feldman, who never thought he would want to be in a comedy. “Comedies to me are more about rhythm and the joke than it is about the story and the character,” he said, “but this show didn’t care if there were a few moments that went by without a joke. It felt like the kind of movies we’re nostalgic for that we don’t see anymore.”
“And we’ve started bleeding into our characters,” he shared after pausing to joke around with his cast mates. “I’ll bitch about something and then all of a sudden my character’s saying it in the next episode.”
“We really are trying to strike this slightly more realistic tone,” added Queen, “and we’re trying to tell a realistic relationship story — and you’re going to see everything from beginning to end, too.”
As Katey Segal narrates, Andrew and Zelda date for eight months, three weeks, five days and one hour, with the events of the end of that timeline yet to be seen. But that time is just what Queen has planned for the first season, he said, hoping the show performs well enough to earn a second run.
“We’re really trying to take the time to take you through this particular couple’s relationship so you don’t miss anything,” he said. “And at the end of that, they don’t date anymore. And whether they break up or get married or whatever is left up to the audience to wonder but we have ideas about where it’s going to go.”
(Pictured: Casey Wilson and Ken Marino of “Marry Me” at the NBC party)NEW YORK (Reuters) - Americans with accounts on President Barack Obama’s health insurance enrollment website, HealthCare.gov, were advised that their passwords had been reset to guard against the “Heartbleed” bug, in a message posted on the site on Saturday.
A boy waits in line at a health insurance enrollment event in Cudahy, California March 27, 2014. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson
The warning marks the latest fallout from the widespread security bug, which surfaced this month and allows hackers to steal data online without a trace. Companies from Amazon.com Inc to Google Inc. have been forced to take steps to protect against Heartbleed.
A message on HealthCare.gov said users who visited the website would need to create a new password to access their accounts.
“While there’s no indication that any personal information has ever been at risk, we have taken steps to address Heartbleed issues and reset consumers’ passwords out of an abundance of caution,” said the message posted on Saturday.
The Heartbleed security flaw is a “catastrophic bug” believed to affect two out of every three Web servers, according to the Electronic Freedom Foundation.
HealthCare.gov, a health insurance exchange for the 36 states that opted out of creating their own state insurance exchanges, was created under Obama’s signature health care law, the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
The website’s launch last fall was dogged by complaints that many users could not access the site to buy insurance or research healthcare plan options. Most of the website’s most prominent flaws were eventually remedied.
Obama on Thursday announced in the White House briefing room that 8 million people had signed up by the latest enrollment deadline of April 15. The program’s original goal was 7 million signups by the end of March, which was met.
Republicans have been relentless in their criticism of the healthcare law ahead of November’s congressional elections, when the GOP hopes to reclaim control of the U.S. Senate and strengthen its majority in the House of Representatives.
Critics of Obama’s health initiative have suggested HealthCare.gov might be vulnerable to security flaws.
The Heartbleed bug exploits a glitch in a widely used Web encryption program known as OpenSSL.
It has not affected only corporations.
Canada’s tax-collection agency said this month that the private information of hundreds of people had been compromised as hackers exploited the Heartbleed bug.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/ywyp
— Pi Kappa Phi has placed its North Carolina State University chapter on interim suspension pending the outcome of an investigation into the contents of a book that was found at a restaurant near campus, the fraternity announced Friday morning.
The little, green book, filled with handwritten comments, included racially and sexually charged language and derogatory comments about women and children.
Calls to NC State's Tau Chapter of Pi Kappa Phi Thursday night went unreturned. No one answered at the fraternity's national headquarters in Charlotte, either, but the fraternity posted on its website overnight about the interim suspension.
“The written comments and quotes reported earlier this evening are offensive and unacceptable,” Pi Kappa Phi Chief Executive Officer Mark E. Timmes said in a statement. “These statements are inconsistent with the values of Pi Kappa Phi and will not be tolerated. We have instructed our students to cooperate fully with all investigation efforts."
An interim suspension means that the fraternity can not hold meetings or participate in philanthropic events during the investigation.
Fred Hartman, of NC State's community relations department, issued this statement:
"NC State was made aware tonight of these disturbing allegations and immediately began investigating."
Katie Perry, a senior, at State, told WRAL News that her co-workers found what appears to be a fraternity pledge book at a restaurant near campus.
"That's embarrassing and scary," she said of the book's contents.
The comments were signed in places, and the names match up to those listed as brothers on the Pi Kappa Phi website.
"This is just a group of 60-something young men at State making jokes about raping people, raping children, raping dead women, making very overt racist comments."
At the fraternity's home on campus, no one answered the door Thursday night, although people could be seen inside the house.
"They were all sitting in the living room, but when they saw me they made a bee-line for the back room," WRAL's Ken Smith said.
A short while later, someone inside completely closed the curtains. Smith also saw several young men leaving the house and driving away.
By 9:30 p.m., the list of brothers' names was removed from the Pi Kappa Phi website.
Excerpts from the book are disturbing.
"It will be short and painful, just like when I rape you," one page reads.
"If she's hot enough, she doesn't need a pulse," says another.
"That tree is so perfect for lynching," reads another.
"Be kind to the whales because they'll lead you to the dolphins," says a fourth.
Perry hopes the discovery of the book is a wakeup call for those who wrote the comments and others on campus.
"I hope other fraternities are disgusted," she said. "I hope that if they do have this sort of thing going on in theirs, that they'll realize, whether they want to or not, that they should change, that they shouldn't promote this kind of behavior.
"There's no excuse," Perry continued. "These aren't children. They're my age. They're saying this. They know what they're doing."ES News Email Enter your email address Please enter an email address Email address is invalid Fill out this field Email address is invalid You already have an account. Please log in or register with your social account
Two men have been arrested in Saudi Arabia for trying to organise a beauty contest for dogs.
The pair had been planning a show which would find the most beautiful dog in Jeddah, a port city on the Red Sea coast.
According to local media, three awards had already been dished out in the competition’s early stages.
The main event, advertised heavily on social media, was due to be held tomorrow to coincide with the Eid festival.
However, Saudi paper Sabq reported the men had been arrested by police for dog “pageantry”.
Authorities in the Emirate of Mecca and Medina said on Twitter: "The Jeddah municipality assures that it will not allow such an event to be held.
“Legal procedures and punishments will be taken against the organisers.”
The kingdom has a troubled history with canines, which are seen by some Muslims as unclean animals.
In 2008, Saudis were even banned from selling dogs or cats as pets in the capital of Riyadh, while owners were barred from walking them in public in a bid to curb flirtatious behaviour by male owners.Here's what it takes to build a Docker image: a Dockerfile!
Dockerfiles are simple...
Dockerfile has a simple and understandable format. Choose a base for your image, add files, run commands and you're good to go. Here's an example:
FROM ubuntu RUN apt-get -y install python ADD./a-file /app/a-file
...perhaps too simple?
Often times building a real world application takes much more than following simple ADD and RUN steps in a step-by-step fashion. You might want to:
Pull code from a private git repository and therefore need your private SSH key in the image during build
Add compile-time libraries to your image but don't need them in run-time
Also, how about those "post-build" steps like uploading your compiled executables to S3 or resetting your exception handling system after a successful build and release?
Introducing Habitus
Habitus is our answer to these issues. We built it for ourselves and are releasing it as open source for everyone to enjoy, contribute and make their own.
What is Habitus?
Habitus is a build flow tool for Docker. It lets you combine multiple Dockerfiles into a complex build and deployment flow.
Combining your Dockerfiles with a single yaml file called build.yml gives you a lot of power and flexibility. Here's an example of a build.yml :
build: version: 2016-02-13 // version of the build schema. steps: - builder: name: builder dockerfile: Dockerfile.builder artifacts: - /go/src/github.com/cloud66/iron-mountain/iron-mountain - /go/src/github.com/cloud66/iron-mountain/config.json - /go/src/github.com/cloud66/iron-mountain/localhost.crt - /go/src/github.com/cloud66/iron-mountain/localhost.key cleanup: commands: - rm -rf /root/.ssh/ - deployment: name: ironmountain dockerfile: Dockerfile.deployment depends_on: - builder - uploader: name: uploader dockerfile: Dockerfile.uploader depends_on: - ironmountain command: s3cmd --access_key=_env(ACCESS_KEY) --secret_key=_env(SECRET_KEY) put /app/iron-mountain s3://uploads.aws.com
Now we can run this with Habitus:
$ habitus -f build.yml -e ACCESS_KEY=$ACCESS_KEY -e SECRET_KEY=$SECRET_KEY
Here's what's going to happen:
Habitus runs each step with the Dockerfile specified in that step. If any artefacts are specified, they'll be copied from the built image onto the work directory, so they'll be available to the next steps. Any cleanup commands will run after build. This will result in'squashing' the image, therefore removing any traces of the unwanted layers. This is particularly useful to get rid of compile time packages or private SSH keys. If a command is specified, it will run in the build container. This can be a step to upload build artefacts to a we server.
What else can it do?
Habitus can do more than just running build steps. It can:
Automatically detect that a step uses another step as the base image FROM and amend the image tags
and amend the image tags Build complex build dependency tree and run independent steps in parallel
Pass environment variables into the build
Multiple instances of Habitus can run in parallel on the same build using unique session IDs. This is useful if you would like to use Habitus for your automated build server.
Where can I find out more?
You can read more about Habitus on its website.
Is it free?
Yes! Habitus is free and open source.
Who's behind Habitus?
Habitus is an open source project sponsored by Cloud 66. Fork, modify and conquer, then let us know what you think!
Watch our talk about Habitus at the DigitalOcean Meetup in New York.Jordyn Wieber, right, and Alexandra Raisman at the AT&T American Cup in New York in March
Photo by Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty Images.
Last night’s Olympic drama revolved around the fate of U.S. gymnast Jordyn Wieber, the reigning world champion. Wieber’s scores did not qualify her for the individual all-around finals. Instead, her teammates, Aly Raisman and Gabby Douglas, both less celebrated, will advance. As she watched her scores come up, Wieber looked up with big brown eyes that instantly filled up with tears, and then she tried to turn away from the cameras long enough to regain her composure.
The New York Times described the moment this way:
When the 17-year-old Wieber—who has been described on different occasions as steady as a rock, as sure as a machine and as mentally tough as the great Nadia Comaneci—learned she was the odd woman out, she burst into tears.
There’s an alternate storyline forming here, aided by the announcers who described the Russian gymnasts as having “no shortage of diva moments—a lot of crying.” In the weeks leading up to the Olympics, we often discuss how tough these female athletes are: the trash-talking boxers, the pregnant Malaysian shooter. But then invariably one of them—usually a gymnast or an ice skater in winter—will shed a tear, and the commentators will wink and remind us all that deep down they are just little girls, or divas, or at least not quite as tough as they appear.
In fact, what struck me most about Wieber’s reaction was how quickly she recovered, got it together for the cameras, and did the right thing, which was to congratulate her teammates and wish the team the best. Team gymnastics demands the impossible from these young girls. They have to strive for their own glory and at the same time suppress their egos on behalf of the team. Many less mentally tough gymnasts have fallen apart over that psychologically punishing demand. But Wieber could not have been more poised and generous. As famed coach Bela Karolyi said later, “I hope she is going to get the composure like she always does. But you know, [they] are human beings. You never know how they’re going to be.”*
Right, human beings, not little girls. Maybe Wieber’s great accomplishment last night was to normalize crying after a crushing result, so it won’t be something only divas do.
Correction: This post previously stated that Bela Karolyi was Wieber’s coach.A man works on his laptop computer. (Photo11: Joe Brier for USA TODAY)
Chinese hackers broke into the federal Office of Personnel Management computer system in March, apparently targeting tens of thousands of employees who applied for top-security clearance, The New York Times reported.
The Times, citing "senior American officials," said the breach had been tracked to China, but not necessarily the Chinese government. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said authorities have "no reason to believe that personal identifiable information was compromised."
Hacking has been a major point of contention in the U.S.-China relationship — with each side accusing the other.
The latest revelation comes as China's Communist Party leader Xi Jinping and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, meeting in Beijing, vowed to develop better economic and security cooperation. The meeting was the latest in a series of talks designed to improve the sometimes tumultuous relationship.
Kerry, asked about the Times story Thursday, said he had learned about it just as the meetings were getting underway and did not discuss specifics with Chinese officials.
"Apparently this story relates to an attempted intrusion that is still being investigated by the appropriate U.S. authorities," Kerry said. "It does not appear to have compromised any sensitive material. And I'm not going to get into any of the specifics of that ongoing investigation, but we've been very clear for some time with our counterparts here that this is in larger terms an issue of concern."
China quickly dismissed the report Thursday, The Wall Street Journal reported. The Journal quoted China Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei, at his daily briefing, as saying China opposes hacker attacks.
"Some U.S. media and U.S. cybersecurity always smear China and create the theory that China is a cyberthreat, but they can't provide sufficient evidence of that," he said. "We feel strongly that these kinds of reports and comments are irresponsible and not worth a comment or refuting."
American officials told the Times the attack on the OPM was notable because hackers are always trying to breach government servers but seldom succeed.
Last year, the government acknowledged that hackers obtained employee and contractors' personal data at the Department of Energy. Agencies are required to reveal breaches in all cases involving personally identifiable information — but not in cases involving non-personnel-related government secrets.
"The administration has never advocated that all intrusions be made public," Caitlin Hayden, a spokeswoman for the Obama administration, said in a statement to the Times. "We have advocated that businesses that have suffered an intrusion notify customers if the intruder had access to consumers' personal information. We have also advocated that companies and agencies voluntarily share information about intrusions."
In May, the U.S. made public an indictment accusing Chinese military officials of hacking into several several large U.S. companies, including Westinghouse and U.S. Steel, to steal volumes of trade secrets and intellectual property. It was the first time the U.S. has charged a state actor in a criminal cyber espionage case.
The Chinese hackers, using military and intelligence resources in Shanghai, downloaded massive amounts of industrial information, including strategic plans, from U.S. businesses, the indictment said. The indictment, out of western Pennsylvania, charges five military "hackers," officers in the Chinese People's Liberation Army, with directing a conspiracy to steal information from six American companies in critical industries, including nuclear power, solar power and metals.
No arrests have been made.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1mi1MJcSeason 13, Episode 8
When it comes to K9 Law Enforcement dogs, Tim Scannell is one of the top trainers in the county. Not only does he run all the training sessions for the Bergen County Sheriffs Department but he also trains dogs for the state police as well as many other agencies. After a long day of work Tim and the boys used to unwind at a local pub where they could recap the day, have a few drinks and unwind with a game of Golden Tee. However once the bar closed down, everyone started meeting up at Tim's house, more specifically in the kitchen. So as the group got bigger and the nights got longer, Tim's wife Kelly reached out to Man Caves in a last ditch effort to save her kitchen. Now Jason and Tony are coming in to turn their kids playroom into a space where Tim and the boys can gather in peace. This Man Cave is going to pay tribute to K9 officers and the K9 partners who serve along side them. This cave will be completed with 2 bars and 2 lounge areas, one for the guys and one for the dogs. We also got Tim and the boys a brand new TV and of course, their very own Golden Tee. Now Kelly's biggest problem is going to be getting these guys to leave.Ronda Rousey demanded to face Bethe Correia after beating her teammate at UFC 177, and Dana White told her to 'calm down'.
Bethe Correia put a beating on Shayna Baszler at UFC 177, and now holds wins over half of the Four Horsewomen. She wants to make a complete sweep of the high-profile team in the UFC -- Marina Shafir fights at 145 lbs on regional promotions -- and has called out the leader in Ronda Rousey.
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The UFC women's bantamweight champion promptly expressed interest in the fight as well, but if it wasn't pronounced enough, behind the scenes she apparently contacted Dana White and was demanding for the fight.
"As soon as (Correia) started talking, she texted me and said, ‘I want that fight. I want it now. I want it before someone else beats her'", White said during the UFC 177 media scrum.
"I said, ‘Calm down, lady. You’ve got other people to fight. We’ll figure it out.’ There’s a long list for Rousey waiting right now, so we’ll see what happens."
Related: Rousey Interview: Carano is 'the one insisting' on 135 lbs, reacts to angry BJJ champs
Rousey has already beaten most of the top 10, so there's actually a very short list of contenders for her at the moment.
Cat Zingano could get the next shot if she wins at UFC 178 against Amanda Nunes, but they're also waiting on how the Gina Carano negotiations develop. As for other candidates, Holly Holm has yet to make her UFC debut, and Cyborg is still with Invicta planning to |
Roy Blunt of Missouri voted for accelerated trade negotiations, as did Sens. Jerry Moran and Pat Roberts of Kansas. All are Republicans.
“I can see an economy in the middle of the country based on making things and growing things,” Blunt said. “But you have to have someone to sell that new opportunity to.”
Their positions may reflect a political calculation that extends beyond free trade.
Organized labor’s influence at the ballot box continues to dip. In 2014, Labor Department figures show, only 214,000 Missouri workers were members of a labor union. That’s 8.4 percent of the state’s workforce, compared with 11.5 percent just 10 years ago.
In Kansas, 95,000 workers were union members last year, 7.4 percent of all employees. Declining union membership means fewer campaign workers, smaller donations and dwindling votes.
“We have less members, that’s one thing that’s for sure,” said Pat Dujakovich, president of the Greater Kansas City AFL-CIO. “And we in labor have not done a good job of educating our members. A good number of my members will vote in their own worst interest.”
Marvin Overby, a political science professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia, said McCaskill and her Democratic colleagues likely felt they had little to lose by opposing labor and voting for accelerated consideration of the TPP.
“For a Democrat like McCaskill, the other part of (her) answer is: Where the hell do they go?” Overby said, referring to labor voters’ typical reluctance to elect Republicans. “And labor’s strength is concentrated in places where she’s already doing pretty well.”
Additionally, the nature of labor union membership is changing, Overby said. Manufacturing unions — cars, aircraft, clothing — are giving way to unions representing service workers, teachers and public employees. Those union members, he said, are less focused on trade agreements than on other issues such as wages and health care.
On those issues, labor remains an important force, some Democrats say. On Friday, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers endorsed Hillary Clinton for president.
“I still think that, for the Democratic party, labor is still big,” Cleaver said.
That strength will be tested next month in Missouri. Gov. Jay Nixon has vetoed a bill that prohibits mandatory union dues, a measure known generally as right to work. Lawmakers will attempt to override Nixon’s veto in September.
Labor groups have scheduled rallies in several Missouri cities this month, attempting to find votes to sustain Nixon’s veto. “Right to work is a divisive, partisan political issue meant to punish labor unions,” one labor-related Facebook page says.
But Republicans and other supporters of right to work are also lobbying and asking for public support. Americans for Prosperity Missouri has purchased airtime to run an ad supporting the legislation.
Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder, now a GOP candidate for governor, has challenged Democrats to a debate on the issue.
“Right to work, at its core, is about fairness,” he said in a statement this summer. “If a worker in our state does not want to pay union fees, they should not be required to do so just to get or keep a job.”
Overby said he still expects Missouri Democrats to vote to uphold the governor’s right-to-work veto. Labor’s influence may be diminishing, he said, but it has not disappeared.
Ryan Johnson of the conservative Missouri Alliance for Freedom said it’s possible Nixon’s right-to-work veto will be sustained this fall, but that declining union membership means mandatory union dues in the state will eventually disappear.
“They’ve dwindled in numbers, they’ve dwindled in power and the ability to move the ball on important issues,” he said.
Unions are likely to be involved in Missouri politics in 2016, supporting Democrats like Attorney General Chris Koster for governor and the party’s eventual presidential nominee. Jason Kander, now seeking the nomination to run against Blunt, will also need labor support in cities like Kansas City and St. Louis.
Even McCaskill may still get Bill Caldwell’s vote in 2018, if she runs for re-election. The machinist says he would find it tough to cast a ballot for a Republican, and notes McCaskill is still reaching out to labor for help.
But “I’m just not going to associate with her,” Caldwell said. “I’ll never do anything else for her again.”Another such victory and I come back to Epirus alone.
King Pyrrhus
A short while ago I wrote about how Judge Kevin McNulty denied a Malibu Media motion for a default judgement finding that that the defendant could mount meritorious defenses, including the fact that he was being sued for invalid copyright claims. Today I want to take a look at the exploratory surgery that Judge McNulty performed on removing $96,478.50 from a demanded $100,657 default judgement and the astonishing potential fraud by Malibu Media on the federal judiciary, which was uncovered during the exploratory surgery.
Preoperative
Kevin McNulty US District JudgeKevin McNulty
The lawsuit (Malibu Media v Zenon Nowobilski, NJD 15-cv-02250) that was prepped for surgery was filed on March 31, 2015 and alleged that the defendant had infringed the copyrights of 132 of Malibu Media’s pornographic works. Of these 132 works, 127 were an alleged siterip or, I believe, the notorious “X-Art Unauthorized Pack #89.”
The defendant was served with a summons and complaint and failed to answer, so on December 14, 2015 Malibu Media motioned for a default judgement seeking the statutory minimum of $750 per each 132 allegedly infringed works or $99,000 plus attorney’s fees and costs in the amount of $1,675 for a grand total of $100,657. The motion laid dormant for a period until the Malibu Media local counsel (Patrick Cerillo) begged for the operation on June 15, 2016.
On July 26, 2016 the judge handed down an opinion explaining the necessary surgery.
Intraoperative
You can almost hear the audible snap of latex gloves and the scrape of a scalpel on a stainless steel tray as the judge begins his Discussion:
Malibu Media is reputedly the biggest filer of copyright litigation in the country. See Gabe Friedman, The Biggest Filer of Copyright Lawsuits? This Erotica Web Site, New Yorker, May 14, 2014. At any rate, it is a prolific filer. In 2014, Malibu Media filed 1,780 copyright cases, over 41.5% of all copyright suits filed nationwide. Matthew Sag, IP Litigation in U.S. District Courts: 1994-2014, 101 Iowa L. Rev. 1065, 1078 & n.43 (2016). A search for dockets with “Malibu Media” as a party revealed over 500 cases filed in this district alone since 2012.Approximately 39 of these have been assigned to my docket, and about two thirds of those were closed within six months of being filed. No new cases have been filed since March 31, 2016.1”
It is in footnote 1 that his Honor reveals that he is up to date with the Eastern Front and Western Front Battle currently taking place in Florida and California between Malibu Media and its former general counsel, and he sums it up in a John Grishamesque manner:
The reason for the lull may be the legal dispute between Malibu Media and attorney Michael Keith Lipscomb. See Malibu Media, LLC, v. Lipscomb, Eisenberg & Baker, PL, Civ No. 16—4715 (C.D. Cal. filed June 28, 2016); Lipscomb, Eisenberg & Baker, PL, et al, v. Malibu Media LLC, 2016—0 14947—CA—U 1 (Fla. Miami-Dade County Ct. filed June 10, 2016). In Malibu Media’s complaint filed in the United States District Court for the Central District of California, Lipscomb’s law firm is described as the “general counsel” of its “entire copyright enforcement program.” Civ No. 16—4715 (ECF No. 1 ¶ 10) (C.D. Cal. June 28, 2016). Malibu Media alleges that Lipscomb’s firm stopped sending them money gained from the myriad copyright lawsuits it filed or had others file on Malibu’s behalf. (Id. ¶J 13—15) Lipscomb allegedly wrote in an email that “Malibu is winding its copyright campaign down because it is no longer profitable.” (Id. ¶ 19) Allegedly, no retainer agreement was ever signed with Lipscomb’s firm before they set out to flood the nation with copyright actions. (Id. ¶j 11—12, 32.d, 37—39)
Next the judge goes on to cite various decisions/opinions, which have been covered in this blog and elsewhere, decrying the “unscrupulous tactics,” “the danger of copyright trolls,” and noting that Malibu Media “is essentially an extortion scheme.” All his cites point to prior Malibu Media lawsuits.
With the patient fully anesthetized, the judge observes that:
Because thousands of similar cases have been filed, we know there are a number of meritorious defenses that defendants may assert. Those defenses, however, largely depend on the facts of the case and require knowledge specific to the defendant. I cannot simply speculate that there may be facts that a defendant could use to defend himself from this complaint. Instead I will review the complaint to assess whether the factual allegations, taken as true, suffice to plead copyright infringement. See Chanel, Inc. v. Matos, 133 F. Supp. 3d 678, 683 (D.N.J. 2015) (“prior to entering a judgment of default, a court must determine: … (2) whether the unchallenged facts present a legitimate cause of action”) My independent review of the record, accepting the factual allegations as true, suggests that the defendant could mount a meritorious defense as to at least some of the allegedly infringed works.
The judge goes on to decide that, given the technology Malibu Media employs, the allegations are “plausible” only with respect to 6 of the 132 Malibu Media’s allegedly infringed works. ¹
However, the judge finds that the allegations about the other 127 works contained in the siterip folder are not plausible:
But the allegation that the same size bit also establishes that 127 separate unauthorized copies were on Nowobilski’s computer within file #1 requires more factual allegations to explain how one bit can identify separate works. It has not been alleged whether the bit that Malibu Media alleges identifies 127 works is a piece of any one work or pieces of all 127 (or if there is some other method of identification). The confusion as to how this process identified 127 videos is heightened by Malibu Media’s Exhibit B to the complaint, which lists all 132 movies. (Am. Compi. Ex. B) The exhibit has columns including the title of the movies, the copyright registration numbers and the “Most Recent Hit UTC.” For files #2—6, the “Most Recent Hit UTC” column corresponds with the “Hit Date UTC” column in Exhibit A. (Id. Exs. A, B at 6) These columns refer to the most recent time IPP International allegedly connected with Nowobilski’s IP address to download bits from these videos. (Id. ¶J 18—19, 24) For the 127 videos allegedly in file #1, 124 share the same most recent hit date, but three have different dates. (Id. Ex. B at 6) This suggests that it is possible for a downloaded bit to identify fewer movies than the 127 allegedly in the file at one download, or that the file contains different numbers of movies at different times. Either option would refute other factual allegations necessary for Malibu Media to support its claim, namely that a file hash is unique to an entire media file and that these file hashes can be used to extrapolate from one downloaded bit that a person has a full unauthorized copy of a copyrighted work. (Id. ¶¶ 17, 21) As to these 127 videos, I am not satisfied that the complaint establishes that Malibu Media is entitled to judgment.”
And VOILA, the judge just surgically removes $96,000 of the demanded $99,000 statutory copyright infringement damages.
Patrick J. Cerillo Malibu’s NJ local counselPatrick J. Cerillo
Next the judge dons surgical loupes to look into the claimed $1,675 in attorney’s fees and costs, and the look is not pretty. This is because the judge finds that the itemized statement of attorney’s fees is “precisely identical to one filed by a different attorney in an entirely different Malibu media case in Indiana”:
Reviewing the itemized bill of plaintiff’s counsel, I note two catchall miscellaneous categories, one each for the attorney and the paralegals. The itemized statement block-bills 1 hour of “Case management, managing paralegals and reviewing approximately 10 e-mails; miscellaneous” by the attorney, over a 9-month period. It also lists 2.1 hours of “Case tracking and management; miscellaneous” by paralegals, over the same 9-month period. It appears that this itemized chart, down to the tenths of hours and descriptions of the work, was simply copied from another case. Except for the dates, it is precisely identical to one filed by a different attorney in an entirely different Malibu Media case in Indiana. See Declaration of Paul J. Nicoletti, Malibu Media, LLC v. Saari, Civ No. 14-860 (ECF No. 33—4 ¶ 9) (S.D. Ind. July 14, 2015). The only possibilities seem to be (a) copying or (b) a truly remarkable coincidence. There is reason to be skeptical that these numbers reflect anything that happened in this case.
Copying? Or outright fraud on the federal judiciary, you be the judge. Also, makes you wonder if this is a widespread copyright trolls’ practice. Only time will tell. Anyway, the judge is to be commended for discovering a new region in the vast universe of copyright trolling douchebaggery.
Judge McNulty does warn the troll attorney that any further billing shenanigans will likely result in the attorney being called to testify under oath as to the claimed attorney’s fees. Accordingly, the judge reduces the attorney’s fees and costs by approximately $400 to $1,178.50.
Postoperative
With $96,478.50 skillfully removed from the copyright troll’s demanded $100,657, the judge declares the surgery a success:
The motion for default judgment is GRANTED in part and DENIED in part. Statutory damages of $3,000 are awarded as well as attorney’s fees and costs of $1,178.50 for a total of $4, 178.50. Nowobilski is enjoined from infringing Malibu Media’s copyrights and ordered to destroy all unauthorized copies of Malibu Media’s works in his possession. An appropriate order will issue.
Chalk up another Pyrrhic win for Malibu Media and a good chuckle for the rest of us.
¹ I have to speculate that had the judge may have found no plausibility at all, had he been aware that on January 29, 2016 Malibu Media (via its Illinois local counsel) admitted in open court that the technology is, well, “complicated”:
There are really three main components. There is a SQL log file. It is very complicated. And I’m not going to stand here and say that I understand the technical aspects of it because it is way over my head.
AndShow full PR text
WRECK- IT RALPH - Walt Disney Animation Studios announces the debut of the hit arcade-game-hopping adventure "Wreck-It Ralph" marking a Disney first with the early release of the HD Digital and HD Digital 3D on February 12, 2013, followed by the 4-Disc Blu-ray Combo Pack, 2-Disc Blu-ray Combo Pack, DVD, SD Digital and On-Demand release on March 5, 2013.
From Walt Disney Animation Studios, "Wreck-It Ralph" takes viewers on a hilarious journey. For decades, Ralph (voice of John C. Reilly) has played the bad guy in his popular video game. In a bold move, he embarks on an action-packed adventure and sets out to prove to everyone that he is a true hero with a big heart. As he explores exciting new worlds, he teams up with some unlikely new friends including feisty misfit Vanellope von Schweetz (voice of Sarah Silverman). The film is directed by Emmy®-winner Rich Moore.
Featuring an all-star voice cast including Jack McBrayer as the voice of Fix It Felix, Jr. and Jane Lynch as the voice of Sgt. Calhoun, plus breakthrough bonus features that take viewers even deeper into the world of video games, Disney's "Wreck-It Ralph" has something for every player. Over an hour of all-new bonus material is featured on the Digital and Blu-ray Combo Pack, including deleted and alternate scenes, the theatrical short "Paperman," plus much more.
The home entertainment debut of "Wreck-It Ralph" will be available in multiple ways, containing exciting all-new bonus features that extend the fun-filled movie experience.
Bonus Materials Overview for These Products:
HD Digital
SD Digital
4-Disc Blu-ray Combo Pack (Blu-ray 3D + Blu-ray +DVD + Digital Copy)
2-Disc Blu-ray Combo Pack (Blu-ray +DVD)
Includes:
* Bit by Bit: Creating the Worlds of "Wreck-It Ralph" – Fans of the film will get a look at five new worlds created for "Wreck-It Ralph." The short takes viewers into Game Central Station with the artists who brought Sugar Rush, Hero's Duty and Fix It Felix Jr. to life.
* Alternate & Deleted Scenes – Four separate scenes are highlighted with an introduction and optional audio commentary from director Rich Moore.
* Video Game Commercials – Viewers can check out the commercials created for the video games featured in the film - Fix It Felix Jr., Sugar Rush, Hero's Duty and Fix It Felix Hammer.
* "Paperman" – This animated short film played in theaters before "Wreck It Ralph." It tells the story of a young man in an office who sees the girl of his dreams in a skyscraper window across the street. But how can he get her attention?
Blu-ray Exclusive Bonus Materials
Includes:
* Disney Intermission: The Gamer's Guide to "Wreck-It-Ralph" – When the film is paused, host Chris Hardwick appears on screen to guide viewers through a series of 10 video segments offering an inside look at the many video game references, Disney references and other hidden surprises featured in the film.
Suggested Retail Prices:
4-Disc Blu-ray Combo Pack = (Blu-ray 3D + Blu-ray +DVD + Digital Copy)
$49.99 US and $56.99 Canada
2-Disc Blu-ray Combo Pack = (Blu-ray +DVD)
$39.99 US and $46.99 Canada
DVD = $29.99 US and $35.99 Canada
Digital and On-Demand = Consumers should check with their television provider or preferred digital retailer for pricing and additional informationThe Indianapolis Combine is a time for teams and agents to gather in the same town and hold face-to-face discussions on multiple topics. Those conversations will be starting as early as today in Indy.
And those talks often range from interest in looming free agents (yes, this is tampering and yet everyone does it), talks about players about to get cut, talks about players the team has identified for salary cuts, talks for contract extensions.
In the next few days I expect Joel Segal, the agent for center Mike Pouncey, to meet with the Dolphins and talk about a new contract for his client.
This is going to happen this offseason, folks.
Why do I know this?
Well, I know Segal, based in New York, and new Dolphins executive vice president for football operation Mike Tannenbaum have worked on multiple deals in the past. I know they have a high degree of respect for one another. I know the two typically get things done when both are of the mind to do so.
And both are of the mind that Pouncey's future is with the Dolphins.
And both believe it is in their best interest to get this done.
Pouncey, due $7.4 million for 2015, wants to be among the highest paid centers in the NFL. And that means he wants to be in the same neighborhood as his brother Maurkice Pouncey, who last June signed a five-year contract extension worth $44,136,625 with the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Maurkice got a $13 million signing bonus. And the contract calls for roster bonuses of $3.75 and $3.5 million in 2015 and 2016 if he is on the roster in March of those years -- which he will be, at least in a couple of weeks.
Base salaries of the contract are $1 million in 2014, $1.75 million in 2015, $3.5 million in 2016, $7.5 in 2017, $7 million in 2018, and $7 million in 2019.
And if Mike gets in that orbit, I imagine he will be satisfied.
The Dolphins, on the other hand, would like to not carry a $7.4 million cap number for Pouncey this year. They do that by, for example, giving Pouncey a $12 million signing bonus that prorates over the next five years at $2.4 million per season. If the team adds Pouncey's required minimum salary of $745,000 for 2015, his cap number would be $3.145.
That's a lot more palatable for the salary cap strapped Dolphins than $7.4 million.
Why would Pouncey go for that? Because he's getting a lump sum check for $12 million (minus federal tax) that's why. And $12 million is more than $7.4 million.
Obviously the cap value will go up in the coming years. Well, that's what happens when you are paying a player. The salary cap may be higher those years as well.
This is simply an example of the numbers can work. But the actual numbers should be fairly similar to manage.
That's why a source close to Pouncey told me recently a new deal "shouldn't be too hard."
I've been told the Dolphins agree.
So it is only a matter of time.This post was edited by CLAYTON_WWC at 21:15, Jul-17-2018
All About Redmi 4 Variants
Greetings MIUIers, Hey guys!! I am back!! Hope you guys had a nice day. Previously, I have wrote a thread about solution to solve 'Couldn't Download' Error for. China beta ROM, here's the link, hope it works for you. Today, I'm gonna present to you guys about Redmi 4 Variants.
Hope you guys enjoy it!!
Introduction About Redmi 4
Are you guys looking for a budget but powerful phone? Seems impossible right? Meet the new era of budget Phone killer - Redmi 4. There's no way you gonna missed this phone. It's been the bang-for-buck benchmark for a while now, delivering a feature set and performance way above what its price tag suggests.
Let's recap our memory, first Redmi 4 powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 had launched last year November, together with Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 Driven Redmi 4 Prime which you call as 'Smaller version of Redmi note 4 Qualcomm'. In May 2017, Redmi 4 India Version which also known as Redmi 4X has launch in India which is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 435.
How to Identify Their Variants
There are three variants of Redmi 4 available in the Market: Redmi 4 China, Redmi 4 India and Redmi 4 Prime. However, many users are confused about their device variants and flashed wrong rom which will cause their beloved phone bricked. So I m gonna teach you guys how to identify the variants of Redmi 4 variants.
Here's the methods you can check your phone variants.
METHOD 1. You can check the Model number behind the phone box.
(Redmi 4 China Model number)
(Redmi 4 Prime model number)
(Redmi 4 India model number)
NOTE: If you bought the phone from third party reseller, I STRONGLY recommend you don't open the phone box first, check the model number incase the reseller sold the phone variants that doesn't match the phone variants you wanted, so you could return to the reseller.
METHOD 2. You can check the code of the ROM you are using in the 'About Phone' page (Stable ROM User only)
Example Photo:
(Redmi 4 China Version )
(Redmi 4 India Version)
(Redmi 4 Prime)
Ever wonder what does the code means? MCECNDI M= Marshmallow
CE= Redmi 4 China Version
CN= China Version
DI= Code for the update
MAMMIEA M=Marshmallow
AM=Redmi 4 India Version
MI=Global build
EA= Code for the update
MBEMIDL M=Marshmallow
BE=Redmi 4 Prime
MI=Global build
DL=Code for the update
TIPS for Fastboot and Recovery flash: If you want to flash official rom but don't know which ROM to download? Here's the tips:
You can check the code name in downloaded fastboot and recovery rom. Example: Redmi 4 China Version
Recovery -----HM4_V8.1.5.0.MCECNDI_7379d10c7b_6.0.zip Fastboot-----prada_images_V8.1.4.0.MCECNDI......... _6.0_cn_c7398e9d33.tgz
Redmi 4 India Version
Recovery -----HM4XGlobal_V8.2.9.0.MAMMIEA_4dc698e10b_6.0.zip Fastboot------santoni_global_images_V8.2.9.0.MAMMIEA.......... _6.0_global_32f531d3cc.tgz
Redmi 4 Prime
Recovery-----HM4ProGlobal_V8.2.4.0.MBEMIDL_454a067758_6.0.zip Fastboot------markw_global_images_V8.2.4.0.MBEMIDL.......... _6.0_global_247b750df3.tgz
METHOD 3. You can check the CPU of the you are using in the 'About Phone' page (only differentiate Redmi 4 Prime from Redmi 4 India and China as both of them has same clock speed)
(Redmi 4 China and Redmi 4 India CPU)
(Redmi 4 Prime CPU)
METHOD 4. The location of the camera and led flash at the back of the phone
Here's the most tricky part, Redmi 4 China and Redmi 4 Prime are same but you can differentiate them by looking at the location camera and Led flash at the back of the phone.
(Redmi 4 China)
(Redmi 4 Prime)
(Redmi 4 India)
METHOD 5. Download Device variants checker You can try Device variants checker apps like AIDA64 and CPU-Z
(CPU-Z)
(AIDA64)
Redmi 4 ( All variants) Specification
FAQ
Q: If I have a Redmi 4 China version, can I flash Redmi 4 India Version ROM on it? A: Don't ever try to do that it will cause the device bricked.
Q: If I have Redmi 4 Indian version, can I flash Redmi 4X ROM on it? A: Yes, you can, Redmi 4 India Version and Redmi 4X is using same ROM
Q: Is Redmi 4 getting Nougat update? A: Currently there still no new about Redmi 4 China Version/ Prime getting nougat update, please wait for the official announcement.
B. Nougat is under beta Testing for Redmi 4 Indian Version.
Q: Is Global ROM available for Redmi 4 China version? A: Yes, It was released in 2018
Q: Is Redmi 4 has locked bootloader then how to unlock? A: Yes, Redmi 4 (All Variants) has locked bootloader due to GOOGLE requested.
1. Before you want to unlock bootloader, please apply permission first, apply here http://en.miui.com/unlock/
2. Wait for the permission message to be arrive, usually it takes 1-15 days ( Depends on the server)
3. Once you received the message, follow this guide for unlocking procedure--------http://en.miui.com/thread-200858-1-1.html or http://en.miui.com/thread-202290-1-1.html
4. Also check this thread out, Important Changes Regarding Unlocking Bootloader Application Status And Reason, http://en.miui.com/thread-410945-1-1.html
Q: My unlocking progress keep stuck at 50%, how to solve it.
A: This is a common issue, developers are trying their best to fix this issue ASAP. Here's the tips to solve, http://en.miui.com/thread-434406-1-1.html, after you have done that and it failed, just give it a break for a week then come again to unlock.
Q: I haven't received any permission message yet after 15 days, what should I do.
A: Check in this page http://en.miui.com/unlock/
See if it mentioned rejected, submitted or redirect you to the the page for downloading Mi unlock.
1.If it's rejected, Reapply here http://miui.com/unlock/apply.php?retry=1
2.If it's mentioned submitted, report this issue in 'complaint /advice' section. Here's the link http://en.miui.com/forum-64-1.html State in this format
Account number :
Current rom version :
Your device :
Reason :
3. If it's redirect you to the page that downloading Mi unlock tool, that's mean you already have permission.
Q: I have a query, where should post it? A: If you want to post a query, post it in Redmi 4 here's the link http://en.miui.com/forum-119-1.html, our Professional MODs team will do their best to answer your query.
Hope You Guys Undertsand It, Peace Out!!
Credits Thanks to @Muz_paray @candicesu and all the team member!
Sources 1. http://www.gsmarena.com/xiaomi_redmi_4_prime-8263.php
2. http://www.gsmarena.com/xiaomi_redmi_4_(china)-8419.php
3. http://www.gsmarena.com/xiaomi_redmi_4_(4x)-8608.php
Related Articles
1. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) for Redmi 4 Variants!
2. [MIUI Device Team] All You Need to Know About Redmi 4 Variants Specs!
3. [DEVICE TEAM] [TechWithMuz] Specifications and Details of Hardware in Redmi 4!
4. [MUST READ] Thread Index For Redmi 4/Prime Subforum
If I missed out any info, kindly reply below Thanks and Regards(Reuters) - The U.S. Navy plans to conduct another passage near disputed islands in the South China Sea in early April, a source familiar with the plan said on Friday, the third in a series of challenges that have drawn sharps rebukes from China.
The U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyer USS Curtis Wilbur patrols in the Philippine Sea in this August 15, 2013 file photo. REUTERS/U.S. Navy/Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Declan Barnes/Handout via Reuters/Files
Other U.S. officials, speaking after Reuters reported the plan, disputed that such an exercise was imminent. But they made clear Washington will continue to challenge what it considers Beijing’s unfounded maritime claims.
The United States has conducted what it calls “freedom of navigation” exercises in recent months, sailing near disputed islands to underscore its right to navigate the seas. U.S. Navy officials have said they plan to conduct more and increasingly complex exercises in the future.
“Our long-standing position is unchanged - we do not take a position on competing sovereignty claims to naturally formed land features in the South China Sea,” a senior Obama administration official said on Saturday.
“We routinely conduct such operations throughout the world to challenge maritime claims that would unlawfully restrict rights and freedoms provided in international law. This applies to the South China Sea as well,” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The USS Stennis carrier strike group is currently operating in the South China Sea. The next freedom of navigation exercise is unlikely to be conducted by a carrier like the Stennis, but rather by a smaller ship, the source said.
Experts predict the next U.S. challenge to the various claims in the South China Sea could occur near Mischief Reef, a feature claimed by the Philippines and which was submerged at high tide before China began a dredging project to turn it into an island in 2014.
Mischief Reef is now the site of one of three military-length airfields China has built on man-made islands in the Spratly Islands archipelago.
U.S. Navy ships regularly patrol the South China Sea, through which more than $5 trillion of world trade travels every year. China claims most of the area, and Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and Taiwan have rival claims.
In recent months, with tensions rising around China’s reclamation activities, U.S. ships have been frequently and routinely shadowed by Chinese ships and regular communications with Chinese vessels have often been tense.
News of the planned exercise came a day after U.S. President Barack Obama met with Chinese President Xi Jinping at a nuclear summit in Washington.
During the meetings, Xi told Obama that China would not accept any behavior in the disguise of freedom of navigation that violates its sovereignty, in a clear warning to the United States.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told Reuters on Saturday that China opposed any such exercise.
“China consistently respects and supports the freedom of navigation and fly over that all countries’ enjoy in the South China Sea under international law, but resolutely opposes any country using so-called ‘freedom of navigation’ as an excuse to damage China’s sovereignty, security and maritime rights,” Hong said.U.S. Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) said Friday evening that the Obama administration should detain Boston suspect Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev as an "enemy combatant," less than two hours after he was caught and arrested by police.
"Now that the suspect is in custody, the last thing we should want is for him to remain silent," the two Senators said in the statement. "It is absolutely vital the suspect be questioned for intelligence gathering purposes. We need to know about any possible future attacks which could take additional American lives. The least of our worries is a criminal trial which will likely be held years from now."
"Under the Law of War we can hold this suspect as a potential enemy combatant not entitled to Miranda warnings or the appointment of counsel. Our goal at this critical juncture should be to gather intelligence and protect our nation from further attacks."
"We remain under threat from radical Islam and we hope the Obama Administration will seriously consider the enemy combatant option."
A person designated as an enemy combatant may be detained for the duration of a conflict. But potentially holding Tsarnaev — an American citizen on American soil — as an enemy combatant would set a huge precedent.
In a statement at the White House late Friday, Obama strongly suggested that his administration would not do so, cautioning against a rush to judgment.
"It is important that we do this right. That is why we have investigations. We relentlessly gather facts. That is why we have courts," Obama said.
Earlier in the day, Graham suggested that if the suspect was captured, the Obama administration should treat him as an enemy combatant:
Twitter/@GrahamBlog
Twitter/@GrahamBlog
Twitter/@GrahamBlog
This post has been updated.I became a regular user, and contributor, when I went abroad as a foreign correspondent 35 years ago. In my years as a New York Times correspondent in the Soviet Union, we would get the Trib in stacks, the freshest never less than four days old. But we would still devour them all — not so much for the news, which by then we’d learned, but — as with those musty stacks of Gilded Age and Jazz Age Paris Heralds — for a taste of the life in the world out there.
Of course, a lot of people will lament the latest name change, just as they do any change. Among the letters to the editor I read in the papers of yore, one railed against ‘‘the loud-speaker radio’’ and the ‘‘croaking and screeching of unseen tenors and sopranos’’ filling Parisian apartment houses; another ranted against central heating — ‘‘What can beat a good coal fire for comfort and health?’’ And newspapers, I have learned, are notoriously habit-forming — loyal readers resist any alteration of their daily fix.
But even back in the day, lurking among those who lamented change were always a few who welcomed it. The paper itself devoted an entire page in 1896 to advising ladies how to ride a bicycle and what to wear (and eat — this was France) when cycling. In 1932, one James J. Montague submitted a poem (something we don’t see much any more, alas) addressed to an infant growing up in an era of rapid technological advances: ‘‘The progress of science foretells/ That when you grow up all your work will be done/ By photo-electrical cells.’’
The fact is that The Herald/IHT/INYT (will that be the next nickname?) was itself from its inception a child of revolutionary technological advances. According to the history of the paper by Charles L. Robertson, it was industrialization and the rapid development of steamship travel after 1850 that created a new class of wealthy, Atlantic-hopping Americans. And it was the trans-Atlantic telegraph cables, first laid in 1858, that made it possible to keep them in close touch with their country, their businesses and the world. Bennett, in fact, |
As professor Little took apart a lease handed to him by a member of the audience, he attempted to put the power of lease negotiations back into the hands of the landowners.
“You are your own best friend and your own worst friend when it comes to leasing,” said Little. “You establish the price, you establish the terms, and you establish what it is that you, the seller, are selling. Before you sign anything, speak with an attorney.”
For more information on fracking or to obtain a copy of the slideshow presented at Thursday’s workshop, check with Vienna’s University of Illinois Extension office at 208 E. Main or on its Web site at http://web.extension.illinois.edu/ajmpu/.Early on the morning of 18 February 1848, two men and a woman walked into the square in front of the Porte de Hal, in Brussels, where a public execution was due to take place shortly after dawn. They were there to conduct a ground-breaking scientific study, and, by prior arrangement with the Belgian penal authorities, were permitted to climb onto the scaffold and wait next to the guillotine at the spot where the severed heads of two condemned criminals were scheduled to drop into a blood red sack.
One of the men was Antoine Joseph Wiertz, a well known Belgian painter and also a fine hypnotic subject. With him were his friend, Monsieur D_____, a noted hypnotist, and a witness. Wiertz’s purpose on that winter’s day was to carry out a unique and extraordinary experiment. Long haunted by the desire to know whether a severed head remained conscious after a guillotining, the painter had agreed to be hypnotised and instructed to identify himself with a man who was about to be executed for murder.
Wiertz – the plan went – ‘was to follow [the murderer’s] thoughts and feel any sensations, which he was to express aloud. He was also ‘suggested’ to take special note of mental conditions during decapitation, so that when the head fell in the basket he could penetrate the brain and give an account of its last thoughts.’ [Shepard II, 648] And, incredible as it may seem to us, his scheme appeared to work – indeed, it worked rather too well. As soon as the tumbrel carrying the condemned men to their deaths appeared, Wiertz began to panic. ‘It seemed to the painter that the guillotine’s blade was cleaving his own flesh. It crushed his spine and tore his spinal cord.’ It was not until killers ascended the scaffold that Wiertz recovered himself sufficiently to ‘ask Monsieur D to put me in rapport with the cut off head, by means of whatever new procedures seemed appropriate to him… He made some preparations and we waited, not without excitement, for the fall of a human head.’
As the large crowed watched for the fatal moment, though, it became clear that the painter was still identifying all too closely with his subject’s extreme predicament. Wiertz ‘became entranced almost immediately and… manifested extreme distress and begged to be demagnetised, as his sense of oppression was insupportable. It was too late, however – the knife fell.’ [Wiertz pp.491-2; Benjamin p.250; Shepard op.cit.]
We’ll return to Antoine Wiertz and his severed head in a moment. First, though, let’s sketch in a little of the background of this unfortunately macabre tale. Versions of the implement we now know as the guillotine have been around for hundreds of years – since the 1520s at least, and arguably as early as the first years of the fourteenth century. [Laurence p.70] For much of that time, and certainly since the name of Dr Joseph-Ignace Guillotin became indelibly associated with it at the time of the French Revolution, there has been speculation as to just how painless and how quick death by this invention really is. It’s fair to say that – at least among that small handful who have given the subject proper thought – there has long been a suspicion, amounting in some cases to near certainty, that a head may retain consciousness, however briefly, after its severing. The subject was considered as early as 1796 in a French pamphlet, Anecdotes sur les Décapités, and again, briefly, in English, by John Wilson Croker in his History of the Guillotine (1853). Doctors, for the most part, insisted that the shock of the blade must cause immediate unconsciousness, and that loss of the blood supply to the brain brings on actual death a matter of seconds later – there is a cardiologists’ maxim that when a heart stops, the brain can retain consciousness for no more than four seconds if the person concerned is standing, eight if he is sitting, and 12 if he is lying down. That implies that any movements of a detached noggin’s eyes or lips “are merely convulsive, and that the severed head does not feel.” [Wilson p.115] But, over the years, a small and frankly dubious body of evidence has accumulated to suggest this view is wrong, and that – in a handful of cases at least – the severed head remains aware of what has happened to it.
There’s no denying that this awful thought is gruesomely compelling, in much the same way as is the idea of being buried alive. It has a “My God, what if that happened to me?” quality about it. And, while it was never Guillotin’s intention to do anything other than supply a humane alternative to the notoriously slow and painful business of executing criminals by rope or axe (and hardly the good doctor’s fault that the fascination of a device designed solely to kill makes the guillotine – like the gas chamber and the electric chair – at least as horrifying as a gallows in its own mechanically ingenious way), the fact remains that the device became a victim of its own success. It was so quick, so clean, so bloodily final that it was hard for an execution-going public accustomed to the protracted struggles of a hanged man to believe that life could be extinguished quite so swiftly.
Murky and unsubstantiated rumours concerning the survival of consciousness in severed heads swirled through France throughout the nineteenth century, and it is not hard to find versions of the same stories today in the less reputable crannies of the internet. For example, tall tales about at least two of the guillotine’s most noted victims abound: Lavoisier, the chemist, is supposed to have agreed with an assistant that he would blink as many times as he could after his execution in 1794 – and the assistant is said to have counted 15 or 20 blinks, at the rate of one a second. Similarly, when the executioner held up the head of Charlotte Corday, who had stabbed Marat in his bath, and delivered a sharp slap to its cheek, the head is said – on the authority of one Dr Sue – to have blushed and displayed “unequivocal marks of indignation.” [Croker p.70; Gelbart p.201] Neither story, though, rests on a solid contemporary source.
Despite such early manifestations of interest in the subject, moreover, it remains equally difficult to uncover reputable sources for several nineteenth- and early twentieth-century incidents in which doctors are popularly believed to have conducted some gruesomely suggestive experiments to finally answer the question. Accounts of several such experiments can be found in the secondary literature – see, for example, Richard Zacks’s influential counterculture classic An Underground Education – and most texts mention tests supposedly done on the head of “a necrophile rapist by the name of Prunier,” or the story of an unnamed doctor who took an unknown head and pumped it full of blood from a vivisected dog. The cultural historian Philip Smith, who dissects several such tales, suggests they form little more than “a stubborn counter-discourse of wild speculation and morbid popular inquiry” [Smith p.139] – and he has a valid point, for the most part. Yet some quite extensive digging does eventually reveal that at least three sets of experiments on severed heads apparently were carried out in France between 1879 and 1905, albeit with less than spectacular results. Since these cases form a useful counterpoint to the experiences of Antoine Wiertz, it seems a good idea to summarise them briefly here.
• On 13 November 1879, a father-and-son duo, Drs E. and G. Descaisne, witnessed the execution of Théotime Prunier, who had been found guilty of the rape and subsequent murder of an elderly woman at Beauvais. A report in the British Medical Journal, 13 December 1879, notes that the doctors were given ready access to the killer’s head and “tried certain experiments” on it, concluding: “We have ascertained, as far as it is humanly possible to do so, that the head of the criminal in question had no semblance whatever of the sense of feeling; that the eyes lost the power of vision; and, in fact, the head was perfectly dead to all intents and purposes.” A fuller report, published in the Gazette Médicale de Paris, noted some of the tests the doctors subjected the head to: shouting “Prunier!” in the dead man’s ear, pinching his cheek, inserting a brush soaked with ammonia into his nostrils, pricking the face with needles, and holding a lighted candle to an eyeball. Since secondary sources invariably stress that these experiments were conducted only moments after Prunier’s head was severed, the complete lack of any response might be considered good evidence for the conventional medical view that shock causes instant unconsciousness and death. The key detail in this instance, however, is one reported by the BMJ: the doctors took charge of the killer’s head only “about five minutes after the execution.” This suggests that the experiments must be regarded as inconclusive; even the most optimistic proponent of the idea that a head remains briefly alive after severing rarely suggests that consciousness endures for no more than 15 or 20 seconds at best. [Evrard & Decaisne pp.629-30; Verplaeste p.372; Gerould p.55]
• A year later, in September 1880 – at least according to the later account of a certain Dr Dassy de Lignères, of whom nothing else seems to be known – some experiments were conducted on the head of a particularly unpleasant murderer named Louis Ménesclou. Ménesclou, 19, who had lured a little girl into his room with a spray of violets, raped her and killed her, was a man “of limited intelligence… frequently guilty of sexual perversity” – as suggested by the fact that he then dismembered his victim; parts of her body were found in his pockets. [London Evening News, 15 October 1888; Stewart] In this case, apparently, Dassy de Lignères was provided with his head three hours after the execution, and claimed to have connected the principal veins and arteries to a supply of blood provided by a living dog. A quarter of a century later, when the doctor gave an interview to the French newspaper Le Matin (3 March 1907), he claimed that colour almost immediately returned to the face, the lips swelled and the dead man’s features “sharpened.” Perhaps. What’s really incredible is Dassy de Lignères’ insistence that “as the transfusion proceeded, suddenly, unmistakably, for a period of two seconds, the lips stammered silently, the eyelids twitched and worked, and the whole face wakened into an expression of shocked amazement. I affirm… that for those two seconds, the brain thought.” This reads as either spectacularly shoddy research or, more likely, simple sensationalism on the part of either the doctor or the newspaper.
• Finally, on 30 June 1905, Dr Gabriel Beaurieux obtained permission to attend the guillotining of Henri Languille, a “bandit who had terrorised the Beauce and the Gatinais [in the valley of the Loing, between Paris and Orléans] for several years.” [Morain p.300] His report concluded that Languille retained some form of consciousness for about half a minute after his execution:
“The head fell on the severed surface of the neck and I did not therefore have to take it up in my hands, as all the newspapers have vied with each other in repeating; I was not obliged even to touch it in order to set it upright. Chance served me well for the observation which I wished to make.
“Here, then, is what I was able to note immediately after the decapitation: the eyelids and lips of the guillotined man worked in irregularly rhythmic contractions for about five or six seconds. This phenomenon has been remarked by all those finding themselves in the same conditions as myself for observing what happens after the severing of the neck…
“I waited for several seconds. The spasmodic movements ceased. The face relaxed, the lids half closed on the eyeballs, leaving only the white of the conjunctiva visible, exactly as in the dying whom we have occasion to see every day in the exercise of our profession, or as in those just dead. It was then that I called in a strong, sharp voice: “Languille!” I saw the eyelids slowly lift up, without any spasmodic contractions – I insist on this peculiarity – but with an even movement, quite distinct and normal, such as happens in everyday life, with people awakened or torn from their thoughts.
“Next Languille’s eyes very definitely fixed themselves on mine and the pupils focused themselves. I was not, then, dealing with the sort of vague dull look without any expression, that can be observed any day in dying people to whom one speaks: I was dealing with undeniably living eyes which were looking at me. “After several seconds, the eyelids closed again, slowly and evenly, and the head took on the same appearance as it had had before I called out.
“It was at that point that I called out again and, once more, without any spasm, slowly, the eyelids lifted and undeniably living eyes fixed themselves on mine with perhaps even more penetration than the first time. The there was a further closing of the eyelids, but now less complete. I attempted the effect of a third call; there was no further movement – and the eyes took on the glazed look which they have in the dead.
“I have just recounted to you with rigorous exactness what I was able to observe. The whole thing had lasted twenty-five to thirty seconds.” [Anon, ‘Revue des journaux…’]
This is the best – indeed the only apparently credible, medically attested – evidence for the survival of any sort of consciousness in the head of an executed man, so it is important to note that the anonymous author of the Bois De Justice site, which features some excellent research into the history of the guillotine, questions whether the experiment on Languille actually took place as claimed. There are at least two reasons to doubt accounts of this execution: first, a widely circulated photo [above right] showing the condemend man standing by the guillotine is, in fact, a clumsy fake, with the figures painted in; second, the doctor’s presence is not mentioned in contemporary newspaper coverage, and Beaurieux’s account does not mesh with the actual photos taken on the day, which show no horizontal surface on which the severed head could possibly have fallen before it entered the waiting bucket. To have conducted his experiment, the doctor would have had to pull the head from the bucket by hand.
Bearing those mixed results in mind, then, let’s return to the Porte de Hal in Brussels in February 1848 (and you’ll note that the experiments of Antoine Wiertz predated all three of the French experiments outlined above.) According to Wiertz’s biographer, the subject of his study was a nasty and incompetent burglar by the name of François Rosseel, who had – with his accomplice Guillelme Vandenplas – broken into the apartment of Rosseel’s landlady, Mlle. Evanpoel, the previous September and bludgeoned her and two female servants to death for the sake of a few hundred francs. This crime horrified all Belgium, and Wiertz followed the resulting newspaper coverage intently, suggesting that his choice of the double execution of Mlle. Evanpoel’s murderers for his experiment was a deliberate one. [Anon, Causes Célèbres… I, 109-16; Annales de l’Université de Bruxelles pp.173-5; Van der Haeghen, V, 94; Watteau p.232; Metdepenningen]
As Rosseel’s head rolled into the sack in front of him, anyway, the hypnotised Wiertz was asked to place himself inside the dying brain. The description that follows is drawn from the text that the artist himself wrote to accompany a triptych that he later painted to illustrate his experience, which was, in turn, incorporated into that work in the form of a painted inscription on a trompe-l’oeil frame and printed, later, in the first catalogue of his work. The description is rather long and rather overwrought, and part of it is in the first person, as Wiertz describes what he identifies as Rosseel’s own final thoughts. It has been somewhat abbreviated here, and several sharply differing versions of the text have been merged as best I am able to reconcile them. [Watteau pp.132-41; Benjamin pp.250-2; Shepard II, 648]:
Monsieur D_____ took me by the hand… led me before the twitching head, and asked: ‘‘What do you feel? What do you see?’ Agitation prevented me from answering him on the spot. But right after that I cried in the utmost horror: “Terrible! The head thinks!” … It was as if an oppressive nightmare held me in its spell. The head of the executed man thought, saw, suffered. And I saw what he saw, understood what he thought, and felt what he suffered. How long did it last? Three minutes, they told me. The executed man must have thought: three hundred years.
What the man killed in this way suffers, no human language can express. I wish to limit myself here to reiterating the answers I gave to all the questions during the time that I felt myself in some measure identical to the severed head.
First minute: On the scaffold
A horrible buzzing noise… It’s the sound of the blade descending. The victim believes that he has been struck by lightning, not the axe.
Astonishingly, the head lies here under the scaffold and yet still believes it is above, still believes itself to be part of the body, and still waits for the blow that will cut it off.
Horrible choking! No way to breathe. The asphyxia is appalling. It comes from an inhuman, supernatural hand, weighing down like a mountain on the head and neck… Oh, even more horrible suffering lies before him.
A cloud of fire passes before his eyes. Everything is red and glitters.
Second minute: Under the scaffold
Now comes the moment when the executed man thinks he is stretching his cramped, trembling hands towards the dying head. It is the same instinct that drives us to press a hand against a gaping wound. And it occurs with the intention, the dreadful intention, of setting the head back on the trunk, to preserve a little blood, a little life.
Delirium redoubles his strength and energy.
In his imagination, it seems that his head is on fire and spins in a dizzying motion, that the universe collapses and turns with it, that a phosphorescent liquid swirls around and merges with his skull… In a moment more, his head is plunging into the depths of eternity.
But is it only the body that writhes and cries out in anguish, which produces the torture suffered by the guillotine? No, because here comes the intellectual and moral agony. The heart, which beats in his chest, is still beating in the brain.
That’s when a crowd of images, each more terrible than the others, crowd into a soul beaten by the fiery breath of nameless pain. The guillotined head sees his coffin, sees his trunk and limbs collapse, ready to be enclosed in the wooden box in which thousands of worms are about to devour his flesh. Physicians explore the tissue of his neck with the tip of a scalpel. Every nick is a bite of fire.
He sees his judges, too… They sit well served at a table, talking quietly of business and pleasure…
The exhausted brain sees… the smallest of his children close to him. Oh! he likes that. That’s him: his hair blond and curly, his little cheeks round and pink … And meanwhile, he feels the brain continue to sink and feels sharp stabs of pain…
Third minute: In eternity
It is not yet dead. The head still thinks and suffers.
Suffers fire that burns, suffers the dagger that dismembers, suffers the poison that cramps, suffers in the limbs, as they are sawn through, suffers in his viscera, as they are torn out, suffers in his flesh, as it is hacked and trampled down, suffers in his bones, which are slowly boiled in bubbling oil. All this suffering put together still cannot convey any idea of what the executed man is going through.
And here a thought makes him stiff with terror:
Is he already dead and must he suffer like this from now on? Perhaps for all eternity?…
No, such suffering cannot endure for ever; God is merciful. All that belongs to earth is fading away. He sees in the distance a little light glittering like a diamond. He feels a calm stealing over him. What a good sleep he shall have! What joy!
Human existence fades way from him. It seems to him slowly to become one with the night. Now just a faint mist – but even that recedes, dissipates, and disappears. Everything goes black… The beheaded man is dead.
It is difficult to know how best to handle Wiertz’s bizarre evidence. How much of his remarkable experience was noted down at the time remains uncertain; the painter did not actually produce the strange triptych he entitled Dernières pensées et visions d’une tête coupee (Last Thoughts and Visions of a Decapitated Head) until five years later, in 1853, so he had plenty of time to think through the events of 1848 again and again, perhaps so often that his recollections became distorted, romanticised, exaggerated and unreliable – if they ever were reliable in the first place, that is.
Wiertz’s impressions, too, were so vivid, so melodramatic, that it not hard to believe that they did not come to him as he penetrated a dying brain, but were actually generated somewhere deep within his own morbid imagination. For this, after all, was a painter whose works scandalised contemporaries, and is nowadays pretty much ignored (the Musée Wiertz, in Brussels, based in the painter’s old studio, currently averages no more than 10 visitors a day, “many of them dragooned in school parties.” [Anon, ‘A Belgian national champion’]). A look at some of his other works certainly reveals an obsession with death; they include Two Young Ladies (which depicts a naked beauty contemplating a skeleton), Premature Burial (in which an anguished figure bursts from a coffin lying in a crypt) and – perhaps the most over-the-top of many over-the-top creations – Ravishing of a Belgian Woman. In this last painting, as one critic remarks, “Wiertz breaks with convention by equipping his heroine with a pistol (although not with any clothes). She duly shoots the soldier molesting her, causing his head to explode, an event Wiertz depicts in gory detail.” [Ibid]
Last Thoughts and Visions of a Decapitated Head survives, although in a sadly decayed state; it was painted in an experimental style that has not stood up at all well to the passage of the years. A close look at its three panels reveals that they correspond quite closely to the description Wiertz left of his experiences on the Brussels scaffold. Rosseel’s severed head can be seen tumbling down in the bottom right hand corner of the central panel, and, in the third and final portion of the triptych, the murderer’s slide into eternity can still just be discerned.
And if Antoine Wiertz’s pioneering experiment remains little more than an enigmatic anomaly, and he himself is long forgotten, there is at least a delicious irony in the tail end of his career. A few years before his death, while at the height of his fame, Wiertz wrote to the Belgian government, offering to exchange 220 of his largest and most gaudy paintings for a “huge, comfortable and well-lit studio” to be funded by the state. Remarkably, the interior minister of the day agreed to this presumptuous request, though the government baulked at the idea of setting Wiertz up in expensive premises in the centre of the capital.
Instead, the painter was provided with a new studio in a cheap and dismal suburb, albeit one that the artist cheerfully predicted might someday become “the centre of an immense and rich population.” He may have been a rotten painter, wrong about hypnotism, and wildly out of his depth in experimental parapsychology, but Antoine Wiertz was at least right about that. Today, the little-visited Musée Wiertz stands no more than 20 metres from the very centre of Europe, in the shape of the gleaming towers of the European Parliament. And that monolith’s address? The Parliament stands proudly on Rue Wiertz.
Sources
Anon. ‘A Belgian national champion.’ The Economist, 9 July 2009.
____. Annales de l’Université de Bruxelles: Faculté de Médecine. Brussels: Université Libre, 1880.
____. Causes Célèlebres de Tous les Peoples. Brussels: Libraries Ethnographique, 1849.
____. La Belgique Judiciaire: Gazettes des Tribunaux Belges et Étrangers. Brussels, np. Volume 9, 1851.
____. ‘Letters, notes, and answers to correspondents.’ British Medical Journal, 10 January 1880.
____. ‘Revue des journaux et sociétés savantes. Exécution de Languille. Observation prise immédiatement après décapitation. Communiquée à la Société de médecine du Loiret le 19 juillet 1905…’ Archives de l’Anthropologie Criminelle, de Criminologie et de Psychologie Normale et Pathologique. Volume 20 (1905) pp.645-54.
____. ‘Special correspondence. Paris.’ British Medical Journal, 13 December 1879.
‘A medical man’. ‘A theory of the Whitechapel murders.’ Evening News, 15 October 1888.
M. Auberive. Anecdotes sur les Décapités. Paris: Sobry, 1796.
Walter Benjamin. The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility, and Other Writings on Media. Cambridge [MA]: Harvard University Press, 2008.
John Wilson Croker. History of the Guillotine. Revised from the ‘Quarterly Review’. London: John Murray, 1853.
Evrard & G. Decaisne. ‘Expériences physiologiques sur un décapité.’ Gazette Médicale de Paris, 1879.
Nina Rattner Gelbart. ‘The blonding of Charlotte Corday.’ Eighteenth Century Studies vol.38 (2004).
Daniel Gerould. Guillotine. Its Legend and Lore. New York: Blast Books, 1993.
Louis Labarre. Antoine Wiertz: Etude Biographique Avec les Lettres de l’Artiste et la Photographie du Patrocle. Brussels: Muequardt, 1867.
John Laurence. A History of Capital Punishment. New York: Citadel Press, 1960.
Marc Metdepenningen. ‘L’effroyable triple crime de la place Saint-Géry.’ Le Soir (Brussels), 12 July 2006.
Alfred Morain. The Underworld of Paris: Secrets of the Sûreté. London: Jarrolds, 1930.
Leslie Shepard [ed]. The Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology. Detroit: Gale Research, 1984.
Philip Smith. Punishment and Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008.
Harry E. Stewart. ‘Jean Genet’s favourite murders.’ The French Review vol.60 no.5 (1987)
Ferdinand Van der Haeghen. Bibliographie Gantoise. Recherches Sur la Vie et les Travaux des Imprimeurs de Gand (1483-1850). Ghent: privately published, 1860.
Jan Verplaetse. Localizing the Moral Sense: Neuroscience and the Search for the Cerebral Seat of Morality, 1800-1930. Dordrecht: Springer, 2009.
Antoine Joseph Wiertz. Oeuvres Littéraires. Brussels: Parent et Fils, 1869.
Louis Watteau. Catalogue Raisoné du Musée Wiertz. Brussels: Musées Royeux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, 1865.
Andrew Wilson. ‘Leaves from the notebook of a naturalist.’ Part X. The Living Age, vol.31, 1851.The prevailing media narrative is that concussions or repetitive subconcussive blows "cause" chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), that CTE "causes" former athletes to commit suicide, and such causal links are proven scientific fact.
The prevailing media message, says Scottish neuropsychiatrist Alan Carson in a 2017 editorial commentary in a British medical journal, is that "concussion is a dangerous condition that causes" CTE, accompanied by mood change, irritability, and suicidal behavior which develops over time into a neurodegenerative disorder and death." What follows is increasing alarm, accompanied by the suggestion that CTE is not just a disorder of elite athletes but a problem for youth sport and that even heading a soccer ball may cause dementia, "a terrifying prospect for parents trying to decide whether to allow their children to participate in sports."
It thus may come as a surprise to many that, despite widespread media coverage and speculation regarding the late-life or post-retirement risks of cognitive impairment or neurodegenerative disease such as CTE in athletes who engaged in sports involving repetitive blows to the head and high concussion risk, and assertions that CTE causes them to be at high risk of suicide, there have been virtually no peer-reviewed, well-designed scientific studies that establish, much less quantify, such risks.
The problem is that, while some scientists who have in the past appeared most willing to push the envelope by arguing that such a cause-and-effect relationship exists in public, may be exercising more caution in reporting the results of their research in scientific journals, that caution is often be lost in translation when their research is reported by the mainstream media.
No consensus on causation
Rejecting the blanket conclusion that there is a definitive causal and effect connection between repetitive head trauma and CTE, most peer-reviewed scientific papers, including the most recent quadrennial international consensus statement on concussion in sport ("Berlin 2016"), caution that, while there is clearly a link between CTE and concussions and/or exposure to repetitive head trauma in contact and collision sports, the precise relationship is not yet known.
The conclusion by the head injury researchers in the Zurich 2012 statement put it succinctly: a "cause-and-effect relationship has not yet been demonstrated between CTE and [sports-related concussions] or exposure to contact sports. As such, the notion that repeated concussion or subconcussive impacts cause CTE remains unknown."
The view that the football=dementia meme is scientifically premature has long been espoused by some researchers, including Christopher Randolph, PhD. a now retired professor at Loyola University in Chicago. In a 2013 study of retired NFL players - who largely comprise the highly limited, self-selected universe from which the case studies of brains showing the presence of CTE have been drawn (what scientists call a "convenience sample"), and who the media have widely reported as being at high risk of CTE - Randolph lamented that "the media attention to this issue continues to far outweigh any meaningful results from sound experimental science."
Randolph found that, when compared with healthy controls and with non-athlete patients with a clinical diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) commonly presumed to reflect the earliest stage of Alzheimer's disease, the patterns of impairments of the retired NFL players in the study were virtually identical to those exhibited by non-athletes with MCI. The finding lead him and his colleagues to conclude that CTE might not be a distinct neurodegenerative disorder at all.
Randolph's 2013 study appeared to lend support to his theory, first proposed in a 2009 paper, that a long history of repetitive head trauma in contact sports does not cause CTE, but might eventually result in a diminished cerebral reserve leading in some unknown percentage of cases to an earlier-than-normal expression of other common, age-related neurodegenerative diseases,such as Alzheimer's Disease (AD) and Parkinson's (PD). His theory was that the ways in which such diminished cerebral reserve would be expressed (e.g. mild cognitive impairment (MCI), AD, PD, ALS) would not differ from individuals with those diseases who lacked such a history of head trauma, which is precisely what his 2013 study suggests. A 2015 meta-analysis of 153 published cases of CTE, and a 2017 study by Canadian researchers (see discussion below) suggests much the same.
Push-back
The Randolph study, co-authored by no less a concussion authority than Kevin Guskiewicz, Kenan Distinguished Professor, Director of the Matthew Gfeller Sport-Related Traumatic Brain Injury Research Center at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Director of UNC's Center for the Study of Retired Athletes, was heavily criticized at the time as being flawed by those who identified CTE as a distinct condition and saw a clear cause-and-effect relationship between repetitive head impacts and CTE.
Chris Nowinski, co-director of the CTE Center at the Boston University School of Medicine and co-founder of the Concussion Legacy Foundation (f/k/a Sports Legacy Institute), told PopSci.com in 2013 that it was "preposterous" for Randolph to conclude that CTE might not be its own disease because the retired football players had impairments similar to those of other patients with mild cognitive impairment.
It was not surprising that the conclusion of the Fourth International Consensus Statement on Sports Related Concussions in March 2013 - a conclusion left essentially intact in the Fifth Consensus Statement issued in March 2017 - that the causal link between repetitive brain trauma and CTE had not been established - was met at the time with a sharp push-back from the research group at Boston University's CTE Center, the group most associated with the position that CTE is a distinct neurodegenerative disorder suffered only by athletes in contact and collision sports, and that repetitive trauma can in some cases be the sole cause of the disease.
Typical was the reaction of one of Zurich 2012's co-authors, Dr. Robert Cantu, the CTE Center Director, who told NewJersey.com at the time that, "When I saw that [it said] we need more data in terms of CTE, I wrote to the other authors, in essence, ‘What the hell do you mean that we need more data?' The whole breadth of the document is large, and 99 percent of it I strongly support. But that part of it, I don't support at all. Frankly, it stunned me."
Dr. Cantu's colleague, Dr. Ann McKee, likewise expressed befuddlement at the Zurich 2012's treatment of CTE, telling NewJersey.com, "This is a time that calls for immediate action to reduce the amount of head trauma experienced by athletes in all sports to prevent CTE."
Dr. McKee asserted that it would be "irresponsible to justify inaction by requesting a level of scientific proof that will take decades to acquire," expressing the fear that, to suggest that CTE "may not be part of the impact exposure, but rather due to other yet unidentified factors," could give tacit permission to those who play collision sports to proceed as if there is no urgent problem when concussions arise. (Interestingly, Dr. McKee said much the same thing when interviewed by The New York Times four years later for its article on her 2017 study reporting on the results of her team's examination of all brains donated to the Concussion Legacy Foundation to date: "It's no longer debatable whether or not there is a problem in football - there is a problem.")
The Zurich 2012 statement wasn't intended to have such an implication, argued Dr. Rosemarie Scolaro Moser, Director of the Sports Concussion Center of New Jersey and MomsTEAM.com's sports concussion neuropsychologist, when interviewed by NewJersey.com in 2013. Instead, she cautioned that it would be jumping to conclusions to say, ‘If you play football, you're probably going to get CTE.' Which is not the case. So what differentiates those with CTE from those who don't have it? That's what we need to know."
Skepticism growing
The number of those in the medical, scientific, and concussion research communities voicing serious doubts about whether a direct cause and effect relationship between repetitive brain trauma and CTE existed, as Drs. McKee and Cantu initially claimed, or that proving scientifically that it can be caused solely by such trauma is inevitable, has been growing, even in the face of thousands of media reports reporting the purported link as scientific fact.
"Her study of brains with CTE appear to be all former NFL players, 1 from high school and 1 from college, but what about soccer players?" wondered Scott L. Bruce, MS, ATC, co-author of the 2004 NATA Position Statement on Sports-related Concussions and Founder of the Chattanooga Concussion Prevention Initiative, after viewing the 2013 PBS Frontline documentary "League of Denial" featuring Dr. McKee.
"Or what about athletes from other sports? What about females vs. males? What about those players who play college football, but never go on to play in the NFL? Of the number of high school players who never play college football? Are any of their brains examined for CTE? If so, what were the findings?"
(It should be noted here that some of |
assumed from the start that not everyone is able to achieve the “final pose.” The method introduces props such as blocks and ropes, straps and bolsters, blankets and chairs, among other things, to make up for what people are unable to do.
Moreover, for people who are either permanently or temporarily (due to injury or illness) unable to take a regular class, many Iyengar yoga studios offer special needs classes where individual programs are designed for students and they receive careful attention from the instructor.
It’s a good model for an inclusive, intersectional approach where every effort is made to provide an accessible experience to people with a range of abilities, and of different ages, shapes, and sizes. No assumption that you have a thin, flexible “yoga body.” No assumption that you can reach the floor in a forward bend. And what’s more, they pay careful attention to what you can and cannot reasonably be expected to do.
The Y is another inclusive fitness space where a variety of abilities, shapes, sizes, socio-economic groups, ages, races, ethnicities, and sexual orientations are welcomed and appreciated. This is one of the reasons I love going there more than any other gym in the city.
These are just some of the thoughts that have been going through my head as I prepare for my presentation next week on inclusive fitness. I’m painfully aware that I myself do not present a thoroughly intersectional and inclusive analysis in all of my blog posts. But this is something that I am becoming more conscious of and I am doing my best to do better.Home / Section: Comic strips
Team Cul de Sac auction raises $47k; Watterson painting sold for $13k
The Team Cul de Sac auction came to an end last night. I can’t help but think Chris Sparks, the team organizer, is genuinely pleased with the results. Collectively the auctioned raised over $47,000 (minus fees, etc.). The most watched item was Bill Watterson’s oil painting of Petey Otterloop which sold for $13,145.00.
You can view the auction summary notes, but here is the top 10 pieces by bid value:
Amount Description 1. $13,145.00 Bill Watterson Petey Otterloop Painting Original Art (2011) 2. $2,868.00 Stephan Pastis Alice Traps the Family Circus Kids Comic Strip Original Art (2012) 3. $2,031.50 Richard Thompson Team Cul de Sac Cover Illustration Original Art (2011). 4. $1,912.00 Patrick McDonnell Hand Colored Illustration Original Art (2011) 5. $1,792.50 Patrick McDonnell Little Neuro’s Bed Illustration Original Art Group (2011) 6. $1,314.50 R. Sikoryak Gouache Blue Period Illustration Original Art (2011). 7. $836.50 Sergio Aragones Groo the Wanderer and Alice Illustration Original Art (2011). 8. $776.75 Lincoln Peirce Otterloopy Comic Strip Original Art (2011). 9. $776.75 Jim Davis Studios/Eric Reaves Petey and Alice Meet Charlie Brown Hand Colored Comic Strip Original Art (2011). 10. $507.88 Mason Mastroianni Alice in Stone Illustration Original Art (2011).
Like this: Like Loading...In the first half of the 19th century the European bison (Bison bonasus) existed in good numbers in the Białowieża forest in Poland. Shortly before the outbreak of the First World War the population was estimated at 727. However, the outbreak of war, and the following German invasion and eventual occupation of Poland, saw the bison population drastically reduced by hunting to feed the hungry German troops. The destruction of vital bison habitat also placed severe pressure on dwindling bison numbers. A German stocktake, conducted in 1917, revealed that there were just 121 bison left in the forest. Just two years later, the European bison was declared extinct in the wild when the last individual was killed in the Białowieża forest.
The European bison, Europe’s largest and heaviest land mammal, is currently enjoying a comeback thanks to the implementation of several reintroduction programmes throughout Europe. The first of these was performed in the Białowieża forest, in Poland between 1952 and 1966 when 38 individual bison were released. It is one of those rarest of things in conservation; a good news story. In 2014 the population in the Białowieża forest was estimated to be 522.
As far as people remember, bison in Poland have always lived in the forest, and survive with the help of supplementary feeding throughout the harsh winter months. This contrasts with their American cousin, the American bison (Bison bison), who are symbolic animals of the great American grassland plains. This contrast led one research team to conduct a scientific study to try and discover if the European bison has always been king of the forests, or if it resides in the safety of the forest it had nowhere else left to go.
Dr Hab. Rafał Kowalczyk from the Mammal Research Institute Polish Academy of Sciences in Białowieża and Prof. Hervé Bocherens from the University of Tübingen spearheaded a team of researchers who have studied some of the oldest (10,000 – 12,000 years old) European preserved bison bones to try and ascertain its diet, which would hopefully unravel clues as to its preferred habitat in the age of the Holocene.
Previous studies showed that the European bison is a species with morphological adaptations to open, grassland habitats, such as a wide muzzle and teeth designed for wear and tear. This led Kowalczyk to question why the forest habitats were the last environments where bison survived before extinction in the wild at the beginning of the 20th century. Why had the bison – apparently a grass grazer or mixed feeder – survived in forest habitats?
“Over ten years ago, when I started my research on the bison, I found that most large herbivores of a similar size to bison are attached to different habitats, than just the forest habitats, currently occupied by bison in Białowieża, Poland”, explained Dr Hab. Rafał Kowalczyk. “For example, the close relative of European bison, the American bison, generally occurs in semi-open grassland habitats such as prairies, plains and river valleys”.
Kowalczyk and his colleagues believe that a combination of replacement of open grassland by forest cover after the last postglacial period, and increasing human pressure, forced bison into forests as a refuge.
Kowalczyk was motivated to invite leading specialists in Europe in this field, Professor Herve Bocherens, from Germany, and Dr Gildas Merceron, from France, to conduct the project on bison history. Together, they hoped to uncover whether stable isotope analysis of historical bone material and teeth microwear may allow them to reveal clues about the historical pattern of habitat use and diet of European bison. Stable isotopes were first used to research the foraging ecology of animals in the 1970s and involve the identification and analysis of chemical elements, compounds, and stable isotopes to determine diet, trophic level and subsistence of a given species.
As Rafał and his team expected, their research found that bison were likely to be open habitat dwellers in the early Holocene, but interestingly, they had a mixed diet. It contained both grassy vegetation and the shoots of trees and shrubs, and also lichens. However, he was surprised when they analysed other large herbivores bones, such as aurochs, bison and elk that shared the same habitat, to find that bison avoided inter-specific competition by utilising the same habitat, but having a different diet.
Rafał, and his PhD student, Emilia Hofman-Kamińska, based at the Mammal Research Institute in Bialowieza want to go deeper into the evolutionary history of bison. Emilia is researching teeth microwear analysis, enabling detailed reconstruction of the diet, and giving insights into spatio-temporal changes of bison habitat use during the Holocene. Now they know what the bison’s diet and habitat used to be, they want to look at when this changed, and why.
Dr Hab. Rafał Kowalczyk predicts that this finding is important for the conservation and management of modern populations of bison that that have been established in forest environments. When asked whether he envisaged a time when the Bialowieza bison population could survive without supplementary feeding, he answered, “The study shows that probably optimal habitat for a bison is mixed habitat, mosaic of meadows and woodlands…Such habitats may ensure bison survival without supplementary feeding”. The wisent project, in Kraansvlak, Netherlands, supports this idea. The project involved introducing a herd of bison into a large fenced off area of mosaic habitats that were predominantly meadowland. The herd is now thriving without the need for human supplementary feeding.
Rafał hopes that his team’s findings will influence fresh approaches to bison reintroduction projects, increasing the emblematic, large ungulate’s ability to sustain itself and survive into the future, after such an unstable history.
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0115090
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A preview of issue 1, from October, is available here.A Colorado father was called a faggot by a store manager in front of his son after he tried to exchange defective materials he purchased. James Shawlin said that he and his four-year-old son were in a Floor and Decor store in Highlands Ranch, Colorado to return a part he bought to build a fireplace. “The stones were broken and they were basically gluing them back together and putting them in the box and selling them,” he told KUSA. The manager saw him going through a box of other stones to check their quality and the manager was not happy.
“I was a little firm with him, and I just told him, ‘Hey, you know, my husband and I spend a lot of money here. We’ve been using you guys for ten years. We have $3,000 worth of stone.’” Shawlin recalled telling manager. “And [the manager] goes, ‘oh, that explains it now. The faggot that voted for Hillary.’”
The man and his son were allegedly followed into the parking lot and the harassment continued. “He basically said, ‘What are these faggots going to do to this child?’”
“I’m 44, I’ve been out for a while, I grew up in rural Wisconsin, I’ve heard it all,” Shawlin observed. “But when you have a child that’s so young that doesn’t understand, it’s pretty traumatizing.” [C&L]War and Purgatory
Bosnia and Syria are often mentioned in the same breath — and in particular by Sarajevans, who see in horrors such as the siege of Aleppo a re-enactment of their memories of the city-siege in the 1990s. Who can read headlines of post-2011 Syria — rape as a weapon war, the targeting of civilians, fracturing peace talks — and not recall late 20th-century Bosnian stories? Worse, Bosnia’s post-war atrophy in the absence of meaningful justice provides an alarming example of what Syria might look like in 20 years, even if fighting were to stop today.
The millions of Syrians displaced and traumatized by the three-year conflict would likely accept any peace agreement if it meant fighting would end immediately. (In the photo above, emergency responders rescue a boy after a barrel bomb attack in Aleppo.) But it is for this reason that Bosnia — as a lived reality for Bosnians in the last two decades, not merely as totemic buzzword for diplomats — must be kept as a touchstone, a reminder that a successful peace process entails moving beyond a militaristic conception of peace as the absence of war. And that meaningful peace needs peace-work and civil society at its heart.
Even as Syria’s Geneva II peace talks foundered earlier this year, Bosnia’s citizens, who have a "peace agreement" for a constitution, were protesting on their cities’ streets. Throughout February and March, Bosnia and Herzegovina has seen the largest demonstrations and unrest in almost 20 years, briefly making international headlines on Feb. 7, as protesters burned government buildings.
The recent Bosnian protests began in the northern industrial city of Tuzla as a worker’s strike following an ongoing dispute with four companies that filed for bankruptcy shortly after they were sold off by the state to private contractors, one of the country’s many recent botched and un-transparent privatization processes. As the protests spread to other cities in both of the country’s two federal "entities," the protesting workers — and other Bosnian citizens who soon joined them in protest — began articulating more fundamental civic concerns about Bosnia’s post-war stagnation. Frustrated at their national elites and politicians, who are among the highest paid in Europe, protesters viewed the recent privatization move as a symptom of endemic political and administrative corruption.
Despite early attempts by ethno-nationalists to brand the Bosnian protesters "terrorists" or co-opt their demands, the demonstrators of what began to be called "Bosnia’s Spring" were adamant that the movement was a call for social justice and against corruption and the ethno-nationalism that has dominated the brittle post-war period. Bosnians have begun to articulate widespread frustration at the post-war set-up in the movement’s weekly "plenums" — direct-democracy citizens’ meetings that have taken place in all of Bosnia’s main cities, from Muslim-Croat Mostar to Republika Sprska’s Banja Luka.
The demands articulated by the plenums remind us, almost two decades since the international media shifted their focus away from the country, of the reality that the 1995 Dayton Accords have brought to Bosnia. That the voices of Bosnians themselves are occasionally peeking through into global newsprint now is also a timely reminder of what these voices can teach Syrians about how to rebuild. For if Rwanda 20 years after is seen by some to offer signs today of how a nation can hope to heal from mass atrocity, Bosnia sadly serves to remind Syria that war is not always followed by peace. Sometimes it is followed by purgatory.
Almost a whole generation has grown up in Bosnia’s post-war period with no direct memories of conflict, but with their landscape still covered in landmines, with segregated schools teaching three exclusivist nationalist narratives of their parents’ war, with a 50 percent youth unemployment rate, and with the humiliation of visa restrictions that were unthinkable even in socialist Yugoslavia. Next door to an EU-aceeded Croatia, the new Bosnia has ethno-nationalist politicians and a political framework that rewards them for stirring up tensions over providing essential services for its citizens.
Bosnia’s peace was always a failure in any meaningful sense, due to four main factors: an unjust and unworkable constitution; a stark lack of women and civil society representatives in the peace process; no regional-level transitional justice; and no post-war social justice. If Syria is to have any hope of a lasting peace after the fighting stops, it must avoid the pitfalls that led Bosnia into this twenty-year purgatory.
The signatories of the Dayton constitution — war leaders Franjo Tudjman, Alija Itzetbegovic, and, to seal the deal, Slobodan Milosevic as Radovan Karadzic’s representation — were a shameful start to a new state. Although much has been written on why the compromises of the Dayton constitution were necessary to stop the war as it reached its genocidal height in 1995, this does not negate the fact it froze Bosnia in an "ethnopolis" with an unworkable structure of government, a triumvirate presidency, a physically severed territory, and a political structure that privileges ethno-nationalist discourse.
Any future Syrian peace process must also learn from who was not at the table at peace talks and post-war constitution drafting sessions: In Bosnia’s case, as noted by Madeleine Rees, the most painful absence is women. The widespread use of rape as a weapon of war documented by the Women Under Si
ege project shows that, as in Bosnia, the brutalities of Syria’s war have played out on gendered lines as exclusivist wartime identities have entrenched patriarchal norms. (Although there are important differences, the use of sexual violence against men is under-documented and under-reported due to the specific stigmas that come from wartime cultural constructions of masculinity.)
This tragedy would have a second tragic echo if Syria repeats Bosnia’s failure to include women in its peace process after brutalizing them throughout the war. Research by Valerie Hudson, professor of political science at Texas A&M University, on gender and peace has shown how the involvement of women is the single most significant predictor of a country’s post-conflict stability and success. Although Bosnian and Syrian women activists have conferred "under the radar" in the past year on how to push for a place at the peace-process table, the Geneva II talks mirrored the 1995 Dayton talks’ alarming exclusion of women and civil society voices.
Egypt’s unsteady course since 2011, with its two constitutions in two years, shows that inclusive constitution drafting is central to securing legitimacy. Dayton Bosnia, too, is an insistent reminder that who is at the table of the talks dictates the course of your peace. The imported, top-down peace of Dayton, and the post-war limbo it entrenched, created two conditions that ultimately fueled this year’s popular protests: the lack of transitional justice, and the failure to provide for social justice. With incomplete lustration and judicial vetting processes on the ground in post-war Bosnia, the International Criminal Tribunal of the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) at The Hague became the focus of post-war justice rather than initiatives within the country. This failed on two grounds, one structural and one situational.
The fact that the ICTY’s remit focused on high-level war-time leaders meant that the "everyday" war criminals were often left untouched and at large, brushing past their victims in the street. Situationally, as documented by Slavenka Drakulic in her 2004 work They Would Never Harm A Fly, the construction of a narrative by post-war nationalist leaders in Croatia, Serbia, and Bosnia in which the ICTY was "alien," imposed, and inevitably "biased," led to the popular imagining of defiance of the ICTY as an act of patriotism.
For its part, for all the inevitable difficulties of their task, the ICTY committed inexcusable mistakes, such as losing key evidence and the personal belongings of genocide victims, and in the eyes of many Bosnian Muslims, allowed Karadzic (finally caught in 2008) to use the tribunal hearings as a grotesque theater. Mass graves are still being uncovered in rural Bosnia today, and many hundreds of victims are yet to be buried — also a reminder that it will take a generation for Syria to process its dead even after the fighting stops.
The work of Natasa Kandic heading the RECOM initiative to bring about a "truth and reconciliation" process since the late 2000s — an initiative that would speak to the transitional justice needs of those who suffered during the war — is a poignant indicator that civil society of the former Yugoslavia sought justice and reconciliation, even as their ethno-nationalist leaders continued to stir resentments and frame all war-justice processes as a zero sum game between ethnic groups.
As explored in Ed Vulliamy’s 2012 work, The War Is Dead, Long Live The War, the absence of transitional justice led the "peace of daily life" to swell and curdle in Bosnia. The international aid that came in the country was not regulated, and was ultimately unable to better the inherently unjust postwar structure — both the political institutions and the political rhetoric the institutions foster — as it manifested in, for instance, the ethnically-segregated Dayton education system.
A generation of Syrian children, in Zaatari, in Lebanon, in Turkey, and in Syria itself, are growing up not only deeply traumatized but are also missing years of education. The impact of Bosnia’s "lost generation" — those who missed years of school and suffered the impact of war — is still felt today by millions of former Yugoslavians. It was compounded by the failure to establish adequate post-war education. The segregated education system in Bosnia, initially supported by the OSCE, instills the exclusivist narratives of war in a new generation of children. It is all the more alarming when considered in light of the fact that before the war, around one in three Bosnian families were "mixed" or multi-confessional, if such identity-lines even had any salience.
The absence of transitional justice and the unworkable Dayton constitution encouraged Bosnian politicians to focus their energies on gaining votes of "their" ethnic blocks rather than focusing on civic initiatives such as improving healthcare facilities, clearing landmines, and stabilizing the economy. No transitional justice means no social justice, and eventually that will lead to popular unrest and a generation quietly growing up in the shadow of war without reconciliation, as we are seeing in Bosnia today.
If Syria today is its own specific kind of hell, and the urgent goal is to stop armed conflict as quickly and effectively as possible, those concerned should take from Bosnia — with its famous wartime graffiti "Welcome to Hell" — the warning that a country can be frozen in a rotten post-war limbo, even a generation after the fighting has stopped.McCain makes himself a target by refusing to endorse Webb’s new GI education bill and instead signing on to a Republican alternative. GI bill sparks Senate war
From Annapolis to Vietnam and back to the Pentagon, John McCain and Jim Webb trod the same paths before coming to the Senate. Iraq divides them today, but there’s also the new kinship of being anxious fathers watching their sons come and go with Marine units in the war.
So what does it say about Washington that two such men, with so much in common, are locked in an increasingly intense debate over a shared value: education benefits for veterans?
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“It’s very odd,” said former Nebraska Democratic Sen. Bob Kerrey, a mutual friend. And that oddness gets greater by the day as the two headstrong senators barrel down colliding tracks.
An Arizona Republican, McCain has all but locked up the Republican presidential nomination and is preparing for a fall campaign in which his support of the Iraq war is sure to be a major issue. Yet the former Navy pilot and Vietnam POW makes himself a target by refusing to endorse Webb’s new GI education bill and instead signing on to a Republican alternative that focuses more on career soldiers than on the great majority who leave after their first four years.
Undaunted, Webb, who was a Marine infantry officer in Vietnam, is closing in on the bipartisan support needed to overcome procedural hurdles in the Senate, where the cost of his package — estimated now at about $52 billion over 10 years — is sure to be an issue. But McCain’s support would seal the deal like nothing else, and the new Republican bill, together with a letter of opposition Tuesday from Defense Secretary Robert Gates, threatens to peel off support before the Democrat gets to the crucial threshold of 60 votes.
“There are fundamental differences,” McCain told Politico. “He creates a new bureaucracy and new rules. His bill offers the same benefits whether you stay three years or longer. We want to have a sliding scale to increase retention. I haven’t been in Washington, but my staff there said that his has not been eager to negotiate.”
“He’s so full of it,” Webb said in response. “I have personally talked to John three times. I made a personal call to [McCain aide] Mark Salter months ago asking that they look at this.”
“Hell, no,” Webb bristled when asked if there had been an implicit message that he would attack McCain if he didn’t come on board.
"John McCain has been a longtime friend of mine, and I think if John sat down and examined what was in this bill, he would co-sponsor it,” Webb said. “I don’t want this to become a political issue. I want to get a bill done.”
The debate will soon come to a head when Congress takes up the administration’s request for new emergency funding for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The current plan is for the House to take up a 2008 military construction and Veterans Affairs appropriations measure, strike its content and then layer in a series of three amendments that would include not only war funding but also very likely the Webb bill.
Mindful of this, the Gates letter represents a first shot by the Bush administration. Even as it went out Tuesday morning, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) attended a noon rally on the Capitol steps to support the Webb package.
McCain’s name never came up directly, but his old pal Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) and former Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner (R-Va.) joined with Webb. McCain’s absence fed into ongoing efforts by the Democratic National Committee to drive a wedge between the Republican and his supporters among veterans. “It’s two birds with one stone,” said a Democratic aide.
“We have a lot of issues to debate in the campaign this year, but this really should not be one of them,” Webb told the Senate last week, in a warning to McCain.
“I don’t think Jim Webb is seeking political advantage,” McCain said. “He’s sincerely dedicated to improving education benefits.”
This article tagged under: CongressTwo dots. That’s really all the image the New Horizons probe sent back looked like, if we’re honest. It was supposed to be the little robot’s first color picture of the dwarf planet Pluto and its moon Charon. But let’s be real: It was a big dot and a little dot. An emoji from space.
So why, then, does seeing that picture resonate inside your soul like a bass chord through a really good subwoofer?
It might be the sheer technical achievement. A machine human beings built a decade ago and heaved into space the only way they knew how is emailing pics to its masters at mission control. That’s hard. Building a camera to survive a 5 billion mile trip through hard vacuum and cosmic radiation is the kind of thing engineers justifiably swagger about.
Or it could be the science. Owing mostly to its distance, Pluto and its moons—the entire Kuiper Belt of orbiting objects of which Pluto is a part, in fact—are mysteries. Unlike the planets, Pluto orbits the sun off the ecliptic, eccentrically swinging through the plane of the solar system. All astronomers know about it is that it’s cold, dark, and far. One of New Horizons' jobs will be to identify geographic—plutographic?—features so people can name them. Imagine that: An entire world so unknown that its mountains and valleys have no names. Pluto incognito.
Any new data, then, expands what humanity knows about the universe. But there's something more to New Horizons' deliveries than pure technical or scientific achievement—the fleeting excitement of a job well done and a question definitively answered.
One common stereotype of scientists is the Spock model, the idea that people who go into science are cold, logical types—that in fact the only way to do good science is to be dispassionate. That’s wrong, of course. The only way to do good science (and to understand it) is to be passionate. The best scientists have what Evelyn Fox Keller famously called “a feeling for the organism,” a comprehension of their subject so deep that they know how it works even if they can’t articulate it.
Scientists operate at the edge of knowledge, at the edge of understanding. They see a universe not incomprehensible in its awesomeness but utterly, purely comprehensible—at least, eventually. Uncountable quintillions of invisible subatomic particles stretching infinitely in every direction, including directions our brains didn’t evolve to process … and it all somehow coalesces into everything, into blue skies and stars and chocolate milkshakes and patriotism and bullet trains and good books and love. Science tries to figure out the how while exalting the what.
When we humans see an image of a distant planet (minor planet, but still) hanging on the infinite vault, we are seeing the outside edge of everything people have ever known.
Really, that ought to frighten us. Every time something human beings built pushes outward into the universe—or inward, into our own cells—it’s like walking into an unfamiliar room with the lights off. We don’t know what’s there. We don’t know if we’re alone. We don’t know if it’s dangerous. And we respond by … building something else that pushes farther. We turn on the lights. We get a magnifying glass and look around. We map the room, image it at a microscopic scale, and then see what’s in the next room. We proceed, chasing knowledge of ourselves and our place in the universe.
When an image crosses your screen like those two Plutonian dots, or, say, a real-time scan of a knuckle cracking, you marvel at it because you are seeing the lights coming on in the room as it happens. This is where the action is, because it proves you have the hubris to try to understand the how the universe works. In the dance track of discovery, this is the drop.
This week saw another set of results from space scientists. A team of astronomers lead by Penn State researcher Jason Wright announced the outcome of a survey of 100,000 distant galaxies. They were looking for energy emissions, particularly in a part of the spectrum called the middle-infrared. Five decades ago the physicist Freeman Dyson hypothesized that a star-faring intelligent species eventually would cocoon stars in complete spheres to capture 100 percent of their energy. After a while they’d spread out, over billions of years, and colonize the entire galaxy. Such a galaxy, in which nearly every star was wrapped in a Dyson sphere, would emit relatively little visible light but lots of heat. So that’s what Wright’s team went looking for.
They found a whole lotta nothing. A few galaxies had some weird emissions that Wright reportedly plans to follow up on, but overall it doesn’t seem like the universe harbors any galactic empires. At least, no galactic empires that behave the way Dyson and the researchers who followed him predicted. Maybe they build something even weirder than Dyson spheres.
The point is, Wright’s negative results don’t mean we humans are alone in the universe any more than New Horizon’s pictures of Pluto mean that it is just another icy chunk of rock spinning through an uncaring universe. Think of all this in a more quantum-zen way. None of it would matter if human beings weren’t here to think it mattered, if you see what I mean. We look toward the edges of the universe and our own knowledge in amazement not because we seek our own limits, but because we want to learn how to go past them.N. T. Wright believes that both Reformed and Wesleyan-Arminianism approaches misses the flow of Paul’s case in Romans 9 because they import Augustine-Pelagic controversy into the text. Wright’s New Perspective1 approaches Romans 9:14-252 as a demonstration of covenant faithfulness of God and the identity of the “member of his people”3.
Romans 9:14-25, according to Wright, displays God faithfully accomplishing His purposes “even within that human rebellion and arrogance to bring about an even more glorious work of rescue, revealing his power, and gaining a worldwide reputation for performing extraordinary acts of judgment and mercy.”(Wright 2004: 14-5). Wright argued,
It is this ongoing purpose, despite the fact of Israel’s rebellion, that causes God to declare to Moses that he will proceed with his plan for the Exodus even though the people have made the golden calf, amounting to a declaration of independence from the true God. That is the setting for the passage in Exodus 33 which Paul quotes in verse 15. It then appears (verse 17) that God is doing with Israel itself what he did with Pharaoh, the king of Egypt who withstood God’s purposes to bring Israel out of slavery.(ibid)
“[Romans 9] does not necessarily relate to salvation.” wrote Thomas R. Schreiner, “Rather, Paul is describing the historical destiny of nations.”(Schreiner 1993: 26). Agreeing with Schreiner, Wright maintained that Paul’s case “[i]n standard Christian theological language, it wasn’t so much about soteriology as about ecclesiology; not so much about salvation as about the church”(Wright 1997: 119)4.
Paul invoking “the image of potter” in verses 20-21, was not designed to show a the final election5, contended Wright, but “was designed to speak very specifically about God’s purpose in choosing and calling Israel, and about what would happen if Israel, like a lump of clay, failed to respond to the gentle moulding of his hands.”(ibid 13) He added, “ ‘vessel of mercy’ doesn’t mean so much a vessel which receives mercy, but a vessel through which God brings mercy to others.”(ibid 16)
If Wright is right, then why would Paul’s anticipated “Why does God still find fault?” For who can resist his will?”(in verse 19b ESV) as a protest of his response toward an earlier objection, viz., “is God unjust”(verse 14)? I think Craig Keener’s observation, namely God’s purpose for forming vessels for glory is “conformity with his Son’s image (8:29) […] but endures those that are objects of his wrath for the sake of the others (9:22–23)”(Keener 2009: loc.4047), as more correct than Wright’s because from Keener’s reasoning, verse 19 objection logically follows.
Echoing Keener and contrary to Wright, David Brown argued that election, viz., God’s “right to choose whom He will [and in Rom. 9:17, He] punishes whom He will”(Brown 1997: n.p) is final. Brown contended,
If God chooses and rejects, pardons and punishes, whom He pleases, why are those blamed who, if rejected by Him, cannot help sinning and perishing? This objection shows quite as conclusively as the former the real nature of the doctrine objected to—that it is Election and Non-election to eternal salvation prior to any difference of personal character; this is the only doctrine that could suggest the objection here stated, and to this doctrine the objection is plausible.(ibid )
Representing one of Reformed commentators’ critic of Wright’s view of God’s election, Sam Storms believed that the objections in verses 14 and 19 would not have “been raised and dealt with by Paul at such great length had the issue in view been the historical or earthly status of individuals […]”. He wrote “[t]he objection, Paul’s vehement denial of unrighteousness in God, and his lengthy (vv. 14-23) explanation are intelligible only if eternal salvation and condemnation are at stake.”(Storms 2007: 126)
I am open for comments, positive critics and edification from my brothers and sisters holding New Perspective view because my reformed bias might have clouded my judgement of Wright’s approach. What Say You: How right is Wright? Did Wright get Paul’s case in Romans 9 correct? [1] There are many New Perspectives, but I focused solely on N. T. Wright’s
[2] Specifically Romans 9-11
[3] Which Paul “now sees the torch being passed from a group consisting only of Jews (a selection from within Abraham’s physical family) to a group consisting of Jews and Gentiles together.”(ibid 15)
[4] Schreiner and Wright are correct in viewing Romans 9-11 as dealing with Israel as a nation but I think it’s both soteriological and ecclesiological.
[5] Wright noted that in “the Old Testament, Israel goes into exile in order to be reshaped by God; where, in other words, the potter remoulds the clay.”(ibid 15) Bibliography: Brown, D. (1997) Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (Ro 9:17-19). Ed. Jamieson, R., Fausset, A. R. Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc. Keener, Craig S. (2009) Romans. A New Covenant Commentary. Cascade Books – Eugene, Oregon. Amazon Kindle Edition. Schreiner, Thomas R. (1993) “Does Romans 9 Teach Individual Election Unto Salvation? Some Exegetical And Theological Reflections.” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, 36.1: 25-40. Storms, Sam (2007) Chosen for Life: The Case for Divine Election, revised ed. Grand Rapids: Baker. Wright, N. T. (1997)What Saint Paul Really Said: Was Paul of Tarsus the Real Founder of Christianity? Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. _________ (2004). Paul for Everyone: Romans Part 1: Chapters 1-8. Both volumes include glossaries. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.Onna bugeisha – The Powerful Female Samurai Warrior: In the earlier periods such as the Heian and Kamakura, there were female members of the samurai class who became prominent or even present on the battlefield. They were the exception and not the rule, but this doesn’t mean that most women were powerless ^^;
Onna-musha or women warriors were very unusual. The most famous women warriors were Tomoe Gozen and Hangaku Gozen.
Bushi women were trained mainly with the naginata because of its versatility against all types of enemies and weapons. They would also use the kaiken – a type of dagger – and the art of tantojutsu in battle.
Naginata
It was generally the responsibility of women to protect their homes rather than go off to battle in the field, so it was important that they become skilled in a few weapons that offered the best range of techniques to defend against anyone who would attack on horseback.
During the Sengoku period (mid. 15th century – beginning of 17th century) there are accounts of the wives of warlords, dressed in ornated armor, leading bands of women armed with naginata. It was probably at this time that the image of women fighters with naginata arose.
In the mid-17th century, |
real problem for us when we were 14 and we were determined that it wouldn’t get in the way of a good game on Friday as well.
It’s a mix of percentage based and d20 style playing. Skill checks are done on a percentage basis – hitting and defending via a d20. This is where my warm, rosy glow of enjoyment stems from. I like the fact that Palladium features not only a to-hit roll, but a dodge and parry roll as well. Here’s combat I can get behind! Not only can I try to hit things with big sticks and pointy stuff, but when they try to hit me back, I can take an active roll in stopping them!
Each race has certain class restrictions and roll different numbers of d6 per attribute. Humans are straight 3s down the board for the 8 stats. Other races can have anywhere from 2d6 to 5d6 for attributes depending on what they are. We did not roll and drop the lowest die, as that was for wimps in the 80s. As it was then, so it would be tonight!
Every single class is different from every other class. There is no generic fighter, but rather Mercenaries, Soldiers, Longbowmen, Assassins, Knights, Paladins (non-magical) Rogues and Rangers (also non-magical). Each fighting type fulfills a certain role, not only in the party, but for role playing purposes. Want to play that scruffy Dwarf who ran away from home at the tender age of 43 and joined up with a band of fighters for hire? The Mercenary is the perfect class for you. Palladins, on the other side, embody all that is classy and right in the whole might-makes-right thing – they live by codes, which offer no end of fun for role playing possibilities.
Magical classes are just as interesting. Wizards at 1st level can cast 10th level spells, if they can find them. You start off knowing 6 basic spells and it’s up to you to find, coerce, purchase or steal the rest. Witches make pacts with demons and devils, Warlocks manipulate and summon the elements, Diabolists deal in runes and don’t cast spells, and Sorcerers summon evil creatures to do their bidding.
Priests connect with the gods for their powers, and can heal other starting at first level – but they cannot heal themselves. Healers are more doctors with some magical powers that assist them.
In all, it’s an amazing concept for a high fantasy RPG and the night went very well, even though we mostly created our characters and had just two combats.
Our party consists of (all 1st level)
Elf Wizard: Hamash Snozzle (me)
Elf Assassin: Heretofor Unknamed (me)
Kobold Mind Mage: I forget what his name is (Dan)
Human Warlock: Missy (Wife)
Cavtroop (our technical Vizier) is GMing.
It was a fantastic night of actual role playing. No minis, not really any maps necessary. Combat was a breeze (think 15 minutes to complete a combat with 3 enemies and our four characters). And I had the chance to actually role play more than I have in many modern, rules heavy settings.
My Wizard had to leave his college of magic rather hastily after an ill-advised tryst with the headmaster’s daughter. Fleeing with my robes and my six basic spells, I hooked up with the rest of the party and I’m reluctantly adventuring to make ends meet. He is intelligent but lazy, a miser and a coward to boot. I haven’t laughed this much at a game night in years.
My Assassin wasn’t actually in this session – we needed a fourth player, who could act as a bit of muscle, and so he was rolled up at the end of the night.
Do we house rule? Oh hell yes. The first thing we did was establish a system to do perception rolls (average IQ + ME scores, add bonus to 10% skill which increases at 8%/level for those who care). Whenever we encounter a rule that doesn’t make sense, or just may not be there, we add another house rule to the list. So far – working great!
We may get together again this weekend. If that’s the case, I hope to record our next session (which will feature a lot more play and a lot less character creation, eating dinner and managing a small gang of children). Anyone know of any good Android apps for the Droid that turn it into a decent voice recorder?
[tags]palladium, rpg, role playing games, old school[/tags]The $10,000 Lowball World Championship always features one of the toughest fields during the WSOP. The game isn't played by the masses; at this level, it's simply a pro's game. The field was loaded and on a night when it seemed Phil Hellmuth was primed to capture his 12th WSOP bracelet, John Juanda made a big heads-up comeback to steal the victory and bracelet from his grasp.
John Juanda won his fifth bracelet on Sunday. Michael Reed/Bluff
"Tonight there were a lot of great players," said Juanda. "It's tough to post a $10,000 buy-in tournament, especially in a game like no-limit 2-7, so, I didn't expect it to be easy. I actually started today as the shortest stack and obviously had to catch some cards. You know, I just took it one hand at a time."
John Juanda isn't an amateur to the 2-7 Lowball discipline. With back-to-back fourth-place finishes in this event the past two years, Juanda had the much-needed experience to keep his focus and find a way to win his fifth WSOP bracelet and $367,170. This was Juanda's 56th WSOP cash and his first bracelet since his WSOP Europe main event win in 2008.
In 2010, Juanda had one of the most impressive WSOP runs without earning a title. He made four final tables including a fourth-place finish in the $50,000 Players' Championship. He also tacked on a small cash in a $1,500 event late in the Series. This was his first cash of the 2011 WSOP.
Entering heads-up play, Hellmuth was in control with nearly a 3:1 chip lead. As Juanda began to chip away, Hellmuth's posture and disposition at the table changed. No longer stoic, the "Poker Brat" looked frustrated and searched for a solution to Juanda's aggression. Unfortunately for Hellmuth, he was unable to break through and would finish in second after a dominating performance throughout the entire final table. He earned $226,907.
"Hellmuth actually played pretty good," said Juanda. "I was impressed with the way that he played. He made one really great play against Joe (Cassidy), who had the winning hand and he became the chip leader after that. So, overall I was very impressed with the way he played. You know, a lot of people said he couldn't play anything besides hold 'em, but tonight he played really well. If the cards would have fallen his way he could be standing here doing the interview instead of me."
This was Hellmuth's first cash of the 2011 WSOP and his 80th in his career. He not only holds record for WSOP bracelets, but most times in the money as well. Despite all of his previous WSOP accomplishments, Hellmuth has never won an event in a discipline besides hold 'em. He now has two runner-up finishes and a fourth-place finish in lowball events at the WSOP throughout his career.
Hellmuth entered Day 3 in seventh place out of the nine that remained. The final eight then consolidated for the unofficial final table after the quick elimination of 2004 WSOP main event champion Greg Raymer in ninth. Even at those early stages of play, Hellmuth had chipped up slightly, but it was when Hellmuth eliminated Joe Cassidy in eighth place that he would really take control.
During that critical hand, Hellmuth called the four-bet all-in of Cassidy holding a 10-9 pat. Cassidy, who was last to act, debated, then finally released one card, stating he was breaking up a 9-8. Cassidy paired up and shipped his sizable stack to Hellmuth who would surge into first place. With that newly-increased stack, Hellmuth pressured his opponents with pre-draw raises, then adjusted and made some tough decisions to force his opponents to hit their draws.
Hellmuth had nearly two-third of the chips in play when action was three handed and entered heads-up play against Juanda with a substantial chip lead. Juanda would never let up though and ultimately, hit one final draw to eliminate Hellmuth.
This year's Lowball World Championship attracted a field of 126 players, an increase of 25 from a year ago. The best hand in this version of poker is 2-3-4-5-7. There is one more Lowball event on the schedule, the $2,500 2-7 triple draw, Event 49, which begins on June 28th.
Other notable finishers included Bertrand Grospellier (11th), Johnny Chan (12th) and Chino Rheem (14th).
Below are the complete results of Event 16 at the 2011 World Series of Poker:
Event 16: Lowball World Championship
Buy-in: $10,000
Entries: 126
Prize pool: $1,184,400
Players in the money: 14
1. John Juanda ($367,170)
2. Phil Hellmuth ($226,907)
3. Richard Ashby ($143,833)
4. Steve Sung ($97,416)
5. Nick Schulman ($69,216)
6. David "Bakes" Baker ($51,485)
7. Hasan Habib ($40,020)
8. Joe Cassidy ($32,440)
9. Greg Raymer ($27,928)
10. Benjamin Parker ($27,928)
11. Bertrand Grospellier ($27,928)
12. Johnny Chan ($24,043)
13. Brandon Cantu ($24,043)
14. Chino Rheem ($24,043)Books by Sue Grafton
The Kinsey Millhone Alphabet Series
"A" is for Alibi When Laurence Fife was murdered, few mourned his passing. A prominent divorce attorney with a reputation for single-minded ruthlessness on behalf of his clients, Fife was also rumored to be a dedicated philanderer. Read more...
"B" is for Burglar Beverly Danziger looked like an expensive, carefully wrapped package from a good but conservative shop. Only her compulsive chatter hinted at the nervousness beneath her cool surface. It was a nervousness out of all proportion to the problem she placed before Kinsey Millhone. Read more...
"C" is for Corpse He was youngmaybe twenty or soand he must once have been a good-looking kid. Kinsey could see that. But now his body was covered in scars, his face half-collapsed. It saddened Kinsey and made her curious. Read more...
"D" is for Deadbeat He called himself Alvin Limardo, and the job he had for Kinsey was cut-and-dried: locate a kid who'd done him a favor and pass on a check for $25,000. It was only later, after he'd stiffed her for her retainer, that Kinsey found out his name was Daggett. John Daggett. Read more...
"E" is for Evidence It was the silly season and a Monday at that, and Kinsey Millhone was bogged down in a preliminary report on a fire claim. Something was nagging at her, but she couldn't pin it. The last thing she needed in the morning mail was a letter from her bank recording an erroneous $5,000 deposit in her account. Kinsey had never believed in Santa Claus and she wasn't about to change her mind now. Read more...
"F" is for Fugitive Floral Beach wasn't much of a town: six streets long and three deep, its only notable feature a strip of sand fronting the Pacific. It was on that sandy beach seventeen years ago that the strangled body of Jean Timberlake had been found. Read more...
"G" is for Gumshoe Kinsey is run off the road by a red pickup truck, wrecking her '68 Volkswagen and landing herself in the hospital. Maybe a bodyguard is a good idea after all...Enter Robert Dietz, a burnt-out detective, "late forties, five ten, maybe 170, [who arrives in] jeans, cowboy boots, a tweed sport coat with a blue toothbrush protruding from the breast pocket like a ballpoint pen." Read more...
"H" is for Homicide His name was Parnell Perkins, and until shortly after midnight, he'd been a claims adjustor for California Fidelity. Then someone came along and put paid to that line of work. And to any other. Parnell Perkins had been shot at close range and left for dead in the parking lot outside California Fidelity's offices. Read more...
"I" is for Innocent Readers of Sue Grafton's fiction know she never writes the same book twice, and "I" is for Innocent is no exception. Her most intricately plotted novel to date, it is layered in enough complexity to baffle even the cleverest among us. Read more...
"J" is for Judgment "J" is for Jaffe: Wendell Jaffe, dead these past five years. Or so it seemed until his former insurance agent spotted him in the bar of a dusty little resort halfway between Cabo San Lucas and La Paz. Read more...
"K" is for Killer Lorna Kepler was beautiful and willful, a loner who couldn't resist flirting with danger. Maybe that's what killed her. Read more...
"L" is for Lawless Kinsey's skills are about to be sorely tested. She is about to meet her duplicitious match in a couple of world-class prevaricators who quite literally take her for the ride of her life. Read more...
"M" is for Malice "M" is for money. Lots of it. "M" is for Malek Construction, the $40 million company that grew out of modest soil to become one of the big three in California construction, one of the few still in family hands. Read more...
"N" is for Noose Kinsey Millhone should have done something elseshe should have turned the car in the direction of home. Instead, she was about to put herself in the gravest jeopardy of her career. Read more...
"O" is for Outlaw The call comes on a Monday morning from a guy who scavenges defaulted storage units at auction. The weekend before, he'd bought a stack of cardboard boxes. In one, there was a collection of childhood memorabilia with Kinsey's name all over it. For thirty bucks, he was offering Kinsey the lot. Read more...
"P" is for Peril Dr. Dowan Purcell had been missing for nine weeks when Kinsey got a call asking her to take on the case. A specialist in geriatric medicine, Purcell was a prominent member of the Santa Teresa medical community, and the police had done a thorough job. Purcell had no known enemies and seemed contented with his life. Read more...
"Q" is for Quarry She was a "Jane Doe," an unidentified white female whose decomposed body was discovered near a quarry off California's Highway 1. The case fell to the Santa Teresa County Sheriff's Department, but the detectives had little to go on. Read more...
"R" is for Ricochet Reba Lafferty was a daughter of privilege, the only child of an adoring father. Nord Lafferty was already in his fifties when Reba was born, and he could deny her nothing. Over the years, he quietly settled her many scrapes with the law, but he wasn't there for her when she was convicted of embezzlement and sent to the California Institute for Women. Now, at thirty-two, she is about to be paroled, having served twenty-two months of a four-year sentence. Read more...
"S" is for Silence In "S" is for Silence, Kinsey Millhone's nineteenth excursion into the world of suspense and misadventure, "S" is for surprises as Sue Grafton takes a whole new approach to telling the tale. And S is for superb: Kinsey and Grafton at their best. Read more...
"T" is for Trespass In what may be her most unsettling novel to date, Sue Grafton's "T" is for Trespass is also her most direct confrontation with the forces of evil. Beginning slowly with the day-to-day life of a private eye, Grafton suddenly shifts from the voice of Kinsey Millhone to that of Solana Rojas, introducing readers to a chilling sociopath. Read more...
"U" is for Undertow Calling "T is for Trespass "taut, terrifying, transfixing and terrific," USA Today went on to ask, "What does it take to write twenty novels about the same character and manage to create a fresh, genre-bending novel every time?" It's a question worth pondering. Through twenty excursions into the dark side of the human soul, Sue Grafton has never written the same book twice. And so it is with this, her twenty-first. Once again, she breaks genre formulas, giving us a twisting, complex, surprise-filled, and totally satisfying thriller. Read more...
"V" is for Vengeance The new Kinsey Millhone novel from the #1 New York Times-bestselling author. "I know there are people who believe you should forgive and forget. For the record, I'd like to say I'm a big fan of forgiveness as long as I'm given the opportunity to get even first." Read more...
"W" is for Wasted Two dead men changed the course of my life that fall. One of them I knew and the other I'd never laid eyes on until I saw him in the morgue. The first was a local PI of suspect reputation. He'd been gunned down near the beach at Santa Teresa. It looked like a robbery gone bad. The other was on the beach six weeks later. He'd been sleeping rough. Probably homeless. No identification. A slip of paper with Millhone's name and number was in his pants pocket. Read more...
"X" Of #1 New York Times-bestselling author Sue Grafton, NPR's Maureen Corrigan said, "Makes me wish there were more than 26 letters." With only two letters left, Grafton's many devoted readers will share that sentiment. Read more...
"Y" is for Yesterday The darkest and most disturbing case report from the files of Kinsey Millhone, Y is for Yesterday begins in 1979, when four teenage boys from an elite private school sexually assault a fourteen-year-old classmate—and film the attack. Not long after, the tape goes missing and the suspected thief, a fellow classmate, is murdered. The darkest and most disturbing case report from the files of Kinsey Millhone, Y is for Yesterday begins in 1979, when four teenage boys from an elite private school sexually assault a fourteen-year-old classmate—and film the attack. Not long after, the tape goes missing and the suspected thief, a fellow classmate, is murdered. Read more...Chapter 5
THE BLUESHIRTS WILL BE VICTORIOUS
“… the Blackshirts were victorious in Italy and … the Hitler Shirts were victorious in Germany, as … the Blueshirts will be victorious in the Irish Free State.” 1
JOHN A. COSTELLO, 1934
“It is ridiculous to talk about Cosgrave being a Fascist or James Dillon or myself or Tom O’Higgins or any of these people—it is absurd.” 2
JOHN A. COSTELLO, 1969
On 28 February 1934 John A. Costello made his most famous speech in the Dáil—which was unfortunate, as it was probably also his most ill-advised. He was responding to Fianna Fáil Justice Minister P.J. Ruttledge in a debate on the banning of uniforms. The ban was aimed squarely at the Blueshirts, a quasi-Fascist movement which formed part of the new Fine Gael party. Ruttledge defended his legislation by outlining similar measures in other countries, to which Costello replied, “The Minister gave extracts from various laws on the Continent, but he carefully refrained from drawing attention to the fact that the Blackshirts were victorious in Italy and that the Hitler Shirts were victorious in Germany, as assuredly, in spite of this Bill and in spite of the Public Safety Act, the Blueshirts will be victorious in the Irish Free State.” 3
It was deeply ironic that Costello, as wedded to democracy and the rule of law as any leading Irish politician, should come to make a speech comparing members of his own political party to Mussolini’s Fascists and Hitler’s storm-troopers. As he ruefully acknowledged 35 years later, the phrase went around his constituency at every subsequent election. But he claimed that it never affected him, because “my own constituents and everyone in Ireland knew that it was only a phrase”. He insisted he only meant that the Blueshirts would ensure free speech, adding that “at that time Mussolini and Hitler had not reached the bad situation that they subsequently reached, and which brought them the odium of the world”. 4
It was true that the worst excesses of Nazism and Fascism were in the future. However, while the plight of German Jews may not have received a huge amount of coverage in the Irish media at the time, the treatment of the Catholic Church by the Nazis did. On the very day Costello drew his comparison between the Blueshirts and Hitler’s Brownshirts, the Irish Independent reported Nazi attacks on the Cardinal of Munich, “whose sermons against paganism and in defence of the Old Testament have made him a target of attacks by Herr Rosenberg and other prominent Nazis. Stones were hurled though Cardinal Faulhaber’s windows a few weeks ago.” 5 Genocide may not have been apparent in 1934, but thuggery most certainly was.
As far as Jack Costello was concerned, it was “only a phrase”. He did not wear a blue shirt himself, was not a fascist ideologue like some former Cabinet ministers, and did not subscribe to extreme views about anything. It was, as he put it, “absurd” to talk of him or Cosgrave or Dillon or Tom O’Higgins being fascists; 6 but his speech gave the Government the opportunity to do just that, as was shown during the Dáil debate.
The controversial passage was part of a very long speech, covering more than 12 columns of the official record, most of which was devoted to a defence of civil rights, and a claim that the Bill was a menace to democracy because it was aimed by the Government at the main Opposition party, which had been acting within the law. “It is going to set a precedent for anybody who wishes to stifle for all time … the right of freedom of speech and the right of free association … The actions of the Government have brought the law, as administered by the present Government, into disrepute.” 7
But Government speakers pounced on the comparison between the Blueshirts and the Nazis. Conor Maguire, Costello’s former associate in the L&H, now his successor as Attorney General and bitter political opponent, described it as the “fatal slip” of the speech. “Here we have it plain and clear that the Blueshirt organisation is here to be the spearhead of an attack upon democratic and Parliamentary institutions.” 8 Seán Lemass, the Minister for Industry and Commerce, said his speech “brings very forcibly before the Dáil another stage in the development of militarism in politics”. 9
Perhaps the main explanation, if not justification, for the speech was the belief on the Opposition benches that democracy was under threat from the Government, and in particular from its leader—a belief that would carry through to the debates on de Valera’s new Constitution three years later. The fact that events proved these fears groundless does not mean that they were not genuinely felt. To understand how and why the speech was made, it is necessary to consider why Fine Gael felt this way, and how John A. Costello found himself in the Dáil in the first place.
As we saw in Chapter 3, W.T. Cosgrave was opposed to political involvement on the part of the Attorney General. However, Costello played an active role in the 1932 election. In later years he claimed he was “seduced from the path of righteousness” 10 by Ernest Blythe, who asked him to speak in his Monaghan constituency. In fact, before he went to Monaghan, he had already spoken to at least one election meeting, for the Dublin County candidates, in Rathmines Town Hall. In this, his first reported political speech, he said the happiness and prosperity of the people depended on the election result; that the Cumann na nGaedheal candidates represented all classes and creeds; and that the removal of the Oath would be “the clearest breach of the Treaty”. 11
The following evening he spoke at an election meeting for Blythe in the Diamond in Monaghan Town. It was a colourful occasion. Blythe was met by “a torch-light procession … headed by Doohamlet warpipe band” as he entered the town, and the Cumann na nGaedheal speakers faced a rival Fianna Fáil rally a hundred yards away. 12 Judging by the account in the Irish Independent, Costello’s speech was a rather dry recitation of the legal arguments on the annuities question. 13 The following morning, the Attorney General tried to address an after-Mass crowd at Maheracloone Lower without much success. “When the congregation came out from Mass, they more or less lined up beside the ditch while Senator O’Rourke and I were maintaining a very precarious standing. And having lined up, a whistle was blown, and the entire congregation … walked away. And that was my first real entrance into practical politics …” 14 It could have been worse—Cumann na nGaedheal speakers at an after-Mass meeting at another Monaghan village, Latton, faced scuffles which had to be broken up by Gardaí with drawn batons. 15
It seems unlikely that the Attorney General’s intervention made much difference to the outcome, which saw Blythe hold his seat fairly comfortably (he was defeated in the following year’s snap election). But nationally, Cumann na nGaedheal didn’t fare so well, winning just 57 seats to Fianna Fáil’s 72, and losing office as de Valera was elected President of the Executive Council with the support of Labour. Cumann na nGaedheal’s defeat was probably inevitable thanks to the depression which followed the Wall Street Crash. But the party leadership, with the notable exception of Dick Mulcahy, certainly didn’t help matters by shunning the nuts and bolts of party organisation. W.T. Cosgrave told Garret FitzGerald in the 1960s that his Government had contained “a half-statesman, Kevin O’Higgins, but no politicians”. The former President said Desmond FitzGerald was “too busy arguing about theology with Father Cahill” to worry about party organisation, while Patrick McGilligan refused even to go to Cork for a meeting. 16 Fair criticism, no doubt—though the party leader was even more to blame than his ministers.
While Jack Costello was dipping his toe into political waters, his father had already plunged in. Following his retirement, and the death of his wife in July 1929, 17 John Costello ran for a seat on Dublin Corporation, being elected on three occasions for the North City (Number 3) electoral area. At the time of his first election in 1930 Cumann na nGaedheal did not contest local authority seats, as councils were regarded as non-party political. He ran instead under the banner of the “Greater Dublin Constitutional Group”, whose Chairman promised “to oppose all political discussion at Corporation meetings” in order “to secure the businesslike conduct of meetings, to enable the Corporation to concentrate on strictly Dublin affairs, and to avoid the introduction into local business of party bitterness and party wranglings, which has already done enough harm elsewhere”. 18
The new Councillor’s political tone was moderate and reasonable—arguing the case for negotiations to reach a settlement in the Economic War with Britain in a letter to the Irish Independent in August 1932: “One does not need to be a politician to realise the value of negotiation as a means of overcoming obstacles and arriving at a basis for agreement … Political parties might continue to express their opinions to very little purpose, unless the ordinary man in the street, who after all is the sufferer, stands up for his own rights and insists on immediate negotiations.” 19 He was also active on behalf of his constituents—his work was still remembered in Dublin North West in the 1950s, 20 to the advantage of his grandson Declan, a TD for the area.
By the time the 1933 local elections came round, it was decided that the Constitutional Group candidates should run under the Cumann na nGaedheal banner. Party secretary Liam Burke explained that the Constitutional Group was “unequipped with the necessary political machinery … to prevent … threatened personation” (i.e. vote stealing). Burke promised that after the election, the candidates would revert to their traditional view, and resist Fianna Fáil attempts to use the corporations as a vehicle for party politics. 21 John Costello lived up to this promise after retaining his seat and being elected Chairman of the Joint Committee of the Grangegorman Mental Hospital (which was at the end of the street on which he lived, Rathdown Road). At his first meeting as Chairman he sent a message to Fianna Fáil, then abstaining from the Corporation, expressing “the hope that at the next meeting they would have their absent colleagues”. 22 It was also on the Grangegorman Committee that he became friendly with fellow councillor Big Jim Larkin 23, a relationship which built bridges for his son with the Labour Party.
By 1936, John Costello was standing on the Fine Gael, or United Ireland Party, ticket. He had the backing of the Lord Mayor, Alfie Byrne, who included him on a list of candidates he urged the public to support. The Lord Mayor warned voters, “The Municipal council is not the place for politics. We have had too much politics in this country … Bands will play; slanderers will get busy; personators … will be active, and strenuous efforts will be made to make the Municipal Council a replica of An Dáil—a political machine where minorities must bow to force of numbers.” 24 It was to be Councillor Costello’s last election—in October 1936, a day after chairing a meeting of the Grangegorman Mental Health Committee, he became ill and died at the age of 74.
To return to his son’s entry into politics: when Cosgrave and his colleagues lost office in 1932, they were firmly convinced that their exile on the Opposition benches would be a short one, because de Valera and Fianna Fáil would be unable to govern responsibly. Their worst fears appeared to be realised, as the new Government released all political prisoners, suspended Article 2A and lifted the ban on the IRA—although, in a “deliberately conciliatory gesture”, de Valera appointed former Cumann na nGaedheal TD James Geoghegan as Minister for Justice. 25 So, when a new election was called in January 1933, Cumann na nGaedheal were confident of victory, a confidence boosted by what Costello later described as “huge demonstrations in Dublin and elsewhere”. 26 A contemporary account, albeit in a pro-Cosgrave paper, described the former President addressing “one of the largest political meetings that Dublin has witnessed for a generation”, with 500 Gardaí and “several hundred members of the Army Comrades Association” foiling attempts to disrupt it. 27 It was in this election campaign—“arguably the most bitter, turbulent and colourful in the history of independent Ireland” 28 —that John A. Costello first stood as a candidate.
He had already been selected to contest a by-election caused by the death of his friend and colleague at the Bar, Tom Finlay. Finlay had been in turn a District Justice, assistant secretary in the Department of Justice, practising barrister, and, from December 1930,TD for Dublin County. He had then won the by-election caused by the death of Major Bryan Cooper with a massive 35,362 votes to 15,024 for Fianna Fáil’s Conor Maguire. 29 In the 1932 general election, Finlay was re-elected on the first count, but in November 1932, he died of paratyphoid. According to the Anglo-Celt, the local paper in his native Cavan, news of his death “came as a terrific shock, causing strong men to weep like children”. No doubt the sorrow was genuine, although the fact that Finlay was a nephew of the Anglo-Celt editor may have affected the tone of the coverage. 30
Costello had been friendly with Finlay, in Government and at the Bar, and their wives were also close—Mrs Finlay was godmother to one of the Costello children. 31 A selection convention chose John A. Costello to contest the expected by-election. Not everyone was delighted—the candidate later related the response of one north County Dublin senator to his selection: “he said with deep disgust: ‘Another lawyer!’”. Costello’s election theme, he later recalled, was that Cumann na nGaedheal was a national rather than a sectional party. 32 He also stressed that W.T. Cosgrave would achieve “peace on decent terms with Great Britain … Cumann na nGaedheal was going to win this election, but they wanted a large majority.” 33 The eight-seat Dublin County constituency stretched from Balbriggan to Bray, and out as far as Tallaght and Firhouse. The new candidate “fell into every ditch in north County Dublin in the dark when I was trying to find my way round”. 34 He evidently discovered a fair few votes in those ditches, being elected on the first count with 10,941 first preferences, 890 over the quota. He was in third place behind Seán MacEntee of Fianna Fáil and Cumann na nGaedheal’s Henry Dockrell. Cosgrave’s party managed to retain its four seats in the constituency, while Fianna Fáil won a seat from Labour. But nationally, Cumann na nGaedheal had a disastrous election, dropping 9 seats to just 48, while de Valera won his first overall majority with 77 seats.
In opposition after a second defeat, party discipline quickly fell apart. Mulcahy complained to Cosgrave that front bench meetings were “almost impossible. They start late—with bad attendance and decide little if anything at all.” 35 A parliamentary party meeting chaired by Costello in June had to be abandoned “owing to the small attendance”. 36 The former ministers who survived the election were faced with the need to pick up the threads of their careers and earn a living. Just as the First World War had given Costello a chance to break into the Bar, so the shattered state of the parliamentary party offered him an opening in Cumann na nGaedheal. He was quickly playing a significant role in the parliamentary party, chairing a committee on External Affairs, and also one on meetings, which was “to receive reports from each Deputy as to his intentions and to see that a scheme of meetings was carried out”. 37 He was also to make an immediate impact in the Dáil chamber, thanks in large part to Fianna Fáil’s decision to sack Garda Commissioner Eoin O’Duffy.
Emboldened by his overall majority, de Valera moved to stamp his authority on the justice area. The only change to his cabinet was the replacement of Justice Minister Geoghegan, formerly of Cumann na nGaedheal, with P.J. Ruttledge, “a republican hardliner whose IRA sympathies were well known”. 38 On 22 February, the Executive Council decided to remove O’Duffy as Garda Commissioner. He was offered an alternative job, first as head of a new branch of the Department of Industry and Commerce dealing with mineral development, and after he rejected this, as Controller of Prices. O’Duffy rejected this offer too. 39 The curt letter of dismissal cited Section 2 of the Garda Síochána Act, 1924 as the legislative basis for the sacking. 40 When de Valera was challenged by Cosgrave about the sacking on 1 March, he again mentioned Section 2 of the 1924 Act. The President said no charge had been made against the general; he was removed because the Executive Council felt a change of commissioner was in the public interest. 41 Had Cumann na nGaedheal stayed in power they would have sacked O’Duffy too; but things look different from the Opposition benches. Cosgrave told his parliamentary party that the dismissal “might well be indicative of a change of policy as well as a change in personnel”, 42 and he put down a Dáil motion condemning the Government’s action.
But as the debate began, John A. Costello lobbed a legal hand grenade into the Dáil chamber—his first contribution in the House. He pointed out that the section of the Garda legislation cited by the Taoiseach had been repealed, and that O’Duffy “is neither in fact nor in law removed”. The Ceann Comhairle said he wasn’t going to interpret legislation and the debate continued, but Costello kept de Valera under pressure. The President sniffily suggested that “the former Attorney-General … should have known better” than to raise doubts over the legality of the dismissal. Costello in turn accused de Valera of making “an unworthy attack” on him. 43 It was an impressive debut for the new TD, an indication that his forensic legal skills would be a valuable addition to the Opposition. The next time a Garda Commissioner was removed, in 1978, officials duly noted the legal slip, pointing out that the incident “lends support to the wisdom of our present general practice of not quoting statutory authority for decisions taken by the Government”. 44
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think.
Who's your favorite turtle? Let us know who and why in the comments or on Twitter (@KnightofOA).Joel Matip, right, has played 12 Premier League games for Liverpool following his summer switch from German side Schalke
Liverpool withdrew Joel Matip from their squad to face Manchester United on Sunday because they are unsure about his international clearance.
Matip, 25, was named in Cameroon's preliminary squad for this month's Africa Cup of Nations, but the defender said he did not want to play.
He would have been in the squad, maybe on the pitch so I don't think it's fair Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp
He was not in the final 23-man squad, but the Reds are seeking "clarity" from Fifa about his availability.
Germany-born Matip has not featured for Cameroon since September 2015.
Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp said: "In our understanding, Joel is officially retired from international football.
"The club did everything we had to do to make this clear, but up until now we couldn't get the response we need to be 100% sure he can play.
"It's pretty difficult and really frustrating. He has been in training four or five days. He would have been in the squad, maybe on the pitch [against United] so I don't think it's fair."
Matip was one of seven of their players who said they did not want to play at the tournament in Gabon, which started on Saturday and runs until 5 February.
Another, West Brom full-back Allan Nyom, also failed to received international clearance and did not feature in his side's 4-0 defeat at Tottenham on Saturday.
The Cameroon football association (Fecafoot) can ask world governing body Fifa to suspend those players at club level for the duration of the event.
Liverpool said Fecafoot has failed to confirm whether centre-back Matip - who has made 12 Premier League appearances since moving to Anfield from German side Schalke in the summer - can continue to play club football.Bruce Arena says he hopes to have Clint Dempsey at his first United States training camp in January.
Dempsey, the U.S.'s second all-time leading scorer, has been sidelined since August with an irregular heartbeat that ruled him out for the Seattle Sounders' MLS playoff run.
He has returned to light jogging in training this month, and Arena said he was encouraged by the forward's recovery.
"I spoke to Clint yesterday he is making good progress," Arena told Fox Sports before the MLS Cup final on Saturday.
"Obviously his health is a priority. And we are hoping we can bring him into camp in January, just casually get back into the swing of things. Perhaps not even considering him playing.
"And then have him ready to go as Seattle starts their preseason [in February]. And then hopefully he's ready for the U.S. team when [World Cup] qualifiers come around."
Under Arena's predecessor, Jurgen Klinsmann, January camps primarily consisted of players based in North America. U.S. Soccer has not yet announced any friendlies for that period.
Dempsey's return for the World Cup qualifiers in late March against Honduras and Panama would be a big boost for the U.S., who are in last place in the final CONCACAF group after opening defeats to Mexico and Costa Rica.Traffic on this blog has been very high of late.
I have noted (and those who read the comments on this blog will also have noticed) that my blogs in support of government spending – which is the only (and I stress only) way to avoid depression in the UK and other economies - have not gone down well with the libertarian community. They think that all tax is theft; all government activity is bad and those who win a mandate for government spending from democratic electorates are ‚Äòstatists’.
These people – who wish to undermine society as we know it and who would end all social security, state pensions, public health services, state education and much more besides – want to overturn society as we know it. As one said recently – we should rely for support on our families churches, synagogues or mosques – but not the state.
This ignores the fact that many are simply outside those communities of support. For them I suspect the workhouse would beckon.
This Victorian concept of grudging charity is what these people promote – with the consequence of a random lottery of survival – and destitution for many.
I do not believe in this callous, self interested view of life. It offends my Christian beliefs that suggest we have a duty as a society to fulfil the instruction – present in all major religions – but not in libertarianism that we love our neighbour as ourselves.
Of course that requires that we love ourselves and that means we have rights – and that they should be respected. But there is no way on earthy civilised society can ignore the needs of others – and tax is the way we meet this need in our modern, complex society in which expectations of medical and social support are high –and the cost of meeting them as high.
Those who say otherwise are not offering an alternative within out society – they are suggesting we tear down our society and replace it with another. In doing so they show complete contempt for many, some (most, I suggest, by far)of whom are in the positions they are through no fault at all of their own. One on this blog has called those in need ‚Äòan underclass’.
I make clear I think this as repugnant as racism.
I would reject this language from a racist. I would reject a call from the far left to over throw society.
Why is it then that this vicious, self interested and, might I suggest inherently socially violent group are allowed to make this sort of contribution – as they do all over so many blogs where those with real concern for society, from across the mainstream political spectrum, seek to discuss issues in an open, rational and respectful fashion?
I would love, for example, to see far-right libertarians thrown off the Guardian bogs as a matter of course – which might improve their appeal to many others as a result.
It is time we named these people for what they are – as being amongst the enemies of civilised society.
I am happy to do that. It would be good if others would do the same – and fight them as we do racists.
NB: Comments from known libertarian abusers will not be allowed on this blog entry, or any other on this site.Just in time to get geared up for another season, Vail Resorts recently named Mike Goar as the Tahoe-region vice president and Heavenly chief operating officer. Goar brings over 40 years of ski industry experience, and prior to arriving at Lake Tahoe, he was VP and COO at Vail's Keystone Resort in Colorado.
In his new position, Goar will be overseeing Heavenly, Kirkwood and Northstar.
Goar replaces Pete Sonntag, who is transitioning into his new role as Whistler Blackcomb's COO.
"I'm very exited to be here," Goar told the Tribune. "I knew quite a few of my co-workers before I got here and the reputation they and Heavenly have — and all of the resorts in Tahoe — they all have a wonderful reputation. We're quite proud of the work our three resorts do. That's probably the most exciting thing, to come here and be a part of those teams. It's quite an honor to be joining them. "
Skiing has always been a big part of Goar's life and the sport really drew him in as a young person.
"I was just so drawn to the sport," said Goar. "The passion and energy was such an amazing experience. I started out working part-time at a ski resort and got the feeling this was what I wanted out of a career."
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Goar has been with Vail Resorts since 2007 when it acquired Utah's Canyons Resort, where Goar was the general manager and was at the helm of directing $37-million in capital improvement projects that included everything from new lifts to restaurant offerings.
Improvements come in various forms, according to Goar, and he and his team try to evaluate what to do based on both the guest and employee experience.
"Our decisions are based on the experience of our guests and our employees," said Goar. "Sometimes those are major capital projects and sometimes they're operational."
Currently, Goar and his team have been looking at a few different capital projects that may come to fruition soon, but they're still very much in the assessment stage.
"We're looking at those projects and we evaluate them on what they can do to enhance the guest experience," he said. "As we get into those projects a bit deeper, we'll revisit the priorities and look at where the opportunities lie to make the greatest impact."
One the biggest impact projects Vail Resorts is undertaking is its move to reduce environmental impact. According to Vail, they plan to have a zero footprint by eliminating emissions and delivering no waste to landfills — all by 2030.
"This announcement is every bit impactful and certainly exciting as an acquisition," said Goar. "This has said more about our company and what we stand for, what we think we can do. And really putting a stake in the ground by saying over the next 13 years, we're going to strive to have zero net emissions, zero landfill waste and zero net impact in our operating environment. It's exciting and our employees are so proud that the company has taken this on."
Goar wants guests to have the best experience they can at any property Vail owns, whether it's by being more environmentally conscious or just creating a memorable experience.
"They're going to experience a big mountain with a great product, friendly employees, and people that are going to take care of them," said Goar. "Our focus on who our customer is and what they want — we will continue to build on that and we will grow our business.
Goar isn't all business all the time, though. He said he still hits the slopes fairly often and still enjoys it as much as he did as a young man.
"I absolutely get out and it's a requirement of the job," said Goar. "I work with our staff, see our guests and sample the product."While millions of tourists flock each year to the boardwalks and casinos of Atlantic City, a dark question looms over this glittery city: Who murdered four women and dumped their bodies in a drainage ditch on the outskirts of town nearly seven years ago?
No arrests have ever been made, but authorities tell FoxNews.com they are quietly and aggressively working the case – contacting police in Florida, Missouri and Alaska in recent months for possible connections to killings there.
On Nov. 20, 2006, two women stumbled upon the body of 35-year-old Kim Raffo – lying face-down in run-off water filled with fecal matter and chemical waste about 50 yards behind the Golden Key Motel in West Atlantic City.
The call to police that followed uncovered a ghastly scene: the bodies of three other women, also in the ditch – their remains separated by no more than 50 yards.
“This fits the FBI definition of a serial killer,” Atlantic County Prosecutor James P. McClain said in an interview last week. “From the facts gathered during the investigation, it could have been a local person or it could have been a transient.”
Raffo, Tracy Ann Roberts, 23, Barbara Breidor, 42, and Molly Dilts, 19, all worked as prostitutes in the area. The women were also mothers who had fled dysfunctional lives and found themselves walking the streets of Atlantic City and booking clients to make money and, in some cases, feed drug addictions.
Dilts, who was killed a month prior to being found, was so badly decomposed that a cause of death could not be determined. The same was true for Breidor. Roberts was asphyxiated, authorities determined, and Raffo – the most recent victim – was strangled with a rope or cord. The women were barefoot, but fully clothed – their heads facing East toward the lights of the casinos. The medical examiner detected high levels of a recreational drug in three of the bodies.
Police have never named a suspect in the case. But McClain said authorities have identified “more than one” person of interest, though he declined to provide names.
Terry Oleson, a 41-year-old handyman from Alloway, N.J., was of great interest to police from the beginning. Oleson, who said he is innocent, was living in the Golden Key Motel – a seedy lodging notorious for drugs and prostitution – at the time of the murders. Oleson told FoxNews.com that he was repairing a friend’s porch in the area and needed a place to stay nearby because his home in Alloway was some 60 miles away. Oleson lived in a room at the Golden Key for free in exchange for doing occasional repairs on the motel’s sinks and toilets.
After watching news of the murders on television, Oleson’s then-girlfriend called police and implicated him in the crimes. Oleson said the two were in a domestic dispute and on the verge of breaking up, calling her actions vindictive.
Oleson said he was interrogated by police without a lawyer for up to eight hours – during which he claims police said, “We know you did it.”
When detectives arrived at Oleson’s home in Alloway, they discovered hidden video cameras that only heightened their interest. One camera, inside the home, captured the teenage daughter of Oleson’s girlfriend in various stages of undress, according to investigators. Oleson said he was not aware of such images at the time, and later pleaded guilty to an "invasion of privacy" charge.
Oleson submitted DNA samples to authorities, but no forensic match has been made between Oleson and the victims, according to his attorney, James Leonard.
“To date, we’ve never heard what the results are but I think you can draw those conclusions,” said Leonard, who, with Oleson, spoke to Fox News in a sit-down interview. “We wouldn’t be sitting here today if Mr. Oleson’s DNA linked him in any way, shape or form to any of these women.”
“I think he [Oleson] presented an easy target to them,” Leonard said.
Adding to the mystery, self-described sex worker, Denise Hill, identified another individual as the killer – a man named Eldred Raymond Burchell, who called himself the “River Man,” an apparent reference to Washington state’s “Green River Killer,” who murdered at least 71 women – many prostitutes – during the 1980s and 1990s.
Hill told FoxNews.com that Burchell, a drifter, spent time with her in Atlantic City around the time of the murders and confessed to killing people. Burchell, whose whereabouts is unknown, could not be reached for comment.
McClain said a common myth about serial killers is that they cannot stop of their own volition – a mistruth that has some convinced the killer is either incarcerated or dead.
“It is not unknown or even rare for serial killers to engage in a series of killings, which qualify as serial murders, and they do stop – either because they have no more opportunity or because they deal with the root cause of why they kill in a different way,” McClain said.
He also addressed common perceptions that police agencies care little about the disappearances and deaths of those who work in the sex trade.
“No one should ever think that because someone works as a prostitute or works in the sex trade that they’re not going to get law enforcement’s best efforts. Everybody counts. Every person’s a child of God. We are never going to give up on it until we charge and convict someone,” said McClain, the third prosecutor to take office since the 2006 murders. “I have great hope in justice. I’ll never give up on that.”
Kate D’Adamo, spokeswoman for the New Your-based Sex Workers Outreach Project, said it’s likely other women encountered the killer but did not report it to police for fear of a prostitution arrest.
D’Adamo said that, despite societal opinion, sex workers “span every different identity that you could ever imagine” – and that their decision to enter the trade is almost always an economic one.
“I think we should strive to live in a society where we don’t qualify the victims and decide based on our moral judgments whether or not they should have access to justice,” she said.
Anyone with information on these murders is urged to call the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office at 609-909-7800 or go to the prosecutor’s office website at http://www.acpo.org/tips.html and provide information by filling out the form anonymously on the "Submit a Tip" page. Individuals can also call Crime Stoppers at 609-652-1234 or 1-800-658-8477 (TIPS). Crime Stoppers offers cash rewards for information leading to the arrest and indictment of those who commit crimes in Atlantic City.
E-mail this reporter with news tips at cristina.corbin@foxnews.com.Last year, while writing about the first Dishonored, Gita Jackson was fascinated “that Arkane Studios thought so much about the world they were creating that they even thought about the fashion.” Dishonored 2 is now out, and if anything Arkane spent even more attention on how their characters dress. They even brought in professional help for their two female leads, Emily Kaldwin and the diabolical Delilah, hiring renowned Spanish fashion designer Maya Hansen to create their outfits.
Born and raised in Madrid, Hansen’s designs have been worn by Lady Gaga, Kylie Jenner, Italian pop singer Laura Pausini, and RuPaul’s Drag Race winner Violet Chachki, among other celebrities. She uses a variety of fabrics and materials to create forward-looking fashions that echo corsetry from various historical eras, and that makes her a perfect choice to design clothes for Dishonored 2’s pseudo-Victorian setting.
Although Hansen has worked with musicians, painters and other artists before, Dishonored 2 is her first videogame work. It’s a collaboration that she found creatively fulfilling. “I found it very interesting working on a character from the designs and ideas that have been created for the videogame since we, as fashion designers, can contribute our own point of view to support the development of the videogame story,” she says.
“It’s really fascinating to discover how extensively the designers of the videogame developed [both Delilah and Emily],” Hansen says. “It was impressive to receive so much information in advance. Once we started defining their style, it was relatively easy to offer different possibilities. It’s very interesting to have that much information about the characters for which you are going to design something, because they are the ones that will tell you what kind of fabric, what colors, or what shapes they would like to wear.”
In order to give us a better look at that collaboration, Hansen, Arkane Studios and Bethesda Softworks have shared a number of images from the design process. Over the next few pages you can follow Emily and Delilah’s outfits from Hansen’s original sketches, to their refinement through a gallery of concept art, to their final appearance both in the game and in the real world. You can click on any image to open up a larger image to inspect any details more closely. Along the way Hansen will share insights from her first videogame work. If you’re at all interested in fashion, be it in life or in games, this should be an illuminating look at the process.
All quotes by Maya Hansen.
The Original Sketches
DELILAH
“Delilah is a woman with a strong inner life, a very tormented person. That might be the reason why her clothing is so theatrical and dramatic. She has this need to express that she’s been through a lot and that her life matters.”
EMILY KALDWIN
“Emily is a very dynamic character and she feels very modern and mysterious at the same time.”
The Concept Art
DELILAH REFERENCES
“I wanted to highlight [Delilah’s] figure and that’s the reason we chose to use a corset on top of the skirt. It was a way to rescue that Victorian feel of the game and to emphasize the complexity of the character by superposing clothes.”
EMILY COLOR REFERENCES, ARM DETAILS, PORTRAIT AND COSTUME STUDY
”[Emily] seems to have a darkness about her and this is what we wanted to highlight; that’s the reason we went with black for her clothes and why we thought she had to use technical materials like neoprene and fishnets, but also comfortable materials that allow mobility and adapt to her athletic body shape. All of her clothing is basically black except for a few golden patterns that show, again, a more classical, intricate and opulent style.”
The Screenshots
“I found [Dishonored 2’s] concept very interesting and inspiring. The combination of Victorian aesthetics with dark characters and a touch of steampunk is something that has been present during the process, and I have also been using these a lot in my collections. I enjoyed…being able to expand such an inspiration in several different and more innovative directions that maybe the game designers didn’t think about.”
DELILAH
[On designing clothes for fantasy characters in different time periods, as opposed to making clothes for our real world today]
“We have more freedom in the sense that, although we follow a particular historical moment dated at the end of the twentieth century with a certain steampunk, neogothic influence, since it’s a fantasy world, you can allow different ideas to what was used in that period in the real world. That applies to all the details in the clothing, brooches, lapels, fabrics and so on.”
EMILY
In the Real World
[On if she could see people wearing this style of clothes in our world today]
“Yes, of course. A lot of the garments come from similar patterns that we have designed in previous collections and, as a matter of fact, our forte is creating garments that step away from the conventional.”
DELILAH
[On if she’s seen people wear clothes like this in public today]
“Yes, indeed, and even more extreme versions. You just have to look in the right places. If you travel to Leipzig during Whitsuntide, you will have the chance to see the Wave Gothik Treffen. We’ve been going there for six years in a row and we have enjoyed the creativity of the people. If you go there, you will be able to see thousands of people with the most varied outfits that follow this dark Victorian style. It’s amazing how much dedication and passion they have. We’ve created many of those outfits.”
EMILYRep. Martin Sabo, D-Minn., announced his retirement in Minneapolis in 2006. He began his Congressional career in 1978.
Updated: 1:25 p.m. | Posted: 10:55 a.m.
Former U.S. Rep. Martin Olav Sabo, a longtime Minnesota congressman whose quiet Scandinavian demeanor conveyed a sense of civility during increasingly partisan times in Washington, has died at age 78.
Sabo died Sunday morning at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis, according to his daughter, Karin Mantor. She said her father, a longtime smoker who was on oxygen, had been hospitalized for a week because he was having trouble breathing. Doctors discovered Sabo had a mild case of pneumonia, Mantor said, but the cause of death was not immediately known.
Sabo served 28 years in the U.S. House, easily winning each re-election and eventually rising to House Budget Committee chairman. The Minneapolis Democrat announced his retirement in 2006 and was succeeded by fellow Democrat Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to the House.
Minnesota politicians praised Sabo, a Norwegian Lutheran, for his understated manner and ability to deliver millions of dollars to the Twin Cities for road and housing projects, including the Hiawatha Avenue light-rail line and the Minneapolis Veterans Medical Center. The Martin Olav Sabo Bridge, a 215-foot-long suspension bridge for bicyclists and pedestrians in Minneapolis, is named in his honor.
Gov. Mark Dayton said Minnesota has important infrastructure projects because of Sabo's senior position on the House Appropriations Committee. The Democratic governor called Sabo "a great political leader and outstanding public servant."
U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., recalled Sabo agreeing to do joint lawn signs with her when she first ran for Hennepin County attorney.
Rep. Martin Olav Sabo, D-Minn., center, flanked by Rep. Mark Kennedy, R-Minn., left, and Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn., took part in a Capitol Hill news conference in 2001 calling on Major League Baseball to save the Minnesota Twins from contraction. Stephen J. Boitano | AP 2001
"He was a veteran congressman and I was a political rookie, but he didn't hesitate to help. He saw it as part of his job to help young people get started in politics," Klobuchar said in a statement.
Before being elected to Congress, the North Dakota native served 18 years in the Minnesota Legislature, where he was first elected in 1960 at age 22 and rose to House minority leader, and then speaker.
"Sabo's quiet leadership style and dedication to his district are a true inspiration. He showed us the progress that can be made when Democrats and Republicans work across the aisle for the common good," Minnesota DFL Chairman Ken Martin said in a statement.
In announcing his retirement after a 46-year-old political career, Sabo called putting together the 1993 federal budget as House Budget Committee chairman one of his proudest accomplishments. He also cited the so-called Minnesota Miracle — the 1971 Legislature's groundbreaking overhaul of the state's school funding system — as a major success.
Sabo also took pride in never publicly disparaging another politician. He said Congress had become more polarized during his time there.
"I've always believed the fundamental problem with politics today are people who over-promise and overstate. I've tried to do the opposite," Sabo said. "I've also tried to treat my colleagues with respect. I don't recall ever making a public statement critical of my colleague, whether it's Democrat or Republican."
Funeral arrangements are pending.This email has also been verified by ccsend.com DKIM 1024-bit RSA key
Labor Day Weekend "No Apologies" Edition
From:sarah@democracyinamericas.org To: john.podesta@gmail.com Date: 2014-08-29 21:16 Subject: Labor Day Weekend "No Apologies" Edition
Having trouble viewing this message? Click Here http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?ca=cc5c3626-7531-4b04-a4db-4201c8c0c432&c=956d1ad0-c97c-11e3-8117-d4ae5292c4bc&ch=95735c60-c97c-11e3-8117-d4ae5292c4bc ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ August 29, 2014 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Dear Friends: Thank you for welcoming us back. While we were on holiday last week, the Associated Press [http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001TVq889wnGDB-r09Z1LH-VUum-YfBXKTFufxI-TBag62ZbCTgXq_908LNI6PHOJNTK58yu_KR2lF2C7ySuMO1meNG9kRu776xoqQ4mzZVABcYaroFZZRBGCpEQrQjEx3NBfJJhe84htOcMWdxkuuAmNj2fkakfPcaiJRYOYLWsQThGggf4Nnzn_BLg0ZTtJ1BuoLrrhcEcOZ7juyeZEZIIfT0S5d3JH7z0VXlPe1GFkJp-nNSpLKJIJpx38a69_SGkSl3-C-cbsSrxVPh6biIWKVNQhB5OTO2fIxAgsnwQfbrrRzhbhoj10Y9tQH4I65sM3K7BVbt2APqVqpy6RHBS_-TevjA-QJ_Fen0J0VyBn94Yx1lw9u9WPKxL6iQ0eF-pfMdRQHufW4=&c=yFZNNLc2IoAFZRgA5xaVu91kAR81fYouyCvcm1O6NqrbPNxvBeFbUA==&ch=RXqCTTIHO8-C7EXtK0hxCtCfRNDwvUTcC1kIvd0WZMTPAtyxmig4ow==] reported, "The U.S. Treasury Department's inspector general has determined Jay-Z and Beyoncé's fifth-anniversary trip to Cuba last year was legal under rules allowing educational travel to the island." Did the AP get this story wrong? After all, Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart reached his own conclusion [http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001TVq889wnGDB-r09Z1LH-VUum-YfBXKTFufxI-TBag62ZbCTgXq_908LNI6PHOJNTeapjzHqT9rqXlEezzCJOS8zhFe8UFJRYoyuMRJzjAeydBPCKypWycF2paWCgriLgorZFAb7xji7gxZ-VD8_U-n0lpYmvQ7e_JK_vCIB0CH2HbwsgPX5mcPtCJtet4djkPy5Czfd-m89RPFXokloaSKu7ransMxzBmqRh5hIPftWQOj4lZdSS71s-dbm4Vx1eQ65fQezyCZd-RnLXVB0OpEu6u2MoZADfRIMfxQ9I0uryYfIl6B60JF3nnxFX0GwELz6Lj_Ctmcr9vJJc9nNA2vFdI1pYjpdy6n8yTzmf5xD8aNBU502ZAwNdJ7_rPdvXC6L49ln4tCG6-0fyWQ2bOOF3VPS14Wtlr5COQhqxkrh0U9UeuEfO3AYF3jCh9daHsc3Xq13vjZI=&c=yFZNNLc2IoAFZRgA5xaVu91kAR81fYouyCvcm1O6NqrbPNxvBeFbUA==&ch=RXqCTTIHO8-C7EXtK0hxCtCfRNDwvUTcC1kIvd0WZMTPAtyxmig4ow==] more than one year ago without going through the "formality" of an investigation: "It has become obvious that, in this case, the line into tourism was crossed. The Beyoncé and Jay-Z trip is a high profile example of why the 'people-to-people' category of travel should be eliminated. It amounts to tourism." Yet, after the Inspector General issued a report saying, "we believe OFAC's determination that there was no apparent violation of U.S. sanctions with respect to Jay-Z and Beyoncé's trip to Cuba was reasonable (emphasis added)," we visited the Congressman's Media Center [http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001TVq889wnGDB-r09Z1LH-VUum-YfBXKTFufxI-TBag62ZbCTgXq_908LNI6PHOJNT5-h8mMELPWFwg_oUUCSuXFwhJdBmX2WaO6bKF4BU2Itshp_qkRtA0bbXiv_K7XP4tAjeyhD-Dj7Q7dvyqx6XZkp8rtjcQrlT5zI30lgccja_AmWaWq1CFCY4wrHOhxkcymn1g6GhbrBPam_OPaQD4qvw6oSweF9HcdrCrgjxBLT9vXOAf4iPl5DoiCTagCXhMox8jDBvhIEQBXfrML7PKJrN_dtA4RxH-YYrEwYKuKg9qpkuwHPKZKGiX4Rn5OwBNDli3LKfRYcp3g-xDsUrfN-f868QIxga&c=yFZNNLc2IoAFZRgA5xaVu91kAR81fYouyCvcm1O6NqrbPNxvBeFbUA==&ch=RXqCTTIHO8-C7EXtK0hxCtCfRNDwvUTcC1kIvd0WZMTPAtyxmig4ow==] and found no evidence that he'd retracted his statement. As Stephen Colbert [http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001TVq889wnGDB-r09Z1LH-VUum-YfBXKTFufxI-TBag62ZbCTgXq_908LNI6PHOJNT_knqAvx56vuXRBSdge_nSlBpfwb7Yt42CqRsYvLsjQ15NeqceJfz3XoEQdjyAXWjGG2XZUanbF6TVxGM96mhgISknw8saA733SXu7UVdKJEFuN7QrDxwQ4aiHzoEYLsLoVFOn114zLaUey6XLKIvLV5CBxMFiSW-pgiZqEZDzLy1UNwZJqss6jUPFyiOIgPHZ5UnH3ls4mH5l2v44etlXpyVZoQNmvRFL5U2fBc-2sBt3a6PNjrzHe7U8eO4XhugYCrjAkddGf5OqPtjev2Fe3cUc2LF9PRJ&c=yFZNNLc2IoAFZRgA5xaVu91kAR81fYouyCvcm1O6NqrbPNxvBeFbUA==&ch=RXqCTTIHO8-C7EXtK0hxCtCfRNDwvUTcC1kIvd0WZMTPAtyxmig4ow==] is fond of saying, we accept your apology. Time and again, we've seen this "never explain, never apologize, never retract" strategy used by hardline defenders of U.S. sanctions over the years. Remember when Cuba's government scrapped the exit visa requirement established five decades ago that made it impossible for nearly all of Cuba's citizens to travel abroad? At that time, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen [http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001TVq889wnGDB-r09Z1LH-VUum-YfBXKTFufxI-TBag62ZbCTgXq_908LNI6PHOJNTkZifeoPrXulkhWjGNUBr8sv3Nyu-GTwEZMTaEWybr_p7cQjhgntV02SSr3g_AvuG0bZCEjZPbrrGf0zwKt_Re4WqttrAjkiveDEDpMIUxxQnQdegW92jHRAxaOKK0r8m3E4OONrjLPwfNOgS14tuJQrthgFwA6dUij_8CBa5wyIabKEvWPRqj0qwDvKvkZlJh3Bgieaq3iWck_Zcajy-GTxMEyw7iuF-5oT0-bZIQCb64jMjzwDS921KHhFQuixAtpEjllsjB4kPHmV3jjoBcdq8HWfuiLufml1fg5vStYO0JGSIrHb6fSJ1BWwIu85V888Ti5_AJyJfFUJ9bxhbjfwB0uU6naF9kzh7EMKwt0Y=&c=yFZNNLc2IoAFZRgA5xaVu91kAR81fYouyCvcm1O6NqrbPNxvBeFbUA==&ch=RXqCTTIHO8-C7EXtK0hxCtCfRNDwvUTcC1kIvd0WZMTPAtyxmig4ow==] dismissed the reform as propaganda. She said, "These so-called reforms are nothing more than Raúl Castro's desperate attempts to fool the world into thinking that Cuba is changing, but anyone who knows anything about the communist 53-year old Castro dictatorship knows that Cuba will only be free when the Castro family and its lackeys are no longer on the scene." On behalf of the 185,000 plus Cubans who traveled abroad last year, including 66,000 to the U.S., and on behalf of Cuban dissidents -Guillermo Fariñas [http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001TVq889wnGDB-r09Z1LH-VUum-YfBXKTFufxI-TBag62ZbCTgXq_908LNI6PHOJNTjxBkzEiIb7_Lq7XX0dKHT8LBqNrr7CFxC5xWtsPX4YJqcHIf2PpLQdDr5_mdQIXq7T6eMnT3V48GceOyaVVqKyb2e0HowUM_QLCUCk7rby-TlhVEsMCpTp365fgmism1TtxRORJpJIdu77g7qLWW1O--6KhE0bcqM_XIMj0mb-sICZZjALsbjhyWUiPTIHOessy3k-Zt7kS4ZeeJQrjYorujUeP_rhXUAa2 |
mg per deciliter) target range was significantly greater with the closed-loop system (P<0.001). The time that the glucose level was below 50 mg per deciliter over the 24-hour period tended to be lower with the closed-loop system than with the control system (P=0.05). The burden of hypoglycemia during the 24-hour period, as measured by the area under the curve when the sensor glucose level was less than 63 mg per deciliter, was significantly lower by 42% (95% CI, 4 to 65) during the intervention period than during the control period (P=0.03).
The comparison of end points during daytime is shown in Table S2 in the Supplementary Appendix. The mean glucose level and the proportions of time spent within, above, and below the wider target range were similar during the two study periods. The area under the curve when the sensor glucose level was less than 63 mg per deciliter was significantly lower during the intervention period than during the control period (P=0.04). The time that the glucose level was below 50 mg per deciliter tended to be lower during the intervention period than during the control period (P=0.07), a finding that was attributed to the fact that the amount of time that the level was below 50 mg per deciliter was 79% (95% CI, 34 to 93) lower in the intervention period than in the control period during the post-breakfast time period (8:01 a.m. to 11:59 a.m.) (P=0.01).
Adverse Events
Table 3. Table 3. Adverse Events.
Details of all the adverse events are provided in Table 3. One episode of severe hypoglycemia occurred in an adult participant during the intervention period when the closed-loop system was not in use because of loss of connectivity (low battery) and the participant was receiving insulin at the rate supplied by the study insulin pump (Fig. S5 in the Supplementary Appendix). In the study involving children and adolescents, one adolescent participant had two severe hypoglycemic episodes (seizures) during the intervention period; these episodes required third-party assistance but did not result in hospital admission (Fig. S6 and S7 in the Supplementary Appendix). During the two episodes, the closed-loop system was not in use (closed-loop system not turned on and lack of pump connectivity) and the participant was using sensor-augmented pump therapy. The adult and adolescent participants both recovered fully, without clinical sequelae.There has been a ton of buzz surrounding argan oil lately, and for good reason. Trumpeted in the natural hair community for years, this amber-tinged oil effectively nixes frizz and leaves hair feeling ridiculously silky and smooth. But if you aren't using your hair oil the correct way, it may actually dry out your strands. Learn all about the how and why of argan oil when you read on.
"The molecules in argan oil are too large to penetrate your hair cuticle," says celebrity hairstylist Mark Townsend, who has worked with stars like Natalie Portman and Christina Aguilera. "Since it can't penetrate, it actually just sits on top of your hair." This can be a problem if you're using it when your hair is wet, or if you're using too much. Applying the oil to damp strands before drying will leave your hair feeling smooth for a while, but over time it can actually dry out your hair. "The argan oil winds up creating a barrier on top of your hair, which blocks out any moisturizer trying to get in," Townsend says.
But don't toss your argan oil out the window just yet. If you know how to use it correctly, it can still be an effective tool for kissing frizz goodbye. Only use one to two pumps of the stuff on dry hair to seal in moisture you've already put into it (like a leave-in conditioner). This makes sure your hair-quenching products stay put while still flattening frizz, and your hair won't become bone-dry over time. And your love affair with argan oil can continue.The sexual left wants someone’s head, now that it’s compelled the Vatican to backtrack on support for Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis.
Liberals are now campaigning for Pope Francis to fire Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, who serves in the influential post of Papal Nuncio to the United States, one of the Church’s most important diplomatic postings.
Vigano is credited with setting up the now controversial meeting between the Pope and Kentucky Council clerk Kim Davis that was immediately denounced by advocates for gay marriage.
One of the groups calling for his head includes the George Soros-funded “Faithful America” that is running an online petition for his firing.
“After days of speculation, the truth has finally come out: Pope Francis did not hold a private meeting to express his support for Kim Davis’s efforts to block gay marriage licenses,” the petition begins.
Faithful America is a leftist pressure group formed to attack and punish those who oppose gay marriage and, according to their website, oppose fracking. They say the are “…sick of sitting by quietly while Jesus’ message of good news is hijacked by the religious right to serve a hateful political agenda.”
On their website is a picture of former Bishops Gene Robinson, who was the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church and who is now the first divorced gay bishop of the Episcopal Church.
Their petition, which seeks 15,000 signatures, claims: “Inviting Kim Davis to a reception with Pope Francis undermined the pope’s message to the United States and was a mean-spirited insult to the Kentucky couples whose marriage licenses she has tried to deny. For the good of the church, please resign immediately and allow Pope Francis to appoint a new apostolic nuncio.”
Anonymous sources told the New York Times that it is expected the Pope will fire Vigano “at the first respectable opportunity” though it should be pointed out that Vigano is 75, the age at which all Bishops are required to resign.
It is likely that when his resignation is accepted, the sexual left will do a victory dance and take credit.
Follow Austin Ruse on Twitter @austinruseATHENS, GA—Thirty-seven record-store clerks are missing and feared dead in the aftermath of a partial roof collapse during a Yo La Tengo concert Monday.
"We're trying our best to rescue these clerks, but, realistically, there's not a lot of hope," said emergency worker Len Guzman, standing outside the 40 Watt Club, where the tragedy occurred. "These people are simply not in the physical condition to survive this sort of trauma. It's just a twisted mass of black-frame glasses and ironic Girl Scouts T-shirts in there."
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Also believed to be among the missing are seven freelance rock critics, five vinyl junkies, two 'zine publishers, an art-school dropout, and a college-radio DJ.
The collapse occurred approximately 30 minutes into the Hoboken, NJ, band's set, when a poorly installed rooftop heating-and-cooling unit came loose and crashed through the roof, bringing several massive steel beams down with it.
Andy Ringler, an assistant manager at Wuxtry Records, sustained head trauma when he ran back into the building to rescue a fellow clerk.
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"I just had to help," said Ringler, listed in stable condition at a nearby hospital. "I saw all these people coming out bleeding and dazed. I gave up my vintage Galaxie 500 shirt just to help some guy bandage his arm. It was horrible."
Added Ringler: "I just pray they can somehow get this club rebuilt in time for next month's Dismemberment Plan/Death Cab For Cutie show. That's a fantastic double bill."
Joe Gaer was among the lucky record-store clerks who escaped unscathed.
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"I was in the bathroom when it happened," said Gaer, a part-time cashier at School Kids Records. "There was this loud crashing sound, followed by even louder crashing, and then all these screams. If I hadn't left to take a leak during 'Moby Octopad'—to be honest, never one of my favorite songs on I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One—I'd probably be among the dead."
"It's just tragic," Gaer continued. "I heard they were going to play Daniel Johnston's 'Speeding Motorcycle.' They almost never do that one live."
Devastated by the disaster, Athens record-store owners are still holding out hope that their employees are still alive.
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"All I can do is wait and pray they'll find them," said Bert's Discount Records owner Bert Halyard, who lost clerks Todd Fischer and Dan Harris in the collapse. "They were going to start an experimental/math-rock band together. Dan had a really nice Moog synthesizer and an original pressing of the first Squirrel Bait EP."
As of press time, police and emergency rescue workers were still sifting through the wreckage for copies of Magnet, heated debates over the definition of emo, and other signs of record-store-clerk life.
"I haven't seen this much senseless hipster carnage since the Great Sebadoh Fire Of '93," said rescue worker Larry Kolterman, finding a green-and-gold suede Puma sneaker in the rubble. "It's such a shame that all those bastions of indie-rock geekitude had to go in their prime. Their cries of'sellout' have been forever silenced."David French, an Army veteran and conservative columnist for National Review, considered running for president earlier this year. Prominent Republicans, notably Bill Kristol, were contemptuous of Donald Trump but entirely opposed to Hillary Clinton. They needed an alternative, someone who would allow them to vote their conscience and, perhaps more importantly, someone who would undercut Trump’s bid.
They recruited French.
A Bronze Star recipient and a respected constitutional lawyer, French checked all the right boxes. Had he run, he almost certainly would have lost. Still, though, he might have changed the conversation on the right, and at the very least he would have given Republicans someone else to vote for besides Trump.
But French decided against it in the end. What happened after he declined to run is now the bigger story.
In a disturbingly raw piece for National Review last week, French discussed the torrent of abuse unleashed on his family by alt-right fanatics and Trump supporters. The harassment began in 2015 when French was publicly critical of Trump, but it escalated when his name was leaked as a possible third-party candidate.
“I saw images of my daughter’s face [an Ethiopian girl French adopted] in gas chambers, with a smiling Trump in a Nazi uniform preparing to press a button and kill her,” French writes. “I saw her face photo-shopped into images of slaves. She was called a ‘niglet’ and a ‘dindu.’”
And that’s just the beginning. The details are grotesque, and stretch far beyond online trolling.
On Wednesday, I spoke to French about his piece and about his decision not to run for president. I asked him if he had any regrets, if he’s surprised by the abuse he and his family have suffered at the hands of Trump supporters, and just how dangerous he thinks this political moment has become.
Our conversation, edited for clarity and length, follows.
Sean Illing
First, I have to say your last piece was just brutal to read. Can you explain what has happened to you and your family since your name was leaked as a possible third-party, anti-Trump candidate?
David French
Sure. You know, even before that, I had been opposed to Trump publicly, and that had exposed us to what I call round one of the online hate. And round one was really brutal all on its own. It began with a series of tweets that were mainly aimed at my youngest daughter, who’s now 8 years old — at the time she was 7. She’s African American, adopted from Ethiopia, and just the sweetest kid you’ll ever meet in your life, and her face was photoshopped onto gas chamber images with Donald Trump’s face in an SS Nazi uniform, with him pushing the gas button to kill her.
Her face was photoshopped into slave images. She was called every racial slur imaginable. I was accused of “race cucking” the white race, an absurd term in the alt-right world, which simply says I’m engaging in inappropriate race mixing. They would tweet at me saying my daughter was going to grow up and kill me. And that was just round one — it got much worse.
They found my wife’s blog on Patheos, which is a religious website, and they began to put images of murdered African-American men on the comment board. Fortunately my wife didn’t see it — she was out of town at a veterans’ benefit in DC. I looked at it and began to frantically scrub the website before she or my children could see those images.
Sadly, some of my neighbors and friends saw the pictures, and they began to be concerned for our safety and for their own, because they live right around us. So that was round one.
Then round two happened when I talked to Bill Kristol about the possibility of mounting an admittedly long-shot independent run against Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. And the trolls came in force once again with all the same sorts of images. They launched a series of taunts at me that they were having sex with my wife, which was particularly hurtful and harmful because my wife is a survivor of sex abuse.
And then it got worse as things moved from Twitter to email. We had a very deeply disturbing email death threat, and then just a couple of weeks ago my wife was talking on the telephone with her father and a person broke into the call. It sounds crazy, but it happened. A man started screaming profanities at her and my elderly father-in-law about Donald Trump. We immediately contacted law enforcement, and they’re trying to figure out what happened.
So that’s sort of the Reader’s Digest version of a pretty sordid and terrible last year of our lives.
Sean Illing
That’s incredible, and obviously we’re not merely talking about online trolling here. We’re well beyond that.
David French
Oh, absolutely. Even if it’s just confined to online trolling, anytime people are putting on your own timeline or in your wife’s comment section of her blog images of murdered men and women and children — that is deeply disturbing. And these images were so graphic that had I not been a veteran in Iraq during the surge and seen worse things in real life, it would have been the kind of images that can really scar you. God forbid my kids having to see such things.
So you just can’t imagine the impact, and it’s hard to talk about it because you don’t want to give the trolls any sense that they’ve gotten to you, that they’ve in any way caused any form of emotional distress, because they feed on that. But at the same time, if you just sit there and you suffer in silence and everyone who receives this kind of hatred sort of suffers in silence, then people don’t know what’s happening, and they don’t know what our political culture is becoming.
Sean Illing
Has Donald Trump ever denounced any of this? Several others besides you have experienced similar abuses. Trump can’t be held accountable for everything crazy people do in his name, but he can — and absolutely should — condemn it. Has he?
David French
I’m not aware of any denunciations. The thing that’s really disturbing, and you’re exactly right to point out that it’s not just me, is there have been hundreds of journalists who have been targeted to some greater or lesser degree. I have friends who’ve had to install security systems in their homes, who’ve purchased a firearm for the first time in their lives.
Here’s what is so deeply disturbing about the Trump campaign: Not only has Trump retweeted some of the white nationalist alt-right accounts, which is bad enough, but maybe charitably you could say, well, what does he know, he doesn’t know who these people are, he just found a funny name and tweeted it.
But he has in the middle of his campaign Steven Bannon from Breitbart, and there are some people who have called Breitbart the enablers of the alt-right in the larger conservative movement. I think that’s a little mild. They’ve the empowered the alt-right; they’ve published lengthy pieces rationalizing alt-right behavior, rationalizing the alt-right worldview. Some of their writers have mobilized some of these online blogs. Breitbart’s just in bed with the alt-right in many ways. Certainly not every person there, but it’s deeply disturbing, and Steve Bannon’s at the very beating heart of the Trump campaign.
So it’s hard to see a whole lot of daylight between the Trump campaign and this alt-right explosion.
Sean Illing
It’s easy to forget just how many lines Trump has crossed. Amid the cavalcade of offenses, we end up shrugging our shoulders when a major party presidential candidate encourages supporters at rallies to beat people up, when he offers to pay their legal fees, or when he hints at “Second Amendment” remedies for his opponent.
These are extraordinary breaches of democratic norms, and it’s incredibly dangerous to whip people into a frenzy like this.
David French
It’s extraordinarily dangerous, and in a weird way the very multiplicity of his offenses is its own form of distraction. Because, believe me, I have had many conversations with Trump supporters, and you can pull out any one incident and they’ll fight you tooth and nail on each incident, no matter how egregious. And you could spend literally half an hour or 45 minutes going down that rabbit hole of that one incident, and then there’s 50 other incidents to bring up and to talk about.
I think that’s one of the most dispiriting thing about all of this — that Trump has succeeded in a remarkable degree in keeping many of his most loyal supporters tunnel-vision focused only on the source of allegations, only on one allegation at a time, and then hanging over their heads the specter of Hillary Clinton. People are not pulling back and taking in the bigger picture, the bigger view of it. They’re losing the forest for the tree of each individual allegation.
Sean Illing
It makes you wonder what Trump is really up to here. I’ve struggled to gauge his intentions throughout this process. I’m still not sure he actually wants to be president, but I’m absolutely positive that he’s a political nihilist. There’s no reason to think he cares about ideas or believes in any coherent worldview.
So the question is why would he take it this far? Why would he play this dangerous game if he’s not a true believer, if he’s just winging it?
David French
You know, you raise a great question. I was actually at a debate a few weeks ago at Notre Dame with a pro-Trump conservative, and the point I made is that I believe Trumpism is narcissism and demagoguery in search of an ideology; it’s the ambition of one man. And in many ways, that’s more dangerous and can be more dangerous than ambition for the sake of an idea.
I think history’s replete with examples of how ambition for the sake of an idea can be deadly, but so can ambition just for its own sake. And I think that’s one of the things we’re dealing with here.
This is a man in pursuit of power — that’s how to understand him, that’s how to understand everything that he does — and maybe not only just power but prominence, fame, wealth, whatever he wants in a moment.
Sean Illing
I gave a talk last week, and I was asked about how nasty and violent this election has become and whether Trump is solely responsible for it. My response was that Trump has uncorked something dark in this country, something that’s always there but is normally marginalized.
His great lasting sin, in my view, is that he’s unleashed this hate and normalized it. Is that your view?
David French
Yes. The big question that I have in my mind right now is: Are we at the beginning of the end of a really nasty chapter in American politics, or are we are the end of the beginning of a really nasty chapter of American politics?
I agree that certainly amongst his followers, he has uncorked something nasty. But, you know, there’s also been acts of violence directed against Trump supporters during this process, and there’s something nasty going on on that side as well. So I’m very concerned. I think it’s a fair statement to say that this is the worst election, from a standpoint of polarization and violence, since 1968.
And my real concern is that we are going to hit a point where the enmity and the hatred is so deep that this is just the beginning of a new cycle and a new downward spiral. As an individual and a person, I would say one of the most distressing things about all of this is to talk to people I’ve known for years and describe to them what our family has gone through, and while they’ll express some sort of rote level of sympathy, because that’s the polite thing to do, that’s not what really upsets them.
What really gets them upset is not what my family’s experienced but the notion that I cannot and will not ever support Donald Trump. That’s crossing the line to them. And that is deeply dispiriting for the future.
Sean Illing
It is. And what is perhaps more dispiriting is that Trumpism doesn’t need Trump to survive. The alt-right was waiting for a candidate like Trump, someone who could carry their message to a mainstream audience, and that’s exactly what he’s done. And there’s no reason to think that that’s going to go away whenever he does, if he does.
David French
Well, to me that’s the $64,000 question. The optimistic side of me says there is actually no Trumpism as an ideology. There’s just Trump as sort of the embodiment of many different forms of discontent and anger all balled up into one person. That’s the optimist in me.
The pessimist in me says there’s this generations-long project on the right to try to inculcate a certain coherent set of ideals and values of limited government, of government within its constitutional bounds, of a society that is as much as possible a colorblind society, of America’s place in the world, that all of that is in jeopardy and losing to a competing set of ideas that I think are far worse for American life, far more divisive and antithetical to the true spirit of the American experiment.
Sean Illing
The stakes are no doubt high.
I was probably too generous when I attached an “ism” to whatever Trump represents. The Trump movement is essentially a grab bag of resentments and anxieties and bigotries and all the rest. But to the extent that he represents a vague rejectionism and a hostility to civil discourse, he’s extremely dangerous.
Let me broaden this out a little bit and ask you how shocked you’ve been by what we’ve seen over the course of this entire campaign, from the primaries up until now.
David French
I was shocked early on, because early on the whole Trump spectacle bored me, frankly. I thought, “Why are we wasting time talking about what Trump said about John McCain, or that ridiculous stuff that Trump said about Megyn Kelly?” All of this stuff is just going to burn itself out, I thought, and Trump will be seen as a failed reality TV show candidate in the mold of Herman Cain.
But I began to see in the fall of 2015 that something was happening, that Trump was tapping into something. And I just kept feeling like the rest of the Republican field wasn’t taking that seriously.
Everything was operating under the presumption that he’s going to burn himself out, so we don’t need to alienate his supporters, we need to compete over who’s going to pick up that basket of people once he loses. So it was like watching a car accident in slow motion.
We had a cascading series of decisions that could be justified in the moment, but when you stepped back and took the broad view, it was just a lot of shortsighted foolishness.
Sean Illing
Are you disappointed in Republican leaders for not taking a stronger stand against Trump, especially as it became obvious that he wasn’t serious and that the mythical “pivot” was not on the horizon?
David French
Absolutely. I understand the fears and concerns people have for their political careers — I don’t want to minimize that. Look, I’m not speaker of the House; I don’t have all of those same pressures on me. But I am absolutely disappointed.
The party is not just a uniform that you wear, with one team wearing red uniforms and one team wearing blue uniforms. A political party is supposed to be organized around a set of principles, and if along comes a person who not only defies many of these founding principles but is openly contemptuous of them, you have to take a stand.
How do you get to a place where Donald Trump is the nominee of the party of Lincoln? You get there when people are continually making short-term, self-interested decisions to maintain power and influence. And it just builds on each other one after the other after the other until you’re trapped.
Sean Illing
Do you regret not mounting a third-party bid for the presidency when you had the chance?
David French
No, I don’t, and there’s a couple of reasons. One is, quite frankly, I don’t think I was the right person. I think that in hindsight it may very well turn out that right person stepped forward, because if Evan McMullin does win Utah, I think that will be an important moment on a number of fronts. I mean, it will be historic, the first third-party electoral votes in a very long time, and then I think it will give America’s faith communities a model for how they can be the centers if the GOP does indeed persist in being the party of Trump.
Second, I was looking at it and the last thing that I wanted to be was a mere anti-Trump spoiler. I didn’t want to be the Ralph Nader of 2016. To be that National Review writer who got 3 percent in Florida and 4 percent in Ohio would not have been a great contribution to American politics.
Sean Illing
You’ve said that you won’t vote for Trump or Clinton, that these are “dreadful choices.” Do you still feel that way?
David French
Oh, absolutely. I’m not going to vote for Hillary. I’m definitely not going to vote Trump. I will either vote for a third party or leave the presidential slot blank. I’d certainly vote for Evan McMullin if he was on the ballot in Tennessee.
I will definitely vote down ballot, but under no circumstances will I vote for Clinton or Trump.
Sean Illing
They may well be terrible choices, but given everything that’s happened and everything you’ve said, do you really think that these candidates are equivalent threats?
David French
I have written that I think they are and that I don’t believe there is a clear argument that one is better than the other. I think there are ways in which Donald Trump is more flat-out dangerous than she is, since, for example, she’s not going to yank us out of NATO because she’s in a bad mood or she’s not going to threaten our security arrangements with South Korea. Trump is catastrophically dangerous.
Sean Illing
You seem to be making the case that Trump is, in fact, more dangerous than Clinton, so why not vote for her and ensure Trump doesn’t win? Because, as you know, one of them will be the next president.
David French
I’m a lifelong pro-life conservative, and if there’s one thing Clinton has been very consistent on, it’s her support for abortion rights, and I’m just never going to support that. And so on domestic policy, if there was even a chance that he would be better than her on some of these issues, I would have to give him the edge.
Obviously, his character problems are horrific; his foreign policy ideas are horrific. At some point, I just think it’s not even worth having this argument. Her values on key issues are diametrically opposed to mine, particularly in domestic policy. I think he’s flat-out, dangerous and I hate what he’s cooking up in this country.
But I’m just not going to support either one of them.
Sean Illing
This is becoming a boring question, but I’m going to ask anyway: How much damage do you think Trump has done to the conservative movement?
David French
Wow. Well, talk to me in a little more than two weeks, and I will give you a better answer. I think that if it’s a Trump win or a very close Trump loss, the damage will be worse than if he loses pretty convincingly.
If it’s a Trump win, the GOP becomes the party of Trump for the foreseeable future and it’s just flat-out not a conservative party at that point — it’s just not.
Sean Illing
I think that’s mostly right. I tend to see Trump as political dynamite: He’s ripped apart the threads holding the Republican coalition together — the religious right, the libertarians, the neoconservatives, the free traders. Trump appears not to believe in anything at all, apart from himself, but he’s now the face of the party.
After his political star fades, what then? Which wing of the GOP will survive what seems to be a coming civil war within the party?
Or am I being too dramatic?
David French
I don’t think that’s too dramatic. I think that there is a real likelihood of significant ideological blowback following this election. If he wins, you’ll see an enormous amount of triumphalism. You will see hundreds of GOP officeholders who held their noses and endorsed him feeling and acting vindicated, which will be just a tragedy.
And then you would have an awful lot of Americans feeling extraordinarily deeply alienated from this country, which would magnify the partisan divide in this country. And if it’s a very, very close loss, we might have the same kind of dynamic.
So everything’s in flux now. It’s always easy to predict what might happen, and then when an actual event occurs it often has a psychological effect that we didn’t necessarily predict.
My view is that a big Trump loss — which I think is possible but I wouldn’t call it probable at this point, because some of the polls are tightening — but a big Trump loss will have an interesting psychological effect.
I see a Republican civil war brewing, a civil war that will be hard to avoid.With the information we have got this week, how Microsoft will offer Azure Stack to its customers, it’s a fair question how it will look like compared to the current CPS solution.
Some thoughts about this…
Current situation
Currently CPS will scale up to 8000 VMs in 4 Racks (if you look at the big solution and not the SMB one). If you want disaster recovery or simply more resources, you need another Stamp. CPS will replicate your Azure Pack settings between the different stamps, so your customers will be able to log into the active primary site and the backup site in the case of a failure. You are not able (as far as I know) to create different locations with another CPS Stamp from one single portal. Because each CPS comes with its own Azure Pack.
Changes, coming with Azure Stack
As Azure Stack will manage all the infrastructure itself, some of the current System Center components will become obsolete.
SCVMM will not take any place in the fabric management, so all current tasks will be moved over to Azure Stack.
Host deployment
TOR switches
Storage
Azure Site Recovery
Networking etc.
SMA may be replaced by Azure Automation. Maybe just a rebrand? Dunno…
The Azure Pack Portal will be replaced by the Azure Stack Portal. Doh’ 😉
SCOM and DPM will stay in place for monitoring and backup.
Scaling and features?
Without knowing the actual scale numbers, supported by Azure Stack. I am fairly sure they will be bigger. But how will the deployment look like? Are they going to support the current setup with a maximum of 4 Racks per stamp with Disaster Recovery offered by a second stamp? With this you will “only” have one cloud, because you have the second cloud as a backup. Or will they give you the opportunity to build mulitple locations with multiple deployed stamps merged into one “big cloud” regardless of the count of stamps?
With new features like storage replica, which is coming for free with Server 2016 a better and more flexible solution should be possible out of the box.I think your Azure Stack can be managed through the “real big cloud” Azure and will give you the opportunity to offer different locations to your customers with the resiliency baked in the backend by new features coming in Server 2016.
Which would leave one question open.. Will you be able to have a Azure Stack without Azure? In TP1 a working Azure subscription is required to set it up.
I think we will get a better idea on how this will look like with the TP2 release which is announced later this summer. TP2 will include infrastructure management as well.
What do you guys think?
Any thoughts? Write them in the comments.
Cheers Philipp
Update: rewrote some parts of the “Scaling and features” paragraph.A few footsteps from the vast, peaceful waters of the Tapajós River, far beneath the patchwork canopy of the untamed jungle, Juarez Saw Munduruku hacked at the dense bracken with his 18-inch hunting knife.
The 55-year-old leader of the Munduruku, an Amazon tribe, was marking its territory. For centuries the clan, known as the “red ants” for their deadly mass assaults on rival tribes and colonialists alike, would do so by placing the severed heads of their adversaries on spikes. Now, his men hammer handmade wooden signs with words in their native language stenciled in red paint onto tree trunks.
The meaning, however, is still unmistakable: This is Munduruku land.
The signs are man-made specks in an ocean of nature but are harbingers of a battle to come. It is a fight between the Munduruku, who have long sanctified this river, and Brazil’s government, which plans to flood much of this land to build a $9.9 billion hydroelectric dam, the São Luiz do Tapajós. The dam is one of seven planned for this river and part of a wider strategy across the Amazon that the energy ministry says is necessary to sate the country’s growing need for power. But the Munduruku say they have a constitutional right to remain on their territory — and that the government is refusing to acknowledge it, in violation of the law.
The battle echoes the government’s fight with indigenous communities on the Xingu River, another major Amazon River tributary, over the Belo Monte Dam. That project, first conceived in 1975, is now nearing completion. But environmental activists say that while the tribes there were ultimately divided — and defeated — by threats and bribery, the Munduruku have the determination and unity to take on the government and win.
The red signs are a start. They are part of a broader plan to protect the land that the Munduruku, who number 13,000 and live in a series of villages on the river, say they will, if necessary, defend to the death.
“We will fight to the end,” said Juarez Saw Munduruku. “This is our struggle. … I would die defending my land so that another generation can live here.”Redskins draft countdown
The NFL draft is 22 days away and there is plenty of speculation as to what players Scot McCloughan will select to wear the burgundy and gold. Between now and the draft we’ll look at some of the players who might be of interest to the Redskins and discuss how he might fit in Washington.
Alex Collins
Running back
Arkansas
Height: 5-10
Weight: 217
40-yard dash: 4.59
Projected draft round: 3-4
What they’re saying
Collins was an ideal fit for [Arkansas coach Bret] Bielema's blueprint on offense with his light feet to make sharp cuts, but also his physical nature to welcome contact, finish forward and do most of his damage between the tackles. Collins is a physical runner, but needs to improve his pad level and ball security to be more reliable at the next level.
Although he won't consistently create on his own, Collins has an excellent blend of quickness, patience and power to get what is blocked for him and contribute as an NFL rookie.
—Dane Brugler, CBS Sports
How he fits the Redskins: How much can they trust Matt Jones? He flashed some potential on plays here and there but he lacked consistency and his four fumbles all seemed to come at the worst times.
If they just want a Plan B in case Jones fizzles in 2016 they could wait and sign Pierre Thomas or another veteran still on the street. But if they want to go with running back by committee, with two backs carrying the load they should look to the middle rounds of the draft and perhaps to a back like Collins.
At Arkansas he was a model of consistency; he rarely failed to go to the right spot and get at least as much as the play is blocked for. Collins is not a burner and he’s not a big back but he’s a good combination of speed, size and football smarts.
Potential issues: Jones’ fumbles are an issue and they were an issue for Collins as well. He lost the handle on the ball 16 times during his career, usually due to not protecting the ball properly when fighting for extra yardage. No doubt, McCloughan and company will need to figure out if this is something that the coaches can remedy before they seriously look into him.
Bottom line: Should the Redskins spend a mid-round draft pick on a running back two drafts in a row? Whether they do or not will depend largely on if a running back is the best available payer on the board when they pick.
And I they do take a running back, should they take on with a skill set similar to Jones’? Or should they look towards a back with some demonstrated pass-catching ability (Collins caught just 27 passes in three years with the Razorback)?
If they want a guy who is more like Jones to compete with Jones, Collins should be under serious consideration.
In his own words
About the importance of patience:
I would say it's definitely patience, that plays a huge factor in it because if you're the type of runner that just always runs outside, then they'll just come from the outside and force you up the field. Just being patient, letting things lead up to it, if that's the road it takes you, then you go with it. If you've got cuts up the field, you take the cuts. But I would definitely say it's just being patience, letting things play out. If that's the best opportunity, take that opportunity. But as far as just aiming for the outside, it wouldn't work every time because defenses wouldn't let you keep doing that.
Previously in Redskins draft countdown:Jennifer Neville-Lake and her husband, Edward Lake, removed their glasses and cried and Dawn Muzzo |
or “world government.” Hence, there will be less political opposition mounted to “global governance” than “world government.”
“Global governance” came into vogue in the late 1990s, following the publication in 1995 of Our Global Neighborhood, a report of the UN-appointed Commission on Global Governance. That report attempted emphatically to assure readers that they had nothing to fear; they were not proposing world government. It claimed:
Global governance is not global government. No misunderstanding should arise from the similarity of the terms. We are not proposing movement towards world government.
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan practiced the same semantic sleight-of-hand and false assurance at the UN Millennium Summit in New York City in 2000. In his report We the Peoples: The Role of the United Nations in the 21st Century, Annan called for “new forms of global governance,” “a new ethic of global stewardship,” “global norms,” and “global rules” — all of which assume a role for the UN as global legislator.
Then Annan addressed the rational apprehension that many people would harbor concerning these new proposals for restructuring the world. “What do we mean by ‘governance’ when applied to the international realm?” he asked. “In the minds of some,” he said, “the term still conjures up images of world government, of centralized bureaucratic behemoths trampling on the rights of people and states.” These fearful conjurations, he assured us, have no basis in reality. “Nothing is less desirable” than world government, said Annan, insisting that “the very notion of centralizing hierarchies is itself an anachronism in our fluid, highly dynamic and extensively networked world — an outmoded remnant of nineteenth century mindsets.”
However, only months prior to the Millennium Summit and Kofi Annan’s report, on February 26, 1999, Sir Shridath Ramphal, a co-chairman of the Commission on Global Governance, addressed the Commission’s meeting in Barcelona, Spain, and gave a very different take on the matter. Ramphal stated:
The point I am making is that when we talk of "governance" and "democracy," we have to look beyond governance within countries and democracy within states. We have to look to Global Governance and Democracy within the Global State.
A Global “State” with a capital “S” signifies a world “State,” a world government. And Ramphal emphasized that in the conclusion of his talk by celebrating the end of the “Nation State.” He declared:
As the Century of the Nation State ends, however, to a far greater degree than their governments, people recognize … they understand that the roads to justice and survival are conjoined; that the task is to bring the mutual interests and the moral impulses of mankind together.
Many of the political elites who formerly dismissed concerns that “global governance” is a ruse for “global government,” now matter-of-factly admit that they are one and the same. Jacques Attali, an ardent globalist and an adviser to former President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, for instance, has said: “Global governance is just a euphemism for global government.”
Van Rompuy — Tapped by Bilderbergers
Attali is a veteran attendee of the annual meetings of the super-secret, super-elite Bilderberg Group. Which brings us back to Herman Van Rompuy, frequently referred to as "Bilderberg Van Rompuy," a reference to his having received his current job title through the actions and influence of the Bilderbergers. In a November 17, 2009 article for the U.K.’s Guardian, entitled “Who speaks for Europe? Criticism of'shambolic' process to fill key jobs,” Ian Traynor wrote:
Van Rompuy met Kissinger at a closed session of international policymakers and industrialists chaired by Viscount Etienne Davignon, a discreetly powerful figure in Brussels who was vice-president of the European commission in the 1980s. The viscount currently chairs the Bilderberg Group, the shadowy global freemasonry of politicians and bankers who meet to discuss world affairs in the strictest privacy, spawning innumerable conspiracy theories. Van Rompuy, it seems, attended the Bilderberg session to audition for the European job, calling for a new system of levies to fund the EU and replace the perennial EU budget battles.
Jon Ronson, another reporter at the Guardian, interviewed Lord Denis Healey, one of the founders of the Bilderberg Group, for a 2001 article entitled, “Who Pulls the Strings?” Although Lord Healey insisted the group was not conspiratorial at all, he confirmed that they are working in the direction of world government. Ronson wrote:
This is how Denis Healey described a Bilderberg person to me: "To say we were striving for a one-world government is exaggerated, but not wholly unfair. Those of us in Bilderberg felt we couldn't go on forever fighting one another for nothing and killing people and rendering millions homeless. So we felt that a single community throughout the world would be a good thing."
He said, "Bilderberg is a way of bringing together politicians, industrialists, financiers and journalists. Politics should involve people who aren't politicians. We make a point of getting along younger politicians who are obviously rising, to bring them together with financiers and industrialists who offer them wise words. It increases the chance of having a sensible global policy."
David Rockefeller, a longtime leader at Bilderberg conclaves, was even more explicit when addressing the 1991 meeting of the Bilderberg group. Rockefeller stated:
We are grateful to the Washington Post, The New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost 40 years. It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But the world is more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries.
That statement and other remarks from the Bilderberg meeting were obtained by French intelligence agents, who were tasked with monitoring the gathering, because of the obvious implications for French national interests and security. The information was then leaked to two French publications. Hilaire du Berrier, a contributing editor to The New American, verified the authenticity of the reports through his friend, former head of French intelligence, Count Alexander de Marenches, and other sources, and provided the first account in English in his Monaco-based monthly HduB Reports in September 1991. It was then published shortly thereafter in The New American. What seemed outlandish to many people at the time, and was frequently dismissed as kooky "conspiracy theory," is being confirmed daily in unfolding events — and admissions from those who are causing the events to happen.
Photo of Russia's President Vladimir Putin (left) with European Council President Herman Van Rompuy and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso during the EU-Russia Summit, Dec. 21, 2012: AP Images
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U.S., Russia "Reset" the Convergence AgendaElvis Presley is to be digitally recreated for a series of live shows and TV appearances.
A virtual likeness of the late singer will be produced for the performances by the same company who made a Tupac "hologram" earlier this year.
The digitally resurrected rapper made a headline-grabbing appearance at the Coachella music festival in April.
Elvis Presley Enterprises said: "This is a new and exciting way to bring the magic and music of Elvis to life."
"His lifelong fans will be thrilled all over again and new audiences will discover the electric experience of Elvis the performer."
The technological brains behind the project are The Digital Domain Media Group, co-founded by Avatar director James Cameron.
They have previously created computer-generated human characters for films including The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, TRON: Legacy and X-Men: First Class.
They also animated the figure of Tupac seen performing alongside Dr Dre and Snoop Dogg at the Coachella Festival.
That performance was staged by AV Concepts and the UK-based Musion Systems, who previously enabled Madonna to perform with cartoon hip-hop band Gorillaz at the 2006 Grammy Awards.
Although the striking, 3D images have been called "holograms", they are in fact the result of an optical illusion pioneered in the Victorian era.
Known as Pepper's Ghost, the illusion involves projecting the image on an angled piece of glass, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Presley died in 1977 aged 42. His biggest hits included Heartbreak Hotel, Hound Dog, All Shook Up, Jailhouse Rock and Suspicious Minds.
His band still tour today, playing along to archive footage of the singer, which is projected on big screens in venues including London's Wembley Arena.In 1936, the Wollners - a German family living in rural Morgan County, West Virginia - are contacted by the Third Reich to host a visiting scholar, Professor Richard Wirth. In need of money, they accept Wirth into their home. Wirth's grand occult project seals the Wollners off from the rest of the world and makes them players in a horrifying game of survival. After 71 years, in 2007, Evan Marshall's life has stalled at twenty-five years old. Left without answers after his older brother Victor's disappearance from a camping trip near Town Creek, he has tried to move on. But when Victor returns one night, very much alive and having escaped his captors, Evan asks no questions - at his brother's request, he loads their rifles, packs up their boat and follows him back to Town Creek on a mission of revenge that will test them in every possible way... Written by AnonymousWhen children become adolescents, they pose new challenges for parents and providers. Providers must develop unique tools for difficult - and sometimes awkward - behavior.
Autism Family Center's Lead Behavior Counselor, Michael Sowa, noticed the lack of services geared towards teenagers on the Autism spectrum. He set out to learn the best ways to work with teens who are diagnosed with ASD. Consequently, he has developed unique programs to address individual goals teenagers face. We were interested to learn more about his experience with teens on the spectrum and what makes this summer's program special. Read this insightful and eye opening interview with Michael Sowa below.
What made you want to start this program?
After serving the Chicagoland ASD population for 5 years I noticed there is a gap in services. Most camps are designed for younger children or for older children with advanced skills. We work with individuals who are older and without these advanced skills. This camp is designed to bridge this gap. It provides more structure and support as a younger camp would while teaching advanced skills as an older camp would. The skills taught are designed so that these individual can be successful. We give them an opportunity to practice these skills in a safe and therapeutic environment.
What do you think makes this program unique?
That it does not exist elsewhere. If there was a camp already doing this, I would simply send clients there. To my knowledge, this camp does not exist but it is super important. Teenagers tend to be ignored and the parents are left not knowing what to do over the summer. What's worse than doing nothing over the summer? Failing over the summer. Now there is a camp that will provide the structure these teenagers need while helping them create a research project allowing them to be successful. And they have proof of their success. Not just a report of doing good, but an actual product from their hard work.
Why are you only allowing teenagers in? Why can't any child with autism participate?
Teenagers want to be teenagers and this is true regardless of any diagnosis. Too often teenagers are grouped with much younger children and this can be demeaning. Often individuals I work with have lower self esteem and it has been reported to me by teenagers that they are in the kiddie class due to all the younger children. Think about when you were a teenager, did you want to be around 7 year olds? No? And neither do teenagers diagnosed with ASD.
We limited the camp to teenagers to give a sense of maturity. This may be the first time that they quality for something and other's don't.
What kinds of activities do you have planned that makes this program something teenagers will actually want to do?
I have ran a teen program in the past with great success. At first I was unsure of what to do, and we spent the first week brainstorming with the teens. I was shocked and surprised by the answers I received. They asked to do the things that any teenager would like. They wanted to hang out at the mall, see movies, have video game parties all night, and eat pizza until they explode. So picking the ideas are easy. What does any teenager want to do? The hard part is teaching what to do in the situation. When I took the teenagers to the mall they were happy and pumped to be there. But at the mall, they just stood around and was unsure of how to have fun. I took a moment and thought of what I did as a teen. Go to the pet shop, check out fun stores, listen to music, go to the arcade, and just people watch. It took a little bit of prompting to get the teenagers to participate, but once they started I saw the joy and amusement in their face which insured that we were doing the right activities. When in doubt, I observe the environment we are in and mimic what the other teens are doing. if no other teens are around, this may not be the best place for teenagers to hang out.
How do you plan to address issues of adolescence (e.g. puberty, aggressive behaviors, etc).?
This is one of the tough one. Teenagers will throw a lot of curveballs at you. I had a person ask me in the middle of a pizza party, "Mike, what is a boner used for?" I collected myself and asked if the question could wait or must it be addressed now. He said he needs to know right now so we went to the office away from the other teens and I answered all of his questions. Another common problem is inappropriate self touching. I usually begin by explaining there are public behaviors and there are private behaviors, I explain that what they are doing is a private behavior and they need to go into the bathroom. In most cases the teen will enter the bathroom for a minute and then exit. I remind them to wash their hands, I get told they did not use the bathroom and I explain that germs are everywhere and any time we engage in private behaviors in the bathroom we need to wash our hands. I handle aggressive behaviors the same as anyone. The difference is that teenagers are larger and stronger. Verbal deescalation is typically effective and I do not provide positive or negative consequences for these behaviors. I tend to tell them what to do to be successful and most times they follow. Above all, we keep everyone safe.
You will be surprised what happens when you treat teenagers as teenagers. They try everything they can to be the best they can be.
At first I would see a lot of avoiding, but once they see you are not going to treat them like small children and they see no small children are around, they start to act like typical teenagers. it warms my heart each time I see it. Teenagers who may have never helped before could start being a leader.
The parents report an increase in self esteem and how their teens look forward to being teenagers with other teenagers. It is super heartwarming and I love seeing it happen each time.
Want More?
1. Explore AFC's Summer Program for Teens in Winnetka, IL - Read More.
2. Read Michael Sowa's: Tips for professionals working with Teens on the Autism Spectrum - Read More.Rare Variety production listing with
Orsmby credited as both co-director and writer:
Moments of Clarity:
It is weird to me to be writing up a 25th anniversary of a film that feels like it just came out a few years back. When I was a kid,did a 20th anniversary celebration of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968) and twenty years to my young mind seems like ages ago. Now I hear a film like POPCORN is 25 years old and it freaks me out. Yes, kids, getting old is weird. Anyway, February 1, 2016 marks the two-and-a-half decades anniversary of the U.S. theatrical release of POPCORN.That the film got a nationwide theatrical release at all is pretty amazing given the behind-the-scenes chaos of the film’s production. POPCORN certainly had fans salivating when news broke of its impending production as it was a reunion of filmmakers Bob Clark and Alan Ormsby. The duo met in school in Florida and created a unique partnership in the early ‘70s with a trio of horror flicks - CHILDREN SHOULDN’T PLAY WITH DEAD THINGS (1972), DERANGED (1974) and DEATHDREAM (1974). Creating three films now considered horror classics in a few years? Not too bad. Their careers went in different directions after these films; Clark went on to bigger success with BLACK CHRISTMAS (1974), MURDER BY DECREE (1979), PORKY’S (1981), and A CHRISTMAS STORY (1983), while Ormsby had an incredibly eclectic screenwriting career including MY BODYGUARD (1980) and the CAT PEOPLE (1982) remake. They did reunite in a non-horror capacity with PORKY’S II: THE NEXT DAY (1983) which had Clark as director and Ormsby as co-writer (yes, Clark released a PORKY’S sequel and A CHRISTMAS STORY in the same calendar year, incredible!).According to what Clark toldat the time of POPCORN’s release, the horror reunion came about when DEAD THINGS co-producer Gary Goch came to him with a screenplay for what would eventually become POPCORN. He liked the idea and passed it along to Ormsby to rewrite and thought it would make a nice directing vehicle for his friend (Ormsby had previously directed the lost-but-recently-discovered MURDER ON THE EMERALD SEAS [1974] and co-directed DERANGED). The eventual “phantom of the movie theater” scenario shaped up nicely and the filming began in Kingston, Jamaica in October 1989. Unfortunately, Ormsby’s version was much darker than what the financiers were expecting and Orsmby ended up leaving the production after a few weeks of filming (apparently the only remaining footage in the film of his are the retro films within the film). Another casualty was lead actress April O’Neill (HONEY, I SHRUNK THE KIDS [1989]), who was replaced by budding scream queen Jill Schoelen (THE STEPFATHER [1987]). Clark mentioned tothat they approached three veteran horror directors who passed on the project and that he even shot a few days before PORKY’S actor Mark Herrier stepped in as director. Despite all this work to salvage the film, Clark also eventually had his name removed from the final film while Ormbsy is credited for his screenplay as “Tod Hackett.”Originally aiming for a fall 1990 theatrical release, POPCORN was eventually put out a few months later in February 1991 by new indie distributor Studio Three Film Corporation. The company surprisingly got the film into over 1,000 theaters and the good news was it ended up being the highest debuting new release that weekend. The bad news is it still only came in 8th place at the box office with a haul of $2,563,365. Hey, at least it did better that Buena Vista’s RUN (1991) with Patrick Dempsey. POPCORN quickly disappeared from theaters with a small haul of just $4,205,00. Studio Three had only one other theatrical release before folding, the drama-romance RICH GIRL (1991) in May 1991 starring Jill Schoelen. Damn, did her dad own this company? Anyway, POPCORN eventually found its audience on video and developed a true cult following. It holds a special place in my heart as it was the second R-rated feature I drove myself to alone to see in the theater (for my eventual biography you will write, the first one was WARLOCK [1991]). The film’s cult has only grown over the years; so much so that a special edition DVD/Bluray of the film is coming from Synapse Films sometime in the near future.We are replublishing a 2003 critique of Toni Negri and Michael Hardt's Empire, which takes up the key ideas of the authors that are still fashionable among those who today wish to deny the essence of Marxism while at the same disguising themselves as Marxists.
Introduction
In 2001, Toni Negri's book "Empire" hit bookstores all over Italy. The author [i], who was a leading figure of the Autonomia Operaia [Workers' Autonomy] movement back in the 1960s and 1970s in Italy, is today, along with Michael Hardt [ii], the leading advocate of a theory that claims that the age of imperialism is dead.
The book, which was written at the end of the 1990s, had already been published in many other countries and had attracted a high level of interest in academic circles all around the world, triggering much heated debate within the European Left itself.
However, my excitement at the book's imminent publication quickly turned into disappointment as I began to read the book's four hundred odd pages. Although undoubtedly well written from a stylistic point of view (his linear manner of writing and his use of metaphor make it far from a dull read), what one can basically say is that there is nothing fundamentally new in it. It simply sets down a set of old ideas that have already been debated within the labour movement over a number of years. In some cases, the authors have even managed to present an even worse version of these ideas, ideas which have been used repeatedly in an attempt to lower the level of political understanding of the working class (and thus to paralyse it at crucial moments in history).
The book's main premise is that the era of "Imperialism" is over and that we are now living in era of the so-called "Empire". The authors also make a number of other claims in their analysis of this "Empire", which also need to be dealt with if an accurate analysis of the book is to be made.
For example, amongst other things, they claim that the 'Law of Value' has disappeared, that the working class has been replaced by the so-called "multitude" and that the concept of political "activist" has changed.
I believe that we should not consider a discussion of such topics as some sort of abstract academic exercise. In the current epoch, it is increasingly important and urgent to criticise such ideas, especially at a time when once again the workers are beginning to flex their muscles all over the world with demonstrations and strikes, or in the case of Argentina, with genuine revolutionary movements. If these ideas ever were to succeed in gaining a majority within the leadership of the international labour movement this would mean the movement would be signing its own death sentence.
On every continent of the planet, in the coming historical period, the working class united with other oppressed social classes faces the task of leading the way to the world socialist revolution. However, if we prove to be incapable of consigning the ideas currently being forward by Comrade Negri to the dustbin of history - where they deserve to be - all our actions would be in vain. The lack of a subjective factor capable of leading the working class in Italy, would result in the defeat of the present movement, just as the movement of the 1960s and 1970s was defeated. Therefore, the task is all the more urgent as the current movement has already proven its highly explosive character and has already served the bosses with notice that it intends to seek a radical alternative to the established social order.
Empire versus Imperialism
Perhaps the most significant part of the book is where the authors deal with the concept of "Empire". Negri and Hardt have tried to demonstrate that the capitalist system has gone beyond the imperialist stage and has entered a new phase that can be defined as "imperial".
I think it is best to use the authors' own words to describe their theory of the "Empire":
"The Empire can only be seen as a universal republic, a network of power structures and counterbalances structured into an inclusive and unlimited architecture. The expansion of the Empire has nothing in common with imperialist expansion and is not based on nation states bent on conquering, pillaging, massacring, colonising peoples into slavery. Unlike this imperialism, the Empire expands and consolidates its power structures [...] Finally, remember that at the basis of the development and expansion of the Empire is the quest for peace." [iii]
Negri's "big idea" is that of the "global network distribution of power", which is a horizontal capitalist-dominated structure in which, due to the complete elimination of "the centre", a new form of exploitation of "the multitude" has been created. The authors believe that instead of fighting each other, the various imperialist countries are now engaged in a period in which they interact with each other within the Empire and in its interests, in the quest for peace.
This type of thinking is similar in many ways to that developed by the "renegade Kautsky" [iv] who, in contrast to Lenin's views, invented the theory of "superimperialism", which can be summarised, in the words of Kautsky himself as follows:
"From a purely economic point of view, therefore, it is not impossible that capitalism is now to enter upon a new phase, a phase marked by the transfer of trust methods to international politics, a sort of super-imperialism. Instead of fighting each other, the imperialisms of the whole world would unite and we would enter a war-less era under a capitalist regime, in which the imperialist countries could dedicate themselves to the collective exploitation of the world on behalf of a coalition of international financial capital." [v]
As can be seen, both refer to a global power structure in which conflicts between the various imperialist countries would cease to exist. Negri, however, who is fully aware of this dispute between Lenin and Kautsky, goes one step further by saying that in reality:
"Lenin agreed with Kautsky's basic argument according to which capitalist development contains within it a trend towards increasing international co-operation between the various national finance capitals which would have probably created a single global organisation. Lenin however disagreed strongly with Kautsky's efforts to use this perspective to justify his forecast of a future of peace and to negate the dynamics of the contemporary situation".
Although this a distortion of Lenin's theory, the authors of "Empire" try to defend themselves from accusations of revisionism and try to develop their Marxian ideas. In reality Lenin had something very different to say about the creation of a world economic trust. In "Imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism" [vi], Lenin clearly states that although the various imperialist powers are able to make agreements between each other on a world scale, these agreements are only temporary and are only a reflection of the existing balance of forces between the opposing imperialist countries at a particular moment in time.
It is obvious then that if this balance of forces changes, the agreements will also change. Therefore, such a situation cannot be described as peaceful and stable co-operation, but merely a series of temporary agreements designed to obtain the maximum amount of profit from a specific sector of the market.
Marx writes that capitalism does not always need war to establish its hegemony over markets. Sometimes the specific balance of forces created by the level of development of the productive forces in a given country are sufficient enough to impose the required conditions.
Today, advanced capitalist countries may find it to their advantage to sign commercial treaties between each other. Tomorrow, on the other hand, they may have to wage war with each other in order to capture and secure new markets for themselves. Capitalism is quite happy to use either method, depending on which one suits it best at a particular moment in time.
For this reason it is not only incorrect, but downright reactionary to claim that the concept of "Empire" or "superimperialism" is "dedicated to peace".
This distortion of Marxist ideas does not stop here either, but reappears several times in the writings of Messrs Negri and Hardt. For example, in an interview for the "Mattino" newspaper, Negri says the following in support of his theory that the era of imperialism is dead. He says "there is no exteriority that is conquered and colonised" [vii]. He thus obliterates one of the fundamental points of the analysis of imperialism with a stroke of a pen.
Chapter V and VI, in particular, of Lenin's "Imperialism - the highest stage of capitalism" explain clearly that imperialism and colonialism expanded in parallel during a certain period of capitalism's history. However, after the various imperialist powers had finished carving out the world between them at the beginning of the twentieth century, there was little scope left for further colonial expansion. In other words, Lenin believed that once the whole world had been divided up between the advanced capitalist countries, the struggle between inter-imperialist forces would be to keep control of what they had already conquered.
For example, Germany, which at the beginning of the twentieth century had still not developed its productive forces sufficiently enough, and therefore had a smaller share of the world market than its rivals, would do everything in its power to win new slices of market to the detriment of other states.
Once again, the determining factor in the division of zones of influence between states would be the capacity of a particular imperialist nation to develop to a greater or lesser degree its own productive forces. And once again, regardless of whether this division of zones of influence between countries was peaceful or not, its main motivation would be the quest for the highest level of profit.
Negri's criticism to some extent is based on the writings of Rosa Luxemburg in her book "The accumulation of capital" [viii] which raised the idea of the necessity for pockets of non-capitalistic subsistence to exist, for the development of imperialism. However, it would be a generalisation to claim that this specific theory of Luxemburg represents the wealth of theories concerning imperialism.
The concept of "Empire" not only changes our view of current economic structures but also profoundly changes the concept of military intervention. The authors of "Empire" insist heavily on the changes in what I will call the psychology of military intervention. In his analysis, Negri refers frequently to the French philosopher Foucault [ix] who on many occasions throughout his life dwelt on the various forms of punishment and intervention carried out throughout history.
The limits revealed in the preceding analysis here probably reach their extreme consequences and therefore I will limit myself to quoting one sentence which I believe is symbolic: "the American world policeman acts in the interests of the Empire and not in the interests of imperialism" [x]. The USA is not the head of the Empire, but only a very specific component of the latter, therefore when it acts, whether militarily or economically, it supposedly acts in the interests of the Empire.
At this point, we must ask ourselves where has comrade Toni Negri been for the last few years? What Marxist can consciously state that American interests in the former Yugoslavia were the same as German interests, or for that matter, that Germany's interests were the same as France's? During the whole conflict, the Americans and Europeans clashed frequently with each other over what tactic should be employed to intervene. These disputes were not only over military tactics but were mainly a reflection of the divergent interests of the various national capitalist classes in the former Yugoslavia.
The same goes for Afghanistan today. Who can possibly say that the US has currently the same interests as the other European powers in that country? "Le Monde" recently published an article about the agreements that had been signed between the Americans and the Taliban before September 11, to allow US oil groups in to the country to build a pipeline. In the end, the agreements fell through, but here we have a shining example of US interests diametrically opposed to those of the European powers.
As Ted Grant and Alan Woods [xi] state in their article, the United States have taken on the role of world policeman (for which they are bound to pay the consequences sooner or later). However, the Americans' aim in waging war is to be in the most advantageous position when the spoils are shared out between the victors.
In the capitalist world, there has never been, and probably never will be, a situation in which a world power engages in military conflict only to give up its share of the spoils to the imaginary 'Empire' to which it allegedly belongs.
In conclusion, it is correct to say, as Negri does, that modern society is a truly "globalised" society, that capitalism has reached such a level of expansion that it is able to extend its tentacles into every nook and cranny of the planet. However, at the same time, the limits imposed by the nation state, which are the expression of the various national capitalist classes, cannot be overcome within the capitalist economy itself and represent a massive fetter on the future development of humankind. Today, more than ever before, such a contradiction can only be resolved by the destruction of capitalism, thus creating the conditions for putting an end to borders and the nation-state, and for building the union of workers of all nationalities into a world socialist federation.
The concept of the 'Multitude'
Another argument, which takes up as much space as it is vague, is the idea of 'the multitude'. It is vague because the most surprising thing is that the authors never explain clearly what they mean by the concept of 'the multitude'. A cloud of fog seems to come down every time this issue is discussed. Even at his public appearances, comrade Negri makes no further effort to provide a clearer explanation of the characteristics of this multitude. The authors have skilfully avoided answering the question "what is the multitude?" every time it has been raised in public meetings.
I do not intend to insinuate that the writers themselves are not completely sure of their own theory but I do intend to demonstrate how little focussed and lacking in scientific basis this idea actually is. Marx defined his concept of the working class with extreme clarity in a wealth of different texts and it has nothing in common with the concept of the multitude, which is mentioned on numerous occasions in the pages of "Empire".
In order to provide a little more understanding on what the authors mean by this concept of the multitude, I though it interesting to quote an interview given by Negri shortly after the release of his book in Italy. In this interview, Negri provides a definition of the concept of the multitude, although once again with characteristic haziness: "the multitude" says Negri, " is a class concept, a new version of class...". It implies that the "working classes" are in the minority, at least in traditional or Fordist terms. However, they become the majority, when one factors in those employed in intellectual, immaterial, autonomous and inevitably subordinate work.
Although Negri believes that labour is no less exploited than in the past, he adds that in modern society it is "intelligence" that creates Capital, "[...] the essential is the reproduction of life, and this is more important than the traditional production of goods: genetics, images, information technology, education." Negri explains that "the system has changed because exploitation has changed. Workers' struggles of the Ford era forced the system to change and reinvent itself. Simple work is now no different from complex work, it has become intelligence, just as Marx had predicted" [xii].
In these few lines, in addition to the attempt to link the concept of the multitude to the concept of the working class, Negri and Hardt completely distort several of the most fundamental tenets of Marxist analysis. Their strong desire to remove from the phase of production the possibility of a revolutionary transformation of society is evident. They seek by numerous methods to transform a secondary level of the capitalist system, e.g. the phase of reproduction and consumption, into a level of primary importance. This attempt is not accidental and has a specific political motivation.
The only class able to put an end to the capitalist production process and build a socialist economy is the proletariat and Negri is fully aware of this fact. But by eliminating the importance of the process of production, one also eliminates the importance of the proletariat. Furthermore, by emphasising the importance of the process of reproduction and consumption, revolutionary significance is given not only to the proletariat but also to social classes that are either subordinate to it or even opposed to it. For example, in the "multitude" one finds sectors of the petit bourgeoisie, layers of the proletariat and in some cases, acting as a counterbalance, even sections of big business, all united into one big amorphous mass.
With this sort of reasoning, the authors take the thinking of the Italian "Autonomist Workers" [Autonomia Operaia] movement of the 1970's to new extremes. This movement believed it pointless to carry out a "revolutionary break" within society. Many in the Autonomist Workers' movement believed that simply with continuous strikes and demonstrations, it would be possible to modify the structures of capitalist society so much so that they would be able to achieve socialism.
Only if you believe that it is not necessary to seize power, can you eliminate the importance of social classes and state that they have common interests. Marxists however know full well that the interests of the proletariat will never be those of the bourgeoisie and that the taking of state power in order to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat, the rule of the working class, is and will always be the only way forward.
The passage quoted above also shows how Negri once again tries to refer to Marx. Once more he uses one of the Autonomist Workers movement's favourite themes, i.e. the reference to Marx on machinery [xiii], in which it is alleged that the law of value has disappeared due to the production of intelligence by the proletariat.
In this passage, Negri makes two incorrect statements: firstly, that the industrial proletariat is diminishing; and secondly that according to Marx the law of value is tending to disappear from everything.
According to the latest OECD data, the industrial proletariat worldwide is growing and in any case no Marxist would make the mistake of confining his thinking entirely to that particular sector of the proletariat. The working class is not purely the industrial proletariat, although the latter is of key importance. Marxists must in fact strive to organise the new layers that have emerged from the changes in production itself. For these new layers are still subject to the same old exploitation at the hands of the bosses.
And as far |
his way towards his personal car that was pulling around to the front of the building.
Plan B.
It exploded outward under the impact of a heavy object being thrown from the higher levels of the building, the windows bursting and the roof crumpling inward. It was a man, or what was left of a man, dressed in tactical gear. One of the security team.
Poseidon looked up to see Hyperion staring down from the upper levels. Hyperion waved. Poseidon turned and ran as fast as he could on the injured leg, running for a long dock that would lead him to his prized personal boat. It was a long run on one good leg.
His ship was the Goddess of the Sea, of course.
He had lost his trident but he could still escape. Zeus could help.
He ran down the length of the dock and stumbled onto his boat. He fumbled with the keys before the engine roared to life and he eased out into open water.
He looked back to see the nearest Titan wasn’t yet close enough to stop him.
He turned back to the ocean and smiled. He had escaped.
It took him a moment to realize that the ocean was getting higher around him, not with waves but actually higher. The boat was driving down a ramp of sorts. Only a few seconds later the hull ground against the ocean floor and his escape was thwarted.
Surrounded by the walls of the ocean in a very nice cylinder, Poseidon looked around at his defeat. He had lost control of the ocean.
“Shit.”
“It’s only going to get worse..”
The voice startled him but the impact of the trident handle on his jaw was worse, sending him spinning to the floor of the boat with a grunt. Then he was picked up by strong arms and heaved onto the ocean floor with an earth shaking thud. He raised his head just in time to take the handle of the trident again to the bridge of his nose.
His nose exploded and he clutched at his bloody face, struggling to his knees in spite of the pain.
“You stole everything!” Oceanus roared it, lifting Poseidon up and slamming him down into the ocean floor again. This time Poseidon didn’t get up, he just lay there gasping for air.
“You took everything from us first.” Poseidon finally managed.
Oceanus knelt beside his former friend and looked him in the eyes.
“We paid for that. You went too far. Made yourself into a god.”
Poseidon’s eyes went from fearful to defiant with a flash of rage.
“I am a god!” he shouted through broken teeth and seeping blood.
Oceanus gripped the trident tight and stood, walking toward the wall of seawater that rushed around the two. He stood at the wall for a moment and then looked back. He thrust the trident into the boat and tore a gaping hole, she would take on water and stay forever buried in the waves.
“You were a pretender. The sea take you.”
He stepped into the wall and the sea carried him safely away.
Poseidon shouted at the sky, the water, everything he could. In rage, defiance, then begging. He held up his hands against the seawater but it did not yield. It was not his. Not anymore.
The water gripped him tight and as the walls crashed into the boat and the ocean reclaimed all that was hers, Poseidon was dragged towards open water with a mighty current. He clawed at the dry ocean floor even as water crushed his hands and filled his lungs and the screaming faded.
Then he was gone.
The ocean belonged to her master once again, carrying Oceanus to safety on a strong current.
Oceanus stood on the beach with the other Titans that had come from the tower, he had been faster and it was his place to choose the fate of Poseidon. He clutched the trident and stared over the calm ocean.
“He was my friend.”
Cronus stepped forward and put a hand on his brother’s shoulder. He was the first of us to kill one of them. I suppose it hadn’t really sunk in that we’d be killing our former friends. Even with the betrayal of our trust they had still meant something at some point.
Oceanus sighed, wiping his eyes and held up the trident.
“Does anyone know a good smith?”
The Smith hammered away at malleable light, each strike sparking as he molded it into something far more powerful.
He wiped the sweat from his brow with a thick forearm and looked up to the group staring at him. A half dozen Cyclopes milled around the massive forge in the open expanse of the icy country they had taken refuge in. They were at least twice his height and thickly muscled, having worked forges their whole lives, but even so the Smith could give them a run in a contest of strength.
They could still drink him under the table though.
“They’re out. Poseidon is dead.”
He snorted, looking down at the arrows he had been crafting from the light. They would need them, perhaps soon.
“Is he there? It’s the quick one, right?”
The oldest and largest of the trio nodded, scratching under his beard.
“Yes, he’ll help them now. Now that we’ve found them.”
The Smith went back to hammering. As the group left he shouted after them.
“A war is coming, are you ready?”
The oldest one smiled before he stepped into the night.
“We’re always ready for a war. We were born for it.”
The roar of prop engines thundered in the sky, drowning out any pretense of conversation. Two rows of men in camouflage uniforms line the riveted metal floor, wearing heavy backpacks and carrying rifles. They waited for the order to move forward and take the leap into the night.
One of them stood in line when he felt a vibration in his tactical vest, fishing his phone out and checking the text message. It was an unknown number to his phone but not to him. It only had two words and it made his heart stop.
Titans Out.
He replaced the phone in his vest and waited, hands shaking. One of the soldiers noticed and flashed a thumbs up, which he returned with the cockiest grin he could muster under the circumstances. When they piled out of the plan there was one less parachute open than they expected. When the soldiers gathered at their training point under the cover of darkness they found their head count to be one short.
In the distance a pair of boots hit the ground, ditching the parachute he’d opened far away from the others. He sprinted away, dodging trees and breathing evenly, though his heart pounded. He ran into the darkness. As the others began to search he disappeared into the night.
Like the wind.
NextI’m glad you brought up Toronto. Earlier we were talking about the East, how Brooklyn and Chicago have played much better. Toronto’s one of the best stories in the NBA this year. They’ve found some magic up there, they’ve really got a good group, good team chemistry, one of the best defenses in the league since the new year. Don Casey’s…did I call him Don Casey? Dwane Casey, Dwane Casey and his staff have really….[Tony Snell dunks, ending the conversation]
The Bulls were laying one on the Rockets on Thursday night and as the night was ending, Marv Albert in passing mentioned how the Bulls were a game behind the third place Raptors. Kerr took the opportunity to acknowledge the Raptors’ season, albeit bombarding Dwane Casey’s name:
Damn Tony Snell. For once the Raptors get some airtime on TNT and he has to throw down a meaningless dunk to ruin it all.
Full video clip below:Tomorrow sees the first appearance of a new Walking Dead key figure, The Princess. We talked about The Walking Dead #171 and the character in question earlier today in an article that is currently straining the Bleeding Cool servers.
But it looks like Skybound/Image Comics have been having fun with the variant covers. Because, just as with many Skybound variants this month, The Walking Dead #171 has an order-all-you-want variant cover by Lorenzo De Felici.
But some of those Lorenzo De Felici variants, and we don’t know how many, have a pink signature.
Let’s zoom in.
No doubt to welcome the arrival of The Princess to The Walking Dead — but also likely to set the collectors hopping and jumping like rabbits. So, will your copy have a pink signature? Can you get a pen from your kids back to school pencil case and try and make it look like it has? Because two of them have just sold for $40 each on eBay…
UPDATE: It’s not just the signature. I am told that the pink signature editions, 1 in 7 of the variant covers, have 7 extra pages of content whereas the other ones have letter pages in them….
About Rich Johnston Chief writer and founder of Bleeding Cool. Father of two. Comic book clairvoyant. Political cartoonist.
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None foundTo the Editor:
Way back in the 1930s my father and his brother, as well as my two older brothers, enjoyed firing their.22 rifles in target practice and even occasionally allowed me to try my hand at shooting at the homemade target myself. I was honored to have the privilege, to join in the fun, but beyond that, rifles, and guns in general, never interested me very much.
Now, more than three-quarter of a century later, things have changed. We read with horror about wild and senseless shootings in public places: movie houses, churches, grocery stores, schools. People are being shot, not inanimate targets now. Murder is the object, not the skill and fun of aiming correctly. Victims have been unaware of any danger. We are not at war, after all.
Now we read about deranged men, U.S. citizens, behaving like characters in a crime-filled movie. Such behavior befits the mentally sick, angry, hostile, drug-induced people here in the U.S. Why?
And it is not only we American-born citizens who are behaving this way. Recently, a naturalized young man born in Kuwait to Jordanian parents took his gun and shot into a U.S. Navy and Marine recruiting office, killing four Marines and fatally wounding a sailor there. Why? His family said he was depressed, had lost his job, was into substance abuse. He had entered into the ideology of the al-Qaida cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, and was described as a depressed stoner. In fact, he was technically a terrorist. Al-Qaida and ISIS seek out losers like him to attack our (and now his own) country. He was an enemy combatant. In a firefight with the police, he was shot dead. This surely can be described as “a new and more dangerous phase of jihadist violence against the civilized world,” as reported in the Wall Street Journal.
Clearly, times have changed since the Thirties. Angry people, crazy people, drug addicts now possess firearms and go about killing innocent citizens, adults and children, and not only in our country, in Europe and Asia as well.
The rules applying to gun possession are obviously insufficient. Even though the Federal Government is theoretically in charge of issuing such weapons, as well as local town and city police who have the duty and responsibility of issuing licenses for deadly weapons, just who are the people who receive this permission? Are they mentally healthy? Do they take drugs? Are they law-abiding citizens? Surely it is time for the rules already in place to be followed, and those who receive such permission be recognized as responsible people.
It is now time for tightening up the regulations of gun possession. The Second Amendment to our Constitution, on the right to bear arms, states, “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.” Obviously, our system is not at all well regulated! We are all faced with terrifying possibilities of being shot, whether we be innocent or guilty. No one has ever come to our house to see where, exactly, we keep our rifle here on the Vineyard, whether it is in a place safe from thieves.
By way of information, Massachusetts law requires that licensed gun owners secure all firearms when not in use. For example, if a gun owner is not home, his or her weapon must be in a safe or be secured with a trigger lock.
A gun owner would be liable should someone enter his or her home and use an unsecured weapon in the commission of a crime.
I strongly hope our own police department looks into this difficult problem.
Heidi Schultz
West TisburyThe book and its mission
Prison culture is an entity that feeds itself with rage, indifference and the force of addiction. It is a culture that's born in the streets, germinates behind bars, and then flows back into neighborhoods as ongoing cycles of victimization.
The U.S. currently has the most overcrowded prisons in the world; some states are combating the legal and political fallout from this reality by enacting new experiments for handling criminals. But behind the cliched expressions from lawmakers, oversimplified narratives from officials and fragmented reporting by the media, truths around America's justice system lie out of sight for most citizens, purposefully hidden behind curtains of overwhelming failure. Many who work within the system understand its veiled dysfunction comes not only from the confusing nature of criminality, but also from laws tied more to bureaucratic advantage and financial gain than the truth of what's happening in the streets.
"The Cutting Four-piece" is a new journalistic approach in telling that story.
How the book came about
"The Cutting Four-piece" is directly tied to an earlier successful Kickstarter project, "Shadow People: how meth-driven crime is eating at the heart of rural America." In that project, I spent more than 16 months embedded with law enforcement agencies to document the link between methamphetamine addiction and burglaries, robberies, child abuse, elder abuse, domestic violence and murder.
When "Shadow People" was released in 2012, I quickly discovered that while most readers accepted the book's premise, reading it left them with new questions: They wanted to know why certain people described in "Shadow People" stayed on seemingly lifelong criminal trajectories. They wanted to know why meth, crack and heroin are so hard to walk away from. They wanted to know why jail and prison are so easy to return to. They wanted to know what level of intelligence is actually operating within our laws. They wanted to know how much government underfunding of mental health care plays a role in people needlessly going to jail and prison. They wanted to know if elected officials are putting the public good and the nation's values ahead of their own political goals.
Why this book is different than other reports
I've written "The Cutting Four-piece" from the vantage point of a newspaper crime reporter with nearly nine years of experience. In addition to the 800 documented hours I spent embedded with law enforcement for "Shadow People," I engaged in an additional 210 hours of embedded time with officers and detectives for "The Cutting Four-piece." More importantly, I broadened the storytelling lens by spending nearly an equal amount of time with convicts, ex-convicts, drug addicts and men and women recovering from lives rattled by violence, exploitation and addiction.
Why a commercial book publisher will not work for "The Cutting Four-piece"
It has been my experience that, even when a reporter is backed and funded by a reputable national foundation, main stream book-publishing houses won't release journalistic books on crime with the same standards of factual reporting that newspapers and magazines use every day.We have enough simplified, watered down, half-verified journalism around the criminal justice system and the phenomenon of street crime. The public doesn't need a project that is more of the same.
"The Cutting Four-piece" will reach the public with assistance and support from a nonprofit publisher and nonprofit book distributor, both based in California. This same approach, along with support from backers on Kickstarter, allowed "Shadow People" to sell thousands of copies nationwide, with hundreds of free copies being sent to nonprofit groups. If "The Cutting Four-piece" is successfully funded, it will be released in April of 2015 at a retail cost of only $10, and a large number of free copies will be sent to community foundations and other nonprofit groups working around victim support and criminal rehabilitation.20 April 2018
The City seeks your feedback about the proposed modification of the streetscape of Rockingham Road, Hamilton Hill, between Cockburn Road and Phoenix Road.
The City intends to reduce Rockingham Road to one lane in each direction and install median islands and a regional standard shared path for cyclists and pedestrians along the north and east side of the road.
When: The project would be staged, subject to funding, with the first stage from Cockburn Road to Carrington Street proposed to start mid-year.
What: This would allow for a 3-metre wide asphalt shared path and address community concerns about the ability of pedestrians and cyclists to cross the road safely and conveniently. The construction of this path was identified in the City’s 2010 Bike Plan but was delayed while the City dealt with constraints along the road such as power poles and the limited space available.
More details
The intention is to use one of the traffic lanes for the shared path and modify Rockingham Road to have one traffic lane in each direction, separated by a median island. Reducing Rockingham Road to two traffic lanes is consistent with the existing road layout through Spearwood, south of Spearwood Avenue, and Munster and the planned layout between Phoenix Road and Spearwood Avenue in front of the Phoenix Shopping Centre.
The City is confident that the road will still operate at an acceptable level with a single traffic lane in either direction because the daily volume of traffic on this section of Rockingham Road (12,500-13,500 vehicles per day) is less than a number of other single lane roads in the region including:
Rockingham Road, south of Spearwood Avenue 16,000 vehicles per day;
Cockburn Road, south of Rockingham Road 18,000 vehicles per day;
South Street, White Gum Valley 20,000 vehicles per day;
Farrington Road, east of North Lake Road 21,000 vehicles per day.
The 3-metre wide median treatment will be a combination of a flush asphalt treatment with traffic islands where necessary and it will create opportunities to:
install refuge islands at locations along the road to provide much safer and more frequent opportunities for pedestrians and cyclists to cross the road to/from shops, schools, bus stops, etc
provide an area for vehicles to safely wait for an opportunity to turn right into side streets and driveways, minimising delays to continuing vehicles
slowly pass, when it is safe to do so, buses or waste trucks that are briefly stopping by the side of road
Possibly install trees in the middle of the road to improve street appearance
The asphalt shared path will be separated from the road by a 1-metre wide safety buffer that can be used to place bins on bin collection day
Ongoing design will address issues such as whether embayments are needed at bus stops where buses stop for longer periods of time, and how the path can be treated at intersections to give greater priority to path users.
This will improve safety for pedestrians and cyclists travelling along or crossing Rockingham Road which is particularly important considering that there were 4 crashes involving pedestrians in this section of road in the last 5 years, and one resulted in a fatality.
We invite you to view the concept drawings here or at the City’s Administration Building and Spearwood Public Library at 9 Coleville Crescent, Spearwood and then provide your feedback by Friday 20 April by one of the following methods:
Complete an online survey below
Send an email
Contact the City’s Transport Team on 9411 3444 during business hours.
Previous consultation
In September/October 2017, the City sought public input about creating two bike and walk paths -- one along Rockingham Road and one along the BP oil pipeline reserve. That feedback was used to support a design grant funding application. The majority of submissions received, including from local cycling and community groups, supported the proposal.Savage: The Shard of Gosen is like all of my childhood favourites,
Conan the Barbarian, Castlevania, Astyanax, and the Legend of Zelda game everyone bitched about,
all put into a blender, turned to Dark Souls, and left on until the circuit blows.
Savage: The Shard of Gosen is not your typical retro-graphics styled 2D adventure/RPG.
It’s a game with a lot of attention to detail, and some pretty graphics, considering it looks like the most put together SNES game ever.
The Basics:
In Savage, you play a man named Kell (should you choose to keep his default name), from a tribe that is being enslaved by the Argeshii Empire, a huge civilization that owns massive swaths of Lor, the prehistoric fantasy world you live in. Run, jump, and climb through this incredible world, and kick everything’s ass on the way. It’s a basic premise, but, the feel of the controls and the world are both very well crafted.
This game feels like a love letter to the games of the past, while not sacrificing any of the modern playability of games today.
Graphics and Audio:
I’m gonna start out by saying the soundtrack is exactly what I would expect – it’s got good beats and isn’t overly complicated, but it feels like I’m playing exactly what I am, and that’s important. The music is good enough I actually stopped running and jumping long enough to listen to it at points, but, it does hang around a bit long if you’re terrible at the game like I am, and have to replay sections more than a couple of times. As far as graphics are concerned, this game is top tier in the world of pixels. The animations are crisp, the character moves realistically, and the different weapon types giving different animations is very well done. This isn’t “Swing your arm and whatever is in it will hit your enemy” it’s actually custom animations for different weapon types. It’s spectacular.
Gameplay:
This is where the shine really comes into focus in Savage. A lot of the game play involves your traditional combat, though, it’s incredibly fluid, with plenty of room for different styles of combat. Some people might prefer the spear, though, I am a big fan of the two handed sword. The game allows you to handle combat differently, just like any reasonable game about combat should. It doesn’t play like Hollow Knight exactly, but, they are both fluid and action-packed combat based games.
There are also weapons that are definitely important in certain situations, such as the throwing dirks, which you’ll need to acquire to climb up certain walls. Using the shield to block ranged attacks is important, and actually fun. The whole of combat is fun.
When climbing something, your character moves slower than when he runs, which, seems like it would be annoying, but the realism of it adds a new challenge and forces you to make smart decisions. The only downfall I currently see, and, I need to note here, the game is still in development, so this may change, is that certain areas feel like definite traps that will just murder you. Fall into a pit that has spikes in the floor? Probably not going to just get hit once, you might just live there until you’re not living anymore. That’s okay though, when you die, you just respawn at the last mug you drank out of, which feels like the Dark Souls bonfire, in that it’s a safe respite from the world, and also the only place you can level up.
Of course, Dark Souls has about 500 different attributes for you to worry about, but good ol’ Kell has 3, Might, Resolve, and Favor. These effect sub stats, but, without getting too detailed, Might’s for killing, Resolves for tanking, and Favor is item find rate/luck.
There’s even a whole crafting system built into the game. You can use fetishes to fancy up your weapons. Another cool thing about the equipment, is as you use it, it levels up, making it do more damage or get special unique properties. I haven’t toyed around too much with this system other than the naturally occurring levels my pieces got as I played, but I’m pretty sure your equipment can only level up as high as you can, which means that your pants made of leather are going to be more powerful as time goes on if you don’t decide to replace it with something metal.
Overall:
We don’t even have an idea what this game is going to cost, as it’s still in development. We were just lucky enough to meet this incredible developer at Dreamhack Austin, which, cruuump will have a few articles about here shortly. This game is damn fun, and it definitely deserves more hype than it’s getting. If you’re into a challenging game with a cool story, in a world where you can punch bears in the face, this is your game. – and, if you’re one of those people who want a full review – just wait ‘til it releases, ‘cause we’re gonna review the shit out of this one.
Oh, did I mention that this game was made entirely by 1 person? Dude has done all of it himself. ALL OF IT. What a freakin’ talented guy Matt Fitzgerald is. I mean, he’s been working on it since 2013, but, the attention to detail and the passion for his project is very clear. He says it’s going to release soon!
Add the game to your wishlist on Steam
Disclosure: You too, can get a free public alpha copy of this game
Check out the Developer: Planet ToborFormer LA Governor's powerful indictment of unrestricted corporate money in politics shut out of national debate...
Ernest A. Canning Byon 1/8/2012, 1:06pm PT
Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning
In the latest tracking poll released out of New Hampshire, the Suffolk University/7 NEWS poll [PDF], TX Governor Rick Perry receives 1% support from 500 likely voters in the Granite State. Former LA Governor and four-term U.S. Congressman Buddy Roemer also received 1%. In fact, Roemer received approval from a higher number of respondents (6) than Perry did (4). And yet, Perry was allowed to participate in both last night's GOP Presidential debate in NH as televised on ABC, as well as this morning's on NBC. Roemer was not allowed to participate in either of them.
In fact, out of some 16 GOP Presidential debates to date, Roemer has not been allowed to participate in a single one of them.
The exclusion of Roemer from every single Republican Presidential Debate provides but the latest example of how the corporate-owned media limits the ability of the American people to elect --- or even hear from --- individuals who challenge oligarchic corporate control of our ostensibly democratic institutions.
A candidate like Roemer, who has embraced Occupy Wall Street and spoken (and Tweeted) powerfully and openly and passionately and continuously against the corrupting influence of corporate money on our democratic institutions, poses a direct threat to the corporate media bottom line --- a corporate media which is looking forward to approximately $3 billion in political ad revenues in 2012, courtesy of Citizens United --- the U.S. Supreme Court's infamous 2010 decision which has flung the door wide open to the corrupting influence of unlimited anonymous corporate campaign expenditures.
Whether it entails ending coverage of the Rose Parade before thousands of Occupy demonstrators, their signs and floats could be seen or limiting the scope of discourse in both Presidential Debates and the selection of the nominee in general, exclusion provides a powerful means by which the corporate media maintains the status quo...
Sliding scale of excuses vs. reality
During his recent appearance on Democracy Now! (see video below), Roemer complained about the new hurdles to inclusion he has faced at each successive debate:
First, you had to be an official candidate for president. I thought that was fair. I announced at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire in August. We called for the next debate. They said, "Well, you have to have 1 percent in a national poll." We worked four weeks. We made 1 percent. I called again. They said, "Oh, you have to have 2 percent now, Governor." We made 2 percent. I called again three debates ago, and they said, "Well, you had to raise a half-a-million dollars in the last 90 days." We had raised $256,000.
From the perspective of the corporate media, the last criteria makes the most sense. In corporate America, it is money, not democracy, which is the end-all, beat-all criteria. Thus, the fact, as noted in a Dec. 27 Boston Globe editorial that Roemer is polling ahead of Texas Governor Rick Perry in the Granite State, where the all-important "First-in-the-Nation" primary will take place on Tuesday, carries absolutely no weight in the corporate media's decision as to who is included or excluded from a televised debate.
Debate exclusion and the 'democracy deficit'
In Failed States, Professor Noam Chomsky refers to the "democracy deficit" --- the significant gap between the substantive policy positions of the U.S. electorate and their elected "leaders." He attributes that deficit to the manner in which U.S. "elections are skillfully managed to avoid issues and marginalize the underlying population, freeing the elected leadership to serve the substantial people."
Roemer's exclusion from the media stage provides a classic example of a "democracy deficit" occasioned by corporate media manipulation of the electoral process.
With a double-digit lead, recent polls suggest Mitt Romney may be poised to win a landslide victory in New Hampshire. Those polls would suggest that large numbers of Republicans share Romney's opinion that "corporations are people." Concord Monitor editor Felice Belman apparently thought so. She told Rachel Maddow on Friday evening that she believed Roemer's message was a protest message primarily shared by Democrats and independents, not Republicans. (See video below).
Yet, when citizens are asked directly about the "issue" --- as occurred earlier last year in a poll conducted by the Hart Research Associates --- it turns out that 87 "percent of Democrats, 82 percent of Independents, and 68 percent of Republicans said they would support...amending the U.S. Constitution to affirm that corporations don't have the same rights as people."
The gap between candidate numbers and policy calls to minds the August 2007 "blind-poll" Internet survey which set forth the policy positions of Democratic candidates for President but did not include their names. Barack Obama, the charismatic "change" candidate whose soaring rhetoric was second to none, received a meager 3%, Hillary Clinton performed marginally better with 3.6%, while Dennis Kucinich was the choice of "a phenomenal 53%."
We've seen this before
On January 15, 2008, MSNBC, following an adverse ruling by a Nevada superior court judge, successfully petitioned the Nevada Supreme Court to prevent Kucinich from participating in a presidential debate, arguing that Kucinich’s effort to be included amounted to an "illegitimate" effort "to impose an equal access requirement that entirely undermines the wide journalistic freedoms enjoyed by news organizations under the First Amendment."
"Journalistic freedoms", in this context, amounts to an Orwellian claim that media corporations who enjoy the occupation of our public airwaves have a First Amendment right to limit the content of debate.
The fallacy of the MSNBC position was underscored when, one day after the debate, Kucinich appeared on Democracy Now!.
At the outset, Kucinich described his exclusion as a "conundrum" which "goes right to the question of democratic governance, whether a broadcast network can choose who the candidates will be based on their narrow concerns, because they’ve contributed --- GE, NBC and Raytheon…have all contributed substantially to Democratic candidates who were in the debate. And the fact of the matter is, with GE building nuclear power plants, they have a vested interest in Yucca Mountain in Nevada being kept open; with GE being involved with Raytheon…they have an interest in war continuing. So NBC ends up being their propaganda arm to be able to advance their economic interests."
During the MSNBC debate, moderator Tim Russert asked all three candidates: "Will you vigorously enforce a statute which says colleges must allow military recruiters on campus and provide ROTC programs?" All three candidates, without any hesitation, answered "yes;" Clinton adding that universities should "certainly not do anything that either undermines or disrespects the young men and women who wish to pursue a military career."
AMY GOODMAN: Congress member Kucinich, would you? REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Absolutely not! Our society is being militarized. And part of the problem is NBC, which is a partner defense contractor through the ownership of General Electric of both NBC and Raytheon. So NBC is really promoting war here. The truth of the matter is that we need to make it possible for our young people, if they desire to go in the military, they can go to a recruiter’s office, instead of telling campuses that if you don’t let recruiters on campus, you’re going to lose your money. That, to me is antithetical to a democratic society.
While Ron Paul's inclusion this year leaves open the possibility of at least some meaningful anti-imperialist war discussion during the 2012 GOP "debates," Roemer's exclusion prevents the American people from examining the ramifications of the corrupting influence of corporate money in politics.
* * *
Buddy Roemer's 1/6/12 appearance on Democracy Now! follows...
Roemer's powerful indictment of the corrupting influence of money in our political system, during his 1/6/12 interview by Rachel Maddow on MSNBC follows...
* * *
Ernest A. Canning has been an active member of the California state bar since 1977. Mr. Canning has received both undergraduate and graduate degrees in political science as well as a juris doctor. He is also a Vietnam vet (4th Infantry, Central Highlands 1968). Follow him on Twitter: @Cann4ing.Good morning and welcome to the Rocacorba Daily. With a rest day in the Tour of Poland overnight there’s not too much racing going on, but there’s still plenty of news around the place. In this morning’s edition of the Rocacorba we’ve got a selection of the biggest news stories of the day, including the latest developments in the Pat McQuaid UCI presidency saga.
Pat McQuaid and the UCI presidency
The UCI presidency elections will be here in September and there’s been some uncertainty about whether Pat McQuaid will be eligible for another term at the helm, given he hasn’t been nominated by a federation.
But in a bizarre turn of events the Malaysian federation has proposed a change to the UCI constitution to allow a candidate to be nominated by any two federations.
While the change is still to be voted on, if it is passed it will be backdated, allowing the possibility of McQuaid’s nomination for the September elections even though the cutoff date was June 29.
In the meantime, the Moroccan and Thai cycling federations have announced that McQuaid is now a member and that they will support his bid for the presidency.
To read more about this bizarre story, check out this great piece by Shane Stokes over at VeloNation.
O’Grady case shows why an amnesty would never work
Much has been written in the past week about Stuart O’Grady’s indiscretions and what effect they have on our perception of the South Australian’s long career.
In a piece published yesterday evening at SBS’s Cycling Central Alex Hinds delves into the issue and considers the state of professional cycling in light of the O’Grady confession. To quote:
As The Advertiser’s Reece Homfray wrote, O’Grady’s indiscretion “must not define him as a person”. And it won’t. But it’s immaterial to his legacy as an athlete. Nice guys, it seems, dope too. That’s not what’s most disappointing. What’s most disappointing is the state of our sport, a sport which has undergone radical change in the past decade and yet one that in so many ways is still the same. Chris Froome was dogged by questions at this year’s Tour de France because of those that have ridden before him, not because of what he has done. That’s a tragedy. Our faith, if you can call it that, in cycling’s sporting performances is so shallow that even the most well-tested teams and riders, even the most transparent processes, cannot convince us.
Click here to read the full article at Cycling Central.
”Why we sponsor a cycling team”
Saxo Bank has been the major sponsor of a professional cycling team since 2008 and in that time the team has attracted some of the biggest names in the cycling world, not least Alberto Contador.
Writing for tradingfloor.com, Saxo Bank founder and CEO Lars Seier Christensen outlines five reasons why his company sponsors a professional cycling team and what the company gets out of it.
It’s an interesting read that provides a rare perspective on the commercial side of the sport and a reminder that there’s far more to professional cycling than a bunch of guys racing bikes.
Click here to read the full article.
Laura Trott questions need for a women’s Tour de France
The petition to include a women’s peloton in the Tour de France has amassed more than 84,000 signatures but dual Olympic gold medallist Laura Trott has suggested that attention needs to be focused elsewhere in the development of women’s cycling.
“I would rather see the current women’s road racing on the telly first. I like that the British nationals were televised and I think that is a great starting point. I think if we can get that for races like the women’s Giro, that that is a great start.”
Click here to read more at Total Women’s Cycling.
Dopers should face lifetime bans and criminal charges: Kittel
In the fallout from Eric Zabel’s confession to using performance-enhancing drugs throughout his career, Marcel Kittel has made his views about doping known to German newspaper Die Welt.
Kittel has called for “an anti-doping law in Germany so that doped athletes can also be pursued criminally. Drug abuse should be a crime that must be punished hard.”
Kittel was asked how clean he thought cycling is in 2013.
“I can not see inside [the head of] every rider,” he said. “I can only speak for myself and the people who ride with me in a team. Our philosophy is clear: we want to do cycling clean. I think many other teams have also realized that this is the only right way.”
“It is also clear that there are certainly still riders who take a shortcut”, Kittel continued. “Therefore, it is very, very important to continue to tighten the controls and that they are consistently upheld.
Click here to read more at VeloNation.
United Healthcare launches women’s team
The company behind the UnitedHealthcare men’s ProConti team, Momentum Sports Group, announced overnight that it will be sponsoring and equivalent women’s team in 2014.
Momentum Sports Group general manager Mike Tamayo said of the announcement:
“It’s good for the |
.001; to right fusiform: r = 0.54, P = 0.002; right pSTS gPPI seed to right OFC: r = 0.58, P < 0.001; to right AI: r = 0.66, P < 0.001; to right dACC: r = 0.66, P < 0.001).
Connectivity of right-hemisphere voice-selective cortex and social communication abilities. The whole-brain connectivity map shows that children’s social communication scores covaried with the strength of functional coupling between the right-hemisphere pSTS (Upper Left) and OFC of the reward pathway (Upper Right) and between the AI and dACC of the salience network (Lower). Scatterplots show the distributions and covariation of STS connectivity strength in response to mother’s voice and standardized scores of social function. Greater social communication abilities, reflected by smaller social communication scores, are associated with greater brain connectivity between the STS and these brain regions.
Connectivity of left-hemisphere voice-selective cortex and social communication abilities. The whole-brain connectivity map shows that children’s social communication scores covaried with the strength of functional coupling between the left-hemisphere aSTS (Top) and left-hemisphere NAc (Center Left), right-hemisphere amygdala (Center Right), right-hemisphere hippocampus (Bottom Left), and FG, which overlapped with the FG2 subregion (Bottom Right). Scatterplots show the distributions and covariation of aSTS connectivity strength in response to mother’s voice and standardized scores of social communication abilities. Greater social communication abilities, reflected by smaller social communication scores, are associated with greater brain connectivity between the STS and these brain regions. a.u., arbitrary units.
We then investigated individual differences in children’s brain connectivity by performing a regression analysis between the strength of STS connectivity and social and language measures. Results from whole-brain regression analyses showed a striking relationship: Children’s social communication scores, assessed using the Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS-2) ( 22 ), covaried with the strength of functional connectivity among multiple STS gPPI seeds and the brain systems identified in the univariate analysis ( Fig. 3 ). Specifically, standardized scores of social communication were correlated with the strength of brain connectivity for the [mother’s voice > female control voices] gPPI contrast between left-hemisphere anterior STS (aSTS) and left-hemisphere NAc of the mesolimbic reward pathway, right-hemisphere amygdala, hippocampus, and fusiform gyrus (FG), which overlapped with the FG2 subregion ( 19 ). Moreover, social communication scores were correlated with the strength of brain connectivity between right-hemisphere posterior STS (pSTS) and OFC of the reward system and the AI and dACC of the salience network ( Fig. 4 ). Scatterplots show that both brain connectivity and social communication abilities vary across a range of values and that greater social function, reflected by lower social communication scores, is associated with greater brain connectivity between the STS and these reward, affective, salience, and face-processing regions. In contrast, language abilities, assessed using the Core Language Score from Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals, 4th edition (CELF-4) ( 23 ), correlated only with connectivity between left-hemisphere medial STS (mSTS) and right-hemisphere HG and inferior frontal gyrus ( Fig. S6 ).
The brain regions identified by the voxelwise analysis of mother’s voice identified multiple functional systems encompassing primary auditory and voice-selective temporal cortex, cortical structures of the visual ventral stream, and heteromodal regions associated with affective and reward function and salience detection. A prominent hypothesis states that the STS is a key node of the speech perception network that connects low-level auditory regions with heteromodal regions important for reward and affective processing of these sounds ( 21 ). Therefore, our next analysis examined the functional connectivity of the STS, using the generalized psychophysiological interaction (gPPI) model, with the goal of identifying the brain network that shows greater connectivity during mother’s voice compared to female control voice perception.
We next examined whether the presence of pleasant vocal features in the control voices could elicit increased activity in brain systems activated by mother’s voice ( Fig. 2 ). This analysis was based on independent behavioral ratings of the vocal stimuli, which revealed that vocal pleasantness ratings were significantly greater for one of the female control voices compared to the other control voice (P < 0.001). Both whole-brain and region of interest (ROI) analyses showed no differences in brain response between the two control voices in auditory, voice-selective, face-processing, reward, salience, or default mode brain regions (see SI Methods, Control voice analysis ). These results indicate that more intrinsically pleasant vocal characteristics alone are not sufficient to drive brain activity in the wide range of brain systems engaged by mother’s voice.
We next examined whether the extensive brain activation in response to mother’s voice ( Fig. 2 ) is specific to this stimulus or, alternatively, if a similar extent of activation is elicited by female control voices when compared to nonvocal environmental sounds. This particular comparison was used in a seminal study examining the cortical basis of vocal processing in adult listeners ( 11 ), and results from the current child sample are consistent with this previous work, showing strong activation in bilateral voice-selective STG and STS ( Fig. S5 ) for this contrast. Moreover, female control voices elicit activity in bilateral amygdala and supramarginal gyri and in left-hemisphere medial HG (mHG). Importantly, this analysis comparing female control voices and environmental sounds failed to identify reward, salience, and face-processing regions or the IC. Together, these results not only demonstrate that responses to mother’s voice are highly distributed throughout a number of brain systems but also show that activity in many of these regions, encompassing reward, salience, and face-processing systems, is specific to mother’s voice.
Signal levels in default mode (Upper) and occipital (Lower) regions in response to mother’s voice and female control voices. Regions were selected for signal-level analysis based on their identification in the [mother’s voice > female control voices] contrast ( Fig. 2 in the main text). Values plotted for mother’s voice and female control voices are referenced to duration- and energy-matched environmental sounds, e.g., [mother’s voice > environmental sounds]. All ROIs in these bar graphs are 5-mm spheres centered at the peak for these regions in the [mother’s voice > female control voices] contrast ( Fig. 2 in the main text). **P < 0.01.
Signal levels in mesolimbic reward regions (Upper) and the amygdala and salience network (Lower) in response to mother’s voice and female control voices. Regions were selected for signal-level analysis based on their identification in the [mother’s voice > female control voices] contrast ( Fig. 2 in the main text). Values plotted for mother’s voice and female control voices are referenced to duration- and energy-matched environmental sounds, e.g., [mother’s voice > environmental sounds]. NAc and amygdala ROIs are 2-mm spheres centered at the peak for these regions in the [mother’s voice > female control voices] contrast; all other ROIs in these bar graphs are 5-mm spheres centered at the peak for these regions in the [mother’s voice > female control voices] contrast ( Fig. 2 in the main text). **P < 0.01; *P < 0.05.
Signal levels in primary auditory regions (Upper) and voice-selective cortex (Lower) in response to mother’s voice and female control voices. Primary auditory regions were identified a priori from previous auditory studies (IC ROIs) ( 56 ) and from cytoarchitectonic maps (Te ROIs) ( 55 ), and voice-selective cortical regions were selected for signal-level analysis based on previous investigations of voice-selective cortex (bilateral pSTS; refs. 11, 37 ) or their identification in the [mother’s voice > female control voices] contrast (bilateral mSTS and aSTS; see Fig. 2 in the main text). Values plotted for mother’s voice and female control voices are referenced to duration and energy-matched environmental sounds, e.g., [mother’s voice > environmental sounds]. The signal-level analysis was performed because stimulus-based differences in fMRI activity can result from a number of different factors. Significant differences were inherent to this ROI analysis, because they are based on results from the whole-brain GLM analysis ( 52 ); however, results provide important information regarding the magnitude and sign of fMRI activity. **P < 0.01; *P < 0.05.
Brain activity in response to mother’s voice. Compared to female control voices, mother’s voice elicits greater activity in auditory brain structures in the midbrain and superior temporal cortex (Upper Left), including the bilateral IC and primary auditory cortex (mHG) and a wide extent of voice-selective STG (Upper Center) and STS. Mother’s voice also elicited greater activity in occipital cortex, including fusiform gyrus (FG) (Lower Left), and in heteromodal brain regions serving affective functions, anchored in the amygdala (Upper Right), core structures of the mesolimbic reward system, including NAc, OFC, and vmPFC (Lower Center), and structures of the salience network, including the AI and dACC (Lower Right). No voxels showed greater activity in response to female control voices compared to mother’s voice.
In the fMRI analysis, we first identified brain regions that showed greater activation in response to mother’s voice compared to female control voices. By subtracting out brain activation associated with hearing female control voices producing the same nonsense words (i.e., controlling for low-level acoustical features, phoneme and word-level analysis, auditory attention, and other factors), we estimated brain responses unique to hearing the maternal voice. We found that mother’s voice elicited greater activity in a number of brain systems, encompassing regions important for auditory, voice-selective, reward, social, and visual functions. First, mother’s voice elicited greater activation in primary auditory regions, including bilateral inferior colliculus (IC), the primary midbrain nucleus of the ascending auditory system, and bilateral posteromedial Heschl’s gyrus (HG), which contains the primary auditory cortex ( Fig. 2 ). The auditory association cortex of the superior temporal plane, including bilateral planum temporale and planum polare, also showed significantly greater activation in response to mother’s voice, with slightly greater activation in the right hemisphere. Next, mother’s voice elicited enhanced bilateral activation in voice-selective superior temporal gyrus (STG) and superior temporal sulcus (STS), extending from posterior (y = −48) to anterior (y = 14) aspects of the lateral temporal cortex. Mother’s voice also elicited greater activity in the medial temporal lobe, including the left-hemisphere amygdala, a key node of the affective processing system. Structures of the mesolimbic reward pathway also showed greater activation in response to mother’s voice than to female control voices, including the bilateral nucleus accumbens (NAc) and the ventral putamen of the ventral striatum, orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). Mother’s voice also elicited greater activation in posterior medial cortex bilaterally encompassing the precuneus and posterior cingulate cortex, a key node of the default mode network ( 17 ), which is a system involved in processing self-referential information ( 18 ). Additionally, mother’s voice elicited increased activity in multiple regions of the occipital cortex, including right-hemisphere intercalcarine, lingual, and fusiform cortex, including overlap with the FG2 subregion of the fusiform, which is associated with visual face processing ( 19 ). Greater activation also was evident in the anterior insula (AI) and the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC), two key structures of the salience network ( 20 ). Finally, preference for mother’s voice was evident in frontoparietal regions, including right-hemisphere pars opercularis [Brodmann area (BA) 44] and triangularis (BA 45), and in bilateral angular, supramarginal, and precentral gyri. The signal level in the majority of these brain regions showed increased activity relative to baseline in response to mother’s voice (see SI Methods and Figs. S1 – S4 for results from signal-level analysis). No brain regions showed significantly greater activation for female control voices compared to mother’s voice.
We next examined perceptual attributes of the stimuli. Of particular interest are the attributes associated with the pleasantness and excitement (a child-friendly proxy for “engagingness”) of the vocal samples: If the vocal characteristics of the mother’s voice samples are more rewarding and exciting than those of the female control voices, this difference could potentially account for brain effects associated with hearing mother’s voice. We administered a separate behavioral experiment in an independent cohort (i.e., children who did not participate in the fMRI study) of 27 elementary school children (mean age: 11.1 y). In this experiment, participants rated the 24 mother’s voice stimuli used in the fMRI experiment and the two female control stimuli based on how pleasant and exciting these voices sounded ( SI Methods ). We found no statistical difference between pleasantness ratings for the control voices and the mean pleasantness ratings for the mother’s voice samples ( Fig. 1C, Left); however, female control voices showed greater excitement ratings than the mother’s voice samples (P = 0.023) ( Fig. 1C, Right). Importantly, these behavioral results show that the vocal qualities of the two female control voices used in the fMRI experiment were equally as pleasant as, and were not less exciting than, the mother’s voice stimuli.
We conducted acoustical analyses and behavioral experiments to characterize the physical and perceptual attributes of mother’s voice and female control voice samples. The goal of these analyses was to determine if there were differences between mother’s voice and female control voice samples that could account for differences in fMRI activity beyond the biological salience of mother’s voice. Human voices are differentiated according to a number of acoustical characteristics, including features that reflect the anatomy of the speaker’s vocal tract, such as the pitch and harmonics of speech, and learned aspects of speech production, which include speech rhythm, rate, and emphasis ( 15, 16 ). Acoustical analysis of the vocal samples used in the fMRI scan showed that control voice samples were qualitatively similar to mother’s voice samples across multiple spectrotemporal acoustical features ( Fig. 1B ).
SI Methods
Participants. The Stanford University Institutional Review Board approved the study protocol. Parental consent and children's assent were obtained for all evaluation procedures, and children were paid for their participation in the study. A total of 32 children were recruited from around the San Francisco Bay Area for this study. Six participants were excluded because of excessive movement, one was excluded because of infrequent contact with their biological mother, who also was unavailable for a vocal recording, and another participant was excluded because of scores in the “severe” range on standardized measures of social function. Parent reports from the final sample of 24 participants showed that these children were raised in families with a wide of range of socioeconomic backgrounds, with 25% of participants coming from households earning ≤$100K/y. Socioeconomic status was not correlated with children’s social communication skills as assessed using the SRS-2 (P > 0.50), the key behavioral measure described in the analysis. All children were required to have a full-scale IQ >80, as measured by the WASI (41). All children were right-handed and had no history of: neurological, psychiatric, or learning disorders; no personal or family (first degree) history of developmental cognitive disorders or heritable neuropsychiatric disorders; no evidence of significant difficulty during pregnancy, labor, delivery, or the immediate neonatal period; and no abnormal developmental milestones as determined by neurologic history and examination. Participants were the biological offspring of the mothers whose voices were used in this study (i.e., none of our participants were adopted, and therefore none of the mothers’ voices were from an adoptive mother), and all participants were raised in homes that included their mother. Participants’ neuropsychological and language characteristics are provided in Tables S1 and S2, respectively.
Data Acquisition Parameters. All fMRI data were acquired in a single session at the Richard M. Lucas Center for Imaging at Stanford University. Functional images were acquired on a 3-T Signa scanner (General Electric) using a custom-built head coil. Participants were instructed to stay as still as possible during scanning, and head movement was minimized further by placing memory-foam pillows around the participant’s head. A total of 29 axial slices (4.0-mm thickness, 0.5-mm skip) parallel to the anterior/posterior commissure line and covering the whole brain were imaged by using a T2*-weighted gradient-echo spiral in-out pulse sequence (43) with the following parameters: repetition time (TR) = 3,576 ms; echo time = 30 ms; flip angle = 80°; one interleaf. The 3,576-ms TR is the sum of (i) the stimulus duration of 956 ms; (ii) a 300-ms silent interval buffering the beginning and end of each stimulus presentation (600 ms total of silent buffers) to avoid backward and forward masking effects; (iii) the 2,000-ms volume acquisition time; and (iv) an additional 20-ms silent interval which helped the stimulus computer maintain precise and accurate timing during stimulus presentation. The field of view was 20 cm, and the matrix size was 64 × 64, providing an in-plane spatial resolution of 3.125 mm. Reduction of blurring and reduction of signal loss arising from field inhomogeneities was accomplished by the use of an automated high-order shimming method before data acquisition.
fMRI Task. Auditory stimuli were presented in 10 separate runs, each lasting 4 min. One run consisted of 56 trials of mother’s voice, female control voices, environmental sounds, and catch trials, which were pseudorandomly ordered within each run. Stimulus presentation order was the same for each subject. Each stimulus lasted 956 ms. Before each run, child participants were instructed to play the “kitty cat game” during the fMRI scan. While lying down in the scanner, children were first shown a brief video of a cat and were told that the goal of the cat game was to listen to a variety of sounds, including “voices that may be familiar,” and to push a button on a button box only when they heard kitty cat meows (catch trials). The function of the catch trials was to keep the children alert and engaged during stimulus presentation. During each run, four or five exemplars of each stimulus type (i.e., nonsense words produced by that child's mother, female control voices, and environmental sounds) and three catch trials were presented. At the end of each run, the children were shown another engaging video of a cat. Across the 10 runs, a total of 48 exemplars of each stimulus condition were presented to each subject. Speech stimuli were presented to participants in the scanner using E-Prime v1.0 (Psychological Software Tools, 2002). Participants wore custom-built headphones designed to reduce the background scanner noise to ∼70 adjusted dB (dBA) (44, 45). Headphone sound levels were calibrated before each data-collection session, and all stimuli were presented at a sound level of 75 dBA. Participants were scanned using an event-related design. Auditory stimuli were presented during silent intervals between volume acquisitions to eliminate the effects of scanner noise on auditory discrimination. One stimulus was presented every 3,576 ms, and the duration of the silent period was not jittered. The total silent period between stimulus presentations was 2,620 ms and consisted of a 300-ms silent period, 2,000 ms for a volume acquisition, another 300 ms of silence, and a 20-ms silent interval that helped the stimulus computer maintain precise and accurate timing during stimulus presentation.
fMRI Preprocessing. fMRI data collected in each of the 10 functional runs were subject to the following preprocessing procedures. The first five volumes were not analyzed to allow for signal equilibration. A linear shim correction was applied separately for each slice during reconstruction by using a magnetic field map acquired automatically by the pulse sequence at the beginning of the scan. Functional images were first realigned to their first volume using SPM8 analysis software (www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/spm) and then corrected for deviant volumes resulting from spikes in movement. Translational movement in millimeters (x, y, z) was calculated based on the SPM8 parameters from the realignment procedure for each subject. We used a despiking procedure (46) similar to those implemented in the Analysis of Functional NeuroImages (AFNI) toolkit maintained by the National Institute of Mental Health (Bethesda, MD) (47). Volumes with movement exceeding 0.5 voxels (1.562 mm) or spikes in global signal exceeding 5% were interpolated using adjacent scans. The majority of volumes repaired occurred in isolation. After the interpolation procedure, images were further corrected for slice-timing errors. To normalize the functional images to standard Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI) space, each individual's functional images were first coregistered to their structural T1 images, and their T1 images were then transformed to MNI space. The transformation parameters were subsequently applied to the functional images, which were then resampled to 2-mm isotropic voxels. Finally, functional images were smoothed with a 6-mm full-width half-maximum Gaussian kernel to decrease spatial noise prior to statistical analysis.
Movement Criteria for Inclusion in fMRI Analysis. For inclusion in the fMRI analysis, we required that each functional run have a maximum scan-to-scan movement of <6 mm and that no more than 15% of volumes were corrected in the despiking procedure. Moreover, we required that all individual subject data included in the analysis consist of at least seven functional runs that met our criteria for scan-to-scan movement and percentage of volumes corrected; subjects who had fewer than seven functional runs that met our movement criteria were not included in the data analysis. All 24 participants included in the analysis had at least seven functional runs that met our movement criteria. Fifteen of the participants had 10 runs of data that met these movement criteria; two subjects had nine runs of data that met movement criteria; five subjects had eight runs of data; and two subjects had seven runs that met criteria.
Voxelwise Analysis of fMRI Activation. The goal of the voxelwise analysis of fMRI activation was to identify brain regions that showed differential activity levels in response to mother’s voice, female control voices, and environmental sounds. Brain activation related to each speech task condition was first modeled at the individual subject level using boxcar functions with a canonical hemodynamic response function and a temporal derivative to account for voxelwise latency differences in hemodynamic response. Environmental sounds were not modeled to avoid collinearity, and this stimulus served as the baseline condition. Low-frequency drifts at each voxel were removed using a high-pass filter (0.5 cycles/min), and serial correlations were accounted for by modeling the fMRI time series as a first-degree autoregressive process (48). Voxelwise t statistics maps for each condition were generated for each participant using the general linear model (GLM) along with the respective contrast images. Group-level activation was determined using individual-subject contrast images and second-level one-sampled t tests. The main contrasts of interest were [mother’s voice vs. female control voices], [female control voices vs. mother’s voice], [female control voices vs. environmental sounds], [female control voice 1 vs. female control voice 2], and [female control voice 2 vs. female control voice 1]. Significant clusters of activation were determined using a voxelwise statistical height threshold of P < 0.01, with familywise error corrections for multiple spatial comparisons (P < 0.01; 128 voxels) determined using Monte Carlo simulations (49, 50) using a custom Matlab script. To examine GLM results in the IC, a small subcortical brain structure, we used a small-volume correction at P < 0.01. To define specific cortical regions, we used the Harvard–Oxford probabilistic structural atlas (51) with a probability threshold of 25%.
Signal-Level Analysis. Group mean activation differences for key brain regions identified in the whole-brain univariate analysis were calculated to examine the basis for the [mother’s voice > female control voices] group differences (Fig. 2). This analysis was performed because stimulus differences can result from a number of different factors. For example, both mother’s voice and female control voices could elicit reduced activity relative to baseline, and significant stimulus differences could be driven by greater negative activation in response to female control voices. Significant stimulus differences were inherent to this ROI analysis, because they are based on results from the whole-brain GLM analysis (52); however, the results provide important information regarding the magnitude and sign of results in response to both stimulus conditions. The baseline for this analysis was calculated as the brain response to environmental sounds. A number of ROIs were constructed using coordinates reported in previous studies: IC ROIs were 5-mm spheres centered at ±6, −33, −11 (53, 54); primary auditory cortical ROIs (Te1.0, Te1.1, and Te1.2) were identified a priori from cytoarchitectonic maps (55), and bilateral pSTS coordinates were identified from previous investigations of voice-selective cortex (11, 37). All other ROI coordinates used in the signal-level analysis were based on peaks identified in the [mother’s voice > female control voices] group map. This analysis included 13 ROIs in bilateral STC, nine ROIs in bilateral frontal cortex, seven ROIs in bilateral parietal cortex, three ROIs in bilateral occipital cortex, one ROI in the anterior cingulate, and five subcortical structures. Cortical ROIs were defined as 5-mm spheres, and subcortical ROIs were 2-mm spheres, centered at the peaks in the [mother’s voice > female control voices] group map. Signal level was calculated by extracting the β-value from individual subjects’ contrast maps for the [mother’s voice > environmental sounds] and [female control voices > environmental sounds] comparisons. The mean β-value within each ROI was computed for both contrasts in all subjects. The group mean β and its SE for each ROI are plotted in Figs. S1–S4.
Effective Connectivity Analysis. Effective connectivity analysis was performed using gPPI (42), a method more sensitive than PPI to context-dependent differences in connectivity. At the individual subject level, the time series from the seed region is first deconvolved to uncover neuronal activity and then multiplied with the task design waveforms to form an interaction term. This interaction term is then convolved with the hemodynamic response function (HRF) to form the gPPI regressor, and the resulting time series is regressed against all other voxels in the brain. The goal of this analysis was to examine connectivity patterns of the voice-selective network, with a focus on voice-selective temporal cortex, which is hypothesized to be a hub of the network linking auditory regions with heteromodal regions important for reward and affective processing of these sounds (1, 21). Therefore, we constructed four STS/STG ROIs that were identified from the univariate analysis [mother’s voice > female control voices] group t map (Fig. 2; mSTS and aSTS/STG) and two ROIs that were identified from previous investigations of voice-selective cortex (pSTS) (11, 37). For the STS regions identified from the univariate analysis, we identified peaks in this t map for mSTS and aSTS/STG regions bilaterally and constructed nonoverlapping 5-mm spherical ROIs centered at these peaks. These six ROIs then were used as seeds in six separate whole-brain gPPI models. Significant clusters of activation were determined using a voxelwise statistical height threshold of P < 0.01, with familywise error corrections for multiple spatial comparisons (P < 0.01; 128 voxels) determined using Monte Carlo simulations (49, 50).
Brain-Behavior Analysis. Regression analysis was used to examine the relationship between brain signatures of mother’s voice perception and social and language skills. Social function was assessed using the Social Communication subscale of the SRS-2 (22). For our measure of language function, we used the CELF-4 (23), a standard instrument for measuring language function in neurotypical children. Regression analyses were conducted using the Core Language score of the CELF, a measure of general language ability. Brain-behavior relationships were examined using analysis of both activation levels and effective connectivity. We first performed a voxelwise regression analysis in which the relation between fMRI activity and social and language measures was examined using images contrasting mother’s voice vs. female control voices. We then performed a voxelwise regression analysis between STC connectivity and standardized social and language measures using gPPI images generated for each participant by contrasting responses to mother's voice vs. responses to female control voices. Significant clusters were determined using a voxelwise statistical height threshold of P < 0.01, with familywise error corrections for multiple spatial comparisons (P < 0.01; 128 voxels) determined using Monte Carlo simulations (49, 50).
Functional Brain Connectivity and Prediction of Social Function. To examine the robustness and reliability of brain connectivity between STS and reward, affective, salience detection, and face-processing brain regions for predicting social communication scores, we performed a confirmatory cross-validation (CV) analysis that employs a machine-learning approach with balanced fourfold CV combined with linear regression (25). In this analysis, we extracted individual subject connectivity beta values, taken from the [mother’s voice > female control voices] gPPI contrast, in left-hemisphere NAc, right-hemisphere amygdala, fusiform cortex, and hippocampus (i.e., the left-hemisphere aSTS gPPI seed) and in right-hemisphere OFC, AI, and dACC (the right-hemisphere pSTS gPPI seed). Mean gPPI beta values for each brain connection (e.g., left-hemisphere aSTS seed to left-hemisphere NAc) were separately entered as the independent variable in a linear regression analysis with SRS-2 social communication standard scores as the dependent variable. First, r (predicted, observed), a measure of how well the independent variable predicts the dependent variable, was estimated using a balanced fourfold CV procedure. Data were divided into four folds so that the distributions of dependent and independent variables were balanced across folds. Data were randomly assigned to four folds, and the independent and dependent variables were tested in one-way ANOVAs, repeating as necessary until both ANOVAs were insignificant to guarantee balance across the folds. A linear regression model was built using three folds, leaving out the fourth, and this model was used to predict the data in the omitted fold. This procedure was repeated four times to compute a final r (predicted, observed) representing the correlation between the data predicted by the regression model and the observed data. Finally, the statistical significance of the model was assessed using a nonparametric testing approach. The empirical null distribution of r (predicted, observed) was estimated by generating 1,000 surrogate datasets under the null hypothesis that there was no association between social communication subscores and brain connectivity.
Stimulus Design Considerations. Previous studies investigating the perception (2, 5) and neural bases (8, 9) of mother’s voice processing have used a design in which one mother’s voice serves as a control voice for another participant. However, for a number of reasons, in this study we used a design in which all participants heard the same two control voices. First, we wanted to be able to perform analyses comparing brain responses between the two control voices (see Results, Analysis of Control Voices in the main text), which would not have been possible had the participants heard different control voices. There also was an important practical limitation with using mother’s voices as control voices for other children: Although we make every effort to recruit children from a variety of communities in the San Francisco Bay Area, some level of recruitment occurs through contact with specific schools, and in other instances our participants refer their friends to our laboratory for inclusion in our studies. In these cases, it is a reasonable possibility that our participants may know other mothers involved in the study and therefore may be familiar with these mothers’ voices; that familiarity would limit the control we were seeking in our control voices. Importantly, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) guidelines are explicit that participant information is confidential, and therefore there would be no way to probe whether a child knew any of the other families involved in the study. Given these analytic and practical considerations, we concluded that it would be best to use the same two control voices, which we knew were unfamiliar to the participants, for all participants’ data collection.
Stimulus Recording. Recordings of each mother were made individually while her child was undergoing neuropsychological testing. Mother’s voice stimuli and control voices were recorded in a quiet conference room using a Shure PG27-USB condenser microphone connected to a MacBook Air laptop computer. The audio signal was digitized at a sampling rate of 44.1 kHz and was A/D converted with 16-bit resolution. Mothers were positioned in the conference room to avoid early sound wave reflections from contaminating the recordings. To provide a natural speech context for the recording of each nonsense word, mothers were instructed to repeat three sentences, each of which contained one of the nonsense words, during the recording. The first word of each of these sentences was their child’s name, which was followed by the words “that is a,” followed by one of the three nonsense words. A hypothetical example of a sentence spoken by a mother for the recording was “Johnny, that is a keebudishawlt.” Before beginning the recording, mothers were instructed on how to produce these nonsense words by repeating them to the experimenter until the mothers had reached proficiency. Importantly, mothers were instructed to say these sentences using the tone of voice they would use when speaking with their child during an engaging and enjoyable shared learning experience (e.g., if their child asked them to identify an item at a museum). The vocal recording session resulted in digitized recordings of the mothers repeating each of the three sentences ∼30 times to ensure multiple high-quality samples of each nonsense word for each mother. A second class of stimuli included in the study was nonspeech environmental sounds. These sounds, which included brief recordings of laundry machines, dishwashers, and other household sounds, were taken from a professional sound effects library.
Stimulus Postprocessing. The goal of stimulus postprocessing was to isolate the three nonsense words from the sentences that each mother spoke during the recording session and to normalize them for duration and rms amplitude for inclusion in the fMRI stimulus presentation protocol, the pleasantness and excitement ratings experiment, and the mother’s voice identification task. First, a digital sound editor (Audacity: https://sourceforge.net/projects/audacity/) was used to isolate each utterance of the three nonsense words from the sentences spoken by each mother. The three best versions of each nonsense word were selected based on the audio and vocal quality of the utterances (i.e., eliminating versions that were mispronounced, included vocal creak, or were otherwise not ideal exemplars of the nonsense words). These nine nonsense words then were normalized to 956 ms in duration, the mean duration of the nonsense words produced by the female control voices, using Praat software similar to previous studies (56). A 10-ms fade (ramp and damp) was performed on each stimulus to prevent click-like sounds at the beginning and end of the stimulus, and then stimuli were equated for rms amplitude. These final stimuli were evaluated for audibility and clarity to ensure that postprocessing manipulations had not introduced any artifacts into the samples. The same process was performed on the control voices and environmental sounds to ensure that all stimuli presented in the fMRI experiment were the same duration and rms amplitude.
Pleasantness and Excitement Ratings for Vocal Stimuli. To examine the relative pleasantness and engagingness of the vocal stimuli used in the fMRI experiment, we performed two behavioral experiments in an independent cohort of 27 children (mean age ± SD: 11.1 ± 1.2 y; sex: 10 female, 17 male). Participants were seated in a quiet room in front of a laptop computer, and headphones were placed over their ears. In one experiment, participants were presented with trials of either a mother’s voice sample or a control voice sample of the nonsense word “teebudishawlt.” After each stimulus presentation, the participant rated the vocal sample for pleasantness on a four-point scale as “very unpleasant,” “unpleasant,” “pleasant,” or “very pleasant.” In the second experiment the same procedures were used, but participants rated each vocal sample on a four-point scale for engagingness. Because there was concern that 8- to 10-y-old children might not understand the meaning of the word “engaging” in the context of this experiment, consistent with a previous study (57), we used the following four-point scale for this experiment: “totally boring,” “a little boring,” “a little exciting,” or “totally exciting.” Each vocal stimulus (i.e., 24 mother’s voice samples plus the two control voice samples) was presented once to each child in both the pleasantness and engagingness ratings tasks. The order of stimulus presentation was randomized for each participant and experiment; half of the participants performed the pleasantness ratings task first, and the other half of the participants performed the engagingness ratings task first. The vocal samples used in these behavioral experiments are the same as those used in the fMRI experiment. To examine statistical differences between ratings for mother’s voice and female control voices, we performed independent samples t tests comparing the mean ratings for mother’s voice samples and participant ratings for both control voices.Anthony Bourdain in 2012. (Jason Kempin/Getty Images for City Harvest)
When the bad boy of the restaurant world holds forth on the bad boy of the Republican Party, one might expect the rhetoric to be served hot and spicy. And on Wednesday, celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain brought extra pepper.
In an interview with Pete Dominick on Sirius XM, Bourdain discussed the problems presented by GOP presidential contender Donald Trump and some other conservatives’ view of immigrants. Dominick kicked off the discussion by pointing out that restaurateurs, who often depend on undocumented people for labor, may come to appreciate their struggles.
“You could be the most right-wing conservative,” Dominick said. “You really start to understand the value of |
found themselves surprised by other nations’ strong reactions.
Then-Secretary of State Colin Powell said in 2002 that the “blowback” from Europe “was a sobering experience that everything the American president does has international repercussions.” And Condoleezza Rice, at the time George W. Bush’s national security adviser, wrote in a 2011 memoir that the Kyoto withdrawal was “a self-inflicted wound that could have been avoided.”
Pruitt may soon find out just how angry his international counterparts are.
He will head to Italy on June 11 and 12 for an environmental ministerial meeting connected to the G-7 summit Trump recently attended. Italy, along with Germany and France, said in a statement Thursday that there is no renegotiating the Paris agreement, despite what Trump promised Thursday.A senior Obama administration official said on Thursday morning that a court order seeking the business records of Verizon customers, disclosed by the newspaper The Guardian, “does not allow the government to listen in on anyone’s telephone calls” and “does not include the content of any communications or the name of any subscriber,” but rather “relates exclusively to metadata, such as a telephone number or the length of the call."
The official emphasized that “all three branches of government are involved in reviewing and authorizing” any domestic intelligence collection under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and that any surveillance activities under it are overseen by the Justice Department, the office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the FISA Court “to ensure that they comply with the Constitution and laws of the United States and appropriately protect privacy and civil liberties."
“Information of the sort described in the Guardian article has been a critical tool in protecting the nation from terrorist threats to the United States,” the official said, “as it allows counterterrorism personnel to discover whether known or suspected terrorists have been in contact with other persons who may be engaged in terrorist activities, particularly people located inside the United States.”
The order, signed in April by Judge Roger Vinson of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, directs a Verizon Communications subsidiary, Verizon Business Network Services, to turn over “on an ongoing daily basis” to the National Security Agency all call logs “between the United States and abroad” or “wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls."
So whatcha gonna do? Write outraged blog posts and newspaper columns? Demand congressional hearings? Please. The whole point of hearings is to soothe the disgruntled and the people who are yelling about how terrible it all is, while changing absolutely nothing of consequence -- of consequence, that is, to the ruling class, which will engineer any and all hearings to make certain that their power and prerogatives are not altered to any degree whatsoever. The only way their power and prerogatives change is to be increased. They'll be happy to have hearings for you. It's entertainment, baby! And then everyone will shut up for another five years, until the next big "new" scandal erupts. And then the whole routine will be repeated again.
But be sure to vote in 2014, and in every election! This is a democracy, after all! It's your country! Love it or leave it!
I should mention one other point. It's just a minor little thing, no biggie. Don't you assume that every email of yours, every blog post and comment, every telephone call, anything you write or say using media of any kind is monitored by some government agency or other, if only they decide to check up on you, for any reason they dream up or for no reason at all, just because they're bored and, hell, you look like you might be fun to investigate for a while? I have assumed exactly that for years. I find it hard to believe that everyone doesn't make the same assumption.
But "privacy"? You don't have any. You haven't had any for a long, long time. And this latest story? Fodder for conversation, and outraged posts and articles of course, for a week or two, perhaps three. Then everybody will forget about it. There will be another BIG STORY to talk about, another BIG CONTROVERSY. It's a circus, with flashing lights and lots of colors. Oh, the beautiful colors!
Two of the nation's most prominent newspapers -- the New York Times and the Washington Post -- offered detailed stories about the State's Murder Program. The Program targets innocent human beings anywhere and everywhere in the world. The State claims that it can murder anyone it chooses, for any reason it wishes. The State also claims that it need not ever disclose the identities of those it chooses to kill, just as it need not reveal the reasons (if any) for issuance of a death sentence. In short: the State can do whatever it wants, and there isn't a damned thing anyone can do to stop it. The State took great care to make certain that the newspaper stories of which it was the primary author included the fact that the persons to be murdered can be American citizens, in addition to the now-familiar cast of dreaded, strange "others."
Except for a small number of commentators who objected to or questioned the legitimacy of the Murder Program, these stories -- prominently displayed in the most well-known of newspapers -- caused almost no reaction at all on the part of Americans. It was as if nothing of any significance had been said. Even those commentators who condemned the State's explicitly announced program of unrestricted, unbounded murder of anyone, anywhere, anytime, regarded the Murder Program as no reason at all to refuse to vote for Obama. The stories had repeatedly made clear, doubtless at the urgent prompting of the government officials who provided most of the information to the newspapers, that Obama was and is a key figure directing the Murder Program. But almost everyone who spoke of the Program, even those who condemned it, insisted that it was still entirely "legitimate" and "reasonable" to vote for him. (See the discussion in Part II of "Accomplices to Murder" for several examples.) Not to be outdone in supporting the American nightmare of death, Romney stated his full and enthusiastic support for the Murder Program.
And yesterday, approximately 120 million Americans voted for Obama and Romney -- and for the Murder Program....
And thus we arrive here: the State and the ruling class have told all Americans, repeatedly and with great care, that they systematically, regularly and routinely murder innocent human beings, including American citizens. Except for a vanishingly small number of people, no one cares. No one cares about the unimaginable suffering, about the bodies torn apart, about the growing number of lives to be endured in unbearable pain. No one cares about the horror, the blood, and the agony.
The State and the ruling class were interested to know if anyone cared about these matters. They now have their answer: No. Almost no one cares. The full truth is still worse. To the extent they are aware of these horrors -- or easily could be aware of them, if only they chose to be -- most Americans support them.
It was important to the State and the ruling class to have this information -- because of what's coming.
[M]ost parents believe that physical violence is sometimes morally "required" if their children are to be taught to be "civilized."
Let us try to be as brave as Alice Miller: what we mean by "civilized" when we speak in this way, is that children must be taught to obey. If the principle of obedience is instilled in children from earliest infancy, and if parents further teach their children that physical violence is the means of commanding obedience, why do we wonder that some adults will torture those who have been rendered helpless and delivered into their control? They are merely reenacting what their parents taught them.
But we refuse to see this. We will not acknowledge what has been done to us....
This is because there is a necessary corollary to the obedience we are taught: the idealization of the authority figures in our lives. As children, we dare not question what our parents do: we depend on them for life itself. To comprehend fully what is being done to us would be unbearable, and it might literally kill us. So we must believe that, whatever our parents do, they do it "for our own good." To believe otherwise is the forbidden thought. So we must deny our own pain when we are young; such denial is necessary if we are to survive at that stage in our lives.
But if we maintain the denial when we become adults, it spreads throughout our lives. When such modes of thought are established in our psychologies, they cannot be isolated or contained. We deny our own pain -- so we must deny the pain of others....
I said I was not referring only to the obvious cruelties inflicted on children by physical violence. Just as important, and often of much greater significance, are the psychological agonies to which parents subject their children. How often do we hear parents say to a child who will not follow an order: "Why are you making me so unhappy? You don't want to make your mother unhappy and sad, do you, darling? Now just do what I say." We should recognize this for what it is: emotional blackmail. The unstated threat -- but the threat that is deeply felt by the child, even if he is not able to understand it -- is that the parent's love will be withdrawn unless the child obeys. Since the child knows that his life depends on that love, the threat is a terrifying one. Such blows are delivered countless times every day, by millions of parents around the world.
This knowledge is inaccessible to the majority of adults. We are taught to obey, and we learn to idealize our parents....
When the idealization of the authority figure spreads once we become adults, it can encompass additional authority figures. There are two primary such figures: God -- who may have been there from the beginning, if the child is raised in a very religious household where God is the ultimate authority, and the parents only speak on His behalf; and country. When one's nation becomes such an authority figure, there are subsidiary ones as well: the nation's leaders, and the nation's military.
I FIRST RAN UP AGAINST the wall of silence as a child. For days my mother would ignore me in order to demonstrate her total power over me and reduce me to subservience. She needed this power to disguise her own insecurities to others and to herself. She also wished to deny her responsibility toward the child that she had not wanted in the first place. The needs and questions of this little girl simply ricocheted off this wall. For her part, my mother felt no need to feel responsible for her sadism. As far as she was concerned, her behavior was justifiable punishment for my wrongdoing. She was, as they say, “teaching me a lesson.”
For a child who for many years had no brothers or sisters and whose father, on the rare occasions that he was at home, never offered his protection, this long, unremitting silence was an agony. Even worse than the silence itself was the child’s doomed but persistent attempt to discover its cause. As in Kafka’s Penal Colony, the accused was in this case denied any clarification as to the nature of her offenses. This omission, however, contained a message: “If you don’t even know why you have earned this punishment, then it is clear that you are quite without conscience. Look within. Search. Try. Then your conscience will tell you what guilt you have brought upon yourself. Only then can you try to excuse yourself. Then, if you are lucky, you may be forgiven. But that depends on the mood of the powers-that-be.”
Did I know that I had begun my life in a totalitarian state? How could I have? I didn’t even realize that I was being treated in a cruel and confusing way, something I would never have dreamed of suggesting. So rather than question my mother’s behavior, I cast doubt on the rightness of my own feeling that I was being unjustly treated. As I had no point of comparison of her behavior with that of other mothers, and as she constantly portrayed herself as the embodiment of duty and self-sacrifice, I had no choice but to believe her. And, anyway, I had to believe her. To have realized the truth would have killed me. Therefore, it had to be my wickedness that was to blame when Mother didn’t speak to me, when she refused to answer my questions and ignored my pleas for clarification, when she avoided the slightest eye contact with me and returned my love with coldness. If Mother hates me, reasoned the child, then I must be hateful.
This is one of the great problems with political commentary: politics is only a symptom of a more fundamental condition. Unless we address these more fundamental concerns, the symptom will never be altered in a lasting way. Yet we (and I) spend so much time on political matters because politics affects our lives so dramatically and with such immediacy. Because politics has the power to alter our lives so profoundly and, far too frequently, even to end them, some of us fiercely resist the especially destructive aspects of its operations. Yet this will never be enough by itself, as history, including our recent history and ongoing events, prove repeatedly.
The major topic of the day is the Obama administration's massive domestic surveillance program. The administration quickly trotted out the usual justifications, stressing that this surveillance is entirely "legal":I initially note that the outrage that has greeted this story once again encompasses the entirety of the political spectrum: many people on both the right and left are infuriated by this sustained assault on individual privacy.The fact that the outrage is so widespread provides another opportunity for me to encourage anyone who might see this post to consider what I wrote only a few weeks ago: " You Say You Want a Peaceful Revolution." In that article, I described a nationwide movement of civil disobedience; the purpose would be nothing less than shutting down Washington, D.C. (and a number of other major cities, as well). And the purpose ofwould beand to say: STOP IT. If sufficient numbers of protesters descended on Washington and other cities, they wouldthe bastards stop it, at least temporarily. As I explained, even the real prospect of such protests actually materializing could lead to many possibilities that are now all but inconceivable. In the earlier essay, I focused on the IRS abuses; the past few weeks have already begun to flesh out the scope and systematic nature of the IRS targeting. The surveillance story could certainly grow in importance; add it to the fuel for creating civil disobedience on the required scale. Massive abuses by the State certainly justify massive reaction.The "Peaceful Revolution" article describes what I imagine happening; I emphasize again that I view the scenarios I offer as entirely possible and realistic. But that article, along with everything I write these days, disappeared mere moments after it appeared. I make that observation not as a pointless exercise in self-pity, but as a simple statement of fact. In fact, I don't feel sorry for myself in the least. My reaction to the passivity and somnolence that seem to have embraced almost everyone in this benighted country is more on the order of towering fury and rage.For the simple fact is that the reaction to the surveillance story is most likely to follow the pattern I described last November History in general, as well as our particular history in the U.S. over the last ten years, leads to the conclusion that this latest story will be no different in ultimate effect. Nonetheless, I will continue to say that my hope for massive civil disobedience is equally realistic: it all depends on the choices made by millions of individual Americans. In the "Peaceful Revolution" article, I referred to my earlier idea for an ad designed to educate the public about the U.S.'s ghastly policy toward Iran -- a policy which is deliberately designed to lead to military confrontation, whenever the ruling class finally decides to exercise that option -- and to motivate the public to protest against it. And my God, imagine what a powerful ad could be written about the surveillance story. Maybe the tag line this time is: "So... who's the Soviet UnionThe answer would be inescapable:are, baby. And you could do it in 60 seconds. I'd be thrilled to help write it, if anyone is interested in pursuing it.But I've been down this road repeatedly. Many people have forgotten, but there was a time during the Bush administration when almost everyone who carefully followed developments with Iran thought the U.S. would certainly attack that nation. I offered a detailed, step-by-step proposal to attempt to derail such plans: " Building an Effective Resistance." Very few people noticed or linked that post. But I tried again: " Still Another Call for Activism: Prove Me Wrong, I Beg You." No one cared about that post, either. Finally, I became profoundly disgusted and, yes, furious and enraged: " Thus You Lose the World: What the Fuck Is Wrong with You? " And there was almost no reaction at all to that post.Still, I went on to write about Iranand about my idea for an ad that might help lay the foundation for civil disobedience on a wide scale. That post was almost universally ignored.So I know what to expect, and what I expect is nothing. Still, there is always the possibility for making a different choice...I will briefly discuss two issues that make me less than hopeful at this point. First, keep in mind one critical tactic that the ruling class has been pursuing with murderous dedication over the last few years. The tactic is perhaps best described this way:The primary example remains the State's carefully calibrated PR campaign for its Murder Program. In describing what happened in the months leading up to the last election, I wrote the following See the full essay for details about what's coming This numbing technique can be observed with every major news story since 9/11: enactment of the Patriot Act, which elicited almost no outrage at all given the national hysteria that engulfed us; the reauthorizations of the Patriot Act, which were greeted with somewhat increased outrage each time, although it was quickly absorbed into our national forgetfulness; the Military Commissions Act, which occasioned much outrage (most of it at the very last minute, and all of it ineffectual ), which similarly faded into our collective amnesia (does anyone even mention the MCA now?); every story concerning revelations about the State's surveillance programs (there have been a lot of them, in case you've forgotten -- here's one brief example, offered with a bitter comedic twist); and on and on and on.In all these instances, there is outrage from the usual quarters for a few weeks, and then the story is submerged in the ongoing rush of events. The revelations -- about surveillance, about torture, about the State's-- become part of the New Normal. Why, there's nothing especially noteworthy here. This is just the way things are. And, after all, the State has its reasons. Many Americanswith those reasons. The State is always very helpful in teaching us these lessons: the experiment in Boston showed us justobedient we are prepared to be -- totally obedient. Yet none of this should be in the least surprising. All of us are taught, from the time we are infants and very young children, that the principal virtue isThat is what I was taught, and I am certain you were, too. (The exceptions are so rare that they do not merit mention.) I have written about this in great detail, basing my analysis on the invaluable work of Alice Miller. For an introduction to the subject, you can consult " Letting Evil Set the Terms," especially the second half of that article.Many parents use physical violence to compel obedience (and such violence is unforgivable, even if used only on "rare" occasions of alleged intransigence on the part of the child -- and in every case I know of, the child's "intransigence" is in direct reaction to the parent's unreasonable, often senseless demands), and virtually every parent regularly employs emotional and psychological manipulation to make the child obey. For example:On the same theme, I want to offer a passage from Alice Miller's work. This comes from Breaking Down the Wall of Silence. When I first read this passage many years ago, I gasped out loud as I began to understand the connection Miller was making. These mechanisms are implanted deep within our psychologies at a very young age, when we are incapable of understanding what is happening to us, let alone resisting it. And this pattern helps to explain much that otherwise remains mystifying:If you doubt that this pattern is a tragically common one, I urge you to read my analysis of an anecdote offered by a mother withThe mother similarly believes she is "teaching" her young child an important "lesson"; she is incapable of seeing how cruel and manipulative her behavior is -- and that, in fact, her behavior has nothing at all to do with the child and what he has done. I chose that story because it is an utterly ordinary one. It's not an example of unusual horror and torture, of a kind that would cause most people to recoil. (And, as I discuss in a related essay, all of the commenters applauded the story and thought it charming and wonderful.) It is the kind of thing that happens every day in millions of homes. And it is one of the grisliest horror stories you will ever read, precisely because of the modes of feeling, thought and behavior that the mother is instilling. You might also want to read this description of a profoundly different approach to child rearing (that essay also contains a brief description of some of the horrors to which I was subjected as a child).With tragically rare exceptions, all children are taught obedience as the primary, foundational virtue and, as a necessary corollary, they are taught to idealize the authority figures in their lives. In this way, they are, as Miller suggests,(I suppose we could somewhat "soften" the argument, and merely say that we are trained for; the point remains the same.) Miller was trained in this way; so was I; and so were(You may be the blessed exception in five or ten thousand, but I seriously doubt it.) It has taken me decades to undo the lessons I was forced to learn. The same was true in Miller's case: she notes that she was close to 60 before she grasped these mechanisms -- and around 60 seems to be the age when such realizations occur, based on extensive reading and on the numerous people with whom I've discussed this subject.I don't think it is possible to overstate the significance of this early childhood training. Of equal significance is the fact that these issues are almostin the course of political analysis. Yet there is a profound sense in which authoritarianism (and even totalitarianism) feelto many people -- "right" in the sense that it is very familiar, that it is the environment in which they were first made to function. So when the State expands its control over us, when the State spies on us, when the State lists more and more activities which are forbidden or for which we must seek "permission" before we act, and even when the State announces that it has a Murder Program, many people,people, think: "The State knows best. The State has much more information than I do, and our leaders must have reasons for their actions. And certainly, the State only acts to protect us. The State actsThis is what weto believe about our parents, regardless of the cruelties to which they subjected us -- and this is what most adults now believe about their political leaders.So in one sense, I can only repeat what I wrote several years ago about these matters:Even though I am convinced that "these more fundamental concerns" must be addressed for the long-lasting resolution of these terrible afflictions, we need not wait for that blessed day once the State's violations pass beyond a certain point. We passed that point some time ago. Moreover, it hardly needs to be said that waiting only multiplies the dangers, and makes the success of any resistance movement that much more unlikely.I therefore repeat my call for widespread resistance. And if anyone wants to build on my suggestions or come up with better ones (I'm certain you can, once you put your minds to it), and as I've said on many occasions, I'm more than willing to help. I have lots more ideas for some hard-hitting ads, as well as about additional tactics...1. People get hurt doing CrossFit.
Possibly. You also might get hurt eating a hot dog. You might stub your toe while walking. Statistically speaking, you are more likely to get injured jogging or playing baseball than you are CrossFitting. Those popular injuries that people love to associate with CrossFit happen mostly outside of CrossFit gyms. We teach mechanics first and always. We will never assign you a weight that you can’t handle and we will never turn you loose until we have drilled the proper movements into your head over and over. Still don’t believe us? See what this orthopaedic surgeon has to say.
2. I’m not in good enough shape to CrossFit.
False. This one kills me. Why would you need to be in shape to start getting in shape? Do you need to be able to run a marathon to start running? NO. Do you need to play in the NFL before you throw a football? NO. Then why would you need to be good at something to learn how to be good at something?!?! Everyone has to start somewhere. “The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones”.
3. It’s too expensive.
(Huge sigh) False. First of all, let’s talk about value. Why is it that when we’re spending money on making ourselves healthier, prolonging our lives and making ourselves happier, we go bargain shopping. But when it comes time to buy a pair of shoes or a TV, we turn our noses up at the cheapest options because they aren’t as good as the expensive ones?!?!? I know I never take the lowest priced piece of electronics because I know in the long-term, the more expensive option will serve me better. VALUE. When you spend $20 on a gym membership…you will get $20 results.
4. I saw CrossFit on TV. I could never do what they do.
The gals and guys at the CrossFit Games (and anyone else in that level of physical condition) can do what they do because every second of their day is dedicated to their performance. They eat ungodly amounts of calories and train for HOURS every day. They sleep 9-10 hours a night and devote every waking moment to their craft. We want you to reach YOUR maximum potential within your abilities – not those you see on TV.
5. They’ll make me eat Paleo.
False. Eat whatever you want. But know that all the training in the world won’t undo that crappy diet. Our goal is not to get you to eat Paleo. Our goal is to get you to eat real food at a level that sustains exercise and muscle mass but not body fat. Having said that, we’re not going to make you do anything. And we’re certainly not going to pressure you into eating a certain way. We will simply share our experience and knowledge about what has worked for our athletes and ourselves.
6. Your workouts are designed to make people suffer, there’s no method to the madness.
Not true. Our CrossFit workouts are meticulously programmed. We make sure that we have a good balance between movements and we avoid over training certain muscle groups. The only way to do this is to have a plan written out, which we do. We know what our WODs are going to be next week, and next month for that matter. All of our training is aimed at getting our athletes stronger and healthier.
7. I’m too old.
Too old for what?! I know it is intimidating to see these elite athletes and fire-breathers doing CrossFit. But put things in perspective. Does watching the NFL make you feel like you can’t play flag football with your buddies? Does watching the NYC marathon make you feel like you can’t go for a walk? We can adapt any workout for any ability level. There’s CrossFitters who can’t walk. There’s CrossFitters who can’t stand. There are CrossFitters of every possible ability level and age because CrossFit is simply exercise the way your body was intended to exercise and that is universally adaptable among every human being alive. And, we have a Master’s Program!
8. I don’t have the time.
False. How much time do we spend watching TV or creeping on Facebook every day. Well, if you believe in “science” and “studies”, we spend about 2-4 hours a day watching other people do stuff. Think about it for a minute. How did you get to this web page? Our classes last about an hour. You can come in early and stay late, but if you’re in a bind, you need 60 minutes to squeeze in an awesome workout and do something a little more productive with your time.
9. I can do the same workouts at home.
True. However, here’s some more “science” for you: there’s an 85% chance you’ll give up on your routine within a month and your risk of injury will rise by 80% when you train outside of a CrossFit box (see misconception number 1). Part of the reason CrossFit and it’s athletes are so successful is because of the social accountability and interaction. When Sally isn’t in the 5:00pm class, Suzie notices. They’ve become good friends over the past month or so and even hang out outside the box. When you have someone to be accountable to, you’re more likely to stay the course. And when you have someone to push against, you’ll push harder. You better believe that when I hop in on the WOD everyone in class is gunning for me, and I know it. I’ll be a monkey’s uncle if I let my members out perform me without a fight. I get my butt kicked some times, especially with gymnastic movements, but I don’t make it easy for them 🙂
10. People will laugh at me.
False. This is the one of the easiest misconception to fix. Our members and our coaches all started out exactly like everyone else. It only takes one class to see how welcoming everyone really is. You’ll get smiles and high fives from everybody and you’ll make a friend or two for sure. Besides, nobody has time to sit around and watch you. Our box is not like the Globo Gym down the road. There aren’t hundreds of strangers all doing their own thing, sitting around flexing in the mirror. We do work in these walls. If you have time to watch people and laugh at them, you ain’t working hard enough.
Convinced? Get started today!It is seen as one of the most distressing effects of climate change ever recorded: a polar bear dying of exhaustion after being stranded between melting patches of Arctic sea ice.
But now the government scientist who first warned of the threat to polar bears in a warming Arctic has been suspended and his work put under official investigation for possible scientific misconduct.
On thin ice... a polar bear in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. Credit:AP
Charles Monnett, a wildlife biologist, oversaw much of the scientific work for the government agency that has been examining drilling in the Arctic. He managed about $50 million in research projects and was suspended on July 18.
Some question why Monnett, employed by the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (Boemre), has been suspended now.Posted: May 28, 2009
Sure, the buy-a-Chrysler-Pacifica-get-a-PT-Cruiser-free deal looked enticing. And the buy-one-get-one-free-Dodge-Rams were tempting. But nothing can top the deal Mitsubishi is offering in New Zealand this month.
Australia's Sydney Morning Herald reports, "Mitsubishi Motors is offering a free goat with every Triton ute sold before August in a novel effort at correcting the economy."
A ute, we should explain, is a vehicle with the front end of a family sedan and the rear end of a pickup truck - like the Subaru Baja, or the Chevy El Camino of the 1970s. We almost got a Ute here this year, but with the death of Pontiac, it's been cancelled.
In the best quote we'll every have the opportunity to run, Mitsubishi Motors New Zealand general sales and marketing manager Peter Wilkins told the Herald that "Goats, like our Tritons, are hardy, versatile units which will integrate directly into existing farm operations."
Speaking to the New Zealand Business Review, he added, "And, most importantly, there is no such thing as Goat Flu - so no threat to tourism. It's hard to see a downside." However, he noted, "On the off chance that the purchaser already has enough goats or feels that goat herding is better left to those in drier climes, we'll supply a ‘no goat package' consisting of a five-year/100,000km extended warranty, five free WOF inspections [we have no idea], 5,000km road user charges, five years of roadside assistance and $500 of genuine or approved Triton accessories."
Unfortunately, there are no announced plans to offer an ungulate package with an Eclipse stateside - even though an alpaca could easily fit in the backseat if the convertible top were down.
If you're in the market for a new car, we can run down this month's best car deals for you. But we've found nothing as cool as the goat to tell you about.This article is over 1 year old
• Italian under pressure after losing 13 of 22 games since appointment • Birmingham board denies successor for Zola is being lined up
Birmingham City have denied they are planning to replace their under-pressure manager, Gianfranco Zola.
The Championship club insist the Italian has their full support following the late 2-1 defeat against Derby County on Saturday.
Zola has lost 13 of his 22 games – winning just twice – since replacing Gary Rowett in December and Birmingham have slumped from seventh to 18th, six points above the bottom three.
Everton’s Ross Barkley punched in face during night out Read more
Rowett on Saturday marked his first return to St Andrew’s since his sacking, as Tom Ince scored a last-minute winner.
However, Birmingham reiterated their backing for Zola despite another defeat.
A statement read: “Birmingham City would like to clarify the situation in regard to Gianfranco Zola after recent articles in the media over the weekend: the club has not lined up any manager to replace Gianfranco, who has the continual full support of the Blues board of directors.
“Whilst we understand the frustrations caused by the run of results, the way the supporters got behind Gianfranco and the team on Saturday at St Andrew’s was typical of Blues fans’ passion, care for the club and desire for success, which is what we all share and much appreciate.
“The board and all departments at the club are keeping united and standing alongside Gianfranco, his staff and the players, to try and play the kind of football every Blues supporter deserves to watch.”Just one day after Uber was forced to shut down its self-driving car program in San Francisco, the company is moving its cars to Phoenix, the company said on Thursday.
“Our cars departed for Arizona this morning by truck,” an Uber spokesperson said in a statement of the fleet of modified Volvo XC90 cars. “We’ll be expanding our self-driving pilot there in the next few weeks, and we’re excited to have the support of Governor Ducey.”
Last year, Uber announced a partnership with the University of Arizona’s College of Optical Science to focus on research and development in the optics space for mapping and safety. At the same time, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey also signed an executive order that allows the testing of self-driving cars in the state.
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Uber began testing its self-driving Volvo XC90 cars last week, but quickly faced backlash from the California Department of Motor Vehicles and the state’s attorney general because it hadn’t obtained a permit to test self-driving cars. Uber argued that it doesn’t need such a permit because safety drivers are present in the cars at all times, thus not fitting the state’s description of autonomous vehicles. However, it shut down its program this week after the DMV revoked its cars’ registrations.
Now, the company is hauling those same cars to Arizona where it will begin testing them in the coming weeks. Given Uber’s existing efforts in Arizona, it’s unclear whether the move is a direct reaction to its regulatory troubles in San Francisco, or if was already planning to begin testing in Arizona. An Uber spokesman declined to comment on whether it’s the case.
Uber first put its self-driving cars on the road in September in Pittsburgh.
Updated with comment from Uber on whether the move was prompted by its recent troubles in San Francisco.Bush says 'no Republican would vote for legislation that stifled economic growth.' Jeb Bush's message for House GOP
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is calling on House Republicans to pass immigration reform, but acknowledges it won’t be easy.
In an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, Bush and co-author Clint Bolick, of the Goldwater Institute, argue that getting enough Republicans’ support in the House “is a tall order. But it is one to which House Republicans should respond.”
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“No Republican would vote for legislation that stifled economic growth, promoted illegal immigration, added to the welfare rolls, and failed to ensure a secure border. Yet they essentially will do just that if they fail to pass comprehensive immigration reform — and leave in place a system that does all of those things,” Bush and Bolick wrote in the piece posted on Sunday.
( PHOTOS: 20 quotes on immigration reform)
The pair praise much of the Senate bill, but note the House can make some improvements, as well.
“Republicans have much in common with immigrants — beliefs in hard work, enterprise, family, education, patriotism and faith. But for their voice to penetrate the gateway, Republicans need to cease being the obstacle to immigration reform and instead point the way toward the solution,” they write.+1 Share Pin 0 Shares
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Each month I pay about $400 to reach personal goals. These are goals that won't make me money, and they certainly aren't saving me money, but nonetheless, they are important to me.
That's a lot of money to spend on hobbies and recreation, especially considering that I could probably make headway on my goals on my own — for free.
For example, there's my yoga practice. I've been through yoga teacher training and a few advanced trainings, and have racked up more hours in a studio than I care to tally. I can certainly save money and practice at home. Sure, I'd miss that sense of community, but once upon a time, that's not what yoga was about.
Another example? Last month I started working with an Italian tutor to prepare for an upcoming trip. I took Italian in college, and I did pretty well speaking to Italians when I went to Italy five years ago. I could go through my materials and review on my own. I could make vocabulary flashcards or buy a software program. I could start reading my book of short stories in Italian and pick it up as |
of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as wilderness, Sen. Ted Cruz’s bid to fast-track new natural gas exports and a measure on the government’s role in preparing for the effects of climate change.
Even as the GOP Congress moves ever closer to sending its Keystone plan to the White House, Obama’s administration is making progress of its own toward a final decision on whether the pipeline is in the national interest.
The Environmental Protection Agency, the Interior Department and other federal agencies have until Monday to give the State Department comments on a yearold analysis that found Keystone is unlikely to have a significant environmental impact.Coming Soon
Untitled Goop Project
Gwyneth Paltrow’s lifestyle site, goop, guides the deeply curious in an exploration of boundary-pushing wellness topics.
KAOS
This genre-bending series puts a modern twist on Greek and Roman mythology, exploring themes of gender politics, power and life in the underworld.
Bloodride
A Norwegian anthology series that blends horror with dark Scandinavian humor, setting each distinct story in its own realistic yet weird universe.
Space Force
A comedy series about the people tasked with creating Space Force, a new branch of the U.S. military. From Greg Daniels and star Steve Carell.
Another Life
Astronaut Niko Breckenridge and her young crew face unimaginable danger as they go on a high-risk mission to explore the genesis of an alien artifact.
My First First Love
A college student reluctantly lets a group of his friends move into his house, where they experience love, friendship, and everything in between.
Charlie's Colorforms City
Loveable, hilarious Charlie leads you on unpredictable and imaginative shape-filled story expeditions alongside a colorful cast of characters.
Immortals
Driven by revenge, human-turned-vampire Mia sets out to vanquish Dmitry, a ruthless vampire leader who seeks an artifact that grants immortality.When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.
~ Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
It’s not unusual for an act of kindness to shift someone’s miserable day into an uplifting one. Wow, what power kindness yields!
And yet, we’re often too busy, too distracted, too focused on something else to take a moment out to be kind to a fellow human beings.
Ironically, we take time out to be kind to pets and yet, with our harried pace of living, we often have no time to be kind to each other.
We’re walking down the street and a person inadvertently bumps into us. Before he’s had a chance to offer an apology, we’ve responded with a dagger look and a reprimand: “Hey, watch where you’re going.”
Yet, when a four-legged creature with a wagging tail comes to sniff us out, many of us respond with pure kindness. “Hey, such a good doggie. You’re so cute. Look at those eyes. So beautiful.” Your response reaps dividends for the lucky dog, his lucky owner and you. You all have experienced a winning moment which makes your day just a little bit more pleasant.
To illustrate my point, I’d like to share with you a conversation I recently overheard.
A husband, clearly in distress, phoned his wife’s doctor..
“Hello, I have to cancel my wife’s appointment. We’re in crisis. She can’t move and I can’t get her there.”
“OK.”
“I’d like to speak to the doctor.”
“Oh, it’s crazy here. We’re so busy. He’s not available now.”
“I have a crisis situation here. My wife fell. I can’t get her up. And I can’t get her in the car. I have to cancel her appointment. But I need to talk to the doctor. When can I speak to him?”
“Call again at 4 o’clock. But I can’t guarantee he’ll speak to you then. He’s so busy. I gotta go. And oh, have a nice day!”
An inappropriate “have a nice day” is the essence of impersonal communication. It’s not a nice day but a sad day when we are so busy that we cannot take a moment to be genuinely present with a fellow human being in distress. Kindness, however, should not be limited only to those who are in obvious distress. Everyone experiences problems. And no one carries a sign around on their chest publicizing the stressful things that have been happening in their lives.
I can guarantee you, however, that everyone has a battle that they’re fighting. Sometimes it’s a battle that takes a heavy toll every day of the week. Sometimes, it’s simply an “I woke up on the wrong side of the bed” kind of day. Certainly, you don’t know what kind of struggle that stranger who bumped into you in the supermarket is having. Could she have just been diagnosed with breast cancer? Could she be at her wit’s end trying to raise an autistic child on her own? Could he have just received a notice that he’ll be laid off at the end of the month? Has he just buried his dad?
Moreover, you don’t even know what battles are going on for your defiant son, your distressed wife or your agitated husband. You may think you know what’s happening but you’d be surprised at the intensity of their feelings, their fears and their unresolved issues.
If an act of kindness can alleviate the stress one is feeling or bring a smile to someone’s face, why be stingy? Do it. Give someone your seat on the subway. Let a mom with an agitated kid break the line. Compliment a person on something they’re wearing. With a loved one, be kind with your criticism. Cut him some slack. Tell him you appreciate his thoughtful action. Share with her how much you admire her courage.
The kindest people make other people’s day better and brighter. That is a worthy goal in and of itself. But if you need further incentive to be kind to strangers and loved ones, know that you yourself will thrive as you become more compassionate, considerate and caring.
The Power of Random Acts of KindnessAlthough Toronto FC is a few games into the season, fans of the club are yearning for the first home game to be played at the new BMO Field. None will be more excited and ready than the supporters groups that make up the club's very identity.
Over the course of the next few weeks, Waking the Red will be profiling Toronto FC's various supporters groups and asking them questions about their beliefs and values.
We hope that the series will get you geared up for the season ahead.
This week we sat down with Mark from Inebriatti.
1. Tell us a little bit about yourself and the group?
A small group of us decided that we didn't fit in with the other Toronto supporters groups. We believe in more European and South American style of support. Our mission is to speak up for the team and supporter culture both with FO and the league.
2. What brought you onto Toronto FC and soccer, in general?
Most of the members are supporters of teams in other countries. We all yearned for a home team to cheer for.
3. Are there any values and supporter vision attached to the group?
We show up an hour before kick-off and support beyond the final whistle. We believe in active support, we aren't a social club or a fan club. Members are expected to be involved and help out, passengers aren't allowed in this group.
4. Tell us about some initiatives the group is involved in?
Last year we attended most TFC II games. In the community, our most recent initiative is organizing blood donor drives.
5. Turning to the match-day experience, tell us some things that your group does to make game day a livelier affair?
We are there for warm-ups. We sing, jump and wave flags for 90 plus minutes. We are behind the guys in red, whether they are winning or losing.
6. How do you explain your passion to people who don't understand the amount of time and resources you dedicate to following Toronto FC?
Either you get it or you don't. It's something that's in your blood.
7. Over the last decade of Toronto FC, what is the one key thing you have learned when it comes to support and atmosphere in general?
That support doesn't mean blindly cheering. It can also mean calling out FO on issues and the league. It means pushing for things like smoke, general admission, and safe standing.
8. What do you think about the current state of the atmosphere at BMO Field? Do you think it can be better?
It was better last year and will improve even more this year. FO has to look at successful organizations around the league and see what they are doing that Toronto isn't. Places that have general admission and safe standing have far better atmospheres than at BMO.
9. How do you differentiate which supporters group a person should join? Are they all similar or do they hold different beliefs for different people?
Each group is different and has their own personality. We believe in meeting face to face, usually over a pint. We have no membership fee but before you become a member you have to show you fit in and we fit you.
10. Lastly, how can people join your group?
They can message us on FB to get info. Come to an away game viewing at our pub An Sibin or simply join us in the stands at TFC or TFC II.
Those were some very insightful answers by Mark. We thank Inebriatti for giving us the opportunity to sit down with them.
Onwards and upwards!
If you would like more information about Inebriatti, you can check them out:
Twitter - @Inebriatti Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheInebriatti/
Website: www.inebriatti.caThis week a Boston-area doctor revealed she will no longer accept patients who weigh more than 200 pounds, because fat people are dangerous deviants who should go to “obesity centers” to get treated for their “disease.” Earlier this summer, a gay man accused a New Jersey doctor of refusing to treat him because, allegedly, she attributed his need for medical care to “going against God’s will.”
“Homosexuality” and “obesity” are both diseases invented around the turn of the previous century. Prior to that time, being sexually attracted to someone of the same gender or having a larger than average body were, to the extent they were thought of as social problems, considered moral rather than medical issues: That is, they were seen as manifestations of morally problematic appetites, rather than disease states.
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The same medical establishment that pathologized same-sex sexual attraction and larger bodies also offered up cures for these newly discovered diseases. Those who deviated from social norms were assured that, with the help of medical science, homosexuals and the obese could become “normal,” that is, heterosexual and thin.
In the latter half of the 20th century these frames were challenged by gay rights and fat rights advocates. Within these movements, the words "gay" and "fat" had similar purposes. They were intended to depathologize what medicine called “homosexuality” and “obesity,” by asserting that different sexual orientations and body sizes were both inevitable and largely unalterable, and that being gay or fat was not a disease.
Over the past few decades, gay rights activists have had great success challenging what 50 years ago was the standard medical view that “homosexuality” constituted a disease. By contrast, fat rights activists still deal with a public health establishment that continues to reflect and replicate profound cultural prejudices when it advocates ineffective cures for an imaginary illness.
The extent to which the construction of “obesity” as a social problem has paralleled the history of the medical establishment’s construction of the concept of “homosexuality” can be seen by comparing the cures put forth for these purported diseases.
To a remarkable degree, attempts to cure obesity resemble attempted cures for homosexuality, with the key difference being that while our public health authorities have come to denounce the latter as ineffective, unnecessary and ultimately harmful, they continue to employ the most extreme rhetoric in regard to the former. For example, the goal of Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! campaign is no less than to “end childhood obesity within a generation,” that is, to create an America with no fat children in it.
Consider the many parallels between the treatments advocated by those who claim being gay is a disease, and those being pushed by our public health establishment to “cure” fat children and adults of their supposedly pathological state.
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The advocates of so-called conversion or reparative therapy believe that “homosexuality” is a curable condition, and that a key to successful treatment is that patients must want to be cured, which is to say they consider same-sex sexual orientation volitional. These beliefs mirror precisely those of the obesity establishment, which claims to offer the means by which fat people who want to choose to stop being fat can successfully make that choice.
Those who seek to cure homosexuality and obesity have tended to react to the failure of their attempts by demanding ever more radical interventions. For example, in the 1950s Edmund Bergler, the most influential psychoanalytical theorist of homosexuality of his era, bullied and berated his clients, violated patient confidentiality and renounced his earlier, more tolerant attitude toward gay people as a form of enabling. Meanwhile, earlier this year a Harvard biology professor declared in a public lecture that Mrs. Obama’s call for voluntary lifestyle changes on the part of the obese constituted an insufficient response to the supposed public health calamity overwhelming the nation, and that the government should legally require fat people to exercise.
Anti-gay and anti-fat zealots both try to build support for their initiatives by defining success down: Advocates of conversion therapy claim their treatments “work” if patients are able to achieve sexual potency in a heterosexual encounter, or are able to avoid same-sex sexual contact for a period of weeks or months, even if they experience no lessening of desire for such contact. This lowering of the bar for what constitutes a cure is mirrored by public health authorities touting short-term weight loss or small losses of body weight as evidence for the success of anti-obesity programs.
Indeed, the most striking parallel between attempts to turn gay people into straight people and efforts to turn fat people into thin people is that both almost invariably fail. The long-term success rate of such attempts is extremely low. When it comes to the various forms of conversion therapy, the medical establishment now acknowledges this. This acknowledgment, in turn, has helped medical authorities recognize that it does not make sense to label “homosexuality” a disease, and that therapy for same-sex sexual attraction is both unnecessary and more likely to do harm than good.
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But when it comes to fat, the fear and disgust elicited in this culture by fat bodies (reminiscent of the reactions elicited traditionally by same-sex sexual relations) prevents the public health establishment from recognizing that the various “cures” it advocates for “obesity” have been demonstrated again and again to be every bit as ineffective as conversion therapy has been shown to be for “homosexuality.”
The pathologizing of gay and fat bodies springs ultimately from the same cultural source: the desire to ground moral and aesthetic disapproval in the supposedly objective discourse of science and health. It is true that fat people are at a higher risk for certain diseases (although the extent to which higher weight correlates with increased mortality and morbidity is greatly exaggerated). But trying to, for example, lessen the prevalence of diabetes by eliminating “obesity” makes no more sense than trying to lessen the prevalence of HIV infection by eliminating “homosexuality.”
The extent to which either one’s sexual orientation or one’s weight are chosen states is minimal. With rare exceptions, people cannot intentionally alter either their sexual orientation or their weight in a long-term way. Given all this, to label same-sex orientation or higher than average body weight as diseases stigmatizes those who are so labeled to no purpose, other than to express disapproval of deviance from social norms to which the stigmatized cannot adhere.
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Telling fat people they ought to be thin is about as helpful as telling gay people they should be straight. It took many decades for the medical establishment to recognize that its “cures” for “homosexuality” did far more damage than the imaginary disease to which they were addressed, and that the biggest favor it could do for gay people was to stop harassing them. Fat people are still waiting for the same favor.October 5, 2015
The Crime Of Being Male On Campus
That's what the government's abuse of Title IX in order to railroad men amounts to.
For example, from Ashe Schow's WashEx column on the government's dictates for colleges to adopt an overly broad definition of sexual assault:
A male student [was] suspended for a year because he sent multiple Instagram follow requests to a female student and once looked at her on campus.
No, this is not a joke. Yes, this really happened.
Schow explains:
Colleges are treating accusations as if the accused were a potential rapist, even when the accusation involves nothing more than requesting social media connections one too many times.
Schow asks the question about the Instagram example and another example she gives:
Even if these behaviors were inappropriate, is a one-year suspension justified instead of, say, someone simply telling the kid to stop? Most college kids who get that kind of warning from an authority figure would be thoroughly frightened enough to stop. But disrupting their life for a year over social media requests and what could have been an errant look? On today's college campuses, anything deemed offensive can be used as a weapon against college men in accusations of sexual assault and harassment. And colleges, under pressure from the federal government to find students responsible, have created pseudo-court systems that eviscerate due process in order to get those findings. "Herein lies the problem with campus tribunals determining if a crime of sexual misconduct was committed," Lau said. "[S]tudents can be wrongly accused because the accusation becomes the proof or, simply, because the definitions are too broad and too ambiguous; students can be accused months or even years after the incident; and those wrongly accused are denied due process."
This is not the country we're supposed to be.
Sadly, I predict that it will take some sort of tragedy for this to be overturned. Beyond an individual male's future being ruined. I hope that's not the case, but I suspect it might be.
*on •
LEXIE CANNES STATE OF TRANS — Update Dec. 2, 2015. Second UK trans woman found dead inside a men’s prison. The Guardian: “A transgender woman has become the second trans prisoner in the space of a month to apparently take their own life while serving time in a male jail in England.
Joanne Latham, 38, from Nottingham, died in Woodhill prison in Milton Keynes on Friday.... She was serving a number of life sentences for attempted murder...
Her death comes just weeks after the death of 21-year old Vicky Thompson, who was being held at Armley, a category B men’s prison in Leeds.”
(Original article Nov. 20, 2015) It’s every trans woman’s nightmare — ending up in a male prison. Even if not physically harmed by other inmates, the mental assault on their mind is sometimes enough to be deadly. This might be the case here.
Vicky Thompson was found unresponsive in her cell in a UK prison. Although paramedics attempted resuscitation, she was pronounced dead on Friday Nov. 13, 2015. The cause of death has not been announced but the West Yorkshire Police said the death in not considered suspicious.
News reports state the victim mentioned to friends she would kill herself if she ended up being placed in a prison for males. The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman said there would be an investigation.
———-
Since it is not a suspicious death, this leaves cause one of 3 possible things, a health problem, an accident, or suicide. It would not be prudent to speculate until further information is released. As of this writing, I’ve not seen any confirmation from an official source.
I can say, that a trans woman dead in a male prison for whatever reason is not the kind of ugly PR any prison wants the media banging on their doors about. Hopefully it’ll trigger a change, even if just to keep the media at bay.
Vicky Thompson: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leeds-34869620
Joanne Latham: http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/dec/01/second-trans-prisoner-joanne-latham-apparently-takes-own-life-in-male-jail
Watch LEXIE CANNES right now: http://www.amazon.com/Lexie-Cannes-CourtneyODonnell/dp/B00KEYH3LQ Or get the DVD: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0963781332
Read Lexie Cannes in The Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/courtney-odonnell/
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Categories: Deaths, Murder, Judicial, Courts, Transgender, Transsexual, TransSens. Michael Bennet Michael Farrand BennetDemocratic donors stuck in shopping phase of primary Overnight Health Care — Sponsored by America's 340B Hospitals — CDC blames e-cigs for rise in youth tobacco use | FDA cracks down on dietary supplements | More drug pricing hearings on tap The Hill's Morning Report - Presented by the American Academy of HIV Medicine - Next 24 hours critical for stalled funding talks MORE (D-Colo.) and Jon Tester Jonathan (Jon) TesterOvernight Energy: Trump ends talks with California on car emissions | Dems face tough vote on Green New Deal | Climate PAC backing Inslee in possible 2020 run Dems face tough vote on Green New Deal How the border deal came together MORE (D-Mont.) on Tuesday introduced legislation to prevent members of Congress from becoming lobbyists after they retire.
Current law allows senators to become lobbyists two years after leaving office, while House members only have to wait for a year. But Bennet and Tester's bill would institute a lifetime ban on lobbying for lawmakers.
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"Washington lobbyists shouldn’t be allowed to hold more sway than the folks back home in Colorado and around the country. Unfortunately, that isn’t always the way things happen around this place," Bennet said.
Bennet, the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and Tester, who represents a swing state, said the measure would limit lobbying influence on American politics.
"Slamming shut the revolving door between lawmakers and lobbyists will let folks know that Congress puts constituents first and will make government more accountable to the American people," Tester said.
A Center for Responsive Politics study found that more than half of currently employed former members of the last session of Congress now work at lobbying firms or as lobbying clients.
The legislation would further impose limits on congressional staff by preventing them from lobbying current members of Congress for six years after they leave Capitol Hill to become lobbyists, instead of the current one year.
Additionally, it would close a loophole in lobbying law by requiring firms to disclose work by consultants who are former members of Congress or senior congressional staff.
Bennet and Tester filed a similar measure as an amendment to the 2012 STOCK ("Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge") Act, which bans lawmakers from insider trading, but it was not adopted.
Congress has typically not enacted ethics or lobbying reform legislation unless a major scandal adds momentum. At present, Bennet and Tester's bill is not expected to receive legislative action.Looking for news you can trust?
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As Republicans stonewall President Obama’s initiative to raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $10.10 an hour by 2016, some state lawmakers have taken the matter into their own hands, passing legislation that increases the salaries for America’s most vulnerable workers. But there’s one group that is still largely left out of the minimum wage battle: people who work for tips.
As it stands, only seven states require employers to pay tipped workers the same minimum wage as nontipped workers. The federal minimum wage for the latter is $7.25, but the federal minimum wage for tipped workers has remained stagnate at $2.13 since 1991, with no adjustment for inflation. Employers are supposed to make up the difference if tipped workers aren’t earning the regular minimum wage through their tips, but it doesn’t always happen. The Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank, found in 2011 that tipped workers are more than twice as likely as other workers to fall under the federal poverty line.
The Minimum Wage Fairness Act, which Obama endorsed, would have gradually raised tipped workers’ minimum wage to 70 percent of the regular minimum wage. But the bill has faced steep opposition from Republicans and the restaurant lobby. According to Open Secrets, the National Restaurant Association, which opposed the minimum-wage hike, spent more than $2.2 million on lobbying last year.
Like millions of Americans across the United States, 23-year-old Anna Hovland worked a waitressing job earlier this year to make ends meet. Her restaurant in Washington, DC, paid her the local minimum wage for tipped workers, $2.77 an hour, which meant that after taxes, her paycheck was usually zero. Her tips, never dependable, ranged from $20 to $200 a shift. “In a city as expensive as DC, I’ve been able to make ends meet by the skin of my teeth,” Hovland says. “Sometimes it will only be in the last week or two of a month that I’ll realize I’ve made enough to pay all my bills.”
In December, Washington’s city council voted to raise the city’s minimum wage from $8.50 to $11.50 an hour by 2016. But the bill didn’t raise the minimum wage for tipped workers, like Hovland, on the basis that restaurants in Washington are supposed to make up the difference if tips don’t meet the equivalent of $11.50 an hour. That’s how the federal law works, as well. US companies are allowed to pay tipped employees pittance because customers are expected to tip well enough to surpass at least the federal minimum wage of $7.25, and, if they don’t, companies have to chip in the rest.
But that’s not how things always work in the real world. “The servers who make ‘good money’ are in the minority,” says Maria Myotte, a spokesperson for Restaurant Opportunities Center United, which aims to improve conditions for workers in the industry. She notes that tipped workers are hit especially hard by “wage theft,” whereby restaurants don’t make up the difference when the tips aren’t rolling in. Between 2010 and 2012, the Wage and Hour Division of the Department of Labor conducted nearly 9,000 investigations in the restaurant industry, and discovered that 83.8 percent had some kind of wage and hour violation.
Hovland tells Mother Jones that before she got in touch with the Restaurant Opportunities Center last fall—to find out why she was getting zero-dollar paychecks—she had no idea that her employer was supposed to make up the difference in tips. “We never logged our tips or reported them to our employers,” she says, unless they were on credit cards. She adds, “Even after I shared information about the minimum wage difference with coworkers, nobody felt comfortable asking employers about it.”Nina and I first met in 1957, played a magical set together, and remained the closest of friends and colleagues for 46 years until her passing in 2003. For history and accuracy I feel compelled to comment on the heated debate that is currently being waged over the movie. I recognize that an element of Nina's huge fan base is so passionately loyal that it is difficult for them to accept anything beyond their own views and memories. While I too am deeply devoted to Nina, I still try to be open to the many recent interpretations of her life.
6 years ago I was approached by the movie's writer/director to authenticate various aspects of her script, which I attempted to do in hopes of conveying the true spirit and music of Nina Simone. A very important aspect that I felt needed to be clarified was the portrayal of Clifton Henderson, her nurse who became her assistant and morphed into her manager. In reality, Clifton was with Nina for only the last eight years of her life. Criticism has been directed at the so-called "love story" by media and fans, none of them having seen the movie. In fact, the final version of the film is not a romance and does not imply a romantic relationship.
As for the general story line, certain scenes describe delicate and at times violent situations. I can attest that similar events did happen in other ways at different moments in her life. The movie's interpretations provide the viewer with a glimpse of those moments.
Our original Nina Simone Band faithfully recorded 16 tracks of Nina's songs for the movie, almost exactly how we performed and recorded them with her. I hope perceptive audiences will hear the quality of that music where it appears behind most of Zoe Saldana's vocals, and how it reflects the beauty of Nina's music.
In regard to Zoe Saldana depicting Nina, I found her portrayal studied and sensitive. Rather than defend Zoe from harsh criticisms about her makeup and "look," I would like to convey the width and depth of Nina's scope. Much has been made from outsiders claiming to know Nina's story and misinforming the public about her legacy, but allow me to share a couple of very intimate moments that I've never shared before from a couple of fun and enlightening times with Nina.
Nina wanted to buy a car and asked me to find something very special and elegant. I found a Mercedes 220se convertible with red leather interior and a three-piece custom-fitted set of red leather luggage in the trunk. We both lived on upper West Side Manhattan. One day she phoned and said "Al, be downstairs in fifteen minutes, we're driving down to the Village for lunch," and hung up. Of course, fifteen minutes later we were on the West Side Highway heading south on a beautiful spring day with Nina talking up a storm, driving fast, laughing at life, beautifully dressed, scarf around her neck blowing in the wind and suddenly she turned to me and yelled out "GRACE KELLY!" HUH? Never mind color or race, she became Grace Kelly, just as she always became the person she would sing about.
Check this out. One evening after going to a movie, Nina and I were talking about actors playing roles and she asked, "Al, who do you think I would select to play Nina Simone?" "Wow, that's a tough one," I said. "Not Lena, not Cicely, not.."You're way way off, she said." "Well who?" I said. She paused for effect and floored me as she said "Grace Kelly." HUH? Grace Kelly again? She was serious and laid it out for me. She really identified with the elegance and class of Grace Kelly, race and color notwithstanding. "But she's white," I said. "SO? Wouldn't it blow people's minds? No one understands how I see myself beyond the norm and if it couldn't be Grace I would choose Maria Callas because she is fearless, like me." She also thought that Denzel Washington should play me. All this, even given her gallant stands on race and racism. She laughingly made me promise to never tell anyone.
Nina was like a sister to me. Seeing her portrayed on the "big screen" is an odd experience. She can never be truly replicated in any way, shape or form. I believe that any depiction cannot possibly be expected to characterize the total complexity and brilliance of her remarkable life, and thus I try to keep an open mind. Being so intimately close to her I don't feel it appropriate to critique the movie in its entirety but the audience should experience it without pre-conceived prejudice.
Isn't it fascinating and wonderful how Nina haunts us and lives on in our hearts?THE AFL has considered the idea of a 10-team finals system in a shake-up of the established top-eight system that would involve wildcard spots.
Football operations boss Mark Evans revealed on Monday night that the AFL had looked at a new structure that involved a top six and a further four teams battling for wildcard positions.
It was one of a number of a number of ideas in the development stage being explored by the AFL.
The prospect of adding two teams to the finals was first explored when the League expanded to 18 teams in 2012.
"Maybe you have six who are in (the finals), fighting for spots. Then maybe you're fighting for four wildcard playoffs," Evans told Fox Footy.
"I don't mind it. There are some logistical challenges but I think it's something worthwhile progressing."
Evans revealed on Monday night there were no plans to tighten the interchange cap below 90 next season after its successful introduction in 2016.
He did, however, float a left-field idea that could turn the interchange system on its head.
"I’ve actually got an idea that we should trial — maybe in a pre-season game — whether we just interchange after goals," Evans said.
"Incentivise goalscoring and perhaps, maybe that gives us the more natural limit."
The League is also closely monitoring the NRL's video review bunker, which was introduced in 2016 and is intended to deliver faster and more accurate decisions.
In sharp contrast, camera angles used in the AFL's goal-review system vary from venue to venue.
"It (the NRL bunker) is certainly an impressive setup and something that we'll trial this year... (assessing) whether we can get the feeds back from some interstate venues," Evans said.
Evans said a three-tiered conference fixture needed more work after it was put to clubs last year and met with resistance.
"It’d be unlikely for next year," he said.
"It’s something where we’d want to do a lot more work with clubs before we progressed it any further."NEW YORK (Reuters) - The manslaughter trial of a New York City police officer who fired the bullet that killed an unarmed black man in the darkened stairwell of a housing project is due to begin on Thursday.
New York City Police officer (NYPD) Peter Liang arrives at Brooklyn Supreme Court for a pre-trial hearing, for the fatal shooting of an unarmed man while patrolling the stairwell of a Brooklyn housing project, in Brooklyn borough of New York May 14, 2015. REUTERS/Stephanie Keith
Officer Peter Liang is also charged with reckless endangerment, official misconduct and other counts for his actions inside a Brooklyn public housing complex on the night of Nov. 20, 2014.
The death of the victim, 28-year-old Akai Gurley, added to the outrage that fueled national protests over police use of force against minorities in cities including Ferguson, Missouri; Baltimore and Cleveland.
Liang’s lawyers have said the shooting was accidental.
The shooting occurred days before a grand jury declined to indict a white police officer for killing teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson and weeks before a separate grand jury brought no charges against a white New York officer for the chokehold death of Eric Garner.
Both Brown and Garner were unarmed black men, and the decisions not to charge the officers gave momentum to the “Black Lives Matter” movement.
Liang is not accused of intentionally shooting Gurley, who was walking in the unlit stairwell with his girlfriend. The bullet ricocheted off the wall and struck Gurley in the chest.
Prosecutors have said Liang acted recklessly by drawing his weapon in the first place. They have also said he and his partner argued for minutes about whether to report the shot for fear of discipline, though prosecutors have not released evidence suggesting the two officers immediately realized someone had been wounded.
Liang, who is Chinese-American, has hired two former NYPD officers as his defense lawyers: Rae Koshetz, a former deputy commissioner who oversaw internal disciplinary trials for NYPD members for 14 years, and Robert Brown, a former captain.
Brown said Liang had committed no crime.
“It was just a terrible tragedy,” he said.
Liang has opted for a jury trial, rather than a judge-only trial, and Brown said it remains possible that Liang will testify in his defense.
“People like to hear from the person who’s charged,” he said.
The case is likely to turn on whether the jurors believe Liang acted reasonably in unholstering his weapon in the darkened stairwell, where broken lights had gone unrepaired for days, or whether he ignored the risk that doing so could endanger others unnecessarily.
Liang’s partner, Shaun Landau, is expected to testify for the prosecution under an immunity agreement.The Enterprise is summoned to Starbase 11 for a prisoner transfer — to pick up Captain Kirk’s brother, George Samuel Kirk, who has admitted his guilt for murder.
Mystery and redirect mark John Byrne’s latest photomontage story. George Samuel Kirk has confessed to the murder of a Starfleet officer on Starbase 11, and now Captain Kirk has been called in to transport his older brother to Earth for trial. However, Kirk does not believe his brother capable of such an act. While he searches for the truth, Byrne throws the Klingons into the mix, which begs the question – what do they have to do with everything?
EDITOR’S NOTE: “Sam” takes place before the events of “Operation: Annihilate” and “The Trouble with Tribbles.”
Trust is the theme of the story, as Kirk’s trust in his brother causes him to conclude he is not guilty of the crime he has acknowledged. Yet, the greater question is: does Sam trust his brother to do the right thing? Peeling back the layers of mystery bit by bit, Byrne allows readers to formulate their own ideas as Spock and McCoy conduct investigations that present the facts clearly.
Reticence is Sam’s greatest impact on the story, as he only reveals so much to Kirk about the transpired events. He’s obviously holding his cards close to his chest, but for what purpose? There is an interesting moment when Kirk figures out what has been happening, prompting Sam to ask his brother, “What about that one in ten million chance that it might be true?”
“Errand of Mercy” famously introduced the Organians and the peace treaty between the Federation and Klingon Empire. The truce has allowed a tenuous peace between the two. Yet, the treaty is also backed up by much more, the inability of either to be aggressive towards the other – until now.
“Sam” sees the return of Commander Jose Mendez, last seen in “The Menagerie”, which saw Spock on trial for violating Starfleet General Order 7 and kidnapping Captain Christopher Pike. Also making appearances in the issue are Koloth and Korax (who famously ignited the fight with Scotty in “The Trouble with Tribbles”).
Most stories only include details that contribute to the overall plot, yet Byrne seems to add filler with the appearance of Yeoman Rand in the issue. She does not appear to play a vital role in the overall story, leaving readers to wonder if Byrne just wanted to show a fun little moment on the Enterprise. Upon further reflection, her interaction with Sam could help readers to understand Kirk’s brother’s motives, although there just does not |
.0.12_mojang\fastutil-7.0.12_mojang.jar;C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\org\apache\logging\log4j\log4j-api\2.0-beta9\log4j-api-2.0-beta9.jar;C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\org\apache\logging\log4j\log4j-core\2.0-beta9\log4j-core-2.0-beta9.jar;C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\org\lwjgl\lwjgl\lwjgl\2.9.4-nightly-20150209\lwjgl-2.9.4-nightly-20150209.jar;C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\org\lwjgl\lwjgl\lwjgl_util\2.9.4-nightly-20150209\lwjgl_util-2.9.4-nightly-20150209.jar;C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\versions\1.11.2\1.11.2.jar net.minecraft.client.main.Main [19:51:01 INFO]: Looking for orphaned versions to clean up... [19:51:02 INFO]: Looking for old natives & assets to clean up... [19:51:04 ERROR]: Game ended with bad state (exit code -1073740791) [19:51:04 INFO]: Ignoring visibility rule and showing launcher due to a game crash [19:51:04 INFO]: Deleting C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\versions\1.11.2\1.11.2-natives-2668507457179 [19:51:04 WARN]: Couldn't delete C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\versions\1.11.2\1.11.2-natives-2668507457179 - scheduling for deletion upon exit
RAW Paste Data
[19:50:52 INFO]: Minecraft Launcher 1.6.76 (through bootstrap 100) started on windows... [19:50:52 INFO]: Current time is Feb 3, 2017 7:50:52 PM [19:50:52 INFO]: System.getProperty('os.name') == 'Windows 10' [19:50:52 INFO]: System.getProperty('os.version') == '10.0' [19:50:52 INFO]: System.getProperty('os.arch') == 'amd64' [19:50:52 INFO]: System.getProperty('java.version') == '1.8.0_25' [19:50:52 INFO]: System.getProperty('java.vendor') == 'Oracle Corporation' [19:50:52 INFO]: System.getProperty('sun.arch.data.model') == '64' [19:50:52 INFO]: proxy == DIRECT [19:50:52 INFO]: JFX is already initialized [19:50:52 INFO]: Refreshing local version list... [19:50:52 INFO]: Refreshing remote version list... [19:50:53 INFO]: Refresh complete. [19:50:53 INFO]: Loaded 1 profile(s); selected 'DiamondPuma' [19:50:53 INFO]: Refreshing auth... [19:50:53 INFO]: Logging in with access token [19:51:01 INFO]: Getting syncinfo for selected version [19:51:01 INFO]: Queueing library & version downloads [19:51:01 INFO]: Download job 'Version & Libraries' started (16 threads, 33 files) [19:51:01 INFO]: Attempting to download C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\org\apache\logging\log4j\log4j-api\2.0-beta9\log4j-api-2.0-beta9.jar for job 'Version & Libraries'... (try 0) [19:51:01 INFO]: Attempting to download C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\com\paulscode\librarylwjglopenal\20100824\librarylwjglopenal-20100824.jar for job 'Version & Libraries'... (try 0) [19:51:01 INFO]: Attempting to download C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\com\mojang\realms\1.10.11\realms-1.10.11.jar for job 'Version & Libraries'... (try 0) [19:51:01 INFO]: Attempting to download C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\com\paulscode\codecjorbis\20101023\codecjorbis-20101023.jar for job 'Version & Libraries'... (try 0) [19:51:01 INFO]: Attempting to download C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\oshi-project\oshi-core\1.1\oshi-core-1.1.jar for job 'Version & Libraries'... (try 0) [19:51:01 INFO]: Attempting to download C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\commons-codec\commons-codec\1.9\commons-codec-1.9.jar for job 'Version & Libraries'... (try 0) [19:51:01 INFO]: Attempting to download C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\com\mojang\authlib\1.5.24\authlib-1.5.24.jar for job 'Version & Libraries'... (try 0) [19:51:01 INFO]: Attempting to download C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries
et\java\dev\jna\jna\3.4.0\jna-3.4.0.jar for job 'Version & Libraries'... (try 0) [19:51:01 INFO]: Attempting to download C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\com\google\guava\guava\17.0\guava-17.0.jar for job 'Version & Libraries'... (try 0) [19:51:01 INFO]: Attempting to download C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\it\unimi\dsi\fastutil\7.0.12_mojang\fastutil-7.0.12_mojang.jar for job 'Version & Libraries'... (try 0) [19:51:01 INFO]: Attempting to download C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\com\paulscode\codecwav\20101023\codecwav-20101023.jar for job 'Version & Libraries'... (try 0) [19:51:01 INFO]: Attempting to download C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\org\lwjgl\lwjgl\lwjgl\2.9.4-nightly-20150209\lwjgl-2.9.4-nightly-20150209.jar for job 'Version & Libraries'... (try 0) [19:51:01 INFO]: Attempting to download C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\com\paulscode\soundsystem\20120107\soundsystem-20120107.jar for job 'Version & Libraries'... (try 0) [19:51:01 INFO]: Attempting to download C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\com\google\code\gson\gson\2.2.4\gson-2.2.4.jar for job 'Version & Libraries'... (try 0) [19:51:01 INFO]: Attempting to download C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\org\lwjgl\lwjgl\lwjgl-platform\2.9.4-nightly-20150209\lwjgl-platform-2.9.4-nightly-20150209-natives-windows.jar for job 'Version & Libraries'... (try 0) [19:51:01 INFO]: Attempting to download C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\org\lwjgl\lwjgl\lwjgl_util\2.9.4-nightly-20150209\lwjgl_util-2.9.4-nightly-20150209.jar for job 'Version & Libraries'... (try 0) [19:51:01 INFO]: Download job 'Resources' skipped as there are no files to download [19:51:01 INFO]: Job 'Resources' finished successfully (took 0:00:00.000) [19:51:01 INFO]: Finished downloading C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\com\mojang\realms\1.10.11\realms-1.10.11.jar for job 'Version & Libraries': Local file matches hash, using that [19:51:01 INFO]: Finished downloading C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries
et\java\dev\jna\jna\3.4.0\jna-3.4.0.jar for job 'Version & Libraries': Local file matches hash, using that [19:51:01 INFO]: Attempting to download C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries
et\java\dev\jna\platform\3.4.0\platform-3.4.0.jar for job 'Version & Libraries'... (try 0) [19:51:01 INFO]: Attempting to download C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\org\apache\httpcomponents\httpcore\4.3.2\httpcore-4.3.2.jar for job 'Version & Libraries'... (try 0) [19:51:01 INFO]: Finished downloading C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\com\google\guava\guava\17.0\guava-17.0.jar for job 'Version & Libraries': Local file matches hash, using that [19:51:01 INFO]: Attempting to download C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\org\apache\httpcomponents\httpclient\4.3.3\httpclient-4.3.3.jar for job 'Version & Libraries'... (try 0) [19:51:01 INFO]: Finished downloading C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\org\lwjgl\lwjgl\lwjgl\2.9.4-nightly-20150209\lwjgl-2.9.4-nightly-20150209.jar for job 'Version & Libraries': Local file matches hash, using that [19:51:01 INFO]: Attempting to download C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries
et\java\jinput\jinput-platform\2.0.5\jinput-platform-2.0.5-natives-windows.jar for job 'Version & Libraries'... (try 0) [19:51:01 INFO]: Finished downloading C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\org\lwjgl\lwjgl\lwjgl-platform\2.9.4-nightly-20150209\lwjgl-platform-2.9.4-nightly-20150209-natives-windows.jar for job 'Version & Libraries': Local file matches hash, using that [19:51:01 INFO]: Attempting to download C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\com\paulscode\libraryjavasound\20101123\libraryjavasound-20101123.jar for job 'Version & Libraries'... (try 0) [19:51:01 INFO]: Finished downloading C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\it\unimi\dsi\fastutil\7.0.12_mojang\fastutil-7.0.12_mojang.jar for job 'Version & Libraries': Local file matches hash, using that [19:51:01 INFO]: Attempting to download C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\io
etty
etty-all\4.0.23.Final
etty-all-4.0.23.Final.jar for job 'Version & Libraries'... (try 0) [19:51:01 INFO]: Finished downloading C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries
et\java\jinput\jinput-platform\2.0.5\jinput-platform-2.0.5-natives-windows.jar for job 'Version & Libraries': Local file matches hash, using that [19:51:01 INFO]: Attempting to download C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries
et\java\jutils\jutils\1.0.0\jutils-1.0.0.jar for job 'Version & Libraries'... (try 0) [19:51:01 INFO]: Finished downloading C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries
et\java\jutils\jutils\1.0.0\jutils-1.0.0.jar for job 'Version & Libraries': Local file matches hash, using that [19:51:01 INFO]: Attempting to download C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\org\apache\logging\log4j\log4j-core\2.0-beta9\log4j-core-2.0-beta9.jar for job 'Version & Libraries'... (try 0) [19:51:01 INFO]: Finished downloading C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\commons-codec\commons-codec\1.9\commons-codec-1.9.jar for job 'Version & Libraries': Local file matches hash, using that [19:51:01 INFO]: Attempting to download C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries
et\sf\jopt-simple\jopt-simple\4.6\jopt-simple-4.6.jar for job 'Version & Libraries'... (try 0) [19:51:01 INFO]: Finished downloading C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\com\paulscode\codecjorbis\20101023\codecjorbis-20101023.jar for job 'Version & Libraries': Local file matches hash, using that [19:51:01 INFO]: Attempting to download C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\org\apache\commons\commons-compress\1.8.1\commons-compress-1.8.1.jar for job 'Version & Libraries'... (try 0) [19:51:01 INFO]: Finished downloading C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries
et\sf\jopt-simple\jopt-simple\4.6\jopt-simple-4.6.jar for job 'Version & Libraries': Local file matches hash, using that [19:51:01 INFO]: Attempting to download C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\com\ibm\icu\icu4j-core-mojang\51.2\icu4j-core-mojang-51.2.jar for job 'Version & Libraries'... (try 0) [19:51:01 INFO]: Finished downloading C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\com\google\code\gson\gson\2.2.4\gson-2.2.4.jar for job 'Version & Libraries': Local file matches hash, using that [19:51:01 INFO]: Finished downloading C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\org\apache\httpcomponents\httpclient\4.3.3\httpclient-4.3.3.jar for job 'Version & Libraries': Local file matches hash, using that [19:51:01 INFO]: Attempting to download C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries
et\java\jinput\jinput\2.0.5\jinput-2.0.5.jar for job 'Version & Libraries'... (try 0) [19:51:01 INFO]: Attempting to download C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\org\apache\commons\commons-lang3\3.3.2\commons-lang3-3.3.2.jar for job 'Version & Libraries'... (try 0) [19:51:01 INFO]: Finished downloading C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\org\apache\logging\log4j\log4j-core\2.0-beta9\log4j-core-2.0-beta9.jar for job 'Version & Libraries': Local file matches hash, using that [19:51:01 INFO]: Attempting to download C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\commons-io\commons-io\2.4\commons-io-2.4.jar for job 'Version & Libraries'... (try 0) [19:51:01 INFO]: Finished downloading C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\com\paulscode\soundsystem\20120107\soundsystem-20120107.jar for job 'Version & Libraries': Local file matches hash, using that [19:51:01 INFO]: Attempting to download C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\commons-logging\commons-logging\1.1.3\commons-logging-1.1.3.jar for job 'Version & Libraries'... (try 0) [19:51:01 INFO]: Finished downloading C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries
et\java\jinput\jinput\2.0.5\jinput-2.0.5.jar for job 'Version & Libraries': Local file matches hash, using that [19:51:01 INFO]: Attempting to download C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\com\mojang
etty\1.6
etty-1.6.jar for job 'Version & Libraries'... (try 0) [19:51:01 INFO]: Finished downloading C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\com\mojang
etty\1.6
etty-1.6.jar for job 'Version & Libraries': Local file matches hash, using that [19:51:01 INFO]: Attempting to download C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\versions\1.11.2\1.11.2.jar for job 'Version & Libraries'... (try 0) [19:51:01 INFO]: Finished downloading C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\commons-io\commons-io\2.4\commons-io-2.4.jar for job 'Version & Libraries': Local file matches hash, using that [19:51:01 INFO]: Finished downloading C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\org\apache\commons\commons-lang3\3.3.2\commons-lang3-3.3.2.jar for job 'Version & Libraries': Local file matches hash, using that [19:51:01 INFO]: Finished downloading C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\org\lwjgl\lwjgl\lwjgl_util\2.9.4-nightly-20150209\lwjgl_util-2.9.4-nightly-20150209.jar for job 'Version & Libraries': Local file matches hash, using that [19:51:01 INFO]: Finished downloading C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\org\apache\logging\log4j\log4j-api\2.0-beta9\log4j-api-2.0-beta9.jar for job 'Version & Libraries': Local file matches hash, using that [19:51:01 INFO]: Finished downloading C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\com\mojang\authlib\1.5.24\authlib-1.5.24.jar for job 'Version & Libraries': Local file matches hash, using that [19:51:01 INFO]: Finished downloading C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\com\paulscode\codecwav\20101023\codecwav-20101023.jar for job 'Version & Libraries': Local file matches hash, using that [19:51:01 INFO]: Finished downloading C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\oshi-project\oshi-core\1.1\oshi-core-1.1.jar for job 'Version & Libraries': Local file matches hash, using that [19:51:01 INFO]: Finished downloading C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\com\paulscode\librarylwjglopenal\20100824\librarylwjglopenal-20100824.jar for job 'Version & Libraries': Local file matches hash, using that [19:51:01 INFO]: Finished downloading C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\commons-logging\commons-logging\1.1.3\commons-logging-1.1.3.jar for job 'Version & Libraries': Local file matches hash, using that [19:51:01 INFO]: Finished downloading C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\org\apache\commons\commons-compress\1.8.1\commons-compress-1.8.1.jar for job 'Version & Libraries': Local file matches hash, using that [19:51:01 INFO]: Finished downloading C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries
et\java\dev\jna\platform\3.4.0\platform-3.4.0.jar for job 'Version & Libraries': Local file matches hash, using that [19:51:01 INFO]: Finished downloading C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\com\paulscode\libraryjavasound\20101123\libraryjavasound-20101123.jar for job 'Version & Libraries': Local file matches hash, using that [19:51:01 INFO]: Finished downloading C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\com\ibm\icu\icu4j-core-mojang\51.2\icu4j-core-mojang-51.2.jar for job 'Version & Libraries': Local file matches hash, using that [19:51:01 INFO]: Finished downloading C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\org\apache\httpcomponents\httpcore\4.3.2\httpcore-4.3.2.jar for job 'Version & Libraries': Local file matches hash, using that [19:51:01 INFO]: Finished downloading C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\io
etty
etty-all\4.0.23.Final
etty-all-4.0.23.Final.jar for job 'Version & Libraries': Local file matches hash, using that [19:51:01 INFO]: Finished downloading C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\versions\1.11.2\1.11.2.jar for job 'Version & Libraries': Local file matches hash, using that [19:51:01 INFO]: Job 'Version & Libraries' finished successfully (took 0:00:00.257) [19:51:01 INFO]: Launching game [19:51:01 INFO]: Unpacking natives to C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\versions\1.11.2\1.11.2-natives-2668507457179 [19:51:01 INFO]: Launching in C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft [19:51:01 INFO]: Half command: C:\Program Files (x86)\Minecraft\runtime\jre-x64\1.8.0_25\bin\javaw.exe -XX:HeapDumpPath=MojangTricksIntelDriversForPerformance_javaw.exe_minecraft.exe.heapdump -Xmx1G -XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC -XX:+CMSIncrementalMode -XX:-UseAdaptiveSizePolicy -Xmn128M -Dos.name=Windows 10 -Dos.version=10.0 -Djava.library.path=C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\versions\1.11.2\1.11.2-natives-2668507457179 -cp C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\com\mojang
etty\1.6
etty-1.6.jar;C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\oshi-project\oshi-core\1.1\oshi-core-1.1.jar;C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries
et\java\dev\jna\jna\3.4.0\jna-3.4.0.jar;C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries
et\java\dev\jna\platform\3.4.0\platform-3.4.0.jar;C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\com\ibm\icu\icu4j-core-mojang\51.2\icu4j-core-mojang-51.2.jar;C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries
et\sf\jopt-simple\jopt-simple\4.6\jopt-simple-4.6.jar;C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\com\paulscode\codecjorbis\20101023\codecjorbis-20101023.jar;C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\com\paulscode\codecwav\20101023\codecwav-20101023.jar;C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\com\paulscode\libraryjavasound\20101123\libraryjavasound-20101123.jar;C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\com\paulscode\librarylwjglopenal\20100824\librarylwjglopenal-20100824.jar;C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\com\paulscode\soundsystem\20120107\soundsystem-20120107.jar;C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\io
etty
etty-all\4.0.23.Final
etty-all-4.0.23.Final.jar;C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\com\google\guava\guava\17.0\guava-17.0.jar;C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\org\apache\commons\commons-lang3\3.3.2\commons-lang3-3.3.2.jar;C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\commons-io\commons-io\2.4\commons-io-2.4.jar;C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\commons-codec\commons-codec\1.9\commons-codec-1.9.jar;C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries
et\java\jinput\jinput\2.0.5\jinput-2.0.5.jar;C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries
et\java\jutils\jutils\1.0.0\jutils-1.0.0.jar;C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\com\google\code\gson\gson\2.2.4\gson-2.2.4.jar;C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\com\mojang\authlib\1.5.24\authlib-1.5.24.jar;C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\com\mojang\realms\1.10.11\realms-1.10.11.jar;C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\org\apache\commons\commons-compress\1.8.1\commons-compress-1.8.1.jar;C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\org\apache\httpcomponents\httpclient\4.3.3\httpclient-4.3.3.jar;C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\commons-logging\commons-logging\1.1.3\commons-logging-1.1.3.jar;C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\org\apache\httpcomponents\httpcore\4.3.2\httpcore-4.3.2.jar;C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\it\unimi\dsi\fastutil\7.0.12_mojang\fastutil-7.0.12_mojang.jar;C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\org\apache\logging\log4j\log4j-api\2.0-beta9\log4j-api-2.0-beta9.jar;C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\org\apache\logging\log4j\log4j-core\2.0-beta9\log4j-core-2.0-beta9.jar;C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\org\lwjgl\lwjgl\lwjgl\2.9.4-nightly-20150209\lwjgl-2.9.4-nightly-20150209.jar;C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\org\lwjgl\lwjgl\lwjgl_util\2.9.4-nightly-20150209\lwjgl_util-2.9.4-nightly-20150209.jar;C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\versions\1.11.2\1.11.2.jar net.minecraft.client.main.Main [19:51:01 INFO]: Looking for orphaned versions to clean up... [19:51:02 INFO]: Looking for old natives & assets to clean up... [19:51:04 ERROR]: Game ended with bad state (exit code -1073740791) [19:51:04 INFO]: Ignoring visibility rule and showing launcher due to a game crash [19:51:04 INFO]: Deleting C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\versions\1.11.2\1.11.2-natives-2668507457179 [19:51:04 WARN]: Couldn't delete C:\Users\tyler\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\versions\1.11.2\1.11.2-natives-2668507457179 - scheduling for deletion upon exitCrews rescued a man who was impaled while trying to climb a fence. He said he was high on the drug "Flakka" at the time. (Source: Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue)
FORT LAUDERDALE (CBSMiami) — For the second time in two months the dangerous new drug Flakka took center stage at the Fort Lauderdale Police Department.
Last month, someone was trying to break down the front door of the police department. He told police he was high on Flakka.
On Sunday, a man told police he just smoked Flakka before being impaled while trying to scale the fence around the department.
It’s tough to look at surveillance video that captured Shanard Neely making a run for the spiked fence surrounding the Fort Lauderdale Police Department.
Click here to watch Ted Scouten’s story.
And here’s where you cringe. He tried to scale the fence but didn’t make it! He was impaled by a foot long spike.
“He was just dangling there,” said Asst. Fort Lauderdale Fire Chief Tim Heiser. “There was no way he could have gotten off. It was too high up and nothing to actually leverage himself with.”
Lucky for him, a Fort Lauderdale fire truck was already there gassing up and moments behind it was the tactical response team arrived with a big job ahead of them.
“His one leg was through here,” Fort Lauderdale Fire Tactical Response Lt. Rick Pardo points out on the fence. “The other leg was over here somewhere and his entire upper body was on the opposite side of the fence.”
That spike went all the way through, entering in his thigh near the crotch, exiting on the other side, through the buttocks.
It was a daring rescue using circular saws to cut away the fence. During the rescue, Neely had to remain perfectly still so he didn’t slit an artery and possibly bleed out.
With sparks flying around him, rescuers had him propped up using ladders and a back board, while cutting around him.
Fire rescue captured the moment he was freed on video.
“Nice and easy boys,” we hear someone say. Then the critical moment when he was freed and moved to the stretcher. With the spike still in him, Neely was rushed to Broward Health. Rescuers went in to the emergency room to help doctors cut away everything but the spike.
Despite dangling on a fence for more than 20 minutes, Pardo said Neely was one very fortunate guy. If that spike went in just a little to the left or right, this could have had a very different ending.
“It could have went in and he could have bled out and it could have been really bad. He was definitely lucky,” Pardo said.
Neely remains at Broward Health Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale where he is recovering from surgery. He is also there for a psychological evaluation.It has been awhile since we've been to Edmonton -- almost as long as it has been since the Oilers qualified for the playoffs, in fact -- but we still can't help but imagine that Bruce Springsteen's "Glory Days" plays in a nonstop loop around the Oiler offices, every day, all day.
That song must have been running full blast Monday, when the news broke that GM Steve Tambellini had been fired and replaced by former head coach Craig MacTavish.
The man behind the firing and the man who introduced the new (er, old?) face of the Oilers' management team on Monday was former GM Kevin Lowe, who ascended to the title of president of hockey operations back in 2008, but who has never really let go of the tiller, just as he has apparently never let go of the team's past.
And although Tambellini was an "outside" hire, he was Lowe's hire, and now that Lowe has replaced one pal with another even older pal in MacTavish, has this team really taken a step anywhere but in a circle?
MacTavish, who was the head coach the last time the Oilers made the playoffs, in 2006 -- when they made a surprise run to the Stanley Cup finals, losing in seven games to Carolina -- had returned to the team last year as the team’s senior vice president of hockey operations.
MacTavish will be replaced by former Oiler assistant GM Scott Howson, who was fired earlier this year in Columbus, where he was both unpopular and by virtually every measuring stick unsuccessful during his tenure there as GM.
If you think the Oilers organizational chart looks like one of those optical illusions where the stairs are both ascending and descending in a perpetual circle, that's because it is.
Still, there has been nothing circular about the Oilers' evolution as a team -- just a straight descent.
They have missed the playoffs every season since that improbably Cup run in 2006. And even though they have managed the improbable, not to mention embarrassing, feat of collecting three straight No. 1 overall draft picks -- and could conceivably earn a fourth if they get lucky in the math department for a second year in a row (all teams that fail to make the playoffs have at least a shot at the No. 1 pick) -- they still appear to be a team without a clue.
Yes, they have talent. Taylor Hall, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Nail Yakupov, who represent the fruits of those three first-overall picks, are gifted players. Jordan Eberle is a world-class talent too, and the four are among the team's top five point-producers this season (the fifth is another Oiler prospect, Sam Gagner, who was taken sixth overall in 2007).
They also somehow managed to coax Justin Schultz, one of the top defensive free agents on the market last summer, to sign on.
And there's the rub, no?
That the Oilers have talent isn't the issue. When you're as lousy as they've been since 2006, you should have young talent. That's how it's supposed to work, and even the least hockey savvy of front offices should be able to make use of repeated top-10 draft picks.
But acquiring talent and building a team are vastly different animals and that's where Lowe and his staff have failed miserably.
Vision? Ha. What's that?
A grand |
try to kill Bran, perhaps not for the first time. Sticking close to Bran instead would seem to work against him, which makes it the perfect Petyr move. Until the fall from the ladder breaks him, Littlefinger should embrace the warg life and keep chasing that Three-Eyed-Raven contact high, hoping enough of Bran’s training rubs off on him to enhance his plotting for power and cryptic commenting—or at least his ability to see some Lady Stark without clothes on, a lifelong goal that’s slipping further and further away from fruition.
Reunite With Varys
Megan Schuster: I am sure that Littlefinger has a plan. From the day he was born, Littlefinger has never been planless. He plots in his sleep and hedges each of his schemes with five smaller backup schemes if something goes wrong. But right now, hanging at Winterfell and following Sansa around like a lost puppy, I’m not sure what his current plan is (besides probably another awkward proposal and an even more awkward rejection). So instead, here’s what I think the show’s plan should be for Littlefinger: reunite him with Varys.
Littlefinger has never been a more dynamic character than when he had to outsmart Varys. Their conversations around the Red Keep—from the throne room to the gardens, hallways, small council chambers, and pretty much anywhere else a conversation could be had—were tension-filled and often led to some of the biggest plot points in all of Game of Thrones. Just like Magic and Bird in the ’80s, they’re both better when they’re trying to outdo each other. And with Jon and Dany getting ever closer to forming an alliance (and maybe a romance???), if Littlefinger can keep from getting killed for a while and if Melisandre’s prophecy about Varys takes time to come to fruition, it’s possible the puppet masters will meet once again.
Become a Father Figure to Robin Arryn
Zach Kram: The problem with Littlefinger's plan is that he doesn't have a plan anymore. He might fight every battle in his mind, always, but everything that's happened in the last two episodes isn't something he's seen before: Sansa's emerged as a capable, confident leader; Arya's returned home as one of the continent's best fighters; and Bran's back, alive, and quoting back Baelish's own private pump-up mixes.
So Petyr should forget the ladder of chaos, the Iron Throne, and even his crush's-daughter-cum-crush-redux. Instead, Baelish should pivot to the area he's thus far neglected in his naked pursuit of power: fatherhood. With Jon Arryn—a warm father figure himself—long dead and Lysa a victim of gravity, sickly Robin Arryn has been an orphan for nearly three seasons now. Sure, Petyr is technically his stepfather, but he's hardly so much as interacted with the boy since departing the Vale back in the Season 5 premiere. And Robin is 15, or thereabouts, now—old enough to command an army in theory, yet still so blunted psychologically in practice that he can't easily form a sentence without the words "Moon Door" or "fly."
Thrones hasn't exhibited a pattern of healthy father-son relationships in the past. Robert (and Jaime) failed Joffrey; Balon couldn't disguise his hatred of Theon; Tywin provoked his son into shooting him with a crossbow; Lord Walder spent his time belittling his sons; Craster sacrificed his. But Littlefinger already exists as an unorthodox player in Thrones; now, let him occupy that same role for Westerosi fathers and turn his scheming mind toward child-rearing. Benioff and Weiss can even bring back Ed Sheeran to croon "Cat's in the Cradle" as the two awkward relatives bond.
Disclosure: HBO is an initial investor in The Ringer.The contraception "funding" in the stimulus was actually just a piece of language that would allow states to quit writing long waiver applications to get Medicaid funding to cover contraception for low income women in the same way they already cover pre-natal care. But over the past few years, 27 states had already spent the time and money to get the waivers, and a new Guttmacher Institute report shows why:
[...]
Surveying data from the 2006 fiscal year, the report says the national family planning program prevented 1.94 million unintended pregnancies, including almost 400,000 teen pregnancies. Based on statistical analysis and projections, these pregnancies would have resulted in 860,000 unintended births, 810,000 abortions and 270,000 miscarriages, according to the report.
Without publicly funded family planning, it said, the U.S. abortion rate would be nearly two-thirds higher, and nearly twice as high among poor women.Dev Blog: Clue Scroll Expansion
With the last expansion to clue scrolls having taken place back two years ago, we would like to give treasure trails another look.
Treasure trails are an amazing way to get a break from the daily grind mixed in with the excitement of potentially getting a huge reward. We'd like to make this bigger and better with an expansion to clue scrolls!
Please note: All best-in-slot rewards will be polled separately.
Master clue scrolls
Please note: The 3rd age axe and pickaxe will be equal to the dragon axe and pickaxe.
Expansions to existing tiers
+11 Ranged attack
-10 Magic attack
+1 Stab defence
+2 Slash defence
+1 Crush defence
+2 Magic defence
Saradomin's blessing
Guthix's blessing
Zamorak's blessing
Bandos' blessing
Armadyl's blessing
Zaros' blessing
Supplementary updates
Easy - 27 Construction
Medium - 42 Construction
Hard - 55 Construction
Elite - 77 Construction
Poll structure
The main focus of this expansion to treasure trails is a new tier of clue scroll - the. Master clue scrolls offer brand new, incredibly rare rewards as well as a variety of new challenges to overcome. Master clue scrolls will even include a brand new type of puzzle to complete!Before being able to get your hands on a master clue scroll you will first need sacrifice one clue scroll of every other tier. Once you have sacrificed an easy, medium, hard and elite clue, you will be able to claim a master clue scroll from a new NPC, Watson.Much like obtaining a master clue scroll to begin with, reaching the reward will be no easy feat. We've got numerous new challenges that we will be including along the path of master clue scrolls, accompanied by brand new rewards.The Old School community contributed some fantastic ideas for rewards and we have taken many of them on board. 3rd age axe, 3rd age pickaxe, the ring of coins and many more rewards await players who take on the challenge of master clue scrolls.(polled separately)In order for true clue scroll enthusiasts to show off just how dedicated they are, master tier clue scrolls will have anof giving a bloodhound pet as a reward.We would also like to add new clues and rewards to the existing tiers of clue scrolls. This would mean new clue locations and challenges for easy, medium, hard and elite clues. We'll even be expanding clue scroll locations out into the far reaches of Zeah.New rewards would be available from each tier of clue scroll, ranging from trimmed steel to Oziach's yellow trimmed rune armour. More ornament kits, new scarfs, a peg leg and even a golden wooden shield! There will be lots more rewards to be had, many of them coming straight from the Old School community.One other addition we would like to make to existing clue scrolls is a unique, untradeable reward for each tier of clue scroll. These rewards would be unlocked by completing a set amount of one tier of clue scroll and would serve as a great way to show off just how much of a clue hunting expert you are!Each tier would have the following untradeable reward:- Equippable spade - Unlocked at 500 easy clues- Wieldable clue scroll - Unlocked at 400 medium clues- Clue scroll emote unlock scroll - Unlocked at 300 hard clues- Two-handed, wield-able treasure chest - Unlocked at 200 elite cluesIn addition to the bloodhound pet, below are the rewards which will be polled separately to the clue scroll expansion itself.(Elite clue scroll reward)Requiring 40 Ranged to equip, ranger gloves provide the following bonuses:(Elite clue scroll reward)Requiring 31 prayer to equip, holy gloves provide +3 prayer bonus.God blessings which provide +1 prayer bonus. They are equipped in the quiver slot.There will be six variations of god blessings:It will be possible to receive god blessings fromtier of clue scroll, much like the existing god pages. In addition to providing prayer bonus, blessings will provide protection from one god's followers when inside the Godwars dungeon.In addition to the clue scroll expansion, we would also like to offer a few other clue related updates.With 75 emote clues all requiring various pieces of equipment to complete, storing all of the necessary items can take quite a toll on your bank space. We'd like to solve this problem withHidey-holes are small storage spaces which can be constructed in set spots near emote clue locations. Creating hidey-holes requires a different construction level for each of the four tiers of emote clue:Lucky implings are an uber rare form of impling requiring level 89 Hunter to catch. These implings are untradeable after being caught.Looting a lucky impling gives you one roll on a clue scroll drop table. This roll can be on the drop table of any tier of clue, from easy to master, but is much more likely to roll on the lower tiers of clue.Following the popularity of clue bottles, allowing you to receive clue scrolls while Fishing, we would like to offer the same opportunity to miners and woodcutters. Alongside the clue scroll expansion we will be offering to add a chance of receiving clue scrolls while mining and woodcutting.With the many pieces of trimmed rune armour available in the free-to-play game, we thought it would be worth offering making gilded armour available in free-to-play as well.: Should an expansion to treasure trails be added to Old School RuneScape? This expansion will include new challenges and rewards for the existing tiers of clue scroll as well as a brand new tier: master clue scrolls.: If the treasure trails expansion passes, should master clue scrolls offer an incredibly rare bloodhound pet as a potential reward?: Should one untradeable reward be available for each tier of clue scroll? These rewards would be earned by completing 500, 400, 300 or 200 clues for easy, medium, hard and elite clues respectively.: If the treasure trails expansion passes, should ranger gloves be added as a potential reward from elite clue scrolls? These gloves would be a new best-in-slot item for 40 Ranged, offering a +11 Ranged attack bonus.: If the treasure trails expansion passes, should holy gloves be added as a potential reward from elite clue scrolls? These gloves would require 31 Prayer to equip would provide +3 prayer bonus.: If the treasure trails expansion passes, should god blessings be added as a potential reward from all tiers of clue scroll? They would provide +1 prayer bonus, Godwars protection for one god and would be equipped in the quiver slot.: Emote clue scrolls require certain equipment to be worn in order to be completed. This equipment can take up a lot of bank space. Should hidey-holes, small storage spaces which can be built near emote clue locations to store the relevant equipment, be added to Old School? Hidey-holes would require varying construction levels to build.: Should uber rare lucky implings be added to Old School RuneScape? They would require level 89 Hunter to catch. Once caught they would be untradeable and would provide one roll on a clue scroll drop table when looted.: Should there be a rare chance of receiving clue scrolls while mining and woodcutting?: Should gilded armour and the gilded scimitar be made usable in free-to-play? This would not include gilded boots.Children 3 and under are FREE
Early Bird Saver (until June 23 at midnight): $10 (33% off) Super Saver (June 24 - July 24 at midnight): $12 (20% off) Gate (July 25, 26, 27, and 28): $15
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All General Admission Tickets are Print at home.
General Admission tickets are GOOD FOR ANY ONE (1) DAY of the festival, July 26-28.
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1-800-HOT-AIR-9Imagine you’re a community organizer in Detroit. You want to convert an abandoned lot into a community garden, and to back up your case, you plan a local survey of families who might use it. You organize a band of volunteers–mostly teens and retirees–who are willing to canvas the neighborhood. You arm them with your paper survey and send them off. After a few weeks, the team has collected a couple hundred data points. Then the real work begins: You must transcribe every survey by hand and pay an urban planner to analyze and map the results. It’s an expensive and tedious process–and in many cases, it’s out of reach for people interested in effecting change in their own communities.
“All across the nation, community groups are out in their neighborhoods, collecting information about where they live,” says urban planner Alicia Rouault. “But they’re doing it in a cumbersome way.” Often, interested community members don’t have access to the tools or knowledge they need to glean insights from the information they collect. Rouault and her collaborators, Matt Hampel and Prashant Singh, saw an opportunity to democratize data. “The people who are responsible for collecting the data shouldn’t be afraid,” Rouault tells Co.Design. “They should have access to it without having an expert mediate the process.”
As 2012 Code for America fellows, the trio have spent the past 11 months developing their solution: a “digital toolkit” called LocalData that is poised to revolutionize how communities collect and leverage data. Typically, this process is divided between on-the-ground volunteers who collect the information, and urban planners who glean meaning from it. LocalData disrupts convention by putting expert tools in the hands of communities, letting everyone get their hands (digitally) dirty with an easy-to-understand interface. With the free toolkit, the people who are culling the data–who arguably know the most about the issues at hand–can crunch it, too.
How does LocalData work? Let’s use the earlier example to illustrate. The community organizer could join LocalData and set up a streamlined survey using the app’s incredibly simple form tool. Then, the leader can send their survey as a URL link to volunteers, who in turn use their smartphones to record their results. Rouault adds that since many volunteers are elderly or young, smartphones may not be an option. “We opted to do a paper-based version, too, allowing a user to print out a map, draw on it, then scan it and geocode the qualitative information they drew.” After the surveys are complete, members can log-in to the dashboard and see their data, which has already been time-stamped, visualized, and mapped. They can also choose to download the data sets in popular file formats for further analysis.
Rouault, Hampel, and Singh developed the app while working with urban planners and community advocates in Detroit. They used an early version of LocalData to help a community track urban blight, and later, to help urban planning students carry out a sweeping commercial parcel study. “They mapped 9,000 parcels [of land] in a matter of weeks, which they wouldn’t have been able to do using traditional survey methodologies,” Rouault explains. “It proved our hypothesis–that this could be a useful tool not just for community groups, but for experts.”
After months of coding and testing, with the end of their fellowships fast approaching, the team decided they wanted to take LocalData further. They applied for a Knight Foundation grant, and were awarded $300,000 on October 4th. The money will help them launch LocalData nationally at the end of the year, targeting civically driven institutions in New York, Boston, Detroit, Chicago, and the Bay Area (though Rouault says that the toolkit will be available everywhere). LocalData will serve as the keystone for Amplify Labs, the trio’s newly formed “civic startup” aimed at effecting change through technology on a local level.
Two months before LocalData’s official launch, the creators are already fielding requests from wildly diverse interested parties, including city health departments. Rouault believes that’s proof positive that these tools are desperately needed at all levels of civic policy-making, from grassroots organizers to city officials. And despite the growing momentum behind the project, LocalData’s code will always be free for everyone, available on GitHub. “We tried to make it as inclusive as possible,” she adds. “We’re really proud of that thinking.”350 SHARES Share Tweet Google Whatsapp Digg Reddit Stumbleupon Mail
UPDATE: In a long and feisty debate on the Second Reading of the EU Withdrawal Bill, the opposition insisted that a Labour amendment was necessary to stop Brexit turning into a dangerous undemocratic power grab in which Theresa May and her ministers could reinterpret decades of human rights and EU legislation as they see fit. And without the debate and votes of parliamentary scrutiny that we are accustomed to in this country.
The Labour amendment stated that “this House respects the EU referendum result and recognises that the UK will leave the EU” but that the EU (Withdrawal) Bill as drafted by the Government hands “sweeping powers” to ministers allowing them to “bypass parliament.” However it was defeated just after midnight, and the Bill passed onto its Second Reading by 36 votes.
Yet the Bill could still face defeat as MP’s – including 12 Tory MP’s – tabled crucial amendments to be examined as the Bill as it moves on to Third Reading. Former Conservative attorney-general Dominic Grieve who called the bill an “astonishing monstrosity” intimated that he may rebel at Third Reading.
And if the seven Labour MPs who defied Jeremy Corbyn’s whip to vote the Bill through and as few as seven of Theresa May’s Conservative colleagues who had sounded alarms over its anti-democratic elements during the debate rebel, the PM could yet face defeat.
Labour MP Helen Goodman summed up the fears of many MP’s, constitutional experts, lawyers, human rights organisations, trades unions and charities when she went through the clauses that allow the Government to operate without parliament’s assent and warned: “this is a power grab by Tory ministers who cannot be trusted.”
Pointing to clause nine of the Government’s Brexit Bill, which says that the government can change the law to comply with the final withdrawal agreement, the MP for Bishop Auckland added: “how can the House be expected to agree to this given that the government has refused to share its negotiation objectives?”
“They have been secretive, nervous and uncooperative. We cannot trust these ministers. We cannot give them these vast powers,” warned Goodman. Watch her explain the full worrying situation that now faces the country:
EU Debate: "We cannot trust these ministers." "They have been secretive, nervous and uncooperative. We cannot trust these ministers. We cannot give them these vast powers." Helen Goodman of The Labour Party dismantles the Conservatives underhand powergrab at a time of National Importance.#Brexit #Labour #Conservatives #JeremyCorbyn #TheresaMay Posted by The London Economic on Monday, 11 September 2017
Last week Theresa May faced similar accusations from MP’s in her own party, but it seems that the Conservative Party whips whipped them into towing the Prime Minister’s line on the Brexit Bill.
The veteran Tory MP Anna Soubry had warned that the EU withdrawal bill would “become an unprecedented and unnecessary government power grab.”
And MP’s from all parties had sounded similar alarms. Shadow Brexit Minister Keir Starmer insisted: “while we accept the result of the referendum we are not giving a blank cheque to the government to do it in whichever way it wants because it is not in the public interest.”
This was the Labour Party amendment:
Even human rights watchdogs Amnesty International and Liberty called on MP’s from both sides of the House of Commons to amend the Bill to include a binding commitment on the Government to prevent it eroding Brits’ rights.
“This law will affect everybody in the UK – you, your parents, your children – for generations to come. Ministers saying ‘trust us’ just is not enough when the stakes are this high. Surely the Government can’t oppose one simple amendment to stop them taking away our rights?” insisted Liberty’s Corey Stoughton. “People voted to leave the EU – not lose their rights.”
“As it is, the Withdrawal Bill would see Parliament surrender broad power to Ministers to change laws without proper scrutiny, setting a dangerous precedent. Parliament would be less sovereign and that cannot be right,” added Rachel Logan, Law and Programme Director at Amnesty International UK.
“We cannot stand idly by and risk Ministers using cloak and dagger tactics in the future to roll back rights and equality protections that are in place to defend us all.”
“Although there is more to do, this decision means we can move on with negotiations with solid foundations and we continue to encourage MPs from all parts of the UK to work together in support of this vital piece of legislation,” said the Prime Minister after the debate.
@BenGelblum
Related:5. Nintendo's Virtual Boy
The usual culprit when it comes to failure is over-confidence. Like a young man lauded by his parents, hearing endless hymns of praise for something as mundane as knowing how to correctly read the word'machine' as ma-shin, and not some funky alternative like mac-hayn, or mac-he-ne, these inventions were victims of praises that had fallen flat. They are inventions that have been overly bedazzled by their zealous, and incredibly ambitious creators who expected massive results from their creations, only to be greeted by a less than resounding applause from the expected audience. Over the years, we've seen and heard several groundbreaking ideas that tried to tickle humanity's overbearing curiosity. And while in theory, they may be an incredible addition to the triumphs of human race, we can't help but stifle our laughs at their failed attempts at creating something that was worthwhile. Ready to move on? Lets go for it...Back when Nintendo was still trying to be relevant because of their hardware and not some new Super Mario game, they decided to venture into something different. Something that was unique, something that was to catapult them into even greater heights, something that was filled with ingenuity and vigor that all other competing competing companies would try to emulate, something that was to completely change the world of gaming forever, or so they thought; and thus, the Virtual Boy was born. While 3D gaming wasn't totally unheard of at the time of its incarnation, Nintendo knew they could do better than the forgettable gaming systems that have emerged prior to it. The device boasted game-play that aimed to totally immerse you into its universe; and Nintendo meant that literally. The Virtual Boy had a head-mounted display containing dual monochrome screens capable of projecting "3D" images through depth perception. To a lot of people, the device felt like it was ahead of its time. Despite its considerably interesting premise and the massive promotion budget that backed it up, the Virtual Boy was a commercial failure. It was critically panned for the less than desirable headaches that it causes not more than after five minutes of use, the lack of games available to it at launch, and the overall feeling that the device is nothing but a big gimmick. The future of virtual reality through Nintendo's path has been cut short in less than a year, with the Virtual Boy selling only around 770,000 units. The Virtual Boy wasn't the world-dominating game console that Nintendo wanted it to be.: Nintendo 3DS, Oculus RiftCOLLODI, ITALY—Sipping from a glass of wine at a small outdoor café in a small Tuscan hill town, Special Counsel Robert Mueller confirmed Tuesday that he was feeling dread about returning from his two-month European vacation to start the investigation into Russia meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign. “I’ve been pushing it all to the back of my mind and trying to relax, because I know that when I get back I’ll be slammed with a ton of annoying phone calls, emails, and paperwork,” said Mueller, who reportedly has been touring Italian vineyards for the past two weeks after completing a sailing expedition through the Greek isles in a “much-needed escape” from Washington, D.C. before beginning his probe into potential collusion between Russia and the Trump presidential campaign. “I took a quick peek at my phone the other day, and I had 1,200 unread messages. God, I don’t want to go back. I know the work is just going to keep piling up the longer I put it off, but it’s heaven here. I never want to leave.” At press time, Mueller was rescheduling his return flight back to America to fit in a few days of scuba diving and parasailing in the French Riviera.
Advertisement" You cannot make a man by standing a sheep on its hind legs. But by standing a flock of sheep
in that position you can make a crowd of men." - Max Beerbohm (1872 - 1956)
Harley Davidson owners are preoccupied with image and sound, so much so that they've forgotten the basic principle that backs up those two aspects; performance. Image and sound are nothing, they are meaningless, without performance, but you can't convince people of that today. Performance. You can't have image and sound without performance to back it up. You just can't. If you try, you've got a facade, a hollow shell and you're just a wannabe hiding within it.
As Americans, we live in the greatest country, the greatest country in the entire world. We, as Americans, are driven to be the first in everything. It's our nature. We're not slackers. We take second best to no one. It's a national point of pride. No one can beat our military, our pride, our technology, our determinedness, or our ingenuity. There is nothing in the world, no problem, no tragedy, no foe too great that America cannot triumph over them.
So, then, I'm afraid to inform you that, in one very important regard, we ARE willing to settle for second best or even worse, last place. America has become complacent in the world, we are content to sit on our fat butts and watch others whiz past at breakneck speed and yet we do nothing. We're getting left behind because we can't keep up. Why? Because we are stuck in a misunderstood and ill-conceived mental rut. I'm talking about motorcycles, American made and built motorcycles; Harley Davidsons to be exact. You see them everywhere, and you know the kind of rider that is usually aboard one. Leather chaps, leather jacket, combat boots, the very epitome of a bad ass biker.
But, that's just a wishful image. All that stuff came out of a corporate catalog... One Harley rider looks like another, pretty much, yet they all claim that they are 'individuals'. Seeing a group of Harleys go past is like watching a cut scene from the movie "The Stepford Wives". They're all identical, they look alike, and they all ride the same thing; junk.
Very few Harleys are truly fast or powerful. Most are just loud rattletraps, over priced dealer wannabes or pieced together hope it works tomorrow wonders. They are paper tigers, all show and no go. You can get a hundred pounds of chrome on one of those motorcycles straight from the factory. Matching leather everything as well, even down to the little official HD logo which is oh so important to this flock behavior mindset. Studded, braided, polished, painted, chromed, but... it's all flash. It's all custom parts and paint, all jury rigged and low tech. In anything else but a Harley, the extremes that most Harley owners go to would be considered tacky and tasteless, and probably laughable.
The roar of a Harley is really just the growling of a sheep in wolf's clothing, and the bleating of the image driven lemmings that ride them.
Sure, Harleys can be made to perform, but you have to rebuild them from the ground up and by the time that you get any decent performance out of a Harley, you could have bought two or three Japanese bikes for cash. Harley's fastest motorcycle, the Sportster, isn't anywhere near deserving of its name. There is no "sport" to the Sportster, and with a 883cc engine pushing out a meager forty seven horsepower, you have all the makings for a Black Angus set in motion by a mouse fart.
And what about price and cost of upkeep? A top of the line Harley costs many thousands more than a comparable import motorcycle, is less dependable, doesn't enjoy the quality or workmanship, and won't even perform as well. It isn't even close. So, why do so many people flock to HD dealerships and wait in line for months for a Harley? Because they are sheep. Why does a Harley hold its resale value so well when all the cards are stacked against it?
Because of one thing; image.
A underlying factor is also stupidity.
Harley Davidson's stupidity, you ask? Hell no. Harley Davidson is about one of the smartest motorcycle manufacturers in the world. The stupidity can be traced right back to YOU, the unwitting public who buys what Milwaukee is selling and Milwaukee is selling only one thing; image. Image with no substance, image at a price. Anyone can ride a Harley, it just takes lots of money and very little brains. How else can you explain paying so much and receiving so little in return?
Image.
Image is a powerful thing. We, as Americans, want to project a strong image to the rest of the world, but in doing so, we have become lazy. We are now willing to pay large amounts of money to buy an image, rather than go out and earn one for ourselves. We are lazy. It is easier to walk into a motorcycle dealer, buy a new Harley Davidson, and then tell ourselves, "I own a Harley, therefore I am a bad ass because a Harley is a bad ass bike. That movie I watched last night proved that!." than it is to go out and actually prove that we are bad ass. It doesn't matter that you're overweight, ugly, live in a trailer park, on your third marriage, and just lost your job at the cigarette packing plant. Hey, you're bad because you own a Harley. It doesn't matter if your bike is made up of parts from six or ten other Harleys, you are one tough bad ass. All because you own a certain type of motorcycle?
And you're wrong.
A Harley isn't a motorcycle. Not a real motorcycle. It is nothing more than a rolling image, a self-propelled personal public relations machine that you rent for your ego, a facade that you strap your legs over when you want to show off to the rest of the world that you are something that you really aren't.
"Hey! I ride a Harley! I'm bad! Don't mess with me or you'll be sorry!"
Whoopee. You and every other Peter Fonda Easy Rider wannabe.
How can you be bad when you don't have any performance? How can you be bad when everything else in the world will whip your ass and hand it to you on a silver platter? How bad are you when a 250cc rice rocket will eat your 883cc Sportster for lunch? I just don't understand the logic behind the image without any performance to back it up... It's an empty threat. Since when did being bad mean that you got stomped by everything else in the world? I thought that being bad meant that you could take on anything and come back for more. Obviously, Milwaukee uses a different definition for the term "bad."
A scooter will get you from point A to B, and that's what I consider a Harley to be. A big, overpriced ego boosting scooter, geared for people too timid to make a statement to the world any other way than through noise and flash and by paying lots of money. Only posers and wannabes buy Harleys. Oh, and buy the required wallet on a chain, the leather jack boots, the German war helmet, and be sure that your HD comes with all the go-fast goodies like studded leather saddlebags, tassels, and a three square foot windshield. They're essential to the "bad" image.
I love my country but I hate the motorcycles that my country manufactures and I don't think that they come anywhere near being able to be compared to what America is all about or what makes America great. Harley Davidson is a wart on the ass of America. That's the bottom line, no pun intended. I hate Harleys and if you have to know, I don't even consider a Harley to be an American motorcycle. It is a sad, pale product that captures very little of the American experience and doesn't come anywhere near what a real American motorcycle should be. America stands for technology, ingenuity, performance and innovation. Harley stands for none of that. Milwaukee churns out the same tired old designs every year, a piece of this model, a piece of that model, change the tank, paint it black, add forty pounds of chrome and three grand to the price and give it a name like American Historical Limited Edition Super Extra Easy Wide Glide FGXLHR or something equally incoherent and viola!
You have a brand new Harley for this model year.
At least you, the public, think that you do, and the boys in Milwaukee would really want you to believe that, but in reality, this year's 'new' model has the gas tank from three years ago, the forks from fifty years ago, wheels from five years ago, etc., etc., etc. The only thing on that bike you just bought that probably is brand new is the price tag and the rubber it rolls on. Everything else came out of parts bins somewhere in Milwaukee. I don't think that we've seen any innovation from Milwaukee for sixty years now. If Japan, Italy, and Germany did product development the same way that Harley Davidson does, there wouldn't be Honda, Ducati, or BMW bikes. There wouldn't be VCRs, mini-TVs, or Sony Walkmans. We'd all still be listening to wind up phonographs and watching black and white TV through vacuum tubes. And we'd be paying thousands of dollars for it and each one would be named "American Heritage Edition FGXLR TV" or something equally lame.
But they would be nostalgic.
The only reason that I would even consider that a Harley was an American motorcycle is that it is made in Milwaukee, which is a city in the United States (and apparently the population is composed of nothing but sheep). But then Honda makes its motorcycles and some of its cars in the United States, at American built assembly plants, staffed by American workers. Is Honda also an American motorcycle? Honda assembles its cycles and cars over here, on American soil. If you take it down to the barest essentials, a Harley is no more American than a Honda Shadow or a Honda Civic. American made my ass. Who are they fooling? Apparently, enough people to stay in business, which is sad to think that it takes the average mentality of a pack of stale Twinkies(tm) to buy any Harley Davidson product, let alone one of their motorcycles. But people are sheep, and sheep like to be part of flocks, and flocks need a way to identify sheep that belong to them. It is simple brand association at work, much like cattle in the old west were once subjected to and still are today.
Hence the Harley Davidson merchandise and officially licensed products that often have the Harley shield and bar on them, but really don't have much to do with the actual motorcycle experience itself.
Harley's even use Japanese carburetors on their bikes!? Why is that!? Because Japan does it better and has for a long time. The automobile industry has had to play catch up with Japan since the mid-70's and only lately has the market gained against the wave of invasions from the Far East. Milwaukee just hasn't seen the big picture yet. Either that, or they just aren't smart enough to do anything about it. Or maybe Milwaukee has done all it can do, and where it can't compete in technology and production, it chooses to supplement its income by marketing its tired old image as something 'bad', as 'the American dream', and ramming it down the throat of ignorant sheep with more money than brains.
Japan has caught America napping (again) and Milwaukee, sadly, is the only game in town if you want a 'home grown' motorcycle, but what Milwaukee is offering is not worthy of being called 'American' by any stretch of the definition. It's survival of the fittest. Harley was going the same way as the vacuum tube and the Edsel, soon to be extinct, bypassed by technology, until they came up with an angle... get the government to bail you out, take all the handouts that you can, and then sell 'officially licensed' crap at top price while fooling people into thinking that they were buying gold instead of crap.
Performance?
Technology?
Who needs it when you have the power of marketing. Marketers can sell anything to anyone, all they need to do is find their target market. Harley found their target market; fools with too much money and not enough common sense. And Milwaukee is milking it dry for all they can grab.
Performance and technology; two words synonymous with America. What does America have to show the rest of the world with regard to performance and technology? America is at the top of the world for |
to people from a different background. And tweak the examples below to suit your own culture.
Tip 2:
It's great to be tactful, however, you also need to get your message across and ensure that your own rights are respected. Make sure that you handle issues assertively, not submissively, when you are being tactful.
Examples
We've outlined a few examples of tact below:
Your boss asks you to take on some of her workload, so that she can leave early on Friday. However, your schedule is full and you're not sure you'll get everything done on time.
A tactful response might be, "Thank you for trusting me with some of your responsibilities. I'm sorry that I can't help you this time because of my workload. Is there anything I could help you with next week, when I have more time?"
A tactful response might be, "Thank you for trusting me with some of your responsibilities. I'm sorry that I can't help you this time because of my workload. Is there anything I could help you with next week, when I have more time?" One of your team members is regularly late for work and it affects her performance. After another missed deadline, you're tempted to call her out at the staff meeting. Although this might make you feel better in the short term, it's insensitive – a more tactful approach would be to speak with her privately about her tardiness.
You could even start with a really gentle approach. For example, "I've noticed you've had trouble getting to work on time. What can I do to help?"
As you can see, tact reflects emotional sensitivity and increases the likelihood of a positive outcome.
Developing Tact
Use the strategies below to communicate with tact:
1. Create the Right Environment and Think Before You Speak
How many times have you spoken too quickly and then regretted it?
First, practice active listening when others speak. Then, use empathy and emotional intelligence to connect with people, and to see things from their perspective. Last, work to build trust, so that people know that your intentions are honest and compassionate.
2. Determine the Appropriate Time
Your colleague has just found out that she'll be laid off at the end of the year, while your boss has just told you that you're being promoted. Is now the best time to talk about your good news? Definitely not!
Tact means saying the right thing at the right time. Consider your situation before you speak, and be discreet. Make sure that you stay conscious of who you're with – and where you are – before you speak.
3. Choose Your Words Carefully
Your choice of words can influence how others perceive your message.
Avoid starting sentences with the word "you." For example, saying, "You need to do better next time" will make the other person feel defensive. Instead, consider using softer, more indirect language, like, "Next time, I think your presentation would be stronger if you spent more time on research."
It's especially important to use "I" statements during conflict, or when you give constructive criticism. When you do this, you take ownership of your feelings instead of placing blame. For example, say, "I see it differently," or, "I had to go over that section several times before I understood your message."
You could also use a "cushion," or connecting statement, when you disagree with someone. For example, you can cushion the message, "You're wrong – our team did well last quarter," with, "I appreciate your opinion, but our team did well last quarter."
Also, when you're in a tense conversation, be concise. It's tempting to keep talking when you feel uncomfortable, which increases the chance that you'll say too much or say something that you'll regret. Be honest and assertive, and only say what you need to say.
4. Watch Your Body Language
Your boss just told you that your sales figures are "fine." But, as she speaks, she avoids your gaze and folds her arms across her chest. Although her words are neutral, her body language makes you question her message.
When you're tactful, your body language matches your message, and you appear open when you're communicating, even if you're giving bad news. For instance, make eye contact, don't cross your arms or legs, don't point, and practice good posture. Open body language and a courteous vocal tone communicate your truthfulness and willingness to work together.
5. Never React Emotionally
It's hard to communicate tactfully when you feel angry or upset. Give yourself time to calm down before you respond.
Learn how to control your emotions at work. To calm down from a stressful situation, take a break from it and go for a walk, or use deep breathing techniques to regain your composure.
It's also important to understand people, words, issues, or situations that can cause you to communicate without tact. Think back to the last time you lost your temper or said something you later regretted. Why did you react this way? What caused you to lose control?
When you understand your triggers, you'll be better able to control your emotions or walk away in the future.
Common Examples
Below are some common situations where tact can make the difference between a positive and negative experience.
1. Letting Team Members Go
It's never easy to let people go. These situations are often emotional and tense, which is why tact is important.
Start by explaining clearly what is happening. This is a difficult and unpleasant message to communicate, but you owe it to your team member to be honest. If you allow emotion to dictate how you deliver your message, you risk "sugar coating" facts and not getting your point across.
Next, explain why you've made your decision and offer emotional support. It's important to be honest in this situation, but you can also be kind and supportive.
2. Giving Feedback
It can be difficult to give feedback, especially when it's negative. The key to providing effective feedback is to give it frequently and to do it tactfully.
A good approach can be to "sandwich" constructive feedback between positive comments. When you start off with something positive, this helps the person to relax, and it reminds them that they're doing a good job. And, when you end with a positive, people don't walk away feeling upset.
Avoid sandwiching the constructive feedback between too many positives, however, or people may take away the wrong message. Also, avoid using this approach too often, as people may come to mistrust positive feedback from you.
3. Declining an Invitation
If you decline an invitation with an outright "no," some people may view this as crass or insensitive.
Start with a positive comment: "Thanks for thinking of me. I'm sure it will be a wonderful event." Next, tactfully decline: "I'm sorry that I can't attend." Last, end on a positive note: "Hopefully, my schedule will be less hectic next time and we can get together then."
Our article "'Yes' to the Person, 'No' to the Task" has more strategies that you can use to decline a request tactfully, yet maintain a positive relationship.
4. Deflecting Gossip
Your colleague is known as the office gossip, and he's spreading rumors about another colleague when you're in the room.
You can tactfully deflect and neutralize the gossip in several ways.
For instance, say something positive: "Jill might struggle with her sales figures, but she's a hard worker." Or, ask them to stop: "I don't want to talk about this, especially since we don't know the facts. Let's discuss the upcoming merger instead." You can also say, "I don't want to talk about people behind their backs," or, "Let's talk about this when Jill is here, so that she can address these issues."
Our article "Rumors in the Workplace" has more tips for tactfully managing and preventing gossip at work.
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5. Handling Disagreements
Tact is particularly useful in conflict resolution, because it can relieve tension, remove blame, and allow both sides to save face.
For example, imagine that you and your colleague have argued over who gets to manage the next team project. Your colleague has run the last two projects, and she wants to lead this one because it fits with her expertise.
Before you insist that you take over this project, think about her position. She ran the previous projects with finesse and professionalism. Also, this project is a perfect fit for her – you might struggle with it because you don't have her experience.
A tactful response to this conflict would be, "You're right. You should run this project because it matches your skills. I need some practice in a team leadership role, too, so how do you feel about me shadowing you, and then leading the next project?"
6. Giving Presentations
Your boss has asked you to give a presentation to a group of industry professionals. Everyone is engaged by it except one attendee, who seems lost. She's new to her role, and you guess that she doesn't feel confident asking questions because she doesn't want to lose face.
To be more tactful during presentations, don't use jargon or long words that may confuse your audience. Explain complex ideas clearly, so that people don't have to ask for clarification. When appropriate, be self-deprecating to make others feel at ease; and leave plenty of time for questions, so that everyone leaves feeling informed.by
In explaining Israel’s invasion of Gaza, much can be learned by combining the analysis of Marx and Freud, as did Herbert Marcuse in Eros and Civilization, on a related problem: the instinctual realm of profound layers of darkness, in which consciousness of evil on the oppressors’ part must be obliterated (for Marcuse, the repression of Thanatos as it continues to do its ugly work), in Israel’s case, its destruction of the Palestinian memory (memory as historical awareness, legitimation of group-existence, including pride and sense of place, claims to survival and growth) through mounting the disproportionate use of force, a species of overkill, metaphorically, the Israeli military-psychological bulldozer. Rather than the massive machinery for crushing homes, which in any case continues, it is intended to crush the human spirit—as already seen in the widespread devastation, rubble everywhere—now addressing the very IDENTITY of a whole people, physical genocide, as impersonally tabulated in the grim statistics of body counts, but in addition, mental genocide, the attack on a people’s self-knowledge, culture, achievements in letters, the arts, political thought.
I never imagined Israel’s campaign of mental genocide, a pervertedness which speaks to, and leaves no doubt about, premeditation in the commission of thorough destruction: shackles, torture, bombs, but this, rooting out the foundations of a people’s existence, all for the purpose of exercising domination over them and, by debasing and depersonalizing them, experience relief from the guilt of having done so—catharsis without knowing and feeling it because having structured the situation so as to treat the victim as nonexistent, a cipher, emphatically inferior, or all of the foregoing plus, for that reason, given license to dominate (and really, exterminate) without the slightest moral blemish. Therefore, when I speak of the dialectical interplay of memory and conscience, I have in mind relations of domination and submission, this, as a first approximation, yet from that point, the complication arises because it is the oppressed whose memory is being forcibly suppressed, while, as the condition for what follows, it is the oppressor whose conscience is numbed, frozen, perhaps repressed, though how repressed when the aggression toward others bespeaks a moral vacuum that even repression can’t touch? Psychopathology of the Israeli mind, the habituation to domination driving out all self-recrimination.
***
How do we know this? I was awakened to this dimension of genocide (even as once a historian, I was never attracted to the concept of “memory,” a seemingly voguish distraction from class, power, and exploitation) by Evan Jones’s recent CounterPunch article, “The Pariah State,” excellent in all respects, and to be read alongside Arno Mayer’s, From Ploughshares to Swords, near-definitive in critical aspects of Israel’s self-definition, march to statehood, and gathering militarism. But among Jones’s topics covered, drawing on writers, like the father of Yehudi and Hepzibah Menuhin (two musicians-plus-more I feel especially attracted to) whose works may be largely known only to specialists—an admission of my own weakness, there is a section, “The annihilation of identity,” truly significant in pressing the analysis of Israelis’ inner psychological logic of, and political-military disposition to, genocide. I invite the reader to study the article, the totality of his evidence in mind, to see how the onslaught on identity makes perfect sense in the physical-mental liquidation, as occurring thus far and for decades in Gaza, of the Palestinians.
Jones writes (citing Nur Masalha’s The Palestine Nakba, 2012), “Having denied the existence of a functioning Palestinian society before expropriation, Israel’s founders of necessity confronted its existence… The myth of the non-existent Palestinian society had to be forged in reality.” Hence, ethnic cleansing, forcing Palestinians out (the NAKBA), leaving them without “social and political integration.” Then, of extreme importance complementing forced population displacement, “the physical space had to be furiously appropriated—the landscape destroyed, built over; everything re-named.” Hence too, “the cultural landscape: memory, history, identity and its artefacts.” Jones quotes Masalha on the campaign of the Israeli government, in 1948, to appropriate (i.e., steal/plunder) “’for itself immovable Palestinian assets and personal possessions, including schools, libraries, books, pictures, private papers, historical documents and manuscripts,’” to which he adds, “’several private collections and tens of thousands of books were looted by the Haganah and never returned.’” In 1958, “’the Israeli authorities destroyed 27,000 books, most of them Palestinian textbooks from the pre-1948 period, claiming that they were either useless or threatened the state. The authorities sold the books to a paper plant.’”
Obviously the extermination of memory, a process that, with widening acts of terrorism, intellectual and physical, has continued to this day. Jones writes in summary: “In short, the strategic and systematic annihilation of identity.” To which I would add, benefiting from his discussion, that although combining Marx and Freud may be problematic, the sexualization of domination may be seen in the thoroughness, cynicism, cult of impunity, attached to the wholesale confiscation of Palestinian accumulated learning and knowledge. The punitiveness of the assault, as though tearing apart the fabric of Palestinian life and culture, and the self-confidence with which it has been carried out, has an element of sadomasochism almost necessarily—here specifically the rape of the Palestinian mind, on condition the rapist becomes successfully devoid of conscience, examples of which can be seen in the troops in massive armored vehicles, thrilled by the power underfoot and oblivious to the damage they have wrought, then too, the Israelis cheering on hillsides as explosions light up the Gaza sky, or the whining about sacrifices in their Tel Aviv cafes, or further cheering in their living-rooms watching television, all of which devoid equally of consciousness, so rote-like the manufacture of killing fields.
The sexualization of domination was perhaps not important to Marx, domination per se, in its myriad pungent class forms–labor exploitation, to foreign policy imperialism and colonialism, to commodity tyranny and fetishism at the epistemological foundations of capitalist society, to culture and ideology emanating from the gross inequality of class-differentiation—being enough on his plate, but this aspect of domination cannot be overlooked when one considers the sadism at the core of domination, whether political-economic or taking more bizarre forms. Without his brilliant understanding of the relations of dominance and subordination, superiority and inferiority, there would be poorer psychological understanding of the correlates of domination, merely perversities standing alone, shorn of societal context. Freud was Marx’s natural ally in the crucial respect that even his psychoanalysis drew on his metapsychological theorizing, as in The Pleasure Principle or Moses and Monotheism, all-important context for fusing individual and societal repression. For me, a useful synthesis would be Adorno, et. al., The Authoritarian Personality (1950), an uncanny anticipation of the Israeli mindset and (I toss this in gratis) our ever more militaristic POTUS.
The act of eradication requires psychic energy. Depersonalizing Palestinians wipes—or seems to wipe—the psychological slate clean for the dominator/oppressor, who can feel nothing when the victim has been rendered faceless, anonymous, inanimate, on the order, drilled into the military forces and integral to the Chosen-People ethos as currently interpreted, of killing a two-dimensional cardboard figure. Yet, when the human identity of the victim breaks through, perhaps largely standing his/her ground and committing acts of resistance, then the dominator goes ballistics, and the sadistic urges/energies flow like water (or arsenic?)—the urge to ERADICATE, to silence or dissipate guilt. I return, as in my previous articles, to the psychological legacy of the Holocaust, which I take to be reaching to the darkest layers/levels of the Unconscious, and then transmitted to later generations, as the vortex of domination internalized as the practices of the oppressor. This takes on a perhaps Darwinian selective process because it works so well, i.e., an institutionalized form and expression by the State, here Israel and the IDF. The dead children entombed in rubble testify to the mightiness of the Israeli state.
Norman Pollack has written on Populism. His interests are social theory and the structural analysis of capitalism and fascism. He can be reached at pollackn@msu.edu.McCaughey loses board seat
Dick Armey was forced out of his lobbying shop, and now opposition to health care reform has taken a professional toll on another critic: A New Jersey medical device company, Cantel, just announced that Betsy McCaughey — the day after sparring with Jon Stewart — is "resigning to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest during the national debate over healthcare reform."
Full release after the jump.
LITTLE FALLS, N.J., Aug. 21 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — CANTEL MEDICAL CORP. (NYSE: CMN) announced that on August 20, 2009 it received a letter of resignation from Ms. Elizabeth McCaughey as a director of the Company. Ms. McCaughey, who had served as a director since 2005, stated that she was resigning to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest during the national debate over healthcare reform. About Cantel Medical Corp. Cantel Medical Corp. (NYSE: CMN) is a leading provider of infection prevention and control products in the healthcare market. Our products include specialized medical device reprocessing systems for renal dialysis and endoscopy, dialysate concentrates and other dialysis supplies, disposable infection prevention and control products primarily for the dental industry, water purification equipment, sterilants, disinfectants and cleaners, hollow fiber membrane filtration and separation products for medical and non-medical applications, and specialty packaging for infectious and biological specimens. We also provide technical maintenance for our products and offer compliance training services for the transport of infectious and biological specimens. For more information please visit http://www.cantelmedical.com.“So much has happened since I last saw you! I lost my hammer, like yesterday, so that's still fresh. Then I went on a journey of self-discovery.”
The Marvel blockbuster Thor: Ragnarok, has Gladiator Thor heading into a deadly contest and team up with his former ally and fellow Avenger..the Incredible Hulk, to save his home from the imminent destruction by the powerful villain Hela!
Making a brand new appearance in Thor: Ragnarok, Sideshow, and Hot Toys are delighted to present to you the latest sixth scale Gladiator Thor collectible figure with an astonishing likeness of the actor Chris Hemsworth as Thor in the movie. The beautifully designed Gladiator Thor collectible figure features a newly developed head sculpt with Gladiator marking, a specially tailored gladiator armor with a red-colored cape, a Gladiator helmet, a shield, an assortment of weapons including swords, daggers, and a mace.
This Deluxe Version will specially include two additional Einherjar Swords and a Sakaar Rifle.
Add this remarkable figure to your Thor: Ragnarok collection!Speaking with Neil Cavuto on the Fox Business Channel tonight, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) stated flatly that he would not vote for the health care bill moving through the Senate.
I’m struggling with this. As of this point, I’m not voting for the bill. … I’m going to do my best to make this bill a better bill, a bill that I can vote for, but I’ve indicated both to the White House and the Democratic leadership that my vote is not secure at this point. And here is the reason. When the public option was withdrawn, because of Lieberman’s action, what I worry about is how do you control escalating health care costs?
Crucially, Sanders said he’s not voting “for the bill.” That is not necessarily a vote against cloture. There’s an opportunity for him to vote for cloture and against the bill and still be technically correct about his intentions. For conservative Democrats, procedural votes and up or down votes on the bill became one and the same, leading to the hostage-taking process. Perhaps Sanders is still trying to extract more goodies from the bill, maybe even in the area of community health centers.
Prior to this statement, Sanders has said he was undecided on the bill, and signaled that he thought the reconciliation process would have been a better use of the Senate’s time:
“If I had my druthers, I think reconciliation is an absolutely appropriate way to go,” he said. “I think what people who oppose that will tell you is that you can’t have the kind of comprehensive legislation that the Senate is trying to deal with now—and that may in fact be true—but there are a heck of a lot of things that you can do that would strengthen our health care system in a cost-effective way that could be a giant step forward for the American people.”
Other Senators, like Russ Feingold, have remained undecided, but Sanders is the first of the more liberal Senate Democrats to go as far as saying they would not vote for the bill.
Some conservative Democrats also remain undecided, like Ben Nelson, who is reportedly “weighing” whether or not to support new language on abortion services penned by Bob Casey.Google has won its case against Canadian company Equustek Solutions. The search engine is not required to block content worldwide based on a Canadian Supreme Court hearing, a California Federal Court has affirmed. An important ruling for Google, which argued that freedom of speech was at stake.
As the largest search engine on the Internet, Google has received its fair share of takedown requests. Over the past year, the company removed roughly a billion links from its search results.
However, this doesn’t mean that Google will remove everything it’s asked to. When a Canadian court demanded the search engine to delist sites that offered unlawful and competing products of Equustek Solutions, it fought back.
After several years in court, the Supreme Court of Canada directed Google to remove the websites from its search results last summer. This order wasn’t limited to Canada alone, but applied worldwide.
Worried about the possible negative consequences the broad verdict could have, Google then took the case to the US, and with success.
A federal court in California already signed a preliminary injunction a few weeks ago, disarming the Canadian order, and a few days ago ruled that Google has won its case.
Case closed
According to the California court, the Canadian Supreme court ruling violates the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, putting free speech at risk.
It would also go against Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which offers search engines and other Internet services immunity from liability for material published by others.
“The Canadian order would eliminate Section 230 immunity for service providers that link to third-party websites,” the court wrote.
“By forcing intermediaries to remove links to third-party material, the Canadian order undermines the policy goals of Section 230 and threatens free speech on the global internet.”
After a legal battle that kept the Canadian court busy since 2014, the US case was solved rather quickly. Equustek Solutions didn’t show up and failed to defend itself, which made it an easy win.
Now that the permanent injunction is signed the case will be closed. While Google still has to delist the contested pages in Canada, it no longer has to do the same worldwide.
As highlighted previously, the order is very important in the broader scheme. If foreign courts are allowed to grant worldwide blockades, free speech could be severely hampered.
Today it’s a relatively unknown Canadian company, but the damage could be much more severe if the Chinese Government asked Google to block the websites of VPN providers, or any other information they don’t like.Developer Maximum Games has revealed that it won't be continuing with updates for Alekhine's Gun on Xbox One, instead choosing to focus upon its most recent title, Lichdom: Battlemage. That means the game's Chameleon achievement will remain unobtainable for the foreseeable future. The news comes via a personal email sent to one of our users.
"We are extremely sorry for the delayed response, as we have been in discussions about these issues recently," the developer stated in said email. "We have explored all options to rectify these problems; however, as of now, we have decided to not move forward in regards to Alekhine's Gun updates. We aim to improve our future titles that will both satisfy us, and our customers."
Previously, Maximum had claimed that a patch to fix the glitched Alekhine's Gun achievement had been sent to Microsoft for verification after it had apparently been rectified on PS4. This was weeks ago, but now it seems that a fix won't be forthcoming, at least for the time being.
We reached out to Maximum Games for comment on this issue, and received the following response:
"We regret to inform you that right now we have no plans for an X1 patch to resolve the achievement issue, though it's something we hope to revisit when we are able to."
[Thanks, JackFrost]After committing his future to the club on a permanent basis, Derby County forward Darren Bent says that his time on loan in the Championship last season made him "fall in love with football again".
Bent scored 12 goals in 17 appearances for Steve McClaren's side despite Derby's play-off hopes slipping away in the final weeks of the season, and is glad to return having been left out in the cold by former club Aston Villa.
The 31-year-old former England international was Villa's most expensive ever purchase at £18million, but made just eight appearances for the Villans last season as his contract was allowed to expire.
And in an interview with The Derby Telegraph, he has revealed his frustration at his final year with the Birmingham club.
“You never really fall out of love with the game because it is something you have been doing for so long," he claimed. "But football is hard when you are not playing, like at Villa.
“You train all week and then there is nothing at the end of the week because you are not in the team.
“I’d had a difficult few years at Aston Villa and so it was perfect to come here, play games and score goals.”
But now he is looking forward to the challenge of helping new manager Paul Clement take Derby to the Premier League for the first time since 2008.
“I’m pleased to be back,” he said. “Derby County is a fantastic football club. I said that when I first came here on loan and I am looking forward to getting going.
“I really enjoyed my loan spell last season. Everyone at the club made me feel so welcome when I first arrived and once my contract was coming to an end at Aston Villa, this was the only place I could see myself coming to.
“My time on loan helped me to enjoy my football again – it made me fall back in love with football again."
Bent has become former Real Madrid assistant Paul Clement's first signing along with ex-Reading defender Alex Pearce, and the forward was full of praise for his new manager.
“It is nice to be Paul’s first signing,” he continued. “I have had a few discussions with him since he took over and I am very excited about working with him.
“His pedigree speaks for itself. Look at some of the players he has worked with and some of the clubs he has worked at.
“Derby County is in good hands and hopefully he can take us places. There are probably very few coaches out there with his CV.”CLOSE MCSO says suspect was armed to the teeth
Shooting (Photo: The Republic)
Authorities have identified the bail jumper killed in a shootout at a Chandler retirement community Friday afternoon.
The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office is investigating the shooting of Donald Johnson, 59, who had what officials called a puzzling amount of weapons and armor inside his home.
The Sheriff's Office got a call around noon that Oren Wallace and his son Nathan Wallace, both bail bondsmen, had approached Johnson's house near Chandler Boulevard and Gilbert Road after he didn't show up in court on aggravated-harassment charges, Sheriff Joe Arpaio said.
After the two visited his home in a retirement community, gunfire ensued, and Johnson was killed, Arpaio said. The details of the shooting are still unclear.
As of Saturday afternoon, no charges have been filed in the case.
Deputies believe Johnson was carrying a semiautomatic weapon and wearing an armored vest. Investigators searched the house and found more armor and numerous weapons, including a rifle and another semiautomatic weapon.
Arpaio said the amount of armor and weapons may indicate Johnson was prepared for a confrontation.
"You can see he was getting ready for something – a battle," Arpaio said.
Arpaio said Johnson also had several video cameras on his house.
Deputies believe Johnson's elderly mother was also home at the time of the shooting. Arpaio said the father and son were working for Dano's Bail Bonds.
Dick Cummins, a neighbor who has lived in the community for 15 years, said incidents like Friday's shooting rarely occur in the neighborhood.
"I'm disappointed that something like this has to happen in a retirement community," he said.
Read or Share this story: http://azc.cc/V920XYResponding to the public outcry over a plan to ban the rentals of bicycles, horses and river rafts in Yosemite Valley, the director of the National Park Service on Tuesday said that his agency is studying alternatives that could allow many of those activities to continue after all.
Final details won’t be out until December, parks director Jon Jarvis told a congressional hearing at the U.S. Capitol, but the park service is considering a plan to store river rafts outside Yosemite Valley and bring them to tourists — and to set up some kind of self-service kiosks or bicycle-sharing program that could allow bike rentals in the valley to continue without as many staff members and buildings near the Merced River as are there today.
The goal, Jarvis said, is to comply with a federal court ruling requiring protections for the river, while also moving as many facilities and campgrounds away from the flood-prone river corridor as possible — but not too close to the valley’s huge granite walls where falling rocks regularly pose a risk to visitors.
“Every planning process in Yosemite is challenging because people care so passionately about the park,” Jarvis said. “We share two goals: first to ensure that the public will be able to continue to enjoy the variety of recreational opportunities that the river and its surrounding areas offer, and, second, to preserve the resources.”
Several Congress members blasted Jarvis during Tuesday’s hearing at the House Subcommittee on Public Lands, however, contending that his agency was trying to eliminate activities that families have enjoyed at Yosemite National Park for generations.
“Ninety-five percent of the park is already in wilderness,” said Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Granite Bay, whose district includes Yosemite. “Yet the overwhelming majority of park visitors come to that 5 percent where amenities are available for public recreation. Where they can rent a bike. Where they can stop at the snack shop to get ice cream cones for the kids. Where they can pick up souvenirs at the gift shop. Where the family can cool off at a lodge swimming pool. It is precisely these pursuits that the National Park Service would destroy.”
The proposed changes are part of a 2,500-page document known as the Merced River Plan, which the park service released in January. The plan, which follows years of lawsuits by two small environmental groups, seeks to restore the park’s natural setting by reducing the human footprint. As part of the plan, parks officials call for tearing out swimming pools at the Yosemite Lodge and Ahwahnee Hotel, along with the ice rink at Curry Village. Rafting rentals on the Merced River would end. Bike and horse rentals in Yosemite Valley would be removed.
The plan also recommends increasing the number of campsites in Yosemite Valley from 466 to 640, although that total still would be far fewer than the 872 campsites that were in the valley before a major flood swept through the area in 1997, wrecking many of them. The plan also calls for restoring 203 acres of meadows and improving parking. Visitors still would be allowed to bring their own bikes, horses or rafts to the park. But critics say the plans go too far.
“We are talking all the time about the need of having more visitors going to our national parks,” said Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, at the hearing Tuesday. “And yet if we make our parks less visitor-friendly, how can we expect ever to achieve that?”
Some residents worried that the new proposals could harm business in surrounding towns by reducing visitors.
“The plan discriminates against minorities, those of modest means, the very young, the elderly and the disabled,” said Wendy Brown, a Mariposa resident and founder of Yosemite for Everyone.
California Democrats offered support of the plan. But they acknowledged the recreational issues have hit a public nerve and that changes are needed.
“If we’re down to just horses, bikes, rafting and ice-skating, wow! A lot of progress has been made,” said Rep. John Garamendi, D-Fairfield. “I remember when we couldn’t even decide if there were going to be buses in the valley.”
Added Rep. Jim Costa, D-Fresno: “The horseback riding I’m concerned about, not only as it relates to day use, but the potential precedent it represents throughout the park system.”
Environmentalists said the director’s announcement that the park service is looking for a compromise is a good step.
“We think they are being responsive. The approach they are taking is the right one,” said Neal Desai, with the National Parks Conservation Association in San Francisco. The group supports the plan but doesn’t oppose keeping bike and raft rentals and a seasonal ice rink.
Bob Hansen, former executive director of the Yosemite Fund, said while he supports the proposed compromise, he wants to see the new rental systems tested first to see if they work before removing the existing facilities.
“I’m hopeful the park service will find a way to soften their plan,” said Hansen, who raised $92 million over 20 years to help restore Yosemite Falls, Glacier Point and other areas. “Eliminating these facilities or making it much more difficult for people to engage in these recreational activities reduces the public enjoyment of the park.”
Paul Rogers covers resources and environmental issues. Contact him at 408-920-5045. Follow him at Twitter.com/PaulRogersSJMN.NEW YORK -- Jose Altuve was added to the Houston Astros' lineup after the team reversed course on its original decision to bench him -- against his wishes -- in an attempt to protect his lead in the American League batting race.
Small Wonder Astros second baseman Jose Altuve is the shortest player to lead the majors in batting average and hits since 1900. Player Height Seasons Jose Altuve 5'5" 2014 Ichiro Suzuki 5'9" 2001, 2004 Kirby Puckett 5'9" 1989 Richie Ashburn 5'10" 1958 Joe Medwick 5'10" 1937 -- Elias Sports Bureau
Altuve still wrapped up the AL batting crown as he went 2 for 4 with a ground-rule double and a run-scoring infield single in the loss to the Mets, ending the season with 225 hits and a.341 average -- both best in the majors.
Altuve began the day with a three-point lead over Detroit slugger Victor Martinez, who went 0 for 3 and finished at.335.
In the clubhouse afterward, the Astros toasted Altuve with champagne poured into plastic cups. He posed for pictures with several teammates and autographed bats for them.
"I think this is way better than just sitting on the bench and waiting for something," Altuve said. "If you want to win something, you've got to win it on the field."
Altuve said all along he wanted to play Sunday against the Mets, but general manager Jeff Luhnow and interim manager Tom Lawless told the All-Star second baseman in the morning he would not be in the lineup.
#Astros update: Jose Altuve is in the starting lineup for today's game at second base. - Houston Astros (@astros) September 28, 2014
#Astros statement: Altuve approached Lawless prior to today's game and was passionate about playing today. (1/2) - Houston Astros (@astros) September 28, 2014
#Astros statement (2/2): As the best player, he deserves the right to make that decision. - Houston Astros (@astros) September 28, 2014
Altuve said he was prepared to start against the Mets.
Editor's Picks More from ESPN.com With his batting title lead over Victor Martinez shrinking, good on the Astros' Jose Altuve deciding to play to win, writes David Schoenfield.
"I came to the park today ready to play," Altuve said.
After going 0-for-4 Saturday at Citi Field, Altuve's average slipped to an AL-leading.340. Martinez lifted his average to.337 with a 1-for-2 performance Saturday against the Minnesota Twins.
Despite employing standouts such as Lance Berkman, Moises Alou, Craig Biggio, Jeff Bagwell and Cesar Cedeno, the Astros have never had a batting champion.
ESPNNewYork.com's Adam Rubin and The Associated Press contributed to |
ning for timelessness persists, for something transcendent, that speaks through the ages, Kane-like.
This longing for arrival infects our evaluations of both AAA and indie games alike. Where else but a AAA game studio can you find so many smart, talented, creative people working together to produce such puerile rubbish year after year? And yet where are the reviewers who will regularly and forcefully call them out on all their shiny iterative bullshit, who will do more than give an occasional slap on the wrist in the form of a 7 or 8, who will crucify the worst offenders, like BioShock Infinite? Reviews of indie games are not much better, even if the desire to advocate for small, spirited, innovative titles is more admirable. We can say ‘let’s have more games like Gone Home or Journey’ and still vigorously criticize their shortcomings, instead of fighting AAA score inflation with more empty 9’s and 10’s. One needs no better example of how reviewers can be just as blinded by indie charms than the hysterical reviews given to the vapid dead-end that is Limbo.
Some see a solution to our reviewing woes in abandoning scores altogether. Perhaps someday our criticism will arrive there too, and I will welcome it. But it won’t be anytime soon. To those would-be reviewers not inclined to assigning a number to an experience, let me say: If you can criticize sharply and forcefully, offering a comprehensive judgment that reaches well beyond the low standards of our 7+ scale, all without assigning a score, please do so. But don’t assume it’s the numbers that are the main problem, or use it as an excuse not to engage the review community where it lives. This allows the false divide to persist between qualitative and quantitative reviews, between biased subjective experiences and fair objective assessments. As if gamers can just choose which they prefer. As if objectivity isn’t a self-serving illusion and subjectivity our only real option.
Numbers are subjective too, and no official review policy can change that. When I first started scoring games, I wondered how I would decide the exact numbers. It took a few games to get the hang of it, and it remains subject to revision (how could it not – I live in time), but it wasn’t that hard. I have no problem saying that games as different as The Last of Us and Wii Sports Resort and Gone Home are all 7’s, and that this is a pretty high score coming from me. It’s my scale, informed by my values, and it won’t match anyone else’s. Only by reading me a while would you get a sense for what my numbers mean. The burden is thus on me to be a critic worth reading.
But wouldn’t having 100 different personal scales wreak havoc on Metacritic? Without common standards, wouldn’t a Metascore be incoherent? Indeed, but that was always the case. Only on top of it, we’ve made our aggregate scores dishonest and gutless too. They betray our conformity, our thoughtlessness, our lack of belief. And they remain the clearest signs that the videogame review community has not arrived.
15. Will the Circle Be Unbroken?
More than 6 months have passed since the release of BioShock Infinite, and another game of the year has appeared: Grand Theft Auto V. The adulation greeting it has surpassed that of Infinite and The Last of Us, and its 97 Metascore is extraordinarily high, even for our zealous reviewers. The game itself is the very definition of expensive, exhaustively fun, high-quality mediocrity. Its world is breathtaking and brittle, a monument to wasted opportunities. Its structure is tired, its satire flat, its narrative trisected to no end, and the entire experience profoundly thin. Grand Theft Auto V is exactly a modern AAA videogame. And a 4 out of 10.
Perhaps it’s no coincidence that the three highest-rated games of 2013 are about aging white men, their guilt, their anger, their disappointment, their lies. For the most part, the delirious reviews they’ve received were also written by aging white men. The struggles of Booker, Joel, Michael, and even Trevor must have resonated. At least they often did for me. As an aging white man, I can understand the anger and disappointment. I can understand the solace, the control, sought in games. I can understand diminished expectations and the appeal of objectivity. I can understand, but not accept, the lies this all entails. For through these lies, reviewers collude with game developers to present the illusion of maturity, vitality, achievement. All with a straight, if slightly haggard, face.
And yet BioShock Infinite, The Last of Us, and Grand Theft Auto V also feature protégées who represent the next generation. Elizabeth, Ellie, and Franklin, as well as the observant player, cannot help but see in these father figures a warning: Do not do as I do. If only the next generation of game reviewers would also take this to heart. It’s not their job to sustain the dominant narratives of their predecessors but instead to relentlessly, and mercilessly, complicate them. They must be insolent, unafraid of confrontation, unbowed by calls for reasonableness and objective purity by the illustrious Founders.
Gaming itself is on the cusp of another generational shift, of another sense of arrival, and yet our reviews remain enfeebled, unable to grapple honestly with games as nauseating as BioShock Infinite or as hollow as Grand Theft Auto V. As videogames continue to change, our criticism must too. But who will our future reviews ultimately serve? Game companies, the conservative industry, those gamers who want to preserve their illusions and keep games a site for sad self-gratification? Or will they serve videogames themselves and the players who actually believe in them?
At present, we have this: Carolyn Petit’s review of Grand Theft Auto V received more than 20,000 comments, many of them particularly vile even by gaming’s low standards, because she called out the game’s misogyny. It’s easy to blame these commenters, disgusting as they are, and demand more civility in our conversations about games. But I blame the review community as well for establishing the very grounds for these attacks, for making the 9 she gave GTA V a mathematical deduction on Metacritic instead of the insanely high score that it is, for maintaining the entire farce that is the videogame review and enabling the boys who skulk in the comments below.
Those boys, all those pitiful boys – they don’t get to decide anything. It’s the reviewers, all of them, who must give their readers no other option but to face a game’s failures. We don’t have to choose between mechanics and politics. Reviewers must pay attention to both, and everything else besides, and score according to their criticisms. The review cycle must no longer be a source of embarrassment but a dynamic conversation that constantly puts our values on the table and invites a reckoning. To encourage this, sites must vocally, and unapologetically, support their reviewers so they don’t have to face those pitiful boys alone. Carolyn’s criticism can no longer be dismissed as ‘politics’. It must be seen for what it is: being a person while playing a videogame.
Tough criticism is an act of belief. It is sincere in its hopes for the future but clear-eyed about the present. Most videogames are disappointing, and disappointing in dependable ways. But it is possible to love individual games, to be ignited by them, and see a future worth pursuing. We’re not at all sure what this medium is capable of, but it certainly deserves more than our regular pronouncements of excellence and the glib advice that we simply accept every familiar trope and gameism. As if criticism is just the sour grumbling of the ungrateful.
How long will it take before all our current scores are obsolete and the outcry over giving GTA V a 9 out of 10 is the nonsensical embarrassment of a generation past? What will we value in our games if the pretty and the awesome and the comforting no longer dominate our discussions? I want to hear every divergent view, every unpopular opinion. I want gaming to revel in dissent. We should marvel at a medium that allows us such room to play, to explore, to bring ourselves to bear on the experience and make it our own. A good review will honor this. It will say: This is what it was like for me. And in doing so ask: Now what was it like for you?
~ Tevis Thompson
October 16th, 2013
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.A team of researchers, led by Miho N. Ishigaki, at the Kavli IPMU, The University of Tokyo, pointed out that the elemental abundance of the most iron-poor star can be explained by elements ejected from supernova explosions of the universe’s first stars. Their theoretical study revealed that massive stars, which are several tens of times more immense than the Sun, were present among the first stars. The presence of these massive stars has great implications on the theory of star formation in the absence of heavy elements.
Iron-poor stars provide insight about the very early universe where the first generation of stars and galaxies formed. The recent discovery of the most iron-poor star SMSS J031300.36-670839.3 (SMSS J0313-6708) was big news in early 2014, especially for astronomers working on the so-called “Galactic archaeology”.
When the universe first began, only light elements such as hydrogen and helium existed. As these first stars ended their short but wild lives, the universe became enriched with heavy elements, which are essential to form the materials found on Earth, including humans. Hence, iron-poor stars are much older than the Sun, and were born when the universe only contained trace amounts of heavy elements.
SMSS J0313-6708 is the most iron-poor star ever found. Its spectrum lacks iron absorption lines. The estimated upper limit for its iron abundance is about a ten-millionth of that of the Sun, and its iron content is about hundred times lower than the previous record for the most iron-poor star.
“We received the news of the most iron-poor star with a great excitement,” Ken’ichi Nomoto at the Kavli IPMU says, “since this star may be the oldest fossil record and may elucidate the unknown nature of the first stars.” The first stars, which formed in the early universe, likely had a large impact on their environments. For example, the strong ultra-violet light emitted by the first stars helped ionize the early universe. In addition, their supernova explosions ejected heavy elements that have helped form subsequent generations of stars and galaxies.
“The impact of these stars on the surrounding environment depends critically on their masses when they were born,” Ishigaki says. “However, direct observational constraints of the first stars’ masses are not available since most of them likely died out a long, long time ago.”
Due to its unusual chemical composition, some astrophysicists have speculated that SMSS J0313-6708 was born from the gas enriched by a first star, which has a mass 60 times that of the Sun, and synthesized a small amount of calcium through a special nucleosynthesis.
On the other hand, Ishigaki’s team focused on its very large carbon enhancement relative to iron and calcium. Previous studies by Nozomu Tominaga at Konan University/Kavli IPMU suggested that such a feature is consistent with a supernova in which the synthesized elements fall back. However, the question was whether this scenario can also explain the most extreme abundance pattern in SMSS J0313-6708, the most iron-poor star.
The team compared the observed abundances and theoretical calculations of the elements ejected by the supernova of first stars with masses 25 and 40 times that of the Sun. They concluded that the observed abundance pattern can be reproduced if stars with those masses undergo a special type of supernova in which most of the ejected matter falls back to the central remnant. A highly asymmetric explosion involving a jet-like feature should produce this type of supernova. As a consequence of the jet, iron and calcium, which are located deep inside massive stars, are ejected along with the jet, but a large fraction of the ejected material falls back along the equatorial plane. Because carbon is largely contained in the outer region, it is almost entirely ejected without falling back. This model successfully explains the low abundance of calcium, the non-detection of iron, and the high abundance of carbon observed in SMSS J0313-6708.
“If such supernovae are actually possible,” Nomoto says, “the result supports the theoretical prediction that the first stars could be typical massive stars rather than monster-like objects with masses more than several hundred times that of the Sun.” Since heavy elements play a role in star formation through the gravitational pull of interstellar gas, the first stars, which formed without heavy elements, should display quite different characteristics compared to what is typically observed in the present Milky Way Galaxy. In particular, without heavy elements, some researchers have suggested that stars could be as massive as a few hundred times that of the Sun. The presence of stars much less massive than such monster-like objects among the first stars may affect the theory of star formation in the absence of heavy elements. In future studies, researchers should employ simulations for the formation of the first stars in the early universe that reproduce the present result.
“The next issue is to determine if these less massive stars are typical first stars,” Ishigaki says. “In the near future, more data from a number of iron-poor stars will be available. Applying the method we used in this study to these data will shed light on the unknown nature of the first stars.”
Figures:
All figures are found at http://web.ipmu.jp/press/J03136708
Publication:
Astrophysical Journal Letters (792, (2014)、32-37)
Title: Faint Population III Supernovae as the Origin of the Most Iron-poor Stars
Authors: Miho N. Ishigaki1, Nozomu Tominaga1,2, Chiaki Kobayashi1,3, and Ken'ichi Nomoto1,4
Affiliations:
1 Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (WPI), Todai Institutes for Advanced Study, The University of Tokyo,
2 Department of Physics, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Konan University,
3 School of Physics, Astronomy and Mathematics, Centre for Astrophysics Research, University of Hertfordshire,
4 Hamamatsu Professor
DOI: 10.1088/2041-8205/792/2/L32
Contacts:
Miho Ishigaki, Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe, The University of Tokyo, miho.ishigaki@ipmu.jp
Ken'ichi Nomoto, Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe, The University of Tokyo, nomoto_at_astron.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp
PIO Contact:
Marina Komori, Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe, The University of Tokyo
+81-4-7136-5977 (office), press_at_ipmu.jp
Aya Tsuboi, Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe, The University of Tokyo
+81-4-7136-5981 (office)
ABOUT KAVLI IPMU
Kavli IPMU (Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe) is an international research institute with English as its official language. The goal of the institute is to discover the fundamental laws of nature and to understand the Universe from the synergistic perspectives of mathematics, astronomy, and theoretical and experimental physics. The Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (IPMU) was established in October 2007 under the World Premier International Research Center Initiative (WPI) of the Ministry of Education, Sports, Science and Technology in Japan with the University of Tokyo as the host institution. IPMU was designated as the first research institute within Todai Institutes for Advanced Study (TODIAS) in January 2011. It received an endowment from The Kavli Foundation and was renamed the “Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe” in April 2012. Kavli IPMU is located on the Kashiwa campus of the University of Tokyo, and more than half of its full-time scientific members come from outside Japan.
Kavli IPMU Website - http://www.ipmu.jp/I Have to Be Well Adjusted
EngSoc's MHA Team Blocked Unblock Follow Following Oct 22, 2016
Introduction
I’m in 2B systems trying to survive the term affectionately known as ‘2B or not 2B’. I would say that my mental health journey started towards the end of high school. For me it didn’t start off with mental health, it started as physical health issues, which affected my mental health and caused a lot of other problems. I have a chronic illness which causes me to have chronic migraines and headaches. At its worst this was four or five months of 24/7 headaches with 3 or so migraines per week. Essentially five months straight of constant pain. The headaches were bad enough and affected my ability to work but the migraines would make me completely non-functional. With the migraines would come nausea, dizziness, blurred vision, and a whole bunch of other symptoms. I would pretty much lose my entire day after one started because I had to lock myself in a dark room.
One of the most common side effects of chronic illness, especially chronic pain conditions, is depression because it completely takes over your life. You can’t function in the same way you used to. As anyone who’s ever broken a bone, had the flu, or even had a really bad hangover would know, you’re just not physically or mentally functional in the same way anymore. Over the last two to three years, I’ve kind of been trying to figure out both my physical health and my mental health because they are tied so closely together. That is in addition to navigating an engineering degree which is hard even at the best of times.
So you’re in second year now, how have you coped with your illness and become so well-adjusted?
I kind of have to be well adjusted because I am never going to get better. This is pretty much going to be my life for the rest of my life. People always say that your illness doesn’t define you, but for me that’s not true; it’s literally a part of who I am and how I interact with the world. So yeah, I’d say I’m relatively well adjusted, considering.
Having migraines and headaches is something I’ve had to accept as a constant part of my life. Currently I am on medication for the migraines as well as depression, “Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors” (SSRI’s). Migraines aren’t just a physical thing happening in your brain, there’s also a chemical/hormonal component to it where your brain chemistry doesn’t operate like a normal person. Low serotonin is often found both in people who have chronic migraines and people who have depression though doctors don’t know for sure what the link between the two is or why the levels are low. I’ve been on these meds for about a year now and they basically help to keep my serotonin levels steady so that I don’t get migraines and headaches in the first place. They also helps me keep the accompanying depression at bay so I can be a functional person.
Have you found that your condition or the accompanying mental health issues have affected you professionally, for instance during classes or while at work?
The worst of it was during my first coop when I was first starting to be diagnosed. At that point, my doctors all thought I had a brain tumor so I was going in for MRI’s and blood tests, and then they were looking at all kinds of potentially fatal progressive illnesses. Having to deal with all of that definitely puts a damper on your mood.
When I do get a migraine I am basically non-functional; like my brain doesn’t work and my body wants to shut down and there is nothing that fixes it other than sleep and a dark room. I’ve had to write midterms while I had a migraine before, and because stress is a trigger I’ve had migraines before midterms which caused me to be worrying more about school which only made it worse.
In terms of the depression, it’s hard to get motivated when you are exhausted and it’s 8 o’clock and you still have hours of studying left. Motivating yourself to get up on weekends at a normal time and do work is hard when all you want to do is lie in bed and do nothing. It has definitely impacted my school work. When it was at its worst during my 1B term, I ended up with the lowest grades I’ve had since coming to university. I failed one course and got 50’s in a few others. So it definitely affected my grades.
There’s a limit to how well you can only schedule doctor’s appointments and physio when you need both of them weekly which led to missing class. I would say it has definitely affected my ability not only to attend class, but to do homework, and to take in the information. When you have a headache paying attention in class gets that much harder.
Have you reached out to accessibility services?
I did, and accessibility services does offer good services but they don’t really work for me. What I needed wasn’t writing my midterm in a quiet room; it was more along the lines of I have a migraine right now so I physically am not able to write this exam the to best of my ability. They need a week of notice for that kind of accommodation and I only know about 6 hours beforehand that I’m going to have a migraine and am not going to be functional during the exam. So while they do offer a lot of useful services which might help people who have more predictable or constant issues, for me it honestly didn’t help at all.
Have you found that your condition has gotten any better over time? And if so, what changed?
Since I got on my medication, my life has changed completely. I don’t have headaches daily anymore; I get migraines once or twice a month, if at all. Health-wise I can function that way, and in terms of the depression the issues have kind of cleared.
The one thing I want to convey is that medication helped me a lot. When I was going through the whole process, a lot of friends I was talking to about this would mention that their doctor had suggested they go on medication but they were against it or were reluctant to take it. They would say that exercise or eating well alone or meditation would solve the problem, or that you don’t want to be on medication because you’re just putting more chemicals in your body, or that medication would have horrible side effects. There was one point when I went off the medication for a couple months and tried eating healthy and exercising but it didn’t work at all, I just went backwards really fast.
I’m not saying that medication is right for everyone, but I think that it’s something that a lot of people are more hesitant than they should be to consider. It doesn’t have to be that bad, the side effects don’t have to be that bad; if there’s a medication that works for you and you’re able to find it, then it is a very good option. There is a lot of stigma around taking medications because people think that you stop feeling things, or that you feel numb, or that it’ll make you tired all the time, but I honestly didn’t experience any of that. For me I started taking the medication and then after about a month it started to kick in and once I was at the correct dosage all of a sudden I had the energy to go to the gym, or spend the entire day studying. I wasn’t completely exhausted, I was actually productive, and I actually had the energy and desire to go out with my friends and do fun things on Friday night instead of wanting to go to bed at eight. So I don’t want to say it was magic, but with depression and mental illnesses a lot of the time it is a chemical imbalance or something physical. You wouldn’t tell someone who has an infection that they shouldn’t be on antibiotics or someone with asthma that they don’t need a puffer, it’s a physical thing just the same way depression is. The stigma around medication keeps a lot of people from exploring it as a viable option and keeps them from working with their doctors because they’ve already discarded is as an option.
As someone who has been through all of this do, you have any advice for someone who has a friend also going through something similar?
Be really open to talking to them about it, because when you’re dealing with it and you’re having a hard time figuring things out exactly what’s going on in your head and exactly what you’re feeling, having someone there who you can use almost as a soundboard just to talk to them about anything — even if it’s that you still feel shitty and it’s been two weeks and nothing has changed — you can just tell them what you’re feeling. Even if it’s the same boring stuff, having someone who you can talk to about it so you don’t feel like you’re alone is a big help. I had this one really good friend in high school and she wrote a blog for a few years, basically chronicling her life and all of its different aspects. She dealt with major depression and she was really open and upfront about it, and would lay it all out on this blog. Getting to read that, and having that person who understood, really really helped me understand there’s nothing wrong with getting help. I would say just be open to talking and conversation and don’t make the person feel like there’s something wrong with them or that they’re weird for feeling that way or that they should deal with it on their own.
Also, hugs every now and then is good.
Is there a song or band you jamming to right now?
Rhodes’ cover of Florence + The Machine’s Ship to WreckHi everyone,
For a long time now, I have been thinking about stuff that could make WvW more fun for everyone. The following is just an idea, discussion is always nice, but try to be civil.
There is still a lot of players in WvW, that are roamers. People who are not interested in running with huge groups, but instead prefer small scale battles, wether it is group roaming or solo roaming. Those people don't really have a particular purpose in WvW, yes they can cap camps and sentries, but that's about it. I was thinking on how they could add something to WvW that is incredibly fun and would actually give these roamers a purpose in the RvR battle.
The idea is to add bounties in WvW. Not PvE bounties, but PvP bounties. They could add in the option in the WvW interface to sign up on the bounty system. Once signed up, you would get a name and a general place on the map as to where to find this person (there's a few issues with this adressed below). The goal? To take the other person down first, in return you could get a reward and more importantly, WvW score for your realm. This way, people who like to just go around and fight players would actually be able to contribute to their server in a very fun manner.
There's a few things to this that need to be mentioned if something like this would ever get added.
1) Sign up would be mandatory. They could make it so that you just get a name from any player in the map. But this could result in zergs being revealed, players tagged that are AFK, etc.
If you sign up, you get into a pool with other people that signed up and thus you and your enemy are both interested in this.
2) The revealing where your enemy is could be problematic for zergs. Spies could wrongfully use this to show where the enemy zerg is, people could troll and sign up for bounty while running with a zerg etc. etc. To be honest, if people wanna cheat, or troll, or spy, they will always find a way to do this. Spies have always been a thing (although rare) and will continue to be so.
However, there is a lot of ways you could have this bounty system and work around this problem.
You could make it so that you and your bounty enemy have to go a certain place on the map, for example, when you sign up for your bounty, you get a name and a treasure chest appears somewhere on the map. To capture this treasure chest, you have to go there and channel cast on it (has to be a really long long cast, for when your enemy is further away than you). You then win your bounty and whatever is in the chest, if you a) kill your bounty target or b) manage to finish the long cast on the place of the chest.
This way, bounty participants will run to these locations and find their targets and you don't have to reveal the location of the person and the possible zerg on the map, you work around it.
3) "But balance is so bad in WvW weh weh weh".
Balance will always be an issue, wether it's in PvP, PvE or WvW, there will always be classes stronger than others. This obviously should be fixed when there are issues, but using this as an excuse to not implement new content and new additions to a game mode is a silly excuse. That's like saying you shouldn't add new raids, because some classes do far more dps than others.
I think that describes my idea as best as possible. What do you think about this? Would you like it/hate it?Artificial Intelligence (AI) And Global Geopolitics
- From "Atoms for Peace" to "AI for Mankind" -
Artificial Intelligence (AI), a top priority for the ubiquitous American tech companies, for Industry 4.0 or digital China, is already reshaping global business, but this major scientific and technological disruption will also deeply impact the relations between powers.
While narrow AI has moved from the labs to our daily lives, informed personalities like Stephen Hawking, Nick Bostrom, Bill Gates or Elon Musk have rightly raised concerns about the risks inherent to a strong AI capable of equaling or even surpassing human intelligence.
Anticipating the emergence of an even more powerful and increasingly autonomous AI reinforced by quantum computing, these engaged voices are asking for a collective reflection upon what could constitute an external challenge to mankind, a technology which could dominate its creator.
The recent win of the AlphaGo computer program over the Korean Go champion Lee Sedol was indeed a strong signal of the rapid development of machine learning at the intersection of computer science and neuroscience.
However, a more immediate danger connected with the advancement of intelligent machines is an AI fracture enlarging what is already known as the digital divide. While AI's algorithms and big data increase the productivity of a small segment of the global village, half of the world population still does not have access to internet. "Don't be evil" can be Google's slogan, but exponential technologies carry with them the risks of unprecedented inequalities.
While AI's social and political effects are often discussed the geopolitical implications of the "Fourth Industrial Revolution" have been surprisingly absent from the public debates.
How AI could affect the Sino-Western relations and, more specifically, the Sino-American relations, the major determinant of today's international order? For decades, nuclear weapons stood as the frightening symbols of the Cold War, will AI become the mark of a 21st century Sino-Western strategic antagonism?
For humanity, the atomic age has been a time of paradoxes. In the aftermath of the 1945 Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombings an arms race involving the most lethal weapons defined the U.S.-Soviet relations in what constituted also a permanent existential threat to human civilization. But, analysts will also argue that it is the Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) doctrine acting as a deterrent among rational actors which prevented a direct conflict between the two superpowers.
As the 2015 Plan of Action for Iran's nuclear program demonstrates, 70 years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, world powers actively collaborate to avoid nuclear proliferation even if North Korea appears to be a counter example of this dominant trend.
But the Sino-Western convergence of views on the issue of nuclear proliferation does not apply in the cyberspace. Despite a certain level of interconnection between some private Chinese and American internet companies and financial institutions, the overall Sino-American relations in the cyberspace are characterized by strategic mistrust.
Besides, in space science and in the exploration of the universe, the U.S. and China are unfortunately following two separate courses. While China prepares to operate her own modular space station, the International Space Station (ISS) shows that in this strategic field the West can work with Russia but that Sino-Western synergies are almost impossible to reach.
Any responsible approach to AI has to take into account the combined lessons of the atomic age, of the digital dynamics and of the space exploration. Should a Western AI and a Chinese AI develop on two separate trajectories one would dangerously increase the risks of creating an irreversible Sino-Western strategic fracture for AI does not increase power in a limited quantitative manner but it modifies its nature.
In this context and following the appreciation of the interactions between AI and global politics an International Artificial Intelligence Agency should be established inspired by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
It is in the "Atoms for Peace" address to the United Nations General Assembly that U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969) proposed in 1953 the creation of the IAEA. Today, our actions must be guided by the spirit of "AI for Mankind".
A United Nations International Artificial Intelligence Agency involving academics, private businesses, the world civil society and, of course, the governments should at least give itself the following four objectives.
First, it has to create the conditions for AI's awareness across our societies and for a debate to take place on AI's ethical implications. Scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, legal experts, philosophers, economists have to analyze AI from all possible angles, its future(s), its potential effects for humanity.
Second, this international body should take all possible actions to prevent an AI fracture which would dangerously enlarge the digital divide. One can't accept to have, on one side, a tiny segment of humanity making use of a series of Human Enhancement Technologies (HET) and, on the other side, the vast majority of the world population becoming de facto diminished, what transhumanism revealingly abbreviates as H+ can't be a plus for a few and a minus for all the others.
Third, the agency should ask for transparency in the AI research at both the governmental and the company level. The issue of nuclear proliferation and therefore the creation of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) followed the secretive Manhattan Project and the use of nuclear bombs to end the war in the Pacific, if humanity really wants to protect itself from the military use of strong AI and its tragic consequences it has to define a set of rules and policies which would maintain research within reasonable and collectively accepted limits. The IAEA imperfectly manages an existing threat, the AI agency would aim at preventing the realization of what could be an even greater danger.
Fourth, an international AI body should encourage knowledge sharing and international cooperation. Elon Musk's OpenAI initiative is certainly a constructive force encouraging openness and collaboration but the "AI for Mankind" ideal can not depend only on a group of private entrepreneurs.
Artificial Intelligence, more than any other technology, will impact the future of mankind, it has to be wisely approached on a quest toward human dignity and not blindly worshiped as the new Master of a diminished humanity, it has to be a catalyst for more global solidarity and not a tyrannical matrix of new political or geopolitical divisions.
David Gosset is director of the Academia Sinica Europaea at CEIBS and founder of the Euro-China Forum. He has established the New Silk Road Initiative.Former president’s lawyers claim trial last year contained irregularities and question credibility of some witnesses
Lawyers for the former Chad president Hissène Habré have launched an appeal against his conviction last year for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Habré created a police state that terrorised civilians in the 1980s. A special court set up by the African Union and Senegal to try him convicted him last May of summary execution, torture and rape.
He did not make an appearance at the start of his appeal on Monday, but his lawyers said there had been irregularities in his trial and questioned the credibility of some witnesses.
The conviction was the culmination of a three-decade battle for justice led by Habré’s victims, including Souleymane Guengueng, who almost died several times in one of the president’s notorious jails and vowed that when he got out he would right the wrongs he and his fellow inmates had suffered.
Guengueng spent years collecting victims’ testimonies, which proved invaluable during the trial.
One of the witnesses whose credibility was brought into dispute was Khadidja Zidane, who testified that Habré had raped her four times and who later told the Guardian she still feared for her safety 25 years after the former president had left the country, because his supporters regularly insulted and attacked her.
She did not, however, regret testifying. “The whole thing is because I went and told the truth,” she said. “Why shouldn’t I tell the truth? I have every right.
“An injustice has been done to me. I was not alone. Hissène Habré destroyed all of us. I don’t have anything to lose. I have to speak. I don’t care.”
Habré’s lawyers argued that his trial had been politically motivated and unfair, but focused more on his life sentence than on the conviction.
Reed Brody, a campaigner and lawyer known as the dictator hunter, who has fought alongside the victims since 1999 and who discovered a tranche of documents key to Habré’s conviction, said the latest developments were not surprising.
“This is not a retrial, and the conviction was based on very solid evidence – on documents from the secret police, documents he wrote with his own hand, the testimony of a woman he personally raped and people he personally threw in prison,” he said.
Brody was more concerned with how Habré’s victims would be compensated for their suffering. Habré was ordered to pay millions of dollars in reparations to Zidane and many other victims, but none has yet received a penny.
Habré emptied the national treasury before fleeing Chad in 1990, but when he was arrested the Senegalese government seized only two small bank accounts and a house, together worth less than $1m.
Brody’s other concern was that the Senegalese government might issue Habré a pardon, something the country’s justice minister mentioned was a possibility immediately after his conviction.This Week in Data, produced by Eleven Warriors and 614Analytics, explores the numbers behind Ohio State athletics through data visualization.
The question we wanted to answer this week |
on remembering what happened to ensure that there are no more Bhopals.The head of a Dallas police organization is suing a collection of Black Lives Matter figureheads and other prominent individuals for allegedly inciting racial violence against American police officers.
Dallas Police Department Sergeant Demetrick Pennie, President of the Dallas Fallen Officer Foundation, filed an amended federal complaint September 16 against more than a dozen defendant institutions and individuals to build a class action case on behalf of “police officers and other law enforcement persons of all races and ethnicities including but not limited to Jews, Christians and Caucasians” for “inciting” race riots and related violence.
The suit hopes to produce damages and an injunction placed against alleged threats of racially-motived violence going forward.
The defendants represent a who’s who of public figures in both racial and general political matters. Apart from founding members and public faces related to Black Lives Matter, Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam; Rev. Al Sharpton and the National Action Network; Malik Zulu Shabazz and the New Black Panthers; George Soros; President Barack Obama; former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder; and Democrat Nominee Hillary Clinton are all included in the suit.
The 66-page federal complaint alleges that each defendant individual and organization “repeatedly incited their supporters and others to engage in threats and attacks” against police officers around the nation, culminating in the July killings of five Dallas area officers with nine others wounded at a Black Lives Matter gathering. The complaint singles out George Soros as “the financier of the BLM Defendants and similar organizations with the goal of inciting a race war” and advocating violence against whites and Jews.
Defendants Obama and Clinton are blamed for repeatedly endorsing behaviors carried out and surrounding Black Lives Matter.
Sgt. Pennie is being represented by Larry Klayman of FreedomWatch. Klayman previously founded the conservative legal watchdog Judicial Watch.
“Sergeant Pennie and I feel duty-bound to put ourselves forward to seek an end to the incitement of violence against law enforcement which has already resulted in the death of five police officers in Dallas and the wounding of seven more, just in Texas alone,” Klayman said in a release.
Sgt. Pennie told Breitbart Texas that he felt he had a duty to stand for officers in Texas and across the nation.
“This action was brought to stop the violence and killings of law enforcement officers in Dallas and throughout the nation.”
The plaintiffs hope to see an award in excess of $500 million, according to the complaint.
The federal lawsuit was originally filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas. A copy of the amended complaint has been made available below.
Logan Churchwell is the Assistant Editor and a founding member of the Breitbart Texas team. You can follow him on Twitter @LCChurchwell.
Pennie v. Soros et al Amended Complaint by BreitbartTexas on ScribdKurt Andersen has done a lot of interesting stuff since co-founding Spy magazine in the 1980s: Editing New York magazine, co-founding Inside.com, and hosting WNYC and PRI’s Studio 360 for the past 16 years.
But this year, Andersen and his Spy co-founder Graydon Carter’s three-decade-old magazine articles have taken on new life. That’s because Spy, starting with its very first issue in 1986, made a sport of antagonizing Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
“The cover story was ‘Jerks! The Ten Most Embarrassing New Yorkers,’” Andersen recalled on the latest Recode Media with Peter Kafka. “And there he was, before he was even well-known in New York. We called him a ‘Queens-born casino operator,’ we had all kinds of little epithets. Regular people got an epithet attached to them. Henry Kissinger, for instance, was ‘socialite war criminal Henry Kissinger.’”
In 1988, Andersen and Carter hit upon the epithet that really stuck: “Short-fingered vulgarian.” As Spy got more and more aggressive in covering Trump’s business dealings, he began threatening the magazine with “massive litigation.”
On the new podcast, Andersen said Trump was “flirting with the idea of running for president” as early as 1987, but that he was a relatively minor player who was more interested in being written up in the tabloids than starting false rumors about a sitting president of the United States. Somewhere between then and now, the fantasy of being political seeped more and more into Trump’s reality.
“WWE [World Wrestling Entertainment] is, if not the key, a large key to the Donald Trump phenomenon we’re experiencing today,” Andersen said. “What they started doing in the ‘80s, more than they’d ever done before, when he got involved in wrestling, is this blurring of the line between the characters they’re playing — ‘I’m pretending to be angry at you, Hulk Hogan!’ — and bringing that outside the ring and making it kind of real.”
“I have always thought he had some mental disorders going on,” he added. “One of the most basic — you can call it narcissism, call it whatever you want — [is] this hunger, this need like nothing I’ve ever seen in anyone for attention.”
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Recode Decode, hosted by Kara Swisher is a weekly show featuring in-depth interviews with the movers and shakers in tech and media every Monday. You can subscribe on iTunes, Google Play Music, TuneIn and Stitcher.
is a weekly show featuring in-depth interviews with the movers and shakers in tech and media every Monday. You can subscribe on iTunes, Google Play Music, TuneIn and Stitcher. Too Embarrassed to Ask, hosted by Kara Swisher and The Verge's Lauren Goode, answers all of the tech questions sent in by our readers and listeners. You can hear new episodes every Friday on iTunes, Google Play Music, TuneIn and Stitcher.
, hosted by Kara Swisher and The Verge's Lauren Goode, answers all of the tech questions sent in by our readers and listeners. You can hear new episodes every Friday on iTunes, Google Play Music, TuneIn and Stitcher. And finally, Recode Replay has all the audio from our live events, such as the Code Conference, Code Media and the Code Commerce Series. Subscribe today on iTunes, Google Play Music, TuneIn and Stitcher.
If you like what we’re doing, please write a review on iTunes — and if you don’t, just tweet-strafe Peter. Tune in next Thursday for another episode of Recode Media!“Some of the things most compelling about the show aren’t even funny,” Mr. Kwapis said. “But they make you cringe. Now I go to pitch meetings where executives say, ‘I want that cringe-worthy comedy.’ ”
That any of this happened is mind-boggling for almost everyone who was involved at the show’s inception, beginning with Ben Silverman, the executive producer (and later, head of NBC’s entertainment division), who chased Mr. Gervais all over London to secure the American rights. “What was required to get this show on was almost herculean,” Mr. Silverman said.
The NBC chief executive at the time, Jeff Zucker, had proclaimed that no single-camera comedy could ever be a hit show. (Single-camera shows are shot on sets and locations and feel like movies; three-camera comedies like “The Big Bang Theory” are shot on stages in front of audiences and feel like theater.) Mr. Zucker was not an initial fan of NBC’s version of “The Office,” and he wasn’t alone. “A lot of people didn’t get it,” Mr. Daniels said.
John Krasinski, who memorably inhabited the show’s male romantic lead, Jim, recalled that during the shooting of the first six episodes, a network executive would show up every Friday and say, “This episode is so good — unfortunately, it’s the last one we’re going to do.”
Expectations among critics were also low because the British version, created by Mr. Gervais and Stephen Merchant, had been deemed an instant classic, and NBC had misfired two seasons earlier in a remake of the British comedy “Coupling.” Mr. Daniels recalled watching the British “Office,” with its ironic tone, and thinking, “Oh my God, how did they pull this off?”A breakthrough came when Mr. Daniels realized that between Americans’ newborn fascination with reality shows and their growing habit of recording even mundane events in their own daily lives, “being in front of a camera and talking to a camera became a most relatable experience.”
The idea of allowing characters to speak directly to the camera, another device straight out of “Survivor,” also opened up possibilities, Mr. Daniels said, because “you can tell stories in a first-person point of view.” That technique is now commonplace on shows like “Modern Family” and countless commercials.Neil King, former Wall Street Journal deputy bureau chief, tweets that he's hearing the total number of congressmen with sexual-harassment skeletons "may top 40."
former Wall Street Journal deputy bureau chief, tweets that he's hearing the total number of congressmen with sexual-harassment skeletons "may top 40." USA Today's banner: "Congress reels from resignations."
"Congress reels from resignations." Many lawmakers are scared that Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) set a new threshold for resignation.
are scared that Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) set a new threshold for resignation. Last evening, Rep. Trent Franks, "the dean of Arizona's House Republicans, announced he is stepping down after learning the House Ethics Committee was investigating him for sexual harassment involving two 'previous female subordinates.'" (Resignation letter.)
Rep. Trent Franks, "the dean of Arizona's House Republicans, announced he is stepping down after learning the House Ethics Committee was investigating him for sexual harassment involving two 'previous female subordinates.'" (Resignation letter.) Facing allegations of sexual harassment, Republican Rep. Blake Farenthold of Texas and Democratic Rep. Ruben Kihuen of Nevada have so far resisted calls to step down. Republican Rep. Joe Barton of Texas said he won't seek re-election next year.
Life lesson: Most men are good men. They treat women with respect and dignity. They work hard, set good examples, and do the right even when no one is looking.
Be smart: It's sad testament to our times that we need to be reminded of this. But I'm grateful to be surrounded by great role models — women and men.WASHINGTON, DC, is a revealingly gossipy place. A favourite tale of the Donald Trump era involves a pact that the generals working for the president are supposed to have sworn. As described by ambassadors, senators and foreign-policy panjandrums, the generals have agreed that one of their number will remain in America at all times, to prevent a war being started by intemperate presidential tweets.
The details change. Sometimes, it is said, the pact involves James Mattis, the defence secretary, aligning travel with the White House chief of staff, John Kelly, a fellow retired four-star Marine general. Others say Mr Mattis is in cahoots with Joseph Dunford, a serving four-star Marine general and chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, or with H.R. McMaster, the national security adviser (an army lieutenant-general still on active service but shouldering a mere three stars). Still others insist the pact includes the secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, a former oil man and a rare civilian among the so-called “grown-ups” who run national-security policy for Mr Trump.
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Mr Mattis has told aides that no such pact exists. The Economist recently travelled to South Korea with the defence secretary on the same day that General Dunford was also in Seoul, and Mr Tillerson was in Geneva. The durability of this urban legend is telling, however.
Washington grandees and foreign governments have invested extraordinary hopes in the men that Mr Trump likes to call “my generals”. The near-consensus among foreign-policy types is that Mr Trump is a thin-skinned, unpredictable and alarmingly incurious neophyte. The generals are trusted to keep the ship of state on a safe course, until the Trump-tempest blows over. Reality is more nuanced.
In line for promotion
Sighing with relief over Mr Trump’s generals does not require Washington’s elite to credit him with good judgment. The general closest to Mr Trump during his presidential campaign, Mike Flynn, failed spectacularly as his first national security adviser. The angry, crudely anti-Muslim man who campaigned with Mr Trump left old comrades shaking their heads in disbelief. Mr Flynn crashed out of office in under four weeks, after being caught fibbing about his contacts with Russian officials.
Mr Trump is widely held to have picked his best advisers on gut instinct and probably with an eye to their image as warriors from “central casting”. The president first tried to recruit a shaven-headed former Navy SEAL and retired vice-admiral, Robert Harward, to replace Mr Flynn. When he declined the offer, Mr Trump took the advice of allies including Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, a hardliner on Iran and other foreign-policy questions, to hire Lieutenant-General McMaster, a tough-talking counter-insurgency expert.
The president’s first choice for defence secretary, General Jack Keane, a regular contributor on Fox News, his favourite television network, turned him down citing the recent death of his wife, but recommended two four-star warrior-intellectuals, Mr Mattis and General David Petraeus. Introducing Mr Mattis as his choice to supporters in December 2016, Mr Trump revelled in the nickname “Mad Dog”, hung around the general’s neck by journalists after service in the first Gulf war, Afghanistan and Iraq. Mr Mattis dislikes the sobriquet, and was better known among his men as a “warrior-monk” who combined ferocity in combat with a taste for reading Marcus Aurelius and other Roman thinkers in his tent.
A gleeful Mr Trump described Mr Mattis as “the closest thing to General George Patton that we have”, in homage to the swaggering, snarling second-world-war commander, and promised: “Mad Dog plays no games.” Conservative media outlets swooned over Mattis-epigrams that gained fame among troops in Iraq, such as his advice: “Be polite, be professional, but always have a plan to kill everyone you meet.” It only added to Mr Mattis’s appeal on the right that he was asked to retire as head of Central Command five months early by Team Obama, who worried that his calls for aggressive containment of Iran might up-end nuclear talks.
Accepting the nomination Mr Mattis talked of the importance of allies, and of defending the country and the constitution. Just three years after retiring from the Marines, he noted that he would need a waiver from Congress to the rule that defence secretaries must have been civilians for at least seven years before running the Pentagon (the last time such a waiver was needed was for George Marshall in 1950). “He’ll get that waiver, right?” beamed Mr Trump on stage next to him. “Such a popular choice.”
As a president who inspires much amateur psychoanalysis, Mr Trump’s general-worship is routinely linked to his adolescence at a private military academy, which he has said gave him “more training militarily than a lot of the guys that go into the military” and to his avoiding service in Vietnam because of painful feet.
Fighting talk
Mr Trump gives his old warriors striking licence to disagree with him in public. After campaign-trail promises to bring back waterboarding and “a hell of a lot worse”, Mr Trump said he was “very impressed” to hear Mr Mattis explain why “a pack of cigarettes and a couple of beers” were more effective. No rebuke came in June when Mr Mattis urged an audience in Singapore to “bear with us” when Americans became put out at the burden of upholding a rules-based world order. Mr Mattis told congressional hearings that it was in the national interest to stay in the deal to freeze Iran’s nuclear programme, which the president wanted to scrap.
Other high-stakes interventions have been more discreet. Sources close to Steve Bannon, the former chief strategist to Mr Trump, confirm that he was frustrated in June when the defence secretary watered down plans for the president to confront South Korea’s new president, Moon Jae-in, over his country’s trade deficit with America. Economic nationalists in the White House urged Mr Trump to link the trade imbalance with the security offered by tens of thousands of American troops in South Korea. Mr Mattis persuaded Mr Trump to keep the two questions separate, calling this a terrible time to cast doubt on the alliance with South Korea.
Mr McMaster also clashed with Mr Bannon about troop levels in Afghanistan. The grizzled campaign strategist, who left the White House in August, challenged the general about his apparent “emotional connection” to Afghanistan, arguing that Trump voters were tired of spending blood and treasure on open-ended commitments to foreign wars. One meeting became so heated that Mr Mattis tapped Mr McMaster on the leg in an urgent warning that he should calm down, a witness says. For his part the defence secretary was left shaken by Trump aides questioning whether America has vital national-security interests in Afghanistan.
Such reports of heated debate, especially in the first months of the administration, led to breathless suggestions that the generals operate as something akin to a “deep state”, defending democratic rule from a strongman president—as if America is a richer version of the Philippines or Turkey.
When Mr Mattis talked about military power as a tool allowing diplomats to work from a position of strength, or declined to comment on breaking news until he knew more facts, pundits declared that he was obviously rebuking Mr Trump. A media cottage industry sprang up finding photographs of Mr Kelly seeming to stare at his shoes in misery, or hold his head while listening to the president, notably after becoming White House chief of staff in July following his six-month stint as secretary of homeland security.
Such reporting exasperates Mr Mattis, who sees himself as a loyal servant of the constitutional order and thus of a president who was freely elected by the American people. His duty, as described to colleagues, is to speak out when needed and to represent the views of the armed services to the commander-in-chief, but in private in order to maintain indispensable bonds of trust.
In recent weeks Mr Kelly has gone much further, deriding what he called “astounding” press reports that he sees his role as controlling the president. As chief of staff his job is to control only the flow of information to the president, he said in October. A sharper row followed after Mr Kelly defended Mr Trump against allegations of mishandling a telephone call to the widow of a soldier killed in action.
After poignantly describing how he learned of the death of his own son in combat, Mr Kelly then attacked a Democratic congresswoman critical of Mr Trump’s call to the bereaved woman, falsely accusing her of exploiting an earlier fatal tragedy for political gain. Mr Kelly then startled the White House briefing room by suggesting that many journalists do not even “know anyone who knows anyone” in the armed forces and offering to take questions from reporters with a connection to a bereavement in war.
Mr Kelly’s overtly partisan defence of his president surprised many civilians. But his voicing of conservative political views—followed up a few days later with an odd defence of a Confederate civil-war general, Robert E. Lee, as an “honourable man”—also dismayed his brothers in arms. A former colleague calls Mr Kelly’s press conference a “very sad moment” which showed the dangers of allowing war service to become politicised and “really broke my heart”.
Officer material
Attitudes to global openness increasingly divide Americans. They also divide Mr Trump, a man who does not understand why anyone would want to visit dangerous places, from his beloved generals, all of whom came of age in far-off theatres of war and survived by studying alien codes of behaviour. Yet there are differences between the generals, too. It is said that Mr Kelly’s years at Southern Command, overseeing crime-ridden Central America, left him readier to haul up drawbridges against a wicked world.
As for Mr Mattis, he let his views show briefly when talking to young troops on a parade ground in central Seoul on October 27th, after a helicopter flight from the (heavily fortified) demilitarised zone that cuts the Korean peninsula in two. Asked about American forces bringing families to live in South Korea, the defence secretary conceded that they live “within range” of North Korean artillery. But having Americans live alongside Koreans, who watched their democracy emerge from a bloody war, provides “an awful lot of our strength in the alliance,” Mr Mattis said.
Mr Trump takes a transactional view of alliances. Visiting Seoul on November 7th he thanked South Korea for buying American arms, saying: “We make the finest equipment in the world, and you’re buying a lot of it, and we appreciate that.”
Senior uniformed and civilian figures do see upsides to having generals serve in the Trump administration. In a polarised, short-termist political environment, modern commanders stand out for their impatience with ideology, for taking the long view and for their devotion to the free competition of ideas. That is no surprise, for it was ideological certainties that led to the botched occupation of Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003.
This generation of generals has seen a lot of combat. A long-time colleague notes that after retiring from the Marines, Mr Mattis spent months on a cross-country road trip, quietly visiting the families of troops killed on his watch. He is not anti-war, but is conscious of war’s limits. One of his favourite quotes, from Will Rogers, a newspaper columnist in the 1920s, notes that many foreigners are more comfortable with an imperfect government of their own choosing than with a perfect one imposed by American Marines. Mr Mattis has called his countrymen “an idealistic people bound by pragmatism”.
On the frontline
Many modern generals are impatient with partisans trying to start culture wars about such issues as transgender troops or sexual harassment in the ranks, asking instead what policies promote discipline and “lethality”. Those generals are as interested in the power of America to inspire as to intimidate, says Michèle Flournoy, a former under-secretary of defence who declined an offer to be Mr Mattis’s deputy, citing discomfort with the Trump agenda. “These are people who know the cost of war. They are the first to say, we can use coercive means but it is better to use them to back up diplomacy,” she says.
The military chain of command teaches officers devotion to institutions larger than any one individual’s whim, says Robert Tyrer, a former chief of staff to William Cohen, who as defence secretary worked closely with Mr Mattis in the 1990s. It teaches officers to think about “a broader sense of national purpose” dating back to the start of the American experiment 240 years ago, rather than one measured in four-year electoral cycles.
The commander-in-chief likes a man in a uniform
The armed forces teach high-flying officers Washington’s ways, notes Mr Tyrer, giving Mr Trump’s generals more experience of government than many in his team of outsiders. As a colonel, Mr Mattis served as executive secretary to two defence secretaries, a co-ordinating post “at the centre of the central nervous system of the department”, in Mr Tyrer’s words. The younger Mr Mattis stood out for being unusually reflective and for “reading Thucydides at the weekend”. Mr Kelly was a Marine Corps liaison to Congress and in 2011-12 the senior military assistant to the defence secretaries Robert Gates and Leon Panetta.
Partisan swings of the pendulum have also left some high-ranking commanders wary of siding with any one party or faction. Privately, many disliked micromanagement by Mr Obama and aides who seemed to think of American interventions as a destabilising menace. They see a potentially useful energy in Mr Trump’s impatience and willingness to press allies to do more. In their most optimistic moments, they can make this president sound like an accidental Ronald Reagan, ready to shake up stale assumptions and press allies to step up. At other times, senior defence folk chafe at Mr Trump’s distinctly un-Reaganish scorn for American exceptionalism and apparent belief that he has little or nothing to learn from predecessors.
Mr Panetta, a former CIA director as well as defence secretary, White House chief of staff and congressman, worries that generals lack much experience of the horse-trading side of politics. Watching his former aide, Mr Kelly, under fire after taking to the airwaves to defend Mr Trump, Mr Panetta offers the thought that: “If you’re a good chief of staff, one fundamental role is to tell the president ‘no’.”
For all the risks of a national-security team that is so heavily weighted towards military experience, Mr Panetta believes that Mr Trump’s generals are “the best hope we have to restrain this president and to keep him on a more traditional foreign-policy path”. Such talk alarms Mr Bannon, now back running Breitbart, his hard-right news operation. He remains a fan of Mr Kelly’s grasp of the national interest and the importance of strong borders, to the point of telling the president, with whom he speaks regularly, that the chief of staff would make a good secretary of state after Mr Tillerson.
He credits Mr Mattis with crafting a plan of “annihilation rather than attrition” against the extremists of Islamic State, but adds: “That being said, I’m not quite sure he has totally bought into the Trumpian worldview, that America is not going to underwrite the security of the whole post-war rules-based international order.”
Mr Bannon urges Mr Trump to seek generals who share his “America First” vision. He has urged Mr Trump to study the example of Abraham Lincoln and his generals. “Lincoln was sold on the fact that the generals were experts, and had all the plans for winning the civil war. But [to win] he had to find Grant and Sherman, who were prepared to execute his strategy, which was to burn the South down.”
Marching to a different tune
Such whiffs of raw politics are just what worries former commanders like Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff from 2007 to 2011. Generals have served in government before, including Brent Scowcroft and Colin Powell at the National Security Council. Mr Powell and Alexander Haig both served as secretary of state, while Mr Haig was a White House chief of staff.
This time feels different, says Mr Mullen, both because there are so many generals in high office, and because “the country takes such comfort from them being there.” In his experience, military careers may prepare generals for the political world, with a small “p”—hearings on Capitol Hill or talks with foreign counterparts. But the world of Politics with a capital “P” is something more alien, and perilous. In a speech in October, Mr Mullen questioned whether it is right to depend “on retired generals for the stability of our citizenry”.
It is better to have good generals than bad men in powerful jobs. But no one cabinet secretary or aide can save the government from calamity. The American chain of command allows for much robust debate. But the toughest generals can argue only for so long, notes Mr Mullen. “Then the president makes a decision, and you march off and execute.”I don’t play collectible card games, or at least I haven’t since I gave up Magic back in middle school. I was excited about the story beyond Hearthstone and the hype leading up to the release of the game, but then the launch came at a busy time in my life and I didn’t play it (I still have yet to try it). Then, a few weeks ago, James, knowing my love of all things pixelated, showed me Duelyst. I figured I’d give it a shot.
To be completely clear, Duelyst was my first CCG experience (not counting Magic in middle school before my brain could even understand CCG concepts). This is a chronicle of my naïveté, growth as a player, and hopefully will bring about some shared learnings (or at least a few laughs).
I’m highly suspicious of free-to-play (F2P) games. I assume that the game is free so that it can draw in as many players as possible and then, over time, the paywall is either going to get frustrating enough that I have to quit or pay, or the game will successfully find a way to extract more money from me than I would otherwise pay for a full game experience. The money isn’t a big deal for me in absolute terms, but paying out large sums for digital assets, which don’t exactly cost the developers much to sell after a point, seems annoying.
Duelyst, I’ve found, is surprisingly generous in this respect. While my skill level was absolutely horrendous for my first week or two, often losing multiple games in a row, I was able to get level 20 (starts at rank 25, reaches down to zero) on the ranked ladder (where things start to get competitive) without putting a penny into the game. By then, the game regularly hands out large amounts of gold — at first through the practice grounds (solving one-hit kill puzzles) and then through daily challenges. This gold buys orbs (packs), which get cards that go into sweet, sweet custom decks. This is where James started to think it was cute that I was having epiphanies about basic CCG mechanics.
Major lesson 1: You can’t win without custom decks
Cards are useful for decks, but they can also be deconstructed to craft other cards. This is useful if you are specializing in one faction (Duelyst currently has six) and want to build out your decks for them at the expense of the others. Disenchanting (aka “DE’ing”) is also useful because some epic and legendary (distinctions of rarity) cards are either not good or are only useful for very specialized decks. How does one know what to disenchant if you know very little about CCGs in general, and then have to learn Duelyst within that umbrella? You read a disenchanting guide.
Major lesson 2: Everything in CCGs is documented
This documentation is hugely important because, as I learned time and again, most of the decks you build on your own when you start will be terribly misguided, which means you’re going to suck. Maybe you’ll manage a victory here or there, but you’ll be repeatedly beat by players with more experience and better tactics, even if you have better cards.
Major lesson 3: CCGs are a lot like poker
CCGs have an element of luck to them, but play enough games against enough people and the top players with the top decks will rise to the top. After I improved slightly and started to understand the basics of Duelyst, I found this to be comforting: losing any given game didn’t mean you were bad at the game or you were just not a strategic thinker. Instead, there is very much an element of luck to drawing the right cards when you need them. This is easier to understand when playing than it is to explain, but I’d say Duelyst (I can’t speak to other CCGs) is about 20% luck given a match with two players at the same skill level and comparable decks.
One of the most useful (and probably obvious) tactics I learned is that your General is a resource more than it’s a pool of hit points to protect. With a default of two attack and 25 hit points, the General is a big damage sponge more than anything else. When I first started, I assumed any damage to the General was bad and anything I could chip off of the enemy’s General was good. That’s not entirely wrong, but the fact of the matter is that you are frequently better off using your General to soak up damage so that you can better control the board and the game’s tempo. With these under control, you can do big damage in later moves.
Major lesson 4: Board control and tempo wins matches
While James assures me that the above lesson is stunningly obvious to most people familiar with CCGs, it was an important one for me. Piecing together some of the basic tactics allow me to better understand the game and really progress as a player. One thing I can’t emphasize enough, and still am rather bad at, is simply knowing the cards really well. And not just your favorite faction, you have to know the other ones too.
Here’s an example: You’re feeling pretty good about your impending victory against the Abyssian faction. Your General has 11 hit points, and he’s well-distanced from the fracas. The enemy General will be dead the next turn. You’re pretty smart, right? Then your opponent pulls out a Nightsorrow Assassin with Shadow Reflection and then uses a Void Pulse, and the match is over. Without knowing about that (very popular) combo, you never had a chance.
Popular combos like that one are easy enough to recognize, but the thing is that you need to keep a lot of them in mind at any given time. I’ll skip any belabored analogies to chess, but any good player is juggling a lot of thoughts at once, and constantly doing all sorts of math to make sure his killing strike will actually kill you, or that an assassin isn’t going to prematurely end the match.
This brings me to my next point, one which is particularly important to any sort of asynchronous gameplay.
Major lesson #5: You need to pay attention
With a 90-second timer and players who seemingly try to grind down opponents by taking the full 90 seconds each turn, it’s easy to switch out of the game and into any other application where you aren’t just waiting around. A few emails later and it’s your turn again, but then you never did all that math I just talked about, and all the tactics in your head have been replaced with meeting invites, spreadsheets, and email reminders from Slack. It can be tedious, but you really do need to stick with the match and follow along if you care about the outcome.
Early on I wasn’t paying close attention and I wasn’t doing obvious trend-spotting. For example, after a few days of playing I noticed that a certain minion ability — Provoke — was surprisingly powerful. A minion with this ability forced any enemy characters around it to attack it before being able to move or attack anything else. I consulted James:
Sal: You know “Provoke”? It’s super annoying, but I bet if used properly it could be something you could build a deck around.
James: You’re so cute!
Sal: Wha?
James: You’re right. Hearthstone calls it “Taunt.”
Major lesson #6: CCGs have common rules and conventions
While all CCGs aren’t the same, they seem to be quite similar to one another. So, those experienced with, say, Hearthstone, would come into Duelyst with a boatload of experience. The best Hearthstone players have already risen to the top ranks of Duelyst, actually. That doesn’t directly affect me, but it does mean there is a learning curve, and that racking up a long series of losses at the start of my CCG career shouldn’t be taken as a sign to go back to my comfort food of roguelikes.
While experience is hard to compete against, I haven’t found that spending necessarily is. At my ladder ranking (currently 16), it seems like many players are still attempting to go free-to-play and have decks that have some high-value cards, but few have super-expensive tournament-level decks. This keeps things level, and means I don’t feel compelled to pour too much money into the game. That said, I did buy some packs (check out my pack-opening below) so I could build a competitive deck and finally get some wins. While a couple weeks of playing the game was infinitely more valuable than the money I spent, this has resulted in a better outcome for me and a progression up the rank ladder.
Duelyst is still in its open beta, but I’m planning on sticking with it. It’s as fun and deep as I need it to be to sustain my interest, there is a considerable advantage to getting in early (in terms of building up decks and learning the card selection), and the developer has big plans for it. Plus, watching the game and the community grow has been enjoyable, just about worth the trade-off of playing a game through its beta, which can be punishing for any fan. The big question that remains to be answered is not if I’ll stick with Duelyst, but if I’ll stick with CCGs.Image caption The axes were found carefully arranged and buried together
A hoard of 3,000-year-old axes from the late Bronze Age found by a man with a metal detector in the Vale of Glamorgan has been recorded as treasure.
The axes - most of which were complete - were found buried together on farm land in Colwinston in April 2012.
National Museum Wales experts say the axes from around 1000-800BC could have been buried as gifts to the gods.
They were declared treasure at an inquest in Cardiff.
It is possible that the hoard was placed as a gift to the gods during a ceremony held by the local Bronze Age farming and metalworking community Adam Gwilt, National Museum Wales
National Museum Wales is keen to acquire the axes, which are all datable to the Ewart Park metalworking tradition of the Late Bronze Age.
The Bronze Age in Britain is thought to have started around 2000BC and is regarded as a crucial period that linked the Stone Age with the Iron Age.
Archaeologists who investigated the site where the axes were found discovered that they were buried in a specially dug pit, seemingly some distance away from any Bronze Age settlement.
"The finder's account of the positioning of the axes when found suggests the objects were buried in the ground in a precise and careful way," said Adam Gwilt, curator of the Bronze Age Collections at National Museum Wales.
"It is possible that the hoard was placed as a gift to the gods during a ceremony held by the local Bronze Age farming and metalworking community."
Medieval silver
Mary Hassell, the Cardiff and Vale of Glamorgan coroner, also declared as treasure a Bronze Age ring that was found by another man using a metal detector in the Vale of Glamorgan.
The penannular ring - an ornament whose function is unknown - was found on farm land in St Donats in January last year.
Image caption A penannular ring was found on farm land in St Donats, Vale of Glamorgan
Experts at the museum said it was an example of a hair-ring - a small item of jewellery which may have been worn as an earring, although some archaeologists believe they were a form of hair decoration.
Analysis of the ring found it was made of copper covered with gold foil.
Hair-rings have been discovered in significant numbers across Ireland, Britain, Belgium, north east France and the Netherlands.
This is the sixth known example from Wales, with others known from Swansea, Carmarthenshire, Anglesey and Gwynedd.
In addition, three late medieval silver objects found in the Vale |
all reagents in coconut water and in the future we hope to produce a new Palaeo-friendly system.”
“We feel this will bring people back from their Hipster MinIon systems.”
Share with your friends or leave a commentNuMystic wrote:
riogames wrote:
For those who already have these games, we are offering upgrade packs that contain the new cards so players who do not want to buy a whole new game for these new cards can get just the new cards.
Class act as always Jay. Thank you for supporting your existing customers.I know the ship has already sailed on these two upgrade packs but for any in the future PLEASE consider also including any cards that receive even small text revisions.While things like "you may" are a minor change that folks can implement with the old cards but in a game with such an enormous card base it's almost impossible for casual and new players to keep track of things like that, especially as that revised card pool grows.I can pretty much guarantee that most people who are willing to pay for an upgrade pack would gladly pay just a bit more to get revised cards as well.The GAB has smoothed out a few wrinkles in their system. They promised to update their website with daily totals, but the spreadsheet posted after Day 1 was filled with what they described as transcription errors. They pulled it on the morning of the second day and started from scratch. After Day 2, they posted a spreadsheet that had totals for 52 precincts (the first error-laden sheet had results from 502 precincts.) Apparently they are doing some double and triple checking now before adding a precinct's totals to the sheet.
The totals are still unofficial, but they make more sense tonight. The GAB also seems to be catching up after the false start. Tonight's spreadsheet has totals for 525 precincts.
So, where are we? Incumbent David Prosser has gained 33 net votes so far on challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg. The most interesting statistic from the spreadsheet, though, is the number of votes added to the "scattered" category. Those are write-in votes, for the most part.
For the 52 counties, there were either 143 or 145 more votes counted* in the recount than in the first canvass. Of those, 71 went to Prosser, 38 went to Kloppenburg, and 34 were added to the "scattered" category. Apparently Mickey Mouse is making a surge!
If these rates hold, it will obviously make no difference in the outcome of the election. Prosser has gained 0.012% of the votes counted so far. The big counties are still out there, though, including most of Milwaukee, Dane and Waukesha Counties. All it takes is one gigantic human error, and Kloppenburg could be right back in this thing. It's happened before, right?
Scattered reports of varying reliability have surfaced alleging broken chains of custody for some ballots. The canvassing boards and the GAB claim to have resolved those, at least to the satisfaction of those observing in official capacities. Some of those reports have made their way to the Daily Kos "recommended" list, including details of 97 ballots in Verona (Dane County) that were found in an unsecured stack of papers on an office desk.
Apparently there were enough questions in Delafield (in Waukesha County) to motivate the Kloppenburg campaign to send their attorneyto monitor vote-counting there:
Earlier Friday a clerk discovered that one of the bags full of ballots from the Town of Delafield was not properly sealed. The Kloppenburg campaign said that means there was the possibility that people could have had access to the bag of ballots. On Thursday, a different bag containing hundreds of ballots wasn't recorded on the poll inspector's log. That bag was also from the Town of Delafield... “I was obtained to come down here to ensure the integrity of the process on behalf of the Kloppenburg campaign. "It’s my understanding that there’s been some issues with bags, ballot bags, identification numbers not adding up, so they just wanted to ensure that all the proper procedures were followed," Maistelman said.
...hat-tip churchlady
I'm not ready to call shenanigans at this point, but if we continue to see one or two of these episodes every day it will call the integrity of this election into question. I'm already questioning the ability of the GAB to train Wisconsin's county clerks in proper election procedures. I believe they have used the adverb "smoothly" in each of the 3 nightly updates so far.
Everything is under control. Do not panic. We know what we're doing. We expected these anomalies. This happens in every recount.
Just once I'd like to read "Geez, we really messed up on that one, but we've got a pretty good idea of how to fix it."
Here's how the GAB sums up Day 3:
Day Three Summary
Posted: April 29, 2011 - 4:59pm
The statewide recount continues to go smoothly. G.A.B. staff received many questions today focusing on circumstances where absentee ballots are rejected, and the "drawdown process" by which ballots are removed. There have also been questions about what to do with absentee ballots where there are not signatures on the certification envelope or if there are not initals on ballots. For information on drawdown procedures, consult the Recount Procedures Manual. All these issues have been resolved by local Boards of Canvassers with the assistance of G.A.B. staff. Regarding the spreadsheet, staff will be working on Saturday to provide updated numbers as they come in. There will be no updates on Sunday.
* Two records in the spreadsheet have incorrect "Un-Official Recount Total of Votes Cast for S.C.", each off by 1. Record 151 has 218 for Prosser and 166 for Kloppenburg, but total SC votes 385. Record 154 has 135 for Prosser and 54 for Kloppenburg, but total SC votes 190.For many, finding a happier life has been a real struggle most often because most people do not know how to find it. There is the constant barrage of commercials offering products that promise to make people happy, but material goods does not really provide the comfort needed after the newness wears away.
Over the centuries, people have turned to religion, philosophy and the wise words of ancestors for clues about how to become happier in life. However, as with most things the answers are actually simpler than they are being made out to be. Most people are happy thanks to the choices they make and the activities in which they participate.
“Life is a journey, and if you fall in love with the journey, you will be in love forever.” Peter Hagerty
Here are 10 simple ways that you can live happier and feel healthier as a result. While there are many other ways to find happiness, the ten listed here have proven to be quite effective for most people.
Take Care of Yourself
Your mind and body are really one, so taking care of you by eating right and exercising is a great first step towards finding happiness. To walk every day can help lift the spirits and make you feel more energized as a result. While you don’t have to become an Olympic-level athlete, being more active and eating good, healthy foods, getting away from your sedentary lifestyle and going outdoors. Finally, getting enough sleep each night is also paramount to becoming happier by being healthier.
Learn New Things
Learning does not just boost the intellect as it also provides a boost to your wellbeing which in turn helps you find happiness. When you learn something new, there is a sense of accomplishment that you feel and your self esteem goes up as well. You do not have to complete a college course or learn a new trade, but instead you can learn to play an instrument, a new language, or just play a new sport that will increase your happiness and provide you with more good memories.
Look Around
If you ever wondered what more there is to life, all you have to do is look around. Everywhere you look there are a myriad of things happening from people going places to nature changing all around. All it takes is for you to take notice for just a few minutes a day. In fact, there is plenty going on in your life that can provide a little perspective and bring some happiness to your life. From just noticing the sights around you to trying new things, there are many ways to find happier living
Be Kind to Others
You can show your feelings towards others by being helpful in their daily lives. It doesn’t take much of a commitment and even just a couple of minutes of your day spent helping others will help you find your own happiness while improving your health. To give not only provides happiness for you and those you assist, but it helps create a better world for everyone. Just a few acts of kindness each day from helping someone with their groceries to giving your spare change or even making someone smile will help you find happiness.
“Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude.” Denis Waitley
Create More Connections with People
Being connected with others is what helps boost the spirits and helps your wellbeing. People who have strong relationships with others live longer, healthier and happier lives. From friends and family to co-workers and those you see on a regular basis as part of your daily life, broadening out your social network brings in new friends and interests while finding that sense of belonging. This is where happiness resides, in finding connections with others.
Be Positive
This may be the hardest way to find happiness as it can be difficult to stay positive when you are feeling down. Remember that things change and where you are at today is not necessarily where you will be tomorrow if you take a positive approach and reach out. To be positive will not only help you do better with day to day tasks, but also broaden your outlook on life and even improve your physical wellbeing. So, by looking at things as half-full rather than half-empty, you can make a powerful impact on your own happiness.
“No matter what the situation, remind yourself “I have a choice.” – Deepak Chopra
Create Goals
Happiness is momentary unless you create goals that will help you look to the future. This means finding something that will challenge, excite and enliven you as you take the steps necessary to achieve it. Naturally, you should choose goals that are achievable such as writing the great American novel or reaching a particular fitness level. So, it must be something challenging enough to get you excited while being realistic enough that you can reach it in a reasonable amount of time.
“If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy, and inspires your hopes.” Andrew Carnegie
Be Resilient
There are times when you will experience a setback, loss or failure in your life. It is how we respond to bad times that helps determine our wellbeing. While people cannot choose what happens to them, they can make the choice in how to respond. While it is never easy, it is true that resilience is a life skill that can be learned and can help people lead themselves back to a happier state of mind.
Be Comfortable with Yourself
No matter how hard you try, you’ll never be perfect. However, it is important to keep trying while having a realistic view of yourself. This means being the best of what you can be while getting the most out of life. Accepting who you are with all the flaws that it brings mean being kinder to the person you have become and increasing the happiness in your life.
Giving Gifts
One of the best ways to boost your own mood is by giving a gift to someone else. Few things in life bring more joy than giving gifts that bring smiles to the faces around you. You can choose from many great gifts such as gift baskets, silk flowers, essential oils, watches and the like to boost the mood of those around you and provide a gift for yourself in seeing the joy on their face.
“We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.” Winston Churchill
Happier living starts when you pick up the habits of those who lead happier lives. The good news is that you can start right now and many of these methods will not cost you a dime, yet they will provide wonderful returns that you will enjoy for the rest of your life.
“Every morning, when we wake up, we have twenty-four brand-new hours to live. What a precious gift! We have the capacity to live in a way that these twenty-four hours will bring peace, joy, and happiness to ourselves and others.” – Thich Nhat Hanh
SaveSaveUsing data from Wave 4 (2008) of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (N = 7,466), we examine potential consequences of black exceptionalism in the context of interracial relationships among nonblack respondents. While increasing racial diversity and climbing rates of interracial unions have fostered the notion that racial boundaries within the United States are fading, our results add to the accumulating evidence that racial/ethnic boundaries persist in U.S. society. Results suggest that among non-Black respondents there is more stigma and disapproval attached to relationships with Blacks than there are to relationships with members of other racial/ethnic groups. Specifically, our results indicate that nonblack individuals with black partners have significantly more depressive symptoms and less relationship satisfaction than their counterparts with nonblack partners, regardless of respondent race and whether the nonblack partner is the same versus a different race from the respondent. Further, the relationship between partner race and depressive symptoms is partially and significantly mediated by relationship satisfaction.By Elena Dragomir At the end of 2011, some 22 years after the fall of the communist regime, Romania seems to be going through what is probably the deepest economic and social crisis of its post-communist existence. In this context, many Romanians seem to be displaying a certain appreciation for different attributes related to the communist regime or ideology. This appreciation is always interpreted as nostalgia for the communist past and/or regime. This article reviews the results of different public opinion surveys, which have been cited by different analysts and commentators who have identified a new communist nostalgia among certain portions of the population. On the one hand, the positive views Romanians are expressing sometimes with regard to communism seem to be related to an acute sentiment of social insecurity; on the other, they appear to be the results of insufficient (if any) public policies addressing the problem of dealing with the legacy of the country’s recent past. The most incredible result was registered in a July 2010 IRES (Romanian Institute for Evaluation and Strategy) poll, according to which 41% of the respondents would have voted for Ceausescu, had he run for the position of president. And 63% of the survey participants said their life was better during communism, while only 23% attested that their life was worse then. Some 68% declared that communism was a good idea, just one that had been poorly applied.[1]
It seems that as the economic and social crisis deepens, people’s nostalgia for the communist period’s perceived safeguards increases.
According to a 2006 Public Opinion Barometer of The Soros Foundation Romania, 53% of the Romanian population considered communism to be ‘a good idea.’[2] Three types of explanations were advanced in this poll: economic, ideological and experiential. According to this interpretation, from the economic point of view, it was those who suffered ‘absolute or relative losses’ due to the collapse of the communist regime that allegedly felt nostalgia for communism, and they were the poor, peasants, workers and/or low-educated.
From the ideological point of view, those who supported communism were those people who appreciated the socialist spirit of social justice that registered in the 2006 poll’s nostalgia for the past. Therefore, they positively appreciated the past communist regime because ‘they understood better something they had known.’
As far as the experiential explanation is concerned, those who have not suffered oppression during the communist regime allegedly felt in 2006 nostalgia for communism. However, it must be emphasized that, according to the same survey, while 53% of the respondents considered communism a good idea, only 6% of them declared that they personally suffered persecutions under communism.[3]
The Public Opinion Barometer from 2007 showed that 32% of the Romanians surveyed considered at the time that ‘life was better in Romania before 1989’, a fact that was again interpreted as nostalgia for communism.[4]
Analyzing these results, Dumitru Sandu concluded that those who have felt communist nostalgia were neither older nor less educated, nor poorer, arguing instead that it was those who had lived a privileged life during the communist regime that felt in 2007 nostalgia for communism.
Sandu identified two categories of nostalgic people: approximately two-thirds (those who were not pleased with their standard of living) and the other one-third (those who were content with their lives, but were not pleased at all with the government’s accomplishments).[5]
According to a survey conducted by The Centre for Urban and Rural Sociology (CURS) in 2009, 86% of the Romanian population considered that ‘the state should provide all with a decent standard of living’, while 84% considered that ‘the state should provide all with a decent job.’
Moreover, 50% of the respondents stated that ‘the state should intervene for limiting the income of individuals’. These answers were generally interpreted as people’s attachment to ‘socialist principles’, as ‘communist mentality’ and as ‘communist nostalgia.’ Analyzing these results, Septimiu Chelcea concluded that more high-educated and young people felt nostalgia for the past in 2009 than had felt this way previously.
The survey showed that the difference between young and old, low-educated and highly-educated, active and inactive population groups have decreased in regard to people’s positive appreciation of different communist and socialist social principles.[6] Those who still find ‘some good aspects in communism’ underscored their opinions with elements that are specific to the social policies of the communist regime.
Moreover, those who still consider ‘communism a good idea’ refer to the social policies of the Communist rule. According to a CURS 1999 survey, intellectuals mostly did not support the idea of the ‘benefits’ of Communism while, according to the 2009 surveys, many had changed their minds in this regard.
The explanation for this contradiction could be that, in recent times, people have felt increasing social and economic pressures and therefore their desire for social security guarantees has increased, regardless of education levels, age or social status. In Romania social policies are currently addressing the needs of the disadvantaged social groups: the unemployed, elderly, sick etc., while the middle class is not considered as subject for social policies.
Thus, social security is not addressed from the universalistic post-war perspective, but from the limited, interwar perspective. However, in Romania, only 23 percent of the people belong to the middle class (according to a 2006 study), if the criterion taken into consideration is the level of income.[7] Therefore, the need for social security is acute in Romania nowadays, and this is the need that brings together low- and high-educated, elderly and young in ‘remembering’ – that is, reconstructing or re-imagining – the benefits of communist social policies.
A 2008 study conducted by the Agency for Governmental Strategies foresaw the results of the 2009 CURS survey in regard to the positive appreciation of the young for aspects related to the communist past. The study showed that over 30% of Romanian students considered that ‘life was better before 1989 in Romania’ because, in their opinion, the educational system and the standard of living were qualitatively superior.
This type of an answer was immediately interpreted as ‘communist nostalgia’. Sociologists, professors and journalists explained it as student ignorance: ‘they did not live during the communist period,’ or, ‘they do not know anything about the communist period;’ or, ‘they and their parents did not live the traumas of the 1950s.’[8]
Recent Surveys and Results
In 2010 and 2011, the Centre for the Study of Market and Opinion (CSOP), commissioned by the Institute for the Investigation of the Communist Crimes and the Memory of the Romanian Exile (IICCMER) conducted three opinion polls with regard to the Romanian public perception of communism.[9] The surveys were taken in:
26 August-2 September 2010 2011, from a sample of 1.133 people over 15 years old (error margin of plus/minus 2.9%);
22 October-1 November 2010, 2011from a sample of 1.123 people over 15 years old (error margin of plus/minus 2.9%);
26 April-2 May 2011from a sample of 1.125 people over 15 years old (error margin of plus/minus 2.9%
According to these surveys, about 60% of the Romanian population believes that communism was a good idea, and only 25-29% believes that it was a bad idea.
Communism was a good idea, poorly applied % Communism was a good idea, correctly applied % Communism was a bad idea % Don’t know/Don’t answer % August 2010 47 14 27 12 October 2010 44 18 29 12 April 2011 43 18 25 14
In 2011, some 38 % of respondents considered that the installation of communism in Romania after WWII was a good thing, while another 38% said that it was a bad thing. Half of the respondents believe that they were better off under communism. 74% of those older than 60, and 64% of those aged 40-59 consider communism a good idea, compared to 49% of those aged 20-39, and 31% of those younger than 20.
In August 2010, 72% of the respondents considered that the state should provide people with jobs and 44% with housing. About 25% consider that Ceausescu was good for the country, while only 15% argue that he harmed the country. Despite these figures, 42% of the respondents considered that the communist regime was not legitimate, and 41% believed that it was a ‘criminal. About 50% acknowledged the oppression pursued by the communist regime.
While the differences in results between August 2010 and April 2011 are not big, they are significant if compared with the 2007 or 2009 polls. For instance, in 2007 some 32% of the respondents considered that ‘life was better in Romania before 1989,’ while in 2011, 50% gave the same answer. In 2006, some 53% of the respondents considered that communism was a good idea compared to 61% in 2011.[10]
According to most of the media analyses, these results attest to Romanians’ nostalgia for communism.[11] However, the IICCMER argues that the positive perceptions of the population with regard to communism have complex explanations and are related to the people’s present experiences and personal experiences concerning the relationships between individual, state and society. To a great extent these results are explained, according to the IICCMER, by the fact that there is no organized effort for educating and informing the population with regard to the realities of communist times.
Looking for More Balkanalysis.com Publications?
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Buy Balkanalysis.com articles and e-books for Amazon KindleGeorgina and Kayla are a mother/daughter duo from the UK who've undergone 56,000 euros' (more than $63,000) worth of cosmetic surgery to look like British model Katie Price.
In a video from News Dog Media, Kayla, 20, explains she began stripping at the age of 17, and through her work, met a sugar daddy who began giving her a weekly stipend.
She put that money toward her surgeries and her mother's. "I don't mind Kayla having a sugar daddy or stripping to pay for plastic surgery because we're living the dream," Georgina, 38, explains. "Yeah," Kayla agrees. "We look how we want to look."
This is how the pair looked when Kayla was a child:
Courtesy of Georgina and Kayla
Now, the $63,000 has gone toward a boob job, lip injections, tanning, hair extensions, and other hair treatments, nail treatments, tooth-whitening, and semi-permanent makeup for Kayla, and lip injections, cheek fillers, Botox, semi-permanent makeup, tanning, hair treatments, tooth-whitening, and nail treatments for Georgina.
"Kayla and I are a double act, we do everything together and that includes plastic surgery. We like looking the same. We even buy the same clothes as each other," Georgina says. They don't care that people sometimes mock them or make faces at them in public because they look exactly how they want to look: like a Barbie-esque version of Katie Price.
They are looking forward to getting another set of boob jobs later this year as well as butt injections and more lip work, but Kayla is currently looking for a new sugar daddy to finance the work: Her first sugar daddy's wife found out about their agreement, and he and Kayla had to end their relationship.
See some photos of the pair below:
News Dog Media
News Dog Media
News Dog Media
News Dog Media
News Dog Media
News Dog MediaMost people would want to be remembered as a loving mother, a devoted wife, or a selfless friend after they've passed. But Johanna Scarpitti will be remembered as -- a wicked witch.
The Delaware mother's obit begins "Ding dong the witch is dead," and that's exactly what she would have wanted, her daughters say. Scarpitti's youngest daughter, who helped write the obituary, told The News Journal that her mother made her promise to include a tribute to "The Wizard of Oz" in her final tribute.
"That was something between us and there was nothing that was going to stop me. Even if I ended up getting bad reports and people going against me, it had nothing to do with them. This is something she wanted me to do so I did it," Assunta Lucy said.
Scarpitti so loved the classic film that she was even buried in ruby red slippers.
The bizarre obituary isn't the only one to make the news recently. Earlier this year, a Delaware man died, leaving behind a humorous self-written obituary, saying he had "gone to join the choir invisible." Another obit from last year surprised readers by referencing "back stabbing" (ahem) people who "still owe him money."
We're not sure what Scarpitti would have thought about all of the buzz surrounding her obituary... but one thing's for certain. Her husband says he doesn't want his daughters writing his.The refugee crisis has engulfed Europe in recent months, with the arrival of hundreds of thousands of people leading to countries abandoning the European Union's free movement rules.
Huge numbers of people have been forced to take the potentially fatal journey through the Balkans over the last year, with thousands of daily arrivals in each country along the route.
Despite countries having erected fences and implemented border restrictions, Europe's policies have done little to tackle the issue.
The flow of migrants has just changed, according to daily arrivals figures supplied by the UN Refugee Agency.
In the summer of 2015 Europe experienced the highest influx of refugees since the second world war.
There were a total of 942,400 EU asylum claims in 2015 - although the number of arrivals exceeds this as it also includes those who have not yet applied for asylum in a country.
"Germany is doing what is morally and legally obliged" Angela Merkel
The movement of people has been mainly driven by conflict in the Middle East and Africa.
Syria is now Europe's top source of refugees, with over four million people having left the country. The vast majority of these have fled to neighbouring countries.
The European Commission is now considering the option of altering the Shengen zone to exclude Greece - the source of many migrants travelling over the Mediterranean.
Germany and Sweden are often the destinations for refugees, with both countries having relatively welcoming - although slowly cooling - reactions to the arrivals.
It was reported that Germany took in one million refugees in 2015, as Angela Merkel refused calls from home and other European leaders to place a cap on the number the country would accept.
The Germany chancellor said of the crisis in September: "Germany is doing what is morally and legally obliged. Not more, and not less."
The official total of asylum seeker applications in Germany in 2015 was 477,000, according to figures from Eurostat.
Top EU countries: Number of asylum seekers in 2015
Germany Hungary Sweden Italy Austria January 26,885 11,925 4,895 4,785 4,030 February 54590 28620 8945 9925 7285 March 88470 33545 13065 15430 10210 April 117205 40235 16985 20020 14250 May 144815 50205 22360 25200 20645 June 181860 66785 28985 30535 28325 July 221690 98070 37055 39145 37115 August 261180 145165 48800 47970 45910 September 308365 175960 73065 59165 56690 October 368725 176575 112125 69605 68965 November 428340 176900 148720 77970 December 476615 177130 162560
Meanwhile, Sweden was forced to impose border controls in November after the arrival of 200,000 migrants.
By the end of 2015, many European countries had restricted border crossings within the Shengen zone - an unprecendented move limiting movement within the area.
Hungary drew a lot of criticism when it almost completely closed its borders to refugees. The country has had no more than 50 new daily arrivals since 18 October, capping the number of people seeking asylum in Hungary.
As Hungary closed its borders, the number of those entering Croatia spiked as people found other ways to complete their journeys. On 24th October, there were 11,570 arrivals in Croatia - and just 35 in Hungary.
Daily arrivals of migrants into Hungary
Arrivals 24/8/2015 2,093 25/8/2015 2,533 26/8/2015 3,241 27/8/2015 2,410 28/8/2015 2,822 29/8/2015 3,080 30/8/2015 2,890 31/8/2015 1,797 1/9/2015 2,284 2/9/2015 2,061 3/9/2015 3,313 4/9/2015 2,181 5/9/2015 1,002 6/9/2015 2,203 7/9/2015 2,706 8/9/2015 2,770 9/9/2015 3,321 10/9/2015 3,601 11/9/2015 3,023 12/9/2015 4,330 13/9/2015 5,809 14/9/2015 9,380 15/9/2015 366 16/9/2015 277 17/9/2015 764 18/9/2015 7,852 19/9/2015 4,914 20/9/2015 6,941 21/9/2015 5,530 22/9/2015 5,125 23/9/2015 10,046 24/9/2015 8,104 25/9/2015 8,159 26/9/2015 9,472 27/9/2015 6,627 28/9/2015 5,335 29/9/2015 6,644 30/9/2015 4,256 1/10/2015 3,667 2/10/2015 4,897 3/10/2015 6,056 4/10/2015 5,925 5/10/2015 5,952 6/10/2015 6,000 7/10/2015 6,103 8/10/2015 4,583 9/10/2015 7,215 10/10/2015 7,907 11/10/2015 7,897 12/10/2015 8,702 13/10/2015 7,081 14/10/2015 5,157 15/10/2015 4,808 16/10/2015 6,353 17/10/2015 870 18/10/2015 41 19/10/2015 22 20/10/2015 36 21/10/2015 39 22/10/2015 32 23/10/2015 29 24/10/2015 35 25/10/2015 34 26/10/2015 12 27/10/2015 7 28/10/2015 4 29/10/2015 23 30/10/2015 18 31/10/2015 10 1/11/2015 14 2/11/2015 31 3/11/2015 8 4/11/2015 10 5/11/2015 18 6/11/2015 4 7/11/2015 8 8/11/2015 9 9/11/2015 25 10/11/2015 14 11/11/2015 13 12/11/2015 23 13/11/2015 6 14/11/2015 21 15/11/2015 8 16/11/2015 15 17/11/2015 5 18/11/2015 15 19/11/2015 4 20/11/2015 9 21/11/2015 2 22/11/2015 11 23/11/2015 4 24/11/2015 4 25/11/2015 6 26/11/2015 10 27/11/2015 2 28/11/2015 6 29/11/2015 3 30/11/2015 7 01/12/2015 4 02/12/2015 4 03/12/2015 9 04/12/2015 1 05/12/2015 31 06/12/2015 7 07/12/2015 0 08/12/2015 13 09/12/2015 14 10/12/2015 3 11/12/2015 0 12/12/2015 13 13/12/2015 10 14/12/2015 3 15/12/2015 2 16/12/2015 6 17/12/2015 0 18/12/2015 11 19/12/2015 31 20/12/2015 8 21/12/2015 25 22/12/2015 1 23/12/2015 21 24/12/2015 8 25/12/2015 2 26/12/2015 17 27/12/2015 10 28/12/2015 0 29/12/2015 0 30/12/2015 11 31/12/2015 5 01/01/2016 0
In response, other countries - including Austria and Slovenia - restricted the flow of people into their territory.
"We will never erect any fences, any walls" Aleksandar Vucic, Serbian Prime Minister
In the domino effect of tightened borders across Europe, other countries to have announced some form of border tightening in 2015 include the Netherlands, Denmark, Croatia and Slovakia.
In the wake of the terror attacks in Paris, France imposed border checks for its neighbouring countries.
With the seemingly continuous stepping up of border controls across Europe, Germany has warned that the Schengen Area is in clear "danger" as more refugees arrive on Europe's shores.The Setup
You are engaged in a titanic battle of wills and pranking with your good friend and mortal enemy, Steve Steveington. Last week he went too far, and did some things to your World of Warcraft character that you would really rather not talk about. You are now officially at war(craft).
You have to hit him where it hurts. Totally destroy something that he loves. You have to gain access to his Tinder account.
It’s now 4pm. You and Steve Steveington are kicking back in his front room. He has gone to make a sandwich, and has made the fatal error of forgetting to lock his computer. You have discovered that all you need is a little time with his laptop’s Facebook session and you can bust into his Tinder account on your phone. This is the best opportunity you’re ever going to get.
Your research suggest that he usually favours peanut butter and banana for his late afternoon snacks, and that you most likely have 2 minutes alone with his computer, perhaps 3 if he has trouble locating the peanut butter jar that you strategically hid behind the mustard. Game on.
Phase 1 - The Cookie Toss
You’ve trained for this moment for days, but even 3 minutes is not enough time to execute your entire plan end-to-end. You keep calm. You can use this small window of opportunity to throw his Facebook session from his laptop onto yours, then continue with the next phase right under his oblivious nose.
His session is in his browser cookies. You get his facebook.com cookies, you get his session.
You open up Chrome, reach for a developer console and throw down some Javascript. But document.cookies only gives you ~6 of the ~11 cookies set by Facebook. The other 5, the ones with the session data that you actually care about, are all marked httponly and are completely inaccessible by Javascript. The clock is ticking.
You remember that Chrome stores its |
to lure Lester back. The Toronto Blue Jays are another team that signaled interest in Lester last week in Arizona, though on the surface, the Jays seem a long way from the routine-based Lester's comfort zone.
Lurking, as always, in the background are the Yankees, who have a history of snatching what the Sox thought was theirs (Mark Teixeira, Johnny Damon, Bernie Williams).
Then there is Sandoval, the man with baseball's best nickname (Kung Fu Panda) and one of its most scrutinized body types, a 28-year-old free agent who hits bad pitches and hoards bad cholesterol at roughly the same pace.
Pablo Sandoval will be wined and dined by the Red Sox but doesn't figure to leave Boston with an agreement in place. Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images
The Red Sox need a third baseman and left-handed bat. Sandoval is a switch-hitter who plays superior defense and has designs of being paid like an elite free agent entering what should be the prime of his career.
The reasons for the mutual attraction are obvious, but here's why Tuesday looms so large for the Sox: After the Giants won the World Series for the third time in five seasons, Sandoval, who hit three home runs in one game, was World Series MVP in 2012 and tied a Series record with a dozen hits this year, was asked if he planned to come back to the Giants.
"Without question," he said.
Caught up in the emotion of the moment? No doubt. But if the dollars are anywhere close to equal, it seems likely Sandoval will return to a place where he already is a folk hero.
Now just because agent Gustavo Vasquez said Sandoval wants a six-year deal doesn't mean he will get one. But Toronto's five-year, $82 million deal for Martin, who is four years older than Sandoval and has a more erratic career arc than the Panda, suggests the Red Sox will have to go beyond their comfort zone if they really want Sandoval.
Could the Sox sign Sandoval before he even leaves town? That's highly improbable. He'll at least give the Giants the courtesy of a listen, and there reportedly are other suitors, including the Padres. But the Red Sox could make it very hard for Sandoval to say no.
The Sox will want some assurances from Sandoval that he will not balloon beyond usefulness. He has shown surprisingly nimble feet for a man of his girth, and he has sure hands and a quick bat. Consider: Last season, he was batting.167 on May 6, distracted in part by talks of a contract extension that never materialized. He batted.306 in 126 games after that date. That's 31 percentage points better than the Sox player with the highest average and at least 300 at-bats in that span (Dustin Pedroia,.275).
Sandoval could eventually move off third base to succeed David Ortiz as the team's designated hitter. He already has a resume that rivals Big Papi's for postseason brilliance.
The Sox have a history with Venezuelans with big appetites, sunny dispositions and strained waistbands. Reliever Rich Garces was El Guapo, whose popularity in Boston exceeded his achievements.
"They never booed me at Fenway," Garces would say years later, when he showed up playing for Nashua in an independent league. "Ever."
The Red Sox cannot make any such promise to Pablo Sandoval. Jon Lester already knows the territory. But the Sox have a chance this week to reward both players with what they desire most. For Lester, a chance to come back at a price he deems fair; for Sandoval, a chance to be paid like a star of the first rank.Our final day’s songs are from pksage (yours truly) and sageamagoo!
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I should probably write something, huh?
Hi, everyone! You had to read my blurb last year, and you have to put up with my copy writing every week as it is, so I’ll keep it short. I don’t have any particularly inspiring or interesting Rock Band stories from this year. My Rock Band experience has largely evolved into this very community — authoring songs to keep the legacy alive, and getting the warm fuzzies when people play them. I still play on occasion, of course, but the role of creator and administrator takes up most of my time. Ever wondered what goes into a weekly release? After making sure all of the songs are ready to go, I grab all of them from the server, extract their metadata, and load it into the database one song at a time, adding the download links and tweaking other things as I go. I write the blog post, adding all of the images from the C3 CON Tools Visualizer, and collecting any comments that the authors wrote. Then I manually add each song to our bug tracker database, because I still haven’t written a simple script to populate it for me, and write the forum announcement with the links to everything. Then it’s a matter of hooking up the video prepared by the hard-working Lowlander, and a script mostly takes care of the actual launch on Friday mornings. Mostly. There’s usually a bit of scurrying around at the last minute, but still, there is A System. I hope that you’ll continue to enjoy our weekly releases and my sometimes-goofy blog posts! The Twelve Days of Customs was originally envisioned as a way for authors to give a little extra to the players, and I’ve tried to embody that ideal with this year’s song. I’ve dreamed of a time when Rock Band represented every last significant band and artist in the history of rock music, and to that end, I’m happy to present our first Prince song. Now, I know it’s not from Purple Rain, and it’s not “1999”, and it’s not “Raspberry Beret”, but “Kiss” is a landmark Prince song that was coincidentally much more authorable than “When Doves Cry” or “Let’s Go Crazy”. This song is mostly for vocalists, but there’s a great guitar solo in there, too. I’m not really a huge Prince fan (though I’m far from a hater), but it was worth it to fill this hole in our song lists. Just don’t ask me to do the rest of his big singles. 🙂 Happy holidays to you and yours! Please travel safely, rock responsibly, and join us in 2015 for another year of C3.
sageamagoo writes:
Hello! This is sageamagoo, resident pro keys enthusiast here at C3. Rock Band has been a huge part of my life since it came out in 2007. It’s always been looked at as the go-to party game and has something for everyone to enjoy. But more importantly, it introduced me to some of my now-favourite artists (Faith No More, Poni Hoax, The Flaming Lips, Queens of the Stone Age, Dream Theater, Modest Mouse, Phish, Spacehog, etc.) Despite this, the game wouldn’t mean nearly as much to me if it weren’t for one thing: Pro mode. I already had a good background in piano when Rock Band 3 came out, so I was excited to see how well I’d do in the game. I let it boot up, tried Imagine on Expert, and failed out. What was this weird interface? It was nothing like sheet music. Why do the notes go so fast? Why can’t I react in time? You mean I have to hit four notes at the same time, with less than a second’s notice? Needless to say, I was a bit put out—but then I thought, “If I had to learn this song on an actual piano, I’m sure it wouldn’t be that bad…” So I went back to the beginning and worked my way up. After some attempts, I could work through the simplest of songs, and as I practiced more it became an exciting challenge, trying to better yourself and get through each song with a good score. There was just so much depth. Even at 2-dot difficulty things weren’t easy, and there were another 4 tiers to go, each exponentially harder than the last. All of a sudden, there was this weird revelation. This fun party game had grown into something much more meaningful. The fact that I could essentially play a fully functioning instrument in a music game turned Rock Band 3 into the greatest game I’d ever played. Fast forward a few years, and I discover this group called C3. I had heard of custom songs before, but the videos I saw on YouTube showcasing old Guitar Hero customs looked really bad. C3 was different. C3 had people dedicated to making their songs as accurate as possible, and they had a thriving community where you too could learn how to put your favourite songs in the game. So here I am, finally, with my first official custom. Crystalised by The xx is a great entry-level song that’s both easy and fun to play—and it has pro! I thought it fitting for my first custom to include something so dear to my heart, and this song is perfect for beginners who are picking up a pro instrument for the first time. I’d like to thank Espher for his work on the Rock Band Harmonies Project, and for helping me through my first Pro Keys upgrades. He inspired me to take the plunge into upgrades and customs, and gave me deadlines I tried hard to follow. Without his help, I wouldn’t be where I am today. I’d also like to thank StackOverflow0x for his hard work bringing customs to Wii users. I started out on the Wii, and it’s because of him I was able to play customs in the first place. Also, I’d like to give a huge shoutout to TrojanNemo, who brought us all the software the authors use on a daily basis. His work revolutionized the customs-making process, and helped make C3 what it is today. And lastly, one final shoutout to Farottone for being the charting powerhouse he is. At over 300 customs, it’s hard to believe he has time to sleep, let alone be such an active and integral part of our community. I mean, did you see that Genesis release? Crazy. His work is an inspiration to us all.
(Remember, this is just a reveal; all of the songs will be released together tomorrow, December 25. See you then for the release post!)
AdvertisementsLAS CRUCES, N.M. (CN) — More than 760,000 acres in Arizona and New Mexico will remain protected habitat for the jaguar, despite New Mexico ranchers’ objections, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.
The New Mexico Farm & Livestock Bureau and other ranching groups sued the Department of the Interior in May 2015, challenging the designation of critical habitat for under the Endangered Species Act.
They claimed that the 764,207 acres of designated habitat in Arizona and New Mexico was more than needed for the jaguars’ secondary habitat, and that all the designated habitat in New Mexico was privately owned grazing land, whose designation would hurts ranchers financially.
But U.S. District Judge Kenneth Gonzales on Wednesday found the secondary habitat important enough to preserve, and denied the ranchers’ request for an injunction.
Most American jaguars live in tropical rain forests of Central and South America. However, “at the northernmost portion of the jaguar’s range, a small population has adapted to occupy more arid forest and open grass ecosystems,” Gonzales found. “This includes a breeding population of resident jaguars in Sonora, Mexico as well as individual jaguars in the Southwestern United States. The ecosystems in the United States are considered suitable only as a secondary habitat, which has little to no evidence of reproduction but which may provide important dispersal habitat for the species.”
The ranchers claimed that the U.S. habitats were unnecessary, and habitat preservation “could be achieved simply by preserving the breeding population 130 miles south of the United States-Mexico border, which has adapted to surviving in an arid ecosystem similar to the units in the American Southwest.”
But the co-defendant U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service argued that “populations at the outer periphery of the jaguars’ range possess genetic and demographic diversity which allow them to inhabit the distinct arid environments of its secondary habitat, a key component for adaptability which ensures the species’ survival.”
Fish and Wildlife said the small populations of jaguars in the U.S. Southwest are “critical to the species survival precisely because they are adapted to exist outside the jaguars’ core habitat.”
The two sides disagreed about what constitutes an area being “occupied” by a species, given that there have been only a handful of jaguar sightings in Arizona and New Mexico in the past 20 years.
But Gonzales said the Endangered Species Act allows designation of critical habitat even if the area is not occupied by the listed species, if the land is considered “essential for the conservation of the species.”
Plaintiffs included the New Mexico Cattle Growers’ Association and the New Mexico Federal Lands Council.
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Despite what some football fans may say, baseball remains our national pastime, and it has as rich a history as anything in our pop culture.
There have been some truly gifted athletes who have taken the diamond over the years, and what follows is my attempt to name the 100 greatest players in MLB history.
Comparing players across eras is never easy, nor is comparing position players to pitchers, but I've tried my best to fairly gauge them against one another.
As for the Steroid Era, it's a part of the game's history and can't simply be ignored. For the sake of this list, those players suspected of using PEDs are judged simply on their production on the field, tainted or not.
Obviously, a certain amount of subjectivity goes into a list like this, and I don't expect everyone to agree. I look forward to defending my selections and urge you to leave your thoughts in the comments below.Augustus Caesar, in 13 B.C., worried that retired soldiers might rise up against the empire. So he came up with a clever solution: after twenty years in a legion and five years in the military reserves, a soldier would earn, in a lump sum, a pension that worked out to about thirteen times a legionnaire’s annual salary. Pay the veterans off, the reasoning went, and they’ll be less inclined to overthrow you.
I learned about this from Robert Clark, a professor at North Carolina State University who studies retirement plans and included the Augustus anecdote in a book on pensions. This was his point: “If you look at pensions and ask, ‘Why are you offering them?’ there’s always ulterior motives from the employer.”
In 1935, for instance, the Social Security Act excluded local-government employees from federal benefits. So to get people to work for the government, and to mollify existing employees, cities had to provide a perk of their own. They settled on offering public pensions, which, by the middle of the twentieth century, were commonplace. Later on, pensions served another purpose: with private-sector employers offering higher wages during boom times, the government was able to lure good workers by promising better retirement benefits.
On Tuesday, a federal judge said Detroit could legally cut the pensions it has already promised to workers as part of its bankruptcy plan. Many state constitutions, including that of Michigan, hold that the government can’t go back on pension promises, and, because of this, cities have generally assumed that they could not touch existing pensions even in cases of bankruptcy. (Instead, many have been cutting pensions for newly hired workers.) But federal law supersedes state law, and, according to Judge Steve W. Rhodes, pension cuts are just fine under federal law. “Pension benefits are a contractual right and are not entitled to any heightened protection in a municipal bankruptcy,” he said.
While Detroit’s emergency manager must still submit a reorganization plan for approval, and Rhodes said that the court would not “lightly or casually exercise the power to impair pensions,” the decision sets a precedent. From now on, cities can—and likely will—use Rhodes’s words to support their own pension-cutting plans for current employees. In October, employment in local government was basically unchanged from a year ago, even as private-sector jobs continued to rise. As cities shed workers rather than hiring new ones, they have more incentive to cut compensation than to raise it, at least in the short run.
People often frame the discussion about public pensions in ethical terms. If you’re on the left, you might ask whether it is fair to halve the monthly payments due to a ninety-year-old man who spent his career as a civil servant. From the right, you might question whether it is right to keep paying pensions with funds you don’t actually have.
These are useful questions to consider, to be sure. But their answers might not have much bearing on the future of pensions. The keepers of government budgets are practical-minded people. From the Roman Empire until modern times, governments have established pensions because they served some useful purpose.
Over the past couple of years, the budgets of cities and states have been decimated: first, the real-estate collapse hurt property-tax revenues; then, federal and state economic-recovery funds dried up. Short of cash—and, in some rare cases, facing bankruptcy—cities have seen their motives shift. In the past, they felt it served them well to offer pensions to attract good workers. Now, they feel it serves them better to slash these pensions, which make up an average of five per cent of budgets, to cut costs. Should we be all that surprised?
“There are some people who believe that this bespeaks a certain kind of disdain for organized labor, or is just some Republican ploy to undermine the unions,” Jennifer Bradley, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, told me. “I don’t think that’s the case. Cities are just looking at what their big expenses are, and this is a big expense.”
But if pensions start becoming less generous in the long term, it will be time to ask another tough question: should cities make up for lower pensions by paying their employees more in wages?
It’s not a trivial matter. In January, researchers at the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College looked at teacher compensation to figure out how compensation cuts for new hires might impact teachers’ decisions about where to teach. (Teachers make up more than half of the state and local workforce and are among the most highly paid workers.) They considered public data on teachers’ pay and pensions; they also looked at the average S.A.T. score at a teacher’s undergraduate institution.
They found that school districts that pay better—including deferred compensation, such as pensions—generally attract teachers from universities with better S.A.T. scores. Cutting compensation is “not costless,” the authors wrote: “it will almost certainly result in a lower quality of applicants for one of the nation’s most important jobs.”
Emperor Augustus’s new pensions were expensive: he paid for them partly out of his own pocket, but also, to the disgruntlement of some subjects, with new taxes. Detroit and other cities should recognize that cutting pensions—unless this is offset by better compensation elsewhere—could also be expensive, in the long run.
Photograph by Anderson/Alinari/Getty.A black female Trump supporter eviscerated Democrat Congresswoman Maxine Waters, saying her pro-illegal immigration policies have destroyed the black community.
The brouhaha erupted outside a town hall meeting in California on Saturday. She trashed Waters, 79, as a “black racist” whose rhetoric and actions have caused African-American citizens to lose jobs to illegal aliens.
Nearby, another protester held up a sign that read: “Unemployment is 60% for blacks in sanctuary cities.” The woman shouted into a megaphone:
Maxine Waters destroyed the black community! She has to go! She’s paid taxpayer money to discriminate against American citizens. And we’re not going to have it! She’s been in office too long doing nothing! She lied to the black community, saying she was going to bring us jobs. She gave those jobs to illegal criminals! We want her out! She’s been in office for too long! She’s already showing signs of dementia! She’s a hater!
The black Trump supporter said she’s disgusted that the 13-term Congresswoman race-baits to gain support among blacks, whom she uses for votes and then callously ignores after they re-elect her.
People are tired with your hate and your racism! All the jobs went to illegals! You have destroyed the black community! You are a black racist! You hate blacks! All the jobs went to illegals! You gave our jobs to illegals! We want you out!
The woman also said Maxine Waters should stop wasting time pursuing the “Trump-Russia” ruse, especially since she has her own Russian connections through shady investments in Russian companies.
As Waters left the town hall meeting, a raucous round of boos and jeers rained down on her from both black and white voters. “Boo!! Racist James Brown!” one protester shouted. “Maxine’s gotta go! Feel that sh*t!”
This isn’t the first time (and it won’t be the last) that voters have slammed Congresswoman Waters as an opportunistic grifter who — like her pal Hillary Clinton — has used her political office to enrich herself.
Maxine Waters’ career highlights include being rated one of the “most corrupt” members of Congress in 2005, 2006, and 2008 by the George Soros-funded liberal watchdog CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington).
In 2008, Waters was charged with three counts of ethical violations after allegedly helping OneUnited bank secure $12 million in federal bailout funds while hiding the fact that her husband owned stock in the bank.
Recent FEC filings show Maxine paid her daughter Karen Waters a whopping $750,000 for running her mom’s gravy-train slate-mailer campaign.
Maxine Waters campaign pays her daughter $750,000 to send mailers – slams Ivanka’s UNPAID job with dad https://t.co/b5lRRsDDI4 pic.twitter.com/6qdk9OAiPP — Conservative News (@BIZPACReview) April 25, 2017
Congresswoman Waters has hypocritically trashed President Trump for being “corrupt” while she has used her political position to help her daughter and husband pocket hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years.
Obama and Bill Clinton both opposed illegal immigration. But NOW that’s racist?Davey Richards vs. Sami Callihan from AAW’s Bound by Hate 2012
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Recap from TJ Hawke:
No build for this match. AAW just put it on for the sake of putting it on. I approve.
They immediately start trading a bunch of strikes. They both went for their finishing submissions early, but both men were able to escape They traded more submission attempts, but neither man would quit. Sami went after Davey’s left knee. Davey headbutted his way free from Sami and dropkicked him to the floor. Davey jumped onto the apron and went for a soccer kick, but Sami caught him and dropped him onto the apron. Davey was selling his injured knee the whole time. He probably knew Jerome Cusson was in the crowd. Sami worked him over around ringside for a bit, until Davey sent him into a guardrail and hit a Yakuza. Sami came back with a Brogue Kick that caused Davey to roll back into the ring. Sami worked him over some more. Sami went to the top rope, but Davey kicked him to the floor. Davey finally hit the soccer kick from the apron, and he then followed it up with a tope suicida. Back in the ring, Davey hit a missile dropkick and a bridging German suplex: 1…2…NO! Davey hit a series of brutal kicks. Sami eventually caught one of the kicks with a dragon screw on the injured leg. Davey was going for a superplex, but Sami escaped and superkicked Davey’s injured leg. Sami hit a Brogue Kick, a DVD, and a BOING Splash: 1…2…NO! Davey ended up on the apron, and Sami hit a Silverking lariat. Sami followed it up with a tope suicida. Back in the ring, Sami hit a Superfly Splash onto the injured leg. Davey avoided the Stretch Muffler, but Sami locked in a leglock. Davey managed to reverse it and lock in a Texas Cloverleaf. Sami made the ropes. They ended up on the apron, where Davey hit an exploder onto the apron. Davey called for the countout, but there are no countouts in AAW. Davey threw Sami back into the ring and hit a Ghetto Stomp: 1…2…NO! Sami got a small package for a nearfall. Sami hit an enzuigiri and a facewash. And another facewash. Sami went for a third, but Davey caught him with an alarm kick. Sami hit a big boot and a bigger lariat: 1…2…NO! Stretch Muffler on the injured knee! Davey reverses it into an ankle lock. Sami escaped and hit a saito suplex. Davey hit a knee to the head and a brainbuster: 1…2…NO! Davey hit a buzzsaw kick: 1…2…NO! Davey locked in an ankle lock with a grapevine! Sami passed out!
I honestly can’t imagine these two having a better match (even in Reseda, but I guess that would be the only place where they could). I’m sure there are people who would never like a match between these two no matter what, but I honestly was surprised by how smart this was worked. Both guys can kind of become self-parodies at points, but in my mind, they really did a great job here of combining the fast-paced/hard hitting action that both guys are known for with the selling/storytelling of more celebrated wrestlers. This was a great match that you should go out of your way to see.
Match Rating: ****1/4
AdvertisementsPosted August 15, 2016 at 2:12 am
- Tedd and magic for all the people
- Tedd argues with his father about magic
Good news, Tedd! Pandora's got your back! That's... That's a good sign, right?
I didn't realize it until later, but I presented something in the previous comic in a way that was open to misinterpretation. Pandora said "all the other immortals just automatically know, etc", and intended it to be in place of "declaring war" in response to the laws being broken.
In short, immortals don't keep constant tabs on each other, but are automatically made aware of certain details if any one of them breaks their laws, and only about that one law breaking immortal.
Another way to interpret it, however, was that immortals had a constant awareness of what other immortals are up to, which would introduce all sorts of plot holes if suddenly presented as canon. As today's comic confirms, it's only when an immortal breaks immortal law. The rest of the time, a whole bunch of them could be in the same room and completely unaware of each other.
- EGS:NPLatest EU Parliament Votes On Copyright: Fuck The Public, Give Big Corporations More Copyright
from the that's-not-good dept
The weird and persistently silly copyright reform process in the EU Parliament continues to get more and more bizarre and stupid. Last month, we told you about the first committee vote, which we feared would be terrible, but turned out to be only marginally stupid, as the worst parts of the proposal were rejected. Now, two more committees -- the Culture and Education (CULT) and Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) Committees -- have voted on their own reform proposals and the results are really, really bad if you support things like culture, education, research and the public. And, yes, I get the irony of the fact that the Culture and Education Committee in the EU just declared a giant "fuck you" to culture and education with its vote.
Among the many problematic aspects approved by these committees is a filter requirement that would block users from uploading legally obtained media into the cloud. This makes no sense -- especially given that the EU already has additional "you must be a pirate" taxes on situations where individuals are making copies of their legally acquired works.
And then there's the whole "snippet tax" which legacy newspapers are demanding because they've failed to adapt to the digital age, and they want Google News to send them money for daring to send them traffic without monetary compensation. The whole concept is backwards... and here, it's been expanded. As Copybuzz explains:
The press publishers’ right went from applying to ‘digital’ uses of press to all uses, including print. Aside from the fact that this seems a violation of Article 10(1) of the Bern Convention (which establishes a mandatory exception for ‘press summaries’), the impact of such a massive extension is unfathomable. The definition of press publications has become so broad that infringements to article 11 are impossible to predict and hence prevent. The ‘exceptions’ to the applications of this new right just add to the potential legal uncertainty, as the CULT text states ‘ The [publisher] rights granted under this Directive should be without prejudice to the authors’ rights and should not apply to the legitimate uses of press publications by individual users acting in a private and non-commercial capacity. The protection granted to press publications under this Directive should apply to content automatically generated by an act of hyperlinking related to a press publication without prejudice to the legitimate use of quotations.’ This paragraph alone opens such a Pandora Box of unanswered questions, such as: What is a legitimate use of press publications? And who’s the judge of the legitimacy?
When are you acting in your private and non-commercial capacity?
Content automatically generated by an act of hyperlinking related to a press publication: so that mean that when you share a link on social media and that triggers automatically the appearance of a snippet, you are now officially in trouble?
When are you ‘legitimately’ quoting? Is that a new criteria imposed on top of the only mandatory exception globally? And if so, who judges if you comply?
None of that sounds good or well thought out. It sounds like the kind of thing that someone not very knowledgeable about the subject would put together after just hearing one side from a bunch of whining newspaper execs.
And then there's this nonsense, as summarized by Parliament Member Julia Reda:
Incredibly, the ITRE committee – responsible for research and usually a staunch defender of open access – even voted to extend the extra copyright to academic publications, which would make open access publishing virtually impossible. It would stop people from linking to academic content, despite the content itself being free. This would apply to both online publications and print journals. The chilling effects on the spread of academic works and information would be substantial.
Yes, linking to academic content will now require payment -- even if it's open access. That's... nuts.
And, finally, on the "text and data mining" issue -- which is one of the key points that the EU has been fighting over with this new copyright reform effort, ITRE again severely limited who can do data mining to tiny startups. Again from Copybuzz:
The ITRE Committee for example has in its extreme generosity decided to leave the benefit of the Text and Data Mining exception limited to research organisations and ‘start-up companies’, defined as ‘any company with fewer than 10 employees and an annual turnover or balance sheet below €2 million and which was established not earlier than three years before benefiting from the exception’. The message for European start-ups is clear: don’t dare scale up your first three years of business if you want to mine content and if you do, move away from the EU (and move anyway after 3 years)! Never mind jobs and growth, the EU mantra we keep on hearing. Oh, and please do not be innovative any longer once you are an established player: we would not want our economy to be competitive on the international scene.
This is really a killer for innovation. There's a massive industry now being built up around machine learning and AI and autonomous machines -- and an awful lot of it actually relies on the ability to do text and data mining on the internet. With this proposal, the (of all things) "Industry & Research" committee is basically saying there shall be no such industry or research in Europe. It's pushing one of the most promising up and coming industries out of the EU entirely. Incredible.
It's almost stunning how bad these decisions were. But, of course, some of the legacy copyright industry folks decided to celebrate, claiming that the votes showed that the EU Parliament "would not tolerate free-riding platforms." That's complete nonsense and an insult. Again: things like news aggregators and search engines have been enormously helpful in creating new markets and expanding attention and traffic to sites. If anything, legacy content producers have been "free riding" on those platforms.
Hopefully saner heads will prevail as this process moves forward, but the EU seems to be going down a dark and dangerous road on copyright policy.
Filed Under: copyright, cult, data mining, education, eu, eu parliament, filters, itre, open access, research, snippet taxSAN DIEGO -- Back then, the news came in on Teletype, not over the Internet. Pete Rose had just slapped two hits at Wrigley Field, bringing his career total to 4,191, and somewhere up there, Ty Cobb was fidgeting or having a gin and tonic. One more base hit and Rose would break Cobb's all-time hits record, a mark that had stood for nearly 60 years. Everyone in baseball wanted a bird's-eye view, but one team in particular was about to see it up close and maybe too personal: the woebegone 1985 San Diego Padres.
Eric Show debuted with the San Diego Padres on Sept. 2, 1981. Courtesy of Show Family
A year after reaching their first World Series, the Padres had gone into something of a tailspin. On Sept. 8, the day Rose tied Cobb, a talented San Diego club that featured Tony Gwynn, Steve Garvey and Goose Gossage was in third place, 10 games out. The team was toast. The only good news, depending on how you looked at it, was that the Padres were headed to Cincinnati for three games with the Reds. They'd probably get to witness history, although, on the other hand, one of their pitchers would have to serve up history. One of them was going to live in infamy.
Who was it going to be? As the team dressed in its home clubhouse that Sunday -- about to board a flight to Ohio -- all eyes turned to the next three men in the starting rotation. One of them was a left-hander, Dave Dravecky, his hair slicked back after a shower, his pulse strikingly calm. Another was LaMarr Hoyt, a former Cy Young Award winner who already was planning to jam Rose with inside fastballs. But a third pitcher sat disconnected at his locker, eyes darting, frown palpable. On his shelf were a book by Ayn Rand and a cassette player full of American jazz. His clothes were black and purple. He carried a guitar. He looked out of place. His own catcher, Terry Kennedy, liked to call him "Angry Young Man" to his face, partly to get under his skin, but also because Kennedy sensed "bad s--- always seemed to follow him around."
So this was what the Padres were going to throw at Rose the next three days in Cincinnati. And as the team bus pulled out of Jack Murphy Stadium, the players couldn't help but think of Jack Murphy's Law: Anything that can go wrong will go wrong for Eric Show.
A quarter-century later, a mere footnote
This weekend, 25 years later, the Cincinnati Reds are honoring Pete Rose, their "Charlie Hustle." They will cart out a man who ate, slept, drank, autographed and gambled baseball, and they will direct all eyes to a video screen in left field. They will show a replay of his most famous base hit, as well as the touching ceremony that followed. But they will not mention the pitcher who threw Rose the slider as big as a grapefruit. A pitcher who was the anti-Pete Rose. A pitcher who didn't want to be there that night, other than maybe to look at the moon. A pitcher whose life teaches us everything that's cruel about the game of baseball.
Pete Rose celebrates with teammates after surpassing Ty Cobb with hit No. 4,192, which came against San Diego Padres pitcher Eric Show at Riverfront Stadium in CincinnatI on Sept. 11, 1985. Getty Images
Scrutiny that never stopped
The 12-year-old boy sat in the rear of his father's car, getting an earful. This was 1968, the year of the pitcher in the big leagues, the year of Bob Gibson's 1.12 ERA and Denny McLain's 31 wins. But in the backseat of a white Mercury Comet, it was not the year of a Pony League pitcher named Eric Show.
Eric Show's father, Les Show, grew up on the streets of Pittsburgh, where he learned to box. Courtesy of Leslie Cifelli
His father, Les, was in a rage. He had just watched young Eric walk a batter, hit a batter and generally have a mediocre day. It had triggered the scariest part of Les: his temper.
The entire game, Les couldn't relax. He'd stand; he'd sit. He'd pace to the right, pace to the left. He'd walk to the dugout to speak with Eric or walk to the backstop to complain to Eric. He'd be guttural with his instructions, and, after a while, Eric could no longer internalize what he was feeling. The 12-year-old would throw his bat after making an out or whine at the umpire after his sizzling pitch was called a ball. Les became even more incensed. How dare his son lose his cool? After the game, he walked silently to the Mercury Comet, followed by his wife, Yvonne, 11-year-old daughter Leslie, 10-year-old daughter Cindi and Eric. He shut the door and drove.
There was going to be hell to pay, or at least that's how |
, Claudio Marchisio underwent medical examinations conducted by Juventus club doctors and Dr Flavio Quaglia," a statement on the club's official website said.
"The 29-year-old then underwent an MRI scan on his right knee this evening. The tests ruled positive, excluding the possibility of a tear to the anterior cruciate ligament.
"Marchisio will now rest, and his condition is to be monitored on a day-to-day basis."
Reports in Italy have suggested that Marchisio could be back in full training after only a few days -- a huge boost to coach Massimiliano Allegri, who is without Paul Pogba for two months and awaiting Andrea Pirlo's comeback from injury.
Meanwhile, Castellacci -- who has become the butt of jokes on the internet -- was quoted by Football Italia as saying: "I spoke to my colleagues in Turin, explained what happened and organised to send the lad straight to the club for further tests.
"Juve gave me the all-clear to make the diagnosis public. That night, I contacted the Juve medics again. Now there are two contrasting test results.
"Naturally, I'd be very happy if the later test was confirmed. These are the facts."The Changing Role Of The Teacher In Personalized Learning Environments
by Amy Moynihan, Ph.D. Candidate at The University of Virginia via Hanover Research
Today’s students are studying and learning differently – a change confirmed by the widespread adoption of digital studying. Our recent study found that 81% of college students use mobile devices (such as smartphones and tablets) to study, the second most popular device category behind laptops and up 40 percent in usage since 2013.
Further, research validates the use of mobile technology in education. In fact, our same study found that 77% of college students feel the use of adaptive technology helped them improve their grades. As education technology proliferates, research supports the notion that overall student achievement will improve as students gain the ability to learn at their own pace with a variety of teaching styles and formats available to them.
Our research on college students presents many technology implications for districts as they prepare students to succeed in their collegiate careers – where technology is confirmed to play an integral role. As the growth of mobile technology in studying is anticipated to continue, schools, districts, and institutions need to strategize how to adapt their infrastructure, while teachers will want to consider ways to incorporate mobile learning into their curriculum.
Technologically-based tools provide opportunities for students to learn both in and out of the classroom. The use of technological innovations such as cloud computing, mobile learning, bring‐your‐own‐device (BYOD) policies, learning analytics, open content, and remote or virtual laboratories provide flexibility in the personalization of learning, while also expanding learning capabilities beyond the classroom walls.
Teaching our Next Generation of Learners: Innovations and Strategies
Several representative examples of these innovations are highlighted below.
Learning anywhere: Transforming the action of learning into a 24/7 activity through the widespread adoption of education resources available via smart phones, tablets, adaptive learning tools, virtual reality platforms, and video games.
ePortfolios: Creating an electronic continuum of work that captures student performance on traditional types of assessments, as well as evidence of project-based learning, and the development of 21st century skills.
Gaming to learn: Integrating play-based learning concepts to benefit cognitive development, increase students’ attention spans, and improve overall engagement.
Research-based technology investments: Prioritizing data-driven evaluations of past and future technology investments by
Developing front- and back-end data capture mechanisms to gather information regarding the impact of technologies on teacher effectiveness and student achievement;
Using data to rigorously evaluate technology investments; and
Holding vendors accountable for the teaching and learning outcomes they promote.
Through the ability to mimic and improve upon in-person classroom instruction, adaptive learning platforms provide individualized instruction and assessment to each student – a feat that would be extremely difficult for teachers to accomplish in a class of 20 or more learners. Adaptive learning platforms provide instruction that is specific to individual students’ needs in a cost-effective manner.
The personalized learning loop to which adaptive platforms adhere uses student data to adjust content to individuals’ specific needs, assess students to ascertain learning growth, and then use this feedback to further inform instruction. Research shows this allows classroom teachers to devote their time to subjects and students in need of additional attention. Other benefits include the frequent provision of formative evaluation, effective feedback, concept mapping, and mastery-based learning.
The changing uses of technology require that teachers adapt their methods of instruction as a result of student-directed learning. In response, teachers must shift from being holders and distributors of knowledge to becoming instructional facilitators who encourage students to direct their own learning.
Components of Teachers’ Shifting Roles
Of comparable importance, though, are the benefits that the implementation of new technologies can have on teachers themselves. Several tools are explicitly designed to support teachers. Social learning networks, e‐portfolios, and cloud computing platforms allow teachers to virtually collaborate to discuss best practices among teachers. For example, learning analytics might help teachers assess students’ instructional needs; teachers may gather instructional content from open content sources; and personal learning networks may help teachers combine and exchange instructional strategies.While the recent changes to the K-12 education landscape are primarily technological in nature, successful implementation of these tools is dependent upon teachers.
Hanover Research’s 2014 trends in K-12 education reiterate this emerging focus not just on educational technology, but also on the need to provide support systems to help teachers adopt and implement technology within the classroom. This trends analysis illuminates the rising focus on selecting and evaluating learning assessment tools to confirm their impact on student achievement. It also indicates the increasing need for benchmarking strategies to provide teachers with appropriate carve outs for collaboration time and professional development.
As the Next Generation Movement continues, teachers will continue to play a critical role in the implementation and success of new and emerging technologies. The effective application of adaptive technology hinges on the ability of teachers to adapt to and thrive in these changing times.
Learn more about new developments in the Next Generation Learning movement and trends in EdTech by viewing Hanover’s 2014 K-12 Education Market Leadership Report, or let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
Amy Moynihan, a Content Manager at Hanover Research, is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Higher Education at The University of Virginia, Curry School of Education. She also holds a M.Ed. in Social Foundations from The University of Virginia, Curry School of Education and a B.A. from Columbia University, majoring in American History. Amy’s work experience includes serving as a Graduate Research Fellow at The Federal Executive Institute (FEI), the leading leadership development center in the federal government and Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, a national bi-partisan nonprofit organization focused on improving the lives of children. Connect with Amy via email at [email protected]; The Changing Role Of The Teacher In Personalized Learning Environments; image attribution pixabayIN THE MOUNTAINS OF COLOMBIA — The rebel camp is a Communist time capsule. An old guerrilla fighter sings songs about Che Guevara on his guitar as a crowd leans in to listen, armed with rifles and grenades.
Salaries do not exist here, or even marriage. The fighters believe in free love, saying they are wed only to the revolution. They say life is still possible with Karl Marx in one hand and a Kalashnikov in the other.
“We have prepared for peace, but we are also ready for war,” said Samuel, a 31-year-old fighter who, like many of the rebels, has never set foot in any of Colombia’s cities.
I was invited by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as the FARC, to witness this sprawling jungle hide-out for about 150 fighters during what were supposed to be its last days.ANN ARBOR—Improvised explosive devices (IEDs), the weapons of suicide bombers, are a major cause of soldier casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan. A group of University of Michigan engineering undergraduate students have developed a new way to detect them.
The students invented portable, palm-sized metal detectors that could be hidden in trash cans, under tables or in flower pots, for example. The detectors are designed to be part of a wireless sensor network that conveys to a base station where suspicious objects are located and who might be carrying them. Compared with existing technology, the sensors are cheaper, lower-power and longer-range. Each of the sensors weighs about 2 pounds.
“Their invention outperforms everything that exists in the market today,” said Nilton Renno, a professor in the U-M Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences. The students undertook this project in Renno’s Engineering 450 senior level design class.
“They clearly have an excellent understanding of the problem. They also thought strategically and designed and optimized their solution. The combination of a movable command center with a wireless sensor network can be easily deployed in the field and adapted to different situations.”
The core technology is based on a magnetometer, or metal detector, explained Ashwin Lalendran, an engineering student who worked on the project and graduated in May.
“We built it entirely in-house?the hardware and the software,” Lalendran said. “Our sensors are small, flexible to deploy, inexpensive and scalable. It’s extremely novel technology.”
The U-M students recently won an Air Force-sponsored competition with Ohio State University. The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright Patterson Air Force Base sponsored the project as well as the contest. Air Force research labs across the country sponsor similar contests on a regular basis to provide rapid reaction and innovative solutions to the Department of Defense’s urgent needs, says Capt. Nate Terning, AFRL rapid reaction projects director.
The teams from U-M and Ohio State demonstrated their inventions June 2-3 in Dayton, Ohio at a mock large tailgate event where simulated IEDs and the students’ technologies were hidden among the crowd. The students’ technology was tasked with finding IEDs in the purses, backpacks or other packages of the tailgaters, without the tailgaters’ knowledge. Michigan’s invention found more IEDs than Ohio State’s.
“We had an excellent turnout in technology,” Terning said. “Regardless of the competition results, often successful ideas from each student team can be combined into a product which is then realized for DoD use in the future.”
The students will continue to work on this project through the summer. Other students involved are: Steve Boland, a senior atmospheric, oceanic and space sciences major; Andry Supian a mechanical engineering major who graduated in April; Brian Hale, a senior aerospace engineering major; Kevin Huang, a junior computer science major; Michael Shin, a junior computer engineering major; and Vitaly Shatkovsky, a mechanical engineering major who graduated in April.
“I am very proud of the team for applying a sound engineering approach and a lot of imagination to the solution of an extremely difficult real-world problem. They worked well together and never gave up when the going got rough,” said Bruce Block, an engineer in the Space Physics Research Laboratory who worked with the students.
Other Space Physics Research Lab engineers who assisted are Steve Musko and Steve Rogacki.
Michigan Engineering:
The University of Michigan College of Engineering is ranked among the top engineering schools in the country. At more than $130 million annually, its engineering research budget is one of largest of any public university. Michigan Engineering is home to 11 academic departments and a National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center. The college plays a leading role in the Michigan Memorial Phoenix Energy Institute and hosts the world class Lurie Nanofabrication Facility. Find out more at: http://www.engin.umich.edu/.I remember about fifteen years ago I was watching an interview with legendary Michigan State basketball coach Tom Izzo about whether he ever felt pressure on his job, even though he was pretty much personally responsible for turning Michigan State into a perennial powerhouse. I’m sure Izzo wasn’t the first person to make this point, but he was the first person I ever heard say it.
He said, and I’m paraphrasing here, that “Success creates a monster that’s named Expectations. And once the monster has been created, the monster has to be fed or it eats you instead.”
Donald Trump professes not to understand the phenomenon of the expectations monster, but he’s been the victim of it this week. After creating the impression that his victory in Iowa was inevitable, and trumpeting about it for weeks, he claims that he cannot fathom why no one is referring to his second place finish as a success, whereas they are calling Rubio’s third place finish a stunning victory.
The reason for this is that Rubio does understand the expectations monster, and both he and his campaign have steadfastly avoided it for as long as they can. When I talked to his campaign earlier this week about how they expected to finish in Iowa, they steadfastly refused to mention – even off the record – any kind of talk about expectations at all. They wouldn’t speculate whether he would finish ahead of Cruz, ahead of Trump, over 20%, over 15%, or even over 10%.
They would say that they were very confident, and they would say off the record that they expected to surprise people, but all discussion of what that might look like was clearly verboten, down to the lowliest foot soldier. They knew good and well that under performing against expectations is virtually the worst thing that can happen to a Presidential campaign.
Rubio was able to get away with this because everyone in Iowa was focused on the Cruz v. Trump rumble, which was endlessly entertaining in addition to being the most justifiable story in light of what the polls showed. However, Iowa was likely his one free pass in the expectations department. Now that Rubio has stunned the world once, everyone expects him to perform in New Hampshire.
Realistically, Rubio now needs to finish second place in New Hampshire, or face disappointing the expectations monster. He so completely devastated the establishment candidates in Iowa that losing to any of them in New Hampshire will be seen as a step back, even if Kasich and Christie have spent a lot more time, money and effort in New Hampshire than Rubio has. Given the fact that Cruz’s appeal to evangelicals will not be as helpful to him in New Hampshire, he should also expect to perform better than Cruz there. Losing to anyone not named Donald Trump next Tuesday will slow, if not stop, Rubio’s momentum.
The worst possible result that Rubio could put a positive face on would be a third place finish behind Trump and Cruz. A third place finish behind Trump and either Kasich or Christie (or Jeb) would be a strategic disaster. The path to the nomination for a candidate who does not outright win either Iowa or New Hampshire is very narrow and necessarily involves a quick clearing of the field down to three candidates.
If Rubio loses to one of the establishment governors in the race, he will face a prolonged challenge from one of them that will last at least through Super Tuesday, as they will be able to fundraise and pitch their strength as the not-Trump/Cruz candidate for at least that long. If Rubio cannot consolidate that vote quickly, his chances at actually winning fade quickly.
The Rubio campaign entered Iowa with relatively low expectations. They won’t be able to do it again. They know they need to finish ahead of all the Establishment candidates – and probably ahead of Cruz – to maintain momentum and carry them through to a Super Tuesday scenario that won’t look like an inevitable bloodbath. We’ll see how their campaign performs coming down the stretch in New Hampshire.President Donald Trump fought back against Sen. John McCain after the veteran senator criticized his decision to launch a military mission in Yemen.
“Sen. McCain should not be talking about the success or failure of a mission to the media. Only emboldens the enemy!” Trump wrote on Twitter.
The White House deemed the mission a success, but Navy SEAL William “Ryan” Owens was killed.
McCain, however, appeared vexed by the raid’s conclusion, describing it as a “failure” due to the loss of life in the mission and the enemy’s awareness of the attack.
Trump ridiculed McCain for getting the country in numerous conflicts around the world.
“He’s been losing so long he doesn’t know how to win anymore, just look at the mess our country is in – bogged down in conflict all over the place,” Trump added.
Trump said that the Navy SEAL who was slain in the mission was a “hero” and reminded McCain that Secretary of Defense General James Mattis described the conflict-ridden mission in Yemen as a success, not a failure.
“Time for the U.S. to get smart and start winning again!” Trump concluded.
On Wednesday, press secretary Sean Spicer called for McCain to apologize for his statement, asserting the senator did “disservice” to the slain Navy SEAL’s sacrifice.
“I think anybody who undermines the success of that raid owes an apology and [does] disservice to the life of Chief Owens,” Spicer said during the White House press briefing.
In response, McCain cited his military service and his time as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, suggesting that Spicer had little room to criticize him on matters of war.Illustration by Oliver Munday for TIME
Nearly a century ago, long before the National Security Agency existed, there was the Black Chamber. Founded after World War I, the New York City–based office — formally called the Cipher Bureau and disguised as a commercial company — existed to crack the communications codes of foreign governments. The bureau closed in 1929, a decision Secretary of State Henry Stimson later justified with the quaint declaration: “Gentlemen do not read each other’s mail.”
More than 80 years later, that warning is haunting President Obama. New revelations from fugitive NSA leaker Edward Snowden have exposed extensive U.S. surveillance on overseas allies, including a program that targeted 35 foreign leaders, even tapping German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cellphone. Not very gentlemanly at all.
That has fueled a push in Congress to rein in the NSA. An infuriated Dianne Feinstein, the Democratic Senate Intelligence Committee chairwoman — often a defender of the NSA — announced “a major review” of all U.S. intelligence operations. “The reports are very disturbing,” Republican Senator Susan Collins told ABC News. “Friends don’t spy on friends.”
(MORE: NSA Defender Feinstein Blasts Spying on Allies)
Yes, they do. The latest NSA flap may be less a story about a spy agency run amok than a peek into a world where for political leaders, the walls (and phones, tablets and laptops) always have ears. “All big countries use espionage, and some of the countries that are complaining spy on the U.S.,” says James Andrew Lewis, a former American diplomat now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. It’s not that countries think their friends are plotting against them; their aim is to gain insights into coming policy shifts or learn tidbits about third-party rivals.
Consider the now forgotten story of Echelon. In 2000, European leaders raged at reports that the U.S. was covertly gathering data on the continent’s economic activity. A report commissioned by the European Parliament condemned the U.S.’s activities. But in the game of foreign surveillance, there are few clean hands. In 2004 a former British Cabinet minister alleged that U.K. agents had bugged the office of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. An official document leaked to a British newspaper in 2009 showed that the U.K. was a high-priority espionage target for 20 countries — including chums like France and Germany.
America too is a routine target of its allies. At a 2009 NATO summit in France, Obama’s aides ditched their BlackBerrys, presumably for fear of eavesdropping. In 2010, National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair proposed an espionage cease-fire with the nosy French on the grounds that the two countries were wasting valuable counterintelligence assets dueling each other that were better applied to nations like China and Russia. (The White House shot down the idea.)
(MORE: NSA Official: NATO Allies Helped Collect European Phone Records)
After French officials railed at a report that the NSA had scooped up millions of phone-call records from their country, France’s former top intelligence official Bernard Squarcini scolded them. “I am amazed by such disconcerting naiveté,” Squarcini told Le Figaro. “The French intelligence services know full well that all countries, whether or not they are allies in the fight against terrorism, spy on each other all the time.” (Further muddying the morality, U.S. officials insist that France and Spain collected the data themselves and passed it along to the NSA.)
The bugging of foreign leaders has had particular power because it seems so personal. Obama has befriended Merkel, for example, so the snooping on her cellphone carries a whiff of betrayal. Which is why Obama is reportedly weighing a ban on tapping friendly heads of state.
Intelligence insiders say that would amount to unilateral disarmament by the U.S. “Let’s be honest — we eavesdrop too. Everyone is listening to everyone else,” former French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told France Info radio. If the NSA earns special scorn, he added, it’s because “we don’t have the same means as the United States — which makes us jealous.”
MORE: An Angry Europe Faces Up to U.S. Spying and the War on Terrorism’s LegacyOAKLAND, Calif. — This summer, the median rent for a one-bedroom in San Francisco’s cityscape of peaked Victorians soared higher than Manhattan’s, sent skyward by a housing shortage fueled in part by the arrival of droves of newcomers here to mine tech gold.
And so, as the story of such cities goes, the priced-out move outward — in New York City, to Brooklyn and, increasingly, to Queens. For San Franciscans, the rent refuge is here in Oakland, where the rates are increasing as well — so much so that young professionals are living in repurposed shipping containers while the homeless are lugging around coffinlike sleeping boxes on wheels.
These two improvised housing arrangements have emerged in an industrial pocket of Oakland where the median rent has gone up by 20 percent over the past year. One, in a warehouse, is called Containertopia, a community of young people who have set up a village of 160-square-foot shipping containers like ones used in the Port of Oakland. Each resident pays $600 a month to live in a container, which can be modified with things like insulation, glass doors, electrical outlets, solar panels and a self-contained shower and toilet.O ur room was in need of some DIYing and a more feminine touch {it’s mostly black and white, modern and clean, but it needed a little me added to it} So I headed over to my Pintrest page to my “For the Home” board of DIY projects I would love to complete, but just end up sitting there forever waiting, and waiting for me to get around to. I landed on this fun, cheap, and easy mirror made from the tops of plastic spoons.
What you will need:
A LOT of plastic spoons
Hot glue
Round mirror {mine’s 3”}
Cardboard
Spray paint, any color you want the sunburst to be {I chose Satin White}
Hook to hang it {I used a soda tab}
First, cut the base of the mirror out of a large cardboard box. I used my dog’s water bowl, as it looked like a good size for my mirror.
Next, you need to break the handles off of all your spoons. I actually needed to put on a pair of gloves, since it felt like I was going to get blisters from the spoon snapping back at me. That really helped!
I drew a circle 2” wider in diameter than my mirror in the center of my cardboard. This way I know where I should stop gluing my spoons.
Now comes the fun part, gluing all the spoons to the cardboard. Start from the outside of the circle and glue around and around, until you reach the center where you traced for your mirror to be placed. When you finish the outer circle and are starting the next layer, stagger the spoon petals so that they are layered between two spoons.
For the last layer of spoons, I actually glued the spoons to the back of the mirror.
I took my sunburst outside to be spray-painted. This step is totally not necessary, but I wanted my sunburst to look less like cheap shiny plastic, and give them a more matte {expensive} finished look. I used a satin finish, off-white spray paint from Krylon, and sprayed two coats of paint.
I sprayed the mirror with its one layer of spoons separately. I first covered the mirror with a sheet of paper the same size as it, and taped it in place to protect the mirror from the paint.
Once both pieces were completely dry, I glued the mirror center to the rest of the sunburst.
Last, I needed to find a small hook that I could glue to the back {since you can’t nail into cardboard!} I was stumped as to what I was going to use for this! Then, as I was drinking a can of seltzer, I decided to use the can’s tab! GENIUS! Voila, we have a hook! Just glue the soda can tab to the backside of the cardboard, leaving the top of the tab hanging off to hang from a nail.
I am so happy I finally completed one of my Pintrest projects that have been sitting there for forever! Next stop, back to the Pintrest board.NEW DELHI: The government will be monitoring online activities of bureaucrats on official computers, block content which it feels is adversely affecting the productivity of the babus and also have a right to delete e-mails or internet history on such computers after intimating the user.
The measures are a part of twin notifications issued by the Narendra Modi government on February 18 by which the use of private e-mail networks like Gmail and Yahoo has now also been officially banned for all government use.
Notifying an ‘E-mail Policy of Government of India’ and ‘Policy on use of Information Technology resources of Government of India’, the Modi government has now stipulated that only the e-mail services provided by NIC shall be used for official communication.
“The e-mail services provided by other service providers shall not be used for any official communication,” the notification says. These notified policies will cover all central government employees, employees of those state governments/UTs which use email services of the Centre and those states that choose to adopt this in future. The step was in the offing for long given the government’s concern over foreign servers of Gmail and Yahoo and instances of US snooping.
The notified policies stipulate measures to ensure secure and proper access to and usage of government’s IT resources and “prevent their misuse” by users (officials).
“Misuse of these resources can result in unwanted risk and liabilities for the government,” the policy says. The measures hence stipulated are: “NIC may block content which, in the opinion of the organisation concerned, is inappropriate, or may adversely affect the productivity of the users.”
Other measures spelt out in the notification are that NIC may monitor online activities on the government network, subject to SOPs as the organisation may lay down, and the power with NIC to “access, review, copy or delete” any kind of electronic communication such as files, e-mails and internet history, for “security-related reasons” under due intimation to the user.There has been much controversy recently over a shooting at the offices of French magazine Charlie Hebdo, which published mocking cartoons of the Islamic Prophet Muhammed in 2006 and again in 2011. This led to an attack on the magazine’s offices in 2011, and, in January 2014, a shooting at the magazine’s offices which left twelve people dead. This has sparked worldwide sympathy for the magazine, which has been made into a martyr for “freedom of speech.” But this sympathy is very misguided. The cartoons published by Charlie Hebdo are severe acts of racial and religious vilification which were obviously intended to incite hatred of Muslims, and they would have been prosecuted as such in my home state of Victoria. By allowing those cartoons to be published, France ignored the obvious dangers of hate speech, violated international human rights law, and allowed this shooting to occur.
Freedom of speech always has limits. Nobody believes that racial vilification should be legal. Nobody believes that advocating violence should be legal. Nobody believes that harassment should be legal. Nobody believes that publicly approving of terrorism should be legal. Nobody believes that threatening people should be legal. Even the most dedicated, die-hard free speech zealots agree that all of these things should be against the law. Freedom of speech always has to be balanced against other freedoms, such as freedom from racial vilification. Everyone recognizes that freedom of speech is not absolute, and nobody is saying that it is. But the international response to Charlie Hebdo does not seem to take this into account.
Shortly after the Danish Muhammed cartoons were published in Jyllends-Posten, Amnesty International published a statement saying that the cartoons should be prosecuted since freedom of expression is not absolute, freedom of expression must always be used responsibly, and inciting racial or religious hatred is illegal under international human rights law. When Charlie Hebdo first published the Muhammed cartoons, they faced widespread international condemnation for inciting religious hatred and needlessly stirring up conflict. Many people stated that the cartoons would likely lead to violence, and the magazine’s offices were indeed attacked in 2011. But the reaction to this most recent attack has been very different.
Although a few people have, in the wake of the massacre, condemned the magazine for publishing the cartoons in the first place, the general consensus now seems to be that the magazine was in the right to publish those cartoons, and that inciting religious hatred against Muslims in this manner was somehow an act of “free speech.” This is in stark contrast to how the world reacted when Charlie Hebdo first published the Muhammed cartoons a few years ago. Why was it hate speech back then, but “free speech” after the massacre? Just because the people responsible for the cartoons were killed does not lend their cartoons any legitimacy.
Why do we outlaw racist hate speech? Because it constitutes an act of emotional violence, it directly leads to physical violence, and it damages social cohesion. Publishing cartoons that depict the Prophet Muhammed also does all of these things, only on an even greater scale. So, if we ban racist hate speech, why should we not also ban disrespectful cartoons such as those found in Charlie Hebdo? No civilised country would allow people to call for the extermination of identifiable groups, or to refer to identifiable groups as being subhuman, so why should any civilised country allow people to denigrate the religious sentiments of others like this?
Absolutely nobody believes that neo-Nazis should be allowed to urge violence against Jews, gays, blacks, Muslims, etc. Saying “death to Jews,” for example, would be considered a direct incitement to violence. But publishing cartoons of Muhammed is actually much more likely to lead to violence than a neo-Nazi advocating violence. If Charlie Hebdo had printed cartoons that called for the genocide of Muslims, would anyone call it “free speech?” Of course not. Nobody thinks that advocating genocide is “free speech.” Likewise, France also has laws against things like Holocaust denial and insulting people. If exceptions for freedom of speech can be made for all of these things which harm society, then why can’t an exception be made for insulting the Prophet of Islam, which damages society to an even greater extent and creates a very real danger of physical violence? Publishing cartoons of this sort easily qualifies as directly inciting violence. It’s even more dangerous and even more damaging to society than a direct incitement to genocide like “death to all Muslims” is. As such, it should never be considered to be an exercise of freedom of speech.
France is required to enforce legal protections against racial and religious hatred under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD). Like all advanced liberal democracies, France has many human rights laws that outlaw things like hate speech. But these laws are not enforced evenly and in a satisfactory manner. France has, numerous times, prosecuted comedians for joking about the Holocaust. France has prosecuted “boycott Israel” protesters for discrimination. France has prosecuted a politician for saying that, if everyone was gay, it would be harmful to society since people wouldn’t be able to reproduce. France has prosecuted a woman for writing a negative restaurant review online. France has prosecuted people numerous times for making insulting comments about politicians. But France refused to prosecute Charlie Hebdo for its hate speech against Muslims. Why? Why is hate speech against Jews and gays given much harsher penalties than hate speech against Muslims? If France is trying to demonstrate that they are not an Islamophobic country, then they are definitely failing to do so when they refuse to prosecute anti-Muslim hate speech like this. By refusing to press hate speech/discrimination charges against anti-Muslim magazines like Charlie Hebdo, France is sending the message that they have no problem with anti-Muslim bigotry. Refusing to protect the basic human rights of Muslims only fuels jihadist sentiment.
Freedom of speech is the cornerstone of any democratic society, and it’s the foundation by which all of our other rights are based on. However, the human right to freedom of speech has always been subject to other human rights. Everyone agrees that racist hate speech has no place in a democratic society. Likewise, we should also agree that gratuitously wounding the religious feelings of Muslims also has no place in a society based on human rights either. While I condemn the violence committed against these cartoonists, the cartoons published in Charlie Hebdo were most assuredly not a legitimate form of free expression. The cartoons clearly fail the free speech test, as they had no real redeeming social, cultural, or artistic merit, and were obviously intended to offend and insult. As such, they are not free speech, but are indeed hate speech, which should never be allowed in any civilised nation.
Speech does have consequences. While respecting freedom of speech, we must also remind the public that, like all freedoms, freedom of speech comes with great responsibility. Freedom of speech is never a license to hurt other people, and recklessly wounding the feelings of Muslims like Charlie Hebdo did is most definitely not an exercise of freedom of speech. As the German Constitution states: “Human dignity shall be inviolable. To respect and protect it shall be the duty of all state authority.” All states have the obligation to protect freedom of speech, but this freedom must be balanced against human dignity. Speech that interferes with the dignity of others – thus removing their basic human rights – has no place in even the freest society. I sincerely hope that France will take this opportunity to make protecting human dignity a far greater priority, and to ensure that the human rights of Muslims are protected to a much greater degree in French society.
A version of this post originally appeared at Medium.Imagine if you just did it, took the leap, kept going, made it work. Can you imagine how it would feel to reach that goal? What’s stopping you, really?
What’s holding you back?
That thing you have been talking about, that idea that comes out each time you have got halfway through your second pint, the dream the guys at work are sick of you going on about. The concept you keep asking your accountant advice on. Imagine if you just did it. Imagine if it worked. It is possible, I promise.
I get a lot of emails everyday from some cool people. Most of the time they are asking me if I can give them any advice, asking me “What is the best product to import from China” or even inviting me for dinner. Ok no one has ever invited me to dinner.
This post isn’t really anything to do with importing from China, it’s just about the mindset I feel you need to succeed in this or any other business. There is a whole bunch of information online and various pay per view websites which offer you the various keys to success. Really there are so many that pretty soon you’re going to need another keychain.
I want to share with you some things that have worked for me. Nothing mind blowing here and the tips might not work for everyone but I know that they do work for me so maybe something here may be useful? In all cases I’m on a flight for 3 hours so I have time to burn.
I have been lucky to meet some great and influential people in my life who have shaped me as a person both in my personal life and business life. Sometimes all it takes is the smallest piece of advice to really change your perspective. Some of you may not have met these people yet but you will in time, likely where you least expect them to appear, my advice to you is put yourself out there, get in the mix, look to build relationships with people who can help you succeed.
People call this a power group or a success network, I mean you can call it what you like but essentially be around positive like minded individuals whom you can help reach their potential and in turn they will help you. That’s a pretty key point, are the people around you helping you or hindering you? Sounds cut throat I guess but then you came here looking for honest advice right. My mother always told me if you lay down with dogs you will catch fleas, who wants damn fleas?
I honestly believe that this whole thing, this burning desire to succeed comes down to just one basic principle. But the problem is that it‘s so basic that it does not satisfy most people when you give them it as probably the best advice they will ever receive. Perhaps it‘s a psychological thing, we are always told that if it‘s too good to be true it probably is – how negative does that sound?
Maybe people don’t hold much value in free advice, I suppose if you pay someone a thousand pounds for an e booklet or a DVD box set your going to try convince yourself pretty hard (and the other half when he or she reads the credit card statement) that it‘s the best advice you ever heard and is worth it‘s weight in gold. Maybe you will listen to this advice more if you send me the money? Feel free.
Those of you who are hardened veterans of reading business advice will know you need a positive mentality and self belief, it‘s a mindset you need to get into. We all get into that mindset in our own way and what works for me might not work for you so walk with me a bit on this.
So….imagine you want to learn French, I don’t know why you would but lets just say you have some time on your hands after floating your first company. You enroll into some private French school and spend the next 24 months studying the language with diligence, reading every text book supplied by your tutor and attending every class without fail. You do this because you believe that doing so will allow you to speak French. You keep yourself motivated and positive by thinking of the cute French girl you have met on MatchdotCom and dreaming of the day soon you will visit her and swoop her off her feet. You believe and you are positive. Sure enough that hazy summer evening arrives one late September and you land at Charles De Gaulle airport finally to meet your sweet Olivia when it happens, you open your mouth and French comes out. Now this isn’t surprising. You now know you can speak French, you studied hard and when your mouth asks your brain to send it |
And which are these four? In them, the disciple dwells in contemplation of the Body, in contemplation of Feeling, in contemplation of the Mind, in contemplation of the Mind-objects, ardent, clearly conscious and attentive, after putting away worldly greed and grief. CONTEMPLATION OF THE BODY But, how does the disciple dwell in contemplation of the body? There, the disciple retires to the forest, to the foot of a tree, or to a solitary place, sits himself down, with legs crossed, body erect, and with attentiveness fixed before him. With attentive mind he breathes in, with attentive mind he breathes out. When making a long inhalation, he knows: "I make a long inhalation"; when making a long exhalation, he knows: "I make a long exhalation." when making a short inhalation, he knows: "I make a short inhalation"; when making a short exhalation, he knows: "I make a short exhalation." "Clearly perceiving the entire [breath]-body, I will breathe in": thus he trains himself; "clearly perceiving the entire [breath]-body, I will breathe out": thus he trains himself. "Calming this bodily function, I will breathe n": thus he trains himself; "calming this bodily function, I will breathe out": thus he trains himself. Thus he dwells in contemplation of the body, either with regard to his own person, or to other persons, or to both. He beholds how the body arises; beholds how it passes away; beholds the arising and passing away of the body. "A body is there- "A body is there, but no living being, no individual, no woman, no man, no self, and nothing that belongs to a self; neither a person, nor anything belonging to a person"- this clear consciousness is present in him, because of his knowledge and mindfulness, and he lives independent, unattached to anything in the world. Thus does the disciple dwell in contemplation of the body. And further, whilst going, standing, sitting, or lying down, the disciple understands the expressions: "I go"; "I stand"; "I sit"; "I lie down"; he understands any position of the body. [The disciple understands that it is not a being, a real Ego, that goes, stands, etc., but that it is by a mere figure of speech that one says: "I go," "I stand," and so forth.] And further, the disciple is clearly conscious in his going and coming; clearly conscious in looking forward and backward; clearly conscious in bending and stretching; clearly conscious in eating, drinking, chewing, and tasting; clearly conscious in discharging excrement and urine; clearly conscious in walking, standing, sitting, falling asleep and awakening; clearly conscious in speaking and in keeping silent. "In all the disciple is doing, he is clearly conscious: of his intention, of his advantage, of his duty, of the reality." And further, the disciple contemplates this body from the sole of the foot upward, and from the top of the hair downward, with a skin stretched over it, and filled with manifold impurities: "This body consists of hairs, nails, teeth, skin, flesh, sinews, bones, marrow, kidneys, heart, liver, diaphragm, spleen, lungs, intestines, bowels, stomach, and excrement; of bile, phlegm, pus, blood, sweat, lymph, tears, semen, spittle, nasal mucus, oil of the joints, and urine." Just as if there were a sack, with openings at both ends, filled with all kinds of grain-with paddy, beans, sesamum and husked rice-and a man not blind opened it and examined its contents, thus: "That is paddy, these are beans, this is sesamum, this is husked rice": just so does the disciple investigate this body. And further, the disciple contemplates this body with regard to the elements: "This body consists of the solid element, the liquid element, the heating element and the vibrating element." Just as a skilled butcher or butcher's apprentice, who has slaughtered a cow and divided it into separate portions, should sit down at the junction of four highroads: just so does the disciple contemplate this body with regard to the elements. And further, just as if the disciple should see a corpse thrown into the burial-ground, one, two, or three days dead, swollen-up, blue-black in color, full of corruption he draws the conclusion as to his own body: "This my body also has this nature, has this destiny, and cannot escape it." And further, just as if the disciple should see a corpse thrown into the burial-ground, eaten by crows, hawks or vultures, by dogs or jackals, or gnawed by all kinds of worms-he draws the conclusion as to his own body: "This my body also has this nature, has this destiny, and cannot escape it." And further, just as if the disciple should see a corpse thrown into the burial-ground, a framework of bones, flesh hanging from it, bespattered with blood, held together by the sinews; a framework of bones, stripped of flesh, bespattered with blood, held together by the sinews; a framework of bones, without flesh and blood, but still held together by the sinews; bones, disconnected and scattered in all directions, here a bone of the hand, there a bone of the foot, there a shin bone, there a thigh bone, there the pelvis, there the spine, there the skull-he draws the conclusion as to his own body: "This my body also has this nature, has this destiny, and cannot escape it." And further, just as if the disciple should see bones lying in the burial ground, bleached and resembling shells; bones heaped together, after the lapse of years; bones weathered and crumbled to dust;-he draws the conclusion as to his own body: "This my body also has this nature, has this destiny, and cannot escape it " Thus he dwells in contemplation of the body, either with regard to his own person, or to other persons, or to both. He beholds how the body arises; beholds how it passes away; beholds the arising and passing of the body. "A body is there" this clear consciousness is present in him, because of his knowledge and mindfulness; and he lives independent, unattached to anything in the world. Thus does the disciple dwell in contemplation of the body. THE TEN BLESSINGS Once the contemplation of the body is practiced, developed, often repeated, has become one's habit, one's foundation, is firmly established, strengthened and well perfected, one may expect ten blessings: Over Delight and Discontent one has mastery; one does not allow himself to be overcome by discontent; one subdues it, as soon as it arises. One conquers Fear and Anxiety; one does not allow himself to be overcome by fear and anxiety; one subdues them, as soon as they arise. One endures cold and heat, hunger and thirst, wind and sun, attacks by gadflies, mosquitoes and reptiles; patiently one endures wicked and malicious speech, as well as bodily pains, that befall one, though they be piercing, sharp, bitter, unpleasant, disagreeable and dangerous to life. The four "Trances," the mind bestowing happiness even here: these one may enjoy at will, without difficulty, without effort. One may enjoy the different "Magical Powers." With the "Heavenly Ear," the purified, the super-human, one may hear both kinds of sounds, the heavenly and the earthly, the distant and the near. With the mind one may obtain "Insight into the Hearts of Other Beings of other persons. One may obtain "Remembrance of many Previous Births." With the "Heavenly Eye," the purified, the super-human, one may see beings vanish and reappear, the base and the noble, the beautiful and the ugly, the happy and the unfortunate; one may perceive how beings are reborn according to their deeds. One may, through the "Cessation of Passions," come to know for oneself, even in this life, the stainless deliverance of mind, the deliverance through wisdom. CONTEMPLATION OF THE FEELINGS But how does the disciple dwell in contemplation of the feelings? In experiencing feelings, the disciple knows: "I have an indifferent agreeable feeling," or "I have a disagreeable feeling," or "I have an indifferent feeling," or "I have a worldly agreeable feeling," or "I have an unworldly agreeable feeling," or "I have a worldly disagreeable feeling," or "I have an unworldly disagreeable feeling," or "I have a worldly indifferent feeling," or have an unworldly indifferent feeling. Thus he dwells in contemplation of the feelings, either with regard to his own person, or to other persons, or to both. He beholds how the feelings arise; beholds how they pass away; beholds the arising and passing away of the feelings. "Feelings are there": this clear consciousness is present in him, because of his knowledge and mindfulness; and he lives independent, unattached to anything in the world. Thus does the disciple dwell in contemplation of the feelings. [The disciple understands that the expression "I feel" has no validity except as an expression of common speech; he understands that, in the absolute sense, there are only feelings, and that there is no Ego, no person, no experience of the feelings.] CONTEMPLATION OF THE MIND But how does the disciple dwell in contemplation of the mind? The disciple knows the greedy mind as greedy, and the not greedy mind as not greedy; knows the angry mind as angry, and the not angry mind as not angry; knows the deluded mind as deluded, and the undeluded mind as undeluded. He knows the cramped mind as cramped, and the scattered mind as scattered; knows the developed mind as developed, and the undeveloped mind as undeveloped; knows the surpassable mind as surpassable, and the unsurpassable mind as unsurpassable; knows the concentrated mind as concentrated, and the unconcentrated mind as unconcentrated; knows the freed mind as freed, and the unfreed mind as unfreed. ["Mind" is here used as a collective for the moments of consciousness. Being identical with consciousness, it should not be translated by "thought." "Thought" and "thinking" correspond rather to the so-called "verbal operations of the mind"; they are not, like consciousness, of primary, but of secondary nature, and are entirely absent in all sensuous consciousness, as well as in the second, third and fourth Trances. (See eighth step).] Thus he dwells in contemplation of the mind, either with regard to his own person, or to other persons, or to both. He beholds how consciousness arises; beholds how it passes away; beholds the arising and passing away of consciousness. "Mind is there"; this clear consciousness is present in him, because of his knowledge and mindfulness; and he lives independent, unattached to anything in the world. Thus does the disciple dwell in contemplation of the mind. CONTEMPLATION OF PHENOMENA (Mind-objects) But how does the disciple dwell in contemplation of the phenomena? First, the disciple dwells in contemplation of the phenomen, of the "Five Hindrances." He knows when there is "Lust" in him: "In me is lust"; knows when there is "Anger" in him: "In me is anger"; knows when there is "Torpor and Drowsiness" in him: "In me is torpor and drowsiness"; knows when there is "Restlessness and Mental Worry" in him: "In me is restlessness and mental worry"; knows when there are "Doubts" in him: "In me are doubts." He knows when these hindrances are not in him: "In me these hindrances are not." He knows how they come to arise; knows how, once arisen, they are overcome; knows how, once overcome, they do not rise again in the future. [For example, Lust arises through unwise thinking on the agreeable and delightful. it may be suppressed by the following six methods: fixing the mind upon an idea that arouses disgust; contemplation of the loathsomeness of the body; controlling one's six senses; moderation in eating; friendship with wise and good men; right instruction. Lust is forever extinguished upon entrance into Anagamiship; Restlessness is extinguished by reaching Arahatship; Mental Worry, by reaching Sotapanship.] And further: the disciple dwells in contemplation of the phenomena, of the five Groups of Existence. He knows what Corporeality is, how it arises, how it passes away; knows what Feeling is, how it arises, how it away; knows what Perception is, how it arises, how it passes away; knows what the Mental Formations are, how they arise, how they pass away; knows what Consciousness is, how it arises, how it passes away. And further: the disciple dwells in contemplation of the phenomena of the six Subjective-Objective Sense-Bases. He knows eye and visual objects, ear and sounds, nose and odors, tongue and tastes, body and touches, mind and mind objects; and the fetter that arises in dependence on them, he also knows. He knows how the fetter comes to arise, knows how the fetter is overcome, and how the abandoned fetter does not rise again in future. And further: the disciple dwells in contemplation of the phenomena of the seven Elements of Enlightenment. The disciple knows when there is Attentiveness in him; when there is Investigation of the Law in him; when there is Energy in him; when there is Enthusiasm in him; when there is Tranquility in him; when there is Concentration in him; when there is Equanimity in him. He knows when it is not in him, knows how it comes to arise, and how it is fully developed. And further: the disciple dwells in contemplation of the phenomena of the Four Noble Truths. He knows according to reality, what Suffering is; knows according to reality, what the Origin of Suffering is; knows according to reality, what the Extinction of Suffering is; knows according to reality, what the Path is that leads to the Extinction of Suffering. Thus he dwells in contemplation of the phenomena, either with regard to his own person, or to other persons, or to both. He beholds how the phenomena arise; beholds how they pass away; beholds the arising and passing away of the phenomena. "Phenomena are there this consciousness is present in him because of his knowledge and mindfulness; and he lives independent, unattached to anything in the world. Thus does the disciple dwell in contemplation of the phenomena. The only way that leads to the attainment of purity, to the overcoming of sorrow and lamentation, to the end of pain and grief, to the entering upon the right path, and the realization of Nirvana, is these four fundamentals of attentiveness. NIRVANA THROUGH WATCHING OVER BREATHING "Watching over In-and Out-breathing" practiced and developed, brings the four Fundamentals of Attentiveness to perfection; the four fundamentals of attentiveness, practiced and developed bring the seven Elements of Enlightenment to perfection; the seven elements of enlightenment, practiced and developed, bring Wisdom and Deliverance to perfection. But how does Watching over In-and Out-breathing, practiced and developed, bring the four Fundamentals of Attentiveness to perfection? I. Whenever the disciple is conscious in making a long inhalation or exhalation, or in making a short inhalation or exhalation, or is training himself to inhale or exhale whilst feeling the whole [breath]-body, or whilst calming down this bodily function-at such a time the disciple is dwelling in "contemplation of the body," of energy, clearly conscious, attentive, after subduing worldly greed and grief. For, inhalation and exhalation I call one amongst the corporeal phenomena. II. Whenever the disciple is training himself to inhale or exhale whilst feeling rapture, or joy, or the mental functions, or whilst calming down the mental functions-at such a time he is dwelling in "contemplation of the feelings," full of energy, clearly conscious, attentive, after subduing worldly greed and grief. For, the full awareness of in-and outbreathing I call one amongst the feelings. III. Whenever the disciple is training himself to inhale or exhale whilst feeling the mind, or whilst gladdening the mind or whilst concentrating the mind, or whilst setting the mind free-at such a time he is dwelling in "contemplation of the mind," full of energy, clearly conscious, attentive, after subduing worldly greed and grief. For, without attentiveness and clear consciousness, I say, there is no Watching over in-and Out-breathing. IV. Whenever the disciple is training himself to inhale or exhale whilst contemplating impermanence, or the fading away of passion, or extinction, or detachment at such a time he is dwelling in "contemplation of the phenomena," full of energy, clearly conscious, attentive, after subduing worldly greed and grief. Watching over In-and Out-breathing, thus practiced and developed, brings the four Fundamentals of Attentiveness to perfection. But how do the four Fundamentals of Attentiveness, practiced and developed, bring the seven Elements of Enlightenment to full perfection? Whenever the disciple is dwelling in contemplation of body, feeling, mind and phenomena, strenuous, clearly conscious, attentive, after subduing worldly greed and grief-at such a time his attentiveness is undisturbed; and whenever his attentiveness is present and undisturbed, at such a time he has gained and is developing the Element of Enlightenment "Attentiveness"; and thus this element of enlightenment reaches fullest perfection. And whenever, whilst dwelling with attentive mind, he wisely investigates, examines and thinks over the Law-at such a time he has gained and is developing the Element of Enlightenment "Investigation of the Law"; and thus this element of enlightenment reaches fullest perfection. And whenever, whilst wisely investigating, examining and thinking over the law, his energy is firm and unshaken-at such a time he has gained and is developing the Element of Enlightenment "Energy"; and thus this element of enlightenment reaches fullest perfection. And whenever in him, whilst firm in energy, arises supersensuous rapture-at such a time he has gained and is developing the Element of Enlightenment "Rapture"; and thus this element of enlightenment reaches fullest perfection. And whenever, whilst enraptured in mind, his spiritual frame and his mind become tranquil-at such a time he has gained and is developing the Element of Enlightenment "Tranquility"; and thus this element of enlightenment reaches fullest perfection. And whenever, whilst being tranquilized in his spiritual frame and happy, his mind becomes concentrated-at such a time he has gained and is developing the Element of Enlightenment "Concentration; and thus this element of enlightenment reaches fullest perfection. And whenever he thoroughly looks with indifference on his mind thus concentrated-at such a time he has gained and is developing the Element of Enlightenment "Equanimity." The four fundamentals of attentiveness, thus practiced and developed, bring the seven elements of enlightenment to full perfection. But how do the seven elements of enlightenment, practiced and developed, bring Wisdom and Deliverance to full perfection? There, the disciple is developing the elements of enlightenment: Attentiveness, Investigation of the Law, Energy, Rapture, Tranquility, Concentration and Equanimity, bent on detachment, on absence of desire, on extinction and renunciation. Thus practiced and developed, do the seven elements of enlightenment bring wisdom and deliverance to full perfection. Just as the elephant hunter drives a huge stake into the ground and chains the wild elephant to it by the neck, in order to drive out of him his wonted forest ways and wishes, his forest unruliness, obstinacy and violence, and to accustom him to the environment of the village, and to teach him such good behavior as is required amongst men: in like manner also has the noble disciple to fix his mind firmly to these four fundamentals of attentiveness, so that he may drive out of himself his wonted worldly ways and wishes, his wonted worldly unruliness, obstinacy and violence, and win to the True, and realize Nirvana. EIGHTH STEP RIGHT CONCENTRATION WHAT, now, is Right Concentration? Fixing the mind to a single object ("One-pointedness of mind"): this is concentration. The four Fundamentals of Attentiveness (seventh step): these are the objects of concentration. The four Great Efforts (sixth step): these are the requisites for concentration. The practicing, developing and cultivating of these things: this is the "Development" of concentration. [Right Concentration has two degrees of development: 1. "Neighborhood-Concentration," which approaches the first trance, without however attaining it; 2. "Attainment Concentration," which is the concentration present in the four trances. The attainment of the trances, however, is not a requisite for the realization of the Four Ultramundane Paths of Holiness; and neither Neighborhood-Concentration nor Attainment-Concentration, as such, in any way possesses the power of conferring entry into the Four Ultramundane Paths; hence, in them is really no power to free oneself permanently from evil things. The realization of the Four Ultramundane Paths is possible only at the moment of insight into the impermanency, miserable nature, and impersonality of phenomenal process of existence. This insight is attainable only during Neighborhood-Concentration, not during Attainment-Concentration. He who has realized one or other of the Four Ultramundane Paths without ever having attained the Trances, is called a "Dry-visioned One," or one whose passions are "dried up by Insight." He, however, who after cultivating the Trances has reached one of the Ultramundane Paths, is called "one who has taken tranquility as his vehicle."] THE FOUR TRANCES Detached from sensual objects, detached from unwholesome things, the disciple enters into the first trance, which is accompanied by "Verbal Though," and "Rumination," is born of "Detachment," and filled with "Rapture," and "Happiness." This first trance is free from five things, and five things are present. When the disciple enters the first trance, there have vanished [the 5 Hindrances]: Lust, Ill-will, Torpor and Dullness, Restlessness and Mental Worry, Doubts; and there are present: Verbal Thought, Rumination, Rapture, Happiness, and Concentration. And further: after the subsiding of verbal thought and rumination, and by the gaining of inward tranquility and oneness of mind, he enters into a state free from verbal thought and rumination, the second trance, which is born of Concentration, and filled with Rapture and Happiness. And further: after the fading away of rapture, he dwells in equanimity, attentive, clearly conscious; and he experiences in his person that feeling, of which the Noble Ones say: "Happy lives the man of equanimity and attentive mind"-thus he enters the third trance. And further: after the giving up of pleasure and pain, and through the disappearance of previous joy and grief, he enters into a state beyond pleasure and pain, into the fourth trance, which is purified by equanimity and attentiveness. [The four Trances may be obtained by means of Watching over In-and Out-breathing, as well as through the fourth sublime meditation, the "Meditation of Equanimity," and others. The three other Sublime Meditations of "Loving Kindness," "Compassion", and "Sympathetic Joy" may lead to the attainment of the first three Trances. The "Cemetery Meditations," as well as the meditation "On Loathsomeness," will produce only the First Trance. The "Analysis of the Body," and the Contemplation on the Buddha, the Law, the Holy Brotherhood, Morality, etc., will only produce Neighborhood-Concentration.] Develop your concentration: for he who has concentration understands things according to their reality. And what are these things? The arising and passing away of corporeality, of feeling, perception, mental formations and consciousness. Thus, these five Groups of Existence must be wisely penetrated; Delusion and Craving must be wisely abandoned; Tranquility and Insight must be wisely developed. This is the Middle Path which the Perfect One has discovered, which makes one both to see and to know, and which leads to peace, to discernment, to enlightenment, to Nirvana. And following upon this path, you will put an end to suffering. DEVELOPMENT OF THE EIGHTFOLD PATH IN THE DISCIPLE CONFIDENCE AND RIGHT-MINDEDNESS (2nd Step) SUPPOSE a householder, or his son, or someone reborn in any family, hears the law; and after hearing the law he is filled with confidence in the Perfect One. And filled with this confidence, he thinks: "Full of hindrances is household life, a refuse heap; but pilgrim life is like the open air. Not easy is it, when one lives at home, to fulfill in all points the rules of the holy life. How, if now I were to cut off hair and beard, put on the yellow robe and go forth from home to the homeless life?" And in a short time, having given up his more or less extensive possessions, having forsaken a smaller or larger circle of relations, he cuts off hair and beard, puts on the yellow robe, and goes forth from home to the homeless life. MORALITY (3rd, 4th, 5th Step) Having thus left the world, he fulfills the rules of the monks. He avoids the killing of living beings and abstains from it. Without stick or sword, conscientious, full of sympathy, he is anxious for the welfare of all living beings.-He avoids stealing, and abstains from taking what is not given to him. Only what is given to him he takes, waiting till it is given; and he lives with a heart honest and pure.-He avoids unchastity, living chaste, resigned, and keeping aloof from sexual intercourse, the vulgar way.-He avoids lying and abstains from it. He speaks the truth, is devoted to the truth, reliable, worthy of confidence, is not a deceiver of men.-He avoids tale-bearing and abstains from it. What he has heard here, he does not repeat there, so as to cause dissension there; and what he has heard there, he does not repeat here, so as to cause dissension here. Thus he unites those that are divided, and those that are united he encourages; concord gladdens him, he delights and rejoices in concord, and it is concord that he spreads by his words.-He avoids harsh language and abstains from it. He speaks such words as are gentle, soothing to the ear, loving, going to the heart, courteous and dear, and agreeable to many.- He avoids vain talk and abstains from it. He speaks at the right time, in accordance with facts, speaks what is useful, speaks about the law and the disciple; his speech is like a treasure, at the right moment accompanied by arguments, moderate, and full of sense. He keeps aloof from dance, song, music and the visiting of shows; rejects flowers, perfumes, ointments, as well as every kind of adornment and embellishment. High and gorgeous beds he does not use. Gold and silver he does not accept. Raw corn and meat he does not accept. Women and girls he does not accept. He owns no male and female slaves, owns no goats, sheep, fowls, pigs, elephants, cows or horses, no land and goods. He does not go on errands and do the duties of a messenger. He keeps aloof from buying and selling things. He has nothing to do with false measures, metals and weights. He avoids the crooked ways of bribery, deception and fraud. He keeps aloof from stabbing, beating, chaining, attacking, plundering and oppressing. He contents himself with the robe that protects his body, and with the alms with which he keeps himself alive. Wherever he goes, he is provided with these two things; just as a winged bird, in flying, carries his wings along with him. By fulfilling this noble Domain of Morality he feels in his heart an irreproachable happiness. CONTROL OF THE SENSES (6th Step) Now, in perceiving a form with the eye- a sound with the ear- an odor with the nose- a taste with the tongue- a touch with the body- an object with his mind, he sticks neither to the whole, nor to its details. And he tries to ward off that which, by being unguarded in his senses, might give rise to evil and unwholesome states, to greed and sorrow; he watches over his senses, keep his senses under control. By practicing this noble "Control of the Senses" he feels in his heart an unblemished happiness. ATTENTIVENESS AND CLEAR CONSCIOUSNESS (7th Step) Clearly conscious is he in his going and coming; clearly conscious in looking forward and backward; clearly conscious in bending and stretching his body; clearly conscious in eating, drinking, chewing and tasting; dearly conscious in discharging excrement and urine; clearly conscious in walking, standing, sitting, falling asleep and awakening; clearly conscious in speaking and keeping silent. Now, being equipped with this lofty Morality, equipped with this noble Control of the Senses, and filled with this noble "Attentiveness and Clear Consciousness, he chooses a secluded dwelling in the forest, at the foot of a tree, on a mountain, in a cleft, in a rock cave, on a burial ground, on a woody table-land, in the open air, or on a heap of straw. Having returned from his alms-round, after the meal, he sits himself down with legs crossed, body erect, with attentiveness fixed before him. ABSENCE OF THE FIVE HINDRANCES He has cast away Lust; he dwells with a heart free from lust; from lust he cleanses his heart. He has cast away Ill-will; he dwells with a heart free from ill-will; cherishing love and compassion toward all living beings, he cleanses his heart from ill-will. He has cast away Torpor and Dullness; he dwells free from torpor and dullness; loving the light, with watchful mind, with clear consciousness, he cleanses his mind from torpor and dullness. He has cast away Restlessness and Mental Worry; dwelling with mind undisturbed, with heart full of peace, he cleanses his mind from restlessness and mental worry. He has cast away Doubt; dwelling free from doubt, full of confidence in the good, he cleanses his heart from doubt. THE TRANCES (8th Step) He has put aside these five Hindrances and come to know the paralyzing corruptions of the mind. And far from sensual impressions, far from unwholesome things, he enters into the Four Trances. INSIGHT (1st Step) But whatsoever there is of feeling, perception, mental formation, or consciousness-all these phenomena he regards as "impermanent," "subject to pain," as infirm, as an ulcer, a thorn, a misery, a burden, an enemy, a disturbance, as empty and "void of an Ego"; and turning away from these things, he directs his mind towards the abiding, thus: "This, verily, is the Peace, this is the Highest, namely the end of all formations, the forsaking of every substratum of rebirth, the fading away of craving; detachment, extinction: Nirvana." And in this state he reaches the "Cessation of Passions." NIRVANA And his heart becomes free from sensual passion, free from the passion for existence, free from the passion of ignorance. "Freed am I!": this knowledge arises in the liberated one; and he knows: "Exhausted is rebirth, fulfilled the Holy Life; what was to be done, has been done; naught remains more for this world to do." Forever am I liberated, This is the last time that I'm born, No new existence waits for me. This, verily, is the highest, holiest wisdom: to know that all suffering has passed away. This, verily, is the highest, holiest peace: appeasement of greed, hatred and delusion. THE SILENT THINKER "I am" is a vain thought; "I am not" a vain thought; "I shall be" is a vain thought; "I shall not be" is a vain thought. Vain thoughts are a sickness, an ulcer, a thorn. But after overcoming all vain thoughts, one is called silent thinker." And the thinker, the Silent One, does no more arise, no more pass away, no more tremble, no more desire. For there is nothing in him that he should arise again. And as he arises no more, how should he grow old again? And as he grows no more old, how should he die again? And as he dies no more, how should he tremble? And as he trembles no more, how should he have desire? THE TRUE GOAL Hence, the purpose of the Holy Life does not consist in acquiring alms, honor, or fame, nor in gaining morality, concentration, or the eye of knowledge. That unshakable deliverance of the heart: that, verily, is the object of the Holy Life, that is its essence, that is its goal. And those, who formerly, in the past, were Holy and Enlightened Ones, those Blessed Ones also have pointed out to their disciples this self-same goal, as has been pointed out by me to my disciples. And those, who afterwards, in the future, will be Holy and Enlightened Ones, those Blessed Ones also will point out to their disciples this self-same goal, as has been pointed out by me to my disciples. However, Disciples, it may be that (after my passing away) you might think: "Gone is the doctrine of our Master. We have no Master more." But you should not think; for the Law and the Discipline, which I have taught you, Will, after my death, be your master. The Law be your light, The Law be your refuge! Do not look for any other refuge! Disciples, the doctrines, which I advised you to penetrate, you should well preserve, well guard, so that this Holy Life may take its course and continue for ages, for the weal and welfare of the many, as a consolation to the world, for the happiness, weal and welfare of heavenly beings and men. THE ENDAbout Us
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Yang Qiang, a Chinese national, tried to give S$200 to his driving tester at the Singapore Safety Driving Centre on Feb 22, in exchange for a passing grade in the practical test, said the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) said in a news release.
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This was for a Class 3 driving licence. The tester did not accept the bribe and the matter was referred to CPIB.
"CPIB takes a serious view of any corrupt practices and will not hesitate to take action against any party involved in such acts," the authority said.
Anyone convicted of corruption can be fined up to S$100,000, sentenced to up to five years in jail or both.Anti-Trump protest incidents MatiasP Nov 14th, 2016 ( edited ) 185 Never 185Never
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rawdownloadcloneembedreportprint text 2.40 KB girl beaten: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfJenokrmb4 car stolen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djx3T9IEc1A pjw video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1d9lm-T87AQ portland: http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2016/11/anti-trump_protests_held_for_f.html 71 arrested in portland: http://breaking911.com/just-71-arrested-saturday-night-anti-trump-protest-turns-riot/ funded protests: https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/11/daisy-luther/soros-funding-trump-protests/ protesters insulting infowars reporters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K__39d3DXSA trump protest buses: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-11-13/blocks-anti-trump-protest-buses-caught-tape vandalism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0noOzuhn6U woman attacked for supporting trump (this is old though): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCx3ov55tUw beating pregnant woman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9zXlOsMg7w riot compilation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C39EFul1pbw "rape melania" sign: http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/11/hillary-supporter-holds-rape-melania-sign-dc-protest-front-trump-hotel/ blocking highway and getting run over: https://www.facebook.com/GodEm |
with their lofty ideals.
In a city where the Muslim community has been subject to years of institutionalized discrimination, racial profiling, and targeted surveillance by the police department, recognizing Muslim holidays simply won't cut it. The mayor should introduce sweeping reforms to the NYPD's intelligence division, ensure that the Demographics Unit is dismantled and prohibit the unchecked and potentially unconstitutional surveillance of Muslims. This may seem like a tall order, but minority communities should expect as much from the candidate they threw their weight behind in the election. While de Blasio's victory was lauded as a huge gain for progressives, protecting the Constitutional rights of American Muslims may not be in the Mayor's purview. I suppose we'll tread lightly, wait and watch what happens next.
Until Mayor de Blasio institutes real reform in these matters, I'd rather stay at school on Eid than lead the NYPD to another venue where they can spy on Muslims. It might put a damper on the holiday spirit.Offensive lineman Gabe Carimi's absence from organized team activities was the main buzz out of Chicago Bears camp this week.
General manager Phil Emery doesn't sound worried.
"This is a voluntary situation, and every player has to make his own decisions," Emery told SiriusXM NFL Radio on Wednesday night, via the Chicago Sun-Times. "Gabe has made a decision that he wants to stay in Arizona and train, and we respect that. And he'll be welcomed with open arms when he comes back."
Harrison: Post-draft Power Rankings After the 2013 NFL Draft, Elliot Harrison updates his Power Rankings, with plenty of teams moving up and down the board.
After the 2013 NFL Draft,updates his Power Rankings, with plenty of teams moving up and down the board. More...
The third-year pro was penciled into the right guard position after excelling there at the end of last season, when injuries and mediocre play led to him being moved from the right tackle position.
However, the Bears signed veteran guard Matt Slauson, then selected Kyle Long in the first round of the 2013 NFL Draft. After the draft, it was assumed Long would take Carimi's guard spot as a rookie before moving outside in subsequent seasons. That might leave Carimi battling just to make the roster.
Without that subplot, Carimi's absence might not have caused quite the same stir.
It is important to note ESPN Chicago reported that Carimi notified the Bears after attending April's team workouts that he would be skipping this voluntary phase of the offseason program. Whether he should have continued with that plan after the draft unfolded is a completely different question.
Follow Kevin Patra on Twitter @kpatra.Beta vulgaris (beet) is a plant which is included in Betoideae subfamily in the Amaranthaceae family. It is the economically most important crop of the large order Caryophyllales.[2] It has several cultivar groups: the sugar beet, of greatest importance to produce table sugar; the root vegetable known as the beetroot or garden beet; the leaf vegetable known as chard or spinach beet; and mangelwurzel, which is a fodder crop. Three subspecies are typically recognised. All cultivars fall into the subspecies Beta vulgaris subsp. vulgaris. The wild ancestor of the cultivated beets is the sea beet (Beta vulgaris subsp. maritima).
Description [ edit ]
Beta vulgaris Flowers of
Beta vulgaris is an herbaceous biennial or, rarely, perennial plant up to 120 cm (rarely 200 cm) height; cultivated forms are mostly biennial. The roots of cultivated forms are dark red, white, or yellow and moderately to strongly swollen and fleshy (subsp. vulgaris); or brown, fibrous, sometimes swollen and woody in the wild subspecies. The stems grow erect or, in the wild forms, often procumbent; they are simple or branched in the upper part,[3] and their surface is ribbed and striate.[4] The basal leaves have a long petiole (which may be thickened and red, white, or yellow in some cultivars). The simple leaf blade is oblanceolate to heart-shaped, dark green to dark red, slightly fleshy, usually with a prominent midrib, with entire or undulate margin, 5–20 cm long on wild plants (often much larger in cultivated plants). The upper leaves are smaller, their blades are rhombic to narrowly lanceolate.[3]
The flowers are produced in dense spike-like, basally interrupted inflorescences. Very small flowers sit in one- to three- (rarely eight-) flowered glomerules in the axils of short bracts or in the upper half of the inflorescence without bracts.[3] The hermaphrodite flowers are urn-shaped, green or tinged reddish, and consist of five basally connate perianth segments (tepals), 3-5 × 2–3 mm, 5 stamens, and a semi-inferior ovary with 2-3 stigmas.[3] The perianths of neighbouring flowers are often fused.[5] Flowers are wind-pollinated or insect-pollinated, the former method being more important.[6]
In fruit, the glomerules of flowers form connate hard clusters. The fruit (utricle) is enclosed by the leathery and incurved perianth, and is immersed in the swollen, hardened perianth base.[3] The horizontal seed is lenticular, 2–3 mm, with a red-brown, shiny seed coat. The seed contains an annular embryo and copious perisperm (feeding tissue).[4]
There are 18 chromosomes found in 2 sets, which makes beets diploid. Using chromosome number notation, 2n = 18.[3][7]
Stereo image Left frame Right frame Parallel view ) Cross-eye view ) Beet seeds
Distribution and habitat [ edit ]
The wild forms of Beta vulgaris are distributed in southwestern, northern and Southeast Europe along the Atlantic coasts and the Mediterranean Sea, in North Africa, Macaronesia, to Western Asia.[2][8] Naturalized they occur in other continents.[9] The plants grow at coastal cliffs, on stony and sandy beaches, in salt marshes or coastal grasslands, and in ruderal or disturbed places.[2]
Cultivated beets are grown worldwide in regions without severe frosts. They prefer relatively cool temperatures between 15 and 19 °C, leaf beets can thrive in warmer temperatures than beetroot. As descendants of coastal plants, they tolerate salty soils and drought. They grow best on pH-neutral to slightly alkaline soils containing plant nutrients and additionally Sodium and Boron.[9]
Taxonomy [ edit ]
The species description of Beta vulgaris was made in 1753 by Carl Linnaeus in Species Plantarum, at the same time creating the genus Beta.[10] Linnaeus regarded sea beet, chard and red beet as varieties (at that time, sugar beet and mangelwurzel had not been selected yet). In the second edition of "Species Plantarum" (1762), Linnaeus separated the sea beet as its own species, Beta maritima, and left only the cultivated beets in Beta vulgaris.[11] Today sea beet and cultivated beets are considered as belonging to the same species, because they may hybridize and form fertile offspring. The taxonomy of the various cultivated races has a long and complicated history, they were treated at the rank of either subspecies, or convarieties or varieties. Now rankless cultivar groups are used, according to the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants.
Beta vulgaris belongs to the subfamily Betoideae in family Amaranthaceae (s.l, including the Chenopodiaceae).[2][8]
Sea beet (Beta vulgaris subsp maritima) at the shores of Heligoland subsp) at the shores of Heligoland
Beta vulgaris is classified into three subspecies:[1]
Ecology [ edit ]
Beets are a food plant for the larvae of a number of Lepidoptera species.
Uses [ edit ]
Food [ edit ]
Packaged, precooked beetroot
Spinach beet leaves are eaten as a pot herb. Young leaves of the garden beet are sometimes used similarly. The midribs of Swiss chard are eaten boiled while the whole leaf blades are eaten as spinach beet.
In some parts of Africa, the whole leaf blades are usually prepared with the midribs as one dish.[14]
The leaves and stems of young plants are steamed briefly and eaten as a vegetable; older leaves and stems are stir-fried and have a flavour resembling taro leaves.
The usually deep-red roots of garden beet can be baked, boiled, or steamed, and often served hot as a cooked vegetable or cold as a salad vegetable. They are also pickled. Raw beets are added to salads. A large proportion of the commercial production is processed into boiled and sterilised beets or into pickles. In Eastern Europe beet soup, such as cold borsch, is a popular dish. Yellow-coloured garden beets are grown on a very small scale for home consumption.[14]
The consumption of beets causes pink urine in some people.
Jews traditionally eat beet on Rosh Hashana (New Year). Its Aramaic name סלקא sounds like the word for "remove" or "depart"; it is eaten with a prayer "that our enemies be removed".[15]
Nutrition [ edit ]
In a 100 gram amount, beets supply 43 Calories, contain 88% water, 10% carbohydrates, about 2% protein and have a minute amount of fat (table). The only micronutrients of significant content are folate (27% of the Daily Value, DV) and manganese (16% DV).
Traditional medicine [ edit ]
The roots and leaves of the beet have been used in traditional medicine to treat a wide variety of ailments.[14] Ancient Romans used beetroot as a treatment for fevers and constipation, amongst other ailments. Apicius in De re coquinaria gives five recipes for soups to be given as a laxative, three of which feature the root of beet.[16] Platina recommended taking beetroot with garlic to nullify the effects of 'garlic-breath'.[17][clarification needed]
Beet greens and Swiss chard are both considered high oxalate foods which are implicated in the formation of kidney stones.[18]
Phytochemicals and research [ edit ]
Betaine and betalain, two phytochemical compounds prevalent in Beta vulgaris, are under basic research for their potential biological properties.[19]
Other uses [ edit ]
Cultivars with large, brightly coloured leaves are grown for decorative purposes.[14]
Cultivation [ edit ]
Beta vulgaris, known as beetroot A bundle of, known as beetroot
Beets are cultivated for fodder (e.g. mangelwurzel), for sugar (the sugar beet), as a leaf vegetable (chard or "Bull's Blood"), or as a root vegetable ("beetroot", "table beet", or "garden beet").
"Blood Turnip" was once a common name for beet root cultivars for the garden. Examples include: Bastian's Blood Turnip, Dewing's Early Blood Turnip, Edmand Blood Turnip, and Will's Improved Blood Turnip.[20]
The "earthy" taste of some beetroot cultivars comes from the presence of geosmin. Researchers have not yet answered whether beets produce geosmin themselves or whether it is produced by symbiotic soil microbes living in the plant.[21] Breeding programs can produce cultivars with low geosmin levels yielding flavours more acceptable to consumers.[22]
Beets are one of the most boron-intensive of modern crops, a dependency possibly introduced as an evolutionary response its pre-industrial ancestor's constant exposure to sea spray; on commercial farms, a 60 tonne per hectare (26.8 ton/acre) harvest requires 600 grams of elemental boron per hectare (8.6 ounces/acre) for growth.[23] A lack of boron causes the meristem and the shoot to languish, eventually leading to heart rot.[23]
Red or purple coloring [ edit ]
A selection of different colored beetroots.
The color of red/purple beetroot is due to a variety of betalain pigments, unlike most other red plants, such as red cabbage, which contain anthocyanin pigments. The composition of different betalain pigments can vary, resulting in strains of beetroot which are yellow or other colors in addition to the familiar deep red.[24] Some of the betalains in beets are betanin, isobetanin, probetanin, and neobetanin (the red to violet ones are known collectively as betacyanin). Other pigments contained in beet are indicaxanthin and vulgaxanthins (yellow to orange pigments known as betaxanthins). Indicaxanthin has been shown as a powerful protective antioxidant for thalassemia and prevents the breakdown of alpha-tocopherol (Vitamin E).[citation needed]
Betacyanin in beetroot may cause red urine in people who are unable to break it down. This is called beeturia.[25]
The pigments are contained in cell vacuoles. Beetroot cells are quite unstable and will 'leak' when cut, heated, or when in contact with air or sunlight. This is why red beetroots leave a purple stain. Leaving the skin on when cooking, however, will maintain the integrity of the cells and therefore minimize leakage.
History [ edit ]
Beta vulgaris subsp. maritima), the wild ancestor of the cultivated forms. Sea beet (subsp.), the wild ancestor of the cultivated forms.
The sea beet, the ancestor of modern cultivated beets, prospered along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Beetroot remains have been excavated in the Third dynasty Saqqara pyramid at Thebes, Egypt, and four charred beetroots were found in the Neolithic site of Aartswoud in the Netherlands though it has not been determined whether these were domesticated or wild forms of B. vulgaris. Zohary and Hopf note that beetroot is "linguistically well identified." They state the earliest written mention of the beet comes from 8th century BC Mesopotamia.[26] The Greek Peripatetic Theophrastus later describes the beet as similar to the radish, while Aristotle also mentions the plant.[26][27] Available evidence, such as that provided by Aristotle and Theophrastus, suggests the leafy varieties of the beet were grown primarily for most of its history, though these lost much of their popularity following the introduction of spinach. The ancient Romans considered beets an important health food and an aphrodisiac.[28]
Roman and Jewish literary sources suggest that in the 1st century BC the domestic beet was represented in the Mediterranean basin primarily by leafy forms like chard and spinach beet.[26] Zohary and Hopf also argue that it is very probable that beetroot cultivars were also grown at the time, and some Roman recipes support this.[26][27] Later English and German sources show that beetroots were commonly cultivated in Medieval Europe.[27]
The sugar beet [ edit ]
Modern sugar beets date back to mid-18th century Silesia where the king of Prussia subsidised experiments aimed at processes for sugar extraction.[27][29] In 1747 Andreas Marggraf isolated sugar from beetroots and found them at concentrations of 1.3-1.6%.[13] He also demonstrated that sugar could be extracted from beets that was the same as that produced from sugarcane.[29] His student, Franz Karl Achard, evaluated 23 varieties of mangelwurzel for sugar content and selected a local race from Halberstadt in modern-day Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Moritz Baron von Koppy and his son further selected from this race for white, conical tubers.[13] The selection was named 'Weiße Schlesische Zuckerrübe', meaning white Silesian sugar beet, and boasted about a 6% sugar content.[13][27] This selection is the progenitor of all modern sugar beets.[13]
A royal decree led to the first factory devoted to sugar extraction from beetroots being opened in Kunern, Silesia (now Konary, Poland) in 1801. The Silesian sugar beet was soon introduced to France where Napoleon opened schools specifically for studying the plant. He also ordered that 28,000 hectares (69,000 acres) be devoted to growing the new sugar beet.[27] This was in response to British blockades of cane sugar during the Napoleonic Wars, which ultimately stimulated the rapid growth of a European sugar beet industry.[27][29] By 1840 about 5% of the world's sugar was derived from sugar beets, and by 1880 this number had risen more than tenfold to over 50%.[27] The sugar beet was introduced to North America after 1830 with the first commercial production starting in 1879 at a farm in Alvarado, California.[13][29] The sugar beet was also introduced to Chile via German settlers around 1850.[13]
It remains a widely cultivated commercial crop for producing table sugar, in part due to subsidies scaled to keep it competitive with tropical sugar cane.The Geylang Bahru family murders occurred in Singapore on 6 January 1979.[1] All four children in the Tan family were found dead in their flat: they were hacked and slashed to death and their bodies were left piled on top of each other. The children ranged from 5 to 10 years of age at the time of death. Their parents, Tan Kuen Chai and Lee Mei Ying, were working at the time of the murders. The police interviewed over a hundred people who were possible suspects. However, the case remains unsolved.
Murders [ edit ]
At 6.35am, Tan Kuen Chai and Lee Mei Ying left for work. They operated a minibus service that transported students to school. The children, Tan Kok Peng, 10, Tan Kok Hin, 8, Tan Kok Soon, 6, and Tan Chin Nee, 5, had still been asleep at the time. At 7.10am, their mother phoned them three times to wake them up, but received no answer. She proceeded to ask a neighbour to help wake the children. The neighbour knocked on the door, but also received no reply.[2]
When the Tans returned home after 10am, Mei Ying found the bodies of her children in the bathroom. They had been left piled on top of each other in their t-shirts and underwear, with slash wounds on their heads. The right arm of Kok Peng, the oldest child, had been almost severed, while Chin Nee, the youngest child, had slash wounds on her face. The children were reported to have at least 20 slash wounds each.[3]
Victims [ edit ]
The victims were Tan Kok Peng, 10, Tan Kok Hin, 8, Tan Kok Soon, 6, and Tan Chin Nee, 5. The three boys were students at Bendemeer Road Primary School, while Tan Chin Nee attended a nearby People's Association kindergarten.
Investigation [ edit ]
The police concluded that the murders had been planned beforehand and that the killer or killers had taken care to avoid leaving evidence. However, there were bloodstains in the kitchen sink and the killer or killers appeared to have cleaned themselves prior to leaving the flat. There was no evidence of forced entry, the flat had not been ransacked and no items were reported missing. The murder weapons, which are believed to have been a chopper and a dagger, were never found. The eldest son, Tan Kok Peng, is believed to have put up a fight with the killer, as several strands of long hair were found in his right hand.[4]
The investigation was conducted by the Criminal Investigation Department’s Special Investigation Section. They were unable to identify a motive but inferred that the murders were motivated by vengeance.
The police also believed that the perpetrator(s) had personal knowledge of the Tans and their circumstances, as they were seemingly aware that Mei Ying had undergone sterilisation after the birth of her last child: the Tans received a Chinese New Year card two weeks after the murder, depicting happy children playing together with the words “Now you can have no more offspring, ha-ha-ha” in Chinese. It was signed off as “the murderer”. The sender addressed the parents by their personal nicknames, “Ah Chai” and “Ah Eng”, further amplifying the theory that it was someone with close relations to or knowledge of the family.
Aftermath [ edit ]
The children were buried on 7 January 1979 at Choa Chu Kang Cemetery along with some of their belongings. Their parents subsequently ceased their minibus business[5] and started working at a company that produced PVC materials. Five years after the incident, Lee Mei Ying managed to reverse the sterilisation that she underwent prior to the murder, and gave birth to a baby boy.[6]
See also [ edit ]There are a lot of rules to be followed when the dead rise from their graves to gnaw on our bones and the Walking Dead Keep Calm T-Shirt will help you remember them because I think our brains will be too busy freaking out to remember things like that if zombies do actually start chasing us.
Instead of a skull and crossbones, the black, 100% cotton shirt features a zombie head with a rifle and ax crossed over each other, along with a little blood splatter to add some color.
The rules for surviving a zombie apocalypse, according to the shirt, are:
Keep calm
Don’t trust the Governor
Don’t go to Woodbury
Don’t leave the prison
Don’t run out of ammo
Don’t go to the city
Don’t get trapped
Don’t make noise
Don’t be a hero
Don’t split up
Don’t get bit
Don’t panic
Seems pretty simple, right?
Improve your chances at surviving zombies by letting your clothes do some of the work your brain will be too scared to do.
Get the Walking Dead Keep Calm T-Shirt for $19.88-$21.88 at StylinOnline.com.I’m writing this piece while flying back from the FOX SPORTS Regional Broadcast meetings in Los Angeles, and before the memory joins the jangled and bursting hard drive in my head, I wanted to share some information and offer some observations.
The seminar consists of large-room open discussions featuring broadcast and production panel members kicking around a variety of relevant topics. The NHL shows up to give us what’s what with rule changes, and there are short presentations on audience feedback, new technologies and graphics.
A large block of time at the very end yesterday was dedicated to what our chief Mike Connelly slated “Unexpected Moments”, and the discussion and subsequent debate centered mostly around Dallas Stars’ Center Rich Peverly’s cardiac episode on the bench last season, and specifically, how both our show and the visiting (Columbus) show covered the incident.
So Razor, Jason K. Walsh (our VP of Broadcast) and I, joined by our Columbus counterparts took the stage, and watched, with a few hundred other colleagues (including FOX’s NBA regions) our broadcast, and Columbus’ broadcast from that night and then we answered questions and had productive conversations.
Here’s the thing. What I do – what I’ve done for my whole life – is something the rest of the world is just learning about. When you boil it down – when I actually think about it – I – repeatedly – – – “press send” for a living. What I say – goes out there. Can’t take it back. And I’ve been doing it for a long time. So – I’m experienced with it.
The rest of the world – not so much. This is the first time in human history pretty much every person on the planet has access to the airwaves and can publish words or pictures or videos of everything they or those around them are experiencing the instant it happens, or anytime thereafter, and can reach a world-wide audience.
That should be mind-blowing and should give everyone pause, but I don’t think enough minds are blown, and I believe almost nobody gives pause.
About a minute after Rich collapsed and was ripped down the tunnel by team emergency medical personnel who gave him life saving treatment, my phone started blowing up. Some concerned friends and family yes, but some from people I know in local news looking for info – because they – wanted to “press send” – and wanted to “press send” very badly before anybody else, or before thinking about what it was they were doing. There was no pause at all from them.
I was proud of our broadcast. We all had the same view and same feelings as it was happening; be calm, be measured, and be sensitive to the fact that Rich’s family and friends are watching, that everyone connected with all our players and coaches and staff are watching, and that the fans are watching. None of us, at any time during the 37 minutes we were on the air following Rich’s collapse was in a hurry to “press send”. We waited until we could confirm what we knew and even suspected, we waited for our organization to make sure they had contacted Rich’s family and gave us official statements and at all times we described for our fans only what we knew. Not what we thought we knew, not what might be true, and not idle chatter or anything off-topic.
There were long periods of silence with our cameras wide and no breaks for commercials of – well – who knows what. And it was uncomfortable and in some respects frustrating for a guy who is supposed to be talking pretty much all the time when the headset is on. We stayed at the arena to help guide all concerned viewers and listeners through what was happening with Rich, his teammates, and our organization.
We wanted to be right. We wanted to be sensitive. We gave the matter pause.
It’s impossible to prepare yourself for something like that. FOX SPORTS gets huge points for opening up the discussions which will certainly help the next time around when something like this happens. And I learned things through our discussions that I’ll integrate into my daily work and life. But I’ll tell ya – until you’re in it – until you’re watching a guy you know pretty well collapse, and hear screams from the bench in your headset one moment, and then an instant later hear the building go stone silent as you’re watching strong young men visibly shaken and in tears – you won’t fully understand.
Which brings us back to what I do and the business we now share – “pressing send…” Almost 25 years in an NHL booth, going on 40 years on the air, I got practice. I still horse things up – and I still “press send” a little too quickly on emails or texts or twitters – and even on the air – but I’m learning. Wish there was a class I could take, wish there was a school requirement for all kids to take “press send” before graduation.
It’s been said – “… one of the great tragedies in life is having the experience and missing the message.”
So I think about that, and I generally read and re-read and re-read again every email and text and tweet I’m about to send – and when I’m really on my game – I wait 5 or 10 minutes or even overnight before I hit the button. You know – measure twice, cut once.
My experience “pressing send” prepared me, prepared all of us for that night. And the continuing message I get from every experience like this is – once I “press send” it’s over – it’s out there – and it ain’t coming back – and then I gotta live with it – good or bad.
So do me a favor right now. Take out your phone and just look at the “send” button and don’t press it. Might be the first time in your life you’ve ever done that.
And then – wonder about whether or not you’ve put enough thought into what that little button represents – and the impact that the simple act of pressing it can have.Curren$y’s Jet Life crew has announced the release date for Jet World Order 2, releasing via iHipHop Distribution and Jets International.
In a promotional video announcing the news, the team reveals that the project will be released on November 20th. It is currently unclear which guest stars will appear on the LP, but listeners can expect Curren$y, Sir Michael Rocks, Young Roddy, Trademark Da Skydiver and Smoke DZA. The first single, “No Sleep,” will release tomorrow (October 4th).
Upon its release last year, Jet Life’s Jet World Order debuted at No. 148 on the charts with 4,200 copies sold.
[October 3]
UPDATE: The tracklist for Jet Life’s Jet World Order 2 has been revealed (via HHNM).
1) Intro (ft Trademark Da Skydiver & Young Roddy)
2) Welcome (ft Trademark Da Skydiver & Young Roddy)
3) No Sleep (ft Curren$y, Trademark Da Skydiver & Young Roddy)
4) Never Will (ft Trademark Da Skydiver & Young Roddy)
5) The Vision (ft Trademark Da Skydiver & Young Roddy)
6) 24 Hrs (ft Trademark Da Skydiver & Young Roddy)
7) Bossed Up (ft Trademark Da Skydiver, Young Roddy & Smoke DZA)
8) Raw(ft Young Roddy)
9) Money Gramz (ft Curren$y, Trademark Da Skydiver & Young Roddy)
10) M.I.A. (ft Trademark Da Skydiver)
11) The Grind (ft Trademark Da Skydiver & Young Roddy).
12) Sittin Low (ft Trademark Da Skydiver, Young Roddy, Fiend, Killa Kyleon & Dee Low)
13) Good Sense (ft. Young Roddy)
14) Life (ft Trademark Da Skydiver & Young Roddy).
15) Too High (ft Trademark Da Skydiver, Young Roddy & CornerBoy P)
16) My Word (ft Trademark Da Skydiver & Young Roddy)
17) Outro (ft Trademark Da Skydiver & Young Roddy)
RELATED: Curren$y & Harry Fraud f. Styles P – “WOH”North Korea has launched another missile from its east coast,...
Japan’s prime minister vowed to take “specific action” after North Korea launched another missile that plunged into the Sea of Japan, the latest provocation from the regime’s bellicose leader Kim Jong Un.
“As we agreed at the recent G7, the issue of North Korea is a top priority for the international community,” Shinzo Abe said in a televised address Monday.
“Working with the United States, we will take specific action to deter North Korea.”
It also lodged a protest against the test-firing of the missile, the third this month as Pyongyang ramps up its efforts to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of hitting the US mainland.
China and Russia condemned the rocket firing but called for restraint.
Saying the UN Security Council has “clear rules” about the use of missiles, China urged North Korea not to violate them.
“The situation on the Korean peninsula is complex and sensitive, and we hope all relevant sides maintain calm and exercise restraint, ease the tense situation as soon as possible and put the issue back onto the correct track of peaceful dialogue,” China’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
The Kremlin called on countries in the region to refrain from “military activity,” a Russian news agency quoted the deputy foreign minister as saying.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who took office May 10, said Kim’s continuing military provocations are threatening peace in the region and called for a meeting of his country’s security council.
The White House said President Trump was briefed on the launch and the US Pacific Command tracked the missile and decided it was no threat to America.
The Trump administration has ordered a Navy strike force led by the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson to the waters off the Korean peninsula and has asked China to press North Korea on curbing its military ambitions.
North Korea, which also tested two nuclear devices last year, fired a short-range ballistic missile that flew about 280 miles and reached an altitude of about 75 miles, South Korea’s military said.
Defense Secretary James Mattis on Sunday encouraged a diplomatic rather than military response, saying war with North Korea would be “catastrophic.”
“The North Korean regime has hundreds of artillery cannons and rocket launchers within range of one of the most densely populated cities on Earth, which is the capital of South Korea,” Mattis said on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” referring to Seoul. “But the bottom line is it would be a catastrophic war if this turns into a combat if we’re not able to resolve this situation through diplomatic means.”
With Post wiresThe BBC has ordered three further seasons of medical drama series “Call the Midwife” from Neal Street Productions, which is about to deliver the show’s sixth season.
The new seasons, commissioned by Charlotte Moore, director of BBC Content, and Piers Wenger, director of BBC Drama Commissioning, will consist of eight hour-long episodes each, plus three Christmas specials. The new seasons will take the nuns and midwives into the mid-1960s.
Heidi Thomas, creator, writer and executive producer, said: “In the 1960s Britain was a country fizzing with change and challenge, and there is so much rich material — medical, social, and emotional — to be explored. We have now delivered well over 100 babies on screen, and like those babies, the stories keep on coming.”
“Call the Midwife” has been one of Britain’s most popular drama series since it launched in 2012, and it continues to be the most watched drama series in the U.K., with all five seasons to date gaining near or more than 10 million viewers per episode.
Moore said: “’Call the Midwife’ continues to raise the bar with each new [season] and is really valued by audiences. The quality and ambition of the storytelling is credit to the excellence of writer Heidi Thomas, who has successfully brought the show into the 1960s with a diverse range of subjects.”
Pippa Harris, executive producer for Neal Street, said: “Like a truly supportive parent, the BBC has nurtured our series from conception onwards, and this exceptional three [season] commission further demonstrates their care and commitment.”A plague of hornets, each the size of a human thumb, have descended on Shaanxi province this summer—at least 28 have been stung to death (link in Chinese), while another 419 have been injured, according to a local news report from China Radio Network (CRN), via the New York Times’ Chris Buckley. The death toll from hornet attacks in Ankang city is more than twice the annual average between 2002 and 2005, say the Ankang police, as the Guardian reports. A local doctor said hospitalizations due to hornet attacks have risen steadily over the years (link in Chinese).
Why the uptick? The population of Asian giant hornets (vespa mandarinia), as they’re known, has surged largely because of climate change, says the Shaanxi Provincial Forestry Department (link in Chinese). The average winter temperature in Ankang rose 1.10 ℃ in the span of a few years alone, allowing more hornets to survive the winter. And it’s not just China; rising temperatures are behind the spread of another deadly Chinese hornets species, vespa velutina, in South Korea and Europe.
The chief prey of the Chinese hornet? Honeybees. As global warming makes more of the world hospitable to Chinese hornets, more honeybees are dying in the beepocalypse. Areas in Europe where they’re likeliest to invade “hold among the highest densities of bee-hives in Europe,” according to recent research. Here’s a heat map of where Chinese hornets will be able to survive as temperatures rise.
"Climate change increases the risk of invasion by the Yellow-legged hornet," Barbet-Massin, et al.
Japanese honey bees have figured out how to fight back, by cooking hornets. After surrounding a hornet in a spherical formation, Japanese honey bees engage their flight muscles, raising their collective temperature beyond what hornets can withstand.
European honey bees lack this skill. That’s why bee populations in France, where Chinese hornets arrived via a Chinese pottery shipment in 2005, have already taken a hit. Since then, Chinese hornets have spread at a pace of up to 100 km (62 miles) a year. Within the last three years, they’ve invaded Spain, Portugal and Belgium; soon they’ll arrive in Italy and the UK, says the European Environment Agency.
But the havoc climate change is wreaking on rural China are more immediate. Being stung feels “like a hot nail through my leg,” as one entomologist put it, and their venom can dissolve skin. They’re fast, too, flying up to 25 miles per hour (41 kilometers an hour). They’re also the largest hornets on the planet, reaching 5.5 centimeters (2.2 inches). Via hornet blogger Kurt Bell, here a look:
Blogger Kurt Bell (softypapa.wordpress.com) For a sense of scale…
Here’s a chilling scene that Chen Changlin, an Ankang farmer, witnessed one evening a few days ago. As he harvested rice on evening, hornets swarmed a woman and child working nearby. When they reached Chen, they stung him for three minutes straight. Chen made it; the other two died. “The more you run, the more they want to chase you,” said another victim, whose kidneys were ravaged by the venom. When he was admitted to the hospital, his urine was the color of soy sauce.
That species hasn’t spread outside of Asia yet, though sightings in the US of giant Asian hornets have been cropping up of late. If the Asian hornet spreads in the US, it could be an even bigger threat than the Chinese hornet. They too thrive on killing honey bees. Not only are they five times bigger, but their huge jaws allow them to decapitate bees so quickly that one giant hornet can kill 40 bees a minute. A swarm of fewer than 30 can wipe out a 30,000-strong honeybee colony in just a few hours.A federal judge on Friday placed the gray wolf back on the endangered species list, a measure that put an immediate stop to wolf hunts in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan.
It’s the fourth time in the last 10 years that courts have intervened in favor of gray wolf protection, and this time it overturns a 2011 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decision that opened the way for hunting wolves in the Great Lakes |
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